Posted on 11/13/2006 9:25:11 PM PST by freedomdefender
The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission was created by Congress to inform the public about the impact Abraham Lincoln had on the development of our nation, and to find the best possible ways to honor his accomplishments. The President, the Senate and the House of Representatives appointed a fifteen-member commission to commemorate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and to emphasize the contribution of his thoughts and ideals to America and the world.
The official public Bicentennial Commemoration launches February 2008 and closes February 2010, with the climax of the Commemoration taking place on February 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.
Across the country communities, organizations and individuals have already begun to plan parades, museum exhibitions, performances, art installations and much more.
"Mrs. Lincoln stated that after the demise of their son Willy in early 1862, her husband drew much closer to God."
(Excerpt) Read more at Lincoln's Faith in God
I have read that no Christian minister in Springfield would endorse him for president, apparently because of his lack of church affiliation.
Oh, now you're just baiting the neocon[federate]s.
I am not questioning the fact that he was never formally associated with a church.
I am questioning the assertion that he made anti-Christian remarks.
I do not believe he became actually became a Christian until two years into his administration, probably after Gettysburg.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
And I question the character of a man who questions the character of a man who he doesn't really know. Lincoln's spiritual beliefs were complex and perhaps unorthodox, but they were there.
Nice quote. I have no idea who actually said it but it wasn't Lincoln.
In Doris Kearns Goodwin's seminal work on Lincoln "Team of Rivals," she quotes Ward Lamon, a Lincoln supporter and friend, as saying that the President had a premonition of his assassination in one of his dreams right before his tragic journey to Ford's Theatre. Lamon says that Lincoln said he saw a "corpse whose face was covered while others weeped pitifully." Lincoln seeing the corpse demanded that the ceremonial guard tell him who was laying in state. "The President" was his answer, "he was killed by an assassin!"
Lamon said the President tried to "evade the portent of the dream" by trying to comfort Lamon that it wasn't him in the dream "but some other fellow that was killed..." The President then says to Lamon "I think the Lord in his own good time and way will work this out alright. God knows what is best."
At least one major Lincoln biographer has questioned Lamon's chronology of events and thus whether this story is accurate.
That Lincoln rarely attended church services, and never joined a Congregation is not in doubt. However Lincoln was very converant with the bible, and claimed to be a Christian.
[Lincoln said]"I said nothing to any one; but I made the promise to myself and (hesitating a little) to my Maker." While Lincoln rarely acknowledged the influence of faith or religious beliefs, "there were occasions when, uncertain how to proceed," remarked Gideon Welles, "he had in this way submitted the disposal of the subject to a Higher Power, and abided by what seemed the Supreme Will."
No mention at all of this book about atheism or ridicule of Christianity.
Perhaps you like this example of Southern "conventional Christianity" more:
Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina: "The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery." [The Glory of God, the Defence of the South (1861)
(Not all southern Methodists believed this way. There was a good number who were persecuted by the thug reb regime for their loyalty to the old government.)
I've got a lot less problems with Lincoln's character than with that of southerners like Wightman who invoked Christianity in the maintenance of their material well being at the expense of others.
". . . with the climax of the Commemoration taking place on February 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth."
That's appropriate. That'll be just about the same time the democrats complete the total restructuring of our republic into one federal state -- the culmination of the process started by Lincoln.
The process started with southern Democrat Woodrow Wilson, not Lincoln. There is a middle ground between unconstitutional centralization and decentralized chaos instigated as a power grab by a narrow group of politicians. Lincoln preserved that middle ground. He saved the nation from chaos and defended the people against the politicians.
"The great popular heart is not now and never has been in this war. It was a revolution of the politicians, not the people."
~Confederate Governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina
I know what kind of thread this is, but you can't be serious!
The "narrow group of politicians" you refer to was almost the entire population of the South. And speaking of "chaos" the War for Southern Independence was THE most chaotic episode in our history. What would have resulted if Lincoln had not gone to war would have been the opposite of chaos.
LOL! Speak for yourself.
Allowing the federal government to escape it's designated, Constitutional confines so painstakingly constructed by the Founders just so he wouldn't be remembered as the President under whom the country was (partially) dissolved isn't an accolade deserving of the denotation 'greatness', IMHO.
Nor was he humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination. Almost a million people died in that war.
My only solace is that he had the ability to look down upon the country in horror and realize his actions opened the door for the federal government to enslave us all.
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Note: As many Freepers cannot discern between the LEGAL and MORAL issues of slavery as it existed at that time, anyone replying with the 'So you think we should reinstate slavery', 'You're a racist' type screes will be summarily ignored.
It's wasn't me but your Confederate Vance who said that the rebellion was of the politicians and not the people.
There was large groups of southerners who had no desire for separation. This sentiment was particularly strong in places like Northern Alabama, East Tennessee and Western NC, but it existed everywhere. When people like Sherman showed the rest of the population the price that would have to be paid for a slaveowners' state, many of them quit the fight also.
Chaos was inevitable when you split one people into two. We were one people with only an interest in slavery and the desire for power by a few slaveowners separating us.
"It's wasn't me but your Confederate Vance who said that the rebellion was of the politicians and not the people."
You can cherry pick quotes to justify or rationalize ANY position on the war. "It was about slavery." "It was about state's rights." "It was about neither." Take your pick. they're all out there some where.
"There was large groups of southerners who had no desire for separation."
There were large groups of northerners who said "let them go." So?
"When people like Sherman showed the rest of the population the price that would have to be paid for a slaveowners' state, many of them quit the fight also."
Oh, I thought Linclon fought the war to bring the south back into the union. OK, which one of you is lying?
"Chaos was inevitable when you split one people into two."
Oh, really? Go tell that to the Brits and their former subjects in Candada. We all remember the great Canadaian Revolution, don't we.
"We were one people with only an interest in slavery and the desire for power by a few slaveowners separating us."
Yup, tarrifs, unfair legislation, state's rights had nothing to do with it.
Hey, I got nothing on you, dude.
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A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.
The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.
The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact, which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.
It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.
It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.
It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.
It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.
It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.
Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.
Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.
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