I find it a bit odd that so many of these threads degenerate into 1) Calling Lincoln or Northerners hypocrites and 2) Excessive debate about legalism, enumerated powers, parliamentary procedure, imports and economic motivations and condemnations of “illegal wars” and the like. All in the face of a monstrous and barbarous evil in our land.
Just goes to show you that leftists don’t have the market cornered on that way of debating or rationalizing responses to evil.
“oh it would have gone away on its own.” Just like they argued the Soviet Union would have.
Not to start a tangent but I would like to point out that the Soviet Union ended on a vote, not as a result of a foreign invasion and conquest. If you are trying to maintain that the civil war was necessary to end slavery then the metaphor you've chosen tends to refute your case, not support it.
From what I have read so far, this thread is filled with good discussion and few ad-hominems.
No matter what the forum, you will find personal notes. But the FOUNDATION of this forum and thread is based on current law, not its twisting and mutating.
Take out the silly posts and you have a great thread.
“Just goes to show you that leftists don’t have the market cornered on that way of debating or rationalizing responses to evil”
I might feel similarly about Lincoln had he not been so lionized by our historians. He’s just a politician, after all. If Jefferson and Washington can be taken down a notch, so should Lincoln. And FDR, for that matter. It’s dangerous to give these men all benefit of doubt.
As crazy as some “Dishonest Abe” agitators are, they have some points. It was the greatest expansion of federal government in our history: first draft, first income tax, greenbacks, etc. It ultimately killed states rights, or at least fatally maimed them until they staggered into the civil rights era. Instituting martial law, suspending habeas corpus, deportating elected officials, and censoring of the press, all in states loyal to the Union, were largely unecessary, in my opinion. Also, he bears no little responsibility for Sherman and Sheridan’s breaking of the conventions of war with their deliberate targeting of civilians.
All that, and the slavery thing is overrated. You say it was a response to evil, but we all know that fighting evil was not the primary goal. Lucky we all are that it was. It made the carnage worthwhile. And Lincoln deserves credit for making it so. But bear in mind, most of what he did, most of the liberties he took, were not to end slavery. That was a secondary issue. Not even an issue at all until two years in, in fact.
Not that I blame him. Constitutionally, he couldn’t just end slavery all at once. But the effort that has been made to paint him as an abolitionist first and foremost is extreme.