Posted on 05/22/2010 2:31:12 PM PDT by AlanD
Lincoln has often been portrayed as gaining the White House largely because of the disarray of the opposition party in the general election. Closer examination reveals that his meteoric rise from prairie lawyer to chief executive came as the result of an extraordinary work ethic, canny allegiance building over three decades, and a political team not afraid of a little skullduggery.
Make no contracts that bind me, Lincoln wired his supporters. But Davis ignored him, telling his team that Lincoln aint here and dont know what we have to meet. So we will go ahead as if we hadnt heard from him and he must ratify it.
Using his contacts as a railroad lawyer, Judd convinced clients to discount fares into towntriggering an onrush of locals eager to cheer Lincolns progress.
He arranged for the printing of counterfeit ducats and quietly distributed them to Lincoln loyalists along with an appeal to show up early. While Seward supporters paraded through the streets, Lincoln enthusiasts surged into the hallmen of good lungs ready to roar for their man. Startled and then angry Seward supporters with official tickets found themselves turned away in droves. Sewards name went into nomination that day to the expected deafening shout.
The Ohio delegation chairman, David Kellogg Cartter, broke the logjam by rising dramaticallymoments after someone from the Lincoln camp reportedly promised him anything he wantsto switch four votes to the man from Illinois.
Geography and biography, packed galleries and lung power, bare-knuckle politics and deal making, and above all the brilliant strategy of casting Lincoln as everyones second choice, triumphed in Chicago. Electability trumped inevitability, and a paradigm shifted. With rival Democrats hopelessly split, delegates to that convention 150 years ago not only chose a candidatethey picked the next president.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanheritage.com ...
Had Millard Fillmore gotten out of the race and endorsed the GOP ticket (he placed a respectable 3rd), Frémont would have actually won the national vote (with nearly 55% of the vote), but he still would have lost the electoral college,
And on the flip side in 1860, If Lincoln was opposed by only 1 opponent who got the combined votes of Bell, Douglas and Breckenridge that opponent would have won the popular vote 60-40 and still lost, Lincoln's only plurality states were CA and OR, not enough to deprive him of an electoral college majority. Imagine that.
Slavery had been abolished in Mexico before Texas's’ Independence, and was a major reason for the tension between the Mexicans and the Texicans.
So did John Breckenridge. So did Robert Lee, who actually paid passage for some of his former slaves to go to Liberia. At the time where was all that wrong?
Lincoln never advocated forcibly deporting blacks from the U.S. That was Thomas Jefferson.
That would have changed had the confederacy taken over any part of the country.
I am not familiar with Thomas Jefferson demanding the removal of all blacks from the United States. I doubt it is true, but will give you the benefit of the doubt:
Please supply a source for this supposed fact.
Thank you very much.
That is why France installed Emperor Maximilian during the Civil War: to reinstate slavery in Mexico should the South prevail. After the Southern defeat at Gettysburg, France pulled the plug on Maximilian
Then let me enlighten you. From a December 26, 1820 letter to Albert Gallatin:
"Amidst this prospect of evil, I am glad to see one good effect. It has brought the necessity of some plan of general emancipation & deportation more home to the minds of our people than it has ever been before. Insomuch, that our Governor has ventured to propose one to the legislature. This will probably not be acted on at this time. Nor would it be effectual; for while it proposes to devote to that object one third of the revenue of the State, it would not reach one tenth of the annual increase. My proposition would be that the holders should give up all born after a certain day, past, present, or to come, that these should be placed under the guardianship of the State, and sent at a proper age to S. Domingo. There they are willing to recieve them, & the shortness of the passage brings the deportation within the possible means of taxation aided by charitable contributions. In this I think Europe, which has forced this evil on us, and the Eastern states who have been it's chief instruments of importation, would be bound to give largely. But the proceeds of the land office, if appropriated, would be quite sufficient."
Jefferson is postulating an agreement that in return for being freed from slavery, blacks would be transferred to Santo Domingo.
It doesn’t say all blacks would be forced to leave America. The assumption is similar to Lincoln’s, that the freed slaves would be delighted to leave the United States. Frankly , he never thought this out very clearly. . if this is your only evidence.
Jefferson was the President of the United States for eight years . . . where is the legislation to get this accomplished? There is none, because he is just musing out loud for the benefit of Gallatin who was Ambassdor to France at the time.
If this were a serious proposal, I should like to see the legislative language. I think his position was similar to Lincoln’s assumption . . freed slaves would love to move back to Africa and govern themselves.
So when Lincoln proposes it, it's 'deported' but when Jefferson proposes it then it's 'transferred'? No bias in that choice of language, is there? </sarcasm>
The key word here is “voluntary”.
Did Lincoln and Jefferson want blacks forced back to Africa , or would it be voluntary.
Lincoln's plans were always voluntary. From the tone of Jefferson's letter it doesn't sound like they had any choice.
From that brief quote, you want to infer that Jefferson was calling for the forced eviction of all blacks from America?
That’s crazy.
I’m not aware of any of his writings showing another course of action. Though I doubt that Jefferson gave the matter much thought.
Actually, I think the opposite is more true. Jefferson's racial attitudes permeated throughout his career. When we say that racial attitudes must be taken within the context of the times, we can give them a "pass". I believe that Jefferson would be considered a racist in any time. Were you aware that he was called the "Negro President", and that, unlike Bill Clinton, it wasn't because he pandered to the black vote? When Jefferson included the words "all men are created equal" what he meant was that blacks weren't men?
Here we see references to "Deportation Plans" advocated by Jefferson, but curiously I have yet to find where he did much more than talk or rabble-rouse.
Here is another reference to Jefferson's attitudes towards the deliberate (forced) deportation of the Negros (paragraphs and bolding mine):
THE BILL on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without an intimation of a plan for a future and a general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought in. The principles of the amendment were, however, agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, not will it bear it even at this day.There is much, much more, but I'll stop here (for now ;-)Yet the day is not distant when it must bear it and adopt it or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place will, pari passu, filled up by free white labors.
If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for example in the Spanish deportation or depletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall short in our case (Autobiography, 1821)
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