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 ...
“The whole Civil War was fought over the Souths desire for expansion of slavery “
You obviously don’t read.
Lincoln argued before the US Sepreme Court in Lewis v Lewis, March 7th and 8th in 1849.
Many people do not know that Lincoln was also a US Congressman representing the State of Illinois as a Representative having been elected in 1846. Again, showing Lincoln was far from this “humble” backwoodsman.
Lincoln by all measurements was a politician, far from “humble” or “honest”.
He may not have been born in a log cabin, but he was certainly not born to wealth in any shape, way, or form.
Lincoln also disliked his father for whatever reason and didn’t attend his funeral.
What’s yer point? Mine is that he was not a humble little guy, rather he was a rich master politician, a lawyer at that, and far from this soft spoken guy we should all admire as the perfect atitude of an American. He was crooked a liar as any politician.
I didn’t like Lincoln’s politics, but he probably was rather humble and home-spun. That is what all reports about him say.
He wasn’t a matinee idol like a JFK or Obama or John Kerry.
That does come out, yes. Well, let me leave you with my favorite quote about Douglas. It comes from Salmon P. Chase, a man not noted for his sense of humor. "Douglas," Chase said, "No man will be president who spells 'negro' with two g's." He was right.
Southern soil was depleted from the over-production of cotton, rather than utilizing crop rotation, expansion of slavery to more fertile soils was an absolute necessity since industrialization and modernization was shunned by the southern DUmocrats who lacked the foresight to what their economies are now based upon...manufacturing.
The fact that that is your favorite quote about Douglas tells us a lot more about you then it does about him.
I think not. However, at the risk of reminding you of something you no doubt already know, Lincoln still beat Douglas by over 10 percentage points in the popular vote, Breckenridge by over 21 points and Bell by over 27?
Douglas was a shameless opportunist who re-opened a literal can of worms with his detested Kansas-Nebraska Act. He sold his soul for a railroad that would go through Chicago and tried to cut a deal that would make Kansas a Slave State.
I admire Douglas’ energetic campaigning in 1860 but little else. If I had been around during that period, I would have voted for John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party.
Another one of my heroes is John J. Crittenden of Tennessee . .who had two sons, one was a General in. the Union Army and the other was a General in Confederate Army.
Crittenden authored the heroic Crittenden Compromise that Seward supported and Lincoln quashed.
And yet you have more respect for him than the other two.
Crittenden authored the heroic Crittenden Compromise that Seward supported and Lincoln quashed.
You have an odd choice of heroes. The Crittenden Compromise was an absolute disaster and died a well deserved death. It guaranteed the expansion of slavery into the territories and the 6th article prohibiting any attempts to interfere with slavery in an fashion through Constitutional means basically took the power to amend the Constitution away from the states.
“It guaranteed the expansion of slavery into the territories”
Honestly, there was nowhere left in the continental United States that slavery could be economically instituted. A slave economy in Nevada or Arizona or Utah? Impossible.
(Now South of the Border, maybe . . . but that would have taken approval from the North . .and that sure ain’t wasn’t going to happen.)
So Crittenden Compromise was mainly for symbolism only, do kick the can down the road, and avoid a war. The South was game, but Lincoln was opposed to any concessions to the South, symbolic or not.
From all reports of people who knew him, Lincoln was as humble, soft-spoken and honest as any lawyer-politician ever.
By 1860 at age 51, Lincoln was no longer poor, but still far from wealthy.
And in the end, it didn't much matter how much money Lincoln earned, because his wife always insisted on spending more. ;-)
And no one ever said Lincoln was a "little guy".
He stood six feet four inches tall and thin.
In those physical characteristics he resembled another leader of the time, Jefferson Davis.
Of course Lincoln was no uneducated or inexperienced back-country hay-seed.
But he did come from humble origins, and was entirely self-taught.
Confederate propaganda describing him otherwise is, well, just that -- propaganda.
Not impossible at all. You have to remember that the average slaveowner had 5 or fewer slaves. Not all slaves worked in cotton fields. A large percentage were cooks, servants, maids, grooms, gardeners, and the like. Men like Thomas Jackson who owned as many as 10 slaves at one time would expect to take their chattel with them had they moved to Arizona or New Mexico. And slavery would have continued to flourish in Cuba, which both the Douglas and Breckeridge platforms advocated acquiring.
So Crittenden Compromise was mainly for symbolism only, do kick the can down the road, and avoid a war. The South was game, but Lincoln was opposed to any concessions to the South, symbolic or not.
Not only kicking it down the road but guaranteeing that nothing could be done with it once you reached the can again.
Lincoln turned out to be a cold-blooded killer of any and all who opposed his quest to bring the populace under his thumb.
“”Oh barf.””
You might think differently if it came to the death of your son, brother, or father. I am guessing this is a quote from Lincoln?
Even the poorest of leaders can steer their country away from domestic wars if that be their intent.
Then should every Unionist be condemning Davis as a cold blooded killer? He did start the war after all.
Even the poorest of leaders can steer their country away from domestic wars if that be their intent.
Not when the other side is hell bent on starting one.
“Soft spoken” is far from a description of humble given his dictatorship and tyrannical actions. He was a tyrant.
Many of his letters are published here.
Abraham Lincoln - The Southern View
by Lochlainn Seabrook
Most of what we know about Lincoln today has been invented by Northern folklorists, many who were, and are, enemies of the South. In fact, nearly every one of the 16,000 books that have been penned about Lincoln are by Northern writers and have been published by Northern publishers. Can we honestly expect to get a true and unbiased picture of who Lincoln really was from such works? Seabrook’s new 600-page book on Lincoln - not an anti-Lincoln work, but a pro-truth one - addresses this problem by looking at the president from the South’s point of view.
It's the old Watie tactic. "I've read the letters that the liberal academics keep hidden from the public while I was a grad student at 19 different schools."
And most of what is presented about the confederacy and its leaders is invented by Southern ones.
Seabrooks new 600-page book on Lincoln - not an anti-Lincoln work, but a pro-truth one - addresses this problem by looking at the president from the Souths point of view.
From the man who gave us "Nathan Bedford Forrest: Southern Hero, American Patriot"? I'm sure it's completely unbiased. </sarcasm>
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