Your namesake joined the Republican Party becoming one of Grant’s best friends. And, but for the little lunatic, Lincoln would have been the South’s greatest friend after the RAT Rebellion was put down.
What you consider “historical fact” is little more than the fevered fantasies of those desperate to protect the reputation of the treasonous rabble which tried to destroy the Union.
Naturally, one believing such nonsense has no clue as to what the Founders intended. Washington, Hamilton and Madison the greatest of that generation understood AND STATED that the Union was one which was permanent. There was no legal means of withdrawing from it other than a constitutional amendment. Certainly not by attacking its military installations clearly belonging to the nation.
But the RAT Rebellion was brought about ONLY because the slavers feared Lincoln (one of our two greatest presidents) would take away their “right” to enslave their fellow men. Fortunately for all mankind it was put down.
Secession was as wrong in 1861 as it was in 1804 when lunatics from New England floated the idea.
You need to study REAL Totalitarianism before misapplying the term in a demented manner. The rest of your babble is not worth replying to.
My family fought the Brits in the French and Indian War, the Revolution and in 1812. Every able bodied male in our family since 1798 has served in the Marine Corps (with the exception of 1861-65) and helped found this country. I can assure you they did not care one bit for Hamilton (please don't lump him with Madison and you left out Jefferson- wonder why?-forgetting the origin of the republican party or should I say the Democratic-Republican party). You're right that it would have been better if Lincoln had lived-reconstruction being the invention of the true nature of the republicans of that day— the “democrats” of today. He of course did not care one whit about slavery, speaking of feverish fantasy and manufactured sainthood of this sad ill man who suspended habeas corpus. He did care about his railroad pals and Western expansionism. A distinct advantage true Southerners have is the memory of what it was like to be under the thumb of totalitarian rule. And we do still feel sorry for Johnson (Andrew that is, who tried to mediate the “cleansing” of the South). Ours is not some concocted academic elitist rewrite of history- it is fact not written by the “victors”- we lived it. We lost the dream of the United States in the so-called “civil” war, and began the march of the oppressive federal control of all aspects of our lives. You are quite wrong- I have studied totalitarianism extensively, from national socialism and marxism/communism to the current fascism/statism/corporatism masquerading as social justice progressivism of democrats and republicans in lockstep with a “new world order”, false currency and the loss of our state and national sovereignty. We know who we are and where we cam from, and not all scholars are at Princeton despite your dislike of DiLorenzo. That knowledge is upsetting to the elitists of both our imbecile political parties and television idiots. There is a reason Lincoln's statue is in obambi's’s office and it has nothing to do with a false conservatism or being from the whore state of IL and a total incompetent puppet. You want to call all this babble—It's OK- the South will survive all of this—we've had considerable experience with tyranny and the need for secession and freedom- which was right then, and apparent now. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”. Thus ever to tyrants, then and now.