Lincoln the Tyrant: The Libertarians' Favorite Bogeyman

Big Government ^ | Dec 5th 2010 | Brad Schaeffer

[Tijeras_Slim]

A Lincoln thread! What could possibly go wrong?

[Servant of the Cross]

A Lincoln thread! What could possibly go wrong?

At least it's a distraction from the Sarah wars.

[Ozone34]

The Gettysburg Address -- Decoded by Gary North

[central_va]

and resulted in no one swinging from the gallows for their opposition to the war,

Why wasn't Mr. Davis tried and possibly executed? To put him on trial would be to put secession on trial, a losing proposition for the prosecution.

[presidio9]

You know full well my personal posting rule: Never post anything that lacks the potential for a 60-car pileup.

[Carry_Okie]

If the South was within its rights to secede, then Lincoln was a cruel oppressor.

I find nothing in the Constitution that precludes secession or enumerates a power to the Federal government to preclude it. Indeed, the fact that the Congress accepted Texas' specific reservation of that right in admitting it to the union belies any assertion to the contrary.

That said, that the article does not mention the way the South was paying 70% of the taxes shows that the author had no intention of a reasoned and balanced presentation.

[central_va]

I predict a long and protracted struggle.

[MarineBrat]

...the power of the federal government to suspend habeas corpus “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety” is clearly spelled out in Article 1, Section IX. And an insurrection of eleven states would certainly qualify as such.

State governments are elected governments with sovereign rights.

[central_va]

If the South was within its rights to secede, then Lincoln was a cruel oppressor.

Gee, he gets it.

[carton253]

bump

[Alex Murphy]

First of all, was Lincoln in fact a tyrant? For me the root of such a characterization centers on the man’s motivations.... It is true that Lincoln unilaterally suspended the writ of habeas corpus.....Constitutional minutia aside, the question remains whether or not Lincoln’s actions made him a tyrant....

....A common blasé position among the Lew Rockwell’s of the world (a man who never felt the lash himself of course) is that slavery would have eventually died out as modernization overtook the antebellum Southern way of life.

Ping for later

[central_va]

State governments are elected governments with sovereign rights.

< SARCASM > That's racist! < /SARCASM >

[AnalogReigns]

labeling of slavery as the casus belli of the Civil War ...

Hence, maintaining the Union was his prime motivation...

Hmmm, a direct contradiction, in the first 2 paragraphs, not a good sign.

So was the slavery the casus belli, or was maintaining the Union?

Seems clear that Lincoln's reason for invading the South was to save the Union, NOT to end slavery.

Has the USA been less constitutional, and (much) more centralized on the federal government since? Yes. Absolutely.

[Hawthorn]

>> Lincoln was a cruel oppressor <<

Yep, I guess we gotta say he looks to have been "the original RINO."

[chrisser]

Given what a weakened state a split country would have placed us in as we moved into the industrial age, given the force for good that a united and powerful America has been in the world since Appomattox, and considering even his most brazen suspensions of Constitutional rights were temporary, and resulted in no one swinging from the gallows for their opposition to the war, I must support the actions of this great President who was ultimately motivated by love of country, not lust for power.

Isn't this a nice way of saying that the ends justify the means?

And, if so, I submit that the forces Lincoln put into motion, while perhaps partially freeing the slaves (only to put them into Jim Crow for decades, and then the fed plantation afterwards), have come to make slaves of all of us - to a tyrannical federal government and it's debt.

By that historical measure, I come to the opposite conclusion from the author.

[presidio9]

the South was paying 70% of the taxes

Care to break that down and clarify? Are you referring to the fact that the gentility feared manufacturing, so they had to import every single item they didn't grow or whip?

[rockrr]

Perhaps we should dig him up and do just that...

[presidio9]

ping

[mmercier]

The History channel ran a Gettysburg documentary just after the incessant shark steamer whatever this early morning.

I am a yank who lost three unknown great great uncles there, and it got me all amped up too.