Lincoln the Tyrant: The Libertarians' Favorite Bogeyman

Big Government ^ | Dec 5th 2010 | Brad Schaeffer

[Non-Sequitur]

Exactly one, a farmer, by accident at Gettysburg. No other documented civilian deaths.

I guess those folks in Lawrence, Kansas don't count huh?

Many thousands...documented.

Where?

[Servant of the Cross]

IMHO, you are taking this thread way too srsly.

[Non-Sequitur]

When a wife asks for a divorce, and the husband forces her to stay through violence, then beats her to a pulp when she resists, who's fault is it?

If you want to go with that analogy you have it all wrong. The South didn't ask for a divorce. They walked out. After helping to run up the credit cards, they walked away from their share of the responsibility. They walked out on family obligations. They took every bit of community property they could get their hands on. And they fired some shots at their spouse on their way out the door. Considering all that it was the North that was the aggrieved spouse and not the South.

We'll never know what might have been.

We can be pretty sure that the South would have fought as hard for their slaves in 1870 or 1880 or maybe even 1890 as they did in 1861.

It only took 700k dead and hundreds of thousands wounded to "prove" that political unions at the point of the sword might eventually work out OK after the better part of a century,...

It was their war, maybe the South should have fought harder for their chattel? Then we would be in different countries and not having this delightful conversation.

[chrisser]

Then we would be in different countries and not having this delightful conversation

Are you in the South? 'Cause I'm in Ohio.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I don't think the Founders asserted their rights in the DOI contingent upon winning any hostilities to follow. .... They asserted their rights before fighting for them, and our Constitution is predicated on them.

You might want to check your dates. The shooting started at Lexington over a year before the Declaration was issued.

[chrisser]

If you want to go with that analogy you have it all wrong. The South didn't ask for a divorce. They walked out. After helping to run up the credit cards, they walked away from their share of the responsibility. They walked out on family obligations. They took every bit of community property they could get their hands on. And they fired some shots at their spouse on their way out the door. Considering all that it was the North that was the aggrieved spouse and not the South.

I can't agree with this analogy. What share of responsibility did the South walk away from - they were paying a good part (some would argue more than their share) of the taxes. The South didn't assert it owned part of federal properties in the North. If the North surrendered, the South would be free to leave as they asserted was their right. The South had no claim to the territory or assets in the North. If the South surrendered - well the outcome is just as anyone would have predicted.

We can be pretty sure that the South would have fought as hard for their slaves in 1870 or 1880 or maybe even 1890 as they did in 1861.

Perhaps. Or perhaps if Northern industrialism, instead of being used to wage war, had instead been used for productive industry, the revolution which followed the civil war would have been accelerated by many times, making slavery less profitable of a venture. More importantly, instead of banning what was the key to an entire economic system, the North could have used the industrial revolution to ease the transition - a revolution that largely bypassed the South due to it's economic shambles for decades. This would have benefitted both sides. As despicable as slavery was for those 2 million in the South how much better off were they in return for the awful carnage? The North ignored the Klan and Jim Crow for most of the next century, leaving the former slaves who couldn't or wouldn't leave closer to slavery than to freedom for generations.

With the money the North spent on the war and reconstruction, they could have bought a good portion of the slaves outright and transplanted them out of the South without a shot fired or a life lost.

[chrisser]

You might want to check your dates. The shooting started at Lexington over a year before the Declaration was issued.

I'm aware there were scirmishes leading up to the DOI. It was hardly full scale war. I would put it under the heading of "long train of abuses". With communications as they were in the late 1800s, actions often preceded or lagged intentions by months and years.

That's not to say war wasn't on the horizon, but up until the Declaration, it seems to me that reconciliation with Britain was still on the table.

[Non-Sequitur]

What share of responsibility did the South walk away from - they were paying a good part (some would argue more than their share) of the taxes.

That is debatable, but regardless the South walked away from their share of the national debt and from obligations the country had entered into while they were a part.

The South didn't assert it owned part of federal properties in the North.

No they stole every bit that they could get their hands on on the South.

Or perhaps if Northern industrialism, instead of being used to wage war, had instead been used for productive industry, the revolution which followed the civil war would have been accelerated by many times, making slavery less profitable of a venture.

That still would have required a desire by the South to give up their slaves and their plantation agriculture. There wasn't any such interest that I'm aware of.

More importantly, instead of banning what was the key to an entire economic system, the North could have used the industrial revolution to ease the transition - a revolution that largely bypassed the South due to it's economic shambles for decades.

How?

This would have benefitted both sides. As despicable as slavery was for those 2 million in the Sout...

Closer to 4 million.

...how much better off were they in return for the awful carnage?

They were free. They weren't someone's property. How much value do you put on that?

The North ignored the Klan and Jim Crow for most of the next century, leaving the former slaves who couldn't or wouldn't leave closer to slavery than to freedom for generations.

Absolute nonsense. The federal government was passing laws against the Klam in the 1870's. As for Jim Crow, it was the South's invention and the South's choice. What would you have the government do about it?

With the money the North spent on the war and reconstruction, they could have bought a good portion of the slaves outright and transplanted them out of the South without a shot fired or a life lost.

Compensated emancipation? That would have required an interest on the part of the slave owners to sell, wouldn't it? That interest was non-existent. If they sold their chattel and allowed the North to take them away then who would have worked their fields?

[jospehm20]

Can you point out exactly where the federal government’s power to use force to stop secession is enumerated in the constitution? I have not been able to find it myself. Thanks.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

With the money the North spent on the war and reconstruction, they could have bought a good portion of the slaves outright and transplanted them out of the South without a shot fired or a life lost.

Lincoln tried to push a compensated emancipation plan for the Union slaves states. Delaware and Maryland rejected it.

[Huck]

Your kind of govt only exists in your imagination.

No, it doesn't exist there either.

[rockrr]

Look in Article 1; Section 8:

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”

[jospehm20]

A state voting to leave the union is not an insurrection. The South was not trying to topple and replace the federal government, they just wanted to leave the Union. If state legislatures have the authority to vote for joining the Union I think it defies logic to argue that they do not have the authority to vote for leaving it. I am glad that when member states left the Soviet Union in 1990 the communists were less vicious than the Yankees in 1860 or there would have been a lot of havoc in eastern Europe. I assume you would have supported the USSR’s right to murder the citizens of the member states who left that Union?

[rockrr]

You assume wrong.

[Gondring]

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.

Texas wasn't the only one. Even several original states, like New York, Virginia, and Rhode Island, entered the union with reservations or explicit indication that they could back out.

James Madison, "Father of the Constitution":

"The assent and ratification of the people, not as individuals composing an entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they belong, are the sources of the Constitution. is, therefore, not a national but a federal compact

One other problem...Lincoln ignored Federalism, too.

[presidio9]

Should Lincoln (or a previous President) invaded Britain?

Britian had outlawed slavery long before the Civil War. The abolitionist movement had been in place in this country as well as Europe since officially 1688, and probably for centuries before.

In any case, I'm glad you took the bait as well. The point is that slavery was an atrocity that denied black people their humanity. A response to earlier comments about Union Generals.

I just bet you have a list of slavery's finer points. In any case this is where it ended forever in this country, and that was worth whatever it took .

[presidio9]

A rhetorical question I am not going to dignify beyond this response.

Um, my question was by no means rhetorical. Either you got that 70% figure from somewhere, or it came, as I suspect, from somewhere in your butt. We're not big fans on this website of people who make up their own facts to bolster their lame arguments.

[RasterMaster]

Inaction by DUmocrat James Buchanan allowed unprovoked attack against the United States before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Forces were mustered against freedom and they counted on having a fellow secessionist sympathizer like Buchanan giving them free reign. By the time Lincoln was in office secessionists had already threw away any claims of living as "peaceful neighbors" in a divided nation through firing against fellow Americans. Secessionist attempts to re-write history and feed the DUmocrat myth fall flat once again.

Any arguments against the period resulting from reconstruction would fall at the feet of another DUmocrat, Andrew Johnson who allowed the slaveocracy to regroup, rebuild, and continue terrorizing long after the last shots had been fired against them by the free states.

Those that blame Lincoln do so while turning a blind eye to the real tyrants like Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson while giving a pass to Jimmy Peanut, BJ Clinton and King Hussien for growing government and stifling freedom.

[Carry_Okie]

Your Madison quote I had not seen, thank you. Still (and however predisposed toward it I might be), it is more dicta than law. My take is that Madison was had by Hamilton et al., while the opponents to the Constitution were merely bowled over with carefully disguised verbiage. Patrick Henry's rat, if you will.

[Mr. Silverback]

Dead on.