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Jim: I am quite willing to join with you in criticizing Lincoln's methods in waging the war as unconstitutional. But I do not accept (nor do I suggest that you assert) that it was his desire that such a war be fought or that merely by his election he is somehow guilty of precipitating a war. It is my judgment that his conduct as Commander-in-Chief was not so unreasonable given the political pressures on him and the very grave threat to his vision of the Union which vision, after all, has come to be accepted throughout the land as it was decided of the field of strife.

I also believe that his postwar administration would have been far more benign and more constitutional than reconstruction proved to be. I do accept that his lifting of habeas corpus, his arresting newspaperman and Congressman was illegal. His wartime measures overall were in many respects unconstitutional. The Emancipation Proclamation was a taking of property without just compensation and therefore unconstitutional. But one would have to search deep in the cupboards of history to find a more justifiable (or perhaps better put, a less unjustifiable) illegal action by Commander-in-Chief than the freeing of slaves.

In sum, I think that Lincoln was drawn into the vortex just as everyone else was and his extra-constitutional measures, done more in desperation than in malice, can be pardoned if one accepts the primacy of maintaining the integrity of the Union. If not, then the opposite conclusion is virtually automatic. I agree with you entirely in denying any good motives to Barack Obama and I do join with you in your assessment that he would go to strong arm lengths to transform America according to his vision.

I do not believe that Lincoln caused the war.

The cause of the war, and the cause of the division of the Democrats, and the cause of Lincoln's election, though, were all the same cause.

I do not thing the GOP can unify behind a single candidate because their division is over fundamentals.

It is my judgment that his conduct as Commander-in-Chief was not so unreasonable given the political pressures on him and the very grave threat to his vision of the Union which vision, after all, has come to be accepted throughout the land as it was decided of the field of strife.

But there was law, and a Constitution, and a tradition of independent states, none of which Lincon followed, instead following his "vision" as you put it. That is the method of the tyrant. Some tyrants are good, such as Octavius and others are evil, such as Pol Pot, but all of them put there vision above the existing order.

As to whether his vision is "accepted throughout the land", well so is abortion. Just because something is accepted does not make it right.

Lincoln freed the slaves and enslaved free men. Whereas before the Civil War men were citizens of their states today we are all federal citizens, and 5 people in black robes tell us what kind of lightbulbs we must buy. Lincoln is the most central character in the ending of the Old Republic and the establishment of the increasingly despotic central state that we all must serve today.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a taking of property without just compensation and therefore unconstitutional.

It is a disgusting, putrid and intolerable thought that people can be held as property! Luckily for us, their god given freedom vindicated by Lincoln and the multitude of warriors sacrificing their lives to defeat the evil slaveholders of the south. Property, indeed! Idiot.