Abraham Lincoln, Stepfather of Our Country

The New American ^ | 11/11/2012 | John J. Dwyer

[IbJensen]

States have the right to defend themselves against the onorous, monolithic monster known as the central socialist government.

There are lessons to learned in more intelligent reading about the real history of Honest Abe. There are many similarities between what he did and what the current imbecile in the White Hut is doing to the nation and its citizens.

The nation can’t withstand four more years of Bronco Bama’s communist ruination.

He is truly a fool when one considers that the number 57 holds great meaning for him.

Bama says there are 57 states.

Bama bought 57 Christmas trees for the White Hut.

Bama is considering Kerry for SOS, a man who married 57 varieties.

[IbJensen]

I think the North wanted a show of force against the sessessionists and thought that would end the ‘rebellion’ within a week or so. What Lincoln set out to do was a whole hog approach, applauded by the Union generals. Sherman vicariously enjoyed his march to the sea and his attempt to burn the heart out of the South.

This became a war of vengeance to show those who indeed hated what the union and the presidency had become exactly what would happen to them the next time. And believe me, because of the evil that emanates from Washington today and the odor of totalitarianism that emanates from Bama’s White Hut, there could indeed be a next time.

This slavery issue is a non-starter, for starts. The slaves would have been given their freedom and passage back to the dark continent if the Yankees had their way intially. Even Secretary Seward AND Lincoln thought the idea had merit.

After the surrender, some Northern carpetbagging bureaucrats wanted to grant each slave 40 acres and a mule which was tantamount to communism.

Now they live huddled in a decrepit Detroit tenenment in a muslim neighborhood waiting for the mailman. This current status can be credited to Lyndon Bird Johnson and his ‘Great Society’ the forerunner to today’s miserable federal charity host of programs.

[BroJoeK]

IbJensen: "I think the North wanted a show of force against the sessessionists and thought that would end the ‘rebellion’ within a week or so."

One simple fact to remember is that, in early 1861, most northerners were outraged -- not so much by secession itself, since many said "let them go" -- but by secessionists' unlawful forceful seizures of many Federal properties: forts, armories, arsenals, ships, customs houses, mints, etc.
In early 1861, before the Confederacy's assault on Fort Sumter, when northerners talked about "enforcing the laws" they meant recovering those Federal properties.

At the time of Lincoln's inauguration, on March 4, 1861, he still hoped to win back reunion peacefully, saying:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, Is the momentous issue of civil war.
The government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.
You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.
I am loth to close.
We are not enemies, but friends.
We must not be enemies..."

Lincoln intended to hold the two remaining forts -- Sumter and Pickens -- and did not yet know the moment of crisis was already upon them.
But within a few days, Fort Sumter's commander advised Washington that his food stores would run out by mid-April.
Something had to be done, and quickly.

Lincoln decided to resupply -- not reinforce -- Fort Sumter, so long as peace remained.
But by April 1861, the Confederacy had whipped itself into a frenzy of war-fever, and would accept nothing less than full surrender of Fort Sumter.
When Lincoln continued to refuse, the Confederacy chose war -- first in assaulting Sumter and three weeks later, formally declaring war on the United States.

So a key historical fact to understand here is that prior to the Confederacy's formal declaration of war on May 6, 1861, there was no war -- no Union army had "invaded" the Confederacy, not one Confederate soldier had been killed in battle, and President Lincoln was publicly committed to keeping the peace.

Of course, once the Confederacy had unmistakeably started and formally declared war, then everything changed.
Still, Lincoln's April 15 proclamation had very limited goals:

"I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country."

The Union's full demand for Unconditional Surrender and destruction of slavery took years to develop.

IbJensen: "Sherman vicariously enjoyed his march to the sea and his attempt to burn the heart out of the South."

Sherman's victory at the Battle of Atlanta came more than three years after the Confederacy's declaration of war.
By this time, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died, and the Confederacy itself had practiced "total war" in every Union territory it invaded.
Indeed, much of the destruction blamed on Union General Sherman's "march to the sea" (November - December 1864) actually resulted from Confederate General John B. Hood's efforts to destroy Confederate supplies, to keep them out of Union hands.

As for your allegation that Sherman "vicariously enjoyed his march to the sea", there is a similar type famous quote from Confederate General Robert E. Lee:

"It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it."

The simple fact of the matter is that no sane soldier "enjoys" war, but every soldier prefers ("enjoys") victory to defeat.

IbJensen: "This became a war of vengeance to show those who indeed hated what the union and the presidency had become exactly what would happen to them the next time."

Of course, there will never, ever, be a "next time" just like the original Civil War.
That can't happen again.
But if by "next time" you mean more generally, "the next time a group of slave-holding secessionists starts and declares war on the United States they will again be defeated unconditionally, and their slaves freed without compensation" then, yes, of course, you are correct in that.

IbJensen: "This slavery issue is a non-starter, for starts.
The slaves would have been given their freedom and passage back to the dark continent if the Yankees had their way intially.
Even Secretary Seward AND Lincoln thought the idea had merit."

First of all, it's important to understand that going all the way back to President Thomas Jefferson (1801 to 1809), several people had calculated the costs, and proposed the Federal government should purchase freedom for slaves, including some ideas about returning freed slaves to Africa.
Indeed, purchasing every slave at peak 1860 market values would have cost the nation less than half of what the Civil War cost.
So Lincoln's original ideas on these matters were by no means new, and they failed for the same reasons those same ideas had failed under previous presidents:

• Slave-holders would not agree to voluntarily sell their slaves, and would go to war to prevent government enforced freedom for slaves.

• Lincoln talked seriously to former slaves about returning to Africa, and almost to a man, they didn't want to go!

• The $ numbers involved -- circa $3 billion in 1860 = around $10 trillion in today's values -- seemed insurmountable, except when compared to the total costs of the Civil War: circa $10 billion in 1860, equivalent to $33 trillion today.

So ideas for peacefully abolishing slavery failed under Lincoln, just as they had under previous presidents.

IbJensen: "After the surrender, some Northern carpetbagging bureaucrats wanted to grant each slave 40 acres and a mule which was tantamount to communism."

"40 acres and a mule" refers to Union General William Sherman's 1865 Order Number 15, which granted mostly abandoned farmland in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida to about 10,000 freed-slave families.
After Lincoln's assassination, Order 15 was revoked by President Andrew Johnson, and the land returned to its previous owners.

Curiously, "40 acres and a mule" in rural farmland, represented around $500 in 1860 values, multiplied times, let's say, a million 1865 freed-slave families, would cost the government $500 million to provide as "just compensation" for slavery.
And $500 million in 1860 corresponds to around $1.5 trillion today, or roughly the size of the US annual deficit. So the relative cost of "40 acres and a mule" is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the many trillions of dollars in welfare and other such payments made since President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs in the 1960s.

So, where you might call "40 acres and a mule" "communism", I'd put it into the category of "teach a man to fish" versus today's policies to forever "feed a man a fish" and thus keep them forever dependent on big-government's largess.

[Ditto]

He's doing the Confederates a courtesy by assuming that they did not actually want the war that they started.

A pretty high percentage of them in major Confederate states like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia wanted no part of secession. They well knew it would mean war, just as most in the North knew it would mean war.

None expected the war would be as horrible as it was, but all informed people, both North and South, including the rabid secessionist leaders knew damn well it would mean war. They just allowed their egos to convince them that they would have an easy victory.

And the war, which was pretty much hard wired to explode since the founding of this country, came and extracted a terrible vengeance.

Back to Lincoln's second Inaugural address.

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

[IbJensen]

Today all lands labeled ‘Federal’ should be returned to the respective states in which they’re located. The problem with a monster government that comes after everything they get their hands on is that eventually it’s your land and possessions they’re after!@

Promising 40 acres and a mule is communism. Where does the land come from? How about the mule?

[BroJoeK]

IbJensen: "Today all lands labeled ‘Federal’ should be returned to the respective states in which they’re located."

Returned? Your word implies those lands once belonged to the states, and were somehow illegitimately appropriated by the Federal government.
The truth of the matter is quite different.

In general "Federal lands" were purchased (i.e., 1803 Louisiana Purchase) or won (i.e., 1848 Mexican War) before the resulting states were even designated as territories.
So that land was Federal land from Day One, and as such the Feds can rightfully determine conditions to sell or grant it to others.

About 28% of all US territory is Federal Land, or around 636 million acres.
If on average that land is worth, say, $1,000 per acre, we could sell it all, and pay off about 4% of our national debt.
If it's worth $2,500 per acre, now we are up to paying off 10% of national debt.

US Federal Lands:

This map shows Louisiana Purchase, Mexican War and other Federal Acquisitions:

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IbJensen: "Promising 40 acres and a mule is communism.
Where does the land come from? How about the mule?"

I'll set aside the fact that you somehow mis-learned the definition of "communism" as: "anything IbJensen finds disgusting".
But "communism" does have a real definition, and it's government ownership of the means of production, which is not what we're looking at here.
But we'll set all that aside...

Union General Sherman's January 1865 Special Field Order Number 15 designated abandoned lands and Islands of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Sherman's obvious purpose was to put those lands back to work, and provide homes for thousands of freed slaves then following the Union Army.
About 10,000 (or 18,000 according to this) of such 40-acre lots were distributed before President Andrew Johnson cancelled the order (Fall 1865) and returned those abandoned lands to their previous owners.

The larger issue here is: what was "just compensation" for former slaves, and "40 acres and a mule" has been cited as a generally accepted standard.
I have merely pointed out that the total values of "40 acres and a mule" both in, say, 1865 and today are far less than any of the following:

• The cost to purchase freedom for every slave in 1860, which was $3 billion then, equivalent to around $10 trillion today.

• The total cost (just in treasure) of the Civil War, which was around $10 billion then, equivalent to $33 trillion today.

• The costs over 40 years of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs, and similar give-aways, currently running around $1 trillion per year.
  Of course, not all that welfare goes to descendants of slaves.
  But my argument here is simply that "40 acres and a mule" was not only cheap, but (assuming the land was properly paid for, not just seized), was far more moral than endless welfare, which only creates dependency on government and destroys families, with all it's resulting social pathologies.

[IbJensen]

The lands the federales ‘own’ should belong to the states in which they’re located.

Sherman was a deranged animal.

[BroJoeK]

IbJensen: "The lands the federales ‘own’ should belong to the states in which they’re located."

According to which law, principle, precedent or past practice?

IbJensen: "Sherman was a deranged animal."

No more "deranged" than Confederate generals who laid waste to Union territories they invaded.
Indeed, far less "deranged" than any WWII leader who directed bombing of enemy civilian targets.

The term for it is "total war", it's been practiced throughout history, and by contrast with mass murders in other wars, Union General Sherman's version was much kinder and gentler.

[tacticalogic]

According to which law, principle, precedent or past practice?

How can you have a working republic if the national government can arbitrarily lay claim to and assume control of the territory of a State?

[BroJoeK]

tacticalogic: "How can you have a working republic if the national government can arbitrarily lay claim to and assume control of the territory of a State?"

Please read my post #126 above to learn how it is that 28% of all US territory belongs to the Federal Government.
The answer is, the Federal Government owned this land from the beginning -- i.e., Louisiana Purchase, Mexican War, etc.
That land was Federal land before there was a territory, or even Americans there, much less a state.

So the Federal Government did not "lay claim" to land which previously belonged to states.
Rather, the Federal Government granted some of its lands to form territories and eventually states.

So, I'll ask again: what law, principle or prior practice requires the Federal Government to sell off, or give away, all of its property?

As for possible Federal seizures of private property (i.e., for roads or military purposes), I'm certain that all laws applying to eminent domain and just compensation apply to Federal as well as state and local governments.

If you can cite examples where the Feds have seized private property without just compensation, then I certainly agree that is overstepping its limits.
Indeed, I'm pretty sure that many environmental regulations amount to unlawful takings without just compensation -- just the kinds of things states should oppose and courts should be striking down.

[tacticalogic]

That land was Federal land before there was a territory, or even Americans there, much less a state.

The original 13 States existed before the federal government. Texas was an independent republic before it joined the Union, through the efforts of it's citizens, not the US Government. Supposedly the States that came from purchased US territory entered the Union as sovereign States, with all the Constitutional protection of the original 13. You seem to be under the impression the States were created by the national government, not the other way around.

[BroJoeK]

tacticalogic: "The original 13 States existed before the federal government."

Yes, I know that's an article of faith amongst our Neo-Confederate secessionists (of whom perhaps Mike Church the best known?), but I follow Abraham Lincoln's logic in these matters:

From Lincoln's July 4, 1861 message to Congress: "Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union.
The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State.
The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence.

Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States"; but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show."

Yes, these are all matters of definitions of terms (i.e., what is a "colony" versus a "territory", "state" or "Union", etc.), but in fact, Lincoln makes a valid point: the Union (First and Second Continental Congresses) was first formed by colonies, which were not yet states, and only the Union's Declaration of Independence first transformed them from colonies into states.
So Lincoln was correct to say: the Union made the states, not the other way around.
No state, in 1776 or later, declared its independence of the Union, and no original state had an independent existence outside the Union.

And every state after the original 13 was directly created by the Federal Government, which purchased or won the territory often before any Americans even lived there.

---

tacticalogic: "Texas was an independent republic before it joined the Union, through the efforts of it's citizens, not the US Government."

Texas had been a republic barely a year, in 1836, when it first proposed annexation to the United States.
The United States refused, and for nine years Texas suffered defeats and insecurity at the hands of Mexico and various Indian tribes.
Finally, in 1845 Congress agreed to annex Texas, and Texans voted their approval.
The deal cost the US $10 million in Texas' debts to be paid off.
That $10 million in 1845 is equivalent to around $82 billion in today's values, but at a time when total Federal Revenues were equivalent to circa only $300 billion (2% of GDP).
So, in terms of today's Federal revenues, that $10 million was equivalent today to taking on the burden of another $400 billion debt.

The deal annexing Texas also cost the US a major war with Mexico.
That was $71 million plus 25,000 deaths, equivalent in today's terms to $600 billion and 400,000 deaths.
In terms of today's Federal revenues, that $71 million for the Mexican-American War was equivalent to several trillion today.

Point is: While Texans were eager to become a state, for obvious reasons, the US was reluctant to accept Texas, and when it finally did, the price of Texas was very high.

Finally, when the Republic of Texas became the State of Texas in 1845, it assumed the same status as every other United State.

---

tacticalogic: "Supposedly the States that came from purchased US territory entered the Union as sovereign States, with all the Constitutional protection of the original 13."

Certainly, constitutionally speaking, no state is "more sovereign" than any other state.

---

tacticalogic: "You seem to be under the impression the States were created by the national government, not the other way around."

It is absolutely a fact of history that 37 of 50 states did not help create the Federal Government, and were instead created by it.
Of those original 13, it can certainly be debated as to which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I take Lincoln's argument on this, which is that colonies created the Union which then declared them free and independent states.

So, as Lincoln said, the Union came first, then the original 13 states.

[tacticalogic]

Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence

They declared their independence from Britain in 1776. Acting as independent, sovereign States they drafted and ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781. They did not "pass into the Union" until the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. You may follow Abraham Lincoln's logic if you wish, but history records a different reality.

[RegulatorCountry]

You’re too vague upon American history to be offering such commentary. Crack a book or two and get back to us.

[Ditto]

So, I'll ask again: what law, principle or prior practice requires the Federal Government to sell off, or give away, all of its property?

Under the "Tyrant Lincoln" (at least according to the Lost Causers who infect this site like freak'n Bed Bugs with their non historical nonsense) the Federal government ceded million of acres owned through both the Homestead Act (which the Slave Power opposed for 20+ years) and then the Land Grant College Act, which ended up with more millions of more acres sold off and the proceeds used to establish most of the schools that are now called 'Something or Another State University.'

Without the sale of Federal Lands, those schools would have never been created.

The Feds still own way too much land, and perhaps it is time to sell the rest off to pay off this horrendous debt we have. My only concern is the the Chinese might be the only people able to afford it. ;~((

[Sherman Logan]

Lincoln decided to resupply -- not reinforce -- Fort Sumter, so long as peace remained. But by April 1861, the Confederacy had whipped itself into a frenzy of war-fever, and would accept nothing less than full surrender of Fort Sumter. When Lincoln continued to refuse, the Confederacy chose war -- first in assaulting Sumter and three weeks later, formally declaring war on the United States.

I think there is tremendous misunderstanding of what was going on in the six weeks between Lincoln's inauguration and the fall of Sumter.

During this period the CSA consisted of just seven states. Davis and its other leaders, not being idiots, were perfectly well aware the CSA was too small to be viable, particularly if it came to war. They desperately needed to grab off some of the Upper South and Border states. The more they got the better their chance of survival.

So the six weeks basically consisted of the highest stakes poker game in US history between Davis and Lincoln.

If the CSA acquired all the 7/8 states in play, the job of reconquest would have been too big for the remaining states of the Union, as Lincoln later admitted.

If the Union kept the loyalty of all remaining slave states, the CSA would collapse pretty quickly in the event of war. Just much too small a white population.

As it turned out, of course, the CSA grabbed 4 of the states in play, and the Union retained 4, or 5 if you count WV. As a result the forces were balanced evenly enough that we had a long bloody war instead of a short, decisive one.

For much of this period many in the North believed in what turned out to be pretty much an illusion of the strength of southern Unionism. In a time before opinion polls these kinds of mistakes were easy to make.

Lincoln outplayed Davis, bluffing him into firing the first shot. Doing so rallied the Upper South to the CSA, but alienated the Border (which initially tried to be neutral but eventually went with the Union), and rallied the North to the Union.

[BroJoeK]

tacticalogic: "They declared their independence from Britain in 1776.
Acting as independent, sovereign States they drafted and ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781.
They did not 'pass into the Union' until the ratification of the Constitution in 1789."

Sure, you can say that, but we are talking about fine points of word definitions.
Lincoln implied, and I agree, that "the Union" began with the First Continental Congress in 1774.
This Union, not individual states, then declared the colonies to be "free and independent states", but states of the Union itself.

And all states remained within the Union throughout the periods of Contenental Congresses, Articles of Confederation and the new Constitution.

The Articles themselves were first drawn up by the same Continental Congress, and at the same time, mid-1776, as the Declaration of Independence.
So the Articles were in effect and operating from Day One of Independence, and ratified by all but Maryland within a year of submission.

Indeed, the very name of the Articles is:

"Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" -- in operation since 1776.

Point is: as Lincoln said, no state existed before the Union declared it independent, and no original state existed outside the Union before the new Constitution was ratified.

So, as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, I agree the Union created the states.

[BroJoeK]

RegulatorCountry: "You’re too vague upon American history to be offering such commentary.
Crack a book or two and get back to us."

LOL, and your unique expertise on this subject is what, exactly?
Hmmm... strike that, let's go back to basics -- when did you first learn to speak English?

;-)

[BroJoeK]

Sherman Logan: "Lincoln outplayed Davis, bluffing him into firing the first shot."

Thanks, I agree with everything you posted, except this notion that Lincoln somehow "tricked" Davis into firing the first shots.

In reality, the Confederacy was eager for a confrontation -- in my words "cruisin' for a bruisin" -- precisely because that is what secessionists, especially in Virginia, needed to satisfy Virginia's ratification statement requirement for:

"powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."

Without some serious incident which secessionists could label "injury or oppression", Unionists still dominated at the Virginia secession conference in Richmond.
That's what motivated Jefferson Davis, not some "trickery" by Abraham Lincoln.

There is a fascinating account of Virginia's change from Unionist to Secessionist in Nelson Lankford's 2007 book, "Cry Havoc, the Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861."

[BroJoeK]

Ditto: "The Feds still own way too much land, and perhaps it is time to sell the rest off..."

I don't know how much Federal land is "too much", but if you look at the map in post #126 above, you'll quickly notice that nearly all of it is west of the Rocky Mountains, in lands rather thinly populated.
Somewhere I remember hearing that Nevada is 90% owned by the Federal Government, including the radioactive sections, Area 51, etc...

Including oil and minerals underground, doubtless some of this land is quite valuable, but above ground mountains, desert and Alaskan tundra are likely best suited for current employment as preserves for nature and aliens (Area 51), etc... ;-)

And the whole idea of selling off Federal lands (to the Chinese!), just to pay off the National Debt strikes me as so stupid, somebody needs to Gibbs slap these b*st*rds and shake them strongly: what the h*ll do they think they are doing?
Get their finances in order or resign and go home.