Does The New American still think Eisenhower was a Commie?
Is this the reason Abe’s tormented soul is reputed to be haunting the White House still? Can’t he can’t find peace after what he did? More people died in the Civil War than in all other U.S. wars, combined, and their blood and the violations of the Constitution, are on his hands.
Perhaps Obama keeps bumping into Lincoln's ghost in the halls of the White Hut during the night.
In modern times, Lincoln would be prosecuted as a war criminal.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government...
THIS, and THIS ALONE, is the reason and purpose of the 2nd Ammendment. Not hunting, target practice or collecting.
Sorry if this remark is off topic, but the Lincoln quote just seemed relevant in light of recent events.
I’m from Brooklyn, NY, and I’m leaning more towards calling the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression.
The real Lincoln proved the truth of that claim within days of the April 12, 1861 attack on Fort Sumter. In fact, the attack might have been avoided if he had not decided to reinforce Sumter.
He didn’t just reinforce it. He ordred that the reinforcement be done in such a way as to provoke an attack to give pretense for war.
Thank you for this post.
Yet without that strong, resolute, and committed Lincoln, the United States would have been lost and all of the good that we have done for the world would have been lost with it.
Finally someone speaks the truth; Lincoln was a tyrant
Great post, for more on Lincoln read Prof. Thomas DiLorenzo’s books on Lincoln. Lincoln, indeed, was a tyrant.
More rehashed neo-confederate nonsense. The slavemasters who started the war portrayed as innocent victims of the tyrant Lincoln. No mention of the fact that secession happened long before Lincoln became President. Was Democrat Buchanan a tyrant also?
Any President had the duty to defend the Constitution and put down the rebellion. Buchanan failed to act and Lincoln acted belatedly.
The issue of habeas corpus remains with us today, with both President Bush and President Obama concurring with President Lincoln, and with the Supreme Court of our day concurring with the Supreme Court of Lincoln’s Day.
My third of three comments (this one not short):
Lincoln is condemned both for making war on the South and for not immediately ending slavery. This is not fair. You should make up your mind:
Was Lincoln wrong, perhaps even evil, when he was a candidate for supporting the Republican position to forbid slavery (only) in the territories and not forbidding it where it was established? And, then, initially as President, sought to keep Virginia and other states of the mid-South in the Union? And, then, for a time, even when fighting got underway, for leaving the door open a bit, for a time, for the possibility of a negotiated settlement?
Or, was he wrong, perhaps even evil, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and, thus, for transforming the war into a war to free the slaves?
Here’s my position:
The Whigs and then the Republicans were wrong, in the sense of incorrect, but not evil, for not indicating that they would favor compensated emancipation. Their nuanced position on the issue put slaveowners at risk of loss. And, “win-loss” often results in violent conflict. We should always seek at least “win-no loss,” and even try for “win-win” when we can.
But, to criticize my own position, the problem with emancipation wasn’t the freeing of the slaves, it was what to do with them subsequently.
Emancipating a large number of uneducated and propertyless people, who would assume the various rights of citizenship, is not a good idea. It is predictable that they would vote to redistribute the wealth and would tend to do things like run enormous deficits.
Although some defenders of slavery eventually would make a genetic argument to justify the South’s “peculiar institution,” my reading of history tells me most of the Founders and most people through the early history of the Republic were concerned with granting citizenship, including the vote, to so many people who had not “assimilated” into the culture of a free society. Thus, by the mid 19th Century, Whigs and later Republicans were concerned about immigrants from the poor and backward Catholic countries of Europe, as well as what to do upon any freeing of the slaves.
The best retort I have for my own self-criticism is twofold:
First, in the North, the private charity system sought to assimilate immigrants into our free society, by demanding work and encouraging thrift. Accordingly, in Boston, where the private charity system got underway, there developed something like a conveyor belt of new immigrants arriving and then being transformed into people capable of acting as citizens of a free society.
Second, maintaining or even restoring a property qualification for voting could have been sufficient to keep attempts to re-distribute the wealth in check. The property qualification insured that voters would consider both the cost as well as the benefit of government spending. Unfortunately, for various reasons, universal male suffrage had become the rage (universal white male suffrage in the South), so that democracy combined with masses of ignorant and propertyless people equaled real problems.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
I have always wondered why historian omit this little piece of history.....
I have also thought Lincoln needed to get that out there to relive his conscience....
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
I have always wondered why historian omit this little piece of history.....
I have also thought Lincoln needed to get that out there to relive his conscience....
Absolutely, Lincoln could have allowed the troops there to starve to death. /sarcasm off. What nonsense.
Absolutely, Lincoln could have allowed the troops there to starve to death. /sarcasm off. What nonsense.
McClellan ran on a platform based on ending the war in a truce with the Confederacy that allowed the south to return to the Union and an agreement the south could keep slavery until the end of the century. In which time, the U.S. Government would purchase their slaves and repatriate said slaves to a colony in Africa (Liberia).
At this time, a war weary North was ready to end the war and Union soldiers who had served under General George B. McClellan admired him greatly, so Union soldiers voted almost entirely in his favor. However, these Union soldiers votes were counted by Radical Republican Union Officers, and surprise, surprise the fraudulently counted votes of the Union Army threw the election to Lincoln.
Does The New American still think Eisenhower was a Commie?
Actually, any blood is on the hands of the southron slavrocracy that instigated, conspired, and perpetuated war on their own country. A pox upon their miserable memories.
Using Lincoln’s history as a lesson about Obama, we find Obama certainly could do unconstitutional and tyrannical acts just as Lincoln did. In fact, Obama consideres himself to be a modern day lincoln.