Posted on 06/23/2013 5:55:07 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45
From the time Abraham Lincoln entered the White House nearly a century and a half ago, there has been an anti-Lincoln tradition in American life. President John Tyler’s son, writing in 1932, seemed to speak for a silent minority: “I think he was a bad man,” wrote Lyon Gardiner Tyler, “a man who forced the country into an unnecessary war and conducted it with great inhumanity.”
Throughout his presidency Lincoln was surrounded by rivals, even among his own cabinet. Outside the White House, his many enemies included conservative Whigs, Democrats, northern copperheads and New England abolitionists. Wisconsin editor, Marcus M. Pomeroy, sniped that Lincoln was a
“worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero.”
Shortly before his reelection Pomeroy added: “The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor and murderer.… And if he is elected to misgovern for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Is this supposed to be derogatory to Lincoln?
I don't see how you could possibly have come to that conclusion. It's CodeToad's world where the state can seize at will. In the real world it took an act of the South Carolina legislature to deed the property free and clear to the federal government to build the fort on. And it would have taken an act of Congress to return the property to the state.
The civil war was about freedom from central government tyranny.
Which is a nice fairy tale and sounds terrific but ignores the fact that prior to the war the South was the federal government. They supplied presidents, they held cabinet posts, they were leaders in Congress. So that would mean that any tyranny the South complained about was inflicted on itself by its own leadership.
Unfortunately the good guys lost, and as always the victors get the privilege of writing the history in such a way as to justify their actions.
And the losers create their own fantasy world explaining why they lost and imagining how wonderful their life would be if only, if only, they had won. That part is still going on.
Actually it started with nullification under the 10th in S.Carolina in 1832 to get rid of the tariff acts aimed at the Southern States.
Lincoln made sure that would never happen again by nullifying the 10th, making sure no State could ever secede again.
It`s derogotory to those who actually think he was doing it for only one purpose, the humanitarian one, when in faact he freely admittted it was a strategic war decision .
Lincoln`s views of negros, “I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists.”
“My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented, but can not be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects.”
“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of ... making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”
Why do you believe the split will be into two countries? There is a whole conservative heartland stretching from Oklahoma up through the Dakotas, over to Idaho, and then down into Wyoming and Utah that has nothing in common with the eastern part of the country or Dixie, and certainly nothing in common with the left coast. If this country is fated to split up then I'd willingly hitch my wagon to that country and let the rest of you stew in your own juices.
And what happened with SC’s nullification ordinance?
Lincoln and Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs.
As Douglas stated, trying to construct a centralized State that betrayed the Republic.
The Morill tariff wasn't passed until March 1861, after the South had seceded. Williams' failure as an historian rears its ugly head yet again.
Kinda fun when the South paid 75% of the taxes now wasn`t it.
The Morrill Tariff, was passed by the U.S. House of Rep. during the 1859–60 session of Congress, and was the cornerstone of the Republican Party’s economic policy. It then passed the U.S. Senate, signed into law by Buchanan on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration, where he threatened war on any state that failed to collect the new tax.
Uh, yeah...so the law was presented, written and debated far before any State decided to secede because of slavery. Weird huh.
Incorrect.
Congress passed the Force Bill (remember this was 1833) authorizing the Jackson administration to use military forces against South Carolina to bring them back to the fold. Lincoln wasn’t even in the picture yet, President Jackson was a southerner, and both the Tariff Act (the “Tariff of Abominations”) not the Morrill tariffs) and the Force Bill were passed with votes from southern states.
You know what, I guess ‘ole donmeaker isn’t the only foghorn leghorn here....
Kind of funny considering that no they didn't.
The Morrill Tariff, was passed by the U.S. House of Rep. during the 1859–60 session of Congress, and was the cornerstone of the Republican Party’s economic policy.
And was killed in the Senate that same year.
It then passed the U.S. Senate, signed into law by Buchanan on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration, where he threatened war on any state that failed to collect the new tax.
Lincoln threatened nothing of the kind but that's beside the point. Look at the date Buchanan signed the bill, March 1861. Weeks after the original 7 rebel states had announced their secession. So how could Williams' statement be correct?
Uh, yeah...so the law was presented, written and debated far before any State decided to secede because of slavery. Weird huh.
Weird is claiming it was the reason for the rebellion.
Whether or not one supports or opposes secession depends a great deal on whose ox is being gored. New England Federalists advocated disunion with the Essex Junto and the Hartford Convention and were roasted as "traitors" by the grandfathers of those who later would defend the idea of secession to their last breaths. Meanwhile the abolitionists who later waged "holy war" for the Union were originally disunionists themselves.
James Buchanan, the perfect, stainless Jacksonian Democrat who allegedly represented "the Old Republic," before Lincoln was ever inaugurated, denounced secession as illegal. He didn't do anything about it, but he was a lame duck at the time.
It absolutely astounds me how people can think that any country should be expected to do absolutely nothing while one half of it declares it its intention to leave. I know of no country that would stand by and let this happen, yet Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans are considered monsters because they didn't do this?
The Constitution provides for the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of national emergency. The sundering of the country certainly fits that description. Also, it just so happens that the US Constitution defines "treason" as: "waging war against the United States or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." It's strange how such sticklers for "strict Constitutionalism" never see that their beloved heroes were by the Constitution's own definition traitors to the United States of America.
It is indeed bizarre to see American "conservatives" attacking capitalism with rhetoric that could have come from Karl Marx (indeed, Calhoun's rhetoric was very similar to Marx's). So you're against industrialism, capitalism, and economic self-sufficiency, eh? Well I hope you're happy with Barack Obama, the most anti-capitalist, anti-industrial President since Thomas Jefferson. Are our factories and our infrastructure not rusting fast enough for you people?
Finally, as for "northernizing" the South, the North of the period was far less radical than many "palaeos" seem to think. Yes, there were radicals among the abolitionists who wanted to do away with marriage for the same reason they wanted to do away with slavery. But not all opponents of slavery were radicals. Some were merely moralists who didn't like being forced to be implicated in something they sincerely felt was wrong, and any criticism of which was often answered by a lynch rope, a destroyed press, or tar and feathers. These were the same people who supported blue laws, temperance, and prohibition, and who opposed gambling and prostitution (and polygamy). To broadly brand every single opponent of slavery as a "new age" Communist freak is to libel thousands of people whom one has never known. And this by the same people who complain about being stereotyped as racists!
The "Old South" was not the South we grew up in. It was feudal and made life very hard for hardscrabble yeoman farmers just as it did for Blacks. Its religion was not Fundamentalist but cultural, with a definite leaning toward liturgical churches . . . very different from everything we have ever experienced about the South ourselves. In fact, Fundamentalist actually began in large Northern cities where churches and ministers fought back against liberals and modernists.
The South the North tried to create was based on Puritan New England, and it is this Puritanized Biblicist culture that today's liberals actually hate so much. Really, who gives a flying flip about "the ways of our ancestors" as opposed to the Objective Truth about G-d and what He wants from all of us? Nobody but henotheistic civilizationist "palaeos" and Communist "national liberation" terrorists, that's who!
Those awful "radicals" who came to the South set up the common school as it had been known in New England. And this was before John Dewey, remember. Though officially non-sectarian it was in fact Evangelical Protestant, with Bible reading, prayers, and hymns. And there was no federal control of this education!
Finally, please note that until now I have said practically nothing about racial issues at all. But here is where we come to the true psychosis at the heart of all "neo-Confederates" (or as I call them, "neo-Cons!"): these people insist that Black people are radically different from whites and have no place in this country; indeed, that their very presence here befouls the earth and air. They are nothing but Profound Left Wing Intellectuals who are only good for spewing Marxist dialectics and spreading Maoism. But just who was it who brought all these "terrible people" over here in the first place??? That's right--these same neo-Confederates! They subjected Blacks to a ninety year reign-of-terror after Reconstruction ended and hate their living guts today, but before "the late unpleasantness" they couldn't have enough of them! They brought them in from Africa and the West Indies as long as it was legal, then smuggled them in illegally after that. They surrounded themselves with these "Communist trouble-makers" on the plantations and then did everything they could not only to keep them, but to spread slavery through every state and territory of the Union. But the minute they lost them they regarded them as monsters of defilement who should not even be here to begin with! How in the name of all that is rational does one reason like that? It's crazy! It's nuts!!!
If Abraham Lincoln was the proto-Obama, then so was George Washington. It's time to stop damning the man who kept the United States united because today we face a totally radical government. Hey . . . I'm ideologically anti-secession (comes from being descended from Southern Unionists), but I'm seriously thinking of endorsing it today! As with the early Federalist secessionists, whether or not one advocates that step is dependent on what the government is up to at the time. In 1860 and '61 seven states seceded before Lincoln and those "awful" Republicans had done a thing. They left because they lost an election and it looked like the plot to nationalize slavery wasn't going to pan out!
When I was young (and I live in the Upper South) Lincoln was revered, and it had nothing to do with the "civil rights movement." He was revered because he saved our country from dissolution. I'm sick and tired of the attacks on him being leveled by hypocrites.
You, like the typical Southern hater, compare 150 years ago to today’s standards of racial relations. 150 years ago Lincoln was mainstream, but in actuality by today’s standards he was a racist of the 1st degree. Almost everyone in 1860 would be considered an extreme racist and a bigot today. 150 years ago slavery was socially acceptable to most ALL Americans North and South, to all but I tiny minority of abolitionists who were considered kooks and radicals.
And who are these people?
Have you no shame at all?
Excellent post.
Pets. Ok. I know we cannot compare the social norms of today against those of 150 years ago. We can agree to that.
But if we love our slaves as we do “pets”, I would hate to be your sweet Golden Retriever bitch.
My point is that just the term slave should be enough to turn your stomach, today, 50 years ago, 5000 years ago.
I know there “have always been slaves.” But it has always been morally wrong. I appreciate our founding fathers had to swallow some of their feelings about this. They should have split right away, after the revolution. Settled it then and there.
You all can try to have it make sense. But it will never be right. You do not have the right to own another person. And, if you sleep with it, it is either a person or you are an abomination of the worst kind.
What is it?
Actually, a master who abuses his slaves sexually IS an abomination of the worst kind.
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