Replies

rustbucket: "I remember the uproar I caused by pointing out the Lincoln had drafted his own fugitive slave law while a Congressman in 1849.
Here is the fugitive slave part of his proposed bill: "

Lincoln's 1849 proposal was for compensated abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C..
It was passed & became law in 1862, minus the fugitive slave clause.

rustbucket quoting: "Demands for $2 million ‘unanswered’ requisitions had accumulated in the department, with $6 million more due to public creditors in early March. Dix predicted a $21.6 million shortfall by the end of the fiscal year."

In 1860 Federal revenues averaged around $6 million per month.
It's true the previous Democrat administrative had doubled spending & debt, but even then, compared to today's D.C. swamp, the debt numbers were not unmanageable.
Congress authorized enough new debt to handle its short term issues before adjoining in March 1861.

rustbucket: "I have posted before about the large increase in government debt created by the previous two Congresses spending money.
As the New York Day Book reportedly said after noting drastically lower import figures for the port of New York, "Well may Mr. Lincoln ask, 'What will become of my revenue?' "

First, Democrat profligacy went back to the early 1850s.
Second, any president would be a fool not to look at the sources of government revenues, so at the right time & place, Lincoln's alleged words make common sense.
But the claim here is Lincoln used those words inappropriately to justify resupplying Fort Sumter.
That makes no sense and is not reliably confirmed by non-hostile sources.

Third, when war came the Union had little problem raising not millions, not tens of millions, not hundreds of millions, but $billions.
So whatever "crisis" is alleged in early 1861 was just a tempest in a teapot.

rustbucket: "I am not aware of Lincoln saying it to others, but him saying it is consistent with what a number of newspapers were also saying, like this from the New York Herald of March 14, 1861:

'Collecting the Revenue. -- The evacuation of Fort Sumter is an act of necessity on the part of the government at Washington; but the collection of the revenue from the customs in the seceded States is also a matter of necessity. President Lincoln must interpose, or the low tariff of the Confederate States will attract a large portion of the European goods intended for the United States, and thus cut off a considerable slice of the revenues of the latter....' "

Notice this quote specifically decoupled Fort Sumter from the revenue issue and yet our Lost Causers use it to tell us Lincoln's "war fleet" to Sumter was "all about" revenues.

It wasn't.