Posted on 11/19/2001 6:28:43 AM PST by tberry
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: AMERICA’S GREATEST WAR CRIMINAL
By Ron Holland
from Southern Caucus http://www.southerncaucus.org
Abraham Lincoln should without a doubt be named America’s greatest war criminal. His war of invasion not only killed over 600,000 innocent Americans but it was obvious from his earlier speeches that he had previously advocated the prevalent constitutional right of democratic, state by state secession. Lincoln’s War also effectively overthrew the existing decentralized, limited federal government that had existed and governed well in the US since established by America’s founding fathers. Lincoln bastardized a respected federal government with limited powers into a dictatorial, uncontrollable Washington federal empire.
Because of Lincoln, the former American constitutional republic fell from a dream of liberty and limited government into the nightmare big government we have today without the earlier checks and balances of state sovereignty. After Lincoln, In foreign policy, the US forgot George Washington’s warning about neutrality and we became an aggressive military abroad until today we have troops defending the Washington Empire in over 144 nations around the world.
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connections as possible. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.—George Washington
Lincoln shares his war criminal actions with other well know tyrants that waged war on their own people. History shows us that politicians make war against their own citizens even more than against foreign nations. The reasons are often to establish and preserve their power base, as was the case in the Russian Revolution and the Mao Revolution. For others, like Hitler, it was misguided super patriotism and racism that brought death to tens of millions. Sadly, in the case of Abraham Lincoln’s war against the Confederacy and Southern civilians, it was all for money, company profits and government tariff revenues. A simple case of political pay back in return for the Northeastern manufacturing interests that supported the Republican Party and his campaign for the presidency. Early in his career, Abraham Lincoln was an honorable statesman who let election year politics and the special interests supporting his presidential campaign corrupt a once great man. He knew what he was doing was wrong and unconstitutional but succumbed, as in the case of many modern day politicians, to the allure of money, power and ego.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. -- Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848
This quote above shows Lincoln as a statesman 12 years before he plunged the United States into its most disastrous war. Suffering a death toll so high in death rates as a percentage of total population, his act of carnage ranks with the political genocides of Stalin, Lenin and Mao during their communist revolutions. A death toll so great that it dwarfs the American deaths in all of our many declared and undeclared wars before and since this American holocaust of death and destruction.
From the following quote you can see that later Lincoln radically adjusted his rhetoric to meet the needs and demands of his business establishment supporters and financial supporters.
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. --Abraham Lincoln
Why the complete change in rhetoric and actions? Simple, to preserve high tariffs and corporate profits for the Northeastern business establishment. Lincoln who earlier in his career had obviously favored the right of peaceful secession, provoked a war that killed 600,000 Americans, as a pay back to the eastern manufacturing establishment that bankrolled his presidential campaign. These special interests would have suffered serious financial loss if a low tariff Confederate States of America were allowed to peacefully, democratically and constitutionally secede from the United States in lawful state constitutional conventions of secession which were identical to the ratification conventions when they had joined the Union. Thus the real reasons for the death and destruction of Lincoln’s War were covered up and hidden by historians who continue, even today, to deny the truth and hide the ultimate costs of Lincoln’s American holocaust. While Lincoln’s death toll is small in comparison to total deaths by Mao, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, there are many similarities between these men. In the Russian Civil War, from 1917 - 1922 around 9 million died under Lenin and we must add another 20 million under Stalin from 1929 to 1939. The Mao communist regime in China killed 44 to 70 million Chinese from 1949 – 1975.
Still the US constitutional republic, as established by our founding fathers, was in effect destroyed by Lincoln’s unconstitutional war just as surely as Mao and Lenin over threw the existing Chinese and Russian governments. The multitude of Lincoln apologists would say that this is just another Confederate argument certainly not accepted by most historians. I might counter that the opinions and books of these "so called" establishment historians who live off my tax dollars through government funding at liberal controlled universities and think tanks are prejudiced towards Lincoln and Washington DC. They are no different from the official government historians in China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Their job is to lie to the American people and cover up a true and honest account of our history in order to support the government and political system in power.
History shows us that a fair and honest discussion of Lincoln’s wartime actions will not be possible as long as the Washington political establishment remains in power. Since Lincoln, the Washington Empire has reigned supreme and omnipotent and for this reason, establishment historians have never honestly debated the Lincoln war crimes.
Consider this. Was a fair and honest account of Lenin or Stalin written and published during the Soviet Communist regime? Of course not. Could a less than worshipful history of Hitler’s Third Reich have been published until after 1945? No! Even today, with only nominal communist control of China, an honest appraisal of Mao’s revolution and crimes against the Chinese people still is not possible. It is no different today in the United States than it is in Red China or was in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Just as Lenin’s statue could not be toppled in Red Square until after the fall of the Soviet Communist government, or the truth about Hitler couldn’t be told until after defeat of Nazi Germany, it is the same here in the United States. It is my hope that someday, in the not too distant future, a true account of the war crimes of Lincoln will be discussed, debated and even acknowledged. The Lincoln Memorial should be remodeled to show the horrors of "Lincoln the War Criminal" with the opportunity for all to visit Washington and learn how war crimes, genocide and holocaust are not just crimes that foreign politicians commit. Government and political tyranny can and has happened here just like in Germany, China and the Soviet Union and that through education and honest history, it will never happen here again.
In the future, may we have the opportunity to learn about the Nazi holocaust at the United States National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and then have the chance to visit the Lincoln War Crimes and American Holocaust Museum a few blocks away. One will state for all the world that NEVER AGAIN will a tyrant or government be allowed to target, exterminate and destroy an ethnic, racial or religious minority. The other will pledge NEVER AGAIN in America will we allow a president or government to make unconstitutional war against Sovereign states or their citizens and then cover up the truth up for over 145 years.
We should start today with an honest appraisal of what Lincoln really did to Dixie, how our black and white innocent noncombatants suffered under his total war policy against civilians. Finally we should address the cost in lives, lost liberty and federal taxes the citizens of the US have had to endure because our limited constitutional republic was destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man, a smart politician and he could have been an excellent president, had he considered the short-term costs of his high tariff and the long time price every American had to pay for his war of invasion. It is time to stop worshipping Lincoln and educate the public about the war crimes he committed against the citizens of the Southern States so this WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN
No, though DeBows logically would have watched the results carefully and may have compiled their own numbers. They oversaw the contracting of the census takers etc. The contracting would have been done with the proper Federal authority, but just like the press and the mails, the process was carefully scrutinized. Southern society was not free. This was a necessity of having 3.5 million slaves. Every county had organized vigilance committees of free whites who were required to patrol the roads at night, usually well into the early morning. In the 1850's, the system was so effective that very few blacks made it out at all.
The patrol system easily turned itself into the KKK after the war. In essence, the effectiveness of the KKK was due to the fact that it had essentially long before been organized and instituted, though under the name of the Vigilance committees. The Vigilance committees played a vital role for King Cotton in controlling the voting in elections before the war, just as the KKK proved so adept at the same game after the war.
Both the mail and the press were censored, if not by pre-print review, certainly by response to any materials considered to put a negative view on slavery. It was not at all uncommon to have newspapers closed down for expressing the wrong thouhts, and the mail system was such that everyone had their business poked into with a fair amount of nosiness. It was all viewed in the common interest, but it was intolerance of the first class.
There were a number of grave errors in the 1787 constitution, and certainly the 3/5ths rule was a major one. Large slave owners had a profoundly stronger political influence on all levels of the government, from the Feds on down. This was particularly magnified by the fact that the southern Congressman were the conduits for the Federal pork which was such a major part of the southern economy. Federal expenses for the Freedman's Bureau, which spent more money on poor southern whites than on southern blacks were actually less than the total graft and financial support the southern states received through almost every federal agency and program. Given there weren't many at the time, it was quite remarkable. Southern Custom houses handled a mere fraction of the tariff responsibilities, yet they all cost many many times the price of the New York custom house that handled the by far the largest part of it. Military infrastructure expenses predominated in the south. Millions were spent on antiquated forts like Ft Sumter. Most Northern cities had not such forts, but Charleston had three. All built by slave labor charged off at 3 bucks a head an hour while the slaves were compensated at about 7 dollars a year. Land schemes, the post office, fugitive slave marshalls, state militia's, mints etc. The list goes on and on. On top of that was the private debts and the long list of Northern companies gone bankrupt from cancelled southern debts. Small wonder that secession in the North didn't cause all that much stir at first. A lot of Northerners were probably happy to see the nonsense go, but eventually the realiziation of the fact that if the North didn't support them, someone else in Europe would starting setting off the alarms.
Poppycock. It was paid for by the Federal government, don't make up silly stories like that.
Forts like it could be reduced to rubble by the artillery of the day in only a few hours. As it was, it was very badly torn up with the relatively few hours of southern shelling with older weapons instead of the stuff of the day that was high tech.
Where did you get this information please?
Oh please. Without slavery, and specifically without to Southern Slavocracy using all of their powers to force the expansion of slavery into the west, there would never have been a civil war. Tarrifs were a minor issue because they were a relatively small tax, and the only way the federal government had to raise money in those days. It was not about taxes and it was not about states rights. There was no right for states to leave the union and the Constitution is not a contract between the states and the federal government. It is a contract between the people of the United States, as in We The People, and the Federal government. The States did not have a right to break that contract.
The civil war was all about a small but wealthy cadre of politically powerful Slave owners who wanted to expand their market in human misery beyond its existing boarders. When blocked by Lincoln's election they attempted to break the union and drive the nation into war. Think back --- remember your history. What was the Compromise of 1820 about? Slavery. What was the Compromise of 1850 about? Slavery. What was Bloody Kansas about in the late 50s? Slavery. For a full 40 years before Lincoln's election the south, or more rightly the corrupt slave owning aristrocrats that ran the southern legislatures like petty fifedoms, continually pushed and threatened to break the union over the question of slavery. It was all about wealth and power for those bastards. They didn't give a damn about the constitution. That war would have never happened without slavery.
BS. It was the cornerstone of the Southern economy. It was not what we would conside smart economics, but it made one hell of a lot of money for the big slave holders.
Again, what's the problem here? Some Southerners saw the evil in slavery and more power to them. More Northerners recognized this and did something about this, and good for them. Some Southerners saw the problem earlier, because it was such a large part of their lives. Enough Southerners say this to make their concerns felt, but not enough to actually do anything about it, though. Northerners may not have noticed the problem so early because it was less visible -- though some Northerners, like Quakers and some Germans recognized it from the beginning. Having noticed it they were able to do something about it, because there were fewer slaves in their states. Where is the problem? What happened happened. We can remember and honor those who believed in what we think good, but surely there's little point in ranking this state or region against that one.
It is, to a large extent, an accident of time and place that the North didn't have slavery and the South did. If the land and climate were more suited to large plantations, as in the South, and if that first Dutch shipload of Africans had landed in Plymouth instead of Jamestown, how would history be different? If the Pilgrims had landed in Virginia, as they were intending to do until a storm forced them up north, how would their descendent feel about slavery?
Yes, and had the Muslims settled the North and the Chinese settled the South, Northerners would be bowing to the East and Southerners would be worshipping their ancestors -- more so than they actually do. In point of fact the Dutch controlled New York and kept a large number of slaves there. As we've discussed, there were slaves in New York but it didn't last past 1827. And of course if slavery had lasted in NY it would have been a black mark against them and if it hadn't it's still a black mark against them -- we've gone over that already. One could connect the different reasons why Puritans and Cavaliers came to this land and the subsequent development of their regions. I'd have to agree though that climate made the biggest difference in what happened later. Puritans in hot climates did own slaves, but so what?
Just what is this supposed to prove? If all the Puritans lived in the South they'd be Southerners and all the Cavaliers lived in the North they'd be Northerners. And? What do you want? Some kind of absolution or vindication? You don't need it personally. None of this was your fault. And your ancestors -- and ours -- were imperfect human beings, sinners all, who shared the faults of their time and place. Do you want people to say that antebellum Southerners weren't inherently or essentially or biologically bad people? O.K. fine. They acted as they saw fit by the codes of the time, but I'd think about why you need such reassurance. There is enough guilt and glory in our past to go around for everyone. That some Northerner did this or that doesn't mean that Southerners were saints or vice versa.
One argument that R.P. Warren and other Southerners have developed is the idea that the Union acted as though it had some great "treasury of virtue," and treated the South as though it was its moral inferior. Now we can see that the North and the country as a whole has committed sins of its own. No one would argue that the rest of the country was somehow uniquely innocent and the South uniquely guilty.
But so many neo-Confederates simply turn the tables. They find faults in the North and argue that somehow the Confederacy was uniquely virtuous and a defender of liberty against the evil North. This is a very simplistic view and scarcely justified by the facts. So many Southern nationalists feel the sting of past Northern reproach and want to do something about it -- to turn the tables. At the same time, they want to restore that simple tale of good, virtuous Southerners and evil, grasping Yankees. For the Confederacy has its own "treasury of virtue" myth. Warren called it "the great alibi." One might have thought that we could see the war more in its tragic context rather than looking for wholly evil villains to set against wholly innocent and virtuous heroes and martyrs. But I suppose that's asking for too much. Curiously, the "great alibi" has been forgotten, or it's been taken for the truth.
The approach many take here of trading this factlet for that in tit for that in tit for tat fashion -- Who wore women's clothing? What Lee's wife's family did with their slaves vs. what Grant's wife's did with theirs -- really doesn't advance anything, because instead of seeing just what the significant and agreed-upon facts are we just throw in another accusation at the other side. I don't mean you personally, it's just a general impression.
So only saints are allowed opinions in your world?
Well he did destroy the freedom of some people to own other people. I'll give you that. What other freedoms did he destroy?
However that still doesn't excuse the point that slavery was not brought up as a rallying cry in the north until '62 and therefore not an issue with lincoln until he had exhausted all of his other avenues of support. By that time, the general citizenry had lost interest and wanted the South just to go away, but you don't see much of that sentiment in the papers of the time because the Tyrant had suspended the 1st Amendment and shut down over 300 newspapers
Catch you later.
Source please. Everything I have see shows the Northern press beating Lincoln up pretty good until after Getteysburg. Even after that, some of the major papers in New Youk were Copperhead publications and they were never shut down. What's your source for him shutting down 300 papers?
And I think WhiskeyPapa tourched Rebel Soldier's deer stand and Leesylvania's two seater privy out behind the big house.
Later. Got to go to the store.
Actually, in article six, the following is stated:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution notwithstanding."
Walt
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