Lincoln statue unveiled

Richmond Times Dispatch ^ | 4/6/03 | Jeremy Redmon and Lindsay Kastner

[Non-Sequitur]

Richmond welcomed Abraham Lincoln back with patriotic music, enthusiastic applause and boos yesterday, 138 years after he entered the smoldering capital of the Confederacy.

Smiling children and dignitaries slowly lifted a forest green cloth, unveiling a life-size bronze statue of Lincoln and his son, Tad, at a spot near the James River.

[A2J]

Thus it is with the paleocon left.

My, how you must love your new little word. You use it in virtually every post complaining about how the "paleocons" are the blame for everything.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Being a paleocon means you can have a blind devotion to deeply and emotionally held beliefs about politics, economics and culture without the taint of rationality, lessons learned in time, or the recognition that with technological progress things change.

[Timesink]

Heck, come back to this thread in a couple of hours and see the "War of Northern Aggression" being fought all over again.

Bwa-ha! I bet this thread is 150 posts long within a couple of hours.

[ml/nj]

Hahah. A Lincoln-hater appears. Doesn't take much for you guys.

You know, if they decided to put up a statue of The Great Stainmaker on Pennsylvania Ave, you would probably react negatively. And then someone like Elenor Clift would come along and call you a "Clinton-hater." Fact, not spin, is what would count for you regarding Clinton. He was probably a swell guy, if you would just overlook all the money he stole, the people he had killed or destroyed, and the lies he told. But you wouldn't overlook it.

ML/NJ

[LS]

Again, only a hater could compare a great man like Lincoln to Clinton. I'm glad this argument both between us and nationally is pretty much ending.

[ArneFufkin]

A statue of tribute to President Abraham Lincoln? The famous, beloved ... guy?

A great man. A great American.

[ArneFufkin]

I thought we drained the "Black Lagoon"?

[Non-Sequitur]

True, true. Just like Hussein, Lincoln locked up people suspected of having different political opinions without benefit of trial.

Well, so did Jefferson Davis. Are you suggesting that his statue come down too?

[ArneFufkin]

You have to really burn out all the hateful arms-length outrages in life to turn your bile toward Abraham Lincoln.

If it weren't for him, every son of Dixie might be the cabana boy/fellater for Sheik Saud Mohammed bin Sola bim.

Lincoln muscled to defeat any prospect of a very popular Senate redistribution, property and wealth grab from the recently rejoined states of the union.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[Gumption]

Lincoln successfully preserved the union for posterity.
Clinton tried to divide the country for political gain.
Lincoln gave his life for his country.
Clinton gave his country for himself.

One deserves to be remembered for his sacrifice.
One sacrificed the country and should get what he deserves.

Any questions?

[ArneFufkin]

If it weren't for him, every State in the CSA would have been destroyed. There'd be no North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi. After surrender, there were powerful political forces hell bent on a brutal deconstuction of Southern states, industries, institutions and culture.

Lincoln would not permit that.

So ... South Carolina is still South Carolina. Alabama is still uniquely Alabama. Mississippi can't never be anything but Ole Miss, Georgia is Peachy ....

You owe thanks to Abe.

[Non-Sequitur]

So you mean you don't know?

No, I don't. Oh I know of the death threats and Lincoln travelling to Washington incognito, but he left his family behind in Philadelphia when he travelled on to D.C. Mrs. Lincoln and the boys joined him a day or two later after he arrived and long after his presence in Washington was known. The idea that he used them as bait is nonsense. Check out any biography of Lincoln for the details.

[Age of Reason]

Is that the same son that the Great Man secretly abandoned, allowing him (and his mother) to continue riding on a train the Great Man believed would be attacked with fatal consequences?

I've read a fair amount of history, but I don't remember ever hearing that Lincoln hoped the train carrying his wife would be attacked.

But even if true, from what I've read of his wife, it's understandable.

So Lincoln is still a great man.

What else you got?

[Age of Reason]

Ohhh, that's the event he was talking about.

Sheeesh.

[Non-Sequitur]

So much of their 'lost cause' is built on myth, pro and con.

[Age of Reason]

The South actually had some understandable reasons for being upset about the North and about Lincoln's election.

But I suspect guilt over the desire to preserve a way of life Southerners knew was doomed no matter what, caused Southerners to become a bit paranoid and to overreact to Lincoln's presidency.

[Age of Reason]

To which I should add, the confederacy was just another case of people hastening upon themselves the very thing they feared the most.

Human beings have a habit of doing that kind of thing.

[ml/nj]

Lincoln successfully preserved the union for posterity.
Lincoln gave his life for his country.

Let's consider these statements.

I would suggest that Lincoln effectively destroyed the government created by Jefferson and Madison. Recently I had conversation with a prominent "Civil War" historian who speaks highly of Lincoln. I made this point to him, and his reply was, "Well, he had help." That's some defense!

The preface to James McPherson's Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution begins thusly:

Four years after the guns fell silent at Appomattox, Harvard historian George Ticknor reflected on the meaning of the Civil War. That national trauma had riven " a great gulf between what had happened before in our century and what has happened since, or what is likely to happen hereafter. It does not seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was born." (emphasis added)

What was Harvard Historian Ticknor talking about do you suppose? There were no slaves at Harvard. None of it's buildings was destroyed during the war. No troops occupied Cambridge before, during, or after the war. Apparently something wasn't preserved in Ticknor's mind. What could that something have been?

Now as for giving his life, I wonder if you would say JFK gave his life for his country. I wouldn't. I'd say he was assassinated. It's too bad, but he was assassinated. Lincoln made other give their lives for his country. There is a difference.

ML/NJ