Posted on 11/06/2003 7:31:54 PM PST by republicanwizard
Astounding Triumph of Republicanism.
THE NORTH RISING IN INDIGNATION AT THE MENACES OF THE SOUTH
Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote
Forty Thousand Majority for the Republican Ticket in New-York
One Hundred Thousand Majority in Pennsylvania
Seventy Thousand Majority in Massachusetts
Corresponding Gains in the Western and North-Western States
Preponderance of John Bell and Conservatism at the South
Results of the Contest upon Congressional and Local Tickets
The canvass for the Presidency of the United States terminated last evening, in all the States of the Union, under the revised regulation of Congress, passed in 1845, and the result, by the vote of New-York, is placed beyond question at once. It elects ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Illinois, President, and HANNIBAL HAMLIN of Maine, Vice-President of the United States, for four years, from the 4th March next, directly by the People.
The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.
RELATED HEADLINES
ELECTION DAY IN THE CITY: All Quiet and Orderly At the Polls: Progress of the Voting in the Several Wards: The City After Nightfall: How the News Was Received: Unbounded Enthusiasm of the Republicans and Bell-Everett Headquarters: The Times Office Beseiged: Midnight Display of Wide-Awakes: Bonfires and Illuminations
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
According to the New York Tribune he sure did!
"Mr. Corwin's amendment to the Constitution prohibiting Congress from interfering with Slavery in the States finally prevailed by the bare Constitutional majority. It is known that Mr. Lincoln favored its passage" - New York Tribune, March 5, 1861
You know the story well enough.
Why try and deceive people?
"But the final version of the Thirteenth Amendment--the one ending slavery--has an interesting story of its own. Passed during the Civil War years, when southern congressional representatives were not present for debate, one would think today that it must have easily passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Not true. As a matter of fact, although passed in April 1864 by the Senate, with a vote of 38 to 6, the required two-thirds majority was defeated in the House of Representatives by a vote of 93 to 65. Abolishing slavery was almost exclusively a Republican party effort--only four Democrats voted for it.
It was then that President Abraham Lincoln took an active role in pushing it through congress. He insisted that the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment be added to the Republican party platform for the upcoming presidential elections. He used all of his political skill and influence to convince additional democrats to support the amendments' passage. His efforts finally met with success, when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119-56. Finally, Lincoln supported those congressmen that insisted southern state legislatures must adopt the Thirteenth Amendment before their states would be allowed to return with full rights to Congress.
The fact that Lincoln had difficulty in gaining passage of the amendment towards the closing months of the war and after his Emancipation Proclamation had been in effect 12 full months, is illustrative. There was still a reasonably large body of the northern people, or at least their elected representatives, that were either indifferent towards, or directly opposed to, freeing the slaves."
http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02011.htm
But President wanted, and worked hard for, equal rights for blacks.
Walt
Nope. Lincoln sent his ships to start a war a week before the first shot. In fact, the confederates only opened fire on the fort to stop it from being used against them once Lincoln's fleet arrived. It was the same preemptive strategy we just used to kick out Saddam.
Nonsense. Lincoln sent men and supplies to Sumter and Pickens in order to hold on to the forts belonging to the United States, just like he said he was going to do.
...and to provoke a war, hence his order that they fight their way into the harbor following the inevitable denial of access to the port by Charleston authorities.
So that's what you call it? "Getting called"? Cause all these years I thought you were simply reaching for the closest random Lincoln quote, cut n' pasting it into a reply, and claiming the issue resolved despite the fact that your chosen quote's irrelevance to the issue at hand. Oh wait. That is what you are doing, but if calling it something different makes you happy who am I to stop you?
It's no secret that Lincoln wanted to save the Union first, and would agree to accept slavery where it already existed.
Not just accept it. He was willing to perpetuate its existence by permanently sanctioning it in the constitution.
Yep! Want to hear it again? Here goes:
In December 1860 William Seward sent his political agent Thurlow Weed to Springfield for a meeting with Lincoln on what to do about secession. Lincoln spent the day meeting with Weed and then instructed him to have Seward propose a series of constitutional amendments to stave off secession. One of them was the amendment permanentlyprotecting slavery, and Seward proposed it the next week in Senate committee. The Senate stalled for the next month, but the House soon took it up and it proceeded through the legislative process until Lincoln's arrival in DC that February. By then it was fighting an uphill battle in both chambers so Lincoln met to strategize about its passage with the House sponsor, Thomas Corwin. Lincoln instructed Corwin to reconcile the House language with the Senate version that he had Seward propose two months earlier and then began to whip for its passage among the House members. Lincoln rallied enough Republican supporters to push the bill through on the narrowest of votes then went over to the Senate to once again work his magic. Just as the NY Tribune reported, he used his influence to whip the votes there as well. The amendment went to a contentious and heated floor debate on the weekend before the inaugural and none other than the president elect himself slipped into the Senate gallery to watch his amendment shepherded to passage. And pass it did, as Henry Adams noted, due directly to the hard work of the incoming president. A day later he endorsed the thing in his inaugural address and went so far as to presume its ratification was a given, though he did tell a characteristic fib claiming that he had never seen the very same amendment he helped write and personally lobbied through congress.
Any president that erodes the personal freedom of the citizenry is ranked lower on my standard. Lawyerly details of the mechanisms and means do not erode the net effect.
Sure he did. And he made no secret of it. Sumter was an army post and the garrison there needed to be resupplied with food. As you quoted, Lincoln said in February that he would hold on to facilities, like Sumter, which were the property of the government. He sent word to the governor of South Carolina outlining his intentions and his hopes that the resupply would be accomplished peacefully. But that was not to be. The south was out to shoot at anything that came close.
...and to provoke a war, hence his order that they fight their way into the harbor following the inevitable denial of access to the port by Charleston authorities.
Any provocation was on the part of the Davis regime. Lincoln made his intent clear to Governor Pickens. Had be been allowed to land food only then no troops would have been introduced and the status quo would have been maintained. But instead Davis started the war he had wanted all along.
Father Abraham fought for the continuance - the PERMANENT existance - of slavery?
YEP!
So Lincoln's pledges in a speech to hold onto a fort are official policy written in stone? Nice try but it simply doesn't work that way. Lincoln knew that the south, with good reason, would resist his efforts to resupply by blatant military means. He knew that the south, with good reason, would doubt the sincerity of the northern government especially if it acted unilaterally. It was Lincoln's adamant, uncompromising, and outright hostile inflexibility that started a fight at Fort Sumter. He essentially said to the south "No negotiations. No diplomacy, formal or informal. No way of doing any of this on any terms other than mine. Heck, I won't even meet with you to discuss any of our differences. Either do it my way or the highway."
Lincoln went in there expecting that everybody who differed with even so much as a minute detail of his approach would bow down and abide by his so-called authority over states that were not under his control to begin with. It didn't matter how much of a threat his actions presented to the south or how many people would potentially die as a result of his reckless inflexibility. Lincoln steered head on into a war, the consequences be damned. And with that kind of Saddam Hussein-esque attitude it is little mystery why the south reacted to him as they did!
In retrospect perhaps he should have known. The firing on the Star of the West in January should have been a good indication of the southern lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Southern hostile intentions were later made evident when they fired on the Rhoda Shannon merely because she flew the Stars and Stripes, but it's doubtful that Lincoln would have been aware of that incident coming, as it did, about a week before the attack. Still Lincoln held out hope that if he made his it clear that he wanted to land supplies only then Davis wouldn't attack. As it turned out Lincoln was mistaken.
I can point to 4 million people with dark skin who had a significant leap in freedom as a result of Lincoln.
I can point to millions of individual white families who became land owners and formed the heart of the great American middle class as a result of Lincoln's actions. I can point to untold millions who had the opportunity for a higher education, previously reserved only for the children of the wealthy, who made America a world power as a result of Lincoln's actions.
Now tell me what personal freedom did we lose as a result of Lincoln. Please be specific.
The freedom to own other human beings?
Unintentionally, and only because they lost the war that they, themselves, had initiated. Had their rebellion been successful then slavery would have continued, probably for decades.
If that's how you see it, then I suggest that next July 4, you celebrate King George instead of Jefferson, Washington, and Adams and on Easter we rejoyce over Pontius Pilot and the Pharasees.
BTW. Your comment is about the lamest Lost Cause rationalization I have ever seen on the topic.
He did know it was going to happen. He only had half of his cabinet plus all the common sense in the world telling him that fact. Thus his mission to Sumter was nothing short of a conscious decision to provoke war.
And instead he stood up for what was right and insisted on holding on to a federal facility.
So a reckless head-first charge into a bloody war is standing up for "what is right" now? Curious.
Lincoln's cabinet warned him at length that Fort Sumter was a VERY volitile issue that had to be handled with extreme care so as to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Not only did Lincoln launch a careless and sloppily organized naval expedition, he also sent it under the one set of directions that were sure, more than anything else, to provoke an immediate war there. Actions of this sort seem to be a recurring theme of the Lincoln presidency: of all the different courses he could have taken he picked the most reckless and extreme one.
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