Lincoln: Tyrant, Hypocrite or Consumate Statesman? (Dinesh defends our 2d Greatest Prez)

thehistorynet. ^ | Feb 12, 05 | D'Souza

[TexConfederate1861]

Oh yes...I had forgotten that you think anyone who thinks the Confederacy had a legit reason for going to war is a Pro-Slavery Fanatic.

Not so. Not now, Not then Not ever.

[TexConfederate1861]

So am I to assume you think 600,000 lives was worth it?

[TexConfederate1861]

The only problem I see here is how one collects tariffs from another country. The South had seceded and formed a new nation.

[Petronski]

It doesn't bring out anything that wasn't already there.

Well, that's what I meant: it is very revealing.

[Petronski]

You can play Devil's Arithmetic all you want, I'll have none of it.

[rdb3]

Mr. TexConfederate1861,

Your comments here in post #56 demonstrate that there is an impassible gulf between us, as far as heaven is from hell as it is written in Luke 16:26.

In light of this, let us go on in peace, but on remarkably different paths.

Yours truly,

[Arkinsaw]

Thanks for the post, amazingly enough I had never seen the text of that resolution previously. It is very interesting. I am in full agreement with you that the north's reasons for the conflict, at least at the start, were primarily for maintaining of the union.

I don't believe this is contrary to what I have said previously regarding the changes in motivations for each side fighting as the war progressed. In this instance the idea was to preserve the union, even without regard to slavery. Lincoln himself stated that he would preserve the union with slavery intact if that is what it took. There were, to my understanding, proposals to guarantee the protection of slavery as a potential compromise immediately before the war. Potential compromises that were basically rejected by the Southern states (which is an interesting event itself).

However, neither the joint resolution or Southern rejection of such compromises excludes the issue of slavery from playing its role in the crisis.

Opponents on the other side can just as easily whip out the secession documents of the Deep South states, or Alexander Stephens speech and say AHA! just as you have with the joint resolution.

None of these documents trumps the other, the joint resolution can't make the Deep South secession documents disappear and vice versa. Thats why we have to look at all of them in context and as a whole. Neither Stephen's speech, or Lincoln's words an AHA! moment make.

Northern partisans will trot out Stephens speech and completely ignore the facts that you have just presented. Of course, I have seen southern partisans just not respond to questioning from the other side about the Deep South's stated causes. It's been going on for years and thats why there is no resolution and its an endless conflict of judging the war by this or that, but not those together.

Now I have on many occasions explained my view of the context of Alexander Stephen's speech. But no northern partisan cares because it sounds like a Southern partisan just trying to whitewash it or bury it. Which is not the case.

The North and Lincoln, at the start of the war, wanted to make clear that they were not on an abolition crusade. The obvious reason for that is political to keep the South from totally discounting a return to the Union and end the war. An offer of sorts. But not a proof that slavery played no role in the conflict excecpt in the most technical and bureaucratic sense. No more than Stephen's Cornerstone Speech to a political audience "proves" that the war was all about slavery as the other side says constantly.

There were two different views of the nature of the union that were not compatible, a raw wound. The issue of slavery was the irritant that caused it to fester. Southerners are correct when they say that differing views of the nature of the union, cultural differences, demographics, and economic differences were key (the raw wound) while northerners are correct that the issue of slavery was key (the infection).

It did not HAVE to be slavery, it could have been other issues that rubbed the wound raw. But it wasn't. There is no way that I, even as a Southern partisan, can look at the long history of the issue prior to the war, and things like Kansas and John Brown's raid, and say that slavery played no role.

I don't know why we Southerners have come to the point where we feel that we must somehow prove that slavery did not play any role. It is not a necessary component of defending the Southern view.

It is also not an argument that the general public is ever going to buy because it divorces all of the slavery related historical facts prior to the war and leaves them adrift and unattached to the war. Something that their common sense, even with their limited knowledge, will just not bear. Nor will mine.

We both know that there was a fundamental divide in the way both sides viewed the nature of the union. Northerners claim that these views really did not exist except as a defense of slavery. However, those views of the nature of the union pre-existed the friction over slavery and have lived long after its death. Many here in these forums, who are not even Southern partisans, clearly believe in a more "Confederate" view of the modern union than they would care to admit.

I've studied on this quite a bit, with an open mind. Over the years I've had an increasingly steady view that Southerners were correct about the nature and structure of the union and the constitutional issues while the northern view is something of a construct for the purposes of justification.

At the same time, I've had an increasingly steady view that Northerners views on the role of slavery are, though not always perfectly stated, essentially correct with Southern views being essentially a construct, for the purposes of justification.

My views have alternately pissed off Northerners and fellow Southerners. But I can't really worry about that because I calls it like I sees it.

[rdb3]

It is also not an argument that the general public is ever going to buy because it divorces all of the slavery related historical facts prior to the war and leaves them adrift and unattached to the war. Something that their common sense, even with their limited knowledge, will just not bear. Nor will mine.

---

Whammo! There it is.

I've read numerous threads over my four years of being here on this subject. I don't post much on them, just lurk mostly.

I can honestly see the validity of most arguments from both sides.

But what blows my mind from Southern partisans is the totally cavaier attitude towards slavery, as if my forefathers being in bondage in a nation dedicated to the founding principles that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Slavery is diametrically opposed to the principles of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Slavery flipped these terms on their heads.

I do not believe, however, that in 21^st Century America that anyone wants to hold anyone else as a slave. It's the cavalier, nonchalant attitude towards it that I find appalling.

Nothing can be done to rectify this history of ours. It's over (thank you Lord Jesus!), and I for one am not asking for anything because of it, whether it be in word or deed.

But I can't, in my spirit, abide by those who look upon that subject as though it was nothing. That line simply can not be crossed.

Lastly, I want to publicly praise you, Arkansaw, for being a true voice of reason. You just don't know how refreshing it is. You just don't.

Again, thank you!

My parents' home State.

[TexConfederate1861]

I appreciate your civil response, but I feel for the sake of clarity, that I need to explain # 56 again. Slavery was WRONG, IMMORAL, Period. However, Most people, by the standards of the time did not think so. All I meant in that post is that 600,000 men dying for such a purpose was just as immoral, due to the fact that every civilized country ended slavery peacefully, and I believe it could have been done so as well, in this country, though it might have been done so later. If knowing this, you wish to part company, then go with God. I am a Christian as well, and will respect your wish.

[TexConfederate1861]

Yes, I can see the truth hurts.....as you wish.

[TexConfederate1861]

My friend:

I can assure you that for my part, I accept that many in the South would have had slavery continue. However, I also believe that there were many who did not support it, like my ancestor in Ga. who freed his slaves in 1861, or my ancestor from TX who was a rancher, in an area not conducive to slavery. They fought to defend their home from an unjust invader.

[Zack Nguyen]

Thank you. The idea that the Civil War was primarilyabout anything other than slavery is just ridiculous. The South hated the North and Lincoln because they knew he and his party threatened their racial mastery.

Though it was not a part of Lincoln's original war aims, it later became the war aim for Lincoln and a moral crusade, which it always should have been.

[Petronski]

Slavery was WRONG, IMMORAL, Period.

Just not WRONG or IMMORAL enough to end it as soon as possible. That's YOUR truth, and it does hurt...just not you.

[TexConfederate1861]

Not at such a cost. You are very willing to sacrifice lives. Are you any relation to General Grant? He had the same attitude at Cold Harbor.

Slaves were not being killed, and for the most part were treated well. 10 more years would have probably seen the end of slavery.

[Petronski]

Slaves were not being killed, and for the most part were treated well.

You're sick.

[Petronski]

Is your tagline an endorsement of the Lincoln assassination?

[Jsalley82]

How one collects tarriffs from another country was precisely Lincoln's dilemma- one he could never allow.

Lincoln even stated that the reason for the unconstitutional blockade was: TA-DA! TO COLLECT THE TARRIFFS!

[sheltonmac]

Like you I am compelled to defend my Southern heritage and the concept of states' rights, but sometimes it's impossible to reason with the anti-South bigots. They refuse to acknowledge that slavery was a social reality of the time and would have died of natural causes in the South as it had in every other civilized part of the world.

There is no place for slavery in a nation founded on liberty, but does that mean that the South should be written off as an evil slaveocracy? The vast majority of slaveowners were not cruel. In fact, many slaves were considered part of the family, so much so that many were entrusted with helping to raise the slaveowners' children. This is neither an endorsement nor an excuse; it's just a statement of historical fact. Yes, one could argue that the act of one person owning the labor of another is cruel in and of itself, but the same could be said of indentured servitude and other similar arrangements so prominent in our nation's history.

If you really want to spark a controversy, ask someone where in the Bible slavery is condemned as inherently evil. The fact is scripture dealt with slavery as part of the social construct of the time. That isn't to say it was encouraged or even condoned, but the Apostle Paul had the perfect opportunity to condemn the institution in his letter to the slaveowner Philemon. Instead, when Philemon's slave Onesimus ran away, Paul did something that many would say ranks up there with the Dred Scott decision:

I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary.

For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave--a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Philemon, v. 12-16)

Yes, slavery was a contributing factor in the war, but only because the federal government sought to intervene on an issue that clearly fell under the jurisdiction of the states. Trying to turn what Lincoln did into a moral crusade that justified the deaths of over 600,000 Americans is no better than the institution of slavery itself.

That being said, I do think that the South should have freed the slaves before seceding. Had they done that, we wouldn't find ourselves debating whether or not the war was fought over states' rights.

[4CJ]

Is your tagline an endorsement of the Lincoln assassination?

No, it's the Virginia state motto - thus always to tyrants. Do you endorse Lincoln's failure to capture President Davis and his cabinet via Gen. Butler which failed? Do you support the attempt to ASSASINATE President Davis and his cabinet via Dahlgren which failed?

[Leatherneck_MT]

Lincoln violated the very oath he swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

With that act, his presidency became one of aggressor, not statesman.