But that is precisely the Federalist number I was thinking of, when I said that posting things will get you nowhere with the people who've drunk from the Kool-Aid proferred by Harry Jaffa and the latterday defenders of the myth cobbled up by Lincoln's inner circle after the War.
Whose biographies, no less a partisan than Mark Neely on the other side has ventured to say, have not yet been written.
Now why do you suppose that so many highly influential, even dispositive, personalities as the people who surrounded Lincoln during his campaign for the nomination in 1860 and his years helping organize the Republican Party in the West in the years immediately prior, who bulked tall and wide in Illinois and even national politics during Lincoln's administration and afterward, never got their definitive scholarly biographies written, in the course of 150 years?
Why do you suppose that so stalwart, so thick a pillar of Lincolnism as Salmon P. Chase, whom Lincoln put on the Supreme Court precisely to write the fictitious "opinion" of the Court in the Texas vs. White case that declared the acts of the People null and void during the Recent Unpleasantness, if they ran counter to the will of Lincoln and his faction, never got HIS official, scholarly, detailed and dispositive biography written? And he a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, author of so many Imperial rescripts -- ah, excuse me, I meant "landmark opinions of the Court"?
Inquiring minds want to know why is there this big void, this hole, this abcess around Lincoln the politician and his political friends and operatives.
A very good question, Sir, and one I've honestly never contemplated.
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When I see opinions posted that so adamantly defend Lincoln and his administration's effort to change a slave's social position from property to person, I can't help but wonder if those same posters also defend the current administration's efforts to change a denizens social position from illegal to citizen.
Then again, some folks will never even see the parallel between the two.
Umm. Because no one bothered? Why do you think; it was a conspiracy to hide something? Since you see a lack, why don't you write some?
The issue before the court in this case was not secession. The court did not address the constitutionality of secession. The issue at bar was the recompense to White (a popular litigant in this period for some reason </sarcasm>) for the bonds. To determine whether or not the court had jurisdiction to hear the case the court maintained that the acts of the people of the state were invalid. I find it extremely amusing that Justice Grier (of all people) held that Texas had seceded despite his holding in the Prize Cases.
Nolu chan wrote a wonderful expose on the actions of White and the dubious quality of the several cases, especially considering the amount of compensation was less than the costs of the litigation.
Texas first filed their suit against White, Chiles, and the other defendants in February 1867 - almost two years after Lincoln was murdered. Was he psychic?
...never got HIS official, scholarly, detailed and dispositive biography written?
John Niven has documented Chief Justice Chase's life in a detailed, scholarly, and dare I say it, dispositive manner. His "Salmon P. Chase: A Biography" was published in 2002 and he has edited several volumes of his personal papers. There have been other biographies of the man published as well.
One almost wishes there had been a biography written of his opposite number, the confederate chief justice, Chief Justice...oh, wait a minute. Scratch that.