While I'm Glad I Won, I Personally Believe Abraham Lincoln Deserved To Die
by Daniel Day-Lewis
Or rather, the title was hilarious. The article was only so-so. Stuff we've heard a thousand times already. That's pretty typical for The Onion.
Posted on 02/13/2013 7:59:52 AM PST by Kaslin
As President Obama prepares his State of the Union Address and the nation looks forward to a Presidents Day holiday, Americans should consider the warning examples of our worst chief executives.
While few of Washington and Lincoln's successors could hope to replicate their epic achievements, every president can — and must — focus on avoiding the appalling ineptitude of John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and their feckless fellow travelers on the road to presidential perdition. The common elements that link our least successful leaders teach historical lessons at least as important as the shared traits of the Rushmore Four: Broken promises and gloomy temperaments lead inevitably to an alienated public.
All the chief executives unmistakably identified as failures displayed a self-destructive tendency to violate the core promises of their campaigns. Take Tyler, the unbending Virginia aristocrat who won election to the vice presidency in 1840 and assumed the highest office when his predecessor died just a month after inauguration. The new chief executive, dubbed "His Accidency" by critics, used 10 unpopular vetoes to block implementation of his own party's longstanding ledges. Most of his Cabinet resigned in protest, and eventually they all quit while the hostile Senate voted down four new Cabinet appointments — a record that stands to this day.
Between 1853 and 1861, Pierce and Buchanan completed back-to-back disastrous terms in which personal weakness and pro-Southern sympathies shattered confident promises of unifying leadership. Buchanan pledged to stop "agitation of the slavery question" and to "destroy sectional parties." By the end of his term, seven Southern states seceded from the union and the nation lunged toward the Civil War.
After that war and Lincoln's assassination, Andrew Johnson (Lincoln's vice president) defied members of the martyred president's Cabinet and congressional leaders, ignoring commitments to lead former slaves to dignity and full civil rights.
In the 20th century, Herbert Hoover's slogan promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," but he presided over the beginning of the Great Depression. Similarly, Jimmy Carter's 1976 platform pledged to reduce unemployment to 3%, but Carter ran for re-election with more than twice that rate.
No wonder that Hoover and Carter, like other unsuccessful presidents, came across as gloomy, self-righteous sufferers. Hoover's secretary of State said that a meeting with him was "like sitting in a bath of ink." Carter staked his presidency on a notoriously sour televised address that became known as "The Malaise Speech," warning the appalled public of a "crisis of the American spirit."
None of our least successful presidents displayed the self-deprecatory humor of Lincoln or the sunny dispositions that powered the Roosevelts (Theodore and Franklin) and Ronald Reagan. A visitor described the Pierce White House as a "cold and cheerless place," noting the isolation of the invalid first lady, in deep mourning for three dead sons.
When Buchanan welcomed successor Lincoln, he plaintively declared: "My dear, sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a very happy man indeed."
The result of the depressing and erratic leadership of our six most conspicuous presidential failures is that all managed to estrange a once-admiring electorate within the space of a single term. Tyler,Pierce, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan all earned rejection by their own party, failed to win their own party's nominations, entering retirement as discredited figures. Hoover and Carter appeared on national tickets and campaigned vigorously but got wiped out in historic landslides, with each incumbent carrying a mere six states.
Democrats, who denounce George W. Bush as the worst president ever, along with Republicans who apply the same ugly title to Barack Obama, can't explain away the inconvenient fact that both of our most recent incumbents won re-election with 51% of the vote. Regardless of controversies blighting Bush's second term, or setbacks that might afflict Obama's, their legislative and electoral successes place them in a different category from the White House worst.
This baleful history should warn the current occupant and all successors against visibly disregarding commitments while encouraging voters to steer clear of presidential candidates with dour, inflexible temperaments. By selecting aspirants with clear, consistent agendas and cheerful, persuasive personalities, we'll face fewer shattered presidencies that leave reviled incumbents and a disillusioned electorate.
Yet when the confederate government was considering whether to field them they said no.
Yes, Louisiana’s confederates fielded a unit state of African heritage, that after being occupied the same unit number was turned around and fielded as a US unit. Some of the soldiers may even have been the same.
Goad. How do you goad someone?
Considering that the Confederates had been stealing US property for months, and seizing US forts, and Lincoln did nothing.
Guess Lincoln was just that much smarter than Jeff Davis. That and Lincoln had that much better a cause than Jeff Davis. Treason in support of insurrection in support of slavery by the poor for the benefit of the rich has to be a hard sell.
The Confederates enslaved whites as well as blacks. One thing they didn’t do is enslave rich people.
The rebels invaded Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, also New Mexico territory.
No, Lincoln was betting that the treasonous slavers held an ounce of honor. It was a rude awakening for him - and for our nation to discover otherwise.
But you know as well as I do that these Civil War disagreements will never be settled. With all the tyrannical crap going on today I can see a similar North and South situation setting up with the blue and the red states. The truth is that there has always been two competing ideologies in this part of North America. Actually we have a situation where we have two countries trying to be one. That is becoming more and more apparent.
Your problem is that, knowing so little about actual history, you feel perfectly free to invent "facts" to support your ideas.
In real history, as opposed to your fantasies, the "lust for power and money" began with Deep-South slave-holding secessionists, who first declared their disunion, then immediately started and finally formally declared war on the United States.
If you could simply remember that not a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle by any Union force, and no Confederate state was "invaded" by any Union army until two months after the Confederacy started war at Fort Sumter, and a full month after the Confederacy declared war on the United States.
By the way, that first Confederate soldier killed in battle -- on June 10, 1861 -- was Pvt Henry Wyatt, from Tarboro, about 100 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Wyatt was a 19 year old carpenters' apprentice.
He was killed in the first real battle of the Civil War, at Big Bethel near Newport News.
The Confederate commander was John Magruder, the Union Benjamin "the beast" Butler.
Union forces outnumbered Confederates more than two-to-one, but it was a Confederate victory, with the Union suffering over 18 killed, 53 wounded and 5 missing.
Confederates lost Wyatt and 7 wounded.
Remember too, in Lincoln's first inaugural address, on March 4, he promised secessionists that there could be no war unless they started it.
And Lincoln was true to his word, but secessionists were eager to get started and soon moved to make it happen.
Here again is my still-incomplete listing of Confederate invasions and operations in Union states and territories.
Note that the first of these, in Missouri, happened just a week after Fort Sumter, two weeks before the Confederacy formally declared war (May 6, 1861) and a full six weeks before the first Confederate soldier (Pvt. Henry Wyatt) was killed in battle with a Union force (June 10, 1861):
Confederate invasions of Union states and territories:
Every tyrant who wins a war always paints a rosy picture of himself and vilifies the defeated.
...and the losers write the mythologies.
No. We are one country that the Neo Rebs keep lying about to justify past treason in support of Slavery.
Jeff Davis wrote fiction.
Sorry you don’t read history
Lincoln no more "goaded" Davis to attack Fort Sumter -- by sending supplies -- than you might "goad" a criminal to attack your home by bringing groceries to your family.
Without exception, every Confederate demand, threat, shooting or seizure of US Federal properties & officials was a constitutionally covered act of rebellion, insurrection or "domestic violence."
And all that was before the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States.
A partial listing:
Major Secessionists Seizures & Assaults on Federal Properties and officials in 1861
But regardless of how you spin it, there is still a difference between truth and fiction.
The truth of the Civil War is that:
So blame for starting (and losing!) civil war, and all that meant, belongs to the leaders of the Confederacy, especially Jefferson Davis.
So if Texas were to secede tomorrow you would call them traitors and encourage Obama to prosecute a war against them? When and if the crap ever hits the fan please stay away from me. Blind adherence to a government of fools and bureaucrats is extremely dangerous. American tyranny is just as bad as the British or the Soviet version, and there is a natural, God given right to rebel when the human created government begins to misbehave and violate the very laws it is meant to uphold. Southerners saw the anti-slavers and yankee bureaucrats, and bankers in the same light that I see liberals. I do not see them as my fellow countrymen, and want nothing to do with them. I greatly resent liberals dictating to me what I will and will not do, and I will find ways to rebel against them. There has been enough demonization of conservatives and contitutionalist, and it is time to stop it.
If you believe Lincoln's persecution of the war was justified I can't see how you could be in opposition to Obama’s unconstitutional actions. From my point of view Lincoln was a tyrant in the same fashion as the current punk from Illinois.
While I'm Glad I Won, I Personally Believe Abraham Lincoln Deserved To Die
by Daniel Day-Lewis
Or rather, the title was hilarious. The article was only so-so. Stuff we've heard a thousand times already. That's pretty typical for The Onion.
That ought to give all the Lost Cause Losers little bitty chubbies ;-)
You must be terribly conflicted because the confeds established a more restrictive government and social order than what they turned their backs on. One that promised misery to all concerned - north and south.
So if Texas were to secede tomorrow you would call them traitors and encourage Obama to prosecute a war against them?
Sure - if they were to rebel against the constitution and established law and order the way the confeds did that would be the proper conservative response.
American tyranny is just as bad as the British or the Soviet version, and there is a natural, God given right to rebel when the human created government begins to misbehave and violate the very laws it is meant to uphold.
There was never anything that rose to the level of tyranny that occurred in 1860 - except the treasonous actions of the southron slavers.
Southerners saw the anti-slavers and yankee bureaucrats, and bankers in the same light that I see liberals.
Like I said, you must be conflicted because the slavers were the liberals.
There has been enough demonization of conservatives and contitutionalist, and it is time to stop it.
I'm not sure where you're going here since no one on this thread is doing any demonization except for those attempting to demonize Lincoln.
Agree. While I generally agree with Williams on contemporary economics (he is a bit to far a Libertarian for my tastes, but he is more right than wrong) he makes a fool of himself on Civil War history especially when his source for statistics is a totally discarded source like Thomas DiLorenzo.
Add Buchanan to the list as another "Dough Face" who bowed to the Slave Power. The same was true for control of Congress and the Courts. You are correct that from Jackson onward until the election of Lincoln, the Slave Power controlled the not just the Executive, but also the the Legislative and the Judicial branches.
Yet the declarations of the seven states that seceded even before Lincoln took office claimed nothing but abuse by the same Central Government that they had controlled for over 30 years since Jackson defeated J.Q. Adams.
They must have been engaging in self-abuse for 30 years? No wonder they were blind to the reality of what war would do to them. ;~))
First of all, there is no "natural right" to break a compact "at pleasure" and then declare war on your previous country.
Yes, that would be a "right of rebellion", but rebellion is only lawful if it wins.
By law, our Founders would have hanged had they lost the Revolutionary War, and they well knew it:
But second: if you follow CW debate threads (whether they started out as such, or not ;-) ), you well know that all here who defend Lincoln, Republicans and Union believe that secession could be perfectly legal if done lawfully.
"Lawfully" means: according to our Founders' original intentions, that "disunion" be by mutual consent or for some serious material breach of contract such as oppression or "usurpations".
So secession could be constitutionally granted by Congress, or the Supreme Court, but not by the President who is sworn to uphold the Constitution and its laws.
And no such constitutional condition existed (or was even claimed) in December 1860 or early 1861, when secessionists in seven Deep-South states declared disunion.
That made those declarations unlawful.
But despite its unlawfulness, secession by itself caused no serious military response from the Federal government.
What forced a major Federal action was secessionists' many acts of rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", invasions, declared war and treason.
These were all explicitly contemplated and provided for in the US Constitution.
I have detailed some of them in post #272 above.
Jay Redhawk: "As long as you uphold statism as superior to individualism and states rights we will never agree."
The fact is, our Founders' original intent was to establish a "compact", a "more perfect Union", of limited Federal government, but still powerful enough to defend us against invasions, rebellions, insurrections, "domestic violence", declared wars and treason.
These constitutional provisions began to act when secessionists first declared their disunion, committed many acts of rebellion and then formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
Jay Redhawk: "So if Texas were to secede tomorrow you would call them traitors and encourage Obama to prosecute a war against them?"
First of all, a majority of Texans are not going to vote to "secede tomorrow", or any time in the future, so the question is purely hypothetical.
But if someday Texans' representatives in Congress submitted a bill authorizing secession, that would certainly be perfectly legal.
Or if Texas' attorney general brought suit in the Supreme Court for secession, that would certainly be perfectly legal.
Nobody on these threads disagrees with lawful political "divorce", when such proves necessary.
Jay Redhawk: "Southerners saw the anti-slavers and yankee bureaucrats, and bankers in the same light that I see liberals.
I do not see them as my fellow countrymen, and want nothing to do with them.
I greatly resent liberals dictating to me what I will and will not do, and I will find ways to rebel against them."
We can have no doubt, that Deep-South slave-holders saw Northern abolitionists, and their Republican Party, as a mortal & intolerable threat to their "peculiar institution" of slavery.
That's why they declared secession.
But in actual reality, there was no threat from Republicans to slavery where it already existed.
The Republican promise was simply to prevent slavery from expanding into states or territories where it was not wanted.
So slave-holders fears were mere phantasms, encouraged by propagandists (i.e., "fire eaters") who wanted secession and a new Confederacy for reasons which had nothing to do with Constitutional justifications like "mutual consent" or "usurpations and oppression".
The Slave-Power wanted a new Confederacy, and military victory over the United States, to establish itself as the world's premier protector of the "peculiar institution".
Anything less would not support the asset values of their monumental investments in human "property".
Jay Redhawk: "There has been enough demonization of conservatives and contitutionalist, and it is time to stop it."
The only actual "demonization" on these threads is what Pro-Confederate propagandists do to anyone who insists on historical accuracy and political truth-telling, FRiend.
Jay Redhawk: "If you believe Lincoln's persecution of the war was justified I can't see how you could be in opposition to Obama’s unconstitutional actions."
Well, that's just ridiculous, and I'm sure you know it.
First of all, as I've repeated here over-and-over, once the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861), it's fate was sealed: Unconditional Surrender was the Confederacy's destiny from that day on.
And before that date, there was there was only rebellion, no Union war -- zero, zip, nada: no Confederate soldier had been killed in battle, no Confederate state had been "invaded" by a Union army.
Second, despite our Pro-Confederate propagandists' repeated claims, Lincoln was not our "first Progressive President" by any stretch of imagination.
Lincoln simply Constitutionally defeated the military power which had declared war on the United States.
Indeed I'm saying, it's time for us to take-on the Neo-Confederate Big Lie head-on, and point out the real truth of the matter: the old Democrat Slave-Power which dominated Federal Government for over 70 years, from the Founding of the Republic (1788) until it declared secession in 1860, that old Slave-Power has long been replaced by the new Progressive Power which began dominating with the election of Southern Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
So today's "Progressives" (or "liberals" or "socialists" or "Democrats", or whatever you wish to call them), are not the political "descendants" of Republican Abraham Lincoln, no, they are descendants of the Democrat Slave-Power whose motto in 1860 was "rule or ruin".
And one reason we can know that is because progressives like Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt got solid support from the Solid Democrat South.
Jay Redhawk: "...Lincoln was a tyrant in the same fashion as the current punk from Illinois."
As other FReepers have pointed out, one difference is Lincoln's birth in Kentucky, the other's in Kenya.
But I say: the Kenyan far more closely resembles that other tall slim president born in Kentucky, the Slave-Power's President Jefferson Davis!
Now there is a historical analogy just ripe for the picking...
;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.