Posted on 06/17/2017 6:14:26 PM PDT by plain talk
People think that Abe Lincoln was such a benevolent President. He was actually a bit of a tyrant. He attacked the Confederate States of America, who seceded from the Union due to tax and tariffs. (If you think it was over slavery, you need to find a real American history book written before 1960.)
This picture is of 38 Santee Sioux Indian men that were ordered to be executed by Abraham Lincoln for treaty violations (IE: hunting off of their assigned reservation).
So, on December 26, 1862, the “Great Emancipator” ordered the largest mass execution in American History, where the guilt of those to be executed was entirely in doubt. Regardless of how Lincoln defenders seek to play this, it was nothing more than murder to obtain the land of the Santee Sioux and to appease his political cronies in Minnesota.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailycheck.net ...
The Union never declared war. It was the position of the United States government that the states had rebelled against the duly elected government of the US. Lincoln, with the support of congress and most of the north, used his constitutionally delegated powers to call out troops to defeat the rebellion and restore the constitution as the supreme law of the land. Just as Washington did to the whiskey rebellion.
I know in another thread you state you have only been studying this for a few years. As someone who has studied the civil war, and history in general, both professionally and for pleasure, may I suggest you print and read every rebelling states declarations of succession. While doing this underline every instance of the use of the word slave, slavery, anti-slavery, and any other variations. Also underline every time the word tariff or tariffs or any other variations are used. Then count the underlined slave and tariff words and I’m positive you will find a huge disparity between the word count. With slavery and its variations grossly outnumbering tariffs. Perhaps that will give you a hint on why the states secceded.
They couldn't convict OJ of murder either. I suppose you think he's innocent as well.
I think that if they had attempted hanging Confederate soldiers for Treason, it would have backfired very badly in their own states.
I'm not asking why they didn't hang Confederate POWs. I'm asking it, given Southern standards, if the Union would have been justified in hanging them? Especially those who had been members of the U.S. Army before the rebellion began?
The Soldiers which you clearly did not mention were traitors, were in fact as demonstrably traitorous as it is possible to be.
As traitorous as the rebel soldiers were.
Lincoln went to war because the economics of his situation required it. So long as Washington D.C. controlled the South's economic policy, it could glean off profits for Northern Industry which would not otherwise be possible. More importantly, it could prevent the creation of competing Industries, and eventual competing economic interests in the Mid West from the capitalization which would have occurred in the South with direct European trade with the South.
In Simple terms, an independent South was a serious financial threat to the Crony Capitalists of the North and their agents in Washington DC.
Look up "Mercantilism". That was Lincolns political Philosophy, and one which he acquired from his mentor Henry Clay.
You mean to tell me that Lincoln's government ignored the clear wording an intent of a constitutional article?
I'm Shocked! Shocked! I tell you!
Like the US and Canada? Yeah, that's been a source of constant tension since 1812. :)
That was the most atypical situation imaginable. Britain was the greatest power on the planet. But it couldn't bring all its force to bear on North America. Both the US and Canada could expand westward, rather than into each other's territory. Therefore, there was peace.
A division of the US into two countries would have massively complicated things on the continent, with frictions between the USA and CSA, the USA and Canada, and the CSA with Mexico and the Caribbean. Not to mention the problem with the fate of the western territories.
Not at all. The era after Lincoln was considered the worst period of corruption in American History. Big Government and Crony Capitalism were constantly scratching each others backs in an effort to enrich both Big Government and the Crony Capitalists.
Compared to what came later, the size of government in the late 19th century was still small potatoes.
Don't forget, Lincoln's political philosophy was "Mercantilism", and the 1860s saw the ascendance of this "Mercantilist" philosophy.
Nonsense. Some people like to use "mercantilism" as the opposite of some laissez-faire that they imagine exists or existed and label every government economic policy as mercantilist. Historically, mercantilism was something different indeed. Tariffs alone didn't make for anything one could legitimately call mercantilism.
For that matter, your own thinking -- if that's what it is -- isn't untouched by mercantilist concepts: trade is a zero-sum game, one nation prospers at the expense of others, the goal is a positive balance of payments. Only you give to cotton the leading role that gold and silver had for the mercantilists.
I think slavery would have eventually collapsed on it's own. As soon as the economic benefits of it waned, suddenly everyone in the South would have developed an instantaneous moral opposition to it.
70 years later? There was still the fear Whites had of Blacks. And the planters' need to control their workforce. That wasn't going away, even if you got rid of slavery. There was still going to be some form of control or repression, most likely based on race. Not very conducive to liberty.
Having said that, your thesis isn't necessarily false, but the prevailing conditions in Switzerland—versus the United States—were sufficiently different that similar outcomes couldn't be automatically expected.
This is odd, because it was from Switzerland that the framework of our own ideas of Republicanism emerged. Vattel put forth the idea that a collection of states could unite and form a Republic. We even borrowed their word "Citizen" instead of using our own well known term "Subject."
In 1776, the only other Republic in the World was Switzerland. All others nations were monarchies.
It was already in place. Lincoln offered to support the Corwin amendment which would have kept it even more firmly in place.
So since Lincoln was saying "If you like your slavery you can keep your slavery.", then how could the fight be over slavery?
Seems to me that the fight had to be over something else, because Lincoln offered protection for slavery before the war even started.
Approved by a seceding portion of the Virginia Legislature? Not the whole body of the Virginia Legislature?
Don't you appologists keep telling us that acts by seceding authorities are null and void without the consent of the rest of the body?
I guess secession is okay just when it supports what you want, eh?
For a guy who gets knocked from pillar to post as one of the dumbest people ever to post on these threads you just never learn to shut up, do you?
Abortion, Homosexual Marriage, Wickard, "Separate but Equal" (Plessy v Ferguson), Dred Scott, Kelo v New London, Obamacare, and too many other ridiculous decisions for me to remember.
The supreme court simply does whatever the political party they belong to when they are appointed, wants.
An arbiter of truth and objective reality it has not been for a very long time.
That part not engaged in rebellion against the U.S., yes.
Don't you appologists keep telling us that acts by seceding authorities are null and void without the consent of the rest of the body?
They could have given their consent or withheld their consent as the case may be, except that they were off rebelling and all.
I guess secession is okay just when it supports what you want, eh?
I'm not at all surprised that you could come to that conclusion. I would just point out that the Supreme Court recognized the legality of the creation of West Virginia when they ruled in the case of Virginia v. West Virginia (78 U.S. 39) in 1871.
Me or him?
And here I thought you were a 10th Amendment guy. So that was nothing but a fraud as well? Not at all surprising.
Diogenes. I posted to him, not you.
A cotton picking machine was patented in 1850. Here is a link.
It is true that Lincoln expressed no desire to end slavery in the South. I think it was a practical position for him to take at the time. Even many Northerners did not care about slavery in the South, they just didn't want it in their back yards. His main aim was preventing the spread of slavery out west and slowly increasing the political power of free states (over slave states).
The cause of the war was the states seceding! The states seceded because of the election of a Republican to the presidency. Why was a Republican candidate so repugnant to the southern states? Because their platform called for the restriction of slavery from the territories. The southern states had threatened to secede in the election of 1856 if the Republican candidate was elected. Come on man, you cannot be this dense.
I believe this part is absolutely right.
It is true that Lincoln expressed no desire to end slavery in the South. I think it was a practical position for him to take at the time. Even many Northerners did not care about slavery in the South, they just didn't want it in their back yards. His main aim was preventing the spread of slavery out west and slowly increasing the political power of free states (over slave states).
This part is also correct, but you seen to miss a few of the nuances of what was going on.
Most Northerners didn't want slavery, but not because they had any concern over the suffering of black people. They didn't want slavery because most of them were laborers who earned wages, and they saw slavery as a threat to their own economic interests. Most of the population of Northern states hated blacks, and didn't want them in their states. Many states passed laws banning blacks from settling in their states, Illinois being a prime example among them.
You are right about the issue of "slave state" vs "free state" being a contest of political power. The slave states assumed that any new states in which slavery was legal would support their political interests in Washington D.C. and any states that were not would oppose or ignore their interests.
So in reality, the "slave or free" debate was actually a struggle for control of Washington power, and not really the result of any concern for the plight of blacks. I've been told that the lands of these states which were going to be newly created, were ill suited to plantation farming, and would not have much if any slavery even if it had become legal in them.
But everything you said appears to be correct from my understanding of the situation, and it is very surprising to me that you seem to have a grasp of the larger political fight being waged. Most of the people with whom I discuss this issue seem to be oblivious to it.
You don’t need to tell me this. ‘’Bleeding Kansas’’. That’s were the Civil War really started and it’s a subject seldom if ever bought up here.
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