HATING LINCOLN: The Now Revered President Was, Like Trump, Widely Hated In His Day

Frontpage Mag ^ | 07/20/2018 | Robert Spencer

[OIFVeteran]

He pulled that number from where he pulls most of his “facts” straight out of his a%^&hole.

[DiogenesLamp]

I have more interest in other aspects of the Civil War, and I will focus my time researching those. I may get around to looking at the aftermath more seriously, and I am not terribly concerned if you and your allies don't like it.

You can research this yourselves if you want, but i'm not going to focus on it. When I run across something of relevance to what you ask, i'll let you know. (If I remember.)

[BroJoeK]

Jefferson Davis started the war, his choice, and could have ended it on any day before April 1865 with much better negotiated terms.
But Davis insisted on fighting on & on, to “extirmination” as he said and ultimate unconditional surrender.

Blame Davis.

[DoodleDawg]

I have more interest in other aspects of the Civil War, and I will focus my time researching those.

More interest in that and not the stuff you made up and got called on? Understandable.

You can research this yourselves if you want, but i'm not going to focus on it.

Why spend time researching something that is patently wrong? I might as well research leprechauns and unicorns.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The Civil War was about money, but the propaganda about it convinced everyone it was about slavery.
No, it was about money."

That was a lie the first time you posted it, and gains no veracity by your constant repetition.
Here's the real truth (again):

1. Deep South Fires Eaters declared secession to protect slavery -- that's what they said at the time.
   
2. Jefferson Davis started war at Fort Sumter to defend Confederate "integrity" -- that's what he said at the time.
   
3. Lincoln considered Davis' assault on Fort Sumter an act of rebellion and called up 75,000 troops to suppress it -- it's what he said at the time.
   
4. The Confederate Congress responded to Lincoln's actions by declaring war on the United States, and Confederates attacked Union troops in Union states.
   
5. The US Congress approved Lincoln's actions and did what it could to support the war effort.

Pure economics was never expressed as the sole reason for any of these actions, except in one case I know of:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth... "
--Mississippi Reasons for Secession January 1861

[HandyDandy]

Yes, and that ardent political enemy of Abe’s soon came around to being one of Abe’s staunchest supporters. I believe he said of Abe, “He is the best among us”.

[HandyDandy]

It saddens me to witness your mental breakdown. You’ve gone over the edge, man. Your “logic” is of the personal kind. Isn’t it. You’ve come to the point of using “geometric logic”. You are the biggest hater of Lincoln on FR. You are blinded by your hate of Lincoln. You are building a sandcastle of mendacity. Go ahead now, break out the graph........

[HandyDandy]

DL A collection of slave owning states declared Independence from a Union and fought to be independent, with their armies being led by a slave owning General from Virginia.

You are just not going to get away with that crap around here, man. There is simply no such actual event in history that fits your description above. It is either, “A collection of British colonies declared independence from a Monarchy” or “A collection of Slave States seceded from a Union”. Make up your mind ......... if it’s not too late. Once and for all get it straight man. One was a revolution, the other was a rebellion. Stop lying.

[Pelham]

“A collection of slave owning states declared Independence from a Union and fought to be independent, with their armies being led by a slave owning General from Virginia.”

United Kingdom. George Washington.

Our British cousins mocked the Lincoln government for playing the role of King George, the irony wasn’t lost on them. It’s even better when they bring up Dunmore’s proclamation and the Philipsburg proclamation.

[BroJoeK]

DiognesLamp: "They fought and died because men from the North came there with guns to overthrow their elected governments and subjugate them.
They didn't give a sh*t about slavery one way or the other, but someone invading their land was an enemy."

McPherson says, "...about one-third of all Confederate soldiers belonged to slaveholding families..."
Others estimate 1/4, depending on the Confederate Unit's place of origin.
And we can be certain slaveholders held the Confederate leadership positions.

Indeed, Southerners who opposed slavery were more likely to be Unionists.
Of the circa 1,000,000 total Confederate soldiers about 120,000 were drafted and of those large numbers were said to be Unionists:

"A cartoon from the war, showing the Confederates forcibly drafting a Unionist man into the Confederate army.
The Unionist man objects, with the Confederates threatening to lynch him if he does not comply."

Finally, a reminder: Confederates began their war by invading Union states.
In the Civil War's first 12 months, 30 of 52 larger battles were fought in six Union states & territories -- Missouri, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma & New Mexico.
It wasn't until May 8, 1862 that the total number of battles fought in Confederate states first equaled the number fought in the Union.

All told, the Civil War's 384 battles were fought in 18 Union states & territories, and, oh yes, in 11 Confederate states.

[BroJoeK]

Sans culotte: "The war was fought to preserve the Union."

DiogenesLamp: "So was the American War of Independence.
We were fighting on the side that said people had a right to be independent.
Not the side that said they must remain in the existing Union against their will."

The first point to remember is: in July 1777 the Brits had already declared & waged war against Americans for over a year.
So when the Declaration of Independence says:

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

That was fact, not just hyperbole and nothing remotely resembling such conditions existed in November 1860.
So our Founders had no choice in Independence because, with or without a Declaration, if they failed they would hang.
In late 1860 Deep South Fire Eaters were in a very different situation.

DiogenesLamp: "Once we Won the war of Independence, the paradigm shifted to the position that people everywhere had a right to be independent of a government that no longer served their interests. "

Only in DiogenesLamp's weird fantasies.
The fact is that no Founder ever proposed or supported unilateral unapproved declaration secession at pleasure.
But that's just what Deep South Fire Eaters did, beginning in December 1860.

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln was willing to let the other states go if Virginia would give him assurances that they would remain in the Union.
If he was willing to let the other states go, then "preserving the union" was not so much of a principle as people later thought it to be. "

Yet more patented snake-oil fantasy from DiogenesLamp.
The offer Lincoln is said to have made was, "a fort for a state" -- meaning Lincoln withdraws from Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginia's promise not to secede.
He certainly was not willing to "let the other states go", and recognize the Confederacy as legitimate.
But Lincoln is said to have been willing to give up Fort Sumter without a fight in exchange for Virginia remaining Union.
Virginians turned Lincoln down.

DiogenesLamp: "If "Preserving the Union" was his unwavering principle, he wouldn't have offered to let the other states leave."

Pure fantasy, Lincoln did no such thing.

[rockrr]

Conflating the willful acts of the cornfederates with the necessary actions of the Colonialists is simply retarded. Or dishonest. Take your pick.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "He's been deified on our coinage, and everyone thinks he sacrificed to free Slaves.
If they knew the truth, that he launched a horrible and bloody war to keep the money flowing into New York and Washington DC, they would not think so kindly of him."

And so DiogenesLamp spins out his entire reimagined anti-historical fantasy.
In fact, Republicans as a party were founded in opposition to slavery, a view Lincoln strongly held.
The Republican 1860 platform called for restrictions on slavery and that was the chief, if not only, reason cited by Deep South secessionists in their Reasons for Secession documents.

In fact, neither Lincoln nor any other Republican official cited keeping "the money flowing into New York and Washington DC" as their reason for any action related to Civil War.

DiogenesLamp: "it wasn't until I visited the Lincoln memorial in 2009 that I realized he was willing to keep slavery. I saw it engraved on stone tablets at that memorial, and that woke me up a lot. "

Even in early 1865 Lincoln was willing to strike a deal to prevent further bloodshed, a deal much better than the Unconditional Surrender Jefferson Davis fought on & on & on to achieve:

DiogenesLamp: "If it's negotiable, it wasn't a principle for which men should have died. It was an option.
Fighting an optional war is immoral."

Jefferson Davis' assault on Fort Sumter was totally optional, and he knew it:

Davis to Bragg at Fort Pickens: "There would be to us an advantage in so placing them [Lincoln} that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison [Fort Sumter] that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations."

Note Davis tells Bragg it's an "advantage" and "overbalanced" by "other considerations", nothing to do with necessity or being "forced by Lincoln", etc.

For Davis starting Civil War was totally optional.
Davis chose unwisely.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I have probably written far more about blaming big government on Wilson, Roosevelt, LBJ, Carter, Clinton and Obama than I have ever written about Lincoln."

You know it's the nature of Free Republic that we can post more-or-less anonymously, nobody sees our faces and so can't know if a lie is bald-faced or not.
Unless someone like DiogenesLamp uses a </sarcasm> tag, we can't see or even necessarily infer smirk on his face.

But what we can do is check out his past posts, and do word searches for names like "Lincoln".
In the past few months DiogenesLamp has used Lincoln's name in posts hundreds of times, many multiples of his number two Democrat, Obama with several dozen mentions.
So clearly, Lincoln-hatred is a big deal to DiogenesLamp.

What about other big-time Democrat progressives, how often does DiogenesLamp mention them?

1. Wilson -- about a dozen times, in passing.
2. Clinton -- also dozen mentions.
3. FDR -- two or three mentions.
4. LBJ, Carter & Teddy Roosevelt -- once or twice each.

So, one might suppose that DiogenesLamp would at least know his own mind and his own priority sequence for demonization, but apparently that is not the case.

The fact is, in his mind Lincoln tops the list of political devils by many multiples of all others combined.

DiogenesLamp: "But Lincoln set us on this path of big, unwieldy government concentrating money in Washington to engage in government picking winners and losers among industry, and creating the lucrative influence peddling organizations we see today."

Pure fantasy, Republican government after the Civil War and reconstruction was basically the same as it had been before, with the exception of war debt payments.
For examples, non-debt Federal spending was 2.6% of GDP in, say, 1858, rose to 13% in 1865 then fell back to 2.5% by 1871.
None of these numbers are comparable to the explosion in non-defense Federal spending under Progressive, New Deal & Great Society, transforming the United States to a European style "socialist democracy".

And none of which DiogenesLamp cares even remotely about compared to his devil-of-all-devils: Abraham Lincoln.

I wonder if 150 years from now insane Democrats will still hate Donald Trump the same way they hate Lincoln, you know, for putting America first?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "What takes imagination is believing in the emperor's new clothes when they clearly don't exist.
What takes imagination are the excuses to explain the various paradoxes you are required to believe to accept the official narrative."

The "emperor's new clothes" are DiogenesLamp's new mythological narratives for the Civil War, abandoning all connections to historical documents & reasons.

By the way, I've correctly accused DiogenesLamp of a Marxist dialectical outlook, but closer inspection reveals that's too broad a brush.
Marxist dialectics in DiogenesLamp's mind only applies to one group of people, Unionists, especially that devil Lincoln.
Confederates by stark contrast in DiogenesLamp's imagination were only driven by the purest & highest of our Founders' enlightened ideals -- freedom, justice, independence, manliness... that sort of thing.

And how does DiogenesLamp respond when confronted with Confederate materialism, for example:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
--Mississippi Reasons for Secession, January 1861

How does DiogenesLamp respond?
He doesn't, has no interest in Confederate dialectical materialism, only in the wickedness of Abe Lincoln's Unionists.

As for alleged "official narrative", we should note there have been about 15,000 books written on Lincoln (about 100 per year on average), more than on any other individual in history except Jesus Christ Himself.
On the whole Civil War, the Library of Congress reports about 75,000 or 500 per year on average.

And how many of those books has DiogenesLamp read?
Not one -- zero, zip, nada books -- and yet he will impose his own fanciful narrative over the works of tens of thousands of authors (some admittedly more serious than others).

Below: The tower of Lincoln's books at Ford's Theater, 8 feet in diameter, 34 feet high, representing about half of the 15,000 total Lincoln books published to date:

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "By not sending warships to fire on the Confederate, thus starting the war, just as his entire cabinet predicted, and just as Major Anderson himself predicted."

All predictions aside, Lincoln and his cabinet knew for certain that Major Anderson must surrender soon if not resupplied, and they were unwilling, just as President Buchanan had been unwilling, to surrender Fort Sumter without a fight.
Buchanan had attempted in January to resupply with an unarmed civilian ship an it failed, so no need for Lincoln to try that again.
Instead he accepted the plan first proposed by army Capt. Doubleday in Fort Sumter, then adopted by Capt. Fox on Lincoln's staff.
The Doubleday-Fox plan was: armed warships sitting off-shore sending in small resupply boats, under cover of darkness & fog.
It was a good plan and would have worked had Maj. Anderson held out a few days longer.

But Jefferson Davis cared nothing about that.
It only mattered to Davis that, when he was ready for a military assault, he ordered it done absent Anderson's surrender.
Lincoln's resupply ships only mattered because they let Davis do sooner what he would have done later anyway, if Anderson didn't surrender.

As for Fort Sumter predictions, here's the one that really mattered:

"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[15]
-- Robert Toombs to Jefferson Davis before assault on Fort Sumter

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I have learned to look for underhanded motives regarding Lincoln."

You have fanaticized those all by your little self, and for what good reason?
Self-amusement is the only thing I can imagine.

DiogenesLamp: "William Seward was set to win the Republican nomination in 1860.
Lincoln bused in (the way liberal democrats bus in people today) thousands of supporters to disrupt the convention, and sow chaos"

More fantasy on which DiogenesLamp has already been corrected, at least once.
It was not Illinoisan Lincoln, it was New Yorker Seward who "bused in" his supporters to the 1860 Chicago Republican convention.

"In the mid-nineteenth century, it was not considered proper for the aspiring candidate to go to the convention himself, so Seward sent his political manager, Thurlow Weed, along with his states’ 70 delegates and 13 railroad cars of supporters."

Lincoln was from Illinois and his supporters lived in Chicago, so they walked to their convention, no need to "bus" anyone.

DiogenesLamp: "After throwing the convention into upheaval, Lincoln's agents started bribing the delegates with promises of government jobs, threats, and anything else they could think of. "

The Republican convention was in no sense in "upheaval".
Upheaval is what Deep South Fire Eaters did to their own Democrat convention in Charleston, when they walked out, split their party and refused to support its nominee -- Senator Douglas.

By stark contrast, Republican Chicago was simple politics as usual, then as now.
But Lincoln himself, who was not at the convention, was clear in instructions to his supporters:

"I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none".[8]

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln was a wheeler dealer."

Politics, the the art of the deal.
Here's a book by someone who can explain how to do it.

[BroJoeK]

katana: "The one thing I do hold against TR is his hubris in 1912 divided the Republican vote and helped put that megalomaniacal racist ba$tard into office.
Taft may have been a tool of the Ohio machine wing of the party, but he wasn’t Wilson."

Teddy Roosevelt had stood in for Eleanor's deceased father at her wedding to dashing young Franklin Roosevelt in 1905.
Unlike Teddy's Oyster Bay Roosevelts, Franklin's Hyde Park Roosevelt family were staunch Democrats and in 1912 Franklin became an original Wilson supporter.
That alienated some Roosevelts from each other, but not Bull Moose Teddy, I think because in fact Teddy's & Franklin's actual politics were not very far apart.
Teddy loved that Franklin opposed Democrat Tammany Hall.

The upshot was that young Franklin immediately became Number Two in Wilson's Navy Department, and learned much from Wilson's First World War mistakes.
My guess is that seeing young Franklin in charge of old Teddy's Big Stick navy must have provided him significant satisfaction, more than compensating for Teddy's disappointment at losing in 1912.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "...Slavery was going to remain in the Union indefinitely without secession."

By 1860 the US had a long history of state-by-state gradual abolition, and most Republicans like Lincoln expected that to continue into the future.
They were shocked then by the 1857 SCOTUS Dred-Scott decision, in effect nearly abolishing abolition.
As Lincoln said in his 1858 House Divided speech:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

DiogenesLamp: "You claim that something which was *NOT* going to change, was the reason for starting a war that killed 750,000 people directly..."

More babbling nonsense!
Slavery was the reason Deep South Fire Eaters declared secession, but it was not the reason the Confederate Congress declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
The reason for war, as Jefferson Davis clearly expressed was Confederate "integrity" which he considered violated, first at Fort Sumter.
Davis chose to start war at Fort Sumter and could have chosen to end it on any date before April 1865, but insisted to the end that only Unconditional Surrender, or "extermination" would do.

DiogenesLamp: "...and indirectly killed perhaps an additional 2 million."

Pure fantasy, unless you consider babies not conceived while their Dad's were off at war to have been "killed".
In fact there are no records of any numbers remotely approaching "2 million" killed "indirectly".

DiogenesLamp: "There was no attempt by the Congress to abolish slavery.
But you know what congress *did* do?
They attempted to amend the constitution to PROTECT slavery..."

The 1861 Corwin amendment was originally proposed by people like Mississippi Senator Davis in December 1860 as a "compromise" to prevent further secessions.
It failed for the Deep South, but did seem to help keep Border States in the Union.
Corwin was supported and signed by Democrat President Buchanan, then forwarded to the states by incoming President Lincoln.
Kentucky & Maryland ratified Corwin as did Ohio (Corwin's home state) and Rhode Island, though Ohio soon revoked its ratification.
Illinois' ratification is disputed.

DiogenesLamp: "Just stop with your false 'the Union was doing God's work and fighting for freedom!' bullsh*t. "

No, the total BS here is you Lost Causers' claims it's not true.
Of course the Union from Day One fought for freedom, freedom from the rule by slavers over Southern states.
In time the Union (including ex-slaves) also fought for the freedom of slaves from their slaver "masters".

The Big Lies here come from Lost Causers like DiogenesLamp claiming otherwise.

DiogenesLamp: "In light of the facts, I would be embarrassed to keep claiming that the Washington DC power block was fighting to stop slavery.
They were not.
They were fighting to get back that slave produced money stream that was leaving them because of Southern independence."

No embarrassment because the fact is your alleged "DC power block" fought first to stop slavers, then to free their slaves.
As for the money earned by Northeastern merchants on cotton exports, it was never given as a reason for any Union actions.

DiogenesLamp: "Or would you prefer to believe that Washington DC was motivated by morals rather than greed?
Cause if so, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to sell you."

Most Americans were motivated by the same principles & morals in the Civil War as in any other major US war -- World Wars One & Two for examples.
Sure, anyone can look for base motives in anything, but for Americans there are always higher goals too, freedom from slavers and freedom for slaves, for examples.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "It wasn't treason, despite your side's efforts to constantly repeat and repeat that accusation over and over again like some sort of Goebbels.
Independent states had a right to be free. That was the foundation of our own country, and it should have been recognized back in 1860."

It's a fact that declarations of secession were not treated as "treason" by either Democrat President Buchanan or Republican President Lincoln.
Both though secession unnecessary, unconstitutional and illegal, but not itself treasonous and not by itself reason for war.
And Buchanan did nearly everything possible to prevent some event which could lead to war -- using military force to reinforce Fort Sumter, for example.

But once Confederates openly declared war on the United States then any pro-Confederates in Union states did indeed "give aid and comfort" to our enemies and so met the Constitution's definition of "treason".
As a result, many were arrested & jailed during the war -- as were Southern Unionists by the Confederacy.

As for prosecuting Confederates for treason after the war, neither Presidents Lincoln, Johnson nor Grant wanted it or thought it necessary.

DiogenesLamp: "Independent states had a right to be free.
That was the foundation of our own country, and it should have been recognized back in 1860."

Maybe, under certain conditions, but what they never, ever, ever, ever (get it, never!) have a right to do is provoke, start, declare & wage war against the United States, regardless of how they feeeeeeeeeeel about their "integrity".