Posted on 03/10/2019 7:34:32 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country. Robert E. Lee 1856
Could Gen. Robert E.l Lees sentiments deter the tear down those monuments crowd?
Probably not.
Given their current success in removing monuments to Confederate generals, ignorant politicians and those whose hobby is going through life seeking to be offended, soon will run out of things to be offended by. Why not broaden the list of "offensive" symbols to include slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and a host of other founders?
Here in Texas you could add slave owning Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Jim Bowie and William Travis.
Should we banish from public view all monuments to past historical figures who supported white supremacy, advocated secession or made racist comments?
Consider Abraham Lincoln. In addition to the Lincoln monument in the nations capital, theres probably not a major city in the country without a school, street or park named after Lincoln (Abilene once had Lincoln Middle School).
What do Lincoln's own words tell us about Honest Abe, "the Great Emancipator?"
During one of the famous 1858 debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln explained to the crowd: I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . I am not now nor have ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
Lincoln's prejudices werent limited to blacks.
During another debate with Douglas, Lincoln opined: I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels . . . theres not one person there out of eight who is pure white.
In Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address, he endorsed a constitutional amendment, known as the Corwin Amendment, which would forever protect slavery where it existed, telling the audience: I have no objection to its (Corwin Amendment) being made express and irrevocable. Lincoln's goal was to save the Union, writing to abolitionist Horace Greeley: If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it.
Virtually all white men of that time were white supremacists. Lincoln was no exception, and his comments belie his reputation.
Was Lincoln opposed to secession?
Consider his remarks he made in Congress on January 12, 1848: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one which suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much territory as they inhabit. This is exactly what the seceding states did in 1861.
Another discomforting fact for todays advocates of political correctness: In 2011 I sponsored a commemorative license plate for Buffalo soldiers, iconic black U.S. cavalrymen who served on the frontier. Couldnt today's Native Americans claim buffalo soldiers participated in a genocidal war against an entire race of people - the American Plains Indians enslaving them on reservations?
If were going to measure Confederates of 150 years ago by todays standards, shouldnt we do the same with Lincoln?
Today, it's Confederates. Whos next? Buffalo soldiers? Our nations founders? Our Texas heroes? The possibilities are limitless.
Jerry Patterson is a former Texas land commissioner, state senator and retired Marine Vietnam veteran.
Maybe you should get your mommy to read #232 to you.
Maybe you should just answer instead of acting like a lil beyotch.
Keep dodging, bird-brain. It’s not a very becoming look - but it looks perfect on you!
Keep whining like a lil beyotch rocks in his head. Its suits you.
We were talking about Jefferson Davis’s footprints over the Confederate Constitution. Lincoln’s footprints on the United States Constitution are already well known. You were the one that claimed Davis followed the Confederate Constitution scrupulously. He did not.
“By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy.”
Exactly as I had states. It was a last ditch effort to save a Confederacy that Davis realized was dying. Why didn’t he make the offer in 1862? Because Davis believed that the Confederacy had a good chance of surviving at the time.
By Nov 1864 all such thoughts were gone. It was a last ditch effort, just as enlisting 40,000 slaves for non combat duty, and a few month later allowing them to enlist in combat units. The dying gasp of diplomacy and social engineering to try and save the Confederacy.
We were talking about Jefferson Daviss footprints over the Confederate Constitution. Lincolns footprints on the United States Constitution are already well known. You were the one that claimed Davis followed the Confederate Constitution scrupulously. He did not.
No, that is not what I said. I said he followed the Confederate constitution more closely than Lincoln followed the US Constitution. I stand by that.
Exactly as I had states. It was a last ditch effort to save a Confederacy that Davis realized was dying. Why didnt he make the offer in 1862? Because Davis believed that the Confederacy had a good chance of surviving at the time. By Nov 1864 all such thoughts were gone. It was a last ditch effort, just as enlisting 40,000 slaves for non combat duty, and a few month later allowing them to enlist in combat units. The dying gasp of diplomacy and social engineering to try and save the Confederacy.
We have a difference of opinion then in how we characterize it. You say "last ditch". I point out it was only a year after the EP and the war was very much still raging.
One year 11 months after the EP. The war was still on. But almost all hope of victory was fast fading from the Confederate view.
Lee’s army was penned in Petersburg, Sherman was about to start his march across Georgia. In one month, Hood’s Army of Tennessee would be crushed outside of Nashville. The city of Savannah would surrender to Sherman. Flour was 500 Confederate dollars a barrel, if you could find it. 95% of Southern ports were sealed off due to the U.S. Navy blockade. Two million slaves were now free because of the Union Army. The South was down to offering emancipation in exchange for Diplomatic recognition. Davis proposed enlisting 40,000 slave to support the Confederate Army. With a couple of months the Confederate Congress would consider enlisting slaves as soldiers. These acts are a pretty good indicator of how low the Confederacy had sunk.
Lees army was penned in Petersburg, Sherman was about to start his march across Georgia. In one month, Hoods Army of Tennessee would be crushed outside of Nashville. The city of Savannah would surrender to Sherman. Flour was 500 Confederate dollars a barrel, if you could find it. 95% of Southern ports were sealed off due to the U.S. Navy blockade. Two million slaves were now free because of the Union Army. The South was down to offering emancipation in exchange for Diplomatic recognition. Davis proposed enlisting 40,000 slave to support the Confederate Army. With a couple of months the Confederate Congress would consider enlisting slaves as soldiers. These acts are a pretty good indicator of how low the Confederacy had sunk.
You say "penned" in Petersburg. I'd say they were entrenched there blocking the Union Army and the Union Army had been unable to dislodge them. The whole point about allowing Blacks to serve in the Confederate Army was something the Confederate Congress had drug its heels on. It was always limited in scope. Several states allowed it from early on and Confederate officers in the field had been simply ignoring the Confederate Congress' dictate on that for years. They offered to abolish slavery in exchange for diplomatic recognition and they turned down multiple offers of compensated emancipation from the federal government.....and in anticipation of the inevitable no, I'm not going to look it up. Y'all are all out of those for this thread. Look it up for yourself - yes, it happened. Just as the original 7 seceding states turned down slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. Obviously, slavery was not what the Southern states were fighting over just its not what the Northern states were fighting over.
Nonsense.
In 1856 Republicans nominated a pure abolitionist for President, John C. Fremont, and lost bigtime.
So in 1860 Republicans selected Lincoln precisely because, in Republican terms, he was a "moderate" -- opposed to slavery's expansion but also committed to protecting slavery according to the Constitution.
All these quotes you guys keep posting from Lincoln simply established his bonafides as a "moderate".
How did Lincoln go from "moderate" to emancipation & abolition?
Well, Jefferson Davis had something to do with that.
NKP_Vet: "The many thousands of men who risked their lives and spilled blood to defeat the Confederacy would be appalled.
Abraham Lincoln would see the malice toward all, the charity toward none.
Ulysses S Grant would be shocked... "
The rest of your post, including this whole paragraph, I think the rest of us all agree with.
Nicely said, sir.
Naw... the fact is, you're a coward -- you post your nonsense endlessly, but don't have the guts to answer the real truth.
That same act in late 1861 would have made a huge difference, probably would have won the war.
By late 1864, with the war nearly lost, it both was and was seen as an act of pure desperation and insincerity -- far too little, far too late.
By 1865, when Confederates approached Europeans on it, the Brits were not interested and the French were willing to follow British lead.
Your "traditional" explanations of "it was all about money & class warfare" is pure Marxism.
The slavery explanation has the benefit of being what Fire Eater secessionists said in 1861, and what Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 was all about.
Very few at the time explained it as pure economics.
yoe: "Lincoln responded to this criticism in a letter on April 1, 1861 stating he is .... To Horace Greeley (published in NY Tribune) ... "
Lincoln's letter to Greeley was August 22, 1862, not April 1861.
This was after Lincoln wrote his Emancipation Proclamation, but before he made it public.
yoe: "Lincoln's official duty and goal is to save the union, not either to save or destroy slavery -neither pro-slavery or radical abolitionist -'If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it'."
Right, at that point -- August 1862 -- Lincoln was still willing to accept Confederate surrender without emancipation.
But that time was quickly ending.
Lincoln's letter to Greeley ends with this:
From the beginning Confederates attacked & invaded Union states & territories, including Missouri, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio & Kansas.
That was Civil War.
yoe: "Lincoln was a Tyrant, jailed those who disagreed with him and broke Constitutional Law where he pleased in order to keep on fighting...."
Lincoln did nothing in this regard in the Union which Jefferson Davis did not also do in the Confederacy.
yoe: "The Civil War was like all wars, horrible...the Union soldiers were like all conquering soldiers, they raped women, black and white, raped children, pillaged, stole, killed all animals.....that history was buried, it is now available."
A total lie.
In fact you have no verified evidence -- zero -- to support any claims that Union troops behaved any worse in the South than Confederate troops did in Union states.
Setting aside the issue of "contraband", both sides were rather well behaved when compared with any other similar war in history.
Yes, the Confederate contempt for their constitution is well established. And without the third branch of government to act as a check and balance on the other two branches they may have gotten away with it.
They'd hardly be the only government in North America to have trampled on their constitution in order to do what they thought necessary to win.
Only one I'm aware of.
As we both know, exigencies of war had not provided the opportunity for them to do that yet.
Davis and the Confederate congress had the time to confirm four Secretaries of State, though they had nobody to carry on diplomatic relations with. They confirmed five Secretaries of War, though Davis ran things on his own. Six Attorney Generals, though they didn't have a judiciary. Three Treasury secretaries, a Navy secretary, and a Postmaster general, all appointed and none required by the constitution. They kept Davis's revolving door of a cabinet stocked but not the third branch of government. Exigencies of war had nothing to do with it. Contempt for the rule of law did.
Was it unconstitutional? Possibly. So what?
Would you cut Lincoln the same slack?
You just can't help yourself can you?
My opinion hasn't changed. And as I said it's hard to sit by when you post such ridiculous crap.
Which Confederate States had laws that allowed slaves to serve in the regiments raised by that state and sent off to serve in the Confederate Army.
“Obviously, slavery was not what the Southern states were fighting over.”
If that was the case, why did the Confederacy wait until Nov 1864 to offer Emancipation as bargaining chip to lure the Brits and French into diplomatically recognizing the Southern Confederacy. Why not 1861 or 1862. The answer, in those years the Confederacy had an expectation of victory.
By Nov 1864 that expectations had evaporated. Emancipation for diplomatic recognition was a “Hail Mary” pass by a dying Confederacy.
In Dec 1864, Lord Palmerstone told the Confederate envoy that there was absolutely no way the British Government would ever recognize the Confederate States.
Then there were these quotes:
At the time, slavery was on everyone's mind.
Lincoln was a socialist and a pen pal of Karl Marx. He destroyed the government that our Founding Fathers fought and died for. A two-bit railroad lawyer with no scruples doing the bidding of the NE Industralists who controlled the government.
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