America thinks the unthinkable: More than half of Trump voters and 41% of Biden supporters want red and blue states to SECEDE from one another and form two new countries, shock new poll finds

Nobody said they believed having slaves was wrong.

And you're trying to defend the South? Seriously? If you acknowledge that the South saw nothing wrong with slavery, then why is it so hard to accept that they seceded and faught to preserve it?

The only proof YOU need.....that slavery was abolished AFTER the war.

After the slave holding states seceded, there was no way the North could have abolished slavery short of winning the CW.

An open minded person looking at the causes of secession and the war however would notice that the North offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and the original 7 seceding states turned that offer down.

And they never ratified it, and President Buchanan signed it in a meaningless gesture.

It was never ratified because the original 7 seceding states turned it down. It doesn't matter that Buchannan signed it. If he had not, Lincoln would have signed it. He orchestrated it after all. "for the purpose of preventing secession". So what? They were fully prepared to support slavery effectively forever. These people were not interested in banning slavery.

You can go reaching for all of the alternate realities you can find. We don't know the would haves or could haves. What we do know is it was never ratified, and the North abolished slavery when they had the opportunity to do so.

They did it AFTER the fact when trying to put a fig leaf on the blood and carnage they caused by starting a war of aggression for money and empire.

We've been over this. They couldn't legally have abolished it after the slave holding states seceded, and they couldn't have banned it even before then. Once they got the opportunity, they did it.

As democratic as they were at the time of the War of Independence from the British Empire and the ratification of the Constitution.

IOW, when it came to the slaves, they weren't.

Ignoring the fact that the federals were squatting on property that belonged to the sovereign state of South Carolina.

Unless the owners of that land seceded along with the slave holding states, no.

The slave trade industry was overwhelmingly located in the North. Overwhelmingly. In fact, New England/NY was the hub of the slave trade for the entire western hemisphere in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Take a good look and see where the seed capital for the Ivy League and many large corporations that exist even today came from.

Yes, but it was abolished in the Northeast long before the CW. It continued illegally and under the table until 1858 and that was for shipment to the slave holding states.

And I won't take back what I said about the free traitors getting us addicted to cheap Chinese slave labor, so we're not innocent now.

As did the tens of thousands of Blacks who served in the Confederate Army.

Here's something on that.

Black Confederates: Truth and Legend

Pointing that out did nothing to help your case, whatever that still is.

Post what he said that you find so objectionable.

Not necessary, as anyone who is interested can find it for themselves.

His support for the South was from his opinion that the North wouldn't abolish slavery. He was wrong.

And nobody here "hates the South", that's just more fantasy. The truth is we'd all be one big happy family if y'all would just stop posting lies about the Civil War.

That's the frustrating thing in all of this. No one in the South today thinks that slavery was right. If they lived in the confederacy they would have been assaulted or lynched for opposing slavery.

The only thing modern Southerners have in common with the confederacy is that they were born into the land the confederacy once dirtied. That no more ties them to the confederacy than it ties modern Germans and Japanese to the evil regimes in their nations' past.

The only thing that ties Southerners to the confederacy is for those who choose to associate with it.

If they want to pretend they would have been welcome in the confederacy and it wasn't about slavery, let them.

But to those of you who choose this delusion, don't expect the rest of us to go along with it.

Thanks for letting us all see your intellectual shoe size and for conceding the argument for all time.

It’s not only that you’re wrong, you’re wrong at the top of your lungs.

I tried telling these Johnny Reb wannabes that the actions of their Confederate ancestors, if indeed they ever had any, don’t reflect on them unless they want it to.

Obviously they’ve chosen to do so.

And you're trying to defend the South? Seriously? If you acknowledge that the South saw nothing wrong with slavery, then why is it so hard to accept that they seceded and faught to preserve it?

and you don't see that the North had no problem with slavery? Seriously? You don't see that slavery was THE NORM in all of human history across all cultures at that time? Seriously? Why is it so hard to see that they were offered slavery forever and TURNED IT DOWN.

The only proof YOU need......Turned down slavery effectively FOREVER by express constitutional amendment.

After the slave holding states seceded, there was no way the North could have abolished slavery short of winning the CW.M/i>

They couldn't have abolished it in their own territory - ie in the states that still allowed slavery which remained in the union?

And they never ratified it, and President Buchanan signed it in a meaningless gesture.

And they didn't ratify it because the original 7 seceding states.....read this slowly......TURNED IT DOWN. and President Buchanan signed it in a meaningful gesture. It showed the entire federal government supported it.

You can go reaching for all of the alternate realities you can find. We don't know the would haves or could haves. What we do know is it was never ratified, and the North abolished slavery when they had the opportunity to do so.

HA! You think I'm the one reaching for alternate realities? We know Lincoln orchestrated passage of the Corwin Amendment with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority. We know the North did not ban slavery until AFTER the war when they were desperately looking to claim they had some "noble cause" for the war of aggression they launched. They did not ban slavery as soon as they could have. That's reality.

We've been over this. They couldn't legally have abolished it after the slave holding states seceded, and they couldn't have banned it even before then. Once they got the opportunity, they did it.

They couldn't have abolished it after the Southern states seceded? There were slaveholding states that remained in. Why couldn't they have abolished slavery there?

IOW, when it came to the slaves, they weren't.

Nor for Indians. Nor for women. What's your point? Nobody else was either. Guess what. The mid 19th century was a different time. People did not view the world the same way then that we do now.

Unless the owners of that land seceded along with the slave holding states, no.

South Carolina claimed it as the sovereign. The sovereign can lay legal claim to any land within their territory under eminent domain. The owners are owed compensation but they cannot keep the land.

Yes, but it was abolished in the Northeast long before the CW. It continued illegally and under the table until 1858 and that was for shipment to the slave holding states.

It continued on a very large scale long long after it became illegal when the grandfather clause in the constitution expired in 1810.

Here's something on that. Black Confederates: Truth and Legend Pointing that out did nothing to help your case, whatever that still is.

Here's more on that: These are all union army accounts BTW

“Wednesday, September 10--At four o'clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o'clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. (Report of Lewis H. Steiner, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11)

* Union colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the battle of Chancellorsville:

Under this disposition of my command, I lay until 11 o'clock, when I received orders from you to throw the two left regiments perpendicular to the road, and to advance in line of battle, with skirmishers in front, as far as to the edge of the wood bordering near the Chancellor house. This movement was explained to me as intended to hold the enemy in check long enough for the corps of Major-Generals Couch and Sickles to get into another position, and not to bring on an action if it could be avoided; and, should the enemy advance in force, to fall back slowly until I arrived on the edge of the wood, there to mass in column and double-quick to the rear, that the artillery might fire in this wood. I was instructed that I was to consider myself under the command of Major-General Couch.

In obedience to these orders, at about 11 o'clock I advanced with these two regiments forward through the wood, under a severe fire of shell, grape, and canister. I encountered their skirmishers when near the farther edge of the wood. Allow me to state that the skirmishers of the enemy were negroes. (Report of Col. Peter H. Allabach, 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding Second Brigade, in Official Records, Volume XXV, in Two Parts, 1889, Chap. 37, Part I – Reports, p. 555, emphasis added)

None other than African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass complained that there were “many” blacks in the Confederate army who were armed and “ready to shoot down” Union soldiers. He added that this was "pretty well established": It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may. . . . (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861, online copy available at http://radicaljournal.com/essays/fighting_rebels.html) In 1895 a former black Union soldier, Christian A. Fleetwood, who had been a sergeant-major in the 4th U.S. Colored Troops, acknowledged that the South began using blacks as soldiers before the Union did:

It seems a little singular that in the tremendous struggle between the States in 1861-1S65, the south should have been the first to take steps toward the enlistment of Negroes. Yet such is the fact. Two weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter, the Charleston Mercury records the passing through Augusta of several companies of the 3rd and 4th Georgia Regt. and of sixteen well-drilled companies and one Negro company from Nashville, Tenn. The Memphis Avalanche and The Memphis Appeal of May 9, 10, and 11, 1861, give notice of the appointment by the "Committee of Safety" of a committee of three persons "to organize a volunteer company composed of our patriotic freemen of color of the city of Memphis, for the service of our common defense."

A telegram from New Orleans dated November 23, 1S61, notes the review by Gov. Moore of over 28,000 troops, and that one regiment comprised "1,400 colored men." The New Orleans Picayune, referring to a review held February 9, 1862, says: "We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably equipped." (Christian A. Fleetwood, The Negro as a Soldier, Washington, D.C.: Howard University Print, 1895, pp. 5-6, emphasis added)

In a Union army battle report, General David Stuart complained about the deadly effectiveness of the black Confederate soldiers whom his troops had encountered. The “armed negroes,” he said, did “serious execution upon our men”:

Col. Giles Smith commanded the First Brigade and Col. T. Kilby Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, the Fourth. I communicated to these officers General Sherman’s orders and charged Colonel Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, specially with the duty of clearing away the road to the crossing and getting it into the best condition for effecting our crossing that he possibly could. The work was vigorously pressed under his immediate supervision and orders, and he devoted himself to it with as much energy and activity as any living man could employ. It had to be prosecuted under the fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters, protected as well as the men might be by our skirmishers on the bank, who were ordered to keep up so vigorous a fire that the enemy should not dare to lift their heads above their rifle-pits; but the enemy, and especially their armed negroes, did dare to rise and fire, and did serious execution upon our men. The casualties in the brigade were 11 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 missing; aggregate, 55. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. STUART, Brigadier-General, Commanding. (Report of Brig. Gen. David Stuart, U. S. Army, commanding Fourth Brigade and Second Division, of operations December 26, 1862 - January 3, 1863, in Official Records, Volume XVII, in Two Parts. 1886/1887, Chap. 29, Part I - Reports, pp. 635-636, emphasis added)

In a letter published in the Indianapolis Star in December 1861, a Union soldier stated that his unit was attacked by black Confederate soldiers:

A body of seven hundred [Confederate] Negro infantry opened fire on our men, wounding two lieutenants and two privates. The wounded men testify positively that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed a new feature in the war. We have heard of a regiment of [Confederate] Negroes at Manassas, and another at Memphis, and still another at New Orleans, but did not believe it till it came so near home and attacked our men. (Indianapolis Star, December 23, 1861)

Union soldier James G. Bates wrote a letter to his father that was reprinted in an Indiana newspaper in May 1863. In the letter Bates assured his father that there were black Confederate soldiers:

I can assure you [his father,] of a certainty, that the rebels have Negro soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters and the boldest of them all here is a Negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863] just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day. You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking him. (Winchester Journal, May 1, 1863)

A few months before the war ended, a Union soldier named James Miles of the 185th N.Y.V.I. wrote in his diary, “Saw several Negros fighting for those rebels" (Diary entry, January 8, 1865).

A Union lieutenant colonel named Parkhurst, who served in the Ninth Michigan Infantry, reported that black Confederate soldiers participated in an attack on his camp:

The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers . . . and quite a number of Negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day. (Lieutenant Colonel Parkhurst’s Report, Ninth Michigan Infantry, on General Forrest’s Attack at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, July 13, 1862, in Official Records, Series 1, Volume XVI, Part 1, p. 805)

In late June 1861, the Illinois Daily State Journal, a staunchly Republican newspaper, reported that the Confederate army was arming some slaves and that in some cases slaves were being organized into military units. Interestingly, the newspaper also said that the North was not fighting to abolish slavery, and that the South was not fighting to protect slavery:

Our mighty armies are gathering for no purpose of abolition. Our enemies are not in arms to protect the peculiar institution [slavery]. . . . They [the Confederates] are using their Slave property as an instrument of warfare against the Union. Their slaves dig trenches, erect fortifications, and bear arms. Slaves, in some instances, are organized into military companies to fight against the Government. (“Slaves Contraband of War,” Illinois Daily State Journal, June 21, 1861)

After the battle of Gettysburg, Union forces took seven black Confederate soldiers as prisoners, as was noted in a Northern newspaper at the time, which said,

. . . reported among the rebel prisoners were seven blacks in Confederate uniforms fully armed as soldiers. (New York Herald, July 11, 1863)

During the battle of Gettysburg, two black Confederate soldiers took part in Pickett’s charge: Color Corporal George B. Powell (14th Tennessee) went down during the advance. Boney Smith, a Black man attached to the regiment, took the colors and carried them forward. . . . The colors of the 14th Tennessee got within fifty feet of the east wall before Boney Smith hit the dirt ---wounded. Jabbing the flagstaff in the ground, he momentarily urged the regiment forward until the intense pressure forced the men to lie down to save their lives. (John Michael Priest, Into the Fight: Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, White Mane Books, 1998, pp. 128, 130-131)

During the battle of Chickamauga, slaves serving Confederate soldiers armed themselves and asked permission to join the fight—and when they received that permission they fought commendably. Their commander, Captain J. B. Briggs, later noted that these men “filled a portion of the line of advance as well as any company of the regiment” (J. H. Segars and Charles Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion Books, 2001, p. 141)

One of the last Confederate charges of the day included the Fourth Tennessee Calvary, which participated dismounted in the assault. Among the troopers of the regiment were forty African Americans who had been serving as camp servants but who now demanded the right the participate in the last combat of the day. Captain J. B. Briggs gave his permission for them to join his command on the front line. Organized and equipped under Daniel McLemore, the personal servant of the colonel of the regiment, the black troops had collected dropped weapons from battlefields during the regiment’s campaigns. . . . (Steve Cottrell, Civil War in Tennessee, Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2001, p. 94)

After the war, hundreds of African Americans received Confederate veterans’ pensions from Southern state governments (Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion Books, pp. 73-100).

Down in Charleston, free blacks . . . declared that “our allegiance is due to South Carolina and in her defense, we will offer up our lives, and all that is dear to us.” Even slaves routinely expressed loyalty to their homeland, thousands serving the Confederate Army faithfully. (Taking A Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 2000, p. 112)

In the July 1919 issue of The Journal of Negro History, Charles S. Wesley discussed the issue of blacks in the Confederate army:

The loyalty of the slave in guarding home and family during his master’s absence has long been eloquently orated. The Negroes’ loyalty extended itself even to service in the Confederate army. Believing their land invaded by hostile foes, slaves eagerly offered themselves for service in actual warfare. . . .

At the outbreak of the war, an observer in Charleston noted the war-time preparations and called particular attention to “the thousand Negroes who, so far from inclining to insurrections, were grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of shooting the Yankees.” In the same city, one of the daily papers stated in early January that 150 free colored men had offered their services to the Confederate Government, and at Memphis a recruiting office was opened. In June 1861 the Legislature of Tennessee authorized Governor Harris to receive into the state military service all male persons of color between the ages of fifteen and fifty and to provide them with eight dollars a month, clothing, and rations. . . . In the same state, under the command of Confederate officers, marched a procession of several hundred colored men carrying shovels, axes, and blankets. The observer adds, “they were brimful of patriotism, shouting for Jeff Davis and singing war songs.” A paper in Lynchburg, Virginia, commenting on the enlistment of seventy free Negroes to fight for the defense of the State, concluded with “three cheers for the patriotic Negroes of Lynchburg.”

Two weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, several companies of volunteers of color passed through Augusta, Georgia, on their way to Virginia to engage in actual war. . . . In November of the same year, a military review was held in New Orleans, where twenty-eight thousand troops passed before Governor Moore, General Lowell, and General Ruggles. The line of march extended beyond seven miles and included one regiment comprised of 1,400 free colored men. (In Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, pp. 2-4)

"Negroes in the Confederate Army," Journal of Negro History, Charles Wesle, Vol. 4, #3, [1919,] 244-245 - "Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia."

"The part of Adams' Brigade that the 42nd Indiana was facing were the 'Louisiana Tigers.' This name was given to Colonel Gibson's 13th Louisiana Infantry, which included five companies of 'Avegno Zouaves' who still were wearing their once dashing traditional blue jackets, red caps and red baggy trousers. These five Zouaves companies were made up of Irish, Dutch, Negroes, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Italians." - Noe, Kenneth W., Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY, 2001. [page 270]

The 85th Indiana Volunteer Infantry reported to the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette that on 5 March 1863: "During the fight the [artillery] battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments. [*end italics*]."

After the action at Missionary Ridge, Commissary Sergeant William F. Ruby forwarded a casualty list written in camp at Ringgold, Georgia about 29 November 1863, to William S. Lingle for publication. Ruby's letter was partially reprinted in the Lafayette Daily Courier for 8 December 1863: "Ruby says among the rebel dead on the [Missionary] Ridge he saw a number of negroes in the Confederate uniform." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805: "There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day." Federal Official Records Series 1, Volume 15, Part 1, Pages 137-138

"Pickets were thrown out that night, and Captain Hennessy, Company E, of the Ninth Connecticut, having been sent out with his company, captured a colored rebel scout, well mounted, who had been sent out to watch our movements." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. XLIX, Part II, pg. 253

April 6, 1865: "The rebels [Forrest] are recruiting negro troops at Enterprise, Miss., and the negroes are all enrolled in the State." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. XIV, pg. 24, second paragraph -

In his book, Black Confederates and AfroYankees in Civil War Virginia, Ervin I. Jordan, a black historian, says that in June 1861 Tennessee became the first Confederate State to authorize the use of black soldiers. These soldiers were to be paid $18 a month and be provided with the same rations and clothing as white soldiers. Two regiments, he says, of blacks had appeared by September.

“They – the enemy – talked of having 9,000 men. They had 20 pieces of artillery, among which was the Richmond Howitzer battery manned by Negroes. Their wagons numbered sixty. Such is the information which our scouts gained from the people living on the ground where the enemy encamped. Their numbers are probably overrated, but with regard to their artillery, and its being manned in part by Negroes I think the report is probably correct.” Col John W. Phelps 1st Vermont Infantry commanding Aug. 11, 1861. The War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol IV page 569

“We are not likely to use one Negro where the Rebels have used a thousand. When I left Arkansas they were still enrolling negroes to fortify the Rebellion.” Major General Samuel R Curtis 2nd Iowa Infantry Sept 29, 1862 The War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol XIII page 688

Question by the Judge Advocate: “Do you know of any individual of the enemy having been killed or wounded during the siege of Harpers Ferry?” Answer: I have strong reason to believe that there was a negro killed, who had wounded 2 or 3 of my men. I know that an officer took deliberate aim at him and he fell over. He was one of the skirmishers of the enemy and wounded 3 of my men I know there must have been some of the enemy killed.

Question “How do you know the negro was killed?”

Answer: “the Officer saw him fall.”

Lt Col Stephen Wheeler Downey (3rd Maryland Infantry Potomac Home Brigade Oct 1862) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol XIX part I page 617

And more recently the Confederate legislature of Tennessee have passed an act forcing into their military service all male free persons of color between the ages of 15 and 50, or such numbers as may be necessary, who may be sound in body and capable of actual service; and they further enacted that in the event a sufficient number of free persons of color to meet the wants of the state shall not tender their services then the Governor is empowered through the sheriffs of different counties to impress such persons until the required number is obtained. Lt Col William H Ludlow (Agent for exchange of prisoners 73rd New York Volunteer Infantry June 1863) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series II, Vol VI page 17

[Excerpt from letter to Abraham Lincoln] “I do and have believed we ought to use the colored people, after the rebels commenced to use them against us.” Thomas H Hicks, Senator, Maryland Sept 1863) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series III, Vol 3 page 768

“We pursued them closely for 7 miles and captured 4 privates of Goldsby’s company and 3 colored men, mounted and armed, with 7 horses and 5 mules with equipments and 20 Austrian rifles.” Brigadier General Alexander Asboth US Army District of West Florida Aug 1864) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 35 page 442

“We have turned up 11 bushwhackers to dry and one rebel negro.” Captain P.L. Powers 47th Missouri Infantry, Company H November 1864) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 41 page 670

“The Rebels are recruiting negro troops at Enterprise, Mississippi, and the negroes are all enrolled in the state.” Major A.M. Jackson 10th US colored heavy artillery April 1865) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 49 page 253

Not necessary, as anyone who is interested can find it for themselves.

Highly necessary. You're the one making those claims about him. Prove it.

His support for the South was from his opinion that the North wouldn't abolish slavery. He was wrong.

LOL! You really have no clue do you? That is not what he thought. Why would he support the South as an abolitionist but not support the North which mostly had gotten rid of slavery by this time? The answer is because he saw that the Southern states did not secede over slavery and the North didn't care about slavery. What the North cared about was keeping their cash cow - the Southern states - in so they could continue to exploit them.

You’re woke as F Fighting phantoms simply to stroke your virtue signal glans While we lose everything as a nation and civilization from the Continent to here to Perth And you assist The line from demonizing Dixie to dismantling western civilization at the behest of the woke over white race bad is direct and brief... So where do you “teach” as your sycophant asserts... Howard Zinns garage doesn’t count . The funny things is these PCers posting Leftist historical revisionist propaganda try to claim they're conservatives. They're no such thing. They're in the same camp as the other Leftists who pull down all the statues of historical figures, who trash the Founding Fathers and the constitution, etc etc. They're not fooling anyone.

I believe you did not link, cite or quote Frederick Douglass, and once again failed to do your due diligence.
Here you are.
Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, 14th paragraph
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
One of your confederacy defender friends referred to this as a "nauseating hagiography" here.

Your last link goes to #308 by FLT-bird.

You are reminded about Frederick Douglass' Oration at paragraph 9, from which I quoted in my #429, and which you choose to ignore:

He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. …

Frederick Douglass absolutely eviscerated your absurd argument that Lincoln was an abolitionist.

The statements of Abraham Lincoln eviscerated any rational claim that he was an abolitionist. There is Abraham Lincoln who at Worcester, Massachusetts in September 1848, stated:

I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day.

Lincoln referred to Elijah Lovejoy. See Herndon's Informants, 1998 Ed., Part I, pg. 681.

And in April 1864, Lincoln wrote to A.G. Hodges,

When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July 1862 I made earnest, and successive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation, and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element."

CW 7:281-82.

Lincoln to Gen. John Schofield, June 22, 1863:

Your despatch, asking in substance, whether, in case Missouri shall adopt gradual emancipation, the general government will protect slave owners in that species of property during the short time it shall be permitted by the State to exist within it, has been received. Desirous as I am, that emancipation shall be adopted by Missouri, and believing as I do, that gradual can be made better than immediate for both black and white, except when military necessity changes the case, my impulse is to say that such protection would be given. I can not know exactly what shape an act of emancipation may take. If the period from the initiation to the final end, should be comparatively short, and the act should prevent persons being sold, during that period, into more lasting slavery, the whole would be easier. I do not wish to pledge the general government to the affirmative support of even temporary slavery, beyond what can be fairly claimed under the constitution.

CW 6:291

Lincoln wrote to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861:

Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.
I repeat the question. "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State Government?
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. If a commanding General finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever; and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the General needs them, he can seize them, and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question, is simply dictatorship.'' It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases—confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure I have no doubt would be more popular with some thoughtless people, than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position; nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S.—any government of Constitution and laws,—wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?

CW 4:531-32

It was Lincoln's stated plan to bring all the Confederate states back into the Union before Congress came back into session, freezing Congress out of the process, just as he did at the start of the war.

Near the very end of Lincoln's last public address on April 11, 1865 he stated,

Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this, further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned; while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.
I repeat the question. "Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State Government?
What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States.

Italcs as in original. CW 8:404

LINCOLN'S LAST CABINET MEETING

Excerpted from:
Lincoln and Johnson, Their Plan of Reconstruction and the Resumption of National Authority
First Paper
by Gideon Welles
Galaxy Magazine, April 1872, pp. 525-527 (article from 521-33)

At the close of the session Mr. Stanton made some remarks on the general condition of affairs and the new phase and duties upon which we were about to enter.
He alluded to the great solicitude which the President felt on this subject, his frequent recurrence to the necessity of establishing civil governments and preserving order in the rebel States. Like the rest of the Cabinet, doubtless, he had given this subject much consideration, and with a view of having something practical on which to base action, he had drawn up a rough plan or ordinance which he had handed to the President.
The President said he proposed to bring forward that subject, althought he had not had time as yet to give much attention to the details of the paper which the Secretary of War had given him only the day before; but that it was substantially, in its general scope, the plan which we had sometimes talked over in Cabinet meetings. We should probably make some modifications, prescribe further details; there were some suggestions which he should wish to make, and he desired all to bring their minds to the question, for no greater or more important one could come before us, or any future Cabinet. He thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned, and there were none of the disturbing elements of that body to hinder and embarrass us. If we were wise and discreet, we should reanimate the States and get their governments in successful operation, with order prevailing and the Union reestablished, before Congress came together in December. This he thought important. We could do better; accomplish more without than with them. There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throwing up his hands as if scaring sheep. Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. There was too much of a desire on the part of some of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere with and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow citizens; there was too little respect for their rights. He did not sympathize in these feelings. Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves. Yet some, a very few of our friends, were not willing to let the people of the States determine these questions, but, in violation of first and fundamental principles, would exercise arbitrary power over them. These humanitarians break down all State rights and constitutional rights. Had the Louisianians inserted the negro in their Constitution, and had that instrument been in all other respects the same, Mr. Sumner, he said, would never have excepted to that Constitution. The delegation would have been admitted, and the State all right. Each House of Congress, he said, had the undoubted right to receive or reject members; the executive had no control over the matter. But Congress had nothing to do with the State governments, which the President could recognize, and under existing laws treat as other States, give them the same mail facilities, collect taxes, appoint judges, marshals, collectors, etc., subject, of course, to confirmation. There were men who objected to these views, but they were not here, and we must make haste to do our duty before they came here.
Mr. Stanton read his project for reorganizing, reestablishing, or reconstructing governments. It was a military or executive order, and by it the War Department was designated to reorganize those States whose individuality it assumed was sacrificed. Divested of its military features, it was in form and outline essentially the same as the plan ultimately adopted. This document proposed establishing a military department to be composed of Virginia and North Carolina, with a military governor. After reading this paper, Mr. Stanton made some addtional remarks in furtherance of the views of the President and the importance of prompt measures.
A few moments elapsed, and no one else speaking, I expressed my concurrence in the necessity of immediate action, and my gratification that the Secretary of War had given the outlines of a plan embodying his views. I objected, however, to military supervision or control, and to the proposition of combining two States in the plan of a temporary government. My idea, more perhaps than that of any other of the Cabinet, was for a careful observance, not only of the distinctive rights, but of the individuality of the States. Besides, Virginia occupied a different position from that of any other of those States. There had been throughout the war a skeleton organization in that commonwealth which we had recognized. We had said through the whole war that Virginia was a State in the Union — that her relations with the Government were not suspended. We had acknowledged and claimed that Pierpont was the legitimate and rightful Governor, that the organization was lawful and right under him; that the division of the State, which required the assent of the legal State government, had been effected, and was claimed to be constitutional and correct. Were we now to ignore our own acts — to say the Pierpont Government was a farce — that the act creating the State of west Virginia was a nullity? My position on that question was different from others, for though not unfriendly to the new State, I had opposed the division of the State when it took place. The proposition to reestablish a State government in Virginia where there was already a State government with which we were acting, with Pierpont as governor, or to put it under military control, appeared to me a grave error. The President said my exceptions, some of them at least, were well taken. Some of them had occurred to him. It was in that view he had been willing that General Weitzel should call the leading rebels together, because they were not the legal Legislature of Virginia, while the Pierpont Legislature was. Turning to Mr. Stanton, he asked what he would do with Pierpont and the Virginia Constitution? Stanton replied that he had no apprehension from Pierpont, but the paper which he had submitted was merely a rough sketch subject to any alteration.
Governor Dennison thought that Pierpont would be no serious obstacle in the way, were that the only difficulty; but there were other objections, and he thought separate propositions for the government of the two States advisable.
I suggested that the Federal Government could assist the loyal government of Virginia in asserting, extending, and maintaining its authority over the whole State, but that we could not supersede or annul it.
The President directed Mr. Stanton to take the documents and have separate plans presented for the two States. They required different treatment. "We must not," said he, "stultify ourselves as regards Virginia, but we must help her." North Carolina was in a different condition. He requested the Secretary of War to have copies of the two plans for the two States made and furnished each member of the Cabinet by the following Tuesday — the next regular meeting. He impressed upon each and all the importance of deliberating upon and carefully considering the subject before us, remarking that this was the great question pending, and that we must now begin to act in the interest of peace. He again declared his thankfulness that Congress was not in session to embarrass us.
The President was assassinated that evening, and I am not aware that he exchanged a word with any one after the Cabinet meeting of that day on the subject of a resumption of the national authority in the States where it had been suspended, or of reestablishing the Union.

Clearly, Lincoln's plan was to start and finish the reconstruction of the South before Congress, and the Radicals, came back into session. That night, Lincoln caught a bullet in the head and that was the end of that.

- - - - - - - - - -

Roy P. Basler (executive secretary and editor-in-chief of the Abraham Lincoln association 1947-1952; editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, (9 volumes); wrote The Lincoln Legend and in his preface stated,

It has been a part of my study to attempt, at least, to keep Lincoln the man continually before the reader as he studies the legend, for nowhere is it easier to hang oneself upon the horns of historical dilemma than in the study of this man and this myth. It has not been my purpose to ‘debunk’ Lincoln, or to give, primarily, a definitive study of his character and achievement; but rather to show how poets, writers of fiction, dramatists, and occasionally biographers have, with the help of the folk-mind, created about Lincoln a national legend or myth which in conception is much like the hero-myths of other nations.

In The Lincoln Legend, 1935, pg. 203-04, Basler stated, "Although Lincoln was convinced throughout his early life that slavery was morally wrong, he did not feel any of the zeal for its abolition which was inspiring young men in New England. All attempts to make Lincoln an early Abolitionist are futile."

With reference to Lincoln's 1855 revisionist letter to James Speed about their 1841 rafting trip, Basler noted at page 205:

[I]n 1847, he had been engaged by a slaveowner in an attempt to send a negro mother and her children back into slavery, and, apparently, he had no compunction in accepting a fee for a service which, according to his later statement, should have been torment to him. The torment which the sight of slaves in 1841 gave him does not appear in the letter written at the time....

With reference to the Lincoln-Douglas debate in Peoria, October 16, 1854, Basler notes at page 207:

It is not difficult to jump from such a statement to the conclusion that Lincoln was in favor of liberating all the slaves in the country, but nothing is farther from the truth. The only policy which he can be truthfully said to have advocated up until the time of his election was this: namely, recognition of the fact that slavery was wrong and its complete prohibition in all Territories subject to the Federal Government.

At page 208, Basler sums up Lincoln's aversion to extreme abolition policies:

Lincoln’s complete aversion to extreme Abolition policies is nowhere made more evident than in his disapproval of John Brown and of the sentiment which he expressed and acted on. In the 'Cooper Union Address' he thus characterized John Brown: 'An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which ends in little else than his own execution.'
Those biographers of Lincoln who perceive that the great crusade against slavery was the one sublime movement of the century cannot but lament Lincoln’s coldness on the subject. It is difficult, after having always heard of Lincoln as the emancipator, to recognize the fact that he was never an exponent of immediate emancipation and became the author of the proclamation only after the very act had been urged upon him for months. Charnwood considers Lincoln’s attitude toward John Brown a flaw in his common-sense judgment, and it is a flaw from the standpoint of one who conceives the antislavery agitation to be the spirit of the age.

Lerone Bennett, Jr. put it really succintly in the title to his book about Lincoln published in 2000: Forced Into Glory.

Precisely

Collaborators

Bro’s mini me brownie claims he’s a “professor”

Well when I was at ole miss 40 years ago most professors were right leaning....I was libertarian leaning.....a long haired southern kid

Erwin Neumaier was a classical liberal...a veteran of Hitler youth brigades sent here and adopted as a wounded teen,,,.an orphan ... he had seen totalitarianism up close as a kid......he was my political theory advisor
....I adored him.....steel trap mind

From Socrates to Kant we covered it all....even Fromm and Sartre and Camus and Bill Shakespeare ....and Aquinas....he was a devoted Catholic in Oxford

He figured Hobbes Leviathan as our warning sign. And who do you think he blamed most in the USA for that....ahem......care to hunch?.....he was a Jeffersonian idealist ...Erwin was though he also loved Madison and Mason.....and across the pond. Burke

Today nearly all liberal arts teachers are lefties .....if Bro is not he’s a unicorn

wardaddy:"You’re woke as F"

You're as F as the woke, FRiend.

wardaddy: "Fighting phantoms simply to stroke your virtue signal glans"

Forever re-fighting the Civil War is how y'all get your jollies.
We are only here to correct your lies, and try to shame you for telling them.

wardaddy:: "The line from demonizing Dixie to dismantling western civilization at the behest of the woke over white race bad is direct and brief..."

Whatever "demonization" starts when y'all attack us (& U.S.) with endless lies & nonsense.
So I'll say it again -- you can easily shut us up, just stop lying -- how hard could that be?

wardaddy: "So where do you “teach” as your sycophant asserts..."

Naw... sycophants is what y'all do, so you're just projecting again.
If you're hoping to take a jab at jmacusa, he's a good guy -- emergency room worker, cares for more people in a day than you do in... when, forever?
And he's a former Democrat, so he knows how y'alls' sick Democrat minds work.
Sure, he's a little tough, but you should think of it as tough love, what a stern father would say to his wayward boys, or maybe what your favorite Basic Training drill sergeant... ;-)

As for me, if you are so curious, you can read my home page, which has not changed by even one word since I posted it, circa 2004.

TwelveOfTwenty to FLT-bird on Corwin: "And they never ratified it, and President Buchanan signed it in a meaningless gesture."

FLT-bird: "And they didn't ratify it because the original 7 seceding states.....read this slowly......TURNED IT DOWN. and President Buchanan signed it in a meaningful gesture.
It showed the entire federal government supported it."

Corwin was opposed by the majority of Republicans in Congress, supported unanimously by Democrats.
Corwin was ratified by Border Slave-States Kentucky & Maryland.
Maryland then flipped, abolished slavery in 1864 and ratified the 13th Amendment in 1865.

But Corwin caused no Confederate state to withdraw their secession and rejoined the Union, for one obvious reason that the new Confederate constitution offered slavery vastly stronger guarantees than the old US Constitution ever could, Corwin or no.

So, who said it was all about slavery?

Years ago, here, I posted a long list of quotes from Southerners saying: yes, it was about slavery.
Several others here have posted similar lists.
Below adds more quotes, both famous & relatively unknown:

1849: "Henry L. Benning, Georgia politician and future Confederate general, writing in the summer of 1849 to his fellow Georgian, Howell Cobb (GA Governor, Buchanan’s Sec of Treasury):
Later in the same letter Benning says,
1856: "Richmond Enquirer, 1856:
1858: "Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi, speaking with regard to the several filibuster expeditions to Central America:
1858: Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature (16 November 1858)
1859 -- "Richard Thompson Archer (Mississippi planter):
1859: "Senator Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia:
1860: "Atlanta Confederacy, 1860:
1860: "Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860:
Later in the same speech he said,
1860: "Keitt again, this time as delegate to the South Carolina secession convention, during the debates on the state's declaration of causes:
Taken from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, dated Dec. 22, 1860.
See the Furman documents site for more transcription from these debates.
Keitt became a colonel in the Confederate army and was killed at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864."
1860: “William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860:
1860: "Senator Louis Trezevant Wigfall; December 11, 1860, on the floor of the Senate;
1860: "Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell:
1861: Jefferson Davis made a farewell address to the Senate, in January 1861.
1861: "John Tyler Morgan, Dallas County, Alabama; also speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention on January 25, 1861:
1861: "Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas, March 2, 1861, Arkansas Secession Convention, p. 44
1861: from Lincoln's first inaugural address, on March 4, 1861:
1861: from CSA VP Alexander Stephens's "Cornerstone Speech," seventeen days later:
1861: "Thomas F. Goode, Mecklenburg County, Virginia, March 28, 1861, Virginia Secession Convention, vol. II, p. 518,
1861: "Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina:
1862: "The Vidette, a camp newspaper for Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan's cavalry brigade.
In one of the November, 1862 issues, the following appeared:
1863: "William Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, Sept 7, 1863:
1864: "Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, December 30, 1864:
1864: "CS Brigadier General Clement Stevens:
1894: CSA Col. John S. Mosby – leader of “Mosby’s Rangers”:
1907: Letter from Samuel "Sam" Chapman (June 1907)
1997: James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 106.[40]
“McPherson states that Confederate soldiers did not discuss the issue of slavery as often as United States soldiers did, because most Confederate soldiers readily accepted as an obvious fact that they were fighting to perpetuate slavery and thus did not feel the need to debate over it:
“Continuing, McPherson also stated that of the hundreds of Confederate soldiers' letters he had examined, none of them contained any anti-slavery sentiment whatsoever:
— James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 110, emphasis in original.[41]"

Oh look BroJoeK shows us once again how pathetically desperate he is to fill his empty time by posting the exact same PC Revisionist BS that’s been refuted a gazillion times on this board already.

"Oh look ~~BroJoeK~~ FLT-bird shows us once again how pathetically desperate he is to fill his empty time by posting the exact same PC Revisionist BS that’s been refuted a gazillion times on this board already."

and you don't see that the North had no problem with slavery? Seriously? You don't see that slavery was THE NORM in all of human history across all cultures at that time? Seriously? Why is it so hard to see that they were offered slavery forever and TURNED IT DOWN.

Why do you keep regurgitating the same refuted arguments? The corbomite manuever or whatever it was called was never ratified, the president who signed it was not Lincoln, and it was too late to prevent secession or thw CW. BTW, President Buchanan said this was his reason for signing it.

As you insist on repeating this, I have snipped the other ocurrences.

HA! You think I'm the one reaching for alternate realities?

Well, let's see.

All declarations of secession mention slavery as a reason for seceding, including Virginia's which mentioned the treatment of the slave holding states, and the confederacy never freed their slaves until forced to by their defeat in the war, but you say secession wasn't about slavery.

After the war, the North abolished slavery in all states, but you say it wasn't about abolishing slavery.

The corwin ammendment was never ratified, but you say the North offered the South perpetual protection for slavery signed, sealed, and delivered.

The South had slaves but the North were racists.

So yes, you are the one reaching for alternate realities.

They couldn't have abolished it after the Southern states seceded? There were slaveholding states that remained in. Why couldn't they have abolished slavery there?

How many times does this have to be explained to you? Not everyone in the North was on board with abolishing slavery, and Lincoln had to work with all sides. After the war when they had full authority to abolish slavery, they did.

Nor for Indians. Nor for women. What's your point? Nobody else was either. Guess what. The mid 19th century was a different time. People did not view the world the same way then that we do now.

Some did. I don't care how small a minority they were, they grew up during the same time and they could see slavery was wrong. The slave holding states were clearly on the wrong side of history, and that error cost hundreds of thousands of lives to correct.

And there were enough of them for the slave holding states to cite them as a reason for seceding. Do I need to post those snippets again?

South Carolina claimed it as the sovereign. The sovereign can lay legal claim to any land within their territory under eminent domain. The owners are owed compensation but they cannot keep the land.

Since South Carolina seceded, their laws meant little to the federal government.

It continued on a very large scale long long after it became illegal when the grandfather clause in the constitution expired in 1810.

Did you mean 1910? Those laws were passed in Southern states. Even after hundreds of thousands killed, they weren't going to give it up until forced.

Here's more on that (blacks serving in the confederate forces): These are all union army accounts BTW

You wasted an awful lot of bandwidth to substantiate what that article I posted to you said. Yes there were blacks in the confederate forces as reported in that article. Not all of them were by choice, and many deserted to the North when they got the chance. I suggest rereading it.

BTW, in all of that blah blah blah, you accounted for less than 6,000 troops even if you count the two mentions of 1400 troops as separate groups.

Highly necessary. You're the one making those claims about him. Prove it.

As you wish.

Charles Dickens' vicious racist remarks (1857) against Indians

Racism in the work of Charles Dickens

That is not what he thought. Why would he support the South as an abolitionist but not support the North which mostly had gotten rid of slavery by this time?

See the previous link.

Cooborated here. Charles Dickens, America, & The Civil War

And as I said, he was wrong. The North did abolish slavery.

You are reminded about Frederick Douglass' Oration at paragraph 9, from which I quoted in my #429, and which you choose to ignore:

I didn't ignore it. I answered it with 14, which is what Frederick Douglas was building up to. Here it is again.

"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

The statements of Abraham Lincoln eviscerated any rational claim that he was an abolitionist.

When taken in context, they tell a story of a man who was up agaianst an era of slavery and his own demons, and overcame all of it to abolish slavery.

I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day.

Yes, Lincoln made an insensitive joke about it, similar to Reagan's Russia joke. No excuses for this one.

He also condemned this violence and indirectly blamed slavery for it in his Lyceum Address

When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. (snip)

Did you actually read this. or did you just see "emancipation" and "I forbade it" and assume he said what you wanted to hear? They were talking about recruiting blacks to serve in the Union military, which President Lincoln was hestitant to allow for fear of inducing the border states to secede and join the confederacy. Everyone knows that. The "emancipation" spoken of here has nothing to do with freeing slaves.

Once the EP was passed, the military was opened. More on all of this here.

Fighting for Freedom, Black Union Soldiers of the Civil War

The pictures themselves are worth a look.

And before you bring up the discrimination it reports, I have already conceded not all in the North were the good guys.

Lincoln to Gen. John Schofield, June 22, 1863:

I'm not even sure what you're trying to prove here, beyond the fact that until the CW ended Lincoln had constitutional challenges to deal with in abolishing slavery.

Lincoln wrote to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861:

Here Lincoln is saying what I have conceded in many ocasions, that not everyone in the Union was on board for abolishing slavery and he had to work with that. Frederick Douglas also acknowledged that in the snippet I posted above. I'll post the last line again.

"Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

Near the very end of Lincoln's last public address on April 11, 1865 he stated,

I don't see what you're trying to prove here.

Clearly, Lincoln's plan was to start and finish the reconstruction of the South before Congress, and the Radicals, came back into session. That night, Lincoln caught a bullet in the head and that was the end of that.

I don't see what you're trying to prove here either.

In The Lincoln Legend, 1935, pg. 203-04, Basler stated, "Although Lincoln was convinced throughout his early life that slavery was morally wrong, he did not feel any of the zeal for its abolition which was inspiring young men in New England. All attempts to make Lincoln an early Abolitionist are futile."

You could have saved yourself a lot of effort by citing my posts. President Lincoln opposed slavery, but didn't think he had the legal ability to end it until the CW. He said that himself. After the CW with nothing to stop him and the abolitionists, slavery was abolished.

You’re the one quoting me genius.

You are reminded about Frederick Douglass' Oration at paragraph 9, from which I quoted in my #429, and which you choose to ignore:
I didn't ignore it. I answered it with 14, which is what Frederick Douglas was building up to. Here it is again.

Actually you did not rebut Douglass with Douglass. But as you believe Douglass, let us try some more Douglass, from when Lincoln was still alive, and before he was sainted.

Douglass' Monthly, Vol. 4, Number 4, September 1861, page 514

CAST OFF THE MILL STONE.
We are determined that our readers shall have line upon line and precept upon precept. Ours is only one humble voice; but such as it is, we give it freely to our country, and to the cause of humanity. That honesty is the best policy, we all profess to believe, though our practice may often contradict the proverb. The present policy of our Government is evidently to put down the slaveholding rebellion, and at the same time protect and preserve slavery. This policy hangs like a millstone about the neck of our people. It carries disorder to the very sources of our national activities. Weakness, faint heartedness and inefficiency is the natural result The mental and moral machinery of mankind cannot long withstand such disorder without serious damage. This policy offends reason, wounds the sensibilities, and shocks the moral sentiments of men. It forces upon us in consequent conclusions and painful contradictions, while the plain path of duty is obscured and thronged with multiplying difficulties. Let us look this slavery-preserving policy squarely in the face, and search it thoroughly.
Can the friends of that policy tell ns why this should not be an abolition war? Is not abolition plainly forced upon the nation as a necessity of national existence? Are not the rebels determined to make the war on tbeir part a war for the utter destruction of liber-ty and the complete mastery of slavery over every other right and interest in the land?— And is not an abolition war on our part the natural and logical answer to be made to the rebels ! We all know it is. But it is said that for the Government to adopt the abolition policy, would involve the loss of the support of the Union men of the Border Slave States.

It appears that it was not an abolition war then.

This was written in 1861, before the EP, when many weren't ready to commit to abolition. The entire writing can be found here.

Looking back afterwards, this is what he said of President Lincoln.

"Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

The corbomite manuever or whatever it was called was never ratified, the president who signed it was not Lincoln, and it was too late to prevent secession or thw CW. BTW, President Buchanan said this was his reason for signing it.

Lincoln orchestrated the Corwin Amendment. It was not ratified because the original 7 seceding states turned it down. It does not matter that it was Buchanan who signed it rather than Lincoln. Lincoln would have signed it because once again, he orchestrated it. You say it was to "prevent" secession. So? The fact is that the North was so willing to bargain away any prospect of banning slavery that they were perfectly happy to offer it up right away. Get it? The North was not interested in banning slavery.

Well, let's see. All declarations of secession mention slavery as a reason for seceding, including Virginia's which mentioned the treatment of the slave holding states, and the confederacy never freed their slaves until forced to by their defeat in the war, but you say secession wasn't about slavery.

Yes the 4 states which did issue declarations of causes did mention the North's violation of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution.....because that was irrefutable proof that the Northern states had broken the deal. The CSA did not free their slaves though they offered to, until after the war. How does this show the war was "about" slavery when the North was said over and over again that they did not want to ban slavery and when the first thing they offered was slavery forever by express constitutional amendment?

After the war, the North abolished slavery in all states, but you say it wasn't about abolishing slavery.

Not only I say that. They themselves said they did not enter the war to abolish slavery. Yet you refuse to take them at their word.

The corwin ammendment was never ratified, but you say the North offered the South perpetual protection for slavery signed, sealed, and delivered.

No. I said they offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. So they did. The original 7 seceding states turned it down. That's why more states did not ratify it - it was a dead letter at that point.

The South had slaves but the North were racists.

Racism was universal in the world at the time.

So yes, you are the one reaching for alternate realities.

Nah. That's you.

How many times does this have to be explained to you? Not everyone in the North was on board with abolishing slavery, and Lincoln had to work with all sides. After the war when they had full authority to abolish slavery, they did.

Hardly anybody was on board with abolishing slavery. They did so ONLY in areas they did not control ONLY after waiting 2 years to do so as a war measure. They did so in the few border states that still had slavery after the war.

Some did. I don't care how small a minority they were, they grew up during the same time and they could see slavery was wrong. The slave holding states were clearly on the wrong side of history, and that error cost hundreds of thousands of lives to correct.

It need not have cost any lives to correct. Practically everybody else in Europe and the Americas got rid of slavery without a massive bloodbath at this time. It only cost lives because it was connected to a war of Independence that was mostly about the same thing wars are usually about - money. The reason I point out very few were abolitionists is to show that there was no real threat of abolition in 1860.

And there were enough of them for the slave holding states to cite them as a reason for seceding. Do I need to post those snippets again?

There were enough $ for the original 7 seceding states to leave. Their economy was geared toward producing cash crops for export. They needed low tariffs to facilitate trade. The North which was industrializing needed captive markets and tariffs to raise the price of foreign goods it could not compete with otherwise. It also found the tax money raised very convenient in building up its infrastructure. Had every slave instead been a sharecropper as they were after the war, none of the above economic realities would have changed.

Since South Carolina seceded, their laws meant little to the federal government.

You have it backwards. South Carolina is sovereign. Any claims of the federal government meant nothing to them in their sovereign territory.

Did you mean 1910? Those laws were passed in Southern states. Even after hundreds of thousands killed, they weren't going to give it up until forced.

No, I meant 1810. That's when slave trading became illegal in the United States. Yankee slave traders continued however well into the mid 19th century - illegally - by greasing the palms of corrupt government officials.

Not all of them were by choice, and many deserted to the North when they got the chance. I suggest rereading it.

The vast majority by choice. Desertions among Black Confederates were not noted to be particularly high.

BTW, in all of that blah blah blah, you accounted for less than 6,000 troops even if you count the two mentions of 1400 troops as separate groups.

BTW, other than the examples of individual troops there were accounts of entire companies and of "thousands, manifestly a part of the Confederate Army."

Charles Dickens' vicious racist remarks (1857) against Indians Racism in the work of Charles Dickens

That he was a racist I have never doubted. Pretty much everybody was in the mid 19th century. Still, he was an outspoken abolitionist. He did not support for example enslaving Indians even though he thought them inferior.

See the previous link. Cooborated here. Charles Dickens, America, & The Civil War And as I said, he was wrong. The North did abolish slavery.

The previous link does not make your case. He supported the Southern states because he supported their right to self determination and because he clearly saw that the North had been economically exploiting the South for many years. Any claims of concern about the welfare of slaves on the part of Northerners were pure pretense. They hated Blacks and would not tolerate their company. They passed laws to exclude and drive out Blacks from their territory. They were only interested in maintaining economic control over the Southern states so as to continue lining their pockets.

[Lincoln] I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day.
Yes, Lincoln made an insensitive joke about it, similar to Reagan's Russia joke. No excuses for this one.
He also condemned this violence and indirectly blamed slavery for it in his Lyceum Address

The Lincoln joke was in September 1848 as stated in my #447. It was not rebutted by Lincoln's speech of January 27, 1838, more than ten years earlier.

Lincoln's speech at Worcester was given September 12, 1848; reported about in the Boston Advertiser, September 14, 1848. Lincoln also gave speeches at Lowell on September 16, 1848; the Boston Whig Club on September 15, 1848; and at Taunton at or about September 21, 1848, and a few other locations.

567. Edward L. Pierce to WHH
[ca. October 15, 1889] Lincolns visit to Mass in 1848 is made too little of in the biographies of him. His first speech — made at the Whig convention at Worcester, was quite fully reported in the Boston Advertiser, with a sketch of his person and manner. He spoke also at Dedham (day time) Cambridge, Chelsea & Dorchester. — also twice in Boston — once at Faneuil Hall with Seward. A single passage — that he had thought out some things at home and wished to compare notes & — makes me think that he was conscious of his powers and wanted to try them on a different theatre — that is, before more cultivated audiences He was greatly liked. It was a style new to our people — and there was a general call for him as a speaker. His speech at Dorchester was in our own village — and I have talked with several who heard him.
At Worcester he gave offence by saying "I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, and we shot one the other day." The Free Soil papers criticised the passage and he did not repeat it. He had a humorous passage in his Worcester speech with reference to the Free Soilers as having one doctrine only, their platform reminding him of a tailor who advertised a pair of trousers as large enough for any man and small enough for any boy.
I have wondered how Mr Lincoln happened to come in ’48. Mr Winthrop to whom I spoke on the subject does not remember, but thinks Mr Charles Hudson MC may have asked him. Mr Lincoln in Congress did not make much impression on Mr Winthrop.
I sent you the other day a paper of mine on the Convention of ’602
I have written currente calamo and in haste — simply to indicate points.
Yours truly
Edward L Pierce
LC: HW4744

In William Henry Herndon, Herndon's Informants, Letters, Interviews and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, at pg. 680.

It would seem that Lincoln's visit to Massachusetts was in a measure arranged by the National Committee, because he happened to be traveling back to Illinois and could conveniently pass through Worcester where the state Whigs were to convene on September 13. Mr. Schooler was present at the convention and made the first motion in the business session, nominating Mr. Wightman of Boston as Secretary. Worcester was the headquarters for the Free Soil party which was proselyting a great many Whigs.
Abraham Lincoln did not speak at the convention proper and his name does not appear in the proceedings. He did speak for one hour and a half at a mass meeting the night before and a few fragments of what he said on this occasion are all that has been preserved of the dozen or more speeches which he made in Massachusetts on this itinerary. While Lincoln probably used about 10,000 words in his Worcester address, less than 2,000 words have been recorded and these were gathered by a reporter for the Boston Advertiser who commented upon Lincoln's speech in that paper the following day. It is not known that Abraham Lincoln wrote out any of his Massachusetts speeches, but it is said that the Worcester speech was the best one of them all, and the others were largely a repetition of the Worcester speech. This would suggest that the Boston speech, which was the climax of his itinerary, was patterned very largely after his address at Worcester.

Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life Foundation, #666, January 12, 1942, Fort Wayne Indiana, Dr. Louis A. Warren, Editor.

For a Black opinion of your absurdity regarding Lincoln's Lyceum speech given ten years before his speech at Worcester, Massachusetts, see Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory at 201 (citations omitted):

In the beginning, then, as in the middle and end of the antislavery crusade, Lincoln was more of a hindrance than a help. If there is any doubt on that score, one need only examine his nonrole in a defining event of the period, the martyrdom of Owen Lovejoy's brother, abolitionist editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy. When, in Alton, Illinois, on November 7, 1837, a White mob murdered Lovejoy and threw his press into the Mississippi River, Lincoln was characteristically silent. Worse, when, some three months later, he made a big speech to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield about "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions," he didn't mention Lovejoy by name or deal with the Alton lynching, except to say, in passing, seven vague words about the impropriety of shooting editors and throwing printing presses into the river.
How explain Lincoln's silence at this turning point of morals and worlds? The answer is plain, and troubling. The "better sort" of people were either in the mob or associated with the mob, and Lincoln, to borrow a phrase Oates used in another connection, "was not about to ruin his career" by speaking out for an "extremist" whose methods and goals he deplored. A second and probably more pressing reason for his silence was that at least three of his friends and associates—Alton businessman John Hogan, Alton's state senator Cyrus Edwards, who was widely touted as the next governor, and Illinois Attorney General Usher F. Linder—were directly or indirectly implicated in the Lovejoy murder. Linder, in fact, egged the mob on and tried to imprison the men who helped Lovejoy.
Linder and other people in the mob or on the fringes of the mob, and the vast number of silent people in Springfield, could do a lot to help a young legislator, and it is a reasonable surmise, Simon said, that Lincoln remained silent in part to advance his career. Whatever the reason, Simon—a former United States senator whose racial standards were higher than Lincoln's—said "the silence of Lincoln on the Lovejoy incident is not Lincoln's most shining hour".

When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come.
Did you actually read this. or did you just see "emancipation" and "I forbade it" and assume he said what you wanted to hear? They were talking about recruiting blacks to serve in the Union military, which President Lincoln was hestitant to allow for fear of inducing the border states to secede and join the confederacy. Everyone knows that. The "emancipation" spoken of here has nothing to do with freeing slaves.

You are deranged. There is only one meaning for emancipation, and joining the army does not apply. Fremont had declared all slaves in his military district to be free. Lincoln countermanded that order, and then relieved Fremont of his command. General Hunter wrote, "Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free." Lincoln crushed Hunter's brainfart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9mont_Emancipation

Lincoln's reaction and Frémont's removal
President Lincoln learned of Frémont's proclamation by reading it in the newspaper.[23] Disturbed by Frémont's actions, Lincoln felt that emancipation was "not within the range of military law or necessity" and that such powers rested only with the elected federal government.[26] Lincoln also recognized the monumental political problem that such an edict posed to his efforts to keep the border states in the Union. He was particularly worried about reports he heard of the furor in Kentucky over the edict, writing, "I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game."[27] According to Lincoln in a letter to a supporter of Frémont, a unit of Kentucky militia fighting for the Union, upon hearing of Frémont's proclamation, threw down their weapons and disbanded.[27] Lincoln determined the proclamation could not be allowed to remain in force. However, to override the edict or to directly order Frémont to strike out or modify the paragraph had its own political dangers—such an act would outrage abolitionists throughout the North. Sensitive to the political pitfalls on all sides, Lincoln wrote to Frémont, "Allow me to therefore ask, that you will, as of your own motion, modify that paragraph..."[24]
Frémont wrote a reply to Lincoln's request on September 8, 1861 and sent it to Washington in the hands of his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, who met with the President in the White House on September 10. In the letter, Frémont stated that he knew the situation in Missouri better than the President and that he would not rescind the proclamation unless directly ordered. Angered, Lincoln wrote Frémont the next day, directly ordering him to modify the emancipation clause to conform with existing federal law—that only slaves themselves acting in armed rebellion could be confiscated and freed.[4]
Lincoln could not allow Frémont's insubordination to go unpunished. However, his dilemma again lay in politics. Removal of Frémont over the emancipation issue would infuriate radicals in Congress. Lincoln determined that if Frémont were to be removed, it would have to be for matters unrelated to the proclamation. He therefore sent Postmaster General Montgomery Blair and Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs to Missouri to evaluate Frémont's management of his department.[5] On his return, Blair reported that a tremendous state of disorganization existed in Missouri and Frémont "seemed stupified...and is doing absolutely nothing."[6] When Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas made his own inspection and reported to Lincoln that Frémont was, "wholly incompetent," Lincoln decided to leak Thomas's report to the press.[28] Amidst the resulting public outrage against Frémont, Lincoln sent an order on October 22, 1861, removing him from command of the Department of the West.[6]

- - - - - - - - - -

Private and confidential. Major General Fremont: Washington D.C. Sept. 2, 1861.
My dear Sir: Two points your proclamation of August 30th give me some anxiety. First, should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the Confederates would very certainly shoot our best man in their hands in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely. It is therefore my order that you allow no man to be shot, under the proclamation, without first having my approbation or consent.
Secondly, I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in relation to the confiscation of property, and the liberating slaves of traiterous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us—perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me therefore to ask, that you will as of your own motion, modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of Congress, entitled, "An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,'' approved August, 6th, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith send you. This letter is written in a spirit of caution and not of censure.
I send it by a special messenger, in order that it may certainly and speedily reach you. Yours very truly A. LINCOLN
[Endorsement]
Copy of letter sent to Gen. Fremont, by special messenger leaving Washington Sep. 3. 1861.

CW 4:506

Washington, D.C.
Major General John C. Fremont. Sep. 11. 1861.
Sir: Yours of the 8th. in answer to mine of 2nd. Inst. is just received. Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on seeing your proclamation of August 30th. I perceived no general objection to it. The particular clause, however, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves, appeared to me to be objectionable, in it's non-conformity to the Act of Congress passed the 6th. of last August upon the same subjects; and hence I wrote you expressing my wish that that clause should be modified accordingly. Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part, that I should make an open order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed, as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the act of Congress entitled "An Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes''
Approved, August 6. 1861; and that said act be published at length with this order.
Your Obt. Servt
A. LINCOLN.

CW 4:517-18

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And then there was Gen. David Hunter's proclamation of emancipation affecting all slaves in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.

May 19, 1862
By the President of The United States of America.
A Proclamation.
Whereas there appears in the public prints, what purports to be a proclamation, of Major General Hunter, in the words and figures following, towit:
Headquarters Department of the South,
Hilton Head, S.C., May 9, 1862.
General Orders No. 11.—The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States—Georgia, Florida and South Carolina—theretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.
DAVID HUNTER,
(Official) Major General Commanding.
ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant Adjutant General.
And whereas the same is producing some excitement, and misunderstanding: therefore
I, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, proclaim and declare, that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a proclamation; nor has it yet, any authentic information that the document is genuine. And further, that neither General Hunter, nor any other commander, or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any State free; and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.
I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the Slaves of any state or states, free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintainance of the government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.
On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:
Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.
The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter. To the people of those states I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partizan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done, by one effort, in all past time, as, in the providence of God, it is now your high previlege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
[L.S.]
Done at the City of Washington this nineteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

We can now confirm that Hunter's declaration was authentic, and that Lincoln squashed it.

Hunter's General Order 11 is found in the Official Records, Series I, Vol. 14, at pg. 311.