The Real Abraham Lincoln

The Laissez Faire Electronic Times ^ | Tibor R. Machan

[weikel]

You can also see what a communist he was from the rest of the platform.

[Non-Sequitur]

Now that's just like saying every southern state tried to impose slavery again after they lost the Civil War. Every single one of them imposed Black Codes which required free blacks to sign employment contracts which may or may not have been paid. Those that didn't were jailed as vagrants and put to work for local farmers. Slavery.

[4CJ]

Weren't those "Southern" governments hand-picked and put into place by Northerners?

[humbletheFiend]

Haha was right as usual.

I'm sorry, but Taft is the “commie” you’re looking for.

Even the ratification had taken place before Wilson became President.

And when you look a little deeper, you'll find that it was at Taft's suggestion that the resolution for the amendment was introduced in the Senate.

[weikel]

Can I see where he suggested it to Congress?

[humbletheFiend]

Can I see where he suggested it to Congress?

I can't give you an immediate link for that, but I can provide you some information that will help you to get there. Do a search on Republican Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. Focus on 1909 and his meetings with President Taft.

[shuckmaster]

The truth finally comes out...

[Non-Sequitur]

Nope. The Black Codes were put in place in 1865-66. Reconstruction didn't start until 1867.

And your claim that "But slavery was still legally practiced in Illinois until after the Civil War" may or may not be true. The item you posted this morning only said that the black code was repealed in 1865. It could have been January or March.

[aomagrat]

IMO, he was a politician that changed his views based on supporters (business men, political foes/allies, and public view) - no different than today's politicians.

Yep! Fly a kite, see which way the wind blows it, then run in that direction.

[Twodees]

Sorry, but preserving the union isn't one of the prescribed duties of the President according to the Constitution. What does the oath of office have to say about union preservation? Couldn't Lincoln have preserved the union he had left after the Southern states left over his election? Why did he think he should preserve the union that existed before the day he stumbled onto the stage and half the actors left in disgust?

I think Lincoln would have far fewer critics had he taken his oath of office to heart and applied himself to protecting and defending the Constitution. He had little use for that document and was much more interested in exercising powers not granted him by the Constitution.

Poor Lincoln. He married a madwoman, carried on an affair with a man for most of his adult life, and scoffed relentlessly at religion until the day he got what he deserved. To top it all off, he was the hero of Marx, Engels and the other early communists, and is venerated to this day by that same sort, who are the political descendants of the people in his own party who very likely plotted his death. Imagine his shock when he died and learned that the God he had mocked was real.

If he had it to do over, would he do as he did?

[rdf]

This article offers nothing new. It references the same writers, the same arguments, the same over simplified rehashing of American political history. And the same posters will eventually show up to post the same arguments and the same rebuttals to the same counter arguments. The same quotes will be cut and pasted, the same aphorisms taken out of context. The same lines from some federalist paper will be plucked and presented to mean the exact opposite of its actual meaning.

Well said.

And there is a fairly good and informative discussion already underway, as fans of this argument know.

I'll go find a link if needed.

But I don't see it as good use of time to start all over here.

Best to you and all,

Richard F.

[stainlessbanner]

maybe you and huck can start another lincoln fan club thread

[Twodees]

Suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeus corpus is constitutional if done by the legislature. It is not a presidential power.

[weikel]

Nixon revered Lincoln...

[weikel]

Thanks ill look eventually.

[davidjquackenbush]

Suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeus corpus is constitutional if done by the legislature. It is not a presidential power.

Hi again.

Can you show this under a strict constructionist reading? Really strict?

[davidjquackenbush]

"Any people whatever have a right to abolish the existing government and form a new one that suits them better"

So do you think he was arguing for the right of neighborhoods and cities, townships and counties, families and social clubs, to form new governments every other day? Or do you think, possible, that he was making a careful point about the right to revolution, under the conditions specified in the Declaration ("long train of abuses," etc.)

In the former case, you think Lincoln was an anarchist.

In the latter case, this text gets you absolutely nothing by way of a legal right to secession, only a right to revolution according to natural law under conditions of grave necessity.