Posted on 06/17/2002 1:35:37 PM PDT by shuckmaster
Abraham Lincoln should without a doubt be named Americas greatest war criminal. His war of invasion not only killed over 600,000 innocent Americans but it was obvious from his earlier speeches that he had previously advocated the prevalent constitutional right of democratic, state by state secession. Lincolns War also effectively overthrew the existing decentralized, limited federal government that had existed and governed well in the US since established by Americas founding fathers. Lincoln bastardized a respected federal government with limited powers into a dictatorial, uncontrollable Washington federal empire.
Because of Lincoln, the former American constitutional republic fell from a dream of liberty and limited government into the nightmare big government we have today without the earlier checks and balances of state sovereignty. After Lincoln, In foreign policy, the US forgot George Washingtons warning about neutrality and we became an aggressive military abroad until today we have troops defending the Washington Empire in over 144 nations around the world.
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connections as possible. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.George Washington
Lincoln shares his war criminal actions with other well know tyrants that waged war on their own people. History shows us that politicians make war against their own citizens even more than against foreign nations. The reasons are often to establish and preserve their power base, as was the case in the Russian Revolution and the Mao Revolution. For others, like Hitler, it was misguided super patriotism and racism that brought death to tens of millions. Sadly, in the case of Abraham Lincolns war against the Confederacy and Southern civilians, it was all for money, company profits and government tariff revenues. A simple case of political pay back in return for the Northeastern manufacturing interests that supported the Republican Party and his campaign for the presidency.
Early in his career, Abraham Lincoln was an honorable statesman who let election year politics and the special interests supporting his presidential campaign corrupt a once great man. He knew what he was doing was wrong and unconstitutional but succumbed, as in the case of many modern day politicians, to the allure of money, power and ego.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.
-- Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848
This quote above shows Lincoln as a statesman 12 years before he plunged the United States into its most disastrous war. Suffering a death toll so high in death rates as a percentage of total population, his act of carnage ranks with the political genocides of Stalin, Lenin and Mao during their communist revolutions. A death toll so great that it dwarfs the American deaths in all of our many declared and undeclared wars before and since this American holocaust of death and destruction.
From the following quote you can see that later Lincoln radically adjusted his rhetoric to meet the needs and demands of his business establishment supporters and financial supporters.
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. --Abraham Lincoln
Why the complete change in rhetoric and actions? Simple, to preserve high tariffs and corporate profits for the Northeastern business establishment. Lincoln who earlier in his career had obviously favored the right of peaceful secession, provoked a war that killed 600,000 Americans, as a pay back to the eastern manufacturing establishment that bankrolled his presidential campaign. These special interests would have suffered serious financial loss if a low tariff Confederate States of America were allowed to peacefully, democratically and constitutionally secede from the United States in lawful state constitutional conventions of secession which were identical to the ratification conventions when they had joined the Union. Thus the real reasons for the death and destruction of Lincolns War were covered up and hidden by historians who continue, even today, to deny the truth and hide the ultimate costs of Lincolns American holocaust.
While Lincolns death toll is small in comparison to total deaths by Mao, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, there are many similarities between these men. In the Russian Civil War, from 1917 - 1922 around 9 million died under Lenin and we must add another 20 million under Stalin from 1929 to 1939. The Mao communist regime in China killed 44 to 70 million Chinese from 1949 1975.
Still the US constitutional republic, as established by our founding fathers, was in effect destroyed by Lincolns unconstitutional war just as surely as Mao and Lenin over threw the existing Chinese and Russian governments.
The multitude of Lincoln apologists would say that this is just another Confederate argument certainly not accepted by most historians. I might counter that the opinions and books of these "so called" establishment historians who live off my tax dollars through government funding at liberal controlled universities and think tanks are prejudiced towards Lincoln and Washington DC. They are no different from the official government historians in China, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Their job is to lie to the American people and cover up a true and honest account of our history in order to support the government and political system in power.
History shows us that a fair and honest discussion of Lincolns wartime actions will not be possible as long as the Washington political establishment remains in power. Since Lincoln, the Washington Empire has reigned supreme and omnipotent and for this reason, establishment historians have never honestly debated the Lincoln war crimes.
Consider this. Was a fair and honest account of Lenin or Stalin written and published during the Soviet Communist regime? Of course not. Could a less than worshipful history of Hitlers Third Reich have been published until after 1945? No! Even today, with only nominal communist control of China, an honest appraisal of Maos revolution and crimes against the Chinese people still is not possible. It is no different today in the United States than it is in Red China or was in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Just as Lenins statue could not be toppled in Red Square until after the fall of the Soviet Communist government, or the truth about Hitler couldnt be told until after defeat of Nazi Germany, it is the same here in the United States.
It is my hope that someday, in the not too distant future, a true account of the war crimes of Lincoln will be discussed, debated and even acknowledged. The Lincoln Memorial should be remodeled to show the horrors of "Lincoln the War Criminal" with the opportunity for all to visit Washington and learn how war crimes, genocide and holocaust are not just crimes that foreign politicians commit. Government and political tyranny can and has happened here just like in Germany, China and the Soviet Union and that through education and honest history, it will never happen here again.
In the future, may we have the opportunity to learn about the Nazi holocaust at the United States National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and then have the chance to visit the Lincoln War Crimes and American Holocaust Museum a few blocks away. One will state for all the world that NEVER AGAIN will a tyrant or government be allowed to target, exterminate and destroy an ethnic, racial or religious minority. The other will pledge NEVER AGAIN in America will we allow a president or government to make unconstitutional war against Sovereign states or their citizens and then cover up the truth up for over 145 years.
We should start today with an honest appraisal of what Lincoln really did to Dixie, how our black and white innocent noncombatants suffered under his total war policy against civilians. Finally we should address the cost in lives, lost liberty and federal taxes the citizens of the US have had to endure because our limited constitutional republic was destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man, a smart politician and he could have been an excellent president, had he considered the short-term costs of his high tariff and the long time price every American had to pay for his war of invasion. It is time to stop worshipping Lincoln and educate the public about the war crimes he committed against the citizens of the Southern States so this WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN! --Ron Holland.
Please, when you leave the country, do not let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. And please do not take anything that does not belong to you.
Oh, you're staying? Well, it must be a real cross to bear, all this opression. See you at the voting booth.
Hey brother, the Yankees are happier than pigs in sh*t being blind. You know that they will come out with the same old yadda-yadda, blase-blase-blah every time!
Unbelievable that in the 21st century this endless rehashing of a period long, long past in our nations history is still able to generate windy diatribes like the above article and who-knows-how-many websites, books, 'newsletters' and other Civil War-era detritus. To what end? Oh, yes, the 'truth' must be known. Yes, yes.
Give it up.
Lincoln was somewhere in this middle ground, along with the vast majority of northern whites of the time. By today's standards this made them racist. So what?
I happen to believe northerners with this attitude were wrong. However, they were a lot less wrong than those, the vast majority of southerners, who were willing to fight, kill and die to preserve the abominable institution of slavery. A more un-American attitude it is hard to imagine.
Once the war had started, most southerners fought to defend their homes against invasion, as did General Lee, not specifically to preserve slavery. But that doesn't change the fact that had they been successful slavery would have lasted much longer in America. To that extent they were fighting for slavery, just as the other side was fighting against it, whether they meant to or not.
I hope this guy is not holding his breath. Jeez. What a load of tripe. Everybody knows that it was FDR that brought us big, intrustive federal government. All Lincoln tried to do was hold this nation together. And he succeeded, though at enormous cost of life, including his own. Would we be better off if we had split into two (or more) countries? That question will never be answered but I think we are all better off as the United States of America. In fact, it's a shame that we couldn't have spread over all of North America while we had the chance (during the 1800s). But we were too busy fighting amongst ourselves.
"We" were in the process of doing that as soverign states until the tyrant took power & discarded the constitution to force an all empowered centralized fed on his collected subjects. "What will I do without my tariffs"?
Now I'm curious: How does it feel to be angry over 140-year-old grieviences and a war that took place generations before you were ever born? Is it that easy to find something to be angry about every morning?
Is your life really that boring amd unrewarding that you must look back a century and a half to find a grievience and a man to hate than go on about it for the rest of your life?
Must be great to have so few real-life problems that you can dredge up some ancient animus over a president dead since 1865 and make a life around that anger. It's also pathetic.
What these anti-Lincoln, lets-all-fight-the-Civil-War-again threads accomplish is hard to fathom and how they relate to modern conservative politics is simply invisible. Don't they have specific hate-Lincoln/The South Will Rise Again websites for this endless argument? Why do we need it on FR, over and over and over again?
How does this relate to what FR is about? The whole subject is tiresome and pointless. Again: give it up.
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