Lincoln on the Fourth of July, 1861 [Answer to Lincoln Bashers]

Polyconomics ^ | July 3, 2002 | Jude Wanniski

[dasboot]

Rebellion?

[Jonathon Spectre]

while they were inclined, they did not have the power.

So in other words all that matters is who has the biggest gun.

"We don't want to be in your country anymore. We'll just be going now."
"Then we're going to kick your ass because we can."

Hope it's hot, Abe.

[mdittmar]

First Inaugural Address:

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Letter to Horace Greeley:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. ...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

[B.Bumbleberry]

Uh, Jon, please read the entire article. The idea was that we wouldn't have a country if every dissatisfed minority decided to secede. That was the principle Lincoln apparently saw before as being tested. Makes perfect sense to me.

[ml/nj]

The idea was that we wouldn't have a country if every dissatisfed minority decided to secede.

Uh. We wouldn't have a country if Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the boys didn't decide to secede. They said:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ... but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.

It was not a dissatisfied minority that decided to secede. It was an overwhelming majority of the residents of the south that wanted to secede. As for the north, it's not really clear that even a majority wanted to stop them at all, and less so that a majority wanted to stop them by conquering them. The only majority that existed for sure was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thin gruel, indeed.

ML/NJ (Honest Yankee)

[mdittmar]

My favorite quote from the Civil War:

" America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided."

Sam Watkins, 1st Tennessee

[mdittmar]

But it was clear what Lincoln wanted,to uphold his oath and preserve the Union.

He did just that.

I believe in States rights,but they better win the war.

[rdf]

I really cannot quarrel with any of the facts you present in The Real Lincoln, as you seem to have everything properly foot-noted.

Jude W. should try checking these pathetic footnotes.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[ml/nj]

I believe in States rights,but they better win the war.

I'm not sure why there had to be a war, but is this what you really believe? Your position is only morally correct if you have the most cannons? This would put you on the side of the Red Chinese against Tibet.

ML/NJ

[rdf]

I'm not sure why there had to be a war...

Jude W. is somewhat silly on this matter, but are you serious?

Laws were set aside, Federal property taken, and finally, the flag fired upon.

Secession, as R.E. Lee wrote his son, "is nothing but rebellion."

There was a war because the fire-eaters wanted it, and started it, to vindicate their so-called "right to secession," and to overturn the result of a constitutional election.

That is why they called themselves, truly, "rebels."

Why is this so hard to see?

Cheers,

Richard F.

[mdittmar]

I don't know why either,I wish good men on both sides didn't have to die.

I'm glad we're still The United States of America.

Maybe President Lincoln thought about this:

Presidential Oath of Office:

"I, name, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Constitution of the United States of America:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Who knows.

I will disregard the last sentence in your post.

[SamAdams76]

It is true that we wouldn't have much of a country if we allowed every disgruntled group of states secede. It is also true that we wouldn't have a country if we didn't break away from the English kingdom! Good thing for America that it determined the South was worth fighting and dying over. Good thing for us that the British didn't!

After all, we didn't so much "win" the Revolutionary War as the English decided that the cost of defeating us wasn't worth it.

[foreverfree]

bump

[mdittmar]

We did kick their English a$$ though;)

[Rebelo3]

Lincoln took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution; yet he threw the Constitution and the rule of law out the window and took powers delegated to the courts and to congress. He had no authority to rule that the South had no right to secede. Lincoln pulled off a coup and established the American Empire. So might makes right when it comes to "saving the Union"? HAH! That's like a man saving his marriage by beating his wife into submission. Well at least this guy didn't give us the old line that Lincoln invaded and subjugated to South in order to free the slaves. BTW, there were Union slave states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. NJ had a few older "retired" slaves. Slavery was legal in the US until Dec, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed; and the US military was legally racially segregated until 1948. But all we hear about is the racist South. A lot of Southerners, and a lot of other people in the world, are fed up with self-righteous, meddling, know-it-all Yankees and their policies based on the principle that "might makes right"...........durn, now I gotta go take a blood pressure pill.

[mdittmar]

Slavery was legal in the US until Dec, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed; and the US military was legally racially segregated until 1948. But all we hear about is the racist South.

Wasn't about slavery,never was.

[rdf]

durn, now I gotta go take a blood pressure pill.

Take two, and enjoy the rest of the Fourth of July weekend.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[agrandis]

You are one strange cookie!

[mdittmar]

Thanks for your enlightening post.

Lived just a hop,skip and a jump from Georgia for a year.

Loved the history.

Have a great night.