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In my view, Lincoln was wrong on every count except his opposition to slavery. Perhaps it's some sort of national karma that the lasting effects of the abomination of slavery are the lingering effects of an enlarged, pro-state(pun intended) attitude.

This was once a very libertarian nation consisting of loosely federated states able to act independently in most things and collectively for things like free trade and national defence. Now we are pawns of a bloated national state.

This was once a very libertarian nation consisting of loosely federated states able to act independently in most things and collectively for things like free trade and national defence.

Ahh, another government "educated" person. If you were to read anything before the revisionists got around to changing it, you would note that the North imposed tariffs on imported factory goods, and our European trade partners responded by slapping massive tariffs on agricultural goods. This allowed the North to have high wages and even cheaper cotton and corn while the South had to pay maximum prices for machinery (which would have replaced slaves) and received minimum income for their products. Last time I checked, tariffs are anathema to Libertarianism (which is Libertarian consistancy since our country's forefathers believed that tariffs were the least immoral tax.)

Interestingly, the Libertarian ideal is sort of like the North's attitude towards the South. Impose virtual tariffs on the manufacturing and IT through massive domestic taxes, obscene regulation, and rabid tort lawyers - then eliminate tariffs on the foreigners through subsidies, tax grants, free insurance, and cheap and plentiful education to foreigners. This makes the "Takers" (Libs) the North, and the Producers the "South". The Libs laud about inexpensive goods and laugh at the "Southerners" income problems.

In my view, Lincoln was wrong on every count except his opposition to slavery

Lincoln might have opposed the spread of slavery latter in life, but he supported a Constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed slavery to continue forever; and on numerous occasions stated that he had no desire to interfere with the prcatice, even in his first inaugural address,

'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.'

His Emancipation Proclamation was a "war measure", intended to deprive the incite slave revolts in the Confederacy, to deprive the Confederacy of soldiers/laborers, and to prevent England or other foreign coutries from siding with the Confederacy. It attempted to free only slaves in the areas not under union control, even slaves in Washington DC were untouched.

All the South ever wanted to to be left alone, they sent delegates to negotiate renumeration for seized properties and other disputed items on several occasions which Lincoln rebuffed, even lying to former Supreme Court Justice Campbell. Lincoln continued this deception and lie in 1863 when he wrote to James Conklin, '

Now allow me to assure you, that no word or intimation, from that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief.'

Confederate President Davis, the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate military, had sent commisioners Roman, Forsyth, and Crawford to Washington in 1861, 'for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that government and the Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith.'

In my view, Lincoln was wrong on every count except his opposition to slavery.

Was he wrong on this:

"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, accroding to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth.

It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of neccessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existance?"

A. Lincoln, 7/4/61

Slavery was the MORAL agent used by lincoln to justify an immoral level of federalism... and the cost of tens of thousands of American lives.

Today has dozens of such MORAL agents, being used to raise the level of federalism to God status... the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on guns, the war on deadbeats, even the war on terror...

We have to learn to live with it. In this day in age a single state could not stand against the concentrated efforts of groups like Al Queda or radical Islamism...

The technology of assymetrical war has necessitated a rather unpleasant form of Big Brotherism that can only get worse... if we are to survive. The genie it seems is clearly out of the bottle.

In the final analysis we have Lincoln to thank that THIS day in historical context has not taken us unawares or unprepared...
Survival of the species, in some ways may be dependent on our ability to let our governmental structures evolve to meet the instantaneous threats of the emerging moments...

Technology and our cultural context have made a degree of federal socialism a matter of life and death. I don't like it. It is reality... we must adapt to what was set in motion and then in concrete, in our own civil war. In which I lost family members on both sides, at missionary ridge...