Free Republic

Special Dispatch to the New-York Times. CHICAGO, Friday, May 18. The work of the Convention is ended. The youngster who, with ragged trousers, used barefoot to drive his father's oxen and spend his days in splitting rails, has risen to high eminence, and ABRAM LINCOLN, of Illinois, is declared its candidate for President by the National Republican Party. This result was effected by the change of votes in the Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts Delegations.

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country.” — Robert E. Lee 1856 Could Gen. Robert E.l Lee’s sentiments deter the “tear down those monuments” crowd? Probably not. Given their current success in removing monuments to Confederate generals, ignorant politicians and those whose hobby is going through life seeking to be offended, soon will run out of things to be offended by. Why not broaden the list of "offensive" symbols to include slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and a...

In Stalin's Russia, genetics and cybernetics were treated as the cat's paw of imperialism and officially branded as "whores." But it was another branch of Soviet science, history, that was a far more deserving candidate to bear that not exactly honorific moniker. Russian historians loyally served the regime, meeting its propaganda needs in full compliance with a thesis propounded by the titular head of the Soviet school of history, Mikhail Pokrovsky: "History is the present telescoped into the past." Some American liberals have been faithfully following Pokrovsky's precept, reinventing the past in keeping with the progressive view of the world....

...Did he exert features of moral grandeur and heroism necessary to steer the country through its deepest political crisis? Or was he an aspiring tyrant, especially in his use of executive power? A recent example of how not to think about Lincoln’s leadership comes from the historian and television commentator Doris Goodwin. Goodwin wrote a book called “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” showing how Lincoln drew his cabinet from his personal and political competitors. In a subsequent discussion of Lincoln’s leadership titled “The 10 Qualities That Made Lincoln Great... If all of these sound a little...

In January 1863, Abraham Lincoln made a remarkable confession. He was, he told a senator, more worried about “the fire in the rear” than he was about the Confederates to his front... Disgusted Republicans termed them “Copperheads,” after the poisonous snake... By January 1863, their assaults on Lincoln, combined with the poor performance of the armies, were taking a toll on civilian morale. Midwesterners spoke openly about seceding and establishing another new country or aligning with the Confederate States of America. Lincoln’s critics were harsh, uncompromising and relentless. They said Lincoln was a tyrant, bent on amassing power and ruining...

With only a limited theatrical release last week, Steven Spielberg’s latest work of imaginative fiction is scheduled for wide release today. I know Hollywood plays fast and loose with history, but when they go out of their way to get the wallpaper in Lincoln’s office exactly right, and use a recording of his actual watch as the sound effect for his movie watch, but pay little deference to his actual statements or opinions… something must be said. People are seriously calling the Lincoln movie a “much needed civics lesson.” In reality it’s essentially a 2.5 hour courtroom drama about slavery...

Have any fellow FReepers seen this movie yet? If so, what did you think and would you recommend it?

New Movie Propagates Lincoln Historical Myths If you are planning to see the new, Steven Spielberg directed, Lincoln movie you might want to invest in an accurate history book instead. While it is successfully dramatic, the movie rehashes several 150 year old myths about the Lincoln presidency and America’s most horrible war. First, to the movie’s credit, the script avoids a key, blatant lie that is currently being taught throughout American public schools today. The script focuses correctly on explaining how slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, not the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation did...

Countless school children have been taught that Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Others have been taught — and many have concluded — that the Emancipation Proclamation, which Abraham Lincoln announced on Sept. 22, 1862, has been overemphasized, that it was inefficacious, a sham, that Lincoln’s motivations were somehow unworthy, that slavery was ended by other ways and means, and that slavery was on the way out in any case. The truth is that Lincoln’s proclamation was an exercise in risk, a huge gamble by a leader who sought to be — and who became — America’s great liberator. Since...

DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox this afternoon premiered the trailer for Lincoln, which opens November 9:

Timeless words...written 149 years ago but could have been penned yesterday, but not by the current Imposter-in-Chief: "Insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and...

McLEAN, Va. – Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has inspired Americans for generations, but consider his jarring remarks in 1862 to a White House audience of free blacks, urging them to leave the U.S. and settle in Central America. "For the sake of your race, you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people," Lincoln said, promoting his idea of colonization: resettling blacks in foreign countries on the belief that whites and blacks could not coexist in the same nation.

Abraham Lincoln’s greatest love was politics, but his intellectual passion was for what the 19th century called “political economy” — the way economics and politics intersected in society and government. According to his law partner William Herndon, Lincoln “liked political economy, the study of it,” and Shelby Cullom, who practiced law beside Lincoln in Springfield, Ill. (and later crafted the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887), thought that “theoretically . . . on political economy he was great.” Although Lincoln’s angular, shambling appearance gave him the look of anything but a student of economics — one contemporary said he resembled “a...

When he mentions that his daddy fought for the Confederacy, H.V. Booth gets more than a few raised eyebrows. “Really? Really?” Booth says, mimicking people’s incredulity. “They just can’t believe it.” His father, Isham Johnson Booth, a country boy from north of Athens, played a bit part in the Civil War. But it was a grim role, the memory of which never left him and was something he rarely spoke about. He was a guard at Andersonville, the prisoner-of-war camp in south-central Georgia that has become synonymous with suffering. Booth, who turns 92 this month, is the end of a...

This article gives another perspective on liberals, libertarians and conservatives. The history both Lincoln and Sherman has been written by the victors and beyond reproach. Do we want to restore honor in this country? Can we restore honor by bringing up subjects over 100 years old? Comments are encouraged. Randy's Right aka Randy Dye NC Freedom The American Lenin by L. Neil Smith lneil@lneilsmith.org It’s harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative — given the former category’s increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter’s prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment —...

Barack Obama is America's second wartime president from Illinois. Depictions of the first are, of course, on every penny and $5 bill. The new book, "Obama's Wars" by Bob Woodward, offers troubling contrasts between the way Abraham Lincoln learned to handle a war and President Obama's role in overseeing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. President Lincoln, whose military experience amounted to a brief and undistinguished appearance in a minor battle against Native Americans, learned about wartime leadership on the job. From the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 through the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863, he led...

I'm planning on reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln for a nice non-fiction change of pace. As you can imagine, there's so many Lincoln biographies out there I wouldn't know where to begin! Certainly, I would like to begin with the cream of the crop, but which one would it be? Even if I do a search in Amazon.com for Abraham Lincoln biographies sorted by five-star average customer reviews, a truckload of titles pop out.Here's just a few of those titles: Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig L. Symonds Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (Vintage) by...

I would also remind any Conservative that America is in the hole it is today because we have forgotten so much of our history. We are right to demand that our representatives remember the founding documents, we are right to demand these documents be taught in school. Again, how is studying the Confederacy any less important? Is not the essential question right now, on so many issues, NOT States rights? And what was the fight from 1861-65 over again? Yes, States rights.

PAWTUCKET — It was 150 years ago this month that then-presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln made a train journey from Providence to Woonsocket where he delivered one of his most significant speeches to a crowd of 1,500. On May 15, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council is making it possible to experience some of the excitement of that historic campaign visit with a special event. The 150th Abraham Lincoln Train Tour will recreate this journey that was made in 1860 by America's 16th president. Participants will ride on an excursion car on the Providence & Worcester Railroad, the same railway line that...

Hi FRiends, I have two brothers who I love very much, they’re young and libertarian Ron Paul supporters, sigh. We get along and I’m hoping that one day they’ll come back to conservatism, but they have bought into a theory that I don’t think makes much sense: Abe Lincoln was a dictator. There are many websites dedicated to this nonsense you can Google "Abe Lincoln dictator" and get some weird stuff, if you want to check it out. I need your help in busting this myth are there any books I can read on this subject to dispel this stuff?...