Elfstop

Come on blurry....tell us.

Wabbit Loc: Arizona Desert

Hey Doc ..... hold on one cotton picken minute ..... you lookin for me doc ?

Wabbit Loc: Arizona Desert

Hey Doc ..... ya better cool it with the tanning doc ..... almost didn't recognize ya Barnie .....

Wabbit Loc: Arizona Desert

Hey Doc ..... ha,ha,ha,ha, poor Barney, gettin it from all directions .....

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Good points Tschmath or at least you understand that the war was not fought over slavery, if you look back to my previous post you will see that in Lincoln's first inaugural address he clearly stated that he would shed blood to collect his tariffs, but if not fought over slavery, why was there a need for such a bloody war? Certainly you do not think that it was simply fought over southern pride... It was over tariffs, for further consideration lets look at what Jefferson Davis said in his first inaugural:



Now consider this verifiable piece of history....



The increase in tariffs more than doubled and would effectively destroy the agrarian economy of the south. The law was passed and signed into law just prior to Lincolns assumption of his office.

There are those who consider that Lincoln in his house divided speech laid the groundwork for his own interpretation of our union that would afford him the authority to go to war to enforce his tariffs, again, I reinterate that it was his own interpretation of the formation of the union and not our constitution that many of his contemporaries in both the federal and state governments did not agree with which he used to pursue his aggression in the south. In 1829 when South Carolina first attempted to secede over the same issues of tariffs the Andrew Jackson made concessions to hold the union intact. One only need to look to the declaration of independence for the understanding of the right of secession to the individual states,

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The right of secession had previously been upheld by the first inaugural address of Thomas Jefferson when he said:



He further upheld that understanding in his letter of January 29th 1804 to Dr. Joseph Priestly he wrote:



Jefferson's thinking was still pervasive at the time that Lincoln assumed his office. But when we contrast Lincoln to Jefferson we see Lincoln reaching back into history to a time before the constitution and even to a date before the declaration of independence to make his argument. He does this so that he can use the articles of association as the formation of the union so that he can make void the consent to be governed verbage of the Declaration of Independence.

From Lincoln's first inaugural address:



This was Lincoln's own view and not necessarily one that was the majority view of the public at the time or his contemporaries in the government, but it was the understanding(his own) that he would take this country to war against itself with rather than to seek accommodation and relief by conceding to the economic concerns of the south..... Although the civil war corrected one of the most egregious wrongs in our country's history, I hold that was incidental to Lincolns true ambitions and that he himself is undeserving of the glory that is bestowed by history upon him.

Lincoln had great ambitions of building the trans continental railroad system as well as canals and waterways and his concern with the union was the tariffs that he would collect from the southern states. He was an ambitious president who looked towards development and industrialization for the north no matter that his tariffs would destroy the southern economy...

As far as calling Robert E Lee a traitor, if one accepts that the south had the right to secession then it is hard to call him a traitor, after all it was the north which invaded the southern states, not the other way around, so no I am not prepared to say that.

The point of my argument is only that the way Lincoln is celebrated by our country today is somewhat disingenuous as his actions, which cost the lives of 100's of thousands of our countrymen can still be questioned by reasonably thinking people.

Elfstop

OK no one believes you are coming up with this nonsense on your own..reveal your sources.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Come on Tschmath, you are smarter than that...

Just how would you interpret

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."

Is he not expressing his willingness to use force to collect his duties and tariffs in the states that have seceded from the union and now consider themselves to be independent, in fact in that inauguration Lincoln pretty much says the only thing he will do in the southern states is to collect his taxes and he will do so by force. He is stating his intent to war over his taxes and nothing other than the payment of those taxes will prevent the war.

Elfstop

Dang bro...you are upset cause your guy lost...wow.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Here Elfstop you can give yourself the equivalent of a college education for free....

http://mises.org/books/

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

"Using force" doesn't just mean killing people or going to war. Arresting lawbreakers is an act of force. You are way too hung up on showing Lincoln to be a monster, which every normal historian knows he was not. Your interpretation of his comments, at least to me, shows how truly crazy you really are. I for one am grateful that your totally irrational view of Lincoln is NOT taught in our schools, since it is a complete distortion of who he was.

I'm always amused by how people quote Jefferson et. al. as if they were gods. Just because Jefferson offered his opinion doesn't mean that the words came from Mt. Sinai on tablets. He was a slave owner who had a mistress. Totally human, totally fallible, including his opinions.

Elfstop

In 1854, Sen. Stephen Douglas forced the Kansas-Nebraska Act through Congress. The bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, also opened up a good portion of the Midwest to the possible expansion of slavery.

Douglas' political rival, former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln, was enraged by the bill. He scheduled three public speeches in the fall of 1854, in response. The longest of those speeches — known as the Peoria Speech — took three hours to deliver. In it, Lincoln aired his grievances over Douglas' bill and outlined his moral, economic, political and legal arguments against slavery.

But like many Americans, Lincoln was unsure what to do once slavery ended.

"Lincoln said during the Civil War that he had always seen slavery as unjust. He said he couldn't remember when he didn't think that way — and there's no reason to doubt the accuracy or sincerity of that statement," explains historian Eric Foner. "The problem arises with the next question: What do you do with slavery, given that it's unjust? Lincoln took a very long time to try to figure out exactly what steps ought to be taken."

Foner traces the evolution of Lincoln's thoughts on slavery in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. He explains how Lincoln's changing thoughts about slavery — and the role of freed slaves — mirrored America's own transformation.

In the Peoria speech, Lincoln said that slavery was wrong, Foner says, and then admitted that he didn't know what should be done about it, even contemplating "free[ing] all the slaves, and send[ing] them to Liberia — to their own native land."

"Lincoln is thinking through his own position on slavery," says Foner. "[This speech] really epitomizes his views into the Civil War. Slavery ought to be abolished — but he doesn't really know how to do it. He's not an abolitionist who criticizes Southerners. At this point, Lincoln does not really see black people as an intrinsic part of American society. They are kind of an alien group who have been uprooted from their own society and unjustly brought across the ocean. 'Send them back to Africa,' he says. And this was not an unusual position at this time."

Foner traces how Lincoln first supported this kind of colonization — the idea that slaves should be freed and then encouraged or required to leave the United States — for well over a decade. Like Henry Clay, Lincoln also supported repealing slavery gradually — and possibly compensating slave owners for their losses after slaves were freed.

It was not until the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the freedom of all slaves and then named 10 specific states where the law would take affect, that Lincoln publicly rejected his earlier views.

Enlarge image
Eric Foner is a history professor at Columbia University and the author of several books about the history of American race relations.

courtesy of the author
"The Emancipation Proclamation completely repudiates all of those previous ideas for Lincoln," says Foner. "[The abolishment of slavery is] immediate, not gradual. There is no mention of compensation and there is nothing in it about colonization. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln says nothing publicly about colonization."

Foner says many factors led to Lincoln's shift in his position regarding former slaves. Neither slave owners nor slaves supported colonization. Slavery was beginning to disintegrate in the South. And the Union Army was looking for new soldiers to enlist — and they found willing African-American men waiting for them in the South.

"As soon as the Union Army went into the South, slaves began running away from plantations to Union lines," Foner says. "And this forced the question of slavery onto the national agenda."

"Almost from the very beginning of the Civil War, the federal government had to start making policy and they said, 'Well, we're going to treat these people as free. We're not going to send them back into the slave-holding regions,'" Foner says. "And the Army opened itself up to the enlistment of black men. And by the end of the Civil War, 200,000 black men had served in the Union Army and Navy. And envisioning blacks as soldiers is a very, very different idea of their future role in American society. It's the black soldiers and their role which really begins as the stimulus in Lincoln's change [with regard to] racial attitudes and attitudes toward America as an interracial society in the last two years of his life."

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Except the small fact that he wrote the Declaration of independence and had great influence on Madison who is often thought of as the father of our constitution...

Given the circumstances of 1861 and the fact that 7 states had already seceded from the union it is hard to interpret Lincoln's words as meaning otherwise. You speak as if those states who had formally declared their independence from the union, which I have already laid the ground work for you that many even in the northern states believed was their right.... Connecticut held a convention in 1814 to consider secession, to call me crazy because I challenge the history as taught to us while using Lincolns own words to support my conclusions is well, Tschmath, kinda a liberal thing to do, you do not like what I say on just about anything so you call me crazy.

I did not even talk about the prosecution of the war, the complete bombardment of cities, the rape and pillage that was prevalent, and seemingly condoned by Lincoln... and the killing of women and children, again condoned by this celebrated president, and I digress, if the war was not fought over slavery, as you agreed.... then just why did the south secede? Their economy could not withstand Lincoln's taxes, of course you will not study this and inform yourself... how were they to react especially given that they believed that they had the right to secede... Instead of calling me crazy why don't you educate yourself and consider that maybe just maybe there is something more that you have not learned. You yourself have said that it was a war for unification, well what was the call for the separation and were those causes just? Had Lincoln fought the war over slavery as our classroom teachers of today would like to teach, then I would probably say it was a just war... but that was not Lincoln's fight, his was for a much lower purpose, that of the consolidation of federal power and internal improvements, hardly a cause worth losing 600,000 to 700,000 American lives over.

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

I'm having a debate with a loon, so this is over. Go on and think what you want. I take comfort in knowing that you and the nutjob you quote are the only two people who really believe what you say about Lincoln. Have fun living in that crazy fantasy world you inhabit.

sinatraman Loc: Vero Beach Florida, Earth,alpha quaudrant

I am sorry but this argument is so moronic. Had not the Union won the war we would all be speaking German right now as subjects of the Kaiser. As much as I like Lee, Longstreet and Jackson, I can never forget that they were fighting to KEEP MEN IN SLAVERY! States rights my but, it was and always was about slavery, and how the southern states kept pushing to expand it. I firmly believe that the Union could and should have Won the war in 1862, but God intervened to punish us for the abdominal sin that is slavery. McClellan could have sleep walked his way into Richmond if he had been a halfway decent General. The south is still paying for that huge mistake.

tschmath do you have to launch personal insults on everyone who disagrees with you? I actually am in agreement about Lincoln with you, but look I refrained from talking about Rachel meadows and her left wing commie loving anti American 60's hippie wannabe kooks! By getting insulting you lower the discourse to a bar room brawl and the correct point you made gets lost in the vitriol you are spewing out at the op.

BW326 Loc: Boynton Beach, Florida

I agree, I think this particular slanted look at history is pointless and would prefer to dwell on some of the more positive, uplifting stories from the past, like this account given in Wikipedia and many other sources ....

Edwin Booth (brother of John Wilkes Booth) saved Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865, shortly before Edwin's brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln.

Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine.

The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.

Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Adam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.