Lincoln's Birthday

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Wednesday, February 12. 2020

I have long held ambivalent feelings about Lincoln. Freeing slaves, good. Overpowering the federal government, bad. Killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, bad.

I do not idolize any human. Monuments in Washington disgust me. We are not the Roman Empire.

An interesting character? Definitely. Damn smart and clever too: A Genius for Friendship .

One of my favorite Lincoln quips: "If I were two-faced, would I wear this one?"

Posted by The Barrister at 12:33 | Comments (14) | Trackbacks (0)

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"Freeing slaves, good."

Only Lincoln didn't free the slaves, did he? Implying that the War of Northern Aggression was fought to free the slaves is fake history, promoted to assuage Northern guilt for what was really a financial power struggle that destroyed the Republic and the Constitution. .

#1 Anonymous White Male on 2020-02-12 12:46 (Reply)

If "freeing" slaves was such a good thing why didn't he do so in the nation he was President of instead of a nation he was at war with? Of course, he couldn't free the slaves in the south because he had no authority over the south.

#1.1 FRP on 2020-02-12 14:17 (Reply)

When one first learns about the Civil War, one thinks it was about slavery. After learning a bit more, one learns that the Port of New Orleans, the competition between rural agricultural and urban manufacturing economies, and a dozen other things were the real cause.

Then after learning a great deal more, one learns that it was about slavery after all. The seceding states said so specifically in their declarations. You should take them at their word. The argument over slavery dominated every election since the very first one. You can be insulting and call people ignorant all you want, but it doesn't change a thing.

Assuaging guilt my Aunt Fanny. That's projection.

#1.2 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-02-12 14:40 (Reply)

The war was most definitely fought to free the slaves or should I say "it was started to keep slaves repressed."

Why was Fort Sumter attacked, again? What, were taxes too high? Were second amendment rights being curtailed, as muskets were regulated as Assault Muskets? Was Washington quartering troops in homes down south?

Of course not.

The only state's right that the rebels were fighting over was their "right" to keep slaves. That's it.

The South started the war. Lincoln engaged, 100% to keep the union - at first. Freeing the slaves came later, and served two purposes: one was to keep the momentum going, since abolitionists were a strong group in the north. The other was, and is, that slavery is wrong.

This was discussed at the founding, in fact. The founders were hardly ignorant of it.

Lincoln is on the record as saying "If I could keep the union without freeing a single slave..." etc.

Enough.

Yes, the expansion of the Federal Government was and is a problem, but he's hardly the only one. At least he had an excellent excuse.

#2 RobM1981 on 2020-02-12 13:08 (Reply)

You have no grasp of history. You are an apologist for what you perceive to be "virtue signaling". Why was Ft. Sumter attacked? Because South Carolina had seceded from the Union, Sumter was held by Federal forces, South Carolina requested the troops leave and the property revert to its lawful owner, the State of South Carolina. Lincoln agreed and said, "Faith being kept on Sumter", while sending a Federal fleet to resupply and protect the troops in the fort. The South Carolinians weren't stupid. They knew they would have trouble retaking their property if this occurred, so they let the Federal troops know they would begin bombardment. NO ONE WAS KILLED. Oh, one or two Federal soldiers died, due to their own stupidity around explosive materials, AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT CEASED! The whole purpose of the War of Northern Aggression was to begin the Federal control of the nation, as opposed to the State sovereignty that the Constitution was founded upon. You see the results today. Your mistaken belief that making an alien presence citizens in this country was somehow good, is blatantly false, as you can see in every major city in this nation. The rest of your points are as easily disputed, but their is no point in arguing with a follower of the myth of the North's goodness.

#2.1 Anonymous White Male on 2020-02-12 13:51 (Reply)

The only thing the South would secede to accomplish was retain slavery.

The only the the North would fight to prevent was succession.

Killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, bad.

He had a some help doing that. See above.

#3 Christopher B on 2020-02-12 13:43 (Reply)

Lincoln did not free the slaves until 1863.
Maryland was the first state to threaten to secede and he absolved habeas corpus, sent the army to arrest the states legislature, thus putting a cork in that bottle.
Good politics good have foregone the bloody war.
The republic the founding fathers gave us disappeared with that war.
The South did not invade the North, vice versa.
Again, good statesmen could have prevented the damn thing.

#4 GEORGE on 2020-02-12 18:15 (Reply)

If you really want to understand the Civil war and how it started you need to read about the antics of the Southern congressmen in the years before the war. There was no ambiguity about why they wanted to leave the union and their tendency to violence rather than negotiation. Then understand that the vast majority of Southerners did not own slaves and the vast majority of Southerners who fought (great than 90%) did not own slaves you need to know that the Southern leaders used lies, hate and propaganda to get the poor Southerners to fight for the rich Southerners slaves.

Having said that it is also true that some of the leaders in the North were trying to acquire by hook or by crook the wealth and markets of the South. They both resented the South and were jealous of the South basically because of cotton. This was a big factor in the war as well.

Lastly; Lincoln didn't set out to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. AND it was the South who fired the first shot. Lincoln wanted to preserve the union and I believe that he was correct in doing so. What the South did was not a negotiated peaceful dissolution of an agreement. It was a taking of whatever they thought they could get away with and dare the other side to try to stop them. It was not Lincoln who "cast the die" it was the Southern politicians and elite who choose to fight AND everything in their literature and letters of the time expressed the belief that they could win and win easily. They wanted a war not a peaceful disassociation or ending of past agreements. They wanted a confrontation and embraced it and believed they could win it. There is a lesson there providing you don't delude yourself into thinking that the South were just a bunch of good old boys trying to have a "Brexit". They wanted to give the North a good old fashioned ass whupping and wanted it worse than they wanted their lands or their families. And in this they sadly under estimated their opponents and over estimated their abilities.

#5 OneGuy on 2020-02-12 18:16 (Reply)

Killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, bad.
I always wondered if the two split up would it have been like Europe and been millions killed later? Aren't there a number of alternative histories out there about this idea?

#5.1 grant1863 on 2020-02-12 18:23 (Reply)

When I see or hear anything about Lincoln I think of three things...He preserved the Union, he freed the slaves, and he wrote the Gettysburg Address.

#6 Gary in Texas on 2020-02-12 20:06 (Reply)

I've always wondered if the southern states would have seceded if slavery hadn't been an issue?

What other flashpoints did they have with the federal government?

#7 PubliusII on 2020-02-12 20:30 (Reply)

I'm no expert on the civil war, but it's my understanding that the South could never have raised enough money to fight the war, if they hadn't been financed by European cotton speculators. So the military apparatus of the South was magnified by this sudden influx of money. This leads to a question: What if the South hadn't been able to raise that money? There probably wouldn't have been a war. Instead, the South would have been forced to compromise. Slavery was nowhere near the top of the list. There were all kinds of tariffs and taxes, land disputes, and political representation issues to be settled. By the time of the civil war, slaves were not seen as such a valuable asset anyway. They were lazy, and they needed food, medical attention, and support in retirement. The age of slavery was ending, with or without the war. So it's my opinion that people today are not told the truth about the Civil War. Slaves were not the issue; in fact, they were seen mainly as an unfortunate obligation. Lincoln wanted to send all of them back to Africa, and it's a shame that he didn't. But now, the history of the Civil War has been rewritten by the left, so that people will think that the slaves "created wealth". They didn't. The slaves were expensive, in terms of what they produced. By the time that the South lost the war, the Plantation owners were only too happy to let them go. But a lot of them didn't want to go; they wanted to stay there. The whole "underground railroad" story is a sham. Yes, some slaves ran away, but a lot of them found plantation life to be preferable to working in a factory up North. But, just like the Holocaust Story, people will never be told the truth. They will be told a political fabrication that fits the victim narrative. That's why we need high taxes; so that all those "victims" can be compensated, by highly-paid government employees. Understand?

#8 Ron Lieberman on 2020-02-13 00:08 (Reply)

I would say Washington certainly deserves a monument. He could have been a king, he instead served two terms as President and then packed his bags and went home. Such a peaceful transfer of power was quite an astonishing thing, but it set a precedent that lasted until Roosevelt decided he was so important that the Republic just couldn't possibly survive without him at the helm. Nobody's that important and nobody who thinks he is should be allowed anywhere near the office. Which might be why Washington's monument should be a small, modest, humble monument, but a monument nonetheless, perhaps a memento mori in the Oval Office.

#9 Jerryskids on 2020-02-13 01:10 (Reply)

Well said, AVI.

If Lincoln had a preference I imagine it would be that these terrible circumstances happen to the next president, rather than him. And it would have happened no matter what.

I've studied the Revolution and Founding more than the Civil War, and I'm sure most framers would approve of Lincoln 100%. They would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed, but they were involved with creating the republic, not preserving it. Had the North lost the war we would be a continent of nations with regular intervals of war much like Europe.

#10 Jack Walter on 2020-02-13 06:48 (Reply)

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Wednesday, February 12. 2020

Lincoln's Birthday