Rare Lincoln Letter Found in Allentown

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - July 19, 2006 - A University of Illinois researcher had discovered a fourth copy of a rare letter Abraham Lincoln had written by to the nation's governors in 1861.

The letter John Lupton found Tuesday in the Lehigh County Historical Society's holdings was one Lincoln wrote as part of an unsuccessful ratification process for a constitutional amendment Congress adopted during the term of his predecessor, President James Buchanan, that would have made slavery the law of the land.

The president remembered for abolishing slavery had been willing to push the amendment as "kind of a carrot to the Southern states" if that would preserve the union, said Lupton, associate director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

"But even by that point, it was too late. By that time, the Southern states felt Lincoln's election was an affront," Lupton said. In fact, the letter discovered in Allentown was addressed to "His Excellency the Governor of the State of Florida," which had seceded from the union two months earlier.

Until Tuesday, only three of the letters were known to have survived. "It's a very cool document," Lupton said.

Joseph Garrera, the historical society director, said he will consult with the society's board to determine the best way to display the document and try to figure out exactly who donated the letter.

First off any republican that raises up the Democratic battle cry of "the south will rise again" and continually bashes President Lincoln as the worst president ever is no republican.

I'm about as thoroughly Republican as anyone on this board, and I take issue with what you've said.

The South has risen again. Without the South the Democrats would be in power. By demonizing a large part of the Republican base like the New York Times does, are you not in fact helping to bring the Democrats back to power?

IMO, President Lincoln, with his trashing of the Constitution and actions that provoked war, was arguably one of the worst presidents the country has had. But my criteria no doubt differ from yours.

The confederate flag embodies everything the democrats stand for, racism, rebellion, hatred of republicans,Southern democrats, and of course the notion that if you can't debate run away.

In the minds of some who seem to hate the flag, I suppose it does stand for those things. I'm curious. Do you claim that anyone who flies the CBF is a racist?

I gather you think the WBTS was a rebellion and that those who viewed the Union as a voluntary union that they no longer wanted as their government were rebels. Could you show me the part of the Constitution that prohibits secession? IMO, the Constitution would not have been ratified if it contained such a prohibition. Do you argue otherwise?

Do you claim that anyone who flies the CBF hates Republicans? (I'm a case in point that doesn't hate Republicans.) Do you claim that anyone who flies the CBF is for Southern Democrats? (I'm a case in point that isn't.)

Finally, what is it you want to debate?

What are you trying to make my points for me?

The south has risen again only because the racist southern democrats aren't in power any more, the same racist southern democrats that created the confederate flag as a rallying point to kill blacks, republicans, and anyone else that stood in their way from what they wanted.

Why should I embrace a banner that quite frankly has come to mean everything bad about the south, racism, political corruption, rebellion against the United States, the democratic party, the Klan, segregation, lynch mob mentality, hatred, oppression, white power, Jim crow laws, and the idea that some humans are beneath others because of the color of their skin.

I've owned more confederate flags then I can count, literally every different type used by the Confederacy as well as every state flag incorporating the confederate flag in it's design, so why am I against it, I'm not, I'm against what it has become because of the way it is used by the democratic party.

Now I'll type this slow for those reading it that suffer FROM reaDINg compreHENsion.

The confederate flag was created by democrats, used by democrats as a symbol of their rebellion against the United States, carried by the Klan which was a political terror group created by democrats from it's very beginnings, used by the democrats to solidify the south against segregation and civil rights for blacks and used by democrats as a banner of protest against federal laws insuring the right to vote for ALL AMERICANS. Only lately has it been used as a symbol of racism by the same democratic party that created it and did all the abuses done under it to appeal for the votes those they abused while flying it.

Shall I repeat myself for you or do you understand that The Confederate Flag is a creation and tool of the democratic party, and anyone worshiping it as some grand banner of men fallen 140 years ago is a fool for allowing themselves to be used one more time by the democratic party, only this time not as their loyal supporters but as the enemies of righteousness in their latest deception on the American public.

I truly believe that if you have any love and respect for the brave men of the south that died for the idiocy, the lunacy and the evils that the democrats wought against this land of ours, you'd abandon their flag to them and force them to accept the wrongs that they did under it to this nation, then maybe just maybe they will relingish it to history and to the brave men that died defending it and their homes, which is how it should be, not a symbol of the south but as a symbol of the brave men that died for it's defence.

Now explain what I just wrote to STAND.

Why should I embrace a banner that quite frankly has come to mean everything bad about the south, racism, political corruption, rebellion against the United States, the democratic party, the Klan, segregation, lynch mob mentality, hatred, oppression, white power, Jim crow laws, and the idea that some humans are beneath others because of the color of their skin.

It may mean that to you, but not everyone has such a one dimensional interpretation of the flag. Feel free to ignore the CBF, if it suits you.

The confederate flag was created by democrats, used by democrats as a symbol of their rebellion against the United States ...

Apparently you aren't aware of the philosophical shift that occurred over the last century or more. The Republicans and Democrats have largely shifted places. Fortunately, the worst parts of the old Democrat Party stayed with the Democrats and are still there today. That much I expect we can agree on.

Here is a Copperhead Democrat in 1864:

The great principle now in issue, is the centralization of power, or the keeping it diffused in State sovereignty, as it is by the organic laws, constituting States and forming the General Government.

... The great boast of the Democratic party, has been, that it has met and beaten back the party of centralization, since the formation of the Union ...

And another one, also from 1864:

... we will maintain, peaceably if we can, but forcibly if we must, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of the person from arbitrary and unlawful arrest, and the freedom of the ballot box, from the aggression and violence of every person and authority whatsoever.

... we will resist by force any attempt to abridge the elective franchise, whether by introduction of illegal votes, under military authority, or by the attempt by Federal Officers to intimidate the citizen by threats of oppression.

They were speaking against the excesses of the Lincoln regime. They sound much like today's Republicans might under similar circumstances, John McCain excepted.

... carried by the Klan which was a political terror group created by democrats from it's very beginnings, used by the democrats to solidify the south against segregation and civil rights for blacks and used by democrats as a banner of protest against federal laws insuring the right to vote for ALL AMERICANS.

These threads have been full of pictures of the Klan of the 1920s flying the stars and stripes. Except perhaps to weak minded souls, it didn't sully that flag. Similarly, the kooks of the Klan can't sully the Confederate Battle Flag, the flag of the common Confederate soldier protecting his home.

Only lately has it been used as a symbol of racism by the same democratic party that created it and did all the abuses done under it to appeal for the votes those they abused while flying it.

Do you let your enemies define symbols for you?

Do you let your enemies define symbols for you?

Yes, those symbols are what defines them.

As for some sort of shift from republican to democrat, or democrat to republican, conservative to liberal or liberal to conservative, the only people that recognizes such a shift are those that need it to prove their point. I see The GOP as still the party of Lincoln, wrong is always wrong and slavery was wrong, and anything you can show me that would suggest that Lincoln was willing to allow the south to maintain slavery through legislation or a constitutional amendment, just proves my point that Lincoln wanted an open debate of the issue as well as a vote to decide it.

The southern democrats knew they could not win any debates or votes on the issue of slavery and quit this nation because they didn't have the balls to stand up for what they wanted legally and politically.

Tell me truthfully would you rather be a citizen of say South Carolina, or a citizen of the United States? That is the real reality of states rights, that the individual state has the right to be its own entity and its own sovereignty but the reality is that by joining the union the states surrendered at least that part of their sovereignty that allowed them to protect themselves from all enemies foreign and domestic(other states) it was a trade off most would make and did for the security of being part of a more prefect union which guaranteed basic human rights for all of its citizens.

The Republican party was created to define what is a citizen and who deserved the basic human rights as defined by the constitution. In short Republicans believed that all are created equal and still do today, democrats still seem to cling to the notion that some are more equal then others especially if you have a block of voters to prove it.

... those symbols are what defines them

You probably believe Batman is real too.

Either you understand history well enough to recognize such shifts or you don't. Apparently you don't.

... anything you can show me that would suggest that Lincoln was willing to allow the south to maintain slavery through legislation or a constitutional amendment, just proves my point that Lincoln wanted an open debate of the issue as well as a vote to decide it.

That's a funny thing to post on a thread about one of Lincoln's letters to governors about ratifying the Corwin Amendment making slavery permanent. I understand from the comments of others on these threads in the past that he worked behind the scenes to promote the amendment.

As Lincoln said in his letter to Horace Greeley:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Whatever else he instigated the war for, he certainly needed revenue and exports from the South or else he would face a serious balance of payments problem and its resulting inflation. Spending and new debt by the central government was out of control before he got into power.

Tell me truthfully would you rather be a citizen of say South Carolina, or a citizen of the United States?

Maybe it's a Texas thing for some Texans of my generation, but I consider myself a citizen of Texas and therefore a citizen of the United States, not the other way around. Sort of the way Robert E. Lee thought of Virginia. Years ago my grandparents drove many miles to get back into Texas so that my aunt could be born in Texas.

The Southern Democrats were realists who had counted the votes in the new Congress and knew they were outvoted. For example, Southern wealth was going to be transferred to the North through the mechanism of the Morrill Tariff which a Republican-dominated House had passed in 1860. The South didn't have the votes to stop it from passing in the Senate.

As Texas said in their Ordinance of Secession:

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

Northern states were ignoring the Constitution with respect to the return of fugitive slaves in spite of the fact that they had agreed to that part of the Constitution originally. Lincoln did agree to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, but I suspect (but could be wrong) so had Buchanan.

Some Republicans said they were for laws higher than the Constitution -- which basically meant they could justify things that the Constitution prohibited. What good were Constitutional guarantees in such a situation?

You guys always try to spin the Corwin Amendment that way, but that's not what it would have done. It would have prevented the federal government from outlawing slavery, but it wouldn't have stopped the states from ending it on their own, as many northern states had already done. So unless you're going to claim that only the feds had the power to stop slavery, and that states had none, then the Corwin amendment merely restates what Lincoln had said over and over, including in the Greeley letter.

Now what Lincoln refused to support was the expansion of slavery into the territories. That's why he rejected the Crittenden Compromise, which would have done exactly the same thing as the Corwin Amendment, but would have also reestablished the Missouri Compromise line.

Here's Lincoln in a letter written in Dec. 1860:

On the territorial question, [2] I am inflexible, as you see my position in the book. On that, there is a difference between you and us; and it is the only substantial difference. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted.

All your arguments are practically straight out of "The South was Right", I keep waiting for the sequels, Marx was right, Hitler was right and Bin Ladin was right.

I've even special ordered them so I get the first editions.

Batman is as real as the confederacy is to people like STAND. He has never experienced what it was truly like for a slave and yet he has admitted that slavery was wrong and evil even though he has never seen it or felt it's horror.

I maintain that it was also quasi-legal not actually legal since there were no laws defining it as an institution one could enter into by chance or circumstance. There lies another bit of Lincoln's brilliance by forcing a debate on slavery he would have forced laws to be enacted defining it. The South would have been forced to put into law just how and why a human being could become property.

The greatest mistake made by those that discuss this issue today from either side is that they forget that a certain amount of political strategy was at work on everything both sides said and did. You look at the words and letter of each side under the cold microscope of history without examining the political ploys at work behind them.

Lincoln and the republicans wanted to debate and vote on the issue of slavery and the democrats didn't want to lose in either political contest so they chose to divide the nation, and then Lincoln said sorry fellows but you can't do that either.

In the end it was always the southern democrats that chose badly, they chose slavery over freedom, a nation divided over a single great nation, and the rule of force over the rule of law, and lost in all their choices.

And might I add even today when the democrats lose to republicans what battle cry do they still use....Well when President Bush beat Al Gore mthe democrats decided to secede from what they called "Jesusland" and threatened to from a new nation out of the Blue states. Surely even STAND remember that episode....

TOO ALL: "duh snake's" post #571 is STRAIGHT out of the "most extreme, lunatic fringe" of northeastern, REVISIONIST, SOCIALIST,south-HATING academia.

it's more "blame the victim" for what the DAMNyankees undeniably DID during their IMPERIALIST WAR against the new dixie republic. furthermore, it is an ATTEMPT to cover-up and/or EXCUSE the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of WAR CRIMES & CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, committed by the invading army in the southland, against UNarmed civilians (most of whom were "persons of colour",members of religious minorities & the "poorest of the poor whites") & helpless CSA prisoners of war.

TO "usmcobra":"snake" face it, you've been LIED TO & made a FOOL of by the LEFTISTS that you've evidently been reading/listening to.

what you posted is not only IGNORANT of the FACTS, but the "lunatic leftists", that endlessly spew out that BILGE, are well aware that what they say is FALSE. their intent is to DECEIVE the IGNORANT UNknowing masses. obviously, they succeeded with you!

the REVISIONIST LEFT "laughs behind their well-manicured hands" AT anyone,who is STUPID enough to believe their KNOWING LIES. (the noise you hear from the north is not thunder, it is the sound of RIDICULE from the ELITIST,self-righteous, LEFTIST,sanctimonious, ARROGANT"sources" that you believe. YOU are the well-chosen target of their RIDICULE, as you evidently BELIEVE their KNOWING LIES!)

free dixie,sw

All your arguments are practically straight out of "The South was Right"

Catchy title. You mean others think the way I do?

Certainly slavery was a moral evil and it divided the nation, but the blame for dividing the nation does not lie entirely with the South. Northern states were nullifying the Constitution by blocking the return of fugitive slaves. The Constitution wouldn't have been ratified in the first place unless the North had agreed to return slaves. Why should the South stay in the Union if the other side won't bide by the compact? (I could pull up the famous quote to that effect by Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster if you wish.)

The Supreme Court ruled that slaves could be taken into the territories or free states and remain slaves. Northern politicians such as Lincoln wanted the territories for free white men (their words), a position designed to appeal to northern voters and advocates of the Free Soil movement.

On what constitutional basis did Lincoln say that the South couldn't leave the Union? On his far-fetched argument that the Union created the states, and that the states were never sovereign and thus couldn't leave? That flies in the face of history.

... the rule of force over the rule of law

Which side was thwarting the Fugitive Slave Law? Which side tried to arm legal slaves and cause an insurrection? When Great Britain did that in the Revolutionary War it was mentioned against the king in the Declaration of Independence:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us

Not quite consistent with "all men are created equal" is it?

The South would have been forced to put into law just how and why a human being could become property.

It already was in the law. Here is what an 1856 Law Dictionary says:

SLAVE. A man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another.

2. A slave has no political rights, and generally has no civil rights. He can enter into no contract unless specially authorized by law; what he acquires generally, belongs to his master. The children of female slaves follow the condition of their mothers, and are themselves slaves.

3. In Maryland, Missouri and Virginia slaves are declared by statute to be personal estate, or treated as such. Anth. Shep. To. 428, 494; Misso. Laws, 558. In Kentucky, the rule is different, and they are considered real estate. 1 Kty. Rev. Laws, 566 1 Dana's R. 94.

4. In general a slave is considered a thing and not a person; but sometimes he is considered as a person; as when he commits a crime; for example, two white persons and a slave can commit a riot. 1 McCord, 534. See Person.

I maintain that it was also quasi-legal not actually legal since there were no laws defining it as an institution one could enter into by chance or circumstance. There lies another bit of Lincoln's brilliance by forcing a debate on slavery he would have forced laws to be enacted defining it. The South would have been forced to put into law just how and why a human being could become property.

Baghdad Bob of the liberal anti-conservative harpy coven, you'd never make a living as a lawyer sir. Marriage is not enumerated within the Constitution - it a STATE matter - not one delegated to the federal government. Slavery was LEGAL, and either PRACTICED in every state at the adoption of our Constitution - millions and millions in profits - vast fortunes - were made by YANKEES sailing to Africa to purchase their human cargoes. It was protected bt Article IV§2 federaly.

The Southern states could not force a Northern state to codify anything, neither could the Lincoln - state acts are MANDATED by Article IV§1 to be given FULL, FAITH and Credit in every other State. And to prevent liberal morons from attempting to declare that everything was a federal issue, the ratifying states demanded and received the 9th and 10th Amendments. My favourite President - Ronald Wilson Reagan - lived by that attitude - he was conservative (no Lincolnian bloated government for him), decried protectionism and federal graft to corporations. Reagan even stated that he was close to being Libertarian in his views of liberty and government.

You continue another liberal lie/mantra in that the seceeding states chose slavery - they ALREADY HAD LEGAL SLAVERY in the American union - if that were the case there was NO reason to leave. Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment and making it permanent. The Supreme Court had previously held that the territories were open for slavery - yet during the 20 or so years they had already been open there were almost none there. The only reason Lincon and the republicans (1854-1870 Democrats - protectionist, advocates of bloated government, corporate welfare, graft etc) wanted to keep the territories free of blacks - slave or free - was their BIGOTRY.

Well when President Bush beat Al Gore mthe democrats decided to secede from what they called "Jesusland" [The SOUTH!] and threatened to from a new nation out of the Blue states [YANKEELAND!].

Snicker.

George Wallace probably wore a white shirt when he did all those things, but I'm guilty I guess -- I still wear white shirts.

Yeah he did, but a white shirt and the Confederate flag are not equivalents are they?

Making a speech while wearing a white shirt is symbolic of nothing more than conforming to the prevailing trend of male fashion of the time. While making the same speech standing in front of a Confederate flag is associating that flag, and that symbol with those words. Do you disagree?

Wallace and his segregationist supporters used the Confederate flag as a symbol of their opposition to federal civil rights laws. If YOU were standing on the other side of that police line what symbolic message would YOU take away?

Even today the flag is a symbol of segregation, and has no place in public life. That is why then Gov. George Bush had a plaque with the Confederate flag removed from the side of the Texas state courthouse.

The heritage societies (SCV, UDC) did complain about the misuse of the CBF during that time and dating back to the 40s, IIRC.

Yeah, but nothing like the ten years of battling in state and federal courts as was claimed on here earlier. In fact, their [in]actions amount to 'nary a peep' compared to the quick acceptance and use of the CBF by white southerners, and the KKK for political purposes.

Today the Confederate flag is commonly recognized as a symbol for 'white power' and white separatism (albeit self imposed).

The legacy of Wallace is aptly carried on by guys like David Duke (seen here at a 2005 Euro-American White Power summit).

Indelibly stained, huh? I guess I'm just slow to pick up on these new ideas.

Yep. Very slow (imo)...perhaps your myopia with regard to Southern history is getting in the way.

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