Posted on 03/20/2011 6:47:46 AM PDT by ml/nj
Just wondering what people might have to say about this.
Both would say they tried to preserve their union. Both employed military might to do so and killed lots of their own citizens.
ML/NJ
Well stated. Add to that, that when the south began its move toward secession, they were still as free as anyone else in the nation (excepting those, of course, whom they subjugated through slavery). Nothing had changed except a presidential election. They were just as free the day after the election as they were the day before.
It was they who initiated the downward spiral to hell, they who struck the first blow, they who brought the nation to war. What Lincoln did was react to their terms with the intent of keeping the nation intact.
Oh, yes. I forgot. All Lincoln had to do was let the South go and all this could have been avoided. So that absolves them of the blame and places it squarely on his shoulders.
Do I really need the sarc tag for that last statement?
Lincoln was no different to Napoleon, the Soviets or any other Imperialist, who only goal is to create a great union. You can’t leave the union or else we will go to war.
Frankly the Lincoln haters sound exactly like the Palin haters on the left.
There was no “free world” 150 years ago.
What is the Difference Between Muamar Qaddafi and Josef Stalin?
Both had people summarily deported and executed.
And both supported international terrorism.
There was no “free world” 150 years ago.
Tell that to the millions of people that came to the US and settled the west. My Irish ancestors would not agree with you.
one of them ordered the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
As would my German ancestors.
Qua-daffy has no visible signs of Marfan’s Syndrome?
Fair nuff:
1. Gaddafi took control through revolution, instilled himself as supreme leader and maintains that power to this day through intimidation and force. Lincoln was elected through legitimate election as prescribed by law.
2. Gaddafi is an international terrorist seeking to export violence where ever and whenever it suits his purpose. Lincoln had no such vile or grandiose aspirations. He was concerned exclusively with maintaining the union.
3. Gaddafi promotes racism and is an active participant in slavery, Lincoln abhorred both.
4. Gaddafi seeks only to enrich himself and his heirs. Lincoln detested the thought.
5. Gaddafi has killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians as a matter of rule. Lincoln was known to have prosecuted his own forces to discourage the practice when it became known to him.
6. Gaddafi is a socialist, Lincoln was a true Republican.
7. Lincoln supended certain constitutional rights (ie. habeus corpus) for a relatively short period of time due to the war. Gaddafi has ignored the rights of his people for some 40+ years and enforces only those that are politically expedient to him at the moment.
8. Lincoln was a true believer in non-violent internal dissidence, Gaddafi crushes it with an iron hand.
9.Gaddafi’s wealth is estimated to be $70 billion, Lincoln died a relative pauper.
There’s more, but that’s a start.
re: “”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.” — Lincoln”
This quote is so often used to bash Lincoln, yet so many people do not get it. In Lincoln’s mind the national sovereignty and continued existence of the nation was more important at that particular moment than ending slavery.
The South seceeded when the election did not go their way even though Lincoln had time and time again said that though be believed slavery to be a moral wrong and sinful, yet he, as president, did not have the right to interfere with it where it already existed.
Then why did the South secede? Because Lincoln was against slavery’s expansion into the new territories that would become future states. It was the South that had the moral problem, not Lincoln. It was the South that tried to hide their support of slavery behind the guise of “protecting their rights”. Lincoln did not threaten their rights - only slavery’s expansion into the growing nation of the future.
Several states had seceeded even before he was inaugurated. He believed that secession was a direct threat to the United States just as much as any foreign invasion - both could destroy the country. He believed part of his role as President was to preserve the United States.
It was the South that instigated the war - they didn’t have to secede, but they left when they didn’t like the election results - just like the Wisconscin Democrats fled their state to avoid facing a debate they didn’t think they could win.
It is true that Lincoln did not fight the war over slavery, but the South sure did - they fought it to preserve and expand it.
That certainly sounds like a morally lofty motive, sufficiently believable to generate the money for his memorial, and the superficial understanding of generations of historians..
Before Lincoln initiated the invasion of Charleston and Pensacola in April of 1861, he remarked on several occasions that he could not let the tariff revenue stop.
Tariff revenue financed over 90% of the US Treasury, and the vast majority of that was underpinned by Southern exports.
The Southern states seceded peacefully. The only reason that Lincoln initiated war was the competition of Charleston and New Orleans shipping (plus the power of the Mississippi trade supply routes to the Midwest) to northern ports.
If you review the history, you will find that several Northern governors were visiting Lincoln's office just days before he ordered the Union fleets to the southern ports, and guaranteeing their militias and money to help New York, Boston, and Providence survive the free trade that was about to be established without them.
“Maintaining the union” was a euphemism for saving their financial structure......and a vast misrepresentation of the cause of death of 600,000.
The bigger the memorial, the greater the lie.
Nobody can deny that this country was the epitome of freedom in the mid 19th century.
Your opinions are misguided, ill informed and frankly pretty creepy.
It would seem you've ignored the little issue of the firing on Ft. Sumter. That's what initiated the war, beyond the secession of the southern states, that is. And the South fired on Ft. Sumter simply because they didn't want the Union to maintain a facility that belonged to the Union.
If you review the history, you will find that several Northern governors were visiting Lincoln's office just days before he ordered the Union fleets to the southern ports, and guaranteeing their militias and money to help New York, Boston, and Providence survive the free trade that was about to be established without them.
Um, what were the southern states doing during this same time, as far as raising militias for the confederacy? They had all but surrounded Ft. Sumter with an army.
The bigger the memorial, the greater the lie.
The bigger the obfuscation, the greater the deceit.
One is a force for evil...the other was a force for good.
A LITTLE knowledge is a scary thing, and you have somewhat less than a little. Where do you get this crap?
Among the other false statements you made, I don’t think there’s any credible source that documents Lincoln EVER owning slaves.
Even if Lincoln had accepted session, or the South had won, by 1900 at very latest slavery would have ended in the states of the Confederacy. Would the bondsman have suffered more under slavery between 1865-1900 than he did under Jim Crow? Would his posterity have been better served by a South that initiated emancipation or one that had it forced on them from the outside? I don't claim to know the answers, but the questions are not fatuous.
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