How Lincoln Emerged in the Stratosphere of Greatness

Another view of Lincoln.

the South [claimed] the right to spread slavery to the North, where there was no economic rationale for it. and today the 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus psycho spoiled brats and their bratty ideological issue have claimed the right to spread statism to all the Republic.

Abe says we have a problem.. he explains from "the other side."

You initiated a policy to tolerate the Marxist-Alinsky radicals and let them rant; not only has it not ceased but was constantly augmented by decades of infiltration and indoctrination. You now have two Americas. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half statist and half free; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Dubious as to whether Lincoln was born in that log cabin on that day and year, and whether Thomas Lincoln was his father.
His marriage to Mary Todd is what made him - people disparaged her because she was the other, necessary half of his Mr Nice Guy persona.

One of my ancestors in a direct line sold that piece of ground to Tom Lincoln. Our people owned the adjacent farm, and when Abe's mother and sister died of disease they were buried on our land, not Tom's, so he could sell it easier if need be ~ he'd not had much chance to improve it.

Lots of people in Southern Indiana in those rugged days of first settlement lived in lean-tos and log cabins. They used waxed paper for windows, and made their own candles from hog fat and bear grease.

An educated man could read and write Spanish and English and survey property, and if he was lucky he'd get to do the paperwork to transfer title from the government or the grant-holders like Lee and Clark. Everybody else farmed ~ but land was available for about $2.00 per acre.

He was smart and ruthless.

Thank you for writing, your family history is very interesting - but there still are many questions about Lincoln’s date of birth and parentage.

I have no questions about it ~ however, it's his mother's parentage, not his, that's has been questioned.

For what it's worth his mother may not have spoken English, and her surname may well have been HENGST and not HANKS, and she was probably from the Virginia/PA/MD border area where most people at that time didn't speak English ~ more likely they spoke French, Swedish or German, possibly even Plattdeutsch. Abe indicated his birth mother and father had belonged to the Seventh Day Baptists ~ John Leland's contribution to the Christian Church movement, as well as the foundational group for Midwestern Abolitionism.

These are things Carl Sandburg didn't know about that part of the world.

In 1863, Lincoln tucked the theme of emancipation into the main war aim of suppressing the insurrection by selling this in the North not as Union soldiers dying to liberate slaves, but the enticement of the slaves to revolt and harass the insurrection of the secessionists.

This is inaccurate. In the Emancipation Proclamation he stated, " And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages."

Good article, but he greatly over-simplifies the story of the formation of the Republican Party.

It was in reality formed from northern Whigs, after the disintegration of that party, a good many northern Democrats who couldn’t stomach their party’s submission to the slaveocracy any longer, and parts of the American or Know-Nothing Party, a short-lived anti-immigrant group that did amazingly well in the mid-1850s but then fell apart.

About all the various factions making up the new Republican Party had in common at first was opposition to the spread of slavery.

Good article, but he greatly over-simplifies the story of the formation of the Republican Party.

It was in reality formed from northern Whigs, after the disintegration of that party, a good many northern Democrats who couldn’t stomach their party’s submission to the slaveocracy any longer, and parts of the American or Know-Nothing Party, a short-lived anti-immigrant group that did amazingly well in the mid-1850s but then fell apart.

About all the various factions making up the new Republican Party had in common at first was opposition to the spread of slavery.

My opinion is Lincoln was a warrior. Churchill thought Lincoln did not give his generals enough chance to prove themselves but I think he was a natural warrior who could not understand why his generals did not understand war and did not have any patience with them for that reason. He went through generals until he found the ones who saw things the way he saw them.

from the article: "Given the hyperbole which frequently attaches to much-admired Americans, there is a temptation to assume that Lincoln could not possibly deserve the stratospheric elevation he has received.
But he does."

Thanks for posting a great article.
It reflects my opinion, exactly.

kabumpo: "Dubious as to whether Lincoln was born in that log cabin on that day and year, and whether Thomas Lincoln was his father."

OK, FRiend, it's put-up or shut-up time.
What evidence do you have?

...but there still are many questions about Lincoln’s date of birth and parentage.

Not among men like David Herbert Donald, Ronald White, Doris Goodwin, or any of the other people who have written biographies of the man. So what do you know that they don't?

Someone who's read most of the materially honest books on Lincoln would not make the suggestion.

The Abraham Lincoln Genesis Cover-up by R. Vincent Enlow
“Abraham Lincoln was of illegitimate origin, his father was Abraham Enloe, and not Thomas Lincoln or anyone else.”
- James H. Cathey, “The Genesis of Lincoln”, 1899

History books for years have taught that Lincoln was born in a Log Cabin in Hardin County Kentucky on February 12th 1809 after his parents Nancy Hanks and Tom LIncoln were married. But there have always been serious doubt and questions about his birth and the time line associated with his parents marriage and his birth.

The alternate birth story says that as a child, Nancy Hanks the mother of Abraham Lincoln and her mother and sister moved from Virginia to her uncles home near Belmont North Carolina in what is now Gaston County. While there the family fell on hard times and they bound out Nancy in the late 1700’s to the Abraham Enloe Family who were prosperous landowners on Puzzle Creek near what is now Bostic North Carolina.

Although she was a bound servant she was treated as a member of the family by the Enloe family and everything was fine until she became pregnant and it was said she was pregnant by Abraham Enloe whose family she had been working for. The baby was born in 1805 and that Nancy Hanks named the baby Abraham. Nancy and the baby boy Abraham were packed off to live with relatives on the Kentucky Frontier and it was there that Nancy Hanks met and married Tom Lincoln.

*It is a historical fact that Jesse Head the Methodist Minister that married Nancy Hanks and Tom Lincoln always said that the couple had a black haired boy with them at the wedding.*

Left to traditional historians and other Lincolnians, the story of Abraham Lincoln’s life from womb to grave may well remain
the longest cover-up in America. With the depiction of his “true” beginnings, we see how one of the most revered presidents in U.S. history overcame more adversity than anyone could have imagined.

Hardly anyone questions the birth story of the 16th president of the United States as James R. Cathey did in his bombshell
expose of Abraham Lincoln’s genesis. Most will say that he was born in Kentucky in February 1809 and his father was
Thomas Lincoln. Prominent men have disguised the truth in a patchwork of misleading information, half-truths, irrelevant
data, assumptive fact and often-outright fiction coldly engineering an unbelievable cover-up. If you were deceived by the
Watergate cover-up, and if the Chappaquiddick misadventure sticks in your craw as a mockery of truth and justice, you may
now add to your list one more shocker. It is the gold medal winner — the fabricated genesis of Abraham Lincoln!
A glorified story has been substituted for Abraham Lincoln’s true genealogy, his mother’s illegitimacy, his turbulent life, his grandmother’s promiscuity, his actual place of birth, and even his accurate age.All the details including the brutality he and his mother suffered at the hands of Thomas Lincoln have been skillfully kept out of history books. Fortunately, there have been individuals who wanted America’s heritage to be an honest account of men such as Lincoln’s law partner of twenty years William H. Herndon, James H. Cathey (”Genesis of Lincoln,” 1899), and J.C. Coggins (”Abraham Lincoln: A North Carolinian With Proof,” Second Edition, 1927). In defiance of convention and pretense, these men had the courage to write about Lincoln’s life the way they knew it.
http://www.bosticlincolncenter.com/background.htm
http://www.tarheelpress.com/lincoln.html
http://www.genealogytoday.com/us/lincoln/genesis.html
Affidavits

From the 1880s to the 1920s a number of writers, particularly James A. Cathey, a state legislator, and Dr. James Coggins,

president of Atlantic Christian College, collected testimony of Lincoln’s origin in Rutherford County and other areas. Among

the affidavits they procured were statements such as these:

· Nancy “Grannie” Hollifield, who lived until 1900 and “Aunt Polly” Price, who died in 1890, stated that they were friends

of Nancy Hanks and held the child Abe in their arms before Nancy and her baby left for Kentucky.

· Wesley Enloe, Lincoln’s reputed half-brother, said that the tradition of Lincoln’s origin in the Abraham Enloe family “no

doubt is essentially true.”

· Nancy Hanks’ name was recorded on a roll book of the Concord Baptist Church. Unfortunately, this book was later

destroyed in a fire.

· Several people who knew Lincoln as a boy in Kentucky provided evidence that his “official” birth date of 1809, recorded

only in a family Bible dating from the 1850s, is several years too late.

· Austin Gallaher stated that he saved Lincoln from drowning in 1812, and at that time the two boys had been in school

together for over a year. Although Lincoln had great intellectual gifts, he hardly would have been walking to school at

the age of two.

· Residents of Elizabethtown, Kentucky remembered seeing Abe as a toddler — two years before he is supposed to have

been born.

In North Carolina, Attorney General Theodore Davidson, the Rev. Dr. Tilman R. Ganes of Shelby, prominent Rutherford

County residents including government officials, attorneys, doctors, bankers, and merchants, and older residents of several

counties all testified to the truth of Lincoln’s origin.

Among those who attested to their belief in this tradition were:

J. B. Martin, ex-sheriff of Rutherford County

Berry H. Melton

Rev. Drew Rollins

Mr. H. J. Beck

Phyllis Wells

Judge J. B. Helm

Mr. Brackston Smart (related to “Grannie” Hollifield)

Rev. C. R. Lee (Methodist minister)

Rev. Jesse Head

Atty. C. O. Ridings (Rutherfordton)

J. N. Jones, Groceryman, Forest City (corroborated by Hollifield’s story)

Atty. J. R. Quinn (Shelby, N.C.)

Mr. James P. Cook (Editor, The Uplift, 11/20/26)

Mr. R. E. Price (Editor, Rutherford County News)

Gen. Julian S. Carr

Mr. T. L. Gantt (Editor, New Reporter, Spartanburg, S.C.)

Maj. L. P. Erwin (Journalist)

John E. Rowland

A. K. DeWallace (historian, Rutherford County)

Wm. A. Tanner (prominent citizen, Rutherford County)

Edmond David Dill (Jackson County, N.C.)

Preston Bostic (owner of Lincoln Hill)

Judge Gilmore (of Kentucky and Texas)

Rev. John Duncan

Phillip Dills (Rutherford County, b. 1/10/1808)

Walker Battle (Haywood County, b. 2/12/1809)

His mother was illegitimate and he probably was too: