Posted on 04/14/2003 7:39:53 AM PDT by Valin
President Lincoln's primary purpose was to save the Union. He said he would leave no card unplayed, but he -never- suggested that anyone be forced out of the country.
You throw up your hands in mock disgust at the most reasonable actions by President Lincoln.
It makes you seem as if you can form no fair or intelligent position of your own. Continue to parrot the white supremacists and you'll be tarred with the same brush.
Walt
The death of Lincoln was a tragedy for the South as well as the Country. Lincoln's ideas would have made reconstruction less destructive.
Sure it was. He didn't want to burn Atlanta and loot farms. We made him do it.
"...in the wake of the assasination, editors, generals and public officials across the South voiced the opinion that the region had lost its best friend. Indignation meetings, so-called, were convened in many places. Lincoln stood for peace, mercy, and forgiveness. His loss, therefore, was a calamity for the defeated states. This opinion was sometimes ascribed to Jefferson Davis, even though he stood accused of complicity in the assasination....
He [Davis] read the telegram [bringing news of Lincoln's death] and when it brought an exultant shout raised his hand to check the demonstration..."He had power over the Northern people," Davis wrote in his memoir of the war," and was without malignity to the southern people."...Alone of the southern apologists, [Alexander] Stephens held Lincoln in high regard. "The Union with him in sentiment," said the Georgian, "rose to the sublimnity of religious mysticism...in 1873 "Little Elick" Stephens, who again represented his Georgia district in Congress, praised Lincoln for his wisdom, kindness and generosity in a well-publicized speech seconding the acceptance of the gift of Francis B. Carpenter's famous painting of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation."...
[in 1880] a young law student at the University of Virginia, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, speaking for the southern generation that grew to maturity after the war, declared, "I yield to no one precedence in love of the South. But because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy"...the leading propenent of that creed was Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution. In 1886 Grady, thirty-six years old, was invited to address the New England Society of New York, on the 266th anniversary to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. General Sherman, seated on the platform, was an honored guest, and the band played [I am not making this up] "Marching Through Georgia" before Grady was Introduced. Pronouncing the death of the Old South, he lauded the New South of Union and freedom and progress. And he offered Lincoln as the vibrant symbol not alone of reconciliation but of American character. "Lincoln," he said, "comprehended within himself all the strength, and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of the republic." He was indeed, the first American, "the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, in whose ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in whose great soul the faults of both were lost."
--From "Lincoln in American Memory" by Merrill D. Peterson P. 46-48
"He [General Sherman]then he spoke to the two Confederates [John C. Breckinridge and Joseph E. Johnston]of Lincoln's assassination. Johnston confided to Sherman his horror at the deed, fearing it would be blamed on the Confederates, and that Lincoln might have been their greatest ally in reconstruction."
Stepping outside to their now mingled escorts, they found the news generally known, as Sherman introduced the two of them to his staff, and Breckinridge and Reagan discussed it with some of their followers. The postmaster said he hoped no connection between the murdered and their cause would be found, or it should go hard for them, while Breckinridge said Lincoln's death at this time and in this manner must precipitate great calamity for them. "Gentlemen," he told them, “the South has lost its best friend." At once he wrote a message to be taken by courier to Davis, announcing the assassination and what he called the "dastardly attempt" on Seward. As soon as he got back to Goldsboro and the telegraph, he would send a wire with more details Sherman also took Breckinridge aside privately and advised him that despite the provision for universal amnesty in their agreement, he doubted that the North would allow it to apply o the civil leaders. If they could, they had all better leave the country especially Davis. Noting that there was particular hostility toward Breckinridge since, as one-time vice president, he was the highest ranking living civilian to go over to the rebellion he advised the Kentuckian to be sure to get away. Breckinridge replied that he would give the Yankees no more trouble on his own account, and that he would attempt to get Davis and himself and the rest out of the country as soon as possible."
-"An Honorable Defeat" pp.166-67 by William C. Davis
The people that belittle President Lincoln today have no idea of the history.
Walt
Oh no, of course not. Maybe the Jooos made him do it.
Were I Lincoln, I would do it again. Especially yours...
You got it to do, pussy boy.
That's certainly plausible. Whether you believe that Johnson's threats to the Confederate leadership sprang from a genuine hatred of them, or whether you believe that he was trying to get "ahead of the curve" by pandering to the the more vengeance-oriented members of Congress in order to save his own political skin, or whether you think he was trying to dispell any impression that his loyalty to the Union was suspect due to his Southern origins, the salient fact is that Lincoln's assasination was very bad news for the soon-to-be-defeated South, and Jefferson Davis knew it.
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