Our generation's Lincoln
Lincoln certainly did not waffle on the question of whether it’s constitutionally permissible for states to abandon the union. But some rednecks (and I say to all rednecks: be proud of that neck) and Southrons [sic] even yet beg to disagree with what went down. The fact that chattel slavery based on kidnapped slaves and racial bigotry was heavily tied up in the economies of a lot of the South doesn’t make them look all that good (and I would wholeheartedly agree with theologians who aver that the South was cruising for a divine bruising on that matter and that the Civil War was probably it), but Lincoln being less than totally altruistic didn’t free the Northern slaves together with the Southern ones but waited. It is a checkered history. Still, it’s sad that the Republican party in the Land of Lincoln is a faint shadow of its old idealistic self.
and today SNL would be doing skits on how ugly he was...The MSM would be doing story after story on his crazy wife....and he would never win
I disagree with the characterization of Lincoln as “humble.” People of great intellect are never really humble. For example, Lincoln was once asked about why he almost never read newspaper accounts of the war. His answer was along the lines of “Why should I? I know more than they do.”
I think that in Lincoln’s case the humble bit was a clever political ploy.
Thank you. A nice read on President’s Day.
My favorite Lincoln story involves him defending a railroad (I think Illinois Central) against a steamship company whose riverboat had hit a railroad bridge, caught fire and sank. The steamship company’s argument was that river traffic had the right of way, that the railroad owed them a boat, and that they couldn’t build any more bridges. Lincoln showed that the boat was improperly piloted and won the case, in effect laying the track for the intercontinental railroad (a pet project of his while in the White House). He presented his client with a bill for $2000, a princely sum at the time. The railroad said his services should be nowhere near that expensive, and that he should go back and check his records. He did, and submitted a bill for $5000 along with a notification that he was suing them for nonpayment. He won that case as well...
Send over 600,000 Americans to their deaths and save the “union”, or destroy the Constitution and Republic... why choose? I can do BOTH! Lincoln did not abolish slavery and had no desire to do so. He had no Constitutional jurisdiction with which to prevent the lawful secession of eleven U.S. States. He was a puppet of “big rail,” the prevailing corporate interests of his day.
This is the guy that gets credit for being the great emancipator? Give me a break. The winners write the history.
Abraham Lincoln Quote
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
by:
Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865) 16th US President
Source:
Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
(The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)