Posted on 02/17/2015 4:22:50 AM PST by Kaslin
What’s most amazing is that Lincoln later picked Stanton to become his War Secretary after the resignation of Simon Cameron.
At the time of his selection Stanton was still an avowed critic of Lincoln. Lincoln was willing to overlook this because of Stanton’s superb managerial skills. As their relationship matured Stanton became one of Lincoln’s warmest admirers. Standing at the foot of Lincoln’s bed as latter died of a gunshot wound to the head, Stanton proclaimed of Lincoln: “Now he be belongs to the ages.”
“I claim not to have controlled event,” Lincoln candidly wrote in 1864, “but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
Lincoln’s critics (both contemporary and posthumous) have often pointed to this confession as a sign that while Lincoln successfully rode the whirlwind of Civil War, he was not the builder of the nation that others have claimed- a kind of second founding father after Washington.
But it was this essentially negative trait (negative in the sense that it was passive and did not require action) that allowed Lincoln to remake US society on the basis of the words of the Declaration of Independence that declared “all men are created equal,” to include African Americans.
He was able to accomplish this revolutionary object through passive management of the Civil War without turning it in to a “remorseless revolutionary struggle,” which might have irreparably divided the nation during Reconstruction.
Nowhere was Lincoln’s task more arduous than in managing and massaging the personalities of his generals (and to a lesser extent, members of Congress).
Many of Lincoln’s strongest critics were generals who felt that Lincoln wasn’t taking their advice on how to conduct the war. Yet Lincoln ignored personality (and public opinion) in supporting his generals and stuck to the principle of rewarding those that fought and won battles.
The most striking examples of this were the cases of General George McClellan and US Grant.
McClellan was the commander of the Army of the Potomac and later general-in-chief of all Federal forces.Mostly on the strength of a strong personality, McClellan dazzled soldiers and politicians despite the fact that he squandered several opportunities to beat the Confederates in battle. He was glamorous, good-looking and just credible enough to be plausible.
Lincoln however was not fooled.
Instead, Lincoln found himself drawn to the unpopular and often shy US Grant. Grant won battles even though he was publicly ridiculed for being a drunkard, slovenly and lacking in refinement. When a group protested Lincoln keeping Grant in command despite hearsay that Grant was a drunkard, Lincoln only reply was asking them what brand whiskey Grant drank so he could get some for his other generals.
Lincoln was also a complex man. It showed in the complex relationships he had with those in his own family. But he had a loving family, which is a lot more complex than just good intentions and happy relations.
For example, Lincoln’s father does not fit very prominently in biographies of Lincoln. This is because Lincoln was reticent when it came to his father. When he did speak of him, Lincoln was somewhat scornful of his father’s lack of ambition. They were, Lincoln was very sure, incompatible.
He might have echoed Winston Churchill who once said that to his mother he owed everything, to his father, nothing.
Both men however owed much to their fathers. Many of the traits they used to become a successful chief executives and a successful commanders-in-chief in times of war came from their fathers, like sense of self and self-confidence.
There are times in life when people feel like nothing is working well for them, when in fact, the period may be leading to another, more fertile time. Lincoln had several stretches where he despaired of ever amounting to much in the world or where it seemed his ambition outran his ability.
But driven by the inward necessities of his heart he persevered, because he had heart. Heart matters more than brains, as some in America have found out to their sorrow.
So I wish America would know Lincoln more thoroughly, because his heart still shines so brightly for us all, not just as a president, but mostly as a man.
Good resources for the Lincoln haters:
Professor John McKee Barr’s “Loathing Lincoln: An American Tradition from the Civil War to the Present”:
http://loathinglincoln.com/book/
McKee speech on C-Span:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?322129-1/book-discussion-loathing-lincoln
Thomas Krannawitter’s book “Vindicating Lincoln”
http://www.amazon.com/Vindicating-Lincoln-Defending-Politics-President-ebook/dp/B004BJ1WG2/ref=sr_1_2
Not hatred; but little love either. The country had flirted with secession for 50 years prior, mostly pushed by the New England states. When the Confederate states actually seceded, all of a sudden the very people who were in favor of secession suddenly became ardent defenders of a united country. $$$$
Both sides fought for $$.
Yes, New England Federalists met at the Hartford Convention to discuss the war and a minority of the delegates favored secession. They were uniformly denounced as treasonous. The Federalist Party was discredited and thus came to an end.
Secession was always considered treasonous by most Americans right up until South Carolina attempted it in 1860. That is why they did not consult with any other slave states prior to doing it.
HA! HA! Check your history its common knowledge Abe put out an arrest warrant on the Chief Justice. The cops just would not do it.
I won’t because he did.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 9.
Well, you can thank the Democrats for slavery , The Confederate States of America, The Civil War, succession and the creation of the KKK. The Democrat Party has a lot to atone for historically.
Then it should be fairly simple to provide a link to credible evidence of said warrant. I’d love to see it. Thanks.
Here here! I agree.
I believe it was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, who imposed the first income tax in 1913.
“As Charles Adams wrote in his LRC article, “Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief Justice Roger B. Taney,” there were, at the time of his writing, three corroborating sources for the story that Lincoln actually issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice. It was never served for lack of a federal marshal who would perform the duty of dragging the elderly chief justice out of his chambers and throwing him into the dungeon-like military prison at Fort McHenry. (I present even further evidence below).
All of this infuriates the Lincoln Cult, for such behavior is unquestionably an atrocious act of tyranny and despotism. But it is true. It happened. And it was only one of many similar constitutional atrocities committed by the Lincoln administration in the name of “saving the Constitution.”
The first source of the story is a history of the U.S. Marshal’s Service written by Frederick S. Calhoun, chief historian for the Service, entitled The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989. Calhoun recounts the words of Lincoln’s former law partner Ward Hill Laman, who also worked in the Lincoln administration.
Upon hearing of Laman’s history of Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass arrest of Northern political opponents, Lincoln cultists immediately sought to discredit Laman by calling him a drunk. (Ulysses S. Grant was also an infamous drunk, but no such discrediting is ever perpetrated on him by the Lincoln “scholars”.)
But Adams comes up with two more very reliable accounts of the same story. One is an 1887 book by George W. Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, entitled Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1887). In it is the transcript of a conversation Mayor Brown had with Taney in which Taney talks of his knowledge that Lincoln had issued an arrest warrant for him.”
- See more at: http://thomaslegion.net/presidentabrahamlincolnandthechiefjustice.html#sthash.WibTV3sg.dpuf
Because they took up arms against a duly elected government in order to preserve an economic system based on the ownership of one human being by another for the purpose of using said human beings as slave labor.
R U feeling the love yet? LOL!
Actually the Lincoln administration imposed the first federal income tax began in 1861. It was was repealed in 1872. The confederates imposed on in 1863.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/warfare-and-logistics/logistics/tax.html
No.
Wilson did reinstate in 1913 didn’t he?
Snicker! :-)
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