North Carolina GOP Lawmaker Calls Abraham Lincoln a 'Tyrant' Like Adolf Hitler

Time ^ | 4-12-2017 | Alana Abramson

[brucedickinson]

Pittman replied, "And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional." Pittman did not respond to request for comment from TIME to clarify his remarks.

[jeffersondem]

“And please explain to your rapt audience what Thomas Jefferson meant by, “Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.” “

Wrong question.

The important question is, “Why was this removed from the original draft of the DOI?”

[HandyDandy]

It was removed because of what it means. What does it mean?

[jeffersondem]

My statement that Jefferson did not include the reference to “merciless Indian savages” in the draft DOI is wrong. Jefferson DID include it in the draft but a couple of paragraphs away from the paragraph starting, “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself . . .”

I did not initially see it in my search. I regret the error.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem post #318: "Note well the words he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us.”
In the context of this paragraph it is too clear to deny he is speaking of slaves and slave revolts.
Jefferson's long paragraph was edited by his colleagues to remove the stinging references to the slave trade; to shorten 'he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us' to simply 'excited domestic insurrections'; and to raise the specter of 'merciless Indian Savages' which Jefferson did not originally include."

jeffersondem post#323: "My statement that Jefferson did not include the reference to “merciless Indian savages” in the draft DOI is wrong."

I noticed that, but so is the point you were hoping to drive home with it also wrong.
The question on the table today is: did Jefferson's expression 'excited domestic insurrections' refer to slave revolts?
And the answer is "no".

As explained at length in post #276 above, among other places, 'excited domestic insurrections' cannot refer to Dunmore's Proclamation of 1775 because that's not what Dunmore called for.
What Dunmore did call for was 'all indented Servants, Negroes, or others' to join the British army.

Further, there were no slave rebellions -- none, zero, nada -- during the Revolutionary War, so Jefferson's words 'excited domestic insurrections' can only refer to actual domestic insurrections which were even then going on: loyalists insurrections against patriots, several battles as spelled out in post #276 above.

So I'd say the evidence here is conclusive and you need to back away from your claim that our Founders went to war in 1776 to protect slavery.
They did not.

Indeed by Revolutionary War's end it was reported one fourth of Washington's army at Yorktown were African Americans, soldiers who were promised their freedom in exchange for service.
Also, by war's end abolition had already begun in several former colonies, now states.
So it was not about protecting slavery.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy: "The South did indeed pose a threat to the Union, and the South did indeed invade the North.
More than once."

One might quibble over the definition of the term "invade".
When is an invasion just a raid?
When is an army just a guerilla force?

Regardless, from the smallest guerilla force to the largest invasion, Confederates operated militarily in (by my count) 14 of 30 remaining Union states & territories -- almost half.

Indeed, of Union Border states, only Illinois escaped all Confederate military operations, and that was not because of any deference from Jefferson Davis.
Davis was in process of gathering up a military force on Mississippi river-boats to invade Illinois when his plans were shelved after Grant's victories at Forts Henry & Donelson, February 1862.

[fortheDeclaration]

There have to be legitimate causes for revolution.

There is no legal basis for secession.

The two aren't the same.

[central_va]

Wow, you are totally ignorant of history. Every one in the South knew that the South couldn't possibly invade the North, The South was too weak for that.

The Confederates eventually synthesized these various stands of strategic theory and political reality into what Davis called an "offensive-defensive" strategy. This consisted of defending the Confederate homeland by using interior lines of communication (a Jominian but also common-sense concept) to concentrate dispersed forces against an invading army and, if opportunity offered, to go over to the offensive, even to the extent of invading the North. No one ever defined this strategy in a systematic, comprehensive fashion. Rather, it emerged from a series of major campaigns in the Virginia-Maryland and Tennessee-Kentucky theaters during 1862, and culminated at Gettysburg in 1863. It almost emerged, in embryonic form, from the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in July 1861, a small battle by later Civil War standards but one that would have important psychological consequences in both the North and the South.

[rockrr]

Every one in the South knew that the South couldn't possibly invade the North, The South was too weak for that.

And yet they attempted exactly that - on more than one occasion.

[central_va]

The invasions of KY and PA were done to show the European journalists that followed along with the CSA during those campaigns that the South was serious about the war and to cause a shift of the front to the north which would allow the border states political room to move into the southern camp. The South wanted British help to break the blockade and there is no question about that. The whole Southern strategy was to make the North want to sue for peace becasue the cost was to high to keep the South in the Union. There is nothing to dispute here about that, it is well documented that the South had no designs on conquering the North.

If you really think Lee and Jefferson sat around contemplating how to conquer the North then you are really mis informed about history. Go back to square one.

[rockrr]

That’s it? That was their grand strategy? Be as much of a pain in the ass as possible so that the north would tell them to go away?!

I knew that they were foolish to start something that they had little hope of winning but I didn’t think they were that stupid!

[central_va]

That was their grand strategy? Be as much of a pain in the ass as possible so that the north would tell them to go away?!

Yes that was the strategy, in a word - stalemate. Any historian will tell you that. 9 million are not going to conquer 32 million. If the North had fully mobilized the war would have been over in a year. South didn't have a chance. It's only chance was to make it prohibitory expensive in blood and treasure to force the South back into the Union. Lincoln, being the sublime butcher, there was no amount of blood deemed to to great to subdue the South.

When debating with you I assumed you knew all of this but it appears you know so little.

[COBOL2Java]

You know, I understand having conflicting views about Lincoln. However, how incredibly stupid for a politician to spew such noxious garbage to the public. Nothing positive can come out of it.

Exactly. You don't pick your nose at a public fundraiser or scratch your butt. You learn to be discreet. He's entitled to his opinions about the 16th President, but for heaven's sake, this guy's showing the political acumen of Hillary Clinton.

[BroJoeK]

Central_va: “ It’s only chance was to make it prohibitory expensive in blood and treasure to force the South back into the Union.
Lincoln, being the sublime butcher, there was no amount of blood deemed to to great to subdue the South. “

Actually, there was another way, that was to ask for peace and in the war’s early years they could have negotiated MUCH better terms than Unconditional Surrender.

But slave-holders preferred to fight on until there were no poor Southerners left to die for them.

[BroJoeK]

Central_va: “ The whole Southern strategy was to make the North want to sue for peace becasue the cost was to high to keep the South in the Union.
There is nothing to dispute here about that, it is well documented that the South had no designs on conquering the North. “

Of course, as we’ve noted before, that depends on your definition of “North”.
In fact Confederates claimed three Union states and three territories as their own.
In the beginning Confederates had designs on two more Union states, and in the end sent military forces into 14 of 30 remaining Union states & territories.

So, obviously, when Central_va says “no designs on conquering the North” we are not to take him literally.

[drjimmy]

This looks great as written, and I bet it would be even better to hear it spoken aloud!

[central_va]

I don’t think either side realized the can of worms they were opening. Lincoln never showed any sign of wanting to negotiate from minute one.

[central_va]

So, obviously, when Central_va says “no designs on conquering the North” we are not to take him literally.

You are an absolute idiot to think the South wanted to or even could conquer the North. What an embarrassment you are. Turn in your historian card. At one time I thought you had a brain but really you know nothing.

I am not even sure I can find anyone at that time that even remotely thought that that Northern conquest was a possibility.

The war was first sold in the North as keeping the Union together then it was repackaged as a war to end slavery. Never was the war sold as "we in North are going to be conquered by the South". That is simply preposterous.

Find one newspaper article from the time period that even insinuates that. Find one letter.

The war was going to have on of three possible outcomes from the start AND EVERYONE KNEW IT.

1. Stalemate-North South reach some kind of settlement
2. European intervention-Still a stalemate but better negotiating terms for the South
3. South is completely defeated and occupied.

Notice I didn't say "North defeated and occupied" because that was NEVER going to happen. NOBODY in the entire USA at the time thought that a real possibility. It's absurd.

[rockrr]

Notice I didn't say "North defeated and occupied" because that was NEVER going to happen.

No argument there. I know of no one who believes that the CSA would (could?) defeat and occupy the entire north - or had any interest in doing so. But jeff davis certainly wanted his mortal enemy (the United States government) defeated. He knew that in violently breaking away from the commitment and the compact, he had set himself and his would-be confederacy as existential enemies and competitors. There could never be peace between them.

And REL made two attempts at realizing this goal, once in 1862 and again in 1863.

[Pelham]

” There have to be legitimate causes for revolution. “

You haven’t yet listed these legitimate causes nor cited a source.

” There is no legal basis for secession. “

Charles Francis Adams Jr came to a different conclusion when he investigated the issue. And being a direct descendant of the two Massachusetts Presidents he was hardly influenced by a connection with the South.

[central_va]

The South made many attempts at a negotiated peace and not the North. Also, on many occasions Gen. Lee said the Yankees never really seemed like the enemy. He called them "those people", instead of the enemy.

I believe the North and the South would have gotten along fine as two separate countries.