As a Confederate descendant, I am not a fan of Abraham Lincoln. I know a lot of Americans and fellow Republicans and fellow conservatives greatly admire the man, so I generally keep quiet about him. No point in offending political comrades over events that happened 145 years ago. We have modern battles to fight, after all.
It’s not always easy to do, however. On Rush Limbaugh’s site today, he prints a conversation he had with a caller whom he calls “Confederate Kook” from Louisiana. Rush lost the debate with this guy, but is too damned ignorant to know it. His fill in today, Roger Hedgecock or Hedgehog or whatever, was equally ignorant and intellectually dishonest, likening the modern Democrats to the “peace” Democrats of 1861-1865. They have tried to take the past and project it onto the present, using ancient history to prove modern political points. It is a dubious enterprise and it has been tried before. Carl Sandburg used Lincoln to justify the New Deal during the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His four tomed volume on Lincoln: the War Years had a modern political agenda. He misused history just as some Republicans are misusing history today for their political ends, namely , Rush Limbaugh, Roger Hedgecock and even Powerline Blog. The situation in the 1860's is not analogous to the situation today in Iraq, and to pretend otherwise is intellectually dishonest and poor history.
I detest the modern Democratic Party, but trying to compare it to the 1860’s Democrats is farfetched in the extreme. During the 1860’s, Americans were fighting other Americans, not some barbaric savagery that is intent on killing us. The South is not comparable to Iraq. The South simply wanted to secede in peace, form their own country, and be left alone. They did not want to conquer the North. They were not a threat to the North, except economically. With the South gone, Southern ports would become free trade zones not subject to the high Northern tariff on imported goods, and economic activity would shift from Northern ports to Southern ones. Tax revenues to Washington would be dramatically slashed, since most of those revenues came from the South, and most of that was spent in the North.
Abraham Lincoln didn’t like slavery, but was willing to accept it to save the Union. The South, on the other hand, was willing to give it up if they could secede and be left alone. The reason North and South could not compromise was that neither was willing to change their position on the issue of secession.
Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Sun and stated unequivocally that if he could save the Union by freeing the slaves, he would do it; if he could save the Union by not freeing the slaves he would do it; and if he could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone, he would also do that. Whatever he did with regards to the slaves he would do only if it helped him achieve his major goal, to save the Union. Saving the Union by making it mandatory, of course, was not in keeping with one of our founding principles, the “consent of the governed,” but that’s another issue.
Lincoln hated slavery, but did not believe in the equality of man, as the wishful thinkers at Powerline would have you believe. He publicly stated that he would not be in favor of intermarriage with them, nor would he support making voters or jurors of them. In the early days of the war, he had a plan to deport all black people to South America or Liberia. In 1861 he told a group of free black men visiting the White House that both races suffered greatly in the other’s presence, and that “not a single man of your race is equal to a single man of ours.” He was not the enlightened crusader for justice that many modern school children have been led to believe.
Of course, Lincoln was a slick politician. He said different things to different audiences, based on the sentiments of his listeners. Powerline has found one speech that makes Lincoln sound like a flaming abolitionist and have used it until it’s worn out, while ignoring all of his other speeches that undermine their chosen beliefs about the man.
I will tell you what I believe, however, and you can ignore it as much as you like: I don’t mind. I believe that Lincoln was a tyrant; that his years in office were a reign of terror; and that he is the biggest fraud in American history.
You don’t have to agree, and we’ll still be friends.
It’s not always easy to do, however. On Rush Limbaugh’s site today, he prints a conversation he had with a caller whom he calls “Confederate Kook” from Louisiana. Rush lost the debate with this guy, but is too damned ignorant to know it. His fill in today, Roger Hedgecock or Hedgehog or whatever, was equally ignorant and intellectually dishonest, likening the modern Democrats to the “peace” Democrats of 1861-1865. They have tried to take the past and project it onto the present, using ancient history to prove modern political points. It is a dubious enterprise and it has been tried before. Carl Sandburg used Lincoln to justify the New Deal during the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His four tomed volume on Lincoln: the War Years had a modern political agenda. He misused history just as some Republicans are misusing history today for their political ends, namely , Rush Limbaugh, Roger Hedgecock and even Powerline Blog. The situation in the 1860's is not analogous to the situation today in Iraq, and to pretend otherwise is intellectually dishonest and poor history.
I detest the modern Democratic Party, but trying to compare it to the 1860’s Democrats is farfetched in the extreme. During the 1860’s, Americans were fighting other Americans, not some barbaric savagery that is intent on killing us. The South is not comparable to Iraq. The South simply wanted to secede in peace, form their own country, and be left alone. They did not want to conquer the North. They were not a threat to the North, except economically. With the South gone, Southern ports would become free trade zones not subject to the high Northern tariff on imported goods, and economic activity would shift from Northern ports to Southern ones. Tax revenues to Washington would be dramatically slashed, since most of those revenues came from the South, and most of that was spent in the North.
Abraham Lincoln didn’t like slavery, but was willing to accept it to save the Union. The South, on the other hand, was willing to give it up if they could secede and be left alone. The reason North and South could not compromise was that neither was willing to change their position on the issue of secession.
Lincoln wrote a letter to the New York Sun and stated unequivocally that if he could save the Union by freeing the slaves, he would do it; if he could save the Union by not freeing the slaves he would do it; and if he could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others alone, he would also do that. Whatever he did with regards to the slaves he would do only if it helped him achieve his major goal, to save the Union. Saving the Union by making it mandatory, of course, was not in keeping with one of our founding principles, the “consent of the governed,” but that’s another issue.
Lincoln hated slavery, but did not believe in the equality of man, as the wishful thinkers at Powerline would have you believe. He publicly stated that he would not be in favor of intermarriage with them, nor would he support making voters or jurors of them. In the early days of the war, he had a plan to deport all black people to South America or Liberia. In 1861 he told a group of free black men visiting the White House that both races suffered greatly in the other’s presence, and that “not a single man of your race is equal to a single man of ours.” He was not the enlightened crusader for justice that many modern school children have been led to believe.
Of course, Lincoln was a slick politician. He said different things to different audiences, based on the sentiments of his listeners. Powerline has found one speech that makes Lincoln sound like a flaming abolitionist and have used it until it’s worn out, while ignoring all of his other speeches that undermine their chosen beliefs about the man.
I will tell you what I believe, however, and you can ignore it as much as you like: I don’t mind. I believe that Lincoln was a tyrant; that his years in office were a reign of terror; and that he is the biggest fraud in American history.
You don’t have to agree, and we’ll still be friends.
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