Tyranny is the logical conclusion of every people who lose the sense of their Natural Rights, and it appears that is, for most Americans, the case. As with every threat, the governments response to that threat determines the extent our Rights are affected. Although I am sure that there are very real threats in the world, the “War on Terror” is just another in a long line of threats that has been effectively used by government “Statists” over the last two centuries, used to their advantage over the People.
We can see this trend, as it began, when John Adams implemented the Aliens and Sedition Act of 1798, then again in the War between the Several States, which had little to do with the slavery issue and more to do with a Federal power grab. The Spanish threatened us at the end of the 19 Century, and then The Hun was the threat during WWI, and fascism in WWII, then the long list of communist threats, which called for preemption and containment from the Korean Conflict, through Vietnam.
Now, we have the threat of Islamic Fascists, otherwise known as terrorists, who, we are told, threaten our very existence as a “free nation” (how many times have we heard that before?). We must come to understand that there are forces at work within our government, which require the existence of such external threats. They exist (or are created) not only to justify a massive war machine, but in a very real sense, they exist to serve an even broader social purpose within our society.
With each threat, there must be a response and it is within that response that The State finds its raison d’état, it is the grease required to keep the machinery in motion. The War Machine requires the existence of threats, without such threats there is no reason for such a vast arsenal consisting of enormous productive and socio-political waste.
Though there have always been Statists within our government, it was not until the advent of the Federal Reserve Act and the progressive income tax, that they had a tool with which to expand their grasp over this nation. It has allowed them to gain not only the mechanism, but also the power to adjust the very restrictive limitations on The State Machine by the Constitution. From there it was just a matter of time before the idea of a never-ending threat could be utilized to benefit their agenda.
Although WWI provided fodder for their machine, it was not until the end of WWII that the machinery could be brought up to full speed with the threat of global Communism. Since then, the machinery has been running over-time and the by-product of that machinery is enormous waste and destruction. Such waste proves to be an incredible asset to The Statists, without it there would be no room for their political agenda or apparatus; indeed we would have a Constitutional Republic where prosperity would replace the overt waste of their political endeavors. A policy of peace is just too politically expensive…it allows Liberty to flourish and the individual to achieve his or her state of self-ownership and sovereignty.
The Statists fully understand that without the Waste Machine of War (whatever type of war that might be, i.e. “war on terror, poverty, drugs, you name it), there can be no control over the population; it serves a larger social utility than we realize, or perhaps understand. In the eyes of The Statists, War is a wonderful thing; it serves them well, economically, politically and socially.
Peace is the Enemy of The State…that has always been the case. Peace does not allow The State to function as it pleases; peace inhibits The State from the power of imposition and coercion. The State calls it "foreign policy", but in reality it is a medium to enforce its ideals and attributes on both the foreign and domestic fronts. The State has manipulated the use of the term “Defense” simply to justify interventionism and imperialism abroad and the social structure at home.
To The State, war is an essential system for its own existence and a stable internal structure of politics by which it can legitimatize its right to rule. Without the existence of an external threat, the war system loses its meaning and the necessity of The Massive State Apparatus can no longer be validated in the minds of the People.
The Statists view the political functions of war as a critical instrument of social stability and transformation. Trotsky’s Continual Revolution is a good example of The Statist Ideal. War is the great organizer, at least in their minds; it allows The State to regulate society by the inducement of fear. Fear is the great shackler of the people; it has always served the purposes of The State and will continue to do so if the People remain complacent to their methods of control.
Peace and Prosperity can never accomplish the goals of servitude; only waste and destruction can make servitude possible on a scale that will suit the needs of the Statists. Peace and Prosperity are necessary to create a system that is anathema to that which The State seeks, Peace and Prosperity creates an atmosphere where the Individual can thrive in Liberty to fulfill the ultimate goal of the Natural Rights of Man.
In Liberty,
Republicae-Seditionist
htt://1776solution.blogspot.com
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The year fault was just the crust showing that you are not a historian, at least not one of note.
Second, as slavery is morally indefensible, it is a favorite diversion of those falsely declaring the civil war to be totally the fault of the Union.
As I said, when you get to my age you will find that the years fly by like the wind, give yourself another 6 decades or so. As far as my ability as a historian, a researcher, well you are completely entitled to your opinion. Slavery was indeed morally indefensible and I believe that you will find no defense in my writings on the subject. Indeed, it was a morally indefensible for the Founding Fathers to basically avoid the issue when writing the Constitution, it was morally indefensible for the Northern Slave Trade Shippers to continue smuggling kidnapped Africans into this country as late as 1858, it was morally indefensible that the Southern States gave into the the greed of a slave economy, it was morally indefensible for the people of the Northern States to issue hideous Black Codes directed at both freed and run-a-way slaves, or to beat them or hang them, it was morally indefensible for Generals like Grant and Sherman to own slaves until as late as 1865, it was all morally reprehensible, but it is history and that is what I was under the impression that we were discussing here, not the morality of the issues, those moral issues are obvious and clear, are they not?
I have also never said that it was the War was the total fault of the Union however, the evidence is clear and I can note many more examples that state the fact that the purposes behind the War, especially on the part of Northern powers, was not a simple matter of either slavery or secession as we have been taught to believe. The evidence points to a very intentional course of action by those in the federal and Northern State governments to use War as a highly charged political tool to accomplish an ideological stance that would transform the Republic into a more centralized system of government.
Slavery was incidental to the period and even if it had not existed there would have still been a war based upon the actions taken by the federal government to impose heavy tariffs upon the South and the redistribution of those revenues into the favored Northern States. The whole question of Nullification during the early part of the 1800s had nothing to do with slavery, but everything to do with what was considered as unfair taxation and usage of those taxes. The first steps toward secession began decades earlier in the history of this country, not only on the part of the South, but also of many of the Northern States.
As I have said before, concerning slavery, that Confederate Battle Flag represents no more a degree of racism than does the Union Flag of the period, white supremacy was widely accepted as a fact of life, even among many of the most ardent radical abolitionist. There was however, far more examples of blatant racism exhibited in the North by segregating the freed slaves then was exhibited in the South. Those slaves freed in the South were treated far better, with far more respect, with far more benefits of society, including property ownership than they were ever afforded in the Northern States. Additionally, it was not the abolitionists, or the Northern States or even the federal government that kept the freed slaves in the South from starving to death during the first 10 years after the War, it was the Southerns who helped them during the time that their Northern "liberators" abandoned them, and even then thousands died during that period, both freed slaves and whites. It was a horrible period that only set the stage for a much more difficult period called the Reconstruction.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.
It is the 4th copy of a letter. Nothing amazing about that.
Whatisi amazing is that you missed the mark by an entire year.
Well, I am certainly happy that you were able to find some type of fault in what I have said, too bad it was concerning the timing of the find and not some actual rebuttal of the issues. When you get to be my age you will find that a year passes by like 6 months and 6 months pass like 3. The fact remains that the letter provides evidence that there was a campaign, by Lincoln, written to the Governors of the States to woo the South back into the fold, but Lincoln apparently didn't really realize that slavery was not the issue that concerned the South. The majority of the South knew that slavery was a dying institution, they were not fighting to save slavery. The point of the whole issue is that slavery was not the issue that either began the war or continued the war, it was however, made an issue later in the war by the political needs of Lincoln and his war machine.
The fact of the matter is the letter points, as do the other letters of similar content, to a concerted effort to find some means of retaining the South because of its immense economic import to the North.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.
The “letter” that I speak of is not the letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, but to, as Lincoln put it, “His Excellency, the Governor of the State of Florida”. It is strange that there is no mention of the fact that the Associated Press and Reuters called this letter an “amazing find”, when the facts that surround the letter are mentioned by both Seward and Chase, as I said before, in terms of a plea and a temptation to the Southern States to remain in the Union in exchange for the perpetual protection of the institution of slavery. While the Amendment was, by the account of both Seward and Chase, promoted by the “Committee of Thirty Three”, according to both of them the idea to promote the amendment to the Southern Leadership was Lincoln’s. Accordingly, the amendment which reads: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State” [Doc. No. 106-214] While the amendment was formulated by Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchannan, it was Lincoln who decided to use it to dangle it in front of the South in order to seek the concession that they remain in the Union. The tone of the letter to the Governor of Florida appears to be desperate, to say the least, as Lincoln implored the Governor to stir up support for the amendment.
Another of Lincoln’s friends, Mr. Montgomery Blair of Maryland said of the war: “ It is absurd to say this is a slave-holders’ war. In all the South are only about 250,000 slave holders. These rich men are not too eager for war. It is the Southern people’s war. The people want independence and mean to get it if they can.” Indeed, if you read the letters from the Confederate soldiers you will quickly learn that they were not fighting to protect the institution of slavery, but to defend the ideals set forth by Jefferson and Madison. The slave-holders in the South were opposed to the hint of war, they were having a difficult time keeping the slave-structure profitable as it was. That fact was becoming evident as early as the 1840s when many plantation owners were beginning to suffer economic loses. It is estimated that only about 7% of the Southern population were slave owners and only 3% were large holders, these numbers including the slave owners who happened to also be former slaves themselves. So, the vast majority of those who served in the Confederate army had absolutely no interests in preserving or defending slavery. Even many of the Confederate Generals were not slave owners and some were even abolitionist, though not radical as in the North.
Yes, you are right about those who are the most misinformed, usually willingly so; I find it amazing that so many neglect so much of the history of the subject. It takes a great deal abject blindness to miss the information, especially from those who wrote, first hand, of the incidents surrounding such events. I prefer to take those eyewitnesses of events to the vast majority of historians who have made the decision to varnish over those events for reasons that belie the facts of that history. Funny…
Basically, the party line about Lincoln and the events of the day, including his assassination appear to be little more than a fairy tale. I am amazing that so people mention or even are aware that John Wilkes Booth was a close friend of Vice President Andrew Johnson and sought to visit Johnson on the eve of the assassination. Nor is it mentioned that Booth also had contact with Erwin Stanton who was, to say the least, a vile man full of inordinate ambition. It is an interesting tid-bit that is rarely mentioned and scantly explored even though it raises a host of questions.
It is evident that the Lincoln that has been popularly portrayed is far from the Lincoln of history. When reading the writings of his most trusted friends, his most trusted advisors and his fellow Radical Republican contemporaries the picture of Lincoln and his actions come into a shocking and very divergent light compared to the commonly held and widely accepted history of both the man and the events of the period. One need not go to historians with Southern sympathies to find the most damning information on the subject; it is easy enough to find those damnations from his cabinet members, staff, and his fellow Republicans of the day.
I have found that those who knew him the best were his most ardent critics, not only on a personal level, but also politically. It is evident that those closest to him, those who served under him and with him during his Administration openly despised him, distrusted him and in many cases cursed him in the most venomous vituperation while he lived and yet, at the moment of his death all of that changed and it changed for a very determinate and deliberate political reason. The deliberate apotheosis of Lincoln had specific political goals behind the ceremony and was carefully crafted and implemented by the Republican leaders in the government at the time. Ward Lamon, concerning the apotheosis of Lincoln: “The ceremony of Mr. Lincoln’s apotheosis was planned and executed by men who were unfriendly to him while he lived. The deification took place with showy magnificence; men who had exhausted the resources of their skill and ingenuity in venomous detractions of the living Lincoln were the first, after his death, to undertake the task of guarding his memory, not as a human being, but as a god.”
If you read the documentation of the day you will find that this plan was in the works before Lincoln’s body was even cold. The fictions that surround Lincoln and the events of the day have been repeated so much, reiterated to the point that to question faith in the subject is considered heresy. What a shame!
Once, I held the common view of both the War and Lincoln that is until I read the works of William Herndon and Ward Lamon, both of whom were life-long friends of Lincoln. Herndon was not only a friend from child-hood, but also became Lincoln’s law partner. In his history of Lincoln, Herndon railed against the lies that were being promoted by the Radical Republicans and preferred to portray Lincoln as he really was in life. It was, at the time, a very unpopular book and it was pretty much suppressed for decades, so to was the works of Lamon. I happened upon both books about 50 years ago and ever since I have sought to find the truth of the events instead of being spoon-fed the pabulum of a highly fabricated and sterilized history.
Before Lincoln’s election, he gave a speech in Congress that declared the right of secession, the right of the States to proclaim independence as he had earlier in his career when he said: "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” Abraham Lincoln
In the 1st Session of 30th Congress, page 94 you will find that Lincoln made the following speech on January 13th, 1848: “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and to form one that suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that may make their own of such territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority intermingling with or near them who oppose their movements.”
It is strange that although Seward, in an official letter to C. F. Adams, the then Minster to England said: “Only a despotic and imperial government can subjugate seceding States.” he none-the-less supported that very action against the South under the guise of preserving the Union. Like-wise, you will find similar statements from most of the politicians of the day, including Lincoln. The point must be that the course that Lincoln took, along with most of those Radical Republicans can only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to change the American Constitutional Government from a Republic to a despotic regime. Their treachery overshadows that of Benedict Arnold by a mile.
Lincoln, Chase, Stanton and Seward knew well what they were doing, they had prepared their agenda with a precision that would astound anyone seeking to subvert a government. Of course, blame had to be placed upon the South, for without an overt attack on federal property and the “Flag” they detested, the support for the War would be minimal at best. In a Cabinet discussion Seward, although opposing the time of the actions, was clear about the intentions of the Radical Republicans: “The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war. The very preparation for such an expedition will precipitate war at that point.” Lincoln, on the other hand, preferred to open the war at Fort Sumter by provoking South Carolina to the point that they had no other choice but to fire upon the Fort. It worked, the war began just as Lincoln and his treasonous compatriots desired. It was a well orchestrated, politically motivated move on the part of Lincoln and his Radical Republican supporters. Lincoln didn’t give a tinkers damn about the slaves or the Union, Lincoln wanted and desired power, as did the members of the Radical Republicans.
So what changed in Lincoln’s mind? Did he suddenly have an epiphany that there was no such right? It was nothing more than a politically motivated reason to ensure the economic strength of the federal government and its Northern collaborators. It was a purely economic power decision on Lincoln’s part to rail against secession, the decision to emancipate the slaves in the Southern States was purely a strategic political/military reason since the emancipation did nothing to actually free anyone. Lincoln’s life-long friend, Ward Lamon, said that at no time did Lincoln reveal his true character or the nature of his policies, he was, as Lamon said Lincoln’s nature was to trick and deceive. I have, after reading Lincoln’s words during various periods in this political history come to realize that nothing he said was either sincere or truthful, but always had a political subterfuge for a foundation.
In am editorial that appeared in the Appeal on February 2, 1861, Stephen Douglas wrote about the Radical Republican leadership: “They are bold, determined men. They are striving to break up the Union under the pretense of preserving it. They are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while professing undying attachment to it, and a willingness to make any sacrifice to maintain it. They are trying to plunge the country into a cruel war as the surest means of destroying the Union upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting public property.”
Those Radical Republicans succeeded of course, and we continue to pay the price for their devious and blood-thirsty deeds. There wasn’t a man in the Republican Party who respected the Flag, but used it as a political war instrument of radical change. When reading the writings of these men, it becomes evident that they scorned both the Flag and the Constitution, not to mention the whole idea of a Republic. It appears that little has changed. The New York Tribune always seemed to add little limericks to its pages that derided the Flag:
“Tear down the flaunting lie;
Half mast the starry flag;
Insult no sunny sky
With hate’s polluted rag.”
If you are at all familiar with the history of the Republican Party from its formation in 1854 until those shots that struck Fort Sumter, it is impossible not to come to the conclusion that the Republican Party was striving to dismantle both the Constitutional Republic and in the process the Union.
Lincoln did not have the authority to take the actions he took, whether it be the dissolution of the Maryland Legislature on threat of prison if they voted to secede, or the closings of numerous Northern Newspapers who openly opposed him, or imprisoning thousands of people who voiced their opposition or the arrest warrant he issued for Chief Justice Taney when Taney issued his opinion that Lincoln’s actions were unconstitutional and thus illegal.
Of course, there were numerous Northern members of the Radical Republican Party that called for the total destruction of the Constitution, which was the goal of the Party since its inception. They despised the Constitution and openly denounced it. They called the government of the Republic a “sheep skin” government that deserved no respect and it needed to be torn into pieces. That was the Party of Lincoln. It appears that the Republican Party has now come full-circle and returned to its roots; it is once again the Party of Lincoln. They hated, vehemently despised the ideals of Thomas Jefferson and closely associated themselves with Hamilton’s nationalistic position.
When Lincoln decided to take a much more lenient approach to the Conquered South, those same Radical Republicans railed against him with such vehement vile that it begs several questions about Lincoln’s assassination. After all, they had proposed and supported to break up the South into Military Territories where there was to be no Constitutional rights, no redress for grievances and no Writ of Habeas Corpus. They were they same ones that salivated over the thought of plundering the South of every piece of property at the time and reap the rewards of future profits from that property. In many ways, the assassination of Lincoln was the worse thing that happened to the South and the best thing that happened to the North, at least to those who held powerful positions in government and industry. It makes one wonder just whose hands were tugging at the hands of Booth.
Now many of the same people, the same leaders and Congressmen in the Republican Party were the ones that took the reigns of power after the assassination of Lincoln. One in particular, Thaddeus Stevens was adamant about his intentions, and in many ways his intentions became the law of the land: “I will not stultify myself by supposing that we have any warrant in the Constitution for this proceeding. This talk of restoring the Union as it was under the Constitution is one of the absurdities repeated until I have become sick of it. This Union shall never be restored, with my consent, under the Constitution as it is.” Indeed, Stephens was the primary instigator of the 14th Amendment, which allowed for an extreme expansion of a centralized federal government. In fact, the State of New Jersey rescinded its ratification of the 14th Amendment with a reproach of the law that called it treason against the Constitution. It is an amazing read if you can find it, and it is extremely detailed in why they considered it so unconstitutional.
If Lincoln had wanted a peaceful resolution to the War then he would have accepted instead of repulsed the Confederate delegates who sought to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the issues, but he refused to even meet with them.
Slavery was already a dying institution and had been for a couple of decades prior to the War. Virginia, as well as the other States in the South had instituted policies of manumission. The ideal was to release the Southern slaves in the same manner that they had been released in the Northern States, in a gradual manner in which the former slaves would enjoy the most support afforded by society at that time.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.
Actually, last summer there was a letter found in a museum in Allentown, PA, from Lincoln, dated March 16, 1861, to the Leadership in the State of Florida pleading with them to convince the Legislature of Florida to accept just such a deal. You can go onto the Lehigh County Museum website and view the letter, along with many other letters and documents of Lincoln online. It was a big deal when the letter was found and caused an uproar among historians, including myself. There is also other documentation that Lincoln wanted to make such a deal and it can be found in the letters of both Seward and Chase, both of whom mentioned of the deal. In fact, if I am not mistaken, it was Chase that stated that not only did Lincoln support such an amendment, but that he actually secretly proposed it in order to tempt the South back into the Union. It is, to say the least, a well-documented fact that the deal was placed on the table by Lincoln.
The fact of the matter is much more involved then just that deal. When you read the words of Lincoln regarding the real issue of the Southern Secession you will rapidly find that all of his concerns involved the tariff revenues. Indeed, the whole view of the Northern News Papers involved that one issue and the concern that it would break the Northern economy if the South was allowed to Secede and become a "free-trade" zone.
Read the archives for yourself, in newspapers like the Chicago Daily Times, in the 1860, Dec 10 edition, before the War started the editorial of that paper stated the real reason for the War:
"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, WITH ALL ITS IMMENSE PROFITS. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow."
The Philadelphia Press in their 1861 edition proposed one of the most interesting ideas that made its way to Lincoln, January 15. This also seems to be the basis for Lincoln's Inaugural Address. The paper said that: If South Carolina were to take the forts by force, this would be levying war against the United States and high treason against the Constitution" In other words, if South Carolina could be "tricked" into firing on the Forts in Charleston Harbor, that would be enough to go to War to stop the State from Seceding and thus reeking havoc on Northern and government revenues. The paper went on to say:
"In the enforcement of the revenue laws, the forts are of primary importance. THEIR GUNS COVER JUST SO MUCH GROUND AS IS NECESSARY TO ENABLE THE UNITED STATES TO ENFORCE THEIR LAWS. Those forts the United States must maintain. IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF COERCING SOUTH CAROLINA, BUT OF ENFORCING THE REVENUE LAWS. The practical point, EITHER WAY, is whether the revenue laws of the United States shall or shall not be enforced at those three ports."
YES, LINCOLN TOOK NOTE.
Like Lincoln, on March 2, 1861, The New York Evening Post headed its editorial with these words: "WHAT SHALL BE DONE FOR A REVENUE?"
"That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the "rebel states", or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things de done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply OUR TREASURY will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; THE PRESENT ORDER OF THINGS MUST COME TO A DEAD STOP."
It went on with an amazing disclosure of the real reasons why the North and why Lincoln did not want, nor could allow the South to secede from the Union:
"WHAT, THEN, IS LEFT FOR OUR GOVERNMENT? SHALL WE LET THE SECEDING STATES REPEAL THE REVENUE LAWS FOR THE WHOLE UNION IN THIS MANNER? Or will the government choose to consider all foreign commerce destined for those ports where we have no custom-houses and no collections as contraband, and stop it, when offering to enter the collection districts from which our authorities have been expelled?"
Of course, there were no illusions behind the reasons of the War in the South; they were fighting for what they saw as the original Constitutional Republic and the ideals upon which it was founded. The New Orleans Daily Crescent stated that the causes of secession were simply this:
"The know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty to seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They, the North, are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it."
The War was totally about tariffs and the desire of certain Radical Republicans to create a "nation-state" and that is exactly what was created by this war, a centralized national government with the power to impose its national will over the State Republics which were Sovereign and too powerful in the eyes of certain people and special interests.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.
A whole year. No one picked up on this but the fellows at Lew Rockwell dot com.
Funny.
I don't know where you have been for the last year. There were several articles on the subject, including in Civil War Times, North and South Magazine among others. Newsweek, NBC and a few others.
There are far more sources on the subject than Lew Rockwell, which is just a commentary on various subjects and doesn't provide a history of any subject, it can be used as a jumping off point, filtered and distilled.
I have about 20 books written during the latter part of the 1800's and early 1900's that provide more than an adequate source for documented information on the subject. Perhaps some of the best sources are to be found in those who served in the Lincoln Administration itself and those who knew Lincoln the best. Read the writings of Stanton, Seward, Chase, and especially the Life of Lincoln written by his life-long friend and law partner William Herndon. You will get a very different picture of Lincoln, his actions and the false history that has been fabricated around him.
Concerning poor sources, read the accepted and fabricated history of the events and you have read the poorest sources of all. One of the most amazing revisions of history has been the apotheosis of Lincoln. It is astounding to actually read the documents of those that surrounded Lincoln during his presidency, with all the vile contempt that they held him in as a person and a president, and then to read what they said to the Newspapers only moments after his death. The deification of Lincoln was the most well-crafted formulation that was ever imposed on a people. The effigy that we have grown accustom to in the history we read is a complete fabrication for political means.
"Abraham Lincoln, First President of the Republican Party, the greatest, wisest, godliest man that has happened on earth since Christ." Thus it began, the grand falsehood and apotheosis of Lincoln' the sad thing is that it still remains in the minds of many Americans today.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Another new Lincoln find
It's been a summer of finding new Lincoln documents. The latest is a copy of Lincoln's letter, dated March 16, 1861, written to the governor of Pennsylvania, urging him (and others) to sign the proposed 13th Amendment that would have forbade interference with slavery where it already existed.
http://alincolnblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/another-new-lincoln-find.html
Sigh. You wonder, sometimes, how often the basic facts on this matter must be repeated before even the most misinformed and (in some cases) malicious critics get it. At any rate::
1. In 1861, Lincoln believed he lacked the authority as president to emancipate anyone--and this was in fact true. He really didn't have that authority.
2. While Lincoln lent cautious approval to the attempts of Crittenden and others to find a peaceful solution to the secession crisis, he went out of his way to emphasize that he would never support a compromise that allowed slavery into the western territories.
3. Stopping slavery's expansion was key for him. He believed slavery would die of its own accord if left alone. To him, keeping slavery out of the west was, in effect, a gradual emancipation plan. He could therefore afford to endorse Crittenden's proposals because they did not interfere with what he thought in 1861 was the only legal way to end slavery--choking off its growth westward.
4. For Lincoln, the issue was not slavery or the Union. To him, preservation of the Union was a de facto emancipation measure, as well, because he believed that the Union, if preserved in the manner intended by the Framers, must of necessity be, in the long run, an emancipating device in and of itself.
It does not appear that Lincoln made or proposed any such deal.
Information coming from a LewRockwell website is hardly proof.
as well as the federal governments right to uphold human rights.
The people only have the right to do what they want in their own cave.
Actually, it would be illogical to state that slavery was an issue when it was effectively taken off the table by Lincoln when he attempted to make a deal with the Southern leadership to protect the institution forever, by a Constitutional Amendment, if only the Southern States would return to the Union. Additionally, if slavery had been the reason for the Southern Secession then all they need to was to accept Lincoln's "deal" and they could have remained in the Union while retaining slavery in perpetuity, without threat of war. The heavy tariffs that had been set upon the South and Southern products for years was the issue that caused the Secession of the Southern States. Slavery was an incidental issue and even if there was no slavery there would have been the Secession of the Southern States. Even the Secession was not a real issue in the North until several Northern Industrialists began to voice their concerns over the tariff revenues brought in by the federal government from the South. The South, at the point of Secession had declared a "free-trade" zone, the North realized exactly what that would mean to their own economy. In fact, New York immediately threatened to Secede and join in the "free-trade" zone if the federal government was not willing to do anything about the Southern Secession. Lincoln provided them with their desire. The vast majority of the Northern population and State Legislatures were indifferent to both the Secession and slavery, the impetus for the change of mind about the Southern Secession was the tariff revenues that would be lost.
Slavery was a dying institution long before the War began, it was becoming rapidly unprofitable and un-competitive to maintain the slavey agricultural system. Jefferson Davis, along with most of the Southern leadership were well aware of this fact and were preparing for that eventuality. Jefferson Davis stated that no matter who won the War, slavery would end either way. There were numerous Southerners would not only recognized that slavery was ending, but also advocated its end, but in a way that helped the freed slaves instead of subjecting them to a life of abject poverty and misery. The goal was to, as many slave owners were already doing, educate and train their slaves, preparing them for a productive life in society. The fact is that there were many former slaves who were very successful in the South. Although we rarely hear of the class of urban blacks who were former slaves, it is apparent that they were not only accepted, but welcomed in Southern Society. The South, contrary to the North, did not have the prohibitive Black Codes prior to the War. There were many former slaves who found a prosperous life in the South prior to the War; many were also slave-holders themselves, some with substantial holdings. In the city of Charleston, prior to the War, one out of every four free black women were slave owners and they prospered in the society of the day.
The North, on the other hand, was the heart of racism and hatred toward any former or run-a-way slave. In many Northern States, a former slave could not remain in the State over three nights on threat of harassment and bodily harm. There were far more lynching of freed slaves in the North prior to and during the War then there every were in the South at the same time. The only thing that brought the "Jim Crow" laws from the North into the South was the introduction of the Union League. A Congressional report of the time reported that the KKK would have never formed had it not been for the actions of the Union League and the corrupt governments that were militarily imposed upon the defeated Southern States.
It is rarely mentioned that the vast majority of Southern Colonies sought to prohibit slavery for years prior to the Revolutionary War, but the Northern Slave Shippers continued to smuggle and press slavery into the Southern Colonies until they simply gave into the the institution in their respective territories. It is also rarely heard that the first States to prohibit the importation of slaves and banned the slave trade were Southern States, Virginia being the first. We also never hear the fact that the Southern States voted to extend the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific Ocean, but the legislation was voted down by a majority of Northern legislators in Congress.
The history we have been taught, that we have been indoctrinated with for over a century is far from complete and far from accurate.
The truth of the matter is the the Flag of the Union represented just as cruel type of racism as the Confederate Flag came to represent in the minds of many people.
“Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”—Admiral Raphael Semmes.