re: Thoughts on Abraham Lincoln?

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suspension of habeas corpus

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That same shrill cry. I'm betting you know very little of how the suspension of habeas corpus came about in the Union during the war. Ultimately Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, suspending habeas corpus under Art. I, Sec.9 in the entire Union, and explicitly only for the duration of the war, and indemnifying Lincoln's earlier declarations of martial law and suspension of habeas corpus which were more limited in scope to the DC environs (which was mostly slave-holding Maryland).

"Senator Thomas Holliday Hicks, who had been governor of Maryland during the crisis, told the Senate, "I believe that arrests and arrests alone saved the State of Maryland not only from greater degradation than she suffered, but from everlasting destruction." He also said, "I approved them [the arrests] then, and I approve them now; and the only thing for which I condemn the Administration in regard to that matter is that they let some of these men out."

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I don't know more about the Antebellum North than the South.

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Look at the first paragraph of your post. All you want to do is focus on the North and black people. I'm not even talking about black people. I'm talking about the society of the South and how it worked. Why are you refusing to address the inequities of government in the South?

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people like you believe only what history you have been fed your whole life

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People like me believe that? Southern white men who have never lived north of I-10? Really? It's taken me 60 years to realize what all the historical revisionists of the Lost Cause have propagandized. I've been hearing your drivel all of my life. And that is why you don't want to address the inequities of the South, because you have been programmed by the historical revisionists to believe in the romanticized, whitewashed version of life in the South. You would not for one moment put up with that type of government. It was not representative, and it did not respect the Bill of Rights.

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The history of the War for Southern Independence and Abraham Lincoln have been purposefully dumbed down to a third grade understanding to believe there was a dialectical choice between the altruistic North and the evil South.

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I don't deny this to a certain extent, it's what we do. We've done the same thing for WWII (and pretty much every war we've fought in). But just because we were not the angels we like to project ourselves in that conflict doesn't mean that the enemy we were fighting was not morally wrong.

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Or was your indictment more about the Slave-owners Industrial Complex? (who comprised just 1% of the Confederacy)

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It was the structure of civil society. Southern apologists complain about habeas corpus being suspended during the rebellion, but make no mention of the fact that if you were to publicly support abolition in the South, you would simply be found dead. If you were suspected of distributing abolitionist propaganda, your properties may be searched, and offended materials removed and destroyed - maybe even having a warrant issued post-hoc, just to make things "official".

Do you understand what that means? The Chamber of Commerce ruled, and there was no legal remedy for the common man. Habeas corpus? Please, you're body would certainly be presented - dead, for all to see as an example to other potential abolitionists.

Your focus is on your perceived wrongs of the Federal government, but you ignore the wrongs of the southern state governments. They did not honor the Bill of Rights. Maybe you should try to study on what was happening in the South regarding freedom of speech and the press leading up to the war.

I'll leave you with this, from Sherman's letter to Atlanta:

"I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds of thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of families of rebel soldiers left in our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You depreciate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it (can) only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.

But my dear sirs when Peace does come, you may call on me for any thing-Then I will share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the (wea)ther until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and (pe)ace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta. Yrs., in haste,"

W.T. Sherman

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What was the threat to the US for the southern States leaving?

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Here's a clue: "US" stand for UNITED States.

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There was no threat of violence or takeover.

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You can't be serious. They took federal property, and they fired first on the US Army.

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They simply wanted out of the union.

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What of those who didn't want out? What of the secessionists within the seceding states like Scott County, TN, "Free State of Jones" in MS, or "Republic of Winston" in Alabama? What of the massacre of Germans at the Nueces River in Texas? Why weren't any them allowed to leave the Confederacy peacefully?

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What was the threat from villages in rural Georgia that required Sherman burning then to the ground?

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You don't know anything about Sherman's March. You have no idea who was burning what and why, and who was following his army taking advantage of the anarchy. I'm sorry you can't appreciate the generalship it took for Sherman to leave his trains behind, and travel living off of the countryside to deliver Savannah to Lincoln for Christmas, "Merry Christmas, Mr. President." It was glorious.

Also...

Look at the dark grey cloud in the top center of this lithograph of Farragut passing Forts Jackson and St. Phillip on his way to New Orleans:



That is the cotton burning on the docks of the city. Union forces didn't start that fire, it was started by Confederate forces so as to deny the Union those valuable resources. This would happen again and again as the Union forces moved through the South, Confederate forces burning valuable resources they couldn't remove. Sometimes the fires would get out of control between the time of the withdrawal of Confederate forces and advance of the Union forces. It wasn't just Sherman's forces starting all those fires.

Ultimately, it was a rich man's war, a poor man's fight.

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Do you really believe this "by the People FOR the People" relationship and system has been has ever been respected by those in positions in power in America?

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I believe government derives its power to govern from the People. It has no "rights" itself, only power limited by the people. One of the main powers being to safeguard the rights of the people.

Some of the most egregious rights abuses by government have been conducted by state and local governments.

People always associate Huey Long with the introduction of corruption into Louisiana state government, but the fact of the matter is that he broke the corrupt Democrat political machine based in New Orleans. Since entering the union the New Orleans political machine installed every Louisiana governor except for during Reconstruction. Since Huey Long, there hasn't been another governor from New Orleans. Was Long corrupt? Sure, but he didn't invent Louisiana corruption, he fought it with his own populist brand of corruption. As far as I'm concerned, the federal government exists largely to protect my rights from being trampled by corrupt state government.

"States' rights" is simply bullshite.

Great Vampire killer

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Here's a clue: "US" stand for UNITED States

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The Confederation of States that all of the United States were a party of was a perpetual union. Yet somehow history overlooks that fact that each State had to leave that Union to ratify the Constitution to form the US (These United States, not The United States.)

They were still the United States without the seceded ones.

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federal property

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Was located in their State and offered to pay for it

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fired first on the US Army

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This was not the first act of war, that belongs to the Union

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What of those who didn't want out?

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The same for those counties today that want to leave their current State, they as individuals are free to go. Otherwise, it's a fight they have to take on. States have sovereignty through the people of that State. The federal government has no sovereignty.

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You don't know anything about Sherman's March

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“There is a class of people [in the South], men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”

Women and children. This man was a psychopath and not someone to be revered.

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“There is a class of people in the South, men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.”

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I noticed you inserted "in the South" but he wasn't talking about Southerners. He was talking about bushwhackers and guerillas in Kentucky.

And look, 160 years later the Lost Causers are still crying. He wasn't wrong, apparently.

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psychopathic General Sherman and his merciless, barbarous overlords was far far worse.

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Tyrant

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You don't know anything about Sherman's March. You have no idea who was burning what and why

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We know everything we need to know about Sherman's shameful scorched earth march and his war crimes against humanity AND fellow Americans.



THIS evil person and his contorted agonized face speaks to mental illness, sadistic tendencies and demon possession.

Lincoln for his part, sold his soul and was complicit in Sherman's wanton, sadistic destruction and scorched earth -- born out of revenge and blood sport. This also help pave the way for the usual Northern "Carpetbaggers" and especially Bankster-opportunists to buy up most of the South for pennies on the dollar.

The following quote authored by Sherman is already submitted by Cuz upthread but refuted by you as somehow out of context:

On June 21, 1864, before his bloody March to the Sea, Sherman wrote to the secretary of war: “There is a class of people — men, women, and children, who must be killed or banished...

The context is clear. It can't be spun any other way.

Then there was this:

In a September 17, 1863, letter to the War Department, Gen. William Sherman wrote: We will remove and destroy every obstacle — if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper.” (The Tyrant Lincoln had this letter published)

"Fellow" Americans. Homesteads burnt down. Wells poisoned. Livestock slaughtered. All businesses set afire. Rail lines destroyed. Southern women raped. Cities and towns pillaged and destroyed. BY "Americans" whose ancestors had fought to win (supposed) independence from an oppressive England. The South hadn't fully recovered until the 1990s.

Meanwhile how did General Lee handle his business?

Lee's policy and strict orders for the Confederate Army and troops was to focus ONLY on military targets and personnel. You see HE was an actual Christian, fighting with a code of honor, with respect for non-combatants.