re: Born 210 years ago today: Abraham Lincoln

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Happy birthday Abe you’ve had a hell of PR firm for 200 years to turn what you were in actuality into the heroic myth most revere now

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Nah, angsty revisionist historians simply attempt to absolve themselves of their personal failures by going to great lengths to diminishing the historical significance of the emancipation of slaves—the greatest act by the greatest American.

They fail.

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I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

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BBC

I don’t think any of that matters today. The emancipation matters today and is the greatest thing any American ever did.

People rever Lincoln because he saved the country from being a bizarre laughingstock of feuding states against a Country up North in trade and stock, a clusterfrick on one Continent.

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In the name of war emergencies, he really did bend the constitution a bit. First amendment and legal rights were basically suspended during the war. IMO, that is never ok.

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And they are suspended during foreign wars let alone a Civil that appears to rip this Country apart for generations.

He knew that. Imagine the fricking clusterfrick of the USA and a bunch of Southern States loosely connected constantly at odds with the US...trading on their own terms, making their own laws...while living on the same piece of land and eventually feuding with each other like they had a long history of doing on trade wars.

You would have had one country and a bunch of fricking independant Southern States trying to get into treaties with the US. They only formed a Union to fight the North, that would have ended if peace was signed. It would have gone back to each State for his own.

What a disaster that would have been for America.

Lincoln knew this. We'd have no country today if the South had won the war or were allowed to leave and act like some 3rd world country.

Because that's what was about to happen...every Southern State in 50 years after 1850 would have been a third world country on its own. Banana plantations without the workforce.

It was over. With or without Lincoln.

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He turned admission into the union of the states into a one way ticket to a suicide pact

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No one forced those territories to vote for statehood. They did so in spite of having no exit clause.

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a ragtag band of states

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I'm sorry you hate our country. Perhaps there's a better one out there for you to join instead.

Long may she wave:

Can't kneel for the anthem, but it's okay to take up arms against Old Glory.

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It was a states' right issue. They felt their sovereignty was being violated.

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not quite but cute try.

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I never said he was, but South Carolina sure thought he would free the slaves.

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Once again, there was a lot more to it than just that but sure. Simple arguments for simple men.

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They didn't agree, they were out-voted. Once Lincoln won, the writing was on the wall, the North wasn't going to be pushed around by the South any longer.

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Damn that thing called democracy!

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Remember, South Carolina left the Union before Lincoln even took office.

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Cool.

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But it wasn't about slavery, right?

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Never said that slavery wasn’t a main reason for the south leaving the union. I said the north didn’t fight the war to free slaves. They didn’t. They fought the war to preserve the union.

Following arguments isn’t your strong suit, now is it boy?

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Apparently you have no idea what was happening in the North. You're so focused on the South, you limit your understanding of what was actually going on in the country at the time.

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We’re talking about the fugitive slave act, no?

An act that was passed in the north?

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I didn't claim they did. As a matter of fact, I said they fought the war to preserve the Union.

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Which is what I’ve said from the get go. That good ole baw Abe Lincoln didn’t fight the war to free slaves. He fought to preserve the union.

The south left the union for many reasons, many of them pertaining to slavery. Never said otherwise.

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And there it is. It's a democracy as long as the South can impose its will on northern states, but as soon as the northern states gained enough power in the government, the southern states leave. I guess they weren't so interested n democracy once they saw they would lose their precious slaves to it.

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Well, it’s a little different when one deals with returning property to their owners (however shitty that practice can be) and the other would completely upend a way of life and an entire economy. Leaving the union was a stupid idea and fighting the north even dumber. You won’t find me defending the south for it. Slavery was on its way out and would have been phased out within 100 years due to technological advancement. Hell, the cotton gin was stripping power away from the large plantation families and giving smaller houses more production power with fewer slaves.

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The southern states seceded from the Union once they lost control of the executive and legislative branches of the government. Lincoln's election exemplified that fear.

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That’s a very simplistic explanation but that’s the gist, yeah.

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If the Confederacy was all about states' rights, why didn't the Confederate constitution maintain the right of a state to abolish slavery if the citizens so wished?

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Because all of the states in the confederacy were slave owning states that depended on slave labor. Why would their citizens want to outlaw it at that time? Had the civil war not been fought and the confederacy left to form its own country without a fight, slavery would have still been phased out over time.

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An act that was passed in the north?

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No, it was passed in the House and Senate, and then Fillmore signed it.

But the northern states were generally against it, as they saw it as a clear violation of their sovereign rights.

"The severity of this measure led to gross abuses and defeated its purpose; the number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and new personal liberty laws were enacted in Vermont (1850), Connecticut (1854), Rhode Island (1854), Massachusetts (1855), Michigan (1855), Maine (1855 and 1857), Kansas (1858) and Wisconsin (1858). The personal liberty laws forbade justices and judges to take cognizance of claims, extended the Habeas corpus act and the privilege of jury trial to fugitives, and punished false testimony severely. In 1854, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin went so far as to declare the Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional."

Don't try to make it seem like the northern states in favor of the Fugitive Slave Act.

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Because all of the states in the confederacy were slave owning states that depended on slave labor. Why would their citizens want to outlaw it at that time?

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Well, that's irrelevant, isn't it? They couldn't as the constitution prohibited abolition of slavery for any state. Why did the government restrict states' rights in such a way? If all the states were so dependent on slavery, why would they make it illegal in their founding document to abolish it? Right there is a right being limited by the central government that wasn't limited in the Union.