Abraham Lincoln/Civil War enthusaists

Heard behind Rebel lines during the Battle of Vicksburg

"The poor Yankees have us surrounded!!!"

 

After loosing most of his division in a series of attacks on what looked like a single confederate holding on to an outpost a wounded union soldier being evacuated from the field told his General:

:laugh:

 

He was either the best or the worst depending on your view of the United States and what you think our country should be. But there can be no doubt that he changed our nation and in so doing the whole of western civilization. In many ways he is more the "Father" of our current nation than George Washington.

You can argue that in forging a new nation he destroyed the old one, but which is better. I for one wish he could have lived to direct reconstruction. He might not be as fondly remembered if it were not for his martyr status.

 

I believe he pointed us in the direction of living up to our creed that all men are created equal. 100 years later MLK pointed out that we still hadn't got there but we were heading in the right direction. Obama and Palin's nominations show we're over the last hill and have equality in our view.

Those that hated him believed in a divided nation which is not part of our design.

 

The character of Lincoln is interesting, he was a great leader, he was probably the most influential President in American history, and the men of his country loved him.....But at the same time by MODERN standards he was a racist, he did disregard the constitution in an effort to "save the country" (and it worked) many people call him heartless for allowing the Andersonville prison to remain in the state it was in, even if it was "strategic" (this also worked, but cost thousands their lives)

I have no trouble accepting the fact that he was a influential person, a great leader, and a man whose love for his country was great....but he was nowhere near the saint he is made out to be, In my opinion

Reformer

 

I have to respectfully disagree and point out your view is strongly that of a bigot complete with white hood and sheet. Not saying you are, but your view holds those values. The war kept the South from leaving the Union or we would be divided in North and South like many other countries. This means future Civil Wars. There is always another side to every story, ask the slaves if he was great. Ask the abolitionist if he was great.

Again I disagree, there was a majority, particularly in the North who believed in freedom for all men and that the nation needed to remain as one. Those are the proud American's who voted Lincoln back in office. I don't think we have to call them misguided. Everyone is entitled to an opinion different from yours without being misguided.

 

There you go putting those two different ideas together again. Although I respect your opinion I do not agree with it, nor is it the predominant feeling in those states formerly in rebellion. The question asked in real history classrooms today, and will be as long as the civil war is taught will be:

What was the civil war fought for?

The two choices given will usually boil down to Yankee sympathizers claiming it was over slavery and southern sympathizers claiming it was over states rights.

The real answer of course is that things are not that simple. With over 3 million men in arms there were probably 3 million different reasons why men fought. Lincoln did use the slavery issue to his advantage and there were no doubt many union soldiers who fought to end slavery. Very few southerners would have fought to maintain slavery, they fought for their homes and states.

The constitutional idea of a free populace overthrowing an oppressive government was put to the test, and failed. In my mind the 2nd amendment became superfluous as well as most of the bill of rights. The United States ceased to exist as a union of free states and instead became one nation, for better or worse.

But to take your two ideas LeBuick, the freeing of the slaves would have taken place with or without the civil war. Going back to British emancipation in 1838 slavery was on the decline and would cease in the Western Hemisphere by the 1880's. In fact it would have been far less traumatic had the abolitionists allowed economic factors to result in emancipation without bloodshed.

As separate states the United States would have never become the economic and military power we have today. It is likely that Alaska would be part of Russia and the Canadian and Mexican borders could be different. California could have ended up as a separate country or part of Mexico. We can never know what would have occurred, but it would have been a different world than we know today. But did the United States, in 1861, have the legal authority to prevent Secession? I would argue no.

 

Lincoln didn't free the slaves until the last part of the war. I look to Iraq right now and say that most soldiers feel a sense to answer the call from their country in time of war. There were soldiers in Vietnam who said they were fighting for American freedom. Who was threatening us? Some in Iraq say they are avenging 9/11. Sorry again, those perpetrators were in Afghanistan.

So I agree when you say there were 3 million different reason men fought, some valid and others flat out wrong. As for southerners fighting for slavery, I believe only in the sense that the slaves were their property and you can't take my property without a fight. I personally think slavery would have lasted a bit longer than you but I do agree it would have ended by now. I think it would have lasted until mechanized equivalent made them extinct.

Now this is a complicated subject. I agree this nation would not be this nation if the south would have won but I feel we would have had a second civil war. Did the constitution grant or deny authority to seceded? I never thought about that but I remember from school there are only a few states that could technically or legally pull out of the union. I don't recall that being the south.

 

Wow, now that's a landslide...! :thumbs:

However I do acknowledge the south didn't vote or I don't think the race would have been that one sided. :laugh:

 

Dr. Bob, are you really in WY? Wow, you don't seem like a person from the Midwest.

If soldiers/veterans/families of soldiers are citizens, shouldn't their vote count like all the others?

 

As a person who was born in the state where the Battle of Gettysburg took place, and as a person who has an earned MA in history, I'd like to add my $0.02 to this discussion.

As some (Dr. Bob in particular) have noted, Abraham Lincoln was not the "Great Emanicaptor" that he's often portrayed as being, and I doubt seriously that it was solely because of any life-long altusitic concern for the people of the black race in the South that he issued it.

First of all, Lincoln was never opposed to the institution of slavery as it existed in the South in 1861. What he was opposed to was the expansion of slavery into the territories in the West. (And there is quite a lot of speculation as to exactly why he was opposed to its expansion there.)

At the outset of the Civil War, the agrarian South had closer trading ties with England than it did with the industrialized North. The South had been one of England's major sources of cotton for her textile mills, and any interruption of this lucrative trading set up would be a cause of great concern for the English merchant classes.

One of the major diplomatic goals of both the Lincoln administration and the Confederate government was to not only woo the English to their side, but also to prevent them from supporting the other side. The Union's blockading of the Confederate port cities seriously interrupted the cotton trade with England, and did much to align the English merchant class with the Confederacy. (BTW, an interesting sidelight to this is the story of the British-built Confederate raider, the C.S.S. Alabama.)

For years in England there'd been a struggle between the far-greater-in-number working class and the smaller, but vastly more influential, merchant class. By the middle of the 19th century, this struggle was finally beginning to bear some small fruit in that the working classes were beginning to have some of their long-standing grievances not only recognized, but also having Parliament act upon these grievances.

Lincoln was quite aware of the fact that if he could do something that would win over the hearts and minds of the English working class, perhaps they, in turn, might be able eventually to exert enough influence in Parliament to at least prevent England from officially recongizing the Confederacy as a separate, autonomous sovereign nation.

Most of the English working class people tended to be sympathetic to the plight of the black people in the South, so, if Lincoln could do something that at least had the trappings of helping the black people in the South, maybe that would make it appear as if he genuinely cared for them. And, in turn, maybe that would keep the English working classes on Lincoln's side.

Thus, we have the conception of the idea of that eventually evolved into what's now called the Emancipation Proclamation.

If one will take the time to read exactly what Lincoln proclaimed in the Emancipation Proclamation, one will quickly see that the only slaves Lincoln proclaimed were free on January 1, 1864, were those slaves residing on the areas still in rebellion against the United States. In other words, only those slaves living outside of the areas that were under the occupation of the Union army on that date were "freed."

Not a single slave in any of the Union border states was freed, nor were any slaves that lived in the areas of the South that were under Union occupation freed, nor were any slaves in the North (and, yes, there were some there too!) freed.

"What slaves Lincoln could free, he didn't! What slaves Lincoln could not free, he did!" was the saying that arose after a very careful examination of the Emancipation Proclamation took place.

What freed all the slaves was not the Emancipation Proclamation. Rather it was the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution that was ratified in December, 1865, some eight months after Lincoln was buried.

And don't think for one moment that there was total sympathy in the North for the Civil War either. There were draft riots in northern cities (esp. New York City) in the 1860's that probably were more deadly than those in the 1960's.

For those interested in the "peace movement" of those years, try looking up what was termed the "Copperheads." It's some rather fascinating reading.

Was Lincoln, therefore, not the one of the "greatest" Presidents we ever had? As was mentioned in a previous post, it all depends on what a person's criteria is for measuring "greatness" (or its lack thereof).

Some other Presidents also come to my mind:

Lincoln's "greatest" general, U. S. Grant, a Republican, would probably be very high on my list as one of the worst ones we had. And handsome Warren G. Harding (the "JFK of his day"), another Republican, would come pretty close to Grant.

Before one labels me as a racist, or whatever other label you wish to sling in my direction, I would suggest that a complete fact check be done about the life and times and real actions of Abraham Lincoln be done.

 

Was the secession of the confederate states legal? Does the constitution allow for secession? That is a great question and the Supreme Court addressed that question right after the Civil War in the 1868 case Texas vs. White.

The constitution neither permits nor denies the right to secession specifically, so the argument goes to the very nature of the constitution itself. Is the constitution a treaty between sovereign states that they can withdraw from, or is it a contract between parties? I don't agree with it, but the argument can be made that the 13 colonies were never individual nations since they were part of Great Britain and won their independence, not individually but collectively as United States. But even that argument cannot be made for Texas. The Republic of Texas was a functioning nation.

The argument for secession views the constitution as if it were a treaty between nations and gives individual states the same authority as nations. It lies in the fact that the constitution itself became law only when it was ratified by 9 states and then was only binding in the states that ratified it.

The first part of Article 7 of the constitution says:

Because its initial authority came from the voluntary consent of the individual states you could argue that because states voluntarily became part of the union when they ratified the constitution they would retain the right to withdraw their consent.

The argument against the legality of secession views the constitution more like a contract between two equal parties. In his inaugural address of 1861 Lincoln used this argument stating that while one party can breach a contract it takes the consent of all involved parties to rescind a contract. He viewed the southern states in breach of contract and intended to enforce that contract.

That argument maintains that whatever their status before they became states, whether they were sovereign nations or controlled territories, by accepting statehood those states gave up their claim to sovereignty and became part of an indivisible nation. That was the Supreme Courts ruling in 1868 in Texas v. White. The Court ruled then that even Texas, who had been an independent nation before joining the US in 1845, did not have the right of secession, and that has been the law ever since.

Our country was born by secession. Secession from England was exactly what our Revolutionary War was. But the Supreme Court ruling of 1868 established our current law which does not allow unilateral secession. Now the questions remains, what about consensual secession. If we view the constitution as a contract between parties, then the possibility remains that if all parties involved were to agree they could withdraw from said contract. How would that be accomplished? I have no idea.

Here are some intersting quotes I found at the American Secession Project at:

http://www.secessionist.us/

 

I think we are stronger as one Nation. That is my opinion.

 

I would appreciate someone educating me on the pooqualities of Abraham Lincoln. I have read many articles about him for years and I haven't read any of the things that he was suppose to do wrong. Please give me some light. Are you aweare why he was assinated?? There is more than a mad actor that killed Lincoln while he and his wife was attending a play at the Ford Theatre of "Our American cousin." Grant was warned to not attend the Ford Theater that Friday night April 14 so him and his wife took a trip Northward, Maybe to Philladelphia. Abraham Lincolm was fighting two-battles. One with the South and the other International Bankers which got him assinated. There is a long story about why these things happened. One was the involvement of his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Now there was a charater in himself. He wanted to become the Dictator in America. He was to become one of the Supreme Judge, however he went home one night, caught phemonia fever and died in three days, he was not to become the Dictator of America. Lincoln had only one man that he could trust. Secretary Steward. He was almost killed by the knife of one of the conspirators but the man was so drunk that Stewards Daughter and Wife caused his mission to fail. There's lots more to tell.

I may have got the only person that Lincoln could trust his name was either steward or seward. I think it may have been Seward.