“I hope you aren’t implying that I’m not well-read. We may disagree as to the correctness of an action, but that doesn’t mean we need to insult each other.”
Yes I’m suggesting exactly that. Time to hit the books for a little perspective. The kind of perspective that wouldn’t allow someone to seriously compare Hitler and Abe Lincoln in the same sentence without suffering an explosive aneurism. Medically, this is known as the “ignorant hyperbole syndrome” (see Dick Durbin).
Actually, start out by looking up the word “despot”, and comparing it to how other presidents and then how actual tyrants have acted. Say, FDR? Gelon? Or Hitler, if you’re going to go overboard?
+“And ftr, “freeing the slaves” was not Lincoln’s goal upon entering the Civil War.”
Really? Why was that? Because he didn’t want to get rid of slavery or because he felt that it was not in his power to do so? (It wasn’t. The Constitution had to be amended for slavery to be illegal in times of peace, and Lincoln supported these amendments strongly before he was murdered.)
+“Lincoln had stated numerous times that while he was against slavery in general, there would be too much opposition to force the issue.”
“To force the issue”? How about because he said he had no legal authority to do so (oh, that’s right he was a despot!)? And then he turned around and freed the slaves that he thought he could LEGALLY free (even though he was a tyrant).
He also argued effectively for full black suffrage while Booth watched in fury (even though emancipating was purely smoke and mirrors for political effect). If he was a tyrant then why did he not just free the slaves in the Northern slave states, even though you admitted he wanted to? HINT: he had no power to do so as President, but reasoned that as Commander in Chief, he could do as he pleased with captured or uncaptured enemy war materiel (slaves).
+“It’s ok, I understand that people revere the “Great Emancipator,” and it doesn’t matter how he trampled on the rights of his countrymen in the process.”
It’s ok, I understand there are people out there who like to say things like “We didn’t really land on the moon”, “Communism was a good idea”, “There are no heroes”, and “The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery,” too. You are just as wrong as they are.
You are right about one thing, though – Lincoln stole all my rights. I don’t have the right to a trial. I still have the right to forcibly secede as soon as it looks like I will not be able to control the government anymore. I am actually a slave writing this from a shack downriver.
Shit, that’s right. As Lincoln said as president, and as actually happened: “By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals.”
How would you have won the war in his place? I know, you would not have arrested anyone or reacted forcefully to treason or brutal violence. Tell me how you would have dealt with the legislature of Baltimore in 1861, who wished to secede unlawfully. How would YOU have handled the tricky legal and moral issues surrounding Civil War? As well as Lincoln did?
Easy to criticize, easy to talk, hard to accomplish anything worthwhile. Write this on your mirror.
