Jefferson vs Lincoln

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

Btw, I notice your repeated, clearly willful failure to ever reply to the highly pertinent fact that Lincoln himself said he’d be just as satisfied with the entire country having slavery as with the entire country being free, just so long as the matter was uniform across the country.

Of course you’re ignoring it because it totally destroys the argument that Lincoln’s motivation was to free the slaves.

You’re also totally ignoring the fact that the “Great Emancipator” emancipated not one of the many Union slaves that he had the power to free, but kept them enslaved. So much, again, for deep principles on his part against slavery.

I’ll leave it to your own research, if you do any, to find for yourself what an incredible bigot Lincoln was.

Yes, I know the schools teach a noble story, and so that is what you have learned. I would rather it were true. That would be much better. It just isn’t, though.

24

This is the last time I’ll address this topic.

  1. Lincoln said in his 1858 debate with Stephen Douglas and in numerous private letters to Horace Greeley, Sec. of State Seward and others that he supported a separation of the races but stood firmly against slavery. His comment about an indifference to slavery was a rare political concession.

He said so during his inaugural address because at the time, seven states had already seceded, war was not yet imminent but a very real possibility, he had not garnered a single electoral vote in the South and he did not wish to further the political or social divide in the country at the time by stating in his first speech as President that he was firmly against slavery. Other than this comment, virtually everything he did as President and as a Presidential candidate suggested that he was against slavery.

To point to one quote from Lincoln as evidence of support of slavery is an egregious misunderstanding of the context in which that statement was made and it fails to acknowledge the numerous other times Lincoln clearly stood against slavery. Do not forget that he ran for President on a clearcut platform to end the expansion of slavery into the territories and that he personally felt that slavery would and should be ended altogether.

  1. Prison conditions in the US in the 1860s were horrible by contemporary standards, but the same can be said about almost anything from the 1860s. Living conditions for everyone were squalid compared to today’s standards.

  2. Lincoln emancipated every slave in the US, period. The Emancipation Proclamation focuses on the southern slaves because that is where slavery existed. I am not aware of there being any slaves in the North in 1863, but I may be mistaken. However, given what we know about Lincoln’s views toward slavery from primary evidence, he was as opposed to the existence of slavery in the North as he was in the South.

  3. Any extreme measures that Lincoln took to end slavery and bring about the end of the Civil War as quickly as possible (including the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus) is NOT a travesty nor is it a debit on his account. The actions of subsequent Presidents who abused Presidential powers for lesser causes than the ending of slavery is the real travesty. But to blame Lincoln for these future transgressions is wrong. The blame should go squarely on the shoulders of the abusers, not Lincoln’s.

To say that Lincoln spawned those “slimy motherfuckers” is a misunderstanding of the times in which Lincoln was President. In his own letters to friends and peers, Lincoln acknowledged regret about the controversial actions he took, but he understood that as unfortunate as those actions may have been, at the time they were exactly what was necessary for him to do in order to save the Union and end slavery.

25

Few white soldiers would risk death to free slaves. Lincoln had to trick them into doing so, if that was his purpose.

When he did the Eman Proc, desertions soared and he had to institute the draft.

26

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let us also remind ourselves that it was Jefferson who was the first president (and the only president until the latter 20th century) to dispatch US military forces to the Middle East to combat Islamic terrorism. So some of the author’s contentions that Jefferson was a strict peacenik are misguided and revisionist or at the very least omissive.[/quote]

This.

Jefferson said he believed a lot of things but then did the exact opposite when President.

27

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
[
And don’t forget, in the Emancipation Proclamation he “freed” only those slaves which were in states over which he had no power – what slaves there were in territories where he did have power, he kept enslaved. (Yes, they were later freed, but Lincoln himself could have freed them earlier but wasn’t bothered enough by their slavery to do so. And why would a man who would have as soon had the entire country have slavery care really about the Union slaves?)[/quote]

When the revisionism is this bad around here - and it is usually pretty bad - I can’t resist.

Bill, you slander Lincoln on the basis that he could have have freed the slaves outright across the nation, but because he was such a bigot, he simply chose not to. Hogwash.

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued in pursuance to Lincoln’s power as Commander in Chief. His authority extended over the states in rebellion, nowhere else. Your whiney insistence that Lincoln had some unilateral power to simply wave a wand and do away with slavery is absolute poppycock - not unless you think a President had the power under the Constitution to do exactly as you suggest prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Learn something about the topic before you subject us to this foolishness.

And evidence of Lincoln’s “bigotry” doesn’t cut for you, it cuts against you - a President who didn’t even like Blacks argued and committed to the principle that they deserve equality under law, i.e., they are entitled to the principle of equality under the law whether I like them or not. That’s more principled on the matter of equality under law, not less.

You are simply rehashing uneducated ad hominems and flimsy arguments cut to ribbons countless times before. Get some new material.

28

DBCooper, it would seem you’ve never even read the Emancipation Proclamation or if you did you didn’t pay much attention, else you wouldn’t be nonplussed by being told that Lincoln specifically left enslaved those slaves in the Territories whom he had the power to free, and only “freed” those in states where his proclamations at the time had no power.

As for your finding the fact supposedly utterly contradictory and incompatible that Lincoln had anti-slavery statements as well as his very clear statement that he would be fine with the entire country allowing slavery, did it occur to you that Lincoln was a politician seeking votes from the anti-slave states, and – due to the electoral system – needing votes only from those states?

There’s no incompatibility at all, and so what you offer is no proof that Honest Abe was lying when he said he’d be fine with the entire country allowing slavery, just so long as the matter was uniform.

Lastly, as for your attempted bailout with regard to your Gitmo/Lincoln blunder claiming great adherence and reverence to the Constitution by Lincoln, this is total failure. Your precious Constitution-loving Lincoln threw newspaper owners into horrible prisons for doing nothing more than expressing opinion he didn’t want expressed. Lincoln as a reverent lover of Constitutional rights and of liberty, while imprisonment at Gitmo of foreign terrorists, captured overseas by the military in war operations is (supposedly) a violation of the Constitution? Puh-leeze.

29

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
DBCooper, it would seem you’ve never even read the Emancipation Proclamation or if you did you didn’t pay much attention, else you wouldn’t be non-plussed by being told that Lincoln specifically left enslaved those slaves in the Territories, and only “freed” those in states where his proclamations at the time had no power.

As for your finding the fact supposedly utterly contradictory and incompatible that Lincoln had anti-slavery statements as well as his very clear statement that he would be fine with the entire country allowing slavery, did it occur to you that Lincoln was a politician seeking votes from the anti-slave states, and – due to the electoral system – needing votes only from those states?

There’s no incompatibility at all, and so what you offer is no proof that Honest Abe was lying when he said he’d be fine with the entire country allowing slavery, just so long as the matter was uniform.

Lastly, as for your attempted bailout with regard to your Gitmo/Lincoln blunder, claiming great adherence and reverence to the Constitution by Lincoln, this is total failure. Your precious Constitution-loving Lincoln threw newspaper owners into horrible prisons for doing nothing more than expressing opinion he didn’t want expressed. Lincoln as a reverent lover of Constitutional rights and of liberty, while imprisonment at Gitmo of foreign terrorists, captured overseas by the military in war operations is (supposedly) a violation of the Constitution? Puh-leeze.[/quote]

You misunderstood what I said about Gitmo. My point was that I find it ironic that you apparently see nothing wrong with the possible unconstitutional nature of jailing people indefinitely with no charges being brought against them, yet you continue to slander Lincoln for his unconstitutional actions.

Furthermore, you also forget that the EP was issued as a war measure, the only way Lincoln could come close to legally doing so under Article 2 Sec. 2 of the Constitution. As a result, it was not necessary as a war measure for Lincoln to free slaves in the border states or the territories since they had not seceded and therefore were not at war with the North. Also, the EP did legally free slaves in all Union-occupied areas of the South.

Lastly, any statement Lincoln made about slavery in 1861 was hardly an attempt to garner votes. I find it unlikely that Lincoln specifically used his personal correspondences with friends, family and members of his administration to begin campaigning in the North for the 1864 election. Shit, Lincoln knew full well that he could win again without ONE electoral vote from the South, but to say that he declared his dislike of slavery as nothing more than an attempt to garner votes is the most revisionist thing you’ve said here, and you’ve said a lot. Have you ever read anything that Lincoln wrote aside from a few speeches? Have you ever read any private letters Lincoln wrote to his peers? Obviously not, or you never would have started this bastard thread.

Lincoln stood against slavery, PERIOD. The fact that he didn’t free every single slave with the EP has much more to do with the political climate at the time and the questionable legality of doing so than it does with his own personal feelings about slavery.

The bottom line is that you are clinging to arguments against the greatness of Lincoln that focus squarely on the inconstitutional nature of his actions, but you fail to understand the extreme political and social divisiveness of the times. What Lincoln did was controversial in both the North and the South, but look at what he was trying to accomplish. Are you angry that blacks are not still enslaved? Is that the crux of your infantile rantings against Lincoln and are you hiding behind the questionable legality of Lincoln’s actions? In fact, I don’t understand the source of your contempt for Lincoln at all.

30

In fact Bill, I suspect you’re trolling.

31

People tend to suspect others of what they do or would do themselves, so your post above is pretty revealing.

For example, with your statement above that you supposedly don’t find it credible that in 1861, in his first term, Lincoln had political interest in advocating an anti-slavery position leaves only the possibilities that you’re trolling or just don’t have any grasp.

Ditto for your continued refusual to acknowledge that supposedly Lincoln’s plain statement that it was fine with him if the country allowed slavery shows that he was not motivated to war by personal conviction against slavery: only personal conviction against what he considered a dividing factor to Federal power. Either way fot that division to be removed and made uniform was fine with him, he said.

If you weren’t trolling, you’d reply with some meaning on this, which you haven’t.

Ditto for Lincoln leaving enslaved those men and women he had the power to free. Face facts, rather than just keep asserting schoolboy “truths.”

Claiming causes that would be noble if true, despite their not being true, has been done countless times throughout history and continues to be done. There are those that can’t ever see through it. That’s why it’s a successful tactic.

32

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In fact Bill, I suspect you’re trolling.[/quote]

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848 speech in Congress

33

Here are Lincoln’s own words about the passing of the 13th Amendment. He spoke before a group of supporters of the Amendment who had come to the White House to celebrate its passing. How you reconcile this with your previously held views is your problem, not mine. If you’d like, I can begin to bombard this thread with similar speeches and so forth. (why Lincoln refers to himself in the 3rd person is beyond me) This is from Feb 1 1865

"…He wished the the reunion of the States perfected and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future; and to attain this end it was necessary that the original disturbing cause [slavery] should, if possible, be rooted out. He thought all would bear witness that he had never shrunk from doing all that he could to eradicate Slavery by issuing and emancipation proclamation.

But that proclamation falls far short of what the amendment will be when fully consummated. A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally valid. It might be added that it only aided those who came into our lines and that it was inoperative as to those who did not give themselves up, or that it would have no effect upon the children of slaves born hereafter. In fact it would be urged that it did not meet the evil. But this amendment is a King’s cure for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up. He would not repeat that it was the fitting if not indispensable adjunct to the consummation of the great game we are playing. He could not but congratulate all present, himself, the country and the whole world upon this great moral victory."

Note that Lincoln refers to slavery as evil, and the passing of the 13th Amendment as a “moral victory”. You see, Lincoln never felt that it was his duty, politically, to end slavery at the beginning of his Presidency and only felt it was a moral problem. As the Civil War raged on, he changed his stance and felt that while slavery was still only a moral dilemma, it was his duty to end it.

That is why his public stance on slavery appears to be indifferent at times between 1860-62; he didn’t see it as his primary responsibility. His primary responsibility was to “…save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.” But by late 1862, when he issued the first EP (one we keep referring to being issued 100 days later) his views had evolved. The above statement is clear evidence that he felt slavery to be evil.

34

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In fact Bill, I suspect you’re trolling.[/quote]

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848 speech in Congress[/quote]

This quote was spoken twelve years before he was elected. Lincoln’s views changed over time.

35

Would it have been so bad if the Union and Confederacy existed side by side?

Why didn’t the 11 Southern states have the right to decide for themselves if they wanted to be in the Union or not?

We bemoan the plight of slaves who have no control of their lives but admit that the Union had the right to slash, burn, pillage the South. Hypocrisy much?

36

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
In fact Bill, I suspect you’re trolling.[/quote]

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848 speech in Congress[/quote]

This quote was spoken twelve years before he was elected. Lincoln’s views changed over time.[/quote]

No they did not.

He was just a hypocrite and perfectly typical politician.

37

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Would it have been so bad if the Union and Confederacy existed side by side?

Why didn’t the 11 Southern states have the right to decide for themselves if they wanted to be in the Union or not?

We bemoan the plight of slaves who have no control of their lives but admit that the Union had the right to slash, burn, pillage the South. Hypocrisy much?[/quote]

Well he drafted people to fight slavery , man of principles that he was.

38

And, he left enslaved those slaves that he had the power to immediately free.

39

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
And, he left enslaved those slaves that he had the power to immediately free.[/quote]

He didn’t want to lose the loyal border states, such as Maryland.

40

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
And, he left enslaved those slaves that he had the power to immediately free.[/quote]

He didn’t want to lose the loyal border states, such as Maryland.
[/quote]

This is incorrect. Lincoln knew that the EP was of dubious legality before he issued it. He knew that the only way he could come close to freeing the slaves with one fell swoop was to issue the EP as a war measure, thereby stretching the boundaries of the powers granted him in Article 2, Sec. 2 of the Constitution.

Technically, Lincoln didn’t the have the power to issue such a proclamation at all in any of the states, border and Northern states included. He simply could not free slaves in the border states because he had no power to do so. But he knew that if he played the war measure card, he could circumvent the questionable legality of his actions. But since the border states were not officially at war with the North, he could not apply the EP to those states.

He practically bullied the House and Senate into passing the 13th Amendment because this was the only legal, lasting way to eradicate slavery in ALL of the states and territories.

Regarding the claims that Lincoln sent Northerners to die for some pet cause of his (slavery) and that he tricked the North into carrying out his own personal agenda in blood, this is untrue as well. Lincoln viewed the Civil War, at its outset, as a war being fought strictly to maintain the sanctity of the Union, NOT to free slaves. This is why he appeared indifferent about the slavery dilemma at times; he simply did not view it as anything more than a moral problem, not a political one and most of his speeches up to about 1862 reflect this. But the war had a profound effect on his mindset regarding slavery.

By the time he issued the first EP (a sort of preliminary EP) in Sep of 1862, he had changed his mind concerning his role in the eradication of slavery and by the time the second EP was issued in Jan of 1863, he was firmly against slavery both morally AND politically. If you go back and examine his speeches and his private correspondences, especially with Horace Greely, you’ll see that his views about slavery evolved over time.

You see, while Lincoln was definitely a racist by today’s standards, he also felt that slavery was a vile institution as far back as the mid 1850s, perhaps even farther back. But he did not view the issue as anything but a states’ rights issue, thus his apparent indifference toward it in his inaugural address. But as the Civil War went on, his mindset changed, culminating in the 1863 EP.

If you look at some of the things he said prior to 1863, and especially prior to the outbreak of war, he seems to have been contradictory at best. But he held different views about slavery in 1863 than he did in 1848 or 1858. That’s what made Lincoln such a great President; he was willing to change his stance on things, admit when he was wrong, and modify his stance on issues as he became more informed or the circumstances around him changed.

Look at his handling of General McClellan. In 1861, Lincoln knew virtually nothing about military strategy, but he willingly acknowledged this and sought to educate himself about warfare as much as possible. Initially, he gave McClellan free reign, but as he grew more educated about warfare, it became more and more obvious to him that McClellan was a buffoon, and so he sought to replace him, eventually settling on Gen. Grant. Today, some would call Lincoln a flip-flopper for not sticking to the same opinion in 1865 that he held in 1855.