The Mythical Lincoln

[MrFun]

Geez, I'm a history undergraduate student, and plan to go to graduate school and evenutally become a professor to teach college students history. AND THIS IS WHAT I MISSED OUT the last six months??

I have a long list of secondary source books that I have already read, and on ones that I plan to read in the near future. I have yet to read many books on Lincoln himself (need 48 hours a day for independent reading).

But, from what I have read, here is what I found:

1) Lincoln did not allow Union troops to invade Kentucky until the Confederate troops violated Kentucky's "official" neutrality status. Although in reality, Kentucy, Missouri, and Maryland were border slave states who chose to stay in the Union.

2) Lincoln did not advocate abolition of slavery initially -- he wanted to constrict it, and prevent it from spreading to new states and territories. During the Civil War, his attitude towards slavery, through policy, changed to abolition in Union-occupied territory, and then, after his assasination, the 13th amendment was passed to abolish slavery.

3) Lincoln's policies towards freedom of speech that expressed disagreement with his war-time policies were more liberal than Davi's policies towards freedom of speech in the Confederacy.

Immediately before the Civil War, but after the Confederacy was forming, Lincoln knew he could not alienate the border states. He had to ensure that they would remain within the Union. And hid cautionary policies towards that were commendable.

[Ramo]

I just did a little homework. The Morrill Tarriff was passed by Congress in March of 1861.

And?

The Confederate States had already been formed! Did they go to war because they thought their old neighbor to the North had too high taxes.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that a hike in the tarriff rate had been proposed a few years earlier by some DEMOCRATIC members of Congress.

The implication would be...? Not everyone Democrat was a Calhoun.

Evidently President Buchanan had gotten the Federal government into a bit of a debt problem, something people in those days took much more seriously than we do today. The tarriff rates in 1860 were the lowest ever in US history up to that point. The 1861 Morrill Tarriff upped the rate to 1848 levels. The highest rates previously were enacted in 1828.

Of course. Did you intend to go somewhere with this?

[DinoDoc]

I question how free this "choice" was.

Originally posted by MrFun
1) Lincoln did not allow Union troops to invade Kentucky until the Confederate troops violated Kentucky's "official" neutrality status. Although in reality, Kentucy, Missouri, and Maryland were border slave states who chose to stay in the Union.

One would think that "choice" had to do with the dictatorial suspension of the writ of habeus corpus which allowed him to lock people up without charge, and his gross limitations on the 1st ammendment liberties.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I didn't accuse Sherman of being a war criminal,

Sorry. That must have been David Floyd. My apologies.

[Berzerker]

Strangelove -

Could you provide some source for this information? It seems an odd assertion since secession began, with the secession of South Carolina, in December of 1860, months before Lincoln took office! How could Lincoln and (the new) Congress have made it clear that tarriffs were going up, when neither had yet taken office?

Lincoln campaigned on a protectionist, industrial subsidy platform, a program that would take money from the South and hand it over to the North. One of the links I discovered showed how the South was paying something like 75% of the federal tax load under previous tariffs even before the Morrill tariffs passed. The Republican Congress passed the Morrill tariffs after Lincoln won the election, Here is a link:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams120298.asp

It doesn't matter if the tariffs were imposed after S Carolina's secession, it only matters that they knew it was going to happen.

Here is another link on Morrill himself with a quote:

Morrill's first years in Congress were active if undistinguished. He satisfied his sheep raising constituents by opposing a low tariff bill in 1857 and guiding a high tariff bill through the House in 1860

http://www.state.vt.us/vhs/sherman/morrill.htm

The Morrill tariffs were passed in 1861, but it was already in motion having passed the House in 1860. I'm having trouble finding the genesis of the tariffs, but it appears to have started in 1860 with senatorial and presidential passage in March of 1861.

Morrill Tariff (1861)
i. Avg. tax went from 18.84 (1860) to 47.56 (1865): highest ever.

http://lfa.atu.edu/ssphil/people/croberts/civil_war,_reconstruction,_and_new_south.htm

Here is an interesting link describing how northern commercial interests reacted to free trade efforts in the South.

http://www.ashevilletribune.com/newslavery.htm

And another:

The Republican platform of 1860 called for a sharp increase in tariffs. After Lincoln’s election the new Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, which raised rates to as much as 50 per cent on some goods. Many historians believe that high tariffs, rather than differences over slavery, were the real cause of the War Between the States.

http://www.boonereport.com/2001april/tea.html

The Repeblcan party did not even have the Congressional votes to force such bills past a determined opposition. If you would be so open minded as to read some of the dosuments I have linked in my earlier post you'd see that tarriffs were the least of reasons behind seccession.

Then you explain why they passed. Obviously, the tariffs had enough support to pass and S Carolinians knew it, after all, the new Congress and President were already known.

Regarding our claim that the Confederate states offered to buy Federal property within their states before beginning seizures, consider that seizure of Federal property began within days of secession. They could not have reasonably offered to buy the properties one day and then seized them a day or two later. In fact, in some southern states seizure of federal property began even before the state had officially declared independence.

On Monday, 4th, the Senators from Louisiana withdrew from the Senate. Both Senators Slidell and Benjamin made speeches on the occasion. Senator Slidell took occasion to set forth the objects and aims of the new Confederacy, which he announced was to be constructed soon, and assured the Senate that all existing treaties of the United States would be faithfully regarded, including those relative to the African Slave-trade. A just proportion of the public debt would be assumed; the fortifications and other public property which had been seized would be accounted for, and the free navigation of the Mississippi would be guaranteed to all those residing in its valley.

Unless similar offers were made before these speeches, it would appear the offers came after some of the seizures.

http://www.civilwarweekly.com/1861/week7/default6.asp

In February of 1861, the Confederate States of America had been founded and Jefferson Davis was elected provisional president. A provisional constitution had also been adopted. Numerous federal installations had been taken into possession by the South without any protests or fighting.

http://www.spaceports.com/~adahi/FA.htm

I don't know of any seizures prior to secession except for the incident down in Florida which seems a bit confused as to what happened.

[Berzerker]

It's hard keeping up with this thread

Strangelove -

I compared the coastal forts to embassies on the basis that both are property owned by a national government.

No you didn't, you argued using your nasty sarcasm that the US has the legal authority to go around the world maintaining embassies regardless of the host countries wishes, no mention of putting forts in those countries. Are you now claiming we can legally and/or morally maintain forts too?

IIRC we did send troops to China when the Boxers laid seige to our embassy. True the Boxers weren't technically an arm of the Chinese government, but there was considerable evidence that they acted with the pleasure of the Imperial goverment.

So what? That isn't analogous unless we sent troops there in response to the Chinese government's request to leave. Claiming there was evidence the Chinese government clandestinely supported the Boxers is not the same as an official request we leave. Did we invade and conquer China because of the Boxers' attack on the US embassy? If the US told the Chinese to remove an embassy (personnel) they might have had here, do you think we would have done nothing had they refused?

The US has gone to war in Central and South America several times on the pretext of protecting the property of Americans from unlawful seizure by the goverments of those countries.

"Pretext" means there were other reasons.

Nicaragua and Guatamala most readily come to mind.

And these were not to protect embassies, but to retain whatever control we had over these countries. I was not asking for examples of US "imperialism".

American property was seized during the Russian revolution, the US sent troops.

So now a revolution is the same as the host country withdrawing permission to maintain an embassy? Did we send troops to overthrow the Czar and his government and occupy the land? No, you're not giving examples of wars we fought over keeping embassies in host countries that want us to leave.

I can think of only two other instances where Americn property was seized by citizens or operatives of other counties without a resultant war: the seizure of the American embassy in Iran, and the seizure of American property in Cuba. There may be more.

You haven't thought of one where we went to war with another country for wanting our embassy vacated.

The status of the Panama Canal was a sore spot in the relations between the US and the Republic of Panama over a period of several decades. More than on President promised that the US would fight any attempt by Panama to seize the canal. The US eventually gave up the canal willingly, but only after decades of negotiation. The South gave the US nowhere near that amount of time.

The Panama Canal was part of a treaty with an expiration date. The South became a separate country and laid claim to federal assets within it's borders and did offer compensation. Are you now claiming the Civil War was fought over these seizures?

Gee, then Lincoln had nothing to do with it did he? Why did the southerners wait for the results of the election to secede?

He supported protectionism as a candidate and signed it when he got the chance. They waited to see who would win the elections and the demeanor of those who were about to enter the new Congress. For someone who chastises others for being so ignorant, you sure have problems figuring out the obvious.

Digging a little deeper I discovered that a hike in the tarriff rate had been proposed a few years earlier by some DEMOCRATIC members of Congress. Evidently President Buchanan had gotten the Federal government into a bit of a debt problem, something people in those days took much more seriously than we do today. The tarriff rates in 1860 were the lowest ever in US history up to that point. The 1861 Morrill Tarriff upped the rate to 1848 levels. The highest rates previously were enacted in 1828.

While the links I just posted deal with this issue, S Carolina threatened to secede back in the 1820's as a result of high tariffs.

I'm not shouting Berzerker. Perhaps you have a headache. Lay off the drugs and you'll feel better.

You're not shouting now, but you're still a snotty, obnoxious a$$hole. Goodbye.

Orange -

Not to compare World War II and the Civil War, but I feel that in both cases the United States had the moral and legal right to do what they did.

And where is your citation for this "legal" right? Claiming the North had this moral right means a moral right to have 600,000 people die to end slavery. Since we now have a voluntary force, where are your threads demanding we invade countries that allow slavery?

For one, David Floyd. And again, I was not accusing you of doing the yelling, just those on your side of the argument.

Floyd "yelled" at someone for trying to predict what would have happened if the Civil War was not fought?

Good for you! I claim that it was an issue.

I thought you claimed it was "the" issue.

I'm glad Dr. Strangelove brought up the last point about secession before Lincoln took office, I completely missed the obvious argument to make against the tarriff being the main/only issue in the South's rebellion.

As I said before, read (and think ) before jumping into Strangelove's BS. He got you in trouble before, he's doing it again.

Mr Fun -

1) Lincoln did not allow Union troops to invade Kentucky until the Confederate troops violated Kentucky's "official" neutrality status. Although in reality, Kentucy, Missouri, and Maryland were border slave states who chose to stay in the Union.

Was Kentucky free to decide which side it would join? No, the North made it clear to them what would happen. The border states were threatened by Lincoln.

2) Lincoln did not advocate abolition of slavery initially -- he wanted to constrict it, and prevent it from spreading to new states and territories. During the Civil War, his attitude towards slavery, through policy, changed to abolition in Union-occupied territory, and then, after his assasination, the 13th amendment was passed to abolish slavery.

As late as 1864 Lincoln was still claiming his goal was to save the Union, not free the slaves. The Emancipation was a political ploy, not a personal statement about his beliefs.

3) Lincoln's policies towards freedom of speech that expressed disagreement with his war-time policies were more liberal than Davi's policies towards freedom of speech in the Confederacy.

Notice how this thread is about "The Mythical Lincoln" and not "The Virtuous Davis"?

DinoDoc -

Sorry. That must have been David Floyd. My apologies.

No apology necessary.

[orange]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Orange -

And where is your citation for this "legal" right? Claiming the North had this moral right means a moral right to have 600,000 people die to end slavery. Since we now have a voluntary force, where are your threads demanding we invade countries that allow slavery?

CSA is a different case completely. Not only do I believe that slavery was wrong, but I also believe that their secession was illegal. It wasn't sending 600,000 people to die just to end slavery.

Floyd "yelled" at someone for trying to predict what would have happened if the Civil War was not fought?

Yes, now what is your point?

I thought you claimed it was "the" issue.

How many times now have I said that slavery was NOT the only issue, but certainly a contributing factor. I've never once claimed that slavery was the one and only reason the north went to war or that the south seceded.

[orange]

By the way, Berzerker, lets see what Mississippi had to say on the matter, shall we?

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the pominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is throughly identified with the institution of slavery --- the prestest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which consittuties by far the largest and most important portions of of the commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of natiure none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but sumbission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

(The very first paragraphs in "An Address: Setting Forth the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of Mississippi From the Federal Union and the Ordinace of Secession")

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/Declarations.htm

From Georgia's causes of secession

The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen.

http://extlab7.entnem.ufl.edu/olustee/related/ga.htm

And Texas...

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

http://extlab7.entnem.ufl.edu/olustee/related/tx.htm

And from Alexander Stephens cornerstone speech in 1861 we have this...

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our never Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It is so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago.

...thanks for the tip mystery poster!

[Dr Strangelove]

Berzerker- Actually, by February 1 Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens were the only two federal properties south of the Potomac remaining in Federal possesion. The Louisiana Senator's speech occured well after the fact. Consider also that he did not mention a sum, a little nicety that usually occurs sometime during purchase negotiations. In fact we don't even know if the Louisiana Senator had he authority to make such an offer on behalf of the confederacy. Was he the duly appointed secretary of state of the confederate states?

Think about it, the situation would be sort of like me taking your computer, then having a friend come by your place a few months later to announce that I was going to pay (an unspecified sum) for it.

If only you would use the links I included earlier, you could read the very arguments offered in favor of secession on the floors of the state legislatures in various southern states. What better source pertaining to the cause of secession could therre be than the arguments used by it's proponent's at the very momnent of it's inception? Try this: http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/quotes.html.

There were two Morrill tariff bills, one passed in 1861, and a higher rate passed in 1862. They had to pay the troops, you know. They couldn't just print funny money like Jeff Davis' government did.

Berzerker, either you're a sore loser or you have some deep emotional attachment to "sanctity" of the "confederate cause". Get over it.

[Dr Strangelove]

Orange- There are lots of similar goodies on the J Epperson site I've linked above.

[orange]

Very nice indeed Dr.S...only wish I had more time to look now, I'm off to class

[Ecthy]

One of the mayor candidates in my city looks a bit like Lincoln.

[David Floyd]

For one, David Floyd. And again, I was not accusing you of doing the yelling, just those on your side of the argument.

No I didn't.

I did tell someone to **** off, but he called me a jackass

In any case, you can argue for all time about how the war was or wasn't about slavery, who offered to buy what and when, or whatever, but the fact is, it is all irrelevant.

The Southern States had a Constitutional right to secede, and once they seceded, they were independent, able to form any sort of Confederacy they wished, as any other independent entity may do.

Now, you may argue that the USA had no legal bar from going to war with the CSA, and you would certainly be correct.

But then again, the USA never declared war on the CSA. I would argue that the only time war-like operations may be conducted on the scale of the Civil War is with a valid declaration of war. So it could be said that the Civil War was illegal on those grounds.

Either way, though, the bottom line is that the USA conducted a war of aggression against a sovereign and independent nation, and as such immediately lost any moral high ground it may or may not have previously occupied. Forcing the deaths of over 600,000 soldiers and an unspecified number of civilians, over an institution in a foreign nation, cannot EVER be moral, under ANY circumstances - I don't care if the institution is gambling, slavery, or killing Jews. Forcing people to die to achieve what amounts to a political aim in a foreign nation is wrong. Period.

[SnowFire]

While I know he was one of the propagandists, you'd think he of all people would have announced shortly after secession that abolition was his goal and not the preservation of the Union.

Yes, this is exactly what you'd think if you forgot the history behind it. Lincoln wanted to insure the border states didn't secede, and had to pander to them for awhile. You can dislike his realism if you want. What annoys me is when people want it both ways- they're so strongly anti-slavery that they think that even holding back temporarily on announcing abolition as a war aim is immoral, bad, etc., but the CSA is great! Even though stopping abolition was an announced war aim of the country.

At least Ramo hates both sides.

DF: But then again, the USA never declared war on the CSA. I would argue that the only time war-like operations may be conducted on the scale of the Civil War is with a valid declaration of war. So it could be said that the Civil War was illegal on those grounds.

The US never declared war on the CSA because in the USA's view the CSA didn't exist! I know that YOU think it did, but not in the USA's view. If the USA had believed that the CSA was a "soverign and independent nation" than they simply would have declared war- Lincoln would have had the votes in Congress to do it, since most of the Southern Representatives were gone. In other words, you're decrying a paperwork issue that results from the fact your interpretation of the war is different than the country actually prosecuting it.

Secondly, legality is inherently based on the state you're in, Mr. Legalist extraordinare. So far the United States hasn't brought charges against itself. So wouldn't their move have been legal, right, since the regime smiles upon it? Or are you going to start talking about what's right/moral, unholy of unholies?

As for your second claim (about never going to war), well, that's why it almost seems pointless to argue with you. There are so many different assumptions being made by your second statement that I don't hold that it's really not worth it to try and refute it.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
One of the mayor candidates in my city looks a bit like Lincoln.

Is he expected to win?