Lincoln - The tyrannical traitor

reply to post by Jakes51


The issue is that Lincoln himself said that the Constitution was a "compact" between states. The beef arose because the southern states felt that the compact was not being up held and that the federal government was not acting as a good administrator of the compact.

Under compact agreements if certain parties are found to not be upholding their end the others involved are free to leave. Some at the time called the constitution a "contract." If a contract is not fairly administered or certain parties are found in breach the damaged parties can be let out of the contract. What Lincoln was doing by refusing to allow the southern states to leave the Union was an astonishingly new doctorine legally and politically.

The issue had been brewing for over forty years. Concessions had been made on all sides. It is long and complicated. My only answer to what would have happened, we will never know. Any speculation is pure conjecture from all involved. Slavery would have eventually ended I believe. I also believe that the CSA would have either become a third world country or came back to the Union over time.

I believe allowing it to happened would have shown much more respect for the founding ideals of our country than Lincoln's war or presidency ever did. I also believe it would have stopped a lot of our current problems. It would have avoided setting a prescedent that basically said, "screw the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Decleration of Independence."

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The CSA did that. Whether or not Lincoln agreed with their reasons is not important. How we feel about it is unimportant.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That is what the CSA were trying to do peacefully. Whether or not we agree with them they were following the basic principles that the founders cited in declaring freedom.

I could go on and on, but ATS and time limit the amount of typing I can accomplish. I do not agree with the positions of the CSA. However, I do believe they had the right to secceede. If Lincoln had allowed it, many things could have happened. The one definite is that it would have shown respect for the principles that formed the nation and the rule of law.

reply to post by MikeNice81


Thanks for your incite on the causes of the Civil War, and you seem to be as interested in the topic as I am. I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I do believe Lincoln regretted armed confrontation as much as the next person, and would have welcomed any compromise or agreement to bring the South back into the fold peacefully. I suppose there was conflict in the matter of opinion on the issue of succession at the time as there is today. Lincoln thought taking action was in adherence to the Constitution, and the South thought what they were doing was consistent with the principles of the Founders.

American President A Reference Resource

The southern position assumed that the United States was a compact of southern states. In this perspective, each state individually had agreed to allow the national government to act as its agent without ever relinquishing fundamental sovereignty. Any state at any time could withdraw from the compact with the other states. Most northerners saw the Union as something permanent, a perpetual Union, as a "more perfect Union" than the one operating under the Articles of Confederation.

Lincoln denied that the states had ever possessed independent sovereignty as colonies and territories. He claimed that the states had accepted unconditionally the sovereignty of the national government with the ratification of the Constitution. To those southerners who claimed the right of revolution to justify secession—just like the Founding Fathers had revolted against England—Lincoln answered with a legalistic distinction rooted in common sense. The right of revolution, he argued, is not a legal right but a moral right that depends upon the suppression of liberties and freedoms in order for it to be justified. What rights, freedoms, or liberties were being trampled underfoot by his election? The South still enjoyed all the constitutional freedoms they had always enjoyed. To exercise revolution with no moral cause to justify it is "simply a wicked exercise of physical power." Most northerners agreed with Lincoln that secession amounted to an unconstitutional act of treason.

I think what you are implying is that by the federal government taking bold action through President Lincoln it is what opened Pandora's Box, and what caused the slow unraveling of state sovereignty by a strong centralized government as we are seeing today? That is a matter of debate and conjecture as the issue was in the days before the Civil War, and in the present. The decisions by the Union and the South were tough calls and sealed in blood. That is something I think all can agree upon? I appreciate the exchange we have had on the topic, and look forward to your other responses.

Just a small add-on regarding the idea that the CSA would have been "a third world country".
If you find a historical Atlas of the U.S., there is usually a map that shows which states were rich , which were in the middle, and which were poor.
Before 1860, almost all of the rich states were in the South. I think New York was the only Union state at the highest level. In 1865, every Southern state was among the poorest and many have remained so since.
Texas is the state which has maintained the principles closest to independence and sovereignty. It is also currently a fairly rich state. I think the CSA as a whole would have followed a similar path to Texas.
Oil and Natural Gas production would have replaced cotton and there would be no federal government to rape the citizens of those states of their mineral royalties. Louisiana currently gets somewhere between 7-10%, while Texas managed to get a lot more than that because of certain families who have a presence there but are East Coast connected (The Bushes being one).
Mineral rich southern states would have been major power players in a different scenario.

The Communist Takeover Of America - 45 Declared Goals (1963)
Step 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
www.rense.com...

What really needs to be a concern for everybody is this rising tide of anti founding father propaganda. This generation is being completely brainwashed into supporting communism and fascism. How do they make a society like that? Remove God, remove national pride, leftist laws, and slam founding fathers as tyrants. Please, sure they had problems, but that Constitution that they provided to all of the generations before us has been a benefit to us all. Just look at what they are trying to do to it now.

Look at Obama's statement:
“. . . the principles that are timeless; tenets first declared by men of property and wealth, BUT which gave rise to what Lincoln called, ‘a new birth of freedom in America,’ civil rights and voting rights, workers’ rights and women’s rights, and the rights of every American.”

SEE the propaganda? "our rich and wealthy fathers didn't give us freedoms, but gave rise to freedoms. I'm not sure if many can see the subtle propaganda. Two of Obama’s political heroes - Stalin and Mao.

" Separate the Founders from America which they have founded. Portray them as cynical, hypocritical, greedy bunch of people who only inadvertently started something that led to liberty. Cut America from her heritage; make her hate her Founders. Only then could a radical Marxist-Muslim agenda be forced on the American public."
americanvision.org...

OP, your "tyrannical traitor" title is not only blasphemous, but pure propaganda for the powers fast taking this country down the toilet.

reply to post by WhoKnows100

I think the OP's point is that Lincoln betrayed the Founder's intent. A point that is certainly factually true but with qualifications (extreme circumstances,changing times, economies, and values, the "fog of war", etc).
I think Lincoln was a great man, but keep in mind, he is always championed by the left, who have a dislike for the Founders (Jefferson, Washington, Adams, etc).
Praise of Lincoln at the expense of the actual Founders fits right into the tactics you warn against.