# Think Tank > History >  Was Lincoln a Tyrant?

## 1stvermont

*Lincoln the Tyrant* 

_Dictatorship played a decisive role in the north's successful effort to maintain the union by force of arms... one man was the government of the united states...Lincoln was a great dictator... this great constitutional dictator was self appointed 
-Historian Clinton Rossiter, Constitutional Dictatorship_ 

President Lincoln did not lead the country from within the confines of presidential power within the constitution. Lincoln disregarded the constitution and ruled America rather than led America. Lincoln did not really have a presidency, he violated separation of powers and made himself a dictator. He is called by various historians an uncompromising dictator." a dictator from the standpoint of American Constitutional law and practice others referring to his presidency as the Lincoln dictatorship others to his administration as a Temporary dictatorship James Ford Rhodes a defender of Lincoln called him a dictator. A song titled Abe the dictator was used by northern democrats during the 1864 election.

*Maryland* 

Maryland was under complete military control. Lincoln would not allow Maryland to even discuss the question of succession. Lincoln suspended writ of Hadus Corpus arresting and imprisoned without due process legislators, mayors, newspaper editors, citizens and publishers to prevent a vote on succession in Maryland. Even the grandson of Francis Scott Key [Star spangled Banner author] was thrown into prison at Fort McHenry. When this was declared unconstitutional [only congress can suspend writ of Hadus corpus] by Chief Justice Taney, Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Taney and Lincoln ignored the ruling. General Banks was sent to search house by house for pro peace or succession legislators. General Butler said he would bombard Annapolis if they met to discuss succession. They used color coded ballots so pro peace votes in Maryland could be spotted and arrested. He shut down and imprison newspaper editors and newspapers in the state.
*
The North, Home of the Free and Brave?*

_This amazing disregard for the...constitution was considered by no one legal
-Historian Clinton Rossiter_ 

Throughout the north Lincoln imprisoned 13,000 political enemies, intimidated anyone who spoke out against Lincolns policies and did a great harm to freedom of speech. He Jailed anyone suspected of confederate loyalty with no trial. The jails were used to 
_
Establish the fact that the federal government was the greatest power in the nation
-Dean Sprague Freedom Under Lincoln_ 

Lincoln confiscated private property and firearms from civilians in border states violating the second amendment, deported Ohio congressmen Clement L. Vallandigham for speaking out against him. 

_Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime to damage morale should be arrested, exiled, or hanged
-Abraham Lincoln_ 

He introduced the first military draft. Ministers were arrested for not saying a prayer for the president in church service as required by the Lincoln administration. He invaded southern states without congress consent, and blockaded ports without declaring war. In 1863 the Lincoln administration passed the Idenmity act this put Lincoln, his cabinet, and the military above the law. It never got enough votes to pass so it was simply declared law. 
*
Free Elections and Freedom of the press?*

Lincoln participated in rigging northern elections, not just in Maryland. In the 1864 elections New York used colored ballets [red and blue] so federal soldiers could harass and prevent democratic voters in the state Under the protection of Federal bayonets, New York went Republican by seven thousand votes. He also unconstitutionally Created west Virginia for the 64 election. Lincoln censored the telegraphs, shut down hundreds of newspapers and imprisoned editors who were critical of his policies or the war to control how people viewed the war and his policies.

*Lincolns Enemies the South and the Native Americans* 
_
Lincoln was an even worse tyrant than George the third was
-Thomas Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln_ 

It was Lincolns opinion that the south had no legal right to succeed and he refused to recognize the south as a separate country, therefore they were still citizens of the united states. The north fought a war that would not allow the south to leave, yet denied them voting rights and representation after the war, breaking the union, the very thing they said they wished to save. Lincoln also gutted the 9/10 amendments.

During the war in the south Lincoln violated the Geneva conventions rules for war. Had entire towns destroyed, civilians murdered, animals killed, food taken, houses Burt down, waged war against non combatants civilians, confiscated private property, had hundreds of priests and minsters imprisoned for not saying prayers for Abraham Lincoln in occupied southern territory, hundreds of churches were burned. He denied occupied south the right to vote government by the people and medicines were withheld by union blockade. He Forced out southern newspapers and implemented northern newspapers to control free speech. 

Lincoln viewed native Americans as savages and put General John Pope in charge of a war with native Americans who said It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux... they are to be treated as maniacs or wild beats, and by no means as people with whom treaties or contracts can be made. Dec 26 1862 Lincoln ordered the largest mass exsectuion in American history 39 native Americans. 

*The Great Centralizer*

_Lincoln...undermined the constitutional safeguards of freedom as he opened the way to centralized government with all its political evils
-Edmund Wilson 

A great centralizing force has been set in motion
-Leonard Curry_ 

Some especially today, will view the following as good and a reason to love Lincoln, others such as myself strongly disagree. Lincoln is known by various historians as the Great Centralizer and Others call him the founding father of big government. Some see Lincoln along with Lenin as joining the impulse to centralize government in the mid 1800's. Lincoln was of the the Clay American System consisted of mercantilism, protectionism, the centralization of governmental power, and inflationism. His opponent Stephen Douglas said of Lincolns political goals as wanting to impose On the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by a central government. That election was said by historians to be a contest between One consolidated empire and confederacy of sovereign and equal states of Jefferson and Jackson, Lincoln goes for consolidation and uniformity in our government, Douglas charged, while I go for maintaining the confederation of the sovereign states. Lincoln sought to consolidate power in the central federal government.

_My politics are short and sweet...I am in favor of a national bank...in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff
-Abraham Lincoln 1832_ 

*From Union to Empire*

The strongest impact of Lincoln on American centralization was his transformation of America from a union and collection of states to a modern nation. See here

From Union to Empire- The Political Effects of the Civil war
From Union to Empire- The Political Effects of the Civil war


*Taxation* 

_Furry of new laws, regulations, and bureaucracies created by president Lincoln and the republican party
-Thomas J Dilorenzo_ 

Before Lincoln was elected the average citizen only had contact with the federal government for mail. But after Lincoln every citizen now had direct contact with, and felt the direct influence of, the federal government. A great centralizing force had been set into motion. . . . The needs of the government had resulted in a drastic redrawing of the federal tax base. He created an early version of the IRS with 7,000 federal employees, ran up 2.5 billion in debt, instituted the first income tax, imposed sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco Taxes on everything imaginable From perfume, playing cards to bowling to going to the theater. Taxes were so high that Never again would it be contracted to its prewar scope. And with Lincoln Taxation on a scale never before seen in the US was imposed on the population. laid massive rail, founded the transcontinental railroad, gave 58 million acres to rail companies. created the department of agricultural Lincoln sighed into law 10 tariff raising bills and introduced massive corporate-welfare schemes.

*National Banking* 

_To nationalize as much as possible, even currency, so as to make men love country first before their states, all private interest, local interests, all banking interests, the interests of individuals everything should be subordinate now to the interests of the government
-Senator John Sherman of Ohio [ This a change in philosophy from founders that government serves the people ]_

The government went deep into debt because of the war and this allowed Lincoln to add his wanted central banking, the motive that got him involved in politics in the first place. He instituted national banks with the ability to print greenbacks not backed by gold or silver. Of course not everyone in the north wanted this as congressmen Powell stated 

_It utterly to destroy all the rights of the states. It is asserting a power which if carried out to its logical result would enable the national congress to destroy every institution of the states and cause all power to be consolidated and concentrated here [D.C ]
-Kentucky democrat Lazarous Powell_

To help conform the public to go along with national banking Lincoln added a 10% tax to state banks to help impose a national bank monopoly [The power to tax is the power to destroy] and hired Jay Cooke to use newspapers ads to attack state chartered banks, so national bank would dominate. Those who supported national banking such as Senator John Sherman of Ohio [Brother of General Sherman] said the permanently increased government power embodied in the bill, would foster a sentiment of nationality. This A nationalized money supply helped transform America from a constitutional republic to an empire

_The American public was also relentlessly propagandized by the government and its private sector accomplices, such as Jay Cooke, into believing that it could now look to the federal government for solutions to its problems. This made it easier for future generations of politicians to convince the American public to acquiesce in further expansions of government and further restrictions on personal liberty that would have caused the founding fathers to reach for their swords
-Thomas Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln_ 

*Honest Abe? Lincoln the Master Politician* 

_"Lincoln was a master politician, which means he was a consummate conniver, manipulator, and liar." 
-Murray Rothbard 

Those that new Lincoln best, never called him honest Abe
-Richard Smith Presidential Historian George Mason University_ 

Part of what is believed about the Lincoln myth is Abraham Lincoln was an honest, good person. The Lincoln myth in some ways started with Lincolns public image. The historical Lincoln was a master politician who used people for his own power and agenda. He was a political opportunist who drifted with the tide a quest for office He would lie and mislead people to convince them to support him.

_Lincoln was Americas first modern politician
-Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxists_ 

Described as an expert politician able to condone and condemn at the same time. He would say yes, and no, and make listeners believe his intentions were good, a modern politician. His opponent in 1858 Stephen Douglass stated Lincoln Can trim his principles any way in any section, so as to secure votes. The Chicago daily democrat press said Lincoln Provided a kind of loophole for escape if anything he said should not satisfy all kinds of views.

_There is a grand canyon between what Lincoln said and what he did...He ignored the Constitution when he wanted to and hide behind it when he wanted to.
-Lerone Bennett Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White dream
_
Abolitionist who sought to bring Lincoln to their side well knew Lincoln was a politician as Wendall Phillips stated Lincoln is a Pawn on the political chessboard. With fair effort, we may soon change him for a knight, bishop or queen, and sweep the board. At the age of 45 Lincoln first spoke out against the extension of slavery out west. He Rode to glory on the public waves as the north turned against the Kansas/Nebraska act. Lincoln reinvented himself and for the first time he spoke against slavery. Had public opinion never turned against slavery, its likely the master politician never would have. Even his own cabinet did not think him a great president. 

_In every single stand he took, which superficially might appear to be an original attitude, either substantial or major groups had passed that point before him, and it was only the support that they had gathered and their potential strength that enticed Lincoln to the position
-Thaddeus Stevens Fredrick Douglass 1934 
_
*Lincolns Public Image* 

_Shrewd manufacturer of his public image
-Richard Smith presidential historian George mason University 
_
Lincoln was able to Cunningly shape his own public image. He new how to sell himself, he would create a dishonest image of himself to sell to the public. For more see National geographic Top Secrets about Abraham Lincoln

*Lincoln Rail Splitter or Rich Railroad Lobbyist* 

_Lincoln was what today would be called a lobbyist for the railroad industry
-Thomas J Dilorenzo Lincoln Unmasked_ 

While running for president Lincoln sold himself as a poor country rail splitter. In reality Lincoln was a rich powerful rail lobbyist and lawyer. He was a corporate trial lawyer, his clients were from every major railroad cooperation in the west. He subsidized $12 million tax in Illinois to rail corporations that ended in a big failure. But helped him politically become known as a railroad lobbyist. He was a cooperate insider and traveled with his own private rail car with a free pass, around the Midwest.

Lincolns powerful industrial interests were always present at political councils. 1862 Lincoln used a bill for the Union Pacific Railroad Tax payer subsidized to pay off northern business for their support of him and the republican party[Republican party still today allied with major industry]. He used government subsidized railroad that involving ethnic cleansing and removal of the great plains Indians from their land to make way for the rail road. 

*Lincolns personality* 

_Lincoln was not a social man, loved no man much, was more or less selfish
-William Herdon 

No strong emotional feelings for any person mankind or thing
-Judge Davis Eighth Judicial Circuit_ 

Lincoln was described as selfish, manipulative, cold and said to use men like tools. Elizabeth Edwards Lincolns sister in law said Lincoln was a cold man with no heart. Law partner John Stuart said there was no part of his nature which drew him to do acts of gratitude to his friends. Lincoln suffered with depression and took medicine for it. He was quick tempered, prone to ramblings and outburst of anger.

_Lincoln was the most-hated president of all time during his own lifetime...The fact that he is now the most revered of all American presidents is a result of the work of generations of court historians and statist apologists who have literally rewritten American history in the same manner that the Soviets rewrote Russian history to consolidate their political power. 
-Lincoln The Great Centralizer Thomas J Dilorenzo_

*
Main References* 
- Lincoln Unmasked what your not suppose to know about Dishonest Abe Thomas J Dilorenzo Three rivers Press Crown Forum 2006
-Lincolns Marxists Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Pelican Press 2011 
-33 questions about American history you're not suppose to ask Thomas Woods Crown forum NY 2007
The Great Civil War Debate hosted by american vision c-span Peter Marshall Jr. vs Steve Wilkin s
The politically incorrect guide to the south Clint Johnson 2007 Regnery publications inc
The states rights tradition nobody knows Thomas Woods 
Thomas Jefferson and the principles of 98 Thomas Woods 
The fourteenth amendment -Thomas woods 
- The Real Lincoln Thomas J Dilorenzo Three Rivers press NY NY 2002 
Harry V. Jaffa and Thomas J. DiLorenzo | The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate politically incorrect guide to the civil war H.W Crocker third 2008 Regnery publications inc
The politically incorrect guide to American history Thomas e woods 2004 Regnery publications inc
The south was Right James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy Pelican 2014 reprint 
Jefferson Davis The rise and fall of the confederate government
The Civil war PBS series by Ken Burns
The American heritage series By Historian David Barton at wallbuilders.com
Building on the American heritage series by David Barton 2011
Americas godly heritage by David Barton 1992
Foundations of freedom by David Barton 2015 
The Constitution Of The Confederate States Of America Explained A Clause By Clause Study Of The Souths Magna Carta Lochlainn Seabrook Sea Raven Press 2012 
-Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States Baltimore, MD. Kelly Piet & Co. 1868 
Major General John B. Gordon Causes of the Civil War. 1903
A Constitutional view of the late war between the states: its causes By Alexander Hamilton Stephens 1870
The Confederate States of America, 1861--1865: A History of the South Lousianna state university press by E.Merton Coulter 1950 
A Defense Of Virginia And The South R.L Dabney 1867 Sprinkle publications
Myths and Realities of American Slavery John C Perry Burd Street Press 2002 
Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the confederate constitution Marshall L. Derosa Pelican press 2007
The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry Into American Constitutionalism By Marshall L. DeRosa University of Missouri Press

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## Swordsmyth

Yes.

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## TheTexan

More like hero, he put the "united" in "united states"

now we're just one big happy family.

Thanks Lincoln !

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## Swordsmyth

Lincoln was hypocritical scum.

_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._ — Speech by Abraham Lincoln in the House of Representatives, January 12, 1848

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## PierzStyx

All Presidents are dictators. As long as you lead a government organized on the principle of violent compulsion then dictatorship is, at best, only a few steps away.

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## Anti Federalist

Welcome 1stVermont.

Short answer, yes.

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## Occam's Banana

> Short answer, yes.


Long answer: Hell, yes!

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## 1stvermont

> Welcome 1stVermont.
> 
> Short answer, yes.


Thanks glad to be hear.

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## Iowa

affirmative

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## ChristianAnarchist

It's obvious to any who want to look at the evidence...

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## Danke

Si

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## oyarde

Yes , but not really because of maryland , he should have forced england to take it back.

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## Swordsmyth

Bump

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## acptulsa

> Bump


You decided tonight was a good night to turn the New Posts screen into the "perfect evidence" our enemies can use to convince people libertarians are all obsessed with the Civil War, trashing Lincoln and reminiscing about slavery?

Should we look around the web for the screen shot so we know who paid you to do it?

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## phill4paul

> You decided tonight was a good night to turn the New Posts screen into the "perfect evidence" our enemies can use to convince people libertarians are all obsessed with the Civil War, trashing Lincoln and reminiscing about slavery?
> 
> Should we look around the web for the screen shot so we know who paid you to do it?


  Actually, I'm kinda glad he did. I had missed many of these informative posts. And the timing of the bumps couldn't have been better for me. YMMV.

  I had just finished reading 'Campaigns of the Civil War' by Walter Geer. A very in-depth look at the battles and the generals that commanded in them. Most interesting to me was the last five paragraphs in the last chapter labeled "Conclusion."

   It details in short the main reason that the Confederacy lost. It had the best generals. They were able to lead from the field and politics was not involved in their placement. In short they had to earn their position. The southern soldier was a better shot and the early adoption of conscription insured that there were always seasoned vets to teach new recruits. In short they had what they needed to win.

  It was politics that done 'em in. Seems the Confederate government was sitting on some 5 million bales of cotton. Had they decided to sell they could have raised $500 million dollars. Enough to pay for guns, feed the troops, paid well and have the sick and wounded properly cared for. And STILL had as much in the bank as the North. 

  Instead they held onto it hoping that France and England would barter a truce so that they could open trade again. It was a fatal mistake and one that changed history.

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## Danke

Ja

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## acptulsa

https://panampost.com/valerie-marsma...?cn-reloaded=1

Jonathan Blanks

There is a strain of libertarian contrarianism that holds that the Confederate States of America were within their “rights” to secede from the Union. Such contrarianism on this particular topic is detrimental to the larger cause of liberty because the logic of this argument relies upon relinquishing individual rights to the whim of the state. Indeed, as there is no legal or moral justification for supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War, it is impossible that there could be a libertarian one.

The legal argument against secession is straight-forward. Beyond the simple fact that most countries don’t provide for their own dissolution at the outset, the US Constitution is not silent on the use of force by the federal government. Article I Section 8 clearly grants Congress the power to put down insurrections, as the South was well aware. As recently as 1859, that power had been used by then-Union Colonel Robert E. Lee to put down John Brown’s mindless and bloody raid on Harpers Ferry.

But to support the Declaration of Independence is to support secession. Thus, from the outset, it is nearly impossible to defend the American idea — that the people may separate themselves from an oppressive government in order to govern themselves — without accepting secession as a legitimate political action under certain circumstances, at least.

This, however, does not necessarily mean that all secession is justified. In the Declaration, Jefferson writes, “Prudence … will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes,” necessarily implying that some separations are indeed imprudent and any such separation should be judged on its individual merits.

A predictable and stable adherence to the Rule of Law is the indispensable tenet of any form of just government, and so the dissolution of that government must be preceded by systemic injustice or other reason that appeals to higher or natural law. Without this ordered liberty and deference to individual rights, laws cease to mean anything other than the imposition of will by man upon man.

Because Confederate-secession defenders will not typically make arguments in favor of chattel slavery, they rely instead on the assumption that secession is an unbounded right and thus a state may leave a country for whatever reason it chooses. To accept this premise, one has to bypass moral judgment on the cause of secession, yet affirmatively assign a morality to secession as a matter of preferred political procedure — in common parlance as “states’ rights.” This turns the assumption of individual rights on its head, if the federalist procedure is to supersede the right of exit of any group or individual within that state, as the Confederacy’s slave economy unquestionably did.

People who imagine themselves free have, in theory, a right of exit if and when they choose to separate themselves from the state in which they live. Suspending for the sake of argument the economic hardships that may entail, the right of one’s own separation — an individual secession, if you will — remains. Except in the Confederacy, where no such right existed for the slaves for which the Southern states unquestionably and proudly seceded...


While it would be disingenuous to say that the North began the war with the intent to end slavery, it would be nothing short of delusion to say the South did not fight to preserve both slavery and the white supremacy upon which it relied.

A war for slavery is, by definition, a fight against the individual right of exit. It takes an extraordinary leap for a libertarian to assign rights to a state which are denied to the people or an individual. Properly understood, states have powers, not rights. The fundamental tenet of rights theory is that a man or woman has property in him- or herself and that he or she voluntarily gives up only a small portion of his or her rights when joining a state. The right of exit is indeed a solemn one, but its root lies with the individual, not a body of elites and their self-interested whims.

In nearly every other circumstance, especially dealing with war, a libertarian is often the first to ask cui bono? To whose benefit would war be? What is the real justification for this war? For nearly every other war, the arguments for war are questioned and usually debunked by libertarians, most of whom oppose war under any non-essential circumstance, often stridently. Yet, the idea that the slave-holding elite would separate itself from the rest of the nation to protect its financial interest in holding other human beings as property is, somehow — to some people who espouse the rights of the individual as sacrosanct — lumped in with a fight for freedom?

As an aside: that most soldiers of the Confederacy didn’t have slaves or think they were fighting to preserve slavery is non sequitur. The argument against the South’s actions in the Civil War has nothing to do with the motivations of its soldiers. The blame lies with the actions of the political elite. There are many US Americans who went to fight and die in Vietnam who thought they were fighting for the preservation of liberty — when, in fact, they were fighting on an arbitrary side in a civil war that had nothing to do with the United States or its way of life. (That communism makes people less free is a truism, but I’m less convinced the people of Vietnam were better off with civilians subject to napalm attacks and a million war dead during American operations than they were under Ho Chi Minh and the more open style of communism that has defined Vietnam in the five decades hence.) It’s remarkably sad that so many died for a lie, but that doesn’t change the essence of the lie...

The anti-libertarian results of the Civil War are evident. The federal government centralized a great deal of power in the post-war years and that sort of power is well-understood to be very dangerous to individual liberty. Yet, it is not as if the abuse of individual rights by the states ended at Appomattox. For the century following the end of Reconstruction, the southern states (and, to a lesser extent, some northern states) implemented laws and customs which systematically stripped the rights of blacks. From voting rights to freedom of contract and free association, the southern states oppressed their black citizens. This retarded the post-war southern economies — stultifying a portion of the population relegated to substandard educational accommodations and economic opportunities — despite protestations from some apologists that the market would work it all out eventually. Similarly, the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates and Slate’s Matt Yglesias show that the economics of and rhetoric supporting the antebellum slave system were thriving, despite claims that the “peculiar institution” was dying for reasons wholly separate from the war.

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## fisharmor

> A predictable and stable adherence to the Rule of Law is the indispensable tenet of any form of just government, and so the dissolution of that government must be preceded by systemic injustice or other reason that appeals to higher or natural law. Without this ordered liberty and deference to individual rights, laws cease to mean anything other than the imposition of will by man upon man.
> 
> Because Confederate-secession defenders will not typically make arguments in favor of chattel slavery, they rely instead on the assumption that secession is an unbounded right and thus a state may leave a country for whatever reason it chooses. To accept this premise, one has to bypass moral judgment on the cause of secession, yet affirmatively assign a morality to secession as a matter of preferred political procedure — in common parlance as “states’ rights.” This turns the assumption of individual rights on its head, if the federalist procedure is to supersede the right of exit of any group or individual within that state, as the Confederacy’s slave economy unquestionably did.
> 
> People who imagine themselves free have, in theory, a right of exit if and when they choose to separate themselves from the state in which they live. Suspending for the sake of argument the economic hardships that may entail, the right of one’s own separation — an individual secession, if you will — remains. Except in the Confederacy, where no such right existed for the slaves for which the Southern states unquestionably and proudly seceded...
> 
> 
> While it would be disingenuous to say that the North began the war with the intent to end slavery, it would be nothing short of delusion to say the South did not fight to preserve both slavery and the white supremacy upon which it relied.


Yeah, I have this gigantic delusional malady which I call "being able to parse and comprehend the meaning of English sentences".

I use this mental disorder when I read the declarations of secession from the various Southern states.  And because I am delusional, I see over and over that _on the topic of slavery,_ *the federal government broke the rule of law repeatedly.*

Because I have this mental disorder of being able to read, I can see as plain as day that the utter disrespect for the rule of law is the ultimate and stated reason for secession, and that slavery is only proximately related to that reason.

But I guess this doesn't count because I'm delusional.  Good thing kids are learning to speak with emojis and all-lowercase slang - they should be completely protected from all the actual facts pro-Unionists like to ignore.

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## acptulsa

> I use this mental disorder when I read the declarations of secession from the various Southern states.  And because I am delusional, I see over and over that _on the topic of slavery,_ *the federal government broke the rule of law repeatedly.*


Well, yes.  But, you know, when you have a paradigm shift underway which is about to lead to constitutional amendments, some civil disobedience will happen at all levels.




> We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.


Fact is, Lincoln was a tyrant.  Fact is, the southern states had no call to point their fingers at anyone over tyranny.  Fact is, change had to come.  It's a damned shame other, more evil changes like federalism came with.  But power grabbers never let a good crisis go to waste.

The fact remains that slavery is indefensible from a libertarian point of view.

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## Swordsmyth

> You decided tonight was a good night to turn the New Posts screen into the "perfect evidence" our enemies can use to convince people libertarians are all obsessed with the Civil War, trashing Lincoln and reminiscing about slavery?
> 
> Should we look around the web for the screen shot so we know who paid you to do it?


I decided to bump these old threads in support of a new thread about Lincoln.

Go suck an egg.

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## brushfire

Lincoln = tyrant.   He shares the podium of big government champions with the likes of Hamilton, Wilson, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, etc    Those who adore centralized power and the federal government, adore these political figureheads.   Not for who they are as humans/people, but for precedent of government power and overreach they have established.

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## Swordsmyth

> https://panampost.com/valerie-marsma...?cn-reloaded=1
> 
> Jonathan Blanks
> 
> There is a strain of libertarian contrarianism that holds that the Confederate States of America were within their “rights” to secede from the Union. Such contrarianism on this particular topic is detrimental to the larger cause of liberty because the logic of this argument relies upon relinquishing individual rights to the whim of the state. Indeed, as there is no legal or moral justification for supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War, it is impossible that there could be a libertarian one.
> 
> The legal argument against secession is straight-forward. Beyond the simple fact that most countries don’t provide for their own dissolution at the outset, the US Constitution is not silent on the use of force by the federal government. Article I Section 8 clearly grants Congress the power to put down insurrections, as the South was well aware. As recently as 1859, that power had been used by then-Union Colonel Robert E. Lee to put down John Brown’s mindless and bloody raid on Harpers Ferry.
> 
> But to support the Declaration of Independence is to support secession. Thus, from the outset, it is nearly impossible to defend the American idea — that the people may separate themselves from an oppressive government in order to govern themselves — without accepting secession as a legitimate political action under certain circumstances, at least.
> ...


Secession was an inherent right of every state as even Lincoln acknowledged before it was inconvenient and the North had completely rejected the Constitution and the rule of law, the Confederacy had its faults that are not in dispute but they were the better side and they were in the right about the issues that were really in question.

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## acptulsa

> Secession was an inherent right of every state as even Lincoln acknowledged before it was inconvenient and the North had completely rejected the Constitution and the rule of law, the Confederacy had its faults that are not in dispute but they were the better side and they were in the right about the issues that were really in question.


Slavery was clearly in question, regardless of the attempts of revisionists to deny it.  So we may assume you are in favor of slavery?

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## Swordsmyth

> Slavery was clearly in question, regardless of the attempts of revisionists to deny it.


It was NOT in question, Lincoln and the Republicans offered to protect it, it didn't become an issue until the North started using it as war propaganda.




> So we may assume you are in favor of slavery?


That is the exact kind of lie that is in absolute opposition to the truth that you always use.

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## acptulsa

> It was NOT in question, Lincoln and the Republicans offered to protect it, it didn't become an issue until the North started using it as war propaganda.


Oh?  Then we may assume you're ignorant of the Missouri Compromise of 1850?  And John Brown's escapades of 1859?

Oh, but you're saying it was off the table because the politician who got elected on that very issue made a politician's promise.  Sort of like all those Trump promises you took as gospel, and called a bunch of people stupid for not believing, which have not been kept, right?

So you consider it impossible that millions of southerners didn't believe a politician's promise?  Is that the argument?

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## Swordsmyth

> Oh?  Then we may assume you're ignorant of the Missouri Compromise of 1850?  And John Brown's escapades of 1859?
> 
> Oh, but you're saying it was off the table because the politician who got elected on that very issue made a politician's promise.  Sort of like all those Trump promises you took as gospel, and called a bunch of people stupid for not believing, which have not been kept, right?
> 
> So you consider it impossible that millions of southerners didn't believe a politician's promise?  Is that the argument?


Read and learn, there was going to be a Constitutional Amendment to protect slavery:




> _“He never contemplated with any degree of substantiation the  prospect of a free negro race living in the same country as a free white  race”
> Lincoln Authority Roy Basler
> 
> _*Lincoln fighter of equality? Or White Supremacist 
> 
> *_“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor  of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the  white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of  making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold  office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition  to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black  races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together  on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot  so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of  superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of  having the superior position assigned to the white race.” 
> -Abraham Lincoln, First Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, Sept.  18, 1858, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol.3, pp. 145-146.
> 
> “I agree with Judge Douglas he [African Americans] is not my equal in  many respects certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or  intellectual endowment.”
> ...

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## acptulsa

> Go suck an egg.


Such a boon to the level of discourse.




> That is the exact kind of lie that is in absolute opposition to the truth that you always use.


If you admit I always tell the truth, then I guess the lie you're talking about is your own?




> Read and learn, there was going to be a Constitutional Amendment to protect slavery:


Yeah, sure their was.  A nation in which the majority opposed it was going to amend the constitution to allow something the constitution already allowed.

Naturally.

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## Swordsmyth

> Such a boon to the level of discourse.










> If you admit I always tell the truth, then I guess the lie you're talking about is your own?


You lie all the time, you are a contender for the title of "biggest liar on RPF"






> IYeah, sure their was.  A nation in which the majority opposed it was going to amend the constitution to allow something the constitution already allowed.
> 
> Naturally.


Just like a nation where the majority drank passed a Prohibition Amendment, the people don't get a voice in Constitutional Amendments and politicians cut deals.

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## acptulsa

> You lie all the time, you are a contender for the title of "biggest liar on RPF"


Yet another guideline violation quoted where you can't edit it.

And that's a true statement, you know.

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## Swordsmyth

> Yet another guideline violation quoted where you can't edit it.
> 
> And that's a true statement, you know.


I can prove you lie blatantly with quotes that you can't edit.

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## acptulsa

> I can prove you lie blatantly with quotes that you can't edit.


You say you can, but you don't?

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## Anti Globalist

He freed the slaves and then enslaved them and everyone else to the government making him a totalitarian slave master.  I believe that would classify him as a tyrant.

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## kona

> The fact remains that slavery is indefensible from a libertarian point of view.


I agree, but what does this mean? That Jefferson, Anti-Federalists, Jacksonians, and Classical Liberals...collectively the founders of libertarianism (more or less)...are indefensible? Your statement is 100% true but logic would then require us to throw some great men in the trash bin of history, and we would never do that, perhaps because the rest of their lives were so important, or maybe because people are uncomfortable retroactively applying morals from 200+ years in the future.

The libertarians of the 18th/19th centuries were (just as today) the beacons of freedom. If they were truly indefensible, I'm not sure how any other historical figures from back then could be defended.

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## Swordsmyth

> I agree, but what does this mean? That Jefferson, Anti-Federalists, Jacksonians, and Classical Liberals...collectively the founders of libertarianism (more or less)...are indefensible? Your statement is 100% true but logic would then require us to throw some great men in the trash bin of history, and we would never do that, perhaps because the rest of their lives were so important, or maybe because people are uncomfortable retroactively applying morals from 200+ years in the future.
> 
> The libertarians of the 18th/19th centuries were (just as today) the beacons of freedom. If they were truly indefensible, I'm not sure how any other historical figures from back then could be defended.


You must know what freedom is before you can give it to others, the south needed to progress to give it to everyone but the North didn't even understand what it was and they took it from everyone.

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## Stratovarious

> Lincoln was hypocritical scum.
> 
> _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._ — Speech by Abraham Lincoln in the House of Representatives, January 12, 1848


Lincoln stated that the preservation of the Union was 'key' , regardless of whether slavery
was in place or abolished.
The John Birch Society claims Lincoln was a member of the illuminati, which makes sense in this context,
liberate the world via Globalism.

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## acptulsa

> The libertarians of the 18th/19th centuries were (just as today) the beacons of freedom. If they were truly indefensible, I'm not sure how any other historical figures from back then could be defended.


I said slavery was indefensible.  Slavery is not a person, or a group of people.

Can those people be defended?  They had an excuse.  The economics of tobacco farming in that place at that time made it about impossible to stay afloat without slaves.  They couldn't have knit a nation together without permitting slavery.  Is that excuse good enough?

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## Superfluous Man

> That Jefferson, Anti-Federalists, Jacksonians, and Classical Liberals...collectively the founders of libertarianism (more or less)...are indefensible?


Those were collectively the founders of libertarianism? What are you talking about?




> people are uncomfortable retroactively applying morals from 200+ years in the future.


Opposing slavery is not a moral from 200+ years in the future.

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## Swordsmyth

> I said slavery was indefensible.  Slavery is not a person, or a group of people.
> 
> Can those people be defended?  They had an excuse.  The economics of tobacco farming in that place at that time made it about impossible to stay afloat without slaves.  They couldn't have knit a nation together without permitting slavery.  Is that excuse good enough?


They were also born and raised in a system they didn't start and many of them wanted to end it.

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## Swordsmyth

> Lincoln stated that the preservation of the Union was 'key' , regardless of whether slavery
> was in place or abolished.
> The John Birch Society claims Lincoln was a member of the illuminati, which makes sense in this context,
> liberate the world via Globalism.

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## osan

Lincoln was a traitor to liberty and, by extension, to humanity.

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## Aratus

SULLA was a tyrant. Ole "Honest Abe"  LINCOLN was a politician who had to try to unify a fragmented, badly  split nation.
OLE JEFFERSON DAVIS WAS A PASSIONATELY PATRIOTIC YET CONTRADICTORY ELITIST  TRAITOR OF THE FIRST ORDER...
LIZ CHENEY is correct, wily ole Donald Trump is the biggest threat to our nation  and its Constitution.  The second biggest 
threat is not Woody Wilson or FDR or our Cold War  military apparatus, instead its the complicated yet hidden court system
inside our classic & long running WAR ON TERROR. Our modern practical GOP  is NOT on the moral high ground at all, today.

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