Abe Lincoln

[rational thinker]

You know, I've been noticing lately on T.V. shows and the media that when you dislike Abe Lincoln, it is the equivalent of endorsing slavery. I know Ron Paul himself got hit hard by his expressed dislike of Lincoln, but have we been so conditioned as children to believe that he was the savior of all America that any valid criticism of him is the equivalent of justifying what he fought against?

I'm writing this because I was watching Family Guy last night and it was the episode where the Griffins have to move down South under the witness protection program and while down there, there was a reenactment of the Civil War and the South won it in the reenactment and when Peter said otherwise, they all got rowdy and called them "Lincoln lovers!" for hating slavery.

Anyways, I get the feeling that many people see us Ron Paul supporters, when we are critical of Lincoln, as against progressive ideals of freedom and all that blah blah blah. In fact, my friend (who is a big time liberal/progressive) was saying that the problem he has with Ron Paul and his supporters are that they support ideas that tend to be supported by racists and nationalists. Like being against amnesty tends to be a trademark by a bunch of grouchy, Texas citizens who hate any form of diversity or change. I mean, look at this pic to get an idea of what I mean: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/dayinpictures?o=4&f=/g/a/2008/05/02/dip.DTL&type=dayinpictures

Well, just thought I'd let that off my chest.

 

[Theocrat]

Congressman Paul. MSNBC. Abe Lincoln Debate. December 27, 2007.

You know, I've been noticing lately on T.V. shows and the media that when you dislike Abe Lincoln, it is the equivalent of endorsing slavery. I know Ron Paul himself got hit hard by his expressed dislike of Lincoln, but have we been so conditioned as children to believe that he was the savior of all America that any valid criticism of him is the equivalent of justifying what he fought against?

I'm writing this because I was watching Family Guy last night and it was the episode where the Griffins have to move down South under the witness protection program and while down there, there was a reenactment of the Civil War and the South won it in the reenactment and when Peter said otherwise, they all got rowdy and called them "Lincoln lovers!" for hating slavery.

Anyways, I get the feeling that many people see us Ron Paul supporters, when we are critical of Lincoln, as against progressive ideals of freedom and all that blah blah blah. In fact, my friend (who is a big time liberal/progressive) was saying that the problem he has with Ron Paul and his supporters are that they support ideas that tend to be supported by racists and nationalists. Like being against amnesty tends to be a trademark by a bunch of grouchy, Texas citizens who hate any form of diversity or change. I mean, look at this pic to get an idea of what I mean: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/dayinpictures?o=4&f=/g/a/2008/05/02/dip.DTL&type=dayinpictures

Well, just thought I'd let that off my chest.

Do you remember this and this?

 

[LiveFree79]

No but reading a couple of Anti-Lincoln books (Lincoln Unmasked, The Real Lincoln are a few most commong among Ron Paul supporters) does not make you an expert on anything civil war related nor Lincoln related. Abraham Lincoln was a great President in a lot of ways. He had his faults like most. And anyone who's knowledgeable on the Civil War knows it was more a war of secession and slavery was a side effect. However, Paulites love to criticize everyone without usually acknowledging their positive contributions. Like I said before Lincoln did with Greenbacks what FDR did with the New Deal. Difference is Lincoln didn't go into debt to the private banking cartel like FDR did. Lincoln actually used the power of congress to "coin money" under the Constitution. Most RPer's forget this. He set up the Land Grant College system and a host of other great public bureaucracies that however outdated and despised by libertarians today, served a very important purpose back in 19th century.

 

[LiveFree79]

In fact I would assume "Dr." Paul seems to get a lot of his opinions from Lincoln from books like The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo.......even Dr. Paul should admit that this book is far from being any kind of authority on Abraham Lincoln. It's filled with erroneous revisionist, fictional or taken out of context information for the sole purpose of fueling one person's interpretation and historical agenda. I mean how many of you that despise Lincoln have even read these two books and cross referenced his sources? Probably not one. Even Lew Rockwell doesn't seem to have his frickin facts straight. Ron Paul is one man....he's not god people. Not everything he says is as good as gold

 

[sratiug]

In fact I would assume "Dr." Paul seems to get a lot of his opinions from Lincoln from books like The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo.......even Dr. Paul should admit that this book is far from being any kind of authority on Abraham Lincoln. It's filled with erroneous revisionist, fictional or taken out of context information for the sole purpose of fueling one person's interpretation and historical agenda. I mean how many of you that despise Lincoln have even read these two books and cross referenced his sources? Probably not one. Even Lew Rockwell doesn't seem to have his frickin facts straight. Ron Paul is one man....he's not god people. Not everything he says is as good as gold

Face it, no matter what good Lincoln did, no matter how brilliant (imo) he was, one war killing 600,000 Americans and leaving the South in ruins with an unjustifiable motive (slave nation invading slave nation to end slavery? or forcibly preserving a voluntary union?) makes a disatrous presidency. I have read no anti-Lincoln books. The history is plain. Slavery was legal in the Union. Lincoln did made great speeches about slavery. As did Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The great failure of both men is that they were not able to end slavery until so many men died in a war over secession and tariffs that the nation was forced to end slavery to morally justify the slaughter. Thus a good thing came from something terrible.

The only way to make our point clear is to make that clear. The Union was a slave country. Abraham Lincoln was a slave president who did nothing to free the slaves, and said that it was not his purpose to free the slaves, and that white and black people could never live together, and blacks should all be sent back to Africa.

It's a lot like today. Bush invaded Iraq to spread democracy now, but that's not what really happened, and we know that. And we know that Bush stole his own election, so it was a dictatorship invading a dictatorship to end dictatorship, just as the civil war was a slave country invading a slave country to end slavery. A ludicrous proposition in both instances. Both wars were/are over money.

 

[LiveFree79]

Face it, no matter what good Lincoln did, no matter how brilliant (imo) he was, one war killing 600,000 Americans and leaving the South in ruins with an unjustifiable motive (slave nation invading slave nation to end slavery? or forcibly preserving a voluntary union?) makes a disatrous presidency. I have read no anti-Lincoln books. The history is plain. Slavery was legal in the Union. Lincoln did made great speeches about slavery. As did Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The great failure of both men is that they were not able to end slavery until so many men died in a war over secession and tariffs that the nation was forced to end slavery to morally justify the slaughter. Thus a good thing came from something terrible.

The only way to make our point clear is to make that clear. The Union was a slave country. Abraham Lincoln was a slave president who did nothing to free the slaves, and said that it was not his purpose to free the slaves, and that white and black people could never live together, and blacks should all be sent back to Africa.
It's a lot like today. Bush invaded Iraq to spread democracy now, but that's not what really happened, and we know that. And we know that Bush stole his own election, so it was a dictatorship invading a dictatorship to end dictatorship, just as the civil war was a slave country invading a slave country to end slavery. A ludicrous proposition in both instances. Both wars were/are over money.

Sounds like you haven't really read any books on Lincoln or the Civil War. Again this is a stupid quote to prove your any point. This is a very subjective interpretation of what Lincoln meant. Hell for all we know he could have meant most slaves would be happy going back to live in their continent of Africa where they came from.

 

[apropos]

have we been so conditioned as children to believe that he was the savior of all America that any valid criticism of him is the equivalent of justifying what he fought against?

That seems to be the case.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Free the slave; bind the master.

You know, I've been noticing lately on T.V. shows and the media that when you dislike Abe Lincoln, it is the equivalent of endorsing slavery.

A positive government like we have in the United States has a "self evident" agenda to free the slave and to bind the master. Abraham Lincoln had to bind the master class in order to free the slaves.

I know Ron Paul himself got hit hard by his expressed dislike of Lincoln, but have we been so conditioned as children to believe that he was the savior of all America that any valid criticism of him is the equivalent of justifying what he fought against?

Let us say that Ron Paul is the king and that his words are rational. Not rational in the sense that his words are right or true but in the sense that you better agree with him or else. This is how we used to live under the rule of the chief or king in the primitive caste system when societies ate seperately at master and slave dinner tables.
The Civil Purpose of our posivitive government in the United States is to sit the master and the slave down at the same table. Of course, there is going to be tremendous pressure resisting this form of government by all involved even to the point of occasional violence. So, it becomes necessary to be ever vigilant to free the slave and to bind the master as Abraham Lincoln did.
We don't go so far as to metaphorically reject the rule of King Ron Paul in this positive government we have set up in the United States. Instead we allow him to sit down as our necessary authority but at a table owned by us. In other words, the state or public property in the Unites States is owned by the people.

I'm writing this because I was watching Family Guy last night and it was the episode where the Griffins have to move down South under the witness protection program and while down there, there was a reenactment of the Civil War and the South won it in the reenactment and when Peter said otherwise, they all got rowdy and called them "Lincoln lovers!" for hating slavery.

In order to belittle the United States, a European must first divide the nation into a protagonistic north against an antagonistic south. Abraham Lincoln had a policy which appeared to isolate the south as the flesh and blood enemy but as soon as each southern state was defeated it entered the door immediately to become part of the Union against a principality and power. Although this scheme didn't happen as purely as Lincoln desired it to, it still allowed him to save the Union.
As I have already pointed out in here, very little is taught in American history about how the Loyalistic colony of New York was made to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the American Patriots during the revolutionary war. Didn't the colony of New Hampshire later choose to side with the British during the war of 1812 and have to suffer likewise?
As most of us have had to suffer on the losing side in creating our great nation, the Civil Purpose for which we fought and died was to sit master and slave at the same dinner table.

Anyways, I get the feeling that many people see us Ron Paul supporters, when we are critical of Lincoln, as against progressive ideals of freedom and all that blah blah blah.

There are supposed to be truths in the Constitution which are "self evident" and "inalienable" even to the point that their meaning reduces down to be understood equally not only by both liberals and conservatives alike but by the conscience of every living soul on earth. This Civil Purpose in the Constitution should be our primary concern while the issues created by the secondary concerns of legal precedents should be understood as a threat to the very sovereignty of the Constitution itself.

In fact, my friend (who is a big time liberal/progressive) was saying that the problem he has with Ron Paul and his supporters are that they support ideas that tend to be supported by racists and nationalists.

There is a subtle difference between the menial prejudice that people exhibit while sitting together at the same dinner table and the racism that people exhibit as they bicker and argue that we should all sit at different tables. Such bickering divides us back into the primitive caste system while the business of a positive government is to consistently free the slave and bind the master. For us to live again as master and slave would take no work or effort at all because tyranny naturally erodes us to such a state.

Like being against amnesty tends to be a trademark by a bunch of grouchy, Texas citizens who hate any form of diversity or change.

Our government is supposed to serve the best interests of its people. However, when we choose to sit at different dinner tables as a master and a slave class, we tend to concern ourselves primarily with the table of the master class. In the meantime, our society is becoming more and more like a primitive caste system, as the table of the middle class continues to erode further and further into either a master or a slave class.

 

[llamabread]

Face it, no matter what good Lincoln did, no matter how brilliant (imo) he was, one war killing 600,000 Americans and leaving the South in ruins with an unjustifiable motive (slave nation invading slave nation to end slavery? or forcibly preserving a voluntary union?) makes a disastrous presidency.

The only way to make our point clear is to make that clear. The Union was a slave country. Abraham Lincoln was a slave president who did nothing to free the slaves, and said that it was not his purpose to free the slaves, and that white and black people could never live together, and blacks should all be sent back to Africa.

The Union was not a slave country. Vermont outlawed slavery in 1777. By 1860, only the border states still held slaves (Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland). The conflict came over the spread of slavery into the territories. The Missouri Compromise in 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 only put off the inevitable conflict over slavery, since the Constitution is incredibly vague on the subject (it had to be for the South to accept it). There was a precarious balance of power between Slave and Free States, and when Abraham Lincoln was elected, South Carolina felt that the balance was gone. Not because Lincoln would outlaw slavery, he said he specifically wouldn't, but because Lincoln wouldn't allow the spread of slavery into new territories. Lincoln did an incredible job to win the Civil War, and even more incredible, keep the Border States within the Union and Britain and France away from the Confederacy. He took actions that he felt were necessary during war time, such as suspending Habeas Corpus, but he is not as bad as some Paulites believe, but defiantly not the God that we teach kids about either.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

Why do we hate our equivalent of an American Gandhi so much?

Face it, no matter what good Lincoln did, no matter how brilliant (imo) he was, one war killing 600,000 Americans and leaving the South in ruins with an unjustifiable motive (slave nation invading slave nation to end slavery? or forcibly preserving a voluntary union?) makes a disatrous presidency. I have read no anti-Lincoln books. The history is plain. Slavery was legal in the Union. Lincoln did made great speeches about slavery. As did Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. The great failure of both men is that they were not able to end slavery until so many men died in a war over secession and tariffs that the nation was forced to end slavery to morally justify the slaughter. Thus a good thing came from something terrible.

The only way to make our point clear is to make that clear. The Union was a slave country. Abraham Lincoln was a slave president who did nothing to free the slaves, and said that it was not his purpose to free the slaves, and that white and black people could never live together, and blacks should all be sent back to Africa.

It's a lot like today. Bush invaded Iraq to spread democracy now, but that's not what really happened, and we know that. And we know that Bush stole his own election, so it was a dictatorship invading a dictatorship to end dictatorship, just as the civil war was a slave country invading a slave country to end slavery. A ludicrous proposition in both instances. Both wars were/are over money.

I will agree with you that Lincoln was a vile, filthy soul; an incredible wicked man without a conscience; a liar, a scoundrel, a cheat and a warmonger. I will admit to all of this if you will admit he was 10 times greater than any living American today.

 

[Acala]

Facts

Just the undisputed facts make Lincoln a villain in my opinion.

He was elected on a platform of support for protectionist tarrifs that favored northern industry at the expense of the southern agrarian economy. This, as much as the slavery issue, forced the Southern states to secede. Didn't they have a right to secede? How can the Constitution be interpreted to deny a State the right to leave the Union? Joining the Union was voluntary. Why would leaving the union not be voluntary? Is it the Mafia or a free country?

When the South seceded, Lincoln said he would continue to collect tariffs on shipments into southern harbors (showing what his real concern was) and to that end left US troops in Fort Sumpter. Where in the Constitution is a President authorized to use troops to collect tariffs in a foreign land?

After the South tried to expel union forces from southern territory, a right every sovereign nation has, Lincoln invaded with the intent of subduing them and forcing them back into the union. Where in the Constitution was forcing states into the union authorized?

Ironically, Lincoln imposed an income tax and a draft, two forms of slavery that are still with us today.

Lincoln suspended the writ of habeus corpus, jailed political opponents, shut down newspapers critical of the war, sent troops into maryland to chase anti-Lincoln voters away from the polls during the election, ordered the Navy to shell New York City to put down anti-war riots, etc.

But he freed the slaves so he is a hero, right? Well, not exactly. He freed SOUTHERN slaves, but not NORTHERN slaves. Hahahahaha! The Great Emancipator! I wonder what the Northern slaves thought about that.

But the worst thing he did was to destroy the balance of power between the states and the federal government. Once the threat of secession, which had been used several times before to check the Federal government, was eliminated by Lincoln's unconstitutional war, the federal government was largely unfettered and the states were captive. Lincoln destroyed the most effective check on federal power and liberty has been eroding ever since.


So what were all the great things he did to counter-balance this horror?

 

[sophocles07]

Do you remember this and this?

Man these news reporters don’t know what they’re talking about.

 

[DealzOnWheelz]

THANKS ACALA

+1776

He basically set the precedent for the fed to shut down states rights

 

[ForLiberty-RonPaul]

"Did you say Abe Lincoln?"
"No I didn't say Abe Lincoln! I said "Hey Blinkin!" Hold the reigns man. ...damn.

 

[The One]

In fact I would assume "Dr." Paul seems to get a lot of his opinions from Lincoln from books like The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo.......even Dr. Paul should admit that this book is far from being any kind of authority on Abraham Lincoln. It's filled with erroneous revisionist, fictional or taken out of context information for the sole purpose of fueling one person's interpretation and historical agenda. I mean how many of you that despise Lincoln have even read these two books and cross referenced his sources? Probably not one. Even Lew Rockwell doesn't seem to have his frickin facts straight. Ron Paul is one man....he's not god people. Not everything he says is as good as gold

"Dr." Paul???? What are the quotes for?

In the immortal words of sophocles07, am I going to have to skullfuck you?

 

[Kludge]

I will agree with you that Lincoln was a vile, filthy soul; an incredible wicked man without a conscience; a liar, a scoundrel, a cheat and a warmonger. I will admit to all of this if you will admit he was 10 times greater than any living American today.

Abe Lincoln isn't 1/10000 the man Dr. Paul is.

 

[sophocles07]

I will admit to all of this if you will admit he was 10 times greater than any living American today.

What are we basing this on? I like John Ford, but his Lincoln ain't thuh reyeal Leencuhn.

 

[nate895]

Sounds like you haven't really read any books on Lincoln or the Civil War. Again this is a stupid quote to prove your any point. This is a very subjective interpretation of what Lincoln meant. Hell for all we know he could have meant most slaves would be happy going back to live in their continent of Africa where they came from.

Hmmm, if he was so pure in his intentions, why did he endorse a letter that referred to the purification of America from people of African Heritage (and it doesn't use a kind term to refer to them)? The letter was by General William T. Sherman and here is the excerpt I'm referring to:

(O.R., Series I, Volume XXX, p. 234-235)

As long as a doubtful contest for supremacy exists between the two races they cannot control their choice; but as soon as we demonstrate equal courage, equal skill, superior resources, and superior tenacity of purpose, they will gradually relax and finally submit to men who profess, like myself, to fight for but one single purpose, viz, to sustain a Government capable of vindicating its just and rightful authority, independent of niggers, cotton, money, or any earthly interest.

 

[UnReconstructed]

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

And hating Abe Lincoln isn't extremist?

Abe Lincoln isn't 1/10000 the man Dr. Paul is.

I think Dr. Paul needs to address this Abe Lincoln thing.