Tag: Abraham Lincoln

The Reparations Fad – This Issue is More Complex Than You Think, and It’s a Political Hustle!

The latest attempt at further fracturing race relations towards ensuring politicians are employed well into the future is the idea of reparations for blacks in the US. Just like the Republicans of the late 1860s and early 1870s, the Democrats of today want to use blacks in the US to enrich their future to provide a government service in the form of money to offset past wrongs. It isn’t that politicians want every black person in the US to get a check, oh no, it is that they would “manage” this enormous fund and determine who is worthy to receive other taxpayer’s money.

Walter E. Williams in a 2014 piece (yes, this subject has been cycling thorough the US for many decades) explains the complexities involved:

One of the most ignored facts about slavery’s tragic history — and it’s virtually a secret today — is that slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years. It did not become a moral issue until the 18th century. Plus, the moral crusade against slavery started in the West, most notably England.

By worldwide, Walter means that blacks AND whites were slaves at one time or another. Even Alphonse-Louis Vinh noted in this recent post that:

Yes, slavery is evil, but this was something that was universal. Slavery was the backbone of our ancestral civilisation, the Greco-Roman World. Slavery has been universal for at least 5,000 years. Slavery still exists in the Muslim world. The monstrous evil of sexual slavery, which is a major concern of mine, exists everywhere, and I want to help destroy it.

To be specific, a decade ago there was NO slavery in Libya, but today, thanks to the US/NATO overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, this horrible practice is again thriving in this region. Bombing the world for “democracy” should be the US Empire’s tagline!

So lets get back to Walter E. Williams list of complexities to consider.

First and foremost:

.. let me say that I agree with reparations advocates that slavery was a horrible, despicable violation of basic human rights. The gross discrimination that followed emancipation made a mockery of the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. I also agree that slave owners and slave traders should make reparations to those whom they enslaved. The problem, of course, is that slaves, slave owners and slave traders are all dead. Thus, punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is out of the hands of the living .. What moral principle justifies punishing a white of today to compensate a black of today for what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday?

Exactly. Great question. However, there is more!

Government has no resources of its very own. The only way for government to give one American a dollar is to first — through intimidation, threats and coercion — confiscate that dollar from some other American .. A large percentage, if not most, of today’s Americans — be they of European, Asian, African or Latin ancestry — don’t even go back three or four generations as American citizens. Their ancestors arrived on our shores long after slavery. What standard of justice justifies their being taxed to compensate blacks for slavery? For example, in 1956, thousands of Hungarians fled the brutality of the USSR to settle in the U.S. What do Hungarians owe blacks for slavery?

Another great question. How on earth is government going to do this “fairly”? DNA testing? Even that has issues in trying to determine the descendants of both white slave-owners and black slaves. But wait, there is more!

During slavery, some free blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members.

But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves — to work farms or plantations. Are descendants of these slaveholding blacks eligible for and deserving of reparations?

Exactly. How does one determine the motive of people that lived in the US states of MD, KY, MO, DE (yes, these were slave states too) as well as TX, LA, AK, MS, AL, TN, GA, SC, NC, and VA prior to December 1865 when chattel slavery was abolished?

Adding to the complicated nature of this issue is the way slaves were captured in Africa (by African blacks) and placed on US New England slave ships, financed by US New England investors to get the slaves to Washington DC (yes, slave auctions were a thing there), Richmond, VA and Charleston, SC.

When African slavery began, there was no way Europeans could have enslaved millions of Africans. They had no immunity from diseases that flourished in tropical Africa. Capturing Africans to sell into slavery was done by Arabs and black Africans. Would reparations advocates demand that citizens of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and several Muslim states tax themselves to make reparation payments to progeny of people whom their ancestors helped to enslave?

The final thing Walter corrects is the myth that the slave system made for

Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged argument that the United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That’s nonsense that cannot be supported by fact. Slavery doesn’t have a very good record of producing wealth. Slavery was all over the South, and it was outlawed in most of the North.

Buying into the reparations argument about the riches of slavery, one would conclude that the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our nation were places where slavery flourished — Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia — while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.

Basically, the only reason the North could do what it did in 1861 when it commenced a war on Southern civilians was because it had prospered much more than the South from 1820s on to 1860. It was not always that way as from 1775 to the War of 1812 it was the South that was the most prosperous section of the young nation. So strong was the South that the North considered secession in 1798 and again in 1814 but never pulled the trigger.

Lastly, do we really want to open up this can of worms in the 21st century as to reparations for past slavery? The fact is that every nation in the world owes REPARATION to somebody ELSE.

Case in point is in this 2002 post about a case for reparations that was filed here in the US by Jack Kershaw of Menphis, TN:

[Jack] wants to file a class-action lawsuit against the US government for reparations. Not on behalf of the descendants of slaves but on behalf of Southerners of all races whose ancestors were the victims of the US government’s rampage of pillaging, plundering, burning, and raping of Southern civilians during the War for Southern Independence [so-called American Civil War]

While the Southerners of 1865-1877 and beyond were undoubtedly trashed by the vindictive Northern army and later Republican politicians, should we go back multiple generations across this globe and transact billions or trillions of dollars IF there is evidence to do so?

To be honest, the South took it on the chin for only wanting out of the marriage to this psycho partner called the Yankee/Northerner/Defender of the Union. Not only was this a legal move constitutionally (Lincoln was very careful to never acknowledge that secession took place), it was the right thing to do as it was well known by 1860 that the North got rich in part due to the tariff revenue generated in the South being REDISTRIBUTED to Northern “improvements” (steel industry, railroads, etc).

Some examples of wartime atrocities abound. To start with, the specific targeting of civilians was outright illegal when the North started the war against the “insurrection” (Lincoln’s word) in the South:

In 1860 international law — and the US government’s own military code — prohibited the intentional targeting of civilians in war, although it was recognized that civilian casualties are always inevitable. .. The kind of wanton looting and destruction of private property that was practiced by the Union army for the entire duration of the war was forbidden, and perpetrators were to be imprisoned or hanged. This was all described in great detail in the book, International Law, authored by San Francisco attorney Henry Halleck, who was appointed by Lincoln as general in chief of the Union armies in July 1862.

Early on in the war, frustrated Union officers took war to a new level and outside the bounds of law:

Unable to subdue their enemy combatants, many Union officers waged war on civilians instead, with Lincoln’s full knowledge and approval. Grimsley describes how Union Colonel John Beatty warned the residents of Paint Rock, Alabama, that “Every time the telegraph wire was cut we would burn a house; every time a train was fired upon we would hang a man; and we would continue to do this until every house was burned and every man hanged between Decatur and Bridgeport.” Beatty ended up burning the entire town of Paint Rock to the ground.

Note that this vengence was not aimed only at white civilians in the south (only 5% of them actually owned slaves since in a typical family of 5 at that time, the father generally owned the slaves), …

Slave states NOT in the Confederate States of America (CSA):

DELAWARE 112,216 1,798 18,966 110,418 587 3% 2%
KENTUCKY 1,155,684 225,483 166,321 930,201 38,645 23% 20%
MARYLAND 687,049 87,189 110,278 599,860 13,783 12% 13%
MISSOURI 1,182,012 114,931 192,073 1,067,081 24,320 13% 10%

 

 

… but the targeting included the slaves themselves. This actually makes more sense as post-war there was NOT a mass migration of blacks to the Northern states. Blacks may have initially thought that the white army from the North was there to free them, but the fact is, most Northerners did not want blacks competing for their jobs. The very potential for this mass migration was what prompted Lincoln, a “free-soil” Republican, to seriously consider sending blacks back to Africa or to the Caribbean.

In October of 1864 Sherman even ordered the murder of randomly chosen citizens in retaliation for Confederate Army attacks. He wrote to General Louis D. Watkins: “Cannot you send over about Fairmount and Adairsville, burn ten or twelve houses . . ., kill a few at random, and let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon . . .” (See John Bennett Walters, Merchant of Terror: General Sherman and Total War, p. 137).

The indiscriminate bombing of Southern cities, which was outlawed by international law at the time, killed hundreds, if not thousands of slaves. The slaves were targeted by Union Army plunderers as much as anyone. As Grimsley writes, “With the utter disregard for blacks that was the norm among Union troops, the soldiers ransacked the slave cabins, taking whatever they liked.” A typical practice was to put a hangman’s noose around a slave’s neck and threaten to hang him unless he revealed where the household’s jewelry and silverware were hidden. Some slaves were beaten to death by Union soldiers.

It is no doubt that black slaves knew that the North was not their true friends. The “Underground Railroad” went to Canada, not to any particular northern state. Only Wisconsin ever nullified the Fugitive Slave Act which mandated that escaped slaves were required by law to be returned to their owners in the slave states.

The fact that when both Indiana (1816) and Illinois (1818) abolished slavery upon statehood, they also ensure that black immigration was minimized by requiring blacks to produce legal documents proving they were free and posting bond of up to $1000 (in 1860 dollars – approximately $30,000 today!). Additional anti-immigration legislation was enacted (and supported by Lincoln) in Illinois in 1819, 1829 and 1853 and in Indiana in 1831 and 1852 as well as in the Michigan Territory in 1827. The bottom line was that Northern whites, and politicians themselves, feared black immigration!

In summary, reparations are best applied in real-time, within the generation of the offense. This is why even an author who suggests that Southerners are hard on General Sherman and Sheridan would state on the record:

Historian Lee Kennett, author of ‘Marching through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman’s Campaign’ page 286:

“Had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified (as victors generally do) in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants.”

Now you know.

-SF1

1868: When You Think You Have Been Taught All You Need to Know: Andrew Johnson – Impeached But Not Convicted

Impeachment proceedings in the US Senate 1868

Back in the day, when the newspaper would list all those convicted in the local courts, you (and I) probably developed a bias towards that person. Especially if you knew of the crime and all what was written in the paper you (and I) felt we knew the whole story and if we ever met that person on the street, there probably would have been no meeting of the eyes.

However, if you knew that person, the person’s character and past history and things did not seem to line up, you might have had doubts, but in the end if the courts (i.e. State) did their job, they must have been guilty as charged.

But, if you had been “there”, witnessed the “crime”, maybe that is when the court’s performance might have been suspect. We hear all the time these days, quietly, how convictions from decades ago are overturned due to DNA testing or false positives on hair samples, etc.

Also, if one has just been accused of a “crime” and has to go through the very public fight for justice, there is a blemish on their record in our eyes that their character is flawed and that they can’t be trusted.

All this to say, when you compare the reputation of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson in the State’s textbooks, it is the comparison of “good” and “bad” respectively.  Right there is a hint that something might not be right, because if the State’s narrative suggests Andrew Johnson is indeed bad, and that the State is known to lie, well then, why don’t we research Andrew Johnson himself and determine who he really might be, since we weren’t there and we don’t personally know him.

From the Abbeville Institute comes a sort but informative overview of Andrew’s life, from humble beginnings to his days as the president of the United States right as the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War) concluded and how the general government should treat the states that left (according to them) or wanted to leave (according to Lincoln and his supporters).

Andrew Johnson was born into poverty in rural North Carolina. His father died after saving some town locals from drowning and left the family to fend for themselves in a two-room shack. A young Andrew began working as a tailor’s apprentice and developed an appreciation for the laboring class early on. Johnson was poorly educated and learned how to write from his wife, while he was still working as a tailor.

Michael Martin – Abbeville Institute “Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson”

OK, so he was not like Lincoln, born in a log cabin, but he did have very humble beginnings. A self-made man whose passions led him into politics, but NOT as a politician, oh no, his idols were statesmen!

Johnson admired true statesmen, hated politicians, and was most conservative when it came to government spending. He would debate anything that required the expenditure of public funds, having introduced bills to reduce Congressional salaries and even opposed proposals like the Smithsonian Institute because he thought it would be an unjust burden on the treasury.

Michael Martin – Abbeville Institute “Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson”

Johnson also had “ownership” in how the country’s revenue was spent. Undoubtedly, his time as a politician especially during the war years showed him how easily that money could be squandered by all those bureaucrats that had no “skin in the game”.

When Johnson faced Reconstruction, he was initially welcomed by Radical Republicans that wanted to punish the South. However, Johnson’s plan differed from Lincoln’s only slightly, favored leniency, and virtually ignored the freed slaves. This put him at odds with the radical plan for the South to be run by a bayonet, carpetbag government. Most narratives portray Johnson as a Southern racist who wanted to deny equality to newly freed slaves. Johnson, however, had stated years before that he supported emancipation and was mostly opposed to the outrageous spending habits of Congress.

Michael Martin – Abbeville Institute “Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson”

We see here that in summary, Johnson’s philosophical views differed from his political opponents in the House and Senate of the US Government. That was all it took for impeachment to take place. When Johnson tried to follow the letter of the law, the Constitution, and keep from squandering the people’s money, he was brought up on trumped (no pun intended) charges.

On the issue of the Freedmen’s Bureau, for example, Johnson vetoed a bill to make it permanent and then three days later gave a speech where he charged Congress with seeking to destroy the fundamental principles of the Constitution. His exact words were that “There is an attempt to concentrate the power of the Government in the hands of a few, and thereby bring about a consolidation, which is equally dangerous and objectionable with separation.”

Michael Martin – Abbeville Institute “Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson”

In my mind, the previous president (Lincoln) paid so little attention to the US Constitution that the Congress felt that it was to be a free for all! The former president in fact, never validated the fact that the 11 states that left the union actually did so, because as a lawyer he knew he could use post-Constitution laws to justify “putting down a general rebellion / insurrection” for all his war efforts in the south. The spouse (in his mind, actually 11 spouses) that left needed to be beat back into the home. Now that the spouse was back in the home, the Congress wanted to abuse her even more and Johnson said NO!

In his veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, Johnson explained that opposed it because he was against a military government of the South, against the unlimited distribution of funds to former slaves and their families, and against taking land away from Southerners. In Johnson’s mind, the defeated Southern states were part of the Union and did not need further punishing, and he broke down how virtually every part of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill was incompatible with the Constitution. His main focus was on government spending and the fact that the Constitution was not designed to guarantee any type of special privileges, just basic rights.

Michael Martin – Abbeville Institute “Lessons in Conservatism from Andrew Johnson”

The Radical Republicans indeed wanted a dependency class in the south and the newly freed blacks was to be that class and it remained that way until 1877 in the military districts that were formed to further suck the life out of this abused spouse yet again.

This is effectively what the Northern Union / US Government did to the south. Recovery in this region would take a century economically however, psychologically, it’s culture has never been the same.

Andrew Johnson can be shown as about the only Unionist who cared, and so he was targeted and marginalized in all the US History books published these days.

Four million slaves were emancipated and given an equal chance and fair start to make their own support-to work and produce; and having worked and produced, to have their own property and apply it to their own support. But the Freedmen’s Bureau comes and says we must take charge of these 4,000,000 slaves. The bureau comes along and proposes, at an expense of a fraction less than $12,000,000 a year, to take charge of these slaves. You had already expended $3,000,000,000 to set them free and give them a fair opportunity to take care of themselves -then these gentlemen, who are such great friends of the people, tell us they must be taxed $12,000,000 to sustain the Freedmen’s Bureau.

Andrew Johnson 1866 in Cleveland, OH

So the slavery of 4 million souls in 1865 transferred into the tax slavery of 350 souls in 2018 as the cancer of centralized government continues to suck the life out of all who remain, and there are no Andrew Johnsons allowed to enter politics and gain any political power again.

“Johnson, in fact, continually upheld his oath of office, making him one of the best presidents in American history.”

Brion McClanahan

-SF1

If Lincoln is Considered a “Conservative” … What Does That Mean?

When I first started reading World Book Encyclopedias as a boy, I am sure I ran across terms like liberal and conservatives. I am not sure they were thrown about like they are today to attempt to place people in two different and opposing camps,but I know these words were used.

In terms of philosophy of any kind, words matter. One needs to know the definition of the day is seems. So when one reads historical books, newspapers and journals, context matters. Back in 1800, liberal thought is very far away from today’s liberal thought, it seems. The same can be said of the word conservative.

Looking at the root of that word I would contend that it means to “conserve” or even “preserve” something. Obviously, one can be extreme in these things as one can attempt to preserve everything from a previous generation, however, most intelligent beings see things of value that their ancestors did that makes life better for any people group that desires to get along, be allowed to bring their own unique value to society and to freely trade and barter in a free market so wealth is created 360 to again allow society to thrive.

This article in Beliefnet does touch on the attempts of modern day conservatives (only in name) to disrespect anyone who dares to trample on the ‘conservative’ nature of their hero, their god, Abraham Lincoln. I would like to use a few clips toward generating some thought around this important topic, because again, words matter and our thinking through these things help us to sort through the wasteland of people’s beliefs these days and identify what is true and honorable enough to preserve for future generations.

“The debate over Lincoln on the Right is so important,” Lowry writes, “because it can be seen, in part, as a proxy for the larger argument over whether conservatism should read itself out of the American mainstream or—in this hour of its discontent—dedicate itself to a Lincolnian program of opportunity and uplift consistent with its limited-government principles.” – Rich Lowry, editor of National Review

Ok then, I almost threw up in my throat when I read Lincoln in the same sentence as “limited” government but I will share what the author of this article, Jack Kerwick, has to say:

Now, being neither a Lincoln scholar nor even an historian, I am neither a “hater” nor a deifier of Lincoln. I am, however, a philosopher, a political philosopher, and a conservative political philosopher to boot. As such, I confess to being at a loss to account for how any self-avowed conservative, any proponent of “limited government,” could look to, of all people, Abraham Lincoln as a source of inspiration.

Ok, Jack and I are indeed tracking. It continues to amaze me that with Lincoln’s true record of achievements that “limited government” would be considered something that he believed in. Well, since we know the typical character of politicians, maybe at one time Abe believed in “limited” government:

Of course that was in 1848 around the time of the Mexican War which he was against, so you will have that. However by 1860/1861 he no longer believed that because then he would have let the seven southern states leave in peace, right?

Back to what Jeff has to say:

Lincoln presided over America during what remains, by leaps and bounds, its darkest hour. More tellingly, he was, at the very least, instrumental in making it its darkest hour, for Lincoln waged a war unprecedented (in our history) for its death and destruction, and he waged it against Americans. Whether or not he had the constitutional right to do so, whether or not the South was the aggressor, are utterly irrelevant considerations.

To repeat, for our purposes here, Lincoln’s legal and moral prerogatives or lack thereof simply do not matter. What matters is that for four long years, the President of the United States conducted the bloodiest war that, before or since, our nation had ever witnessed, a war that laid waste to much of the country, to say nothing of the genuinely federal character of the government that the Framers of the Constitution ratified.

Exactly, for if “Limited-Gov Abe” was really all that he was claimed to be, his split personality took over in 1861 when he was inaugurated in early March. Lincoln refused to meet southern peace commissioners, refused to meet with Napoleon II and delayed calling Congress to meet until JULY 1861 after preparing for war was well underway.

The point is that whatever else may be said of Lincoln, it is difficult to see how, with Lowry, we can say of him that he was “perhaps the foremost proponent of opportunity in all of American history,” “the paladin of individual initiative, the worshipper of the Founding Fathers, and the advocate of self-control ..”

Seriously?

However, when you think about it, if you want to redefine “conservative” you can use a legend whose qualities match your own and call it all good:

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe today’s “conservatives” do need Lincoln, for given their obsession with fundamentally transforming the Islamic world into a bastion of Democracy and their own country into the melting pot of the universe, today’s conservatives care as much about preserving the decentralized character of American government as did Lincoln.

As a result, they are about as conservative as him as well.

Can I get a “bingo”?

-SF1

Abe Lincoln: Can You Handle the Truth About this Man?

I love the truth. The truth sets one free!

Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you. (John 8:32 The Message – paraphrase of the Bible)

You see, for some time now I have been “incensed” at the lies I have been told all my life. This started when as a young man attending a church that had a culture where everyone showed up on Sunday mornings with no smiles, with no joy, almost like a gathering of people doing their duty. The “dominie” (Dutch word for pastor, Scottish for schoolmaster) was pressed to ensure that everyone was very aware of their sins and their performance for the past week which seemed to be within the Calvinist tradition. In this environment, I opened the Bible in front of me and read from the books of the New Testament about people following Jesus who were full of joy, and hope and laughter, even in the middle of the storms of life while living in an oppressive empire!

In hindsight, it seems that there were times when I took it upon myself to dig for the truth. When given Child-craft encyclopedias as an 8 year old I read the World Book encyclopedias instead. Later in life, when studying towards a Bachelor of Science degree in Ministry and Leadership I expanded my research far beyond the text books supplied. A bit later in life, after hearing contrary thoughts to the political view of President Bush’s “War on Terror”, I looked beyond the US government/media spin and to source material on what really happened both BEFORE and after 9/11! Of course once you have doubts about the government/media story about 9/11, you go on to other events like The Gulf of Tonkin incident and Vietnam War, JFK’s assassination, Pearl Harbor’s “surprise”, sinking of the Lusitania, the sinking of the  USS Maine in Havana harbor, the events leading up to the first shot at Ft. Sumter, the War of 1812, the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution coup d’tat and even events during and right after the American Revolution.

Looking back, I find myself “Gratefully Disillusioned”, a term that reflects satisfaction in turning over so many “sacred cows” in life, that I do feel very free to say and do what my heart encourages me towards in my everyday life. I no longer have to measure what I hear and see with a “holy narrative” that someone (government/media/religion) has propped up as “truth” to be preserved, I can in fact entertain a thought without accepting it!

So what does this all have to do with Abraham Lincoln? Everything. Of all the presidents we have had in the United States, there is none other that has received such a “holy place” in our political understanding of America than this man. His assassination in fact was the major turning point in this because before the day he died, he in fact was not well like at all both in the South and in the North or Western regions of the United States. The timing of his assassination, just before Easter, setup the political mouthpieces (including many New England clergy) to seize this moment to deify a man for political means that has lasted over 150 years. How appropriate for this man to be chosen for this USE by all political parties, for as a man he was at his core a political animal!

While there have been over 10,000 books written about Lincoln, only a minority have really unpacked his real effect, his real life and his real character. These include Edgar Lee Masters’ 1931 classic, ‘Lincoln the Man‘, a 1943 book, ‘The Deification of Lincoln‘, by historian Ira D. Cardiff and lately the books ‘Lincoln Unmasked‘ and ‘The Real Lincoln‘ by Thomas DiLorenzo.

This week, another epic truth-telling book was released, ‘Lincoln As He Really Was‘ by Charles T. Pace in which Thomas DiLorenzo writes the Forward. Some context setting quotes follow as this book may consume the balance of my Labor Day weekend!

So here are a few quotes that reflect on the character of Abraham Lincoln before his death in 1865:

Murray N. Rothbard once said about Lincoln in an (online) essay entitled “Just War”: Lincoln was a “master politician,” said Rothbard, defined as one who is a masterful “liar, conniver, and manipulator.” He makes any “master politician” or our time look amateurish by comparison.

.. about his personal life, while there is nothing inherently wrong with not going to church EXCEPT if a majority of authors on Lincoln have led many to believe that all Lincoln’s Bible references infer that he was in fact a Christian, they have led you down the wrong path. One needs to hear what those closest to Lincoln said about him:

Lincoln never joined a church, and both his law partner William Herndon and his wife Mary Todd said he was not a Christian. His White House assistant, Colonel Ward Lamon, called him “an infidel.” His close associate Judge David Davis, whom he appointed to the Supreme Court, wrote that Lincoln “had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term.” But his mother read him Bible stories as a child, and later in life he studied the Bible for political purposes – to use religious rhetoric to sway the masses to favor his political positions.

Political animals, like the ones we have in the 21st century, tend to be crude in their day-to-day life:

[Lincoln was] a “zealous party man” who honed his skills, such as they were, of personally attacking his political opponents with often over-the-top ad hominem assaults ..

None of Lincoln’s family members voted for him, nor did 20 of the 23 ministers in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. He did not even carry his own county in the 1860 election. These are the people who knew him best.

Lincoln invited no family members to his wedding; chose not to attend his own father’s funeral; and is said to have never had a real friend.

Lincoln was a master story teller, many of which were notoriously vulgar and crude. He never passed up an opportunity to make a speech, writes Pace, as he spent years honing the skills of the master politician. He could sound like an abolitionist in front of a Massachusetts audience, and the exact opposite in Southern Illinois. His speeches were always vague and his positions hard to pin down, the hallmark of a successful politician. He viewed politics as “life itself” and was intensely partisan, routinely denouncing his political opponent as “villains.” He was a “born politician,”

By 1864, what did people think?

During his lifetime Lincoln was actually the most hated and detested of all American presidents, as documented by historian Larry Tagg in ‘The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: The Story of America’s Most Reviled President‘. For example, on page 435 of his book Larry Tagg cites an 1864 Harpers Weekly article that compiled a list of terms that the Northern press used to describe Lincoln including “Filthy Story-Teller, Ignoramus Abe, Despot, Old Scoundrel . . . Perjurer, Liar, Robber, Thief, Swindler, Braggart, Tyrant, Buffoon, Fiend, Usurper, Butcher, Monster . . .”

After Lincoln’s April 14th, 1865 assassination:

New England pastors who had excoriated Lincoln for four years all of a sudden “rewrote their Easter sermons to include a new, exalted view of Lincoln as an American Moses, a leader out of slavery, a national savior who was not allowed to cross over into the Promised Land” himself. Senator James Grimes of Iowa boasted that the Republican Party’s deification of Lincoln “has made it impossible to speak the truth about Abraham Lincoln hereafter.”

Even 80 years later in 1943 historian Ira D. Cardiff wrote:

… that by then Americans were not even “interested . . . in the real Lincoln. They desire a supernatural Lincoln, a Lincoln with none of the faults or frailties of the common man . . . a savior, leading us to democracy and liberty – though most said readers are not interested in democracy or liberty.” Moreover, said Cardiff, “a biography of Lincoln which told the truth about him would probably have great difficulty in finding a publisher.”

Hopefully I have your attention, and if you are ready and like me have been:

.. incensed that you have been lied to all your life by the politically-controlled/politically-correct education establishment. If so, ‘Lincoln as He Really Was‘ is a must-read as a first step in your rehabilitation as an educated American citizen – or as the citizen of any other country. It will be especially helpful in allowing your children and grandchildren to have an opportunity to learn the truth about this important aspect of American history.

So now I am off to my reading nook .. take care this holiday weekend (in the United States) .. talk to y’all again next week!

-SF1

PS About the author of this book:

Apologia MY EDUCATION IN COLLEGE was scientific — mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoology; in medical school it was the study of man’s structure, his form, his gross and microscopic qualities, his function, his diseases.  There not a mention was made of Lincoln — the course of study being only a steady search for scientific truth.  The doctor, like the farmer, is, in his limited sphere, looking for reality.  In clinical experience, both in training years and in my own practice, I saw men and women who served to the best of their ability the needs of the sick.  In my mature years I finally had time to read outside my profession.  I read of America’s supreme figure: “Honest Abe.”  I learned that whatever he was, he was certainly no doctor.  He lived a different life.

There were two Lincolns — the myth and the man.

Charles T. Pace Greenville, North Carolina

Pace, Charles T.. Lincoln As He Really Was (Kindle Locations 165-172). Shotwell Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.