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I may have kicked off The Revolution series a bit early, thought I was ready, turns out I'm not. I really need to reread John Galvin's The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution before I get deeper into the events of 1768 up to 1775. Thought I had that still in local memory, turns out it isn't.
I might even read David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride before I continue. I'm just not in the right frame of mind to really go crazy with this story yet. But I have sketched out a few characters to begin with. So I've got that going for me.
Ah well, enough of that ...
Something that often surprises me is the amount of hatred I see for President Abraham Lincoln out and about the world wide web. Tuna left a link to a YouTube video on Sunday which I only watched part way before turning it off in disgust.
Lot of hatred for Old Abe in that video. I get the fact that the man did a lot of things that a lot of people back then (and now) didn't (don't) like. Now the way I see it, he saw his job as preserving the Union. He did that job. Did he do it well? As I see it, the Nation is still a going concern although there are a great many (some holding office in DC) who would like to tear the place down. So in that light, he did his job and he did it well.
It was the aftermath that didn't go so well and you can't blame Abe for that. After all, he was assassinated just six days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. So Reconstruction wasn't his fault, any number of malodorous politicians can take "credit" for that fiasco.
Lincoln wanted to "let 'em up easy," he knew that in order for the United States to recover in all its parts that the North couldn't be lording it over the South. Which is exactly what happened. The effects of which can still be seen and felt 159 years after Lincoln's death.
So why such hatred for the man?
Enlighten me. (Remember, be nice and have your sources available for examination.)
That picture has more color than we have in NH.
ReplyDeleteCanada in the Halifax area even less than NH.
Drink plenty of water and bland food friend.
We'll be here waiting for the Muse.
Michael
It's not a recent picture, it was taken over in Connecticut. Little Rhody is always late to the foliage party and doesn't really shine like northern New England does. Not sure why.
DeleteFred in Texas, Lincoln was a Yankee control freak that thought he could mandate that the south 'gonna mind'. Ain't gonna happen... You cannot mandate freedom out the hearts and minds of men once they develop a taste for it. Same as a dog that kills livestock... You cannot successfully fill the empty spot in a man's heart with anything but God. And that you can only do if he's free to make his own decisions. In short, I am firmly convinced that Lincoln was the same as our current crop of democrat and republican politicians and operatives. The best man I ever knew said it best, "By their fruit you will know them". And his fruit was that of a forced relationship. Nowhere in history has a forced relationship kept an empire intact in the long run. But few world leaders understand history and the duty of man...
ReplyDeletePretty simplistic view of a rather complicated situation in the late 1850s and 1860.
DeleteAs to "you cannot mandate freedom out the hearts and minds of men once they develop a taste for it," how did the slaves feel about that?
Here in Sonoma County we have a few trees that turn to the reds and oranges, but most go from green to yellow to bare, or just green to bare. Hills are a nice toasty gold.
ReplyDeleteThe toasty gold reminds me of the aspens in Colorado.
DeleteSonoma county, wet season & the dry season and the oaks just do their thing... I have heard the oaks are dying off... :-(
DeleteFWIW I left Cotati in 1976.
Oaks are different. Here their leaves turn brown in the fall but don't fall off until spring.
DeleteFred in Texas, I grew up on a small farm in east Texas. There's only one cure for a dog that chases and kills livestock. Sad, painful and unavoidable. I've got the mental scars from it... Same as freedom. The only way to cure freedom is to kill the free man because once he tastes the joy of autonomy he'll accept no substitute. I've got scars in my resume and life from freedom but I cherish them because it makes me who I am.
ReplyDeleteWow, this comment has left me speechless.
DeleteAs to Honest Abe... A complex series of events over several decades leads to the plan to invade a seceding state with a federal army. That forces a response of "stay off my lawn". And the heartburn of those complex events and invasion waterfalls into more succession. Take time to reevaluate maybe? Take time to renegotiate before bloodshed? I do wish we'd worked it out over time instead of societal surgery via buck and ball. Maybe then I wouldn't feel twinges of guilt when I have a $50 bill in my pocket. Pyrrhic victory. The constitutional republic died in that war.... What rose from the ashes? We lost the independent states with an umpire. Now we have subservient states with a bureaucratic nightmare master. That war was supposed to free men, but it led to the enslavement of everyone that survived it.
ReplyDeleteUh, you might want to check your history. I'm not saying you have it all wrong, but damned close.
DeleteHe's right about losing the independent states, that war did put "states rights" in their place.
DeleteMy spaghetti brain gets things twisted. I always get the resupply of Sumner, AH's militia callup and Virginia's secession balled up. Thanks for the reminder.
DeleteSarge, I more than understand the "it is not time yet". I have at least one more parable left in me, but the sense of being ready for it has not yet hit me. Maybe, with the passing of I-Bun, it is time.
ReplyDeleteI dare not tread one way or the other into the arguments about Lincoln other than to point out that (in my opinion) one cannot ignore the elephant in the room - slavery - in the discussion. The treatment of human beings as "speaking tools", as Cato the Elder wrote in his De Agricultura, is something we seem to have sanitized over the course of the years (and I am not thinking here of some of the counter-culture foolishness the movies have pushed out over the years). I really wish people would understand slavery in the context of the vast amounts of human degradation and suffering that it caused.
Am I aware that some of the Founding Fathers were slave holders? Certainly. But I can look at them at the time and judge them both for their ideas and the times they were in without saying "Oh, and you should have had modern sensibilities".
We should not kid ourselves - Lincoln's vision of Reconstruction was far and away one of the least oppressive I can think off. Again, I wish people would study history to learn how the winning sides typically treated the losing sides in civil wars (Hint: It was not good). And I cannot imagine - no matter what one's opinion of Lincoln might be - that the idea of him being assassinated on a date with his wife is nothing but repugnant.
In any discussion of the American Civil War, slavery is always the elephant in the room.
DeleteAbe, like all mere mortals, was an imperfect human and made some mistakes, but on the whole was pretty darn good. IMHO.
ReplyDeleteRelated, and as a useful comparison for the massive abuse of power by politicians handed the levers of power, are the actions taken in the immediate wake of Lincoln's assassination. I highly recommend "Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination. The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford's Theater. by Thomas A. Bogar, about $6.00 at ABEbooks.com
It covers ALL the folks there, the theater owners, primary and secondary actors, stage hands etc, and is a great insight into the theatric world in the 1860s. The author is a theater history professor, and did a superb job researching each and every person's history after the dastardly deed. The blatantly unconstitutional treatment of peripherally involved people is unconscionable. Their cruel and unusual conditions of imprisonment awaiting trial by kangaroo courts is shocking, but virtually unknown. Booth, of course, was tracked down and killed within a few days. The others with even marginal connection or often innocent propinquity were treated worse than the January 6th "insurrectionists" a century and a half later.
The scandals, misconduct, and thievery of the reconstruction era are nearly unknown to folks outside of the South, and even there, knowledge of that period is vague and contradictory. As a brief example, Louisiana had disputed election results several times, and ended up with two people claiming to be governor, and two competing legislatures claiming authority. A pitched battle was fought in New Orleans with thousands of combatants on either side, involving the police, the Louisiana State Militia, a former Confederate general, federal troops, partisan militias, Black or white troops. Some dignity was added to this vulgar brawl with artillery, but Gatling guns were not quite there yet. Not directly involved in that battle, but elsewhere in the south, militia units were organized under the subterfuge of "mounted baseball clubs."
Our nation's history is complicated, and while the victors get to write the history, that which is inconvenient or embarrassing is often ignored, or at best relegated to obscure footnotes.
John Blackshoe
An excellent synopsis, JB. Thank you!
DeleteSeconded JB-Thanks! The ills of Reconstruction are indeed not well known outside of the Soutn, or perhaps just excused as "Rights of the Victor to the spoils, as odious as it sounds now.
DeleteI wish this site had a "Thumbs Up" button.
DeleteMy view of Honest Abe rests on two things, First, did he uphold his oath of office? "Article II, Section 1, Clause 8:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Defend the CONSTITUTION, not the Union. I know, "The Union was assumed to be inseparable," which was true as stated in the Articles of Confederation, but which concept is notable by is absence in the Constitution which rewrote the AoC which said that they were unbreakable. And given how many times before the War of 1861 various New England States threatened secession, it was obviously not banned by the Constitution.
Second are Lincoln's own words, "In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices." By his reasoning America should have kept paying duties and taxes to the British Crown after Independence. He invaded the seven states of the deep south to collect money for federal coffers. Then the last four states joined the Confederacy. It wasn't until after that War that it was ruled that even though it isn't stated in the Constitution, the Union is perpetual. Note that he was willing to abide by the Corwin Amendment, which, if the seven states of the deep south had rejoined the Union and ratified it, would have guaranteed perpetual slavery. The War didn't become about slavery until the political move of the Emancipation Proclamation.
That said, it probably worked out for the best, although we can never know for sure. Slavery was already dying out, and likely would have died a natural economic death in the south by about 1890, just as it died an economic death in most of the north earlier. Many of the leaders of the Confederacy saw it, and were working towards how to free about a third of the southern population. Including educating them. Possibly there would be less racial tension now, as we see in other nations where slavery was allowed to die its natural death in an industrial society.
TB - Second that.
DeleteJoe - Every time I see (or here) this (or a variant thereof): "Slavery was already dying out, and likely would have died a natural economic death in the south by about 1890." I want to scream, gnash my teeth, and rend my garment. What possible evidence exists for this? Which "leaders" of the Confederacy were working towards the end of slavery?
DeleteAs to "He invaded the seven states of the deep south to collect money for federal coffers." I call nonsense, in the most emphatic terms possible.
Sarge, rather than vex you I would merely point you toward the inestimable Dr. Thomas Sowell; for it was from him I first got the idea that slavery would have died out as an economically infeasable system.
DeleteBoat Guy
Eventually, but at what cost in human suffering? That's the point I always get back to.
DeleteSlavery has been around forever ... and there are more slaves in the world today than there were in the 1860's.
DeleteDavis, Benjamin, and Lee for starters. Yes, there would have been resistance, but with mechanization of agriculture it would quickly become insupportable. As to "human suffering, " look to the tender care the industrial north gave to its disposable Irish, Italian, and Eastern European workers. Or the "company towns" of the mining industry and steel mills. "Oh! But at least they were FREE!" To do what? Sick or injured in an industrial accident. "Sorry, Bohunk, had to replace you. Oh, you have two days to move out of that company house, we need it for your replacement. We've docked your pay to cover the rent and your bill at the company store. Didn't cover it all, but given the circumstances, we won't sell your possessions to cover it." I don't recall which European writer it was who watched a ship being loaded in some southern port and asked why the slaves were on the deck while the Irish workers were in the more dangerous positions in the holds receiving cargo. The answer was something like, "Who carescifva Mick gets killed? We just hire another. Slaves cost money."
DeleteI'm not trying to defend "the peculiar institution," it's a universal evil that is unfortunately still practiced by many cultures. My first comment was to point out that Abe did not uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution and his goal was to keep southern dollars flowing into federal coffers. He is responsible for changing us from a union of free and independent states to what amounts to a federal dictatorship with those states submissive to an omnipotent federal government. The creature created by the States becoming their master.
Nope, nope, nope, nope. Disagree completely. Lost Cause agitprop.
DeleteRob - And your point is?
DeleteSarge, please go look at Dr Sowell's writings; the collapse of the institution was pretty much imminent with the competition of Asians in the west and Euro immigrants in the east.
DeleteBG
Imminent? As in 1861? Perhaps by the end of the 1870s, but when the first gun opened up in Charleston Harbor, it was already too late.
DeleteI'm sorry I kicked a hornets nest! Note to self- don't try to out-history a historian. (First attempt had typos so I deleted it).
ReplyDeleteDon't be! It's a great topic for a post. There is a great deal of hatred for Abraham Lincoln, much of it unwarranted in my estimation. I wanted to throw the topic out there, see if I could get any reasonable facts to question the presidency of the man. So far I haven't seen anything of merit. No doubt there are a lot of southerners who have strong feelings about it, but seriously, where are the arguments which contain any historical fact? Who out there thinks the world would be better off had Lincoln said "F**k it, let them go."
DeleteHow much longer would slavery have continued?
Who would have intervened in WWI to end that slaughter?
Who would have intervened in WWII to end (yet another) slaughter?
Anything you might come up with is pure fantasy, I've read some of that, it's nonsense. Might be entertaining, but it's nonsense.
I, for one, am curious as to what might have been; had Lincoln not invaded the Confederacy. Could the two nations have coexisted? Would they form alliances with each other? Trade agreements?
DeleteAs for our intervention into the European wars; again I would ask what OUR national was in stopping the Euros from slaughtering each other? Was it worth 50,000 of pur people. Once more I'd like to delve into what might have been?
As to WWII; well the war in the Pacific was brought to us -as was the war in Europe brought to us by a declaration of war upon us by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, so no option s there.
Boat Guy
Oh, and Sarge; I for one don't hate Lincoln, but neither do I revere him.
DeleteBG
BG #1 - Interesting questions, I don't believe the U.S. would have become a world power, pretty sure Europe would be part of the Third Reich, or the Soviet Union take your pick. I believe Lincoln had to invade the Confederacy or let the Union go straight to Hell, which it would have. I doubt there could have been an amicable settlement, too many hot heads on both sides. And Fort Sumter was fired upon, would the North have let that go? Should they have?
DeleteBG #2 - I don't revere any politician, so I get that.
DeleteI'll posit that the Union at least likely would have become a world power owing to Yankee manufacturing and ingenuity.
DeleteAs I noted we had no choice but to "play" in WWII; the first one, though I think we at least coulda, if not shoulda stayed as neutral as we were in Wilson's first term. I don't see Europe worth 50,000 lives anymore than I see Vietnam worth them.
Boat Guy
I'm not so sure of that. But then again, we'll never know.
DeleteLincoln did what he did in order to keep the United States together. Was it 'right and proper?' Probably not, but then again, most responses never are.
ReplyDeleteBut he kept the country together. And his plans for Reconstruction were far more Reconciliation and Recovery than the carpet-bagging punishment that kept the South retarded and poor until WWII.
Was he perfect? No. Was he the right man for the time? Probably, but thanks to yet another leftist assassin, we'll never know.
I understand many of the forces behind the Civil War. Many of the South's complaints and issues, many of the North's. And the whole is far more complicated and not understandable by the modern viewpoint. Even by WWII the complaints and issues were being lost.
Couple of the weird factors that affected the Civil War were... immigrants (especially the Irish whom were hated by a lot of Southerners) and religion (lots of very reactionary fundamentalist sects up north and hatred of all the powerful non-Irish Catholics in the South, and...
There's all the issues leftover from the English Civil War. Royalists primarily settled in the South, Parliamentarians in the North. And if you don't think that something that happened in the 1640's in England couldn't affect the 1850's in the USA, well, history. People don't let issues go.
Fears of change also drove the South's wish to break free. At the same time the South was screaming because the North was opposing any industrialization of the South, the South was also freaking out over the potential industrialization of the South's agriculture.
Lincoln... Ah, Lincoln. Right person for the times if you believe the Nation overall mattered more than the individual states. Wrong person for the times if you believe the states had the right to leave.
But, well, for better or worse he held the country together. And killed vampires.
Well said, Beans.
DeleteExactly: "Right person for the times if you believe the Nation overall mattered more than the individual states. Wrong person for the times if you believe the states had the right to leave." Or the state right to self determination? Lincoln opened the door to the federal bureaucracy becoming supreme at the cost of state rights, which IIRC was the governmental basis for the beginning of this great country. I admit I wish the states would assert their right today and tell the feds to pound sand on issues important to their citizens. Alas, regulations and MONEY buy compliance. Slavery, as evil as it was and is, was doomed by technology. It would have become economically nonviable, but how long is too long? This is no simple conversation, and one best not discussed over a beer here in the south. Much animosity remains.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall.
DeleteThe states lost so much when it was (quietly) agreed to ignore the 10th Amendment.
DeleteI say (quietly) because it sure is ignored and no one talks about that fact...
State politicians surrendered that to the Feds.
Delete