A Proposal for a Booth Monument
I was born and raised in Upstate New York--a burgeoning bastion of liberal thought and historical revisionism. It was there that my young mind was filled with the romantic notions of our nations history, and my hungry eyes filled with the pagentry of patriotic parades on the Fourth of July and Veteran's Day--the visuals always make it easier to swallow the lie (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down). Hitler understood this well and utilized the methodology of pagentry in conjunction with patriotic pride to steer the German nation toward the gates of destruction. And so my mushy brain was hardened with the lies of the beast (Public School System), and the more I suckled the at her breast the sweeter the putrid milk tasted.
I recall standing every morning from Kindegarten onward to say the Pledge of Allegiance in unison with the rest of the school body--our principal guiding us through it over the loudspeaker intercom. As I look back now I realize that I wasn't pledging allegiance to the nation our great founders rose from the soil, but to the lie of historical revision. You may be thinking to yourself that this is an empty accusation. "What revisionism?" you might ask. I could hardly provide you with a more glaring example of truth turned lie than in the treatment Abraham Lincoln has received from many historians. I have come to believe that this country would be better off today had the South won the war, and that in fact a memorial to Lincoln should be razed to the ground. Let me show you the mythical nature of revisionistic truth about Lincoln's role in history, and the lie demolishing truths that have moved me to pray for the demise of Lincoln's currently favorable legacy.
An aquaintence of mine has taken the time to put this list together, and he posted it at a forum we both frequent. Time to set 'em up and knock 'em down.
Myth #1: "Lincoln invaded the South to free the slaves." Ending slavery and racial injustice is not why the North invaded. As Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley on Aug. 22, 1862: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it." Abraham Lincoln
Congress announced to the world on July 22, 1861, that the purpose of the war was not "interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states" (i.e., slavery), but to preserve the Union "with the rights of the several states unimpaired." At the time of Fort Sumter (April, 12, 1861) only the seven states of the deep South had seceded. There were more slaves in the Union than out of it, and Lincoln had no plans to free any of them.
The North invaded to regain lost federal tax revenue by keeping the Union intact by force of arms. In his First Inaugural Lincoln promised to invade any state that failed to collect "duties and imposts," and he kept his promise. On April 19, 1861, the reason Lincoln gave for his naval blockade of the Southern ports was that "the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed" in the states that had seceded.
Myth #2: "Lincoln's war saved the Union." The war may have saved the Union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically by destroying its voluntary nature. In the Articles of the Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, the states described themselves as "free and independent." They delegated certain powers to the federal government they had created as their agent but retained sovereignty for themselves.
This was widely understood in the North as well as the South in 1861. As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorialized on Nov. 13, 1860, the Union "depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone." The New York Journal of Commerce concurred, writing on Jan. 12, 1861, that a coerced Union changes the nature of the government from "a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism where one part of the people are slaves." The majority of Northern newspapers agreed.
Myth #3: "Lincoln championed equality and natural rights." His words and, more importantly, his actions, repudiate this myth. "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races," he announced in his Aug. 21, 1858, debate with Stephen Douglas. "I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position." And, "Free them [slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot then, make them equals."
In Springfield, Ill., on July 17, 1858, Lincoln said, "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." On Sept. 18, 1858, in Charleston, Ill., he said: "I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes."
I recall standing every morning from Kindegarten onward to say the Pledge of Allegiance in unison with the rest of the school body--our principal guiding us through it over the loudspeaker intercom. As I look back now I realize that I wasn't pledging allegiance to the nation our great founders rose from the soil, but to the lie of historical revision. You may be thinking to yourself that this is an empty accusation. "What revisionism?" you might ask. I could hardly provide you with a more glaring example of truth turned lie than in the treatment Abraham Lincoln has received from many historians. I have come to believe that this country would be better off today had the South won the war, and that in fact a memorial to Lincoln should be razed to the ground. Let me show you the mythical nature of revisionistic truth about Lincoln's role in history, and the lie demolishing truths that have moved me to pray for the demise of Lincoln's currently favorable legacy.
An aquaintence of mine has taken the time to put this list together, and he posted it at a forum we both frequent. Time to set 'em up and knock 'em down.
Myth #1: "Lincoln invaded the South to free the slaves." Ending slavery and racial injustice is not why the North invaded. As Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley on Aug. 22, 1862: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it." Abraham Lincoln
Congress announced to the world on July 22, 1861, that the purpose of the war was not "interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states" (i.e., slavery), but to preserve the Union "with the rights of the several states unimpaired." At the time of Fort Sumter (April, 12, 1861) only the seven states of the deep South had seceded. There were more slaves in the Union than out of it, and Lincoln had no plans to free any of them.
The North invaded to regain lost federal tax revenue by keeping the Union intact by force of arms. In his First Inaugural Lincoln promised to invade any state that failed to collect "duties and imposts," and he kept his promise. On April 19, 1861, the reason Lincoln gave for his naval blockade of the Southern ports was that "the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed" in the states that had seceded.
Myth #2: "Lincoln's war saved the Union." The war may have saved the Union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically by destroying its voluntary nature. In the Articles of the Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, the states described themselves as "free and independent." They delegated certain powers to the federal government they had created as their agent but retained sovereignty for themselves.
This was widely understood in the North as well as the South in 1861. As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorialized on Nov. 13, 1860, the Union "depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone." The New York Journal of Commerce concurred, writing on Jan. 12, 1861, that a coerced Union changes the nature of the government from "a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism where one part of the people are slaves." The majority of Northern newspapers agreed.
Myth #3: "Lincoln championed equality and natural rights." His words and, more importantly, his actions, repudiate this myth. "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races," he announced in his Aug. 21, 1858, debate with Stephen Douglas. "I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position." And, "Free them [slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this. We cannot then, make them equals."
In Springfield, Ill., on July 17, 1858, Lincoln said, "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races." On Sept. 18, 1858, in Charleston, Ill., he said: "I will to the very last stand by the law of this state, which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes."
posted by Kobra at 4:55 PM
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