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Abraham Lincoln - Right or Wrong?

Sorry, but according to the Vice President of the Confederacy, slavery was the very basis of what they were doing. If you support the South, you are supporting their ability to own people as property. By buying into their whole "We just wanted to leave in peace" load of crap, you are apologizing for that.

Sorry, but you're being childish. I said once, and I'll repeat, no one is apologizing for slavery. By buying into the whole "If you support secession you support slavery" argument you are engaging in a logical fallacy and attempting to demonize your opponant, trying to claim the moral high ground on an issue that isn't the point of topic.

First of all, there was no CSA. It was a very loose association of "free states." If there was a CSA, they might have won, but Davis couldn't get the states to raise troops and money for the other states. What you fail to address about Ft. Sumter is what right South Carolina had to it after they had already ceded it to the United States.

This would be second actually, but regardless, now you are trying to create an alternative narrative.




It could not have been possible. Would the South come back peacefully if asked? No. But you ask the opposite question and then declare Lincoln a "tyrant" because he had the guts to fight a war that needed to be fought.

You missed the entire argument completely. The South shouldn't have to of had to come back peacefully, because the South shouldn't have had to come back at all. Self determination was the argument, and Lincoln denying those States their right to it is why he is a tyrant.
 
They didn't have to leave, that isn't how this works. The thief doesn't get to wait outside the property and tell the owners they've had plenty of time to vacate. It was federal property under the authority of the United States government.

Of course, because SC would have seceded while allowing a garrison smack dab in the middle of their country to exist with foreign occupiers. When SC seceded it took back what territory it allowed the Federal government dominion over. The Federal government didn't own anything in and of itself, its land and status was given to it by the States respectively.
 
No. Most people just don't care if the South was able to construct a defensible legal argument for secession. What they care about, and rightly so, is that the Confederacy was an aristocratic slave power that deserved to be extinguished. That the deep wound it would have inflicted on the United States, our rise to power, and the notion of democratic rule in general would have been grievous.

Nations abound ended slavery without war, the South would have too. What "most people"? who is that? I can tell you "most Southerners" would disagree with you. The right of seccession is about the right to self determination. Which is what the country's founders claimed.

This is why people who defend the South's right to secede and believe it would have been a better outcome are always vilified as slavery apologists, and always will be. Because they are more fanatically interested in the legalisms in question than the practical realities of slavery and the impact secession would have had on the country and for millions held in bondage.

Then they will perpetuate logical fallacies and revisionist history. I can only repeat myself so many times.

The problem with unionist apologists is that they try to claim the moral high ground on slavery when 1.) no one is agruing for slavery and; 2.) The War wasn't over slavery.

Lincoln by his own pen stated this explicitly.

The CSA deserved to die, and most of us are glad it was crushed.

Again with this "most", yeah, "most" people have opinions about how other people live their lives. That's a problem that needs to be crushed. Not the right to lead your life the way you see fit.
 
It say it right here: "The Constitution of the United States"

The constitution specifies the rules of the compact between the states united under that compact. Are you suggesting that the constitution applies to Canada, England, and Australia?

Of course I understand that. But it never states that leaving the Union is permissible, and it wasn't phrased as a compact between states.
 
Of course I understand that. But it never states that leaving the Union is permissible, and it wasn't phrased as a compact between states.

Article Seven:

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
 
I am back to state my point: Lincoln was a jerk who invaded the helpless and didn't give a rats rear end about the constitution.
 
Of course I understand that. But it never states that leaving the Union is permissible, and it wasn't phrased as a compact between states.

Federalist Papers No. 23 said:
An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them, would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. This exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation, of State sovereignty, would only exist in three cases: where the Constitution in express terms granted an exclusive authority to the Union; where it granted in one instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States from exercising the like authority; and where it granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be absolutely and totally CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT.

The Constitution was sold to the states in such a way that they understood that they would keep their sovereignty.
 
The Constitution was sold to the states in such a way that they understood that they would keep their sovereignty.

A. The Federalist Papers weren't legal documents.

B. Read the last clause. Being a NATION is contradictory to the authority of a State of a Union.
 
A. The Federalist Papers weren't legal documents.

B. Read the last clause. Being a NATION is contradictory to the authority of a State of a Union.

The United States is not a nation. The constitution never calls the US a nation. The constitution makes it clear that the Constitution being established between states.
 
This is probably a bad idea for a poll. I just want to apologize right now for starting this poll. I'm already embarrassed...

Here's one opinion:

Top 10 Most Influential Presidents
By Martin Kelly, About.com Guide

"Of the 43 men who have been president of the United States, there are some truly clear choices of who were the most important and influential presidents.

1. Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln saved the Union during the American Civil War. His leadership during the war was one of no compromise but at the same time understanding that he would eventually have to unite the states once the North won the war. His actions eventually led to the abolition of slavery across the United States."


Ranking the Top Ten Most Influential Presidents

***
Here's another source:

Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States

"George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are consistently ranked at the top of the lists."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

***
And another:

Lincoln wins: Honest Abe tops new presidential survey

"It's been 145 years since Abraham Lincoln appeared on a ballot, but admiration for the man who saved the union and sparked the end of slavery is as strong as ever, according to a new survey.

Lincoln finished first in a ranking by historians of the 42 former White House occupants."


Lincoln wins: Honest Abe tops new presidential survey - CNN

***
Does everyone agree?

How long was Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly the New York Times best-seller? It's still in the no. 2 position right now.

I can't find anyone that's critical of Honest Abe. I guess this is a non-subject to everyone. I apologize again, I'm sorry.

One of the greatest presidents of all past time and time to come. He was a master politician and humanist. Everything he did was to preserve the union, which without it, we would be sitting here typing on our computers criticizing him.
 
A. The Federalist Papers weren't legal documents.

B. Read the last clause. Being a NATION is contradictory to the authority of a State of a Union.

The Federalist Papers weren't legal documents, but these are the papers that the authors of the Constitution used to sell the Constitution to the states. Wouldn't it be a valid analysis to see what the states themselves thought that they were signing off on?
 
One of the greatest presidents of all past time and time to come. He was a master politician and humanist. Everything he did was to preserve the union, which without it, we would be sitting here typing on our computers criticizing him.

History is written by the victors.
 
History is written by the victors.

Not really. How else could you explain the tremendous influence of Southern historians with a particular outlook on the War and Reconstruction, gathering favor in the historiography until the 1950s and 1960s?

Southerners might have conceded the legality on secession, but they were able to deliver quite stable interpretations on the War: "state's rights" (obscuring the many times where it was otherwise), "agricultural versus industrial" (obscuring planter class versus poor farmer), slavery being a fond paternalistic institution, the future reconciliation between the North and the South.

Then on reconstruction: the innate "inferiority of blacks", the overstepping of bounds by the North on the South, the circus of black politicians in the South and in Washington D.C., so on and so forth.

It wasn't until generations later that people started to criticize each of these mantras held by southern historians who were the institutionalized memory of the antebellum and Reconstruction years.
 
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