It is Feb. 13, 2010, and I should have done this yesterday. The rare snowfall had me bumfuzzled, and I let it slip past...just like I forgot my Momma's birthday yesterday, thinking that it was on Saturday, but I digress.
It has come time once again here at Andy's Place to offend at least half of our (all the way up to) 17 regular readers. It is an Andy's Place Black History Month tradition! We must always call BS on Lincoln on his birthday (or in this case, the day after his birthday).
Okay, hearkening back to my pick-up basketball games as a teenager..."Billy!!!...Charging in the paint!!!...I'm calling BS!!!"
201 years ago yesterday, one of the worst Presidents in the history of our nation was born in a log cabin in Kentucky.
Abraham Lincoln was a racist who believed "the negro" to be "inferior to the white." He envisioned an expansion of the United States into Territories that would be reserved for "free white men." He was a proponent of sending negroes back to Africa, or to Central & South America to "colonize." (which is code for "get these negroes off my land").
Abraham Lincoln killed hundreds of thousands of Americans needlessly. Estimates put the death toll of the US Civil war in the 600,000 range. These estimates only take into account soldiers actually killed on the field of battle. There is no way to count how many civilians died due to Lincoln's unjust, illegal war. I would imagine many more hundreds of thousands of little kids, wives, and Mommas died from lack of a provider...sent off to either wage Lincoln's war, or defend their families from Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln had no regard for The Constitution. Lincoln was a vain man...a competitor that could not stand for history to remember him as "The President that let the Union dissolve." While there was no provision in the Constitution requiring those States that had voluntarily joined the United States to forever remain...Lincoln decided, "Screw it! This Union ain't dissolving on my watch." It was understood by The Framers that this Union was to be a loose federation, with each State free to make it's own laws, and to split if the elected Representatives in State Legislatures felt like splitting.
The subject of State Secession could have been handled through an Amendment to the Constitution. But the murdering Lincoln did not believe in the Constitutional manner of amendments in this case. No...just kill a million folks or so.
Just as an aside, Lincoln believed in jailing his political and philosophical opponents.
Abraham Lincoln set back the progress of mankind by decades. I have no doubt that the "brain-drain," the "labor drain," and the ravages of war on farm-land, westward expansion, and American creativity set back America (and consequently the rest of the world) by decades. I firmly believe that had Lincoln not waged his illegal war, man would have set foot on the moon by about 1930. We would have built super highways by the 19-oughts, and would have established the internet by the 1940's, when Al Gore was too young to lay claim to it.
The loss of hundreds of thousands of creative American minds (and productive bodies) most certainly set back the progress of America...thus the progress of of the rest of the world by decades. Technology, and discovery of any kind comes incrementally. How far along would we be in medicine, technology, etc. had not a generation and a half of American brain power been squandered?
I also firmly believe that the inefficiency of slavery, the growing movement in the South to abolish slavery, and the greed of land-owners to move to "share-cropping" from slavery would have eventually pushed State Legislatures to outlaw slavery. Call me crazy! But think about it...
Abraham Lincoln exploited slavery to accomplish his goals. Lincoln cared nothing about negro slaves. But when the Union had lost heart, he had to exploit the negroes to convince the Union to keep up the fight. Have you ever read the Emancipation Proclamation? Walter Williams does a much better job of explaining the fact that Lincoln didn't free many slaves...Lincoln was a shyster!
Add to all of that the fact that Lincoln believed in a Federal Banking System...well...
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not a fan of Lincoln, and I haven't been for most of my adult life. "History books!!!...Charging in the paint!!!...I'm calling BS!!!"
It is appropriate that Barack ObozO used Lincoln's Bible at his inauguration, and that he celebrated his pre-inaugural crap in front of the Lincoln Monument. Two peas in a pod...
If you have always been a big fan of Lincoln, I would encourage you to do some research. They've got this fancy new thing called "The Gooble."
Saturday, February 13, 2010
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Excellent commentary on Lincoln. I believe that slavery would have been eliminated by 1900 in any event, and the aftermath would have been much kinder to blacks.
ReplyDeleteNow I would never call BS on a fellow blogger, but 17 regular readers Andy?? Really?? As best I can count (10 fingers, 10 toes), I have 9. I can't wait for that other finger to go up so I can claim 10.
I have heard over the years that Lincoln was much less than made out to be. After MLK and how they skewered the history books with tales of his feats, leaving out the escapades of plagiarism and womanizing, (not that there's anything wrong with those)I came to believe the old adage, "history is written by the victors". But since we're speaking of the Civil War, or at least history, I have always wondered what the 600,000 dead soldiers or 1,200,000 wounded soldiers would think to now see the state of affairs we have devolved to. Would they be proud of affirmative action and welfare? Or would it seem like some pornographic cartoon?
ReplyDeletesarleate
We shall agree to disagree.
ReplyDeleteThat said, my Mom's family suffered greatly during the War of Northern Aggression, seeing as how the family's roots (on my mother's side) go deep into the red Georgia clay. My great grandmother, who was a child when Atlanta was burned and witnessed that catastrophe with her own eyes, bore the scars until her dying day... and relayed them unto me.
Still and even... Lincoln DID preserve the Union, at great cost. We all owe the man for that.
Jim: I have read your blog, and I'm throwing the BS flag on that comment. I think I get more than 10 visits a day from your linkage. Just sayin'...
ReplyDeletefshafer, I doubt that any of the fallen (Union, or Confederate) would halfway recognize our nation now.
Buck, I can not in my wildest dreams imagine a more agreeable fellow to disagree with! I started to include my standard "preservation of the Union" argument stump speech, but honestly, I'm just too danged lazy these days...and it's all conjecture anyway. Of course, some of the post was just "supposin'" anyway.
Total casualties from the Civil War, to include non-combat casualties, came to about 1,094,000 (total dead from all war-related causes was about 600,000).
ReplyDeleteAs for Lincoln's rating -- great, good, or bad -- I agree with neither Buck nor Andy on that one. I think our worst president is currently in office ;) But I will rate Lincoln, for the time and the end results, in the Top Ten. Had he not had his night at the opera cut short by a malaprop (see what I just did there?), perhaps the onset and turbulence of "Reconstruction" wouldn't have gone as it did, and been exacerbated by the election of Grant. But that's all speculation.
That's my very two cents, adjusted for the coming inflation, which makes it worth .000000000000001 cents.