[Peace-discuss] July 4 parade

[E. Wayne Johnson]

"The consolidation of the states into one vast republic,
sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home,
will be the certain precursor of the ruin which has overwhelmed all 
those that have preceded it."

- Robert E. Lee, 1866





On 5/20/2009 8:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> An excellent recent study, by an established historian, that supports 
> some of these charges is "Mr. Lincoln Goes to War" (2006) by William 
> Marvel.  Marvel finds Lincoln's course of action in 1861 "destructive 
> and unimaginative."  (His new book, which I haven't seen, is 
> "Lincoln's Darkest Year: The War in 1862.")
>
> I commented on "The Lincoln Cult" on the News from Neptune website:
> "The Lincoln birthday celebrations seem to have included little 
> attempt to learn
> from the past. Lincoln is celebrated — by few more than the current 
> president,
> who insists upon a resemblance — but there’s little critique of the 
> devastation
> over which Lincoln presided. The end of chattel slavery is taken to be a
> retrospective justification of his launching of the war. (The actual 
> economic
> and social position of American slaves and their families in the years 
> after
> the Civil War is less attended to.)..." <http://newsfromneptune.com/>.
>
> I'm not sure that the best way to speak against the current war in the 
> local July 4th parade -- with its theme of "The Lasting Legacy of 
> Lincoln" -- is to attack that legacy as a source of the imperial 
> presidency and later unjustified wars.  But it might be.  --CGE
>
> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>> For those who don't know me, I had better clarify that I do not 
>> subscribe to Lincoln's racist notions.
>> I send this as clarification that "Honest Abe", as they called him,
>> was motivated by political expediencies not egalitarian principles.
>>
>> It has been suggested that Lincoln should have been Prosecuted as a 
>> War Criminal rather that Idolized as some sort of Hero.
>>
>> Some have gone so far as to enumerate the accounts against Lincoln---
>>
>>     * Violation of the Constitution and his oath of office by invading
>>       and waging war against states that had legally and democratically
>>       withdrawn their consent from his government, inaugurating one of
>>       the cruelest wars in recent history.
>>     * Subverting the duly constituted governments of states that had not
>>       left the Union, thereby subverting their constitutional right to
>>       "republican form of government."
>>     * Raising troops without the approval of Congress and expending
>>       funds without appropriation.
>>     * Suspending the writ of habeas corpus and interfering with the
>>       press without due process, imprisoning thousands of citizens
>>       without charge or trial, and closing courts by military force
>>       where no hostilities were occurring.
>>     * Corrupting the currency by manipulations and paper swindles
>>       unheard of in previous US history.
>>     * Fraud and corruption by appointees and contractors with his
>>       knowledge and connivance.
>>     * Continuing the war by raising ever-larger bodies of troops by
>>       conscription and hiring of foreign mercenaries and refusing to
>>       negotiate in good faith for an end to hostilities.
>>     * Confiscation of millions of dollars of property by his agents in
>>       the South, especially cotton, without legal proceedings.
>>     * Waging war against women and children and civilian property as the
>>       matter of policy
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/20/2009 6:46 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>> Another Lincoln quote:
>>>
>>> /“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of 
>>> bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the 
>>> white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of 
>>> making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold 
>>> office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in 
>>> addition to this that there is a physical difference between the 
>>> white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two 
>>> races living together on terms of social and political equality. And 
>>> inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there 
>>> must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any 
>>> other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to 
>>> the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that 
>>> because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro 
>>> should be denied everything."
>>>
>>> /-  Charleston IL September 18, 1858
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/19/2009 12:17 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>> The problem is that he probably didn't say it...
>>>>
>>>> Karen Medina wrote:
>>>>> "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the
>>>>> people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people 
>>>>> all of
>>>>> the time."
>>>>> Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
>
>