The Dark Side Of Abraham Lincoln

[Mike]

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/the-dark-side-of-abraham-lincoln/

 

[TexasBred]

Why do you even care Mike. You were on the other side so he was not your president.

We can only speculate, but I think Lincoln's exercises of power were probably crucial at two junctures. First, in the early days of the war, the North would simply have been unable to respond to Fort Sumter if Lincoln had not made such aggressive use of his powers. After all, his predecessor James Buchanan had been much more of a strict constructionist, and had basically sat by passively while the lower South left the Union. In contrast, Lincoln called up militia forces, expanded the regular army, declared a blockade on Southern ports, and suspended habeas to keep Washington from being isolated. Without these actions, the Confederacy would have won the war by default. Second, the Emancipation Proclamation may have tipped the balance at the end of the war, encouraging blacks to fight for the Union Army and discouraging British intervention on behalf of the South.

 

[Brad S]

"Why do you even care Mike. You were on the other side so he was not your president. "


I'm pretty sure mike wasn't yet born. If one has the right to enter the social contract, would he have the right to dissolve the social contract? Note to ms. Klinton: the aggression against the south wasn't to free slaves. The illegal taxes imposed on the south precipitated their exiting the union.

Mikes post is most pertinent. The Country is nonfunctional in its present state. Those old White guys that decentralized power were genius beyond full comprehension. Now we sneer at the tenth amendment and the losing side in the presidential race wants to secede. I blame fdr just cause I don't like commies, but mikes link makes a compelling case Lincoln is at the root of this cancer.

For me, a president just doesn't have the jurisdiction to suspend ANY of the bill of rights.

 

[Mike]

I harbor a special hatred for the egregious acts towards Southern civilians, including women, children, and old men by the Northern Aggressors with the full knowledge and blessings of Lincoln.

Under the direction of Gen. William T. Sherman, 400 women and children were arrested and shipped by train northward to as far as Chicago. Most were illiterate and only a couple ever made it back home. It's all in the "Official Record" of the Civil War.

A Pennsylvania newspaper wrote at the time:

..It is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity... As to drive four hundred penniless girls hundreds of miles away from their homes and friends to seek livelihood amid strange and hostile people. We repeat our earnest hope that further information may redeem the name of General Sherman and our own from this frightful disgrace.

But, Sherman's insane antics got Lincoln re-elected for a 2nd term, exactly as planned.

By the end of the Civil War, William T. Sherman was one of the most important and celebrated Union commanders, and the most reviled in the Confederacy. During the last year of the conflict, his army conquered Atlanta, reversing a flagging Union war effort and securing Abraham Lincoln's re-election. After that his men scorched much of Georgia in his famous March to the Sea, then cut a huge swath up through the Carolinas. Not only did his army destroy men and material, but Sherman articulated a ruthless policy of destruction that deeply demoralized Southern morale. He gained perpetual infamy in the South as the grim reaper of the Union war effort, a task he undertook quite consciously, with both anger and joy.

Yet, as few Americans know, during the first year of the war, on Nov. 9, 1861, General Sherman, paralyzed by depression, was relieved of his command in Kentucky at his own request. Five weeks later, the wire services proclaimed to the nation: GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN INSANE. Just after his participation in the Civil War had begun, Sherman's service was nearly destroyed.

As all students of the war know, he came back and soared to prominence, but his mental collapse and his recovery, unusually well documented, present a riveting example of the understanding of depressive illness in the Victorian world, and the relationship of bipolar illness to creativity and inspired leadership during difficult times, which Sherman certainly demonstrated later in the war.

As was true of Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman's prewar life had careened from failure to failure. But where Grant self-medicated his frustrations with drink and retreated into stoic silence, Sherman experienced erratic emotional ups and downs that he shared with his friends and family in a manner that only intensified his self-laceration.

Grant and Sherman were both members of the broad cohort of West Point-trained officers who would populate the upper echelons of the war's opposing armies. But while others, including Grant, had fought heroic wars in Mexico, Sherman stewed in California, where most of his troops deserted his unit for the lures of the gold fields. Later, out of the Army, although backed by the powerful political forces of his family and wealthy supporters in St. Louis, his bank failed in San Francisco in the Panic of 1857. Subsequently, he bounced forlornly around Kansas and Ohio, achieving little worldly success.

When the war began, Sherman resigned his recently assumed presidency of the Louisiana military academy (which would become Louisiana State University), ran a streetcar line in St. Louis, very badly, and finally took command of a brigade at Bull Run that collapsed in the face of the Confederate advance. Nevertheless, in mid-August, 1861, he was assigned to be second in command of the Army of the Cumberland, in Kentucky, a slaveholding, divided state, and the key to what would become of the Western theater — and perhaps of the Union itself.

Throughout the first six months of the war, Sherman's psyche was dominated by self-doubt and fear. In fact, when he was assigned to Kentucky, he informed Abraham Lincoln of his "extreme desire to serve in a subordinate capacity, and in no event to be left in a superior command." This reticence astounded Lincoln, who was far more used to braggart officers demanding important commands; but it was not modesty that led Sherman to his demonstration of uncertainty. Then, on Oct. 5, his superior, Robert Anderson (the commander at Fort Sumter when the war began) resigned because of health issues, almost certainly including major depression. Three days later, Sherman replaced him. Sherman lasted a tormented month before he was removed.

The day he took over, following a reconnaissance into the Kentucky hinterland, Sherman wrote anxiously to civilian supporters, and to Lincoln as well, that the whole countryside seethed with disunion, that the enemy was conspiring to create a "vast force" that would soon overwhelm Louisville. His own units were green, "too weak, far too weak" to resist the expected onslaught. he anticipated being "overwhelmed" — a defeat that would be "disastrous to the nation. Do not conclude…that I exaggerate the facts. They are as stated, and the future looks as dark as possible. It would be better if a more sanguine mind were here, for I am forced to order according to my expectations." This was hardly the self-confidence one needs in leaders. And one can only imagine the degree to which Sherman dismayed others serving under him.

Thoroughly alarmed, Lincoln dispatched his secretary of war, Simon Cameron, to make a personal inspection. On Oct. 17, Sherman repeated these apprehensions to Cameron, and insisted that only a force of 200,000 men could hold Kentucky. Cameron replied that he was astonished by this analysis and that he had no idea where such an army might come from. And despite telling Sherman that he was among friends during this interview, Cameron had included Samuel Wilkerson of the New York Tribune in his party, who would later write the story declaring Sherman insane.

The other Union generals in Kentucky whom Cameron and Lincoln consulted assured them that the Confederate side was even more disorganized than they were, and that they did not share Sherman's negative certainties, which amounted, they were certain, to delusions.

Over the following weeks, Sherman's fears only intensified, while others observed a tortured man suffering what has long been defined in psychiatric terms as intense mania. For example, two sympathetic New York journalists who shared long nights at the Louisville telegraph office with the general grew deeply alarmed by his behavior. Sherman talked incessantly while never listening, all the while repeatedly making "quick, sharp…odd gestures," pacing the floor, chain-smoking cigars, "twitching his red whiskers — his coat buttons — playing a tattoo on the table" with his fingers. All in all he was "a bundle of nerves all strung to their highest tension." Back at his hotel, other guests observed him pacing all night in the corridors, smoking and brooding, "and it was soon whispered about that he was suffering from mental depression." Such increased energy, talkativeness and hyperactivity (which can sometimes become impulsive and even psychotic), is the definition of mania, the twin — and opposite — of depression in the illness of bipolar disorder.

In letters to his wife, Ellen Ewing Sherman, Sherman himself confirmed and amplified what others observed. Everyone around him seemed poised to betray him, he wrote her. "I am up all night." He had lost his appetite. Viewing his situation from the perspective of this mental turmoil, he was convinced that he was caught in an impossible military contradiction where "to advance would be madness and to stand still folly." And he entirely lacked the means to lead others and to control himself: "I find myself riding a whirlwind unable to guide the storm." In the near future he anticipated total "failure and humiliation," an onrushing infamy that "nearly makes me crazy — indeed I may be so now."

Then, on Nov. 8, a captain on Sherman's staff telegraphed to ask her to come down to relieve him from the pressures of business. In a series of letters to the extended Ewing/Sherman clan over the next week, Ellen described what she found in Louisville: understanding that depression had what we would now call a genetic predisposition, she recalled that one of Sherman's uncles was a chronic "melancholic." And she also remembered quite vividly "having seen Cump [his boyhood nickname] in the seize of it in California," when the bank had failed, a mental event that was repeated at least twice prior to the war. To inheritance and personal history, Ellen Sherman added descriptions of his behavior: he seldom ate or slept, had lost human contact with others, and scarcely talked unless repeating his obsessions that "the whole country is gone irrevocably & ruin & desolation are at hand."


Sherman was relieved of his command on Nov. 8 and reassigned to a lesser post in St. Louis. When the downward spiral continued, Ellen Sherman came to collect him on Dec. 1, for three weeks' leave back home in Lancaster, Ohio. There she began to nurse him back to health with a rest cure, the frequently effective 19th-century therapy: favorite foods, reading him his most cherished books, especially Shakespeare, and calming him sufficiently so that he could sleep. The real cure, as in all bipolar illness, is nature: the average mood episode rarely lasts longer than six months before it goes into remission by itself.

Despite the public's awareness of his insanity, Sherman seemed somewhat strengthened by the time he returned to St. Louis on Dec. 19. His bipolar illness seems to have bottomed out, and he undertook a lengthy period of self-repair. Henry Halleck, Sherman's commander, who understood and sympathized with Sherman's inner turmoil, and also valued his intelligence and training, soon placed him in charge of the training camp in St. Louis under his direct supervision. Seven weeks later, trusting Sherman's recovery sufficiently, Halleck assigned him to Cairo, Ill., to serve as the logistical coordinator for Grant's army, the beginning of a long and intense friendship between two emotionally wounded warriors. Grant soon brought Sherman down to the front at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., and put him in charge of a division.

There, on April 6, a vast surprise attack on Grant's army led to the horrific Battle of Shiloh, in which the casualties totaled 20,000 men. In the thick of things, Sherman led his men with considerable personal bravery and tactical skill. Following this battle, his spirits soared. He experienced an almost instant internal transformation: from the despairing, self-proclaimed loser in Kentucky to the confident and brilliantly creative commander who would do so much, in word as well as deed, to destroy the Confederacy.



Sources: Michael Fellman, "Citizen Sherman"; Brooks D. Simpson and Jean V. Berlin, eds., "Sherman's Civil War: Selected Correspondence of William T. Sherman, 1860-1865"; Nassir Ghaemi, "A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness."

Michael Fellman
Michael Fellman is professor emeritus of history at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of several volumes on the American Civil War, as well as the forthcoming "Views from the Dark Side of American History." He would like to acknowledge the careful reading given this essay by Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, professor of psychiatry and director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts University.

 

[TexasBred]

"Why do you even care Mike. You were on the other side so he was not your president. "


I'm pretty sure mike wasn't yet born. If one has the right to enter the social contract, would he have the right to dissolve the social contract? Note to ms. Klinton: the aggression against the south wasn't to free slaves. The illegal taxes imposed on the south precipitated their exiting the union. Tell Mike....he thinks he was. Read the letters of secession of each state and you'll find slavery #1 reason for secession. The taxes you refer to were nothing new and certainly not grounds for secession years after the fact.

Mikes post is most pertinent. The Country is nonfunctional in its present state. Those old White guys that decentralized power were genius beyond full comprehension. Now we sneer at the tenth amendment and the losing side in the presidential race wants to secede. I blame fdr just cause I don't like commies, but mikes link makes a compelling case Lincoln is at the root of this cancer. Abraham Lincoln didn't violate the Tenth Amendment; the South seceded in defiance of the Constitution, being forbidden from doing so by Article I, Section 10, Clause 1; Article VI, Section 2; and the Tenth Amendment itself.

For me, a president just doesn't have the jurisdiction to suspend ANY of the bill of rights.Nor do any of the states

 

[TexasBred]

I harbor a special hatred for the egregious acts towards Southern civilians, including women, children, and old men by the Northern Aggressors with the full knowledge and blessings of Lincoln.

Under the direction of Gen. William T. Sherman, 400 women and children were arrested and shipped by train northward to as far as Chicago. Most were illiterate and only a couple ever made it back home. It's all in the "Official Record" of the Civil War.

What is this official record you speak of?? It amazes me that 2nd amendment folks (and I'm one of them) demand our rights under the 2nd amendment yet in time of war it's considered barbaric to fire on armed civilians which most were.....as for the illiteracy, this is well known.....the very reason few believe "states rights" had anything to do with the war other than in the minds of the politicians to jusity their acts, while their constituency couldn't even spell the words let alone define them.

 

[Mike]

THE "OFFICIAL RECORDS" OF THE "WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION":

http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/waro.html

It's approx 131 big thick books compiled after the war including all the correspondences that could be found. The atlas' are map drawings which are not generally included.




Click on image to enlarge

 

[Mike]

I harbor a special hatred for the egregious acts towards Southern civilians, including women, children, and old men by the Northern Aggressors with the full knowledge and blessings of Lincoln.

Under the direction of Gen. William T. Sherman, 400 women and children were arrested and shipped by train northward to as far as Chicago. Most were illiterate and only a couple ever made it back home. It's all in the "Official Record" of the Civil War.

What is this official record you speak of?? It amazes me that 2nd amendment folks (and I'm one of them) demand our rights under the 2nd amendment yet in time of war it's considered barbaric to fire on armed civilians which most were.....as for the illiteracy, this is well known.....the very reason few believe "states rights" had anything to do with the war other than in the minds of the politicians to jusity their acts, while their constituency couldn't even spell the words let alone define them.

There was not a shot fired when Sherman directed the women & children in Roswell to load up and be moved hundreds of miles from their home. You also might be really surprised how literate many people were back then. REALLY SURPRISED!!!!!!!!!

 

[iwannabeacowboy]

Hillary will probably check those out from the library in the near future.

 

[Mike]

Why is the Civil War the most studied subject in American history? The answers are many, but one key factor is that it has all of the right ingredients for a compelling narrative — suspense, tragedy, triumph, heroes and villains, winners and losers. It is the story of Cain and Able writ large. For a century-and-a-half the war has been told and retold by scores of gifted writers relying on a treasure-trove of written and visual source material not produced in previous wars.

The telling of the Civil War saga began with the participants themselves. High ranking officers on both sides were required to write after-action reports providing their first-hand accounts of recent battles. As soon as armed conflict ended, this massive assemblage of Confederate and Union reports was carefully gathered and compiled by the War Department. These documents were eventually published as "The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" in 128 thick volumes that provide the most comprehensive reference source on the war.

In addition, common soldiers produced an enormous quantity of letters and diaries during the war and thousands of memoirs afterwards, more so than any previous American conflict. This trove of written information is the dividend of a dream of the Founding Fathers — an educated citizenry.

By the middle of the 19th century, the literacy levels in America were such that a large percentage of soldiers on both sides of the line produced a rich harvest of written material recording their experiences in the greatest event in their lives. "Civil War armies were the most literate in all history to that time," notes historian James McPherson.

Unlike later wars when soldier letters were heavily censored, Civil War correspondence is unadulterated. It is remarkable for showing the size and scale of the conflict, how men from farms and small towns marched off to war, why they felt compelled to fight for their respective causes — and how conscious they were of being swept up in a grand, often fearsome and horrible, adventure.

In addition to being America's first literate war, the Civil War was the first truly visual war. No previous conflict in history had been recorded visually in such a variety of media and in such large volume. By 1861, engraved images appeared regularly in newspapers. Although crude by our standards, these images gave people some idea of what the leading figures looked like and provided a graphic concept of battle scenes.

It was not the first war to be photographed, but the Civil War generated photographic images that far outnumbered the handful that had been produced in the Mexican-American and Crimean wars. Photographs of the dead at Gettysburg, of Lee and Grant, of the ruins of Richmond in April 1865 and scores of others have become some of the most important iconic symbols in American history.

Even after the guns fell silent in 1865, the war continued to be portrayed visually and recounted in word. Artists produced a voluminous number of images of battle scenes, naval engagements and almost anything else relating to the nation's biggest conflict. As the 19th century drew to a close, American publishing houses rolled out a steady stream of war memoirs and regimental histories. And even today, books keep coming out, thanks in part to a seemingly infinite body of source materials for historians to mine.


Massive collections of war letters, diaries, memoirs and graphic images survive in museums, libraries and archives around the nation. The major historical institutions in Richmond are home to some of the richest Civil War collections to be found anywhere. These collections keep growing. Old letters and daguerreotypes that have long languished in attics and closets continue to be donated to public institutions, fueling new research, which in turn leads to new books on a war that never lacks an audience.

There is no way of knowing how many of these Civil War treasures are still stashed away in homes, but I never cease to be amazed at what's still out there. If you have any of these items, consider turning them over to a major historical institution like the Virginia Historical Society or the Library of Virginia, where they will be secure and available for future generations.

For that matter, with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and Emancipation approaching, the Library of Virginia, in partnership with the Virginia Sesquicentennial Commission, has launched its Legacy Project to have war-related materials digitized so that their content will be saved and made available to the public. For more information, go to [email protected].

The soldiers who fought in America's most costly war are long gone, but their words will live on in their letters and diaries, if we make the effort to take them to safe haven. They deserve no less, especially if their stories are yet to be told.

 

[Mike]

Part of the Seceding Resolution for the State of Alabama

RESOLUTION
In Relation To The African Slave Trade
Whereas , the people of Alabama are opposed, on the grounds of public policy, to the re-opening of the African Slave Trade; therefore,
Resolved , That it is the will of the people of Alabama that the Deputies elected by this Convention to the Southern Convention, to meet at the city of Montgomery on the fourth day of February next to form a Southern Republic, be, and they are hereby, instructed to insist on the enactment by said Convention of such restrictions as will effectually prevent the re-opening of the African Slave Trade.
Adopted, January 28, 1861.

 

[Mike]

Following the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862, Stonewall Jackson and Dr. Hunter McGuire went to see what remained of the town after a great Confederate victory. While in the town, Jackson's blood pressure started to rise as he saw useless destruction. Portraits of Southern families were ripped and thrown into the streets, fine china, glass, and other elegant pieces that were precious family heirlooms were also destroyed and left out in the elements, and the town was totally ransacked. Jackson knew that the vile invaders gained nothing from such destruction, and that it only served as a means to humiliate the South. However, nothing infuriated General Jackson more than the damage that was done to the churches of Fredericksburg. He saw bullet-holes in the steeples, stained-glass shattered, and church property destroyed and scattered about the ground. Being the man of faith that he was, the one who earned the name "Stonewall" for fully trusting in God's plan for his life, Jackson was outraged to such an extent that he was almost brought to tears. Shaking his head in disgust with the condition of the town, Dr. McGuire asked General Jackson: "What can we do about this kind of barbaric behavior?" Stonewall paused for a brief moment and said with a voice shaking with anger "Kill 'em. Kill 'em all."

There was a good reference to this carnage in Fredericksburg in the Ted Turner movie. "Gods & Generals".

 

[TexasBred]

Part of the Seceding Resolution for the State of Alabama

RESOLUTION
In Relation To The African Slave Trade
Whereas , the people of Alabama are opposed, on the grounds of public policy, to the re-opening of the African Slave Trade; therefore,
Resolved , That it is the will of the people of Alabama that the Deputies elected by this Convention to the Southern Convention, to meet at the city of Montgomery on the fourth day of February next to form a Southern Republic, be, and they are hereby, instructed to insist on the enactment by said Convention of such restrictions as will effectually prevent the re-opening of the African Slave Trade.
Adopted, January 28, 1861.

Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as "the United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State.
 
Section 2. Be it further declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled, That all powers over the Territory of said State, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the State of Alabama. And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,

 

[TexasBred]

Following the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862, Stonewall Jackson and Dr. Hunter McGuire went to see what remained of the town after a great Confederate victory. While in the town, Jackson's blood pressure started to rise as he saw useless destruction. Portraits of Southern families were ripped and thrown into the streets, fine china, glass, and other elegant pieces that were precious family heirlooms were also destroyed and left out in the elements, and the town was totally ransacked. Jackson knew that the vile invaders gained nothing from such destruction, and that it only served as a means to humiliate the South. However, nothing infuriated General Jackson more than the damage that was done to the churches of Fredericksburg. He saw bullet-holes in the steeples, stained-glass shattered, and church property destroyed and scattered about the ground. Being the man of faith that he was, the one who earned the name "Stonewall" for fully trusting in God's plan for his life, Jackson was outraged to such an extent that he was almost brought to tears. Shaking his head in disgust with the condition of the town, Dr. McGuire asked General Jackson: "What can we do about this kind of barbaric behavior?" Stonewall paused for a brief moment and said with a voice shaking with anger "Kill 'em. Kill 'em all."

There was a good reference to this carnage in Fredericksburg in the Ted Turner movie. "Gods & Generals".

Brother against sister[edit]
The Civil War has sometimes been referred to as a war of "brother against brother," but in the case of the Jackson family, it was brother against sister. Laura Jackson Arnold was close to her brother Thomas until the Civil War period. As the war loomed, she became a staunch Unionist in a somewhat divided Harrison County. She was so strident in her beliefs that she expressed mixed feelings upon hearing of Thomas's death. One Union officer said that, though she seemed depressed at hearing the news, her Unionism was stronger than her family bonds. In a letter, he wrote that Laura had said she "would rather know that he was dead than to have him a leader in the rebel army." Her Union sentiment also estranged her later from her husband, Jonathan Arnold.[17]

If you can't live with the consequences of war don't start one !!!!

 

[Mike]

Secession is not an act or threat of war in any way. There were no prohibitions stated in the Constitution hindering states from secessation.

In fact there were several Bills prohibiting secession that were introduced in congress just before the War began, but they never passed.

 

[TexasBred]

Secession is not an act or threat of war in any way. There were no prohibitions stated in the Constitution hindering states from secessation.

In fact there were several Bills prohibiting secession that were introduced in congress just before the War began, but they never passed.

Attacking a Union fort is an act of war. :nod:

 

[Mike]

Secession is not an act or threat of war in any way. There were no prohibitions stated in the Constitution hindering states from secessation.

In fact there were several Bills prohibiting secession that were introduced in congress just before the War began, but they never passed.

Attacking a Union fort is an act of war. :nod:

Wasn't a Union fort anymore. Was a collection point for tariffs. The South gave them time to leave and no one was killed. The first real act of war was the North attacking the South in Virginia at Bull Run. But you knew that.

Tell us how Secession alone is an act of war of could even be close to treasonous. The seceeding states were simply doing exactly as their fathers and grandfathers had in the late 1700's. Declaring their Independence against tyranny.

 

[Mike]

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln's inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "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 force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln's economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

 

[TexasBred]

Secession is not an act or threat of war in any way. There were no prohibitions stated in the Constitution hindering states from secessation.

In fact there were several Bills prohibiting secession that were introduced in congress just before the War began, but they never passed.

Attacking a Union fort is an act of war. :nod:

Wasn't a Union fort anymore. Was a collection point for tariffs. The South gave them time to leave and no one was killed. The first real act of war was the North attacking the South in Virginia at Bull Run. But you knew that.

Tell us how Secession alone is an act of war of could even be close to treasonous. The seceeding states were simply doing exactly as their fathers and grandfathers had in the late 1700's. Declaring their Independence against tyranny.

Here you go Mike. Remember this date. It is settled. April 9, 1865.

 

[TexasBred]

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln's inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "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 force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln's economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

Mike, Lincoln received only a bit over 39% of the popular vote in 1860....but he received 60% of the electoral college vote...SOUND FAMILAR??