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BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest?
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 14 Nov 12 - 06:45 PM Krunkle: blow me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 14 Nov 12 - 06:48 PM Greg. Your mum would be disappointed in you. Mind your manners. Do your homework. =(:-( )) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Jeri Date: 14 Nov 12 - 06:50 PM "Mum"!? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Don Firth Date: 14 Nov 12 - 06:51 PM Hey, gang, I have a great idea! When we get through re-hashing the Civil War (or the War for Southern Secession, if you insist), let's take a long look at the Peloponnesian Wars. Was Alcibiades unfairly sacked by the Athenians for losing a sea battle to the Spartans? After all, it wasn't incompetence, it was really a storm that swamp so many Athenian triremes, giving the advantage to the Spartans. Demosthenes outmaneuvered the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers, holding them under siege for weeks in order starve them out. Many of the Spartans died of starvation rather than surrender. Should Demosthenes be tried for war crimes? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 14 Nov 12 - 06:55 PM No. The Spanish American War is next. =(:-( )) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 14 Nov 12 - 07:09 PM Yeah, there was another bogus war... (But, Boberdz, how about the sinking of the Maine???) Yeah, how's ya'll like that Gulf of Tonkin episode... How's that turn out??? As for Lincoln??? Given the war, the reconstruction (occupation) and a century of Jim Crow, he blew it... The entire civilized world was one country at a time abolishing slavery starting in the 1830s... Slavery was on its way out... I don't believe it can be argued otherwise... The cost of the war wasn't worth the price, IMHO... B~ t |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 14 Nov 12 - 07:24 PM He was responsible for so much needless death. They have to build him all up into some holy man. A smokescreen. He was a killer. =(:-( O) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,999 Date: 14 Nov 12 - 07:27 PM Call a sheep a dog, but that won't make it bark. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 14 Nov 12 - 08:02 PM The entire civilized world was one country at a time abolishing slavery starting in the 1830s Except for the US, Bobert. Do review the South Carolina Nullifiers, the Missouri Compromise debates, the annexation of Texas, Calhoun's record & speeches, the whole Kansas-Nebraska business ----- you're ignoring a half century of run-up to the Civil War. Also, the whole history of the re-enslavement of the Black population post-1877. As I said previously, I thought you were too smart to be taken in by neo-confederate apologist bullshit. Guess I was wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 14 Nov 12 - 08:30 PM No, Greg.... Using phraseology such as you have to try to box me into a tidy cubbyhole ain't honest or accurate... I grew up in a Southern family... My mom got involved in the civil rights movement in 1963 and I wasn't too far behind her...We each were arrested in civil rights demonstrations... After I graduated college I worked in the Richmond City Jail as a GED teacher... My students were mostly black... I worked in a residential drug rehab program in the inner city... Most of our residents were black... I then worked as a social worker in Richmond where most of my clients were black... I have a degree in History and Poli-Sci... I didn't come to my position on the Civil War easily... It's not a "slam dunk"... I have spent much of my life wondering how things would have turned out if ___________ had or hadn't happened... I grew up in Virginia... I know the battles and the battlefields... I see the hundreds of "historical markers" where Americans killed other Americans... I've been to Antietam and Gettysburg... No, I don't come to my position from any "neo-confederate apologist bullshit" and I find that assertion as appalling as it is knee-jerk reactionary"... I am sorry, Greg, but whatever respect I have held for you and your values has taken a major hit... Serious business on my end... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,DDT Date: 14 Nov 12 - 10:47 PM Lincoln saying yes to the hangings of 38 Indians was pared down by him from the original 309 that the whites wanted to hang. And the hangings were in response to an uprising in which the Indians did, in fact, kill innocent people. As for Lincoln's statements of repatriating blacks to Africa and what not means nothing. He was president and had to entertain various solutions or give lip service to them to quiet his opponents. As president he also had to give as much to everybody as he could without giving too much to one group which fosters resentment. If he failed to give more to blacks than he could have, he had to consider the repercussions of pissing off whites who would no doubt take to the streets and beat and kill any blacks they encountered--man, woman or child--in retaliation, as happened in New York after he instituted the draft. How desperate do you think he was to cause that to happen again and again? After 1863, Lincoln gave up any pretense of sending freed slaves anywhere demonstrating that he never seriously considered it as an option. He considered it only as long as it was something he had to consider. He was criticized for the Emancipation Proclamation because it did not free the slaves immediately but his critics missed the point that upon the end of the war, it prevented slavery from making a comeback in those areas that the Proclamation targeted. He knew by '63 that he was going to win the war and he wanted to make sure that something went immediately into effect if and when it happened and whether he was alive or dead when it did. Maybe his biggest sin was imprisoning Southerners who lived just north of the Mason-Dixon line without trial or due process. He suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus as well as States' rights. It's easy to condemn him for that. But suppose you were president then and it was up to you to decide whether or not those northern Southerners with family down south could be trusted and you absolutely HAD to win that war. What would you have done? There is likely not one of you reading this who would have acted any different than he did. You would have cleared those Southerners out of there. And suspending states' rights is what enabled Lincoln to win the war. Jefferson Davis tried to but couldn't do it and he stated that when he heard that Lincoln had done it, he knew the South had already lost the war. Lincoln was a very intelligent man. He knew what he had to do to win that war and he did it. He couldn't worry about how history would judge him. And since most Americans consider him the greatest of the Presidents (and I agree with that), he did pretty well for posterity and you can be reasonably certain that wouldn't have happened had he lost the war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 14 Nov 12 - 11:09 PM He had another option... The nation was young then... he could have just said to Jeff Davis, "Knock yourselves out... Come visit, Jeff, when ya' have some time"... Why was it so important to keep these southern states in the United States??? Jus' let them go... Like I have said, "slavery was on it's way out"... Why impose its demise... Just let it die a slow death and let it be Southerers who figured it out??? Jim Crow wasn't all about black people... It was as much about northern people... The defeat of the South still haunts the entire nation... Look at the electoral map... Lyndon Johnson missed by several generations... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: meself Date: 14 Nov 12 - 11:36 PM Maybe in 1860 it wasn't as clear that slavery 'was on the way out' ... ? Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the world had lain down and let Hitler take over - would we all be speaking German and Seig-Heiling today, or would the Nazi empire have collapsed under its own weight after a couple of decades, with, ultimately, less horror and bloodshed than WWII engendered? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 15 Nov 12 - 01:38 AM Bobert: "Lyndon Johnson missed by several generations..." Lyndon 'Gulf of Ton-kin' Johnson was, is, and will go down forever in history, as a piece of shit! His fucked up policies of Vietnam, screwed up this country to the point that it has never recovered. Sorry Bobert, I know you get wet dreams about him and his phony civil rights bullshit, that he blocked in the Eisenhower Administration, but that two-faced, corrupt piece of crap will ALWAYS be a piece of crap for all eternity!...No matter how much you object! GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 02:46 AM Lyndon Johnson knew his war was a flop. Abe was off in la-la land. They both should have been shot. =(:-( )) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 04:09 AM It was all about land. Coastlines. Rivers. Resources. The Federal Government went on a greedy campaign of land acquisition. And killed anybody in its way. Dress it up anyway you like. How much did the government care about those slaves after the war? =(:-( )) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 08:50 AM OK, Bobert- Let's try this. Would you care to prove your assertion that in 1861 "Slavery was on its way out" In light of the points I raised in the posy of 14 Nov 12 - 06:30 PM? If "Slavery was on its way out" in the U.S. in the 1830's why was the South willing to go to war in Mexico to extend it in the 1840's and in Kansas/Nebraska in the 1850's and go to war to perpetuate it in the 1860's? How, exactly, could Lincoln as president have "just let them go" and fulfilled his oath as president to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."? "Wondering how things would have turned out if _____ had or hadn't happened..." can be an interesting exercise, but it ain't history, Bobert - its fortune-telling. Can you explain "Jim Crow wasn't all about black people... It was as much about northern people...". Is this a lead-in to the old "carpetbagger" myth?? The "defeat of the South" doesn't still haunt the entire nation; what haunts the nation is the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. Bobert, when you (and I for that matter) were in grade school & college, they were still pushing the "States Rights" shibboleth and "The Birth of a Nation" and "Gone With The Wind" and "the Klan was a sociial club" & etc. as "history". A great deal of scholarship since then has elaborated on and explained those times in much greater detail and with much more evidence, accuarcy and understanding. Just curious - Have you continued to study these issues AFTER college? Have you read any of Eric Foner's works - the essays in "Our Lincoln", or "Reconstruction", or "Freedom's Lawmakers" or the more recent "Forever Free"? What about Blackmon's "Slavery by Another Name"? Or Dray's "At the Hands of Persons Unknown? Or Gellman's "Jim Crow New York"? Or Berlin's "Many Thousands Gone"? Or Horowitz's "Confederates in the Attic"? I did NOT say that you DERIVED your information from Neo-Confederate propaganda, but that points you bring up mimic Neo-Confederate dogma - which they do. As for "whatever respect I have held for you and your values has taken a major hit..." all I can say is right back at ya, Buddy! Me too. Best, Greg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:26 AM Gobbledy gook. =(:-( P) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:37 AM There is no way to ever prove that something would or would not have happened if _____________ had occurred or not occurred, Greg... That line of debate/discussion is like when we told Saddam to prove he didn't have WMDs... Secondly, I never asserted that slavery was out in the US... The statement I made was that many other countries around the world had abolished it with that movement beginning in the 1830s... You can Google up for yourself the list... The point is that by 1860 there was an international abolitionist movement... Third, with the exception of 20 years living in Jefferson Co., West Virginia, which BTW is very much like the Deep South, I have lived in the South and educated in the South and understand Southern culture... Southerners hatred of the federal government can be traced to two events: the Civil (which it wasn't) War and just as important, Reconstruction... This hatred has been passed down from generation to generation using "states rights" as its sword and shield... It's much like the hatred of the New Deal by Republicans... One generation passes it down to the next without any real thought using "socialism" or "communism" as it's sword and shield... Forth, Jim Crow wasn't strictly about black people... Black people became the face of all the hatreds from the war and reconstruction, which BTW lasted over a decade until a deal was struck to end it in 1876 after the Hayes/Tilden Election... You can Google that up for details, as well... So there was one shit load of hate by white Southerners passed down against black people and the federal government which, unfortunately still exists today... Might of fact, the New South haters, have developed their own somewhat politically correct codified racism... The Republican Party loves to use "welfare"... That plays on their decades old PR of the "Welfare Cadillac" mother that they have carefully implanted in the haters mind.... Lastly, yes... We did grow up in a racist South but not all of us stayed racists... It took work to change... Hard work... Lots of work and more work and then more work... My dad struggled with racism... My mother did the hard work and she worked on me... The dinner table in our house was a war zone and my brother and I having to listen to that "hard work" go on night after night... My dad, bless his heart, worked the hardest... He grew up calling all black people, "niggers"... He made no bones about it... So the 60s was very hard on him and my mom beat him like a drum... But he would go bail her out when she would get arrested... Only guy in the court room with a suit and tie and completely surround by black people... Yes, it was hard work... Then in '65 a young black kid came to live with us... Joe was a recent Job Corps graduate and it was supposed to be for just a week or two... It ended up a couple years until one tragic night Joe was killed in an auto accident... My dad cried like a baby... I said that I did not come to my feelings about the war of Lincoln easily... That is true... Those feelings came as a result of a lot of learning and hard work on my part... I know it isn't a popular view, especially outside of the South, but there are many of us Southerners who have arrived at this position from a much different route than the folks you think of, Greg... I much different route, indeed and for us it isn't a way of justifying our hate of anyone... Just our hate of decisions that were made that left so many crippled in hate... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:38 AM Krinkle writes: "If Hitler had conquered Europe...". That may well have come to pass had not Lincoln held the union together. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:53 AM No. Hitler would have failed anyway. He was cracked. =(:-( )) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:11 AM Thanks for the background, Bobert - interesting. I'd also be interested in your answers to the other questions I posed to you at 15 Nov 12 - 08:50 AM. Perhaps your "view" isn't a popular one because it embraces most of the mythology of "The Lost Cause" and - possibly understandably considering your background- stresses emotion rather than fact. Much like the supposed works of "history" by the self-admitted non-historian and novelist Shelby Foote. I'm no Lincoln apologist - he was hardly a saint. But saints have always been pretty thin on the ground. Greg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:24 AM Just another quick thought, Bobert: RE:Just our hate of decisions that were made that left so many crippled in hate... What about the decisions made by Calhoun and the entire pro-slavery lobby in Congress over a period of 30 years, the decisions made by the politicians of the Southern States to secede, the decisions they made to attack the United States, the decisions they made to execute Black Union soldiers instead of taking them prisoner, the decisions they made to attempt to nullify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Ammendments & on & on & on. Do you hate those decisions as well? You can't dump the whole mess on Lincoln, ya know. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:39 AM Lincoln was a stink. =(:-( P) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Arkie Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:39 AM From what I have read, Lincoln's plan for reconstruction was much more about reconciliation that the plan that was followed by the controlling faction of Republicans after his death. That plan had little in the way of reconciliation. Lincoln considered himself as president of the nation which included the south. Having read some eyewitness accounts by southern soldiers of the surrender at Appomatox, the procedure was conducted with dignity and respect and, here I am assuming, met with the approval of Lincoln if not directed by him. Reconstruction was a horror and conducted with malice and if we are not still paying the price, we still see the effects. There are historians who believe that Lincoln would have done things differently. At this point we will never know for certain. As for slavery being on its last legs, there was a concerted effort among southern slaveholders to push slave holding into new territory and the slave holders were the most powerful element in southern society. I am still amazed at how people will follow the elite possessing wealth and influence with their tails dragging behind them even when it does not serve their own best interest. But even the non-slaveholders in the south were accustomed to an economy based upon the plantation and driven by slave labor. I do think that eventually slave holding would have diminished and faded, but it may well have taken three or four more decades or more and there would have bitter opposition to its ending even then. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:55 AM ;No. Hitler would have failed anyway. He was cracked.' No dispespect Henry, but I don't think if you'd grown up in England or one of the Nazi occupied countries - I don't think you would have seen victory as an inevitable. It was a damn close run thing. A victory only purchased by the blood of our parents and their friends. Incredibly traumatic for them. In the 1950's when I was a kid - we played in bombsites - places that had been peoples homes = they were our playgrounds. He may look crazy in retrospect - but a lot of people thought Hitler had some good ideas - not just Germans either. He was pretty credible at the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 11:27 AM Yea. The Bush family were sympathizers I understand. Nazi sympathizers. =(:-( 0) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: meself Date: 15 Nov 12 - 11:31 AM A lot of people - sadly and bizarrely - still seem to think Hitler had some good ideas .... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 11:57 AM I think our government appropriated alot of ideas from them. =(:-( 0) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,999 Date: 15 Nov 12 - 12:09 PM "Some of the primary and more famous Americans and companies that were involved with the fascist regimes of Europe are: William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Ford, ITT, Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush, National City Bank, and General Electric." from http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 12:20 PM Lincoln was a stink. Not one one-thousandth the stink of a Krink. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 12:27 PM You love it. You can't stay away. =(:-( D) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 12:39 PM He was a lawyer. That makes him a professional liar. As in: How can you tell if a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving. =(:-( I) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 01:00 PM No dispespect Henry, Can't imagine why not! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Henry Krinkle Date: 15 Nov 12 - 01:29 PM Bitch. =(:-( D) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 04:59 PM Greg, I, in no way, have any love for the pre-war Southern Democrat'd behavior... The entire period was a slobber-knocker... The election of 1860 was a slobber knocker... I find it interesting that the Constitutional Union Party carried the three states that would see more battles combined (not deaths) than any other three state combination... As for continuing to study the Civil War??? No, I don't do books that much anymore... I do independent research on the inter net... There is a lot of stuff there where you get more perspectives without havonmg to wade thru books... I will, however, read articles by writers which tend to put forth their hypothesis without all the wading... The wading in tiresome... I was very fortunate to take both semesters of "History of the South" under Dr. Rogers as an under-grad who at the time was the dean of the history department at VCU... BTW, the position that I hold on the war isn't at all popular in most Southern academic communities... It seems to be more the birthers and tin-foilers and die-hard rednecks who wouldn't like my alternate view of hos things could could have worked out better for everyone... Might of fact, there are very few of us that hold this position based on knowledge of history and the Southern culture... But there are others... Just not that many that I know... But the ones I know I respect for arriving to the same conclusions based on their knowledge as opposed to their emotions... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:08 PM Hey, Bobert- Do yourself a favor ( and I mean this kindly - not as a taunt or condemnation ) and read at least the books that I mentioned above. Internet research on the Civil War? Please. That's the bailiwick of crazies. Try the real historians. I think you'd actually appreciate what they have to say. Books is where the real info is - not in cyberspace. But I still can't figure out how you can blame Abe for things that happened from the point following his death & and for the succeeding 50+ years. Be well- Greg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,999 Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:24 PM Between you two guys, you probably know more about the Civil War than any other people on this site. Y'oughta talk about it instead of fight with each other. Since I'm friends with both of you, that would be good to read. IMO. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:37 PM Sorry, Greg... I'm too lexdexic for books... I do better with shorter articles... If you have a sound understanding of history you can do just fine on the inter net and not be snowed... I can smell a snow-job in the first 3 paragraphs... The nice thing about taking "History of the South" in college is that Dr. Rogers was so good that all ya' had to do was just sit there and listen to the guy and take yer time thru the books... BTW, the first semester ended with the 1860 election... Kinda left ya' hanging over Xmas holiday... BTW, Part B... Dr. Rogers might not agree with my position but if he were still alive (which he isn't) he would respectfully listen to it... Kinda wished to have had an opportunity to talk with him about it... And, brucie, I ain't fightin'... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 05:52 PM No fightin' here either, Bruce- but if Mr. Bobert won't even LOOK at the more recent scholarship, I'm kinda dead in the water, no? Guess its the old "agree to disagree" one more time with feeling.... but I sill wish ol' Bobert would update himself. I really do think he'd enjoy the read!! Be well, the two of ya!! Best, Greg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 07:19 PM Lexdexics learn differently... Maybe you can find a book on it...lol... Very interesting stuff and very real... More recent scholarship ain't the issue... Lotta people spend 400 pages tryin' to say what can be said in 2500 words... I read lots of 2500 word summaries, articles, book reviews and they are "recent" and current and all that "new millennium" stuff... BTW, I have no fascination with the war itself... The P-Vine, however, is all over it and so I know more about it than I ever wanted to know from her compulsion... She must have a hundred books on it... Okay, I thought that the Union messed up in the 6 Days Battle south of Richmond... Especially the battle where the Confederates took a bunch of old boats and lit them on fire in the middle of the James River and then fired down on Union boats... That was as retarded a battle plan as any... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,McWilliams Date: 15 Nov 12 - 07:21 PM Re: "Abraham Lincoln, the man who said 'Yes!' to the largest mass hanging in America...of Native Americans, of course.." I'm no hero worshipper of Lincoln (see Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals), but every time I look at a $20 US bill, I see the evil bastard, Andrew Jackson. Two generations ahead of Lincoln, hero of the War of 1812, he presided over the Trail of Tears, responsible for the near-total annihilation of tribes of the eastern US. The ones who cooperated were the "civilized tribes." The rest were "savages," whom settlers, army, priests, and others "cleansed" using smallpox infected blankets, diseases for which they had no immunity, considered not fully human, not to mention the "lead poison" pumped into them across the country as the Monroe Doctrine spread west. Andrew Jackson was a despicable human being. That he was such a hero is testimony to the collective gullibility of a blood-thirsty, uneducated populace. In my home county in Alabama, Limestone, we like to remember how Nathan Bedford Forrest blew up the train trestles between Nashville, the frontier capitol at the time, and Atlanta. For several weeks, the Union army could not send ahead the food and ammunition Sherman would need to continue his march to the sea. I live in Indiana now. Eli Lilly, founder of the largest employer here, commanded the battalions of white and black Union solders, trapped inside their own block houses and stockades on each bank of Sulphur Creek. I can't help myself -- even though I see the outcome of The War and the end of slavery as the superior outcome -- I can't resist a chuckle when I realize the chemist had to rebuild the trestles again again because of the brilliant guerrilla leader, spending a fortune while making no forward progress. Tragic, the insanity of that war remains in the consciousness of white Southerners in such detail -- I think due to the story-telling history of the tragic Scots-Irish settlers of our county. My forebears on both sides were Scots and Irish, some were starving peasants, some displaced aristocrats, all proud, and many owned slaves. Sure, the oppressed became oppressors. Taking all of that history seriously will bring humility if you're lucky and you don't forget. Abraham Lincoln is the hero because once he did see the light, he did not back away from liberation, and tried to reason with those who would have the South not just vanquished, but utterly destroyed. Would the South have suffered in Reconstruction so quickly, deeply, and for so long (even now?) if Abe had survived? The spineless bastards who followed him could not lead the country in a noble direction. But of all the Presidents, the one whose memory should never die for its cruelty and avarice, aside from the future Truman murders, is Andrew Jackson. May his memory live forever in infamy. McWilliams |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Greg F. Date: 15 Nov 12 - 08:35 PM More recent scholarship ain't the issue Actually, it is. And the way it can elucidate what the actual situation was. And there lies the problem, Bobert. If you're not willing to explore & expand your knowledge, and grow ( as Lincoln did ) then there's nothing I can do. C'est fini. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,999 Date: 15 Nov 12 - 08:48 PM "In my home county in Alabama, Limestone, we like to remember how Nathan Bedford Forrest blew up the train trestles between Nashville, the frontier capitol at the time, and Atlanta. For several weeks, the Union army could not send ahead the food and ammunition Sherman would need to continue his march to the sea." 'Get 'em skeered and keep the skeer on 'em.' Great post, McWilliams. It's funny how our views change over time, but that some views get even clearer as we see more. The histories taught in schools don't mention what you wrote, but it's true. And then when we look at Forrest more closely we get a serious disappointment once again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 08:54 PM Thinks about it this way, Greg... Take yourself back to 1860... You are Lincoln... But you are Lincoln also seeing the next 100 years of Jim Crow... You are Lincoln seeing Reconstruction... You are seeing Lincoln watch the current South resegregating... You are seeing the Republican Party of today using racism to rile up it's base... You are Lincoln seeing the KKK murder civil rights protesters in the streets in 1979 in Greensboro, NC and get away with it... You are Lincoln seeing immense poverty within the black community today... This ain't about an academics or scholars... You are Lincoln seeing these things in 1860... You make the call... B` |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:03 PM Oh, and not to mention the 600,000+ deaths in the war and coming down to the closest thing to a civil war some 150 years later... Okay, Abe... Make the call... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: frogprince Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:11 PM Bobert, trying to see just how you mean the last two posts; do you mean to imply that, if he had been really wise or principled, Lincoln could have anticipated enough of all that to make different decisions? If so, it would seem like you would be demanding the wisdom of God of the man. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 09:34 PM Lincoln took the bait, f-prince... Lincoln made a decision to push the South in re-supplying Sumpter... Lincoln knew the consequences... Lincoln picked war... No, Lincoln couldn't know the consequences of that decision... My point is simple: if Lincoln knew how things were going to turn out would he have gone forward??? Seems that most folks say, "Yeah, it wads the right thing to do"... I disagree... Beginning in 1792 with Denmark abolishing slavery up until Wallacha abolishing it in 1856 just about every country you can name abolished slavery... Slavery was on its way out even here in the South... My point is that rather than making Lincoln some hero for leading us into the war, the reconstruction, Jim Crow and where we find ourselves today I'd rather have had Lincoln tell Jeff Davis, "Have a nice day"... This is heresy, I know... It is what I have come to believe... I'm not a war worshiper... Nor am I a Lincoln worshiper... I think he blew it and I don't understand all this worship... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: GUEST,999 Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:07 PM The end of slavery started when the first person who owned a slave thought it was wrong. That goes back thousands of years. Today, we are seeing a new kind of slavery emerge: that of the rich owning the poor. The faces of the players change, but the institution remains. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Was Abe Really All That Honest? From: Bobert Date: 15 Nov 12 - 10:15 PM Yes, brucie... We now have an entire new slave class... 'Cept these days a lot of our slaves have college degrees... Different story but you are 100% correct... B~ |
