Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 11-28-2014, 01:45 AM
 
Location: Peterborough, England
472 posts, read 922,811 times
Reputation: 416

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7 View Post
Anyway, this thread was about bringing up charges of treason.

No, it's about whether Lincoln was a great POTUS or not.

The question of whether Davis et al should be tried for treason assumed practical form only after Lincoln's death, so is totally irrelevant.

 
Old 11-28-2014, 02:01 AM
 
Location: Somewhere below Mason/Dixon
9,446 posts, read 10,736,565 times
Reputation: 15916
Quote:
Originally Posted by augiedogie View Post
Lincoln is now my number 2, Obama beats them all. There was no law banning a state from leaving the Union, so "preserving the Union", was a made up reason for the war. So 600,000 men killed over a needless war, and half the country in flames. There were other options for eventually ending slavery legally without a war. Also, you may not know, Lincoln became a dictator during the war. He deported a congressman, put something like 5000 opponents of the war in prison, shut down newspapers. Not exactly a respecter of the Bill of Rights.

This....... Lincoln is no hero, he was not a great president. Lincoln violated the constitution and used the army to prevent the legal and legitimate secession of the southern states. Lincoln is the father of the overbloated, overbearing dictatorial federal government we have today. States rights and small government was the way of our founding fathers, until Appomatix.
 
Old 11-28-2014, 03:39 AM
 
Location: Sandpoint, Idaho
3,007 posts, read 6,265,965 times
Reputation: 3310
Quote:
Originally Posted by -thomass View Post
Like most Americans students, I was taught that Lincoln was one of the best presidents we’ve had in our relatively short history as an independent nation. Slavery, after all, was ended under his administration.

Lately, however, I’ve been thinking about this perceived mythical greatness that has been bestowed upon Mr. Lincoln. Can we really consider him to be a great president if over 600k people died during the Civil War? Granted, the United States and the rest ofthe world would probably look totally different today had the south been allowed to secede, but surely slavery would have ultimately died of natural causes shortly after the south gained independence. I imagine the North and the rest of the world would have probably imposed tough economic sanctions on the south until the slaves were free.

So what are your thoughts? Am I wrong for questioning the consensus #1 president?
He inherited a series of awful challenges. In the end a terrible institution was ended, but at such a great cost and without much public support for his approach, even in the North.

Great respect and sympathy, but the mythology is unwarranted...and he would say so himself.

I would say this, if he is to be judged versus those just before him and those who followed, then he was head and shoulders above.

S.
 
Old 11-28-2014, 05:08 AM
 
9,981 posts, read 8,552,790 times
Reputation: 5664
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikestone8 View Post
No, it's about whether Lincoln was a great POTUS or not.

The question of whether Davis et al should be tried for treason assumed practical form only after Lincoln's death, so is totally irrelevant.
I left my post or two about what I think of Lincoln. I think he was a failure.
The thread was discussing charges of treason against Confederates in recent pages.
 
Old 11-28-2014, 05:41 AM
 
9,981 posts, read 8,552,790 times
Reputation: 5664
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
Because the established legal authority did not view secession as legal, it was an illegal act against the established authority.

If I stole your wallet and declared it "liberating funds from the undeserving", that might be my moral view, but it would not make it a legal act. You do not seem to grasp that morality and legality are different concepts. You feel that the rebel states were justified in their rebellion, so that somehow or other makes it a non rebellion.

That is not how it works. Legality is determined by victory or defeat in rebellion, irrespective of the morality involved.
Yes, I understand that morality and legality are often not connected.
However, that observation is not germane to the legality of secession of states.
The United States was a nation of laws and powers as written in its Constitution,
and secession was not unconstitutional, neither is it today, although little of the laws
are observed today by the Federal government. South Carolina was not part of the
United States when it defended Fort Sumter against Lincoln's hostile fleet.
Here is a link describing briefly how Lincoln instigated the actual war (but not the secession), and another which talks about the Nullification Crisis and some other events in the secession outline.
My viewpoint is that war should have been avoided, but as I've said earlier,
if you believe that the impositions of an authoritarian Federal regime are more important
than the Constitution and it's intents, and more important than the lives of 620,000
some-odd men, their families and the beauty of what was built in the South and destroyed, then there is no point in having a conversation, with no point of basic agreement on the value of anything, nothing is to be said further.
Lincoln Provoked the War (Tulane.edu)
Secession (History.net)

p.s. I hate to post a link to "wiki", but sometimes it's succinct info-pop
serves a purpose. Here is a link to Fort Sumter event. May I add that
I believe President Buchanan employed a more careful, reasonable hand
in the crisis than did the incoming President Lincoln. To be frank, I
think Buchanan was a better President than Lincoln, and do not believe
Lincoln would have done any better than Buchanan if he served during
those years. That is not to say Buchanan was a great President, he was not,
but that Lincoln was one of the worst Presidents, which is what I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter
 
Old 11-28-2014, 06:37 AM
 
2,687 posts, read 2,177,829 times
Reputation: 1478
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7 View Post
Yes, I understand that morality and legality are often not connected.
However, that observation is not germane to the legality of secession of states.
The United States was a nation of laws and powers as written in its Constitution,
and secession was not unconstitutional, neither is it today, although little of the laws
are observed today by the Federal government. South Carolina was not part of the
United States when it defended Fort Sumter against Lincoln's hostile fleet.
Here is a link describing briefly how Lincoln instigated the actual war (but not the secession), and another which talks about the Nullification Crisis and some other events in the secession outline.
My viewpoint is that war should have been avoided, but as I've said earlier,
if you believe that the impositions of an authoritarian Federal regime are more important
than the Constitution and it's intents, and more important than the lives of 620,000
some-odd men, their families and the beauty of what was built in the South and destroyed, then there is no point in having a conversation, with no point of basic agreement on the value of anything, nothing is to be said further.
Lincoln Provoked the War (Tulane.edu)
Secession (History.net)

p.s. I hate to post a link to "wiki", but sometimes it's succinct info-pop
serves a purpose. Here is a link to Fort Sumter event. May I add that
I believe President Buchanan employed a more careful, reasonable hand
in the crisis than did the incoming President Lincoln. To be frank, I
think Buchanan was a better President than Lincoln, and do not believe
Lincoln would have done any better than Buchanan if he served during
those years. That is not to say Buchanan was a great President, he was not,
but that Lincoln was one of the worst Presidents, which is what I believe.
Fort Sumter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
If Buchanan had known what Lincoln's plans were, he would have gone along with them. Buchanan's actions during the secession crisis had absolutely everything to do with the incoming Lincoln Administration's refusal to communicate with Buchanan and the Republican congress' refusal to give Buchanan the force bill he felt was required to use military force against the southern states.

Your dislike of Lincoln seems centered upon your basic opinion that secession was a legal act (even though it wasn't).

Madison as Speaker of the House when asked specifically about state sovereignty:

"The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. GERRY) asks if the sovereignty is not with the people at large; does he infer that the people can in detached bodies contravene an act established by the whole people? My idea of the sovereignty of the people is, that the people can change the Constitution if they please, but while the Constitution exists, they must conform themselves to its dictates. But I do not believe that the inhabitants of any district can speak the voice of the people: so far from it, their ideas may contradict the sense of the whole people."

Incidentally, that little exchange was during a discussion of the 9th Amendment. When it came to the 10th (the state-righters favorite) Madison and Gerry (the two guys who wrote it) specifically altered the language (most importantly, purposely removing the word "expressly") so the 10th Amendment would not be interpreted as limiting the powers of the federal government to those "expressly" enumerated in the Constitution--Madison wrote about changing the language:

"it was impossible to confine a Government to the exercise of express powers; there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the Constitution descended to recount every minutia."


Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention:

"It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all.”

Yes, obviously, well at least to most people.

Madison on the need for a Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation: The articles of Confederation were "a mere compact between independent sovereigns”

Madison again in Federalist 43:

“The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States, would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.”


Patrick Henry on why he opposed the Constitution:

Suppose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their government; can a majority of them do it? No; because they are connected with other men, or, in other words, consolidated with other states. When the people of Virginia, at a future day, shall wish to alter their government, though they should be unanimous in this desire, yet they may be prevented therefrom by a minority at the extremity of the United States.

The founders of your Constitution made your government changeable: but the power of changing it is gone from you. Whither is it gone? It is placed in the same hands that hold the rights of twelve other states; and those who hold those rights have right and power to keep them.

It is not the particular government of Virginia: one of the leading features of that government is that a majority can alter it, when necessary for the public good. This government is not a Virginian, but an American government. Is it not, therefore, a consolidated government?



Jefferson's first inaugural address:

“We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Chief Justice John Marshal:

"Reference has been made to the political situation of these states, anterior to [the Constitution's] formation. It has been said that they were sovereign, were completely independent, and were connected with each other only by a league. This is true. But, when these allied sovereigns converted their league into a government, when they converted their congress of ambassadors, deputed to deliberate on their common concerns, and to recommend measures of general utility, into a legislature, empowered to enact laws on the most interesting subjects, the whole character in which the states appear underwent a change."


The exchange of letters between Hamilton and Madison during the debate in New York over that state's secession "conditions" prove neither man believed in the legality of secession and neither thought the condition was legally valid or else the ratification itself would be considered invalid.

There can be little doubt whatsoever that the people who actually wrote the Constitution of the United States believed they were forming a consolidated nation-state with the same rights to maintain its territorial integrity as any other, not a loose confederation of independent nations.
 
Old 11-28-2014, 07:37 AM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,012,076 times
Reputation: 21237
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7 View Post
Yes, I understand that morality and legality are often not connected.
However, that observation is not germane to the legality of secession of states.
Look, the complete futility of arguing about a rebellion's legality has been explained to you, it is obviously a case where it is pragmatism uber alles, win and it is retroactively legal, lose and it was always illegal.

You seemed to have grasped this, but then turn around and go right back to this pointless argument about the legality of secession. If I declared myself the "Nation of Grandstander" and announced that as a consequence I no longer have to pay, Federal, state or municipal taxes, then I am in rebellion against the legally constituted authority. That I declared myself in secession makes not a whiff of difference as far as those authorities are concerned, does it?

So, I guess you don't understand after all. I reference you to my previous explanations.

Last edited by Grandstander; 11-28-2014 at 07:46 AM..
 
Old 11-28-2014, 07:57 AM
 
9,981 posts, read 8,552,790 times
Reputation: 5664
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
Look, the complete futility of arguing about a rebellion's legality has been explained to you, it is obviously a case where it is pragmatism uber alles, win and it is retroactively legal, lose and it was always illegal.

You seemed to have grasped this, but then turn around and go right back to this pointless argument about the legality of secession. If I declared myself the "Nation of Grandstander" and announced that as a consequence I no longer have to pay, Federal, state or municipal taxes, then I am in rebellion against the legally constituted authority. That I declared myself in secession makes not a whiff of difference as far as those authorities are concerned, does it?

So, I guess you don't understand after all. I reference you to my previous explanations.
None of which are valid or address the issue of State's Rights, nor the intent of the
Constitution, nor of what constitutes a Republic of the willing. Good Day.
 
Old 11-28-2014, 09:48 AM
 
Location: Peterborough, England
472 posts, read 922,811 times
Reputation: 416
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowball7 View Post
I left my post or two about what I think of Lincoln. I think he was a failure.

Which of his aims did he fail to achieve?
 
Old 11-28-2014, 10:06 AM
 
9,981 posts, read 8,552,790 times
Reputation: 5664
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikestone8 View Post
Which of his aims did he fail to achieve?
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:14 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top