Lincoln was not a good man............

I've gone around with you guys on this before and you're using these things out of context. While we can debate whether Lincoln was a "good man", the attempt to portray him as some kind of dedicated white supremacist is ludicrous. Lincoln was, by our standards, a racist, simply because virtually every white person back then was a racist. Frederick Douglass, in his assessment of Lincoln on the issue of race, said that while Lincoln was a man of his time, he was one of the best men of his time.

Your quote about political equality for African-Americans is a particularly ill suited choice to prove Lincoln's white supremacy. As I have explained elsewhere, Lincoln was first and foremost a politician. He was not above telling his audiences what he thought they wanted to hear. The quote you cite occurred during Lincoln's Senate race against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln and Douglas famously had a series of debates across the state, his performance in these debates helped make him a Presidential contender in 1860. The quote in question comes from a debate they held in southern Illinois. This region was known as "Little Egypt" because it had been settled mostly by transplanted Southerners, such as Lincoln himself. These people had a lot of sympathy for the South and slavery. Douglas, in an attempt to smear Lincoln, had been portraying his opponent as a supporter of complete social and political equality between blacks and whites, something which few white people supported and which would have been particularly unpopular in southern Illinois. Lincoln needed to rebut those charges if he wanted people's support for his senate bid. That is what you see here. Lincoln is denying that he favors full social and political equality. Remember, that at this time, freedom and political equality were not the same thing. Women, for example, were free, but they were not politically, socially, or legally equal to men. Lincoln remained an opponent of slavery, saying that he believed that African Americans deserved freedom and basic legal rights, but that they did not deserve the full political rights reserved for white men, and that they should not be considered the social equals of whites. The fact that Lincoln had to make this statement doesn't show that he was some dyed in the wool white supremacist. In fact it shows the opposite. Lincoln had to explicitly deny this accusation because he was seen as "soft" on the issue of white supremacy. Douglas' charge, that Lincoln believed in full racial equality, would have seemed plausible to racist whites for whom that issue mattered.

Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I don't think Hugo can track anything.

And like all rebel sympathizers and many Southern conservatives, you have either a selective or simply wrong view of history. The biggest issue in the country prior to the war was slavery. It was not tariffs or industrial policy. It was slavery. Members of Congress did not carry weapons to work over tariffs. Senators did not attack each other on the Senate floor after a speech on the subject of tariffs. South Carolina voted to secede immediately upon Lincoln's election. This was before Lincoln took office, and after a campaign in which Lincoln made few public statements. The reason that SC was upset enough to secede was that Lincoln was a Republican.

The Republican party was founded specifically to oppose slavery. The party's first candidate, John Freemont, very strongly and specifically supported abolition. His election slogan was "Free Land, Free Men, Fremont." Like any political party, the Republicans had a diversity of opinions on how to proceed. Some called for abolition. Some advocated less drastic measures. They all opposed slavery. The question was the best way to do so. Lincoln, being a masterful politician, was more realistic than idealistic on the issue. The 1860 Republican platform called for the prohibition of slavery into new territories. The result would have been more free states but no slave states entering the union, which would eventually result in the end of slavery. That is what many in the North thought, and what the South feared.

I do not know where you got the idea that Lincoln did not care about freeing the slaves, as he prepared the Emancipation Proclamation very early on, and waited for the North to achieve a significant victory to release it. This was Lincoln's idea and Lincoln's decision. Several of his cabinet members opposed the idea, some for the very reason that it would make the war about slavery. There is no question that the war provided an opportunity to resolve the slavery question once and for all, and Lincoln intended to make use of it.

I cannot imagine why you include the quote about negro soldiers, as it directly contradicts your argument. There is no question Lincoln approved of the confiscation of freed slaves in the South. There were several good military reasons for this. The first was that it deprived the South of significant manpower. Slaves were being used for manual labor and the like in Confederate armies. Further, having slaves leaving plantations made it much more difficult for Southern men to abandon their farms and fight, since there was no one left running the place. Many Union commanders immediately put many of the so-called contrabands to work, which they were happy to do. It gave them a means of supporting themselves. The quote you include demonstrates that Lincoln fully understood the implication of organizing these and other black men into military units. Frederick Douglas agreed:

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."

Contrary to your claim, these men were not drafted. They were volunteers. All of the USCT regiments were volunteer regiments. They amounted to about 180,000 men.

As for the other claims you make against Lincoln, all of these were military acts ordered by Union generals. Lincoln neither ordered them suggested them. Throughout the war, Lincoln was pretty good about leaving his generals to fight. Grant conducted the siege of Vicksburg, only after attempting to take it by force. It was an obvious military objective, as it was the last remaining Southern port on the Mississippi. Sherman torched cities. He did not ask permission. He personally ordered the destruction of Atlanta, the major industrial hub of the South, but a few others were not his idea. The troops burned Charleston, S.C. on their own. As the first state to secede, South Carolina carried a special place in the hearts of Union soldiers. Chapel Hill, NC actually burned down when locals set fire to cotton bales to prevent them from falling into Union hands. Sherman was right. War is hell. It was stupid of the South to provoke one.

Sorry you are one of those hate-filled Southerners who tries to rewrite history to his liking, but you might want to consider that the South would have been much better off had Lincoln not been killed. It likely would have recovered sooner, and Lincoln was strongly in favor of reconciliation. Most likely, stronger steps would have been taken to protect blacks in the South, which might well have prevented or at least discouraged Jim Crow laws, which kept the South backward and maligned for the next century, and from which states like Alabama and Mississippi still have not recovered.

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Posts like this amuse me more than they annoy. The only argument that the neo-Confederates can try making is that Lincoln and the Republicans were hypocrites. Presumably operating under the assumption that "hey, Southern Democrats seceded from the Union to preserve slavery - but at least they were honest!"

No one cares whether Lincoln was a "racist" or not. Compared against the Confederacy, he comes off looking pretty damned good. One side in this war ended slavery, albeit at terrible cost. The other tried to destroy the Union to preserve slavery.

The great war for Southern Independence is the most misunderstood in history.

Abe Lincoln was a socialist progressive and very far left during his time, but also ironically a Republican- because back in those days, Republicans were the liberals, and Democrats were Conservatives.

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I do not think Lincoln was a socialist progressive or even liberal because he did hold racist views. You are right when you say that Lincoln would not have freed a single slave if it meant saving the union. In fact, He would have moved the freed slaves to Africa or central America. In fact most in the anti-slavery movement wanted to relocate the former slaves outside the country.

The emancipation proclamation was issued only to keep Britain and France from recognizing Southern Independence. This act did not even touch slaves in the border slave states.

Most white southerners did not own slaves in fact some like Andrew Johnson despised the planter class that did own slaves. In fact the planter class did harm to both whites and blacks in the south.

Now There were many white southerners that supported the union and in fact fought for the union. There were many in the south that were not happy about succession. Many people in border slave states in fact felt that the fugitive slave of 1850 and Dred Scott decision were federal decisions that protected their interests.

Even if the Deep South had peacefully left the union it would not have been left alone. What would have happened anger in the North would lead to political victories for the radical republicans. they would repealed both the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 and overturned the Dred Scott decision. This would have lead to more slave revolts and runaways. Eventually this would lead to war between the north and south.

The border war begin years before the first shot in South Carolina.

http://www.amazon.com/Border-War-Fighting-Slavery-America/dp/1469606852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456461781&sr=8-1&keywords=border+war

Abe Lincoln was a socialist progressive and very far left during his time, but also ironically a Republican- because back in those days, Republicans were the liberals, and Democrats were Conservatives.