The Top 40

It's tough to separate the ignorant from the liars.

From Lincolns first inaugural address

" I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

3
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

And

"In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me 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 of force against or among the people anywhere"

Here, have someone read it to you
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

In other words he was fine with slavery but was willing to slaughter if the Feds didn't get their taxes.

The biggest mass murderer in the history of America.

It's tough to separate the ignorance from the liars.

From Lincolns first inaugural address

" I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

3
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

And

"In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me 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 of force against or among the people anywhere"

In other words he was fine with slavery but was willing to slaughter if the Feds didn't get their taxes.

The biggest mass murderer in the history of America.

Here we go again.
Lincoln felt himself bound by the Constitution and the DoI.
He opposed expansion of slavery into the territories which had not as yet become states.
He believed this opposition would eventually cause slavery to die out in the slave-states.
The seceding states wanted the territories converted into slave states so as to maintain there slave-based agricultural productivity and to increase their political power.
Seceding states went to war first, firing on Union facilities and commandeering Union facilities. Big mistake. Secessionists did not believe the North would fight back as tenaciously as they did, nor win if they did.
Widespread stupidity and amorality resulted in the 100's of 1000's of American dead.
To blame Lincoln as the prime cause of the war is to blame the main figure who was willing to allow slavery to slowly shrivel in the states where it existed, allowing the South time to adapt as another industrial region, investing its cotton/tobacco/rice profits in manufacturing.
For views on various causes of the war --
http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/553/why-did-the-southern-states-secede-from-the-u-s

Why stop with ending the obnoxious practices of several southern states when there is an entire world filled with backward states and hostile customs to correct? Oh wait.

Well-put, bilejones.

Stug, your enumeration of pseudo-facts is not only naive, but demonstrably false.

Most importantly, like most Americans who are raised on over a century of "history" written by the victors, you forget that wars are not necessarily started by the party who fires the first shot; they are started by the party that makes war inevitable in the first place. In this case, that award goes to Lincoln and his cronies in the north, who needed armed conflict to get the seceding agrarian States, which were funding some 60-75% of the federal government's crony capitalism, in line. As bilejones points out, Lincoln made this requirement quite clear in his first inaugural address. Keep ignoring it, but it's a matter of public record and it's critical to understanding what happened in 1861.

The seceding States did not "go to war", first or otherwise. This is nonsense. This idiotic fantasy that the South got pissed about the slavery issue, seceded on a Friday, and started shelling Fort Sumter the following Monday is just that: fantasy.

The initial seceding States did so peacefully, in response to what they knew was an impending economic decimation through tariffs aimed at agrarian regions - a concern that Lincoln went on to confirm in his first inaugural. In the locations (So. Carolina and Florida) where there was a conflict of interest regarding the disposition of property occupied by federal forts (i.e., Sumter and Pickens), separate agreements were negotiated between Buchanan's government and the States in question, agreements which kept the peace FOR MONTHS. Those agreements held that as long as the federal government did not try to reinforce the forts, no hostile action would be taken. (Note well: in the meantime, the federal government implemented formal, statutory protection for the institution of slavery, where it existed, via the Corwin Amendment, which was not unlike the protection afforded in the Confederate Constitution. That resolution had already been ratified by two States as the ORIGINAL Thirteenth Amendment by the time Lincoln's war rendered it moot.)

Once Lincoln was inaugurated, however, he wasted absolutely no time intentionally violating BOTH of these agreements, with the clear object of either controlling southern import/export (and associated tariff control) or inciting an armed response. He failed to get this response in the case of Pickens, because it was reinforced under the cover of darkness, but he succeeded in the case of Sumter, where the reinforcement was repelled pursuant to violation of the agreement.

Lincoln's decision to hide the documentary evidence surrounding this unconsitutional - criminal - violation from Congress was an early example of the same sort of "executive privilege" used by Obama to keep Holder out of jail for running the Fast & Furious false flag operation. This is documented fact and not subject to interpretation - Lincoln openly refers to the "quasi-armistice" in his response to Congress' demand for the documentation.

As a result of his success in eliciting an armed response to the federal incursion into Charleston Harbor, Lincoln unilaterally granted himself the authority - nowhere even hinted at in the Constitution - to raise an army and invade the seceding States. Note: even with the shelling of Sumter, Lincoln could easily have chosen to avoid further conflict; that he did not makes his intention perfectly clear. Either way, this act prompted further secession by additional States. They did not "go to war", as you claim; they were forced to defend themselves from an invading force, which is why the conflict is more properly referred to as The War of Northern Aggression.

Lincoln's actions during this time - in addition to the fact that he was personally responsible for over one million Americans killed or seriously wounded in the war he provoked and then chose to wage for years - mark the effective end of the republic as it was originally founded. The FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION that occurred during the ensuing years, which saw the implementation of "American System" economics policies, the elimination of State sovereignty and the conscription of the People into a "national citizenry", laid the groundwork for every ill presently destroying this nation. We are taught - no, REQUIRED - to revere Lincoln for one reason: so that no one questions the shattered republic and the leviathan monstrosity his criminal actions left in their wake.

Note well: Lincoln never took an oath to "save the union"; he took an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." In fact, he completely ignored the Constitution at every possible opportunity - using the war he provoked as the ongoing excuse - and, meanwhile, destroyed the union and replaced it with an empire. That empire has been ruled from D.C. ever since, through the manipulation of the People using the illusion of "democracy", the tactics of divide-and-conquer, and the lingering threat of military force.

Does anyone find it odd that the slavery of Socialism as promoted by Obama might undo what Lincoln fought to preserve.

The political sundering of America today isn't by "Parties" but by irreconcilable ideologies.

As Fat Man remarked elsewhere: some commenters here have gotten pretty rancid.

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

The slavery issue was the primary cause for secession, as stated by South Carolina, first of the seceding states, in their Declaration of Causes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Immediate_Causes_Which_Induce_and_Justify_the_Secession_of_South_Carolina_from_the_Federal_Union

IMHO any state has a constitutional right, 10th Amendment, to secede.
Lincoln, taking the oath of office, required him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and so to permit secession. Fort Sumter made the deadly difference, ignited the fuse, rightly or wrongly.

We are where we are now. What are we going to do about it? Who's the next leader for us to be wary of?

Hale Adams comes stomping in with his pussy boots again.
Stug, you need to dig a little deeper than the cheap slavery thing they wrapped around your neck at birth. It's out there, the truth that is, but they've spent more'n a hundred years hiding it.

If one reads some of the writings of Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune, wrote at great length of how the Yankees treated the Nigras in New York City before and during the Civil War. They shot and hanged them. So much for sensitivity and caring for the poor darkie.

States Rights were the driving force for the Civil War. The railroads were going west and the control of the land through which they passed meant money to the likes of Harriman and Gould and other railroad tycoons. Ah, yes the Shadow Government at work. If those rail-bed right of ways couldn't be controlled if the new states came in as "slave" states. the "Missouri Compromise" was only a temporary solution. What good would all that money be if it couldn't buy outcomes of an election. (Look up the history of New York and the Railroad Magnates)

The handwriting was on the wall for slavery; it might have lasted another 15 years. The Industrial Age would overtake it, making it cheaper to farm by machine than with labor. Slave labor isn't free labor anyway. Think that through for a moment and you realize that is costs to house, feed, and clothe the slave. Why bother when a tractor and a piece of machinery is cheaper than 10 to 20 slaves.

And if Lincoln really had the slaves well being at heart, he could have repatriated them back to their families, home countries, armed them and let them kill the sumbitches that sent them here in the first place.

Small correction, Woodchuck. Irish are not Yankees, even less so then.

Stug - like most thoroughly indoctrinated Lincoln apologists (note: this is no failing of yours, unless you refuse to objectively examine it), you have employed the standard fallacy of speciously conflating the southern States' LEGAL JUSTIFICATION for secession and their existential imperative to free themselves of an increasingly hostile federal government and the influence of northern industrial factions which had actively sought to decimate them economically going at least as far back as 1832. That legal justification accurately cited the unequivocal violation of the Constitution's Article IV, Sec. 2, Para. 3 by several of the northern States and, with its subsequent inaction to prosecute that violation which amounted to nothing less than complicity, that of the federal government itself.

Yes, Sumter was used as Lincoln's excuse for war. In that he knowingly violated standing agreements which - as already mentioned - had kept the peace FOR MONTHS, Lincoln is unquestionably the one single individual most responsible for "lighting the fuse", as you put it, which led to an explosion that not only killed or maimed over one million Americans but, perhaps more egregiously, sentenced generations and hundreds of millions of Americans to the oppression of a corrupt, increasingly omnipotent state, in the form of the federal empire his criminal actions produced. As noted, even AFTER Sumter, Lincoln had the option not to use military force to invade the agrarian South; that he did not choose that option - and, furthermore, went on to HIDE from Congress the documentary evidence of his willful violation and abuse of executive authority - makes crystal clear his intentions, especially when considered in the context of the primary issue on which he campaigned, his first inaugural address and the overarching conflict of the time, which was economics, not altruism.

As Woodchuck (IMHO) correctly observes, the institution of slavery had no future and northerners, as a group, had no particular respect for blacks, free or slave. In early 1861, following the first wave of secession, the mayor of NYC famously advocated for secession of the city from the "Union". But of course - as was the case everywhere - his motives had little to do with States' rights, per se, and everything to do with the economics of his city, which had grown rich doing business with the agrarian South. Either way, without the protectionist federal tariffs demanded by Whigs and their ilk, which kept both the price of steel and the cost of manufactured imports artificially high in the agrarian States, the replacement of slave labor with automated machinery would have proceeded more readily.

In case anyone wonders why I personally have such a strong reaction to the ongoing deification of and genuflection toward Lincoln (read: toward the omnipotent state he left in his wake), please feel free to see my reply to james wilson's comment, which is posted here.

... and as regards the ever-lingering threat of military force, which the federal government has used for over 150 years in order to maintain control ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RILDjo4EXV8&feature=youtu.be&t=14m23s

@Goy, good stuff right there, your comment to James Willson. I'm going to be frequenting your site, mostly watching I presume. I too read Tom DiLorenzo (linked from Lew Rockwells site) that led to the revealing of the truth about Lincoln that shook my foundation for a bit. Up to that point it's doubtful anyone had consumed more written word about Lincoln than I and to see it all unravel with TRUTH was crushing. Then I got angry. That the *system* was so tightly meshed that the truth could be so deeply concealed. Even now I am embarrassed that I had been convinced that the slavery of *2/3 people* could cause millions to take up arms against each other. I was born at the Carlisle War College, raised in Gettysburg, and spent my childhood running the fields and bothering the museum curators and learning everything I could lay my hands on about Lincoln, The Northern War of Aggression, and slavery. Even though I was a Pennsylvania *yankee* I sided with the *rebels*. As a rule I want good news fast and bad news even faster.

@ghostsniper - FWIW, I won't likely be posting much on that blog anymore. As you can see, it hasn't been updated in almost a year, including having completely missed the blog's ten-year anniversary (last Feb.). The "goy's picks" links off to the right say pretty much all I have to say on this and other subjects. These days I just end up repeating myself, i.e., Lincoln laid the foundation for the omnipotent state, the "left" has seized control of that state, and until those who ought to know better quit their partisan sniping, get off their asses and do something about the root of the problem, the U.S. will continue on its path to collapse.

On this topic, if you haven't, get a copy of J.S. Tilley's "Lincoln Takes Command". IIRC, DiLorenzo and others use this meticulously referenced work in much of their writing. Tilley does an artful job of laying out the full sequence of events leading up to Sumter, including the inconvenient details the federal government and the statists at Wikipedia would prefer you never learn about. He uses first sources and the public record - including Lincoln's own words and official communiques - to reveal the nature of the false narrative we've all been raised on. It should be required reading in every high school and college U.S. History course.

Re tariffs and myths, at
http://deadconfederates.com/2013/02/24/walter-e-williams-polishes-the-turd-on-tariffs/

wherein it's shown from 1850's--1860 official records that about 70% of tariff collections were being made at northern ports, mainly NY. DiLorenzo misstated the case by placing that percentage at Southern ports and thereby making the then tariff situation confusing to his readers.

No wonder the seceding states make no mention of tariffs in their rationales for secession, which in some cases went without legal justification, following the pattern of the DoI.

http://deadconfederates.com/causes-of-secession

@Goy, I'll get that book.
@Stug, Normalcy Bias runs deep.
The truth is there, if you can accept it.
Most prefer the blue pill.

Stug - Andy Hall would like to pretend that the Crisis of 1832 never occurred, apparently. And his straw man handily (SWIDT?) ignores the fact that the projected revenue from Morrill, which Lincoln clearly declared sacrosanct in his first inaugural, was the turning point for the South - just as it had been with the Tariff of Abominations 30 years prior - not the cherry-picked sum of "tarrifs paid at New York in 1859".

Hall also completely glosses over what tariffs are and who ultimately pays them. Yes, they're paid by "merchants doing the importing". That, of course, INCREASES THE COST OF THOSE IMPORTED GOODS TO THE CONSUMER.

Along these lines, another inconvenient detail Hall chooses to overlook is that while imports may have been received and paid for at "New York Shipping ports", the fact is that NYC got rich and fat doing an enormous amount of business with the South, WHO PAID THE INCREASED COST OF THOSE GOODS AS A RESULT. Anyone doubting this need only review the incident surrounding NYC's brief flirtation with secession, which was all about economics, not "slavery".

Anyway, it looks like you've searched long and hard, and found a "resource" that supports your continued choice to conflate legal justification with rationale. The two are not the same in this case, nor do they need to be the same. The rationale for jailing Al Capone was that he was a murderous criminal; the legal justification was... "tax evasion". Please do yourself a favor and learn to spot the difference.