Abe Lincoln: Worst President Ever?....

[redcliffsw]

This Judge is not even from the South!

[Warph]

Hell, even Abe Lincoln knew how to best play the hand fate dealt him.  While it's true that he was personally anti-slavery, he cared far more about preserving the Union.  It's true that in 1841, as a lawyer, he had argued the case of a freed black woman who was resisting being sold back into bondage.  On the other hand, in 1847, he fought just as hard while representing a slave owner who was demanding the return of runaway slaves.

Now, there's a lawyer for you.

Some people are under the impression that, one, Lincoln kicked off the Civil War by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and, two, that he thereby freed all the slaves.  Actually, the Emancipation came along two years into the War, in 1863, and it only emancipated the slaves held in the states of the Confederacy.  It did not include the 800,000 residing in the Border States of Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, West Virginia and Delaware.  It also didn't free those living in Tennessee, the city of New Orleans or 13 other parishes in Louisiana.  In fact, Lincoln regularly over-ruled Union generals who took it upon themselves to liberate slaves following those battles fought and won in the excluded territories.        http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html

It was to preserve the Union, not to free Uncle Tom or anyone else, that the Great Emancipator waged a war in which 10% of Northern males, ages 20-45, and 30% of Southern males, ages 18-40, were killed.  One can argue the merits and historical importance of the four-year blood bath, but facts are facts.  I'm sure most of us had relatives fight in the civil war.   

This isn't meant to slander Lincoln, but only to suggest that we shouldn't be too quick to swallow undiluted hogwash.  Sad as it seems, perhaps preserving the Union was worth the deaths of many civilians.  The estimate stated in "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians", from David Aikens, editor of "A City Laid Wate" ..... a total of 2 million dead, including the 620K military.... leaving about 1.4 million civilian dead, intuitively seems conservative.

One shouldn't forget that Lincoln was merely a lawyer and a politician, he was not a god and we'd be wise not to regard him or any other public official as the hero of some absurd fairy tale.  Which is exactly what we've done with Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, and now Obuma.  We've taken mere mortals and turned them into the stuff of legends.


.....Warph

[PrehistoricRez]

Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation as a means to send the blacks back to africa after the war.  The government could not send them back before the war because they were property, by freeing them, they were no longer property and therefore could be deported