Romanticization of the Civil War

it took quite a while, and some help from my electronic "self" to dig this up, and in a format available online - but finally, here it is.

The Hampton Roads Peace Conference: A Final Test of Lincoln's Presidential Leadership
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/21.1/harris.html

It rather blows a great big gaping hole in most of the arguments expressed that the civil war really had much if anything to do with slavery.

You can also find John Vensons capsule explaination here.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson6.html

One problem most history of the era runs into is the wild and bizarre contortions one must perform in trying to make Lincoln look like a decent guy despite his behavior being more of a mad tyrant than even Caligula ever was, and this requires whitewashing or omitting pesky things like facts and details.

-F

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
it took quite a while, and some help from my electronic "self" to dig this up, and in a format available online - but finally, here it is.

The Hampton Roads Peace Conference: A Final Test of Lincoln's Presidential Leadership
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/21.1/harris.html

It rather blows a great big gaping hole in most of the arguments expressed that the civil war really had much if anything to do with slavery.

You can also find John Vensons capsule explaination here.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson6.html

One problem most history of the era runs into is the wild and bizarre contortions one must perform in trying to make Lincoln look like a decent guy despite his behavior being more of a mad tyrant than even Caligula ever was, and this requires whitewashing or omitting pesky things like facts and details.

-F

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Ditto...

Happily , the FremBot never sleeps !

I have a favorite book concerning Lincoln and his record on Civil Liberties , which is pretty abysmal.

Searching for the Hardback is often worthwhile , as it is frequently available for less than the paperback edition :

http://www.amazon.com/Fate-Liberty-Abraham-Lincoln-Liberties/dp/019508
0327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271784266&sr=1-1




'...If Abraham Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator, he was also the only president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

Indeed, Lincoln's record on the Constitution and individual rights has fueled a century of debate, from charges that Democrats were singled out for harrassment to Gore Vidal's depiction of Lincoln as an "absolute dictator."

Now, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Fate of Liberty, one of America's leading authorities on Lincoln wades straight into this controversy, showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of Lincoln's constitutional policies.

Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events: the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, disintegrating public order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed.

...In addition, Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages. He finds that though the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of modern war.'

Reviews

"A thorough and meticulously documented study....Highlighted by more than thirty pages of well-researched endnotes, a comprehensive index, and an index of 'prisoners of state.' Highly recommended."--Choice

"An important book....[Neely's] research is broad and deep, not only in range of the usual primary materials but in a massive amount of sources in the National Archives on specific cases, hitherto unused."--Indiana Magazine of History

"An impressive work, finely written and carefully presented. An important contribution that will serve the undergraduate as well as [the] scholar."--Professor Dennis M. Shannon, Alabama University - Montgomery

"An in-depth summary of how Lincoln and his administration handled civil rights in the deepest crisis the nation has ever endured....A chilling reminder that personal liberty always hangs in tremulous balance when the nation is tangled in desperate crisis."--The Grand Rapids Press

"At last, some 125 years after the end o

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Frem, I disagree. Just as WWI was not about Hitler, the Civil War was not about Lincoln. Larger forces were at work. Reducing history to individuals is misleading.

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Erk, sorry, didn't mean it to come off that way - admittedly I have serious *issues* with "Honest" Abe, but I didn't mean for it to overshadow the rest of it - there were a hell of a lot of issues at work indeed, mostly economic, but a lot of social ones as well, and it's not like Lincoln was alone in pushing for the Federalist Oligarchy neither, and it gets REALLY complicated when you add in northern opposition to emancipation...

I did find it interesting that the offer to "buy them out" was made - and yes, that woulda gone pretty far cause as of 1808 the importation of new slaves was prohibited by law (not that this stopped it, but at least it deprived it of legitimacy), but that wasn't at all the "sticking point" with either side of the issue.

Anyhows, yes, I got a real hate-on for Lincoln, being originally a grudge-holding Marylander, but I didn't mean for that to overshadow the myriad causes and effects in both directions, combined with a stunning lack of honesty on both sides, which made the war as inevitable as the souths lack of industrial capacity made the outcome.

-F

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13 changes you may have missed about Spain’s new ‘Civil War’ law
https://www.thelocal.es/20230112/13-changes-you-may-have-missed-about-
spains-new-civil-war-law/

State control of Kansas City’s police has roots in the Civil War
https://dailyjournalonline.com/news/state-and-regional/state-control-o
f-kansas-city-s-police-has-roots-in-the-civil-war/article_252eb91d-f6ee-56c9-b280-9b2855cafac7.html

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Donald Trump is a maverick but jailing him could force a Civil War-like split in America

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1805244/nigel-farage-donald-tr
ump-maverick-civil-war-split

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Gettysburg: Fields of Valor

https://kotaku.com/games/gettysburg-fields-of-valor

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