Korwyn Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 12:30AM

You really love Clinton huh?
I cant imagine who you thought was better. The idiot after him was nothing but a puppet and a stooge...literally a stooge. What with all the nick names and blank looks like he just got poked in the eye by Moe.... Clinton knew how to run the country. At least Senior gave a shit about the country which probably didn't help his chances for re election.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 12:43AM

Try watchin this [www.youtube.com] and tell me you'll look at any US president, their stances, doctrines and legacies in the same light ever again.

Just a hint, but if you do, you've obviously missed the point.

Those who portray Lincoln as some shining example are poor students of constitutional history. Stop reading the fluff that is only revisionist history, the truth tells a far different tale than what we've been sold.

BTW, no whinin, yeah it's almost 4-1/2hrs long, but investing in knowledge is always worth the time

Lexx Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 01:46AM

At least when Clinton was caught lying he took accountability for it and apologized.

woberto Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 07:12AM

Kim, help me out here.

Ignoring the Templar sword and the randomness of this pic/post...
...what did the Confederate Army "stand for"?
In the rest of the world, believe it or not, the American Civil War is an insignificant stoush.
The pop-culture derived accepted version of events is that the Confederates were pro slavery and the Union Army was anti-slavery.
No educated person buys that simple analogy.
SO if the Union Army were acting out Lincoln's words to "preserve the union" then the Confederates must have simply opposed the United States. Nothing to do with slavery.
So what was their goal?
What was a Confederate soldier's motivation to kill his fellow countryman?
I think I know Lincoln's goal (and now I haven't watched the full video yet).

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 11:08AM

Woberto
" What was a Confederate soldier's motivation to kill his fellow countryman? "

We may never really know what motivated a confederate soldier to kill his fellow countryman and brothers. I imagine the reasons were many and varied. I agree it wasn't simply slavery because most people who fought couldn't afford slaves so why did they fight?

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 04:15PM

Great questions 'berto, and I'll do my best to address 'em.

It may well be that in other parts of the world our civil war is regarded with less impact or importance than many here assign it, and understandably so, since it was "our" war and not your countrys or anyone elses.

Here however it's impacts were huge, both socially as well as in terms of blood and treasure. As a means of intensity and ferocity of the war itself, there were numerous single battles where the number of dead outpaced the number of soldiers killed in the entire Vietnamese action and indeed many multiples of the dead from our recent actions in Iran and Afganistan (<-note the term action instead of war regarding these as they were never declared as wars by any but those in total denial of what constitutionally enacted wars entail, but I digress).

In fact, only after the actions in Viet Nam did the number of American troops killed in all declared and undeclared wars reach the number lost in the civil war alone, which was over 500,000.

The basis for the war itself is commonly and fallaciously understood to be over slavery, as you mentioned, yet this was not the primary driver of the secession by the southern states and the eventual formation of the Confederate States of America.

Though such data is overlooked or swept under the rug in discussions of the war, at the time of the souths secession, slavery was legal in the US, though support for it had waned significantly over time, most especially in the northern states. Another overlooked idea is that fewer than 30% of all southerners were themselves slave owners. With these 2 examples alone it's quite a stretch to envision or equate slavery as the heart of the civil war.

So what did lie at the heart of the states secession?

Central to much of it was the concept of states rights under the Constitution, with the core issue in this debate revolving primarily in regards to slavery.

From 1800 to the civil wars onset there had been ongoing western expansion with the addition of many new territories and states and those in the north opposed to the idea of slavery, which again was still legal, lobbied for the practice of slavery to be outlawed in these areas. This lead many southerners to feel as if this was also a move to keep them from being included in this westward expansion since if they were slave owners they would not be allowed the same rights in the new territories as they held in their home states.

Another looming issue that dominated the politics of the south was a series of tariffs federally enacted which disproportionately effected the southern states, which coupled with an economic collapse of that time provided a double whammy effect to the economy in the south.

Though it wasn't an actual cause of the civil war or secession by the southern states, there was also a huge and undeniable social divide between the north and south. While the northern states had agricultural concerns, most of what brought on expansion and growth in the north was industry and manufacturing, while the south was mostly an agrarian economy with the bulk of their industry having been situated along the coastal areas to improve trade opportunities for their manufactured goods.

Prior to Lincolns election as president there had been a redistricting apportionment of the electoral college votes that by virtue of the more concentrated population in the north had essentially given the smaller land area of the northern states a disproportionate amount of political power over the larger, but less populated southern states. This lead many in the south who already saw northern states ideologies as counter to southern states needs to feel this was now being further pushed upon them as their legal representation in congress was also effectively being undermined as well, leaving then little course for legislative redress.

Kind of the straw that broke the camels back was when Lincoln was elected president even though he had failed to even secure enough backing to have been included on the ballot in 7 of the southern states. This lead to a now solid feeling in the southern states that their political will had been totally undermined and only further entrenched in the minds of most southerners that their secession had indeed been justified.

You asked what lead Confederate soldiers to fight against their fellow Americans and that's a REALLY great question, most especially in a war that literally often pitted friends and family members against one another in mortal combat.

The overwhelming issues of social divide, disproportionate taxational impacts and elective under representation lead to a very similar sentiment in the southern states as what the American colonies had felt in the revolutionary war, which was further compounded by Lincolns decisions to selectively suspend the writ of habeas corpus with a pointed intention of aiming this again very pointedly towards the southern interests, or any support of those interests.

The southern states had decided, as had the original colonies, that their needs were not being met by the US government and that their way of life and society were under attack by an overbearing system of government. Using the rights enumerated to the states they seceded from the union and the rest is history.

One last item certainly worth mentioning here however is that the confederate troops were fighting for the freedom from governmental oppression and indeed for the freedoms they envisioned the US Constitution had entitled them to, and to which they felt deprived of, essentially aligning them with various other "freedom fighters" before and since. This gave them a particularly powerful resolve and emotional advantage in their struggle, something many historians and northern military sources would note as an overwhelming tenacity by the confederate troops even when faced with overwhelming troop strengths and weaponry.

The union soldiers however were fighting for their governments policies while also fueled by propaganda and a sense of empowered moral righteousness stemming from that propaganda that they were fighting to free the slaves from their oppression (<-sounds very similar to many claims since that time made by other US war mongerers dudn it?) Secondly, many of the troops swelling the ranks of the union army were relative newcomers to America who had no particular dog in the fight, yet were granted citizenry, cash bonuses and a way to support themselves in their new country, which does not equate to the same level of resolve the confederate troops had comparatively.

This was also another fundamental difference in how both armies individually viewed the conflict.

Recent events in the US leave many of us feeling as if secession again might be the only answer to escape the nonsensical governmental interventions, police state tactics and social divide differences that exist today between the northern and southern societies.

And .... I can damned well betcha if it comes to that THIS Texan will be right there in the thick of it, 'cause I've had all of this fucked up US govt. I want

woberto Report This Comment
Date: November 02, 2013 10:18PM

Thanks Kim.
Obviously I can look this up on the interweb or even better at the library but I wanted a real person's opinion.
What I learned over the years about your civil war always brought me back to "No taxation without representation".
I believe that started with the British migrants in Amrerica and from then on it gets overly political as you have explained.
No disrespect but perhaps Lincoln was just an opportunist?
I think he genuinely believed in those things he campaigned for but I now have doubts.
He was one of for Presidents that were members of the Whig Party and to quote wikipedia
"the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the Presidency
and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism".

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: November 03, 2013 05:03AM

Lincoln was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of 'em. He was an admittedly self taught man and in many ways was extremely wise, yet almost "common" in many of his mannerisms too, which made him endearing to many people.

He also was an immaculate and crafty politician who presided over one of the saddest times in our history, while also enduring some of the most troubling personal issues known to any man who ever lived on top of that.

I do think he absolutely believed in his righteousness on the issue of slavery and utilized it as a tool to unite the north against the south, while effectively down playing the issues the southern states really held forth as their basis for secession.

Indepth study of how he turned the tide in congress to adopt the freedom of the slaves legislatively, when the bulk of the legislature was actually initially against it reveals all the arm twisting, back room dealings, paybacks/payoffs and all other manner of similar nasty political trickery most everyone knows, yet similarly despises about how politics works.

All that having been said I'd heartily agree he indeed was an opportunist

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: November 03, 2013 11:24AM

All the knowledge on this site is evident, and Mr Kim is a real wordsmith, but I have a question which has puzzled me for years. There is a belief by some that if Lincoln had lived he had plans to ship all the slaves back to Africa. Is there any truth to that rumor or is it just something that can never be proven one way or the other? Some believe that is the reason he was killed.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: November 03, 2013 02:26PM

Not really sure but I doubt there would ever have been a move to repatriate the slaves to Africa on a national level. The economics of it alone would have been a really hard sell with a country in such shambles economically reeling from the civil wars costs.

My study shows John Wilkes Booth as simply a hard core southern sympathizer who held a deep seated hatred for the norths near total destruction of the south over the course of the war. This, coupled with his own opinion (and many others opinion, this author included) that the south had rightfully legally seceded from the union and that the US had unlawfully imposed their will militarily upon the confederacy for having done so left him filled with such an intense hatred after the south lost that he chose to eliminate the most stark figurehead of those actions, which of course was Lincoln

quasi Report This Comment
Date: November 03, 2013 10:13PM

Lincoln wasn't the only target for assassination that night - the Vice President and Secretary of State were also supposed to be killed by co-conspirators of Booth in an effort to throw the government into chaos. The attempt on the Vice President was not carried out while the Secretary of State was stabbed multiple times but survived.

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: November 04, 2013 01:23PM

Any idea what this country would look like today had the south won the war?

BlahX3 Report This Comment
Date: November 04, 2013 08:12PM

jgoins Report This Comment
Date: November 05, 2013 12:51PM

That's be ok, picking and grinin on the porch.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: November 08, 2013 09:48AM

Just now saw this and haven't had time to check it's veracity, but.........




Abraham Lincoln only won 39.8 percent of the popular vote in his first presidential victory, and used a questionable tactic to help win his second. In fact, since 1820, the last year an essentially uncontested election was held, most presidential elections have been extremely close. Only four presidents received more than 60 percent of the vote, nine elections saw a candidate win between 55 and 60 percent of the vote, and candidates who received less than 50 percent of the vote have won 18 presidential elections:

"He was the luckiest man to run for president: He won with only 39.8 percent of the popular votes cast -- the smallest percentage ever recorded. He had no help from his running mate: he only met his vice president Hannibal Hamlin on Election Day. How did Abra­ham Lincoln manage to win?

"The remaining 60.2 percent was split among three other candidates: Stephen A. Douglas (29 percent), John C. Breckenridge (18 percent), and John Bell (13 per­cent). Had it not been for the presence of two 'third-party' candidates -- Breckenridge and Bell -- Lincoln might not have been elected. (In that year there were four candidates because each of the two parties had nominated an upstart South­ern candidate as well as an official North­ern one.) Says the historian Jay Winik: Lincoln's victory 'was in many ways a fluke and nothing more.'

"Naturally, lacking a strong 'popular mandate,' Lincoln had a difficult time leading the country. In 1864, with the Civil War going badly, Lincoln made preparations to go home, fully expecting General George McClellan to be his suc­cessor. ... Observes the historian James McPherson, 'If the election had been held in August 1864 in­stead of November, Lincoln would have lost.' ...

"In the middle of an unexpectedly long war that had -- in Walt Whitman's memo­rable words -- turned the nation into 'one vast central hospital,' the president needed all the help he could get in his fal­tering reelection bid. His primary support came from soldiers and those who contin­ued to believe in the war.

"Of the twenty-five states of the Union, only fourteen permitted soldiers to vote in the state they happened to be in while fighting. Soldiers from the remaining eleven states would be out of luck be­cause they were not home. One of the critical states was Indiana. The state's Re­publican governor went to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and told him that without the support of Indiana's fifteen thousand soldiers, Lincoln would lose. How about giving the soldiers 'sick leave' so they could come home to vote?

"A letter immediately went out, signed by the president, to General William Tecumseh Sherman: 'Indiana is the only important State victory in October, whose soldiers cannot vote in the field. Anything you can do to let her soldiers, or any part of them, go home to vote at the State election will be greatly in point.' Never in the history of warfare had soldiers been permitted to go home to vote, thought Sherman when he read the letter, but then, this was different. 'Our armies van­ish before our eyes and it is useless to complain,' he wrote his wife, 'because the election is more important than the war.' (He also knew if Lincoln lost, he would be out of a job.] ...

"The Democrats were furious when they heard what Lincoln had done, but there was nothing they could do, lest it impugn the patriotism of their fighting men. They became even more frustrated when they saw what happened on Election Day. From every direction, thousands of sol­diers got off the train to vote and sweep Lincoln to victory. Exactly who these thousands of troops were, nobody could be sure. It was, in the words of one histo­rian, 'the day that Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio voted in Indiana.' "

Author: Seymour Morris Jr.
Title: American History Revisited