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The Worst President in US History

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adrock3215

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I understand. Certainly. But though I agree with you that ideas, that is, an integrated philosophy, SHOULD be primary, it is often not. People frequently vote their pocketbooks, not who will protect their freedoms, etc. Kings have often gone to war strictly for property. Would you say such wars are based on ideas or economics?

Fundamentally, ideas. Why do the kings value the property in a given instance?

Islamic fanatics, for instance, are willing to wage jihad in order to cow populations into submitting to Islam, not in order to fill their pocketbooks.

Also, saying that "an integrated philosophy, SHOULD be primary" was not my claim. People with horribly misintegrated or disintegrated ideas still act on those ideas.

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Fundamentally, ideas. Why do the kings value the property in a given instance?
Yes, there's a reason. But they go to war for the property, not for the reason they want the property.

People that steal, don't steal for a specific reason. They want the stolen money for a reason. But they steal because they want the money. Certainly you can take it down to the root. But that is an antecedant cause, not a direct cause. Or are you claiming the "want" is the idea they are fighting for or stealing for, and not the money itself? Or in other values, it's not the food they are stealing or fighting for, it's the idea of having the food or getting the food?

Islamic fanatics, for instance, are willing to wage jihad in order to cow populations into submitting to Islam, not in order to fill their pocketbooks.
Take away their supposed reward after death, and the rewards to their families, how many would be? Edited by HP11
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Yes, there's a reason. But they go to war for the property, not for the reason they want the property.

People that steal, don't steal for a specific reason. They want the stolen money for a reason. But they steal because they want the money. Certainly you can take it down to the root. But that is an antecedant cause, not a direct cause. Or are you claiming the "want" is the idea they are fighting for or stealing for, and not the money itself? Or in other values, it's not the food they are stealing or fighting for, it's the idea of having the food or getting the food?

Take away their supposed reward after death, and the rewards to their families, how many would be?

Muslims like bin Laden would be far richer if they didn't wage war. Islamic countries would be far richer if they adopted western-style governments, rather than fighting vehemently against them.

The fact that Islamic totalitarians believe they will win a reward in heaven is philosophical; it presupposes belief in the supernatural. I don't really see the tie to economics.

If what you mean to illustrate by that example is the fact that everyone who fights a war fights due to some kind of motivation, I agree with you. However, people's philosophical ideas (implicit or explicit) give them their motivations.

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However, people's philosophical ideas (implicit or explicit) give them their motivations.

I agree 100% with your assessment. But I am asking as a side question to this, what do you think the philosophic idea behind the Iraq War is? If one listened to everything the politicians said, it would be the "promoting of democracy," but perhaps this is just a superficial answer.

DarkWaters: Your point is noted. I am picking up a few books on Lincoln to give this subject more thought. You may be right.

Edited by adrock3215
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I agree 100% with your assessment. But I am asking as a side question to this, what do you think the philosophic idea behind the Iraq War is? If one listened to everything the politicians said, it would be the "promoting of democracy," but perhaps this is just a superficial answer.

This probably is the motivation. Sure, politicians often lie about their real motivations, but I'm inclined to believe Bush et. al, given the actions he's taken in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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[W]hat do you think the philosophic idea behind the Iraq War is? If one listened to everything the politicians said, it would be the "promoting of democracy," but perhaps this is just a superficial answer.

I believe this question was directed at LaszloWalrus, but I thought that I would share my opinion anyway. Needless to say, this is not the purpose of this thread, so I will elicit a succinct response.

Even if the primary motivation to invade Iraq was initially the misbegotten fears that Saddam possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the motive to stay in Iraq (and Afghanistan) is to secure and promote Democracy throughout the Middle East. The morality and necessity of this is an integral part of Neoconservative thought, which has been wholeheartedly embraced by the Bush Administration.

DarkWaters: Your point is noted. I am picking up a few books on Lincoln to give this subject more thought. You may be right.

Great! Please let me know what you find.

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Even if the primary motivation to invade Iraq was initially the misbegotten fears that Saddam possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the motive to stay in Iraq (and Afghanistan) is to secure and promote Democracy throughout the Middle East. The morality and necessity of this is an integral part of Neoconservative thought, which has been wholeheartedly embraced by the Bush Administration.

It seems to me the primary motivation was the understanding that Saddam had bribed a good number of Eurasian politicians, enticed particularly the French, Russians and Chinese with lucrative business opportunities and had secured a path to ending the sanctions against him. It is clear from the evidence that Saddam was playing a balancing act, trying to abide by UN resolutions to secure a lifting of sanctions, but also trying to keep Iran (and thus the rest of world) guessing about WMD. He had visited Niger in 1999 seeking Uranium ore, according to Amb. Wilson, and he had maintained the personnel infrastructure with the intent to resume WMD production once he regained sovereignty of Iraq. (Iraq was still technically at war with U.S. coalition under the ceasefire agreement of 1991.)

The evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda tie is not strong, but it is noteworthy that bin Laden's 1998 fatwa declaring war against the U.S. does not even mention the usual reasons for hating the U.S., i.e., Palestinians and barely mentions the U.S. presence in Saudi, but mentions Iraq prominently three times. Why would bin Laden openly ally himself with Iraq in a declaration of war against the U.S. if there was no relationship with Saddam, who was already at war with the U.S.? Add in the facts that Iraq was heavily involved in the first WTC attack in 1993, and an assassination attempt against Bush 41 the same year, and you have a colinearity between Iraq and al Qaeda too strong to ignore. Given Saddam's past use of WMD and his open support of international terrorism ($14k to family of each Palestinian suicide bomber), and you have a situation of potential state-sponsored terrorism (i.e., intentional attacks against civilian targets) on a huge scale.

It is also possible that we got wind of an Iranian plan to invade Iraq once WMD were ruled out. If they had gone in and established forces there, it would have been extremely expensive in $ and lives to drive them back out, especially if they were joined by the large Shi'ite population (17 out of 27 million total Iraqis), newly freed from the barbaric Sunni/Ba'ath rule. We saw defeat of Saddam as a relatively low risk venture (no more than 10 thousand casualties, if I remember correctly the estimates), and that would have been much preferable to dealing with an entrenched Iran/Shi'ite force.

Bush had no choice but to subvert the course of the U.N. conciliators and to force Saddam out of power. Those who say we could have contained him (indefinitely, apparently) ignore the facts and context of the situation.

On a higher level, the prime motivator was stability of the oil supply. Had Saddam returned to power and allied himself with the Sunni al Qaeda, remember who bin Ladin's enemy is, and who Saddam's enemy is. Had war broken out between Iraq and Iran and/or between Iraq and Saudi, the oil supply would have suffered a major pinch and our economy would have been hit hard. Had Iran moved on a weak Iraq, the situation would have been equally difficult.

Democracy in ME was a cover story, a quaint, "oh, by the way, look what else you get..." ploy. The ME is Muslim, which literally means "submission" and there is no reason to believe that even under true democratic conditions they would choose anything but Islam and sharia. Democracy, as a tool of freedom, is not an end in itself, but a means to the end of individual rights, which are wholly and fundamentally contradictory to the tenets of Islam.

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On the other hand, Southern secessionism insisted that they had the "right" to secede from the Union regardless of the context. Since one of the primary motivating factors was to maintain chattel slavery, this made the South significantly worse than the North in my opinion.

If I remember my history, Lincoln "freed the slaves" only when France was about to help the South. Emancipation was ultimately a politically, not philosophically, motivated act. If I remember a little more, the Emancipation Proclamation specifically exempted Northern border states.

Aah, yes:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension|, Assumption|, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

So, I'm interested in exactly how you will defend the morality of a man who "frees" slaves in states not under his control (as if), but maintains slavery in states and territories still under his control.

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So, I'm interested in exactly how you will defend the morality of a man who "frees" slaves in states not under his control (as if), but maintains slavery in states and territories still under his control.

Because when the war was over, all of the slaves were freed thanks to the Lincoln Administration. Evidently these exceptions in his rhetoric were not taken seriously.

Edited by DarkWaters
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So, I'm interested in exactly how you will defend the morality of a man who "frees" slaves in states not under his control (as if), but maintains slavery in states and territories still under his control.

Ah yes, that hoary old chestnut, completely ignoring the political realities of the time. First of all, slavery was still constitutional in states allowing it after the southern slave states seceded, and freeing the slaves in the border states would have been legally speaking an unconstitutional seizure of property--but the property of rebels was forfeit once it was captured. For example, Lincoln had pushed hard in 1862 for a program of compensated emancipation in Delaware, which had fewer than 1800 slaves at the time, and even there there was so much resistance that the Republicans decided not to put the measure up to a vote in the state legislature. Lincoln accepted the fact that the ultimate disposition of slavery would have to be by legislative enactment, not executive order, and it could only be prohibited in loyal states by the legislature (either state or national--in most of the border states and in Tennessee the slaves were freed through state acts; the slaves in Kentucky were freed by the 13th Amendment.) On the other hand, the Emancipation Proclamation did free all slaves in territories captured by Union armies after it was issued as well as all slaves who had escaped behind Union lines, which meant most of the slaves eventually were freed by it, since the disposition of captured rebel property was his prerogative as Commander in Chief. The Proclamation did not free the slaves in parts of the South that had already been captured because of the prohibition on ex post facto law.

To answer your question then, easy: Lincoln took what actions he could that were in accordance with the Constitution and recognized rights of property, however wrong they might have been in the case of slavery, to free those slaves he actually had constituted authority to free. Any moral judgment of Lincoln that ignores this fact is nugatory. More generally, it always amuses me when Lincoln-bashers argue essentially that Lincoln was immoral because he violated the Constitution in the case of habeas corpus and more generally helped establish statism, but was also immoral in the case of slavery because he did not violate the Constitution or ride roughshod over legality.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Too many posters here are trying to give Lincoln a free pass on his hypocritical stance on slaves in the North, etc. Here's a reality check; Lincoln goofed up. The objective thing to do is to admit it. Sheesh, It's glaring right in front of you re history! He also helped to establish the powers of the Federal government like no President had before him. Do not fear the truth out of a zealous opinion.

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Too many posters here are trying to give Lincoln a free pass on his hypocritical stance on slaves in the North, etc. Here's a reality check; Lincoln goofed up. The objective thing to do is to admit it. Sheesh, It's glaring right in front of you re history! He also helped to establish the powers of the Federal government like no President had before him. Do not fear the truth out of a zealous opinion.

You haven't said the least little thing calling into question any of the points I made; all you are doing is repeating your zealous opinions, nothing more. Here's a reality check for you: Lincoln had the authority to free captured slaves of rebels; he did not have the authority to free the slaves in the northern states--only the state and national legislatures had such authority. The example of compensated emancipation in Delaware shows quite well that Lincoln was no hypocrite--he did what he could to free the slaves in the North, but this was back in the day before the executive branch had amassed all the powers it has today, and by which standard you seem implicitly to be judging him (ironically indeed, since that's precisely why you attack him as a big government statist in the first place), but since the Delaware legislature would not have gone along with his plans he had to back down. (You might consider too the Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 that ended slavery in the District of Columbia and the 1862 legislation ending slavery in the territories--Lincoln supported these, but again they could only be undertaken by legislative action. You also might want to take into account Lincoln's efforts in 1862 to introduce into Congress an act of compensated emancipation for all the north, for which his efforts in Delaware were a trial effort. There was a lot of debate over that proposal and a lot of attacks on Lincoln's person in the Northern press by both sides, pro and con. His efforts might have been futile, but they certainly put the lie to your unsupported charge that Lincoln's stand was hypocritical.) I mean, sheesh, the actual history is glaring right in front of you now--set aside your zealous and historically ill-informed opinions and get a handle on the facts!

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Adrian you said,"...compensated emancipation in Delaware shows quite well that Lincoln was no hypocrite"

---are you kidding me? At best he was a mixed bag. He could have done a lot more, but chose not to. Slavery is a disgusting mar on our US history, and Lincoln did a horrible job dealing with it.

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

---Abraham Lincoln.

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You haven't addressed any of my points; instead you're changing your claims without acknowledgement. Here is my basic argument: "Lincoln had the authority to free captured slaves of rebels; he did not have the authority to free the slaves in the northern states--only the state and national legislatures had such authority." Brass tacks here: "Too many posters here are trying to give Lincoln a free pass on his hypocritical stance on slaves in the North, etc." is quite insulting since you're claiming that the people who disagree with you are willfully blind to obvious facts and thus willfully evade his obvious hypocrisy. That's a very serious charge that I will not let you wiggle out of. Either prove that I'm wrong about his legal authority or else retract your claim that Lincoln was a hypocrite and that I'm giving him a "free pass" on his hypocrisy.

Adrian you said,"...compensated emancipation in Delaware shows quite well that Lincoln was no hypocrite"

---are you kidding me? At best he was a mixed bag.

"Mixed bag" is not equal to "hypocrite." At best you've simply shown that he believed in white supremacy, as did most other white Americans, including many abolitionists. Nonetheless, he did not believe this gave whites the right to own black slaves--quite the contrary, he helped end slavery.

He could have done a lot more, but chose not to.

Okay, tell us what you would have done differently in his shoes so that we can see what a hypocritical fool he was. He could have tried a lot more, perhaps, but that doesn't mean he'd have had any success. Given his times, he probably advanced abolition about as fast as it could have gone through.

Slavery is a disgusting mar on our US history, and Lincoln did a horrible job dealing with it.

I think he did about as well as he could have. Even if you're right about that and I'm wrong, it just means he wasn't thorough enough, not that his policies were hypocritical--he favored emancipation (in fact, he publicly supported compensated emancipation in the 1840s) and worked for it as president. In what way was that a betrayal of his stated principles?

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

---Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, I'm quite familiar with the quote. You should think about it some more though--despite believing blacks were inferior to whites, he nonetheless argued they should be free, a goal he cared enough to work towards throughout his political career to the extent he thought he had the authority. Perhaps he went about this goal wrongly and could have done more or pushed it through sooner, but there's no trace of hypocrisy there.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Lincoln wasn't without his fine qualities, but he is not even close to this great 'savior of the Union' President that some historians have praised him to be. I find it rather disturbing how you will go to great lengths to exonerate Lincoln's immoral behavior and actions. Read 'Lincoln Unmasked' by Dilorenzo.

“Lincoln Unmasked is a masterpiece response to the crowd that DiLorenzo calls the Lincoln cult. He names names, and names places, in what is a fascinating read and correction to one of the most important episodes in U.S. history.” —Walter E. Williams, nationally syndicated columnist and John M. Olin Professor of Economics at George Mason University

Edited by Erik Christensen
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Lincoln wasn't without his fine qualities, but he was not a great President. I find it rather disturbing how you will go to great lengths to exonerate Lincoln's immoral behavior.

And I find it utterly appalling the great lengths to which you have gone to avoid defending your insulting charge that everyone who disagrees with you about Lincoln is willfully evading his supposedly obvious hypocrisy. You have consistently refused to back up your charge that Lincoln's emancipation policy was hypocritical, and you have studiously squirmed your way out of responding to the well-known historical facts that knock that charge into a cocked hat. Now you're accusing me of willfully evading his supposedly immoral behavior precisely when the issue is whether it was immoral or not--could Lincoln have done more, and was he remiss in what he did to the point of immorality? That is, if he fell short of what was possible to him at all, were they failures of knowledge or moral failings? Note that you have nowhere presented an argument that his behavior was immoral, it's just a conclusion you're smuggling in. Nor have you responded to any of the questions I asked you in the preceding post, such as what Lincoln should have done differently that would hae had a reasonable chance of success. Your behavior is below contempt--you refuse to argue for your position, you merely insult anyone who disagrees with you as an apologist for hypocrisy, immorality, and statism. That's shameful.

Here I'll respond to this revised version of your posting.

Lincoln wasn't without his fine qualities, but he is not even close to this great 'savior of the Union' President that some historians have praised him to be. I find it rather disturbing how you will go to great lengths to exonerate Lincoln's immoral behavior and actions. Read 'Lincoln Unmasked' by Dilorenzo.

No, use your own words. You've accused me and several others of willful evasion of the facts and of apologizing for blatantly immoral behavior. Put up or shut up--tell us exactly why we are wrong or apologize. In any case, I'm leaving the discussion; it's not particularly fruitful and I see no further point to it.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Ah yes, that hoary old chestnut, completely ignoring the political realities of the time. First of all, slavery was still constitutional in states allowing it after the southern slave states seceded, and freeing the slaves in the border states would have been legally speaking an unconstitutional seizure of property--but the property of rebels was forfeit once it was captured.

There is still a contradiction here.

The argument given for crushing the seceding states is to end slavery, but the continuing constitutionality of slavery makes that justification moot, doesn't it? The fact that certain areas of the seceding states, which had been recaptured by the Union were exempted from the 100 day moratorium on slavery (not to mention the fact that it was temporary) puts the lie to the argument that expropriation was punishment for rebellion. Was all property of the rebels forfeit then? Or just the slaves? The proclamation says nothing about the other property owned by the southern rebels, only their slaves, which were still allowed to be owned by northerners. So there is no "rebellion" principle behind the proclamation, only a slavery principle, but apparently, not a universal principle. EP was an executive order on the legality of owning slaves, which order could have been issued for all states, but for the need to maintain support of critical areas of the Union.

Had the Union, upon secession of the South, quickly passed a Constitutional amendment outlawing involuntary servitude, then there would have been moral justification for seizing and freeing the property of the rebels. But that's not how it happened. The argument that Lincoln eventually freed the slaves fails partially, because politically, after the EP, it would have been impossible to maintain slavery; and mainly, because morality is not retroactive.

This is a messy period in American history, and those who criticize Lincoln's actions are left uncomfortably seeming to defend slavery. The point of slavery is an admittedly powerful one, when pitted against the more abstract states rights and the right to property, but it does not free us from considering the impact Lincoln's means had on the ultimate ends - all of the ends, not just the freedom of African-Americans.

To disregard the states rights and property rights issues as immaterial in the context of the barbarity of slavery is to prevent us from studying the history and understanding the roots of statism, and possibly, how we might reverse any harm done at the time.

On edit:

I may have overreached in stating that eventual freedom for all slaves was made inevitable by the EP (although, practically that was probably the case). The EP was a 100 day moratorium, as I stated, which implies that after the rebellion was crushed the door would be open to reestablishing slavery for the agrarian South. Another "political reality of the time?"

Edited by agrippa1
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The argument given for crushing the seceding states is to end slavery, but the continuing constitutionality of slavery makes that justification moot, doesn't it? The fact that certain areas of the seceding states, which had been recaptured by the Union were exempted from the 100 day moratorium on slavery (not to mention the fact that it was temporary) puts the lie to the argument that expropriation was punishment for rebellion.

You thoroughly misunderstand the wording there; there was no "100 day moratorium on slavery." Rather, the preliminary Proclamation (22 September 1862) stated that Lincoln would officially announce which states were still in rebellion against the Union 100 days later. The second Proclamation (1 January 1863, 100 days later) quoted the earlier Proclamation and proceeded to name the areas officially in rebellion against the Union: "Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln,...do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States..." Insert the phrase "which has been..." before the bold-faced portion and it should be clear.

Was all property of the rebels forfeit then? Or just the slaves? The proclamation says nothing about the other property owned by the southern rebels, only their slaves, which were still allowed to be owned by northerners. So there is no "rebellion" principle behind the proclamation, only a slavery principle, but apparently, not a universal principle.

You're really grasping at straws here. It was an executive order, not a law of Congress, and it therefore dealt strictly with matters under executive jurisdiction as stated in the Constitution. The Second Confiscation Act (July 1862) gave Lincoln authority to deal with all captured rebel property as he saw fit (which in general had been dealt with earlier by the generals on the scene in accordance with the international law of the time), which is what he saw as giving him the express authority to free captured slaves of rebel southerners in the Emancipation Proclamation. "Rebellion" was the whole context of the Proclamation, and the Proclamation freed all slaves within this context. Faulting Lincoln for not overstepping his authority by freeing all slaves everywhere in the United States is as short-sighted and nonsensical as calling Truman a hypocrite because he integrated only the armed forces, not all of American society, by presidential decree.

EP was an executive order on the legality of owning slaves, which order could have been issued for all states, but for the need to maintain support of critical areas of the Union.

No, it could not have been issued for all states because the Dredd Scott decision was still law of the land (or rather, those portions of the decision that had not already been rendered void by legislative action, such as outlawing slavery in the territories and emancipating slaves in Washington DC). In particular, the decision stated forthrightly that slaves, being private property, could not be taken from their owners without due process of law.

Had the Union, upon secession of the South, quickly passed a Constitutional amendment outlawing involuntary servitude, then there would have been moral justification for seizing and freeing the property of the rebels. But that's not how it happened.

And yet you have not shown that that would have been the only way of giving a moral justification for freeing the slaves. Indeed, you have implicitly argued that a presidential decree (that is, an executive proclamation) for all of the United States would also have given it moral justification--however, that would have been unconstitutional. Apparently because the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in accordance with constitutional principles of executive authority, it was immoral (or at least amoral). Why? Because it did not end slavery all at one blow? Recognition of slavery had been built into the Constitution, however surreptitiously, and was well-established in American law for almost ninety years; Lincoln could not overturn this overnight, yet he did manage to get slavery outlawed in four years. This took unremitting effort and unwavering moral clarity--and this you pick at with poorly-digested misreadings of the documents in question to find something, anything, to throw at Lincoln because you are opposed to certain other of his actions.

The argument that Lincoln eventually freed the slaves fails partially, because politically, after the EP, it would have been impossible to maintain slavery; and mainly, because morality is not retroactive.

You're contradicting yourself here badly. First you write, "politically, after the EP, it would have been impossible to maintain slavery." Then obviously the Emancipation Proclamation did have an important moral effect, at the very least by making the abolition of slavery an official war goal of the North. But then you write, "morality is not retroactive." Setting aside the point that this is for the most part a sonorous nothing (how can you make morality "retroactive" anyway?), I assume you mean that Lincoln should not be praised for the ultimate consequences of actions that at the exact moment in time they were undertaken had no effect. That's nonsense, utter and complete. You're saying that only actions that actually bear fruit at the precise moment they are undertaken can have moral value, and can only have the moral value that they possess right at that particular moment in time, but any future effects of the act, even if they are planned for and obtained in accordance with the principles stated in or underlying the act, do not. You've effectively severed morality from human judgment and planned action! You'll do anything to bash Lincoln, won't you?

This is a messy period in American history, and those who criticize Lincoln's actions are left uncomfortably seeming to defend slavery.

No, you're left seeming to smear Lincoln with any mud you fancy you can dig up because he was not 100% perfect.

The point of slavery is an admittedly powerful one, when pitted against the more abstract states rights and the right to property, but it does not free us from considering the impact Lincoln's means had on the ultimate ends - all of the ends, not just the freedom of African-Americans.

To disregard the states rights and property rights issues as immaterial in the context of the barbarity of slavery is to prevent us from studying the history and understanding the roots of statism, and possibly, how we might reverse any harm done at the time.

Except that that's not what you're doing. You're attacking anything Lincoln did in any sphere of government.

On edit:

I may have overreached in stating that eventual freedom for all slaves was made inevitable by the EP (although, practically that was probably the case). The EP was a 100 day moratorium, as I stated, which implies that after the rebellion was crushed the door would be open to reestablishing slavery for the agrarian South. Another "political reality of the time?"

I've already shown you don't even understand what that 100-day period meant, and it's clear to me that you don't know what the political realities of the day actually were, including the basic constitutional law of the time. Lincoln did worry that after the war was over, the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued as a war order would not prevent slavery being re-established in the South. This is why in 1864 he campaigned to abolish slavery with a constitutional amendment, not even merely federal law that could be overturned later. The political reality of the time is that the executive branch did not have law-making authority, and Lincoln fully accepted the fact that slavery, having been fully established in American law by the Dredd Scott decision, could only be abolished by legislative action, most securely by constitutional amendment. (Certainly not by decision of the Supreme Court--Taney was still Chief Justice, after all.) He could not abolish slavery by himself, only Congress could do that, and part of the history of his administrations is his unrelenting efforts to end slavery once and for all in the United States and the slow process by which he managed to get Congress to fall in with this goal over four long years.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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You thoroughly misunderstand the wording there;

Not anymore. Thanks.

Look, I'll concede to the rest of what you write here. And I see that my approach is faulty, but: The fundamental question is whether the U.S. Government had the right to crush the seceding states.

The only arguments I've heard on this thread to support that establishment of the U.S. government as a coercive uniting force (and please correct me if I misunderstand the nature of the States' agreement to join the U.S.) are:

I suspect that much of the Libertarian literature that vilifies Abraham Lincoln based on a few false premises. The first is that the South had the "right" to secede, which in practice meant that the Confederate states had the "right" to redefine their government to preserve chattel slavery. This is obviously wrong as no government has the right to preserve or maintain slavery on a subset of its populace.

claiming that the South had the "right" to secede from the Union, which as I said before, in practice meant the right to maintain chattel slavery. The South had no such right.

Because when the war was over, all of the slaves were freed thanks to the Lincoln Administration. Evidently these exceptions in his rhetoric were not taken seriously.

With regards to the issues of the civil war, my guess is that the North primarily wanted to preserve the union. Needless to say, "preserving the union" is not necessarily good in all contexts, especially if we were discussing preserving the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Southern secessionism insisted that they had the "right" to secede from the Union regardless of the context. Since one of the primary motivating factors was to maintain chattel slavery, this made the South significantly worse than the North in my opinion.

Lincoln envisioned a union with a strong central government and a strong leader, and that was the vision which led him into Civil War. Of course nobody is claiming the South had a right to secede in order to preserve slavery, and it would be fine and proper for Lincoln to fight the war on cause of slavery. But from early on that was a non-issue. The issue at hand was: What relation do the states who ratified the constitution have to the federal government?

an exception:

I think you have to understand that the motive behind Lincoln going to war was union, not slavery.

You're attacking everything Lincoln did in any sphere of government.

No, I'm questioning his right to attack the seceding states and to establish powers for the federal gov't not explicitly provided for in the Constitution. The only argument given here that the states had no right to secede is that they maintained slavery. The North maintained slavery at the same time, so there is a contradiction in that argument, but let's not argue on whether it was right or not to free the slaves. Of course it was.

The fundamental question is: Did the U.S. have the right to forcibly prevent states from seceding, regardless of their motivations. The answer from the defenders of Lincoln here, seems to be "yes." Justifying in terms strictly of slavery is a dangerous stand to take, because there is no clear line to be drawn in morality. (Some argue that taxation is a form of slavery, for instance) Slavery, it is claimed here, justifies the imposition of Federal power. I know we hate hypos, but what if the South had seceded explicitly for economic reasons unrelated to slavery? Would the North still be justified in attacking with armed forces? What if the South had successfully and peaceably seceded from the Union. When the U.S. passed the 13th Amendment and achieved the moral high road vis a vis slavery, would they then be justified in attacking and annexing their neighbor to the south, with freedom of slaves as justification for their aggression? (and yes, I see that I'm contradicting a previous suggestion with this)

I'll admit I don't know the answers, but I'm not sure anyone knows the answers definitively. I'm not a Constitutional scholar, so I don't know whether states had an option to secede (it doesn't appear to be addressed in the Constitution), or what the punishment was for entering into a confederation.

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I just finished responding to this at some length and lost the entire posting. I'll try not to make this new response as short as that computer glitch made my temper, and I'll spare you the Primal Scream Therapy that it provoked.

Not anymore. Thanks.

You're welcome.

The fundamental question is whether the U.S. Government had the right to crush the seceding states.

Now, I agree, and I'll add that this is a much more interesting question too.

No, I'm questioning his right to attack the seceding states and to establish powers for the federal gov't not explicitly provided for in the Constitution.

Two separate questions. I'm sure we agree on the second one.

The only argument given here that the states had no right to secede is that they maintained slavery.

I seem to remember early on someone pointing out that the Union was a joint compact entered into freely by all the states, and therefore it could not rightfully be abrogated one-sidedly by one set of states against the wishes of the other states. However, that might have been in a different thread.

Moreover, there might be more to the issue than that. I once read the argument that the claim that the states retained their sovereignty in the Union at best applied only to the 13 original states that ratified the Constitution; the other states were admitted through a process that explicitly recognized national sovereignty, as declared in the preambles and such to the state constitutions; and that several of the original 13 states had adopted new constitutions in the meantime that also affirmed national sovereignty. However, I haven't followed up on this and can't comment on it further.

The fundamental question is: Did the U.S. have the right to forcibly prevent states from seceding, regardless of their motivations.

Now, I think we all would agree that if the federal government becomes tyrannical (say by establishing thorough-going censorship and political imprisonment), then states that seceded against such tyranny would be acting perfectly justly. But that was not the case with the South. What grounds should be justifiable for dissolving a federal union? Thwarting the "interests" of a state or region?--and if so, then how do those interests differ from the individual rights of the people living in the seceding states, and most basically, why should they be recognized legally if they are not reducible to people's individual rights? Would secession have been any better if it had been over tariff policy (as during the Nullification Crisis), especially since all parties accepted the authority of Congress to levy tariffs but only disagreed on the rates?

In any case, I'll remind you that that was not the original cause of the Civil War in the first place. The federal government owned a lot of property in the southern states maintained partly by taxes from the northern states--not just public property that Objectivists would object to, such as customs houses and post offices, but also court houses and especially military installations. What should be done about that property? Lincoln took the quite justifiable position that as Commander in Chief it was his responsibility not to allow national military property to be seized without legislative action by Congress. There was a great deal of northern sentiment to allow the southern states to go their own way, but that did not extend to allowing them to seize federal property by force--that is precisely what happened with the attack on Fort Sumter, which showed that the southern leaders simply scorned any compromise with the North. The South started hostilities and gave Lincoln all the pretext he needed to declare them rebels. (One might say that Lincoln had the politial savvy to maneuver the South into starting the war, but he only maneuvered them in a direction they were prefectly happy to go.)

The answer from the defenders of Lincoln here, seems to be "yes."

I won't repeat my comments above. However, I think it a very bad idea to tie in such questions too much with southern secession, which was not undertaken on grounds of individual rights but essentially of sectional interests that violated individual rights, if even that. (The rights of whites, too--the prohibition on pro-abolitionist debate, for example, in southern states, which violated the right to free speech.) What threat did Lincoln pose to slavery? Directly, very little. The Dredd Scott decision had given the South all it insisted on--the federal government had no say in the spread of slavery, no black slave or free could ever be a citizen of the US, and all slaves were private property, the right to which was given full protection by the government. What could Lincoln have done legally? He could have permitted the US Post to carry abolitionist tracts into the South, he could have allowed local officials not to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, he could have rallied the Republicans to overturn the gag rule, and so on--small irritations around the edges of the institution. But symbolically Lincoln's election was very threatening--it showed that the total victory the pro-slavery party thought it had been handed in 1857 was very unpopular in the North and the issue was not settled at all. And so they repudiated a fully legal election because they did not like the result. This is a very different basis for secession than protecting individuals from federal tyranny, hence a very poor starting point for the general question of just bases for dissolving a federal union.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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I seem to remember early on someone pointing out that the Union was a joint compact entered into freely by all the states, and therefore it could not rightfully be abrogated one-sidedly by one set of states against the wishes of the other states. However, that might have been in a different thread.

...

Now, I think we all would agree that if the federal government becomes tyrannical (say by establishing thorough-going censorship and political imprisonment), then states that seceded against such tyranny would be acting perfectly justly. But that was not the case with the South. What grounds should be justifiable for dissolving a federal union? Thwarting the "interests" of a state or region?--and if so, then how do those interests differ from the individual rights of the people living in the seceding states, and most basically, why should they be recognized legally if they are not reducible to people's individual rights? Would secession have been any better if it had been over tariff policy (as during the Nullification Crisis), especially since all parties accepted the authority of Congress to levy tariffs but only disagreed on the rates?

...

I won't repeat my comments above. However, I think it a very bad idea to tie in such questions too much with southern secession, which was not undertaken on grounds of individual rights but essentially of sectional interests that violated individual rights, if even that...This is a very different basis for secession than protecting individuals from federal tyranny, hence a very poor starting point for the general question of just bases for dissolving a federal union.

However, I do think an interesting question this brings up is, are there any differences in circumstances in which (1) a state's secession from a federal union and (2) revolt by citizens of a federal union are just or not? That is, a state may secede but its citizens may not rebel, or vice versa. An obvious difference in circumstances is that if a state is tyrannical in a non-tyannical federal union, and similarly if it is tyrannical in a different way, then private rebellion would be just but secession most likely not (since secession would leave the state with its tyrannical powers intact but no higher power, however tyrannical in a different way, to rein in that tyranny...though I suppose there are special circumstances in which secession could conceivably destabilize tyrannical institutions in a state; in general, however, I'd say no). So, are there any cases in which a state would be justified in secession but its citizens would not be justified in rebellion? I'd say that if you exclude any sort of interest of groups of its citizens that cannot be reduced to the individual rights of each member of that group, then no. (And certainly questions of tariff policy as they were conducted in the era of sectionally-influenced Whig-Democrat party politics would count as arguments over interest reducing to whose benefit unjust restrictions of trade were to be based on.) And for me that is the basic issue in justifying secession.

Edited by Adrian Hester
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Adrian: Do you disagree with the notion that Lincoln expanded the power of the executive office?

No, I agree, and agree further that in some (most? perhaps, even probably) such cases he did so against the Constitution. But I do not think that the criticisms I have read in this thread of the Emancipation Proclamation and other measures concerning slavery are examples pertinent to the point--there he showed quite delicate care for contemporary constitutional law; on the question of slavery he sought a permanent just solution in accordance with constitutional principles that would not be easily overturned by the judiciary. (On matters like the suspension of habeas corpus while Congress was in session, the most likely explanation I've read for his actions is that he thought they were military necessities that he undertook despite knowing they'd be overturned after the end of the war, at which point they would no longer be military necessities. The abolition of slavery, on the other hand, he did not want overturned later in court; it was far more significant than a matter of military necessity, though he saw it as a very useful military policy as well. As for [at best] dubiously constitutional measures the Republicans in Congress passed during his administration that he signed into law, I see no reason not to slam him hard for those, even if I don't know whether he actually worked for them through his influence in the Republican party. Perhaps they were necessary tit-for-tat to secure further liberty for slaves, but if so, nonetheless in those cases he still is partly responsible for what was enacted.)

Edited by Adrian Hester
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