Lincoln won the Civil War and abolsihed slavery. He deserved to get relected for that. It's a huge tragedy he was assainted, though. Our country would have been much better off right now if it wasn't for that.
Lincoln didnt abolish slavery the 13th amendment did. Lincoln destroyed the constitution and would not allow the south to legally succeed from the union, which it had every right to do.
That's true. You never learn the other side of the civil war because democrats don't want it in our text books. Just like they don't want you to know about the black founding fathers. Instead you're taught about America's racist history that is a figment of the left's imagination.
lol
No its not true. Lincoln saved the Constitution. As I already over in the Civil War thread. Secession was not legal or legitimate as there is no basis based on intepretations of the Constitution either now or back then that make it legal. The South was destroying the Constitution because it lost a political fight. Lincoln and the Republican party fought to preserve the Constitution and make sure that it applied to everyone regardless of who had 51% of the vote as it clearly evidenced in the Lincoln-Douglas debates where Douglas claims that a majority in any area, town, county, and state can deny the protections of the Constitution from the minority. Which is one of the reason's the party took the name Republican, was because it opposed majoritarian dictatorship. The south still had everyone of its constitutional protections in place in 1861, it lost a political debate and an election. This was not justification for secession and certainly not arising to the standards laid out by Jefferson in the Declaration for overthrowing the gov't once it no longer protects those constitutional rights.
The other statement about racisim is just ridiculous. You should read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the US". Though I disagree with the overall anti-US bias, it none-the-less illustrates where we went wrong and thus know how to avoid those mistakes.
The answer is Jackson without a doubt. The guy was a corrupt, egotistical, dictatorial, and irresponsible crook.
I guess it just depends on which side of the arguement you believe. There have been countless constitutional scholars who have stated that succession was just as legal then as it is today. If you voluntarily join something, your have the right to voluntarily leave it. The south was right!!!!!!
They were right. To say that it's illegal to secede is pointless because once you've done it and set your own rules, then it's no longer legal. Whose side is right at that point? It's too bad we're not taught that in school anymore.You say that so often, it only gets more ridiculous the more you say it. Its also insulting and patronizing to those who disagree with you.
If cpeeks is right, and if the so called "scholars" he mentions are right, and yes I acknowledge they exist but I disagree with them and most are Lost Cause mongers, or CSA justifiers of varying degrees, then this union and the states themselves, and the counties within them would have fell apart and separated. The founders intent was to create a republic that wouldn't collapse like the Roman Republic and all previous republics. With this intent in mind to a create a long lasting republic, it would seem contradictory to let the country fly apart over a partisan political issue. That combined with the lack of direction mention of a secession, and the ability to amend the consitution lead me to beleive that there intent was not to give the individual parts of the whole the ability to break that whole by majoritarian fiat in that state (The secession vote was close in even the deep south, they don't teach that in school either.
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However there is the right to rebel against the gov't, provided that gov't failed to protect or recognize the consitutional rights of a minority (in this case the South). Yet you can't produce a single violation in the lead up to the War that deprived the South of its rights. Indeed the only people denying the protections of the Constitution to a minority, were the very people claiming the right to secede, the secessionists (a thin majority in all but a few Southern states where the margin was larger).
Hence it ties back to the defence of Lincoln. Even if there were a right to secession, the justification would have to arise to a violation of the South's consitutional rights, no such violation occured. A President, in this case Lincoln, was elected without any Southern votes (a few were cast in some southern states but not many as the GOP wasn't even on the ballot in most states) on a platform to halt the expansion of slavery into the territories. This is an election and a political issue, losing neither of which threatened the constitutional rights of the South, yet the south still claimed the right to secede. If such power were granted in the Constitution, I highly doubt the founders would have intended for it to occur over such trivial grounds with such thin majorities in most cases. In the course of the war both Lincoln and Davis exceeded their authority. The South even foresaw this and because of that, they didn't even establish a Supreme Court, essentially leaving Davis with dictatorial powers, who was to stop him from doing anything. Atleast, Lincoln used the Jackson precedent, "They have made their rulling, now let them enforce it". The South didn't even bother. I find it amusing that neo-Confederates berate Lincoln for trampling on the rights of South and the Constitution yet they never fault Davis and the CSA gov't which was a far more dangerous challenge to constitutionalism then Lincoln was.
Derek, I would like for you to use some depth to refute these arguements, preferably in the Civil War thread so as to avoid giving Ernest the pain of having to move posts around, because so far all I see is you being a Yes man to cpeeks and then repeating that ridiculous line "They don't teach that in school any more".
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