Who's your least favorite president from each party? (user search)
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  Who's your least favorite president from each party? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Who's your least favorite president from each party?  (Read 68417 times)
Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« on: July 08, 2009, 05:13:22 PM »

Democratic-Republican
John Quincy Adams

Whigs
Milliard Fillmore


Democrat

Woodrow Wilson, or
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Republican
Abraham Lincoln or
George W. Bush
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2009, 10:50:32 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Yeah, I don't know how Americans could possibly not worship the man who on behalf of corporate interests started an unnecessary war that killed 500,000 of their countrymen, took upon himself dictatorial powers, oversaw war crimes, put the U.S. Constitution through the shredder, completely destroyed the carefully balanced government system crafted by the Founding Fathers, and was an all-around self-serving two-faced dirtbag. What's not to love about old Dishonest Abe?
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2009, 11:04:24 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Yeah, I don't know how Americans could possibly not worship the man who on behalf of corporate interests started an unnecessary war that killed 500,000 of their countrymen, took upon himself dictatorial powers, oversaw war crimes, put the U.S. Constitution through the shredder, completely destroyed the carefully balanced government system crafted by the Founding Fathers, and was an all-around self-serving two-faced dirtbag. What's not to love about old Dishonest Abe?


I really don't understand why self-proclaimed 'libertarians' perpetuate this ancient canard. One of the central credos of classical liberal theory, first promulgated by John Locke, is that all men are possessed of the innate right of self-ownership. If one man owns another human being, he is contravening that basic right and, therefore, subjecting him to tyranny. Lincoln may have done some morally questionable things in pursuit of winning the war, but was, on the whole, fighting for a righteous cause.

I believe this is simply a side-effect of that decaying fusionist philosophy that will hopefully fall away completely when that particular ideological superstructure totally buckles.
Oh yes,  I forgot all about the fact that Lincoln sent a half-a-million men to their deaths for the "righteous cause" of forcing tariffs upon the South to enable his industrialist corporate clients to monopolize the market under a wall of favoritism and protectionism.

What was it you were rambling on about?
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2009, 02:43:26 PM »

The genius of Lincoln was not that he was perfect, but that he learned along the way and changed his views on certain matters. For example, he was originally neutral on the slavery issue, but when he started to meet blacks during his tenure as President, that opinion changed.
Right, Lincoln really cared about ending slavery and helping blacks. That's why he ran for president on a white supremacist platform. That's why he waited until he was threatened by widespread Northern dissent to the war and the threat of U.K. intervention on behalf of the C.S.A. to make the war a crusade against slavery. That's why when he did make the war about slavery, he issued that pointless do-nothing "Emancipation Proclamation" that specifically freed slaves only in states he didn't have control over anyway. That's why 'til his dying breath he had dreams of deporting all blacks to Africa and making the U.S. an all-white nation.

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By the 1860s there was already a substantial manufacturing base both in the Northeastern United States and in the U.K. The primarily rural South imported most of their goods more cheaply from Europe and would bear the brunt of any protectionist tariff agenda implemented by the federal government.

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And? Support of slavery was a mainstream view in that era too, what's your point?

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Sorry, many countries ended slavery peacefully without starting wars against their own people.

And Lincoln would not have ended slavery if he didn't have to.

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And? Lincoln was a tyrant.

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I know, in 2009 America, being a supporter of limited and decentralized government as envisioned by the Founding Fathers certainly makes one stand out...

Instead people like Lincoln, FDR, Stalin, Mao, etc. are made into saints.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2009, 02:51:33 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Suspending habeus corpus and an obsession over "states' rights".

Unfortunately those people don't understand that states don't have the right to override the Constitution.

The States created the Federal government. Therefore they hold the right to nullify federal law and leave the union if they believe they are being oppressed by that which they created.

They can void it together.  When a group of states breaches the contract they signed with all the others, that's not the same as voiding the contract.  They broke the law and then committed treason by attacking Ft. Sumter.  And when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus he did so legally under the ability to enact Marshall Law, which was entirely appropriate in the state of Maryland where that occurred and would be in a number of other states.  I also don't see how being on the losing side of an election is the same as oppression.  Y'all broke the law, Lincoln enforced it as per his job description.  The end.
And the U.S.A. committed treason in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Have you read it lately?
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2009, 03:58:22 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Suspending habeus corpus and an obsession over "states' rights".

Unfortunately those people don't understand that states don't have the right to override the Constitution.

The States created the Federal government. Therefore they hold the right to nullify federal law and leave the union if they believe they are being oppressed by that which they created.

They can void it together.  When a group of states breaches the contract they signed with all the others, that's not the same as voiding the contract.  They broke the law and then committed treason by attacking Ft. Sumter.  And when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus he did so legally under the ability to enact Marshall Law, which was entirely appropriate in the state of Maryland where that occurred and would be in a number of other states.  I also don't see how being on the losing side of an election is the same as oppression.  Y'all broke the law, Lincoln enforced it as per his job description.  The end.
And the U.S.A. committed treason in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Have you read it lately?

That's an obvious non-sequiter and quite a desperate argument.
Really, do you even know what a non sequitur is? It is your response that is the non sequitur here, since you clearly have no argument to explain exactly what made 1861 so different from 1776.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2009, 04:05:24 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Suspending habeus corpus and an obsession over "states' rights".

Unfortunately those people don't understand that states don't have the right to override the Constitution.

The States created the Federal government. Therefore they hold the right to nullify federal law and leave the union if they believe they are being oppressed by that which they created.

They can void it together.  When a group of states breaches the contract they signed with all the others, that's not the same as voiding the contract.  They broke the law and then committed treason by attacking Ft. Sumter.  And when Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus he did so legally under the ability to enact Marshall Law, which was entirely appropriate in the state of Maryland where that occurred and would be in a number of other states.  I also don't see how being on the losing side of an election is the same as oppression.  Y'all broke the law, Lincoln enforced it as per his job description.  The end.
And the U.S.A. committed treason in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. Have you read it lately?

That's an obvious non-sequiter and quite a desperate argument.
Really, do you even know what a non sequitur is? It is your response that is the non sequitur here, since you clearly have no argument to explain exactly what made 1861 so different from 1776.

You brought it up, prove how there is a connection.
You made the claim that the 1861 C.S.A. secession from the U.S. was treason. If this is the case, explain how the 1776 U.S. secession from Britain wasn't.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2009, 04:40:01 PM »

Please, change your display name, as it's patently obvious you have no real interest in individual liberty beyond that which preserves the racial hierarchy into which you were born. Dealing with pseudo-and-quasi-libertarians like yourself is an embarrassment to those of us who take the philosophy to heart.
Well, well, look at you flail around trying to turn this into a racial issue.

My display name will remain to reflect my belief in individual liberty, something so despised by that warmongering tyrant Lincoln and his supporters. I would appreciate not being lectured about libertarianism by a non-libertarian such as yourself.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2009, 05:05:40 PM »

I'm not the one promoting a virulently racist, agrarian vision of 'libertarianism', you useless hick.

I agree, you're not promoting libertarianism, you're promoting the borderline fascism of Abraham Lincoln.

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Yes, supporting warmongering, tyrannical, protectionist, inflationist dictators like Dishonest Abe tends to conflict with libertarian values.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #9 on: July 09, 2009, 05:28:54 PM »

Hahaha, wow.

So tell me, my Southern-fried friend: is socialism not the ownership by the collective of the labor power of the individual? And, if so, does that not qualify the collectively-owned (by the whites) of the black slaves' labor power as a form of socialism? Finally, if these two premises are met, does it not follow then that the Confederacy was a racialist-socialist polity, to be adamantly opposed by all supporters of free labor?

I don't actually expect you to, you know, think through this logically, applying a principled analysis to the issue. But you can at least make the effort to be intellectually honest.
You sure you're in the right thread? One second we're talking about Lincoln's tariff war, the next you're talking about slavery. Quite a non sequitur.

To your point, slavery was practiced worldwide since ancient times, a holdover from pre-liberal eras, and was maintained in the southern U.S. for economic, not racial, reasons. Had the U.S. government followed the example of European powers and bought and freed the slaves themselves, it could have avoided the tremendous loss in both blood and treasure that came with Lincoln's war.

 But then, that would defeat the whole point of Lincoln's scheme to centralize power in the federal government.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2009, 06:07:06 PM »

Uh, no, it isn't. Because unless you've never heard of a war economy before, you'd know that tariffs and protectionism generally are entirely justifiable during a period of war: it guarantees business and stability to native industry, and therefore prevents them from selling arms and ammunition to the enemy. And so Lincoln's economic programme was formulated in the light of Southern secession; he was a free soiler capitalist otherwise. Not, of course, that I expect your primitive Southern brain to be able to wrap itself around this fine a point.
No, interventionism and protectionism are not justifiable regardless of whether you want to call it a "war economy."

But then again, in my bizarre version of libertarianism, wars of aggression aren't justifiable in the first place.

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Presumably it would have followed the general Western trend toward abolishing slavery, something accomplished without mass-bloodshed in just about every other country that did so.

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The very existence of a state with the power of coercive taxation makes all workers essentially into slaves.

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I don't see how your Soviet comparison could possibly work here.

 Europe abolished slavery without war; why is abolishing it with war better?

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Wow, quite an altruist that mythical Lincoln in your mind must be. We're talking here about the real Abe Lincoln, the white supremacist corporatist who would do anything to advance his own political ambitions.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2009, 08:51:56 PM »

Please, one day someone of the Lincoln dislikers could expalin me how the man who abolished slavery could be the worst president.
Yeah, I don't know how Americans could possibly not worship the man who on behalf of corporate interests started an unnecessary war that killed 500,000 of their countrymen, took upon himself dictatorial powers, oversaw war crimes, put the U.S. Constitution through the shredder, completely destroyed the carefully balanced government system crafted by the Founding Fathers, and was an all-around self-serving two-faced dirtbag. What's not to love about old Dishonest Abe?


I really don't understand why self-proclaimed 'libertarians' perpetuate this ancient canard. One of the central credos of classical liberal theory, first promulgated by John Locke, is that all men are possessed of the innate right of self-ownership. If one man owns another human being, he is contravening that basic right and, therefore, subjecting him to tyranny. Lincoln may have done some morally questionable things in pursuit of winning the war, but was, on the whole, fighting for a righteous cause.

I believe this is simply a side-effect of that decaying fusionist philosophy that will hopefully fall away completely when that particular ideological superstructure totally buckles.
Oh yes,  I forgot all about the fact that Lincoln sent a half-a-million men to their deaths for the "righteous cause" of forcing tariffs upon the South to enable his industrialist corporate clients to monopolize the market under a wall of favoritism and protectionism.

What was it you were rambling on about?
So Lincon was a slave to corporate industrialists, but Harding and Coolidge who you listed as your favorite presidents weren't...

Awesome. I can't understand why libertarians can't win a single state house seat nationwide.

Your bizarre attempt at making a point is absurd considering neither Harding nor Coolidge started a war on behalf of corporate interests, nor did they seize dictatorial powers and throw out constitutional rights. In fact Harding restored constitutional rights and liberties lost during the tyranny of Woodrow Wilson, pardoning political prisoner Eugene Debs and calming the Red Scare created by Wilson, as well as bringing a formal end to U.S. involvement in World War I by signing the Knox-Porter Resolution.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #12 on: July 09, 2009, 10:34:40 PM »

Wow, Libertas is a mega FF. Keep up the good work! Glad to see someone is finally 150% correct around here. That's almost to the "t" my platform!
Thank you, glad there is someone else here with a sense of historical reality.

Just was trying to have a civil discussion but right away the Lincolnites drag the whole debate down into mud-slinging and childish insults.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #13 on: July 09, 2009, 10:53:02 PM »

Oh, right. So, I suppose then that you'd not take any issue with Lockheed-Martin selling the latest scramjet technology to the Taliban?
No, I can't say that I would, nor can I see how that relates to the issue of mid-19th century protectionism. 

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The state of South Carolina had declared its independence from the United States, and the C.S.A. had attempted to negotiate the purchase of U.S. federal property on its territory. It was Lincoln's refusal to negotiate that made war inevitable.

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You are seriously comparing Caribbean slave revolts to Lincoln's war on the South?  Wow.

How many lame and ridiculous comparisons are you going to make before you realize that you're in way over your head?

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I don't think your white supremacist hero Lincoln would like that remark.

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Slavery was an inhumane evil, but to call it 'socialism' would I think be a bit of a stretch.


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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #14 on: July 09, 2009, 11:28:01 PM »


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Because Lincoln's economic policies were exactly that, designed specifically to prevent American companies and American allies (chiefly Britain) from exporting goods to the Confederacy, and not, by any means, a long-term economic programme for peacetime? Ah, but realizing this would require subtlety on your part - something that inbreds are not, at all, known for.
Um, protectionism had to do with tariffs and trade restrictions to make domestically-produced goods more competitive with foreign (primarily European) imports, and it went on long before the Confederacy and the war came into existence. Like other Northern Republicans, Lincoln would have advocated such an economic policy because it was politically advantageous to do so.

"Protectionism" had nothing to do with stopping U.S. goods from being exported to a country they were at war with. That you would be mistaken about the meaning of a basic economic policy is laughable and betrays your total lack of knowledge beneath that thin veneer of arrogance.

And a primary purpose of the war was to ensure Northern manufacturers would indeed have access to sell their goods competitively in Southern markets.  

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Making things up now? Lincoln's stubborn policy from day one was to refuse to acknowledge the existence of the C.S.A. in his fanatical devotion to the mythical "Union."

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You proved me wrong by comparing slave revolts on Caribbean islands to a civil war initiated by the President of the United States whose initial goal was to simply preserve the union at all costs?

If you have an example of Britain or any other European slave-owning power being engulfed in a civil war in order to end slavery, do let me know. There, I've told you exactly what you need to do to make your case, don't embarrass yourself with another ridiculous non sequitur of a comparison.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #15 on: July 09, 2009, 11:57:07 PM »

Um, protectionism had to do with tariffs and trade restrictions to make domestically-produced goods more competitive with foreign (primarily European) imports, and it went on long before the Confederacy and the war came into existence. Like other Northern Republicans, Lincoln would have advocated such an economic policy because it was politically advantageous to do so.

Wow. This... wow. What are they teaching you in the schools down there?

Lincoln's economic plan is well known. It entailed the temporary nationalization of industries related to the war effort (once more, to ensure that they did not supply the Confederacy with weapons or ammunition and to ensure the Federal government's monopoly over the same), along with plans to restructure the Southern economy towards an industrial focus, eventually integrating the Freedmen into the free-market structure.

On the whole, this is a remarkably non-statist economic platform for the time; in comparison, Brazil's conservatives completely nationalized all industries during its own civil war.

See above. It's becoming increasingly apparent that you have no real knowledge of the issues involved whatsoever.
When you've gotten yourself this deep into a hole, it's generally a good idea to stop digging.

We're not talking about Lincoln's wartime economic policies, we're talking about protectionism as an economic philosophy. An economic philosophy which Abraham Lincoln ran on in his race for the presidency and which was a prime source of Southern dissatisfaction with the federal government.

 Obviously the South could not have seceded over Lincoln's wartime policies.

That you didn't know the meaning of "protectionism" has already shattered any illusion of credibility you may have held.

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Yeah...as I just said, Lincoln refused to negotiate; in particular he refused to even recognize the existence of the potential negotiating partner.

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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #16 on: July 10, 2009, 12:21:23 AM »

Right. Which is why I advise you to leave the thread posthaste.

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You will now, of course, provide evidence that Lincoln ran on an unduly 'protectionist' economic platform, and that this was the prime motivator for the War of Southern Secession?

Ah, wait, but you can't. Because Lincoln was not a protectionist, and in fact had joined the Whigs only hesitantly, at the behest of his law partner; his chief objection to them being their protectionism.
Continuing to just type whatever comes into your head? Your claims here have no basis in reality, and your link doesn't even mention trade policy.

During his time in Congress, Lincoln had a thoroughly protectionist, pro-tariff record. Lincoln ran in 1860 supporting the protectionist Morill Tariff and using the slogan "Protection to American Industry"; both his Democratic opponents opposed the Morill Tariff. And during his administration, Lincoln would sign two additional Morill Tariffs, each higher than the previous, into law.

Lincoln's own words:


"My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank ... in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff."

"I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff-Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject [the need for protectionist tariffs] than any other. I have not since changed my views."
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #17 on: July 10, 2009, 01:09:59 AM »

Libertas, Lincoln was opposed to slavery. Radicals never get anything done, and often alienate people from their cause. Lincoln realized that a pragmatic approach was needed. If he took a hard line approach to slavery, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland may have succeeded as well. The Confederates would also rally their people better to fight against the Union. Strategically unwise.
You can't just keep repeating lies hoping to make them true. In his own inaugural address, Lincoln stated that he would have no objection to having the "slavery forever" Corwin amendment put into the U.S. Constitution. He was no abolitionist.

Lincoln's position on slavery changed with the political winds.

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No he didn't, and how does lack of internet access make punishing half the county to reward the other half anymore justifiable?

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That's because I'm not here to discuss unnecessary details.

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Then you're clearly not concerned with the truth then. The issue of Fort Sumter has already been discussed in this thread.

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Future war criminal Sherman got his feelings hurt? I don't see how that proves Lincoln didn't know exactly what he was getting into.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #18 on: July 10, 2009, 11:27:21 AM »

Again, it is well documented that Lincoln opposed slavery from a young age. His own pastor was anit-slavery.

The strategy was to not force the slave states to rescind slaver, but to prohibit slavery from spreading, thus letting it whither and die.
The best you could do is make the argument that Lincoln was a flip-flopper on the issue of slavery. There is no way you could successfully argue that he was any sort of dedicated abolitionist.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #19 on: July 10, 2009, 11:40:20 AM »

Again, it is well documented that Lincoln opposed slavery from a young age. His own pastor was anit-slavery.

The strategy was to not force the slave states to rescind slaver, but to prohibit slavery from spreading, thus letting it whither and die.
The best you could do is make the argument that Lincoln was a flip-flopper on the issue of slavery. There is no way you could successfully argue that he was any sort of dedicated abolitionist.

Did you even read the page I linked to? With an open mind I might add.

Yes, and it contains little more than baseless speculation to try to explain away the many occasions in which Lincoln made clear he didn't have a problem with slavery.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #20 on: July 10, 2009, 12:55:18 PM »

Again, it is well documented that Lincoln opposed slavery from a young age. His own pastor was anit-slavery.

The strategy was to not force the slave states to rescind slaver, but to prohibit slavery from spreading, thus letting it whither and die.
The best you could do is make the argument that Lincoln was a flip-flopper on the issue of slavery. There is no way you could successfully argue that he was any sort of dedicated abolitionist.

Did you even read the page I linked to? With an open mind I might add.

Yes, and it contains little more than baseless speculation to try to explain away the many occasions in which Lincoln made clear he didn't have a problem with slavery.

Here's a quote from Lincoln in July 1, 1854: "If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?--

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly?--You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you."

Another, from October 16, 1854: "I can not but hate [the declared indifference for slavery's spread]. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world -- enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites -- causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty -- criticising [sic] the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest."

One more, from August 24, 1855 in a letter to his friend: "In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair to you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union."



Alright, so Lincoln was either

A) a flip-flopper

B) a coward

C) a liar


None of those options reflect particularly well on him.
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Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl
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« Reply #21 on: December 08, 2009, 10:30:12 AM »

Democrat: Barack H. Obama
Republican: George W. Bush
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