Great Article on Lincoln

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0016.105/--why-abraham-lincoln-was-a-whig?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Abraham Lincoln was a staunch supporter of law and order, self restraint over passion, and against mob rule. He believed passion had reached a dangerous level during his time. And of course, do not forget his rule during the Civi War. He reminds me perhaps of later Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller who while perhaps were liberal, were also Republicans for a reason. (Just read up Teddy's harsh thoughts on the rioters of 1917 to get his opinion of law and order)

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

You can assign Liberal v Conservative to politicians in the 19th Century, but the Whigs or Bull Moose Party or Liberal Dems it is now called in England were a secular party v the more conservative states rights Dixiecrats

[Fuzzy Bear]

Lincoln would not tolerate riots.

https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc5500/sc5572/000001/000000/000017/html/t17.html

For the Federal Government, however, there was no question about which side Maryland had to take. If she seceded, Washington D.C. would be surrounded by hostile states, effectively cut off from the rest of the Union. The situation came to a head on April 19, 1861, when the soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers, moving through Baltimore on the way to Washington, were attacked by a pro-Southern mob. When the mob started shooting at the regiment, the soldiers returned fire, and when the smoke had cleared, four soldiers and twelve civilians had been killed.

To avoid further riots, it was decided to send troops through the Naval Academy at Annapolis. To ensure the safety of the troops and the loyalty of the state government, the Federal Government sent General Benjamin F. Butler to Annapolis to secure the city on April 22.

Indeed, Lincoln DIDN'T tolerate riots.

[SevenEleven]

There's nothing wrong with law and order, in fact it's foundational to our society and democracy. If "law and order" were inherently negative, the racists among us would've chosen a different concept to use as a euphemism for their disgusting ideology.

I would've liked to see the article mention Lincoln's opposition to the war with Mexico.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

There's nothing wrong with law and order, in fact it's foundational to our society and democracy. If "law and order" were inherently negative, the racists among us would've chosen a different concept to use as a euphemism for their disgusting ideology.

I would've liked to see the article mention Lincoln's opposition to the war with Mexico.

Henry Clay was a strong hawk on European and Latin American affairs, yet he was also against the war in Mexico.

I am sure Lincoln thought of the settlers of Texas as reckless.

[Andrew]

A lot of people don’t know that Abe Lincoln was a Republican.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You can assign Liberal v Conservative to politicians in the 19th Century, but the Whigs or Bull Moose Party or Liberal Dems it is now called in England were a secular party v the more conservative states rights Dixiecrats

What fresh hell is this?

This secular paradigm you keep harping on is one dimensional and flawed. NE Secularization was not original, it was developed and evolved over the course of decades and centuries. You would be hard pressed to find a more religious place than MA, where Christmas was banned as a pagan ritual, and Quakers were being hung.

In fact the dynamic of the pious NE versus the more Secular South (only relatively speaking) only began to unravel in the late 19th and early 20th century. Indeed, the South resented the religious piety and moralism of the Yankees. They embraced (though not invented) contrived religious justifications for slavery largely as cover against moralist based abolitionism in the North. It is also forgotten because of WJB's religious reputation, that McKinley himself was very religious too, some historians have even compared his religiosity to that of George W. Bush.

We take too much for granted when it comes to the makeup of the regions and presume that because one region is secular today that it must have always been so, that cities are today dominated by lower class voters it must have always been so, that rural areas are dominated by rich mega farms so it must have always been so.

Political geography is a complex subject that requires understanding of the forces underneath surface: Economic, Societal, Religious, an so forth and how they change over time and they most certainly do change.

We just cannot wrap our heads around the notion that the starting point was one in which most everyone was highly religious, the cities skewed towards middle and upper class (with voting laws making that even more pronounced) with the political power of the poor most heavily reliant on small debtor farmers who hated speculators and banks, but also hated government taxing them to fund stuff for rich city folk. This thus meant that the former stacked heavily towards elitism and the latter towards populism, which is fully in line with general break downs of right versus left in the 19th century.

[Frodo]

In an 1838 address to the members of the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Lincoln warned that because American democracy could never be overthrown by a foreign invader, the only enemy to be feared was one within: undisciplined passion. Pointing to several recent examples of frontier lynchings, Lincoln deplored "the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of the Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice."

In the political tradition Lincoln inherited, the "passions" were both dangerous and strong; it was the task of responsible individuals, allied with political institutions, to keep them under control. The goal was the maintenance of rational balance, both in the individual personality and in the body politic. To let undisciplined passions gain dominance would be to open the door to mob rule. This was how the authors of the Federalist Papers had explained it when calling for the establishment of the Constitution in 1788; and fifty years later, Lincoln used exactly the same language in calling for the preservation of that Constitution. His 1838 address echoes their call to subordinate passion to reason.

Lincoln warned his fellow young men that during the generations to come, ambitious demagogues would seek to prey upon the passions of the people unless these were kept under stern control. "Passion has helped us" in rallying the people to the cause of the Revolution, Lincoln acknowledged, "but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy." He cautioned, "Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence." Only by the control of passion could American democracy keep from degenerating into anarchy or demagogy. When Lincoln declared that America would stand or fall by "the capability of a people to govern themselves," he meant this in both a political and a psychological sense.

I would posit that the 'undisciplined passion' of police officers is more dangerous than any mob.  In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Lincoln would be harsher on law enforcement than on the 'violent Marxist mobs', for we expect better from those who enforce the law than those who follow it.  How can anyone respect the Badge when those who have worn it have historically had close ties with white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (and its more recent successors), and used it to oppress people of color through facilitating lynchings, mass incarceration for mostly non-violent offenses, and police brutality?  Given this context, 'law and order' is a sick joke.  

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In an 1838 address to the members of the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Lincoln warned that because American democracy could never be overthrown by a foreign invader, the only enemy to be feared was one within: undisciplined passion. Pointing to several recent examples of frontier lynchings, Lincoln deplored "the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of the Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice."

In the political tradition Lincoln inherited, the "passions" were both dangerous and strong; it was the task of responsible individuals, allied with political institutions, to keep them under control. The goal was the maintenance of rational balance, both in the individual personality and in the body politic. To let undisciplined passions gain dominance would be to open the door to mob rule. This was how the authors of the Federalist Papers had explained it when calling for the establishment of the Constitution in 1788; and fifty years later, Lincoln used exactly the same language in calling for the preservation of that Constitution. His 1838 address echoes their call to subordinate passion to reason.

Lincoln warned his fellow young men that during the generations to come, ambitious demagogues would seek to prey upon the passions of the people unless these were kept under stern control. "Passion has helped us" in rallying the people to the cause of the Revolution, Lincoln acknowledged, "but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy." He cautioned, "Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence." Only by the control of passion could American democracy keep from degenerating into anarchy or demagogy. When Lincoln declared that America would stand or fall by "the capability of a people to govern themselves," he meant this in both a political and a psychological sense.

I would posit that the 'undisciplined passion' of police officers is more dangerous than any mob.  In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that Lincoln would be harsher on law enforcement than on the 'violent Marxist mobs', for we expect better from those who enforce the law than those who follow it.  How can anyone respect the Badge when those who have worn it have historically had close ties with white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (and its more recent successors), and used it to oppress people of color through facilitating lynchings, mass incarceration for mostly non-violent offenses, and police brutality?  Given this context, 'law and order' is a sick joke.  

At the end of the day, it is paramount to take a step back and examine what the real problem at its core is. That problem is the arbitrary nature with which the mob is metering out justice and law exists to restrain the whims of this crowd, the temporary impulsive whims of an impassioned crowd. So yes Lincoln would have most certainly had a problem with the mob be it the lynch mob or the radical left mob.

Arbitrary justice is not limited to the mob, in fact one would think that Americans, especially American Conservatives, steeped in lore about the revolution fought against the arbitrary impositions on natural English liberties would thus not fall into the trap of being blind to government and its arbitrary nature. Indeed, we as a group have generally been the first to challenge the government on that basis, but the problem comes is that most are blinded when it comes to their own favored aspects of government. Those of course are the military and the police.

This is inevitably what happens when you run ideology through a cheese grater and then cobble together as a policy wish list to please voting and interest groups, merely painting it as a cohesive ideology afterwards. If one were to construct a coherent basis for Conservatism, it would not start with that policy list or even with the libertarian paradigm of small versus big government. It would start with an understanding of what produces arbitrary rule and work from there to oppose that. This means that opposing both the mob and the unequal justice that pervades certain aspects of the legal system would not be a difficult balancing act, it would be second nature as it is for me.

You then work from there and oppose government not for the sake of opposing government, but because a powerful government tends to be prone to inequity and arbitrary imposition of force. Conservatives already hold this view for the most part, they just haven't though about applying in across the board when it doesn't fit the comfort zone of the group think. Since I have never given a flying F@%k about group think, I don't have this inhibition.

The problem with starting everything from a basis of defining the arbitrary and then working to oppose it, is that it becomes inconvenient for three very powerful groups. Special interests, since they don't care about the means as long as they get MONEY!!!! Media Sh@%T stirrers because radicalism stirs emotions, stirs viewers, means MONEY!!!! Select targeted groups of voters who would thus find a consistent and coherent opposition to such arbitrary rule and government power, to be inconvenient for what they want and in many cases have been promised with empty words by politicians who have no hope of delivering.