Harris poll: Obama replaces Jesus as Americans’ new number one hero

The correct choice, of course, is Lincoln, but I suspect there are just enough southerners still holding a grudge 150 years later to forever keep him from his rightful place.

“Southerners” like Walter E. Williams, who know their history on the subject.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams120298.asp

History books have misled today’s Americans to believe the war was fought to free slaves.

Statements from the time suggest otherwise. In President Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so.”

During the war, in an 1862 letter to the New York Daily Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln said, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery.” A recent article by Baltimore’s Loyola College Professor Thomas DiLorenzo titled “The Great Centralizer,” in The Independent Review (Fall 1998), cites quotation after quotation of similar northern sentiment about slavery.

Lincoln’s intentions, as well as that of many northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the presidential debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to “impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government” that “place at defiance the intentions of the republic’s founders.” Douglas was right, and Lincoln’s vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed.

A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the “Tariffs of Abominations.” A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britain’s Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests.

Shortly after Lincoln’s election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs.

That’s when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.

The only good coming from the War Between the States was the abolition of slavery. The great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” was overturned by force of arms. By destroying the states’ right to secession, Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the kind of unconstrained, despotic, arrogant government we have today, something the framers of the Constitution could not have possibly imagined.

Govt. school history books of course tell a different story. My view is Lincoln was dead wrong, and it was a power grab at the time and its a joke for anyone to think the war was over slavery(and naive). However going into the 20th century its hard to see how we hold through WW2 and the Cold War, things work out in mysterious ways.

Either way, its true if not for Lincoln there would not be this type of Socialism being pushed down our throats at the Federal Level. In that sense, without Lincoln then No Obama like they like to say.

jp on February 20, 2009 at 2:42 PM

No Batman?

Chuck Schick on February 20, 2009 at 2:38 PM

Bush is on the list, see Andrew Klavan for more on that

jp on February 20, 2009 at 2:44 PM