Dear Mr. Aguelzo,
Sadly,
you have bought into the Lincoln myth hook, line and sinker. A superb
wordsmith, Lincoln was able to hide his unconstitutional and criminal
behavior including his many war crimes with fine words, but his actions
- as with all "actions" - spoke far louder than his glorious
verbiage.
Lincoln had no desire
to "interfere" with slavery. There are more than sufficient quotes
from the man himself to doubt that fact. As well, Lincoln quietly
pushed the Congress to offer the original 13th Amendment - the so-called
"Corwin Amendment" to the Constitution which would have placed
slavery into that document in perpetuity. Lincoln did this because
what he really wanted from the South was the MONEY the federal
government received from the obscene tariffs placed upon imports,
tariffs that fell mostly upon the South which paid 75%+ of the federal
revenues. It was the MONEY Lincoln wanted from the South and and he
was willing to have slavery forever in order to keep those revenues.
Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation was nothing more than a war strategy as he
himself admitted. He did not free one slave. Indeed, prior to the E. P.,
when a Union commander in a border state actually freed slaves held
in that territory, Lincoln ordered them returned to their masters.
Neither did the E.P. free slaves in any state remaining in the Union
such as the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky or
in Southern territory held by the Union.
So
if actual emancipation was not the intention of the proclamation, what
was? Simple. By "freeing" slaves in states no longer in the Union,
Lincoln hoped to encourage servile insurrection such as had happened
in the Nat Turner matter. If slaves rose up - especially in the cotton
states where the black population was enormous - the President hoped
that Southern whites serving in the Confederate army would desert and
return home to protect their families. If that occurred, it would end
any military response to the Northern invasion and the war would be
over. But Southerners knew better. The slaves did not rise up but most
remained in their homes even when the Yankees came. Often these same
slaves paid with their lives at the hands of the invaders when they
tried to help those with whom they had lived all their lives and whom
they considered to be their own families.
As
for Lincoln saving "the central idea" of America, that is even further
from the truth. He destroyed the Constitution and the Republic,
replacing the sovereign States and the will of the People (the consent
of the governed) with a monolithic central authority, the fate of the
Republic that Patrick Henry had prophysied when the Constitution was
adopted. Lincoln believed in centralization. His administration and
his military were filled with "48ers," Germans who fled their
socialist revolutions in Europe and came to the United States. Indeed,
Marx adored Lincoln for, among other things, his belief in the
centralization of power in the federal government and the decrease of
power outside of that institution. There are books now published which
make this connection irrefutably.
And, of course, Lincoln played hob with the Constitution. Among many other things, he:
1] nullified the 10th amendment, taking powers upon himself and the central government forbidden by that Amendment.
2]
declared war on those Southern states which had seceded (as was their
constitutional right), the only act declared as treason in Article III,
Section 3 of the Constitution; as well, the power to declare war was
limited to the Congress which wasn't even in session. Even the excuse
for war - the alleged unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter by the
Confederate government - was a lie and a set-up as Lincoln himself
admitted in letters to Agustus Fox and Otto Browning. It must be
remembered that it is not the side the fires the first shot that
starts a war, but the side that causes that shot to be fired - and that
was the United States!
3]
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus which was an act reserved for Congress
alone and when Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court demurred,
Lincoln sent along a warrant for Taney's arrest. It was never served,
but Taney and the rest of the Court realized that they were in danger
of permanent incarceration without recourse as long as Lincoln was in
power so, in effect, he silenced the highest court in the land.
4]
Lincoln used the military to influence the election of 1864 and it may
well be that his "victory" was as constitutional - and as legitimate -
as his previous actions.
5]
Lincoln presided over the waging of total war which included the deaths
of over a million people (when you include civilians) and acts so
barbarous that the European nations were aghast. Indeed, the Nazis
learned a lot from and in many cases copied the actions of Lincoln's
"noble warriors."
No, Lincoln
preserved nothing of the "central idea" of America. By the time he was
through, America had a very different "central idea," the idea of
centralization - that is, all power residing in the federal government
and everything that the government wanted done considered "legal" no
matter how unconstitutional! This new philosophy was further
entrenched with the 17th Amendment to the Constitution which changed
the selection of Senators (the Upper Chamber of Congress) from a
matter of the State legislatures to a direct vote such as is found in
the House (the Lower Chamber of Congress). By doing this, Lincoln's
political "heirs" further degraded the position of the no longer
sovereign States in the government of the nation. Of course, you must
remember, that the greatest power to prevent the tyranny of the
federal government was the power of the sovereign States! With that
gone, nothing could stop the ever increasing power in Washington.
Mr.
Aguelzo, in effect, Abraham Lincoln presided over the death of the
nation founded in 1776 and brought forth a centralized empire more in
keeping with that which arose in Europe than that which was envisioned
by the Founding Fathers. Of course, you won't hear these facts
presented in our present politically correct revisionist version of
"history" - which hasn't changed all the much from the "winner's
version" of history after the War of Secession - but that changes
nothing. Ignoring the facts and the truth does not render them invalid
and eternal reiteration of falsehood and myths does not gain them one
inch of validity.
Thank you for your courtesy.
Valerie Protopapas
Huntington Station, New York
Huntington Station, New York
