Comments on: Shattering Lincoln’s Dream

By: Theodore Van Oosbree

Theodore Van Oosbree — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:55:53 +0000

Dear Juvenal: I haven't found the book yet describing Lincoln's reading habits as a Congressman but I did run across an interesting site listing books Lincoln did or may have read (with a rating of the probability of same). It's at: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/28.2/bray.html
Alas, The Federalist Papers are not on that list but I'm not sure how definitive it is. I don't blame Lincoln for not reading Billy Herndon- style books: Herndon was fond of 19th century novels and German philosophy! As a busy father and professional myself, my reading tends to be newspapers and magazines with books squeezed in when I can ( a situation with which Lincoln, a voracious reader in his youth, might empathize).

By: Ted Van Oosbree

Ted Van Oosbree — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:31:28 +0000

Dear Juvenal: I have just read your post. I do not have the citation in front of me as I write but I do have it in my library (it is from a biography of Lincoln). I will find it presently and quote you chapter and verse.
Dear Caedmon: stay out of McDonald's - those Big Macs aren't good for you!

By: Juvenal

Juvenal — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:37:58 +0000

Still waiting for proof that Lincoln read the Federalist or that Lincoln spent a lot of time reading in the LOC. Isn't there a moderator who can weed out disinformation from this site?

By: Caedmon

Caedmon — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:50:35 +0000

Re: #12

"It is highly unlikely that Lincoln did not read the Federalist Papers. During his term in the House of Representives he spent much of his considerable free time at the Library of Congress reading(Congress was a part-time job in those days, even when it was in session). That he did not read the seminal document of the unionism he championed is, I repeat, unlikely."

Sure. And it likewise follows that given all times I've frequented McDonald's, I must have eaten a Big Mac. I mean, that is logical, isn't it?

By: J Meng

J Meng — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:22:05 +0000

Mark Higdon, @3: "What in the HELL has become of us, our freedoms and our very sanity?" To answer your question: We have become imprisoned by the ideological applications of Liberalism. Read James Burnham's Suicide of the West. It is the prevailing American doctrine eroding our Western-based culture. At the time he wrote the book (1964), he did note that the Deep South was "in a more general and institutionalized way, non- and indeed anti-liberal. There are liberals in the South, and their tribe has been increasing, as there are non-liberals in the North, East, and West; and a fair amount of liberal doctrine has seeped gradually into the Ssouthern mind....But the South as a whole, or at any rate the Deep South, remains for elsewhere ascendant liberalism, a barbarian outpost, under heavy siege but not yet conquered, in spite of manifestos, court orders, freedom riders and paratroops." If this situation still exists in the South, I don't know. Anyway, that is our problem and it is a serious problem, primarily, because in general it excludes God from the affairs of men. As Burnham states, "The logical starting point for liberalism, as for most other ideologies, is a belief about the nature of man...[which is] not fixed [the traditional belief] but changing, with an unlimited or at any rate indefinitely large potential for positive (good, favorable, progressive) development....[man has not been wounded by Original Sin]....Liberalism is rationalist....reason is man's essence, and in a practical sense his chief and ultimately controlling characteristic. Liberalism is confident that reason and rational science, without appeal to revealtion, faith, custom or intuition, can both comprehend the world and solve its problems." How terribly ironic when one looks back over the past two hundred years of "progress". I would suggest that the Global Warming thing is a Liberal construct to achieve a goal that will further restrict our civil freedoms.

By: Etienne Gervaise

Etienne Gervaise — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:02:47 +0000

I plan to spend February memorizing this wonderful ditty in memory of "Honest" Abe.

Southrons, hear your country call you,
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Lo! all the beacon-fires are lighted,--
Let all hearts be now united!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Advance the flag of Dixie! Hurrah! Hurrah!
In Dixie's land we take our stand, and live or die for Dixie!
To arms! To arms! And conquer peace for Dixie!
To arms! To arms! And conquer peace for Dixie

Hear the Northern thunders mutter!
Northern flags in South winds flutter!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Send them back your fierce defiance!
Stamp upon the cursed alliance!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus:
Fear no danger! Shun no labor!
Lift up rifle, pike, and saber!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder,
Let the odds make each heart bolder!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

How the South's great heart rejoices
At your cannon's ringing voices!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
For faith betrayed and pledges broken,
Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken,
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

Strong as lions, swift as eagles,
Back to their kennels hunt these beagles!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Cut the unequal bonds asunder!
Let them hence each other plunder!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

Swear upon your country's altar
Never to submit or falter--
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Till the spoilers are defeated,
Till the Lord's work is completed!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

Halt not till our Federation
Secures among earth's powers its station!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Then at peace and crowned with glory,
Hear your children tell the story!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

If the loved ones weep in sadness,
Victory soon shall bring them gladness--
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!
Exultant pride soon vanish sorrow;
Smiles chase tears away to-morrow!
To arms! To arms! To arms, in Dixie!

Chorus

By: Juvenal

Juvenal — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:03:57 +0000

Lincoln's law partner Billy Herndon said that the future president never read anything but newspapers, and nothing Herndon said could change his habits. What is the evidence that he spent his time reading in the Library of Congress?

By: Theodore M. Van Oosbree

Theodore M. Van Oosbree — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:49:48 +0000

It is highly unlikely that Lincoln did not read the Federalist Papers. During his term in the House of Representives he spent much of his considerable free time at the Library of Congress reading(Congress was a part-time job in those days, even when it was in session). That he did not read the seminal document of the unionism he championed
is, I repeat, unlikely.
Not only Lincoln but many prominent Americans of North and South championed emancipation and colonization of blacks (there was even a society created to support the policy). Lincoln supported the policy because he thought slavery wrong and detrimental to the republic but he did not think that whites and blacks would ever get along well enough for them to be free citizens together (he cited the widespread prejudice against blacks as evidence of this). Most Americans of the time would not support emancipation without colonization in any case.

By: Valerie Protopapas

Valerie Protopapas — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:57:09 +0000

I'm sorry, Mr. Sobran, there is absolutely nothing about Abraham Lincoln that I admire. Like Sherman, he wanted to destroy a culture and not merely maintain the "cash cow" South in the Union to pay for his ever growing central government or its fascistic involvement with Northern commerce and shipping. Sherman writes about the South and how its' people "kept apart" from the Northern colonies, preferring their own culture. Of course, this culture has been condemned as based solely from the institution of slavery, but that was not the case. Indeed, it was the South that stepped forward to end African slave trade early on, not the North which was profiting exceedingly from the notorious "Triangle Trade". The problem with both Lincoln and Sherman is that the people of the South would not worship at the altar of the federal government. Both men worshiped this idol and not the God of the Bible worshiped by the people they wished to destroy. Lincoln was willing to put up with the isolationist South and its slavery so long as the tax money they paid - about 75% of all federal taxes - continued coming in. With that money, Lincoln could grow his tyranny and enshrine his administration in the history of the developing American Empire; without it, his plans of a centralized power as desired by Hamilton, went - quite literally - South. Therefore, when it became apparent that the South was going to secede denying him that income, Lincoln planned for a war which would, once and for all, end the power of a section of the nation which refused to move from Republic to Empire and from the sovereignty of the States and the People to the centralized rule of the Federal Government. Towards that end, Abraham Lincoln was willing to kill as many "Americans" - North and South - as was necessary. You say you deplore Roosevelt, but compared to Lincoln, Roosevelt was a puny criminal. All the Americans killed in World War II did not come near the number murdered by Lincoln nor did any portion of the nation suffer the devastation suffered by the people and the states of the South under that tyrant. Roosevelt may have been an "enemy of the Constitution", but after Lincoln was finished, there wasn't much left for Roosevelt to destroy.

By: Etienne Gervaise

Etienne Gervaise — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:54:58 +0000

@7 Cherusci

I'd like to recommend the Roosevelt (Rosenfeld) Myth by John T. Flynn who revealed that Old Rubberlegs was corrupt down to his hobby: Stamp collecting.