Abraham Lincoln - What is your opinion?

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I would like to know what your opinion on Abraham Lincoln is. The Following is my current evaluation of Lincoln so I would like to know you opinions on him.

I have recently, through my on-going research on the American Civil War, found out that Abraham Lincoln isn't as revered as I thought he was in America.

Of course I knew that he wasn't that well liked down south but I thought that to everyone else he was a true American hero who stood for equality, liberty and fraternity more than anyone else since the American Founding Fathers, after all he was the Great Emmancipator.

However I have discovered a quite large movement of educated people who seem to be dedicated to showing the unseen side of Lincoln, the side we dont hear about often, and attempt to show him as the person he really was and not just the mythological figure he has become.

I have recently found that a lot of evidence about Lincoln and his government has been buried beneath his myth and now with him so entrenched in American folk lore almost anything said against him is dissmissed or disscredited without due cause or is simply explained by saying "the ends justify the means"

But do they?

Can you justify threatening a part of your country with invasion if they fail to pay unfare taxes? or the arrest and imprisonment without warrant or trial of thousands of people whose only crime was questioning thier governments motives? or sending soldiers into 300 independatly run newpaper companies and destroying their presses then imprisoning the people who ran the paper just because they questioned thier governments motives? or using soldiers to intimidate voters into voting for your own party? or deporting congressmen simply because they dissagreed with you? or taking away the right to appeal against unlawful detention without consulting the governing body without whom that decision could not be made? Or the censorship of all means of communication? or the imprisonment of duly elected officials simply because they questioned their governments motives?

I doubt that any of these things could be actaully explaned as being justifiable to reaching a citain goal. Yet Lincoln and his administration did all thing and did it in defiance of congress who were simply told that it was not of 'public interest' to know why these thing happened.

And most learned men, or indeed women, will tell you that war between North and South was not nessesary to end Slavery in the US. Slavery had had its day in western culture and it was only a matter of time until the southern slave holders realised that.

During the 19th century, dozens of countries, including the British and Spanish empires, ended slavery peacefully through compensated emancipation, among such countries were Argentina, Colombia, Chile, all of Central America, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, the French and Danish colonies, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

So what was Lincolns goal?

He had never expressed a dislike of slavery and in his own words: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it"

So clearly the freedom of the slaves was not his goal. It became a war aim after the Emmancipation Proclaimation but it was not Lincolns priority.

No, what Lincoln wanted was a centralized government who governed over all the Union without fear of the States individual governments interferring with their will. What he wanted was to control all the Union, north and south, from his central government without fear of removal or reprisal for any of his wrongs.

Lincolns main objectives during his tenure as president was to preserve the Union by any means nessesary and to create a central government with unquestioned power. All other things that came between it were either stepping stones to this or political aids to his end goal.

Lincoln was as fine a human as this speices has produced. He did take some liberties with the constituion, sure, but liberty sometimes aint pretty and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.

You can quibble about some details, but overall, he did very well...an excellent example of circumstances producing the right person at the right time...

gaylon

www.writersshack.com
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In terms of aims achieved while in office there is no denying that Lincoln was one of, if not the, most sucessful presidents in American history but as a person he was hardly the saint the Unionist Myth has made him out to be.

For example the Unionist Myth has made Lincoln out to be a life long opponant of Slavery when he was not. He neither cared for Slavery or Abolition. He didn't care whether slavery survived or not in America. The only time got involved in the

In terms of aims achieved while in office there is no denying that Lincoln was one of, if not the, most sucessful presidents in American history but as a person he was hardly the saint the Unionist Myth has made him out to be.

For example the Unionist Myth has made Lincoln out to be a life long opponant of Slavery when he was not. He neither cared for Slavery or Abolition. He didn't care whether slavery survived or not in America. The only time got involved in the issue of Slavery was when it was beneficial to his cause to do so.

And thus you have the hypocritical crap that is the Emancipation Proclamation. A document that states that Lincoln would only free the slaves in areas of the Southern states he did not control but any area of the Southern states in his control or northern states within the Union that had slaves would be allowed to keep them.

Lincoln was a quinticential politician and lawyer. He lied to people and manipulated situations to his own benifit. He was the greatest politician of his age in his country...and there can be not higher level or praise nor higher level of condemnation than that.

If the War Between the States took place in todays media dominated world Lincoln would be viewed as a tyrant the likes of Stalin. A man who would be willing to dominate his own country and crush all who opposed him to create one united superstate but because his cause was deemed "morally just" and because he was assinated before the southern version of events could be fully documented, Lincoln has become an American Icon.

Lincoln has become a Martyr and a Saint. He has his own temple where his likeness sits like a Greek God of old and people come for miles to worship at his feet. He is a cult unto himself and none who subscribe to this cult will hear a word said against him.

I do not deny that the South was wrong in many of their ideals, nor do I deny that they did a number of illegal things themselves, but the South is villified solely for having slaves, ignoring any others injustices or wrongs that they may have done, and the North and Lincoln are praised for ending slavery, ignoring any of the injustices or wrongs that they may have done.

It is a unfair and unbalanced view of American history that is never likely to change...