I tend to think Lincoln is a bit overrated like most icons but this is a goood quote

[VOLracious]

[The Chosen One]

I'm pretty sure there were lots of people who thought Lincoln was perverting the constitution by giving blacks freedom under the law. Pretty sure there are still many in the south and rural areas of America who still feel that way.

[zitothebrave]

EMancipation didn't free slaves, it was his work to secure the amendment. What he did was ensure the Brits didn't get involved with the Confederacy.

Lincoln is certainly one of the 3 best presidents ever. No other president had to fight a civil war and won it.

[Krgrecw]

I'm pretty sure there were lots of people who thought Lincoln was perverting the constitution by giving blacks freedom under the law. Pretty sure there are still many in the south and rural areas of America who still feel that way.

Yeah because us Hicks and Country Boys are racist

Lincoln didn't exactly run for office to abolish slavery and give blacks freedom.

[Carp]

Lincoln hardly "won" the Civil War. And one could argue he allowed the Civil War to happen in the first place.

Still, I respect Lincoln tremendously. But I do find he is a bit overrated in history among Presidents. I would go top 5 (in no order) JFK, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR. But Lincoln would be right outside that Top 5.

[goldfly]

would like to comment on the quote and OP etc

but Vol is nothing more than a troll that posts and leaves these days

oh well. too bad

cause i don't see why Vol cares about perverting the constitution, he doesn't agree with it 100%

[zitothebrave]

Lincoln hardly "won" the Civil War. And one could argue he allowed the Civil War to happen in the first place.

Still, I respect Lincoln tremendously. But I do find he is a bit overrated in history among Presidents. I would go top 5 (in no order) JFK, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR. But Lincoln would be right outside that Top 5.

South Carolina seceded from the union before Lincoln took the oath of office. South seceded because they saw the writing on the wall.

[Gary82]

Lincoln hardly "won" the Civil War. And one could argue he allowed the Civil War to happen in the first place.

Still, I respect Lincoln tremendously. But I do find he is a bit overrated in history among Presidents. I would go top 5 (in no order) JFK, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR. But Lincoln would be right outside that Top 5.

The seeds of secession were sowed long before Lincoln took office. It was only a matter of time, and when Lincoln won SC decided to walk.

[Carp]

Seceding =/= going to war. Lincoln failed miserably in his attempts to negotiate with the seceding states before and after the war began, and his call for volunteers to extinguish the rebellion actually caused 4 more states to secede.

[Gary82]

Yeah because us Hicks and Country Boys are racist

Lincoln didn't exactly run for office to abolish slavery and give blacks freedom.

To say whether or not the hicks and country boys were racists (so was the North and even Lincoln's view on black people would be considered racist today) is one thing, but the economic system that supported the South was racist, inhuman, and disgusting. States rights be damned.

Lincoln's ultimate goal was to preserve the Union, but his views eventually became more aligned with the Radical Republicans and Abolitionists over time. Now was it strategic and smack with politically expediency? Sure.

He even supported blacks getting the right to vote/citizenship, which motivated Booth to kill him.

[Gary82]

Seceding =/= going to war. Lincoln failed miserably in his attempts to negotiate with the seceding states before the war began, and his call for volunteers to extinguish the rebellion actually caused 4 more states to secede.

Do you feel war was not inevitable? Do you believe a better negotiating version of Lincoln could have prevented it?

[Carp]

Do you feel war was not inevitable? Do you believe a better negotiating version of Lincoln could have prevented it?

I do think war was likely unavoidable. But I also think it is quite clear that Lincoln did basically nothing to help prevent it. Just added fuel to fire.

[50PoundHead]

Do you feel war was not inevitable? Do you believe a better negotiating version of Lincoln could have prevented it?

This is a great book about the forty-year lead-up to the Civil War. One of the best books on history and the nuts-and-bolts of the political process I have ever read.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Missouri-C.../dp/0807861839

[zitothebrave]

Seceding =/= going to war. Lincoln failed miserably in his attempts to negotiate with the seceding states before and after the war began, and his call for volunteers to extinguish the rebellion actually caused 4 more states to secede.

Lol negotiating. Lincoln couldn't do anything that would have ended the war. Cause the only way the south would have ended the war was some kind of constitutional amendment allowing slavery. That wasn't happening.

There were 3 results caused by the actions of the south

1. Let them secede. In the end maybe not the worst option. The slave labor method would have almost for sure ruined their economy. And then we could have happily accepted thme back into the union when Mexico or Britain invaded them.

2. Give in to their demands. Not happening. They had no leg to stand on. We had the upper hand.

3. Go to war.

As far as your "call for volunteers" thing, yes that was the last straw for a few states. But it wasn't done without cause. As the confederates refused Lincoln's aid to the FOrt then began attacking it. It's not like the south just said, we're seceding and Lincoln started mustering troops. In fact the opposite happened. the First 7 states to secede then went on to start raising a 100,000 troop army. After the confederates started raising an army, started blockading union forts in the south, and then attacking one of them, what do you think is a rational response from Lincoln? Oh sorry you're cool keep raising an army and attacking us, we'll jsut sit back and try to convince you to stop.

I still love when you said the war wasn't about slavery, that's my favorite.

[zitothebrave]

I do think war was likely unavoidable. But I also think it is quite clear that Lincoln did basically nothing to help prevent it. Just added fuel to fire.

Yeah, he did nothing to help prevent it when 7 states already seceded before he took office and the confederate states mustered an army to go to war with.

[Hawk]

Another book recommendation, more about Lincoln and his thought process in the years leading up to the election and immediately thereafter, is Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (who, coincidentally, is helping Bud Selig write his memoirs).

[pfiggy]

Shocking, Butt needs help.

[Oklahomahawk]

Shocking, Butt needs help.

Yeah Pfigster, I think we all need help. A democracy simply DOES NOT WORK when those living in it can't or won't see the actual truth about any issue for themselves, yet they rush to see what their party (read here pimp) tells them to think about it first. Of course nobody here even belongs to a political party, they're all just independently "conditioned". Vol is like the guy you know who's a great person, fun to hang out with, seems to really know pretty much everything and would do just about anything to help just about anyone in need, until they take that first drink, then they're just GONE............. For Vol, politics is his alcohol. I think I know Vol better than most of you, great guy, nice guy, do anything to help a person, very knowledgeable about just about anything you could want to know stuff about, lots of fun to play fantasy football with, and just hang out with, at least in a virtual environment. Then politics rears its ugly head and................................

Can you guys really not see the point of this? When Obama or the Dems do anything, good or bad (and let's face it since they're politicians we all know which one that's going to be most of the time) he blasts it, details aren't important, the Big O just sucks, FU Barry, right? By the way why are we effing him again, I forget. But let's be fair and take into account the Repub side of the equation. All the crap the Repubs do and have done for the past 6 years that have at least partially contributed to our clusterpfark of a government also need to be considered don't they? After all the Repubs 100% obstructionist policies have...........oh what the eff, FU Barry right? After all Lincoln said so right? The Great Emancipator wouldn't stand for this stuff would he? After all he's the guy who locked up everybody who disagreed with him and totally ignored habeas corpus for 4 years so clearly he didn't like it when one branch of the government got "too big for their britches". Face it, if Lincoln were here, probably the first thing he'd do is to beat the living shi-ite out of those self serving slime balls who use partisan impasse and Pavlovian BS to line their own pockets, much of it at the expense of the greater part of their own constituency, while claiming to represent his party. Yeah, Lincoln would LOVE the Republican party of 2015. Yeah right...

[Metaphysicist]

Would love to see the argument for how JFK was a better president than Lincoln.

People who poo-poo Lincoln's legacy (or who claim the Civil War was not about slavery, for that matter) tend to be from southern states, and are great examples of how the systemic racism of yesteryear still affects today. Some schools still teach the alternate-history southern-victimization revisionism popularized in the early 1900s, just merely due to inertia. A lot of that garbage just never gets updated.

[Hawk]

Shocking, Butt needs help.

I also read (and this is no joke) that Jeffrey Loria helped him acquire several works of art over the past few years.

Since Bud is a collector now and all.