"If there is one characteristic that all great President's have shared, it is a profound love and instinctive appreciation of this great idea and its fundamental role in the life and history of America. ... Lincoln exhibited it when he abolished slavery and the country had to live up to the values and ideals enumerated by its founders; ..."

Excuse me, but on what date did Lincoln "abolish slavery"?

Was this before or after he defeated the whole Army of North Virginia singlehandedly using his superhuman strength, invulnerability to bullets, and ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
Rad Geek | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 7:15 am | #

Ever hear of the "Emancipation Proclamation"?
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

What history books did you read? Is Lincoln just another one of those evil, oppressive white males in your little brain?
AnotherGuy | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 7:41 am | #

Apparently, Lincoln is to be faulted because he is not perfect, like the lefties of today. Only perfection will do, otherwise it cannot be tolerated.
anonymous | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 9:35 am | #

Only perfection will do, otherwise it cannot be tolerated.

Because Gods Can Do No Wrong, PRAISE HILLARY!

George Washington understood this when he surrendered control of the military to civilian authority; Lincoln exhibited it when he abolished slavery and the country had to live up to the values and ideals enumerated by its founders; FDR expressed it when he stood up to the National Socialists and the Empire of Japan in WWII; Reagan was one of its champions when he demanded that the USSR tear down the walls of tyrany it erected around the globe; and George W. Bush extended the idea and vision of freedom to its logical global conclusion, when he said in his 2005 State of the Union Speech...

Odd... none of these examples even mentioned Womyn's Right To Choose (TM), Gender Orientation (TM), or even BREAD AND CIRCUSES (TM)...
Headless Unicorn Guy | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 12:09 pm | #

AnotherGuy,

Yes, I have. The Emancipation Proclamation did not abolish slavery. It freed a number of slaves within the parts of the Confederacy that were conquered betweeen 1863 and 1865, but left many other slaves in bondage, and never claimed to do anything like abolishing the institution of slavery.

I have read several histories of both American slavery and the Civil War; last I checked, slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. And last time I checked the Constitution, amendments were ratified by the Congress and the several states, not by Presidential edict.

AnotherGuy: "Is Lincoln just another one of those evil, oppressive white males in your little brain?"

Anonymous: "Apparently, Lincoln is to be faulted because he is not perfect, like the lefties of today."

Headless Unicorn Guy: "Because Gods Can Do No Wrong"

None of these remarks have anything to do with anything that I said above. All I did was complain that it's not historically accurate to present the abolition of slavery as the work of a single politician. Please try to respond to what I actually said, rather than to the lively debate that you've created in your own head.
Rad Geek | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 1:18 pm | #

"Was this before or after he defeated the whole Army of North Virginia singlehandedly using his superhuman strength, invulnerability to bullets, and ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Rad Geek.

Was this part of your complaint? See, if you would have only left off that bit of snide-ass shit, you may have found people here a tad warmer to engaging you intelligently.

Just my 2 cents.
White Ringer | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 1:50 pm | #

White Ringer,

Just another typical lefty "nowadays intellectual" feeling smart about it/her/himself. At least the guy proclaimed he had read some history!
always right | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 2:18 pm | #

"You don't need any intellect to be an intellectual."
-- G.K.Chesterton
Headless Unicorn Guy | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 8:00 pm | #

> Apparently, Lincoln is to be faulted because he is not perfect, like the lefties of today. Only perfection will do, otherwise it cannot be tolerated.

Ah, me -- would that they would not tolerate themselves and sought to directly (instead of the current indirect method) off themselves...

I'd prefer that they'd wise up, of course, but that's waaaay beyond their capacity, so I will settle for them no longer trying to drag me and mine down with them, and there appears to be only one way for that to happen.
Oh Bloody Hell | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 9:35 pm | #

"Our Founding Fathers lacked the special literary skill with which modern writers on the subject of government are so richly endowed. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they found themselves more or less forced to come to the point. So clumsy of thought and pen were the Founders that even today, seven generations later, we can tell what they were talking about.
They were talking about having a good time:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...
'This is living!' 'I gotta be me!' 'Ain't we got fun?!' It's all there in
the Declaration of Independence. We are the only nation in the world founded on happiness. Search as you will the sacred creeds of other nations and peoples, read the Magna Carta, the Communist Manifesto, the Ten Commandments, the Analects of Confucius, Plato's Republic, the New
Testament, or the UN Charter, and find me any happiness at all."
- P.J. O'Rourke, 'Parliament of Whores' -
Oh Bloody Hell | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 9:37 pm | #

> None of these remarks have anything to do with anything that I said above.

Sure they do -- they just don't directly attack the problem, your insistance on distancing the relevance of the EP to what followed. One could argue before it that the War was about States Rights and nothing more -- or about the interests of the industrial North vs. the agrarian South, and nothing more.

AFTER it, there was n longer any question about what the war involved -- freeing the slaves.

The other stuff, while certainly relevant, was a side issue.

The only rational argument one can make about that is whether the Fed had any such right granted by the Con. Since I think you can make a pretty serious argument that the several States must surrender at the least to the civil protections offered by the Con to all citizens (thus, at the least, offering freedom to the children of slaves), the Amendment you mention simply confirmed what was already defacto the case after the EP. It wasn't the thing which freed the slaves -- it was the men (& women) who fought for their rights, on the express orders of ... guess who?
Oh Bloody Hell | Email | Homepage | 02.22.07 - 9:45 pm | #

Damn it's good to see you back OBH,

..and there appears to be only one way for that to happen.

Amen.
White Ringer | Email | Homepage | 02.23.07 - 12:18 am | #

DISTRACTED BY A TEMPEST IN A TEACUP

Sure, Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation"
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/info...democrac/ 24.htm
didn't free all slaves, just some (roughly 80 to 90%, I believe). It was an interim measure directed at the states that rebelled.

So what? They act as if that's ALL Lincoln had no real intention of freeing the slaves, and that's all he ever did. But it wasn't.

First, please note the sentence fragment at the end of the list of states and exemptions, " . . . and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued."

In other words, "we'll deal with you later."

The real deal was the 13th amendment,
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/ bi...hamendment.html
which was necessary because the power to make freedom for slaves all inclusive and permanent resided with the states and congress, not the president.

Lincoln's role in this was that:
"On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Joint Resolution submitting the proposed 13th Amendment to the states . . . "
(ibid).

So, because of his actions, which included doing everything he could possibly do, Lincoln can legitimately be given the credit of having freed the slaves.

The war on reality continues, as the trolls with tunnel vision and selective memory try to rewrite history to distract us by subverting our efforts to understand why they seek to thwart progress.

Thanks, trolls, for giving us such an excellent example of what the Dr. was talking about.
ytba | Email | Homepage | 02.25.07 - 12:16 am | #

Oh, and as to giving credit to "a single politician," why not? It was his leadership that made it possible.

But, maybe you're at least a little right, we should at least mention the others involved. Besides the Republican president, there was the Republicans in the House and Senate, who stood their ground against the Southern slave-holding Democrats, and their Northern Democrat sympathizers.

Oh, and let's not forget the States of decent Americans, Norht and South, that voted to pass the 13th amendment.

But still, if Lincoln had not led the charge, it wouldn't have happened. After all, the general may not win the war without the army, but the army can't win it without him. And the victory is always attributed to him. Same here.

Stupid trolls.
ytba | Email | Homepage | 02.25.07 - 12:39 am | #