Do You Know the Real Abraham Lincoln?
For many years of my life I looked at Abraham Lincoln as an American Hero. But now, with a greater understanding of the Constitution and state’s rights, I see I am a victim of American revisionism of history in American classrooms. Abraham Lincoln cared nothing about the slaves, he only cared about expanding the powers of the federal government and the taxes the federal government received from the south, who rightfully seceded from the union. For Lincoln’s greed for power and taxes, led to a war that killed 93,000 Confederate troops and 110,000 Union troops in combat. (Most of the deaths during the Civil War, totaling over 620,000 people was because of disease.)
During the last couple decades, the spin has been against waving the Confederate flag is if it’s some kind of racial symbol. I now believe this is a careful plan by the Federal Government who knows the greatest threat to their power are educated people willing to stand up against their quest for power. The Confederate flag is really a symbol of state’s rights and sovereignty—bad words in today’s America according to the Department of Homeland Security. When you start looking at the truth behind the Southern States, you soon discover the Confederate Constitution
For years, the most basic lesson of the Civil War taught you empty minds the war was a battle for slavery. The Northern States fought for freedom while the Southern States fought for slavery.
Yet, Article 1, Section 9 of the Confederate Constitution reads: 1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. How many knew the Southern State’s Constitution had a provision to stop the African slave trade.
So I think we should take a different look at Lincoln. Let’s throw out this glorified image of freedom associated with Lincoln as the Great Emancipator who kept the union together. Rather, let’s look how Lincoln increased slavery in the United States by destroying states rights, the union, and creating a huge federal government that began looking at the states as a nation rather than sovereign states that worked together for commerce and defense. Abraham Lincoln is the father of big government.
For far too many years, the Southern States have been portrayed as the antagonist, the villain. How could they break up the union? In reality they are the protagonist of this period in history. They had every right to secede from the union and the fact Lincoln fought a war to pull them back into the union in not only a violation of the Constitution specifically dealing with state’s rights, but also proves Lincoln’s disregard of the founding fathers and suggests Lincoln was somewhat tyrannical in his decisions. Sure the Confederates fired the first shots, but Lincoln made the decision to send Union Troops to Fort Sumter to bully the Confederates to surrender Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
The initial shot was consistent with Lincoln’s word. Lincoln said he would do whatever it took to keep the Union together, including war, but it would have to be the South that fired first. Lincoln’s troops may not have fired the first shot, but they instigated the first shot.
So what interest did Lincoln have in keeping the Union together? What was so important about the south that he would send the Secretary of War to Fort Sumter to agitate Confederate soldiers? The answer is not based on the moral quest to end slavery as the history books have fooled Americans in to believing. In fact, it’s quite the opposite as documented in a letter to Horace Greeley and Lincoln’s original intent as he sent troops to Fort Sumter—to save the Union—not free the slaves. Lincoln didn’t care one way or another if the slaves were freed. This was about economics and of course we see the outcome of that today as the federal government continues to put the Treasury before the people.
The fact is redistribution of wealth was already occurring in the United States before the Civil War, and it was done through unfair taxation. The South was exporting its agriculture and making huge profits with their crops. The Northern States found a way to dip into the pockets of Southerners through heavy taxation. Former Vice-President John C. Calhoun put it this way, "The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North… the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue."
This is the main reason the South left the union. It had nothing to do with slavery. The issue of slavery transferred the South from the protagonist to the antagonist in our history books. Under the Bill of Rights, the South had every right to escape this unfair taxation through secession, just like any state has the right to leave the union today. Notice how the federal government and the mainstream media brainwash people today into believing secession is bad.
In fact, when the taxes from the South dried up in Northern states, things became dire for the remaining United States. A March 1861 New York Evening Post describes just how bad it got once the taxes dried up from Southern States.
That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.
The tariffs imposed on the South, affectionately known as the "Tariff of Abomination" pushed by Henry Clay ranged from 20 to 30%. When Lincoln took office he immediately raised these tariffs through the Morrill Tariff Act, and the South began their secession. There is an amazing irony between Lincoln and Barack Obama that goes much farther than the role of Great Emancipator and free black man, which Obama played upon prior to his inauguration.
Just the fact Obama identifies with Lincoln proves Obama knows little about American history in terms of black history but how much he does know about getting away with unconstitutional actions. Obama's chosen connection to Abraham Lincoln is a slap in the face to all black Americans. The irony of the connection is of course the division Obama creates and the discussions of secession taking place in America over more federal controls, bailouts of fiscally irresponsible states through taxation of other states, and of course higher taxes. Obama is the new Lincoln in many ways beyond his Illinois connection.
There is a lesson to learn in this. If you want to take control back from the modern-day oppressive government, secession may be the best economic choice. When taxes dry up for the federal government, they will have a hard time operating just like they did in 1861. It should remain a viable choice for any state that has practiced fiscal responsibility and Constitutional law, especially in a time where these states are being required to bailout states like California and New York. Not much has changed in the federal tax practices. They just have new names for the taxes. Each state can stand up to the federal government just like Governor of Texas Rick Perry is doing after Senator Ben Nelson’s deal for a yes vote with the current health care bill. Secession is a right and a responsibility each state must be will to use. The real truth of the Civil War is the North should be viewed as the patriots and colonists viewed Mother England during the Revolutionary War.
The myth that Abraham Lincoln cared about black people is one of the largest lies of the Civil War period of American history. It’s well documented Lincoln cared less about the issue of slavery.
On August 29, 1862, New Yorker Horace Greeley wrote an editorial in “The New York Tribune” called “The Prayer of the 20 Millions.” In his editorial, Greeley wrote the reasons why slavery must end in the United States. Greeley believed ending slavery would weaken the south to end the war and help the economies of the northern states. He did gain the attention of President Lincoln. Lincoln responded:
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I don't believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be error; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of Official duty: and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln
Words covered up by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln cared nothing about the slaves—only saving the Union, even it meant trampling the Constitution which he did. The truth about Abraham Lincoln is masked in his Jeffersonian tone of these two great American events.
It gets worse for Lincoln in a tyrannical way. Lincoln also suspended Habeas corpus laws. He made slaves out of Americans by arresting them without warrant against the Constitution. They were held in jail without access to a judge to decide if they were guilty beyond any claims made by the Union under Lincoln’s leadership. (We hear possibilities of this in America today.) Lincoln locked up thousands of people who he considered threats without due process—no trial. Lincoln arrested political opponents, southern sympathizers, and anyone suspected of disloyalty to the Union. The real Lincoln appears more like Josef Stalin rather than the image taught in school that earned him a place on the five-dollar bill and a monument in Washington DC.
Lincoln also shut down newspapers that disagreed with his policies. Over 300 papers were censored through closure under Lincoln’s leadership. Lincoln turned into an enemy of the First Amendment. Maybe this truth is why Washington celebrates him with monuments and an image on our money. Lincoln helped mold this country today into an oppressive state, and we once again see another Illinois occupant of the Oval Office hoping to control media outlets, especially talk radio and the Internet.
In the book, His Dark Side --Lincoln's Illegal Imprisonment Of Baltimore's Mayor & Legislators by Chet Dembeck, examines the arrests ordered by President Lincoln of key Baltimore political opponents. Even with a Supreme Court decision with an opinion written by Chief Justice Roger Taney informing Lincoln he was in violation of the Constitution. Lincoln ignored Taney’s opinion and continued arresting political opponents. It’s really amazing a bullet didn’t find Lincoln sooner considering Lincoln’s crimes. Lincoln’s secret police (Union troops) continued to arrest political enemies.
In the end, the Emancipation Proclamation became nothing more than rhetoric geared to save Lincoln’s image and the fact he trampled all over the Constitution to save the Union. The proclamation is nothing more than a mask to cover the truth of Lincoln’s intentions and hide the fact that over 600,000 Americans died. Nothing good came out of the Civil War because Federalism died.
In the late 1980s, Hollywood had a fascination with the Soviet takeover of the United States. Movies like The Day After and Amerika attempted to scare Americans into believing Reagan was dangerous. I recall watching Amerika, a 12-hour miniseries on ABC, watching flags of Vladimir Lenin with Abraham Lincoln’s image waved by Soviet propagandist. I remember being offended by the flags because I believed Lincoln was a great man, a real American hero. Some 20 years later, I am not offended. In fact, I understand the connection. Lincoln’s oppressive governing style killed the vision of our founding fathers. Looking at the true Lincoln it’s easy to see why his image was placed on the flag.
