Glenn Beck’s Lincoln Contradictions

[Mosby]

Ok- so I'm not attacking Beck here, I realize that Glenn is considered sacred for some - that's fine with me. I believe that Beck has done a good job in helping a lot of folks come closer to the truth than anyone with a platform his size in recent history. I also believe that he is fond of telling little "half-truths" that can lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of government and it's proper role. (see article below)

I am also posting this because of an interesting conversation I had with a fellow Brother at church last week, here's the exchange:

Mos: Hey Brother X, are you still working in Az?
BrX: Yep, things are heating up down there politically!
Mos: Yeah, it's kinda interesting - I think that we are heading to a "pre-civil war" type climate with Az and the federal government- it looks like Az is going to have to assert it's states rights .
BrX: Huh?
Mos: well I mean the civil war was about states rights and the right of the states to be sovereign.
BrX: No, the civil war was about slavery.
Mos: actually it had very little to do with slavery- it was mainly about the sovereignity of the southern states.
BrX: No, it WAS about slavery - I have read the Conferderate Constitution, and it clearly calls for a continuation of slavery.
Mos: (at this point my interest was up- he said that he had "read the Confederate Constitution", I thought this was odd- as only the most hardcore historians have done this) - but I just said "Really?
BrX: Yes, it was all about slavery- I've been doing alot of study on the subject lately.......

Ok, so at this point I politely ended the discussion, I thought it weird that someone had actually read the Confederate Constitution - but figured that he really had not, since he had it all wrong- but I was still puzzled.....

Well - now it makes perfect sense, all this Brother's "study" has consisted of listening to Glenn Beck every day! So, here's the problem with Glenn: How can he lead people to "Liberty" if he is continuing one of the biggest lies that has even been told to the American people?
What's that lie? - That Lincoln was a "champion of Liberty and Freedom"

That's simply untrue, and anyone who has truly paid the price to study American history will know better. Beck either doesn't know this- or he is pushing the neocon agenda.

Honestly- I don't know how close to "liberty" anyone will ever get as long as they think that the biggest tyrant we have ever had in the White House is a champion of freedom. Beck is spreading false educational ideas about Lincoln, and the Civil War- if one doesn't understand how destructive both Lincoln and the Civil War were to the Constitution and personal liberty in America - they will never truly be free.

Is Beck really helping to free people? Or continue on in ignorance that will ultimately keep them in slavery?






Glenn Beck’s Lincoln Contradictions


Thomas J. DiLorenzo
LewRockwell.com
July 17, 2010

I’ve been occasionally watching Glenn Beck on the Fox News Channel and think he has done an admirable job of smoking out and identifying the shockingly hardcore, radical socialists who dominate the Obama administration. He has also done a generally good job talking about the libertarian founding principles of America, how they have been lost, and our duty to regain them. But he has been absolutely abysmal when discussing the subject of Lincoln, the War to Prevent Southern Independence, and its legacy. I suspect that the reason for this disconnect with historical reality is that: 1) The Fox News Channel is essentially a propaganda arm of the neoconservative political cabal that has captured the Republican Party; 2) One of the cornerstones of neocon ideology is Lincoln idolatry and hatred of the South and Southerners. (Professor Paul Gottfried, for one, has written extensively about this.) 3) Therefore, if Glenn wants to keep his gig at Fox, he must toe the party line on Lincoln. Being otherwise libertarian – while the Democrats are in power – serves the purposes of the neocon cabal nicely.

To the neocons, Lincoln idolatry serves the purpose of helping to prop up the centralized, bureaucratic, liberty-destroying, military-industrial complex that defines their existence. As William F. Buckley, Jr., the original neocon, declared in 1952, fighting the Cold War meant that “we have got to accept Big Government for the duration,” including “a totalitarian bureaucracy within our own shores” with its “large armies, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant centralization of power in Washington.” In case you haven’t noticed, for quite some time now the Republican Party has stood for war, war, and more war, and little else. How on earth genuine conservatives who favor limited constitutional government came to embrace Buckley as one of their leading spokesmen is a bizarre mystery.

When I debated one of the gurus of neocon Lincoln idolatry – Harry Jaffa – shortly after The Real Lincoln was published in 2002, he bellowed at one point that “9/11 proves more than ever that we need a strong central government.” (In reality, it proved the failure and incapability of “the central government” to protect even its own D.C. headquarters from a few nuts armed with box cutters.) “We need big, totalitarian government to fight all the new Hitlers and potential Hitlers in the world” is the neocon mantra, in a nutshell.

To neocons, Lincoln is the poster boy of militaristic big government that runs roughshod over civil liberties while bankrupting the country with taxes and debt and murdering thousands of innocent foreigners (not that Southerners during the 1861–1865 war were foreigners; they were fellow American citizens). Doesn’t this sound like the Republican Party of today, as embodied in the recently dethroned Bush administration?

Despite his admirable performances discussing the founding fathers, socialism, progressivism, and other topics, Glenn Beck has been absolutely awful and sometimes untruthful when discussing Lincoln and his legacy. During one show he claimed to have read the actual original copy of The Confederate Constitution. I assume he made this assertion to show that he must really be quite the expert on the document. I didn’t believe him when he said this, and his next sentence proved to me that he did not read the document. The next sentence was the statement that the formal title of the document was “The Slaveholders’ Constitution . . .” Anyone can look the document up at Yale University’s online Avalon Project, which warehouses all the American founding documents, commentaries, and more, to see for yourself that Beck was wrong about this.

Beck’s next false statement was that “I read it” (the Confederate Constitution) and “it wasn’t about states’ rights, it was all about slavery.” Read it yourself online. It is a virtual carbon copy of the U.S. Constitution, with a few exceptions: The Confederate president had a line-item veto; served for one six-year term; protectionist tariffs are outlawed; government subsidies for corporations are outlawed; and the “General Welfare Clause” of the U.S. Constitution was deleted.

The act of secession was the very essence of states’ rights, contrary to Beck’s proclamation, for the basic assumption was that the states were sovereign. They delegated certain defined powers to the central government for their own mutual benefit, but all other powers remained in the hands of the people and the states, as stated in the Tenth Amendment. As sovereigns, they had a right to secede for whatever reason. If a state needed the permission of others to secede, as Lincoln argued, then it was not really sovereign.

The U.S. Constitution adopted a federal, not a national system of government. That is another way of saying a states’ rights system of government. The Confederate Constitution was nearly identical.

As for slavery, the Confederate Constitution was not essentially different from the U.S. Constitution as it existed at the time. Beck was grossly deceiving when he told his audience that the Confederate Constitution protected slavery while saying not one word about how the U.S. Constitution did the exact same thing. Slavery had been protected by the U.S. Constitution since 1789. That’s seventy-two years of slavery protection under the U.S. Constitution. A Fugitive Slave Clause was written into the original U.S. Constitution, and the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress was never challenged constitutionally. That in fact is why the great libertarian abolitionist Lysander Spooner launched so many vitriolic attacks on the Lincoln administration. As a trained lawyer, he had laid out the constitutional case against slavery, but the Lincoln administration and the Republican Party wanted nothing to do with him or his peaceful route to emancipation – the same route all other countries of the world (and the Northern states) took during the nineteenth century to end slavery.

Moreover, Beck’s hero, Lincoln, orchestrated passage through the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives of the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which would have formally and explicitly enshrined slavery in the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting the government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. This amendment passed the Senate and the House just days before Lincoln was inaugurated. In his first inaugural address he said he believed slavery was already constitutional and then, alluding to the Corwin Amendment, said: “I have no objection to it [slavery protection] being made express and irrevocable” in the Constitution. This was by far the strongest defense of slavery ever made by an American politician, coming from the president himself. Beck and the wacky preacher posing as an intellectual made no mention of this.

More recently, Beck has admirably attacked the idea of “collective salvation” that Obama himself espouses, and which is apparently as much a part of the ideology of the American Left today as militarism fueled by Lincoln idolatry is of the Right. According to the doctrine of “collective salvation,” a Christian cannot be saved and go to Heaven unless one first embarks on a crusade to have government “save” the “oppressed” of society by expanding the welfare state, raising taxes, making taxation more “progressive,” adopting more racial hiring quotas, and regulating and nationalizing as much of private industry as possible. It is a variant of “liberation theology” which, according to Pope John Paul, IV, is essentially Marxism masquerading as Christianity.

What Beck and his wacky preacher/faux Lincoln expert do not know is that the main supporters of the Lincoln regime believed in the exact same quasi-religious ideas. Indeed, it defined their very existence. As explained by Murray Rothbard in “America’s Two Just Wars: 1775 and 1861″ (in John Denson, ed., The Costs of War, Transaction Publishers, 1997, p. 128):

The North, in particular the North’s driving force, the “Yankees” – that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois – had been swept by a new form of Protestantism. This was a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent “postmillennialism” which held that, as a precondition for the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year Kingdom of God on Earth.

To the Yankees, their “kingdom” was to be a “perfect society” cleansed of sin, the principal causes of which were slavery, alcohol, and Catholicism. Furthermore, “government is God’s major instrument of salvation,” Rothbard wrote. This is why the Yankees never seriously considered ending Southern slavery how THEY had ended it in their own states – peacefully through some kind of compensated emancipation. They were not so concerned about the welfare of the poor slaves. Indeed, even Tocqueville noticed that “the problem of race,” as he phrased it, was worse in the North than it was in the South. Instead, as Rothbard continues:

The Northern war against slavery partook of fanatical millennialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle and the birth of a perfect world. The Yankee fanatics were veritable Pattersonian humanitarians with the guillotine: the Anabaptists, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, of their era.

“Collective salvation,” as opposed to the individualistic salvation that the Bible teaches, was what motivated the Yankees and their war on the South. This of course is exactly what Glenn Beck has been ranting and raving about recently when it is practiced by opponents of the neocon establishment – the exact same establishment that embraces the Lincolnite, Yankee millennialist fervor as one of its defining characteristics. That’s why the neocons constantly invoke Lincoln’s “all men are created equal” words from the Gettysburg Address (via Jefferson’s Declaration of Secession) to “justify” their endless military meddling in over 100 countries of the world. ALL men deserve “equal” liberty, they tell us, and it is OUR job to invade, conquer, and occupy any nation on earth where there is a lack of such liberty.

America was founded with the George Washington/Thomas Jefferson foreign policy of commercial relationships with all nations, entangling alliances with none. The neocon establishment, which is influential in both major political parties, believes in just the opposite: “entangling alliances” and endless military interventionism with as many nations as possible, all in the name of some undefinable Great Moral Cause, in the tradition of Dishonest Abe.

Of course, all of this high-handed talk about the Republican Party supposedly being “the party of great moral ideas” is also a convenient smokescreen for the economic greed that is its real motivation, and has been ever since the party first gained power. As Rothbard further explained: “On the economic level, the Republicans [in 1860] adopted the Whig program of statism and big government: protective tariffs, subsidies to big business, strong central government, large-scale public works, and cheap credit spurred by government.” It hasn’t changed much since.

[clarkkent14]

Pre Cival War - the united States of America
Post Cival War - The United States of America

[Mosby]

BIG difference for scholars of the Constituion, and the country (pre-1865) that WAS known as America!

[gclayjr]

Check out the Confederate Constitution on-line

http://www.civilwarhome.com/csconstitution.htm

It was built upon the US constitution and includes a lot of language protecting the institution of Salevery

The Civil War WAS about Slavery!! The election of 1860 WAS about Slavery!! Just because Lincoln who, in order to avoid conflict, stated that he was not going to try and hinder slavery in existing Slave states if he won the election, did not lower the fear of the Southern states that he would. This was based upon his previous remarks where he stated how horrible slavery was. As a result of this fear, several southern states seceded. They made no bones about the fact that their secession was to preserve their right to hold slaves. Lincoln, the lawyer and diplomat that he was, sent the military to restore the union, and kept the reason "Narrow" to "Preserve the Union". I'm sure he was trying to keep the union from further breakage (Maryland, Tennesee, and other border states).

The bottom line .. the South's reasons for secession was slavery. Although Lincoln's direct reason for responding militarily was defined as "Preserve the Union"... the core cause was slavery. The Confederate constition was clearly written to preserve slavery.

Lincoln did expand the Fedearal governmen's role over individual and states rights in order to prosecute the most dangerous war in US history. We will never know for sure what he would have done had he lived past the end of the war. In this area there is room for lively debate,

But Glenn Beck's position is historically valid!!

[Mosby]

The bottom line .. the South's reasons for secession was slavery. Although Lincoln's direct reason for responding militarily was defined as "Preserve the Union"... the core cause was slavery. The Confederate constition was clearly written to preserve slavery.

Not so. I can tell that you didn't take the time to read DiLorenzo's article.

Lincoln did expand the Fedearal governmen's role over individual and states rights in order to prosecute the most dangerous war in US history. We will never know for sure what he would have done had he lived past the end of the war. In this area there is room for lively debate,

I think that based upon his actions ( attacking his own country,killing well over 600,000 people, to "preserve" a VOLUNTARY "Union") - we have a pretty good indicator of what the U.S would look like under Lincoln- post civil war.
But Glenn Beck's position is historically valid!!

No Beck's postion is only "historically valid" if you like revisionist history, mixed with the statist view of America, and a "Union" of states that is enforced by the sword - and a monsterous federal government that does as it pleases.Only then his postion is valid- that is if you are a statist, who believes in a strong federal government with weak states. Ironically this is the opposite (Beck and Lincoln's position) of our founders views (except Hamilton and a few others)

I will include a very good source for both Lincoln, and the root cause(s) for the Civil War. I realize it's far easier to say that Civil War was about slavery, especially if Glenn Beck says it was. However, for those who are prepared to pay the price to study the issue out in depth and be honest with themselves in challenging some deep-held paradiems of thought, they will come to a knowledge that the Civil War was not about slavery and that Lincoln was no hero either.

I won't argue the issue, I've spent years reading thousands of pages on the subject and I've drawn my own conclusons based upon the facts- the truth is out there for those willing to be honest and do their own homework.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html


Good Luck.

[creator]

I won't argue the issue, I've spent years reading thousands of pages on the subject and I've drawn my own conclusons based upon the facts- the truth is out there for those willing to be honest and do their own homework.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html

Stephen Pratt came up with this Homework assignment: An Heuristic Exploration of “the Union”.

Heuristic = A form of education where the student is trained to find out things for himself.

It's definitely worth reading/researching before setting your mind on one conclusion or the other regarding Lincoln and the Union.

[gclayjr]

Mosby (Descendant of the famous Gray Ghost?),

We live in a difficult world where sometimes if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it turns out that is is a conspiracy to hide something that is not a duck....but more often than not it is a duck.

I am familiar with the Lew Rockwell show. I am familar with the Mises institute, and I am a beliver in gold backed money, and I believe that that Fredrick Hayek was one of the greatest economics thinkers ever... That being said, I don't believe every conspiracy, or non intuitative re-interpretation of history is correct. You questioned Glenn Beck because you believe Mr. DiLorenzo more than Mr. Beck, fine, but you criticize Mr. Beck For not reading "Source" documents. I Show you that the Confederate Constitution does enshrine slavery, and again you criticise me for not checking my facts with Mr. DiLorenzo.

I'll reference another source document (Delaration of secession Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas)

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

QED : Even though the reason Lincoln fought the south was directly stated as "Preserve the Union"...the reason behind it all was SLAVERY!


I often listen to the Lew Rockwell show because there are a lot of good economic ideas expressed there, but they are not scriptural and you have to be an educated critical reader and listener, of everything that comes from every non devine source ... including Lew Rockwell

Regards,

George

[Rensai]

Mosby (Descendant of the famous Gray Ghost?),

We live in a difficult world where sometimes if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it turns out that is is a conspiracy to hide something that is not a duck....but more often than not it is a duck.

George

This has nothing to do with conspiracy. This is historical fact for anyone who's willing to research it. Without a doubt the preponderance of good, historically accurate data, backs up Mosby's claims.

Here are some snippets for you to consider. First from wikipedia,

Though he thought it was essentially a reaffirmation of terms already in the Constitution, Lincoln was a driving force in 1861 for the compromise Corwin amendment. It was passed by Congress and two states, but was abandoned once the Civil War began. It would have explicitly prohibited congressional interference with slavery in states where it already existed. The Corwin amendment was a late attempt at reconciliation, but it also was a measure of reassurance to the slave-holding border states that the federal government was not intent on taking away their powers.

hmm... so just before the war Lincoln backed a bill to protect slave owners' rights.

At the beginning of the war, Lincoln prohibited his generals from freeing slaves even in captured territories. On August 30, 1861, Major General John C. Frémont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis, proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln opposed allowing military leaders take executive actions that were not authorized by the government, and realized that such actions could induce slaveowners in border states to oppose the Union or even start supporting the enemy. Lincoln demanded Frémont modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. When Frémont refused, he was replaced by the conservative
General Henry Wager Halleck.

Lincoln to the rescue again... for slave holders.

The situation was repeated in May 1862, when General David Hunter began enlisting black soldiers in the occupied district under his control. Soon afterwards Hunter issued a statement that all slaves owned by Confederates in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina were free. Despite the pleas of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln ordered Hunter to disband the black 1st South Carolina Regiment and to retract his proclamation. At all times Lincoln insisted that he controlled the issue—only he had the war powers.

And again... and remember, this is all AFTER the war has already started.

Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union. On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after he had already discussed a draft of it with his cabinet in July, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition:

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 the 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 do not 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 errors; 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.

From Lincoln's own mouth he says it was not about slavery.

There is a LOT more evidence than that. For example,

by 1864 key Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were prepared to abolish slavery. As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation. In 1864 Jefferson Davis officially recommended that slaves who performed faithful service in non-combat positions in the Confederate army should be freed. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a "moral and political evil" years before the war (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 281; Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232). By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously.

If the south was willing to give up slavery to preserve the confederacy, it obviously wasn't the key issue for the war.

For more info, start here.
http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/book/export/html/2338

[Mosby]

You questioned Glenn Beck because you believe Mr. DiLorenzo more than Mr. Beck, fine, but you criticize Mr. Beck For not reading "Source" documents. I Show you that the Confederate Constitution does enshrine slavery, and again you criticise me for not checking my facts with Mr. DiLorenzo.

Like I said gclayjr, I won't argue the point- it's far too hard to compress 30 years of study on the Civil War into a "Forum", as well I believe that the facts are out there. Beck's worship of Lincoln and his statements on the Civil War lead me to believe that he is either very uneducated on the subject, or a closet statist.


I never argued that the Confederate Constitution makes slavery legal, I only argued that slavery was not the reason for the war.

I have read all of DiLorenzo's books and many others on the subject, to me it's pretty clear that Lincoln was not the great leader that he is held up to be. It's also clear to me that hundreds of thousands of non-slave owning southerners would not fight for something that they had no stake in (slavery).

I'm a minor Civil War buff, and it's very obivious from studying their own journals that soliders of both sides knew that they were not "fighting to free the slaves"- that's hollywoods version.

When the South lost, the America that the founders envisioned was lost as well. I do not say that as a southern man, but as American Patriot.

[Mosby]

Stephen Pratt came up with this Homework assignment: An Heuristic Exploration of “the Union”.

Brian- I know Stephen and have attended many of his seminars, and hold him in the highest regard.

I consider him to be a foremost expert on not only learning- but American history and the Constitution as well.

Pratt loves Lincoln

[creator]

Brian- I know Stephen and have attended many of his seminars, and hold him in the highest regard.
I consider him to be a foremost expert on not only learning- but American history and the Constitution as well.
Pratt loves Lincoln

Considering that you "have attended many of his seminars", I'll assume that your comment that "Pratt loves Lincoln" is sarcastic?

The truth is - Pratt presents both sides of the story, shows you what the facts are, and let's you decide for yourself. He presents the facts about the Founding Fathers and other important individuals throughout the history of this nation, and isn't afraid to reveal some of the poor choices they made.

Pratt presents the facts that Lincoln did indeed destroy the Union/Constitution - it's up to you to decide whether you think this was a good thing or not? I'm not sure the end ever justifies the means? Or, in other words, that in order to preserve what we think is best in the long run, we should do some bad things to accomplish it.

Homework: An Heuristic Exploration of “the Union”.

[Mosby]

I'll assume that your comment that "Pratt loves Lincoln" is sarcastic?

Yes

You are correct, Stephen presents the message in a non-threatening way that allows folks to make up their own minds.

He's the only person that I've ever seen enter a room full of Republicans in Cedar City or St.George and enlighten them to the fact that the Republican party is just as crooked as the Democratic party when it comes to Liberty and Freedom- and still make friends in process!

He is a true statesman in every sense of the word.

[gclayjr]

I will make one last post, because I am sure I will not convince the "Lincoln is a bum" crowd, but I want to let those who may be confused by the arguements of the "Lincoln is a Bum" crowd that there is plenty of a historical basis to support the fact that Lincoln was a great president. I have and continue to reference either original source documents or well vetted historical references.

The Republican party grew out of the old Whig party which self destructed because of it's waffling stand on Slavery. The Republican party was formed as the Anti-Slavery party. There is no arguement that Lincoln didn't do a number of things to try and assure the southern states that he wasn't going to jeapardize their precious slavery. The big questoin is why did the south secede under the first Republican Abraham Lincoln and not under the Southern Democrat James Buchanan?

The following is an exerpt from Answers.com on the Lincoln Douglas debates:

Lincoln opened the campaign in Springfield, the state capital, on 16 June 1858, when he delivered what has been hailed as the most important statement of his career, the "House Divided" speech. It was a strident call for Republican unity against what he described as a slave power conspiracy, of which Douglas was the principal conspirator, to extend slavery throughout the territories and free states of the Union. Moving away from his earlier conservative position, opposing the extension of slavery while tolerating it in the states where it already existed, Lincoln assumed a more radical stance. The conflict between freedom and slavery, he argued, was irrepressible and incapable of compromise, and would not cease until slavery should be placed in the course of "ultimate extinction," an abolitionist argument in everything but name. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

As Mormons we know how modern people with an anti Mormon agenda take things said by Joseph Smith to imply that he was for slavery. Remember when we went into Missouri, the citizens of the state were concered that the Mormons were coming in to bring abolition to Missouri. Mormon leaders tried to assure them that we were not interested in such political things, and said such things as:

I do not believe that the people of the North have any more right to say that the South shall not have slaves, than the South have to say the North shall.

All men are to be taught to repent; but we have no right to interfere with slaves, contrary to the mind and will of their masters.

In fact it would be much better and more prudent not to preach at all to slaves until after their masters are converted, and then teach the masters to use them with kindness; remembering that they are accountable to God, and the servants are bound to serve their masters with singleness of heart, without murmuring.”

We know how much all of that did to assure the Missourians.

Today we have people using such quotes in an improper context to imply that Joseph Smith was not anti-slavery.

Be careful how you construct arguements to besmirch a good man's name... similar aguements can be (and are) used to harm us!

[Jason]

I'm not sure the end ever justifies the means? Or, in other words, that in order to preserve what we think is best in the long run, we should do some bad things to accomplish it.

And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.

And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.

And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;

Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise.

Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law.

And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass.

And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause—that I might obtain the records according to his commandments.

Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_ne/4

[pjbrownie]

We need a little more nuance here. The Civil War was about both. In the end, the discussion in the South was to give their own emancipation proclamation--to therefore take the teeth out of the war over the slavery issue. For them, the greater cause was the federal conception of states rights. See Gods and Generals on this one.

And Lincoln was an unwilling puppet of European financiers. On one hand, he did in the end issue the Emancipation Proclamation, whether unwilling or not. The bankers played both sides, as they were heavily invested in the plantations of the south--in the end, the factories of the North won out. Had the South won, they would have enslaved people through the neo-aristocratic nonsense that paraded itself as fighting for states rights, when in reality, they were protecting little feudal kingdoms. However, those rascally bankers knew that by casting the South as the bogeyman they were, they could enslave us all through industrialization and centralization of power, a step close to a Central Bank. Reconstruction was a mess, as was the unconstitutional throttling of the rights of the citizens of Utah after the war.

Lincoln probably woke up to this fact too late. After the war, he began to see this scheme for what it was and began fighting the bankers. For this, he lost his life--IMO.

[Mosby]

Be careful how you construct arguements to besmirch a good man's name... similar aguements can be (and are) used to harm us!

If you consider the illegal invasion of a soveign state (Virginia and other southern states), the targeting of civilians as military targets- which resulted in wholesale rape,murder, and pillage of entire towns and regions ( Shermans "march" to the sea, Shendoah valley campaign, and others).

The suspension of habeas corpus, the arrest and imprisionment of political enemies and the shutting down of printing presses and silencing of those who spoke out against the war.
An illegal "draft", the "conscription acts"

And above all illegal, Un- Constitutional enforcement of a voluntary "Union" - by the sword, resulting in the deaths of over 600,000 people.

If you consider all these acts the mark of a "Good man", then you and I probably don't have alot in common to talk about. Lincoln was a statesman, he was a skilled politican, he was an example of persverance, he was NOT a champion of Freedom.

His actions speak for themselves, you can ignore them or accept those facts- every man is free to choose for himself.

[Mosby]

Had the South won, they would have enslaved people through the neo-aristocratic nonsense that paraded itself as fighting for states rights, when in reality, they were protecting little feudal kingdoms.

PJ- Can I ask a question? Have you recently read the book "Seven miracles that saved America"? The reason why I'm asking is that is a popular book these days at Desert book and inside I have found the same line of logic that you are using with your quote.

neo-aristocratic nonsense huh? well - I'm certainly glad that since the North won the Civil War that we are all free of all that. As well with the "feudal kingdoms"- I mean none of those exist today either

As a matter of fact we are SO much more "free" since the North won!!!

Here's a challenge PJ- can you give me a list of "freedoms" that came out of the Civil War- because of the victory of the North- that we would NOT have enjoyed if the South won?

Yes, Slavery is the big one- but machinery and culture would have lead to that anyway in time.

Lincoln probably woke up to this fact too late. After the war, he began to see this scheme for what it was and began fighting the bankers. For this, he lost his life--IMO.

I'm glad that you added IMO here PJ, I've heard this theory and actually studied it as well, I find it hard to believe that a man would act as an absolute tyrant for 4 years, murder his own fellow citizens, trample the Constitution, lay the groundwork for an opressive federal government, and then "wake up" to the fact that Federal banks and money manipulation were evil- it simply doesn't make sense to me.

But after all it's just one man's opinion.

[blondenblueeyed]

YUP....you got it right. The reasons for the Civil War were many and I believe they evolved into even more reasons. One point everyone is forgetting here is the prophecy by Joseph Smith and the LORD's reasoning behind the civil war (not to suggest He caused it. The war was a consequence). And that 'war' to return to the saints their properties and their rights has not come to any conclusion just yet. The saints properties still have not been returned to the rightful owners.

We need a little more nuance here. The Civil War was about both. In the end, the discussion in the South was to give their own emancipation proclamation--to therefore take the teeth out of the war over the slavery issue. For them, the greater cause was the federal conception of states rights. See Gods and Generals on this one.

And Lincoln was an unwilling puppet of European financiers. On one hand, he did in the end issue the Emancipation Proclamation, whether unwilling or not. The bankers played both sides, as they were heavily invested in the plantations of the south--in the end, the factories of the North won out. Had the South won, they would have enslaved people through the neo-aristocratic nonsense that paraded itself as fighting for states rights, when in reality, they were protecting little feudal kingdoms. However, those rascally bankers knew that by casting the South as the bogeyman they were, they could enslave us all through industrialization and centralization of power, a step close to a Central Bank. Reconstruction was a mess, as was the unconstitutional throttling of the rights of the citizens of Utah after the war.

Lincoln probably woke up to this fact too late. After the war, he began to see this scheme for what it was and began fighting the bankers. For this, he lost his life--IMO.

[SmallFarm]

Yes, Slavery is the big one- but machinery and culture would have lead to that anyway in time.

Here's another thought: What if slavery never ended (just changed it's function) and the prophecy of the slaves rising up against their masters hasn't taken place yet?

[Mosby]

Here's another thought: What if slavery never ended (just changed it's function) and the prophecy of the slaves rising up against their masters hasn't taken place yet?

That's an interesting thought small farm........I do believe that we are actually slaves now- slaves to the state, just for fun: name one thing that you can do "freely" that is not regulated by either local, state, or federal government?

The worst type of slave is the one who doesn't know that he is a slave.

Great thought!

And that 'war' to return to the saints their properties and their rights has not come to any conclusion just yet. The saints properties still have not been returned to the rightful owners.

blondblueeyed- are you saying that the civil war was because of the mis-treatment of the saints and fought to return their property to them? Am I reading your post correctly?
thanks

[creator]

I'm not sure the end ever justifies the means? Or, in other words, that in order to preserve what we think is best in the long run, we should do some bad things to accomplish it.

And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban...

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_ne/4

That's different than what I am talking about.

I should first clarify regarding the end not justifying the means... obviously good means and good ends are good... but we shouldn't use a good end to justify evil means - the Lord doesn't do that and Nephi certainly didn't doing that - he was justified under the law of justice in what he did. (but let's not get this discussion sidetracked). The Lord does not ask us to do anything that violates natural law / God's law... and if anyone thinks that Nephi did something evil or against natural law, then they more to learn regarding that story, and the fact that it wasn't the commandment to do it that made it right.

A good end does not justify evil means.

[joelfarm]

As a child of the south, having lived here most of my life, I have listened to this debate ad-nauseum, as to Mr. Lincoln's intentions for our Nation. I believe the results speak for themselves. Ever since that war and the formation of laws and dictates after it, our individual rights, as citizens of the Nation, to say nothing of our status as State citizens has been slowly erroded to the point where many of us feel more like subjects and serfs instead of Freemen.

[Mosby]

as to Mr. Lincoln's intentions for our Nation. I believe the results speak for themselves. Ever since that war and the formation of laws and dictates after it, our individual rights, as citizens of the Nation, to say nothing of our status as State citizens has been slowly erroded to the point where many of us feel more like subjects and serfs instead of Freemen.

Amen my fellow Rebel..............

[Hyrcanus]

This is one of those issues I don't think is served well by over simplification.

To put it in context, think about the conflict between AZ and the federal government. Is it about immigration or is it about states rights? It's obviously both issues. The larger issue though is the question of states rights. It is today, just as it was in the Civil War. There was conflict over the issue of slavery, just as today there is conflict over the issue of immigration. The legal question won't be nearly as much about those individual issues as it will be about what the rights the states possess over the federal government. We need to resist the urge to over simplify an issue because we think it makes it easier to make a point. It only creates problems for the argument when confronted by someone with a more detailed view.

IIRC Texas v. White was the Supreme Court decision (post civil war) that held that states didn't have the right to secede from the union. So it wasn't as if it was a clear matter of law beforehand.

[Jason]

There was a secret combination put in place to split the United States into two separate countries that could be more easily overcome by the European powers. Felix Stidger describes it in his biography "Treason history of the Order of Sons of Liberty, formerly Circle of Honor, succeeded by Knights of the Golden Circle, afterward Order of American Knights."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/929322/Treaso ... of-Liberty
http://www.archive.org/details/sonsofliberty00stidrich

Lincoln beat the conspiracy.....at tremendous cost as described throughout the posts above.