Were Lincoln and FDR REALLY that bad?

[dischord]

Now, since you're going to disagree with me, please don't just say 'no you're wrong', please go the extra step and include 'you're wrong because of ____'.

You really need to learn the difference between "you are wrong" and "you haven't supported your theory." (Hint: it's sort of like the difference between "found innocent" and "not found guilty.")

Maybe you are correct. Sure, your theory is plausible.

However, you have presented absolutely nothing -- zip, nada, zilch -- to support your theory that Lincoln was biding his time and had no intentions of using military force.

Sorry, five months of inaction (most of it by Buchanan) is not evidence that Lincoln never intended to use military force. Evidence might be a statement to that effect by Lincoln. If your theory is correct, there must be some speech, some letter, some newspaper article (heck, at this point, some political cartoon) demonstrating that Lincoln actually had plans for peaceful "nudging."

Come on. Provide something. Anything.

I'll stick to beating you over the head with what actually happened.

Simply repeating your theory (Lincoln didn't want to use force because he took 5 months to act) as evidence of your theory is a logical fallacy. It’s called “the fallacy of repetition.â€

Having violated their respective oaths (art 5) in attacking America, the Confederacy was waging an offensive war. The President was legally and morally in the right to call forth militia and the army and naval forces to meet this attack.

Yes, the federal government (Congress) was constitutionally justified in raising the militia to suppress the insurrection. But you don't need the convoluted argument you presented. That power is simply and clearly stated in Article I, Section 1 ("To provide for calling forth the militia to … suppress insurrections").

Yes, the states had the power to secede (dissolve the union) under the 10th Amendment. Yes, Congress had the power to try to stop them under Art. I, Sec. 1. (edited to fix "Congress")

Yes, those two notions conflicted. That's part of what the Civil War was about.

 

[Benjamin]

I included the 'convoluted argument' for two reasons.

1. Congress was out of session at the time. Lincoln was acting during their recess.

2. This thread was supposed to be about how terrible Lincoln (and FDR) were or weren't, not the propriety of Congressional action or the Civil War.

As for the bit re: military force, whether he'd have done it would be speculating on alternate history, something I'm told to avoid since I'm a product of the public education system and incapable of thinking for myself. I brought that up to counter the simply false assertions that Lincoln used armies to quash secession.

I will try to get another copy of Lincoln's papers and find you something re: unwillingness to use force. It may take a few days.

 

[longrifleman]

Benjamin
How do you personally reconcile the political theory, philosophy, total b.s (take your pick) of the Declaration with the parts of the Const. you site to claim secession was illegal?

History is what it is. Another take : History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Seriously now. The question I asked Benjamin goes to the heart of this debate for me. I really do want as many answers to this question as we can find.

privt8er, thanks for starting this thread. This has been one of the best I have been involved with in my short time here.

 

[dischord]

I will try to get another copy of Lincoln's papers and find you something re: unwillingness to use force. It may take a few days.

Please do. I'll look for it.

I brought that up to counter the simply false assertions that Lincoln used armies to quash secession.

I know you didn't really mean to write that.

 

[Michigander]

"...REALLY that bad?"

I would have to say, yes. Probably worse than we know.

I believe my previous post cleary answered the question of whether or not any State had the right to secede in the affirmative.

So what about Fort Sumpter? Or any other United States Fort or Building or Post Office? What authority would each independent State have over these properties? What authority would the Confederate Union have over them?

I recently read a brief by Larry Becraft called Federal Jurisdiction which

...hold that the jurisdiction of any particular State is co-extensive with its borders or territory, and all persons and property located or found therein are subject to such jurisdiction; this jurisdiction is superior. Federal jurisdiction results only from a conveyance of state jurisdiction to the federal government for lands owned or otherwise possessed by the federal government, and thus federal jurisdiction is extremely limited in nature. And there is no federal jurisdiction if there be no grant or cession of jurisdiction by the State to the federal government.

Was the jurisdiction of Fort Sumpter granted in such a way to the US Goverment?

 

[Benjamin]

Longrifle - I already gave a quick reply on that; if you want more, shoot me an e-mail or start another thread, as that's off the topic of how terrible Lincoln and FDR may have been.

Disch - Yes, I did, indeed mean to write that. People asserted Lincoln initiated force to crush or to prevent secession. As states seceeded before he'd even taken office the prevention is visibly false. I've already made the argument towards the other point based on the delay, which was then moot when Sumter was attacked.

And yes, I will look for that in the papers.


Mich - haven't read the brief, looked at your quote of it.

I could give you about a dozen early supreme court cases hashing out the question of whether the Federal government has authority over states in similar circumstances, many of which were made when the founders were alive and governing.

Instead, I'll just say that state consent would have been nice for Congressional authority under A1 S8 to errect forts, magazines, arsenals, etc. However, if a state won't give that consent it's not a sticking point, as there's eminent domain power under the 5th Amendment.

 

[Glock Glockler]

And the truth sometimes hurts when it hits one in the face. People nowadays SO want to think these men were EVIL, when all they were doing was trying to keep the ship afloat.

Perhaps you’d like to respond to my previous post, as I’d really like to know how one keeps the ship afloat by laying waste to half of the country and by using govt price controls to restrict the supply of food during a time of hunger.

I guess they had to burn the village in order to save it.

If there were no union, and the US had become two or more smaller (and probably weaker) nations,

Perhaps, but does that justify imperialism? Would Germany and Austria be stronger if they were united under one govt and be better able to resist an attack from an aggressor? I would argue that they would be stronger but I hardly see how that justifies slaughtering the Austrians because they want to be on their own.

Those little countries would still have had to exist in the same world with such countries as Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and France. All of which had imperial ambitions which they acted upon with greater of lesser degrees of success.

Do you think that, just maybe, people back then might have come to that realization as well? Maybe, just maybe, they would have formed a mutual defense agreement like NATO? Perhaps they would eventually form some type of structure that would only handle tasks that were better handles in common, and it would have dealt with common defense, immigration, trade issues, uniform banking laws, etc, but would have respected the internal situations of the states.

Wait, that sounds like what the Constitution was sold as being. Forget it.

It's fun to sit around now and bitch and moan about Evil Abe, but you are indulging in no more than wishful thinking with your visions of how the world would have been without him.

As are you.

 

[Foreign Devil]

I doubt that. I think if the US had remained divided this continent would be as militarized as Europe was during the cold war. Any number of issues could have sparked subsequent conflicts - partisans in the North helping fugitive slaves, refusal to return escaped slaves, rights of passage up the Mississippi, and competition over new territories in the West.

 

[Quartus]

quote:I brought that up to counter the simply false assertions that Lincoln used armies to quash secession.

I know you didn't really mean to write that.

Well, dischord, when I saw your comment I was going to post that desperation was showing itself, but since I see that he has affirmed it, I don't know WHAT to call it.



"Insanity" may be too strong a word, but I don't know what else to say.

 

[Griff]

...and now that you've gone thru 6 pages of this saga, I'd like to respectfully submit, for your reading pleasure, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-9830226-8675357
author Harry Turtledove's work on the subject, specifically The Great War and American Empire series.
Yeehaw.

 

[Art Eatman]

"Why do I keep seeing circles and circles and...?" he asked.

, Art