Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Lincoln is the Rubic's cube of American history. He is complex and complicated, a multifaceted man on every level - character, personality, intellect, intuition and emotional. Hence he either ends up a fascinating enigma or cardboard paste-up for boy scout of the year.
For me at least, his complexity makes him more fun. Plaster saints are usually boring. I think the aspect that intrigues me the most is his genius. He educated himself beyond what most of us get in 16 years of formal schooling and did it without access to a library, urban center or teachers. He is an amazement, an American wonder.
So start to peel, Sean. I'd love to know what you find. Keep me informed and if I discover anything of interest, I'll do the same.
Have you noticed that, even with the distance of over 140 years, Abe can still win you over? Especially in this forum, I come up with new questions (and all the old, dead guys need to be questioned!), and I go back to the books, and read and study only to discover that I have been disarmed and completely won over by Abe again.
Granted, I am a native of Illinois. Yet, I find this to be such a phenomenon. There are many strains of the present Republican Party that I despise that actually had their start with Lincoln, but I find each time that his policies, at the time, were carefully and prayerfully considered.
Of course, too, as a native of Illinois, as someone who may already be partial, I continually test old Abe; but he does come up smelling like a rose.
LongstreetLass
(Message edited by longstreetlass on November 13, 2002)
Longstreetlass, I fully agree with you. Ironically, for most of my life Lincoln bored me. Not that I knew much more than the penny, five dollar bill and emancipator image, but I didn't care to know more. Once I began studying CW history, I tried but really couldn't ignore Abe. One bite though and I was off. So far he hasn't disappointed me in any way.
Unfortunately for Jeff Davis he had the misfortune of serving on the opposite side of Lincoln in the same capacity. That misfortune forever links the two together in a comparison dance.
IMO Jefferson Davis was a man of many viable qualities, but in the public arena he comes out on the short end of the stick especially when compared to Lincoln. I think that William J. Cooper summed up not only Davis, but the mindset of the South perfectly in his book <u>Jefferson Davis, American.</u>
"At the onset I want to address one matter. Race and the place of African-Americans in American society were central in Davis's life. His stance on an issue that still vexes the nation more than a century after his death would win no kudos in our time. For his entire life he believed in the superiority of the white race. He also owned slaves, defended slavery as moral and as a social good, and fought a great war to maintain it. After 1865, he opposed new rights for blacks. He rejoiced at the collapse of Reconstruction and the reassertion of white authority with its accompanying black subordination. No reader of this book can condone any of these attitudes. But my goal is to understand Jefferson Davis as a man of his time, not condemn him for not being a man of my time.
Davis constantly talked about liberty, its preciousness and his commitment to it. He also interpreted the Confederacy as the legitimate depository of constitutional liberty. He perceived no contradiction between his faith in liberty and the existence of slavery. From at least the time of the American Revolution white southerners defined their liberty, in part, as their right to own slaves and decide the fate of the institution without outside interference. While such a concept is utterly foreign to our thinking, it was fundamental to white southerners until 1865."
I agree with Cooper's analysis 100%. However, and it is a big however to me. Our time, would not be our time, if not for the profound changes that occurred in his time. The difference between men such as Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, Sarah and Angelica Grimke, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Weld, Robert Gould Shaw, John Adams was <u>vision.</u> They, unlike their contemporaries N&S, were not willing to stand still and wrap their arms around tradition and heritage just because it always was, but were willing to not only visualize a different future, but were gutsy enough to help change the future.
Nope Jeff Davis wasn't an evil man, but he was visually impaired. Abe Lincoln wasn't flawless. He was a savvy pragmatist who did his ****edest to win a war. When opportunity knocked, he let his inner light propel him into making profound changes that changed the world of Davis and Lincoln and made it our world with different definitions and value concepts.
It is amazing that we take so much interest in Lincoln that the man himself might even be a bit astonished. Yes, he was far from perfect. But he as a <u>good</u> judge of human character and as the most astute politician of any time was able to make what was impractical to him, the abolition of slavery, essential and what many thought wasn't possible, the restoration of the Union, a reality.
Someone mentioned the Thirteenth Amendment... Does anyone know what took Mississippi so long to ratify it? Was it just an oversight? It was not ratified in that state until 1995.
I do not believe it was an oversight. Several States, some border, like Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky did not ratify the 13 Amendment for some time. However, I due recall a list of when each state ratified. I will find it for you if ya want.
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