- Joined
- Oct 10, 2012
- Location
- Mt. Jackson, Va
"Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves." --President Abraham Lincoln
"Then came the Black-Hawk war; and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers -- a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since."
December 20, 1859 – Abraham Lincoln Autobiography
Pride in serving his country and his state? Only you would consider that a negative.
I would definitely consider volunteering for service in the Black Hawk War a negative.
What about lying about serving in the Blackhawk war, like Jeff Davis did and which William J. Cooper detailed in his biography Jefferson Davis, American? Is that even more negative or less negativc?
KeyserSoze, you just took the bait. Score for the troller.Does what Jefferson Davis did or didn’t do have something to with Abraham Lincoln bragging about his Black Hawk War service in 1859?
I assume you're so down on the Blackhawk war because Lincoln was involved and Davis wasn't, regardless of what he claimed?Does what Jefferson Davis did or didn’t do have something to with Abraham Lincoln bragging about his Black Hawk War service in 1859?
I assume you're so down on the Blackhawk war because Lincoln was involved and Davis wasn't, regardless of what he claimed?
...a quote, I might add, I made no comment on until now despite the hypocrisy given Lincoln’s racial duplicity during the 1850s.
Then I would beg the moderator's indulgence and ask that you comment now. By all means please elaborate on this hypocrisy you speak of.
I misspoke, you are absolutely right that Lincoln was straight forward and honest when he said:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."
-Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)
Y'all love that quote and then totally ignore what Lincoln said in the first debate. Let me add a little to your store of knowledge -
"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races...but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
Now, if you can provide a single quote from a single Southern leader of the period indicating that they thought that the Black man was their equal in any single way, if you can provide a quote from a single Southern leader indicating that the Black man had any rights whatsoever that a White man was bound to respect, then you can claim the moral high-ground over Lincoln. And when you all stop referring to the Southern cause as a fight for independence, when it was in fact a fight to deny independence from a third of your population, then you can accuse others of hypocrisy. Until then you're just making fools of yourselves.