Lincoln the Great Centralizer

hawglips

Sergeant
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
President Lincoln became known as the "Great Emancipator," for his brilliant war measure setting out to free select Southern slaves during his war to force union.

However, it has been proposed by some that a truer title for the president would be the "Great Centralizer."

Here are a few post-Lincoln quotes that would tend to support such a notion:

Before the war, it was said, "The United States are ..." Gramatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. After the war it was always "The United States is ..." -- as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is." -- Shelby Foote, Interview, The Civil War: An Illustrated History, 1990.

"The War between the States established . . . this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers."
~ Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States, p. 178

"If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government." -- George F. Will

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, on Taiwan, at a news conference with President Clinton, 8 April 1999: “Abraham Lincoln, in order to maintain the unity of the United States…resorted to the use of force…so, I think Abraham Lincoln, president, is a model, is an example.”

It doesn't take much imagination to see that our republic jumped on the path of centralization with both feet in 1861. Jefferson and Madison are rolling over in their graves.

Hal
 
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