Abraham Lincoln: Not the God We Think He Is.

I am currently taking Advanced Placement United States history. I live in the North and am a proud Bostonian, so don't even try to say that this is just caused by a hypothetical Southern bias. And yes, slavery should never be practiced.

Firstly, yes, it is true that Lincoln eventually freed the slaves in America. However, it was the worst emancipation process in Western history. No other Western nation needed a Civil War to end slavery. (By the way, slavery was NOT even a major cause of the Civil War. It was about money, tariffs, and states' rights. The Northerners knew that if the South successfully seceded, their own economy would have died. If slavery was non-existent at the time of the Civil War, there is no doubt in my mind that the South would have had the entire world's moral support.) Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation did not even free one slave. It only referred to slaves in territory outside of Union Control. The slaves in the Border States weren't even freed. The states it applied to just took the document and said, "No. This is bull." and laughed in its face. The only purpose it served was to set a moral basis for the North's cause symbolically, and many Northerners switched sides upon its signing. It seemed as if the South would win the Civil War for quite a while until Ulysses S. Grant came into the picture. The states that rejoined the Union had to for their own survival at this point, but were essentially under duress to sign the 13th through 15th Amendments into law.

Moreover, the United States did not seem to catch on to the growing abolition movement in the rest of the world. England had outlawed slavery in 1834 without a Civil War, and the monarch even paid the slave owners just compensation for them. The former slave children were given something of an education so they could function in society. But the United States didn't have that. (http://www.pdavis.nl/Legis_07.htm)

Thirty years after the English outlawed slavery, America needed a Civil War to abolish it. It began with ineffective acts followed by renunciation of state sovereignty. The slaves were legally property. I don't agree with that, don't get me wrong, but the point is, if something is property, regardless of what it is, the government cannot take it away without just compensation as enumerated in the Constitution. The slaves were all just let out at once, without any money or education, so they really couldn't do much of anything. Even Northerners realized the gravity of this. After that, there was a Reconstruction period that effectively lasted nearly a century, until the Civil Rights Acts were passed in the 1960s.

But, I guess I should get back to Lincoln. He suspended habeas corpus at least three times, formed a blockade without Congressional authority, and was suspending rights of his dissenters even before the Emancipation Proclamation. The first habeas corpus suspension happened shortly after the Union loss at Fort Sumter (which was a necessary fort for collecting revenue from Southern trade. Lincoln's attitude was, essentially, "if you want to pretend you're outside the union, go ahead, but you're still going to pay me taxes").

On that side note, it must be addressed what the real cause of the Civil War was. It was about money and trade above all else. Slavery was small potatoes here. There were people in the North and the South who supported slavery, though certainly fewer in the North. The North depended on Southern raw materials, especially cotton, for their own manufacturing. The North was implementing unfair, protective tariffs on the South to protect their own economy. Southern foreign trade was coming to a standstill because of this, and Lincoln's election was the final straw. The South began seceding one state at a time. After that, the South had attempted to use "Cotton Diplomacy" to help get Europe on their side, but it ended unsuccessfully.

Moreover, Lincoln's attitude is apparent by his stubbornness over Fort Sumter. Sumter was located in the middle of Charleston Harbor. Charleston was a major Southern port, to say the least. If the North could apprehend it, it would have been a lot easier to collect revenues from tariffs (that they really had no authority to exert in the first place with the South having seceded). Otherwise, a ship blockade would have been necessary outside the city, and it can be easily maneuvered around.

For Lincoln to say that secession has no basis in American law is absolutely ridiculous. America was founded on the basis of secession-- secession from England. This seemed apparent to the rest of the world, especially England and France. Lincoln banned further talk of secession in a positive way because he knew that if it was allowed, he would surely lose support. Lincoln was not only a terrible leader, but a tyrant.

There are countless other instances which show Lincoln's tyrannical nature. There was the Trent Affair, in which two British diplomats were taken by the Union Navy as prisoners of war. They were diplomats on a non-war vessel, off to make decisions with the South. Yes, the North had the right to be concerned, but they certainly could have tried negotiating with Britain first.

So, the only real good thing Lincoln ever did was free the slaves, but even that was half-assed.