for speaking the truth about Abraham Lincoln.
My time served in the government camps taught me that Lincoln was the great emancipator. He was a hero that fought for the righteous ideals of abolishing slavery and keeping the Union together. Unfortunately, it was the immoral Southerners that started the war to which Lincoln was forced to respond.
Reading LewRockwell.com, Tom DiLorenzo and a few others have shattered these lies for me. Specifically, Lincoln was a
Murderer – Lincoln and his generals (e.g. Sherman) invoked the reprehensible concept of ‘total war’. Specifically targeting and killing more than 50,000 southern civilians, while also burning their homes and businesses in hopes of breaking their will to fight.
Traitor – as clearly stated in the US Constitution, Article 3, Section 3, treason is defined as levying war against the states. Either the States he declared war upon were part of the Union (as he claimed,) and thus his acts were treasonous, or the other option is the States were in fact a separate and sovereign entity he aggressively attacked. Take your pick and he’s a warmonger that started a brutal war which killed an estimated 800,000 Americans
Rights Abuser – Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus and imprisoned tens of thousands of Americans who dared speak out against his war, abuses and tactics. He shut down newspapers, confiscated weapons, censored personal mail, and even deported a US Congressman who was particularly vocal against him.
Racist – Lincoln’s first act as President was to support and press for the passage of a Constitution Amendment which would have LEGALIZED slavery (Corwin Amendment). He also supported the abominable Fugitive Slave Laws, and consistently advocated deportation of all blacks currently in the US (since he viewed them as inferior to whites). And contrary to the whitewash provided by Spielberg’s Lincoln movie, the book Team of Rivals, the historical evidence indicates that Lincoln was pressured and forced into supporting the 13th Amendment.
Failure – Abraham Lincoln and the United States were the only western country which abolished their slavery via warfare. Every other nation abolished slavery PEACEFULLY. France, Spain, Great Britain all found peaceful ways to end the horrific practice of slavery; often by buying out the slaveowners directly. Great Britain in particular had over 800,000 slaves, and abolished slavery just two decades prior to Lincoln’s war of aggression against the Southern States.
Put simply, Lincoln was a monster and TYRANT.
Bearing these facts in mind, I decided to do something a bit different when my family and I went to visit the Lincoln Memorial in the heart of the beast, Washington D.C.. I created a simple poster board message and posed for a couple pictures. Of course, I expected the stares, confusion, and old ladie’s loud “oh geez!” eye roll and walk-away. Looking back, I should’ve been ready for someone to directly confront me. As I posed for a picture, an older man read the headlines and loudly said “If you believe any of that, you are an idiot! I-D-I-O-T!” Still calm at this point, I sarcastically thanked him for his well informed and well articulated rebuttal. I then asked him to clarify which of my points were false. He evades the question, and explains how Lincoln had to take a creative way to build a consensus towards an upopular position. And continues to condemn me for not showing the proper level of deference and respect for Lincoln and his memorial,…and that I’m setting a poor example for my 3 young girls. At this point, emotions are running high and I start losing volume control a bit. I point to the sign, loudly re-iterate the points, supporting facts, and even the quotes on the memorial itself. Shortly after, an officer in the USPP comes in after one of the other bystanders went to report my sign. It is immediately apparent which of us he considers the problem. The USPP officer asks if everything is OK, and to my counterpart’s credit, he states clearly we’re having a bit of a disagreement, but it is amicable. Not caring, the USPP officer looks at me and my now rolled up sign under my arm and says “since you’ve got a sign, we consider that demonstrating which is not allowed inside any memorial. you have to go outside.” Confused, I ask how that isn’t a violation of free speech and the first amendment. He replies that I’m allowed to demonstrate outside, but not inside, and I need to leave – – now. We walk out, I take one step out and sarcastically ask “so the US Constitution now applies?” He begins to stutter out a rebuttal, but I interrupt with “you’ve decided to enforce an unConstitutional rule, so be it, I don’t have to agree with you. Bye.”
I’m still trying to convince the wife and girls to dance with me at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, since the corrupt US court system has agreed that dancing is a demonstration and is justly not allowed on hallowed ground.
A few questions regarding the supposed Constitutionality of this regulation. Since I had not actually said anything or interfered with their ability to utilize the memorial, how exactly did my brief picture pose with a sign qualify as a “demonstration”? If I had worn a t-shirt with writing of the same message, would I have been “demonstrating”? If it were a 3rd grader with a sign that said “I love Lincoln”, would they have been removed as I was?
In the end, visitng Washington D.C. is pretty much what I expected.
From Tom DiLorenzo’s book “The Real Lincoln,” there are 71 indictments against Lincoln:
1. Saying contradictory things before different audiences.
2. Opposing racial equality.
3. Opposing giving blacks the right to vote, serve on juries or intermarry while allegedly supporting their natural rights.
4. Being a racist.
5. Supporting the legal rights of slaveholders.
6. Supporting Clay’s American System or mercantilism as his primary political agenda: national bank, high tariff, and internal improvements.
7. Supporting a political economy that encourages corruption and inefficiency.
8. Supporting a political economy that became the blueprint for modern American.
9. Being a wealthy railroad lawyer.
10. Never defending a runaway slave.
11. Defending a slaveholder against his runaway slave.
12. Favoring returning ex-slaves to Africa or sending them to Central America and Haiti.
13. Proposing to strengthen the Fugitive Slave law.
14. Opposing the extension of slavery in the territories so that “free white people” can settle there and because allowing them to become slave states would dilute Republican influence in Congress because of the three-fifths rule.
15. Opposing black citizenship in Illinois or their right to immigrate to that state.
16. Failing to use his legendary political skills to achieve peaceful emancipation as was accomplished elsewhere — Lincoln’s war was the only “war of emancipation” in the 19th.
17. Nullifying emancipation of slaves in Missouri and Georgia early in the war.
18. Stating that his primary motive was saving the union and not ending slavery.
19. Supporting a conscription law.
20. Sending troops into New York City to quell draft riots related to his emancipation proclamation, resulting in 300 to 1,000 deaths.
21. Starting a war that took the lives of 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians and caused incalculable economic loss.
22. Being an enemy of free market capitalism.
23. Being an economic illiterate and espousing the labor theory of value.
24. Supporting a disastrous public works project in Illinois and continuing to support the same policies oblivious of the consequences.
25. Conjuring up a specious and deceptive argument against the historically-recognized right of state secession.
26. Lying about re-supplying the fed’s tax collection office known as Fort Sumter.
27. Refusing to see peace commissioners from the Confederacy offering to pay for all federal property in the South.
28. Refusing to see Napoleon III of France who offered to mediate the dispute.
29. Provoking Virginia to secede by taking military action against the Deep South.
30. Supporting a tariff and other policies that systematically redistributed wealth from the South to the North, causing great consternation in the South.
31. Invading the South without consulting Congress.
32. Illegally declaring martial law.
33. Illegally blockading ports.
34. Illegally suspending habeas corpus.
35. Illegally imprisoning thousands of Northern citizens.
36. Tolerating their subjection to inhumane conditions in prison.
37. Systematically attacking Northern newspapers and their employees, including by imprisonment.
38. Deporting his chief political enemy in the North, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio.
39. Confiscating private property and firearms.
40. Ignoring the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
41. Tolerating the arrest of ministers who refused to pray for Lincoln.
42. Arresting several duly elected members of the Maryland Legislature along with the mayor of Baltimore and Maryland Congressman Henry May.
43. Placing Kansas and Kentucky under martial law.
44. Supporting a law that indemnified public officials for unlawful acts.
45. Laying the groundwork for the establishment of conscription and income taxation as permanent institutions.
46. Interfering with and rigging elections in Maryland and elsewhere in the North.
47. Censoring all telegraph communication.
48. Preventing opposition newspapers from being delivered by the post office.
49. Illegally creating the state of West Virginia out of the “indestructible” state of Virginia.
50. Tolerating or supporting mistreatment of citizens in conquered territory.
51. Taxing those citizens without their consent.
52. Executing those who refused to take a loyalty oath.
53.Closing churches and arresting ministers.
54. Burning and plundering Southern cites.
55. Quartering troops in private homes unlawfully.
56. reating an enormous political patronage system.
57. Allowing an unjust mass execution of Sioux Indians in Minnesota.
58. Engineering a constitutional revolution through military force which destroyed state sovereignty and replaced it with rule by the Supreme Court (and the United States Army).
59. Laying the groundwork for the imperialist and militarist campaigns of the future as well as the welfare/warfare state.
60. Creating the dangerous precedent of establishing a strong consolidated state out of a decentralized confederation.
61. Effectively killing secession as a threat, thus encouraging the rise of our modern federal monolith.
62. Waging war on civilians by bombing, destruction of homes, and confiscation of food and farm equipment.
63. Tolerating an atmosphere which led to large numbers of rapes against Southern women, including slaves.
64. Using civilians as hostages.
65. Promoting a general because of his willingness to use his troops as cannon fodder.
66. DiLorenzo blames Lincoln for the predictable aftermath of the war: the plundering of the South by Lincoln’s allies.
67. Supporting government subsidies of the railroads leading to corruption and inefficiency.
68. Supporting a nationalized paper currency which is inherently inflationary.
69. Creating the federal tax bureaucracy and various taxes that are still with us.
70. Establishing precedents for centralized powers and suppression of liberties that continue to be cited today.
71. Ending slavery by means that created turbulence that continues to this day.