Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln (12 February 1809 – 15 April 1865) Compelling evidence was presented by James H. Cathey in The Genesis of Lincoln and James Coggins in The Eugenics of President Abraham Lincoln that Lincoln's real father was not Thomas Lincoln, but Abraham Enloe of North Carolina.
Lincoln's Attitude Toward the Constitution
When Abraham Lincoln took office in March of 1861, the United States Treasury was completely bankrupt, the growth of the country's money supply being at a scant 1% after having fallen to a negative 4% in the economic crash of 1857. General Donn Piatt related how a plan was concocted by a New England financier named Amasa Walker to replenish the depleted Treasury by issuing Coupon Treasury Notes, which drew 7.5 percent semi-annual interest payments, were convertible after three years into six percent 5-20 and 10-40 gold-bearing bonds, and which, by Act of Congress, were exempted from taxation. This national debt would be funded by pledging the property and future labor of the American people.
When this plan was presented to Lincoln, he was delighted. However, when then-Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Portland Chase first learned of the scheme, he cautioned, "[T]here is one little obstacle in the way, that makes the plan impracticable, and that is the Constitution." When Chase's concerns were relayed to the President, Lincoln responded, "[G]o back to Chase and tell him not to bother himself about the Constitution. Say that I have that sacred instrument here at the White House, and I am guarding it with great care." When Chase would not relent, Lincoln called a conference with him and related the following story:
Chase... down in Illinois, I was held to be a pretty good lawyer.... This thing reminds me of a story I read in a newspaper the other day. It was of an Italian captain, who run his vessel on a rock and knocked a hole in her bottom. He set his men to pumping, and he went to prayers before a figure of the Virgin in the bow of the ship. The leak gained on them. It looked at last as if the vessel would go down with all on board. The captain, at length, in a fit of rage, at not having his prayers answered, seized the figure of the Virgin and threw it overboard. Suddenly the leak stopped, the water was pumped out, and the vessel got safely into port. When docked for repairs, the statue of the Virgin Mary was found stuck headforemost in the hole.... Chase, I don't intend precisely to throw the Virgin Mary overboard, and by that I mean the Constitution, but I will stick it into the hole if I can.
Lincoln went on to say, "These rebels are violating the Constitution to destroy the Union; I will violate the Constitution if necessary, to save the Union; and I suspect, Chase, that our Constitution is going to have a rough time of it before we get done with this row" (source: Don Piatt, essay: "Salmon P. Chase," North American Review [1886], Volume CXLIII, pages 606-607).
Lincoln's Views on Secession
While a Representative of the State of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln stated:
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit (excerpt from a speech delivered in the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 January 1848; Congressional Globe, Volume XIX, page 94).
Technically, Lincoln was referring to the "right of revolution" stated in the Declaration of Independence rather than the right of a State under the Constitution to secede from the Union. This was just one of the many times he displayed his bent for inconsistencies. If the thirteen colonies had a right to secede from the British Crown to whom they were subject, why did not the thirteen Southern States have the right to peacefully withdraw from their sister States with whom they were co-equals? If the political condition of the States in 1861 was more mature than it had been in 1776, then so was their right of secession. If the right of secession existed under the royal charters which gave them existence, then it also existed under a Constitution which they, by an act of their sovereign ratification, had brought into existence. The logic is inescapable even though it was later lost on Lincoln when he was President.
Lincoln's Views on the Negro and Segregation
Abraham Lincoln is known today as the "Great Emancipator" and as a friend to the Negro slaves of the South. While it is true that he was opposed to the spread of Negro slavery into the common Territories, he was never motivated by the welfare of the slaves themselves, but his concern was reserved exclusively for the effects he believed the institution had upon the White population of the United States. During his public debates with Stephen Douglas in Illinois, Lincoln made it very clear that he sided with those of the Free-Soil party, which sought to confine the Negroes to the South so as not to compete with White labor in the Territories:
What I insist upon is, that the new Territories shall be kept free from [slavery] while in the territorial condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them — that we have no right whatever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I think that as white men we have.... Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home — may find some spot where they can better their condition — where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people every where, the world over [reply to Douglas on 15 October 1858].
In an address delivered at Springfield, Illinois on 26 June 1857, Lincoln openly declared himself in favor of racial segregation and the eventual deportation of the Blacks back to their native Africa:
A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together.... Such separation, if ever affected at all, must be affected by coloniza tion.... The enterprise is a difficult one, but "where there is a will there is a way"; and what colonization needs now is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or at least not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.
Less than five months prior to delivering the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln addressed a delegation of free Blacks at the Executive Mansion with these words:
...[W]hy... should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave the country? This is, perhaps, the first question for consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.
You here are freemen, I suppose... but even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoys.... Owing to the existence of the two races on this continent, I need not recount to you the effects upon white men growing out of the institution of slavery.
I believe in its general evil effects on the white race. See our present condition — the country engaged in war — our white men cutting one another's throats — none know ing how far it will extend — and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other.... It is better for us both therefore to be separated.... [speech delivered at the Executive Mansion on 14 August 1862]
The issuance of Lincoln's Proclamation brought no change in his position:
I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks.
I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal....
Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the negro and give him our language, literature, religion, and system of government under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure of manhood. This he can never do here. We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed of, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable [address delivered at Washington, D.C.; in Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume V, pages 371-375].
In his autobiography, Benjamin Butler referred to a conversation he had with Lincoln in early April 1865 in which the latter said, "I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes." Butler suggested that the Blacks be shipped down to dig the Panama Canal, to which suggestion Lincoln replied, "There is meat in that, General Butler, there is meat in that; but how will it affect our foreign relations?" He then suggested that Butler present the plan in writing to Secretary Seward to obtain the latter's assistance in formulating the details (Butler's Book, Volume II, pages 903-907). However, an assassin's bullet less than two weeks later squelched any further discussion of these plans for the deportation of America's Blacks.
More Information
Durand, Greg Loren, America's Caesar: The Decline and Fall of Republican Government in the United States of America
Minor, Charles L.C., The Real Lincoln
DiLorenzo, Thomas J., The Real Lincoln (a different book)
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