With Malice Toward Glen Dean, Apparently
Glen Dean takes the occasion of President's Day to align himself with John Willkes Booth in calling Lincoln a tyrant. Booth's words upon shooting A. Lincoln, like a coward, in the back of the head were the Latin phrase "Sic Semper Tyrannis"--thus always to tyrants.
So, yeah, I think it's a dastardly thing to call Lincoln a tyrant.
I realise that I'm in the South now, and that people view Lincoln through a different spectrum down here. Be that as it may, the man was not a tyrant.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Tyrants don't say such things, tyrants don't believe such things. Lincoln took an oath of office and fulfilled it to the best of his ability. His fulfillment of that oath cost him his life. As he feared it would.
I mourn'd--and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
posted by Kat Coble @ 5:23 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I love you Katherine, but this post wasn't right. Everyone who doesn't like Lincoln is not automatically aligned with an murderer.
I stand by what I said. Lincoln ruled like a tyrant. You can disagree and that's okay, but aligning me with an asassin just isn't right.
If Lincoln ruled like a tyrant, shouldn't you apply that same line of reasoning to George W. Bush? Like Lincoln, he went to war without making his pretenses implicit. Whereas Lincoln went to war to preserve the union, he later re-tooled that to "freeing the slaves."
TV, I guess you could. A lot of people have compared Bush's actions to Lincoln's. In fact a lot of people who defend Bush are the first to do that. But until Bush throws Mareen Dowd and Pat Buchannen in jail and holds them without charges, or he locks up Ray Nagin, or he sends the federal army into the Blue States, I will give him a little bit better record on civil liberties.
Still though, I can see how you could draw a parallel.
but aligning me with an asassin just isn't right.
You chose to use the assasin's word to describe Lincoln, whose presidency was far from tyrannical.
Whereas Lincoln went to war to preserve the union, he later re-tooled that to "freeing the slaves."
He did so wholly to keep England from joining in the fight. The South was starved for men and munitions, England was starved for cotton. Lincoln made the EProc to ensure that England wouldn't fight on the side of the South. Otherwise they were sure to and the outcome would have been different.
But until Bush throws Mareen Dowd and Pat Buchannen in jail and holds them without charges, or he locks up Ray Nagin, or he sends the federal army into the Blue States, I will give him a little bit better record on civil liberties.
Please, Glen. I realise you're from the South, but let's have some intellectual honesty here. If the Blue States decide to start their own country, elect Gore as their president and then form an army that fires on a U.S. Military institution, then war against the Confederation of Blue States will be justified. Much as it was in 1860.
Glen,
You forgot:
"As soon as Bush sends federal marshals to arrest Chief Justice John Roberts because Roberts ruled that he violated the constitution..."
Personally, I think Lincoln had some good qualities, but I think he's one of the most overhyped Presidents in history. And I believe he violated the heart of the constitution by essentially destroying federalism.
Lincoln was the first step in our country's march towards fascism.
Katherine, I promise you that if the blue states left the union and elected Gore as President, I would throw a party.
Exador, I forgot about the Taney arrest warrent.
Katherine, do you really believe that Lincoln did not rule like a tyrant? If so, then we can agree to disagree. But ignoring Supreme Court decisions and arresting the chief justice, throwing newspaper editors, and rival politicians in jail, and holding them without charging them. I don't know. Guess we will just have to respectfully disagree.
As for me using the same descriptive term that Booth used, so what? That isn't enough to associate me with him. You know better than that.
And I forgot about the newspaper editors.
God, he was a prick.
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