Abraham Lincoln and the Jackass Brigade
Or so chimes in Frontpage Magazine, David Horowitz’s organ.
And so we arrive at the reason that I sympathize with the Abraham Lincoln – haters. That is, outside the base of Lincoln-haters who either reside in the south or have strong heritage ties to the South who fly or display the Confederate flag and revere Jefferson Davis. I refer instead to the cadre of Lincoln – haters of a sort of libertarian bent who believe his assaults on civil liberties were not warranted, and even sometimes it comes to the point of: perhaps the Union was not worth saving. Today, when somebody wants to cry out for the suspension of this or that Constitutional provision during a period of war (or Endless Undefined War, as the case may be), they will cite Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus.
Actually, there was this article in a history magazine (American History or some such) that I read a few years ago. It was a purposefully contrarian list of “Overrated” and “Underrated” events in American history. Most Overrated Event in American History? The Civil War. Why? The South secedes, they will eventually be stuck rejoining the Union, slavery will fade away, and Institutional Racism will continue to exist and eventually be fought against. Half of one… two quarters of another. (Incidentally the “Most Underrated Event” is a hell of a lot less doubtful… the Virginia colony accept their first shipment of African slaves… and thus… the United States’ agricultural base is an economy based on slavery, and thus our culture will forever be permeated and thread together with the culture that blacks bring to it.) [Other items on the list included: Most Overrated Enemy — Russia, which paraded the same missiles down the street for the duration of the Cold War, and fooled us into thinking they could do anything. Most Underrated: Canada… I don’t remember why. I think it had something to do with the War of 1812. Most Overrated headline: Dewey Defeats Truman. It was retrieved off the stands early in the morning and replaced with the proper headline, very few people actually received a copy of that headline-emblazoned newspaper, and is generally overhyped — in part by the Chicago Times itself, since it makes a good souviener.)
I cannot say that Lincoln’s severe silencing of “Copperhead”s didn’t hlep win him the Civil War. Which is unfortunate and an uncomfortable place for my mind to end up at, because the idea gives a small (and by small, I mean microscopic) measure of credence to the blowhards who would create the above graphic suggesting we execute Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. (I wonder if I can get away with making a similar graphic for our current president with a quote from, say, the Ted Roosevelt — the one I posted here–, replete with an explanation of what the punishment for Treason is. (Or George Herbert Walker Bush’s quotation on outing a CIA agent, which has Al Franken repeating ad naseum the joke that “I guess this means Karl Rove and Scooter Libby face execution.”)