About your editorial on the Lincoln legacy – Commentary by Philip Gallanders

Webmaster's Note: This commentary is in response to an editorial published in the News Observer 12/18/04. It is posted below and viewable at this URL: Will a new portrait of Abe Lincoln gain currency?.

Mr. Saunders,

I am writing this note to you, regarding your recent opinion piece in the News Observer, concerning Mr. Lincoln.

Quite frankly, I do not care a whit about the work of so-called "history" put out by Mr. Tripp, the homosexual historical revisionist you refer to. Mr. Tripp is merely trying to create a position, based on whole cloth, without an iota of evidence. Mr. Tripp’s spasm of speculation, is merely the tortured raving of a sad creature trying to justify himself, but who can in no way, be called an historian.

No Mr. Saunders, Mr. Tripp is not the point of discussion. Mr. Lincoln is.

Your article had a throw away line which I wish to address, i.e. that "hard-core Confederate sympathizers have never forgiven Pres. Lincoln, for the Civil War". In this statement, there is a kernel of truth, and one of error.

Let me address your error first. It was not a "Civil War", as you call it. It is not even officially called the "Civil War" by the USA government. Rather, the US Government approves the official name, "The War Between the States" as enacted by Congress. You should read up on your nation's history and learn a thing or two.

For the benefit of any Raider Fans or products of the Public Education system, a "Civil War" has by definition, two sides fighting over who is to control a single entity, nation, or government. For example, Oliver Cromwell won the English Civil War, when he had King Charles beheaded and he (Cromwell) took over the governing of England, as Lord Protector. Both King and Cromwell were fighting for the same thing.

However, with secession came separation of the South from the North and the formation of a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The CSA had no dreams or desire to impose their will on the USA; they merely wished to be left alone. The several Southern States who formed the CSA, had conducted open and fair elections and had elected a Congress and President to rule themselves, enacted a constitution and created a military. In sum, they had created a new nation.

The actions of the CSA are an exact duplicate of the acts of the 13 Colonies, when they seceded from the British empire and formed their own nation, the U.S.A.

The subsequent warfare between the USA and the CSA, as with the warfare of the American Revolution, was uniquely due to the belligerence of one nation attempting to assert colonial domination over another nation. Like all such colonial endeavors, the underlying reason for the North, to impose its will on the South, was financial.
1) If the South left the Federal Union, then Southern markets would be opened to English and French manufactures, at the expense of the more expensive Northern manufactures. The Yankee manufacturers, running their inhuman, worker-killing factories in Mass & New York, etc., would lose market share to the Brits and this, they could not stomach.
2) The Federal Government, would lose up to 70% of its revenue flow, by the loss of duties paid on imports in 4 Southern Ports; New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile. As Mr. Lincoln was quoted, when he found out what the government's shortfall in revenue was expected to be, given the loss of the Southern ports, "What will become of my Duties?"

Thus, it was in the main, economic imperatives that forced Mr. Lincoln to enter into his aggressive, provocative actions and finally, into armed invasion of a non-threatening neighbor state. It was invasion for conquest that drove the North to impose their imperial and colonial will on the South. This war was not a "Civil War".

Secondly, to address where you were correct. Mr. Lincoln did cause the War Between the States to take place.
1) It was Mr. Lincoln who sent naval forces to Charleston, to replenish Fort Sumter, in express contradiction of his previously given word that the garrison would be peacefully evacuated. This action was provocation, writ large. In the case of ALL other Federal forts and bastions located in the South, (except only Fortress Monroe in Virginia, which the Federal Government never gave up), ALL were peacefully evacuated by US forces and turned over to the states within whose boundaries they lay. It was that peaceful evacuation process, that Mr. Lincoln trumped, for he needed a cause celebre, for entering into invasive war. He pushed the Fort Sumter issue, until he got what he wanted.
2) It was Mr. Lincoln who called for 75,000 troops to invade the CSA and suppress what he considered to be armed rebellion. It was the threat of these northern volunteers, marching south through Virginia & Tennessee and North Carolina that caused those same states to secede from the federal union in a second wave of secessions.

In case you did not know Mr. Saunders, Virginia left the union, to protect herself from armed invasion. Virginia also left the USA, to protest the overwheening arrogance of the USA which was gathering an invasion force that was intended to be unleashed on the South. The invasion routes would of necessity, pass through Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina, down to the deep south. For one region of a nation to invade another region of that same nation, for the purpose of imposing an imperial will on the invaded portion, is just wrong. That such a tyranny was about to be imposed on the South by the North, was reason in itself, to withdraw from the voluntary compact of the USA.

Yes, Mr Saunders, you are in part correct. The War Between the States was caused in the main, by the aggressive, imperial tactics of Mr. Lincoln. It was Mr. Lincoln, who was willing to spill the blood of over 600,000 soldiers, to destroy cities, towns, villages, farms, bridges, to impose rapine, pillage and destruction, all so he could continue to force all in the land, to worship at the alter of protected Northern manufacturers and their market shares.

One does not need the ravings of an historical revisionist like Mr. Tripp, in order to take a good, clear look at the actual persona of Mr. Lincoln. Consummate politician? Yes. Incredibly strong willed? Yes.

He was fatally flawed, not as per Mr. Tripp has it, because he may have been a homosexual. No, Mr. Lincoln's flaw and hubris was that he caused the destruction of the U.S. Constitution in order to save his vision the Union. Today's USA is built on Mr. Lincoln's vision, not on the vision of Mr. Washington, Mr. Madison, Mr. Jefferson, or even Mr. Adams and Mr. Hamilton.

Philip Gallanders lives in Lomita, California.

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