today i think there a misconception that lincoln would be like the republicans today, could u clear this up or try to. i understand he was a republican in the past but feel by today standards he would be consider a democratic, least in his social stances comparably. also tried of the so called Hiphop repubican claiming him as if the republican of the last 50 years included and wanted minority into they party

Lincoln was a progressive midwestern lawyer fighting Southern conservatives. I think that’s why you don’t see today’s Republicans invoking Lincoln too often. Lincoln was the guy who pretty much destroyed the entire way of life in the South. Republicans depend on the Southern vote too much to use his name for political advantage.

Mankato, Minnesota, Dec. 16, 1862

President Lincoln to order the immediate execution of all 303 Indian males found guilty. Lincoln was concerned with how this would play with the Europeans, whom he was afraid were about to enter the war on the side of the South. He offered the following compromise to the politicians of Minnesota: They would pare the list of those to be hung down to 39. In return, Lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds. Remember, he only owed the Sioux 1.4 million for the land. President Lincoln is not the Hero of American Indian. The largest mass hanging in American, to date.

A friend of mine from Chelmsford, MA told me all states were told they could secede if they found reasons not to stay in the Union. True or False?

Lincoln was a hypocrite. He freed the slaves only in the states that seceded, not in the Border States.
He had his opponents thrown in prison and jail.
He arrested the Maryland legislators inclined to vote for secession.
He signed execution orders for soldiers for various offences but he found a nice job on Grant’s staff for Robert.
He invoked habeas corpus and knew he had not the right.
He used the emancipation proclamation to keep France and England out of the war.
There are many other examples but time prevents me.
Lincoln criticized Polk for the same offense he committed.

WAIT A MINNIT!

DIVIDED COUNTRY…
EARLY DEFEATS REMEDIED BY THE RIGHT GENERAL…
DEMANDS FOR PEACE …
REFUSED TO BUDGE – “PROMISES MADE MUST BE KEPT”…
AFTER FALL OF MAJOR CITY PEACE/VICTORY BECAME POSSIBLE…
” STAYED THE COURSE “….

Sounds more like President Bush to me.

I grew up in the deep South and I had first hand experience of the deep resentment of Southerners for Yankees, liberals, secularists, environmentalism and on and on. Can someone explain why it was a great thing that Lincoln preserved the Union? Wouldn’t it have been a better thing for the Confederacy to have separated and come to abolish slavery of its own volition. I do really admire Lincoln, but I just wonder: would humankind be better off if Dixie was a separate country?

Lincoln is famous for acknowledging the personhood of the black slaves. His conviction led him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves.

Obama refuses to acknowledge the personhood of the child in the womb. We won’t be seeing an Emancipation Proclamation from Barack Obama to save preborn persons from execution anytime soon. He is, more than any, a champion for the “right” to kill these children.

Abraham Lincoln saved the union because he had the basic common sense and moral sense to know that the union can not exist half slave and half free.

Barack Obama will fail to save the union because of his utter disregard of the personhood of the child in the womb. He supports a nation where some of us have a right-to-life and some of us do not.
I consider Obama the OPPOSITE of Lincoln. I consider him a proverbial ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

Lincoln was a great orator whose primary mission was to preserve the Union. Freeing the slaves, ect, etc, were, at best, political decisions made to fit the time.

To discuss the mess that Obama faces in the same conversation with what Lincoln faced is ludicrous.

Obama does recognize the importance and value of a child in the womb. He also realizes that it is a matter best left to the concience of the individual, not a matter for the government to police.

I highly doubt that A. Lincoln would have opposed a woman’s right to choose. He believed strongly in justice and opposed oppression. Forcing an unwanted child into life is unjust and tyrannical, for the unwanted fetus and also for the unwilling woman. All children deserve to begin life wanted, valued and protected. Forcing an unwanted child into this world is immoral. It imposes suffering on a potential child, a desperate woman, society who must bear the consequences of unwanted children, and, ultimately, on this entire, overcrowded, hurting planet. President Obama is on the side of justice and compassion on this divisive issue, just like Lincoln was during his time.

It is amazing how people project themselves and our modern ideas onto a man who was can be defined by the 19th century and the events of the day. To even think Lincoln could comprehend the issues being talked about now is kind of absurd. Take hanging and the death penalty for instance in his day it was very common for people to be hung for stealing a horse or cattle.
You were more likely to be hung for stealing a mans horse than for killing him for sleeping with your wife.

In his state of Illinois (Indian tribe: A native word signifying “men,” “people.”) this was a how they dealt with a lot of crimes in his day. As horrible as it seems to us now, lynching was a common public event. In the South it was very common up until the early 60’s.

The Civil war was a legacy of the Founders and their failure to deal with slavery when the country was formed. Lincoln was against slavery but he was most likely a bigot as most white men were in those days.
It is interesting to read what Frederick Douglass had to say about Lincoln; he called Lincoln “the white man’s president” and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination.

Well, Jeffe, surely Lincoln could comprehend “our modern ideas” and “the issues being talked about now”. Speculating about how Lincoln,given his mind and sensibilities, would have viewed modern concerns is not absurd, it is interesting .

This true but we have to remember that he was from a the 19th century. His solution to the slavery was to ship all the African Americans back to Africa.

Don’t get me wrong Lincoln was one of if not the greatest president we ever had to date. (To early to tell with Obama) but I feel it is important to keep the historical Lincoln and not the mythical one in perspective.

I’m sure if was around now and he would be very impressed with how far we as a nation have come with electing the first African American president. To me Frederick Douglas is just as important figure of the time period and often overlooked, which is a shame as he was the conscience of Lincoln in many ways.

I think that the comparisons between President Lincoln and President Obama, ironically, are mistaken. We remember President Lincoln because of his great humanitarian act of freeing the slaves. President Obama is removing restrictions on abortion, which will result in 100-200,000 more deaths of human beings each year in the U.S., plus he is starting to fund abortion internationally and to fund embryonic stem cell research, which will result in countless more deaths.
He is on the side of the slave owners, not of Lincoln.

Edward that’s a bit extreme and considering the majority of Americans support a woman’s right to chose I would think Obama was in the majority.

It is interesting to me how some sectors of the religious right would like to bring the country back to the middle ages. With absurd ideas such as Intelligent Design (creationism), the ant-abortion movement, it seems to me that there is thread of trying to control peoples lives through fear and backward thinking. Edward’s comments are not unlike so many of the religious right, mean spirited and threatening.