Comments on Joyfully At Home: The Great Emancipator

Well written! Very interesting perspective I enjoy...

2010-04-07T11:04:50.554-05:00

Well written! Very interesting perspective I enjoyed greatly and will use when teaching my U.S. History classes. I would also encourage you to read extensively on Reconstruction; Lincoln's plans for healing the nation in contrast to what actually happened after his assassination. It might help shed light on race relations we live with even today. Keep studying and sharing! GREAT insight :-)

Congradulations I gave you a Blog Award. Got to my...

2010-02-16T19:46:11.989-06:00

Congradulations I gave you a Blog Award. Got to my page to find out more about it. www.welltrainedhomeschool.blogspot.com

I'm glad you posted this, Jasmine. Lincoln and the...

2010-02-16T18:07:02.280-06:00

I'm glad you posted this, Jasmine. Lincoln and the North are almost exclusively held up as the 'right' side in the Civil War. Every history book I ever read on the subject automatically assumed that the North had the just cause and the South did not.

As I have done further reading on the subject as well as listened to others, I have to say I would probably side with the South in this issue. The war was not really about slavery. It was about states' rights. And as we are seeing today, the federal government is HUGE and states' rights are being eroded more every day. The South was fighting for the right to decide for THEMSELVES whether they would have slaves or not. And it was so much bigger than slavery. The south was fighting for the right to decide for themselves about their entire way of life. Abraham Lincoln's victory in the Civil War laid the foundation for the massive centralized goverment we have today and the further erosion of states' rights. Yes, I think slavery was wrong. I think that all men, regardless of skin color, are equal in God's sight. I think slavery is wrong just as I think abortion is wrong. But is it really the perogative of the federal government to dictate how we should live? Did the North really have to the right to dictate how the South should live? I think not. I think the choice should be left up to the individual states, like the founding Fathers intended. I would like to see the abortion debate taken down to the state level. That at least would be progress. I think Roe v. Wade is highly unconstitutional.

Regardless of how well intentioned (or not) Lincoln was, we are reaping the fruit of the outcome of that war today. And I'm not sure I like it.

Ms. Jasmine, I must commend you for reposting this...

2010-02-16T15:27:32.672-06:00

Ms. Jasmine, I must commend you for reposting this. You indeed have courage. I remember reading this post when you originally posted it.
I have read the two books by T. J. Dilorenzo that you mentioned. Very, very good books. You, and your readers, may enjoy reading some of Prof. Dilorenzo's articles at the Mises Institute: http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=425

I was born, and will forever remain, a Southern boy, even though we moved North when I was eight. I was raised Confederate since the day my daddy read "The South Was Right" by the brothers Kennedy, lent him by a friend. (Which is one of a very good series of books by them.)
Another excellent book that I would VERY highly recommend: In the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case For Southern Secession, by Charles Adams. It is supreme. (You may also be interested in his treatise on taxes: "For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes On Civilization".

I'd also like to point out that a number of folks commenting here said that the purpose of war is to kill people and destroy things. At the time of the war's beginning, the belief of the time was that war was carried out solely between armies; not carried out on private property and civilians. Obviously this was not the first time in history that war had been made on civilians; that is not what I'm saying. The belief of the time, which is as it should be, was that war on civilians and violations of personal property were intolerable. West Point cadets were taught that plundering and making war on civilians was punishable by death.

Furthermore, the only justifiable war, as defined by Augustine, is a war of defense. The South was forced to fire the first shot, because of Lincoln's scheme to force the South to pay revenue to the North in order to conduct commerce. (This was the only reason Lincoln wished to hold on to the fort: he wished to blockade the seceded South in order to maintain his revenue, of which over 90% came from the South before the war. This was all admitted by one of his cabinet members, who helped him cook up the scheme.) This is what sparked the war. (Interestingly, he only cooked up this scheme after the South announced it would be a free trade nation, which, because of tax competition, would be ruinous to the Northern economy.) The reason the South seceded is because of Lincoln's election, and the passage of the Morrill Tariff, the highest ever seen in the U.S. The South feared Lincoln because of his stance on tariffs and large government. They saw, rightly so, that high tariffs would be imposed on them, and their rights as sovereign states curtailed.

As far as slavery goes, Lincoln pledged his support to a constitutional amendment that would make it unconstitutional for the U.S. government to interfere in any way with the institution of slavery during the interim between when he was elected and took office. That is why the argument that the South seceded over slavery simply does not hold water.

So, to recap, the South seceded because of Lincoln's Hamiltonian stance and the passage of the Morrill tariff;
Lincoln sparked the war by sending a fleet to Ft. Sumter, which caused the South to take the fort. (I forgot to state that earlier.)

And then of course, the North waged a bloody, unbiblical, unconstitutional war on the South while oppressing the people of the North through the repeal of Habeaus Corpus.

This resulted, at the end of the war, in Reconstruction, wherein the North attempted to consolidate its power in the South through the disenfranchisement of the Southern whites and the negro vote.

Then the North rewrote history.

It led to a whole mess of evils, which I don't have time to go in to.

In short, your post was excellent, and I would greatly recommend the books you mentioned. Keep up the good work!
~Johann

Jasmine, very good post! I'm not exactly sure tha...

2010-02-13T09:02:37.371-06:00

Jasmine, very good post! I'm not exactly sure that this will add anything to the conversation, but I'm going to copy the response I gave to my sister when she shared this post with me:

"1)Jefferson Davis' stated reasons for going to war from his memoirs - written in the 1870s or 1880s - are very different from his stated reasons in 1860. In 1860 he, along with the rest of the Southerners, were citing slavery as a primary motivation. I've heard the quotes from the '60s and from his memoirs. So he engages in a bit of revisionist history, too. :-)

2)Lincoln was a racist (like almost everyone else of that day), and he did not go to war to free slaves. That said, he was a Republican, and the Republican party was the party of abolition. Lincoln certainly believed slavery was immoral.

3)Lincoln purposefully didn't free border state slaves in the emancipation proclamation. He didn't want to lose those states to the Confederacy! And also, his legal justification for issuing the proclamation [stated in an open letter that was reprinted in newspapers all over the North] was that slaves were bounty of war and that it was legal for him to do as he saw fit with them when his armies conquered their owners.

4)Furthermore, the largely Republican Congress had already passed a more sweeping emancipation law earlier that year. Lincoln's proclamation actually did less than Congress had already done!

5)In mid 1864, when Lincoln is convinced he's going to lose the election, he calls Frederick Douglas into the Oval Office for a conference. He wants Douglas to help him find a way to spirit slaves out of the South, because he's convinced that after he loses the election that McClellan is going to end the war and so the slaves need to get out now.

6)Lincoln is personally and intimately involved in the crafting of the 13th amendment, which was passed by the end of the war. He was certain that after the war was over Southerners would sue in federal courts for their slaves using the 5th amendment private property rights, and without a constitutional amendment the Dred Scott decision would hold and courts would have to strike down the emancipation proclamation. He twisted the arms of 8 Democrats to break ranks and help ratify the amendment.

Et Cetera. Bottom line: Lincoln was complex."

There are qualities to admire in Lincoln, just like there are qualities to admire in Lee or Jackson or Davis. Just like they all had sins and flaws. And anyone who thinks Northerners were morally superior only needs to look at Sherman to be rid of that notion (He told his army, "ain't gonna be no [bleeped out N word] in Uncle Billy's army." He had droves of slaves following him when he liberated them in GA. He hated it. In once instance, he had is soldiers build a bridge across a river for them to cross. Then he had them tear it down while the blacks were trying to cross, drowning many of them. Nasty, nasty, nasty man.).

I think you could make a good case that Lincoln had a bit of a change of heart towards slavery and blacks around 1863 or so, as evidenced by his attempts to get the 13th amendment passed and his new attitude towards Frederick Douglas. And, personally, I think one of the best things you can say about someone is that they changed their mind when they were wrong.

Now, as to the constitutionality of his actions, well, that's a whole 'nother debate. :-)

Nice post, I love history, and the Civil War era i...

2010-02-13T05:32:23.671-06:00

Nice post, I love history, and the Civil War era is especially interesting to me.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (a must read!)

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass/douglass.html

Selah, But the number of slaves and demand for s...

2010-02-12T08:53:24.215-06:00

Selah,

But the number of slaves and demand for slaves actually increased following the invention of the cotton gin. From the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop: http://www.eliwhitney.org/museum/eli-whitney/cotton-gin
"While it was true that the cotton gin reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. In 1790 there were six slave states; in 1860 there were 15. From 1790 until Congress banned the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808, Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860 approximately one in three Southerners was a slave."

Yes, I minor in American Studies at university and...

2010-02-12T05:25:05.375-06:00

Yes, I minor in American Studies at university and I too have read several accounts and looked at some of Lincoln's letters to only find that freeing the slaves was not on his top list - it was a mere convenience to preserve the Union.
When I told several of my American friends this the only response I recieved was "You are just British, and you lost the war..."

I know I am getting into this conversation late bu...

2010-02-11T23:13:47.989-06:00

I know I am getting into this conversation late but I wanted to put my two cents in. I just wanted to add that I came to the truths of your article 15 years ago when I was in middle school and I tried to share my finding from the Lincoln- Douglas Debate with my family members and they did not respond well nor did any of my teachers at the time. This is just another reason I am glad I homeschool my children because we can explore orginal sources instead of text book snippets. This was we can make up our own mind about History based on 1st hand research.

Jasmine, I recall you mentioning that you get a ...

2010-02-11T14:21:47.461-06:00

Jasmine,
I recall you mentioning that you get a bit nervous before CLEP exams. I am wondering how you deal with this nervousness?
Thanks, Alyssa

I have debated this issue with some friends of min...

2010-02-11T13:42:07.876-06:00

I have debated this issue with some friends of mine for quite awhile. I am not a fan of Lincoln, either. Just a few controversies stand out to me about slavery:
1) "The Civil War ended slavery". Actually, no it didn't. Different forms of slavery continued to exist after the War (mainly in the northern States) where many, many, immigrants worked in horrible conditions in large factories.
2) And lastly, as tarynkay asked "Could we have amended the Constitution without a war?". I think the answer could be yes. With the invention of the cotton gin in 1798, the number of slaves needed began to trickle down. Also, the importation of more slaves into America was banned by Congress in 1808.

I really enjoyed reading your post, and sometimes you took the words right out of my mouth. Another book I suggest is 'Team of Rivals' by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Um... I'm a Northern girl so I won't comment polit...

2010-02-10T22:33:33.776-06:00

Um... I'm a Northern girl so I won't comment politically.

But has anyone ever noticed the way Lincoln kept a beard but shaved his moustache? Amish do that because apparently a moustache is associated with war. I just thought that was ironic. Sort of.

You Southerners must boil with bitterness at the sight of a penny. :)

Well said, Jaz! I wish I could read this to those ...

2010-02-10T21:37:26.302-06:00

Well said, Jaz!
I wish I could read this to those who are misinformed.

Amen!! I completely agree with everything you wro...

2010-02-10T19:33:44.429-06:00

Amen!! I completely agree with everything you wrote in this post and I know it is well researched and pondered. I love history and I think it's so interesting when "heroes" are proved to be quite the opposite of heroic. Have a great day!! :)

I love these comments about Lincoln and his unnec...

2010-02-10T18:15:55.619-06:00

I love these comments about Lincoln and his unneccessary war. =) I remember you publishing this last time and am still impressed! I wholeheartedly agree with you! It's sad to me how so many people are misguided when it comes to American history. Thanks for boldly declaring the truth.

I'm glad you can say these things! I tried mention...

2010-02-10T18:12:14.204-06:00

I'm glad you can say these things! I tried mentioning some of these points to my father-in-law once. But he's from Boston, so all he heard was "Bring back slavery!"

Which, of course, was not at all what I said, meant, or want! I'm from North Carolina, so I'll always be an ignorant southerner. That's enough for my opinion to be of no use whatsoever. We lost that war, so we don't get to have an opinion about Lincoln, or anything else. ;-) Not that I mind. My opinions are usually only half-baked anyway.

You definitely have your father's boldness (probab...

2010-02-10T16:46:50.837-06:00

You definitely have your father's boldness (probably your mother's too, but I've never heard her speak.)I, too, several years ago found out that Lincoln was not exactly the way he was represented by the public. While my husband was a student at a Christian University, I was able to take an enlightening class on the "War Between the States".

I admire you for sticking to the "truth". The Lord can use an event to accomplish his will whether or not that was man's intent and purpose. While we are glad for the outcome to abolish slavery, it doesn't appear that it was Lincolns true purpose in fighting his war.

I am a middle age Christian homeschool mother with a young child. I check your post regularly; and I have read 2 of your dad's books, watched 2 DVD's, listened to several sermons, and even attended a homeschool convention with him as a guest speaker. I hope you do write your book someday, and that you'll be on a future speaking schedule for young ladies.

God bless.

What an interesting debate going on! It's funny be...

2010-02-10T16:45:57.760-06:00

What an interesting debate going on! It's funny because I was reading a bio on Lincoln this morning just for fun, and then I get on here and: Ta-da! Jasmine has once again read my mind! :)
Very interesting thoughts. No president is perfect, and while Lincoln did mess up, I also think there's a lot to learn from his quiet, humble nature. :)
-Rachel C

This reminds me on some small level of King David ...

2010-02-10T16:24:24.531-06:00

This reminds me on some small level of King David in the Old Testament. He did a lot of very heroic deeds and fought as a trained warrior, most notable God refers to him as a man after His heart. But, he also committed murder and adultery resulting in the suffering and death of many. I think there is a lot of good and bad to consider with a man like Abraham Lincoln or Ben Franklin for example. As a family we choose to try to make an example of both what to do and what not to do when studying "great men" of history. I hope and pray my life is only exposed to this level by our gracious Lord as some of theirs have been. I'm sure I would have some dark thoughts, deeds and words recorded too.
Thanks for sharing. It is a good reminder to us that all that Christ is the only One to walk this earth and come out blameless.

My, my, so much has been said in a few hours! Both...

2010-02-10T15:18:14.721-06:00

My, my, so much has been said in a few hours!
Both sides had major flaws, and I always say I would have moved to England:)
That said, there were so many things leading up to the War: crumbling political parties, slavery, state's rights, western expansion, taxation, commerce, and the Industrial Revolution. It just seems as if the two sides had opposite interests in each issue.
If anyone is interested, you can check out my blog, where I will post the paper that came out of my research. (Disclaimer: I do not pretend to know half the history most of you are familiar with! I have always loved history, but am only now getting the opportunity to pursue that inclination. I simply did not desire to re-write my essay here.)

http://becomingafairlady.blogspot.com/

Soli Deo Gloria,
Jenn

I'll never forget how shocked I was to learn the t...

2010-02-10T15:16:00.172-06:00

I'll never forget how shocked I was to learn the truth about Lincoln. I have linked here from my blog, so others can read the truth, as well. Thanks for sharing.

Dear Jasmine, I'm a homeschool mom who found out ...

2010-02-10T15:01:22.686-06:00

Dear Jasmine,

I'm a homeschool mom who found out about this post from the blog, "Life in a Shoe", and I just wanted to thank you for posting it. I've grown up and continue to live in the Great Lakes area of our country, and only just recently did I hear veiled allusions (?) to the fact that Lincoln was not who we were all taught he was. Noone I was associated with ever recommended resources before, until now. It's helpful to have some real books to check out and not just rumors. I will definitely be bookmarking this to check those out.

Thanks again,
Mrs S.M.

I have grown up in Christian schools, rather than ...

2010-02-10T13:35:30.967-06:00

I have grown up in Christian schools, rather than public schools (though I do not recommend them any higher than the latter), and your posts have been the first I've heard of Lincoln's being racist and all this.
I do hate sugarcoating.
I was just talking to my brother about your post and he was shell-shocked too.
The books you've recommended are most definitely going on my reading list. Can't wait to search this out for myself.
Thanks for the eye-opening post, Jasmine!

Jasmine, thank you for this post! Just last night...

2010-02-10T12:51:44.589-06:00

Jasmine, thank you for this post! Just last night, as I was reading my nephew's 6th grade History textbook (I am homeschooling him), I read the sentence "Although Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist...". I was so surprised to read that!! I plan to go over your post and some of the comments with my nephew during this week's History lesson. As you can see, his aunt needs the lesson as much as he does! :)

Thanks again, Jasmine!

~Vikki
www.a-firm-foundation.blogspot.com

Tarynkay, Thank you for your follow-up comment! ...

2010-02-10T11:40:49.457-06:00

Tarynkay,

Thank you for your follow-up comment! I have one more thing to add, and then I'll let you have the last word:

You said, "I just think that a bare-bones overview of Lincoln's conduct in the Civil War would include the South's stated reasons for secession and Lincoln's stated reasons for fighting the war."

The straw that broke the camel's back for the South was (as stated in the Jefferson Davis memoirs) states' rights. This *included* but was not limited to the right to own slaves. In fact, the issue that Davis most talked about was the issue of the taxation of the South on Northern products.

As stated earlier in the comment section, Lincoln's stated reasons for fighting the war were to preserve the Union -he once said "If I can preserve the Union without freeing a single slave, I shall. If, in order to preserve the Union, I must free every slave, I shall."

You also said, "the South seceded because slaveowners were not allowed to bring slavery into non-slaveholding states. So they weren't willing to compromise on that, to let the institution of slavery die out over time."

The issue was so much more intricate than that! I wish I had time to get into it but, again, I do not. Men like Lincoln did not want slaves in new territories, not to let slavery die out over time because of a belief in Civil Rights, but so as not to pollute new territories with blacks (as I quoted to Elliot earlier).

Suffice it to say, I believe that Lincoln's *motives* for his actions are just as important as the actions themselves, because his motives portrayed his worldview -and the ills of racism did not end with the ills of slavery. For so many displaced blacks after the Civil War, it was a hollow victory.

I also believe that chalking the South's secession up to slavery alone is a generalization that Lincoln's contemporaries would not have borne. Also, having researched Lincoln's plan for reconstruction, I believe it read much like his successors' did, and would have opened up the same can of worms. Reconstruction was a doomed effort from the onset.

There was no easy answer for slavery in the US. I think we can agree on that. While I do not think that the issue can be as easily divided as "South -right; North -wrong," and have never said that, I disagree that the Civil War is justifiable based on the freeing of slaves alone.

We can definitely agree on this point though: Ultimately, God is sovereign, and the only freedom we have is in Him.