Talk:John Wilkes Booth/@comment-92.15.129.105-20140621163013

I am once again putting this up at the top of the page for everyone to notice.

OK "Anti-Lincoln researcher", I HAVE done my research. I've actually read numerous Lincoln scholars (whom you so blithely and condescendingly dismiss as 'people who don't like the truth and wish to hide it'), as well as the sloppy half-baked jobs of writers like Thomas DiLorenzo, as well as reading Lincoln's OWN works. Unfortunately, your remarks --or slanders-- are based on second-hand, out-of-context quotes which happen to have a great many of their basic FACTS wrong. 

In response:  > There seems to be a great deal of misinformation about Lincoln.< 

* Well, we actually know a lot of good information about Lincoln. And while it is true that perhaps he did not do the best possible job, it was still not bad; his ability to sustain the war effort against numerous obstacles -- esp. incompetent generals, a large block that didn't want to fight (starting with the Copperheads), and a savage press -- should at least gain him SOME respect! His political skill, understanding the right timing for major changes (such as the Emancipation Proclamation and lining up support for the 13th amendment), his careful use of his rhetorical gifts to inspire people, and his ability to actually LEAD and get the best out of a cabinet filled with his rivals, who had thought THEY should be President, were remarkable. 

Now Lincoln made some significant mistakes --as EVERY President has-- such as overestimating pro-Union sentiment in the North, underestimating Southern resolve and skill and overestimating some of his early generals (things about which almost everyone in the North would have agreed). But he LEARNED from these and overcame them. 

> Lincoln was a tyrant, mass murder, and war criminal.< 

* This is a cheap dismissal of the arguments and evidence of numerous scholars -- an ad hominem, not an argument. Note too that a great many have tried to write on the other side, but their work simply does not stand up to scrutiny. 

> Abraham Lincoln...believed in white supermacy.< 

* You're referring, of course, to one or two quotes from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, used by anti-Lincoln writers to show his "racism". Well, he might not match up to what we would expect of a leader today -- but he was actually FAR ahead of most in his day. He also DID believe that slavery was absolutely morally WRONG -- a wrong against fellow HUMAN BEINGS, and he argued repeatedly, from at least 1854 on, that the rights referred to in the Declaration DO belong to blacks as well. He showed NO animosity toward them. And by the end of his Presidency clearly regarded many quite highly (even suggesting that at least the educated ones, and those who had fought, deserved the franchise [Booth's hearing Lincoln say this was apparently the 'final straw' that pushed him from his kidnapping plan to one of assassination.])  * I highly suggest you find the FULL text of the typical 'anti-black' quotes in the L-D debates, and read the WHOLE of the speech they appear in. If you are at all open-minded, you'll see that the cherry-picked quotes you've been shown very much misrepresent his viewpoint. 

> Lincoln started a war.< 

* He was provisioning FEDERAL forts, and only with foods. . NO troops or weapons, so how was that "starting" the firing? 

> He killed livestock of civillians.< 

* I assume you are speaking of such things as Sherman's campaign. Actually, it's called "total war"... which proved, unfortunately, to be necessary (and is the very thing that justified declaring their slaves free). But do note that even when it was judged necessary to undermine the civilian population's will to fight, by destroying PROPERTY (including, e.g., crops used to sustain the Confederate Army), they did NOT target the PERSONS of civilians. 

>Abraham Lincoln...a act of shocking animal crueltly< 

*I suggest you read this; Abraham Lincoln and the Three Kittens

> He burned homes down.< 

• There is extensive literature on this. Most conclude that he did go too far in SOME cases -- but isn't it easy to sit in your armchair and in hindsight, to take shots at his acts trying to hold together the country in deep crisis. (Excellent evaluation of his war acts -- *Lincoln's Constitution* by Daniel Farber. ) 

Source:

Scholars correct lies about Lincoln  http://www.claremont.org/writings/crb/Sp... http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/02... http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/ow... http://www.claremont.org/writings/010730...

Material on Lincoln & emancipation (from Frederick Douglass, Lincoln scholars like Stephen Oates, etc)  http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/insid... http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/insid... http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/insid... http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/insid...

Was Lincoln a racist?  http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekl... http://www.thelincolnmuseum.org/new/rese... http://www.martinspencer.org/AL.pdf espl.p. 5 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/features/2... http://www.claremont.org/writings/010807...

efforts to pass 13th amendment  http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/insid...