Comments Elsewhere

skemono: Sure, Georgia Flagger. Go debate over here, here, and here, where all your “points” have already been debunked.

That’s an odd thing to say, since none of the articles you linked to actually address any of the claims that Georgia Flagger made about Lincoln or the Union. They make a series of arguments (mostly cogent) about the motivations of the Confederate states, but that’s a different question from the question as to the motivations of Abraham Lincoln, his war cabinet, or the Federal government as a whole.

Of course, it’s true that Georgia Flagger was changing the subject in the first place, since the topic originally was the Confederate flag, not Mr. Lincoln et al. But then the right thing to do is point out that he has changed the subject. Not to put in a series of links about the original subject, and claim that those posts refute Georgia Flagger’s claims about something entirely different.

Georgia Flagger: Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson had no slaves; those inherited by Lee were immediately freed.

Point of fact. The claim about Lee is demonstrably untrue. Lee held a few slaves in his own name throughout his life up to 1862. These were mostly personal servants; as a professional Army officer, he rarely had much use for large gangs of slaves. But after his father-in-law’s death, the scores of slaves that Lee gained control over at Arlington and the other Custis plantations were not “immediately freed.” They were held in bondage for more than five years. (Nor was their eventual manumission Lee’s decision; it was legally required by his father-in-law’s will.) During that time Lee made active efforts to recapture and punish those slaves who demanded their freedom or ran away. He also held them as long as he could legally get away with doing so, even though the will provided for five years only as a maximum span of time to arrange for the manumission. See GT 2005-01-03: Robert E. Lee owned slaves and defended slavery for details, documentation, and discussion.

Ed Brayton: Troublesome Frog just nailed it right on the head. Yes, Lincoln was primarily interested in conserving the union not in freeing the slaves. But that ignores the undeniable fact that the South seceded because of slavery.

Well, sure, but the motivations of Lincoln and his war cabinet are certainly relevant. If the Federalis were going to war not to liberate anyone, but rather to make sure that a different group of people remained under their boots, whether those people wanted to remain there or not, then that should certainly affect one’s overall view of the war. Certainly the Dixie revivalists have no moral high ground to stand on, but neither do the advocates of imperial federalism.

“The result – and a natural one – has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth.” — Lysander Spooner (1867)