The Means Are As Important As The Ends

"Oh, so you preferred the slaveowner guys..."

- rujjon,White House website deluged with secession petitions from 20 states, 11 November 2012

No, I didn't prefer the slaveowner guys. Quite the contrary, I am quite pleased, as I said earlier, that the North won, the Democrats lost, and Lincoln was President rather than Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, or John Bell.   I strive, however, to learn the truth and let the record reflect same.  It is undoubtedly true that President Lincoln:

1)   Unconstitutionally tried more than 11,000 civilians in military tribunals; 

2) Unilaterally, unconstitutionally, without prior congressional approval, and in direct contravention of Chief Justice Taney's order, suspended habeas corpus and declared martial law in the North.;

3)  Made persons discouraging (sucks to be you, free speech) enlistments, drafts or any disloyal practices (what is disloyal and who gets do decide?  Evidently, just being against war, in general, was a disloyal practise) subject to martial law and trial by military commissions; 

4) Unconstitutionally seized private property.  See:  "Executive Order, 11 February 1862," "Executive Order - Taking into Military Possession all Telegraph Lines in the United States, 25 February 1862," "Executive Order - Concerning the Confiscation Act, 13 November 1862," and "Executive Order - Taking Military Possession of Railroads, 25 May 1862," for 4 examples;

5) Unconstitutionally censored the press and imprisoned publishers in the North that spoke out against him and/or his policies, including his usurpations;

6) Unconstitutionally arrested and "deported to the Confederacy" a duly and legally elected  Congressman from Ohio, Clement Vallandigham, an antiwar Democrat, who was part of a coalition of Northern Democrats seeking a peace treaty between the North and the South with France as the intermediary.   President Lincoln first had him arrested and tried by a military tribunal.  Outrage and protest swept across the North and on February 1864, the Supreme Court ruled that it had no power to issue a writ of habeas corpus to a military commission (Ex parte Vallandigham, 1 Wallace, 243), which is what had been demanded it of it by Lincoln.

To give you an idea of the type of "slaveowner guy" Clement Vallandigham was, take a look at just one of his "slaveowner guy" compatriots:  Horace Greeley.  Greeley was a famed and an outspoken abolitionist, a reformer,  the founder and editor of America's most influential newspaper of the day, The New York Tribune, which established his reputation as "the greatest editor of his day," a vegetarian, AND A SOCIALIST.  He was a disciple of Charles Fourier, a Utopian Socialist, who coined the term "feminism," defended homosexuality as an "acceptable alternative" and "lifestyle choice," promoted a "new world order," welfarism, and -- believe it or not -- an early form of ecohysteria:  The seas will lose their salinity and turn into lemonade because of industrialisation.  Greeley very openly and proudly labeled himself a "Fourierist."

Both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote for his paper and he was a huge supporter of the Utopian communities (a product of Fourierism) like New Harmony, Brook Farm, and Oneida.   He was also a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, whose only relation to the Party of Lincoln was the use of the word "Republican."  He ran AGAINST the "military genius" credited with winning the Civil War, NATIONAL ICON, and sitting Republican President, Ulysses S Grant.  In his crusade and campaign against Grant and his corrupt administration, Horace Greeley, the Liberal "Republican" was supported by the Democrats.  It was with men like Horace Greeley that Clement Vallandigham associated; yet, Lincoln, unconstitutionally, violated his civil liberties.

7)  Ordered the Federal government to censor all telegraph communications without a warrant or probable cause.

Abraham Lincoln may, rightfully, be considered America's greatest president by many, but he was not without serious flaws.    Furthermore, I do not buy into your whole "you have to break a few eggs to make a good omelet" or "the end justify the means" argument.  Lincoln violated the Constitution...just as Obama did when he made recess appointments when the Senate could not possibly have been in recess pursuant to Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.  That may not trouble you, but it does me whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican.

Besides, I'm of British ancestry so the whole "lover of Southern slaveowner guys" thingy doesn't work. As far back as 1569, OUR courts ruled that English law did not recognise slavery and the Lord Chief Justice ruled that a slave became a freeperson the moment his/her foot touched English soil in 1701.  We didn't need to fight a civil war over the matter and, if Democrats weren't such racist Neanderthals, the United States could have avoided 4 bloody years of war that cost 600,000 lives and ripped apart families.

I didn't become an American until 2002, but I am proud that 1/3rd of the people, who lived in these former British colonies, decided that freedom, limited government, taxation only with representation, representative democracy, private property rights, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were all worth sacrificing their lives, fortunes, and sacred honour for because a life living under tyranny is not a life worth living. I am immensely proud of the fact that they loved liberty more than wealth, the animating contest of freedom more than the tranquility of servitude, self-determination more than security, individualism more than collectivism, and the joy of risk more than the false safety of the welfare hammock.

Moral relativism and ends-justify-the-means excuse-making (Obama only violated the Constitution because of Republican obstructionism) lead to very dark places.  Joseph Stalin once said, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic‎."  The ideas and programmes embraced and promoted by American eugenics were adopted by Adolph Hitler, who first used them to justify the "humane" euthanasia of "defectives," who were both leading "substandard and painful lives" and were a burden on the public purse.  Then, his "humane" programme became the Holocaust.  I will not differ my standards depending upon who is in office.  I will not support government encroaching upon my liberty even at a cost that would guarantee me a comfortable life provided by the government forever.

I say to you, as they said to the 1/3rd, who were Royalists, and the other 1/3rd, who were apathetic, "[I] ask not your counsels or your arms.  Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.  May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were [my] countryman."