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How can anyone call Abe Lincoln the greatest president???

Updated on February 17, 2015 in Politics
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7 on February 16, 2015

Lincoln sucked just as bad, or worse, than other presidents, yet he’s a martyr to black people and others who don’t ever ask themselves if he did anything other than bust his ass to keep the Union together so he wouldn’t be universally scorned. Did he want to be the president that let the USA fracture? Hell no, he didn’t, and it was his own EGO that motivated him to keep it together. Some of the stuff he did wasn’t all that magnanimous!

http://listverse.com/2013/12/05/10-reasons-lincoln-was-secretly-a-terrible-president/

What special guy…I think we call him Putin nowadays, but back then he was rescuing the slaves and all…um…so anything in the name of…um…yeah, right:

“While we’re on the subject of free speech and all, let’s meet Clement L. Vallandigham. An Ohio Democrat during the dark days of the Civil War, he was by all accounts a bit of a miserable idiot, who liked nothing better than to rile his Republican rivals by opposing everything they stood for. Since this was the 1860s, that meant campaigning to end the war and criticizing Lincoln for his cavalier approach to civil liberties. A criticism Lincoln responded to by having Vallandigham arrested, tried by the military, and deported behind enemy lines.

Just to be clear, Vallandigham wasn’t a spy. He wasn’t aiding the Confederacy. He was just a guy who had a misguided admiration for the South and felt uneasy about winning a war by crushing civil liberties. Deporting him for expressing these views was about as far from democracy as you can possibly get. Then again, Lincoln did a lot of things that don’t exactly sit well with our idea of a democratic leader.”

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Turk 0 on February 16, 2015

I have to respect a guy that had one year of formal education, taught himself everything, received his law license without the benefit of a degree, and went on to, yes, hold the whole country together.

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PJ Rodriguez 0 on February 16, 2015

“Lincoln sucked just as bad, or worse, than other presidents…” Wrong, wrong, wrong. Look at the three presidents preceding him — Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan — who did such a sucky job of dealing with secession and slavery (namely, they pandered to the South).

“[He] bust his ass to keep the Union together so he wouldn’t be universally scorned.” Completely inaccurate.

As for Vallandigham, you’ll really ought to include the larger context.

The Copperheads were a northern antiwar faction of the Democratic Party that wanted to make peace with the Confederacy. Some Copperheads coordinated with the Confederacy. They were planning a secession of the Midwest. In southern Illinois, Copperheads organized the killing of Union soldiers. Clement Vallandigham received Confederate funding. He positioned the war as about freeing the blacks and enslaving whites.

So, it’s not that Vallandigham was some random dude who expressed some opinions and then got treated unfairly.

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Societygirl 0 on February 17, 2015

PJ, I completely disagree with you on all counts. Lincoln, like all presidents, was a huge egomaniac, and he consistently got rid of, in one way or another, those who opposed him or stepped on his toes. When the question comes up as to why he picked such shitty commanders, like Burnside, it’s obvious: the egomaniac had to make sure he was the ONLY one giving any real orders.

Lincoln didn’t “hold the whole country together”, either, Turk. C’mon, can you REALLY try to say that with ALL the levels of leaders involved, from Congress to military leaders, are you really going to say JUST Lincoln did it all? THAT is what drives me crazy: hearing that same, completely implausible response. Simply put, he could NOT have done it all. Our entire governing system ENSURES that one president, nor one military leaders, nor one senator CAN’T do it all.

The only way Lincoln got his moments of glory was because of all the leaders who also were working to a common end. This country has NEVER had just one leader. But when people talk about Lincoln, it’s like there wasn’t even a damned Congress, that he just made all the good decisions and everything worked out. He made a LOT of bad decisions, often just by the military commanders he put in charge, that caused our soldiers to be slaughtered. And he wasn’t a saint; he did a lot of shitty stuff to a lot of people.

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JeffBishop 2 on February 17, 2015

Obviously you’ve got a hard on for Lincoln and there’s no arguing with a hard on.  Suffice it to say that while no President was perfect, he held the country together, ended slavery, and but for his assassination probably would have presided over a much more conciliatory Reconstruction than what the more radical Republicans wanted and ultimately got.

PJ Rodriguez on February 17, 2015

Andrew Johnson was the worst. The. Worst.

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Societygirl on February 17, 2015

PJ, when you say the worst, that’s really a relative term.  After reading this information in the link below, I disagree. He created a lot of enemies and therefore the PR information created about him was biased, which is never hard to do against someone who doesn’t engage in the kind of spin that leaders do nowadays to balance the negativity being spread about them. It sounds to me like he was a man of integrity and self-discipline.  It’s been mentioned above how Lincoln was so great bc he was self-taught, blah blah blah, but Johnson was illiterate until his 16 yo wife started teaching him at 18 yrs old, and he ALSO became president. Ge also went on to be rel-elected to the Senate AFTER his presidency was over, so a LOT of people thought he did a great enough job to believe he should go on leading them.

http://www.ourherald.com/news/2011-01-06/People/Was_Andrew_Johnson_Really_Our_Worst_President_Ever_001.html

“Many people who opposed Johnson’s policies recognized that he acted with courage, consistency and integrity in support of the Constitution, even if he might have harbored some of the uglier prejudices of his upbringing and geographical background.

His home state of Tennessee, which earlier had been so angered by his support of the union, elected him again to the senate in 1875.

He is the only former President to later become a senator.

At the end of his first speech in the Senate Chamber, he received an ovation from many of those who earlier had so bitterly called for his removal. It was also his last speech, for he died a few months later.”

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Societygirl 0 on February 17, 2015

JeffBishop, as soon as I see someone say “Obviously you’ve”, I understand there won’t be any more fun or intellectual debate from that person. Using those words indicates you have to stoop to emotion and “walk out of the conversation” as a mechanism of power and control because you have nothing substantive or interesting to add. Because nothing in what I said is “obvious” about my thoughts on Lincoln. This is a debate site, and I simply like to provoke thoughtful, informed opinions (Yours is neither) so that perhaps I’ll learn some new facts and perspectives.

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