Abraham Lincoln: Then and Now
By DAVID STRAUB
I built a time machine and went back to 1864 to talk to some people in New York about my personal hero, Abraham Lincoln.
Me: Sir, sir, Abraham Lincoln is the best president that this country has ever had. What is your opinion on that?
Sir: Damn right son, finally met someone who understands.
Me: Why is he the best president?
Sir: This country hasn't had an army since 1812, and even then it wasn't much of an army, least not by today's standards. Now, praise Jesus, Mary and Joseph, (but by no means those Papist niggers), we have the largest armies the world has ever known: the army of the Potomac and the army of West. Think about it: every man needs a uniform, a gun, bullets and a kit! Now, we need a railroad to transport them! The government's so desperate they'll buy anything! Praise be, we also need ships to blockade the South! Thus, the South has dock-loads of cotton that they can't even export! But, I can! Oh yeah, we also need hardtack and dog shit to feed the army! I should get into that too! Business is booming! Booming! Booming! I had a friend who's making a fortune in the coffin business; he's even got a special deal with the railroads to ship the body home as part of the package!
Me: Should we withdraw from the South?
Sir: Hell no, business is booming!
Me: Sir, sir, Abraham Lincoln is the best president that this country has ever had. What is your opinion on that?
Sir: You got me, I don't know. Listen, I fundamentally believe that slavery is wrong, a sin against the American ethic. Old Abe began by splitting rails; now, look at him. That's what this country should be; it can not have an entrenched slave holding aristocracy. After Dred Scott, they were going to repel the Missouri Compromise, allowing slavery to grow and not to die a slow death as the founders intended. I agree that that was unacceptable. When Abe argued with Douglas, he was not talking about freeing the darkies; he was only talking about stopping the spread of slavery and allowing it to die overtime, a natural death. I could cheer that. I can't cheer this. This escalation has been unacceptable. The carnage? Who would have thought? Maybe Abe should have stepped down in 1861 and brought in a president more amenable to the South...Then, we'd probably have slave auctions back in DC; what a travesty that was! Still, the Union is important, the Union is everything. Abe claims to be saving it, but is he really? It was all the Battle Hymn of the Republic after the Emancipation Proclamation, but where will all those darkies go after? Tocqueville predicted a race war. We may have one yet. We certainly don't want them here. Miscegenation is a sin before god. Me: Should we withdraw from the South?
Sir: Well, I'll tell you: we have an election coming up, election of 1864. It's down between Old Abe and George McClellen who advocates peace with the South. Unless the heavens open and Old Bobby Lee gets kicked really hard in the ass, McClellen's going to take it; I've heard talk that Old Abe has predicted it himself. However, I don't like McClellen either; the little Napoleon certainly didn't anything for our boys in blue. So to answer your question, I don't really have to choose whether we withdraw or not; I just need to decide between these two candidates. If Old Abe could prove to me that he could win the war, I'd jump in glee; however, pigs may fly, but I doubt it. [Lincoln would win, but only because Sherman captured Atlanta just prior to the election] You know, there's even talk in the South about emancipating blacks who fight in gray and if things get bad enough, it may happen. Can you imagine that? [The South would do it in 1865] Meanwhile, in the North here, Harvard and Yale still have their crew race each year. We have a zillion times the men and a zillion times the industry. We should won the war in a week...You know, Old Abe stood behind that dumb ass McClellen for two years...You know, the fear of Southern artillery, which turned out to be wood, kept McClellen and his army in Washington for months! His invasion of the South: a disaster! Bobby Lee is the greatest general since Alexander the Great, he bloodies the nose of our generals and they run away and cry... McClellen could have destroyed Lee at Antietam...Meade could have destroyed him at Gettysburg...Lincoln, out of some perverse loyalty kept these incompetents in office, the war has been totally mismanaged, totally mismanaged...I could talk about Hooker and Burnside too; these guys were so stupid that I'm impressed they can even wipe their own asses...Burnside at Fredricksburg: Lee's entrenched behind a wall at the top of the hill...“Hmm, I could outflank them, cut off supply lines, but, no, I'm so much smarter. I'm going to send my boys to the top of the hill”...Massacre. How did that man ever become commander and chief...Of course, Lincoln doesn't have an easy job; hell, no one thought that he was up to it; hell, things were so out of control that Lincoln even brought his worst political enemies onto his cabinet...Still, that doesn't excuse all this needless blood. Me: Should we withdraw from the South?
Sir: I think I'm going to go McClellen even though the continuation of slavery sickens me. You know Lincoln doesn't even have a plan for what happens after the war. I mean we got back Louisiana and it's in chaos, martial law, the whole bit. What will we do with all these blacks after the war? How will we quell the hate, between North and South, and between black and white? Even if Lee gets beaten, a guriella war will probably continue indefinitely. Just takes one hothead, then there's retaliation which pisses other people off...which pisses other people off...which pisses other people off...Then, there's how to recreate the Southern economy and build, not rebuild, its infrastructure; then, there's even how to constitutionally bring the South back into the Union. If Lincoln could win the war and we could have a united country that somehow overcomes all these problems, I would totally go for it. I just don't see how that's possible. We should withdraw from the South.
Me: Sir, sir, Abraham Lincoln is the best president that this country has ever had. What is your opinion on that?
Sir: What are you, some dumb nigger lover? Don't waste my time.
Me: Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves and united the country!
Sir: I'll tell you what he did, you dumb nigger! If I weren't a little drunk, I'd got some of my friends to beat your head in and hang you! If there's anything that I hate it's a nigger! Lincoln got my son killed at Gettysburg! They drafted him just as we got off the boat, while those nigger loving whores up on Park Avenue buy their way out for $300! You know at Gettysburg around 25,000 god-fearing Union boys died in three days...They say you could smell the battlefield for twenty miles...My son is probably being eaten by wild dogs as we speak. (He cries) Me: What do you believe should be done with the African Am—I mean niggers.
Sir: I'm a god fearing man; I listen to those abolitionists and they make a lot of sense. Niggers may be a lot dumber than we are, but that's no excuse to enslave them; they are our Christian brothers. Goddamn it, I don't hate niggers; I just hate niggers in New York...I don't want to lose my job, and I sure as hell didn't want my son to die just so they could take my job! I would be okay with a week long war to free the niggers. We beat the South and put them on a boat back to Africa. Neither of those are going to happen. The South has Bobby Lee and I never knew how many niggers the South had until they started coming North. We haven't got the boats to ship them back; God in his kingdom doesn't have the boats. We should withdraw from the South.
Me: Sir, sir, Abraham Lincoln is the best president that this country has ever had. What is your opinion on that?
Sir: He's a damn tyrant, has made scraps of the constitution and ought to be hung, drawn and quartered along with King George III.
Me: Why?
Sir: First of all, the Southern states have a constitutional right to secede and Old Abe just ignores that. Of course, that's not directly in the constitution, but think about it. If the founder's, or at least their constituents, wanted a lock-solid union, they would have built one when combat ended around 1783. However, there was no constitution until around 1787. Think about it: these people had just overthrown a tyrant and they didn't want another one in Washington.
Me: However, all the states did approve a constitution in 1787. Maybe, they changed their minds and wanted it then.
Sir: Let me tell you, that constitution was a creation of necessity, not a creation of choice. When the storm that caused the constitution passed so could the constitution. After the Revolution, all the states tried to independently pay off their war debts. This created all kinds of problems, albeit some of which exaggerated. Let me tell you about Rhode Island. There, wealthy merchants bought soldiers' war bonds (which they had been paid for their service in lieu of currency) on the cheap, and wanted the bonds to be paid back ASAP. The soldiers themselves, almost all of which were farmers, wanted more currency to be printed in order to inflate it which would then reduce (in real currency) what they owed the latter merchants. The decision whether to inflate or not inflate almost created open class warfare in the state. You know, despite this, Rhode Island did not sign on until George Washington was president. On his tour, he went around Rhode Island and then Massachusetts talked about invading, then, and only then, did Rhode Island signed on. This is just the most egregious example. None of the states were doing cart-wheels for the constitution. It was a long, hard fought battle. The constitution doesn't talk about secession. Therefore, we can only talk about intent. If these states knew that they were going to be locked into an iron union, they never would have signed on. Even today, we say: “The United States are; not is.” Did I also tell you that Lincoln, without the approval of congress, raised an army, thereby implicitly declaring war and suspending habeas corpus. I'm not a lawyer, but my friends can cite the cases. Without trial, they just lock them up and throw the key. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. Me: How about “All men are created equal.” How about the founders' efforts to limit slavery so that it would die a natural death. It isn't all just in the constitution.
Sir: Fine. I agree. Why couldn't Lincoln do both? The founders wanted to limit slavery and thus allow it to die over time; they didn't want to immediately emancipate the slaves...Sweet Jesus, no! Lincoln was a rabid abolitionist and that clouded his judgment. Maybe he could have brokered a compromise with the South: I step down and we restore the Missouri Compromise. Like everything, this can be debated, but Lincoln has expanded the power of presidency by leaps and bounds; that can not be debated. This frightens me very much, like having a rabid dog under my bed...Mind you, my grandfather fought in the Revolution. Where will Lincoln stop? Will he ever step down from power? To protect our liberties, Lincoln needs to be kicked out in 1864.
Later, I talked to people in 1865, a year after Lincoln's assassination. The radical republicans still accused him of being too easy on the South, but, by and large, people, in the North and South, now saw him as a great president. In the North, he had restored the Union, which mattered very much to people's collective identity, and he also ended slavery, an abomination before God. Maybe after so much loss, that loss had to mean something; thus, Old Abe had to mean something. Facilitating this, our good Irish man's fears of a black inundation proved unfounded, such would not happen until WWI. Why, you may ask? Black Codes were passed in the South to keep blacks slaves, and this kept them in their place. Granted, to punish the South, congress would later strike down those codes and pass the 14th amendment, but this was just a passing political fancy; the old aristocracy, and race order, would be restored riding on the white dress of the KKK; the North just stopped caring. In 1865, I also talked to people in the South. Surprisingly, many people there had softened their opinions of Lincoln. I was told that he would have given them “a fair deal” and not attempted to punish them for merely exercising their “constitutional right.” Lincoln, had he lived, couldn't possibly have pleased both the reunionists and the radical republicans; being shot was the best thing that he could have do to ensure saintly immortality.
In 20 years, I wonder how we will be talking about George W Bush? History and democracy are very funny things.