Many Lincoln aficionados each year eagerly await the month of February so they can bombard us with pseudohistory about Abraham Lincoln the supposed “great emancipator.” Our students in those indoctrination centers we are still foolish enough to think of as public schools will be treated to all manner of historical fables about how Lincoln “freed” the slaves (he actually freed no one). This is the man, so they inform us, who had a fond spot in his heart for black folks. Actually he was a flaming racist, yet black people continue to revere him as though he were Moses parting the Red Sea for them so they could walk across to the promised land of freedom. Actually Lincoln did lead them, and the rest of us as well, into the “Red” sea. Most have not figured that out yet. Give us another hundred years, if we still have a country, and maybe we’ll figure it out! With the War of Northern Aggression, Lincoln’s primary goal was to preserve the Union with bayonets - a union that, in his mind, had existed before the different states had - in fact, had always existed, states or no states. And it was a union in which the individual states had no say in what they did, except as allowed by a central government in Washington. In other words, in Lincoln’s “Union” the states were totally “free” to do whatever Washington required them to do. Mr. Lincoln didn’t really give a flip one way or the other whether slavery flourished or not. As proof of this, witness his support for the Corwin Amendment. What’s was the Corwin Amendment, you might ask? You mean you never read about that in your public school “history” book? I guess that’s one of those little facts the public educators and their collaborators in the government and the publishing industry felt you’d be better off not being aware of. After all, if you don’t know, then you can’t ask any embarrassing questions they don’t have answers for, can you? The Corwin Amendment was introduced into Congress in March of 1861. Its sponsor was Ohio Representative Thomas Corwin. That’s right folks, this man came from Ohio, not Georgia or Alabama. Some reports have stated that Corwin introduced this amendment to prevent the “Civil War.” It was presented to the Congress in the form of House (Joint) Resolution No. 80. The entire idea of the Corwin Amendment was to prohibit Congress from trying to ban slavery in whatever states there were that still permitted it. The Corwin Amendment would have stopped Congress from “abolishing or interfering with the ‘domestic institutions’ including persons held to labor or service (a reference to slavery)” Interestingly enough, a parallel resolution to the one in the House was introduced into the Senate by William H. Seward of New York, not Georgia or Louisiana, but New York. So both of these resolutions were originated with Northern, not Southern congressmen. Even Wikipedia picked up on this, surprisingly, and they said: “However, the newly formed Confederate States of America was totally committed to independence, and so it ignored the Corwin Amendment.” Interesting. Our so-called “historians” have continued to inform us over the decades that the Southern states fled the Union solely so they could keep their slaves. no other reasons for their departure need apply. If that had truly been the case, here was a golden opportunity for them to keep their slaves and to get back into the Union so they could vote to do so. Yet they passed it up! You don’t just suppose they might have had other more compelling reasons for secession than the slavery question, do you? Like the problem with tariffs, for instance. Our court “historians” would never admit to that no matter what! We have to be conditioned to the “fact” that slavery was the only issue involved so we won’t ever ask any questions about any other issues they don’t want to answer. In that regard, I would point people to Gene Kizer’s book Slavery Was Not The Cause Of The War Between The States. In February of 1861 the House approved the resolution by a vote of 133-65 and in early March the Senate approved it by a vote of 24-12. The seven Southern states that had already seceded from the Union at that point didn’t bother to try to vote on the issue, leading to the inescapable conclusion that, for them, slavery was not the only sole and real issue. Had it been the only issue, no doubt they could have petitioned Washington and gotten back into the Union so they could have voted to keep their slaves. Also worth noting here is the fact that the “great emancipator” did not oppose the Corwin Amendment. He said, in his first inaugural address: “(H)olding such a provision to now be implied Constitutional law I have no objection to it’s being made express and irrevocable.” In other words, a Constitutional amendment that made slavery for life the rule of law didn’t bother Mr. Lincoln one iota! According to Indopedia, “A young Henry Adams observed that the measure narrowly passed through both houses due to the lobbying efforts of Abraham Lincoln, the President-Elect.” So it seems that the “great emancipator” lobbied to get this pro-slavery amendment passed through both houses of Congress. Something else the “history” books didn’t bother to tell you about. After all, that would not have fit the image of the Great Emancipator Lincoln that people in government and public schools were trying to peddle to the “great unwashed” (and under-educated) masses, so they just left that little fact out. So the slaves were not freed until the second 13th Amendment was enacted in late 1865, months after Lincoln had gone to his eternal “reward.” Maybe it behooves people to start asking questions about those public school “history” books we were all brought up with—you know—really embarrassing questions, the kind they don’t ever want asked and that they will try to sluff off as “conspiracy theories.” Somebody needs to do it—so why not now??? This piece was published on Al Benson's Substack on June 14, 2024.
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AuthorAl Benson is the South’s best-known Copperhead (Northern-born patriot), a prolific columnist. and the coauthor of Lincoln’s Marxists. Archives
August 2024
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