Friday, March 29, AD 2024 7:33am

Union Christmas Dinner

Published on December 31, 1864, and drawn by Thomas Nast,  the above picture has Lincoln inviting the starving Confederate states to join the Christmas dinner of the Union States.  The print brings  to mind the phrase that  Lincoln would make immortal in his Second Inaugural in a few short months:  “With malice towards none, with charity for all”.  Not a bad sentiment to recall at Christmas time, or any time.

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Pat
Pat
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 7:36am

It is good to see a Thomas Nast drawing! On a drive into the countryside in late fall in the early 70’s, a stop at a roadside shop introduced me to his art. There were old Christmas decorations which included charming lightweight cardboard cutouts of a detailed Santa Claus in various settings. Mostly reds and shades of yellow with the black shaded outlines and, even though there was no green color, I had to buy one of each for just cents to afford a closer look. They’ve long ago disappeared, sort of like evidence of Lincoln’s phrase in news of today.

Scott
Scott
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 7:37am

May I suggest the book “The Real Lincoln” by Thomas DiLorenzo

Philip
Philip
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 7:50am

Pat.
Did he draw/sketch the temperance series? The ill effects of drinking to much. (Spirits)
I recall a series of sketches in my brother-in-law’s cabin, and the work resembles this one.

Pat
Pat
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 8:00am

Philip, I don’t know. Now, with more time to do so, I may find out.

Mary De Voe
Sunday, December 21, AD 2014 3:11pm

Pat and Philip: I have seen some of Thomas Nast’s cartoons and they were horribly anti-Catholic. I do not embrace his work any more, even his popular concept of Saint Nick. Thomas Nast’s cartoons are Nast y.

Tom
Tom
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 9:55am

Well, Lincoln’s nice rhetoric about “malice” doesn’t change the fact that he invaded a state, Virginia, which had not lifted a finger against a fellow state or the federal government; he despotically interfered with the governance of Maryland by imprisoning legislators there; he suppressed free speech by imprisoning political and press opponents; and he unconstitutionally waged a war against states with the stated purpose of overthrowing slavery, an war object that has no support in the constitution.
But I’m glad Nast imagined him as a benevolent master inviting his wayward servants home to the federal plantation.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 10:32am

You all know I don’t know much.
.
Didn’t the states vote themselves into the Union? Is there chapter and verse saying States may not vote themselves out of the Union? Something like that happened in 1776, except in 1861 the Southern states were so-called “sovereign states”, not colonies peopled with “second-class” English subjects. Of course, we know the Confederate states could not possibly vote themselves out because more cannons, more bullets, more bayonets: total war.
.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 11:40am

Mac,
.

They voted themselves in, but they couldn’t vote themselves out is the answer I expected; maybe chapter/verse, if available.
.

One reason I’m concerned in 2014 is that I’d love to see a bunch of so-called “blue states” promptly exit.

BPS
BPS
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 3:34pm

Tom wrote:
“Well, Lincoln’s nice rhetoric about “malice” doesn’t change the fact that he invaded a state, Virginia, which had not lifted a finger against a fellow state or the federal government;”

David H. Donald (a historian that revisionist like Dilorenzo more often than not misquote) explains on pages 290-300 of his masterwork “Lincoln” how Lincoln sought to avoid war by making a deal with the Virginia secession convention (which was majority unionist) to give up Ft Sumter if convention adjourned without secession vote. Lincoln met with John B. Baldwin in a secret conference on April 4th, but nothing came of the meeting. On April 6, Lincoln sent a State Dept functionary, Robert Chew, to meet with So. Carolina Gov. Francis Pickens and inform him that the federals “would attempt to supply Ft. Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition would be made without further notice.” Within weeks of the attack on Ft. Sumter, Virginia had seceded and Richmond was capital of the confederacy. Attack across the river on Washington was expected daily.

“he despotically interfered with the governance of Maryland by imprisoning legislators there;”

The first bloodshed in the war was the 4 soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment killed by rioters, while marching thru Baltimore on April 19th. Marylanders destroyed the railroad bridges linking Baltimore with the north and cut the telegraph lines. General Winfield Scott, a Virginian, wanted to arrest secessionist Maryland politicians prior to their meeting in Fredrick on April 26the. The governor of Maryland was a weak unionist, who collapsed under secession pressure. He asked Lincoln to stop sending troops thru Maryland and suggested mediation of the conflict by the British! When a Baltimore committee descended on his office on April 22nd and demanded that he bring no more troops thru Maryland and make peace with the confederacy on any terms, Lincoln had had enough. “You would have me break my oath and surrender the government without a blow. There is no Washington in that—no Jackson in that—no manhood nor honor in that. Our men are not moles, and can’t dig under the earth, they are not birds, and can’t fly through the air. Go home and tell your people that if they will not attack us, we will not attack them, but if they do attack us, we will return it, and that severely”.

“ he suppressed free speech by imprisoning political and press opponents;”

Article 1 section 9 of the Constitution countenances suspension of habeas corpus in event of rebellion. While the right to suspend seems to be vested in the legislative branch, at the time, Congress met only a few months of the year (would that that would be so today). Lincoln assumed the power in the emergency with Congress out of session. Later Congress ratified Lincoln’s actions.
“and he unconstitutionally waged a war against states with the stated purpose of overthrowing slavery, an war object that has no support in the constitution.”
Usually revisionist say Lincoln waged the war for the unconstitutional purpose of saving the union and vehemently deny that it was fought to overthrow slavery! Dilorenzo harps on that point continuously. Whatever the case, rebellion is a natural human right (even Lincoln recognizes it!) but only as a last resort and for serious and non-transient reasons (such as listed in our Declaration of Independence). Though our Constitution doesn’t mention a process for a state leaving the Union, I think it would be logical to assume it would be the same or similar to the process for a state entering the union, as detail in Article 4 section 3, by a majority vote of Congress. I wonder why that was never tried?! So had the confederate states wanted to leave constitutionally, they should have sought a vote in congress. Lincoln was bound by his oath of office as president to suppress the rebellion.

“ But I’m glad Nast imagined him as a benevolent master inviting his wayward servants home to the federal plantation.”

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Negros are beings of an inferior order, altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect.” – Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, writing for the majority in Dred Scott vs Sandford
“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition” – Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy

Tom, I beg you, beware such cant until you are more familiar with what real slavery and it’s attendant evil really is and what is envisaged by masters toward their slaves and to what lengths masters will allow their decent instincts to be corrupted in order to justify their holding of their slaves in bondage. Taney, a Catholic Marylanders who freed his own slaves, in the Dred Scott case blatantly disregarded the fact that free blacks had the right to vote from the time of our revolution in 5 New England states, and at times, in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Tennessee. At the time of our constitution was framed, slavery was seen as an evil which in time would pass away. Most of the 13 colonies had already outlaw slavery in their territories. In Washington’s army, 20% of the men in the ranks were black. The framers of our constitution were so ashamed of slavery that in the constitution they couldn’t bring themselves to use the word. By the time of the Civil War, southerners, perhaps influenced by the new writings of Charles Darwin, were defending slavery as a positive good and ordained by God.

Tom
Tom
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 4:02pm

So Don, glad to see that you don’t deny the charge that Lincoln imprisoned dissenting politicians and pressmen.

A state withdrawing from the Union is not an insurrection, and I challenge anyone to find any authority for the notion that the Framers understood insurrection to refer to the lawful, peaceful decision of the elected leaders of a state to withdraw from the Union. A compelled Union is no “union” at all but the very type of tyranny that the Framers themselves fought against when Britain sought to preserve *their* glorious Union. When the colonies became free of Britain, they were each Independent, and ceded to the federal government only those express and enumerated powers listed specifically in the constitution. Not one of those powers gave a president the authority to invade a state, much less to extirpate a lawful practice.

Tom
Tom
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 4:05pm

The Supreme Court, the supposed sole arbiter of the constitution, did not agree that Lincoln’s actions were constitutional.

Tom
Tom
Monday, December 22, AD 2014 4:10pm
Tom
Tom
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2014 9:34am

Ex Parte Merryman specifically ruled that Lincoln violated the Constitution. Lincoln ignored the ruling, yet another example of his tyrannical behavior during the war.
A mere tu quoque about what Jeff Davis did or did not do is an illogical response.

Three states, Virginia, Rhode Island, and New York, specifically allowed for the possibility of withdrawing from the Union in their ratifications of the constitution. Clearly, secession was not viewed as off limits for the men who created the Union, which Union, by the way, did not even exist under the constitution for 13 years after the Revolution. The states clearly pre-exist the Union and therefore are superior to it. They never expressly gave away their independence, only ceding those specific powers enumerated in the constitution.

Insurrection is lawless uprising against the government–like the Whisky Rebellion, for example. Secession proceeded according to law in each state, each state voting to revoke their original ratification of the constitution. The constitution, being limited solely to enumerated powers, did not specifically forbid this revocation. Therefore it was lawful, the drafters of the constitution having chosen not to include a prohibition against secession (likely because, as the NY, VA, and RI ratifications show, no one questioned the possibility of it).

Secession is clearly constitutional, unless you believe in a “living” constitution of penumbras and emanations.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2014 9:40am

Lincoln had declared martial law during the Civil War and many of his acts were for the common good of the Union. You will know them by what they do. History has exhonorated Lincoln and proved that Lincoln was a true patriot.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2014 9:47am

Tom: A living Constitution does not contain penumbras and emanations, if interpreted in Justice. The Supreme Court “JUSTICES” are the personification of the perfect JUSTICE of God for who in their right mind needs imperfect JUSTICE or corrupt interpretations of JUSTICE.
These men are “compensated” for who can pay for Justice? These men have the Ten Commandments in their chamber. What else do they need? God save this Court. (The Court is not compensated to promote atheism)

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Thursday, December 25, AD 2014 8:13am

[…] December 25? – Taylor Marshall PhD Three Facts About the Real St. Nicholas – ChurchPOP Union Christmas Dinner – Donald R. McClarey JD, The Amrcn Cthlc Is This What the Real St. Nicholas Looked Like? […]

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