Above is a political cartoon of the “civil war” era. (And you thought that today’s political cartoonists were savage!) The cartoonist has managed to place in his work, a very clear, accurate and comprehensive image of Lincoln and his administration as the artist – and the publication – saw the matter at that time. Obviously, neither were devotees of the President but the cartoon is not merely a matter of insult. Indeed, a great deal of information about both the man and his government is contained within a very small area!
The most important point made in the cartoon is expressed in the words emanating from the mouth of the Lincoln figure: “Necessity is my only law!” This was Lincoln’s only creed. He saw himself as the Savior of the government and did not bother to consider whether or not the efforts he made to save the nation might indeed be fatal to it. In this, I am reminded of another old saying, “The operation was a success—but the patient died.”
Beneath Lincoln’s feet we see being trampled both habeas corpus and “freedom of the press.” Now let us remember that habeas corpus goes back to the Magna Carta. It ended the right of kings to arrest and imprison their enemies without consequence for it required that any person so detained—within a reasonable period of time—had to be charged with a crime and permitted recourse to law. So egregious was Lincoln’s trespass against this fundamental right of Western Civilization, that a book written in 1869 by John Marshall was entitled The American Bastille, a reference to the notorious French prison which became a by-word for government tyranny. In this book are the accounts of only a very few of the tens of thousands so imprisoned and we find that these men and women were subjected to not just arrest and imprisonment but suffering, exposure, starvation, torture, humiliation and the theft of their property and sometimes their lives. It would seem that the method of warfare used against the South was not limited to that region but was also practiced against American citizens in the North who disapproved of Lincoln’s actions.
The second right trampled underfoot is Freedom of the Press which is part of First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Very briefly, the Amendment states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Under Lincoln, the entire First Amendment was rendered null and void. Of course, the Amendment speaks to laws created by Congress. But whether by Executive Order or by law, it is forbidden for the Government in, by and/or through any of its branches, to restrict religious observance, freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the right of peaceful assembly and petition. Yet all of the above were effectively suspended by Lincoln.
Lincoln’s treatment of Maryland was particularly egregious and included sending General Benjamin Butler to Baltimore where that worthy trained United States Army cannons on the City while Lincoln had various state leaders arrested and imprisoned to prevent the call for a vote on secession. When such a vote was eventually taken, it was overwhelmingly defeated as there were no pro-secessionists able or willing to vote “Yea!” under the circumstances.
As was usual with Lincoln, any publication that dared to challenge his war or criticize his actions was shut down and its editor arrested and imprisoned without charge. The grandson of the author of the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Key Howard, editor of The Exchange Newspaper of Baltimore, was arrested on the morning of September 13th, 1861 and taken to Fort McHenry. He later wrote:
“When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before.”
Howard was correct. The tyranny against which Americans had fought in 1776 had not been defeated, but merely changed in person and place from a tyrant 4,000 miles away to a tyrant in their own backyards.
And what about Lincoln and his Administration’s affect on religion? Well, there are countless stories of clerics who were ordered–not asked—to pray for the President and not just for his health or his immortal soul, but for the furtherance of his war. This was demanded by the military of religious leaders both in the North and in the South and when it was not forthcoming—especially in occupied areas in the South—the pastor was arrested and the church closed. Worse, during the war, the churches in the South were a particular target for destruction as a means of inflicting cultural death upon the section. This crusade—fully as awful as any waged by the Ottoman Turk or the Nazis and Communists of the last century—must stand as proof that Lincoln violated even this seemingly militarily neutral section of the First Amendment. Indeed, freedom of any kind was in short supply during the War of Secession. There was a pervasive malignant atmosphere of suspicion and betrayal that silenced even the most benign dissent by the most honorable of dissenters.
We must now return to our artist and see what else he provides. Oddly, the only reference in the cartoon to the slave—despite what we are told is his importance—is the game Lincoln plays with him. A cherry labeled the Emancipation Proclamation is dangled over the tiny figure’s head and he reaches for what he believes is the fruit of liberty; the stick on which it dangles carries the words, “MY WILL IS LAW” which was certainly true. But does the Emancipation actually represent liberty? It freed no slaves. Those given their “freedom” were not in any territory over which Lincoln had control while those living in the Union were exempt.
Finally, two illustrators demonstrate the nature of the men with whom Lincoln surrounded himself. Indeed, the slave is more a man than Secretary of State, William Seward who appears in these two images, first as a mere extension of the Goblin King’s tail and secondly as a mere hand. Yet, despite being nothing more than an appendage of his master or a single body part, Seward performs unconstitutional atrocities from the other end, so to speak. From Seward’s mouth comes a paraphrase of his infamous comment to Lord Lyons, British envoy to the United States for much of the War:
“My Lord, I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio. I can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England, do so much?”
In the image, Seward’s “bell” is connected to telegraph lines showing the speed with which tyranny spreads in Lincoln’s new America. The clapper of the bell is a mask symbolic of the deceit hiding the true nature of Lincoln’s government while Lincoln’s government is itself a mask for Lincoln.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.
But … but … but … well of course none of this can be true because Americans were not taught any of this in the Yankee Publik Skool system. And anyway, so what if some of it is true the Southerners DESRVED to be invaded, raped, pillaged and burned because #SLAVERY. Never mind that the North was still slave trading to Africa, did not want any Black people around them and that the North invented Jim Crow laws and more stuff like these things. Those things don’t matter
BTW, in case it needs to be said, my comment above was complete sarcasm.
Sarcasm bites hardest when based in truth and your comments have the biting power of a hungry, 12 foot long, Louisiana alligator!
Thank you Joseph. You are most kind.
“Towering genius disdains a beaten path…
It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen.”
Lincoln broadcasted his intentions for the world to see in his Lyceum Address. Just about everything one needs to know about Lincoln’s spiritual and moral groundings (or lack thereof) can be found in its text. It rang out like a siren song that eventually drew our federated republic onto the shoals of despotism and mercantilism. Lincoln’s god was government and he aspired to be its High Priest. He offered over a million lives as sacrifice to his god upon the altar that was the war of Northern Aggression. The blood from his sacrifice has stained our land indelibly and laid waste to the God given liberties he swore an oath before our country’s Christian God to defend. The
blood of the dead was then diabolically blended
with the blackest of ink to pen our new “constitution,” the 14th amendment. The Radical Republicans (as today’s uni-party) still rule the mercantilist imperium envisioned and so accurately described by Lincoln in his Lyceum Address eight generations later. Lincoln’s demonic disciples control the people thru wages just as prescribed in the Hazard Circular of 1862. I often wonder why Marx and Hitler spoke so highly of Lincoln. Neither one of those people like President Davis…
Thanks for this excellent history re Lincoln and Seward. ‘Lincoln’s War’ is the simplest and most just name for the war; he was the sine qua non of the tragedy. No one will ever not know which war you mean.
When I read American Bastille cover to cover, twice there was something that clearly stood out. How the Democrats imprisoned, regardless of their station in life, so clearly embraced our founding principles. Just breathtaking also, that when given the opportunity to sign the Oath (which was also a tacit admission of guilt) to the MAN refused and would have rather died. Unsung Patriots extraordinaire.
My family, on my father’s side, we’re Copperheads. Catholic Germans and Luxembourgers. My 105 yr old grandmother, Henrietta Schinker would repeat herself at the end of her life “I am a man without a country”
Peace Democrats on one side, First Family Virginians on the other. Couldn’t be happier and thank God for Abbeville
Yes, “Thank |God for Abbeville”!!!