I can understand that times dictate more than one man can object to, but you cant make one claim as wonderful when other decisions had such an adverse effect on so many innocent souls. A balanced view, not adoration of a man who signed the death warrant on thirty odd warriors who where defending their land and who did not even get a fair trial from the brutal soldiers who had murdered their families.

When you consider that the man may only have killed only one turkey in his life, and yet ordered so many people to their deaths, you have to admit that his life was incongruous... Again, to his mind, people must have justice as they see it through law or the law makes only a burden to people since they must obey, and yet get no justice... Why we put of with this today is a question of merit... When we consider the criminal west, how many people went west as a last chance, and then to meet ones end at the hands of cruel savaged was an invitation to mob justice which would likely have killed many more, especially of women and children... Both the whites and the Natives were taught a lesson...I am certain that Lincoln accepted that the sooner the Natives learned their lesson, -that this land was the property of the whites, the sooner everyone would seek peace, and live together...A fair trial is a matter of opinion... It is unlikely that any were convicted but out of their own mouths... They we proud of their killing, and too often it was the killing of women and children to which little honor went...It was bound to happen, but consider Chicago and her museums and old architecture... That is all a measure of the wealth that city took out of the planes one grain at a time...We were going to have it, and they were going to suffer the loss of it, with their lives if they so chose...

You cant excuse the theft of a country with the needs of the conqueror or claim the defenders a bunch of murdering savages. Those hanged ,were hanged for fighting in battle and they were not required to live in harmony but to be subjugated, enslaved and starved by loss of lands. We cant turn back history or judge those injustices in modern terms but we must accept that the white man stole Indian lands and made them third class citizens. I'm asking for a balanced view of historic figures, not this adoration of mythical men.

I admire your concern but in a country that belonged to them, i dont think hand outs are appropriate for such a once proud nation. The white man took more than lands they took thousands of years of independence ,self respect and turned a land of milk and honey into a white man's dream. Can you imagine turning America into a wilderness with an influx of aliens out numbering you twenty to one in two decades and you keeping your identity and pride?

Many of them are intelligence, does that give me a clue to your mind set? I'm not judging past horrors by modern standards did i say such a thing ?

There is more than just a minority that look on native Americans with the same white mans perspective and see a lower class of human. They managed America and its resources a darned sight better than the whites arrogant views on nature. Lincoln had no trouble with his conscious about whites invading and pushing further into Indian country. He could have compensated them allot more than he did and if you see his hand as, guiding to understanding , i wonder is that the red mans view? He represented the moment in history when the move west was intended to be a white mans opportunity where black yellow or red were not invited.

I admire your concern but in a country that belonged to them, i dont think hand outs are appropriate for such a once proud nation. The white man took more than lands they took thousands of years of independence ,self respect and turned a land of milk and honey into a white man's dream. Can you imagine turning America into a wilderness with an influx of aliens out numbering you twenty to one in two decades and you keeping your identity and pride?

Am i wrong in understanding, Lincoln is not exactly a good example of moral high ground, when you consider his position on the American Indian and his laws forbidding freed slaves to colonise Indian lands in the west. Why is he a mythical figure to be venerated, for so many Americans.

You cannot judge the morals of the past by the morals of the present

And since the morals of the present do not find much outrage, or much willingness to give the land back, or even to support the native as they are entitled to, then how do we judge the morals of the people of the past worse?

I dont think you have been following this thread, or my points. I asked for a balanced view of history, not this blinkered adoration.

I dont think you have been following this thread, or my points. I asked for a balanced view of history, not this blinkered adoration.

I'll consider your view balanced as soon as you show some references for your argument and some understanding of the opposite argument.

Everything Aedes said about Lincoln was absolutely true - nothing "blinkered" about it. If you want a perfect human being, looking at real people is going to disappoint. But when you start talking about great leaders, Lincoln is up there with Gandhi in both ability and moral standing.

Even Howard Zenn idolizes Lincoln, for goodness sake.

Im not putting a balanced view forward im asking for it.

Im not looking for perfection, im asking that his mistakes are reported. I know for Americans his the bees knees but that does not make him above criticism nor does it require a reverence that is normally reserved for saints. Gandhi is no different, he can be criticised, so to can Churchill ,for me the greatest Englishman ever.

Im not looking for perfection, im asking that his mistakes are reported.

Lincoln was a president at war from the moment he was inaugurated. There was never a single second in his entire presidency when he had the opportunity to make peacetime policy decisions. Seven states had already seceded before he was inaugurated, and the Battle of Fort Sumter happened just 2 months after his inauguration. He was forced to make a lot of strategic decisions under very strained circumstances, and he could not justify prosecuting war on the grounds of ending slavery. It just wasn't popular enough in the North -- in fact he couldn't even emancipate the slaves until after the Battle of Antietam in 1862, which you could argue was the most important Northern victory of the entire war (or at least the early war).

I'm not sure which laws you're referring to -- such laws had been passed in the 1850s, before he ever took office.

What is abundantly clear, clear from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, clear from the platform of the Republican Party of its day, is that Lincoln was THE FIRST president who was openly opposed to slavery both on moral and practical grounds. That's one thing that makes him great. He also managed to win a war against a highly motivated south that had taken most of the competent and battle-experienced generals in the country.

The slavery crisis between North and South existed since the formation of the country, when the division between state versus federal prerogative was first debated. The Civil War was the final chapter in the experiment that began with the Continental Congress in 1775, and Lincoln bridged the gap between these two eras. I'm not sure another leader could have done it. He was a voracious scholar, he learned from his mistakes, he didn't have blind trust in even his most decorated subordinates, and unlike his adversary Jefferson Davis he wasn't rash and selfish.

A remarkable leader, one of the great leaders of modernity. As a head of state he's probably unequalled in our entire history -- no president has ever faced a social/civil crisis like this, AND managed to deliver the country to reconciliation, AND abolish slavery, AND accomplish all this while leading a war that killed 600,000 people (which unto itself could well have caused the country to disintegrate).

I mean if he isn't a great leader to you, then who on earth is?

Regarding strategy: you forget that the Confederate army had, hands down, the best commanders of the war. You also forget that for the first two years, the Confederacy had a supremely dominant cavalry. Lee's first significant mistake occurs at Gettysburg, in 1863, two years into the war. At the time, Lee wrote to Davis that the greatest threat to his army was not the enemy, but desertion. The disadvantages of the South do no lead to the conclusion that Lincoln was in any way incapable. They lead to the conclusion that the South was a capable enemy.

As for destroying American moral foundation, I have no idea what you're talking about. He was the first President to oppose slavery. He abolished slavery. Considering the fact that he manumitted African American slaves in the United States, reversing a couple hundred years of brutal status quo, Lincoln counts as one of the great reformers for the sake of human rights.

As for the Constitution, yeah, he violated it. But so did Jefferson. So have every single President in history, except, perhaps, Washington. To say it took Lincoln to ruin the Constitution's establishment is a bit late. Besides, he did not end the right of states to secede, he just told a group of states that he would not let them secede over such pathetic and self destructive reasons.