Some friends have sent me a few links to articles by a neocon warmongering evangelical minister named David Barton, who apparently fancies himself an historian by taking historical documents out of context in order to support more war and mass murder. This of course is just another example of the life work of Harry Jaffa and his fellow “Straussians.” It’s what defines the Straussian version of neoconservatism.

Barton is apparently indignant over the fact that some politicians in Southern states defended slavery in 1861. He is not indignant at all, however, over the fact that Abe Lincoln also defended southern slavery in his first inaugural address (read it for yourselves). In that speech Lincoln supported the enshrinement of southern slavery explicitly in the Constitution, advocating making it “express and irrevocable” (his exact words in paragraph 29 of the first inaugural). This might be thought of as Lincoln’s “cornerstone” speech in which he insisted that the cornerstone of the American union would be an ironclad protection of slavery in the text of the Constitution.

Here’s Barton’s — and the history profession’s” — Official Politically-Correct Cause of the Civil War: The slaves were about to be freed at any second in late 1860/early 1861, when Abe Lincoln would simply sign a proclamation. Slave owners knew this, so they “kidnapped” the slaves by seceding. “Father Abraham,” sent to earth by God on a Special Mission, then rescued the kidnapped slaves by committing treason, as defined by Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution, by invading his own country and murdering more than 300,000 citizens while bombing and burning entire American cities and towns to the ground. That was the only possible way of ending slavery (despite the fact that Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and all other Northern states had just recently ended slavery peacefully, as did the British, Spanish, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, French, Russians, and the entire Muslim world).

There. Don’t you feel edjoocated?

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