A recent hate mail from one of the more hysterical and unbalanced Lincoln-loving jackasses that I’ve heard of since the publication of The Real Lincoln, one Jim Epperson, reminded me that I didn’t really explain in my article today (“The Latest Lincoln Cult Cover-Up) WHY Lincoln wanted to amend the Constitution to make southern slavery permanent. In two words: Tax collection.
The Lincoln cult will say that he was “being pragmatic” or “offering the South an olive branch.” But if that strategy worked, it means he and his party would have been perfectly content to do nothing at all about slavery, ever, as long as the South remained in the union and continued to pay federal taxes. It’s all right there in the same speech, the first inaugural. He says it is his duty to collect “the duties and imposts” and “beyond that” there “will be no invasion of any state.” In other words, paraphrasing, “fail to collect the federal tariff tax (which had just been doubled) by seceding, and there WILL be an invasion. Pay Up or Die.
Dishonest Abe’s support for an amendment to make slavey permanent was clearly motivated by his and his party’s desire to build a mercantilist political empire, and southern taxes were a very important part of the plan. Without all of that revenue their plans for a continental empire would have been squelched, and the party itself would probably have folded, along with the political career of The Great Obfuscator. That’s why they invaded the South and were willing to allow slavery to exist long after their own lifetimes.
1:01 pm on July 24, 2006
