Abraham Lincoln

[InkL0sed]

Request: please stay out of this debate if you don't know what you're talking about...

So Napoleon seems to think Abraham Lincoln was a downright tyrant. Now, Lincoln happens to be my absolute favorite President, and I don't see how anyone could possibly make a case that he was as bad a President as Nappy makes him out to be -- actually, I don't even think there is one for his not belonging in the top 3 best Presidents ever. Personally, Lincoln is my absolute favorite President, hands down.

So, to start this off: what is it about Lincoln that you don't like, Napoleon?

I won't do much of the debating myself, by the way -- I have a game to program...

[muy_thaiguy]

Request: please stay out of this debate if you don't know what you're talking about...

So Napoleon seems to think Abraham Lincoln was a downright tyrant. Now, Lincoln happens to be my absolute favorite President, and I don't see how anyone could possibly make a case that he was as bad a President as Nappy makes him out to be -- actually, I don't even think there is one for his not belonging in the top 3 best Presidents ever. Personally, Lincoln is my absolute favorite President, hands down.

So, to start this off: what is it about Lincoln that you don't like, Napoleon?

I won't do much of the debating myself, by the way -- I have a game to program...

Truth be told, I'm a bit in the middle on this one. On one side, he freed the slaves in the South, but yet, he also ignored state's rights. On the other, the South seceded from the Union because they felt that their way of life was threatened, but they also fired the first shots of the war.

No matter how you look at it, it is a complicated issue. (Side note: my fav 3 are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Teddy Roosevelt)

[got tonkaed]

I dont really see how you can give Lincoln much grief for deciding to take a stand against states rights given the climate of the day. Perhaps in the exact opposite of the current administration, i think Lincoln is a fine example of what happens when you go out on a limb, and it ends up working. I think he adequately understood the union was going to need to be stronger than firmly adhering to a state rights ideology was going to allow, and would have necessarily slowed the growth of the US. I sort of am bemused by most arguments that claim that Lincoln was anything but one of the better presidents weve had.

[suggs]

Right man, right place, right time.
Rather like Churchill, in most eras of history he would have been a failure.
But the lad took his chance well

[Hologram]

I'm sure Nappy's argument comes somewhere from his suspension of habeas corpus during the War, but if you think about it, he went before Congress and asked for their permission, so really, it was more the beginnings of the Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction era getting their first chance to make the South pay.

Anyway, I, as many of you are, am an ardent supporter of Lincoln. Sure, he may have ignored states rights (I personally believe that if a state wanted to secede, it can vote to nullify the same Constitution it ratified, it had just be ready to back that claim), but it was mostly on principle, and I think he did the right thing by not handing over government property to the same rebels who he claimed hadn't actually seceded, so he definitely stood by his guns. A little known fact is, by the way, that he was completely hated during his administration and only pulled off a winning election when the war started turning.

[protectedbygold]

So Napoleon seems to think Abraham Lincoln was a downright tyrant.

Now that's just a outright crazy statement! Let's see how he justifies this one.

[radiojake]

So Napoleon seems to think Abraham Lincoln was a downright tyrant.

Now that's just a outright crazy statement! Let's see how he justifies this one.

Pretty ironic considering the person whose name he has decided to take on

[btownmeggy]

Right man, right place, right time.
Rather like Churchill, in most eras of history he would have been a failure.
But the lad took his chance well

Please, explain.