Did William Coggeshall Save Lincoln's Life?

[John Fazio]

(09-10-2016 08:41 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  John,

If we raise the bar of historicity too high, such figures as Hammurabi, David, Socrates and a thousand other worthies, as well as the Exodus, the Conquest and a thousand other events, would fade into legend.

If I start agreeing with you as I do in this comment I will have to go out and shoot myself. Although that might please numerous society members it would make the forum a boring place indeed.

Bill

Wild Bill:

My perception, unlike yours, apparently, is that we agree on quite a lot. I have read your books so I know that we both believe the highest levels of the Confederate government engineered the assassination and attempted assassinations on April 14, 1865. It follows from that conclusion that the conventional wisdom about Booth's planning to kidnap Lincoln is wrong, per my presentation on April 8 at which you were present, i.e. that kidnapping was a gigantic ruse used by Booth and his handlers to facilitate recruitment and deceive their enemies. We also agree that both sides were guilty of wretched excesses of black flag warfare and that the conditions in both Union and Confederate prisoner of war camps were despicable in the extreme.

We do not agree, however, on the justice of the respective causes. Your books would have their readers believe that the issue was freedom; that the Lincoln Administration sought to deprive the South of its freedom. Kid stuff. What freedom did the North seek to deprive the South of and why would it wish to do so, apart from the freedom to own (and often abuse) slaves? Recall that all the major countries in the world and most of the minor ones had already abolished slavery. The institution was therefore anachronistic at that time and place and dreadfully inconsistent with the lofty principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. In other words, it was time to go; the locomotive of history had already passed it up. Those defending it were not defending their freedom, they were defending, rather, their political independence, their wealth and property and the lifestyle and culture that had emerged from these. If you doubt this, you have only to read the state ordinances of secession, the state declarations of their causes of secession and Stephens's Cornerstone Speech, wherein nothing whatsoever is said about states rights, railroads, homesteading or tariffs, but only slavery, slavery, slavery!As for their independence, all the arguments favoring the legality of secession (and I know at least 15 of them) are outweighed by the reality of Balkanization of the country. That is to say: let one state secede because it doesn't like what is going on in Washington and it will not be long before there are dozens of countries where there was previously only one. That is the keystone that supports the entire edifice of understanding. When that stone is in place, the edifice becomes all but indestructible. And when you put it in place, we will have nothing left to disagree about.

John