Incident at an Antique Store

[David Lockmiller]

(08-18-2014 10:46 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  But the seceded states were in effect turned into "territories" by the Military Reconstruction Acts of March 1867 which made them (less Tennessee, which had accepted the proposed 14th Amendment, two of Andrew Johnson's "tools" not voting, according to Gov. Parson Brownlow) 5 military districts to be administered by the US Army with the approval of Congress, for some months or years, depending upon which "territory" one looks at. I agree most of the "purified" territories were reverted to states by July 1868, but one, Georgia, was thrown out again, and four were militarily governed by the Army, albeit under civilians approved by the Army, until spring 1870. How harmful this policy was is still debated by historians today. Further, historians do not really know what Lincoln's Reconstruction program might have been after Appomattox. It is quite possible that he might have compromised with the Radical Republicans more than we think today. But all this is what Lincoln filed under "pernicious abstractions," right?

Lincoln said in his speech: "We all agree that the seceded states, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the Government, civil and military, in regard to those States, is to again get them into their proper practical relation."

Why don't you read the balance of what he said in the speech that night regarding his views and proposals on reconstruction instead of you yourself filing everything he would have tried to do in re-uniting the states of the Union under the label ""pernicious abstractions," OK?

Lincoln fought the Civil War to maintain the Union. Can you cite any evidence that he intended to prosecute for treason any of the officers of the military or civilian authority? Lincoln wanted the permanent end of slavery and the restoration of the peace and harmony of the United States of America.