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From: citrin@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne Citrin)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.rumor
Subject: Re: A. LINCOLN A MAN SO MISUNDERSTOOD>
Message-ID: <13909@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 20-May-86 15:38:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.13909
Posted: Tue May 20 15:38:54 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 23-May-86 06:48:49 EDT
References: <135@petrus.UUCP> <13847@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5483@alice.uUCp>
Reply-To: citrin@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Wayne Citrin)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 25
Keywords: Lincoln as villain
Xref: watmath net.politics:16223 net.misc:9660 net.rumor:2438

In article <5483@alice.uUCp> d@alice.UUCP () writes:
>
>You're kidding, right?
>Lincoln may have said even bad things about black people,
>but he wasn't exactly trying to destroy the rights of the
>individual.
>-- 

Lincoln did take a number of actions which may be considered anti-civil
rights, but these may be explained as extraordinary measures taken during
wartime.  Particularly, Lincoln suspended the right of habeas
corpus and arrested the Maryland state legislature just before the 
legislature was about to debate a secession resolution.  To do anything
else would have been suicidal, as Maryland was likely to seceed and
the capital would have been surrounded by enemy territory.  This incident
is (or has been until recently, I've heard about efforts to get it changed)
commemorated in the Maryland state song, with references to the "Northern 
despot."  Perhaps someone at Hopkins or UMD could supply the details.

Anyway, any attacks on individual liberties by Lincoln were nothing
compared with those of succeeding administrations during the Reconstruction
period.

Wayne Citrin
(ucbvax!citrin)