Abraham Lincoln: Tyrant! Unionist!

Hendrik Hertzberg has some fun with Rick Perry’s occasional suggestions* that Texas could secede from the United States of America. Doing so he quotes extensively from a message Abraham Lincoln sent to Congress on July 4th, 1861. It is, as you would imagine, good stuff. But that doesn’t mean it solves everything and nor is it the case that Lincoln is an anti-Godwin whom you need only quote to prevail in any argument. In any case, you might also think that there’s a difference between what was true in the Civil War and what must be true – legally or politically – now. Meanwhile, some of what Lincoln has to say is interesting to consider given Unionism’s struggle to make a good case for itself in Britain too…

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Over to Honest Abe:

It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called “secession’’ or “rebellion.’’