Lincoln the truth
Lincoln - the truthAbraham Lincoln is often thought of as one of the United States' better presidents. However, there is some controversy as to how good a president he actually was in retrospect. Was he as notable as he is made out to be? Abraham Lincoln was a great president. He was no doubt one of the most honest presidents that the United States had. He was not perfect, and he was not always truthful, but his few departures from the straight and narrow path of rectitude came during a war in which the nation's very existence as a united nation was at stake. And, "on those occasions he had to rise above both principle and the Constitution in pursuing what he regarded as the nation's interest." While some of the presidents that followed may have also done some of the same things he did on different occasions, none of these instances was the existence of the nation in anywhere near such a great risk at falling apart. Many of the financial happenings that were and are regarded as questionable have lead back to people working under him, but not a single one could be traced back to him. Some historians claim that a few of his actions were unconstitutional, however, all of his actions were later upheld by the Congress. Lincoln did what needed to be done.
Lincoln was an honest man. Especially when dealing with personal money matters. For example, at one point during his administration, Congress granted him twenty thousand dollars to fix up and refurbish the White House. In doing so, Mrs. Lincoln exceeded the allowed dollar amount by six thousand seven hundred dollars. President Lincoln said that he would not ask for the Congress to give him more money, especially at a time of unrest between the North and South, with his soldiers being short of blankets. Instead, he told them that he would pay for the excess out of his own pocket. Though Congress did decide to pay for the overrun by adding it to the budget for the next year, Lincoln did not ask, and was prepared to pay for it himself.
When a nation is unprepared for a war and has to quickly get ready; money, along with other things, is wasted. This is due to the fact that profiteers decided that a buck was to be made, and they knew that it is hard to deny any price in a time of need and haste. Things such as poor quality uniforms were made and sold at high prices. And the War and Treasury Departments overpaid many unworthy characters. While such things look bad on the acting president, none of the corruption on these financial matters ever pointed to Lincoln. This loss of money, was more the cause of confusion and waste than dishonesty on the president's part.
One early scandal fell upon General John Fr�mont. The people working for him managed to obtain big army contracts without looking for the lowest bidder like is required by law. The required items they delivered were of poor quality- these items included railroad cars, mules, tents, and a few others. One of Fr�mont's friends, who was an inexperienced contractor, built some forts for one hundred ninety-one thousand dollars when they should have cost one-third of that price. Lincoln finally released him as an incompetent administrator who could not understand what was going on around him.
Another instance of great waste and corruption was the War Department of Simon Cameron. There were numerous complaints of his wrong doings. So many in fact, that the House of Representatives put together an investigation of Cameron's mismanagement and came up with an indictment of 1,109 pages. The major complaint against him was like so many others, that he had been ignoring competitive bidding and had bought objects from middlemen that he personally liked - in some cases, even when the seller had a reputation for being dishonest. What this lead to was the pay of high prices for lesser objects. Some of the acquired objects were large quantities of disintegrating blankets, spoiled pork, diseased or dying horses, and uniforms and knapsacks that fell apart in the rain. For this obvious waste and extravagance, though Cameron had not taken any financial favors, Lincoln shipped him off to Russia as the American minister. He had become too much of a political liability. Again, however, none of these events were connected with Lincoln.
Gideon Welles is another example of debated scandal. He was Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy. Some of his practices became highly questionable. The navy needed a blockading fleet. They used largely privately owned vessels, and as it turned out, they were bought from Welles' brother-in-law. His brother in law earned about ninety-five thousand dollars within a five-month period. Welles defended his actions by saying that these boats had needed to be purchased in a hurry; his
brother-in-law had driven hard bargains; and he had only been charged the going rates. As he saw it, he had saved the government money. He had attained excellent ships, and he had proved to be honest and reliable. Lincoln stood behind Welles on this matter, and the Senate exonerated him.
Accident, stupidity, and the corruption of a few individuals caused much of the waste of funds and material in this period. Lincoln proved himself to be an honorable man in these financial matters - even though not all of his subordinates can say the same.
There are those who would claim that much of Lincoln actions were unconstitutional and were wrong to do. However, had he sat by passively and let the Southern states secede, or had he done everything 'by the book', there would not be a Constitution to uphold. Such a crisis in events like this one had to be met by rising above constitutional restraints. The country as a whole and a union was at stake. Drastic measures and unconventional methods were needed to pull through this desperate time. Though his actions did not always meet up to the standards set in the constitution, all of them were upheld.
When the Civil War first commenced, Congress was not in session. To wait would have been sure loss. With this in mind, Lincoln took all necessary action completely on his own. He put a blockade on key Southern ports, even though there were legal barriers against it. The Supreme Court later upheld this action. He also decided that he should enlarge his army even though the Constitution clearly gives this privilege exclusively to Congress. The Congress later obliged by upholding this order. These were all things that needed to be done right away; it was not feasible to wait for Congress to get back in session.
Lincoln also took away the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. What this means, is that Copperheads (pro-Southern Northerners) could be arrested at any time and put in jail for an unlimited amount of time. At one time or another throughout the wartime, there was about thirteen thousand people jailed. With this act, he not only acted against the Constitution, but also defied a ruling of the Supreme Court that only the Congress could dispense with the habeas corpus. A couple years later, Congress also upheld this.
Lincoln's regime also arranged for supervised voting in slave owning and borderline states that were suspected of sympathizing with the South. Sometimes, the citizens were made to hold a colored ballot revealing their party preference as the walked between two rows of soldiers. There were few people brave enough to vote for other than the Lincoln Republicans. And while totalitarian governments in Europe later used this tactic to make sure that the dictator remained in power, it was necessary in this case. In the long run, though certain freedoms were denied, Lincoln had to keep his country together.
Lincoln was not actually the liberator of all slaves. As a matter of fact, he did not free a single slave. After the North's first victory in battle he gave the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. It stated that in the final version, which would become effective on January 1, 1863, he would declare free all slaves held in those parts of the Union still in rebellion against the United States.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not all it seemed to be. It only applied to the slaves in the states that were rebelling. However, the government had no power to free the slaves in those states. All the slaves in the loyal Border States remained shackled. This was smart on his part, for an attempt to free them by proclamation rather than by constitutional amendment would probably drive their masters into the welcoming arms of the Confederates.
Where he actually had the power to perhaps free some slaves, he did not. Where he did not have the power, he attempted to free them - this as a means of weakening the South's capacity to fight. So basically, there was no liberation of slaves, except for the ones who ran away. But, while no slaves were freed with this action, it was an intelligent thing to do. It also made sure that countries, such as England, who would be exceedingly happy to see the down fall of the United States, stayed out of the war and left for us to handle internally. Had they more actively helped the South, the war could have turned out much differently, and the North might not have won.
All these proclamations that Lincoln declared were definitely of questionable legality. Slaves were considered property, valuable property at that, and to claim that they could not be owned was quite a stretch of his war powers. It was two months before the shooting stopped that the Congress finally passed the Thirteenth Amendment. The required number of states finally approved it in December 1865. This includes eight from the late Confederacy.
Throughout the time Lincoln was in office, he repeatedly demonstrated his enormous capacity for growth, which enabled one of the least experienced and most poorly prepared men, ever elected to high office to become a giant in the history of politics. This man, who was passive by nature, was driven to take enormous political risks and he was able to overcome repeated defeats.