Obviously, you are not a stupid man but sadly, your intellect seems non-existent when it comes to your judgment about American leaders. You have stood foursquare against the current socialist trends in the federal government. You have condemned the excesses of Congress and the Administration and the ever growing centralization of power in Washington as well as the trashing of the Constitution. You have mentioned time and again that such excesses are diametric to the founding principles of the nation, flying in the face of that same document—and I have applauded you for your public defense of those republican (with a lower-case “r”) principles and the men (and women) who have championed them.
Yet, the other evening, I heard you—yet again—claim that the “gold standard” of American leadership was none other than President Abraham Lincoln. I actually became so enraged I turned off the TV! I could not bear to listen any longer. All that we currently endure we do so because of Abraham Lincoln! It was Lincoln who embraced the movement of power away from the Sovereign States and the People as envisioned by the Founders. It was Lincoln who adopted the socialist/communist ideologies brought into the United States from Europe with the arrival of the so-called “48ers,” the mostly German followers of Marx fleeing their failed revolutions in Europe. However, it is also true that Lincoln had adopted those same policies independently before he was influenced by Europe’s socialist upheaval. Did you know that Marx adored Lincoln for the very reason that he worked to centralize power in the federal government? And did you know that Lincoln’s government and military was filled with Marxists and socialists? It was Lincoln who abandoned all constitutionally imposed restrictions on the federal government and the presidency when he planned and initiated war against states performing an act guaranteed to them in the Constitution—that of secession from a union that was no longer in the best interest of their people. It was Lincoln who deliberately and with malice brought that war to fruition—a war that cost over a million lives both military and civilian and destroyed an entire section of what had been the united (lower-case “u”) States for a century or more. And the list goes on and on. There is no more infamous lie in the annals of American history than Lincoln’s analysis of the causes of the so-called “Civil War”—“…and war came.” War didn’t “come,” Lincoln brought it into existence in what proved to be a successful attempt to prevent the loss of eleven Southern states and the 75% of the federal revenues paid by those States. Indeed, the South, by Lincoln’s time, had become nothing more than a politically impotent economic colony supplying endless revenues to the rest of the Union while being driven ever deeper into poverty.
It was Lincoln who embraced—and profited from—Hamilton’s “American System,” which today we call “crony capitalism” and which is really nothing other than the enemy of free enterprise, fascism. Lincoln was supported for the presidency by the economic interests of states such as Pennsylvania to which he promised a high tariff to protect their manufactured goods and a continuation of the flow of capital from the South to the North. Lincoln had been a lawyer with one of the railroads supported by such tax-funded largesse and was so successful that he was allowed to choose the eastern terminus for the contemplated trans-continental railroad. It is interesting—and revealing—to note that the property he chose for that site just happened to be owned by him! Lincoln’s sobriquet at that time—Honest Abe—was bestowed by his contemporaries for the same reason that the sobriquet “Little John” was bestowed upon Robin Hood’s very large lieutenant. In other words, it was a reference to behavior diametric to the appellation and therefore not a complement.
Finally, if you think that we had election fraud in 2008, Lincoln made use of the military to assure his re-election, something that was by no means guaranteed in November of 1864. General Benjamin (Beast) Butler was sent to New York from which he triumphantly informed Lincoln that no Democrats had been permitted to vote. The same happened in other states such as Ohio where both Lincoln and Lincoln’s war were not popular. Soldiers were permitted to vote in areas in which they did not live to assure his re-election. Meanwhile, their presence at the polls was a warning to those who might vote Democrat. In fact, in many instances the ballots were color-coded so that the party chosen by the voter was immediately obvious to those partisan “poll watchers” and many Americas were “discouraged” from voting if a wrong color ballot was observed.
There is so much more on Lincoln’s illegal, unconstitutional and immoral actions that is a part of the public record and yet, he continues to be revered, even worshipped, by people who despise and reject the things for which he stood and on which he acted. Even the popular belief that Lincoln “freed the slaves” or, in fact, had any feeling for them individually or as a group is nonsense, proven over and over by his own words and actions. He cared nothing for slavery and even less for “the African” and was willing to put slavery into the Constitution in the original 13th Amendment (Corwin) if it would keep the Southern states compliant.
Even the claim so often made that he fought the war to “preserve the union” is a lie though many Northerners were deceived and indeed fought for that stated purpose. First, a union is by its nature voluntary. Coercion at the point of a bayonet is nothing but conquest and occupation, not “union.” Then, Lincoln, his government and all of the states who fought ostensibly to preserve the Union were traitors according to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. Indeed, the only act defined as treason in that document is the waging of war against any of the signatory states and aiding and abetting in that war. If there was ever an act more worthy of the taint of treason and the openly guilty parties more exposed to public view, it has to be America’s “Civil War” in which the federal government—or should I say, the President—declared war on seven (later eleven) signatory states and initiated total war against them. Of course, all of those who supported or permitted this war were themselves traitors to a greater or lesser degree. It is ironic that the taint of treason was spread so liberally—and so successfully—on states that had acted constitutionally in attempting to remove themselves from a hostile and eventually murderous “union” while the actual traitors have been lauded to the skies historically as heroes and “true Americans.”
No, Mr. O’Reilly, your “stand” against those attempting to make of what remains of this nation another “Peoples’ Republic” cannot be believed so long as you refuse to acknowledge where America started to leave the path of Aristotle, Locke and the Founding Fathers and embrace the governing theories and actions of Hobbes and Marx. Actually, you have only two choices: understand and admit that “the nation’s greatest president” was a traitor and a murderer (over a million dead) and repudiate his “vision” for the nation—a federal tyranny—or cling to delusion, deception and myth and, by doing so, render your own message null and void and yourself foolish at best and dishonest at worst. You cannot have Lincoln and liberty.
I doubt I get an answer but it was the only way I could see to communicate with him. It seems his website insulates him from non-members.
GP
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Mr. O'Reilly,
Sir I have heard you and you friend Beck sing the praises of Abe Lincoln many times. In the last few weeks while pushing your book, "Killing Lincoln" you have mentioned several times that Lincoln is the gold standard for presidents. Frankly I, and several others more learned on the subject, disagree.
My question is simply this, if Fox News is "so fair and balanced," and if "the spin stops with here", why is it that neither you nor Beck have had anyone on your programs who disagrees with your views of Lincoln? Are you scared???
I would like a sincere answer by email if you please.
A careful review of Bill O’Reilly’s newest book by Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site Deputy Superintendent Rae Emerson concludes that the New York bestseller Killing Lincoln is
not recommended as a sales item in the Eastern National Bookstore located in the Museum at Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.
As a result, the National Park Service is not carrying the book for sale in their Ford’s Theatre gift store. Product selection criteria evaluated the book’s
Relevance to the historic site’s themes Historical accuracy Use of relevant citations Scholarship, especially in its documentation via primary resources Yet visitors in downtown Washington can still purchase a copy of O’Reilly’s latest tome at the very site of Lincoln’s assassination.The Ford’s Theatre Society gift store in the first-floor lobby decided to carry the title, letting you, the touristing customer, ultimately decide on the book’s merit.
To be totally fair and balanced, Lincoln aficionados and students of the “late unpleasantness” can also buy a copy at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor’s Center. “It’s flying out the doors,” stated one Event Network salesperson recently, pointing to the prominent display table stacked with a dozen copies. “Bill O’Reilly Killing Lincoln," he grinned. "I thought it was John Wilkes Booth.”
Yet jokes aside, a number of factual errors mar the book. Consider these.
Grant never met Lee after April 9, 1865. (The two generals met again on April 10, 1865, to finalize the details on prisoner paroles) Co-authors O’Reilly and Dugard repeatedly mention Lincoln meeting in the Oval Office. (No such place existed until the William Howard Taft Administration a half century later.) Dr. Samuel Mudd’s farm is described as 500 acres. (It was only 217 acres.) Co-conspirator Mary Surratt is described as having been shackled, hooded, and imprisoned aboard the monitor Montauk. (None of this happened.) A number of minor errors concern Ford’s Theatre, from getting wrong the number of times Our American Cousin had been performed before the assassination (seven, instead of eight); to misnaming the theatre’s carpenter James J. Clifford (his last name was Gifford); to misstating Ford’s Theatre burned down in 1863 when it really caught fire on December 30, 1862. Most bothersome though is the book’s total lack of footnotes. Or endnotes. Worse yet, the list of sources in the rear of the book includes no primary sources. As Lincoln assassination scholar Ed Steers notes, “The authors have chosen to write a story based… [upon] a few dozen secondary books that range from excellent to dreadful … [with] no vetting… treating them as equal.”
On a positive note, the book is a smooth read and the maps are particularly intriguing.
But caveat emptor, dear reader.
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