hi Faustian,
lots of folks like to cite the PRIDE era POTUS', and i get it. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson - they shined back in the day, didn't they?
still, how would they adapt to the modern day octagon?
what, precisely, does Jefferson do when confronted with Vietnam's struggle for independence against the French imperialists in the 1940's? he'd have sided with Ho Chi Minh. lol.
how would everyone's hero, George Washington, have reacted to the Bundy ranch standoff over paying for grazing rights? "Whisky Rebellion" Washington would have had the national guard go in there and shoot that asshole full of holes if he didn't pay up.
and Lincoln? how would he have been on immigration? this is the same Abe who rejected the nativism of the Whigs. with "Honest Abe" as POTUS, you might very well have many more brown people getting let into the US. Ann Coulter would hate, absolutely despise, Lincoln.
*muses*
Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln would have probably been hated by roughly half the country (or more) had they served as POTUS in the in last few decades. its possible that none of them would have even made it into a second term - the voters woulda kicked them out.
i wonder how Donald would have done as POTUS in the 1860s?
would he have freed the slaves? (if the answer is "yes", because, duh, any POTUS would have done it - then why does Lincoln get such credit? if the answer is "no", then doesn't that make Donald Trump a hateful SOB?)
- IGIT
Not gonna lie I feel kinda like I'm being cross-examined here IGIT
I'm a little short on time but I will address this:
"i wonder how Donald would have done as POTUS in the 1860s?
would he have freed the slaves? (if the answer is "yes", because, duh, any POTUS would have done it - then why does Lincoln get such credit? if the answer is "no", then doesn't that make Donald Trump a hateful SOB?)"
Nearly everyone from modern history would've believed freeing the slaves to be the right thing to do. Not everyone would've known how or been able to do it. That's why Lincoln was so special. He essentially told the SCOTUS and states that the US Const was in fact not the supreme law of the land, and instead he cited a higher authority; this authority being substantive rule of law derived from natural law upon which all sovereignty lies. In other words, slavery was illegal because it violated the Declaration of Independence. To violate the US Const is one thing, that's more of an in-house issue. To so flagrantly violate the DOI is to contradict the fundamental legal/philosophical/moral argument for US independence in the first place. It calls into question the legitimacy of all of our liberty
Lincoln's opening reply at the first Lincoln-Douglas debate:
This "declared" indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world -- enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites -- causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty -- criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self interest.
. . .
Now, on another matter, having spoken of this Dred Scott decision, Mr. Clay -- my beau ideal of a great man, the man for whom I fought all my humble life -- Mr. Clay once said of a class of men who, he supposed, would express all tendency to ultimate emancipation that they must, if they would do this, go back to the hour of our own liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; that they must blow out the moral lights around us; that they must pervert the human soul, and eradicate the human soul and love of liberty, and then, and not till then, they could perpetuate slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge Douglas is now, by his example and his vast influence, doing that very thing in this community. When he is saying that the negro has no share of the Declaration of Independence, he is going back to the year of our revolution, and, to the extent of his ability, he is muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return. When he is saying, as he often does, that if any people want slavery they have a right to have it, he is blowing out the moral lights around us. When he says that he doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down, then, to my thinking, he is, so far as he is able to do so, perverting the human soul and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty on the American continent.
Any POTUS may have
wanted to abolish slavery, but I question how many there are who'd actually be capable of doing so. Not many have had Lincoln's presence and aura, and this would've been vital for anyone attempting to see the nation through this very worst time in its history. As Lincoln himself commented:
First, let us say that public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. He who moulds public sentiment is greater than he who makes statutes.
Not only must Lincoln be one of the most intelligent and capable presidents in US history, but he's pretty much unparalleled when it comes to his being viewed as above it all (the sliminess of politics). He's known for his honesty and character and fortitude. I mean, it says something when even Southern rednecks seem to respect the guy
I just don't see too many politicians in world history who would've been as well suited for that specific task as Lincoln was
