So Abe was a lawyer. You could pay a fee and 'buy' a shingle back then too. It may well be that Abe was just one of those people who are gifted with something special when they make a speech. He wasn't a Harvard graduate, but he didn't need to be. When he spoke, people listened but above all that, he was a politician. Where you have politics, no matter if it is in a union of states, a kingdom, a dictatorship or any other seat of power, there will be corruption. There are always going to be people who are self serving and willing to sell out to get a step higher. Sadly, I do believe it will always be that way. If there were any of the upper level politico's involved in the Lincoln 'affair' we will never know. All fingers pointed South and no one took a good look to see if there may have been someone gloating in the room when that happened. Anyone who may have been involved was dispatched with all speed so there's nothing coming from their direction either. I don't know, maybe the History Channel detectives will solve it fifty years from now if there's anything to be solved.

The events that took place in that time, 1861-1865, and those that happen today are for the most part based on political leaning and not Constitutional law. There was corruption then as there is now. It's not changed at all. So there were some states that believed they could withdraw from the Union. It was a novel idea and had not been really tested before. What is so interesting is there were a whole lot of people who were well versed in the law and also military tactics who also withdrew from that Union. Possibly they hoped there would be power in numbers too. The fact that they took that drastic step should have caused those later to take a step back and really look at why they did it. Instead, the reasoning for what became the Confederate States has been ignored because it's been so much easier to just say they were doing something illegal, they were crazy and they were inhumane. It sure made writing the textbooks easier. Less paragraphs spent on the subject meant there would be no questions coming from students who were just happy to get out of class when they bell rang.

We have learned nothing from our history if we look at events today. We should be going back and every one of us needs to reread the Declaration of Independence. We should be reading the Constitution. We should be understanding more about the intent of the founders and learn from the past. We aren't though. We're making the same stupid mistakes. We are heading for another collision course mess. Thinking on that, we need to understand the colossal waste of humanity due to the events in the 1860's. The issue of States Rights is not a dead one. It's very much alive.

Pam