America's Greatest Tyrant

This Month—April, 2025—marks the 160th anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, which officially ended the bloodiest and most brutal war ever fought on American soil. It also left the Southern states at a great loss in their quest for independence.

The number of deaths is only approximately known. Many history books list the total death toll from 640,000 to 700,000, including the murder of 50,000 innocent Southern civilians, which seems low when we consider an unknown number of additional civilian deaths from injuries, disease, and starvation, which may have even doubled those two estimates. In addition, the South suffered horrendous property damage--the loss of its roads, bridges, railroads, riverboats, and other infrastructure, including thousands of priceless antebellum homes and buildings.

After the war, the survivors faced 12 years of painful reconstruction. Federal troops remained to harass them until 1877.

Historians call it “The American Civil War.” But historian Jay Higginbotham had this to say, “There was nothing civil about this war.”

The war was totally inexcusable. It was NOT a war to free the slaves. It was an INVASION of the North against the South to subjugate and claim it. For the South, it was a war for independence—the same kind of war we fought against the British Empire for our independence.

The Southern states had lower import duties and therefore enjoyed a trade advantage. This spurred the Northern states into imposing economic sanctions against the South, all the way down to blockading their ports. Having a larger population, they were able to out-vote and strangle the South. The Southern states decided they had suffered enough and rallied to declare their independence—just like we did against King George III over a half century earlier; we fought two bitter wars against him to retain it.

The Northern states refused to peacefully vacate the Southern forts and other facilities. Finally, on April 12, 1861, after unsuccessful negotiations, Southern soldiers fired upon Fort Sumter. The North and Lincoln cried, “Foul,” and thus the war began.

But after the North refused to leave peacefully, what other options did the South have? Suppose the British had occupied Fort McHenry after we had declared our independence and they had refused to leave peacefully. Would we have been “foul” if we had fired upon it?

As soon as he declared war, Lincoln silenced hundreds of Northern newspapers that spoke against him. He imposed America’s first income tax. He suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus against all Americans. In Maryland, without warrants, he ordered Union soldiers, to confiscate weapons from law-abiding citizens and also allowed them to steal their property without compensation. He then arrested hundreds of Maryland citizens for supporting the South, along with most of Maryland’s state legislators, the Baltimore city council, the Baltimore police commissioner, mayor, thousands of others, and even members of the Supreme Court—sending them to military prisons for years. This greatly upset John Wilkes Booth into later ending his tyrannical rule.

Most current American history books refuse to admit it. They argue that the South had rebelled and that Lincoln was justified in what he did. They don’t admit that the South was being invaded by the North and that it was fighting for its independence.

Lincoln went on a rampage of conscription (a form of slavery) without the consent of Congress. He ordered his Generals to attack cities and burn them to the ground. The invasion was as brutal as anyone could imagine. Along with Southern soldiers, totally innocent farmers and other citizens were slaughtered and had their homes and property burned and stolen. Thousands of innocent women and children in them perished.

Lincoln’s most brutal general was William Tecumseh Sherman, possibly the most wicked man in American history. He literally burned entire cities to the ground, including those with only civilians inside. He arrested civilian hostages to trade for federal war prisoners, and when he had more than he needed, he executed them. He burned and then sacked undefended Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi.

Sherman’s “March to the Sea” was “a marauding rampage filled with robbery, rape, and murder.” He had a “professed hatred of self-government” along with a particular hatred of South Carolina. He raped, pillaged, plundered and burned with a scorched earth policy, and continued even when a decisive Northern victory was impending. Survivors were relegated to generations of poverty.

Historian Mark Grimsley argues that “Sherman was just the most zealous of all federal commanders in targeting Southern civilians, which is apparently why he became one of Lincoln’s favorite generals…. Such practices were an essential part of Lincoln’s entire war plan and were routinely practiced by all federal commanders.”

Lincoln frankly admitted the war was not for freeing the slaves. It was to conquer and subjugate the South. In a well-known letter, he explicitly stated that his invasion was to “save the Union,”—just like King George III had invaded us to save his “Union.” Lincoln stated he didn’t care whatsoever about helping the slaves.

Lincoln wrote the following in his letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, dated August 22, 1862:

“As to the policy I ‘seem to be pursuing’ as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

The term “Great Emancipator” is an oxymoron. Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation to incite the Southern slaves into rebellion. And it applied only to the South, where he had no authority. It did not include slaves in the North, where he did. In the South, it only took effect after the war had ended.

If Lincoln had really cared about ending slavery, he could have done it with a buyback program—to purchase slaves from their owners for fair prices and then either teach them to earn their livings by working for wages or send them back to their homelands in Africa. The cost would have been far less than waging the war.

Another option would have been just to sit and wait for two more decades. By the 1880’s, slavery was being ended, with a few third world exceptions, all over the world.

In conclusion, considering the carnage and destruction wrought by his war, Lincoln must be rated as America’s most terrible president, our most ruthless violator of our Constitution, our greatest warmonger, our greatest TRAITOR, and our greatest TYRANT and MASS MURDERER.

WHY do the American people worship Lincoln as if he were a God? Why do we honor him and erect monuments for him? In essence, it is tantamount to modern-day Germany doing likewise for Adolf Hitler.

And at the same time, WHY are we striving to eradicate and dishonor the struggles of our Southern heroes who fought for independence? Look at Richmond’s Monument Avenue. Look at Montgomery—the Cradle of the Confederacy. Confederate landmarks, monuments, and names are in danger of becoming obliterated.

SOURCES

1. Dean, Henry Clay, Crimes of the Civil War and Curse of the Funding System, 1868.

https://archive.org/details/crimesofcivilwar00dean/page/n3/mode/2up

2. Rockwell, Llewellyn H. Jr., The Great Tom DiLorenzo (Lincoln's Lies), November 6, 2023.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/11/lew-rockwell/the-great-tom-dilorenzo/

3. Brandell, Renley, What were some bad decisions made by Abraham Lincoln? Quora.com, 2017. https://www.quora.com/What-were-some-bad-decisions-made-by-Abraham-Lincoln

4. DiLorenzo, Thomas, Why They Raped, Pillaged, and Plundered: General Sherman’s Professed Hatred of Self Government, LewRockwell.com, December 4, 2014

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/thomas-dilorenzo/us-soldiers-raped-pillaged-and-plundered/

5. DiLorenzo, Thomas, Lincoln was a War Criminal: it’s a FACT!, Southern Sentinel. https://southernsentinel.wordpress.com/lincolnwas-a-war-criminal/

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.