Bush Hated, Lincoln Praised

Today, President Lincoln is praised for liberating slaves by continuing an unpopular war contrary to the huge antiwar movement and open riots in the Union.
Today, President Bush is accused of liberating enslaved Muslims throughout the world by continuing an unpopular war contrary to the huge antiwar movement and demonstrations in the Union.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for dismissing accusations of carrying a meaningless war and sacrificing thousands (600) of American lives for liberating people who were not even American citizens and were not even considered human by many in the Union.
Today, President Bush is hated for dismissing accusations of carrying a meaningless war and sacrificing thousands of American lives for liberating people who are not even American citizens.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for not reacting to accusations of carrying a war for tariffs and economy.
Today, President Bush is accused for not reacting to accusations of carrying a war for oil and economy.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for dismissing claims of being a social tyrant by violating the civil rights and arresting people and newspapermen considered traitorous to the Union cause in order to win the war and protect the Union.
Today, President Bush is accused for dismissing claims of being a social tyrant by violating the civil rights in order to win the war and protect the Union.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for his single-mindedness and determination to get into and complete the war at any cost when it was not even Constitutional for his government to infringe on the Confederate state rights to maintain and expand slavery.
Today, President Bush is accused of single-mindedness and determination to get into and complete the war considered by many as unconstitutional invasion.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for ignoring the most vicious media and public criticism of his policies and ignoring the accusations of his intellectual incapacity and incompetence.
Today, President Bush is accused for ignoring the most vicious media and public criticism of his policies and ignoring the accusations of his intellectual incapacity and incompetence.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for his unyielding faith in Divine Providence and for relying on Divine Guidance in everyday political and personal matters.
Today, President Bush is accused of his unyielding faith in Divine Providence and for relying on Divine Guidance in everyday political and personal matters.

Today, President Lincoln is praised for saying on 9/11 1858 that “Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.”
Today, President Bush is accused for materializing what Lincoln said.

WHY IS PRESIDENT BUSH HATED FOR WHAT PRESIDENT LINCOLN IS PRAISED FOR?

PS. These questions are some of the issues discusses in our movie "The Wounded Warrior".
Once again for all of those who have tried and still are trying to diminish the value of our work, I must state over and over that we are not comparing President Bush to President Lincoln in any individual way.
We simply indicate that there is a vivid parallel between their policies and presidencies and they way the situations were handled by both men.
President Bush continues the controversial legacy of Lincoln and finds himself in the same predicament that Lincoln found himself in as the war prolonged and the faith in the cause died in the hearts of many.
And as the endless debate about the war continues to annoy this country, the wall that everyone avoids to hit still has the following graffiti on it:
WHY IS PRESIDENT BUSH HATED FOR WHAT PRESIDENT LINCOLN IS PRAISED FOR?

The Day of Jubilee is Come, sure!

Below is an account of Lincoln's visit to a battlefield.

Lincoln never missed an occasion to thank the troops and General Grant at the time where almost everyone universally disapproved of Grant and the army's performance.
Notice also how the troops cheered Lincoln. Lincoln knew and stated on numerous occasions that it was the soldiers and generals who fought the war. His bind with the fighting men was powerful and misunderstood by many civilians and critics. The men who were risking thier lives had an unwavering faith in Lincoln's loyalty and many attempts by the Northern media to cut that 'mystic cord' between the President and his army failed miserably.

Also notice how the black troops cheered Lincoln and saw in him their liberator.
The African-Americans who fought and died for their freedom loved Lincoln. Many African-Americans today who live in freedom do not. The indoctrinated population today thinks of Lincoln as a political opportunist who used African-Americans and the issue of slavery to his ends. Ask yourself why? What happended to that powerful bond of gratitude that won the war?

Think about it but also remember. There is no real freedom without gratitude, there is no real freedom without accepting the sacrifices of others, whether that other is the President of the United States, a Union slodier at Gettysburg or a US Marine in Baghdad.


LINCOLN'S UNEXPECTED VISIT TO A BATTLEFIELD

As Grant and Sherman grappled with the enemy, Lincoln did what he could to sustain the army and to boost civilian morale. On every possible occasion —even on such an unlikely one as the resumption of White House concerts by the Marine Hand—he asked his listeners to give three cheers for "Grant and all the armies under his command." Again and again, he expressed gratitude to the soldiers, to the officers, and especially to "that brave and loyal man," the "modest General at the head of our armies." After his renomination, when the Ohio delegation serenaded him with a brass band, he responded: "What we want, still more than Baltimore conventions or presidential elections, is success under Gen. Grant," and he urged his hearers to bend all their energies to support "the brave officers and soldiers in the field."

He continued to have great faith in Grant, but he was conscious of the swelling chorus of criticism of the general. Many doubted Grant's strategic ability and pointed out that in shifting his base to the James River he was simply repeating what McClellan had done—with far fewer casualties. "Why did he not take his army south of the James at once, and thus save seventy-five thousand men?" asked Senator Grimes, who pronounced Grant's campaign a failure. Even in the President's own household there was distrust of the general. "He is a butcher," Mary Lincoln often said, "and is not fit to he at the head of an army."

The outcry against Grant made the President want to see for himself what was happening with the Army of the Potomac, and on June 20, accompanied by Tad, he made an unheralded visit to Grant's headquarters at City Point. Looking, as Horace Porter, one of Grant's aides, wrote, "very much like a boss undertaker" in his black suit, the President announced as he landed: "I just thought I would jump aboard a boat and come down and see you. I don't expect I can do any good, and in fact I'm afraid I may do harm, but I'll put myself under your orders and if you find me doing anything wrong just send me off right away."
For the next two days he visited with Grant, Meade, Butler, and the troops. Much of the time he rode Grant's large hay horse, Cincinnati. Though he managed the horse well, he was, as Porter remembered, "not a very dashing rider,' and as his trousers gradually worked up above his ankles, he gave "the appearance of a country farmer riding into town wearing his Sunday clothes."

As news of the President's arrival reached the troops, they gave cheers and enthusiastic shouts. When he rode out to see the African-American troops of the Eighteenth Corps, the soldiers "cheered, laughed, cried, sang hymns of praise, and shouted... 'God bless Master Lincoln!' “God save Father Abraham!' The day of jubilee is come, sure."

Telling frequent anecdotes and showing interest in every detail of army life, the President appeared to have no object in his visit, but his purpose emerged when there was talk of anticipated military maneuvers. Quietly he interposed, "I cannot pretend to advise, but I do sincerely hope that all may be accomplished with as little bloodshed as possible."
Tired and sunburned, Lincoln returned to the White House on June 23, and Gideon Welles remarked that the trip had "done him good, physically, and strengthened him mentally." He took satisfaction in repeating what Grant had told him: "You will never hear of me farther from Richmond than now, till I have taken it.... It may take a long summer day, but I will go in." But Attorney General Bates found the President "perceptibly disappointed at the small measure of our success, in that region."
More than ever Lincoln realized that the war would be long and costly.

(Source "Lincoln" by D.H. Donald)

Proclamation of Thanksgiving

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

The holiday we know today as Thanksgiving was recommended to Lincoln by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor. Her letters to Lincoln urged him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

According to an April 1, 1864 letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State