You want to talk President Lincoln, Teabagger? Here's some Lincoln for you!

I never post anything political on my Facebook page, simply because I prefer to use Facebook for other reasons. Today, however, that changed. After reading a particularly obnoxious post by a Teabagger acquaintance, said post 'laying claim to' President Lincoln, reminding everyone that Lincoln was a Republican and implying that Lincoln would be a staunch GOP supporter today, I lost my cool and posted the following:

Today is the 150th anniversary of the death of our martyred 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. Speaking as someone who has spent the last 40 years studying both at length and in depth the life of this savior of our republic, I've considered what he might have said and done about the current state of affairs in the USA. Based on his actions and both his written and spoken words in a wide variety of situations, but most particularly based on those he took, wrote and spoke during the worst crisis our republic has ever faced, the Civil War, it is not at all far-fetched or unreasonable to arrive at certain conclusions...

President Lincoln would have been outraged at the multiple legislative assaults on both human and civil rights. He would have supported the Equal Rights Amendment and legislation requiring equal pay for equal work, and would have vigorously opposed legislative efforts to subjugate women and minorities, because both subjugation and the idea that there could be more than one 'class' of citizen were anathema to him. US Senate candidate Lincoln warned Southern Democrats about their attitude toward not only maintaining, but promoting the spread of slavery, &quot You) deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, you crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and execute hatred and disgust against him and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage ‘a sacred right of self-government', the most inhumane and outrageous belief ever entertained and uttered by allegedly civilized men.... ". He also said, "It is her (a woman's) natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else; she is my equal, and the equal of all others".

Even more clear would be President Lincoln's attitude toward those 'sovereign' or 'constitutional' state and local officials who boldly state that they will arrest and jail Federal officials in the exercise of their duties-- he would crush those officials mercilessly, using whatever law-enforcement or military resources he deemed necessary. Those who yet today believe in the legitimacy of the doctrine of nullification would encounter no more vicious enemy than Abraham Lincoln!

Finally, to those who would revisit issues that gave rise to the Civil War, and the judgments rendered upon them, judgments written in the blood of 600,000 soldiers and sailors and the blood of at least as many civilians, President Lincoln would deal with you as one deals with a child who does not like the answer a parent has given him: "What part of the word 'no' do you not understand?" would be his mildest response.

In closing, I leave you with President Lincoln's words to those who advocated either a radical or a reactionary political course: “I will not do anything contrary to my convictions to please these men, earnest and powerful as they may be. It is my duty to hear all the people, and to then act as I believe may do the most good for the greatest number of our people". -- 'Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay'

Good night.

I'm pleased to report that a.) the replies to my post are, without exception, positive, and b.) a couple of my Teabagger acquaintances have unfriended me already.