# SDMB Retrospective US Presidential Elections 1856 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 14, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048 "2014-07-14T04:11:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048/61 "2014-07-28T02:04:36Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Oh ok, so when did the religious Awakening take place? When John Brown started his slaughter? Most of them [before 1856,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Awakening) when Brown first made the news. And a citation of more than a few people worshipping Brown as the Messiah, even after Harper’s Ferry, which won’t be for three years. > [@](#): > > Yes, and they wanted to make decisions for everyone else as well. It was this form of Christian pietism, a throwback to Puritanism, that envisioned the government as a tool of God, to wipe sin from the world. This view was threatened by the influx of Catholic and Lutheran immigrants who held a more laissez-faire view of government. [216,000 soldiers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army#Ethnic_groups) in the Union Army to come were German born (mostly Catholic or Lutheran). 200,000 Irish (mostly Catholic), plus others from other countries where the people were Catholic or Lutheran. More laissez-faire than some here already, but willing to fight for the nationhood of their adopted country. > [@](#): > > These fanatics were in favor of an activist government so they could wipe out the perceived sins of the Catholic and Lutheran newcomers, and create God’s kingdom on Earth. [del]Where do you dig up this shit?[/del] Cite? And one sermon by a crackpot won’t cut it. I’m looking for a proper movement to do what you said. > [@](#): > > It is deeply perverse because it is not based on voluntary association, but forced on an arbitrary geographical area by men with guns. Perhaps initially, as the continent was “won” from the Indians by voluntary associations of mostly white people, but by 1856 the country east of the Mississippi was populated by people who were here voluntarily and were loyal to one arbitrary geographical area or another. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048/62 "2014-07-28T04:40:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You do know Lincoln was an atheist, don’t you? Lincoln’s religious faith was complex, changing, and is still the subject of considerable conjecture and scholarship. I don’t think you can, with complete accuracy, flatly state that he was an atheist. > **[Religious views of Abraham Lincoln](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_religion)** > > Abraham Lincoln grew up in a highly religious Baptist family. He never joined any Church, and was a skeptic as a young man and sometimes ridiculed revivalists. He frequently referred to God and had a deep knowledge of the Bible, often quoting it. Lincoln attended Protestant church services with his wife and children. "Especially after the death of his young son Willie in 1862, Lincoln moved away from his earlier religious skepticism." Some argue that Lincoln was neither a Christian believer no ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048/63 "2014-07-28T14:51:06Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Lincoln’s religious faith was complex, changing, and is still the subject of considerable conjecture and scholarship. I don’t think you can, with complete accuracy, flatly state that he was an atheist. > > [Religious views of Abraham Lincoln - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_religion) He did, in his youth, write a book debunking Christianity – and then burned the manuscript when a friend pointed out how that would doom his political ambitions. You can read the story in [_What Lincoln Believed,_](http://www.amazon.com/What-Lincoln-Believed-Convictions-President/dp/1400030730) by Michael Lind. His views might well have evolved over the decades – nevertheless, it’s very hard to believe nationalism had anything to do with religious impulses in his case. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048/64 "2014-07-28T18:06:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > He did, in his youth, write a book debunking Christianity – and then burned the manuscript when a friend pointed out how that would doom his political ambitions. You can read the story in [_What Lincoln Believed,_](http://www.amazon.com/What-Lincoln-Believed-Convictions-President/dp/1400030730) by Michael Lind. His views might well have evolved over the decades – nevertheless, it’s very hard to believe nationalism had anything to do with religious impulses in his case. It seems to me that like Thomas Paine (whom Lincoln admired), Lincoln was a Deist rather than an atheist-after all it was the deists who pioneered the modern criticisms of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048/65 "2014-07-28T19:11:35Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > It seems to me that like Thomas Paine (whom Lincoln admired), Lincoln was a Deist rather than an atheist-after all it was the deists who pioneered the modern criticisms of Christianity. The point stands; deists were very rationalistic, and never the sort to conflate religious belief with mystic nationalism. **WillFarnaby’s** arguments on that point are bullshit WRT Lincoln, at least. Lincoln’s devotion to the Union was based on, among other things, an entirely rational fear that if the American states disunited (and the secession of the South might be only the beginning, there), European powers would start playing their alliance-games here and turn the states into their puppet-proxies, playing off the Union against the Confederacy and eventually playing off Louisiana against Texas, etc. A reasonable fear considering what France was doing in Mexico at the time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-retrospective-us-presidential-elections-1856/693048.md?page=3)