Soldiers are dying.  The war is protracted and some question if the expenditure of blood, toil and treasure is worth the effort.

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The administration says it is fighting to set people free.  Skeptics disagree and wonder if the people we are freeing deserve our efforts or whether it is worth the cost.  After all, these people have never known freedom before, so why should we fight for them?

The arguments against the war are running shrill in the media. One newspaper reported: "This administration’s imbecility in the conduct of the war and its ruinous financial policy has forfeited confidence and respect." [1]
 
An influential Democrat said, "Every man knows that there is an amount of debt that leads to bankruptcy; every man feels that there is a waste of life and blood that leads to anarchy." [2] 
 
Another pundit called the President a war-monger, a liar and a fool. The Chicago Times commented: "The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dish-watery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as President of the United States." [3]

In response to this and much more vehement criticism, the President has stubbornly clung to the same lines.  In a speech he said: "Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." [4]

Public opinion on the war seems divided. The President’s continuous appeal to patriotism has only given the anti-war side more fuel for their fire.  The President stated that as Americans "we are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies." [5]   One Democrat responded to this comment when he described his view about the differences between the Democratic and Republican Party: "With one we had peace and prosperity as a Nation. With the other, we have war, bloodshed and desolation." [6]

Some argue that the President has abused his powers and used unconstitutional practices in the war effort.  "One by one they are destroying the guarantees of personal rights." [7]   The President responded by saying: "It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power."

These reports and quotes, however, were not ripped from today’s headlines.  They come from the speeches and newspapers of the American Civil War and are not about the current fighting in Iraq.  The Republican President the pundits lament is the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln: Not the 43d President, George W. Bush.

Abraham Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861.  The Southern States succeeded from the Union and had formed the Confederate States of America by the time of Lincoln’s inauguration.  The Civil War started in April 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter.  Lincoln issued a call to arms, fought the war with vigor, and became vilified in the press when victory was not rapidly achieved.      

The war continued.  Lincoln announced to the Union that the great evil of slavery must be overturned.  Against the advice of several in his Cabinet, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which led to the freeing of the slaves and the 13th Amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery.  Democrats continued their opposition to the war and accused Lincoln of being a tyrant because he proscribed civil liberties.  By the time of the election of 1864 the war had dragged on with no decision for three long years and thousands of men had been killed in the fighting.   

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