* He started a war without the consent of Congress; illegally declared martial law; illegally blockaded Southern ports; illegally suspended habeas corpus and arrested tens of thousands of political opponents; illegally orchestrated the secession of West Virginia; shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers and imprisoned their editors and owners; deported the most outspoken member of the Democratic Party opposition, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio; confiscated private property, including firearms; ignored the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; tolerated the arrest of ministers who refused to publicly pray for him; arrested duly elected members of the Maryland legislature as well as Congressman Henry May of Baltimore; and supported a law that indemnified federal officials from all of these illegal acts.
* He was a consummate politician who spoke out of both sides of his mouth, saying one thing to one audience and the opposite to another.
* He was adamantly opposed to racial equality, actually using the words “superior and inferior” to describe the “appropriate” relation between the white and black races.
* He opposed giving blacks the right to vote, to serve on juries, or to intermarry with whites.
* He supported the legal rights of slave owners and pledged his support of a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery.
* He was a mercantilist and a political tool of corrupt Northern business interests.
* He was a railroad industry lobbyist who championed corporate welfare.
* He once represented a slave owner in a case in which he sought to recover his runaway slaves. Lincoln lost the case and the slaves gained their freedom.
* He advocated sending all blacks back to Africa, Central America, or Haiti – anywhere but the U.S.
* He proposed strengthening the Fugitive Slave Law.
* He opposed the extension of slavery into the territories so that “free white people” would not have to associate with blacks or compete with them for jobs.
* He opposed black citizenship in Illinois and supported the state’s constitution which prohibited the emigration of black people into the state.
* He was the head of the Illinois Colonization Society, which advocated the use of state tax dollars to deport the small number of free blacks that resided within the state.
* He nullified the early emancipation of slaves in Missouri and Georgia early in the war.
* He sent troops to New York City to put down a draft riot by shooting hundreds of them in the streets.
* He was an enemy of free-market capitalism.
* He started a war over tax collection that ended up killing 620,000 Americans and wounding and maiming even more.
* He conjured up the spectacular lie that no such thing as state sovereignty ever existed to “justify” his invasion and conquest of the Southern states.
* He refused to meet with Confederate peace commissioners before the war to work out a peaceful compromise.
* He provoked the upper South – Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee – to secede by launching a military invasion of their sister states.
* He supported economic interventionism through protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare, and central banking that would plunder one section of the country (the South) for the benefit of his Northern political supporters.
* He orchestrated the rigging of Northern elections.
* Introduced the slavery of conscription and income taxation.
* Censored all telegraph communication.
* Waged war on civilians by having his armies bomb Southern cities and destroy or steal crops, livestock and private property throughout the South.
* Created an enormous political patronage system that survives today.
* Allowed the unjust mass execution of Sioux Indians in Minnesota.
* Destroyed the system of federalism and states’ rights that was created by the founding fathers, thereby destroying the voluntary union.
* Promoted generals for their willingness to use troops as cannon fodder.
* Created an internal revenue bureaucracy that has never diminished in size and power.

These are just a few examples of Lincoln’s tyrannical behavior that ha

You should have just told them to “use the chicken to measure it”!