What Lincoln really said about traitorous legislators

Frank Gaffney:

I began this column last week with a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in which harsh treatment was deemed warranted for congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military. It turns out to have been a paraphrase of our 16th president's attitude toward those who engage in such behavior, rather than a direct quote.
I regret the error and should, instead, have used the following, verbatim excerpt from a letter President Lincoln wrote in June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army was on the march north to the fateful battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Lincoln wrote this letter after the arrest of a leading Confederate sympathizer legislator (or "Copperheads" as they were then known), U.S. Rep. Clement L. Vallandigham, Ohio Democrat. It forcefully explains the commander in chief's thinking about the latitude the Constitution affords to "silence" anti-war "agitators" whose conduct "damages the Army" and threatens to leave the nation without the military means to "suppress" its enemies:
"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier-boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked Administration of a contemptible Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert.
"I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy."
Mr. Lincoln went on to declare that: "[Vallandigham's] arrest was made because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops; to encourage desertions from the Army; and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration, or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the Army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends."
It is fitting that we reflect carefully on Abe Lincoln's insights and strong words, not just because this is the time of year we celebrate his remarkable life and momentous presidency. His views are all the more salient as congressional "agitators" once again justify their vehement opposition to the incumbent president's war efforts with denunciations of "a wicked Administration of a contemptible Government." Now, as then, they threaten the adequacy of the military force needed to "suppress" a violent insurgency. Whether we choose to recognize it or not, today as in 1863, the very "life of the nation" hangs in the balance if we fail to defeat the coming nexus of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Islamofascists.
...

Those who would use a "slow bleed" to ensure the defeat of our effort in Iraq or so disgustingly wrong. Their attempts to do it under the bogus and fraudulent cover of concern for the troops is despicable. To them the troops are just another prop in their agenda of defeat for our war effort. Their actions are done in bad faith for political reasons.

When I excerpted Gaffney's quote from his previous column a few from the "gotcha" brigade wrote to say it was "bogus." It turns out in the words of CBS and the left to have been "fake but accurate."