Posted on 04/14/2015 6:57:32 AM PDT by Paisan
To create that thing you dismiss as an 'abstraction' cost over 50,000 American casualties out of a total population of less than 3 million.
So in your twisted neo-confederate hatred of this nation, I suppose you consider Washington to be a butcher as well.
The body politic in the Southern States was not premised upon some "one man/one vote" assumption, such as led to genocide in Rwanda. As in ancient Athens, "Democracy" was premised upon a recognized citizenry. Athens had both a large foreign resident population & a large slave population, at the time it defined the "Democracy," which some people--not the Founding Fathers--but some people, considered an ideal.
Naturally, it was the recognized citizenry, whose liberty was being pursued. On the other hand, many Confederates would have argued that their secession would also have protected the Safety & Happiness, of those held in service. You can garner a feeling for this, should you elect sometime to read some of the literature of the period.
You can only go so far on momentum.
I will point out that the unpleasantness in the 1860s was predicted by the Anti-Federalists.
Thirdly, the absolute command of Congress over the militia may be destructive of public liberty; for under the guidance of an arbitrary government, they may be made the unwilling instruments of tyranny. The militia of Pennsylvania may be marched to New England or Virginia to quell an insurrection occasioned by the most galling oppression, and aided by the standing army, they will no doubt be successful in subduing their liberty and independency. But in so doing, although the magnanimity of their minds will be extinguished, yet the meaner passions of resentment and revenge will be increased, and these in turn will be the ready and obedient instruments of despotism to enslave the others; and that with an irritated vengeance. Thus may the militia be made the instruments of crushing the last efforts of expiring liberty, of riveting the chains of despotism on their fellow-citizens, and on one another. This power can be exercised not only without violating the Constitution, but in strict conformity with it; it is calculated for this express purpose, and will doubtless be executed accordingly.
No.
I fully understand the context, and also fully understand that there were many people at the time of the Civil War (and even, to a much lesser extent, at the time of the Declaration) understood that the Declaration does not say that all Citizens have inalienable rights, but rather that all Men have inalienable enable rights, and therefore that chattel slavery was fundamentally incompatible with the ideals set forth in the Declaration. This is not a revisionist concept.
Without a well thought out rationale they have no hopes for international legitimacy short of defeating the other side handily on a battlefield, and the opposing side has all the ammunition to expose it as being a farce perpetuated by nutcases.
The DoI of 1776 was a beautiful document that laid out clear reasons (some more legit than others) for the break with the U.K., and wasn’t done as the first order of business unlike with the south in 1860 before Abe was even sworn in. It was the absolute last thing many of the founders wanted and only done so when they pretty much found out that George III was going to have them all killed. The secessionists wanted to “institute new Government” without actually stipulating what was wrong with the existing, and didnt even care to try to iron out misunderstandings.
So, if the folks of Texas, let’s say, decide they don’t want the Marxist hell that Hillary, let’s say, wants to impose (with gobs of homosexual, abortion and anti-Christian agenda): then she would be justified in murdering a million or so.
Washington was a totally matter. Colonies decided to secede from Britain and wanted to go peacefully. It was King George who wanted to preserve the union.
The confederate constitution removed that as an option when they immortalized the Peculiar Institution in perpetuity.
Along with abolishing slavery, Lincoln abolished any reasonable possibility of amicable and peaceful secession.
Not true. Peaceful secession has yet to be tried so we do not know how successful it can be.
And no I do not love this country enough to murder masses of its citizens to keep it together. It’s people that I love and not governments or countries. Rather twisted thinking of yours. God have mercy on you (and I never take that name in vain).
The document is logically structured as the justification for specific peoples in specific colonies to rise on their own behalf. (See Declaration Of Independence--With Study Guide.) It is so far from being a cry for Abolitionism, that it lists among the grievances, efforts to stir up a servile rebellion. (And if you are familiar with Jefferson's other writings, you will understand why he would not have urged Abolitionism at that point in time.)
Unless I am mistaken, that is not true. After Justice Story's commentary in the case of Prigg v Pennsylvania, Various states passed laws prohibiting local authorities from assisting in the capture of runaway slaves.
If you say that Lincoln was writing that he would free none of the slaves at the same time he was sending around drafts of the emancipation proclamation, it certainly sounds like double dealing to me.
It was not the Northern one.
And yet discussions of the civil war always end up with justifying it because of the abolition of slavery, when even you admit that this was not the aim of the war.
Suppressing Southern Independence was the aim of the war, and Abolishing slavery was an ex post fact addendum.
Was the play any good. I never have read a review of it...
Carl Sandburg on Lincoln:
“During the four years of time before he gave up the ghost, this man was clothed with despotic power, commanding the most powerful armies till then assembled in modern warfare, enforcing drafts of soldiers, abolishing the right of habeas corpus, directing politically and spiritually the wild, massive forces loosed in civil war. Four billion dollars’ worth of property was taken from those who had been legal owners of it, confiscated, wiped out as by fire, at his instigation and executive direction: a class of chattel property recognized as lawful for two hundred years went to the scrap pile.”
I did not miss that part. I believe the Southern States felt that the Lincoln administration represented a grave threat to their financial interests. Do you believe otherwise?
The states that seceded from the Union seceded for exactly the opposite reason - they seceded in order to restrict the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for the millions of slaves who were held in bondage in their states.
It is a horrible fact of History that the principles advocated in the Declaration of Independence were never intended to apply to these people. That this is a fact can be able demonstrated by considering the reality that all 13 colonies were slave states when that document created the Nation. The Revolutionary war was a case of 13 slave states rebelling against a Union.
By attempting to apply the Declaration to the condition of legal slavery, you are liberalizing it contrary to original intent.
Now I say it *SHOULD* have applied to slaves when it was written, but I am not going to lie to myself and claim that it did. Some states, such as Massachusetts did indeed interpret the Declaration of Independence as applying to slaves, (In their original Liberty Cases) but most states did not. Most states passed legislative efforts to abolish slavery, and didn't try that Liberal sleigh of hand trick used in Massachusetts.
Lincoln was a mass murderer for slaughtering Southerners
Why do they even care what Obama is doing to The United States, since they profess no love for it, but for a rival government.
You mean 13 slaves states seceding from a Powerful Union led by a slave owning general from Virgina? I dunno, what are the parallels between the one event and the other?
Well stated. I think the civil war was an utter tragedy, but I think it has consequences which are still resonating today and which keeps the tragedy going.
I see the Federal government leading us all towards societal collapse, and it looks to me as if the only way to avoid being sucked in by the undertow is to cast off the lifeboats and get away from the wreck.
Insisting that people don't have a right to leave a government which no longer serves their interest, keeps us tied to this slowly sinking ship. I put forth the opinions I have of the past because I recognize the same essential problem in the here and now.
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