Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 09/26/2009 2:45:33 PM PDT by HokieMom
LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Americans must pay attention to challenges to democracy today just as Abraham Lincoln did by fiercely opposing slavery, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference on the 16th president's legacy Friday night.
"We are part of something far greater than ourselves," Thomas told more than 300 people at Washington and Lee University.
Many in Lincoln's time didn't realize the threat that slavery posed to the principles on which the nation was founded, Thomas said.
"What a miserable job he had. He wasn't popular," Thomas said, "but he did what was right."
Thomas received a standing ovation from the audience in Lee Chapel, where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is buried.
He told conference participants he isn't a Lincoln scholar, but admires him greatly.
"My interest in him has been deeply personal and long-standing," said Thomas, who grew up in segregated rural Georgia in the 1950s and 1960s. "We thought of him then as the great emancipator."
The 61-year-old Thomas is the Supreme Court's second black justice. The first was Thurgood Marshall, whom he replaced in 1991.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
http://www.wlu.edu/x35445.xml
Waiting for the Lost Cause Brigade to arrive.
The thought if not for President Lincoln, half the nation would be speaking French. That is a legacy all it’s own.
Of all the presidents I would emulate Lincoln would not be one of them.
Are you locked and loaded?
Always. It's been a long time since we had a good one.
Huh?
No... but maybe deporting the Obama "civilian security forces" to Liberia (or whatever it's now called) is worth considering.
Be sure to e-mail Wlat. I'd hate for him to miss it.
They beat you in by nine seconds.
Lincoln Never!!
Can you agree that Justice Thomas has legitimate reasons for a sentimental fondness for Lincoln?
At least he was born in America?
He is correct. God bless Justice Thomas. He’s a good man.
I haven't seen his long form birth certificate. Have you?
I’m watching the Virginia Tech football game and haven’t listened to Justice Thomas’ speech yet. I’m sure he makes a better case for his point of view than the AP would include in their coverage which is basically soundbites.
I greatly admire Justice Thomas. I understand his sentiments. Lincoln, however, and the myth that surrounds his persona, hide a deeply flawed man with a deeply flawed ideology.
He was not, as many claim, such an advocate of abolition, and only resorted to emancipation when the Union became desparate to defeat the Confederacy. And then he only freed the slaves in confederate States where the Union Army had already invaded and conquered.
Lincoln’s great legacy is seen in an ever-growing, all powerful central, federal government in Washington DC, not the states. In short, Lincoln “freed the slaves” by “enslaving [all] free men.”
No, Lincoln wasn’t the devil as some Southern Partisan’s might charge, but he was far from the virtuous, apolitical idealist he is often portrayed as in popular history and culture...
“he was born in America”
Even better, Kentucky.
Boy, you were one step behind...:)
I wonder if Thomas got into Lincoln getting back into politics largely as a response to the Dred Scott decision, the original activist Supreme Court decision.
Just like Roe v. Wade, it took a political disagreement and in attempting to put it outside the realm of politics made political adjustment of the issue impossible. In the Scott case this led directly to the greatest war in American history.
I take great pleasure in contemplating Chief Justice Taney’s reaction to Justice Thomas’ presence on the Court.
Is he calling for starting the lightly-entertained idea of another civil war?
Speaking of myths that surround Lincoln's persona....
As if a common race means anything.
"You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it is our turn." - Thurgood Marshall
That must be what made his hair stand on end.
Wow, never heard that one before. Did a Google search and it only came up on a couple of hundred web pages (out of what, a trillion?) that aren't FR pages. Imagine Dubya or Cheney or Rush Limbaugh saying anything half as outrageous; it'd probably be on a billion webpages. And we're not talking about the MSM; we're talking about the world-wide web for crying out loud.
If Obama did that Mr. Thomas, you might be in jail as another SCOTUS judge was.
Who was that?
If the Northern states relied on slavery for their economy, I imagined abolition wouldn’t have been a priority.
See post 27, another Freeper knew what I was talking about.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/adams3.html
Just finished listening to the whole speech. Justice Thomas will never win a prize for best public speaker.
However, he did indeed tackle the issue I mentioned. Dred Scott was one of the very first attempts to allow the judiciary to rule by fiat. It was overturned only by the Civil War.
Yet as Clarence points out, judges learned nothing by this. They still think they have the wisdom to rule by just stating that their policy preferences are part of the Constitution and thus above political give and take.
As bad an idea as in the 1850s, and at least as prone to lead to tyranny, even if it is a tyranny of good intentions.
A warrant for the arrest of Taney may have been issued, but he was not actually arrested or jailed.
No, I think he means start a civil war. He was using some of those conservative code words you hear so much about.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your remarks.
Checking in.
Lincoln *is* the Republican Party — the GOP was created by the religious right for the purpose of abolishing slavery. Lincoln was definitely pro-war— he put down the great Democrat rebellion, even threw many Democrats in jail and shutting down their newspapers. And the icing on the cake— Lincoln was pro-business, passing bills like the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act.
Lincoln is the best American president ever, easily.
I am sure he would have let the South go if he only knew that 140 later, the North would slowly bring creeping Marxism. Yes, socialism/Marxism is coming North to South. No question a free Independent South would be watching our ex -Northern countrymen drinking the collective kool-aid, glad to have been freed from this abysmal Union. But alas no, because of the Illinois Butcher™ we have to go down with the ship. What a hero.
FYI To Clarence, he was a racist of the worst sort.
“Illinois Butcher” sounds awesome! The Democrats got what they deserved; thanks to Lincoln, Democrats now talk about fleeing to Canada, instead of secession.
We are at Division strength and growing.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like a tyrant.
What part of "freedom of press" is confusing?
And Lincoln got his too.
A dead white guy??
I believe that Freeper was referring to Taney's likely reaction at the thought of a black man on the Supreme Court, or in any other position of authority.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/adams3.html
Yeah. That's a Southron myth without a shred of evidence to support it. And one way that you can tell is that not a single one of the biographies of Chief Justice Taney ever mention it. Not Charles Smith, who Adams quotes on other things. Not James F Simon, who wrote the most recent biography. Nobody. But I notice that y'all never let facts stand in the way of a good ol' Southron fairy tale.
Actually it wasn't even issued. When I read "Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney", I took the chance to email James Simon and tell him how much I enjoyed his book. I also asked him if he had found any evidence of any attempt to arrest Taney by Lincoln or anyone else. His answer was a definitive 'no', he had found no evidence at all supporting the claim.
I thought you had seceded.
Nobody is forcing you to remain and go down with the ship. Delta flies both ways across the oceans you know.
FYI To Clarence, he was a racist of the worst sort.
I don't know if Lincoln was the worst sort of racist. Every Southern leader I can think of would give him a run for his money in that category.
I did say “may.”
The claims I’ve seen have been secondary reports from purported participants decades after the events in question.
Nothing resembling actual documentary evidence has been found.
That said, a great many Americans of southern sympathies were indisputably committing treason, by the Constitution’s definition, during the War.
If the CSA was indeed a separate nation, as they claimed, then they were giving aid and comfort to their country’s enemy, to the extent in many cases of burning bridges, killing soldiers, etc.
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