Posted on 07/04/2017 7:09:28 AM PDT by HarleyLady27
The colonies had been in conflict with England for over a year in June of 1776. A Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on June 7 of that year. Richard Henry Lee from Virginia offered up a resolution with these now famous words:
“Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theconservativetreehouse.com ...
I know that FRiend.
It didn't hurt my feelings and I wasn't directing my comment at you.
I hope you have a great day!
Lincoln? The guy that decided after "four score and seven years" the God given right to independence no longer applied?
Happy Birthday, America...we are recovering from 8 years of dictatorship.
And here is a snippet of a speech given by R. W. Emerson about Lincoln shortly after he was killed"
It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society; to take off the edge of the severest decisions; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion; and to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed.
And, more than all, his humor helped him in his severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises to naturally restore himself and protect the overdriven brain against rancor and insanity.
He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour.
But also, the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of his death, are destined hereafter to wide fame.
What pregnant definitions; what unerring common sense; what foresight; and, on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane tone! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion.
Check out # 6, also see graphics.
Thank you, wtd. Excellent post and a lot of work.
Thanks for Ping great stuff on here
John Adams predicted in 1776 in a letter to his wife, Abigail, that Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade … bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this day forward forevermore.” “Fireworks provide citizens a means to celebrate their freedoms.“
The true 1%
The pledge in the Declaration of Independence was a compact between the states that cannot be broken. New states can join the compact, but they are then forever joined.
James Madison wrote that the right of secession of the few was really a right of the many to oust the few against their wishes. He reasoned that all states have equal say in federal matters, and one state declaring against the many to secede is really a right of the many to secede from the one.
Lincoln enforced the mutual pledge in the Declaration of Independence.
-PJ
No, Lincoln’s the guy that crushed a rebellion started to preserve and protect slavery. He’s the one that insured that all the states had a republican form of government and that the constitution was “the supreme law of the land.”
You can make up nonsense if you want to, but you can't get people to accept it.
To argue that the God given right to independence as articulated in the Declaration applies only to England, but not to the United States is just silly.
Slavery was already protected. It continued in the Union until six months after it had ended (by force) in the Confederate states.
You ought to feel silly for continuously putting forth an idea which does not withstand the scrutiny of the available facts.
Also you are wrong about it being a Rebellion. The Founding document of this nation asserts the right to independence, so partaking of this asserted right is not rebellion, it is acting completely within the established principles of this nation.
Do you know what is rebellion? Working contrary to these principles. Lincoln was the Rebel. He rebelled against the Declaration of Independence and refused to acknowledge the right asserted there by the founders.
The right to independence. The foundation of our own nation.
James Madison believed it. He's the one who wrote about it.
-PJ
James Madison did not want to see his work undone. His preference that the Union should endure does not rebut the clearly stated position of the founders that Independence is a natural right of any people.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote...
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
...he was speaking of the body-at-large, the people in their entirety throwing off a despotic ruling order. He was not saying that Boston or New York City could bully Williamsburg or Charleston or Savannah by threatening to pull out of the United States and collapse the new country's economy if they don't get their way. This is proven by the vote in the Second Constitutional Congress that the vote on independency must be unanimous or it fails.
To take Jefferson's words at face value, he was saying that the whole nation must be dissolved and a new one formed in a new constitution, not that a few states can leave the rest and form their own country.
Lincoln was operating on the principle that we either dissolve the country entirely and start anew, or we preserve the unanimous consent as a single United States.
-PJ
His contention, and those who debated our declaring independence in 1776, was that a single state could not declare arbitrarily or at will, on their own. That it needed to be done with the consent of others (states).
"A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it"James Madison to A Friend of Union & State Rights
Alexander Rives Asks James Madison for Advice about Nullification and Secession
https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/4232
This view was also held by Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase in the 1869 case of Texas v. White.
“The union between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original states. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.”...
Story, who channeled John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, reasoned that the Constitution was framed and ratified by the people at large, not the people of an individual state and thus held the same legal position of a state itself formed from many counties.
A state(s) can declare independence and leave the union...but it must be done with the consent of the other states (or revolution). This is based on the laws of nature, and of nature's god. 1776 could not have happened otherwise.
The "entirety" of the people of the United Kingdom did not regard their ruling order as "despotic." Even a third of the people in the colonies did not regard their ruling order as "despotic."
To take Jefferson's words at face value, he was saying that the whole nation must be dissolved and a new one formed in a new constitution, not that a few states can leave the rest and form their own country.
Well first of all, when the representatives of the States signed that document, it became the official positions of the States, and no longer just the words of Thomas Jefferson. Second of all, in the case of the Colonies seceding from the United Kingdom, it was the same as if a few states left and formed their own country.
Remember, the United Kingdom was a Union of the countries of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Britain. The "colonies" merely represented some other members of this existing Union.
Lincoln was operating on the principle that we either dissolve the country entirely and start anew, or we preserve the unanimous consent as a single United States.
You are apparently unaware that Lincoln offered to let the other states go if Virginia agreed to remain part of the Union. You are also apparently unaware that Lincoln was just fine with the "principle" of West Virginia seceding from Virginia without the consent of greater Virginia.
Meaning, your theory of what you claim Lincoln believed, is contradicted by actual facts of history.
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