Wow! That's quite an indictment.
With a sharp mind like yours, you ought to think about going into law.
You shouldn't bother. You should consider studying something less challenging. Rocks perhaps.
When the one quotation is an admission that the central thesis of his thinking is rejected by "every living soul who has written on original intent" it matters. That would be quoted from Original Intent, copyright 1994. That would sum up 40 years of his career.
But as you want more quotations, I shall provide a few. If you need more, just ask. There is no end to them.
Lincoln did not then say who were the whites excluded from the privileges of equality. However, in one of the earliest announcements of his political views, in he Sanguamo Journal on June 13, 1836, Lincoln had said, "I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, (by no means excluding females)." Certainly the largest class of excluded "equals" were women, and Lincoln at the age of twenty-seven is on record as favoring female suffrage.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 21
This is not Lincoln "on record as favoring female suffrage." This is sexist Lincoln engaged in male humor. Women neither paid taxes nor did they bear arms.
Aristotle said that the intention of the legislator is the law.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 86
Harry needs to jump into his wayback machine and move to ancient Greece. The written law is the law, not the intent of the legislator. At least, that is the way it is in the United States of America.
It is an axiomatic premise of all written law, as explained by Aristotle, that if circumstances arise in which the letter of the law negates the intention of the lawgiver, then the intention must be preferred to the letter.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 363
As I said, the written law is the law, not the intent of the legislator. At least, that is the way it is in the United States of America. If the written law negates the intent of the lawgiver, somebody better amend the written law.
In 1981 President Ronald Reagan, in his inaugural address, declared that the states had made the Union, showing that Calhounianism, even at the highest levels, was still alive and well. I am confident that Reagan, a native of Illinois, had no idea that he was contradicting Lincoln. His entourage, from which the speech emerged, like the conservative movement generally, was, however, filled with disciples of Calhoun.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 520
I am confident that Reagan was correct. Only a nutcase would agree that the Union created the States.
As we shall see, Rehnquist's "original intent" has less in common with the intent of those who ratified the constitution than with the intent of those who "de-ratified" it in 1860-61.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 87
Chief Justice Rehnquist has it all wrong. So sayeth Jaffa.
We believe that we have examined, and found wanting, every serious argument of contemporary historical scholarship to deny or disparage the intrinsic significance or validity of Lincoln's assertion that the United states was founded upon and dedicated to "an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times."
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 121
Harry is writing, of course, about "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...."
Those words are attributed to slaveowner Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was tended to by one of his slaves as he wrote that all men are created equal, and he remained a slaveowner until he died. (George Washington died a slaveowner also.)
Haiti fought for 12 years against the French to gain independence. It is the only case of a successful slave uprising resulting in the former slaves forming their own state. "Haiti remained unrecognized by Jefferson, who urged Congress to suspend commerce with the nascent republic, declaring its leaders 'cannibals.'" Time, July 5, 2004, article by Edwidge Danticat, Ignoring the Revolution Next Door, p. 61.
Lincoln said, "Negroes have natural rights, however, as other men have, although they cannot enjoy them here, and even [Chief Justice Roger] Taney once said that "the Declaration of Independence was broad enough for all men." But though it does not declare that all men are equal in their attainments or social position, yet no sane man will attempt to deny that the African upon his own soil has all the natural rights that instrument vouchsafes to all mankind. (CW 3:79)
Lincoln said, "in our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom" (CW 2:276)
Lincoln said, "I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects.... Certainly the Negro is not our equal in color -- perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black" (CW 5:520)
Lerone Bennett, Jr., wrote, "Most of the new lincoln defenders stake their case on Lincoln's dissembling discovery of a heretofore unknown colored inalienable right, "the right to eat the bread without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns" (CW 3:16). Why is it dissembling? It is dissembling because Lincoln's alimentary intuition, based on the inalienable right to put bread into one's mouth, was a mirage and had no meaning apart from the right to earn bread to put into one's mouth. Lincoln knew this, for when he made this statement he was supporting a slave system in the south which made it a crime, punishable by death, for a slave to arrogate to himself the right to earn his bread."
In fact, however, the leading feature of the union before independence was its denunciation of slavery.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 371
Really. Harry has me convinced. (What the hell were all those slaves doing there in 1861, anyway?)
Appealing to the law of contracts, he [Lincoln] denied that even then there would be a right of secession, since a contract can be broken by one of the parties but can be lawfull rescinded only by all. This argument was sufficient to assert the legal perpetuity of the Union.
-- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 368
Between sovereign states, this argument is nonsense.
In February 1860, Senator Jefferson Davis introduced a resolution that read, "That in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the states adopting the same acted severally as free and independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal government." This resolution pass the Senate by a vote of 36 to 19 -- Senator Andrew Johnson voting for it. The senators from California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Pennsylvania voted for it. Delaware and Illinois did not vote. (See Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man, p. 371-2)
[Daniel Webster said], "Where sovereign communities are parties, there is no essential difference between a compact, a confederation and a league. They all equally reason on plighted faith of the sovereign party. A league or confederacy, is but a subsisting or continuing treaty. If in the opinion of either party it be violated, such party may say that he will no longer fulfill its obligations on his part, but will consider the whole league or compact at an end, although it might be one of its stipulations that it should be perpetual." Reserved sovereignty includes the power to break the league whether the reason be good or bad, or none. The other party to the league can do nothing about it except to kill men for breaking it. (Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man, p. 342-3)
Bank of Agusta v. Earle, 13 Pet 586.(1839).
In January 1839, in the case of Bank of Augusta v. Earle, Daniel Webster addressed the court: "But it is argued, that though this law of comity exists as between independent nations, it does not exist between the states of this Union.... In respect to this law of comity, it is said, states are not nations; a sort of residuum of sovereignty is all that remains to them. The National soveriegnty, it is said, is conferred on this government, and part of the municipal sovereignty. ... Suppose that this Constitution had said, in terms after the language of the court below -- all national sovereignty shall belong to the United states; all municipal sovereignty to the several states. I will say, that however clear, however distince, such a definition may appear to those who use it, the employment of it, in the Constitution, could only have led to utter confusion and uncertainty. I am not prepared to say that the states have no national sovereignty. The laws of some of the states, maryland and Virginia, for instance, provide punishment for treason. The power thus exercised is certainly not municipal.... The term sovereignty does not occur in the constitution at all. The Constitution treats states as states and the United states as the United States; and by a careful enumeration, declares all the powers that are granted to the United States, and all the rest are reserved to the states.... The states of this union, as states, are subject to all the voluntary and customary laws of nations." (Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man, p. 334-5.)
The Supreme Court, in passing on the case which [Daniel] Webster had thus argued, said: "It has, however, been supposed that the rules of comity between foreign antions do not apply to the states of this Union; that they extend to one another no other rights than those which are given by the Constitution... and that the courts are not at liberty to presume, in the absence of all legislation on the subject, that a state has adopted the comity of nations toward the other states.... The Court thinks otherwise. The intimate union of these states, as members of the same great political family; the deep and vital interests which bind them so closely together; should lead us, in the absence of proof to the contrary, to presume a greater degree of comity and friendship and kindness towards one another, than we should be authorized to presume bewteen foreign nations. And when (as without doubt muct occasionally happen) the interest or policy of any state requires it to restrict the rule, it has but to declare its will, and the legal presumption is at once at an end. But until this is done, upon what grounds could this court refuse to administer the law of international comity between these states? They are sovereign states.... We think it is well settled that by the law of comity among antions, a corporation created by one sovereignty is permitted to make contracts in another, and to sue in its courts; and that the same law of comity prevails amont the several sovereignties of this Union." (Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln the Man, p. 335.)
But, you well know, courts often look at "legislative intent" when making their decisions. On Constitutional matters, it is not unusual to find the "Federalist Papers" and other early supporting documents quoted for intent.
"As I said, the written law is the law, not the intent of the legislator. At least, that is the way it is in the United States of America. If the written law negates the intent of the lawgiver, somebody better amend the written law."
And how many times have we seen the law intended to do one thing, and end up bastardized in the courts to mean exactly the opposite? Wasn't it Hubert Humphrey who said that if his Civil Rights Act ended up as a quota system he would eat the legislation? He died of gluttony, no doubt.
"I am confident that Reagan was correct. Only a nutcase would agree that the Union created the States."
I believe the point I made was that the States never existed outside of the Union. The Declaration of Independence transformed colonies into states, and simultaneously created a union of those states. I have also made the point that American nationalism preceded, necessarily, the Declaration.
Reagan's underlying motivation was to transfer power and responsibility away from the federal government back to the states and localities - which is a very good thing.
"Chief Justice Rehnquist has it all wrong. So sayeth Jaffa."
Jaffa is about to discuss the point. Read the discussion, rather than mischaracterize it.
"Those words are attributed to slaveowner Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was tended to by one of his slaves as he wrote that all men are created equal, and he remained a slaveowner until he died. (George Washington died a slaveowner also.)"
Nobody, with one exception, is perfect. Being a slaveowner was not dissimilar to being a crack addict. Both Jefferson and Washington spent much of their adult lives as part of the "landed poor." To them, the slavery question was a conundrum. There is no moral justification for human slavery. When Jefferson wrote "All men are created equal" he did not mean "all white men" (which is your implicit, racist reading).
"In fact, however, the leading feature of the union before independence was its denunciation of slavery. -- SOURCE: Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom, p. 371
"Really. Harry has me convinced. (What the hell were all those slaves doing there in 1861, anyway?)
Professor Jaffa correctly points out, in his book, that their were, even at the birth of the nation, those who recognized the incompatibility of human slavery with the founding natural law principles.
I do like you "debating style." You set up a straw man and then punch holes it in. The only problem for you is that its punching back!
"Between sovereign states, this argument is nonsense."
There were no fully sovereign states, under any construction of the term "sovereign." The rest of your post is typical neo-reb screed.
Like a civil war.
(And, lest we lose this small perspective in our vast deference to Aristotle, it may or may not bear on our thinking, that Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander the Great. If he were any sort of democrat, it somehow does not show in his pupil's resume'.)