Jefferson vs Lincoln: America Must Choose

Tenth Amendment Center. ^ | 2010 | Josh Eboch

[Idabilly]

Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jefferson’s voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincoln’s permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right.

That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic.

After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

And, having done so, he said, it is the people’s right 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.

Contrast that clear articulation of natural law with Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, where he flatly rejected the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Instead, Lincoln claimed that, despite the clear wording of the Tenth Amendment, no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; [and] resolves and ordinances [such as the Declaration of Independence] to that effect are legally void…

King George III agreed.

[Poe White Trash]

OR

[higgmeister]

That burning Atlanta thing was Criminal.

And Federal Census data guided the pillaging!

Jefferson was a true Son of Freedom!

History has proven that Lincoln had no cause and no justification to resort to aggression and fratricide for a solution to a problem that every other civilized nation solved peacefully and with far fewer scars.

[tsomer]

You said it best!

[Prokopton]

The United States, as envisioned by the Founders, ended with Lincoln.

[djf]

I think I read somewhere that Lincoln had stated he would do anything needed to keep the Union together.
Including finding a way to keep slavery going as an institution, if necessary.

[marron]

Never put yourself in the position of appearing to defend the slaveocracy. That, along with Jim Crow race repression is Democrat Party history; let them defend it.

The tenth ammendment fell into disrepute because it was used to justify repression during the Jim Crow era. The whole purpose of the separation of powers vertically (local, state, federal) and horizontally (judicial, exec, legislative) is so that when one power becomes abusive you have others to appeal to. If the state is your abuser you appeal to the feds; if the feds overreach their just powers you appeal to the state or your local community. You don’t make a fetish out of any level or focus of power, the point of it all is maintaining freedom. Which ever level threatens your freedom, that is the level you resist with the other levels.

We have to reclaim the tenth ammendment. It is as important as the separation of powers between congress, president, and supreme court which are also being fuzzed together. We don’t reclaim it by justifying its abuse by the Democrats of yesteryear. We reclaim it by demanding its proper use in defense of rule of law.

[Raider Sam]

I wish Coolidge was a choice.

[marron]

Lincoln had stated he would do anything needed to keep the Union together.

Yes, he did. He was a well known abolitionist, which is why the moment he was elected the south started seceding.

But his primary purpose was to hold the union together, and he said he would allow slavery in the south to continue to its natural death. What he would not allow was its extension into future western states.

And, if you read the articles of secession of the various states, that was what the war was about. They knew that if they couldn't spread slavery into the new states, over time the institution would eventually die out in the south too.

So from the point of view of the north, it was a war to preserve the union. From the point of view of the south it was to preserve the institution of slavery, and for both north and south the prize was the American West. It was not a war over whether or not the south would retain slavery, as Lincoln had already granted that. It was a war over who would control the west.

[djf]

Thanks. Good summary.

[Raider Sam]

True. I dont remember which movie (I think National Treasure 2), but the main character said he loved Lincoln because before Lincoln, it was the United States are, and after it was the United States is. To me, that is the worst thing Lincoln did.

[Diamond]

"In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed."

In light of the fact that "states", "sovereignties", "they" and "their" are plural, is it a logical consequent that a single state may annihilate the federal government?

The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions. “

Again, may a single state or sovereignty alter or revoke its commissions with regard to the deputy federal government, which commissions were granted by all, or may a single state or sovereignty even remove limitations upon the federal governemnt which all the states imposed?

Cordially,

[lentulusgracchus]

History has given its verdict

Oh, history gives out "verdicts" now ..... how perfectly Marxian. Which dialectic are we on now?

History gave a "verdict" to the Athenian, Roman, Venetian, and Florentine republics ...... but our Framers founded yet another, having refused history's "verdict" that tyranny, Caesarism, and divine right of kings are the natural order of things.

[pissant]

That is such a gross oversimplification of each man’s views, it’s laughable.

[lentulusgracchus]

Nobody knows for sure, but I suspect if given the choice Thomas Jefferson would choose Abraham Lincoln over Jefferson Davis.

Come on. You know better than that. It's been posted to you repeatedly on these boards.

Jefferson and John Quincy Adams both made statements that they'd prefer to see the Union divided peacefully, than see it bound together by violence and the spirit of empire.

[lentulusgracchus]

Comparing the south during the civil war to the American COLONIES during the revolutionary war is a pretty weak analogy -- a state within a nation has an entirely different status than a colony under the rule of another nation.

Search up and read Madison's Federalist No. 39 for comprehension, and then get back to us. You might as well, once you've taken the trouble to find it, read Federalist No. 40 as well.

Since we're talking about the Framers, the purposes of the Republic, and Original Intent and all.

[lentulusgracchus]

A State may not alter the powers of the federal government except by amending the Constitution. It may not nullify, interpose, or dispose of federal laws.

A State may remove itself from the Union by seceding from it, by the same mechanism by which it entered the Union or ratified the Constitution. In so doing, the People take their property and their geography with them, out of the Union. But the rest of the Union remains intact and fully operative in all its laws and powers, and a single State leaving the Union does not affect any aspect of federal power except as regards the departing State.

The "commissions" of the federal government were not granted by all the States, just the first nine to ratify the Constitution and bring it into effect (as per the section at the end of the Constitution dealing with ratifications).

[lentulusgracchus]

So from the point of view of the north, it was a war to preserve the union. From the point of view of the south it was to preserve the institution of slavery, and for both north and south the prize was the American West.

I'm sorry, but you seem to have misunderstood something.

As some of us have pointed out repeatedly, the war was in fact an attempt by the Southern States to preserve their right to run their own affairs. They saw that Lincoln was bent on turning the Republic into a national empire, and they wanted out.

After all, it was Lincoln's Republicans who came up with the slogan "national greatness" in the days of William McKinley, the last President of the U.S. to have held a commission during the Civil War.

That greatness was built on the necks of the South and the West.

[marron]

Re-read the articles of secession. The prize was the American West.

[lentulusgracchus]

Abraham Lincoln played the Southern fire-eaters like a fiddle. His secret was to use jiu-jitsu politics.

Lincoln's personal secretary John Nicolai agreed. He wrote a book about the outbreak of the Civil War and stated that Lincoln was very careful about putting the South in the wrong, for his political purposes; it was his key objective in starting the war.

[jla]

Jefferson became president (as opposed to Burr) due to the efforts of Hamilton!

Please elaborate.

Aside: Jefferson and Hamilton were once in a room together in which the former had portraits on the wall of Locke, Bacon, and Newton. Jefferson remarked that they were the three greatest men who had ever lived. Hamilton disagreed, stating that the greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar.