Posted on 09/07/2010 12:43:35 PM PDT by gjmerits
The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination - that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at wolvesofliberty.com ...
But what had happened to the "perpetual" union they had just joined 6 years earlier?
“Sadly, and I mean real sadly. Government is a God to many, and even hear on FR. They forget one, it’s not a mind freeze on their part, in my opinion. In all their forgetfulness they’ve forgotten what is perpetual in this universe, and it sure isn’t the Federal Government”
It is sad they seem to think you can get into a permanent ruled-ruling relationship.
That the Oppressed need the permission of the oppressors to free themselves form the same oppressors.
Its really sad cause its exactly that kind of thinking that keeps em suck in the situation they clam to hate.
I honestly think we just need to keep chugging at it. the reason they can’t put 1 + 1 together and get 2 is cause they are emotionally or personalty attached to this history.
Even if they won’t admit it, they need to know it, or they like us will never be free.
And I don't have an issue with Rebs like Bragg and Polk and Hood who did more to help the Union cause than an incompetent like Polk did.
BTW, Beauregard is one of the Rebs with delusions of Napoleon but I'm not sure who the other is. I think Longstreet is between Lee and Beauregard. Hill maybe?
When?
In fact one could say it was 70 years in the making. The North had plenty of time to change their ways.
Yeah if one doesn't know what they're talking about.
But if your insisting that the oppressed party get the permission of the oppressor to throw off the same oppressors chains. Then your living in the loony land of tyrants.
The South was the oppressed party? ROTFLMAO!!!!! How do you figure? What form did this oppression take?
But getting back to the original topic, the CSA was formed for the explict purpose of preserving slavery perpetually. Their own Constitution said so (nothing in there about "tariffs" or "states rights"), and the declarations of secession by the states that formed the CSA repeated mentioned they were leaving the USA for the purpose of preserving slavery. An moderate anti-slavery candidate had been elected President of the USA, and the pro-slavery people didn't like it (ala Al Gore supporters who can't tolerate losing), so they stormed off and created a new explicitly pro-slavery nation before the moderately anti-slavery President of the USA had even been sworn in.
You are mixing up cause and effect. The cause is autonomy from ever encroaching Federal leviathan, trampling the Constitution. A fear that has been VERIFIED over the last 150 years. The effect is secession using the slavery issue as a catalyst. Saying the South seceded over slavery is like saying the revolution was about a tea tax.
Talk about it, no problemo.
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form."
-- Jefferson Davis Pres. CSA
Well, not everyone is blind....
Good Yankee boy from California. If only Southerners believed as he did.
Or not. At the rate you bozos are going.
“I’ll get to it first thing....next week” - cva
Billy yank, that log must be blurring your vision. After all, it's been stuck in there for many years. How about this..
No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State
And of course, Lincoln's response: "I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
Then there's this...
We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top abolitionists, while some Northern Men go South and become most cruel masters.
When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said the institution exists, and it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would possibly be to free all slaves and send them to Liberia to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that this would not be best for them. If they were all landed there in a day they would all perish in the next ten days, and there is not surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all and keep them among us as underlings. Is it quite certain that this would alter their conditions? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. We cannot make them our equals. A system of gradual emancipation might well be adopted, and I will not undertake to judge our Southern friends for tardiness in this matter.
You're a Navy guy. Secretary of the Navy 1841-43.. Abel Upshur:
"The Federal Government is the creature of the States. It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it the creation of that agreement which was made by the States as parties. It is a mere agent, entrusted with limited powers for certain specific objects; which powers and objects are enumerated in the Constitution. Shall the agent be permitted to judge the extent of its own powers, without reference to his constituent? To a certain extent, he is compelled to do this, in the very act of exercising them, but always in subordination to the authority by whom his powers were conferred. If this were not so, the result would be, that the agent would possess every power which the agent could confer, notwithstanding the plainest and most express terms of the grant. This would be against all principle and all reason. If such a rule would prevail in regard to government, a written constitution would be the idlest thing imaginable. It would afford no barrier against the usurpations of the government, and no security for the rights and liberties of the people. If then the Federal Government has no authority to judge, in the last resort, of the extent of its own powers, with what propriety can it be said that a single department of that government may do so? Nay. It is said that this department may not only judge for itself, but for the other departments also. This is an absurdity as pernicious as it is gross and palpable. If the judiciary may determine the powers of the Federal Government, it may pronounce them either less or more than they really are. "
There's no hypocrisy. The Founders were under no illusions as to what their actions meant. They were quite conscious that, in breaking away from Britain, they were engaged in an act of revolution .... which, I suppose, is why they called it "The Revolution".
The silliness that you are engaged in, is to pretend that the secession was not likewise an act of insurrection. But of course, it was just that. And, unlike the Founders, your band of neo-confeds are just not willing to admit it.
Rather an immaterial question, isn't it?
After all, every one of the available states ratified the Constitution and formed a government according to its contents. There weren't any left over.
“And anytime folks like you show up spouting your Southron bullshit and Lost Cause fairy tales, people like us will be here to oppose you.”
And thats why I think such folk deserve the government they now have. As I have said many times, if you can’t respect other people’s right to govern themselves, you ain’t got no right to demand your own.
Enjoy Socialism, Yankee comrade you deserve to live by the dictates of your god the all powerful and unchallengeable Federal government..
Well the British certainly seem to think it was lifetime membership.
But our founders felt that was unreasonable, and “revolted”. Asserting that you couldn’t commit to a life time membership in anything.
“”Monorprise went over all this last night.”
So you agree with him, then? That anyone, at any time, for any reason, should simply be able to unilaterally declare themselves their own country, outside the control of any government, and that the existing government should have no recourse other than to just build a fence around them?”
That would not be my position.
My position is that while anyone at any time has that right, the state is not necessarily abridged to respect their solvently particularly if they had just committed a crime. Such a crime in such a context could or would be seen as an act of war justifying an invasion to at least capture the attackers. assuming their “new country” doesn’t extradite the offenders.(being a country of 1 that would be problematic)
“You’re an anarchist. To you, allegiance to any government can simply be renounced at any time it’s convenient to do so.
Just out of curiosity, what in your philosophy would constitute an insurrection under the Constitution? What difference would uttering the words, “I secede” make?”
Did you not read what I wrote?
if you secede your tied to the land which you own. that means:
* You cannot leave!
* You cannot attack the government or people who exist outside of that land!
* You must remain within the borders of your new state, border which cannot extent any further then that which is owned by you.
This is not anarchy, cause the act of secession would leave you isolated, a virtual prisoner in your own land, unable to harm anyone else.
Indeed a modern example of this is a man in Texas who had assaulted a police officer is now confined to his ranch in Texas.
Now lets assume that the man had seceded form the State of Texas(he did not), but just assume he had.
If the State of Texas wanted the fact that he attacked em like Poncho villa attacked New Mexico, they have every right to storm into his house and capture him.
But the Texas authorizes have determent that its simply not worth the trouble. He has in any case lost the freedom to leave his ranch. If he ever leaves he can and probably will be arrested.
I don’t have a problem with this relationship.
Its not even close to the Anarchy your trying to portray it as, its quite workable.
I’m sure that in your mind you’re pleased with that gibberish. Is is supposed to mean something?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.