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 ...
Wow, your powers of Wikipedia cutting and pasting are truly awesome, but I'm familiar with the historical process by which West Virginia was created. Perhaps you would like to interject some actual opinion or argumentation in the matter.
In other words, what's your point?
Why is it “legal” for a county(s) in West Va. to secede from Va. but Va. seceding from the USA is not “legal”? During the time, 7 months, when the counties declared sovereignty from Va. and the time Lincoln’s Govt. recognized them, was WV an independent country?
Absolute nonsense. What you consider lies and half truths are anything which conflicts with your fantasy world. Attacks are any posts that disagree with you.
Article IV Section 3 U. S Constitution
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Edition, 1968, p. 1176
“A national government is a government of the people of a single state or nation, united as a community by what is termed the “social compact,’ and possessing complete and perfect supremacy over persons and things, so far as they can be made the lawful objects of civil government. A federal government is distinguished from a national government by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact."
Federalist #39
Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal, and not a national constitution.
Your hate-filled, quivering and sniveling, mouth full of Lays potato chips, bigoted opinion about the South and Southerners. Disagrees with me, it makes me sick....
*snicker*
I’d hand you a barf bag but I see you’re already wearing it.
You look as if you where inside an outhouse when lightening struck.
I believe that sentence is missing a subject.
Disagrees with me, it makes me sick....
Hard to believe, considering some of your other past times.
"Come on Non-Sequitur ! I'll even dress up like disHonest Abe, Stove pipe hat and all... and, I'll slap you around and make you lick my boots." - Idabilly
*chortle*
Well I "wheren't" anywhere near your house LOL
Sorry. I was busy puking due to your disgusting smell. Did you have Taco Bell recently?
On your recommendation a few years ago, I bought Bensel's book. It is an interesting book, and for that I thank you. Bensel tries to catagorize actions of the North and South as to which were more "statist," i.e., something where the central government exercised more authoritarian control.
From my reading of the book, what Bensel calls statist in the South were generally activities typically brought about by the fact that they were at war with a foe that had much larger material and manpower resources and one that had blockaded Southern ports depriving the South of imports and revenue. If they were going to win their independence, the South needed to control the production of key items (salt for the preservation of foodstuffs, gunpowder, etc.), transportation, and manpower needed for the war effort. To some extent what the South did in this regard worked because on paper it shouldn’t have taken the North four years to overwhelm their smaller, less equipped opponent.
As Bensel says, "… the South in a sense leapfrogged the more market-oriented (and thus less state-centered) Union war effort and produced a war mobilization very similar in some ways to the American experience in World War II." Internment of citizens of Japanese descent excepted, I didn’t realize the US was "tyrannical" in its war mobilization during World War II, to use your hyperbole, or that their war mobilization actions were not supported by the bulk of the people, as were the CSA’s.
Speaking of "tyranny," I don’t remember Bensel saying much about Lincoln’s assumptions of congressional and judicial powers in addition to his executive powers, particularly in the first months of his administration. According to Madison in Federalist 47:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
Lincoln stiff armed the judiciary by ignoring the order issued against his suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by Chief Justice Taney in ex parte Merryman. Lincoln's troops arrested a judge in his courtroom for following ex parte Merryman. They put a judge under house arrest in Washington to prevent him from going to court. They tossed civilians, editors, politicians, and legislators in jail and held them there for many months without charges. General Scott even reinforced a New York fort with troops to prevent a New York county judge from enforcing a writ of habeas corpus.
Lincoln bypassed Congress by spending money on things other than what Congress had appropriated the money for (unconstitutional). He expanded the regular army, something in the purview of Congress by the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus, historically the protection by a legislative body against arrest without charges by the executive. The defense usually mounted to support Lincoln’s actions was that it had to be done from “necessity.” Ex parte Milligan destroyed that argument:
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. [Justice Davis, ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, (1866)]
The Senate asked Lincoln whether it had anything important to tell them before they adjourned. He said no. On the same day the secret orders to resupply/reinforce Fort Sumter, something that would very probably lead to a shooting war, were drafted; they were secretly issued the next day. The probability of war, of course, was not important enough to tell the Congress about, what with it being their responsibility to declare war, not the president’s? After Sumter, Lincoln did not convene the Congress until July, effectively keeping them out of the loop enabling him to assume their function.
Lincoln had tried to provoke a shooting war eight days after his inauguration by sending secret orders to reinforce Fort Pickens without telling the other side, a violation of the truce there that had been negotiated by the previous administration to keep the South from attacking the fort. Fortunately, the man in charge of the US forces in Pensacola Bay recognized the seriousness of the order and did not obey it. Fort Pickens was not reinforced until after the attack on Fort Sumter.
[you in post 426]: Excuse me: Bensel's study showed that JEFF DAVIS suspended habeas corpus more than AL, arrested more dissenters, confiscated more property, levied more taxes, and stole more property, as well as imposing censorship that the North never dreamed of. The South had the tyrant and the king, not the north.
I will repeat what I posted earlier that you apparently chose to ignore: in a head-to-head study of the abusive power of the UNION and the CONFEDERACY on 150 separate items covering habeas corpus, censorship, taxes, and confiscation, the UNION was the freer of the two societies and the CONFEDERACY was the most statist.
Are we reading the same Bensel book, Yankee Leviatan? As Bensel says, "… the Confederate experience of suspension of the writ and martial law was considerably less statist than the administrative structure and implementation in the North." And, "In contrast, the relative absence of disloyalty in the South allowed the Confederacy to adopt less rigorous measures to suppress dissent and suspend judicial process."
And another Bensel quote, "In the South, Jefferson Davis was comparatively less assertive than Lincoln in several respects. For one thing, the Confederate president never suspended the writ without first getting and receiving congressional approval for this authority. For another, even when granted this power, Davis never used suspension as sweepingly or with as much overt political purpose." As Bensel points out, most arrests under martial law in the South "were probably related to the sale of liquor by civilians to enlisted men, usually in camps."
Bensel notes only two examples of newspapers closed in the South (I’ve found two or three more, some of which occurred before the war). Bensel says one of his Confederate examples was by national authorities (from what I’ve read it was shut down by local authorities or the editor simply shut it down himself) and another one by mob action. From my perusal of old newspapers and modern books, I have found documentation of over 100 newspapers suppressed by the Lincoln administration or destroyed by mob action in the North, and that does not count the wholesale blockage that prevented any Democrat newspaper from being sent into various cities and states. Others have claimed as many as 300 newspapers were supressed in the North. Could be, but I haven't confirmed that many.
Bensel notes that the South failed to provide a Supreme Court, but also points out that the Confederate district courts filled in the gap by issuing writs, etc., and followed the law and precedents established before the war in the US. As I have pointed out on these threads, a Confederate district court judge took control of the trial of a civilian away from the military, something that did not happen during the war in the North to my knowledge. Bensel doesn't mention anything like that. The Northern judiciary only ruled against military trials of civilians in areas where the civil courts were functioning in ex parte Milligan after the war. I'm not sure Bensel even mentions ex parte Milligan. If he does, please let me know.
Article 4, Sec. 3 clearly outlines the requirements to split a state.
During the time, 7 months, when the counties declared sovereignty from Va. and the time Lincoln’s Govt. recognized them, was WV an independent country?
No, during that time they were still Virginia, as recognized by the government of the United States. The portion of the state under the control of the recognized (by the federal government) state government was simply the portion of the state not in rebellion. West Virginia was never it's own independent country and no one at the time ever claimed it was.
“If you wife is as perceptive as you, and I suspect she must be, then not only does she know it, she also knows better than to admit knowing it for fear of you’re getting too big for your britches.”
NS - Your read my mind w/this remark!
rb - I enjoyed the old song, Searching, which you posted on another thread. Here’s an old song which comes to mind when I consider what you offer us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ_MOIIdWrw
You do it well!
NS - From time to time, every single one of us makes a remark that is less than stellar.
Here's one from you: Just for the hell of it I Googles northern needle dicks and got 142,000 hits....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2541838/posts?q=1&;page=301
Lmao, every time you post that photo. The one-two have him well trained.
You are aware, of course, that it was a lost causer who first entered that term into the conversation several posts earlier,, and that the next sentence by NS pointed out that confederate needle dicks got far more hits, right? Did you read the whole thread, or did you just go through NS’s old posts until you found something to use here, regardless of context?
“You are aware, of course, that it was a lost causer who first entered that term into the conversation several posts earlier,, and that the next sentence by NS pointed out that confederate needle dicks got far more hits, right? Did you read the whole thread, or did you just go through NS’s old posts until you found something to use here, regardless of context?”
I was on that thread. Your post reminds me of another old song. Here’s what you’re doing w/your keyboard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEAN-fAybJ4
By the way, I never bother clicking on posts to Youtube videos. If you have some witty rejoinder, use it. Telling me to link to a video to get it is just sad and shows a lack of imagination.
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