Posted on 02/12/2018 3:57:10 AM PST by harpygoddess
It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies.
~ Lincoln
February 12 is the anniversary of the birth of the 16th - and arguably the greatest - president of these United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois, Lincoln was largely self-educated and became a country lawyer in 1836, having been elected to the state legislature two years earlier. He had one term in the U.S. Congress (1847-1849) but failed (against Stephen A. Douglas) to gain election to the Senate in 1856. Nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1860, he prevailed against the divided Democrats, triggering the secession of the southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. As the course of the war turned more favorably for the preservation of the Union, Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864, but was assassinated in April 1865, only a week after the final victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
Well said.
You totally missed the point.
That is exactly what I have discovered about the Civil War. The war was started to protect the financial interests of the Crony Capitalists, especially in New York. It was a war over money that they later re-billed as a war against slavery.
And then they wrote the history books to make it look like the war was a moral crusade instead of protecting their money streams.
So why wasn't saving the Union of the United Kingdom just as morally valid?
Our founders articulated the principle that people had a right to independence, and so they broke from the United Kingdom. Why isn't this same principle valid for people who wanted to break from the United States?
And yet states could only join with the permission of the other states as expressed through a vote in Congress.
Just as Jefferson Davis was willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of southerners to defend the Confederate Constitution. You know the Constitution that permanently
codified Slavery for 3 million people.
Just like we've been doing with Canada for all these years.
You had no point.
Well, the US constitution made it virtually impossible to prohibit slavery from the territories, so I would suppose you mean that the South insisted that the US constitution apply to the territories too.
If you hate the country so much you can always leave.
Pretty much.
For all that I live in the Freak State, out in the western wastelands, there are some pretty trippy and awesome things you can find nowhere else.
:)
Yeah, like cutting the 75% of the taxes their 25% of the citizens were paying, while the Northern 75% of the citizens were only paying the remaining 25%.
Also cutting out the onerous legal requirements for shipping that guaranteed that the traffic would be handled by North Eastern shipping companies.
No, I have lost confidence in the Federal Government. It should be dissolved at this point. I have no problem with the 50 Individual State Governments. If, at this point, you don’t disdain FedGov then there is no hope for you.
Why would I do that?
It was never implemented.
However,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1862
And here we are.
Enjoy your IRS.
Now they have your medical records, too.
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union”
And what is a union?
A voluntary contract or agreement.
Anything less is a conquest, by force.
Oh, wait.
Never mind.
Can you say "Crony" (meaning colluding with government to promote your own financial interests.) "Capitalism"?
Corruption of government was what it was. The movers and shakers had bought control of the government, and so government policy was "Mercantilism."
No Southern or Northern citizen paid one red cent in taxes to the Federal Government. Say tariffs if that is what you mean but do not hide it as taxes, they were not. Southerners were perfectly free to ship all of the cotton they wanted to Europe and use British or French, or Chinese merchant ships to carry that cargo to Europe. The law required cargo being shipped from a United States port to another United States port had to be carried by a United States flagged ship. That trade accounted for about 15% of the Southern Cotton crop which was sold to Northern cloth manufacturers. If there was a Southern owned ship that they wanted to hire to transport that cotton, they were free to do so.
But the states seeking to join, sought to do so of their own free will.
Well... if you're going to blame anybody for Adolf Hitler, you must blame the one ultimately responsible: your fellow pro-Confederate Virginian, Democrat President Woodrow Wilson!
Wilson was the bad actor who wanted to go soft of the Germans -- "peace without victory" -- and treat them the way he wished the South were treated, gently.
Oh, you think the Germans were treated too harshly??!
Total rubbish & nonsense.
The Germans told us clearly how they wanted to be treated in defeat by the terms they imposed on nations they defeated, especially Belgium and Russia.
By those standards Germans got off with a slap on the wrist, which Hitler & Co. claimed was a "stab in the back", but in fact was nothing close to it.
But here's the key point: had the Union treated the Confederacy like Wilson treated the Germans, the results would have been the same: Civil War II.
What prevents the next war is to make d*mn certain the defeated enemy can't come back for a round two.
That’s not what Robert E. Lee thought;
Fort Mason, Texas, January 23, 1861.
I received Everett’s “Life of Washington” which you sent
me, and enjoyed its perusal. How his spirit would be grieved
could he see the wreck of his mighty labors! I will not, however,permit myself to believe, until all ground of hope is gone,that the fruit of his noble deeds will be destroyed, and that his precious advice and virtuous example will so soon be forgotten by his countrymen. As far as I can judge by the papers, we are between a state of anarchy and civil war. May God avert both of these evils from us! I fear that mankind will not for years be
sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force. I see that four States have declared themselves out of the Union; four more will apparently follow their example. Then,if the Border States are brought into the gulf of revolution,one-half of the country will be arrayed against the other. I must try and be patient and await the end, for I can do nothing to hasten or retard it.
The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of
the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen,I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions,and would defend any State if her rights were invaded.
But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort
to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for “perpetual union,” so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington,Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution. . . . . Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness,has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved,and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none.
Robert E. Lee to George Washington Custis Lee
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