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 ...
God created us all. Jesus died and made us free from sin through the gift of salvation. All are created equal. That didn’t always happen unfortunately, but men have always had evil in their hearts.
I’m not saying it was right.
Are you just venting or something?
Federalism is the consented to separation of powers between the state and the Federal government. The Federal government is supposed to defend the nation from foreign enemies, (among a very few other things) not hire dog catchers or clear your sewers.
The Federal government should be constrained to it's designed purpose, and kept completely out of state or municipal functions for which it wasn't designed.
Just can't help trying to make it personal, can you?
Public opinion down there was strong enough to support a rebellion to protect slavery.
Now you are going to have to make up your mind about which thing you are going to claim is the truth. Either Slavery was under no threat from Lincoln, or it Was.
Which is it? Pick one.
"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." - Abraham Lincoln, March 1865
Now you are going to have to make up your mind about which thing you are going to claim is the truth. Either Slavery was under no threat from Lincoln, or it Was.
I have never changed my beliefs.
Because human history is replete with examples of wars fought for acquisition, and few (if any) examples of wars fought for noble reasons.
When you think you are being presented with a war fought for noble reasons, you are being fooled.
Nobody was fighting to free the slaves when they invaded the South. Nobody was fighting because they desperately needed that pile of rocks in the entrance to Charleston's Harbor. The North was fighting because Lincoln, after initiating a deliberate confrontation, ordered them to do so.
That wasn't what the war was about. I don't know who you think I "champion," but taking the motives of those who fought for the union into account, those who fought don't look so bad.
They tolerated slavery for "four score and seven years" (actually they tolerated it longer in the Union) but suddenly they need to invade other people's lands and murder people because it was suddenly the right thing to do?
What did these people ever do to them to deserve being attacked?
They brought down an oppressive system, whether they originally intended to do so or not.
They did not originally intend to do this, so they should get no credit for doing it for just and moral reasons. They did it as a afterthought in an attempt to justify the EVIL thing that they did.
Attempting to justify doing an evil thing because of a good thing that resulted from it in the future, is sophistry and deception. It is logical nonsense.
Circulation of elites. Look it up. The Vanderbilts and Astors aren't running things anymore. And the people who are running things don't look at the world the way Commodore Cornelius or fur trader John Jacob did.
Yet New York still controls the News, the Finances, and has undue influence on the Nation and the World. Virtually everyone in charge at various government organizations such as the State Department is a graduate of an "Ivy League" (meaning under the ideological influence of people in the North East) University.
The Same region and the same sort of Plutocrats are running things today. That their specific families and their specific Fads of the day have changed does not detract from the fact that these are essential the modern equivalents of the Vanderbilts and the Astors.
And they more or less run the Government in Washington DC.
No, it's recorded fact, which I happen to be relating to you. The list of ships involved is a matter of historical record, even if you were unaware of the numbers and types involved.
I have heard of nothing but the horror stories for all of my life. It was only in the last few years if I began to wonder if these are the exception rather than the norm, and if this was "manufactured outrage" using a few real examples to create the illusion that this was rampant and the norm.
The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed to me that abolitionists (that era's version of Liberal kooks) had cherry picked and highlighted these examples to push their agenda, and probably the norm was far more boring and less sensational.
Why would anyone beat or torture their slaves? At their peak value they were worth something like $100,000.00 in modern money equivalence.
It didn't smell right. It smelled like intentional hype. I've recently found a couple of sources on the subject that I am going to read further when I get a chance.
Africa was a complete and total crap shoot (most of it still is)... I’m not so certain that life in the southern US was so horrible as compared to that.
I'm not going to rationalize slavery, but I will point out that both Alex Haley (Author of "Roots") and Mohammad Ali made statements to the effect that they thank God that their ancestors got on that boat.
If my choice was between that and living in some of the places in Africa, just sign me up for a pair of shackles.
To quote Thomas Hobbes on the point, life there is:
"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
“I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”
Abraham Lincoln - First Lincoln Douglas Debate, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858
Bait and Switch. He promised them all the Slavery they could want. One does not lightly support amending the constitution to protect slavery.
I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
I have never changed my beliefs.
I have no doubt that is true, but you keep presenting them as first one way, (War was fought over slavery) and then the Other. (War was not fought over slavery.)
Put me down as a Lincoln man.
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
Abraham Lincoln - Annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862.
Lincoln was never an ideologue. He was a very practical man. He never viewed an opponent or policy on the basis of some puerile notion of doctrinal purity.
I read recently that he and Jefferson were the only presidents whose writings could be considered as literature. I agree. Jefferson we can understand. But Lincoln with only a second grade education is remarkable. Primarily an autodidact he was an eminently wise and humble man. The late Clinton Rossiter referred to him as “that mystic mingling of star and clod,” and “the martyred Christ of Democracy’s Passion Play.”
A characteristic of Lincoln, especially after his first two years in office was in the words of Edwin Black (quoted in Ronald White’s The Eloquent President) his vanishing ego.
By that he meant Lincoln’s reluctance to use personal pronouns. Commenting on the Gettysburg Address White wrote: “The address is full of first-person references, but every one is plural. Ten times Lincoln uses the plural we and three times us. . . . In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln says nothing of himself.
At a first hearing or reading, we are aware of what is being said and not of who is saying it. Yet at a second or third hearing or reading, Lincoln’s character, the ethos or credibility, which is the first principle of Aristotle’s rhetoric, is everywhere present. His very reticence to speak about himself - how different from modern politicians - is what makes his voice by the end of the address so decisive.”
Get that, not a single personal pronoun in The Gettysburg Address! The Second Inaugural consisted of 701 words, 501 of which are one syllable. The Bible and theological language were used throughout. God is mentioned 14 times. The Bible is quoted 4 times and prayer is invoked 3 times. And yet, Lincoln used personal pronouns only twice as in “I trust” and “myself.” There were several uses of plural pronouns. White suggests it’s in poor taste to use the first person singular: “how different from modern politicians.” Our previous president had no compunction about using the first person singular. In one speech Obama used a personal pronoun, “I,” “Me,” “Mine,” 199 times, or every 12 seconds. How far we’ve fallen.
I’ve always loved this line from Lincoln - “So long as I have been here [White House], I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom.’’ There is no doubt that Lincoln was the least egotistical and most humble of all our presidents.
And I’ll never forget the words of the late Richard Hofstadter:
“The great prose of the presidential years came from a soul that had been humbled. Lincoln’s utter lack of personal malice during these years, his humane detachment, his tragic sense of life, have no parallel in political history.” Just so!
Personally, I think it a travesty that his birthday is not a national holiday. Instead of that insipid ‘President’s Day.’
And now for the Lincoln you don't hear much about.
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ...
Abraham Lincoln June 26, 1857
http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas-hius366a/lincoln.html
From the Texas Ordinance of Secession:
A declaration of the causes
which impel the State of Texas to secede
from the Federal Union
The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A. D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal States thereof,
The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery—the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits—a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy.
Last two paragraphs:
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States. By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.
For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons - We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freeman of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.
Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.
I’m a Texan, born and bred, but remain a Lincoln man.
Yes, by any definition Lincoln was a racist. He also said:
“I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, of having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch, as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.”
Lincoln Douglas Debate, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858.
But make no mistake, he was against slavery. Lincoln was no saint. He shared many of the prejudices of his society. American was a deeply racist society, North and South. But Lincoln insisted that black people were entitled to what they call the natural rights of man — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And also that black people were entitled to what they used to call the fruits of their own labor.
You sound like one of those people who keeps saying our Middle Eastern wars were all about oil. Oil is one reason why the US is interested in the Middle East, but it wasn't the main reason for the Gulf War or the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War. It wasn't like all those wars were just fought to get oil.
Some people claim WWI was all about material factors. Some countries entered the war to get territory or colonies, but the others felt threatened. They thought that if they didn't act militarily, they'd cease to be empires or great powers or even independent nations. And when you look at how many empires and countries collapsed after the war, you can see that they were right about how fragile their societies were, though war was the last thing they should have done.
Concerns about power, prestige, or sovereignty or legality or freedom from aggression or impending anarchy or national honor aren't purely materialistic concerns.
Consider the contradiction in your argument. Why did South Carolina or the Confederacy want Fort Sumter so badly? Was it about money? Or was it about prestige, or honor or some idea of rights or some preoccupation with revolutionary momentum or collapse? Was it purely material or was it about other non-material factors.
Some people say Lincoln wanted to use the fort to collect the tariff. I really hope you are smarter than that. There wouldn't have been any realistic possibility of doing that. And if there was, the fort would have been destroyed at that time. But why was it so essential to the rebels that the United States surrender all of its property immediately?
And if the Confederates wanted Sumter for idealistic or moralistic or emotional or tactical reasons why assume that Northerners wanted to keep the fort for purely monetary and materialistic reasons, and not out of national honor or prestige or the legal rights of ownership or as a bulwark against national collapse?
What did these people ever do to them to deserve being attacked?
Who attacked whom? Who started the war? What did Southern unionists do to deserve being attacked and killed? And what did ... but you don't want to hear about slavery again ...
They did not originally intend to do this, so they should get no credit for doing it for just and moral reasons.
We didn't go to war with Germany to free the inmates in Dachau and Buchenwald, but we did. Why do you want to deny American troops the credit for what they did?
Yet New York still controls the News, the Finances, and has undue influence on the Nation and the World. Virtually everyone in charge at various government organizations such as the State Department is a graduate of an "Ivy League" (meaning under the ideological influence of people in the North East) University.
The Same region and the same sort of Plutocrats are running things today. That their specific families and their specific Fads of the day have changed does not detract from the fact that these are essential the modern equivalents of the Vanderbilts and the Astors.
Why aren't they the modern equivalents of the Jeffersons, Jacksons and Polks? Our modern elites are as different from the Vanderbilts and Astors as they are from the Jeffersons and Jacksons.
And really, "the same type of people"? You can find the "type of people" you are talking about in every state in the country. And people like that -- rich people in Wyoming or South Carolina or New Mexico -- send their rich kids to prestige schools, many of which are still on the East Coast. You'd have to be daft indeed, though, to think that spells "New York" domination of America.
New York state has been losing seats in Congress since 1950. They are still a large state in population, and for that reason they have more clout than Delaware or Rhode Island, but all in all, New York counts for less in US politics than California, Texas, or Florida. It's not 1950 anymore. You must have fallen into a glacier back in the "Mad Men" era and been frozen for fifty years or something. Or somebody who hates the modern capitalist world and calls the whole thing by the name "New York."
So your opinion is better a slave than a free man.
I think that is likely correct. I've read enough of his writing to believe that this position was not artifice, but as you mentioned earlier regarding his flexibility ("Lincoln was never an ideologue. He was a very practical man. He never viewed an opponent or policy on the basis of some puerile notion of doctrinal purity.") he was not so stubborn on the principle that he wouldn't overlook it for a practical reason, which is why he came out supporting the Corwin Amendment in his First Inaugural address.
But Lincoln insisted that black people were entitled to what they call the natural rights of man — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And also that black people were entitled to what they used to call the fruits of their own labor.
Maybe, but I have started viewing his statements with a lot more cynicism than I used to do. I found out that when he was living in Springfield as a successful Corporate Lawyer, he was an officer in an organization dedicated to getting blacks to leave the country. I also found out that he apparently pulled dirty tricks at the primary election in Chicago to secure the nomination for the Presidency.
Chicago has long been known for it's dirty tricks when it comes to political power, and I wonder if this is the sort of stuff that got it started down that path. That article doesn't mention some of the other dirty tricks that were pulled, such as using his contacts with the Railroads to transport his supporters (some hired) there in the first place, and effectively bribing people (Simon Cameron et al) to support him.
Both. On the Material side, Northern Newspapers had already suggested that the guns of Ft. Sumter be turned on the port of Charleston. The guns of that fort could have threatened any ship that sought to do business there, and it would likely have frightened off such business, so the presence of those guns in hostile hands would have a not so abstract effect on the real bottom line.
Nobody wants to live with a sword of Damocles hanging over their head.
But why was it so essential to the rebels that the United States surrender all of its property immediately?
They offered Anderson all the time he could reasonably want. What cut his time short was the arrival of that war fleet which the Confederates knew were coming. They had been informed that those warships had orders to attack them if they did not cooperate in allowing the fort to be resupplied.
They had sent a delegation to Washington to see Lincoln about the disposition of the fort. They attempted to negotiate for the Fort in good faith, but were constantly rebuffed and continuously deceived about Lincoln's intentions regarding the Fort until they no longer trusted anything that was told to them.
And if the Confederates wanted Sumter for idealistic or moralistic or emotional or tactical reasons why assume that Northerners wanted to keep the fort for purely monetary and materialistic reasons, and not out of national honor or prestige or the legal rights of ownership or as a bulwark against national collapse?
They had abandoned Ft. Pickens. Do you know when they suddenly decided it needed to be manned again? January of 1861. Pray tell why someone would suddenly find a need to re-man a fort that had been apparently so pointless that they had stopped keeping a garrison there?
And what were the Confederates led to believe about Sumter? This is from an eyewitness account by a Union officer at the time.
Soon after his arrival which took place on the 21st of November, Anderson wanted the sand removed from the walls of Moultrie, and urged that it be done. Suddenly the Secretary of War seemed to adopt this view. He pretended there was danger of war with England, with reference to Mexico, which was absurd; and under this sudden zeal to put the harbor of Charleston in condition,-to be turned over to the Confederate forces.
And from the same source, here is another example of why they didn't want people from the North manning those forts.
The officers, upon talking the matter over, thought they might control and demonstration at Charleston by throwing shells into the city from Castle Pinckney. But, with only sixty-four soldiers and a brass band, we could not detach any force in that direction.
Who attacked whom?
The Union attacked the Confederacy.
Who started the war?
Lincoln started the War. Even Anderson admitted as much.
What did Southern unionists do to deserve being attacked and killed?
They threatened the European money stream flowing into New York from Southern produced goods.
And what did ... but you don't want to hear about slavery again ...
Not unless you can convince me that there wasn't going to be any of it if the South had remained in the Union. Else, it doesn't have any relevance to the conflict. Slavery with the Union, Slavery with out the Union. Same Difference so far as the Slave is concerned, and same difference so far as any moral outrage is concerned.
We didn't go to war with Germany to free the inmates in Dachau and Buchenwald, but we did.
Lucky for them that we were attacking Germany for our own reasons, but then we don't pretend that we only fought WWII for their sake. Far too many people pretend we started that war with the Confederacy to give freedom to the slaves. It sounds a lot better than saying we started a war that killed 750,000 people to protect the financial interests of New York Plutocrats who would have lost enormous sums of money if the South traded directly with Europe.
If people said we fought World War II just to save the people in Dachau and Buchenwald, they would immediately be called "liars."
Why aren't they the modern equivalents of the Jeffersons, Jacksons and Polks?
There are none. They lost, and now the New York cartel runs everything.
And really, "the same type of people"? You can find the "type of people" you are talking about in every state in the country.
Wannabees. The real thing you find orbiting real power.
New York state has been losing seats in Congress since 1950.
That's not how this works, and you should be astute enough to grasp what I am saying. How many people vote for representatives in their own states based on what they hear on the News Media from New York? Having ABC, CBS, NBC constantly broadcasting Democrat propaganda is the only thing keeping the congress even slightly competitive against common sense fiscally conservative Republicans.
Without the media advantage, the nation would be very lopsidedly conservative in representation in Congress, and the Democrats would have to move way to the right to ever win the Presidency again.
The "representation" of the New York power block which owns the media and uses it to manipulate elections is nearly half the congress. These people don't constrain their influence to just the borders of New York. The whole point is to exert influence everywhere, so long as it maintains your grip on power.
The Media is a tool of these people. It is how they got bastards like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama elected. Without the Media pushing these guys incessantly, they would have been nobodies. They were pushed incessantly because they could be counted upon to push the agenda that the powerful people of the North East wanted.
Or somebody who hates the modern capitalist world and calls the whole thing by the name "New York."
Love Capitalism. Want more of it. Just don't like Monopolies and Cartels using the government to funnel money to themselves and their interests. Ever wonder why the News Media so viciously attacks Republicans who want to balance the budget?
My opinion is "better a live slave than a dead man."
Africa is a charnel house.
African populations have lived there for 300,000-500,000 years. It is only a charnel house in your mind.
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