Posted on 07/05/2015 3:24:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
GETTYSBURG, Pa. — “Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson.” That is not exactly what we expect to hear about the president who spoke of “malice toward none,” referring to the president who wrote that “all men are created equal.”
Presidents have never been immune from criticism by other presidents. But Jefferson and Lincoln? These two stare down at us from Mount Rushmore as heroic, stainless and serene, and any suggestion of disharmony seems somehow a criticism of America itself. Still, Lincoln seems not to have gotten that message.
“Mr. Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson as a man,” wrote William Henry Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner of 14 years — and “as a politician.” Especially after Lincoln read Theodore F. Dwight’s sensational, slash-all biography of Jefferson in 1839, Herndon believed “Mr. Lincoln never liked Jefferson’s moral character after that reading.”
True enough, Thomas Jefferson had not been easy to love, even in his own time. No one denied that Jefferson was a brilliant writer, a wide reader and a cultured talker. But his contemporaries also found him “a man of sublimated and paradoxical imagination” and “one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in all America.”
Lincoln, who was born less than a month before Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, had his own reasons for loathing Jefferson “as a man.” Lincoln was well aware of Jefferson’s “repulsive” liaison with his slave, Sally Hemings, while “continually puling about liberty, equality and the degrading curse of slavery.” But he was just as disenchanted with Jefferson’s economic policies.
Jefferson believed that the only real wealth was land and that the only true occupation of virtuous and independent citizens in a republic was farming. “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people,” Jefferson wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And I agreed. That's surely one of its purposes, if you believe anything the framers wrote. I posted others that they clearly spelled out in the document itself.
The Preamble isn’t part of the instrument. Learn to read.
That's like saying that the foundation isn't part of the building.
Of course it's part of the instrument. It's the first part, the part that states why the document even exists.
You seem to (intentionally?) ignore the fact that Hamilton and the Federalists/Whigs were supporters of protective tariffs while the Anti-Federalist Jeffersonians were free traders. It's strange that you (rightly) rail against free trade deals undermining American industry, and then in the same breath condemn the people and parties who opposed "free trade" in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The opponents of TPA and offshoring today are the heirs to Hamilton. The supporters are the heirs to Jefferson.
And then he created a standing army and made the Louisiana Purchase. I have no problem with either but Jefferson changed his tune pretty fast one he came to office.
Pray tell how you developed the notion that "constitutional government" meant anything other than government legislation limited by the Constitution?
I am serious, please explain yourself.
Like I said, learn to read. Madison says it isn’t. It’s in the “screeds” you’ve judiciously decided to avoid [because they thoroughly demolish your laughable “position.”]
After Lincoln's encounter at Ford's Theater with John Wilkes Booth, Republican leaders might have contacted Lincoln by seance but probably not. Lincoln's corporate masters would gladly have imposed their protective tariffs to the Southland's great detriment.
Please post some references to support that assertion. Thanks.
The preamble is assuredly part of the instrument. We know this because the preamble was ratified.
I’m not sure how making the Louisiana Purchase is at odds with limited government.
Let me quote you directly, since you can't seem to keep up with the ridiculous drivel you've posted:
'It appears to me that "limited government" is often confused with "constitutional government".'
As I said, there's no confusion. There is no real purpose to a Constitution except the limitation of government. To paraphrase Webster: "Limited government and Constitution, now and forever, one, and inseparable."
If the Framers had wanted a Constitution with limitless powers, they could have written one. They didn't, and it wouldn't be a conservative position to support such a Constitution if they had. Conservatives don't support "constitutional government" per se. [The Soviet Union had a Constitution.] Conservatives don't support blind obedience to some document, they support that document for a reason. And the reason is that it limits government to only the powers we agree it needs to accomplish the purposes we've agreed to delegate to it.
Please read the whole thread or don’t bother to comment. Madison himself says it’s not. READ THE THREAD.
Naval blockades are governed, even way back in 1861, by international law of the seas since the shipping of all nations is potentially affected. A nation is not allowed to blockade its OWN ports. Lincoln claimed that the eleven states of the Confederacy were STILL part of the Union and could not legally leave that Union once they joined, a preposterous notion and historical heresy on its face but Lincoln’s heresy nonetheless. At the end of the war, the Republican Radicals claimed that the states that could not leave the Union could only be “re-admitted” to the Union by ratifying Amendments 13, 14 and 15 as a precondition to “re-admission.” Dishonest Abe and his pals wanted it BOTH ways depending on the convenience du jour.
Jefferson negotiated that deal without congressional input. It was probably unconstitutional the final agreement with France. But there was no one going to file a complaint about the greatest real estate deal in history.
Playing fast and loose is the Illinois way, even back then.
That's a straw man. No one here argues for such a government.
All that has been argued for is a government that fulfills the purposes of its existence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I don't have time to put together a reading list, but a quick Google search of Hamilton + Jefferson + tariff should answer your questions.
Here's one of the first to come up in such a search, i.e. Jefferson Versus Hamilton::
Hamilton’s economic plan for the nation included establishing a national bank like that in England to maintain public credit; consolidating the states’ debts under the federal government; and enacting protective tariffs and government subsidies to encourage American manufactures. All of these measures strengthened the federal government’s power at the expense of the states. Jefferson and his political allies opposed these reforms. Francophile Jefferson feared that the Bank of the United States represented too much English influence, and he argued that the Constitution did not give Congress the power to establish a bank. He did not believe that promoting manufactures was as important as supporting the already-established agrarian base. Jefferson deemed “those who labour in the earth” the “chosen people of God . . . whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.” He advised his countrymen to “let our work-shops remain in Europe.”
It suggests an implied power, which Jefferson didn’t believe in very much. He actually proposed a Constitutional amendment to accommodate it. Jefferson’s Cabinet members argued that the Constitutional amendment he proposed was not necessary. He reluctantly [so the story goes] acceded to their arguments.
I agree the Federalist were pro tariffs. They way my understanding of the situation the Jefferson anti federalist were pragmatic and didn’t oppose or promote tariffs but were against direct taxation of the people. So it was benign approval.
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