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 ...
Of course you do. There is no power that cannot be claimed under the "promotion of the general welfare." [If general welfare is misunderstood, as Hamilton deliberately did.]
But luckily for the rule of law, The Preamble is window dressing, and nothing more.
"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..."
That's not part of the Constitution. As I said: learn to read. When you do, you'll learn some history [perhaps.]
Jefferson was anti-tariff before his Presidency but became more pragmatic when in office. Jefferson’s ideological disciples (J.C. Calhoun) were vehemently anti-tariff.
Let me ask you this, Is forcing people to stay in a government which no longer serves their interests morally indefensible? YES or NO.
It certainly was for the founders.
If you don't believe Madison [who was there, and it's been in all the papers] in support of your position, cite me an example in the Federal case law where The Preamble is used.
Oh, wait, you can't. Because the Supreme Court has never held such a position.
As a matter of fact, it has explicitly REPUDIATED the Preamble as part of the instrument:
Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, 1905:
Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:
We pass without extended discussion the suggestion that the particular section of the statute of Massachusetts now in question ( 137, chap. 75) is in derogation of rights secured by the preamble of the Constitution of the United States. Although that preamble indicates the general purposes for which the people ordained and established the Constitution, it has NEVER been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the government of the United States, or on any of its departments. Such powers embrace only those expressly granted in the body of the Constitution, and such as may be implied from those so granted. Although, therefore, one of the declared objects of the Constitution was to secure the blessings of liberty to all under the sovereign jurisdiction and authority of the United States, no power can be exerted to that end by the United States, unless, apart from the preamble, it be found in some express delegation of power, or in some power to be properly implied therefrom.
Read it, AND WEEP.
The Preamble is NOT part of the instrument. None of the founders ever believed it was, and neither does the case law support the contention.
Only if you make the words mean the exact opposite of what they actually mean.
But luckily for the rule of law, The Preamble is window dressing, and nothing more.
The stated purposes of the Constitution are no threat to the rule of law. That's an absurdity. They spell out the reasons there are laws.
You have no right to throw out the parts of the Constitution you don't like. Especially the foundation of the document. Without the foundation the building cannot possibly stand.
That's not part of the Constitution.
No, it's our national charter, the premise of our Constitution, the ground upon which the foundations of our Constitution rest. It's also the first part of the organic laws of the United States, codified by the first Congress under the new Constitution.
Well golly, they should have left it out of the document they sent to the states for ratification then, don't you think?
As to your 1905 court opinion, the court has a long history of disregarding whatever part of the Constitution that it doesn’t find useful, or that stands in their way. Nothing new about that.
"The importance of examining the preamble, for the purpose of expounding the language of a statute, has been long felt, and universally conceded in all juridical discussions. It is an admitted maxim in the ordinary course of the administration of justice, that the preamble of a statute is a key to open the mind of the makers, as to the mischiefs, which are to be remedied, and the objects, which are to be accomplished by the provisions of the statute." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the People of the United States." - Justice Story, Martin v. Hunter's Lessee
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhht.
I will wait for you to cite anywhere in the Federal case law where the Supreme Court has used The Preamble as anything other than Obiter Dicta. Good luck finding it.
Perfect.
More straw men for you to knock down.
You’re pretty well practiced at that, aren’t you.
That and ad hominem attacks.
Which Law or treaty did the United States sign before the Civil War that stated positively that blockading ones on ports was illegal. By Declaring a naval blockade of Confederate ports, Lincoln could legally stop and search neutral (British, French, or other European) vessels for contraband in international waters. The declared blockade allowed the Federal navy to search cargos of neutral ships and seize cargos such as weapons, gun powder and the ships carrying them. Merely “closing” a port does not bestow that authority.
What they believed is irrelevant to what the Union did or what motivated them to do it.
Do not forget the Union sent 35,000 men with guns and cannons to take over Richmond. Their reasons for doing this had nothing to do with slavery. Stop trying to pull a bait and switch.
ONE THIRD of the people living in the South were enslaved, what about THEIR independence?
What a coincidence that concern for their independence just happened to pop up two years after the War started!
This is not to say the issue doesn't have merit, but don't you think the timing is suspicious? After all, I don't recall reading any noises from the period proclaiming the Union's intention of abolishing slavery prior to the war.
No, those only seem to crop after they needed to explain and justify the carnage. People who did not give a rip about the plight of slaves prior to the war, and who did not give a rip about them immediately after the war, were suddenly moralizing all about them during the war, and in the decades thereafter.
It's almost enough to make you cynical.
I will admit that a great many southerners are very passionate about the Confederacy, and it is normal to focus on whatever noble facets of it are available, but NONE of you have offered any real evidence to show that the Civil War wasn't about slavery.
Still pretending to be stupid. Okay, let's make this simple. What were the orders given to Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell when Lincoln sent his 35,000 man invasion force to take Richmond.
If you can come up with anything that says "to end slavery" on it, then i'll eat a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
If you cannot come up with anything that says his orders were to "end slavery" then You need to shut the f*** up about the issue of slavery as regards the Union intentions for fighting the civil war.
An honest man would stop lying to himself and stop trying to lie to others. The Union had no intention of abolishing slavery, their sole purpose was "Preserving the Union", and a D@mn I do not give about what the Southern States reasons were for doing anything, they weren't the ones invading, they were the ones defending, so they don't have to have explanations for why they were fighting.
The People who need to explain why they were fighting were the aggressors not the defenders.
That be you. So how about it? Why did the Union Invade? Why? Why? Why? Why?
This is probably not the best time in history for you to be pointing to the Supreme Court as the final authority on what the Constitution says and means.
That's nothing more than the definition of originalism, and makes it no more important than any other historical context. You can read the same sentiments in Bork's books. I don't disagree with them, but this isn't a precedent, just Story's opinion [not even obiter dicta, since it isn't part of any legal finding.] It's not part of the case law, and it's certainly not part of the instrument.
The quote from Martin is laughable. It's nothing more than an historical note -- which, by the way -- Story also used in supporting his claim for jurisdiction.
So, is the historical context also part of the Constitution? By your "argument" it would appear so. Luckily, Story didn't rely on originalist arguments entirely to establish his point, but actually cited chapter and verse where in the Constitution the Supreme court was granted such authority by The People via the Convention and the States who ratified it.
Two strikes. I'll give you one more swing, and then you're out.
The preamble is clearly a part of the Constitution.
Should you dispute this as you insist on doing I offer you this challenge.
Locate a copy of the Constitution that does not contain the preamble. In that fashion, your misguided position may have some have merit. Please do not address me until you're able to respond to my challenge.
Lying to myself? I gave you my take after reading and digesting the entire letter. I do not deserve invectives for tendering an opinion; perhaps that’s all you can do; I just don’t know.
Your candle is out.
Good luck.
There definitely seems to be analogous similarities between the two social movements, including their origins and who was pushing them, and how they went about it.
It's one thing to argue that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery,
I'm not arguing about what were the reasons of the Confederacy for wanting to leave the union, I am arguing that their reasons are irrelevant to their rights to do so. They were simply attempting to exercise the exact same right to independence which the 13 slave holding colonies invoked four score and seven years earlier.
but it's quite another to dismiss the abolitionist movement as some sort of social experiment.
And you think it wasn't? What, pray tell, was Lincoln's intentions to do with the freed slaves? Was it not to "release them back into the wild?"
Ever hear of a country called "Liberia"? Guess who created it and why. :)
"From these Conventions the constitution derives its whole authority. The government proceeds directly from the people; is "ordained and established" in the name of the people; and is declared to be ordained, "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and to their posterity." The assent of the States, in their sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a Convention, and thus submitting that instrument to the people. But the people were at perfect liberty to accept or reject it; and their act was final. It required not the affirmance, and could not be negatived, by the State governments. The constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and bound the State sovereignties." - Chief Justice Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland
"The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?" - Chief Justice Chase, Texas v. White
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