Posted on 07/22/2015 7:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?
Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.
London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?
I realize Adams is a revered Founder, but that doesn't make this statement true.
History is replete with examples of tyrants gaining power only to eventually be overthrown.
For example, most Latin American countries are presently more or less democratic. 50 years ago very few were.
“I realize Adams is a revered Founder, but that doesn’t make this statement true.”
Yeah, I think he was being a bit hyperbolic, to stress his point. Really what I think he is getting at is that there is no guarantee that you could ever get your freedom back, and even if you can, it may be at horrific cost.
I’ve read the Roe decision, and I think its determination that a fetus is not “a person” within the meaning of the Constitution and its amendments is correct.
Certainly none of the Founders had any idea they were prohibiting abortion, which was widely practiced at the time.
Here’s James Wilson, one of the Founders:
“With consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life, from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law. In the contemplation of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb. By the law, life is protected not only from immediate destruction, but from every degree of actual violence, and, in some cases, from every degree of danger.[6]”
Their understanding of fetal life was of course flawed, but I’m not sure we’re entitled to retrospectively change the meaning of the Constitution as desired. To me such a Constitution is a little too living.
I respect those who believe otherwise, but that’s my opinion.
Again, you can withdraw all you want. You just can’t force the sovereign body of the people of the United States to give up their national territory when you do it.
This quandary is of course exactly what Lincoln talked about at Gettysburg.
Any government from which a minority can withdraw at will cannot “long endure.”
That may be fine with you, but it is an issue.
It was not “widely practiced.” Not even close.
If the child is not a “Constitutional person,” no one is. Because every single human being alive, or who has ever lived, at least since since Adam and Eve, was at one point developing and growing in their mother’s womb.
It’s not very often you will see a FReeper say that they agree with the illogical, immoral, unconstitutional Roe decision.
“You just can’t force the sovereign body of the people of the United States to give up their national territory when you do it.”
The states brought that territory with them into the union, it doesn’t belong to the United States if the states decide to leave, any more than we could claim Puerto Rico if they decided they wanted to be independent.
You’re not going to convince me that the basic founding principle of our country is voided because Lincoln thought it caused an “issue”.
Sorry, but rights trump “issues”.
Yeah you tried it. Didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now. But the short answer is that at the end of the day the consumer pays the 15% through a markup on the item sold. But why was it sold to a New York diamond merchant? Because that's where the demand is. That's where the importer is who buys the raw material and makes the ring. He then sells it into his supply chain. But for William's scenario to be true and your scenarion to make the point you want to make, we would have to live in a world where 75% of the diamond merchants live and work in Charleston and the diamond is still imported through New York where it is landed, taxed, and then sent to Charleston for delivery to the diamond merchant.
It wasn't, and you can't accept that.
I'm glad that I can't remember and therefore can't tell you how many times in my life I've been wronged. Had I tried to cling to or focus upon all those injuries large and petty I'm certain that I would have missed many of the good things that have fallen in my lap. It's all just part of life. I guess there are some people of all races who want some sort of reparations for what was lost because of slavery and because of the struggle to end it.
I have come to believe that very little of this has anything to do with what happened over 150 years ago. If people are unhappy, there are almost certainly more proximate causes for their misery. For some reason, things aren't working for these people here and now.
I agree with the Roe decision only with regard to its saying that the Founders did not intend to create protection for fetal life from conception.
Since abortion prior to quickening was legal in every state at the time, and restrictions were enacted only gradually over the 19th century, that conclusion to me seems inevitable.
I would, however, be all in favor of states restricting or prohibiting abortion entirely, or an amendment that would do so.
My objection is constitutional, not that I approve of abortion.
Fair enough. But you do realize a consequence of that position is that no government set up on that basis can long endure, don’t you?
Maybe that’s ok, but it would tend to mean either the majority constantly giving in to the minority, or the minority jumping ship and setting up for themselves.
Again, maybe that’s fine with you, but at least recognize that’s the inevitable result.
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole."
-- George Washington, Farewell Address
Quite right.
Lincoln had an interesting comment on this issue.
“The constitution itself makes the distinction; and I can no more be persuaded that the government can constitutionally take no strong measure in time of rebellion, because it can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace, than I can be persuaded that a particular drug is not good medicine for a sick man, because it can be shown to not be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger, apprehended by the meeting, that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and Habeas corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness, as to persist in feeding upon them through the remainder of his healthful life.”
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/corning.htm
I should also note that we have several times in our history had rights severely restricted in time of war, not just by Lincoln.
Wilson, with arguably much less justification, probably was more repressive in this regard than Lincoln.
That was the name used right after the war. "Civil War" and "War Between The States" didn't become popular until early in the 20th century.
Notice Lincoln did not capitalize "civil war". That means it was a descripton and not a title. In all official correspondence - Emancipation Proclamation, Blockade Order, etc. - he refers to it as either a rebellion or an isurrection.
You can tell a tree by its fruit.
The evil fruit of the Blackmun/Roe drumming out of the unborn from the human race with a nonsensical, unscientific, immoral reading of the word “person,” is more than sixty million butchered innocents, with their posterity also blotted out.
The fruit of recognizing the obvious natural fact of the personhood of all, at every stage of human development, would be the restoration of equal protection for the supreme God-given, unalienable rights of all, and the restoration of the foundations of justice and the rule of true law in America.
Go ahead, keep dehumanizing the most helpless and ddefenseless among us. But it will cost you everything, including your freedom. Along with Thomas Jefferson, ‘tremble for your country when you reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.’
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