On this day in 1864

[Bull Snipe]

Leading elements of Union Major General George G. Meade's Army of the Potomac cross the Rapidan River. With a few hours they would clash with General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the Battle of the Wilderness. Lieutenant General Grant's Overland Campaign had begun.

[HandyDandy]

Just another bizarre post by you. Commenting on an out of context bit of text. Trying to conjoin Lincoln to Fire Eaters to Slave Power all the while in denial of the complete comment you are replying to. You are about bashing Lincoln any chance you get. Why don’t you bugger off.

Note well the words, “bugger off”.

[DiogenesLamp]

I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember much of that as something Nathan Bedford Forest said.

[DiogenesLamp]

I found a quote awhile back from Jefferson that shows he thought secession was a perfectly acceptable idea. Of course he *DID* write the Declaration of Independence, so I suppose he understood what he was saying better than most.

[jeffersondem]

“When were you planning on doing that?”

To be announced on a date to be determined. We may just wait for California and her weak sisters on the ragged edge of the rust belt to leave.

The key is to make them think it is their idea.

[jeffersondem]

“I found a quote awhile back from Jefferson that shows he thought secession was a perfectly acceptable idea.”

Seems like he covered that in the Virginia-Kentucky resolutions.

[DoodleDawg]

To be announced on a date to be determined. We may just wait for California and her weak sisters on the ragged edge of the rust belt to leave.

LOL! You mind if I leave a wake-up call with you for when it happens?

[HandyDandy]

Just exchanges with DD or everything?

Do the right thing.

[rockrr]

That is a Forest quote. DishonestJeff likes to post quotes without attribution in feeble attempts to try and trick the rest of us. It never goes well but it is one of the few tactics in his bag so he leans on it heavily.

I’m sure he feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels that the Forest quote demonstrates a certain enlightenment that Lincoln lacked. What he doesn’t lend credit towards is the evolution in thinking that Forest made in a relatively short time - the same sort of evolution in thinking that others like Lincoln experienced.

Nevertheless, he was asked to post quotes demonstrating more enlightened thinking than Lincoln and and he has provided one that at least shows comparable attitudes.

[jmacusa]

Right? Thanks dude.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy quoting Faulkner: "For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position..."

So, are you telling me that William Faulkner was chivvying his tally-books while on the prod at Gettysburg?

;-)

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: " you ought to turn that mess and gom off."

I'll give you "mess & gom" as genuinely Southern because I can find it referenced as such.
Typically Appalachian Scots-Irish colloquialism.
My mother was Southern, but not Scots-Irish and she never used the term.
The closest I ever heard to "gom" was "gum" as in "gum up the works".

jeffersondem: "You are still citing NFL thugocracy as your social reference lodestar."

There's no better analogy I can think of to you fools doing your little victory dances pretending to have scored a touchdown, or even the winning point, when in fact you were just pushed back into your own end zones.

So my suggestion is: if you grow tired of my metaphor, then quit doing your little dance whenever you've lost yardage!

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "I have made over 3,000 posts and you cite three things that cause you concern."

Odd words suggest an unusual upbringing, something you will neither confirm nor deny.
My own life is a little unusual, though hardly unique, have lived in 10 states -- 6 Southern, 2 Western, 2 Northern plus overseas in the Army, have worked, traveled or vacationed in every state except Alaska, so have picked up a few unusual terms here & there, though none of the ones I've highlighted from you.

Odder yet are your attempted explanations, which one would expect to be along the lines of, "my mother used that expression when I was a kid in eastern Kentucky, she was from Irish ancestry", or some such.
Instead we get references to a movie or book where found, but not where you found them.

Just curious, suggesting something not entirely up & up about jeffersondem.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Sounds like the outline of an argument to remove the statue of George Washington. Older guy. Slave owner. Rebel leader."

A remarkably unserious response.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Regardless, according to your version of events, we can forever dismiss the notion that Lincoln fought the war to 'free the slaves.' "

Nonsense, because the question was, did he "plan" a war to free the slaves, say, years in advance?
Answer: no evidence of that, and indeed he refused to use the war to free slaves for the first year.
In the beginning, Civil War might have ended without freeing the slaves.
But it certainly did become a war to free the slaves by the time of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, from mid-1862 on.

jeffersondem: "But he did fight the war for an important purpose: because he determined it was in the best economic and political interests of the 39 percent of the people that elected him president."

And yet again our typical Lost Causer Marxist dialectics: ignore higher goals & moral standards, focus instead on economics & class warfare.

[BroJoeK]

OIFVeteran: " I’d post the platform but I don’t think you would read it.
I will post a small excerpt though and I encourage you to read the whole thing."

They will neither read nor respond directly to facts which contradict their own Lost Causer mythology.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "At the time of the Ft. Sumter incident the fort wasn't even in the United States."

Neither is Gitmo today.

jeffersondem: "Secession changes things.
That is why the British no longer have garrisons at their previous Fort Augusta... "

No, Brits held onto their many forts & posts (here, here & here) on US territory for many years after the 1783 Treaty of Paris, when they had promised to leave.
It wasn't until 1796 they agreed a second time to depart and this time did.
The US neither threatened, provoked, started or waged war for those final British departures, only years of patience & negotiations.

[BroJoeK]

OIFVeterean: "But he did accept the nomination from a party that had as part of it’s platform stopping the spread of slavery and, eventually, getting rid of it."

jeffersondem: "You are opening the door just a crack to the notion Lincoln and the Republicans were committed to destroying their economic and political competitors in the South by hook or by crook."

Total nonsense, since the Republican platform called for restricting expansion of slavery, not abolition in states where it was already legal.
There was no "by hook or by crook" about it, only the constitutionally valid assertion that Congress could outlaw slavery in US territories.

Of course, Deep South Fire Eaters did see that as an existential threat, and just like jeffersondem they exaggerated it into a "by hook or by crook" abolitionist menace.

[BroJoeK]

OIFVeteran: "But he did accept the nomination from a party that had as part of it’s platform stopping the spread of slavery and, eventually, getting rid of it."

DiogenesLamp: "The only legal means of accomplishing this is to convince states to abolish it themselves.
If you could get 3/4ths of the states to agree to abolish it, then you could amend the constitution to eliminate it throughout the US."

In fact, the 1860 Republican platform did not call for abolition in states where slavery was legal, only in territories where Congress had authority to outlaw slavery.

DiogenesLamp: "There was no way this could be done legally.
And they didn't do it legally.
They did it by force and in direct violation of constitutional law."

No, it was 100% constitutional: emancipation proclaimed as a matter of military necessity against states in rebellion, then 13th, 14th & 15th amendments for permanent abolition & citizenship rights.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "He has great laments during the war, and he is haunted by it's bloodshed.
His wife went insane, and his son died during the war.
Doesn't sound like God was very pleased with him."

I see that DiogenesLamp has been building up to this piece of nonsense for a number of posts now, and I've tried to warn him away from it, but he keeps coming back.

So let's look at lunatic, cursed by God Jefferson Davis:

1. In 1835 Davis married his boss's daughter, killed her three months later by remaining in malaria infested region during malaria season. Cursed.

2. Remaried in 1847, fathered six children, all but one, a daughter, cursed.
   • Samuel, born 1852 died 1854 age 2, of undiagnosed disease.
   • Margaret, born 1855 died 1909 age 54 married with five children.
   • Jefferson Jr. born 1857 died 1878 age 21 of yellow fever.
   • Joseph born 1859 died 1864, age 5, of a fall.
   • William born 1861 died 1872 age 10 of diphtheria.
   • Varina born 1864, never married died 1898 age 34 of infectious disease then identified as "malarial gastitis".
   
   
3. Davis himself suffered poor health from malaria, wounds, eye infection and a nervous disorder called trigeminal neuralgia, made incapacitating by stress.

4. At war's end rather than surrender honorably as had Lee & other Confederate generals, Davis used his wife's clothes in attempting to escape pursuing Union troops.

Jefferson Davis, cursed.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "It is a *FACT* that the legal foundation upon which this nation stands is the natural law concept of a God given right to independence.
Without that, we had no justification in overthrowing existing rule."

Sorry, but here's the real fact: no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, meaning absent the

"...history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny..."

as in 1776.
Of course they did support at pleasure secession -- by mutual consent, lawful, peaceful as in "secession" from the old Articles of Confederation in 1788.

So our "right to independence" was never unlimited or unconditional or at pleasure regardless of others' opinions.
For DiogenesLamp to suggest otherwise is sheer nonsense, lies and propaganda.

And you should stop doing it.