Posted on 07/04/2018 6:19:14 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
A glorious 4th of July for the Union cause. General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia begins it retreat from Pennsylvania after having been defeated by General Meade's Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Grant accepts the surrender of the City of Vicksburg from General Pemberton. About 32,000 Confederate soldiers stack their weapons and are paroled by the Union forces. This is the second Confederate Army to surrender to Grant. The Union now controls the Mississippi river and the Confederate state is split into two parts.
Any government is a beauty contest, majority rule, minority rights.
Well there is a serious problem with this. Human rights are granted by God, and the government should not infringe those, even if the majority says so. Isn't the issue of slavery an example of government infringing human rights?
We should not allow a system where this is an option. Oppressive government's should not be tolerated, even if they are elected by Democratic process and aided by a corrupt and immoral court system.
Agreed.
The right to life and freedom is God-given.
The problem is that too many people don’t believe in God or trust the Bible for moral guidance.
I remember how people were freaking out about JFK, saying he would get his marching orders from the Pope, being our first Catholic President.
Oppression is relative, as compared to what? There are far worse governments everywhere else.
The moment society organizes, leadership emerges, compromises happen, ugly behavior, driven by powerful special interests, becomes legal and allowed. Backed up by the power of the government.
But we need that same powerful government when al queda, etc. comes a calling.
I would love to see a national referdum ability, where abortion, gay rights, whatever, could be voted on nationally and settled. That would be true democracy.
The problem is that we are a republic and that kind of power is reserved to the states and to the Supreme Court with whatever collection of judges happen from day to day.
That is a problem?
Yikes!
I guess freerepublic won't be around much longer.
“Well, my family, two branches, started shooting. I don’t recommend that approach, but given the time and circumstances I likely would have been right there with them.”
Killing people you don’t agree with on moral issues may be moral. I’m not sure that’s what Jesus taught but, for the purpose of this thread, let’s suppose Jesus did tell northerners to kill slave owners (in the South, not the border states).
Just realize that when your folks took up arms to “free the slaves” they were fighting to overthrow the pro-slavery provisions of the United States constitution. In fact, they were fighting to violently overthrow the United States constitution.
And if, as some believe, southerners were fighting for the pro-slavery provisions in the constitution, they were fighting to prevent the U.S. constitution’s violent overthrow. But by then, the South had left the union - and took the constitution with them.
You might find this interesting.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3668617/posts?page=45#45
Read my post, the entire post, don’t cherry pick.
I was comparing a pure democracy to a republic.
There are Constitutional amendments that benefited slavery.
The Constitution protects property rights. Slaves were property according to the laws of many states. Slavery was not a nation-wide Constitutional provision.
Your phrase “pro-slavery provisions” is not accurate.
I agree, Jesus would not have favored the killing in the civil war, or the oppression of slaves.
Yes, my family took up arms after Fort Sumter was attacked. They fought to force changes to the Constitution, not to overthrow it.
My family was on the winning side that forced the end of slavery, by force of arms when it wasn’t being ended by political means.
The substance of what you said seems to be: “I would love to see a national referdum ability, where abortion, gay rights, whatever, could be voted on nationally and settled. That would be true democracy. The problem is that we are a republic and that kind of power is reserved to the states and to the Supreme Court with whatever collection of judges happen from day to day.”
To be clear: I don't like the concept of true democracy, or a pure one either.
More importantly, our founders didn't like, and didn't provide for a democracy.
Christ's only reprimand to the Roman soldiers was not to abuse their authority through bribery.
The Left successfully has transformed all killing in wartime into “murder”...
However, “Thou shalt not murder” is one of the Ten Commandments, is distinguished from killing.
Murder is one of the commandments because it is always a personal hatred in the heart towards another human being.
Killing another on a battlefield is not murder, unless you happened to be a Confederate who personally knew and had an animus towards a Union soldier (or vice versa). Or unless you were King David who was guilty of the murder of Bathsheba’s husband who died in battle... in that case David purposely put her husband on the front lines in order to get him killed. And so David was guilty of murder.
You have an interesting argument about the South upholding the Constitution; but unfortunately the moral sin of slavery outweighed the law allowing it, and the sinful stain of it caused the South to make all the wrong moves, including firing the first shots of the war and seceding.
P.S. I had family on both sides, including some named after Robert E Lee.
States fought in the Revolution?
Is that American English or British English, mate? What is the source?
Why is it that you never capitalize the first letter in “Constitution”? Do you override your spell checker to do that?
Seceded states could certainly do that (forming another country) if they wished. Once seceded, the Constitution and its prohibition about treaties, alliances, and confederations with other states or countries no longer applied to them. Whether this was "right" or appropriate for them to do a matter of opinion. It was probably safer for them to join with other seceded states at that point in time.
The Constitution did not prohibit secession and did not require approval from any state, Congress, Court, or the Federal Government for secession. Nor did it give power to the Federal Government or to individual states or to groups of states to stop other states from seceding. Indeed, IMO the Constitution wouldn't have been ratified if such approval had been required or such power had been given.
The Constitutional legality of secession has been roundly debated on this forum and several other strings.
There is no provision in the Constitution for doing so, even though secession was a hot topic during the writing of the Constitution. The founders and ratifiers were well aware but chose not to enumerate it.
The core reason is that when any territory or country, as in the case of Texas, joins the Union, by consent of Congress, the people of the new State are no longer citizens of that State, they are citizens of the USA.
Their USA citizenship cannot be taken away by the State due to an act of secession. Citizenship rights can only be limited by being guilty of a felony, that is a power given to States.
Any change in USA citizenship to a foreign country citizenship can only be done by the USA, through Congress.
Remember, States do not have rights, they have powers, only citizens have rights protected directly by the federal government and Constitution.
1776 to 1787. Can you remember something of major significance in your life that happened 11 years ago? Something earth shattering?
Here we go again with focusing on something the Union also had, and which it had no intention of changing.
Everyone nowadays has been brainwashed with slavery on the brain. The war had nothing to do with slavery. Lincoln didn't suddenly wake up one morning and say "Those Southerners have slavery, so I'm going to attack them."
What Lincoln did do was to wake up one day and say "If those Southerners established independent trade with Europe, two hundred million dollars per year will be lost to my backers in New York, and the Federal Government will also lose 80% of it's income."
Do you not realize when you've been conned? The propaganda machine has now got most Americans thinking that Lincoln sent an invasion force into the South to stop slavery, and that is utter bullsh*t. He sent that invasion force to do one thing, and that was to prevent the South from Trading with Europe without New York and Washington DC taking their cut.
"Slavery" was a post hoc justification for forces he had already unleashed to destroy the enemies of the New York/Washington empire.
Do you know who the New York/Washington DC empire is? It's the same F***ing bastards who are running the "Deep State"/"Crony Capitalist"/"Establishement"/"Uniparty" scam in Washington DC today.
New York and Washington more or less run the entire United States, and the rest of us are mostly too stupid to realize where the actual power lies. We do our "Tea Party" thing as if we can fight these multi-billionaires and their propaganda apparatus in their New York broadcasting studios.
Who made that Idiot Barack Obama into a somebody? New York did. Who made that corrupt psycho-nazi hate witch Hillary into a somebody? Again, New York did that.
The New York based propaganda system we call "news" has long been the tool of the oligarchs that more or less control Washington DC, and this is why they are so pissed at Trump's ability to circumvent their media weapon. For the first time since 1860, their power is being threatened.
The Chair now recognizes the Gentleman Benjamin Franklin from the state of Pennsylvania to speak on this issue, followed by the Gentleman Roger Sherman of Connecticut, followed by the Gentleman John Hancock of Massachusetts, followed by the Gentleman Francis Lightfoot Lee of Virginia, and so forth and so on:
“We therefore . . . that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States . . . and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
Thank you for quoting the Declaration of Independence.
They were saying that the colonies had a right to be free and independent of England.
They later chose to stop being independent, that USA thing..
. . . and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. Read it again. For the first time.
Read it again. For the first time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.