[ProgressingAmerica #224] This is a tame version of what you might see, and the Founders couldn't even be named specifically(as a group) here, which is a bit shameful. We know who you're talking about with the fathers and grandfathers comment.
"What is shameful about a state, or group of states, wanting independence?"
Abraham Lincoln stated,
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. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. 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 their territory as they inhabit. Lincoln expressly stated that the right to shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better is not confined to cases of a whole people, but that any portion of such people may make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit. What is shameful about what Lincoln said?
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[ProgressingAmerica #236] Do you love the Founding Fathers or not? Let's be direct here. [ProgressingAmerica #236] Do you love the Founding or not?
When you work up the courage, I would love answers to my questions.
[ProgressingAmerica #247] Someone who loves the founding is proud to say so. Your disrespect of their memory throughout this discussion has been clear.
Clearly, you are too much of a coward to defend your attribution of shame to people who sought independence, precisely as Abraham Lincoln said "Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit." Your cowardice manifests itself by your desperate attempt to divert away from your claim that seeking independence is shameful.
Did Lincoln advocate for things that were shameful? Do you believe the Founders actions were shameful? Apparently you do. You have expressed your belief that doing what the Founders did was shameful.
So who do you "know" was being spoken of with reference to fathers and grandfathers?
When did you stop beating your dog?
woodpusher to ProgressingAmerica:
"Lincoln expressly stated that the right to shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better is not confined to cases of a whole people, but that any portion of such people may make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.
What is shameful about what Lincoln said?" Context, context...
In January 1848, 38-year-old Whig Congressman Lincoln supported the Whig party line, which was to oppose Democrat President Polk's war against Mexico but support our forces in hopes of electing a Southern Whig, Gen. Zachary Taylor, President, which they did in November 1848.
Lincoln's speech, often quoted by woodpusher and others, refers to Americans in Texas declaring independence from Mexico and can be put under the category of a "right of revolution".
Of course, everyone recognizes a "right of revolution" under certain circumstances, the debatable issue is, what exactly are those circumstances?
Our Founders gave their answer in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, citing necessity, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
Young Congressman Lincoln, in 1848 gives a somewhat different answer.
Lincoln said, "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government"
So, for Lincoln in 1848 it was less a matter of "absolute despotism" forcing revolution and more a matter of "being inclined and having the power" to make their own government.
Neither our 1776 Founders nor 1836 Texans fantasized that their revolutions could succeed without war, or in the absence of having the power to win the war.
Nor did they fantasize they could start & declare war on the British or Mexican governments without having to actually fight and win it.
Nevertheless, young Lincoln's 1848 words may help explain why he was reluctant in his March 4, 1861 1st Inaugural Address to insist on anything more than the bare necessities of Federal government, notably collecting import duties.
But all of these fine points of political philosophy were rendered mute in April 1861, when Confederates fired on and forced surrender of Union troops in Fort Sumter, a clear act of war.
Then on May 6, 1861 the Confederate congress formally declared war on the United States and from that point on, there was no turning back.
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