Posted on 12/04/2006 6:10:06 PM PST by goldstategop
RUSH: John in Shreveport, Louisiana. Hello.
CALLER: Mr. Rush, don't you think you're being a hypocrite when you're not -- when you don't want the Iraqis to decide the problems themselves, especially since Abraham Lincoln took two -- two generals named Lincoln [sic--Grant] and Sherman who were responsible for the deaths of 59,000 southern people? And since you hate Confederate heritage that much, don't you think that we should allow the people of Iraq to decide their own fate?
RUSH: (Laughing.) Gee. I hate Confederate heritage?
CALLER: No kidding.
RUSH: On the basis of what do you say that?
CALLER: Okay, allow me to quote you from 2001: "The American Civil War was the first conflict in human history to set a people free from the bondage of slavery." Your quote, sir.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: And that's not --
RUSH: Well, the point is, we fought --
CALLER: -- power --
RUSH: Are we going to have this argument, Steve?
CALLER: Yes, sir, we are, if you've got the nerve to hold it!
RUSH: I'll have this argument with you any time you want. I've been hearing from you guys since I started this show. I know, it's about states' rights, it was about freedom; it was about independence. But it was about preserving the union -- and Abraham Lincoln knew that you couldn't preserve an America with the institutions defined by our Constitution if one man was allowed to own another.
CALLER: Well, you could not preserve the Constitution as long as you could override it by military power and invasion.
RUSH: Well, there was the preservation of the union that was the number one --
CALLER: How about the preservation of the Constitution, shouldn't that be predominant?
RUSH: Look, you still want to secede? What's your solution?
CALLER: We have no choice, we're under occupation now. The thing about it is you still have to lie about Abraham Lincoln to prove your, to make your point.
RUSH: I'm not lying about Abraham Lincoln. What do you mean, you're still under occupation?
CALLER: Put it this way. The South was not allowed to vote its own way; we're not going to allow Iraq to vote its own government, either.
RUSH: But we did.
CALLER: Do you think we're really abiding by that? What they voted for, we're trying to subvert it by military occupation. No difference than what they did here for 12 years in Louisiana. You don't think we don't see that? You don't think we don't see you as a hypocrite for what you say about, oh, yeah, preserve the union, but let's never mind, let's take away the vote from those who are the voting citizens --
RUSH: I cannot believe this!
CALLER: -- Constitution!
RUSH: I can't believe this. You are taking out your frustrations at having lost the Civil War on me and claiming I'm a hypocrite because of my stance on the Iraq war?
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: Which I don't even think you know what it is.
CALLER: I don't think you know -- I don't think you know who Abraham Lincoln was.
RUSH: I certainly know who Abraham Lincoln was. He's one of the greatest presidents in the history of the country.
CALLER: Who said that --
RUSH: And it wasn't because he defeated the south. It was because he preserved the union.
CALLER: He preserved the union by trampling the Constitution!
RUSH: He did not trample the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus. He did do some things I wish Bush would do.
CALLER: Like kill 59,000 innocent civilians?
RUSH: Are you talking about Sherman's march through Atlanta?
CALLER: And -- and -- and Grant's shelling the city of Vicksburg. Hello?
RUSH: It won the war, didn't it? You ever heard of Gettysburg? It won the war and that was the objective. I'll tell you what I wish Bush would do that Lincoln did. Take all these anti-war agitators and send 'em to Canada. Send the National Guard in there. Send Harry Reid over to Baghdad if he's going to be so socially --
CALLER: Like that Ohio Congressman Vallandigham, huh?
RUSH: Absolutely, like that Ohio congressman, that Democrat that was snatched out of his house and sent down to Jefferson Davis, who also didn't want him.
CALLER: Well, at least I got you to acknowledge that.
RUSH: Acknowledge what?
CALLER: Well, the fact that Lincoln did have his secret police who went into people's houses, pulled them out in the middle of the night, and had them -- and had them --
RUSH: You know what? I hope before you die you learn to thank God for Abraham Lincoln.
CALLER: I hope before you die you learn what a racist and a bigot and a power-hungry maniac he was.
RUSH: I'm the racist and the bigot?
CALLER: I didn't say you were. I said he was!
RUSH: Oh. Abraham Lincoln? How in the world you can call a guy who ended slavery a racist and a bigot? I have heard everything now. Everything, in 22 years of hosting this program, I have heard everything.
Categorically false as to your first falsehood, and "show me where it says that" as to your second.
Damn, you just don't give up when you're stomped, do you? You have been absolutely and categorically refuted repeatedly, and yet you keep posting the same garbage as if it came from God's holy prophet just yesterday.
Stop it, you're just being tedious.
No, Texas vs. White was incorrect on its merits, and Salmon P. Chase was biased: he was the most, the very most, the absolutely ontologically tendentious South-basher in Lincoln's cabinet. He had no peer as a South-basher -- 'cept maybe Beast Butler and Thad Stevens. Who weren't cabinet officers.
Imagine Beastwoman putting Andrea Dworkin and Catharine Mackinnon on the Supreme Court, to hand down a decision that the United States is now a republic of lesbian Amazons. That's the kind of tendentiousness and utter bull we're talking about here.
Why do you want to get slapped around for shopping that canard again?
Jeff Davis hardly "did away with" a Confederate supreme court -- the Confederacy was distrained by force majeure from establishing one.
You're retailing teleology again, too. Keep it up.
Those 60,000 Texans followed their State. You really ought to get into the habit of reading and believing election returns there, von Braun.
Their leader, understood your sneery, elitist way, was Sam Houston. Texans didn't follow him to the sidelines, but he in turn didn't stab them in the back by doing a dirty deal with Lincoln. The Bush family would have done a deal, but that's how far we've come down since the days of Sam Rayburn, since we started letting galvanized-Yankee families from Ohio settle here and start marrying around.
Wrong way around, Gomer. Liberty and sovereignty are the default conditions. You have to show the limiting language.
But don't believe me -- read the Ninth Amendment. For comprehension. And don't gloss over it quickly so you can ignore it afterwards. It has a very concrete meaning, one that cost an otherwise good judge a Supreme Court post.
How about naming a couple?
Many in the Union, like General Sherman, supported slavery.
Sherman may not have wanted anything to do with blacks but I'm not aware of any quotes where he supported slavery.
Massachusetts invaded Maryland.
How does a country invade itself?
Anyone accused of sympathizing with the south was jailed. The mayor of Baltimore and many state officials were imprisoned, only to be released AFTER the elections when they had already lost their seats. This was tyranny.
Thousands of people supporting the Union cause in the confederacy were jailed, too, or worse. Would you be willing to classify Davis as a tyrant, too?
Slavery was very wrong and was dying at the time.
And what do you base this on?
There was more to the war... which is why you had 4 Union slave states.
And you had 11 confederate slave states. I think it really, really was about slavery.
The winner writes the history books. The gullible believe in them, and the leftist professors perpetuate this.
And the losers write the myths. The truly gullible...well, you know the rest.
I'll say it again... slavery was very wrong and never should have been an institution... but it is part of AMERICAN history. Is there no villification of our founding fathers? Many of them owned slaves, yet I don't hear anybody wanting to rip down statues or ban images of them...
And defense for the institution of slavery was by far the single, most important reason for the Southern rebellion. If you accept slavery as part of history why don't you accept that part of history, too?
Because you say so. Well, thanks for clearing that up. But unfortunately the decision stands, even if you don't agree with it. As does that other decision issued by that biased, Southern packed, slave loving Supreme Court. Dred Scott.
You may be right, "did away with" implies it existed to begin with. How about "didn't bother with" or "ignored the constitution in regards to"?
... -- the Confederacy was distrained by force majeure from establishing one.
In plain English, they deliberately ignored the provision in their constitution requiring one.
And their state entered into rebellion to protect slavery. Seems I read it in their secession document somewhere.
Sorry, lady, but in this one case I have to parrot the Ditto Heads and say "Rush is right."
Ditto, this is disingenuousness at its worst. Stop trying to misinform the man.
Those four States had bigger numbers of federal troops standing on them and, in Maryland and Missouri, dispelling and overthrowing the legitimate State governments, jailing their officers, and disarming or disbanding or arresting their Militias -- the Militia being the very institution that Madison et al. had looked to for the safety of the People against, guess what, dictators.
You also need to explain why there was significant support for the South in some Northern States like Indiana and Illinois, which Lincoln suppressed by police and army actions.
Tennessee and Virginia were both Upper South States and both went out via plebiscites which returned lopsided majorities for secession -- after a period of deliberation during which they both had previously (like North Carolina) rejected secession proposals.
Both Tennessee and Virginia were slave States -- so why didn't they go out right away, if the real issue was slavery? You still haven't addressed that question, and here you are retailing more tall tales about "It was all about slavery!"
Flatly not true, shown to be not true, documented with quotations repeatedly from contemporary sources as being not true.
And you still push it.
There is NO lumpen People of the "United Empire/State/Nation". There is in America, no "ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer!"
The People who ratified the Constitution were the People of each State. One State, one People. One People, One State.
You mean, like this one?
"In discussing this question, the counsel for the State of Maryland have deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument not as emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent States. The powers of the General Government, it has been said, are delegated by the States, who alone are truly sovereign, and must be exercised in subordination to the States, who alone possess supreme dominion.
"It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the State legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States with a request that it might be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification.
This mode of proceeding was adopted, and by the convention, by Congress, and by the State legislatures, the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject -- by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States -- and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments." -- Chief Justice Marshall, McCulloch v Maryland
The Southerners' cause was never what you mendaciously persist in saying it was.
But then, murderers often lie about their victims afterward. "He needed killin'!"
Which is, of course, why the Constitution refers to "We the People of the United States" setting out to for a more perfect Union. The individual states are not even mentioned anywhere in the document, only a lumpen "several states".
And then there's this one:
"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 hey, what did George Washington know, right?
You're not being honest. You're just whining down one side of the ledger.
The South also walked away from assets -- huge assets. Did the South demand a piece of federally-occupied real estate in Northern States? No. Did they demand chunks of the Territories? Outside New Mexico and Arizona, I'm not aware of any -- they walked away from the Comstock Lode, among other things, and everything north of Oklahoma. Left it all to the North.
A little proportion is in order here.
So can we sum up the confederate cause with the phrase, "He needed ownin'?"
It's not what they walked away from, it's what they stole. If they wanted to walk away from joint property then that's their business. But they walked away from obligations for debt, for treaties, and with property that might be described as jointly owned with all the states. And they did so without any offer of compensation. They were wrong to do so.
I don't have to -- Chase's colleague did a fine job in dissent, showing how bad Chase's "lawyering" (homering) was.
The dissent is the right decision, and would have been the decision of an unstacked Court.
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