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.
Would the Federal "opression" been tolerable under Breckenridge, or would SC have revolted no matter what the election results were? The South came nowhere near exhausing political avenues of resolution.
Now of course you must believe that the People are the seat of power for this to be effective. Also you must view the Original Bill of Rights the way it was viewed prior to the 14th Amendment - AS A PROHIBITION AGAINST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! The States were still sovereign entities in 1861! Also you must realize that the Declaration of Independence is where our distinctly Ameican ideology comes from. Of course you Yanks made that moot in 1865.
As to your assertion about abiding by the agreement, the Southern States did until they saw the handwriting on the wall about loss of balance of power in Congress (Slave Vs Free Soil territories), and no relief from unfair tariffs that protected Northern Industries, and a constant effort by Northern Abolitionists to try and foment slave rebellions. You were correct when you stated " No one makes you sign a contract, but once you do so, you are bound legally by the terms.", however you conveniently forgot to mention that the contract becomes null and void if one party renegs on it, or abuses it to the detriment of the other.
place mark
Second, your whole argument hinges on the idea that the election of 1860 suddenly made the Federal Government into an intolerable despotism. It is hard to reconcile that with the fact that the South willingly participated, and lost solely because that Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats split their vote, then seceded before Lincoln even came into office.
Pretty poor excuse for a tyrannical depotism that allows its opponents to participate in the political process. Considering how long the South dominated the Federal power structure before 1860, they were simply sore losers who saw the political writing on the wall over the subjects of new Free Soil States and Abolition.
The States were still sovereign entities in 1861!
Tricky phrase, that. They were sovereign in some aspects, and not others. The Constitution was sovereign over both the Federal and the States, in that it prohibited certain things to both, collectively and severally. Yes, the BoR was generally seen as a check only on the Federal, but I feel that general view was in error. Those rights specified as belonging to the people were prohibited to the States to infringe, as the 10th A. says, unless the Feds were specifically singled out as they were in the 1st and 7th A. For example, the 5th guarantees a trial to be in "the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed," which makes it clearly an obligation of the States to provide courts for that purpose. The 9th specifies that there are Rights retained solely by the people, thus denied ANY government to infringe them, State or Fed.
The fact that most State constitutions reiterated the BoR masked that superior law in most cases, until the Jim Crow laws began to appear and citizen rights violations began in wholesale lots. Rather than trying to overturn the unconstitutional Jim Crow laws by iffy court proceedure (witness the recent Kelo decision), the 14th A. was passed to trump any question of what protections an American citizen could expect, regardless of which State they were in.
Nonsense. Suppose I sign a contract with you to sell you some property. Are you claiming that I can take back that property unilaterally, and the contract becomes null and void? That you can abrogate any responsibility or agreement at will? The dissolution of a contract requires agreement by all involved parties or by adjudication. Abuse must be decided by the courts. Only after all legal pathways of resolution are exhausted is any other action justified.
You obviously haven't been to Texas :)
Yankees that visit convert :)
I believe that Lincoln left him no way out. It was a manner of honor. Honor was so much a part of the Southern Code that it dictated everything at the time. You must also remember, that like many Presidents, he was under public pressure to assert the authority of his government. To allow the Yankees to occupy a fort in the middle of Charleston Harbor was a proverbial slap in the face.
Funny. You are a regular Jack Benny. Don't Patronize me.
I said GREATEST....not Biggest :)
...even domestically, I guess. I wouldn't be surprised if Lincoln sent out notes of congratulations after Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc....Wow; what super-duper hyperbole.
The south effectively 'nationalizes' federal property, fires the first shots at Ft. Sumter and then this clown equates it to Waco ...
South Carolina seceded. It wasn't Federal Property anymore Jimbo.
And so is your assertion that when the States ratified the Constitution ceeding ENUMERATED LIMITED POWERS to the Federal Government, that they were automatically sucked into this great almalgamation called America. It was known as the United States, but it didn't mean that a state didn't have a right to determine its own destiny. Your assertions take all power from the People and give it only to the government. Clearly not what the Founders intended!
As for the rest of your illustration, it is not germain to the discussion here as property, and the rights of the States with regards to the Constitution are entirely two different things.
Your sarcasm aside, you'd profit from a couple hours' reading in good historical material on the psychological effects in Virginia, say, of the John Brown raid. It was devastating to Unionist sentiment, partly because of the upper-middle-class connexions of the Secret Six behind Brown, and the Northern newspapers' and politicians' absolute failure to condemn the Six, their and Brown's violent methods, and their attempt to ignite the ultimate Southern nightmare, a slave rising/race war on the model of Haiti.
"I really, really wish you would die horribly" will just about write finito to any marriage -- it did about the same for the Union in 1859.
And any good manual history of Texas will catch you up on the drivers of secession sentiment in Texas -- keeping in mind that Unionism never was utterly destitute of support in the South, especially in the Appalachian valleys and among the biggest planters, who broke from the fire-eaters in 1860, formed the Constitutional Union Party, and nominated John Bell for President, who got about a fifth of the vote in Texas and the same in Virginia, where the Unionist vote, keep in mind, did not break for Lincoln, but for Bell.
I recommend cracking a copy of Lone Star by T. R. Fehrenbach, a pre-PC, pre-Marxist-revisionist history of Texas written in the early 1960's. He maps the Texans' road to disunion and shows that it wasn't the lemming-drive or fools' parade that Non-Sequitur paints it to be.
All those dogs that don't bark are as important as the ones that did.
Crap! You need to go back and study up on where the rift between the North and South started. Hint (it WASN'T 1860), it started way back after the War for Independence when the Northern Colonies couldn't pay their war debt. They raised tariffs on Southern States to help defray the Northern debt.
Guys, argument ad hominem doesn't win arguments.
Mike's argument that s_w can't type which proves he's mentally incompetent, doesn't exactly ring the same as quoting a document to prove Mike's point.
"Pitchfork" Tillman never made it to the White House.
And there was no term that forbade secession for cause. Q.E.D.
Tell that one to the Oklahoma Cherokees.
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