Confederate Kook Still Smarts Under Civil War "Occupation" (El Rushbo Defends The Union Alert)

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | 12/04/2006 | Rush Limbaugh

[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.

[fortheDeclaration]

Lincoln was not an abolitionist, but he was against slavery.

He believed that if slavery wasn't wrong, nothing was.

Moreover, the South violated the Constitution by refusing to abide by the laws of the land.

Lincoln upheld the Constitution by enforcing those laws.

[fortheDeclaration]

My favorite unreported bit of Civil War history is the fact that most of the leaders of the Confederacy were Democrats. The northerners who sided with the Confederacy were also largely Democrats. And the people who took African-Americans' rights away after Reconstruction were also Democrats.

Amen!

And it was the Northern Democrats who were against Emancipation and wanted to make a peace with the South.

[fortheDeclaration]

the Declaration of Independence about consent of the governed,

Oh, like the Slave owners were giving the slaves their individual rights to be governed?

Under the Declaration, it was the slaves who had a right to revolt, not the South.

[fortheDeclaration]

Before the Civil War, every one was a citizen of their state first and an American second. The Civil War's outcome changed it. Now we're Americans first and only then we are citizens of whatever state we might happen to reside in.

That was not the way it was intended to be.

Washington wanted to known as an American first and then a Virginian.

[fortheDeclaration]

Really, by what standard is he the "greatest"? Greater than the founding fathers? I mean, he saved the union, at a huge cost at the time (which might have been ok.. hard to say it could have been done easyier, but the military effort was totally inept the first two years). During the process, he imprisoned political foes without trial, he imposed an income tax, etc. etc. Most of those things were the basis on which a larger government was built later. Please, I am not a Lincoln basher, but I don't think he is "the greatest" either.

And what do you think was going on in the South?

The South became a centralized Gov't controlled tyranny.

The war did do a great deal to increase the power of the central gov't, but all wars do that.

Much of our socialism today comes from the progressive movement of the 1880's-1920's, including the amendments to allow the income tax, the popular election of Senators.

Also, there was the creation of the Fed in 1913.

[fortheDeclaration]

and our cause

And what is 'our cause'?

To keep other men in bondage?

[fortheDeclaration]

My bigger beef here is with the anti-Southern crowd who think like northeastern liberals--all Southerners are rednecks, all Southerners are racists, etc. And, the crowd that ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of Confederate soldiers were fighting in the defense of their homes from an invading army.

And what relevancy is that to the issue on what the South went to war over, the refusal to allow slavery to be limited.

No doubt most Confederate soldiers were not defending slavery, per se.

Yet, the Confederacy was created to defend slavery and the reason the election of Lincoln was rejected by those initial seceding states was due to the GOP's determination to limit slavery from going into the new terrorities.

[StoneWall Brigade]

My family fought for there homes not for slaves

[fortheDeclaration]

The Good Ole USofA may be involved in another "Civil War". We support Tiawan's independence and China wants it "back". Coming from Abe's viewpoint, who do we support? If Abe was President of China, what would he do?

The Chinese are Communists.

Lincoln was duly elected.

What was the South's complaint?

They didn't like the results of the election.

Those were the rules they agreed to abide by when they joined the Union.

[fortheDeclaration]

In August, 1862 Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, an editor of the New York Tribune, who published an open letter insisting President Lincoln free the slaves immediately. In Lincoln's reply he wrote "If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also so that"(Voices of America, p.138).

Lincoln (despite criticism to the contrary) supported the Constitution and knew that slavery was legal where it existed.

What Lincoln refused to compromise on was it's spread, knowing if slavery could be limited it would eventually die.

The slave owners knew it also that is why they rejected all appeals by Lincoln and rejected the fair results of the election.

Lincoln was against slavery but was also pro-Union,knowing that the United States was man's last best hope for freedom.

[fortheDeclaration]

There may have been some in the South who were fighting to prolong the institution of Slavery, but do you really think anyone in the North was fighting to end it?

I know the black Union soldiers were.

[fortheDeclaration]

There are many liberals on FR who just love the expansion of Federal power, and, therefore, just *adore* Lincoln.

There are many Conservatives who love the United States and love Lincoln for preserving it.

[StoneWall Brigade]

If Lincoln supported the Constitution why did he let the Western Part of Virginia break away and without the sanction of the citizens depriving two-thirds of the state from voting?

[fortheDeclaration]

Yes, he was a great Virginian and a great American, fighting to preserve the Constitutional Republic against the liberal Lincoln, who was fighting to centralize power under a Union.

If you want to see Centralized power, check out the Confederacy under Jeff Davis.

Almost every aspect of the society was 'socialized' and brought under Gov't control.

The North was a far less centralized then was the Confederacy.

[fortheDeclaration]

The Union was not made between the states, it was made between the people.

A State can no more leave the Union, than it can be expelled from it.

Moreover, there is no inherent virtue in state gov't.

The Union was formed to counter the growing abuses of individual freedoms going on in the various states, including hyperinflation, taxes and trade restrictions.

[fortheDeclaration]

Federal troops were in a Federal fort.

They were constitutionally allowed to be there and the South violated the Constitution by firing on the U.S. flag.

[fortheDeclaration]

The 10th amendment says nothing about the states 'right' to secede.

The Bill of Rights are about individual freedoms.

If you want to blame someone for the increase of gov't power since the Civil war, blame the South who started it, not the North, who fought to defend the Constitution and ended slavery as well.

[TigersEye]

ROTFLMAO

[fortheDeclaration]

I've read the 'Real Lincoln'.

It is nonsense.

Read Lincoln's own writings and see what he really believed.

The summary of the anti-Lincoln attacks is that he didn't think blacks were 'equal' to whites, that he wanted to send them overseas, that he was willing to compromise on slavery to preserve the Union, that he was for high tarriffs.

Lincoln did believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that all men had a right self government, a view shared by most of the Founding Fathers.

Thus, Lincoln believed that slavery had to be ended eventually, but wanted to preserve the United States as man's best experiment in self-gov't.

He summed up the reason for the war very eloquently in his Second Inaugural,

One side was willing to go to war to destroy the Union, and one side was willing to accept the war in order to save it-so the war came.

[fortheDeclaration]

Exellent post!