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.

[Non-Sequitur]

Given that slavery was allowed to exist in the United States and given that the war was fought to preserve the union rather than to free slaves -- so were all the leaders in the north.

No disagreement there. But why criticize Lincoln for behaviors that all were guilty of?

[the OlLine Rebel]

The greatest president, ever, bar none, was WASHINGTON. The greatest man ever.

Lincoln was at best so-so. Highly overrated, in any case.

Sorry, I'm late to this, but really hate the overrating of Lincoln.

[Moose4]

Yep. I don't deny that. So was Grant. So were a majority of people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line during the WBTS. That's what I'm saying--you can't judge 1860s men by 2000s standards.

Somebody else on this thread probably said it best--Lincoln may have been anti-slavery, but he wasn't pro-equality for black people. He had the same patronizing view of them that was a majority worldview in the 1860s, that they were an inferior race. And as he himself stated, slavery wasn't the primary issue with him in the early part of the war. He was more than willing to leave blacks in the South enslaved--for the moment--to reunite the Union.

Maybe he would've then tried to free them some other way, had the South come back to the fold in 1861 or 1862. But until it became politically expedient in 1863, emancipation was NOT his primary aim. That's one thing that rankles me about the Cult of Lincoln--he didn't enter into the WBTS as some grand abolitionist crusade to break the chains of black people and grant them total equality. Abe Lincoln wasn't Frederick Douglass. All Lincoln wanted to do was to keep the country together, and then maybe he could figure out a way to reduce or eliminate slavery.

I'm still of the opinion that slavery would have collapsed in the South inside of fifty years, maybe sooner. The Southern economy couldn't have stayed an agrarian plantation economy much longer, and industrialization would've sounded the death knell of plantation slavery. Now, would some sort of industrial slavery tried to rise up in its place? I doubt it, but maybe. We'll never know.

}:-)4

[Moose4]

I've said it before and I'll say it again--secession was stupid. As much as I believe that the right for a state to secede exists in the Constitution, I'll also admit that the Confederate states seceding was a mistake of the highest order (obviously). And, y'know, I don't doubt that a lot of the plantation owner aristocracy was feeling threatened economically because they could see the writing on the wall for their slave-based agrarian economy, as the country industralized. (The WBTS was a lot more about economics and political power than it was about morality, on both sides--something that gets ignored nowadays.)

I'm not talking about their view. I'm talking about Johnny Reb, the poor sod from Virginia or South Carolina or Texas or wherever who put on the gray or butternut and shouldered a rifle. You can call it propaganda if you want, but they were fighting, as they saw it, to defend their homes from an invading army. Remember, in the 1860s, one's loyalty was more to one's locality and state than to this overarching thing we call the United States. Virginian first, American second. Call it what you like, but from their standpoint, the Union WAS an invading army.

}:-)4

[Lee'sGhost]

You may be right, but I didn't take it as a criticism but rather the stating of a fact that the original poster did not acknowledge.

[Moose4]

Grant tactically lost almost every engagement with Lee, but unlike the generals before him, he kept going.

And sometimes, that is exactly the quality you need in a general--someone who may not be #1 in his class, or a tactical genius, but one who is willing to keep pushing because he knows he's going to win.

That's why it's risky to say that Grant was "better" than Lee, or Montgomery was "better" than Rommel, or the reverse. Although you must admit, it's a fascinating thought exercise...swap Lee and Grant in early 1864. Give Lee the burgeoning power of the Army of the Potomac, and give Grant the waning but still formidable power of the Army of Northern Virginia, and see what happens.

}:-)4

[Lee'sGhost]

Well said.

[Truthsearcher]

Not to mention that the expansionist Federal government is much less brought about by Lincoln and much more brought about the the U.S. Supreme Court through their bizarre and liberal interpretations of the Commerce Clause.

[jan in Colorado]

Southern conservatives ...

What about Western conservatives?

[swain_forkbeard]

Yours is a reasonable argument but not definitive. So the law of the land, including States which may wish to secede, is the Constitution. So what does the Constitution say about secession?

[LexBaird]

...plainly illegal garrison at Ft. Sumpter.

How so? Because S. Carolina demanded possession? That demand was plainly unconstitutional. Article I, Sec. 8 states that the Federal Government has the power "to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings..."

Here is a law passed by the State government of S. Carolina. Please make careful notice of the date:
"Committee on Federal Relations In the House of Representatives, December 31st, 1836

        "The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor's message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution:

        "Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued under the authority of this State, or any officer thereof, shall and may be served and executed upon the same, and any person there being who may be implicated by law; and that the said land, site and structures enumerated, shall be forever exempt from liability to pay any tax to this state.

        "Also resolved: That the State shall extinguish the claim, if any valid claim there be, of any individuals under the authority of this State, to the land hereby ceded.

        "Also resolved, That the Attorney-General be instructed to investigate the claims of Wm. Laval and others to the site of Fort Sumter, and adjacent land contiguous thereto; and if he shall be of the opinion that these parties have a legal title to the said land, that Generals Hamilton and Hayne and James L. Pringle, Thomas Bennett and Ker. Boyce, Esquires, be appointed Commissioners on behalf of the State, to appraise the value thereof. If the Attorney-General should be of the opinion that the said title is not legal and valid, that he proceed by seire facius of other proper legal proceedings to have the same avoided; and that the Attorney-General and the said Commissioners report to the Legislature at its next session.

        "Resolved, That this House to agree. Ordered that it be sent to the Senate for concurrence. By order of the House:
"T. W. Glover, C. H. R." "In Senate, December 21st, 1836

"Resolved, that the Senate do concur. Ordered that it be returned to the House of Representatives, By order:
Jacob Warly, C. S.

[swain_forkbeard]

I was just wondering what the Constitution says about secession by a State.

[StoneWall Brigade]

There at least 3,000 blacks fully Armed Blacks in the StoneWall Brigade in 1862

[Gondring]

What about Western conservatives?

I was simply quoting stainlessbanner, but IMHO, any conservatives need to find or found a party that fights for their beliefs, not just slower liberalism.

Many people fail to realize that most of New York State is closer in character to the rural South than it is to urban New York City, so I include Northern conservatives in there, too.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

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.

Now the North is to blame for Jim Crow laws too?

[Gondring]

That's exactly why the Virginia and New York statements were in there...confirming the sovereignty of the individual states, should they feel the Federal government was usurping their power.

Based on your continued posts containing abundant yet incomplete information, I understand now that you are arguing out of willful maliciousness, and support for centralized government and tyranny, rather than out of ignorance. That's bothersome, and you might find closer companionship at a place like DU, where such views are encouraged. BTW, I'm not using the FR corollary of Godwin...I mean it most seriously.

[Gondring]

The Constitution is irrelevant for foreign annexations. It doesn't allow the United States to demand access to land that's not within the United States.

[Gondring]

There are many letters, speeches, etc that at least for me illustrates the difficulties of always looking to the "meaning" of some aspect of the Constitution.

We share common ground on this point, at least! :-)

[driftless2]

"secession"

Then the crux of the matter is whether states have the right to secede. If they had the right then, they have the right now. Then my state of Wisconsin has the right to secede at this time if a majority of our idiotic state legislators decide that the rest of the country covets our cheese and wishes to tax it excessively. That's not a very good reason for secession. But any one would be valid under your assertion. My question to you is how could the state of Wisconsin be a sovereign state and have the right to secede when it was made a state by the existing United States in 1848. Why in the world would the federal government create a supposedly sovereign country inside its borders? It's ludicrous to even think of. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Furthermore if any of our ridiculous state legislators decided to secede and they got enough citizens to support them, I'd favor hanging for all of them and I'd be in the crowd at the hanging cheering the event. Especially if their decision cost lives. Which if they fought like the southern states did, it would.

[LexBaird]

Fort Sumter was a fort for the collection of tariffs. Tariffs were the main source of income for the federal government. The Confederacy intended to set itself up as a free trade zone, and this would have siphoned off commerce from northern ports.

True politician that he was, Lincoln had no intention of seeing his tax money vanish along with some yahoos in Charleston. So even if Charleston thought it was free of the Union, he intended to continue to collect money from all the trade coming into that Confederate port.

Assuming this spin is the "truth", what you are arguing is that the South was trying to illegally usurp Federal powers:
"Article I, Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,..."

States are not allowed to set up "free trade zones". If that is what the South was trying to do, they were in the wrong: such tariffs must be uniform throughout the U.S.