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.
Yes, and kook Irishmen yap about the English- you're Irish aren't you? Gaelic handle?
Here's something else to amuse you. The American government text studied at West Point in the years prior to the WBTS taught that secession was constitutional. The text was authored by a northerner, who certainly knew of the threat by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to secede in 1814. The Hartford Convention, and it wasn't the first threat of secession coming out of New England- just the best known, although apparently not well enough known to have caught your attention.
If there's a clause in the Constitution forbidding secession, please point to it. It's absence is often thought to be the reason that no charges were ever brought against Jeff Davis after the war.
The original rednecks, but people like them 'cuz they seem all 'indigenous' and stuff.
They got over what the English did to them with a good PR plan--mostly Sir Walter Scott.
Yes, much of the South is Scots-Irish and has some of the most authentic Scottish culture outside of Nova Scotia.
Furthermore, southern culture (which I have a soft-spot for) was largely the honor-based Scottish culture imported with the Scottish immigrants.
At a Highland Scottish Festival in Colorado, I met a older black fellow in full highland regalia and talked with him over a scotch. He traced his ancestors: he was a Buchanan by blood--his great, great granddaddy was a Buchanan; G-G Grandma was a slave.... He probably had more Scottish blood than many white folk there and he was proud of his heritage.
The punchline? Greatgreatgrandaddy Buchanan was apparently shipped over to America in bonded servitude after the Highland Clearances....
I like the South; I like Southerners (except for the kooks); I like freedom; I don't like people who hold intergenerational grudges--it's unamerican and kooky.
George Washington of course was a slaveowner. The Royal Governeur of Virginia offered freedom to all slaves who pledged loyalty to the King, and fought for Britain against the rebel Americans.
So, let's see you apply your principle here- or are you going to be one of the Lincoln cult whose principles magically change when it comes to the American founding fathers?
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Wrong Again. Davis didn't invade the North first.
If Wirtz was guilty, then so were the Union Officers that commanded Camp Douglas, Rock Island, Camp Chase, etc.
These men deliberately tried to starve or expose to the elements, the prisoners entrusted to them. Unfortunately, they weren't hung.
And as I have pointed out, their interpretation is HORSE HOCKEY!
Let me suggest that you kindly "bite" our Southern backsides.
If you can't take the heat, then stay out of our kitchen!
It is only a shock if one drops historical context.
When you post Douglass' words do not forget to put them in the correct context and quote them all.
Douglass was a great admirer of Lincoln although at times he thought he was moving too slow on emancipation.
Lincoln could not get ahead of what the people were ready for.
Fact-Lincoln hated slavery.
Fact-Lincoln believed in the rule of law
Fact-Lincoln believed the Constitution gave him the right to limit slavery in the new territories, but not eliminate it where it already existed.
Fact-Lincoln may not have believed that the Negro was his social or political equal but he did believe that the Negro had a right to the fruits of his own labor and self-government.
These are facts that put Lincoln heads and shoulders above any Confederate leader.
And you want to see some real tyranny in action, check out Jeff Davis and the Confederacy.
Many of those jailed were threats, just as the terrorists are today.
Lincoln tried to make sure that military rule was not overused and that civilian rule was kept in place as long as it did not threaten security.
Oh, was it my imagination that you used that word in your analogy to the American Revolution?
Lincoln managed to do what King George III failed to do, put down a rebellion by force.
Yea, I guess my Nazi 'card' trumps your Communist one.
I don't think so, could you give me an example of me rebutting something you did not say.
The 10th Amendment says nothing about secession and no supreme Court decision allows it.
Article V doesn't say a State cannot be expelled.
Using the same logic of the secessionists who justify their violating Art.1 Sec.10, Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
Article V only says that no State can be denied without its consent, deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate'
If the Congress decided that a State was no longer a State, than that Article would not apply.
You see you can't have it both ways.
If a State can leave the Union and violate Art.1, then a State can be kicked out of the Union.
It would just first have its 'statehood' denied.
The Confederates wanted to play the sementics game by claiming that they were not under obligation to obey Art.1, Sec.10 since they were not longer States in the Union.
The Article doesn't consider any State ever out of the Union.
The Constitution was a compact among the People, not the states.
By the way, what do you guys do when you say the pledge of allegiance and come to the part, 'one nation, indivisible', cross your fingers?
Hey, how cool is that! I just popped in to the end of the thread to see the other callers to Rush from occupied territory. Did you get that somewhere or are you naturally talented?
It is just way cool.
The Confederate Constitution writers understood the importance of the preamble and changed theirs to read,
We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity -- invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God -- do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
And as you note in Art.7, it was the ratification of the conventions not the state legislatives that ratified the Constitution.
Madison bypassed the state authority and went to the people of the states themselves.
For more details see the latest work, Madison and the Bill of Rights
Thank you for your thoughtful question.
Slavery was indeed made 'legal' by the Constitution (although the actual word was never used since it was intended that it would someday end)
This was a compromise made with some of the Southern States to form the Union.
However, the spread of slavery was not a given.
It was forbidden in the new Northwest terrotories, thus given the right of the Federal gov't to limit where it could go.
The Founding Fathers believed if they could limits its growth to where it only existed, it would eventually end peacefully, as it had in the North.
Slavery was regarded by most, in the North and South, as an evil to be done away with as quickly and as peacefully as possible.
However, a subtle change occured in the South as the South began to see slavery not as an evil to be ended but a positive good to be spread.
They saw it as a 'property issue and did not see why slavery should be limited anywhere.
This led to the Missouri compromise which allowed slavery to expand and then the Kansas-Nebreska act which Stephen Douglas pushed to allow slavery anywhere it was accepted by the local population.
Lincoln saw this as a threat to what the Founders had intended regarding slavery, its eventual end.
Moreover, he saw that if slavery could expand, it could not be prevented from expanding anywhere it wanted to (which is what the Dred Scott decision supported).
Thus, the nation would be divided half free and half slave and it was either going to all slave or all free, it could no longer survive as it was.
He wanted to put slavery back on the path to its demise by limiting its growth and that was what the Republican Party ran on.
It was not elected to end slavery where it already existed since it was protected by the Constitution.
Lincoln believed our Republican form of Gov't was a model to the world and if it failed, liberty would fail with it.
That is why he would not violate the Constitution by ending slavery where it was legal, nor would he allow the Constitution to be destroyed by states who rejected a valid election decision.
If any election could be rejected because the results did not turn out as we like them, we would have anarchy and self-government would fail.
It was either ballots or bullets.
As the war progressed, Lincoln saw that slavery had to be dealt with and thus did so.
The best sources of this view are found in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
I hope this answered your question, even though it was a bit long.
Oh no doubt there were pleny of those, but there were also plenty of Southerners who had no intention of changing their views
Meanwhile, Southern states readmittance constitutions outraged the Radicals. South Carolina, for example, rather than declaring the ordiances of secession null and void, merely repealed them, essentially acting as they had been legimate when issued. In addition, rather than abolish slavery in the state constitution, the former Confederates merely noted that slavery had already been abolished by the United States govenment, and Texas and Mississippi refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment....(A Patriots History of the United States,p.362-63)
Wrong, when they joined the Union they agreed to Art.1 Sec.10.
They were in violation of that Article and in rebellion.
There was never a retained right to leave that Union which was made between the People.
One nation-indivisible.
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