Posted on 09/07/2010 12:43:35 PM PDT by gjmerits
The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination - that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at wolvesofliberty.com ...
Even more narrowly, the Confederate aim was only for the benefit of SOME of the white folks, only the ones who owned slaves and had power and wealth. The poor folks were despised cannon fodder. The book "Bitterly Divided" by Professor David Williams shines the light on the Confederate war against their so-called "own people" both black and white.
I despise the Roe decision also, but if we don't have the sentiment of the nation enough to overturn it within the Constitution, there is no way that a secession over the issue could be carried to success. The problem is with the ttitudes of the people, not the Constitution.
ttitudes=attitudes
The path was set by Hamilton before the ink even dried on the Constitution. Men of evil intent desire wealth and power over their fellows. Period. The problem has always been how to check them. The Constitution clearly did not.
And there you have it. While some might enjoy fishing, others golf, and many simply wanting to get together with friends & family for a little football, there is a very small number who seek only to amass power over others.
We may wish to believe this isn’t so, that all people have some type of inherent goodness and sociability, but it’s a lie. The most obvious of these psychopaths are common criminals, yet the same strain runs through others more crafty & cunning.
While patriots were still fighting the British for independence, you can be assured that some were already gaming potential outcomes. As the poster above noted, Hamilton already had it all figured out before the ink was even dry.
Lincoln may have been acting under what he believed were noble pretenses; so to Confederates. However, it mattered not a whit to those who were hedged regardless of the outcome(s).
The bottom line is that the Constitution was simply not up to the job. We now find ourselves in a situation beyond belief, where a criminal syndicate is openly acting against the citizens.”
Well said. I have nothing to add.
This is disproven by your boy, Sherman:
Dear Brother:.....It is about time the North understood the truth. That the entire South, man, woman and child are against us, armed and determined. It will call for a million men for several years to put them down. They are more confident than ever, none seem to doubt their independence, but some hope to conquer the northwest. My opinion is there never can be peace and we must fight it out.
Actions speak louder than words and Sherman’s actions made my ancestors’ part of the South safer.
Ping
You can say the “Civil War” was about slavery all you like but the fact remains Nether the Union soldiers nor Lincoln himself had any intention of ending slavery as the objective the war.
The Civil War is about slavery because the preservation and extension of slavery is why the South chose to start the war.
Any state has the right to secedeNo state has the authority to secede unilaterally.
“Their slaves weren’t men or people so of course they couldn’t govern themselves, right?”
“Their” slaves were considered no differently than the slaves in the north...and those that were in the South as states of the Union. Your comment is devoid of logic and has no relevance.
You are all over the place.
“For what it’s worth, attempting to leave the Union when a national election doesn’t go the way you want doesn’t sound like a core democratic principle to many.”
It’s not a core principle of democracy...it’s a core principle of freedom.
But if you feel threatened by a sixteen-year-old girl who was only four feet eight inches tall, I'm not sure there is much I can do for you.
I never suspected your great great great grandmother as being the Confederate who murdered my Southern ancestor in Northwest Georgia.
Part of the exhibit is the Henry repeating rifle that Buford carried at Gettysburg. It has been in his family's private possession since his death in December 1863 and was temporarily loaned to the museum for this exhibit.
Materially, they raided federal armories. Very few home-made cannon saw action at First Bull Run.
Which state has authority to deny secession?
The temporary exhibit at the Perryville Battlefield Museum I mentioned to some others in comment #115 also has a detailed look at the guerilla fighting that took place here in Kentucky, including a pistol carried by "Sue Mundy", the infamous Confederate guerilla.
A number of these outlaws did not fight for either side of the war, but merely used it as an excuse to rob, pillage, and murder.
“I’m with Lincoln. You use your authority which he had to keep the Union together. You don’t allow a few rich gentry to destroy the greatest promise on earth because they wanted to keep a dying economic system based on an immoral trade in human beings.”
What is that “greatest promise on earth” if it is not the right of men to govern themselves, rather then be governed by distant governments that disregard the limits of their own constitution.
Lincoln himself destroyed that promise, it doesn’t matter. He saved the union bey distorting everything it stood for. he freed the slaves by enslaving everyone else to perpetual union with their lawless government.
Most the men who fought for both sides who brave men who honorably did what their conscience told them. But both sides had their bad element. And both bad elements tended to make themselves scarce when real fighting was to be done.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.