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 ...
>> Funny how those of your particular stripe always just automatically assume that only YOU can properly read and interpret plain English text. <<
Well, it helps when certain portions of the text aren’t conveniently left out, without an elision, like those quotes from St. George.
The Yankees SO loved the Union and detested slavery that they enslaved the entire South. And yet...THEY and their hero Lincoln are remembered for “freeing the slaves.”
The one bit of logic that cannot be diluted with rhetoric.
Correction-that should read the Confederates fought for the right of white people to govern themselves.
Yes, they left a weaker Articles to form a more perfect Union, which meant stronger, not weaker.
No, secession wasn’t one of the ‘rights’ left to the States, that is why it wasn’t stated or anything put into the Constitution to deal with a State leaving.
No mien Fuhrer, you are wrong. Even King George III knew that the 13 colonies were sovereign FROM EACH OTHER. No, your kind was eliminated in 1945, but I see some ideas, however misguided, live on unfortunately.
The one who has been brainwashed is you, who have bought into the neo-confederate lie.
The same human right the slaves had but the Confederates denied to them..
Sorry friend, that right was denied to them by the Union too. It was your Union, and it's tyrant - disHonest Abe, that wanted this:
No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State
Here is Lincoln, responding to this proposed Amendment: "I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
Their complaint is that they were afraid that slavery might be ended.
I believe the millions of Blacks being held against their will had a better complaint than did the Confederates.
“Why did the South feel the need to initiate a war in order to gain possession of Fort Sumter? Was it worth it in the end?”
If the North Felt that it had to maintain its forts in southern territory posed to launch attacks upon the south then what good is southern independents under the ever waiting and ready sword of the north? there is a reason that upon independents the south regained clam to the land it had temporary ceded to the central government for its protection.
The forts were asked to leave, most of them did, but a few of them did not. In the end it was the matter of a northern invasion to resupply them forts which forced the hand of the south.
“Actually it does. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to call up the militia to suppress insurrections. “
Ill remind you of that next time you do something that diseases me. Being in control of the machete of power i care not for the legal constitutional limits which I and my cronies get to “interpret”. So serve my ever whim or die as i uses the military force to crush and kill you for daring to “insurrect” against my authority.
Who is insurrection against what authority? As already established the Federal Government has no constitutionally enumerated authority to deny peaceful secession/revolution of the States. Therefore if such an act is to be regarded as an insurrection then any act may be regarded as an insurrection.
Perhaps the radifyers of the Constitution were Mad in creating an ingenious system of domination and enslavement.
http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed28.htm
“Unilateral secession says that only the seceding states have any Constitutional protections and that the remaining states have none. That idea is ridiculous, and is one reason why the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional in 1869.”
If you have a right to rule me(the only thing you lose in my withdraw) then I have a right to rule and enslave you equally. If you beleive that you must also accept the other teachings of Marxism. Marx sure loved Lincoln And the the “Civil War”:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/us-civil-war/index.htm
“There is nothing funny about the truth.”
Except maybe the fact that you can’t see the truth when its staring you in the face.
“
>>”It would not and could not preserve slavery, it would >>only firmly relieved the north of their (ignored and >>resisted) constitutional obligation to return escaped >>slaves. “
Nonsense. Congress went above and beyond the call to protect slavery, to the point where they freely trampled on the rights of the non-slave states. (Where were Southern calls for ‘states rights’ when that happened?) Every Supreme Court decision under the Taney court came down squarely on the side of slave owners. The government did all the South could have expected, and more, to protect slaves and return runaways. “
Ok... what does this response have to do with what i said about the northern States being obligated under the Constitution to return escaped slaves. And being relieved of that obligation after secession...
Thus giving them what they claimed to want if they just let the south go.
Lincoln was asked to compromise regarding the slave issue to deal with the secession crises, and he agreed to let the South know that he had no intention of doing anything that would affect slavery in their states.
He always stated he had no Constitutional right to do so, and the amendement would be meaningless anyway.
What he wouldn't compromise on was the expansion of slavery.
So, once again, what was the Confederate gripe about?
They wanted the right to expand slavery into new states.
That was their chief complaint and they knew that Lincoln was elected to stop just that.
Amazing how a little context will clear up falsehoods.
And it was the confederacy that held millions of people in bondage due to their race, which sounds very Nazi like to me.
How can the States voluntarily surrender their “authority to secede” when that authority was prohibited them by the British Empire who was still in 1777(the time of the verticals) waging war upon them to enforce their laws again secession?They ratified the Articles of Confederation:
Article XIII. Every State shall abide by the determination of the united States in congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
LOL!
And in the Articles of Confederation, they gave up all rights to act as independent nations-forever.
Bingo!
We have a winner!
That is why the Confederacy went to war with the Union.
I predict one day, people of your ilk, won't be laughing anymore.
Sit down....son, Saint Lincoln would like a few words..
“Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home—may find some spot where they can better their condition—where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am in favor of this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over.
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ...
“Why should people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between anyother two races. Whether it is right or wrong, I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while we suffer from your presence. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated.”
Even the best made chains eventually rust and crumble....
If the Confederacy had wanted a peaceful secession, they could have had one. They preferred war.
That is just plain silly.
If they had simply held their positions, and waited things out, the secession would very likely have been accepted. If it had been ratified by Congress, there'd have been nothing much Lincoln could have done.
But the South didn't wait. They attacked Fort Sumter, knowing it would trigger a war, because they knew that only war would convince Virgina and North Carolina to secede.
The South had a choice between a peaceful secession and a Confederacy of seven states, or war and a Confederacy of eleven states. They chose the latter.
In the words of William Tecumseh Sherman, "War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."
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