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 ...
Yes. They were a minority without redress of greivances, without representation, without means to create needed laws, without having received protection from capricious laws and which had been granted for 130 years an autonomy which the King had stripped away. The founding fathers had, indeed, foresaw the possibility that their own government which they created could grow into such monstrous abuse, which is why they reserved the right to keep and bear arms. They also, however, granted the government the means to put down such insurrection be it poorly based. What abuse had take place to justify such insurrection as occurred in the Confederacy? What application for the redress of grievances had the Confederacy made and been denied? What Constitutional means of addressing such grievances had been exhausted? None.
After all, Let's see what got those colonists so uppity:
"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.In contrast, Washington called defense of the Constitution such a sacred obligation precisely because it was a protection against such tyranny. So why did the South rebel?He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
The dirty truth is that the institution of slavery had gotten out of control. Blacks were becoming the majority; that is why the Confederacy's Constitution, while granting slaveholders unlimited rights to any form of torture and murder of blacks also prohibited the importation of new slaves. The economic institution of slavery was faltering, and the Western expansion threatened to undermine it altogether. The free farmers of the West were far more productive than the plantations; only if slave plantations could be instituted in the West could the South compete.
Unfortunately, through brutal terror, the South maintained after the war what it could not maintain through lawfulness. The South's economy collapsed, and for a hundred years, despite surviving on the teat of the North's robust economy, the South was doomed to poverty.
Funny, without the South, the North would have already devolved into a collective socialist country at the least, and a fully communist one at the most. Who denies that? You?
"I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the Federal branch of the government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their powers.
The South might well be forced into a choice between the dissolution of the Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation. But in the meanwhile, the States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; to denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms, to protest them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments . . . ." - - Thomas Jefferson
Hmm, seems to me that the Confederacy was a demonic, racist government bent on enslaving people (to quote David) "FOREVER." But wait . . . it gets better (worse?): Richard Bensel, a Libertarian political scientist, compared the wartime Union under the hated Lincoln and the Confederacy, that bastion of rights and liberties, and found that . . . Ta DAAA: in over 150 specific areas, including taxes, confiscation, violations of habeaus corpus, judicial review, and others, the Confederacy permitted FEWER civil rights for whites and engaged in far more civil rights violations . . . again, for whites.
Well in the first place they did not 'temporarily cede' it. It was deeded to the government free and clear by an 1836 act of the South Carolina legislature. The state had no legal claims to it, and constitutionally Sumter could only be given back to South Carolina through an act of Congress. Attacking it as an act of armed rebellion.
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.
Nonsense. Attempting to starve the forts into surrender before resorting to bombardment in order to illegally acquire posession were the acts of war.
Being in control of the machete of power i care not for the legal constitutional limits which I and my cronies get to “interpret”.
Yeah, who gives a damn about that silly old Constitution anyway right? </sarcasm>
As already established the Federal Government has no constitutionally enumerated authority to deny peaceful secession/revolution of the States.
Already established? By who? Because you said so? The Supreme Court already ruled that secession as practiced by the Southern states was illegal. The fact that you may disagree with them is irrelevant.
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.
And Orwell had you pegged in "Animal Farm". Your "all states are equal but some states are more equal than other's" stand fits right in with his book.
Except maybe the fact that you can’t see the truth when its staring you in the face.
I haven't seen much yet that would lead me to believe I'll find the truth in any of your posts.
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.
Every action of the Federal Government and every Supreme Court decision on the subject supported the South's right of posession of their property, and they did everything within their power to support the South in that area to the point of trampling all over the rights of the free states to govern their own affairs. The South had no reason to be dissatisfied with the actions of the federal government, and no valid reason to rebel against it.
And being relieved of that obligation after secession...
The government did not relinquish that obligation until slavery was finally ended in all states via the 13th Amendment.
It's not for you to accept any state(s) reason for declaring sovereignty. Unless you live in that state your opinion means squat. You also forget one thing, YANKEES SUCK. IMO The idea of separation from them is so enticing, it's worth anything to obtain that goal. I don't think I am alone in this. All of you neo Yankees assume that we(the collective body politic) likes the Federal leviathan of Lincoln's creation, the North did the country a favor. That line of thinking is plain wrongheaded, arrogant and highlights the differences. Like Gen. Hill said refering to the North and South "We are just different people".
“In the terms you chose, racism, perhaps that’s correct.”
Actually, I meant in terms of preservation of the Union. Jefferson Davis quite obviously was very comfortable with the notion of secession, whereas Lincoln never was. That difference has far more historical consequence than any more minor differences they may have had about blacks.
Really, that's funny. Seems to me that during the entire time I described, the South sent an unbroken string of Democrats to Congress. And without all those black refugees from the South, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and all those states would be deep red. That's right... the white vote in the North is solidly Republican, and always has been. And gee, why were all those black refugees so distrusting of federal noninterference?
Let's look at all those Western states. How do people in Wyoming and even Arizona talk? Do they have drawls? No, they talk like Northerners. Because they (mostly) were Northerners. And how do they vote? Conservative.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.
>> And without all those black refugees from the South, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and all those states would be deep red. That’s right... the white vote in the North is solidly Republican, and always has been. <<
Well, come to think of it, there’s always Vermont. The North has Vermont; the South has Austin. Fortunately, Austin didn’t get two senators.
No Lincoln wasn't. He believed that secession of any kind was illegal, which I disagree with. I think that it's obvious that the founders meant to allow secession with the consent of the impacted parties. But the idea of unilateral secession is not supported anywhere in the Constitution. That is the path Davis chose and that was an illegal path which, when coupled with the war he chose to start, led to the death and destruction which followed.
BINGO! Read the NINTH and TENTH AMENDMENTS. Then, read them AGAIN.
BTW: Several states, in the instrument by which they ratified the Constitution, explicitly retained the right to secede--and the other states raised no objection.
If the Constitution had contained a provision prohibiting secession, it would have constituted a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence.
Any state has the right to secede, and to do so according to whatever process THE STATE deems proper. The notion that the federal government, from which the state is separating itself, has the authority to judge, question, evaluate, or veto the decision is absurd.
I repeat: Roe v. Wade, by purporting that the Constitution prohibits the states from outlawing homicide, made the U.S. Government an illegitimate government. Since all fifty state governments have acquiesced in that crime, they, too, are illegitimate. They continue as dead simulacra of governments because life is tolerable for everyone except those who are being murdered. But the putrescence of the bloating corpses of these defunct governments continues apace. The Obama Administration is merely the latest glob of stinking sputum to be coughed up by the Democratic Party as it gleefully splashes about in the blood of its millions of offerings to Satan.
Would it surprise you that if secession was already illegal and unconstitutional congress would never need to pass anti-secession legislation?
Well congress did in fact try to pass anti-secession legislation and it was soundly rejected(thank God). Skip down to article 8 in the Senate records below. Like Beck said look at original sources:
I would like to thank idabilly for finding this gem. You won't read this in any text book. 
Absolutely I agree.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the states from outlawing homicide. Roe is a Satanic fraud of the highest order.
Absolutely I agree.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the states from outlawing homicide. Roe is a Satanic fraud of the highest order.
Absolutely I agree.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits the states from outlawing homicide. Roe is a Satanic fraud of the highest order.
If a right to alter or abolish the government is inalienable—as the passage you cite says, (and as the Declaration says)—then the ratification of the U.S. Constitution can only leave that right UNTOUCHED!
You have cut off your legs and then attempted to run a sprint.
Under this Constitution, as originally adopted and as it now exists, no State has the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and this Constitution, and laws passed in pursuance of it's delegated powers, are the supreme law of the land, anything contained in any Constitution,ordinance, or act of any State to the contrary not-withstanding.
Yeas 18 Nays 28
Excellent perspective!
My efforts to suggest that the south might have had the moral authority in their quest had they sought secession legally are typically met with a “We don’t have to if we feeeeeeeeel that we are in the right to secede at any time and for any reason”.
Sound familiar?
Benjamin F. Wade, wanted nothing to do with free blacks. He proclaimed this below to Congress. Mr. Wade was one of your radicals...
"to hear no more about Negro equality or any of that kind. Sir, we shall be as glad to rid ourselves of these people, if we can do it consistently with justice, as anybody else."
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