Posted on 07/04/2011 6:57:54 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln found the precise words to describe Americas dire situation. Here they are. Hear them, and savor them. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicatewe cannot consecratewe cannot hallowthis ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before usthat from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotionthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
..
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Not as much as you need to read Elliott.
No they don't.
Yes, they do. When Madison explained the reason for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years to the Virginia ratification convention, he said that it was because it was the only way that South Carolina and Georgia would agree to consider the Constitution. Was he lying?
Hah!
My mom has that picture on her fridge! ;-)
Yes, there was debate over whether a majority or a super-majority would be required to pass any commerce bill, but Hamilton says that the compromise involved the 3/5th clause, not the extension of the slave trade.
To your post #198 - Waste of bandwidth.
Still not getting it, eh?
Yes, they do. When Madison explained the reason for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years to the Virginia ratification convention, he said that it was because it was the only way that South Carolina and Georgia would agree to consider the Constitution. Was he lying?
No they don't. Read what I've posted.
All of your worthless posts are waste of bandwidth. Pi$$ off.
That was the point. :-)
So you are saying that those who don’t love Lincoln are DUmmies? LOLOLOLOLOL! You post is so crammed full of BS.
You sound seriesly pissed. Go clam yourself down and don’t let your brains get so scarmabled... :-)
*frothing at the mouth* "You don't like lincoln! You must be DUmmies! *gnashing teeth* "Your stay here will be short!"
So lame.
Nice spelling, dip$hit. You and your twinkie-toed little friend need to get a room, seriously.
Nice spelling, dip$hit. You and your twinkie-toed little friend need to get a room, seriously.
Those are FReeper-isms. I'm surprised you didn't know that, considering how long you have been here. ;-) lol. Maybe you were just too pissed to notice. You need to really calm down dude.
This "virtual monopoly" that you speak of? Really not that amazing a deal. Under the Hamilton tariff, goods brought to American ports in American ships got a 10% break on the tariff, and tariff rates ran 5-10%. So basically it was a break of between half a percent and one percent on the total cost of goods.
If the South was receiving all that money and goods, then what exactly explains the oppressive poverty throughout while the North was finding their populations increasingly well off?
Because a plantation economy built on slave labor enriches a very few people at the top of the pyramid while stultifying economic development in other areas. Or, as Louis Wigfall told a British reporter,
We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no citieswe dont want them, have no literaturewe dont need any yet. We have no presswe are glad of it. We do not require a press, because we go out and discuss all public questions from the stump with our people. We have no commercial marineno navywe dont want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures: we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides.
But that's not at all the same as saying that Americans monopolized the slave trade. Having a larger market share than your competitor does not equate to a monopoly.
After the revolution, the State of Rhode Island alone controlled between 60 and 90 percent of the U.S. trade in African slaves. This is not to even mention the other New England states. For all practical purposes, they controlled the market.
No contradiction at all. Southern soldiers fought to maintain the social and economic status quo, despite the fact that it was the same system that, as you say, kept many of them in oppressive poverty by blocking the development of a more diverse economy. Credit it to skillful propaganda by the southern political elite and the “mudsill” theory of society.
Which was small potatoes compared to the rest of the slave trade. In the ten year period from 1801-1810, the peak of the post-Revolution slave trade to the US, less than 10% of slaves taken from Africa were brought to the US, and US slavers were barely a presence in the much larger slave markets of the Caribbean and Brazil.
Of course, there wouldn't have been any slave trade to the US at all if there weren't willing buyers standing on the docks of Charleston.
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.