Posted on 07/04/2011 6:57:54 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
In his Gettysburg Address, …… Abraham Lincoln found the precise words to describe America’s 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 dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this 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 us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that 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 ...
Sovereignty is always derived from the people. The States were sovereign because of the sovereign authority they received from their citizens. Note that it says "the powers granted under the constitution being derived from the People..." How was the power granted? From each person individually? No. The people granted the government power through their representatives the States. The States, acting for their people delegated power to the federal government and thus the States, again acting for their people, can also resume the delegated powers.
I agree. Slavery was an issue for some folks, but it was not what the whole war was about anymore that tea taxes being what the whole American War for Independence was about.
By the way, the Constitution also says, “We the People”, but did the people individually create the Federal government? Was their a popular vote on whether to accpet the new government? No. Again, the term ‘people’ is used when in reality the federal government was created by the States. The States represented their people, but the federal govenrment was still a creation of the States. There was no one American people voting on the constitution.
Ahh, a man of reason. Slavery is the great red herring. You can even see it in this thread. Those who want to confound us love this debate. It keeps the people from focusing on the real issue.
The seccesionists were defending the right principle, that of the independence of the States as the bulwark against a concentration of power in the national government. But they were forced to fight over the wrong issue, that being the promulgation of slavery into the new territories. It undermined their cause in the 1860s just as it does today as evidenced by the discourse on this thread.
What we should all be focussed on is the now unlimited national government that is driving us to ruin, and the mechanism the Founders of the Republic designed to prevent this. And it wasn't the "checks and balances" present in the Constitution. It was the supremacy of the States over the national government. For the Founders knew that power dispersed was power constrained. It was Lincoln and his army who destroyed this system and we are all the poorer for it today.
There was also huge regions of general loyalty to the Union. West Virginia, East Tennessee, Northern Georgia and Northern Alabama would have never left the Union had their wishes been respected. Plus there were still substantial numbers of loyal citizens in the Deep South also. That is the most honorable explanation of what would otherwise be an ignominious collapse of the Confederacy. While the Confederacy itself fought hard, the South as a whole didn't because the South as a whole was never convinced that the Confederacy was worth the fight or the sacrifice.
I highly recommend "Bitterly Divided" by David Williams as a thorough debunking of the myth of the Solid South.
If you ever bothered reading the Federalist Papers, you’d see the case for being citizens of an American nation over citizens of individual states was thoroughly addressed.
"The Democrat party is the party of slavery, sedition, subversion, socialism and surrender."
I think we disagree on whether the secessionists were fighting over the right principle, as I believe their most important principle, the Cornerstone of the CSA, was the great truth that subhuman black men are born to be chattel slaves for all eternity for ubermensch white men.
Otherwise, I more or less agree with the rest of what you say, except that those of you who obsess about the state governments as being our salvation I suspect have a remarkably rosy and unjustified view of state government. Those where I’ve lived in general have governments that are more corrupt than the feds, if less dangerous to liberty due to smaller compass.
Are these local governments really more corrupt than the national government or do they just seem that way because they are so petty and ridiculous in their corruption? Stated another way, are you really arguring that corruption on the scale we saw in the recent financial crisis and its aftermath is really less dangerous than say the Blago spectacle?
You would seem to underestimate the importance of the latter part of your observation to a surprisingly large and dangerous degree. But on this we can perhaps agree to disagree.
My point is that if we expect state legislators to be our great defenders against an overweening federal government I contend we are putting our trust in a very weak reed.
This is just plain wrong. The fact of the matter is that the 19th century view of the black man in both the Northern and the Southern States was largely the same and indistinguishable from the view in both regions in the 18th century at the time of the Founding. Lincoln's view was that the slaves should be freed and deported, a view largely the same as that of say Jefferson. So to argue for the nobility of the Northern invasion as some idealistic quest to free the black slaves based on some 20th century view of equality among the races is just foolishness. This is a fairy tale on a par with George Washington and the Cherry Tree, though not as benign.
The view of the descendents of the slaves has been largely ignored in this debate so let me share my opinion. Generalities are mostly wrong and dangerous. But I'll take a flier here on the odd chance that you can discern my meaning.
Of all the groups in America, the descendents of the slaves are unique in that they are the only group whose forebearers did not come to America voluntarily. This affects fundamentally their view of the country in general and the government and its role in particular.
People like the folks here at Free Republic see the law in general and the Constituition in particular as protecting them from the predations of government. But the descendents of the slaves see the government as protecting them from the predations of their neighbors. There is all too much truth in their view.
But the fact that the statists can exploit the injustices suffered by the descendents of the slaves to suit their own ends means nothing. The destruction of American liberty does not serve the interests of the descendents of the slaves or any other group. It only serves the interests of those who believe they will assume power.
The State and Local governments are a weak reed indeed. And that is oddly the point. Their capacity to disrupt the affairs of the citizens is limited by the scope of their power. Stated another way, in round numbers the capacity of any State Legislature to wreak havoc on the nation as a whole is roughly 1/50 that of the Congress. And if they so wreak, there are 49 other States eager to exploit their foolishness.
When I said there was patriotec ferver all over the South I did not mean that every single person in the entire South approved of secession. One can also say there was patriotic fervor all over the colonies without meaning that every single colonist was for independence.
“I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars:
THE UTILITY OF THE UNION TO YOUR POLITICAL PROSPERITY THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE PRESENT CONFEDERATION TO PRESERVE THAT UNION THE NECESSITY OF A GOVERNMENT AT LEAST EQUALLY ENERGETIC WITH THE ONE PROPOSED, TO THE ATTAINMENT OF THIS OBJECT THE CONFORMITY OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION TO THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT ITS ANALOGY TO YOUR OWN STATE CONSTITUTION and lastly, THE ADDITIONAL SECURITY WHICH ITS ADOPTION WILL AFFORD TO THE PRESERVATION OF THAT SPECIES OF GOVERNMENT, TO LIBERTY, AND TO PROPERTY.
It may perhaps be thought superfluous to offer arguments to prove the utility of the UNION, a point, no doubt, deeply engraved on the hearts of the great body of the people in every State, and one, which it may be imagined, has no adversaries. But the fact is, that we already hear it whispered in the private circles of those who oppose the new Constitution, that the thirteen States are of too great extent for any general system, and that we must of necessity resort to separate confederacies of distinct portions of the whole.1 This doctrine will, in all probability, be gradually propagated, till it has votaries enough to countenance an open avowal of it. For nothing can be more evident, to those who are able to take an enlarged view of the subject, than the alternative of an adoption of the new Constitution or a dismemberment of the Union. It will therefore be of use to begin by examining the advantages of that Union, the certain evils, and the probable dangers, to which every State will be exposed from its dissolution. This shall accordingly constitute the subject of my next address.” - PUBLIUS.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed01.asp
You are quite correct about Jefferson, who actually had the lovely idea of confiscating all black children from their parents and deporting them, presumably to die in Africa.
Lincoln, in common with a great many men of his time, was in favor of colonization because he saw no way for freed blacks to fit into white society without massive problems. Since we're still having this discussion a century and a half later, it's difficult to claim he wasn't entirely correct in this view.
However, I am unaware of any evidence Lincoln ever pushed for colonization that was other than voluntary. While colonization was always a pipedream, primarily because of the logistics and expense involved, there is nothing inherently immoral with promoting voluntary colonization.
I presume you can see a difference between Stephens' and CSA's eternal chattel status and Lincoln's position in 1858. "I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.
Lincoln was a racist by present standards, as were the vast majority of white Americans in his time. But there are degrees of racism, as in everything else.
For instance, in America we had private clubs that excluded Jews, which was anti-semitism, no question about it. But lumping such social distaste in with and saying it is the same thing as the Nuremburg Laws and the Final Solution is intellectual dishonesty.
I've posted a good bit on this subject, so you should have little difficulty showing me where I said any such things.
There were men in the armies of the Union who held such views, but they were a very small minority.
I admit there was enthusiasm for the war, but it was geographically limited and not broadly based. Many of the guys who fought bravely for the Confederacy did so only to defend their homes and would have rather not seceded in the first place. That’s why so many reb soldiers abandoned the fight after their own areas were overrun. They’d fight for home, but not for a secession that they did not ask for.
And when he talks to the people he says "the people in every State" or 'your own state." He is talking to the people as members of their individual states.
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