Posted on 07/07/2012 11:51:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At the height of the holiday shopping season of 1860, a bookseller in Richmond, Va., placed a telling advertisement in The Daily Dispatch promoting a selection of "Elegant Books for Christmas and New Year's Presents." Notably, the list of two dozen "choice books, suitable for Holiday Gifts" included five works by the late Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott in "various beautiful bindings."
Sir Walter Scott not only dominated gift book lists on the eve of the Civil War but also dominated Southern literary taste throughout the conflict. His highly idealized depiction of the age of chivalry allowed Southern readers and writers to find positive meaning in war's horrors, hardships and innumerable deaths. And his works inspired countless wartime imitators, who drew upon his romantic conception of combat.
In 1814 Scott had begun his ascension to the heights of literary stardom with the publication of the historical romance "Waverley," which was soon followed by other novels in the so-called Waverley series. The works were an immediate and immense success in Great Britain and America. Over the course of many volumes, Scott glamorized the Middle Ages, at once shaping and popularizing what we now consider the classic tale of chivalry. As one enamored 19th-century reader explained, each of Scott's romances focused upon the "manners and habits of the most interesting and chivalrous periods of Scottish [and] British history."
Among Scott's most famous works was "Ivanhoe," published in 1820. The romance, set in the 12th century, presents a tale of intrigue, love and valor. The plot traces the fortunes of young Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he strives, despite his father's opposition, to gain the hand of the beautiful Lady Rowena. In the course of Ivanhoe's adventures, Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood appear, and Ivanhoe performs many a remarkable feat.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
The “Great One” also said this: “I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns.”
He, of course, is speaking about Lincoln's and the Republican party's violations of the Constitution.
I'll bet you were. You did not pay attention to my prior post which gave the date that you now want to claim that you misquoted to see if “I” was paying attention.
That looks silly of you, doesn't it.
“The “threat” was from the destruction of the Union and the Constitution not from economic competition from planters.”
If I remember my history correctly, at the time Lincoln took office, there were 20 Union states, all with stable governments, commerce occurring, ships sailing to and fro, newspapers printing, banks lending, legislators legislating, roads and canals bustling, and so forth.
No evidence of any collapse of the Union...at that moment.
The only thing that Lincoln and the Union government did not have was any international trade on which to collect tariffs.
In fact, as Lincoln took office, there was only enough cash in the Treasury to run the entire government for about three months, with no source in sight.
That is when the Northern “Fire-eaters” began to visit his office in the White House.
You know the rest.
That is your opinion, and a wrong one at that.
That is that class warfare mentality thing........only the rich and the rest the poor..........that some of this crowd talks about.
They never consider that there were dirt farmers, who had land but no money. Some owned slaves that worked just as everybody else did on the farms.
I liked “Gone With the Wind” but it is evident that Margaret Mitchell’s depiction by Selznick and Fleming has unfortunately degraded into the have and have not struggles common in today’s class struggle culture.
I don't think you get it, Flax. The rest of us are just trying to cope with what's going on now.
Some braying jackass out there tells us that Lincoln was evil and Yankees are scum and the Old South was some kind of libertarian paradise -- 147 years after we assumed all that was over and settled -- and we respond as best we can.
Most of us don't have anything against the South and aren't looking for a fight. We're just tired of hearing how wonderful the South was and how horrible the rest of us are supposed to be.
I did, thank you! It's regrettable that you washed out but remember that it's never too late to try!
With your track record for proffering opinion as fact it would be interesting to see how you substantiate this claim.
It must stick in your craw that a great American like Ronald Reagan thought so highly of Abraham Lincoln. Let's add a few more quotables, shall we?
Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln..
Inaugural Address
West Front of the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 1981
As Lincoln once said in another turbulent time, “If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.”
Radio Address to the Nation on the Fiscal Year 1984 Budget February 12, 1983
President Lincoln once reminded us that through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion.
Remarks at the Normandy Invasion Ceremony, Omaha Beach Memorial at Omaha Beach, France. June 6, 1984
The author of the Civil War was Roger Taney.
Thanks, it’s always a pleasure to hear him speak. Here is a link to his first inaugural address in its entirety: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpPt7xGx4Xo
What is going on, right now, is that we must deal with a demagogue in Washington, whose conduct over the years attests his hatred for various aspects of the American tradition--some of it identified with one region, much of it virtually ubiquitous.
He sat for years in a Church, where his Pastor damned America. He organized discontent among the poor, as an occupation, before he ran for office. He studied Marxist values & techniques from others who hated America.
That demagogue was elected because a large segment of our youth, who should have known better, were never taught the positive things about the American tradition, which motivate most of us at this Forum.
You want to cope with what is going on now? Then do not encourage this endless disparagement of traditional American values. What I allude to is not people expressing different opinions on historic issues; but disrespecting one another's forebears. That is not the way to rally once more to rekindle the coalition of traditional Americans who created the Constitution, now being deliberately ignored in Washington; no way to uphold values that must be upheld, if America is to survive in any recognizable form.
Of course, anyone who suggests that "Yankees are scum," is doing exactly the same thing that I deplore. A far better example of the right sort of interaction, would be the respect that our neighbor from Clermont County, General Grant, showed for General Lee, at the end of the War; or which General Lee showed in teaching his students at Washington & Lee, not to hate the North..
William Flax
Son, it is clear you do not understand what a constitution is much less are capable of interpreting it correctly.
I don’t care about your opinion of what states thought or didn’t think at any point since “states” never think at all. PEOPLE at the conventions did not believe they based their ratifications on an ability to leave the Union via ILLEGAL means.
Ratification by the American PEOPLE gathered in states was the means EXPLICITLY chosen by Congress so that idiocy such as you pine for could not occur.
Thank God, that the Founders realized that such anti-American sentiments would be dangerous.
THE law book of that era was Blackstone’s Commentaries. Politicians writing books was not unusual.
Even accepting your argument that the federal government is a “creature” of the states does not make secession legal. There was NO procedure placed into the constitution wherewith a state could regain its independence. This is strong evidence that such a thing was considered unthinkable and impossible without modifying the document.
If such sentiment had ever been strong throughout the country it should have been easy enough to propose, and ratify an amendment allowing just such an event.
Why was it never even suggested? Answer: everyone knew such a proposal was dead in the water.
You view the constitution like a Islamic marriage. “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee” and the man is not married.
I don’t think so.
The Continental Congress preceded the states and they were formed as a result of the admonition by CONGRESS to write constitutions and transform themselves from colonies into states. It was a NATIONAL action.
All the Founders and the vast majority of the People understood separate states had no chance of survival.
It is a distortion to claim that the states preceded national government which existed since the FIRST Continental Congress.
In case it slipped your mind that body first met in 1774.
This was YEARS before any state was formed.
The desperation of these arguments is HILARIOUS.
You should ponder the concept raised here “co-ordinate.”
An insult to those who support anti-American insurrection perhaps certainly not to a Patriot.
No one smears the “South” by telling the truth about the fools in the Slaver Ruling Class which led the region and its people to disaster via the Slaver Rebellion.
It is not unusual historically to see societies leap to their own destruction led by foolhardy and incapable political leadership. The Cornfederacy is just another example.
Leadership is critical and had Lincoln been the leader of the South and Davis the leader of the North the Union would have been split.
The only reason Lincoln was even president was because the Slavers split the Democrat Party. Laughable fools.
I am sorry if you believe I only “belittle” the Slaver cause.
Let me make it clear to you. I am EXCORIATING it and those who voluntarily embraced it.
Those who were dragooned into its armies (as many were) I sympathize.
Likely some of my ancestors voluntarily enlisted but that changes nothing.
I hope you don’t teach your students that a properly deeded property can be taken back decades after the transfer.
And do not LIE to them that the state of S.C. had ANY authority over the fort. It gave it to the federal government LONG before 1860. Surely you are not ignorant of this simple fact?
Did you not even read the link? Lincoln’s proposal was contingent up the fools ceasing their secession activities.
It was haughtily rejected by said fools.
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