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>>x wrote: "I usually don't respond to Kalamata's nonsense, because I don't want to get pelted with his garbage,"
Everything you post is nonsense, as are your preferred history "scholars," who are a bunch of rabid, big-government Leftists; except for Jaffa -- he is a dead, rabid, big-government Leftist.
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>>x wrote: "this certainly invites a reponse:"
>>Kalamata wrote: "Did you never wonder why the Far-left political hacks disguised as historians, such as Eric Foner, Allen Guelzo, and the late Harry Jaffa, have swooned over Lincoln? >>x wrote: "Jaffa wrote for Barry Goldwater and contributed to conservative periodicals. He certainly wasn't everybody's idea of a conservative. He tread on a lot of toes in arguments. But he was not "far left" or a "political hack."
Jaffa is a progressive liberal hack who, like Lincoln, promotes a "living constitution" over the plain words of the legal document. Using Lincolnese, he injects the Declaration into jurisprudence, which can mean anything, to any judge, at any time. He wrote crazy stuff like this:
"[I]t was necessary, [Lincoln] said, to vindicate the Union against the "ingenious sophism" that "any State of the Union may, consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union or of any other State." Lincoln held that the alleged constitutional right of secession, as distinct from the natural right of revolution, was a prescription for anarchy. Third, it was necessary, as Lincoln put it in the epigraph of this chapter, to vindicate the principle of free elections. It was necessary to use bullets to establish the right, not of bullets, but of ballots to decide who should rule. It will, I believe, prove to be true that in Lincoln's mind the idea of a popular government that unites liberty and order, the idea of the Union, and the idea of rule by free elections are one and the same."
[Harry V. Jaffa, "A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War." 2000, p.2]
In a free republic, a Constitution sets the rules and determines "natural rights:" not the elected representatives (who are always corruptible;) nor the judiciary (who are even moreso;) and especially not an executive (who can become a dictator at the drop of a hat, like Lincoln did.) Only a tyrant or a fool would think otherwise.
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>>x wrote: "That's even more true of Guelzo, who has also contributed to leading conservative publications and is even something of an Evangelical. Conservatism can't be pure Lysander Spooner or Thomas Jefferson and certainly not pure Jefferson Davis. It needs realists as well as dreamers, and the more one cares about something, the more apt one is to be realistic about it, rather than engage in fantasies. That's why people like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln, shouldn't simply be condemned - and certainly not in hysterical terms - for not conforming to libertarian fantasies."
I am a conservative republican, not a libertarian, and Hamilton was the original crony-capitalist of our nation. The ink was barely dry on the Constitution before he schemed ways to usurp it -- to usurp power from the states and the people, mostly with the intent to transfer money from the pockets of the common man into the pockets of the politically-connected.
Henry Clay, according to Guelzo, originally ran on an anti-Hamiltonian (anti-bank, anti-corporation) ticket:
"Some of these new "War Hawks" were more Jeffersonian than Jefferson. Henry Clay, born in 1777 and elected to Congress in 1810 as an enemy of banks, corporations, and Federalist privilege, helped sink Alexander Hamilton's old Bank of the United States when it came up for rechartering before Congress in 1811. A national bank, announced Clay, "is a splendid association of favored individuals, taken from the mass of society, and invested with exemptions and surrounded by immunities and privileges." But his greatest fixation was on the conspiratorial threat of Great Britain, the mother of monarchy, aristocracy, and of course, international banking. "We have complete proof that [Britain] will do everything to destroy us — our resolution and spirit are our only dependence." The fact that Britain was now distracted by its life-or-death struggle with France, leaving British Canada vulnerable and undefended, seemed to Clay to offer the United States the chance of a lifetime to bring the British to heel. Invade Canada, the "War Hawks" chanted, and either hold it hostage to good British behavior on the high seas or add it to America's republican empire."
[Allen C. Guelzo, "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President." William B. Eerdmans, 1999, p.53]
But Clay's vision was soon corrupted into promoting the crony-capitalist, Hamiltonian "American System" (Lincoln's campaign platform, in a nutshell,) which included chartering a National Bank, high protective tariffs, and "internal improvements," the last of which is a euphemism for corporate welfare. Clay became a strong advocate for turning America into a crony-capitalist paradise; but it is difficult to blame him. The lure of money and power, "constitutionalized" by Hamilton and John Marshall, is too strong for most politicians to ignore.
The doctrine of Hamilton and his disciples -- especially Lincoln, and his hero, Henry Clay -- are the bane of American civilization. Yet, Guelzo seems to adore them, and their doctrine. Worse, he provides cover for them by watering down and even redefining political principles for them, so they can appear to be republicans. For example, he wrote:
"Alexander Hamilton, fully as much as Thomas Jefferson, believed wholeheartedly that the most natural form of government was a republic in which everyone would have the freedom to exercise their natural rights."
[Allen C. Guelzo, "Alexander Hamilton: His Ideal Republic." Great Courses Daily, Aug 24, 2017]
That is pure fantasy. Hamilton was a statist: one who believed in a strong central government, rather than a representative republic of smaller States banded together under a legal compact.
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>>x wrote: "Eric Foner definitely is on the left and very prominent there. His views on the Civil War and Reconstruction, though, are very different from those on the left a century ago, like Charles Beard, who was far more sympathetic to slaveowners and the Confederacy. Beard and other progressives had no use for slavery but they saw the Southerners as fellow opponents of big business, industrialism and the Republican Party."
Foner is a card-carrying Marxist. The fact that he and others on the far-left have adopted the Jaffa-ized revision of Lincoln's political history, says more about Jaffa than it does about them.
Have you read this?
"What is different about Trump is how open he is about it all. Normally, the appeals to white racism are done through code words, like “law and order.” Trump campaigned saying all black people are living in hellholes and asking them, “What do you have to lose?” by voting for Trump. It’s become pretty clear what they have to lose: They can lose the right to vote. They can lose affirmative action. They can lose the notion the federal government sees racism as a serious problem in the United States."
[Jon Wiener, "Eric Foner: White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump." The Nation, August 16, 2017]
Eric Foner: White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and Donald Trump
Few are more rabid than Foner. According to him, it is racist to even mention the plight of the blacks in the inner-city Democrat plantations.
But who is the true racist? Foner, for certain; and of course, Lincoln. Donald Trump, on the other hand, doesn't have a racist bone in his body.
Mr. Kalamata
Letter of the President of the Federal Convention, Dated September 17, 1787, to the President of Congress, Transmitting the Constitution.
In Convention, September 17, 1787.
Sir,
We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of the United States in Congress assembled, that Constitution which has appeared to us the most adviseable.
The friends of our country have long seen and desired, that the power of making war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union: But the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident-Hence results the necessity of a different organization.
It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all: Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained. It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was encreased by a difference among the several states as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests.
In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensible.
That it will meet the full and entire approbation of every state is not perhaps to be expected; but each will doubtless consider, that had her interest been alone consulted, the consequences might have been particularly disagreeable or injurious to others; that it is liable to as few exceptions as could reasonably have been expected, we hope and believe; that it may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness, is our most ardent wish.
With great respect, We have the honor to be,Sir,Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servants,
GEORGE WASHINGTON, President.
By unanimous Order of the Convention.
His Excellency the PRESIDENT of CONGRESS.