Replies

woodpusher: "Why the need to lie, Brother Joe?
Lincoln's speech expressly referred to all or any people. As I quoted Lincoln in the post in your response is a blatant lie:"
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.
I'll refrain from calling your words here a lie, but the fact remains that young Congressman Lincoln's 1848 speech was devoted entirely to the Democrat Pres. Polk's war against Mexico.

In blue font, I restored the quote of Lincoln which you left out and made believe was not there.

Lincoln's words undeniably, explicitly pertained to all people, everywhere in the world.

Why the compulsive need to serially lie, Brother Joe Pravda?

You seem resolutely opposed to explaining what is shameful about a people, or portion of any people anywhere in the world, revolutionizing and making their own, so much of their territory as they inhabit.

Despite your reams of diversionary nonsense, Lincoln's words still stand. "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better." Neither "any people anywhere," nor "liberat[ing] the world," is limited to President Polk or Mexico.

woodpusher: "Why the compulsive need to serially lie, Brother Joe Pravda?
You seem resolutely opposed to explaining what is shameful about a people, or portion of any people anywhere in the world, revolutionizing and making their own, so much of their territory as they inhabit."

Sorry, but compulsive lying seems now to be your stock in trade, and I avoid it at all costs.
In this particular case, my point remains valid, that Lincoln was generalizing on the specific case of people living in the disputed land between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers.
He questioned if they even wanted to be US citizens, implying that if they did not, then we had no justification for forcing them to.

I've seen nothing to suggest what Lincoln would have said, if someone had asked him directly in 1848 whether this same principle, unalloyed & unmodified, should apply to Southern slaveocrats who didn't like, for examples, the "Tariff of Abominations" or Fugitive Slave Laws' enforcement.

I think young Lincoln in 1848 would end up insisting on the same things he did in early 1861, namely:

No major concessions to prevent secession -- Lincoln did not consider Corwin a major concession.
No abrogation of the Constitutional duties of Federal government, including collecting tariffs at Southern ports.
No unnecessary hostilities against seceding states -- iow, Lincoln in 1848 would not repeat Pres. Jackson's threats against South Carolina in 1830:
That was Jackson talking, not Lincoln.
No submission to secessionists threats or demands, such as for Union abandonment of Forts Sumter and Pickens.
No tolerance of secessionist attacks on Union troops in Union forts like Sumter and Pickens.
If Civil War proved necessary, then it's original aims, contrary to Republican ideology of leaders like 1856 presidential candidate John C. Fremont, war's original aim would be only restoring the Union, not necessarily also abolishing slavery.
Only after civil war lengthened from days & weeks into months and years would a young Lincoln find it necessary to expand war-aims into emancipation, abolition and full citizenship for former slaves.

Of course, I only say this because, factually, that's what happened. If anyone can quote young Lincoln in 1848 opining on potential Southern slaveocrat secession, I'd like to see it.