Replies

[BroJoeK #252] Lincoln's speech, often quoted by woodpusher and others, refers to Americans in Texas declaring independence from Mexico and can be put under the category of a "right of revolution". Of course, everyone recognizes a "right of revolution" under certain circumstances, the debatable issue is, what exactly are those circumstances?

Texas declared independence from Mexico, March 2, 1836. Texas became a state in 1845. The Mexican War 1846-1848 was between the United States and Mexico, where Mexico invaded Mexico, and the United States repelled the "invaders" from half of Mexico. As for Texas, its freedom resulted in that Mexican territory, free under Spanish and Mexican law, converting into a slave state.

[BroJoeK #267] 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.

[BroJoeK #277] 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.

[BroJoeK #280] You're right, Whig Congressman Lincoln was lambasting Democrat Pres. Polk for starting the Mexican war on the flimsiest pretexts similar, as jeffersondem so often refers to, Democrat Pres. Johnson's notorious 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incidents.

[BroJoeK #286] Even in 1848, young & arguably naive Whig Congressman Lincoln included a qualifier of three short words, "having the power", which speaks to a broad spectrum of issues and necessary calculations.

woodpusher: "In 1861, Lincoln found his stated position of 1848 to be inconvenient.
In 1848, Lincoln's stated opinion agreed precisely with what the southern states were doing in 1860-1861."
And so you keep repeating, over and over and over.

And unlike you, it says the same thing every time I quote it, over and over.

Now we have the young and naive excuse. At that age, I had completed 20 years of active duty and was drawing a monthly retirement check from the military.

[BroJoeK #286] Think about it, young Lincoln is saying, in effect, the "right to secede" comes from "having the power" to secede, so without "having the power", there is no right.

Ah yes. Any people anywhere being inclined, 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. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—but unless you win a war the right does not exist. The right to rise up and try only exists if you subsequently win the war. That is surely what Lincoln was saying.

It's like trial by water. Throw the woman in the water. If she survives she has the right to live. If she drowns, she is a witch and she never had that sacred right.

[BroJoeK #286] "young & arguably naive," "young," "young & arguably naive," "young."

At nearly forty years old, Lincoln had barely been weaned from his favorite binky. He was like Hunter Biden, not responsible for what he said and did, because he was young and arguably naive.

In #252, Brother Joe Pravda said, "everyone recognizes a "right of revolution" under certain circumstances, the debatable issue is, what exactly are those circumstances." Now we know what the circumstances are. If you win a war after rising up, you exercised your sacred right, otherwise you were a mere criminal.

Now, if you did not have the sacred right to begin with, but you won the war, you would be free and independent, and have all the sacred rights.

In #267, Brother Joe Pravda stated, "young Congressman Lincoln's 1848 speech was devoted entirely to the Democrat Pres. Polk's war against Mexico." The Republic of Texas was established in 1836. The Texians had a Mexican POW agree to withdraw Mexican troops to the Rio Grande. The Mexican government did not recognize the Rio Grande as the border, but rather the Rio Nueces.

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lincoln-resolutions#:~:text=Prior%20to%20Texas's%20independence%2C%20the,and%20renounced%20claims%20to%20Texas.

Prior to Texas's independence, the Nueces River was recognized as the northern boundary of Mexico. Spain had fixed the Nueces as a border in 1816, and the United States ratified it in the 1819 treaty by which the United States had purchased Florida and renounced claims to Texas.

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lincoln-resolutions

The Adams-Onís Treaty of February 22, 1819

https://archive.org/details/geographicaldesc00mel

Melish's Map
by Melish, John, 1771-1822
Published 1818

Texas became a state of the United States in 1845. Exactly what revolution was going on during the Mexican War, 1846-1848?

We wanted a bunch of Mexican land and we took it. At the end of the war, we took the Rio Grande Texas border territory, Nevada, and Utah; and parts of what are now the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming—about half of Mexico. We had the sacred right because of Manifest Destiny and we won the war, meaning that God decided we deserved the land.

9 Stat. 9

May 13, 1846
CHAP. XVI. — An Act providing for the Prosecution of the existing War between the United States and the Republic of Mexico.
Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States: ....

Passed the House of Representatives 174-14.

In December 1847, Lincoln had proposed his Spot Resolutions, making his case that the contested territory was NOT the territory of either Texas or the United States, but the sovereign territory of Mexico.

https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=019/llcg019.db&recNum=115

Congressional Globe, Thirtieth Congress, First Session, December 22, 1847, p. 64.

RESOLUTIONS
Mr. LINCOLN moved the following preamble and resolutions, which were read and laid over under the rule:
Whereas the President of the United States, in his message of May 11th. 1846, has declared that "The Mexican Government not only refused to receive him" [the envoy of the United States,] "or listen to his propositions, but, after a long continued series of menaces, have at last invaded our teritory, and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our own soil:
And again, in his message of December 8, 1846 that "We had ample cause of war against Mexico, long before the breaking out of hostilities; but even then we forbore to take redress into our own hands, until Mexico herself became the aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our citizens"
And yet again, in his message of December 7, 1847 that "The Mexican Government refused even to hear the terms of adjustment which he [our minister of peace] "was authorized to propose; and finally, under wholly unjustifiable pretexts, involved the two countries in war, by invading the teritory of the State of Texas, striking the first blow, and shedding the blood of our citizens on our own soil."
And whereas this House desires to obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was so shed, was, or was not, our own soil, at that time; therefore,
Resolved by the House of Representatives, that the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this House—
1st. Whether the spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was, or was not, within the teritories of Spain, at least from the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution.
2nd. Whether that spot is, or is not, within the teritory which was wrested from Spain, by the Mexican revolution.
3d. Whether that spot is, or is not, within a settlement of people, which settlement had existed ever since long before the Texas revolution, until its inhabitants fled from the approach of the U.S. Army.
4th. Whether that settlement is, or is not, isolated from any and all other settlements, by the Gulf of Mexico, and the Rio Grande, on the South and West, and by wide uninhabited regions on the North and East.
5th. Whether the People of that settlement, or a majority of them, or any of them, had ever, previous to the bloodshed, mentioned in his messages, submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas, or of the United States, by consent, or by compulsion, either by accepting office, or voting at elections, or paying taxes, or serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or in any other way.
6th. Whether the People of that settlement, did, or did not, flee from the approach of the United States Army, leaving unprotected their homes and their growing crops, before the blood was shed, as in his messages stated; and whether the first blood so shed, was, or was not shed, within the inclosure of the People, or some of them, who had thus fled from it.
7th. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, as in his messages declared, were, or were not, at that time, armed officers, and soldiers, sent into that settlement, by the military order of the President through the Secretary of War.
8th. Whether the military force of the United States, including those citizens, was, or was not, so sent into that settlement, after Genl. Taylor had, more than once, intimated to the War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement was necessary to the defence or protection of Texas.

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/lincoln-resolutions

One of several congressional resolutions opposing the war, it was never acted upon by the full Congress. Lincoln's action temporarily earned him a derisive nickname, "spotty Lincoln," coined by one Illinois newspaper.

On January 12, 1848 Lincoln waxed eloquently to Congress that,

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.

Whatever has that to do with the people of the United States in 1846-1848? The people of the United States rose up to steal half of Mexico in response to the Mexican "invasion" of the Rio Grande area of Mexico. When that Spotty Lincoln got on a roll, he could even make grand theft sound noble and sacred.

On February 15, 1848 Lincoln wrote to his law partner William Henry Herndon.

Dear William: Washington, Feb. 15. 1848
Your letter of the 29th. Jany. was received last night. Being exclusively a constitutional argument, I wish to submit some reflections upon it in the same spirit of kindness that I know actuates you. Let me first state what I understand to be your position. It is, that if it shall become necessary, to repel invasion, the President may, without violation of the Constitution, cross the line, and invade the teritory of another country; and that whether such necessity exists in any given case, the President is to be the sole judge.
Before going further, consider well whether this is, or is not your position. If it is, it is a position that neither the President himself, nor any friend of his, so far as I know, has ever taken. Their only positions are first, that the soil was ours where hostilities commenced, and second, that whether it was rightfully ours or not, Congress had annexed it, and the President, for that reason was bound to defend it, both of which are as clearly proved to be false in fact, as you can prove that your house is not mine. That soil was not ours; and Congress did not annex or attempt to annex it. But to return to your position: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure.

woodpusher: "And unlike you, it says the same thing every time I quote it, over and over."

Lincoln is not alive to explain or expand on his quotes.
Regardless, the key fact about them, so far as I can tell, is that they don't mean what you claim they mean.

woodpusher: "Now we have the young and naive excuse.
At that age, I had completed 20 years of active duty and was drawing a monthly retirement check from the military."

Was that before or after you went insane with lies and anti-American hatreds?

woodpusher: "Any people anywhere being inclined, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one"

And so, we notice immediately that you've left off Lincoln's important qualifier, "having the power", as if having a right comes from mere desire alone, and not also from the ability.
Let me suggest an analogy -- suppose you want to buy something large and expensive, let's say a yacht, and setting aside the question of whether it's for sale, you can assert an absolute right to buy that yacht, but it's true only if you also have "the power", meaning, in this case the money.
If you have no money, then you have no power and so no "right" to buy the yacht.
That's a fact.
Much less do you have a "right" to demand the owner hand over his yacht to you free gratis.

woodpusher: "This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—but unless you win a war the right does not exist.
The right to rise up and try only exists if you subsequently win the war.
That is surely what Lincoln was saying.
It's like trial by water.
Throw the woman in the water.
If she survives she has the right to live.
If she drowns, she is a witch and she never had that sacred right."

Sure, I understand, your hatred for America and Americans knows no limits and so you are super eager to put words in Lincoln's mouth that Lincoln never said or even imagined.
It's your nature to do that, it's your Democrat-at-heart soul doing it's Democrat thing to reduce America.
How, exactly, you got there I have no clue, but you are far from the only one.

Here are the real facts: Lincoln only gave us three words in this particular speech, "having the power" to qualify his definition of what we'd call a "right of revolution".
What, exactly he meant by those three words, and whether he intended them to apply to disgruntled Southern slavocrats, he never said, so far as I know.

woodpusher: "At nearly forty years old, Lincoln had barely been weaned from his favorite binky.
He was like Hunter Biden, not responsible for what he said and did, because he was young and arguably naive."

In January of 1848, young Whig Congressman Lincoln was still 38.
In the US Congress today there are about 20 congressmen & congresswomen younger than 38, the most notorious of which is New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at almost 34 she has now been reelected twice, meaning she already has three-times more experience in Congress than Lincoln ever gained.
By comparison to even AOC, Lincoln in 1848 was arguably young and naive.

woodpusher: "Now we know what the circumstances are.
If you win a war after rising up, you exercised your sacred right, otherwise you were a mere criminal.
Now, if you did not have the sacred right to begin with, but you won the war, you would be free and independent, and have all the sacred rights."

Of course, those are words Lincoln never spoke, but in your hatred of all things American and your Democrat rage against what's good & decent, you are super-eager to shove such words down Lincoln's throat and make his corpse choke on them.
How sick is that?

woodpusher: "We wanted a bunch of Mexican land and we took it.
At the end of the war, we took the Rio Grande Texas border territory, Nevada, and Utah; and parts of what are now the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming—about half of Mexico.
We had the sacred right because of Manifest Destiny and we won the war, meaning that God decided we deserved the land."

And so now you've gone from just crazy to totally berserker in your rage & hatred against America.
Of course, I can't relitigate the Mexican war of 1846-48, and maybe give away through legal or moral arguments what was won in military battles; however, we might notice that political control of the US Southwest is being rapidly returned to people of Spanish descent.
Is that a good thing, or bad?
Well, if they love America and respect each other, then I'd much rather have them in charge than our lunatic anti-American Democrats.
Of course, that's just me...