Lincoln holiday on its way out (West Virginia)

West Virginia Gazette Mail ^ | 9-8-2005 | Phil Kabler

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Lincoln holiday on its way out

By Phil Kabler Staff writer

A bill to combine state holidays for Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into a single Presidents’ Day holiday cleared its first legislative committee Wednesday, over objections from Senate Republicans who said it besmirches Abraham Lincoln’s role in helping establish West Virginia as a state.

Senate Government Organization Committee members rejected several attempts to retain Lincoln’s birthday as a state holiday.

State Sen. Russ Weeks, R-Raleigh, introduced an amendment to instead eliminate Columbus Day as a paid state holiday. “Columbus didn’t have anything to do with making West Virginia a state,” he said. “If we have to cut one, let’s cut Christopher Columbus.”

Jim Pitrolo, legislative director for Gov. Joe Manchin, said the proposed merger of the two holidays would bring West Virginia in line with federal holidays, and would effectively save $4.6 million a year — the cost of one day’s pay to state workers.

Government Organization Chairman Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, said the overall savings would be even greater, since by law, county and municipal governments must give their employees the same paid holidays as state government.

“To the taxpayers, the savings will be even larger,” he said.

The bill technically trades the February holiday for a new holiday on the Friday after Thanksgiving. For years, though, governors have given state employees that day off with pay by proclamation.

Sen. Sarah Minear, R-Tucker, who also objected to eliminating Lincoln’s birthday as a holiday, argued that it was misleading to suggest that eliminating the holiday will save the state money.

“It’s not going to save the state a dime,” said Minear, who said she isn’t giving up on retaining the Lincoln holiday.

Committee members also rejected an amendment by Sen. Steve Harrison, R-Kanawha, to recognize the Friday after Thanksgiving as “Lincoln Day.”

“I do believe President Lincoln has a special place in the history of West Virginia,” he said.

Sen. Randy White, D-Webster, said he believed that would create confusion.

“It’s confusing to me,” he said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, suggested that the state could recognize Lincoln’s proclamation creating West Virginia as part of the June 20 state holiday observance for the state’s birthday.

Proponents of the measure to eliminate a state holiday contend that the numerous paid holidays - as many as 14 in election years — contribute to inefficiencies in state government.

To contact staff writer Phil Kabler, use e-mail or call 348-1220.

[PeaRidge]

"The Lincoln administration did not destroy any presses, but some editors were arrested for...acts of sedition."

Is 'sedition' a synonym for telling the truth?

"Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity (Fort Sumter) to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor." …Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"We are to have civil war, if at all, because Abraham Lincoln loves a [the Republican] party better than he loves his country.... [He] clings to his party creed, and allows the nation to drift into the whirlpool of destruction."…The Providence Daily Post, April 13 1861

"If this result follows – and follow civil war it must – the memory of ABRAHAM LINCOLN and his infatuated advisors will only be preserved with that of other destroyers to the scorned and execrated.... And if the historian who preserves the record of his fatal administration needs any motto descriptive of the president who destroyed the institutions which he swore to protect, it will probably be some such as this:

Here is the record of one who feared more to have it said that he deserted his party than that he ruined the country, who had a greater solicitude for his consistency as a partisan than for his wisdom as a Statesman or his courage and virtue as a patriot, and who destroyed by his weakness the fairest experiment of man in self-government that the world ever witnessed."

…The American Standard, New Jersey, April 12, 1861, the very day the South moved to reclaim Fort Sumter.

"The affair at Fort Sumter, it seems to us, has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified, and the administration thus receive popular support for its policy.... If the armament which lay outside the harbor, while the fort was being battered to pieces [the US ship The Harriet Lane, and seven other reinforcement ships], had been designed for the relief of Major Anderson, it certainly would have made a show of fulfilling its mission. But it seems plain to us that no such design was had. The administration, virtually, to use a homely illustration, stood at Sumter like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, daring his antagonist to knock it off. The Carolinians have knocked off the chip. War is inaugurated, and the design of the administration accomplished." ……The Buffalo Daily Courier, April 16, 1861.

"We have no doubt, and all the circumstances prove, that it was a cunningly devised scheme, contrived with all due attention to scenic display and intended to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South.... We venture to say a more gigantic conspiracy against the principles of human liberty and freedom has never been concocted. Who but a fiend could have thought of sacrificing the gallant Major Anderson and his little band in order to carry out a political game? Yet there he was compelled to stand for thirty-six hours amid a torrent of fire and shell, while the fleet sent to assist him, coolly looked at his flag of distress and moved not to his assistance! Why did they not? Perhaps the archives in Washington will yet tell the tale of this strange proceeding.... Pause then, and consider before you endorse these mad men who are now, under pretense of preserving the Union, doing the very thing that must forever divide it. …The New York Evening Day-Book, April 17, 1861.

[PeaRidge]

Lincoln either directly closed the newspapers, or instructed the US Mail not to deliver the papers of the establishments he personally opposed.

"You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce... and prohibit any further publication thereof... you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command, the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers... and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission."

Order from Lincoln to General John A. Dix, May 18, 1864, on the establishment of his military dictatorship over the First Amendment.

There are some on this thread that will take immediate offense to the term "dictatorship". To make all of a group (editors, proprietors, publishers) criminally responsible for the constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech of a few is nothing less than dictatorial.

[mac_truck]

I'm curious, ... do you consider Patrick Henry a traitor as well?

Your bilious editorializing aside, the answer is no.

"The first thing I have at heart is American liberty; the second thing is American union; and I hope the people of Virginia will endeavor to preserve that union." -Patrick Henry June 5 1788

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm always dissapointed when your only resonse is a childish insult, but understand that it's in keeping with your character.

My responses are in keeping with the quality of your posts.

[dljordan]

Thank you for your post. I've been very busy the last few days and haven't had time to look anything up. I remember reading a book on the BOR that went into it in some detail and remember specifically a passage that referred to Fed troops breaking up a printing press and hauling the editor off to military prison. We go back and forth and on and on about the unCivil war but all we know is filtered through our perceptions and those that wrote the original accounts.

[stand watie]

sadly for YOU, the book ANNALS of OLD MISSOURI, published by the State Historian's Office of MO, lists the COMMON CRIMES for which each of the RAPISTS/ROBBERS/ARSONISTS/PEDOPHILES/TORTURERS were GUILTY of committing. EACH & EVERY one of the THUGS on the "kill lists" is NAMED. NOBODY who was NOT named on the list was killed or even injured. (fwiw, i believe you KNOW that, but cannot, as the Damnyankee Minister of PROPAGANDA, admit what you KNOW is TRUTHFUL!)

as for your VULGAR language, i expected MORE of you, as you're the only one of the DAMNEDyankee coven who has the education & IQ to know/DO BETTER.

PITY that you just don't care which LADY or CHILD you offend.(fwiw, i'd look for a note from the admin. mod. if i were you. i warned you before that "duckie", for just ONE decent lady, was offended. she is NOT alone.)

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

actually, i NEVER said that, LIAR!

what i said was that the State Historian's Office of MARYLAND says that "drowning was the MOST COMMON means of MURDERING helpless rebel POWs at Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp" (emphasis: MINE).

POWs were also:

1.shot without cause

2.bludgeoned with rifle butts & clubs

3.bayoneted (sometimes "just for fun")

4.intentionally exposed to the elements until they died of exposure

5.intentionally starved to death

6. denied clothing & needed medical care, that would have preserved their lives.

in short, PLPOWC was DACHAU IN AMERICA, though it was NO WORSE than HELLmira (Elmira), NY or Camp Douglas, IL.

SADLY, for you & the rest of the coven of LIARS,fools, idiots, racists & wierdos "who defend the INDEFENSIBLE", the ACTUAL RECORDS still exist of over 15,000 persons who were admitted to PLPOWC, who were neither transferred, escaped,released on parole, died of natural causes/wounds or "administratively dealt with" (one wonders what THAT PHRASE means???).

FACTS, as RWR used to say, are FACTS!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

you are NOT, evidently, smart enough to KNOW what the TRUTH IS.

perhaps Leeza is correct & you are so "mentally challenged" that i shouldn't pick on you. (she says it's NOT NICE to pick on mentally challenged people.)

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

are you REALLY DUMB ENOUGH to believe that ignorant BILGE??

OR, are you just being a little TROLL?

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

SORRY, but the AOC expired with the adoption of the Constitution. even if the AOC did make the union "permanent", such a prohibition expired with the Articles.

PITY that you don't know that.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

you aren't (JUST based on just post # 494) smart enough to be a FReeper. be gone to DU & be one of the brighter DU-dummies.

you will be warmly welcomed over there. they will even cheer you RACIST posts about AmerIndians & our culture.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

can you PROVE ANY of that BILGE & DAMNyankee PROPAGANDA???

i think NOT!

free dixie,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

sadly for YOU, the book ANNALS of OLD MISSOURI, published by the State Historian's Office of MO, lists the COMMON CRIMES for which each of the RAPISTS/ROBBERS/ARSONISTS/PEDOPHILES/TORTURERS were GUILTY of committing. EACH & EVERY one of the THUGS on the "kill lists" is NAMED. NOBODY who was NOT named on the list was killed or even injured. (fwiw, i believe you KNOW that, but cannot, as the Damnyankee Minister of PROPAGANDA, admit what you KNOW is TRUTHFUL!

Then post your proof. And you might want to quote from a book that actually exists.

as for your VULGAR language, i expected MORE of you, as you're the only one of the DAMNEDyankee coven who has the education & IQ to know/DO BETTER.

My lapse in language is a direct result of the outrageous nature of your damned lies and slander. Not a single thing you have said about any of the innocent victims of Quantrill's horde bears any remote resemblance to the truth. Not a bit.

PITY that you just don't care which LADY or CHILD you offend.(fwiw, i'd look for a note from the admin. mod. if i were you. i warned you before that "duckie", for just ONE decent lady, was offended. she is NOT alone.)

The pity is that you're total lack of respect for, or understanding of the truth. No lie is too big for you to throw out there so long as it supports your moronic southron agenda.

[Non-Sequitur]

what i said was that the State Historian's Office of MARYLAND says that "drowning was the MOST COMMON means of MURDERING helpless rebel POWs at Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp" (emphasis: MINE).

Have you no shame whatsoever? Do you ever look back at the sheer nonsense you post and cringe? You build one lie on top of another, one outrageous tale on top of another outrageous tale, and you expect any of us to take you seriously? My God, man! What ever are you thinking?

[M. Espinola]

"you aren't (JUST based on just post # 494) smart enough to be a FReeper. be gone to DU & be one of the brighter DU-dummies."

"Things wouldn't be the same without Stand's daily words of wisdom" :)

[Gianni]

Your bilious editorializing aside, the answer is no.

Your interruption aside, I didn't ask you... psycho.

I figured you were busy enough, still trying to develop some period refutation of the Virginia ratification or evidence of Lee's incompetence in planning the 7 Days battle.

[Gianni]

My responses are in keeping with the quality of your posts.

that, and oh - there's no way to really keep on with the assertion that Virginia did not have the right to leave the Union.

WE the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected, in pursuance of a recommendation of the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and fairly investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation will enable us to decide thereon,DO, in the name and on behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby, remains with them, and at their will: That therefore no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by the Congress, by the Senate, or House of Representatives, acting in any capacity, by the President, or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances where power is given by the Constitution for those purposes:

Accepted by Hamilton, Madison, the Conteninental Congress, et al as "unconditional," meaning, "Yeah, that's what the Constitution says."

Always a party with you and little_mac. What are you two gonna call me next?

[Non-Sequitur]

Why not continue? The ratification document went on to say:

"With these impressions with a solemn appeal to the Searcher of hearts for the purity of our intentions and under the conviction that whatsoever imperfections may exist in the Constitution ought rather to be examined in the mode prescribed therein than to bring the Union into danger by a delay with a hope of obtaining Amendments previous to the Ratification, We the said Delegates in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia do by these presents assent to and ratify the Constitution recommended on the seventeenth day of September one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven by the Federal Convention for the Government of the United States hereby announcing to all those whom it may concern that the said Constitution is binding upon the said People according to an authentic Copy hereto annexed in the Words following..."

Nowhere in the Constitution does it allow a state to resume powers granted to the federal government. The people who wrote the ratification document may have thought so, but they were mistaken in their belief. Unless, of course, you're maintaining that the ratification document trumps the Constitution?

What are you two gonna call me next?

Oh the possibilities are endless, and will depend on what you post next.

[4CJ]

Any 'real' American in 2005 would never seek to destroy the Union of the United States. Anyone who would should been seen a doctor or the FBI.

Secession did not destroy the union - the remaining members carried on as before. But, forgetting about 2005, what about 1788 or 1789? If a founder stood an announced to all present in convention, that 'if we are unsatisfied with the proposed [national] government, we can renounce it, this is an additional safeguard to our state', would you consider them to be a crackpot? What if they stated that 'a power remains with the state until it is delegated'? Is that gentleman a lunatic? Are they insane?

[4CJ]

The Lincoln administration did not destroy any presses, but some editors were arrested for conspiring with the Confederates, appealing for desertions from the U.S. Army and for draft-evasion, and other acts of sedition. President Bush would today deal the same way with traitors.

Yes, our jails are full of the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Senators Kennedy and Boxer, Jesse Jackson, the editors of the New York Times etc. </sarcarm>