Posted on 05/06/2007 8:41:22 PM PDT by Expendable
It has occurred to me recently that the Democrats have tried this "peace now" stuff before, during the Civil War. There really isn't much difference between what they said then and what they say now.
I only point this out because we, as conservatives, have a beachhead to exploit in this. We need to point this out to as many people as we can, that if it were up to Democrats, there would be a Confederate States of America, and slavery probably would still be legal. For that matter, we need to get our local Republican parties to point this out, as well. They have a lot of ammo to use against us. We need to fight back harder than ever.
There's also the fact that the Democrats have never supported US Soldiers. After all, there were the severe defense cutbacks after the end of the Second World War, which ended up with untrained draftees trying to take on veteran North Korean Army forces in South Korea. The story of Task Force Smith is an example of this.
We need to fight as hard as we can at home, like our soldiers do in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to show the Democrats and moonbats that we do not want to submit to terror. Any advantage we have, we need to exploit.
Tis all too true ...
Not much difference between that, and the state of Blacks in America today, Welfare slaves of the Democrat Party, but what the hell...
And during the Vietnam War...
I was just talking with a survivor of the “Killing Fields” the other day.
Damn those Democrats! It is a horrible thing to blame them for the millions who died under Pol Pot. But they contributed. Starting with Jane Fonda.
And they want to do it now in Iraq.
No one held them to account back then. But, they won’t get away with it now. The MSM no longer have a monopoly.
It is also fair to point out that there were a good many ardent Unionists and war supporters among northern Democrats, including Stephen Douglas, George McClellan, U.S. Grant, Andrew Johnson and Edwin Stanton.
Some of whom wound up switching parties.
Copperheads “Peace Democrats”
Republican Abraham Lincoln was able to win the 1860 presidential election largely because the Democratic party had torn itself into several factions and could offer no united opposition. In the North the Democrats divided into two factions- the War Democrats and the Peace Democrats. Neither group agreed with the way the Republican administration conducted the war, but the War Democrats at least supported the fight for the Union.
The Peace Democrats were opposed to the war and would have accepted a negotiated peace resulting in an independent Confederacy. Most Peace Democrats were from the midwestern states of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, but political dissent was widespread throughout the North. Midwesterners had close economic and sentimental ties with the South, and many of them bitterly opposed the Union’s war against what one of them called “the injured, incensed, downtrodden people of the South.”
In 1861, Republicans started calling antiwar Democrats “copperheads”, likening them to the poisonous snake. By 1863, the Peace Democrats had accepted the label, but for them the copper “head” was the likeness of Liberty on the copper penny, and they proudly wore pennies as badges.
The Copperheads mounted a forceful and sustained protest against the Lincoln administration’s policies and conduct. The most popular of the Copperheads was Democratic Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, who in 1862 introduced a bill in Congress to imprison the President. Instead, Vallandigham and a host of other Democrats, including judges, newspaper editors, politicians, and antiwar activists, were arrested and imprisoned without trial on the orders of Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton, who had decided to take off their gloves in dealing with persons “guilty of any disloyal practice”.
Fascinating Fact: At the 1864 Democratic convention, Vallandigham persuaded the party to adopt a platform that declared the war a failure and called for negotiations with the Confederacy.
*Photo not to scale. (She has a much bigger mouth.)
Well, I did worry about her possibly choking on that Copperhead... /S
Sounds like something Pelosi/Reid would be eager to try.
"Instead, Vallandigham and a host of other Democrats, including judges, newspaper editors, politicians, and antiwar activists, were arrested and imprisoned without trial on the orders of Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton, who had decided to take off their gloves in dealing with persons “guilty of any disloyal practice”.
Wow, this sort of action is definitely needed today!
Start with the NY TIMES.
I heard about that one, too. Also heard good reviews on it. Once the semester ends, I’ll probably get around to reading it, at least.
Yep it sure is.
This is complete BS. Here is YET ANOTHER jackass trying to equate party politics of the 1860’s to that of today. I suppose we should ignore the fact that the left today universally condemns the Confederacy and the States Rights stance that was taken. We need to ignore the fact that the Union supported federal powers that the right opposes. We should ignore the fact that the SOUTH singlehandedly kept John Kerry out of the White House. We also need to overlook the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free one slave in the 4 Union slave states. Oh yes... there were four union slave states that are conveniently ignored. The leftist professors continue to hold a firm grasp on some here... even at the FreeRepublic.
Sir:
I was trying to point out the similarities between the Copperhead’s tactics during the Civil War, and those of Reid, Murtha, and Pelosi today. The mention of the “Confederate States of America” was in order to show what could and would have happened had the Civil War ended in 1864 with an armistice, for instance. I did not mention the South of today anywhere within this entry.
And, I only mentioned this as a weapon to use against the left, and nothing more. They paint us as “fascists”, “warmongers”, and the like. We need to counter them in any way we can.
Let the big government party continue bashing Southern conservatives and see what the results in 2008. If they are dredging up politics from 1861, the party is in worse shape than I thought.
“Peace Democrats had prolonged war by encouraging the South to continue fighting in the hope that the North would abandon the struggle.”
It's too much to expect W to invoke Abe's example when faced with a problem Abe solved. The liberal MSM was probably as bad back then, maybe even worse. And what was the price the GOP paid for Abe's actions? They held the White House 56 of 72 years, losing only to Cleveland and Wilson, with the latter being a self inflicted blow. To equal that run (post-dating to Reagan) we'd need only two Democratic terms between now and 2052. Recognizing Clinton as the self-inflicted blow (by "Lips" Bush) that could mean the next non-consecutive two term honest Democrat with good ideas hasn't yet been brainwashed by the teacher's unions.
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