Posted on 11/16/2008 7:51:13 PM PST by freemike
September, 1862
This fragment was found and preserved by John Hay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, who said it was not written to be seen of men."
"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true -- that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."
(Excerpt) Read more at showcase.netins.net ...
The confederates, unfortunately for them, could not. The thing about revolutions is that you need to win them, and there's no obligation for the other side to simply roll over and let it happen.
LOL. Did you get your history education from a Cracker Jack box?
This is true, so therefore what I initially posted is true-Licoln apparently didn’t believe in the right of a free people to determine their own government, even though he stated thus himself, as he took all measures to prevent the South from doing just that, including mercenary soldiers. What he really subscribed to was “Might makes right”.
Your comment is riddled with errors.
First off, it wasn't "the 3rd year of the war." Lincoln had begun discussing it as early as July, 1862. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in two phases; the first on 22 September, 1862, and the second on 1 January, 1863. The timing of the preliminary proclamation was governed by the political need for a significant battlefield victory, which occurred at Antietam on 17 September. The war had been going on for quite a bit less than two years.
Moreover, the rationale for the proclamation was not economic as you imply. It was political, and also strategic. There was a significan foreign policy component to it -- in particular, it was aimed at the British and French, who realized that could not recognize the Confederacy without seeming to support slavery (which both had banned).
Third, although the initial Union war aims in the Civil War were not to "fight to free the slaves," the war was nevertheless about slavery. It is nearly impossible to conceive of a Civil War in which slavery was not a factor. The congressional Republicans in the North were always pro-abolition, and pushed hard to gain abolition as a war aim ... and they finally succeeded. The South always saw the Civil War precisely in terms of trying to avoid the abolition of slavery.
Fourth, your comment about Fr. Sumter is simply ridiculous. The issue for Fr. Sumter was resupply: the fort had supplies for perhaps 6 weeks; the South wanted the fort abandoned; Lincoln wanted to resupply it and thereby control the harbor.
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"
Well, what you’re really talking about here is the Natural Right of Rebellion. James Madison talked about it as well, saying that, while unilateral secession was a violation of a trust, there was no “theoretic controversy” about the right of rebellion. It is indeed a “might makes right” matter.
Is this the same Lincoln that said:
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 righta 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 the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with , or neat about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the Tories of our own revolution. Abraham Lincoln, from the Congressional Record, Jan. 12, 1847.
>This is timely.
Indeed, a good read.
>Lots of talk of civil war and so forth, today.
Read the Declaration of Independence; it is amazing how many of the complaints can be paralleled with today’s government. The people are tired of injustice.
>Regardless of that,, there is certainly a contest.
As said in the New Testament, it is not against flesh and blood; but against powers and principalities. It is ideals against reality, and against other ideals.
>And both sides cannot be right.
Certainly. But as was pointed out; both sides might be wrong.
“Your comment is riddled with errors.”
Apparently it takes one to know one. Check out this NY Times archived article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2134454/posts
Revisionists have grossly re-written history. They will, and are already doing it to Bush. Many of those who called him a liar believed Clinton’s claim of WMDs in Iraq and the need for regime change even with unilateral military intervention.
It is highly important that we not allow revisionists to do their Orwellian “clean-up” of history.
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