Posted on 02/07/2009 7:45:28 AM PST by Loud Mime
Abraham Lincoln's Birthday is this Thursday. I thought it fitting to quote from the first Republican president's debates against Stephen Douglas. Each had an hour to present their case, hardly what the mainstream media would like.
I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it.
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty - criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go South, and become most cruel slave-masters.
When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia - to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go info our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter.
“The free-soil movement may have had far more to do with protecting northern wage workers than with helping blacks (if at all). Northerners were afraid that bringing slavery to the North would cause slaves to take jobs away from themselves.”
Precisely. The Yankees didn’t care a damn about the slaves as people; they were vehemently against slaves as labor competitors.
No, because what a state does within its borders is pretty much up to them so long as they don't violate the constitution. A more appropriate analogy would be if a company in Texas had manufacturing plants in Texas and in Oklahoma. If the Texas government levied a tax on the company for all goods it manufactured outside the state and then brought into Texas then that would be unconstitutional. Or if Texas taxed the company for all goods it manufactured outside the state and shipped elsewhere, that would be illegal. Any steps Texas takes that infringe on the rights and well-being of another state are forbidden. And leaving the Union is no different.
>>>The Supreme Court is the body vested by the Constitution as the sole authority for ruling what is Constitutional and whay is not.<<<
Thanks for admitting that you are a left-wing nut-job. Only a left-wing nut-job would believe that the Framers intended to invest all power over the people in a group of life-time tenured, unelected lawyers.
“Probably not, had the confederacy not initiated war with their attack on Sumter.”
Question for you: Is a naval blockade of someone else’s ports an act of war?
Did either the Federal government or South Carolina cease to regard it as part of South Carolina territory, like Washington DC ceased to be part of Virginia? No. They didn't. So your argument is nothing more that an assertion that a mere real estate title trumps sovereignty. I find that hilarious.
“The Supreme Court is the body vested by the Constitution as the sole authority for ruling what is Constitutional and whay is not”
That’s an exaggeration. Judicial review is not in the Constituion, rather it is what we call an informal amendment. Also, the president can veto laws if he finds them adverse to the Constitution. Congress can impeach various officeholders if it perceives they have violated the Constitution. Presidents can, and have, ignored Supreme Court decisions, as Lincoln did. Some may consider it treasonous, but states manage on occasion to nullify federal law, if only in a de facto sense. Then there’s jury nullification, which has been known to occur.
“I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I can’t find where the Constitution says that it means what PhillipFreenau says it does. But maybe you can point that part out to me?”
A case can be made that the 10th amendment does.
No they rebelled. They illegally seceded from the Union and then launched an armed rebellion to further their aims.
Tariffs were not the problem. The problem was a tariff that favored the industrial north, to the detriment of the agricultural South.
And how did this one do that? It was levied on all parts of the country equally. Consumers in the North paid exactly the same inflated price for goods protected by the tariff as people in the South. The revenue was used proportionately North and South. Northern consumers continued to pay the lions share of the tariff. So how was it such a detriment to the South?
And here we see a prime example of that tired old Southron whine that anyone who doesn't swallow the confederate kool-aid and completely support the Southern rebellion has just got to be a liberal or a left-winger. But considering that so much of your other arguements are based on nothing more than your own vivid imagination why should this claim be any different?
That was a revenue tariff, not a protective tariff.
Why do you ridicule someone who says that secession had little to do with slavery? Even Lincoln admitted the seceding states did not secede because of slavery, and he admitted in his first inaugural address that he did not want to interfere with slavery where it existed and couldn’t constitutionally interfere with it even if he wanted to. The seceding states knew Lincoln could not do a damn thing about slavery. But they did know full well about the Morrill Tariff and Lincoln’s fervent support of same.
And you are just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill nut-job, is that it?
Only a left-wing nut-job would believe that the Framers intended to invest all power over the people in a group of life-time tenured, unelected lawyers.
You really need to break down some time and read that Constitution thing that everyone is talking about. You'd be much better at this if you did.
“It was levied on all parts of the country equally. Consumers in the North paid exactly the same inflated price for goods protected by the tariff as people in the South. The revenue was used proportionately North and South. Northern consumers continued to pay the lions share of the tariff. So how was it such a detriment to the South?”
I’m no tariff crank, but there’s an easy answer. Tariffs were instituted to protect Northern industry. As the South had little industry of its own, it saw none of the benefit. I’ll bet your assertion that Northern consumers bore the burdern more than Southerners. However, it is not at all clear that Southerners knew this. They very well could have thought they paid the higher cost.
Lincoln declared the blockade on April 19th, almost a week after the South had initiated hostilities. If you're using that as an excuse then your dates are off.
Yes. Legally it was not part of South Carolina since South Carolina could exercise no control over it. Only Congress can do that per Article I, Section 8.
So your argument is nothing more that an assertion that a mere real estate title trumps sovereignty. I find that hilarious.
No, I'm saying that the Constituion trumps the demands of the South Carolina rebels.
“And since Jefferson Davis and Robert Lee and Thomas Jackson were also white supremecists.”
Oh you are so full of sh!t, and you know it. Lee was opposed to slavery, and in fact freed his wife’s slaves. Jackson started a Sunday School for black kids, on his own dime (and he had very little money himself), and received the wrath of some folks who WERE white supremacists. You know who was a white supremacist? Your god, Abe Lincoln. Read his comments about the natural inferiority of blacks to whites. But, I assume you already know that, given that you always show up on these threads as the self-anointed resident “Lincoln scholar.”
“On the contrary, Lincoln was well aware of the 10th Amendment. Especially the powers denied to the states by the Constitution part.”
And where, pray, does the Constitution deny the right of secession? As for the 10th Amendment, it clarifies the Founders intent that the individual states did not surrender their respective sovereignty, as the amendment clearly states that those powers not delegated to the FEDERAL government by the states and the people are retained by the states and the people.
Well keep looking because it doesn't say what you claim either. The power you are ascribing to the court comes from the Marbury vs. Madison case, not from the constitution itself. Marshall made a power grab in the Marbury case.
Jefferson argued against the court having the power to interpret the constitution. He believed the central government would become a tyranny if it ever acquired the power to interpret its own limits. He was right.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a very successful war gambit? Funny, I don’t recall the millions of slaves “freed” by the EC leaving their work stations and rebelling against their owners or voluntarily joining Yankee armies. On the contrary, many were shanghaied by Yankee forces and pressed into service.
Since Article IV outlines the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court then I'd say it was more formal than you would like to believe.
Also, the president can veto laws if he finds them adverse to the Constitution.
Completely false. The President can veto bills for any reason, or for no reason at all. He can claim they are unconstitution, but that is his opinion only. Nothing in the Constitution gives the Executive the power to determine what is Constitutional and what is not.
Congress can impeach various officeholders if it perceives they have violated the Constitution.
Nonsense. Article II, Section 4 says, "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." It says nothing about being impeached because Congress thinks they have violated the Constitution.
Some may consider it treasonous, but states manage on occasion to nullify federal law, if only in a de facto sense.
Only for those who haven't read the Constitutional definition of treason. And I'd like some examples of that nullification you're talking about.
A case can be made that the 10th amendment does.
Not a valid one, no.
But no matter how bad you want it to it doesn't say a state can't secede. And states do take actions that negatively or severely impact other states all the time. I gave you the tax example.
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