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.
You need to read some history books and not just cut and paste stuff. But if you’re coming from the position that those who support Lincoln claim he was perfect—which I’ve never heard any supporter of Lincoln say—you’re never going to be able to get it straight.
If you want to believe Lincoln could have outlawed slavery on his own, feel free. The truth of the matter is far more complicated. I’d suggest some books, but you won’t read them, so I won’t bother.
Have a good day.
Great post, and a sane, honest analysis.
I have to stay away from these threads. They get to be cringe-inducing.
>>>You need to read some history books and not just cut and paste stuff. But if you’re coming from the position that those who support Lincoln claim he was perfect—which I’ve never heard any supporter of Lincoln say—you’re never going to be able to get it straight. If you want to believe Lincoln could have outlawed slavery on his own, feel free. The truth of the matter is far more complicated. I’d suggest some books, but you won’t read them, so I won’t bother.<<<
I love to read. Which “history books” are you referring to?
I would be careful quoting Doris Kearns Goodwin on any subject. This is Lincoln’s original memorandum:
I for one have always found DiLorenzo to be a careful historian. Given the attention his work generates it is only to be expected. He's a pretty good debater too. I once saw him reduce Harry Jaffa to breathlessly blubbering some nonsense about Confederates and Nazi's with the crowd booing him.
“I see that. But part of that Section 9 gives some power to the President.....same Article.”
What part?
It is granted to Congress by the power to create courts. See post 72 above. You were correct. It is exclusively a power of the Congress.
The 'Cases of Rebellion or Invasion' are also covered in Article 4, Section 4:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive means the Legislature and Governor of a State, not the federal government.
Unless a State requests the assistance of the federal government, the federal government has no business within a State even if there is rebellion or domestic violence.
At the same time it is properly provided, in order that such interference may not wantonly or arbitrarily take place; that it shall only be on the request of the state authorities: otherwise the self-government of the state might be encroached upon at the pleasure of the Union, and a small state might fear or feel the effects of a combination of larger states against it under colour of constitutional authority;
William Rawle
benefited from slavery.Some blacks owned slaves in Lincoin’s time but we never hear much about that wonder why.
When you speak of authority you open up a vast area for legalisms and its arguments.
Suffice it to say that power, on its own, will be abused. Again, that great federal power would never have existed under the Articles of Confederation.
OK?
Hell, the whole thing was dumb. Cooler heads should have prevailed on both sides and ended slavery in time with compensation. But instead there were firebrands angling for a fight and had been for generations over many contentious divides slavery included but not the only one.
It still goes on today. The Civil War wa a big waste of a cream of American life that did not have to happen. And look at the aftermath, 150 years later we are still trying to clean up the mess it left and that mess has only gotten worse.
I curse the Yankees who brought slaves here and my ancestors who used them. The ramifications of all of that is destroying this country.
Likely it will it time.
That, I will agree with, but I sadly fear that the ideals behind the Articles of Confederation are just as dead to us as ideals behind the Constitution.
[sigh]
I don’t know, they also seemed to despise the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Laws forcing them (potentially) into acting as slave-catchers for Southern slave owners.
The fact is, like with ALL such conflicts in human history, various people had different reasons for believing and doing as they did, oft-times the belief being supported by two causes simultaneously.
Kind of like “Freeing” Iraq was more out of self-interest (draining the swamp, etc) but is also something to believe in as a worthwhile cause to bring liberty to an oppressed people.
There is no doubt, however, that from our country’s inception, the largest division had ALWAYS been slavery. From the Declaration of Independence having some of its slavery-condemning passages struck to an attempt to abolish slavery as part of the founding of the country (being rejected, of course, by the South) to Jefferson’s issues to Washington freeing his slaves after years of laying the legal groundwork in his will (so that non-abolitionist relatives couldn’t usurp his rights) and showing himself to be a truly great man who grew with his experience and showed a consistent devotion to liberty and human dignity.
But to pretend that all those preceding conflicts didn’t revolve around slavery and the growing abhorrence of it, not only in the North, but in much of the rest of the world is to be as guilty of revisionist history as the Left all to support a “lost cause” and to try to achieve a ‘victory’ of sorts by making oneself the ‘moral’ agent in the conflict or by sullying the moral argument of the victor.
It’s wrong and it’s not accurate. Or need we talk about the Southern Constitution specifically talking about the supremacy of the white man over the Negro, threats to execute white officers of black-led regiments and ENSLAVING black men who fought under the Union banner, even if they had never been slaves in the first place!
The country grew from viewing slavery as a moral evil that would fade away to one part of it believing it to be a moral good (probably to justify what they knew to be wrong because it was the major form of heritable wealth in the South) and asserting the eternal servitude of an entire people. There are some fascinating stories that come out of the Revolution. Ones that would instruct those ignorant of the deep divisions that slavery and race caused for so many years and that some would seek to deny, all so they can feel “proud” of the good Southern things, when they don’t need to justify that at all.
It’s like rationalizing the evil that Jesse James did because he was a Confederate True Believer robbing “Yankees.”
Or present in the Constitution? Right?
But when a President or the Judiciary creates law out of thin air, (which, in this case, they have not) or attempts to enforce (you mean "create a power?") a power when there is no congressional or constitutional authority for that power, that is usurpation of power, which is tyranny.
You do not deny that the power is in the Constitution. In this case, I would say that your best position is that your argument concerning who implements the power of the suspension of habeaus corpus is "debatable", not absoute.
By design of the separation of powers, the Executive has power, and the duty, to enforce the law. The hc suspension fits in his hands better than the legislative. The fact that the Democrats, in all these years, have NOT filed suit on their hated George Bush concerning this matter seems, to me, to have closed this argument.
“How often have we all angrily defended something that, deep-down, we know is wrong? I’ve done it — perhaps you have, too”
Well, I at least try not to, have always thought a good measure of a person is someone who will defend an adversary when they are right. Now that this has devolved into the civil war, I have something to run by you ... not sure I fully agree with it.
Once read an article, don’t remember by whom, that showed the Civil War as an ethnic struggle that was displayed not only in the lifestyle differences between north and south, but also in the manner in which they fought. Could this be, at least partly, the reason you get exchanges such as you see here. I know before the Civil War that Georgia, South Carolina wielded significant political influence and that was gone after the war. The balance of power shifted to the north (though understandable some needed balance was lost) and it is fairly obvious that any advantage this shift held has now subsided. You can refer to me as an Ethnic Southerner or an Irish-American.
Once read an article, don’t remember by whom, that showed the civil as an ethnic struggle, that was displayed not only in the lifestyle differences between north and south, but also in the manner in which they fought. Could this be, at least partly, the reason you get exchanges such as you see here. I know before the Civil War that Georgia, South Carolina weilded significant political influence and that was gone after the war. The balance of power shifted to the north and it is fairly obvious that any advantage that held has now subsided. You can refer to me as an Ethnic Southerner or an Irish-American.
whoa....the slaves were originally brought to the new world by the European Monarchies, for the 13 colonies, that would be England.
Not only were there attempts to spread slavery to the territories, there was at least one major attempt (never came to fruition) to establish colonies in the Caribbean and Central America to add slave territory to the Union.
The South didn’t want to be “free” to have slaves because they were never satisfied with slavery being legal in their own states but constantly sought to expand it and to force Northerners to comply with their ideas about ‘property.’
Do neo-confederates (and paleolibertarians like Rockwell) realize how much like Left-wing historians they sound? Reducing everything to economics, disregarding the very real, if confused and not fully developed, feelings people had about a particular practice?
So, what’s the REAL reason for being pro-life? Because according to Neo-Confed revisionists on this board, there must be some hidden motive for wanting to save the lives of the unborn. And hell, if you aren’t out there killing abortion providers or if you don’t advocate it, then you MUST NOT really believe in the pro-life cause, eh?
I too believe that the conflict was inevitable. There was just too much investment by the South in slavery, which is sad because there was a time when it was universally regarded as an evil practice that would fade away in our New Republic of Liberty.
Oh and tell all those black troops that it wasn’t about slavery. OR Frederick Douglass.
And for all the talk of Reconstruction, Johnson’s pro-Southern bias pretty much ruined the hope for a REAL reformation of the South and allowed groups like the White LEague and the KKK to terrorize blacks and the Republican Party into submission. Reconstruction was a failure because of Johnson’s weakness and the intransigence of Southern whites.
Odd how so much of white conduct AFTER the war was about re-establishing white supremacy and booting black officials and Republicans(Abolitionists, pro-Unionists) out of office.
Odd if it weren’t actually about slavery and their views on the black man from the beginning, I mean.
For one, we don’t know the arrangements that some of those blacks were under. Like Jefferson, they may have treated them more as servants and given them a place to stay and some measure of protection (in the south, you’d be more in trouble for killing someone else’s property than for killing a free black, I’d imagine) when they had to venture off the plantation.
Slavery was a twisted business, replete with epic and modest tales of sacrifice, heroism and villainy.
BTW, there were Jews that helped the Nazis. Doesn’t make the Holocaust less of an atrocity because some people are evil or will feel desperate enough to live that they will do evil things to their own people.
I believe you are in error here. I'll research it and get back to you.
I'll ignore your condescending attitude and suggest some books, but I suspect you are too sure of yourself to read them:
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
Abraham Lincoln: Friend or Foe of Freedom?
From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition
Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture
When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession
Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists: Marxism in the Civil War
Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture
The South Was Right!
Facts the Historians Leave-Out
Lincoln Takes Command
Reclaiming Liberty
There are plenty more.
Well, we never hear who sold the blacks into slavery either.
So much of history is boiled down to simplistic one-liners. The world is a lot more complex. (example: The Crusades)
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