Posted on 02/11/2009 6:06:39 PM PST by Kaslin
This is the 200th birthday of the first Republican to win a national election, Abraham Lincoln. It is good for Republicans today to remember Lincoln, not to be antiquarians, but to learn from his principled defense of the Constitution.
By becoming students of Lincoln, Republicans can win elections and would deserve to win by helping America recover its constitutional source of strength and vitality.
The greatest political crisis America faces today is neither the recession nor Islamic terrorism; it's not health care, education, immigration or abortion. It is that the United States Constitution has become largely irrelevant to our politics and policies.
All three branches of government routinely ignore or twist the meaning of the Constitution, while many of our problems today are symptoms of policies that have no constitutional foundation.
If we are to recover the authority of the Constitution and the many ways it restrains and channels government power, someone or some party must offer a principled defense of the cause of constitutional government.
They must understand not only the Constitution, but also the principles that informed its original purposes and aspirations, principles found in the Declaration of Independence among other places.
No one understood that better than Lincoln.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Good article.. for some reason, there is an anti-Lincoln contingent here, but to each his own I guess..
And they should be here in five...four...three...two...
Very good article by Thomas Krannawitter. Thanks for posting. Hillsdale College BUMP!
Unfortunately the Republicans have almost entirely abandoned the principles under discussion.
“If the Constitution and the Union established by our forefathers” were “restored” then there will be no truer supporters of that union and that Constitution than the Southern people. Every brave people who considered their rights attacked and their Constitutional liberties invaded, would have done as we did. Our conduct was not caused by any insurrectionary spirit nor can it be termed rebellion, for our construction of the Constitution under which we lived and acted was the same from its adoption and for eighty years we have been taught and educated by the founders of the Republic and their written declaration which controlled our consciences and actions.”
Robert E Lee
Yeah,, but they stand up so well as a minority party when the chips are down and act like dems when they gain some power back. I think that's some kind of collective psychosis....or a sucker play on the rest of us.
No President was more consistent in ignoring the U S Constitution than Abraham Lincoln. It still amazes me when he is referred to as someone who obeyed it while he closed newspapers and jailed judges, for example.
Lincoln did the most damage to this nation's abiding by the Constitution of any President -- even more damage than FDR, Wilson, and LBJ combined.
“Yeah,, but they stand up so well as a minority party when the chips are down and act like dems when they gain some power back. I think that’s some kind of collective psychosis....or a sucker play on the rest of us.”
This man gets it and is sooooo right...
"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution." - Robert Lee
Lee was either blowing smoke before the rebellion or after it. I'm betting after.
Also, Article 1, Section 9. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
Count me in, I am pro Constitution. Lincoln was not.
I guess everyone has to choose what part of the Constitution you look at, Lincoln looked at what I put in post #12.
Whether they were entitled to leave the Union at will is debatable. But I don't believe there was any cause to complain that they were forced to leave by reason of a Constitutional violation. They just didn't like being outvoted, and they knew that if the west came in as free states, they would lose the balance that allowed them to retain slavery. They had to leave, or give up their way of life. So they left.
Our situation today is different. Our constitution is being ignored. Those who want to live under the rule of law have to find a way to restore the constitution, or live under the tyranny of those who believe that they are not bound by its terms.
Bump 15
“Defiant (I for one welcome our new Obama Overlords.)”
That says it all...
Lincoln would be proud of you...
Only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, not a President acting on his own. You need to read your Constitution again.
A state in the Union could not enter into treaties or confederations that would bind the Union. The southern states left the Union. Where in the Constitution does it say that a state cannot leave the Union?
The Constitution says when habeas corpus can be suspended. It doesn't say who can suspend it.
Where in the Constitution does it say that a state cannot leave the Union?
James Madison wrote, "An inference from the doctrine that a single State has the right to secede at will from the rest is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them." Is Madison right? If not, why not?
Lincoln was a great man, and a great president - but attributing the defense of the constitution his way is just ridiculous. He was faced with a real constitutional crises when half the country decided to break away, and in holding the U.S. together was forced to abrogate said document more than any other president before or since.
This article as about as much nonsense as the flurry of recent articles from the left comparing Zero to Lincoln on the grounds of how ‘unifying’ they both are (hint: during his day, Lincoln was the most hated president ever).
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