Posted on 09/26/2009 2:45:33 PM PDT by HokieMom
LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Americans must pay attention to challenges to democracy today just as Abraham Lincoln did by fiercely opposing slavery, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference on the 16th president's legacy Friday night.
"We are part of something far greater than ourselves," Thomas told more than 300 people at Washington and Lee University.
Many in Lincoln's time didn't realize the threat that slavery posed to the principles on which the nation was founded, Thomas said.
"What a miserable job he had. He wasn't popular," Thomas said, "but he did what was right."
Thomas received a standing ovation from the audience in Lee Chapel, where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is buried.
He told conference participants he isn't a Lincoln scholar, but admires him greatly.
"My interest in him has been deeply personal and long-standing," said Thomas, who grew up in segregated rural Georgia in the 1950s and 1960s. "We thought of him then as the great emancipator."
The 61-year-old Thomas is the Supreme Court's second black justice. The first was Thurgood Marshall, whom he replaced in 1991.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
“Illinois Butcher” sounds awesome! The Democrats got what they deserved; thanks to Lincoln, Democrats now talk about fleeing to Canada, instead of secession.
We are at Division strength and growing.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like a tyrant.
What part of "freedom of press" is confusing?
And Lincoln got his too.
A dead white guy??
I believe that Freeper was referring to Taney's likely reaction at the thought of a black man on the Supreme Court, or in any other position of authority.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/adams3.html
Yeah. That's a Southron myth without a shred of evidence to support it. And one way that you can tell is that not a single one of the biographies of Chief Justice Taney ever mention it. Not Charles Smith, who Adams quotes on other things. Not James F Simon, who wrote the most recent biography. Nobody. But I notice that y'all never let facts stand in the way of a good ol' Southron fairy tale.
Actually it wasn't even issued. When I read "Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney", I took the chance to email James Simon and tell him how much I enjoyed his book. I also asked him if he had found any evidence of any attempt to arrest Taney by Lincoln or anyone else. His answer was a definitive 'no', he had found no evidence at all supporting the claim.
I thought you had seceded.
Nobody is forcing you to remain and go down with the ship. Delta flies both ways across the oceans you know.
FYI To Clarence, he was a racist of the worst sort.
I don't know if Lincoln was the worst sort of racist. Every Southern leader I can think of would give him a run for his money in that category.
I did say “may.”
The claims I’ve seen have been secondary reports from purported participants decades after the events in question.
Nothing resembling actual documentary evidence has been found.
That said, a great many Americans of southern sympathies were indisputably committing treason, by the Constitution’s definition, during the War.
If the CSA was indeed a separate nation, as they claimed, then they were giving aid and comfort to their country’s enemy, to the extent in many cases of burning bridges, killing soldiers, etc.
FYI, the actual number of white "non-racists" at the time would have been too small to count. Even most abolitionists were racist by today's standards.
To be a non-racist in the 1860s required rejection of the science of the time with regard to differences between the races. A very few succeeded in doing so, mostly due to their interpretation of the Bible.
How long do you think pro-Nazi newspapers would have been allowed to publish after Pearl Harbor? More importantly, do you think they should have been allowed to do so?
I surely hope you are not succumbing to the "rabbit hole".
(Otherwise referred to as "inside-the-beltway mentality")....
What? And be fascist dictators? No thanks!
I don’t believe German newspapers have U.S. Constitutional protections.
Surely you realize I was posing the hypothetical of a pro-Nazi newspaper in the United States.
I don't believe that was ever an issue. And there does seem to be a major difference between being on the side of a foreign country in a war and taking a side in a domestic dispute that represented over nine million Americans (the CSA states' population at the time.)
Regardless, I probably would ignore it. Rights are for everyone; it's too slippery a slope to let the government ever get its foot in the door deciding what is and is not acceptable.
The whole point is that the CSA claimed to be a foreign government and their supporters in the USA agreed. So they were by definition supporting a country at war with their own. IOW, it wasn’t a “domestic dispute” at all.
Wonder if Justice Thomas knows Lincoln defended a slaveowner. Thomas should review Lincoln’s actions in anaconda plan blockade
???
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