Posted on 02/06/2003 1:37:27 PM PST by clintonbaiter
As Lincoln was a lifelong opponent of slavery, that would be a reasonable supposition.
Walt
But they were. Shortly after he was asked in August, 1864 to step aside as the 1864 Republican nominee for president, this happened:
"He said, according to Donald, "But now, if he followed their advice, he would have to do without the help of nearly 200,000 black men in the service of the Union. In that case 'we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks.' Practical considerations aside, there was the moral issue. How could anybody propose 'to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South?' "I should be damned in time and eternity for so doing,' he told his visitors (Gov. Randall, and Judge Mills, both from Wisconsin). "The world will know that I keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will.'"
Lincoln would be hero if he'd never done anything else.
And what about this:
"But there were limits to what Lincoln would do to secure a second term.
He did not even consider canceling or postponing the election. Even had that been constitutionally possible, "the election was a necessity." "We can not have free government without elections," he explained; "and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us." He did not postpone the September draft call, even though Republican politicians from all across the North entreated him to do so. Because Indiana failed to permit its soldiers to vote in the field, he was entirely willing to furlough Sherman's regiments so that they could go home and vote in the October state elections -but he made a point of telling Sherman, "They need not remain for the Presidential election, but may return to you at once."
Though it was clear that the election was going to be a very close one, Lincoln did not try to increase the Republican electoral vote by rushing the admission of new states like Colorado and Nebraska, both of which would surely have voted for his reelection. On October 31, in accordance with an act of Congress, he did proclaim Nevada a state, but he showed little interest in the legislation admitting the new state. Despite the suspicion of both Democrats and Radicals, he made no effort to force the readmission of Louisiana, Tennessee, and other Southern states, partially reconstructed but still under military control, so that they could cast their electoral votes for him. He reminded a delegation from Tennessee that it was the Congress, not the Chief Executive, that had the power to decide whether a state's electoral votes were to be counted and announced firmly, “Except it be to give protection against violence, I decline to interfere in any way with the presidential election.”
"Lincoln", pp. 539-40 by David H. Donald
Lincoln was a great and good man -- he is the perfect American hero -- especially today.
I don't know how you missed it. Walt
I see a country that is one I generally approve of, but nowhere do I see a proclamation from the almighty asserting this country to be a divinely sanctioned kingdom on earth. Do you?
See Walt? I wasn't kidding when I told you that idolatry will lead you to many falsehoods.
If The Lincoln were what you say, he would not have proposed, bid for, and endorsed a constitutional amendment preserving and prolonging slavery's existence indefinately. But he did. Therefore his devotion to anti-slavery could not have been as deep or as long held as you assert.
Utter nonesense.
No, Non-Seq. It's a fact of history. You may not like it, but that won't make it go away.
Nonsense. Lincoln's opposition to slavery was well established prior to his election, and his support for the 13th Amendment in 1861 was tepid at best.
The only thing well established about it is a passive moral objection and a tangible position of opposing its expansion in the territories (largely based on his desire to keep the territories free of blacks). Beyond that, The Lincoln was perfectly willing to permit slavery to continue and protect its existence in the southern states.
and his support for the 13th Amendment in 1861 was tepid at best.
He endorsed it in his inaugural address.
Seward credited him with the idea of proposing it in the first place.
Henry Adams credited him alone with the strategic maneuvering that resulted in the amendment's passage.
Such activities cannot be described as "tepid" by any reasonable standard. The Lincoln's support for that amendment was one of devotion and enthusiasm at minimum.
Lincoln entered office opposed to slavery but without any mandate, as he saw it, to do away with it. That is a long way from actively taking steps to protect it.
Nonsense. Why have a written Constitution, if justices can simply make stuff up? Besides my previous quote, which utterly destroys the absurd notion that we are one consolidated people, Madison himself had a clear understanding of the "whole story":
'Even if we attend to the manner in which the Constitution is investigated, ratified, and made the act of the people of America, I can say, notwithstanding what the honorable gentleman has alleged, that this government is not completely consolidated, nor is it entirely federal. Who are parties to it? The people — but not the people as composing one great body; but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.'
James Madison, 6 June 1788, Elliot's Debates, Vol. III, p. 94.
|
As did John Marshall,
Fisher Ames, in the Massachusetts convention opined, that a
Even the Constitution, which begins 'we the people of the united states' [we, the people of the states united] ends with 'done by the unanimous consent of the States present'. The ratifications of nine states were required to for the new government - not between the people of the states, but ' between the States' themselves. It required ratification by the several states independent of the others, not as a collective entity. |
Madison, in Federalist 39, wrote,
'[T]his assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. ... Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.'
In Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Yates, Justice Patterson opined, 'Can we on this ground form a national government? I fancy not.'
In the same volume, Luther Martin stated, 'The general government is therefore intended only to protect and guard the rights of the States as States . ... The basis of all ancient and modern confederacies is the freedom and the independency of the States composing them."In Article III, Section 2 the founders wrote that the judicial powers extended to 'citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State', but never to 'citizens of the United States'.
Referring to the formation of the Union, the Justice Marshall held,
'A judicial system was to be prepared, not for a consolidated people, but for distinct societies, already possessing distinct systems.'
Chief Justice Marshall, Wayman v. Southard, 23 Wheat. 1, (1825).
And of course, my favorite,
'All powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the Federal Government nor prohibits to the States are controlled by the people of each State. ... The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.'
Justice Thomas, U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 US 779, (1995).
Or, if you like, the tenth amendment doesn't come into play at all because of the Militia Act of 1792 as amended in 1795.
The Constitution is supreme over federal laws. Try again.
The LSD use was merely offered as one possible explanation for your irrational hatemongering and race-baiting. The pro-commie part is clearly indicated by your apologetics in behalf of Marx.
your previous question:
Is a few more decades of slavery acceptable to you with a Southern win?
And here is my exact response:
"If it resulted in better race relations after emancipation than what was created by the Northern carpetbaggers during reconstruction."
That you would prefer what occurred, with it's disaster in race relations and the extreme bitterness that resulted, to a gradual emancipation over a few decades that would have avoided these things and put civil rights many decades ahead in the long run, is just further proof of your irrational thinking.
Here's your original question:
Is a few more decades of slavery acceptable to you with a Southern win?
And here is my exact response:
"If it resulted in better race relations after emancipation than what was created by the Northern carpetbaggers during reconstruction."
That you would prefer what occurred, with it's disaster in race relations and the extreme bitterness that resulted, to a gradual emancipation over a few decades that would have avoided these things and put civil rights many decades ahead in the long run, is just further proof of your irrational thinking. BTW, more black women were raped by Union troops during and after the war than had ever been accosted by Southern whites before it. That is a simple fact of history, just like Lincoln's race prejudice.
Your source for this claim, please?
I don't believe that.
We do, but in 1860 the nation similarly had the advantage of 40 years of experience on the same subject.
That doesn't mean anything. In 1960, John F. Kennedy said the best way to spur the economy and grow tax revenue was to cut income tax rates. But still, most of the media insists that lower rates will lower the revenue going into the government.
The speeches made in opposition to the Morrill act further demonstrate a competant grasp of Ricardan concepts back then. In effect there was no legitimate reason then for protection and no substantial one beyond unfairly enriching protected industries at a cost to the rest. Those who advocated the protectionist arguments in 1860 were peddling antiquated and debunked nonsense for their own time, to say nothing of today.
Those opposed were simply trying to find any reason to oppose them because slavery got them behind industrially. How do you propose the government be financed in the 1800s since there was no income tax?
You are still peddling nonsense. An manufacturing based economy is not inherently a "good" thing for all countries and regions everywhere.
Ha! Boloney! You think it's better to have a one-dimensional economy?! That's insane!
You are offering a command-style "one size fits all" approach to economic market specialization, and under capitalism things simply do not work that way. That manufacturing was good for the north does not mean it also had to be good for the south.
Looks like it would've been. LOL They lost the war partly because of less industrialization.
This is especially so when the south had a comparative disadvantage in manufacturing combined with a comparative advantage in another market, agriculture. The south formed agriculturally and is still heavily agricultural to this day because agricultural types of production are its geographic strengths - the markets in which it has comparative advantages. If you doubt me, go try and grow sugarcane or citrus fruit in Minnesota. You will learn why the south went towards those types of agriculture very quickly, and it isn't due to a shunning of your fallacious "one size fits all" belief of paving the country in smoky factories and coal processing plants.
You are wrong. The South has indeed expanded industrially and is now competing effectively economically with the North. They couldn't do that with their one-dimensional economy.
Those two states industrialized in some regions because the markets there made it so. That doesn't mean their factories are good for everywhere else, nor does it mean that all agriculturally strong regions should try to industrialize like them, especially when doing so is comparatively disadvantageous.
You are dead wrong. It's just not good for a large region to be one-dimensional. Slavery made the South one-dimensional.
To use an analogy, most people would agree that a deep sea-going port is an economically "good" thing to have. In 1860 the south was well equiped with ports of this nature, such as New Orleans, to conduct their exports. Therefore those port facilities were a good, economically advanced thing for them to have. Now, does that mean similar ports are good for everywhere? Does that mean I should criticize Wyoming as economically backwards since it doesn't have one? Or how about Vermont? Iowa doesn't have one either. Nor do South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and many other states. Does that mean all these states are backwards? Does the fact that none of them built port facilities mean that they "made their own bed" and chose to resist something that is economically good? Of course not, and in fact it would NOT be in the interest of any of these states to build seaports because such seaports would be comparatively disadvantaged from the get go for economic reasons intrinsic to each of those states respectively - they are all landlocked and its not economically viable to built ports way up river in the middle of a landlocked state! Just the same, it was economically wise to put steel refineries near the steel in the north where that industry was. But that doesn't mean we have to also stick one in a Louisiana marsh where the land is better for sugarcane simply on the grounds that it is a "good thing" when we build it in Pennsylvania.
Every region with a large population needs a way to move merchandise. Whether ports, railroads, or whatever. Find landlocked regions with large populations and you'll see a form of shipping. In New Orleans, there is water so their best form of shipping is ports. In Denver, there is no water so their best form of shipping is rail and trucking. Whether a person works for a railroad or for a port, his purpose is the same. I repeat that slavery made the South one-dimensional and even kept everyone poor except the slaveholders. Why pay a white man to work your fields when you can raise a slave to do it?
Yes. Cause I know that mathematically, "dumped" prices are good for us.
Unless they kill a vital war industry and we are taken captive because of it.
Nonsense. Unless you think aliens are coming along to beam them out from underneath the earth's surface, domestic iron ores are not going to go anywhere if somebody "dumps" steel here. Not even the industry will disappear as (a) dumping simply adjusts domestic production to a smaller level and (b) no significant barrier to reentry exists in the event that conditions change and more domestic steel is demanded.
But once we close and sell all of our steel mills, we have to depend on foreigners to refine out steel for us, and they may not be there in time of war. Perhaps even our our main supplier of steel may be our enemy, then we're dead.
You may believe that to your heart's content, but it is still an economically fallacious way of thinking with no basis in the reality of how markets work.
I know how markets work. I also know it takes steel to win wars and we better protect at least some capacity to produce it in case there is war. Our capacity is already way down from last century's peaks.
Dumping is by its very nature foreign competition.
No, it's a foreign company selling below cost for a time to remove the competition from the marketplace so they can gouge us later.
That competition occurs by way of lowering the world price of a product through the low "dumped" prices of the good being imported.
Yes but there is an alterior motive. Remove the competition by selling below cost to possibly even gain a war advantage.
How so? The iron ores aren't going anywhere, and there is no significant domestic barrier to reentry into a domestic market.
Yes there is. Once the steel-producing factories are sold and refitted, it takes a long time to get them back up. Maybe too long.
Exactly who are "they"?
Everyone but Britain and Israel.
Do you mean to suggest that every steel producing country in the world will collaborate together all at once and wage war on us?
Ezekial, Chapter 38 says that about all of them, yes, will be against us and we'll have a hard time with it. It's quickly forming right now, don't you see it? Amost every country but Britain, Israel, and Australia has been saying terrible things about us, especially lately. Things that would've led to war in the 20th century. The UN is basically an anti-America, anti-Israel propaganda machine. China is hording the world's manufacturing capacity with it's too-low wages. The battle of Hamongog seems to be shaping right up. It may take a while, but I can definitely see the seeds of this battle.
Even if it were true that a steel exporter suddenly became our enemy, what is to stop us from going to another steel exporter elsewhere in the world who is our ally? And what is to stop us from increasing domestic production to compensate for the dropoff in imports?
It takes a long time to restart a steel factory, especially after selling the manufacturing machinery to foreigners and refitting the factory to make potato chips.
I'm glad you see the obvious situation of New Orleans. Now tell me - does New Orleans' role as a port and economic good mean that every state should have its own New Orleans? Does it mean that Colorado should build a port of its own, to be like New Orleans since the port of New Orleans is economically good?
Yes, every state with a large population should have a significant economy in the area of shipping, the particular field of shipping depending on that particular state's geographics, either ports, trucking, air, or rail.
For the same reason that you (hopefully) do not burn the contents of your wallet for the purpose of allowing you to qualify for welfare.
If slavery hadn't spoiled the South, they would've industrialized along with the North. The North has just as good farmland as the South.
Against the northern people as a whole it caused a net loss in their welfare. But by regional comparison, those losses were even harder on the south.
Because slavery didn't allow the South to industrialize.
If you believe that the south was no more advantaged in agriculture production than the north, you are free to open a citrus and sugarcane farm in Minnesota. Report back to me when you are done though, as I would like to know if you have as much luck there as you would planting the same goods in Florida or Louisiana. If you do, then your statement is valid. If not, as I predict will be the case, then you will have just seen a demonstration on how the south possessed a comparative advantage over the north in those agricultural markets.
Since the South stayed one-dimensional, why didn't the north? Slavery, that's why.
Good for wheat and corn, that is. But farmland is not a generic brand of aspirin. Try growing oranges in Indiana or cotton in Indiana. Try growing sugarcane in Minnesota. Try growing rice in Montana. Each of those states has its own share of quality farmland, but that does not mean that farmland will grow everything the southern farmland does with the same quality and in the same ammount. It's a key rule of farming - climate matters.
So why didn't Illinois and Indiana just stay one-dimensional with agriculture if they could just grow wheat and corn? Why go thropugh the trouble of industrializing if they can just stay with agriculture? Slavery was the difference.
No it doesn't. Something can be bad for all of us yet worse for some than others.
Exactly. That's what I've been saying. Slavery kept the South from industrializing and therefore tariffs hurt the South worse.
Winter freezes (not snow, but those yucky, nasty ice storms), for example, are bad for the nation as a whole because nobody likes them. When the whole nation (continental states) is hit by one, everybody is negatively impacted. But for various reasons, the storm will likely be worse for residents of northern Pennsylvania than it will be for residents of gulf coast Mississippi because the severity in which it strikes will be greater. In the case of the tariffs, their negative impact on the southern economy was significantly more severe than on the northern economy, though both were harmed.
Glad to see you admit that. Since the South wasn't industrialized, tariffs hurt them worse, and they didn't indistrialize because of slavery.
No, not really. Slavery was an attribute - the labor attribute - of their economy. That economy developed toward agriculture though because of climate, soil type, and geographic ability to export.
The Southern economy would've been better off if the workers had been paid instead of all the profits going to a few. Slavery kept the South down.
Not for growing cotton, oranges, and sugarcane. In farming, climate matters.
But Illinois and Indiana did more than grow corn. Slavery kept the South from Industrializing.
Since when are the only people who produce steel socialists?
Every major country in the world is more socialist than we.
Why not let the market adjust to that capacity and ration out that resource through its own mechanisms? There is no real reason why it wouldn't work just as well, and it would save us all the time, effort, and costs of fooling around with tariffs and subsidies.
Because Americans will be drawn to where out talents take us and where the income level takes us, and right now that's not steel production, it's in other areas like computers, I guess. That's fine and dandy as long as there's peace, we all make greater profits. But if, let's say China, sees that we don't have the factory capacity to supply ourselves with weapons of war, they could say, "hey, if we attack America right now they have enough material to last only through our first blitzkrieg, then they are ours for the taking because they have no capacity to manufacture weapons of war." I'd rather be slightly less profitable and secure rather than be vulnerable to an more industrialized nation that can produce it's own steel vastly faster than we can.
What about a week? Or a month? It happens all the time absent a war - when an company needs a new warehouse due to market demands, they build one. When they need it fast, they speed up the construction. Just the same, when America needed ships fast in WWII, they sped up the construction and met the demand.
A steel producing infrastructure takes a lot more set-up than a potato chip factory. It would take a long time to re-establish, too long.
But it is a Great Lakes port catering exclusively to traffic that makes use of a network of internal waterways on the North American continent. It may serve some of the same functions as New Orleans, but it is not the same type of port. Just as it would make no sense to rebuild New Orleans on lake ontario, it would make no sense to rebuild Chicago on the coast of Florida.
Every area of great population needs an infrastructure to ship goods. You can't blame the South's inability to industrialize on the excuse that it's workers were tied up in ports. At near-equal percentage of the Northern work force was tied up in fields of shipping also, and yet the North industrialized. Slavery was the difference.
Great lakes ports are just that - great lakes ports. They are not the same thing as oceanic ports. Similar, yes. But not the same.
But they employ people like any other field of shipping. Your blaming the South's lack of industrialization on the excuse that the South was geographically inclined to do shipping. It wasn't any more than the North.
Illinois did not have oceanic ports. It had ports for an internal waterway consisting of the lakes. Just as farmland in Illinois differs from farmland in Louisiana, shipping in Chicago differs from shipping in New Orleans.
You're forgetting what we were talking about. You said the South didn't industrialize because it was more inclined to do shipping. There was about the same percentage of Northerners that worked in fields of shipping too, and yet the North industrialized. Slavery was the difference.
Uranium.
So as long as we have uranium, we don't have to have tanks, planes, artillary, etc.? You don't think steel is a vital war industry?
Sure it was as that is what protective tariffs do. They redistribute the consumer surplus into the producer surplus among other things - it's a matter of economic fact. Live with it.
Boloney. You're trying to claim that tariffs are meant to transfer wealth to business owners. That's not true, protective tariffs are meant to protect an industry from foreign competition so that a country has the capacity to produce that product and to keep people employed in the production of that product. You sound like a liberal with your class warfare crap.
To the contrary - it was as available to human knowledge as anything we've got from about 1820 on, and prior to that it was partially known.
We also know that lower rates help the economy, but most of our population thinks that higher taxes are better. Just because a theory is known doesn't mean everyone agrees with it.
It was clear after 1820. America also enacted policy clearly recognizing it from 1846 to the war. Through that entire period tariffs were consistently low.
An economic downturn in the late 1850s cut revenue to the government. Many thought that the best way to raise revenue was to raise tariffs. Your position makes no sense. You're trying to say that the government deliberately raised rates to cut revenue to the government and to worsen the economy. Why would they deliberately do that?
The tariff stats for 1816 or 1822, no. I don't. I could look them up fairly quickly if necessary, but thus far I have not found it in my interest to commit to memory the annual tariff schedule of the United States for every year of the 19th century. I do know those of years I commonly deal with (roughly 1857-65) though.
Yeah, that's just like a neo-Confederate. Ignore the fact that the South loved high tariffs until they began to get bit by them because slavery kept them from industrializing.
No. Not between 1846 and 1860. First it went down. Then it went down some more. That demonstrates consistency over an extended period.
Between 1790 and 1865+, they went up and down. With the South's support until slavery kept them from industrializing and they began to get bit by them.
You are violating basic rules of statistical presentation by way of padding the mean.
You are just being argumentive. You are denying reality. Tariffs went up and down between 1790 and 1865.
Fluctuations in the tariff rate were much more frequent in some decades than others. If, for example, it went up and down almost yearly for a decade in the early 1800's yet went consistently down for 15 years straight from 1846-61, an average from 1800-1861 would not reflect the consistency of that last decade because your mean is padded. You must know this as the 1846 tariff has been brought to your attention repeatedly, yet you still pad your mean to suggest that fluctuations were evenly dispersed over that same period. That makes you a liar.
There is 75 years between 1790 and 1865. You want to look at 14 years of that and ignore the other 56. Typical of a neo-Confederate. Ignore facts that disagree with your agenda.
Because you asked and for it and for anyone that may be interested. I certainly wouldn't e-mail it to you until you proved yourself as being more than argumentive.
Being God's people does not mean that providence gives its seal of sanction to all of our political activies.
True, but we are God's people and this in God's country as Ezekial 38 and 39 clealy says. We will have Jacob's trouble though.
Not really. Christianity 101 entails the recognition of original sin and its lasting effects combined with action to avoid those sins where possible by acting morally and welcome their forgiveness by our creator when they occur. Goofy speculative theories about divine sanction for a political state are far removed from that basis.
Goofy specualtive theory? It's clearly laid out in the Word. Or have you ever read anything more than John 3:16?
That is a non sequitur. Try again.
It's true.
Yes. It is a non-sequitur. No necessary connection exists between your premise and the conclusion you purport from it. Your argument does not logically follow and is therefore invalid. If you do not like that, reconstruct your argument to where its premises lead to its conclusion.
Secession was for slavery as clearly declared and anyone joining that cause joined to perpetuate slavery unless otherwise declared, and it wasn't otherwise declared.
Well, the congress votes on bills and the president signs them...
Was it called the "Lincoln Virginia Plan? Or did Lincoln have less to do with it than others?
Section 9 Clause 2 lists a retained privilege of the people while granting the lone method in which that privilege may be suspended. It therefore grants a power under those prescribed circumstances - the power of suspension.
If it was meant to be a granting clause, it would've been listed in a previous section.
. Yeah. And so is the judiciary. The judiciary conducted its check on Lincoln. He ignored that check and accordingly violated the constitution by doing so.
The Congress decides if the president is to be impeached, not the judiciary.
And the Constitution grants the legislature alone with the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus under certain prescribed circumstances. So what is your point?
No it doesn't. It said the Congress cannot suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus except in limited circumstances. If it was a power to be granted, it would've been listed previously and would've said "the writ may be suspended when...".
No. Section 9 lists clauses that share in that they are restrictions upon what may be done, but contained within the restriction on habeas corpus a power to suspend that writ is granted under the specified circumstances. Since Section 9 is in Article I, the grant of that suspension power is to the legislature.
In certain circumstances but not limited to the Congress or it would've been listed previously.
It's still a non-sequitur. If you do not like that, fix your argument. Otherwise quit posting it and don't complain.
It's true. The Congress decides if a president is to be impeached. If a president isn't impeached in his defense of the Constitution, then he acted appropriately according to law.
And the judiciary has the power to declare acts of the other two branches unconstitutional. That is its check. The judiciary did that to Lincoln. He ignored it. He therefore violated the constitutional authority of the judiciary.
The Congress decides impeachment, not the judiciary, thank goodness. Look at NJ 2002 for how a judiciary works.
They did, but in doing so they acted alone. Alabama hosted the formation of the confederacy after other states, acting alone, also seceded.
Yeah right, like they had no discussions. You're denying reality again.
Prove your case of the sole reason then. To date you have been insufficient in your evidence for previously noted reasons. If you cannot offer anything more, you have no right to whine about it.
Read the Declarations of Secession. They all say slavery was the reason.
Where? Either prove your case or don't shoot your mouth off in the first place.
Then quit adding "communist" and "proletariate" to Marx' quote. He didn't say it.
Because a synonym suffices.
Bull! You're making things up instead of sticking to truth.
If I call you "stupid," do you ask why I did not instead call you "mentally slow"? No. Because both convey the same meaning. In marxian writings, the same goes for "worker" and "proletariat." The two are synonyms - they are different words that mean the same thing. What is it about that amazingly simple concept that you cannot grasp?
If Marx woul've meant "proletariate", he would've said "proletariate".
? Not according to your earlier actions. You dismissed and ignored a brief two-paragraph quote from Spooner because you did not like it. That means you couldn't even "listen" for two paragraphs before shutting your eyes.
I read it. He's an idiot. The union was preserved with a Northern victory. He claims he's a mind-reader, I guess.
In other words, you did not read his quote. He recognizes that the country itself was retained intact. He attacks the legitimacy of the means in which it was retained.
So he's a mind-reader?
Where? It looks to me as if Spooner had many grievances with the way the union was retained. It is implicit in any such complaint that he knew the union to have been retained. Otherwise he would not have been able to complain about the methods used to retain it. Are you truly so stupid as to not comprehend that?
So you think Spooner was a mind-reader? When someone sets out to do something and they do it. Then a person says that that person didn't really mean to do what they did, then that person needs to be dismissed as an idiot because reality shows that the objective was met just as the doer said it would be.
The south asserted the right to self government. Is that not freedom? The colonies asserted the maintanence of slavery. Is that not the system you decry?
The South wanted freedom to perform slavery as their Declarations of Secession clearly state. That is not support of a cause of freedom.
But you're convinced that America is the promised land?
Because of biblical prophecy, not codes.
In the cases they occurred and so long as they were under his command, he bears some responsibility.
Bull. Lee was an honorable man. Individuals will do as individuals do.
The official records of the US government say otherwise. More southern POW's died in yankee hands than all of the northern POW's who died down south.
I said murdered. That means in the field, not from disease or bad conditions in a POW camp. Although from what I understand, More union POWs had it rough than the Southern POWs. I'd imagine this is more reality that you're denying.
How is denying words exist in a quote support for the person that wrote the quote?
Your false accusations against me of drug use and Marx support is further evidence that neo-Confederates are false accusors and will just make up crazy things to fit their agenda and therefore their accustions against Lincoln should be taken with a grain of salt.
Of course I prefer freedom for blacks over slavery. Things weren't easy for a lot of people through the 19th and 20th centuries. The fact that you think blacks would've been better off as slaves proves that you have no real sense of what freedom is and that I never mischaracterized you at all.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.