Posted on 04/16/2003 5:44:44 AM PDT by Lady Eileen
Washington, DC-area Freepers interested in Lincoln and/or the War Between the States should take note of a seminar held later today on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University:
The conventional wisdom in America is that Abraham Lincoln was a great emancipator who preserved American liberties. In recent years, new research has portrayed a less-flattering Lincoln that often behaved as a self-seeking politician who catered to special interest groups. So which is the real Lincoln?
On Wednesday, April 16, Thomas DiLorenzo, a former George Mason University professor of Economics, will host a seminar on that very topic. It will highlight his controversial but influential new book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. In the Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo exposes the conventional wisdom of Lincoln as based on fallacies and myths propagated by our political leaders and public education system.
The seminar, which will be held in Rooms 3&4 of the GMU Student Union II, will start at 5:00 PM. Copies of the book will be available for sale during a brief autograph session after the seminar.
Nonsense, it accurately sums up the situation. You just can't accept it.
It's admittedly a paradox of forming a new government and I am making no comment as to whether they should or should not have appointed that branch. Rather, I am simply noting the historical fact of the confederate senate's opposition to appointment, which counters the oft-stated but historically frivolous allegation around here that they wanted to make sure Jeff Davis got everything he wanted rubber stamped without any opposition.
As for the appointment issue itself, tell me - what happens when a new government forms and three new branches are created, yet by the very same document that forms those three branches, a power is given to one of the branches that allows them to impede another of the branches from taking office? It would seem that the confederate senators happened upon a paradox in the U.S. Constitution, and as a result of that paradox, no court was installed.
They trampled on the constitution by refusing to accept their constitutional requirement to staff a supreme court.
That is simply not so, non-seq. While I make no judgment it it was proper or not to do so, a paradox exists in the senate approval process that, at the formation of a new government, could theoretically and constitutionally prevent a branch from coming into existence. The Constitution says that all the justices must have senate approval. If the senate does not approve of any judges, no judges take office. That may be unfortunate policy, and it may compromise the functioning ability of that government, but if the senate does not approve, no legitimate federal court appointment can take place under that constitution.
blacks & indians were the most tormented, if only because they tended to be both poor & defenseless.
had lincoln's "emancipators" stayed out of MO, things would have been MUCH better, but of course the damnyankees knew best! besides they wanted someone to conquer!
FRee dixie,sw
black & indian troops served the TRUE CAUSE of dixie freedom from early 1861 to the bitter, bloody end;at least 150,000 blacks & about 50-60,000 indians wore the GRAY, several times the number who chose the side of TYRANNY & blue.
anything else is a LIE!
don't you just hate it when i catch you posting FICTION???
FRee dixie,sw
Atlanta may have its urban ghetto parts like San Francisco, but unlike San Francisco it is not a hotbed of communist homosexual leftism. As evidenced by the Cynthia McKinney case, even democrat sections of Atlanta will throw out America-hating islamophiles. Per Barbara Lee and Nancy Pelosi, the same cannot be said of the cesspool on the bay.
How is Miami different than New York?
Well, a major urban population of Miami votes Republican, hates communism, is fiercely pro-American, and consistently elects conservatives like the Diaz-Balart brothers to Congress. By comparison, several major urban populations of New York vote Democrat, embrace communism, align politically with black and hispanic marxist organizations, such as those puerto rican terrorists and the atzlan crowd, and marxist individuals, such as Al Sharpton, and consistently elects america-hating left wing wackos like Charles Rangel to congress.
How is some rural county in Alabama different in terms of duty, honor and love of country than a rural county in Pennsylvania or Ohio?
Generally speaking, it is not. The same cannot be said, though, of either of those regions in comparison to rural Vermont.
Andrew Butler was a disabled elderly senator who had recently suffered a stroke.
free dixie,sw
i have a poster from the WW2 era, printed by the US government, which has crossed dixie & US flags & the caption: join the army & help the south win the war!
Free dixie,sw
don't tell me about the north, as i once was un-fortunate enough to live there.
FRee dixie,sw
they were tormented just because they were poor, un-armed & NOT white.
free dixie,sw
I'm glad you left.
BTW. Check the FBI stats. The highest murder rate by region is the South! The Northeast is the lowest!
As an aside, I believe Preston Brooks had the common decency to commit suicide, didn't he? I know he died less than a year after he maimed Senator Sumner and I think I read somewhere that he killed himself. Maybe one of you oracles of the pantheon of sothron 'heroes' knows?
So in other words you are making no comment on whether they should or should not have abided by the constitution?
As for the appointment issue itself, tell me - what happens when a new government forms and three new branches are created, yet by the very same document that forms those three branches, a power is given to one of the branches that allows them to impede another of the branches from taking office?
I wouldn't know. When the founding fathers were faced with that very same dilemma they chose to abide by the Constitution. Rather than looking at is as a matter of one branch impeding another they saw it as three branches working together to ensure that one branch did not become to powerful. They had a term for it, a System of Checks and Balances. They had a term for what the confederates chose to do, too. Tyranny.
That is simply not so, non-seq.
Davis and the confederate congress conspired to eliminate an entire branch of government. A branch required by the same document that they claim to get their authority from. What other term for it can there be but violation? The confederate constitution was there, ratified by all the states that the congressmen and senators pretended to represent. I assume that the state conventions did read the document before they ratified it so obviously not a single state objected to the idea of a supreme court or three branches of government. What gave the representatives the right to ignore the wishes of the states? If they objected to the concept so much then the means were there to amend the constitution and remove the offending part. Or was that a paradox, too? To use the constitutional means of amending the constitution to remove a section of the constitution that you chose to violate in the first place? Too hard. Much easier to ignore the constitution in the first place.
That I have, and as my last post evidenced, I do so for a reason and based upon historical facts demonstrating his importance.
Most Americans in his own time and most scholars since would disagree.
Considering that you have yet to offer any specific evidence from any source supporting that claim, and considering that your entire claim itself is not based on factual examination but rather appealing to the authority of those same anonymous "scholars," it has become evident that I may safely and with confidence reject that claim as one without merit.
Those who are interested can consult the sources and make up their own minds.
That they may, and as I have repeatedly specified, the record of Spooner's importance to abolitionism is thoroughly supported in the specifics of that movement. If you are still unaware of those specifics, please see my previous post.
I've no doubt that for some people the history of American political thought in the 20th century couldn't be written without reference to Murray Rothbard, but for most Americans and most specialists it can and is. The cases are similar
Not really. If your analogy is intended to make note of Spooner's extremism as it relates to Rothbard's, as appears to be the case, I need only note that extremism was in good company among abolitionists. John Brown was about as extreme as the come. Now do you think that, by virtue of that extremism, he is dismissable from American history? Make such a claim and you will be laughed at. As for these ever-anonymous so-called "specialists" in abolitionism who allegedly ignore Spooner, such is simply not the case in practically everything i've seen. Go down to your local Barnes & Noble, if you doubt me, and find one of those "abolitionist reader" compilations that has excerpts of the "standard works" from the major participants in the movement. They almost always have an excerpt from Spooner's book. Heck, find yourself an old high school history textbook. You'll probably find a sentence in there mentioning the names and writings of a couple abolitionists (it's normally near the page with that painting of a bearded, wild-eyed John Brown that they always use). It often isn't much more than a paragraph, but you'll see three or four books or publications and their respective authors mentioned: Garrison with "The Liberator," Stowe with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Spooner with "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery."
I don't think Tim Robbins wants to bomb New York or Susan Sarandon wants to make Islam our official religion, but people have charged that they give support and comfort to our enemies and make common cause with them. You yourself have made extensive use of "guilt by association" tactics in your posts, so you understand the idea. I don't argue that Spooner is "guilty by association," though, just that associations between Spooner and neo-confederatism do exist and shouldn't be ignored.
Oh, so now its not "confederate apologism," but rather "neo-confederatism" that he's associated with? Now that's odd, especially considering that Spooner has been dead for over a hundred years. That having been said, why not simply admit the error in your sloppy and dishonest attempt to associate Spooner with racial rantings from earlier years in De Bow's?
Spooner should not be represented as a typical or important abolitionist without serious consideration of the anarchist views that differentiated him from other, and more important abolitionists.
Consider him in the context of whatever views you like, x. My contention is with your arbitrary attempt to dismiss his relevance to abolitionism, practically all of which has been grounded on a series of oft repeated but never specified appeals to anonymous authorities. And for the record, dismissing him on an association to libertarian anarchy is no more valid a tactic than dismissing him by appealing to anonymous authorities. If you truly wish to dismiss Spooner's importance to abolitionism, you must make a case for doing so. You must make a case why his book wasn't philosophically important to the movement. You must make a case why you think he didn't shape Gerrit Smith's politics or the Liberty Part's development. You must make a case why Spooner did not merit the heavy attention given to him by other abolitionists and by the leading political figures of the day. You have, to date, made no such case. Instead you continue to post appeals to anonymous authorities and associations to things like anarchy and DeBow's Review. Those are fallacies of distraction, x, and they are the basis of your entire commentary against Spooner to date.
Spooner defended the "right to secession" and attacked unionist doctrines and efforts to fight back.
That he did, though he properly characterized what you euphemize as "fighting back" for what it was, the exertion of coercive force. So what is your point?
He may not have agreed with everything the Confederates wanted to do, and may not have been willing to defend them from rebels in their own camp, but he certainly did write an apologia for secession, and hence, to all practical purposes, for the Confederacy.
That is not entirely true and, by stating it, you only further evidence your ignorance of his argument. In all seriousness, take a few minutes to read "No Treason" and the letter to Charles Sumner. You will find him very critical of the southern side of the conflict. His issue, however, was with the concept of government of consent. Spooner argued that, prior to the war, the American government was, at least in theory, one of consent by the governed. He was extremely-libertarian minded, but because he permitted that point in his philosophical system and accepted that in theory the U.S. Constitution formed a government of consent, he could not be called a full fledged anarchist prior to the war. "No Treason" was the turning point, and in it he outlines his argument in great detail. Simply put, Spooner argued that the government of consent that existed, at least in theory prior to the war, was violated by the war and made instead into a government resting on coercion. After all, that WAS what happened in the war - obedience was coerced from the southern states by the military force of the northern states. As a result of this, he argued, the union was no longer a valid or legitimate government but rather a tyranny based upon coercion instead of consent. Holding this argument to be the case, Spooner inescapably voiced a view that was consistent with the concept of secession. After all, the south was the party from which obedience was coerced. Simply noting that fact and theorizing about its occurence does not make one a confederate though, and it certainly doesn't make one a "neo-confederate" considering that Spooner died 100 years before that latter term was even in semi-relevant use.
To be sure, he was anti-slavery, but the neo-confederate argument is that the war was not about slavery
That is not an exclusively neo-confederate argument by any means. Lincoln himself said the war was not about slavery but rather about the union. Now what he meant by the union is a matter of debate, but the fact is that he openly said what you ascribe to "neo-confederatism," whatever that may be. In fact, as Spooner said, it had been universally admitted during the war that the war was not about slavery. One of Spooner's grievances with the war, if not his primary grievance, was that it was not about slavery.
and that one could be pro-Confederate and anti-slavery, so this hardly counts as an objection.
Neither attribute is necessarily exclusive or inherent, therefore no reason exists as to why one could be one of those things but not the other.
The publication of Spooner's writings in De Bow's was an early milestone in the development of neo-confederate ideology and argument,
Have you even bothered to check yet what was published there? The first article was one that Spooner probably considered an act of philanthropy to an economically-suffering region. The second was a legal argument on the crime of treason that he had self-published and filed in a Massachusetts courtroom. That DeBow's published it was not some "neo-confederate" scheme. It was not so mythological conspiracy. If one applies the William of Ockham's shaving device, a plausible explanation results: Simply put, in 1867, a huge portion of the southern population was being accused verbally, politically, and in some cases legally, of having committed the act of treason. So when a well-reasoned and intelligent legal defense against that allegation was formulated by a prominent lawyer of the time, it made sense for them to republish it and circulate it!
There certainly are real contradictions between Spooner's anarchist denial of state sovereignty and the secessionists advocacy of that doctrine, but neo-confederate theory is rife with such contradictions.
Spooner wrote in very explicit terms that the confederate concept of the state was every bit as mistaken as the yankee concept of the union. If you had read "No Treason" or if you had even the slightest clue about what you are commenting on, you would know this fact. But you do not, hence you make ignorant allegations of contradictions that did not historically exist in the essay itself. You are flying without a pilot's license, x, and it shows.
See THE REAL LINCOLN (at a car dealership near you), and see if we can hit 450+ replies concerning the civil war.
Don't play stupid, Non-Seq. If one branch's appointment is contingent upon the approval of another, and that other branch does not approve of the appointment, no appointment can legally occur. It's a constitutional paradox that, like it or not, happens to exist.
Davis and the confederate congress conspired to eliminate an entire branch of government.
I'll admittedly have to search the records of debates on that, but it is my understanding that significant animosity occurred between the congress and Davis, with those who opposed the court's appointment in the Senate being among the most vocal opponents of Davis's administration. I don't think anyone could ever reasonably call that "conspiring." Do you?
I don't believe Butler had any knowledge of it. He wasn't even on the senate floor when Sumner stood there mocking his stroke-induced disabilities. Brooks simply felt that his family's honor had been insulted by an act that, with any other individual save a few from the scum of the Sumner crowd, would have resulted in a duel. But historic codes of dueling, which trace back to the trials by combat of medeival Europe, say the event is reserved for satisfying honor among peers. A gentleman duels with a gentleman, but a gentleman does not duel with a sloth, vagrant, or low life of society. For such situations, a gentleman satisfied honor by caning the vagrant. Brooks considered Sumner to be such a vagrant on reasonably good grounds (heck, half the Republican Party hated Sumner and considered him a nuisance!). So, after consulting the advice of dueling experts, Brooks, who was no stranger to the duel, concluded that Sumner was to be appropriately dealt with by a caning.
Second, make sure the intended victim is unarmed and unprotected.
As opposed to the norther way of doing things, which includes mocking somebody else's physical handicaps when they aren't even present to defend themselves.
Third, make sure you don't do it alone but instead bring an accomplice along to prevent anyone from coming to the unarmed man's aid while you batter him with your club.
Actually, Brooks' accomplice was an expert on dueling and other actions of recourse for honor. Tradition says one brings such a person to events of this nature, as Brooks had done previously when he dueled amongst peers.
Fourth, make sure your accomplice is armed in a similar manner.
The double to a duel comes with a pistol as well.
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.