Some legend.
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's not nonsense to anyone who goes back and looks at #318. Although this is sure to be a small group -- they will see that you cut and pasted parts of two notes together to suggest something I never said.
Walt
Are you suggesting that Chief Justice Rehnquist doesn't know how the court system works?
Walt
Some legend.
Another scarecrow from Mr. Intellectual Dishonesty. Show me the post where I say this.
BTW We're still waiting for you to acknowledge the "fact" that Spooner's financial patron Gerritt Smith was elected to Congress as a Free Soiler. A fact you neglected to ascertain before attacking the anti-slavery pegigree of the Free Soil party, and are now convienently ignoring.
The facts are there as plain as day. You know them because you've seen them. Yet you continue to make vague assertions that are wholly inconsistent with them. Based upon that, I can only reasonably conclude that you are lying and that you do not wish to concede either that you were wrong in your first claim or that you are lying about that claim right now in an effort to escape having to concede that first error.
Sound familiar?
Is that what it was you were building, mac? Or did you steal the scarecrow from your neighbor and call it your own this time?
Show me the post where I say this.
Right here in you fraudulent claim that compares the two interchangably: "Sounds to me like the abolitionist movement in general and the original Liberty party membership in particular, weren't too impressed with Lysander Spooner or Gerritt Smith. While the Free-soilers went on to play a spoilers role in the presidential election in 1848 and eventually send a dozen men to Congress, the Liberty party with Garritt and Spooner went..nowhere."
BTW We're still waiting for you to acknowledge the "fact" that Spooner's financial patron Gerritt Smith was elected to Congress as a Free Soiler.
Why are you still waiting for something I acknowledged two days ago back in post 519? Let me copy it again for you: "An abolitionist could be a Free-Soiler and some of them were, but not all Free-Soilers were abolitionists and far from it."
Now, mac. You got anything to add to this debate that isn't factually dishonest of plagiarized? Or are you simply going to revert to your usual name calling?
Clinton technically came from Arkansas, but yankeeland elected him. Twice.
Where did I say anything about Bill Rehnquist, Walt? That's right. In that post, I didn't. I said of your false god "he could have accepted it and abided by the ruling. Simply ignoring it was not a legally valid option." You have yet to address that issue.
What's the technicality? He was born there and raised there. The "southerners" in Arkansas elected the bum bunches of times. Same with the other anti-American southroon from Georgia.
LOL. So once again, you haven't any intelligent comments to make. Typical.
Two months ago is not "a few weeks ago." That accounts for my difficulty in figuring out what you were talking about. Read carefully what I wrote. I made no claim as to Gerrit Smith's importance. You wrote:
Aside from maybe Garrison, Spooner was perhaps the best known and most prominent of the abolitionists of his day.
A manifestly untrue statement to anyone who knows anything about the history of the period. I responded:
It takes a rare and massive ignorance to pass over Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elijah P. Lovejoy, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Dwight Weld, the Grimkes, James Birney, Moncure Conway, Gerrit Smith, Lewis Tappan, John Brown, John Greenleaf Whittier, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Horace Greeley, Martin Delaney, Henry Ward Beecher and others and single out the obscure Spooner as one of the "best known and most prominent" of the abolitionists. Spooner isn't even mentioned in most short accounts of abolitionism. It's only because libertarians have rediscovered his works and put them on the Internet that he is remembered at all. But such ignorance is a fertile field for Rockwellism.
I didn't have to know all about Gerrit Smith's or Lucretia Mott's or Martin Delaney's or Lewis Tappan's activities to know that their names appeared in more books and articles on the subject than Lysander Spooner's. In looking for other information, one notices these things, and it's easy to go back and check them. I did not "declare" that Smith or any other person on that list was important, merely that a person who was honest and knew about the abolitionist movement wouldn't pass over a long list of names, including his, and baldly state that Lysander Spooner was second only to Garrison in the movement. Your original statement was untrue. I didn't have to be or claim to be an expert on the period to know that. And I called you on it.
For all of your accusations of my supposed backtracking, you don't seem to express your original conviction with as much force. Could it be that you no longer think that Spooner was one of the two or three most prominent abolitionists? Or do you persist in your original statement, in spite of evidence to the contrary because it's too hard emotionally for you to back down?
We live and we learn. It's all a part of life and if we weren't led to modify or rethink our positions sometimes, these discussions would be of little use. Unfortunately the charges and countercharges, quibbles and accusations get one away from the original point. Since you've offered so little reliable evidence in defense of your original statement, I will presume that you have been convinced that you were wrong. If you have been unwilling to consult major written accounts of the abolitionist movement up until now, I don't think anything I say will convince you.
For what it's worth, Spooner did have an influence on Frederick Douglass. I have learned that, and you can count it as a point in your favor. You seem to like that sort of thing. But having adopted the idea of the unconstitutionality of slavery Douglass was disposed to talk up those associated with that idea. He paid homage to Spooner, also to Smith and Goodell and the three as a group. There's no sign that he a made a special cult of Spooner, and you haven't said anything about what he thought of other abolitionist spokesmen. He may well have been effusive in his regard for them as well -- or excessively critical, because they didn't share his views. It's hard to evaluate Douglass's comments statements without knowing the context.
And Douglass was far from the only abolitionist. Others in the movement weren't so enthusiastic about Spooner. They praised his intelligence, for he was good with words and argument. And, in the larger scheme of things he was on the same side, and those fighting for an unpopular cause graciously extended courtesy to those struggling for the same end. One can't expect that they'd rake him over the coals and risk alienating his faction. It's neither necessary nor justifiable nor useful to savage everyone with whom one has a disagreement.
But Garrison and Phillips were very critical of Spooner. They regarded his view on slavery and the constitution as wrong, as going against the meaning of words and what they understood of the world. There was something backhanded in their compliments. In the view of Phillips and Garrison, Spooner was too apt to split hairs, too clever for his own good, "merely logical" rather than truly wise. Given that they thought him wrong and misguided it's hard to see why they would submit to his influence or defer to him more than any other abolitionist writer.
Reviews and obituaries always exaggerate the importance of their subject. That's why we have to turn to reviews or obituaries of other figures, or better still, to more extensive works that deal with a topic in more exhaustive fashion or articles that scrutinize a smaller topic but don't loose sight of the bigger picture. When someone only has to write about Lysander Spooner they will speak differently than when they survey his whole period and many of his contemporaries. And the old rule about not speaking ill of the dead means that obituaries should be treated with caution. I'd imagine that you'd find the same effusiveness from the Boston Globe or New York Times in eulogizing at half-dozen or dozen abolitionists.
Your claims about Gerrit Smith are a mess. The endorsement by the Liberty Party of Spooner's ideas was the reward of a shriveled and dying party for a loyal follower and carried little significance outside a small rump faction. Smith won his election on the Free Soil ticket which you have condemned as not being truly abolitionist. His election to Congress or what he did there didn't mean much alongside Garrison's thirty plus years of effort culminating in the abolition of slavery. Smith was as much of a compromiser in Congress as his fellow Free Soilers, and this diminished his standing among radical abolitionists. And Smith resigned in mid-term, not valuing his seat enough to keep it. Being elected to Congress apparently didn't mean as much to him as a career as an outside agitator. Louis Filler (The Crusade Against Slavery) pays tribute to Smith and his faction, but leaves one wondering if he really had the right stuff in him to leave much in the way of real accomplishments behind.
The point you were trying to make about Gerrit Smith and Lysander Spooner doesn't seem to stand up. But that's okay. We can't all be right about everything all the time, and it's foolish to think that anyone can. Surely such discussions as these are intended to reach understanding and truth and not to rack up points for oneself.
I have no problem giving Spooner his due. If I ever said that he had no influence or virtually no influence I was wrong. Clearly he did have some influence, but he still wasn't one of the most important figures in the movement. Manifestly untrue statements, like your February comment about Spooner being second only to Garrison as the "best known and most prominent" abolitionist of the day are provocative -- and not in the good sense of the word. Make such exaggerated and manifestly untrue claims and you ought to expect harsh and unequivocal responses. Promote someone beyond his deserts and his flaws will become more noticeable than his virtues.
Judging from some of your earlier posts on anti-slavery activists and your many condemnations of New England my belief that you single out Spooner for praise only because of his support for the idea of a "right to secession" is more than "blind speculation." Had the federal government or the North adopted Spooner's plan for slave insurrections and a war of liberation and circulated his manifestoes, I don't think you'd applaud Spooner so loudly. I don't suppose either of us thinks much of John Brown, why do you make an exception for one who shared Brown's views about armed slave insurrection? You're certainly free to disagree, but if people care to think about it they will have to make up their own minds about whether I'm right, and I stand by my opinion.
If Spooner were just an abolitionist, we wouldn't have been having this conversation about him. We don't passionately discuss William Bowditch or William Goodell. If Spooner weren't an anarchist he wouldn't have the Internet presence that he has today. And it's clear to me that he wouldn't have been singled out for praise by Confederate apologists if he'd only been an abolitionist or anarchist, and hadn't supported secession.
Would I be so hard on Spooner if he hadn't attacked Lincoln? The more anarchist Spooner was the more I'd criticize him. Someone who so strongly condemned virtually all governments as "tyrants, robbers and murderers" isn't really to be taken seriously. Spooner's excessive and intemperate rhetoric would make him pretty low in my book regardless of what he thought of Lincoln. If he'd made a more nuanced and responsible critique of the Unionist cause, my reaction would be different. I wouldn't object as strongly to an anti-Lincoln or anti-union argument that wasn't so extreme, one-sided, anarchistic or ill-tempered.
This discussion has gone on too long and taken up too much time. I don't really think there's anything more to say at this point.
Walt
Your silly posts do not merit intelligent responses. Now shoo bug!
Why are you still waiting for something I acknowledged two days ago back in post 519? Let me copy it again for you: "An abolitionist could be a Free-Soiler and some of them were, but not all Free-Soilers were abolitionists and far from it."
Your 519: An abolitionist could be a Free-Soiler and some of them were, but not all Free-Soilers were abolitionists and far from it. In fact, the most successful Free-Soilers - as in the ones who won election to office and later became the Republicans - were NOT abolitionists.
Your 509: Fact 2: Gerritt Smith, one of the only true abolitionists to ever gain a seat in the U.S. Congress, personally embraced that same book and used it as the philosophical basis of his own abolitionist arguments.
LOL! you pathetic loser. Do you understand now why you're called GOTCrap?
We're, eh? Did your personality split again, mac? I ask because you are obviously having difficulty comprehending basic english. As I noted way back in post 519, "An abolitionist could be a Free-Soiler and some of them were, but not all Free-Soilers were abolitionists and far from it." That means that Smith, an abolitionist, could be a Free-Soiler, but not that all Free-Soilers were abolitionists.
As for those other quotes, pay close attention to the bolding:
"In fact, the most successful Free-Soilers - as in the ones who won election to office and later became the Republicans - were NOT abolitionists."
"Most" does not mean "all," mac. Or are you too stupid to make even that simple distinction? If so, perhaps you can go plagiarize a dictionary and figure it out.
...yet amazingly, he now lives in the heart of yankeeland. You also forget Bill's arguably more dangerous counterpart, who came straight out of yankeeland.
The "southerners" in Arkansas elected the bum bunches of times.
So what's your point? Of the southern states, Arkansas is still probably the most Democrat. They are just now starting to elect Republicans statewide, something we've been doing here in Texas since the 60's. As for Clinton, the last time they elected him governor was over a decade ago and, save his convicted felon successor, it's been a Republican ever since. Meanwhile, yankeeland voted solidly for Clinton in 92, 96, and for Gore in 00. And they'll probably do the same with Sharpton in 04.
Same with the other anti-American southroon from Georgia.
Yeah, and he was elected Governor of Georgia when? That's right. Something like 1972 - 30 years ago. Take a look at who the governor of Georgia is now - a Republican. And take a look at the issue that got him elected - the flag.
I seriously question how you can function in society, or whether you really are posting from an insane asylum. At times you appear quite lucid - and the times you post your own thoughts, actually present a better argument than when you rely on cut-and-paste delusions.
In #318, GOPCapitalist wrote:
"Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." - Thomas Jefferson, to John C. Breckinridge, August 12, 1803 (emphasis mine)
You replied to 318 (everything below are your comments - not a citation & reply):
That has nothing to do with the nature of the Union.I replied in #350, citing your #325, and including the bolded comments below:"We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is free to combat it."
Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1801
Walt
That has nothing to do with the nature of the Union.So your ludicrous assertion that I "cut and pasted parts of two notes together to suggest something [you] never said" is easily refuted.[Jefferson - ] "
We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists.If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union ..."
Post away! This is not a hate-n-debate society to my knowledge. At least you are a conservative - some of the posters are self-proclaimed dims that despise all thing conservative.
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