Posted on 09/06/2003 9:14:08 AM PDT by quidnunc
Strange that the slave trade flourished Ancient Rome then.
Weird view, - you a communitarian?
No I am not. It is just that the welfare whores are nothing more the slaves to the state and the politians who 'harvest' their votes.
The concept of an 'all powerful state', one that can ignore our constitutions restrictions, has always been a product of the states rights movement in america. The socialistic politics of the early 1900's grew from that seed, -- and flowered in Roosevelts big government 'new deal'; which was bought to power by a coalition between leftist labor & states rightist political interests.
Technically, it was Clay who gave Abe the 'seed' and it was Abe who planted it.
I believe he actually believed the Union came before the Constitution, which supports the actions to usurp it.
You can see the wood stand that held Lincoln's casket for his viewing at the Capitol if you know where to go. I believe it's in a hallway off the side of the gift shop, in a roped off area, down the stairs. A security guard can escort you, though I'm sure security is much tighter these days.
Lincoln might have opposed the spread of slavery latter in life, but he supported a Constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed slavery to continue forever; and on numerous occasions stated that he had no desire to interfere with the prcatice, even in his first inaugural address,
'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.'His Emancipation Proclamation was a "war measure", intended to deprive the incite slave revolts in the Confederacy, to deprive the Confederacy of soldiers/laborers, and to prevent England or other foreign coutries from siding with the Confederacy. It attempted to free only slaves in the areas not under union control, even slaves in Washington DC were untouched.
All the South ever wanted to to be left alone, they sent delegates to negotiate renumeration for seized properties and other disputed items on several occasions which Lincoln rebuffed, even lying to former Supreme Court Justice Campbell. Lincoln continued this deception and lie in 1863 when he wrote to James Conklin, '
Now allow me to assure you, that no word or intimation, from that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief.'
Confederate President Davis, the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate military, had sent commisioners Roman, Forsyth, and Crawford to Washington in 1861, 'for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that government and the Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith.'
In order for your actions to be justified, does the armed invader have to kill your family before you can defend them? Just wondering.
The Articles of Confederation & Perpetual Union use the term "perpetual" 5 times, the Constitution none. When 9 states (less than the 13 legally required by the Articles) ratified, a new government was formed that did NOT incorporate the Articles nor state that it was perpetual. The 5 other states were not united, existing separate from this new union; the states of North Carolina and Rhode Island & Providence Plantations wouldn't consider ratification until a bill of rights had been added.
You can always tell a neo-Confederate — but you can't tell him much.
Actually, IIRC, the 'union predating the states' was later Hitler's interpretation of Abe's view.
KaBOOM! Those who claim the two are somehow ideologically related are, well, all wet.
Hope I'm not the only one who darned near fell out of my chair laughing.
Good friggn' question. Gorbo did not "negotiate" the end of the Soviet Union. It collapsed around him despite his best efforts to keep it alive.
If your political solution to the North-South controversies of the 1850's were jammed up by constitutional prohibitions -- such as against waging war on a State -- then you'd have to, in the immortal words of William Jefferson Clinton, find a way around the Constitution, wouldn't you?
As shown by other posters on another thread, Lincoln had support for his view from prominent Hamiltonians like John Jay and John Marshall. These Hamiltonian Supreme Court justices never accepted the People's rejection of their idea of national amalgamation and dissolution of the residual, and ultimate, sovereignty of the States. They handed down numerous weasel-worded Supreme Court decisions dealing with sovereignty and Supremacy Clause issues not from a constitutional basis, but based on (and enunciating as dicta) Hamiltonian theories of where sovereignty lay, and the nature of the People.
Lincoln was also supported by contemporary (to him) law writers like Thomas (?) Sergeant (cited in prominent law dictionaries of the day), who enunciated the Hamiltonian snow job as if it were the law of the land, when it wasn't and never had been.
Did Gorbachev fail as a statesman because he negotiated a peaceful dissolution of the U.S.S.R.?
I suspect historians of a closeted enthusiasm for teleology, which in turn is just an upscale version of the kind of agonist-worship cultivated and celebrated in the World Wrestling Federation. Cesare Borgia would have been accounted a greater leader by Machiavelli if he had killed everyone in Italy, rather than allow himself to be overreached by his enemies.
Therefore the definition of a "great leader", as acclaimed by historians, tends to gravitate toward winners, rather than toward good men, principled men, or even great men.
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