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Lincoln holiday on its way out (West Virginia)
West Virginia Gazette Mail ^ | 9-8-2005 | Phil Kabler

Posted on 09/10/2005 4:46:12 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo

Lincoln holiday on its way out

By Phil Kabler Staff writer

A bill to combine state holidays for Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into a single Presidents’ Day holiday cleared its first legislative committee Wednesday, over objections from Senate Republicans who said it besmirches Abraham Lincoln’s role in helping establish West Virginia as a state.

Senate Government Organization Committee members rejected several attempts to retain Lincoln’s birthday as a state holiday.

State Sen. Russ Weeks, R-Raleigh, introduced an amendment to instead eliminate Columbus Day as a paid state holiday. “Columbus didn’t have anything to do with making West Virginia a state,” he said. “If we have to cut one, let’s cut Christopher Columbus.”

Jim Pitrolo, legislative director for Gov. Joe Manchin, said the proposed merger of the two holidays would bring West Virginia in line with federal holidays, and would effectively save $4.6 million a year — the cost of one day’s pay to state workers.

Government Organization Chairman Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, said the overall savings would be even greater, since by law, county and municipal governments must give their employees the same paid holidays as state government.

“To the taxpayers, the savings will be even larger,” he said.

The bill technically trades the February holiday for a new holiday on the Friday after Thanksgiving. For years, though, governors have given state employees that day off with pay by proclamation.

Sen. Sarah Minear, R-Tucker, who also objected to eliminating Lincoln’s birthday as a holiday, argued that it was misleading to suggest that eliminating the holiday will save the state money.

“It’s not going to save the state a dime,” said Minear, who said she isn’t giving up on retaining the Lincoln holiday.

Committee members also rejected an amendment by Sen. Steve Harrison, R-Kanawha, to recognize the Friday after Thanksgiving as “Lincoln Day.”

“I do believe President Lincoln has a special place in the history of West Virginia,” he said.

Sen. Randy White, D-Webster, said he believed that would create confusion.

“It’s confusing to me,” he said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, suggested that the state could recognize Lincoln’s proclamation creating West Virginia as part of the June 20 state holiday observance for the state’s birthday.

Proponents of the measure to eliminate a state holiday contend that the numerous paid holidays - as many as 14 in election years — contribute to inefficiencies in state government.

To contact staff writer Phil Kabler, use e-mail or call 348-1220.


TOPICS: Government; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: abelincoln; lincoln; sorrydemocrats; westvirginia
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To: steve-b
It's customary to insert padding between mutually exclusive assertions, in order to maintain a pretense of respect for your readers' intelligence.

From dictionary.com: 'immigrant - a person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.'

Until said immigrants become naturalized, they are NOT citizens ('[a] person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation'), and are therefore foreigners ('[o]ne who is from a foreign country or place').

201 posted on 09/12/2005 8:39:47 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: NameItClaimIt
One wonders if Ol' "Honest" Abe might have been a reincarnation of Caligula, the Roman Emporer?

;o)

202 posted on 09/12/2005 8:40:57 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: 4ConservativeJustices
The President that ordered the assassination of President Davis, his cabinet and the populace of Richmond, VA...

...is a figment of your fermented imagination. Try cutting back on the corn liquour chief, it will greatly improve your coherence!

203 posted on 09/12/2005 8:49:56 AM PDT by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu l’aidera)
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To: 4ConservativeJustices
The Northern ecomomy was built on slavery, from the slaves they brought to the states, on vessels built in New England states, on vessels sailing under the American flag. Northern industries thrived on Southern cotton.

But Mom!!! He did it too!!! The northern economy at the time of the war was based on cheap immigrant labor, which was ruthlessly exploited. The southern economy was based on owning people and forcing them to work under duress, up to and including summary and arbitrary execution. To blame the northerners for the base corruption of the southern slavocracy is like blaming the drug pusher for your addiction. You sound like Maxine Waters, blaming crack addiction on the CIA.

Leagalized theft is what laid waste to the Southern economy.

Legalized theft of freedom is what southern society was based on to begin with. Pardon me while I cry for those poor, disenfranchised ex-confederates. How foreign that must have seemed to them. Why, I bet they only counted toward 3/5ths of a person when it came time to take their representation away from them.

Purchased legally from Yankee slavers. From Africa - where they were already slaves - those that survived the Middle Passage, starvation and disease. All under the American flag.

Oh, gee. It was legal. That justifies everything then. That must mean that a modern social structure of sexual excess and irresponsibility is justified because abortion is legal.

204 posted on 09/12/2005 8:56:21 AM PDT by LexBaird (tyrannosaurus Lex, unapologetic, yet compassionate carnivore)
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To: Grand Old Partisan
The Democrats were the strongest party in the South before the War, but not to the degree they were after Reconstruction.

In 1848 the Whigs carried 6 of the 11 states which later seceded.

In 1852 the Democrats carried 10 of 11, but the popular vote was very close in two of the states they carried. Overall they had 310,000 popular votes in ten future Confederate states, vs. 239,000 for the Whigs. (South Carolina did not choose electors by popular vote until after the war.)

In 1856 the Whig Party had broken up. Its heir in the Southern states was the American Party, better known as the Know-Nothings. If you compare the Whig popular vote in 1852, the American Party vote in 1856, and the Constitutional Union Party vote in 1860, you will find pretty similar numbers. For example, in 1852 the Whigs got 17,000 votes in Louisiana (vs. 19,000 for the Democrats), in 1856 the American Party got 21,000 votes there (vs. 22,000 for the Democrats), and in 1860 the Constitutional Union party polled 20,000 votes in Louisiana.

There were a lot of people in the South who didn't want to be Democrats, but after the Civil War and Reconstruction could not bring themselves to vote for the Republicans.

205 posted on 09/12/2005 8:59:42 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Colonel Kangaroo
If Washington had been alive in 1861, he'd have been standing beside Lincoln to preserve the Union.

I agree with that. And after much reading on Washington's character and temperment, he would have surely had Jeff Davis strunk up after the war. George was not someone you wanted to piss-off.

206 posted on 09/12/2005 9:05:33 AM PDT by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: M. Espinola; All
yet another STUPID post from FR's chief MORON!

head over to DU to sup with the other REVISIONIST lunatics like #3fan, whisky papa & cvn76.

those EX-FReepers will welcome you as you are just as filled with HATRED for dixie & her people as they are.

face it "Mr SPIN", you're too DUMB to be a FReeper.

posting your off-point cartoons just makes you look like more of a FOOL than you usually do.

free dixie,sw

207 posted on 09/12/2005 9:05:51 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: Grand Old Partisan
Actually many of the Confederate soldiers were former Whigs or had voted for the Constitutional Union candidate in 1860, hoping that the Union would hold together, but felt obligated to fight for their own state once it seceded (or were drafted into the Confederate army).

One of the goals of Lincoln's Reconstruction policy was to create a viable Republican Party in the South from the former Whigs (at a time when it wasn't clear that voting rights would be given to the freedmen--most Northern states did not let black men vote at that time).

208 posted on 09/12/2005 9:06:42 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: justshutupandtakeit
are you REALLY DUMB enough to believe that BILGE & DAMNyankee apologist NONSENSE??

if you are, i PITY you.

free dixie,sw

209 posted on 09/12/2005 9:10:01 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: Non-Sequitur; All
don't you wish everyone here was DUMB enough to believe your DAMNyankee PROPAGANDA??

we are NOT.

free dixie,sw

210 posted on 09/12/2005 9:11:39 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: HostileTerritory

Very few immigrants were interested in moving to the South, where they would have to compete with slave labor and be treated like white trash by the plantation lords.


211 posted on 09/12/2005 9:14:22 AM PDT by Grand Old Partisan
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To: Grand Old Partisan
Yes, indeed, most mountain folk were Unionists, as far south as Alabama.

And funny how not many mountain folks owned slaves, but then the Crown Rights/DeLIErenzo/LOS/ moonbats here claim that slavery had nothing to do with secession.

212 posted on 09/12/2005 9:14:48 AM PDT by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
No a moron is one who vilifies and LIES about Lincoln.

Post said lies.

The American Colonies were only part of Great Britain by a convention and never received all the rights exercised by Englishmen. It was the demand for full citizenship which became rebellion ....

Get your facts straight. Colonists were British citizens, with all the rights of any British. Secession was a result of higher taxes, the Proclamation of 1763, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Tea Act, the King becoming a dictator.

There is no comparison to the Slavers' attempt to destroy a Republic governed by the People through the rule of law and all your attempts to equate that with rebellion against tyranny's without the rule of law are nothing but sophistic devices.

Southern secession would not have destroyed the United States government. It still would have have a tyrant President, Congress and judiciary, albeit over a substantially smaller geographic area, and one with much less revenues. The Confederacy did not attempt to invade Washington and overthrow Lincoln - they simply exercised their God-given, and legally held powers of secession from a despotic government.

THEY are the last to believe "All Men are Created Equal." In FACT, they devoted their lives to making sure that all men were NOT treated as equals. A throughly disgusting bunch of LIARS and hypocrites whose equals could only be found amongst the corrupted aristocracy of Russia.

The founders/framers did not establish equality for blacks at our founder. Au contraire, they expressly DENIED rights to blacks, prohibited their naturalization (citizenship) and miltiary service. So your point is that the founders were corrupt?

213 posted on 09/12/2005 9:17:25 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: Grand Old Partisan
i find it "interesting" that you quote andrew jackson, who was PERSONALLY responsible for the NEEDLESS & INTENTIONAL deaths of so many AmerIndians.

free dixie,sw

214 posted on 09/12/2005 9:17:26 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: mac_truck
...is a figment of your fermented imagination. Try cutting back on the corn liquour chief, it will greatly improve your coherence!

I don't drink alocoholic beverages, nor am I a 'chief'. You are simply racist towards persons of Native American descent.

215 posted on 09/12/2005 9:21:28 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
aren't you SMART ENOUGH to know that you're PARROTING damnyankee LIES & SPIN??

if not, i PITY you.

the Southland's citizens wanted FREEDOM. nothing more;nothing less.

that is still TRUE, despite a 150 years of LIES told by REVISIONIST, LEFTIST,DAMNEDyankees.

free dixie,sw

216 posted on 09/12/2005 9:21:53 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: mac_truck
...is a figment of your fermented imagination.

Nonsense. Orders were found in possession of Lt. Dahlgren on US Cavalry stationary, with supporting evidence given by Dalgren's father, Kilpatrick and other in the Union military. Lincoln ordered the assasination of President Davis et al.

217 posted on 09/12/2005 9:24:53 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: 4ConservativeJustices
are you JUST NOW figuring THAT out????

as my grandfather always said" "Scratch a DAMNyankee & RACIST blood will flow from the wounds."

free dixie,sw

218 posted on 09/12/2005 9:24:57 AM PDT by stand watie (being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: Verginius Rufus

Good points, but almost all southern office-holders were Democrats by 1860, well before Reconstruction. The Solid South predates Reconstruction.


219 posted on 09/12/2005 9:25:54 AM PDT by Grand Old Partisan
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To: 4ConservativeJustices; mac_truck

The Dahlgren canard is not worth refuting, 4CJ. Enjoy your time in fantasyland.


220 posted on 09/12/2005 9:27:32 AM PDT by Grand Old Partisan
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