Posted on 05/20/2014 8:57:04 AM PDT by Sioux-san
Not much media coverage, not much fanfare, not much reflection. A war that carved over 600,000 lives from the nation when the nation’s population was just 31 million. To compare, that would equate to a loss of life in today’s population statistics, not to mention limb and injury, of circa 6 million.
We are in the month of May, when 150 years ago Grant crossed the Rapidan to engage Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee stood atop Clark’s Mountain and watched this unknown (to the eastern theatre) entity lead a massive army into Lee’s home state. Soon there would be the Wilderness, where forest and brushfires would consume the wounded and dying. Days later, the battle of Spotsylvania ensued, in which hand-to-hand combat would last nearly 12 hours. Trading casualties one for one and rejecting previous prisoner exchange and parole procedures, Grant pushed on, to the left flank. The Battle of the North Anna, then the crossing of the James, and thus into the siege of Petersburg. This was 1864 in the eastern theatre.
Today there is hardly a whisper of the anniversary of these deeds, sacrifices, and destruction. Why?
One can suppose that the weak treatment of history at the alleged higher levels of education in this country contributes to the lack of attention. “It was about slavery; now on to WWI.” The War between the States was so much more complicated than the ABC treatment that academia presents. And as the old saying goes, the more complicated the situation, the more the bloodshed...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Really, tell us please, how low does your IQ have to get before you become so utterly lacking in reading comprehension?
What exactly is your problem?
Lawful secession was understood and assumed by the Founders.
Declarations of secession, even though unlawful, were also allowed by both Presidents Buchanan & Lincoln.
What, exactly, don't you "get" about that?
So Civil War came, not because of secession, or slavery, or the new Confederacy, but only because that Confederacy first provoked, then started, then formally declared war on the United States, then supported rebel forces at war within Union states.
That's why debate of lawful secession is irrelevant to causes of the Civil War.
achilles2000: "You don’t read carefully, you don’t know the relevant literature, and you have trouble reasoning."
False, false & false. But your own words clearly do apply to you, FRiend.
achilles2000: "In particular, the doctrine of enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments are a mystery to you.
The South, New England, New York City, and others at various times believed they had the right to secede."
Rubbish. Our Founders agreed to lawful secession, by mutual consent.
None -- not one -- agreed that seceding states had a "constitutional right" to provoke, start and declare war on the United States, or send their forces to invade the Union.
achilles2000: "You are simply a big government conservative who doesn’t want to recognize what historians already acknowledge; namely, that Lincoln was a dictator who acted largely outside the law."
Rubbish. The truth here is that you are an automaton who has your script of pro-Confederate talking points, and are not allowed to deviate from them, even to the point of acknowledging basic facts of history.
So I'm telling you again: throw that stinking script away, and go back to learning some real history for a change.
It will improve your life, and set you free from lies.
achilles2000: "The American Constitutional Republic today is as dead as the Roman Republic in the days of Augustus Caesar, and it is largely the fault of generations of faux “conservatives” like you."
No, the American Constitutional Republic, though wounded, is far, far from dead.
Our President is far from Augustus Caesar who was in his day considered Son of God, life-time Emperor, and subject to no restrictions by elected representatives.
Yes, the Federal government is more than ten times the size of 100 years ago, but the reasons are not because of conservatives like myself.
Instead, the reasons include descendants of European serfs, African slaves and Asian coolies -- men & women born in the land of the free, home of the brave -- who no longer wish to be either brave or free.
Instead, they want return to an idealized manor or plantation, where the Man in the Big House protects & cares for them, while they enjoy the fruits of civilization, without having to pay its full price.
FRiend, I consider your wish to return to the Free Republic of old, to be noble & well intentioned.
But your ignorance of real history, and your slavish devotion to pro-Confederate talking points is frustrating to me, and counter-productive to your cause.
Our Founders themselves understood that slavery was evil, and had to be addressed at some point... in the future, they thought.
Naturally they hoped and did not expect that would lead to Civil War, but they didn't count on the hot-headedness of the Deep South's slave-power Fire Eaters.
I can see how you think the Republic is only “wounded”. After all, you make excuses for the evil and unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Act, using as an excuse the alleged needs of the time. As I have pointed out before, this is the leftwing jurisprudence of the “Living Constitution” - the Constitution as suggestion, not law. On that basis the “New Deal” and the “Great Society” were constitutional. Not only that, you embrace the promoters of mercantilism, which is just a polite name for crony capitalism. You also worship a dictator who unconstitutionally abolished habeas corpus, shut down hundreds of newspapers, unconstitutionally began printing money and imposed an income tax, an deported a Congressman who opposed his policies.
In the final analysis, Lincoln started the war by refusing letting the Deep South exercise its right to leave. I have provided sources from which it is clear that he had offered to give the South almost any level of autonomy as long as he could collect tariffs for the purpose of protecting Northern industries. In essence he was trying to make a tax colony out of the South. When he sent a flotilla, including warships, to reinforce Sumter which could act as a means for enforcing the Morrill Tariff, the South Carolinians fired on Sumter. Even Northern newspapers, as I quoted to you, recognized that Lincoln played the Sumter gambit to provoke an action that would turn the tide of public opinion in the North toward war. Lincoln is also recognized as not dealing in good faith with the Peace Commission.
By the way, my IQ is just fine; your ability to think independently of your indoctrination in the religion of Lincoln and statism isn’t.
FRiend, you condemn our Founders themselves based on your own slavish devotion to pro-Confederate propaganda.
But the truth is, our Founders are the only Founders we have, and you were not one, nor was Jefferson Davis, or John C. Calhoun.
Our Founders were not the anti-Founders, like Patrick Henry, anti-Constitution, anti-Federalists, who resisted the Constitution at every turn, advocating nullification and even secession, "at pleasure".
That both Jefferson & Madison became "nullifiers", while Adams was President, does not negate the fact that neither supported "nullification" when they were President.
I think, therefore, we should discount their nullification opinions as being mere politics of a party out-of-power proclaiming ideology they had no intention of enforcing once back in power.
And there is nothing in the original documentation of the Constitution or Federalist Papers which justifies nullification.
So the consistent opinion here is the one I take: Founders' (not anti-Founders') original intent, plus amendments.
achilles2000: "As I have pointed out before, this is the leftwing jurisprudence of the “Living Constitution” - the Constitution as suggestion, not law.
On that basis the “New Deal” and the “Great Society” were constitutional."
Again, you're just cutting-and-pasting your pro-Confederate talking points.
None of that has any relationship to the truth about my actual opinions.
achilles2000: "Not only that, you embrace the promoters of mercantilism, which is just a polite name for crony capitalism."
Sorry, but "Crony capitalism" is not really an accurate term for "protectionism" through higher tariffs.
Of course, I don't agree that higher tariffs are a good idea today, but 200 years ago, when US tariffs were much, much higher than now, they were still relatively low, compared to tariffs of other countries.
And they fluctuated significantly over time, depending on political and economic trends.
Interestingly, the highest tariffs of all, the so-called Tariff of Abominations came from actions by Southerner Andrew Jackson supporters, especially Vice President John C. Calhoun!!
In fact, more New England Representatives voted against that tariff than for it.
So high tariffs were not automatically favored by northerners and opposed by southerners.
Indeed, there was never anything preventing southerners from using tariff protections to start their own industries.
Bottom line: in those days tariffs were "politics as usual" and not adequate justification for unilateral declarations of nullification or secession.
achilles2000: "You also worship a dictator who unconstitutionally abolished habeas corpus, shut down hundreds of newspapers, unconstitutionally began printing money and imposed an income tax, an deported a Congressman who opposed his policies."
Your accusation of "worship" is pure, 100-proof pro-Confederate propaganda, and has no connection to fact or truth.
The fact is that Lincoln was a war-time president who took war-time measures against enemies of the Republic.
Nobody has ever denied or sugar-coated that.
But to be "unconstitutional" or "illegal" requires some judgment by a valid authority, and such judgment was never rendered.
Further, your complaints against Lincoln are rendered ludicrously insane coming from a "government" which provoked, started and declared war on the United States.
achilles2000: "In the final analysis, Lincoln started the war by refusing letting the Deep South exercise its right to leave."
That's a flat-out lie, FRiend.
achilles2000: "I have provided sources from which it is clear that he had offered to give the South almost any level of autonomy as long as he could collect tariffs..."
All that is rubbish because the fact is that Lincoln did not commit the first act of Civil War, Jefferson Davis did, and the Confederate Congress soon thereafter formally declared war on the United States.
So there's no denying they wanted war, declared it, and got it.
achilles2000: "By the way, my IQ is just fine..."
By now, I'm satisfied that you have no IQ, zero.
What you do have are pro-Confederate talking points, which you just keep posting & posting, regardless of how often they get refuted by actual historical facts.
Here is Napolitano saying in summary form the things that I have been writing that you fail to grasp (I guess the Judge and I share the same 0 IQ):
“Before the progressives, the dominant political thinkers in America were Madisonians. James Madison, who kept the notes at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 — notes that eventually formed much of the language of the Constitution — made clear what the purposes of the Constitution were: to prescribe discrete areas of human endeavor in which the new federal government could legislate; to set forth open-ended areas of human behavior in which no government could legislate; and to leave the remaining areas of governmental endeavor in the hands of the states. The areas delegated to the federal government are only 17 in number and generally are referred to as federal powers. The areas in which no government may regulate are infinite and generally are referred to as natural rights.
The progressives have turned this philosophy on its head. TR and Wilson believed that the federal government could regulate any behavior, right any wrong, tax any event and curtail any freedom, subject only to the express prohibitions in the Constitution itself. This view of American government not only contradicts Madison, but it also contradicts the language of the Constitution itself, particularly the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which state in writing what Madison said many times throughout his life.”
You go beyond the Progressives in that you think some alleged “need” allows the Feds to ignore express prohibitions.
First, I don't always agree with Judge Napolitano, but in the quote you've posted, I'll take every word of his as my own.
Second, your accusation here is just ludicrous, and reflects the fact that you and the good judge share no IQ points in common.
I just knew I would get a response like this. Thanks for not disappointing me.
If that is "good-bye", then let me leave you with a simple, profound idea:
If, according to you, the Free Republic established under our Founders' Constitution never really existed -- if from Day One it was corrupted and killed-off, by the Founders themselves(!), then everything we advocate as Conservatives is pure fantasy, mere figments of some overactive imaginations -- because it never really existed.
I say: such an opinion would be untrue and unacceptable.
The much better opinion is that our Founders' Republic, as established in 1788 and substantially corrected in 1865, continued on its track, as founded, until the "Progressive" era circa 100 years ago, with its new 16th & 17th Amendments.
I cite as proof of this the fact that our Founders themselves well understood which legal actions required Constitutional Amendments, and which could be accomplished with laws passed by Congress.
Thus, they passed the 11th & 12th Amendments in the 1790s, but felt no need to pass amendments regarding, for example, John Marshall's judicial review, or, say, President Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase.
But around 100 years ago, and not before, the Republic essentially came off its rails, and steamed off into the swamp of unlimited, centralized Big-Government, into which it has sunk ever deeper and deeper -- from 2% of GDP then to now well over 20%.
This view has the huge benefit of requiring less than total shut-down and rebooting the Constitution -- an effort which cannot conceivably end well.
But repealing two amendments -- 16th & 17th -- would go as far as necessary in restoring the Republic as intended, and as inherited from our Founders, imho.
Oh dear, it isn’t goodbye. I would miss you.
You refused to see that Napolitano and I are saying the same thing about the federal government’s powers. Of course, you needn’t agree with us, but I knew the response I’d get.
What you have made clear over time is that you hold deeper principles that drive your “historical” views. Chief among them is your “Living Constitution” jurisprudence, which I realize was probably unconsciously held by you until this exchange. You idolize Lincoln and his war. In fact, you are the perfect audience for the “war as necessity” dodge employed by all power mongering political “leaders”. The war you so love didn’t “correct” the Constitution; it was anti-Constitutional. I realize that you don’t read much or have the emotional strength to come to terms with opposing views, but Professor Jeffery Hummel’s Emancipating the Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the Civil War might be therapeutic for you.
You also have the quaint view that the “Progressives” are the source of the problem. Actually, they were just a manifestation of the metastasizing cancer mercantilism and other big government tendencies introduced by the Republican Party during and after the War. There is no discontinuity between your principles and the Progressives. In fact, I think you’d be a big defender of the “necessary adjustments” made by the Progressives if they had gone no further than they had by 1917 (I’ll bet you love that war, too). The trouble, of course, is that once sown the seeds of tyranny continue to grow. Lincoln was an enemy of the American Constitutional Republic, just as both Roosevelts, Wilson, Hoover, etc. in an almost unbroken line up to Obamalini. We are only talking differences in degree and style.
“Statism”, of which “Progressivism” is just one species, has always been around. All of the actors in the Founding generation were quite aware of the evils of statism because they had before them, not so much George the III, who was a relatively weak monarch, but example of the Tudors and the Stuarts, whose views of the rights of government were statist to the core.
I think the real difference between us is that you are a “moderate” socialist, while I am not. Your real objection to our government is that it has gone farther than you like, while I view it as illegitimate because it is lawless and unconstitutional.
Lincoln and his armies didn't just free the slaves. Slaveholders, too, were freed from a culture of dependency which led too many of them to erroneously believe that they could not take care of themselves any longer and that they could not face the world without the assistance of slaves. Just read Mississippi's declaration of secession. The slaveholders had degenerated to the point that they could see no possible way forward without slavery. Slavery was no longer seen as an alternative, but a necessity, a full-blown addiction. Generations of them had been virtually raised by slaves. Slaveholders were progressively weakened by their indolence and dependency. Most of the slaveholders managed to adjust to the loss of slavery. Admittedly, some could not be reconstructed; a few of them even moved to Brazil.
Now, nearly every American, North, South, East and West, is grateful that Lincoln and the Union freed both the slaves and the slaveholders from the pathology of slavery. Nearly everyone now is opposed to slavery. Slavery is over and gone for good; it's not coming back.
There is nothing that happened 150 years ago that compels us to govern ourselves in any particular way today. Lincoln does not rule us from the grave. We as a people need to take personal responsibility for the choices we make today.
This is really tiresome, and somewhat off point.
1. Slavery is a very old, very undesirable institution that we are well rid of. 2. Lincoln didn’t go to war to free the slaves. 3. Except in Haiti and the US, slaves in the Western Hemisphere received their freedom peacefully. 4. An independent Deep South that did not have the benefit of the Fugitive Slave law of 1860 would have been hard pressed to maintain the peculiar institution for that reason alone. When other economic considerations are taken into account, such as the declining demand in the 19th Century for unskilled labor and the unsustainability of a “cotton culture” became apparent as a result of cotton plantations in Egypt and elsewhere became apparent, slavery would certainly have been ended everywhere in the US, probably much as it had been in Brazil. 5. What is the italicized “and it’s not coming back” phrase supposed to mean? No one wants slavery. 6. Ideas embedded in institutions and uncritical minds do rule us. In that sense, there are many dead men who rule us. To say it isn’t necessary that we follow any particular set of ideas is true in a purely logical sense, but it also ignores the intellectual inertia of cultures and individual minds.
"The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead; and the dead have neither powers nor rights over it." - Thomas Jefferson
Our Constitution has been amended more times since Lincoln died than before he died. We have no choice but to accept responsibility for the way we govern ourselves today. Our government reflects our current choices. Just sitting down in the dirt and crying about Lincoln does no one any good. Today is about us. It's our job and if we fail, we fail.
Without exception, all of your accusations against me are false.
They have no basis in anything I've posted, they are simply your script, over which apparently you have no control or influence, and can only continue to post, regardless of how ludicrous your accusations are shown to be.
That's why I say, you have no IQ -- because nothing posted here has any influence over your ridiculous claims.
Therefore, I will agree, that you and the good judge are saying the same things, if and only if: you can quote where Napolitano mocks and condemns the Founders themselves for failure to abide by their own Constitution.
But I don't think he ever said that, or would hold such a position today, and therefore, you and the judge are not on the same page, whereas, he and I are -- at least on this subject.
I don’t think I “mocked” John Adams, for example, for his unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Act. I do criticize him and those who supported it, however. “Mocking” and “criticizing” aren’t the same thing. That was the most grievous wrong done by any of the early Presidents. There is much to admire about Adams, but that was not his finest moment.
I’m thrilled that you find me so consistent. T’is a pity you are locked in a mental cage.
But the real issues on this thread are rebellion, sedition, treason and secession, all of which Founders themselves confronted & defeated.
For George Washington it was the Whiskey Rebellion, which he raised an army to defeat.
For President John Adams, and his Vice President Jefferson, it was the wartime threat of French instigated sedition, which they passed laws to successfully prevent.
For President Jefferson, it was threatened secession of his own Vice President, Aaron Burr, which Jefferson prevented by sending military forces to arrest Burr, then had him tried for treason.
For President Madison, it was the entire New England threatening secession, for which Madison moved US military forces off the frontier with Canada, into strategic position near New England, in case they were needed.
As it turned out, Madison's actions against the secessionists were adequate to not only discourage them, but also helped drive their Federalist Party to collapse.
So, I say, if you condemn these allegedly "unconstitutional" acts by our Founders, then you condemn the Founders themselves, and their constitution.
And in condemning them, you also condemn yourself to a fatal belief in absolutely nothing.
And that, by definition, is not Conservative, it's something very different...
You have an unsophisticated view of who the “Founders” were, and Madison, as I pointed out before, didn’t share it. Moreover, it wasn’t “their” Constitution to ignore at will. You are right about Jefferson and the Purchase. He was obligated to make the Purchase contingent on an amendment.
In general, yes, I condemn those actions, but not the Constitution. You just don’t believe in the rule of law, which is typical of a statist. Other than Marshall, I think their unconstitutional actions were generally aberrations. With Lincoln it was a case of systematic disregard for the Constitution that became entrenched and that has gone far beyond anything he would have imagined or endorsed. That is always the problem with “sorcerer’s apprentices”.
He saves his wrath for Lincoln. At least he is consistent in his inconsistency...
achilles2000: "With Lincoln it was a case of systematic disregard for the Constitution that became entrenched and that has gone far beyond anything he would have imagined or endorsed."
It's only achilles2000's studied ignorance of actual history which allows him to make such ridiculous claims.
The fact is that Lincoln did nothing which had not already been done by our Founders themselves, either during the Revolutionary War, or during their own administrations.
In short, there was Founder endorsed precedent for every action Lincoln took.
So now that he has been properly informed, achilles2000 has a choice: he must either:
But if achilles2000 rejects both Founders and their constitution, then he is no longer Conservative, but belongs to a different category of political animals altogether.
That category, naturally, is: pro-Confederate lost-causers.
Of course, we all knew that, but here is the bedrock foundation of why it's so.
“The fact is that Lincoln did nothing which had not already been done by our Founders”
Which of those you deemed “Founders” unlawfully suspended habeas corpus and used the military to drag people from their homes in the middle of the night? Which “Founder” imposed an unconstitutional income tax? Unconstitutional paper money?
I could continue, but it really doesn’t matter because you know little, don’t care to learn, and lack basic analytical skills. Like Hannity, you are just a “moderate” statist.
This notion that we govern ourselves the way we do because of Lincoln ignores both our history and the flexibility of our institutions. To understand why there is a group of folks who blame Lincoln rather than Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, the two Roosevelts, Wilson and so many others, we must remember that Lincoln was the one who deprived slaveholders of their slaves, the most valuable asset class in the world at that time.
It was all about slavery then and it is all about slavery now.
Lincoln makes Obama look like a constitutional warrior, At least Barry hasn’t put out an arrest order for John Roberts yet. :-)
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