Posted on 04/13/2017 6:58:51 PM PDT by brucedickinson
Pittman replied, "And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional." Pittman did not respond to request for comment from TIME to clarify his remarks.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Sorry, but jeffersondem is the very definition of your phrase "insincere political shenanigan" in your efforts to both defend the indefensible Confederacy and assassinate the character of a truly great American, Mr. Lincoln.
His arguments remind me of that very old photograph that showed, for the first time, that there is a point in a horses gallop when all four legs are off the ground. He takes that snapshot and runs around with it proclaiming that horses fly. He surgically removes a moment in time and misrepresents it to bolster his delusion. He completely ignores any evidence contrary to his mythology. He spends most of his time disrespecting Lincoln and the North, but he spends almost no time on positively promoting the South. I would like to ask him to jump forward to Dec 8, 1865 and update us on the status of slavery, North and South, and gives us his explanation of why that came to be. But I won’t waste my time.
I think you lack an accurate sense of the sequence of events here, so let's review:
"When the American Civil War began in April 1861, there were only 16,000 men in the U.S. Army, and of these many Southern officers resigned and joined the Confederate army.
The U.S. Army consisted of ten regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of cavalry, two of dragoons, and three of mounted infantry.
The regiments were scattered widely.
Of the 197 companies in the army, 179 occupied 79 isolated posts in the West, and the remaining 18 manned garrisons east of the Mississippi River, mostly along the Canada–United States border and on the Atlantic coast."
In other words: prior to Fort Sumter (4/12/1861) the Union army was simply not an effective fighting force.
Point is: In early 1861 Confederates were preparing for war weeks & months before Washington, DC was seriously thinking of it.
KrisKrinkle: "I would say that the Democratic Party lost the election of 1860 and had a hissy fit.
As I recall, all the Southern State governments were filled with Democrats.
Further, Democrats in the North tried to undermine the war effort."
It's built into Democrats' political DNA, since they began as the anti-Federalist faction opposed to ratification of the US Constitution and have been trying to bend it to suit their own purposes ever since.
KrisKrinkle: "I also think that at it’s core (not the Average Joe party member), the Democratic Party is still working toward the dissolution of the United States."
Well said, I also think that at it’s core (not the Average Joe party member), the Democratic Party is still working toward the dissolution of the United States.
But it was all a Big Lie, since Southern Democrats had ruled in Washington, DC, almost continuously since Day One of the Republic.
In all those years there had never been an openly anti-slavery president or Supreme Court, and Democrat leadership in Congress prevented serious anti-slavery legislation.
So the only thing which changed in November 1860 was the election, but that was plenty enough for Deep South Fire Eaters to begin organizing to declare their secessions.
But since there were no real "abuses" or "usurpations" to justify their declarations of secession, they seceded in Madison's words, "at pleasure".
Pelham: "And King George and Parliament didn’t accept the colonials’ excuses for secession and sought to forcibly put down the rebellion, to bring the traitors to justice, the same words that Lincoln would use 90 years later."
But you have the sequence of events backwards, deliberately I'm sure.
In fact colonists did not declare independence or begin general rebellion until long after King George had officially declared rebellion and began waging war on them.
Then, and only then, of absolute necessity did Founders in Congress declare their independence.
And that's the key: our Founders actually "seceded" twice, the first time in 1776 of absolute necessity from abuses and usurpations and a second time in 1788 by mutual consent to their new Constitution.
In stark contrast: Deep South Fire Eaters declared their secessions in 1860-'61 totally "at pleasure" since they had nothing secession-worthy to complain about.
Pelham: "I still am waiting to see what moral right there was for the British colonials seceding from their mother government."
"Moral right" in 1776 was not the issue, necessity was.
In fact, the vast majority of Americans didn't want to "secede" as recently as two or three years before.
But King George gave them no choice -- none, zero, nada -- when he formally declared them in rebellion and sent his army to suppress them.
"Necessity" from abuses and usurpations is the reason Founders gave for their D.O.I. and also one reason for legitimate disunion cited by James Madison.
The other is mutual consent.
Deep South Fire Eaters in 1860-'61 had neither and so declared their secession "at pleasure".
Pelham: "If there was moral right there it may well have belonged to London."
Very few American colonists wanted to "secede" from Britain in the 1770s, what they wanted was representation in Parliament -- that's what "no taxation without representation" was all about.
And for some time Brits considered it, then rejected it, preferring to dictatorially rule, then when colonists objected the King declare them in rebellion and sent Britain's army to suppress colonists.
So Americans merely responded to the cues Brits sent them.
Nothing remotely similar happened in 1860.
“But you have no facts at all, welcome or unwelcome”
Let me correct that and turn it into a true statement: I have no facts that you do not wrongly, compulsively deny, just like a leftard denying that cutting taxes invigorates an economy, that higher taxes produce a wider gap between rich and poor, and that it is wrong to kill a preborn baby.
And don’t kid yourself—on this issue your mental processes are identical with theirs.
That is why I am bowing out of this squabble. The more facts that confront you, the more you dig in your heels and squeeze your mind shut. There’s just no profit in it for an honest man.
No, seriously, you've presented no facts to consider, none.
So I'm denying nothing, zero.
If you have some facts to present, by all means do so.
Of course, if you consider the statement "Lincoln had horns and a tail" to be "fact", then we may need to discuss your concept of truth-telling, FRiend.
I think our FRiend has confused making unsupported assertions with stating facts.
In early 1863, Abraham Lincoln did not have many friends in the U. S. Congress. Why would Congress go along with Lincoln's political shenanigans and prop up a President that few had committed to support in the 1864 election?
“No, seriously, you’ve presented no facts to consider, none. So I’m denying nothing, zero.”
Try to give people some credit...
We’re not starting from zero, here. You know what the arguments are. You’ve heard them all before, and you reject them.
Don’t try to pretend that there’s anything to be gained by goading me into typing them in again, or that they’re not already out there if I don’t want to type them in again.
“And the seceding States believed that they had been subjected to abuses ...”
And the other States did not believe the seceding States had been subject to abuses justifying dissolution of the compact other than by consent.
“...just raw force.”
Nothing special there. Even with adjudication of competing claims an element of raw force is involved.
“I still am waiting to see what moral right there was for the British colonials seceding from their mother government.”
Actually, they rebelled against their government. If they seceded from anything it was from the British Empire.
And they used the Declaration of Independence to convey the moral right for their rebellion. What parts of the Declaration do you find immoral?
“I think you lack an accurate sense of the sequence of events here, so let’s review:”
I don’t disagree with your sequence of events. I don’t deny the part the seceding States played, but I wasn’t trying to address that.
At the beginning of the thread it says “Lincoln was the same sort of tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.” I was writing in opposition to statements like that when I wrote “everyone seems to give too much credit or blame to Lincoln when it should be given to the Northern States”. I believe too many credit Lincoln with more power than he had. If he hadn’t had backing, support, and all those volunteers from the Northern States things would have been different.
“Actually, they rebelled against their government. If they seceded from anything it was from the British Empire.”
I agree. That’s what I’ve been saying that they did.
“And they used the Declaration of Independence to convey the moral right for their rebellion. What parts of the Declaration do you find immoral?”
I never said it I found any part of it immoral, so you’ll need to ask someone who makes that claim to get that answer. But likewise the Declaration is not some sort of philosophical moral treatise as some would have it.
What it is is a list of grievances as to why the Colonials are rebelling against the government that they belong to, and an attempt to rationalize why their secession from that government is a good thing and not treason as King George declared it was.
It’s a polemic against the London government, and an attempt to rally the mass of colonials to support breaking away and forming their own independent country. It’s often claimed that about a third of the colonials wanted to break away, a third remained loyal Tories and the other third didn’t want to be bothered to make a decision.
There had been at least ten years of increasing friction between London and the American colonials that came to a head with open fighting in 1775. The Declaration a year later was an announcement by the Continental Congress to the mass of the American people that the differences weren’t going to be resolved in any fashion other than permanent separation, which of course meant war. It was an appeal to the people for support, and it was also an appeal to the Dutch and to France for aid.
The Declaration is Jefferson’s flowery elaboration of the Richard Henry Lee- Edmund Pendleton Resolution of Independence offered to the Continental Congress a month earlier.
But arguments and facts are two different things.
Of course I know your arguments which I describe, accurately, as "fact-free mythology".
Basically you wish us all to believe like you believe that Lincoln had horns & a tail, and it's just not "denial" for me to point out you have no evidence to support your claim, none, zero, nada.
On the other side all pro-Confederates wish us to believe that slavery had little or nothing to do with Deep South declarations of secession, but that is not what their own original documents show, some quoted on this thread.
You also wish us to think real war started in 1864 when Sherman burned Atlanta and marched to the sea.
You like to forget it really started in April 1861 when Confederates launched a military assault and captured Union Fort Sumter.
And I could go on, but here's the bottom line: in all my years posting on Free Republic, no Unionist -- none, zero, nada Unionists -- has ever come on a thread like this first to "bash" or complain of Confederates.
It's always pro-Confederates who start it, usually by telling whopper lies against "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans.
We are only here to defend the truth against relentless myth-makers.
A jack@$$ of a Rep. Hopefully we find a better replacement.
Well said.
So, if I understand, your point is that Lincoln was in no sense a "dictator", but rather a constitutional President who lead by the consent & active support of his voters?
Sorry, sir, if I had misunderstood earlier.
But it certainly was treason and they well knew it, made no pretenses about it, as Benjamin Franklin famously quipped:
By July 1776, King George had long since declared them to be in rebellion and dispatched armies to defeat & suppress them.
That's what made Founders' "secession" in 1776 a matter of necessity, a far cry from secession "at pleasure" in 1860-'61.
I will always have an issue with posters misusing the term “secession”. Secession is the orderly withdrawal from a government. It implies mutuality of purpose and intent.
The term didn’t apply in 1776 and it certainly didn’t apply to the insurrectionists of 1860.
You don’t find the Founders or their immediate chroniclers employing the term and for good reason - as you said the colonists didn’t gently back out of an association - they openly rebelled against their oppressors.
Likewise, there was zero mutuality in the actions of the southern rebels so it could hardly be called a secession. The term was used to provide cover for their treason.
“We are only here to defend the truth against relentless myth-makers.”
You are totally without intellectual honesty. Stop posting to me.
Post 211: “You’ll spout any lie to advance your agenda.”
Post 219: “ . . .jeffersondem’s argument is ludicrous . . .”
Post 221: “. . . jeffersondem is the very definition of your phrase “insincere political shenanigan” “
Post 222: “He takes that snapshot and runs around with it proclaiming that horses fly.”
Gentlemen: Why all the hospitality?
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