Posted on 12/15/2001 10:52:58 AM PST by shuckmaster
A statue of Abraham Lincoln in Carle Park in Urbana, Illinois, was hit with an act of vandalism which, while not particularly damaging to the materials of the sculpture, did nothing for the image of dignity associated with our 16th president.
The vandals painted Lincoln's face white, then daubed the eyes with black paint. Local officials described the effect as looking as if Lincoln was auditioning to join the rock band KISS.
The bronze statue was installed in the park in 1927 and is green in color from the patina bronze acquires when exposed to the elements. It was created by famed sculptor Lorado Taft and depicts Lincoln as he looked as a young circuit-riding lawyer.
The statue has been a frequent target of misguided mischief in the past, according to Urbana Park District Superintendent of Operations Joseph Potts. It is located directly west of Urbana High School as well as being fairly close to the main campus of the University of Illinois.
"We've had people put a Santa hat on it or hang plastic breasts on it," he said. "It's more funny than it is destructive sometimes."
Potts said that the current attack involved only water-based paint, which was easily removed with soap and water. He added that occasional inscriptions of vulgarities with markers are considerably more difficult to remove.
The park district and city officials have had off-and-on discussions for several months over relocating the statue from Carle Park to another site, possibly downtown or to a historic site associated with Lincoln's activities in Champaign-Urbana. School officials have said they favor the move since the statue attracts students and others who gather there to smoke, forcing school janitors to clean up discarded filters on a regular basis.
A committee is being formed to look into ways to improve Carle Park, including possibly better protecting the statue, according to Renee Pollock, a member of the Urbana Park District advisory committee. Park District Executive Director Robin Hall said the neighborhood committee might want to add lighting for the statue, which he said could help deter vandalism.
Courtesy of: Civil War Interactive: The Daily Newspaper of the Civil War www.civilwarinteractive.com
Sounds like a gun law. Its a law. your not allow to break the law. Where would the blacks be if they followed the law.
I am proud to be a on this board. I have learned soo much.
The man said if anyone wants to change the form of government they would not be disturbed.
He said if anyone wanted to dissolve the --Union-- or change its (Republican) form, they can stand undisturbed--let me paraphrase here--because only a blithering idiot would suggest it.
Walt
Just as an adult is a more perfect human so was the Federal government a "more perfect Union." It was not a new Union created from the dissolved Confederation but an organic metamorphosis of the old.
Constitutional changes have transformed the nature of the original Union through legal means which the Slaveocrats could have attempted through the amendment process. This is the only legal means of changing the Constitution rather than a method akin to a Moslem divorce.
Disunion or dissolution was not used in discussions at the convention to mean secession.
There was little resemblence to a Republican form of government in the Slaveocracy. Few free whites could vote and political control was in the hands of the aristocracy and of course all blacks were disenfranchised by law. This is why the region can only be correctly termed a Slaveocracy- an aristocracy built upon slavery. In fact, it could be argued that the federal government had the right to invade those states to impose a republican form of government as required to be a State within the Union. Note that much of the power of the federal government was devoted to assisting the Slaveocrats in controlling their property. Note also that the constitutional requirement for a republican form of government does not say only white aristocrats are relevent.
Good point.
I don't have the exact qupote handy, but Winston Churhill said the slaveocracy was as much in charge of the south as any pack of medieval barons ever were in charge during the middle ages.
Walt
Oooh, bad slip, bad. I wouldn't EVER wear a beret, and sure as heck not a BLUE one! ;-)
Walt
My bad!
Somehow I don't think you would have been the best person to have at the Alamo, or Corregidor or Bastogne, or in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Leaving out the parts of your argument that aren't true or proven, leaves only the counsel to appease and surrender to those who have big guns pointed at you.
As another great President once said of a similar federal installation: "We built it, we paid for it, it's ours, and we're going to keep it."
As Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet agonized in Montgomery over whether to attack federal troops in Fort Sumter, Robert Toombs—one of the fiercest secessionists—begged Davis to hold back.
Firing the first shot, Toombs warned, would be "suicide, murder. . . . You will wantonly strike a hornets' nest which extends from mountains to ocean. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."
Sounds like Toombs was right.
And a Happy Quod Gratis Asseritur Gratis Negatur to all my Latin friends.
I will not disagree that Jefferson is referring to the Sedition Acts (also consider his response via the Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions). But he was also talking about a whole lot more than just the suppression of free speech. I'll include a little bit more of his speech, and leave it to you to decide whether he refers to just "speech", or to a change in the compostion of the government. He's also trying to prevent a revolution.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; ... And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. 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 left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?
After all, he's willing to let not just secessionists but also those who would change the "republican form" of the union stand undisturbed. It would be very hard for them to change the republican form of the union when Jefferson had the Presidency and his party controlled Congress, and if they seriously tried to impose a non-republican regime, Jefferson would surely oppose that.
To really understand what is meant by a "republican form" of government, allow the words of the James Madison to enlighten us:
If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.
PUBLIUS (James Madison), Federalist No. 39
Simple enough it seems, but the anti-Federalists had issues with that limited definition. They aslo wanted to verify the scope of the "republic". I'll allow Madison to explain it himself:
``But it was not sufficient,'' say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, ``for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States.'' And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some precision.
[I]t appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States. ... Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.
PUBLIUS (James Madison), Federalist No. 39
It's an interesting read. This is what Jefferson is referring to - the retention of states rights. The Kentucy & Virginia Resolutions were in answer to the Alien & Sedition Acts, and in the Resolutions Jefferson took care to reiterate the concept of nullification/secession as a resort against the powers exercised by the federal government in violation of the Constitution. So when Jefferson is stating that those who "wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed", he means just that. That they do have the right to "free speech", and they have the right to try to change it (via amendments), employ nullification, or to leave if they don't like it. It wasn't worth destroying the union to preserve it.
Yes, they can stand undisturbed because only a moron would suggest that the Union be dissolved.
Walt
"It has been observed, to coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single state This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts, or any large state, should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would they not have influence to procure assistance, especially from those states which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying state at war with a non-complying state; Congress marching the troops of one state into the bosom of another; this state collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government."
Alexander Hamilton, The Debates In The Convention Of The State Of New York, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution. 20 Jun 1788.
Yes, they can stand undisturbed because only a moron would suggest that the Union be dissolved.
Saturday June 8. They proceeded to take it into consideration and referred it to a committee of the whole, into which they immediately resolved themselves, and passed that day & Monday the 10th in debating on the subject.
It was argued by Wilson, Robert R. Livingston, E. Rutledge, Dickinson and others
That tho' they were friends to the measures themselves, and saw the impossibility that we should ever again be united with Gr. Britain, yet they were against adopting them at this time:
That the conduct we had formerly observed was wise & proper now, of deferring to take any capital step till the voice of the people drove us into it:
That they were our power, & without them our declarations could not be carried into effect; That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylva, the Jerseys & N. York) were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to British connection, but that they were fast ripening & in a short time would join in the general voice of America:
That the resolution entered into by this house on the 15th of May for suppressing the exercise of all powers derived from the crown, had shown, by the ferment into which it had thrown these middle colonies, that they had not yet accommodated their minds to a separation from the mother country:
That some of them had expressly forbidden their delegates to consent to such a declaration, and others had given no instructions, & consequently no powers to give such consent:
That if the delegates of any particular colony had no power to declare such colony independant, certain they were the others could not declare it for them; the colonies being as yet perfectly independant of each other:
That the assembly of Pennsylvania was now sitting above stairs, their convention would sit within a few days, the convention of New York was now sitting, & those of the Jerseys & Delaware counties would meet on the Monday following, & it was probable these bodies would take up the question of Independance & would declare to their delegates the voice of their state:
That if such a declaration should now be agreed to, these delegates must retire & possibly their colonies might secede from the Union:
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography by Thomas Jefferson 1743 -- 1790
There you have it Walt. James Wilson (remember he's against secession), when confronted with the possibility that the Declaration of Independence would be issued in June declared that he and his cohorts were going to secede. I guess you were right. Only a MORON would suggest the Union be dissolved.
"He observed, that wealth excited envy, stimulated avarice, and invited invasions; that, if the Union was dissolved, we could only be protected by our domestic force. He then urged the incapacity of the state to defend itself, from the detached situation of its ports, remarking particularly upon that of Staten Island and Long Island; their vicinity to states, which, in case of a disunion, must be considered as independent, and perhaps unfriendly powers."
Robert R. Livingston, The Debates In The Convention Of The State Of New York, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution. 19 Jun 1788."The dangers to which we shall he exposed by a dissolution of the Union, have been represented; but, however much I may wish to preserve the Union, apprehensions of its dissolution ought not to induce us to submit to any measure which may involve in its consequences the loss of civil liberty. Conquest can do no more, in the state of civilization, than to subject us to be ruled by persons in whose appointment we have no agency. This, sir, is the worst we can apprehend at all events; and, as I suppose a government so organized, and possessing the powers mentioned in the proposed Constitution, will unavoidably terminate in the depriving us of that invaluable privilege, I am content to risk a probable, but, on this occasion, a mere possible evil, to avoid a certain one. But if a dissolution of the Union should unfortunately ensue, what have we to apprehend? We are connected, both by interest and affection, with the New England States; we harbor no animosities against each other; we have no interfering territorial claims; our manners are nearly similar, and they are daily assimilating, and mutual advantages will probably prompt to mutual concessions, to enable us to form a union with them. I, however, contemplate the idea of a possible dissolution with pain, and I make these remarks with the most sincere reluctance, only in answer to those which were offered by the honorable gentleman from New York.
John Lansing, The Debates In The Convention Of The State Of New York, On The Adoption Of The Federal Constitution. 20 Jun 1788.
These fine gentleman, among many, certainly didn't agree with you.
Constitutional changes have transformed the nature of the original Union through legal means which the Slaveocrats could have attempted through the amendment process. This is the only legal means of changing the Constitution rather than a method akin to a Moslem divorce.
Articles Of Confederation, Article XIII - Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
US Constitution, Article VII, "The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same."
The only LEGAL method of changing the AoC was if all 13 states agreed, yet it was dissolved when only 9 states ratified the Constitution. Other than that you may as well forget about the 7 states that required additional amendments as a condition of ratification, and in particular the three states that expressly retained the right to leave (see New York for one).
Disunion or dissolution was not used in discussions at the convention to mean secession.
See above. The ratification of each state was a secession from the AoC. Or do you mean that "disunion", "disolution", and "secession" mean "perpetual" and convey the idea of permanence?
There was little resemblence to a Republican form of government in the Slaveocracy. Few free whites could vote and political control was in the hands of the aristocracy and of course all blacks were disenfranchised by law.
The North did have a republican government. But you are confused about the term - we are not a democracy where everyone has the right to vote.
This is why the region can only be correctly termed a Slaveocracy- an aristocracy built upon slavery.
I agree. The North made millions and millions of dollars selling slaves.
In fact, it could be argued that the federal government had the right to invade those states to impose a republican form of government as required to be a State within the Union.
Article IV, Section 4 only requires that the states have a republican (representative) form of government. It doesn't give them the power to invade a foreign country and impose one.
Note that much of the power of the federal government was devoted to assisting the Slaveocrats in controlling their property.
Yes, the federal government did protect northern shipping and manufacturing interests from competition. Without it the South could have competed and created manufacturing and shipping jobs. As it were, they were doomed to remain an agrarian society instead.
Note also that the constitutional requirement for a republican form of government does not say only white aristocrats are relevent.
I agree. Nowhere does it say white only, black only, men only, women only, dwarves etc.
But there is no evidence that the south wanted to. No doubt the overwhelming majority of the southern leadership would have agreed with Louis Wigfall when he was speaking to William Howard Russell of The Times shortly after the war began,
"We are an agrarian people; we are a primitive people. We have no cities - we don't want them. We have no literature - we don't need any yet. We have no press - we are glad of it…We have no commercial marine - no navy - we don't want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."
In short, the south wanted nothing more that for some foreign power to take on the economic obligations that they had depended on the North to provide prior to the war.
Well, aren't you talking about a period even before the signing of the D of I? There was no union to dissolve then. You seem a bit unclear on the concept.
James Wilson was a staunch federalist. He was beaten half to death for his federalist views. Later he was a Supreme Court justice.
It was he who said that for the purposes of the Union, Georgia is not a sovereign state. You know, that James Wilson.
Wilson is an odd bird. He was also a big time speculator in land, and died penniless. If you ever watch "1776", the play or film, this is the same guy that Benajamn Franklin tricks into voting for independence.
Walt
No, the Militia Act of 1792 gives the president the power to do that.
Walt
What about hobbits?
Walt
I think I finally get it. So this is like income tax being illegal because Ohio never properly ratified the Constitution, right?
Walt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.