Posted on 04/02/2002 9:45:23 PM PST by VinnyTex
Certain neo-conservatives have responded to the publication of my book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War , with quite hysterical name calling, personal smears, and slanderous language. The chief practitioners of this vulgar means of public discourse are Alan Keyes and employees of his Washington, D.C. based "Declaration Foundation."
On the Foundation?s Web site on Easter Sunday was a very pleasant, Christian blessing, located right below a reprinting of Paul Craig Roberts?s March 21 Washington Times review of my book (" War on Terrorism a Threat to Liberty? "). In a very un-Christian manner the Declaration Foundation accuses Roberts (and myself, indirectly) of "ignorance and calumny." According to Webster?s College Dictionary "calumny" means making false and malicious statements intended to injure a reputation, slander, and defamation. Let?s see if what Roberts said in his column fits that definition.
"Lincoln used war to destroy the U.S. Constitution in order to establish a powerful central government," says Roberts. This is certainly a strong statement, but in fact Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of habeas corpus; launched a military invasion without consent of Congress; blockaded Southern ports without declaring war; imprisoned without warrant or trial some 13,000 Northern citizens who opposed his policies; arrested dozens of newspaper editors and owners and, in some cases, had federal soldiers destroy their printing presses; censored all telegraph communication; nationalized the railroads; created three new states (Kansas, Nevada, and West Virginia) without the formal consent of the citizens of those states, an act that Lincoln?s own attorney general thought was unconstitutional; ordered Federal troops to interfere with Northern elections; deported a member of Congress from Ohio after he criticized Lincoln?s unconstitutional behavior; confiscated private property; confiscated firearms in violation of the Second Amendment; and eviscerated the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
A New Orleans man was executed for merely taking down a U.S. flag; ministers were imprisoned for failing to say a prayer for Abraham Lincoln, and Fort Lafayette in New York harbor became known as "The American Bastille" since it held so many thousands of Northern political prisoners. All of this was catalogued decades ago in such books as James G. Randall?s Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln and Dean Sprague?s Freedom Under Lincoln.
"This amazing disregard for the Constitution," wrote historian Clinton Rossiter," was "considered by nobody as legal." "One man was the government of the United States," says Rossiter, who nevertheless believed that Lincoln was a "great dictator."
Lincoln used his dictatorial powers, says Roberts, to "suppress all Northern opposition to his illegal and unconstitutional acts." This is not even controversial, and is painstakingly catalogued in the above-mentioned books as well as in The Real Lincoln. Lincoln?s Secretary of State William Seward established a secret police force and boasted to the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, that he could "ring a bell" and have a man arrested anywhere in the Northern states without a warrant.
When the New York City Journal of Commerce published a list of over 100 Northern newspapers that opposed the Lincoln administration, Lincoln ordered the Postmaster General to deny those papers mail delivery, which is how nearly all newspapers were delivered at the time. A few of the papers resumed publication only after promising not to criticize the Lincoln administration.
Lincoln "ignored rulings hand-delivered to him by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney ordering Lincoln to respect and faithfully execute the laws of the United States" says Roberts. Absolutely true again. Taney ? and virtually all legal scholars at the time ? was of the opinion that only Congress could constitutionally suspend habeas corpus, and had his opinion hand delivered to Lincoln by courier. Lincoln ignored it and never even bothered to challenge it in court.
Roberts also points out in his article that "Lincoln urged his generals to conduct total war against the Southern civilian population." Again, this is not even controversial. As pro-Lincoln historian Steven Oates wrote in the December 1995 issue of Civil War Times, "Lincoln fully endorsed Sheridan?s burning of the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman?s brutal March to the Sea through Georgia, and the . . . destructive raid through Alabama." James McPherson has written of how Lincoln micromanaged the war effort perhaps as much as any American president ever has. It is inconceivable, therefore, that he did not also micromanage the war on civilians that was waged by his generals.
Lincoln?s war strategy was called the "Anaconda Plan" because it sought to strangle the Southern economy by blockading the ports and controlling the inland waterways, such as the Mississippi River. It was, in other words, focused on destroying the civilian economy.
General Sherman declared on January 31, 1864 that "To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy." In a July 31, 1862 letter to his wife he said his goal was "extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people." And so he burned the towns of Randolph, Tennessee, Jackson and Meridian, Mississippi, and Atlanta to the ground after the Confederate army had left; bombarded cities occupied only by civilians in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1863; and boasted in his memoirs of destroying $100 million in private property and stealing another $20 million worth. All of this destroyed food stuffs and left women, children, and the elderly in the cold of winter without shelter or food.
General Philip Sheridan did much of the same in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, burning hundreds of houses to the ground and killing or stealing all livestock and destroying crops long after the Confederate Army had left the valley, just as winter was approaching.
"A new kind of soldier was needed" for this kind of work, writes Roberts. Here he is referring to my quotation of pro-Sherman biographer Lee Kennett, who in his biography of Sherman wrote that "the New York regiments [in Sherman?s army] were . . . filled with big city criminals and foreigners fresh from the jails of the Old World." Lincoln recruited the worst of the worst to serve as pillagers and plunderers in Sherman?s army.
Lincoln used the war to "remove the constraints that Southern senators and congressmen, standing in the Jeffersonian tradition, placed in the way of centralized federal power, high tariffs, and subsidies to Northern industries." Indeed, Lincoln?s 28-year political career prior to becoming president was devoted almost exclusively to this end. Even Lincoln idolater Mark Neely, Jr., in The Fate of Liberty , noted that as early as the 1840s, Lincoln exhibited a "gruff and belittling impatience" with constitutional arguments against his cherished Whig economic agenda of protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare for the railroad and road building industries, and a federal government monopolization of the money supply. Once he was in power, Lincoln appointed himself "constitutional dictator" and immediately pushed through this mercantilist economic agenda ? an agenda that had been vetoed by president after president beginning with Jefferson.
Far from "saving the Union," writes Roberts, Lincoln "utterly destroyed the Union achieved by the Founding Fathers and the U.S. Constitution." The original Union was a voluntary association of states. By holding it together at gunpoint Lincoln may have "saved" the Union in a geographic sense, but he destroyed it in a philosophical sense.
Paul Craig Roberts based his column on well-documented facts as presented in The Real Lincoln. In response to these facts, in a recent WorldNetDaily column the insufferably sanctimonious Alan Keyes described people like myself, Paul Craig Roberts, Walter Williams, Joe Sobran, Charles Adams, Jeffrey Rogers Hummell, Doug Bandow, Ebony magazine editor Lerone Bennett, Jr., and other Lincoln critics as "pseudo-learned scribblers," with an "incapacity to recognize moral purpose" who display "uncomprehending pettiness," are "dishonest," and, once again, his favorite word for all who disagree with him: "ignorant."
"Ignorant" and "slanderous" is the precise language one should use to describe the hysterical rantings and ravings of Alan Keyes and his minions at the so-called Declaration Foundation.
April 3, 2002
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail ] is the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (Forum/Random House 2002) and professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland.
Copyright 2002 LewRockwell.com
Give us the rest of the quote. Madison equated secession with revolution, and he didn't contest revolution.
You contend that the people of the Western counties of Virginia were still somehow held to Richmond and compelled to also violate that obligation even though the actions of Richmond we outside the law?
Your premise, that "Richmond" (actually, the People of Virginia acting in concert) illegally left the Union, is false. You are affirming the consequent, i.e., arguing that West Virginia was correct in leaving Virginia, as a way of affirming that Virginia was in the wrong -- which is a non sequitur. Furthermore, by assuming that Virginia was wrong in framing your question, whether the West Virginians were in the right, you are begging the question, which is a way of missing the point. I think you also managed to work in a syllogistic error, viz., drawing a positive conclusion (West Virginia is legitimate) from a negative premise (Virginia's secession wasn't). Pretty good exercise for a single sentence.
By continuously maintaining Federal courts and forming a restored legislature, they established themselves in good faith with the Union as the legitimate government of Virginia.
Buncombe.
How many times can a guy say, "I love Karl Marx!", with feeling and gusto, before you will let us conclude he's a Marxist and favors public ownership of the means of production?
Actually, I think that's a bit fallacious, since the overriding emergency of the war clearly beset Davis far more strenuously than it did Lincoln, so that your saying that his policies should be evaluated without reference to the war is a fallacy of accident: the exception should apply, rather than the generality. The world never saw a peacetime programme issue from the Confederate government.
Kang's argument is a little better, that Lincoln had wartime problems, too, and that is certainly true. But much of the North was untroubled by the war in a way that is just not true of most of the South (Texas being the exception there). And so it is possible to descry features in Lincoln's policies that would have been carried forward if there'd been no war; and to say with Kang that that isn't true, that we must apply the exception to Lincoln as well, is a converse accident and likewise fallacious.
But the assumption that Clay was evil, and, I guess, so were the millions of Whigs who constituted one of the two great parties of the mid 19th century, is certainly worth examining. Can we do that without accepting intellectually vacuous labeling by hacks like DiLorenzo? I suppose Alexander Hamilton was a statist too, and so was that guy whose Treasury Secretary Hamilton he was.
Lincoln greatly admired Clay. I would take that recommendation over the word of 50 libertarian purists, even though I think tariffs are stupid economic policy. So somebody go find a serious piece of writing BY Clay, and let's think about his political positions. Lincoln praises him for his national spirit, his fairness, his devotion to human equality and dignity. DiLorenzo says he was a corrupt socialist. Let's look at his words.
After all, we wouldn't want to "fight facts with slander" would we?
Also, there is nothing to prevent rdf from answering in the negative; that is, simply stating that he will not answer those questions.
However, instead of doing that he sought to change the subject (for obvious reasons) and I called him on it.
I don't think that's what happened.
In your #53 you explicitly asked why we didn't "shift gears" on the thread.
rdf responded I'll be glad to go on through your list, if you first agree to these two things. And the things in question were clearly related to the article's disputing the Declaration Foundation's assertion that Roberts had calumniated Lincoln:
... the Declaration Foundation accuses Roberts (and myself, indirectly) of "ignorance and calumny." According to Webster?s College Dictionary "calumny" means making false and malicious statements intended to injure a reputation, slander, and defamation. Let?s see if what Roberts said in his column fits that definition.
rdf was asking about facts relating directly to "if what Roberts said ... fits that definition."
I understood him to be saying something like "Let's stick to the charges and the topic at hand before we branch out." Maybe that's not simple but it was prompt and a direct response to your suggestion to change the thread topic. It is certainly NOT changing the subject, it is declining to follow YOUR suggestion to change the subject. Also, it was not noticeably discourteous.
But what "civil discourse" has to do with this conversation escapes me. This is not a search for truth, this is a snide, childish, repellent quest for forensic victory at any cost.
"Ape Linkum"? "sorry sob"? "Stay on point, I realize that is difficult for you"?"lying cockroaches"? "petty scum"? "a nobody like you"? (I'm not just excerpting your posts) If this is "civil discourse" I'd hate to see the uncivil.
There is a difference between having the courage of your convictions and being delusional and I fear that your quickly trending towards the latter. One day soon you will have to face the fact that things aren't true just because you say that they are. The truth of the matter is that the Constitution does not permit arbitrary secession, and all your insistence to the contrary is not going to change it. Nowhere does the Constitution say that powers must be expressly reserved to the United States, regardless of whether or not you manage to creep into the National Archives and insert that word into the 10th Amendment. In short, you are, alas, completely and totally wrong. I'm afraid that you will just have to live with that.
This is absoulutely right. Poor whites didn't have much, but they did have their status. They were genuinely afraid of black amalgamation on a number of levels.
Walt
No, they went to war to protect their own chances of owning slaves.
Consider this text from Jim Epperson's website:
J.E.B. DeBow was the publisher/editor of DeBow's Review, a leading antebellum monthly magazine, published in New Orleans. DeBow was a committed pro-slavery Southerner who felt that the North was oppressing the South. He also, contrary to the beliefs of most white Southerners, passionately wanted the South to move away from agriculture and develop an industrial base. He was fascinated by numbers and had served as director of the 1850 United States census and had argued that the collection and distribution of statistics was an important task which required a professional staff, serving not just every ten years but all the time.
DeBow was concerned about the claims of people like Helper that the average Southerner, being a non-slaveholder, had no stake in the success of the Confederacy. It is an interesting turn around from those late twentieth century Confederate supporters who argue that the Peculiar Institution had nothing to do with the Civil War.
DeBow disagreed with that philosophy and the January 1861 issue of the Review carried an article by him refuting the claims that the average Southerner did not have a stake in the survival and expansion of slavery. Reprinted below is his analysis of the 1850 census and what it showed about the actual percentages of Southerners who were part of slave holding families, not just the more limited numbers counting only the actual (usually the senior male member) owner.
"[The] non-slaveholding class ... were even more deeply interested than any other in the maintenance of our institutions, and in the success of the movement now inaugurated for the entire social, industrial, and political independence of the South.
...The fact being conceded, that there is a very large class of persons in the slaveholding States who have no direct ownership in slaves, it may be well asked, upon what principle a greater antagonism can be presumed between them and their fellow-citizens, than exists among the larger class of non-landholders in the free States and the landed interests there? If a conflict of interest exists in one instance, it does in the other; and if patriotism and public spirit are to be measured upon so low a standard, the social fabric at the North is in far greater danger of dissolution than it is here.
Though I protest against the false and degrading standard to which Northern orators and statesmen have reduced the measure of patriotism, which is to be expected from a free and enlightened people, and in the name of the non-slaveholders of the South, fling back the insolent charge that they are only bound to their country by the consideration of its "loaves and fishes," and would be found derelict in honor and principle, and public virtue, in proportion as they were needy in circumstances, I think it but easy to show that the interest of the poorest non-slaveholder among us is to make common cause with, and die in the last trenches, in defence of the slave property of his more favored neighbor.
The non-slaveholders of the South may be classed as either such as desire and are incapable of purchasing slaves, or such as have the means to purchase and do not, because of the absence of the motive-preferring to hire or employ cheaper white labor. A class conscientiously objecting to the ownership of slave property does not exist at the South: for all such scruples have long since been silenced by the profound and unanswerable arguments to which Yankee controversy has driven our statesmen, popular orators, and clergy. Upon the sure testimony of God's Holy Book, and upon the principles of universal polity, they have defended and justified the institution! The exceptions, which embrace recent importations in Virginia, and in some of the Southern cities, from the free States of the North, and some of the crazy, socialistic Germans in Texas, are too unimportant to affect the truth of the proposition.
The non-slaveholders are either urban or rural, including among the former the merchants, traders, mechanics, laborers, and other classes in the towns and cities; and among the latter, the tillers of the soil, in sections where slave property either could or could not be profitably employed."
Walt
I'm sure that, had you interviewd any of the Southeren boys in any of the battle groups, they would have really said, "Yeah man, I may die out there tomorrow, but my pards will be able to own slaves!" (Hint: it's hard to own a slave when you're dead, and it's hard to buy slaves when you've bankrupted your family by not being there to earn a living.
Like the Bible, historical documents can be cherry picked to isolate written opinions on just about anything going on in that period. You don't have to cherry pick to discover Lincoln destroyed the republic. If you feel so stongly about it, why don't you pick a nice black family and buy them a house?
Let me guess, the southern boys all marched off to war in the name of states rights and universal brotherhood, right? If you truly believe that then you are either ignoring or haven't bothered to read the speeches and writings of the time. Southern politicians and southern newspapers used the abolitionist threat to whip up popular opinion in the south, and it wasn't because the poor southern white man aspired to slave ownership. They did it to protect their place in society. Governor Brown of Georgia summed up the position. Slavery, he said, "is the poor mans's best government. Among us the poor white laberor...does not belong to the menial class. The Negro is no sense his equal...He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men.. Thus yeoman farmers will never consent to abolition rule, for they know that in the event of the abolition of slavery they would be greater sufferers than the rich, who would be able to protect themselves." An Alabama newspaper wrote that the election of Lincoln "shows that the North intends to free the negroes and force amalgamation between them and the children of poor white men of the south." A Georgia secessionist asked, "Do you love your mother, your wife, your sister, your daughter?...In ten years or less our children will be slaves of the negro." James Furman of South Carolina warned, "Abolition preachers will be at hand to consumate the marriage of your daughter to black husbands." In Alabama they were asked, "Submit to having our wives and daughters choose between death and gratifying the hellish lust of the Negro?...Better ten thousand deaths than submission to Black Republicanism." Those are but a few of the quotes that make it clear that southern secessionist leaders used the equality of white men and their superiority over the black man as their rallying cry. Southern men marched off in rebellion to protect their way of life and the biggest threat that they saw to it, regardless of their social status, was an end to slavery and freedom for the black man.
But what "civil discourse" has to do with this conversation escapes me. This is not a search for truth, this is a snide, childish, repellent quest for forensic victory at any cost.
To the extent what you write above is true, it makes me unhappy and disinclined to participate in these threads. I do learn from them, though, sometimes by excellent links or pastings of original sources, and sometimes because I am forced to go back and do more research.
But why the tone has to get so ugly mystifies and distresses me.
I am resolved not to make it worse myself.
Best to you and all,
Richard F.
Richard F.
Sho' 'nuff. NO question. Not totally without merit at all.
Eat more lamb.
The text below is from the 501c4 site, soon to be launched, not from DF, but the 2 organizations share the same ideals.
Here is a "Declarationist" manifesto from the soon to be launched Declaration Alliance web site.
********
In our day, it can sometimes seem that what we call "politics" has become so complicated, technical, and contentious that only experts or scholars are really qualified to keep the ship of state on course. But in politics, as in everything else, real wisdom is not found in technical details, but in the fundamental principles from which everything else follows. From Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Reagan, to the humblest citizen today, the American heroes are those who resolve to put the truths of the Declaration at the heart of all they say or do in American politics. This is the wisdom that conceived America in liberty, has kept her in liberty for more than two centuries, and can keep her free for many more.
By becoming a member of the Declaration Alliance, you will join your efforts to ours in the perpetual labor of renewing America on the basis of this essential wisdom. Your membership signifies your determination to actively help advance the principles of the Declaration of Independence throughout American political life.
Our allegiance to the God-given truth of these principles makes us Declarationists.
Expressed most perfectly in that timeless statement of our national beliefs, the Declaration of Independence, these principles are also prudently applied in the instrument that founded the government of this country--the Constitution of the United States. Our allegiance to the Founders' incorporation of Declaration principles into the U.S. Constitution confirms us as Constitutionalists. We understand that the framework of government our Founders bequeathed us in the Constitution finds its justification and explanation--its most profound anchor and defense--in the vision of justice that is succinctly articulated in the Declaration. The Constitution is the noble attempt of our Founders to clothe the spirit of the Declaration in the flesh and bone of an actual republic.
And as with the human body, judging the significance and purpose of the parts of the Constitution without reference to the animating spirit which gives it life can lead to misunderstandings, and dangerous errors. Without the Declaration, the Constitution is too easily reduced to a procedural agreement reached by a group of men, long dead, who happened to live more or less where we live today. Why should it bind us now, we might ask? Indeed, are not the outrages of infamous Supreme Court decisions, recent presidential abuses of power, and apparently unlimited Congressional spending and regulation, just so many instances of today's elites refusing to be bound by the Constitution to which they give nominal allegiance? Openly or with sophistical rationalizations, our political leaders have long been tempted to replace the governmental order of the Constitution with other, less free modes and orders more to their liking. And as uncomfortable as it may be, we must face the fact that mere veneration of the Constitution is not a sufficient answer to such tyrannical ambition.
The Constitution does not contain its own defense; it is not self-evident that we should have a bicameral legislature, that the Congress should have the power to declare war, or that presidential vetoes should be overridden by a 2/3 majority. It is not even self-evident that the federal government should share sovereign authority with the state government, or that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government should be reserved to the states and the people.
All these things are like finely-engineered machine parts, components of a delicate engine of governance which we appreciate, venerate, and wish to defend, but which we cannot protect without looking beyond it to the purposes it serves, to the reasons it was constructed. To defend the Constitution, we must understand the principles that animate it. We must look to the Declaration. To be Constitutionalists, we must be Declarationists.
A Declarationist is one who holds that the political and philosophical truths in the Declaration are the touchstone of American political life, and that our common assent to them is the most profound ground of our union as Americans. Consequently, the truths of the Declaration are the authoritative principles to be used in interpreting the Constitution, our positive law, and our public policy. The Declaration provides the wisdom by which everything in American political life can be judged.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Consider, for example, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Note first that the operative clause of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," is preceded by a clause that gives the reason for it: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State." What is perhaps most striking about the Second Amendment is that it is so unlike almost everything else in the Constitution--it contains a reason for the determination it contains. We really should turn in wonder at the rest of the document, asking as if for the first time--what are the reasons for its parts?
But even here, when we attempt to understand the reason offered for the right "of the people to keep and bear arms," we should be struck by its evident assumption of larger goods, larger purposes, than that which the right itself concerns. Freedom to keep and bear arms is necessary because a well-regulated Militia is necessary, and a well-regulated Militia is necessary "to the security of a free State." But what is a "free State?" And why should we want one? The Constitution is silent.
It is to the Declaration that we turn to learn that a free state is a self-governing community of free men, and that the principal danger to such free self-government is from the possibility of tyrannical government. Free states are desirable because the equality in which God has created man implies that the responsibility for government is possessed equally by all, not assigned by human force or divine will to a chosen few. The freedom whose purpose the Second Amendment exists to protect is freedom from the tyranny of our own government, so that we can all join in our duty to govern our own affairs. The purpose of the right to keep and bear arms, accordingly, is revealed by the Declaration to be the preservation of the means necessary for the people to accomplish the duty of self-government, should their government be tempted to tyranny.
The Right to Life
An even clearer example of the crucial importance of the Declaration for Constitutional interpretation arises in the case of abortion. The Declaration teaches that we are all created equal. It makes explicitly clear that government power exists for the sake of securing the rights that we share by virtue of our equal status as human creatures of God. The very notion of a "right" to determine that another member of the human species—even if only an embryo—is an unequal bearer of the rights government exists to protect, and so can be legitimately killed in order that the rights of another person can be sustained, is an absurdity according to the teaching of the Declaration.
Since the Declaration makes clear that our rights arise from the dignity that we share equally with all humankind, he who would claim the right to treat another person unequally repudiates, by that very claim, the doctrine of human equality. The claim to an abortion "right" is thus a renunciation of membership in the community which the Declaration declares to be equal and self-governing. But it is this community for which the Constitution "constitutes" a government. A Constitutional right to abortion is thus untenable--for the man who claims the right to abort another under the Constitution declares, at the same time, that he is not a member of the community governed by the Constitution.
The Income Tax
Our Founders' prohibition of an income tax in the Constitution is explained by the tendency of such a tax to make government the master of the material basis of our liberty, enslavement the Declaration clearly will not tolerate. How can a people retain their power to discipline government if the government has the right to demand not only control of their every dollar, but minute accounting of every aspect of their material circumstances? But an income tax requires just such governmental control and personal accounting. Accordingly, the 16th Amendment which authorizes a Federal income tax is seen to be inconsistent with the underlying principles of the Constitution.
On issue after issue, we find that particular matters of policy are illuminated, and particular policy disputes are clearly solved, once the Declaration is restored to its rightful place as the bedrock of all American political reasoning. Again and again, we find that apparently insoluble disputes can in fact be reduced to the simple choice for or against the self-evident truths of the Declaration. And we believe that today's citizens will confirm the Founders' brave decision to take their stand with the laws of Nature and Nature's God if the particular policy disputes of our time are again effectively presented in terms of the logic of the Declaration. It is our duty to our fellow citizens, and our duty to the God who gave us the capacity for self-government, that we strive to present all these issues again in terms of that logic. This is the crucial duty of the thoughtful American citizen today, as it has been since the beginning of our blessed liberty.
The Declaration Alliance will strive to help illuminate the political questions of the day by the light of the principles of the Declaration. Our work is to help citizen and politician alike understand the reasons for the policy positions that we must take if we are to remain faithful to the founding promise of the American republic--to build a political order that will effectively secure the rights we receive from the hand of the Creator. Above all, we will stand and defend the Founders' articulation of the paramount principle of human equality--that whatever our condition or status of life, we are all perfectly equal in our human brotherhood before the Fatherhood of God Almighty.
We cannot force our fellow citizens to accept this principle again. But we can, and will, spend ourselves, our treasure, and our talents, to make sure that all Americans again remember and understand the lasting stakes of the political battles of the moment. We can, and will, do everything in our power to make sure that the great people of the United States recall the high duty that Providence has placed upon them for deliberating upon such questions--not in the base and dim light of passing material passion or interest, but in the enduring and enobling light of the Declaration's liberating principles. If we can succeed in casting this noble light on the political discussions of our time, we believe we can still trust the American people to decide aright, and to preserve liberty for generations yet to come.
*********
I might add that we take many more political positions at DA, such as resistance to racial preferences and to unaccountable "One World" international organizations, etc.,
The project is, as we say, Declarationist, and not at all limited to the life issue. And Lincoln counts for us because he saw his whole political life, as he said himself, shaped by the truths in the Declaration. But neither DF nor DA is a "Lincolnist" organization, and it is perfectly conceivable that on a given matter, such as the tarrif or the emergency income tax imposed to fund the Civil War, Lincoln could have acted wrongly, or even unconstituionally.
Before rushing into such matters, I thought it might make us better friends if you could have a look at something expressing what we "Declarationists" are actually about. That is why I posted this.
Best to you and all,
Richard F.
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