I've always thought this little memorial an insufficient tribute to the man who kept us all together as one nation.
Posted on 05/01/2002 4:39:27 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
The notion that Lincoln’s Union preceded the states is a tall tale. Author Tom DiLorenzo, in his celebrated new book, The Real Lincoln, calls it Lincoln’s spectacular lie, as so named by Emory University philosopher, Donald Livingston.
The War Between the States was fought, in Lincoln’s mind, to preserve the sanctity of centralization powered by a strong and unchecked federal government. Only through such an established order could Lincoln do his Whig friends the honor of advancing The American System, a mercantilist arrangement that spawned corporate welfare, a monetary monopoly for the Feds, and a protectionist tariff approach that stymied free traders everywhere.
This power role for the Feds, as envisioned by Lincoln, had no room for the philosophy of the earlier Jeffersonians, who in 1798, were declaring that states’ rights were supreme. Both Madison and Jefferson, in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, legitimized the concept of state sovereignty via the policy of nullification, an inherent right for states to declare federal acts invalid if unconstitutional. And before that, let it be duly noted that the right to secede is, as DiLorenzo says, “not expressly prohibited by the Constitution.”
Lincoln, however, believed that secession was basically an act of treason. To him, the glory of the Union was based upon a holier-than-thou view of the core elites who would run the Washington Machine, doling out the federal largesse to its friends and political supporters, those mostly being Northern manufacturers and merchants. Therefore, the Southern secessionist movement and its claim of self-rule violated the Lincolnian principle of nationalization and coercive law in his move toward complete centralization. So what was Lincoln to do?
Lincoln had to stamp out Southern Independence, and would start with a demonization of secession as “an ingenious sophism.” DiLorenzo focuses on the two political arguments Lincoln used against secession, one being that secession inevitably meant anarchy, which therefore violated the principle of majority rule. As DiLorenzo points out, the founders of our system of government “clearly understood that political decisions under majority rule are always more to the liking of the voters in a smaller political unit.” The other Lincoln argument against peaceful secession is that allowing the Southern states to secede would lead to more secession, which in turn leads to anarchy. Clearly, that is a crass argument that would not stand the test of time.
“The advocates of secession”, says DiLorenzo, “always understood that it stood as a powerful check on the expansive proclivities of government and that even the threat of secession or nullification could modify the federal government’s inclination to overstep its constitutional bounds.”
DiLorenzo takes the reader on a summarized journey of secessionist history, from the earliest parting by colonialists from the wrath of King George, to the New England secessionists, who pre-dated the Southern movement by over a half-century. Oddly enough, it was the New England Federalists that had first threatened to dissolve the Union because of an intense hatred of Southern aristocracy. Beginning with the election of Jefferson to the Presidency, an intense battle over individual morality, immigration, trade restrictions, and regional principles sparked a division between the Puritan Northeast and a more freewheeling and influential South. In order to eliminate all political ties, the Northeasterners tried in vain to break the bonds of Union, and the movement lasted until the failed Secessionist Convention in 1814, as the War of 1812 came to a close.
As the author points out, during the entire New England ordeal, there is virtually no literature to be found that supports the view that the inherent right to secession was non-existent. It was, in fact, really never questioned.
Eventually, Lincoln needed a trump card and turned to using the institution of slavery as the emotional taffy-pull to rouse the citizenry for a long and bloody war. Though, indeed, the earliest words of Lincoln defy this purpose as he consistently reveled in the triumph of the all-powerful centralized state that would one day achieve “national greatness.” Even DiLorenzo doesn’t attempt to define what this means, but only describes those words as having some sort of “alleged mystical value.” The Lincoln war machine was thus set in motion, with the ends of an Empire run by chosen elites justifying the means of tyranny.
The states, in a Lincolnian democracy, would be forever underneath the footprint of Union hegemony.
50-0!
This sounds like speculation on your part. Is there a conteporaneous citation for this? (Federalist 40 does not seem to support your claim, BTW.)
And if you want to make a case for it, and I've done it a few times, the fact that those states under the Articles of Confederation SECEEDED from it. That's right, the states SECEEDED from a "perpetual" union. Imagine that.
Federalist #40 demolishes that argument. Imagine that.
Nobody seceeded from the "perpetual Union." You mistake the organizing principles for the Union itself. What the Founders did was to change the rules under which the Union operated. The Constitution was a recognition and correction of the flaws in the Articles of Confederation. The Union, of course, had precisely the same members post-Constitution as it did under the Articles.
I know you had trouble pushing that one out, Ned.
Which states do you think would break the unanimity and which of those candidates would beat Lincoln in those states today?
Slavery is gone. Forever.
"We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - as our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude. Freedom only injures the slave. The innate stamp of inferiority is beyond the reach of change. You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables him to be."
I would suggest that allowing 'courts' among his slaves is a far cry from believing that a black man should sit in judgement over a white. Davis may have believed that slavery would end someday, Robert E. Lee claimed to believe that as well, but neither man took any steps to hasten the end of slavery, nor did either man every say anything that would indicate that either thought that the black man was in any way the equal of a white.
I've always thought this little memorial an insufficient tribute to the man who kept us all together as one nation.
If that were true it would be something we could all celebrate. Unfortunately, it isn't gone, it has only changed its form. And we are all slaves of the government now. Slavery began with civilization and will probably last as long as civilization.
I believe I have a very good command of the English language, and if I have misunderstood your intentions then maybe it is because of links like this and like this and like this (fraudlent quote and all) and like this and on and on where you clearly judge Lincoln on things he said, and things he didn't say, when his words indicted beliefs that, at worst, were no different that beliefs of the southern leaders you refuse to condemn. Again, if Lincoln was so bad then how can you not condemn southern leaders for having the same sentiments, or worse?
Because they have never been held up as saints - why can't you understand that?
No, the union of these states is legitimate only as long as it protects the inalienable rights (to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) of its citizens:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
However, any state or subset thereof that wishes to secede needs to address, at minimum: 1) the rights of those citizens within its borders who wish to remain citizens of these United States, and 2) their "fair share" of the existing (massive) debt of the United States. (For example, if Hawaii decides to secede, they'll definitely need to address their "fair share" of the debt...especially as that debt was influenced by all the liberal Congresspersons they've been sending to Washington DC.)
If secession was declared illegal in 1869, then you could claim it was illegal thereafter. It is absurd to claim that secession was illegal in 1861 because the court declared it illegal in 1869. ABSURD!
Someday, if there is an afterlife, perhaps you can meet some real slaves who could be legally chained and bought and sold like corn. And you can tell them about government and swap slave stories with them.
But for now you're talking to me and I live in the same country and time as you. And I know that you have no chains but the ones that your mind imagines.
By your logic, St. Paul could never have overcome that day when he held the coats of the people who were stoning St. Stephen.
"with liberty"...yeah, right! Compared to most other countries, I'll guess...
Mark (Libertarian)
P.S. It's interesting that you quote the Pledge of Allegiance, which has virtually NOTHING to do with the founding of this country. (Did you know the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892...the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival? How about that the Pledge was written by a Baptist preacher who was kicked out of his church for his socialistic sermons? How about that the "under God" wasn't added until Eisenhower did it in 1954?)
But you fail to quote from the Declaration of Independence:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
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