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.
Careful editing is very important to the CSA apologists.
"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]
From the speech at Ottowa, 1858
Walt
Other people who just happened not to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Walt
You are precisely correct in this assertion:
A "perpetual" union means that the union created the states, which is totally ignorant.
No lesser luminary than Richard Ferrier, "rdf", has told me that he concurs with the Ape's position that "the Union created the States".
More on that in a moment...
Yet the Southern states rebelled precisely because they considered the older and wiser Lincoln to be an abolitionist.
A true abolitionist would not have said the many things that Lincoln said in regards to leaving slavery if he could save the union. An abolitionist would have held slavery in such low esteem, that slavery would have been a priority.
Unlike you, Lincoln had to deal with the political realities of the time. Lincoln knew that his first and most important task was not abolition, but preservation of the Union. Without the latter, the former was moot.
His party did not "pass" the 13th amendment. The states "ratified" it. Congress does not "pass" amendments as it does laws.
True, and I should have been more precise. The abolitionist Republicans passed it out of Congress, and sent it to the states for its subsequent quick ratification.
A true abolitionist would not have signed on to the Emancipation Proclamation. If you carefully read it, it never frees slaves in occupied territory. It actually exempts southern lands under federal control. If Lincoln was a true abolitionist, he would not have exempted slaves he actually could free.
The Emancipation Proclamation, says in part: And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States [the Confederacy, excluding certain counties and parishes], and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
One would have to read this carefully indeed to get out of it what you did. A plain reading of this is that slaves were, and would be recognized, as free in all areas occupied by the Union after the date of this proclamation.
As to the exempted counties, some were under occupation, but I believe some of them had opposed secession in the first place. At any rate, this exemption is a wartime exigency designed to prevent disturbances in areas that were by this point well behind Union laws.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a pure political document and not much else.
It is true that the Emancipation Proclamation had a political purpose. However, it was not "pure" politics, as it also led to actual and practical results.
Please post the exact parameters that constitute "personal attacks" if you don't mind. I assume r9etb objects to my repeating his own words. He has stated that he votes straight democrat; I feel that his position should be available for evaluation by all insomuch as it gives insight into the individual.
Thank you.
And, apparently, on the losing side of the debate and subsequent vote.
You are as immune to sarcasm and mockery as you are to logic and facts.
You, OTOH, are prone to abysmal, fetid rantings.
That sure sounds like a personal attack to me.
It's none of your business how I vote.
Really?
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois" (September 18, 1858), pp. 145-146.
It is true that Lincoln modified his basic stump speech as he went further south in Illinois.
But his basic premise was always the same, and it was so well known in the south that it caused a war.
Walt
"The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another," the London Spectator observed on October 11, 1862, "but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States" government.
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