Posted on 09/06/2003 9:14:08 AM PDT by quidnunc
Abraham Lincoln is thought of by many as not only the greatest American statesman but as a great conservative. He was neither. Understanding this is a necessary condition for any genuinely American conservatism. When Lincoln took office, the American polity was regarded as a compact between sovereign states which had created a central government as their agent, hedging it in by a doctrine of enumerated powers. Since the compact between the states was voluntary, secession was considered an option by public leaders in every section of the Union during the antebellum period. Given this tradition — deeply rooted in the Declaration of Independence — a great statesman in 1860 would have negotiated a settlement with the disaffected states, even if it meant the withdrawal of some from the Union. But Lincoln refused even to accept Confederate commissioners, much less negotiate with them. Most of the Union could have been kept together. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas voted to remain in the Union even after the Confederacy was formed; they reversed themselves only when Lincoln decided on a war of coercion. A great statesman does not seduce his people into a needless war; he keeps them out of it.
When the Soviet Union dissolved by peaceful secession, it was only 70 years old — the same age as the United States when it dissolved in 1860. Did Gorbachev fail as a statesman because he negotiated a peaceful dissolution of the U.S.S.R.? Likewise, if all states west of the Mississippi were to secede tomorrow, would we praise, as a great statesman, a president who refused to negotiate and launched total war against the civilian population merely to preserve the Union? The number of Southerners who died as a result of Lincoln’s invasion was greater than the total of all Americans killed by Hitler and Tojo. By the end of the war, nearly one half of the white male population of military age was either dead or mutilated. No country in World War II suffered casualties of that magnitude.
Not only would Lincoln not receive Confederate commissioners, he refused, for three crucial months, to call Congress. Alone, he illegally raised money, illegally raised troops, and started the war. To crush Northern opposition, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus for the duration of the war and rounded up some 20,000 political prisoners. (Mussolini arrested some 12,000 but convicted only 1,624.) When the chief justice of the Supreme Court declared the suspension blatantly unconstitutional and ordered the prisoners released, Lincoln ordered his arrest. This American Caesar shut down over 300 newspapers, arrested editors, and smashed presses. He broke up state legislatures; arrested Democratic candidates who urged an armistice; and used the military to elect Republicans (including himself, in 1864, by a margin of around 38,000 popular votes). He illegally created a “state” in West Virginia and imported a large army of foreign mercenaries. B.H. Liddell Hart traces the origin of modern total war to Lincoln’s decision to direct war against the civilian population. Sherman acknowledged that, by the rules of war taught at West Point, he was guilty of war crimes punishable by death. But who was to enforce those rules?
These actions are justified by nationalist historians as the energetic and extraordinary efforts of a great helmsman rising to the painful duty of preserving an indivisible Union. But Lincoln had inherited no such Union from the Framers. Rather, like Bismarck, he created one with a policy of blood and iron. What we call the “Civil War” was in fact America’s French Revolution, and Lincoln was the first Jacobin president. He claimed legitimacy for his actions with a “conservative” rhetoric, rooted in an historically false theory of the Constitution which held that the states had never been sovereign. The Union created the states, he said, not the states the Union. In time, this corrupt and corrupting doctrine would suck nearly every reserved power of the states into the central government. Lincoln seared into the American mind an ideological style of politics which, through a sort of alchemy, transmuted a federative “union” of states into a French revolutionary “nation” launched on an unending global mission of achieving equality. Lincoln’s corrupt constitutionalism and his ideological style of politics have, over time, led to the hollowing out of traditional American society and the obscene concentration of power in the central government that the Constitution was explicitly designed to prevent.
A genuinely American conservatism, then, must adopt the project of preserving and restoring the decentralized federative polity of the Framers rooted in state and local sovereignty. The central government has no constitutional authority to do most of what it does today. The first question posed by an authentic American conservative politics is not whether a policy is good or bad, but what agency (the states or the central government — if either) has the authority to enact it. This is the principle of subsidiarity: that as much as possible should be done by the smallest political unit.
The Democratic and Republican parties are Lincolnian parties. Neither honestly questions the limits of federal authority to do this or that. In 1861, the central government broke free from what Jefferson called “the chains of the Constitution,” and we have, consequently, inherited a fractured historical memory. There are now two Americanisms: pre-Lincolnian and post-Lincolnian. The latter is Jacobinism by other means. Only the former can lay claim to being the primordial American conservatism.
David W. Livingston is a professor of philosophy at Emory University and the author of Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium (University of Chicago Press).
You accuse me of making a democratic rant yet you are the one spouting off excuses for blatant protectionism that read as if they could have come from an AFL-CIO press release. Curious.
Explain how the expenditure by the govenment of millions on the war, and the raising of millions more by voluntary donation, had absolutely no impact on the volume of imports into the US.
As of March 1861 that is easy. It's all a matter of the timeline. The war didn't start at all until mid April 1861 and didn't kick into full gear until after July 1861. The so-called "donation" program, which was really a credit scheme to make vested interests rich off the waging of the war, did not pass into law until February 1862. So as of March 1861 when trade started its rapid decline, the expenditures you speak of simply had not yet occurred and therefore cannot be the cause of that decline.
Till you learn to cope with this
No further learning is necessary, nor are you qualified to teach it if there were seeing as you do not even understand what you speak about. I coped with this little non-argument of yours about four posts ago - a counterargument which you have intentionally ignored. I also coped with it just now by repeating what I said previously though I do not expect that you will recieve it any differently than you did the last time. But go ahead and pretend the timeline isn't there. Go ahead and pretend that you can change its order of events around to suit your uneducated and sloppily argued agenda. Go ahead and keep making apologies for blatant protectionism and the yankee interests that used it to leach off of the country and build their own personal riches for half a century before the war. Go ahead and embarrass yourself further by attempting to discuss an issue that you neither understand nor have an honest interest in understanding. It will undoubtedly provide great amusement for the rest of us.
No, it's criminal in the minds of a sufficient marjority of Californians that the law now states that it is prohibited. Like it or not, your fellow California residents have put assault rifles into the same catagory as hard drugs and child porn.
The rest of your rantings are those of the blind ideologue. You don't believe I'm sympathetic and think that CA weapons regs suck, but that's your deal. Maybe this afternoon you can declare yourself free of the zoning laws and start a strip club in your basement.
Roger that, unfortunately, it would be a first in history that those in power worked to consolidate it for the benefit of those that lacked it. This whole mess started becuase I bothered to point out that such a system is wonderful fantasy, but reality has always been (and likely will always be) that those in power are looking out for #1.
"Clearly rational people made decisions in which majorities could regulate the behaviour of others. This is why child molesterers are in prison."
Yep, ~criminal~ activities are constitutionally punished.
Public activities can be 'regulated' by reasonable community standards.
Other that that we are at liberty. -- Until a Gianni type legislates away our freedoms.
Criminal activities like owning an assault rifle? Oh wait, no, not those criminal activities.
Merely owning such a rifle is CRIMINAL in your mind, Gianni? Thank you, you've proved my point. Case closed.
You are a constitutional scofflaw.
No, it's criminal in the minds of a sufficient marjority of Californians that the law now states that it is prohibited.
THe majority does NOT rule in our constitutional republic, gianni.. Whether you like it or not.
Like it or not, your fellow California residents have put assault rifles into the same catagory as hard drugs and child porn.
Yep, scofflaws like you, who ignore our constitution, frequently prevail in their madness, -- for awhile.
Equating child porn crime with our right to possess rifles is a fine measure of your illness. -- Thanks for the display.
it is the nature of the damnyankee to LIE & make excuses for their perfidity.
free dixie,sw
And then you have the nerve to call me a bigot, after you repeatedly sprinkle the phrase tar baby throughout your posts.
Please pardon the delay.
I must disagree that the action of Congress, granting Lincoln and subordinates indemnity from prosecution for prior actions relating the suspension of habeas corpus was an ex post facto law. This act did not actually retroact, but gave a prospective legal defense against civil or criminal prosecution for acts taken. The ex post facto clause applies only to criminal law, and only when it retroactively criminalizes an act, or retroactively increases the possible punishment for what had already been a crime.
What such a law does do is enable government officials to violate the guaranteed Constitutional rights of citizens and be shielded from any punishment. It is not clear that there is any Constitutional violation at all. The Constitution does not mandate any punishment.
This is not to say I like it, but I do not see a Constitutional violation. In fact, it appears similar to the Feres doctrine of today. Under Feres, if one is an active duty military member, one may not sue for injury, including medical malpractice, incident to service. This has been interpreted to become increasingly expansive in definition. One example would be if the service member underwent surgery for an ingrown toenail and, by mistake, they amputated his or her leg. A lawsuit for damages is barred by the Feres doctrine. This doctrine does not apply to a civilian dependent of the servicemember seen by the same doctor in the same military hospital.
Below is William Rawle's interpretation of ex post facto and a more recent commentary on Calder v. Bull.
A View of the Constitution, by William Rawle, 2 Ed., 1829, Chapter 10: "Of the Restrictions on the Powers of Congress — and on the Executive and Judicial Authorities — Restrictions on the Powers of States, and Security to the Rights of Individuals"
No bill of attainder, nor ex post facto law shall be passed.
Bills of attainder are those by which a person without a judicial trial, is declared by the legislature to be guilty of some particular crime. The definition itself shows the atrocity of the act. Such laws are never passed but in times of wild commotion or arbitrary misrule.
Ex post facto laws are often supposed to signify all laws having a retrospective operation, but the technical meaning of them is more confined. An ex post facto law is when an action is declared to be a crime, which at the time it was done was innocent, or when it aggravates a crime, and declares it to be greater than it was when committed, or when it increases the punishment, or directs that different or less evidence shall be sufficient to convict the offender; but if it softens the rigour of the ancient law, it is not within the prohibition.2 The Constitution does not prevent congress from passing retrospective laws in civil cases. Why this was omitted when the states in the same instrument are restrained from passing laws impairing the obligations of contracts, will be hereafter explained.
Citing Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386 (1798)
At the link:
Commentary on Calder v. Bull
Calder v. Bull is a seminal case concerning both the source of individual rights, and the ability of the Supreme Court to ascertain the content and protections afforded by these rights. This case was decided before Chief Justice John Marshall was appointed to the Court in 1801. Thus, the Court followed the English practice of seriatim (individual, serial) opinions. Marshall would change that practice by initiating the "opinion of the Court." The holding of Calder remains good law: the ex post facto provision of the Constitution (Art. I, § 10, cl.1) applies solely to criminal cases, not civil cases. For Samuel Chase, later impeached by the House (but acquitted by the Senate), the government has no authority to interfere with an individual's rights, and "the general principles of law and reason" forbid the legislature from doing so. For James Iredell, "[t]he ideas of natural justice are regulated by no fixed standard: the ablest and the purest men have differed upon the subject; and all that the Court could properly say, in such an event, would be, that the Legislature (possessed of an equal right of opinion) had passed an act which, in the opinion of the judges, was inconsistent with the abstract principles of natural justice." Iredell is skeptical about both the existence of natural rights, and the ability of the judiciary to assess accurately the content of those rights. Throughout American constitutional history, there has been skepticism about natural rights. For example, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was a complete natural rights skeptic. By the time of the constitutional crisis of 1937, a majority of the Court was convinced that natural rights talk was part of what came to be called "Lochnerizing," after the Lochner case. Thus, natural rights arguments were largely dismissed after 1937. But the Court has never abandoned claims to find unenumerated or implicit rights, as the "right to privacy" as developed in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Roe v. Wade (1973) make clear. The controversy over Roe re-kindled a long existing skepticism about courts, and their ability to ascertain rights correctly. In the late 18th century, of course, more people were comfortable with the notion of natural rights than are people in the early 21st century.
A View of the Constitution, by William Rawle, 2 Ed., 1829, Chapter 10: "Of the Restrictions on the Powers of Congress - and on the Executive and Judicial Authorities - Restrictions on the Powers of States, and Security to the Rights of Individuals"
The preceding article expressly refers to the powers of congress alone, but some of those which follow are to be more generally construed, and considered as applying to the state legislatures as well as that of the Union. The important principles contained in them are now incorporated by adoption into the instrument itself; they form parts of the declared rights of the people, of which neither the state powers nor those of the Union can ever deprive them.
A subsequent article declares, that the powers not delegated to congress by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. What we are about to consider are certainly not delegated to congress, nor are they noticed in the prohibitions to states; they are therefore reserved either to the states or to the people. Their high nature, their necessity to the general security and happiness will be distinctly perceived.
In the second article, it is declared, that a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war, the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable; yet, while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own country. The duty of the state government is, to adopt such regulations as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest.
The corollary, from the first position, is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
Yes, and the economy boomed as never before. Now, try and be clever and explain why that was a bad thing in your best Jefferson Davis, Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson Domocratic sing song. Don't forget to praise the incredible accomplishments of Gladstone's free trade policies in Britain which did so much for the English economy that it started out at number one in the world and ended up at number three. Finish on an explanation of how free trade is over producing American jobs during the last couple years.
Dixiecrat heirs may think that just because the now call themselves Republicans that their Democratic history is actually the history of the Republican Party, but this actually nonsense. Go ahead, give some more.
...and that is what these debates always come to, do they not? It's funny how the guy who starts off defending or excusing away the Morrill tariff always ends up revealing that he is, at the heart of the issue, opposed to free trade itself. Call it a case of closet leftism, AFL-CIO membership, steel producer loyalty, or whatnot, but the position is always the same: protection, protection, and more protection. And to substantiate that economically ignorant and wholly leftist call for protection they always turn to post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense.
Needless to say, son, you've been outed.
I would want that his defense did not rely so heavily on the specific wording of A2, such that it could be extended to the remainder of the BOR as well, however it needs to be said that with A2 intact the remainder of our rights lie safely within our ability to defend.
Wow.
No problems at all, at least as present. You on the other hand DO seem to have a big problem with our free trade platform and instead of following our party you have chosen to adopt the AFL-CIO driven Democrat position of protectionism.
It's the heritage of the south and the Democratic free traders to believe that a prerequisite for a nation to acquire weatlh to keep the average citizen poor.
Not really. Free trade benefits the poor by giving them cheaper goods to buy and thereby allowing them to retain a greater portion of the consumer surplus. The liberal Democrat platform of protectionism that you espouse, by contrast, is and has always been about redistributing that consumer surplus to a select few politically connected fat cats who cannot make an honest living in the competitive marketplace and therefore demand that big brother government step in to help them out. They were doing it in 1830. They were doing it in 1860. And they are still doing it today.
Funny you should mention steel. Without the 28% percent Morrill Tariff on steel, there would never have been a stell industry in the US
The Morrill tariff was enacted in 1861. The American steel industry predates it to AT LEAST the turn of the 19th century. It is therefore impossible that the Morrill tariff could have created the steel industry or that there never would have been one in its absence. and now you can kindly explain how that would have been so wonderful and peachy keen.
Considering that your timeline on the steel industry is as screwy and flat out wrong as all your other timelines no explanation is necessary. I've informed you of this many times and attempted to educate you on the basic facts of history, but then again you can't teach a dumb AFL-CIO union thug new tricks.
Lincoln-worship is a disease. It sucks in even the most conservative individuals and turns them into cheerleaders for big government. Although in this case I am not so sure "held to ransom" is or was ever a conservative. In fact I have a strong suspicion that he may even be a previously-banned poster who signed up under that new name a few weeks ago. Only time will tell though.
After some thinking, I guess I had to agree so long as the protection was in place for either national security reasons or furtherance of competition in an otherwise closed market. Now herein lies the rub: There's no real-world mechanism for carrying it out that is not instantly subject to corruption.
In the end, it's like a time machine. It's a neat idea, and could be used for our benefit, but any notion of fair and unbiased implementation is science-fiction.
That is to some degree what Milton Friedman has concluded. It comes with a caveat though - infant industry protectionism is kind of like a "temporary" welfare program. When it is installed its proponents always insist that it will be removed after the given industry has "established a foothold" or something of that nature. But when the time comes around to remove it, the tariff's beneficiaries will almost assuredly find an excuse for why it should be continued and, like a welfare program that has run its course, the tariff will almost assuredly remain in place for decades after its original intent has been exceeded.
This happened in the late 1940's in one particularly notorious case of "national defense" protectionism. Back then a special type of wool was the primary component of many military uniforms so congress enacted a tariff to protect the domestic producers of that wool type in case a war cut us off from the importers. Synthetic cloth came into wide use in the mid-1950's and they replaced the wool component of the uniforms with it. But the wool producers lobbied to keep the tariff intact, even though it was no longer needed for national defense. Last I heard the wool tariff was still in place well into the 1990's and is probably still in effect today even though its use ended over half a century ago.
For that reason I am very hesitent of "infant industry" protectionism, and even its national defense corrollary, and believe it should be used sparingly. The best way to do that is to use time-expired patents for the given good that cease after a certain preset number of years and cannot be renewed. Since steel certainly isn't an infant industry today nor was it one in 1860 little cause exists to protect it either.
As for protectionism itself as a concept it is indeed wholly without merit. In my experience the die-hard protectionists always come from one of three types of people and all of them are completely wrong on the issue:
1. Ignorant people who don't know any better.
2. Stubborn people who willfully refuse to know any better in order to avoid having to admit they are wrong.
3. Recipients of protectionism who depend on the government for their livlihood.
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