Posted on 04/14/2015 6:57:32 AM PDT by Paisan
I noticed that too. People are fond of asserting modern sensibilities in judging people of times past. In this case he actually acknowledges that the people of that time had a very different understanding of the moral positions involved than what we do today. Even Abraham Lincoln said some things about Blacks that would make people of today cringe.
Most of the time the issue of slavery is an attempt to assert that their position is correct because "Shut up! The Losers owned slaves!"
It is a technique intended to shut down a dispute rather than to address the points brought forth by it. It is basically an ad hominem fallacy.
Yea, I wish they would just stop.
It presents a conundrum. According to something I read regarding the Irish Riots in New York, a Slave was worth $1,000 dollars at the time. A thousand dollars was a huge sum of money in 1860. I would suppose it might equal 20-30 thousand in today's dollars.
Supposing that even if you were against slavery, what would people be tempted to do if they inherited several slaves in that era? Well, you could throw away all that money by manumitting them, you could sell them and recover the money, but if you did so you would putting at risk how well they would be treated, or you could employ them yourself in an effort to recover some of that value.
I suppose Lee must have regarded the last possibility as the most reasonable solution to his situation.
These perverse incentives stem from the problem caused by putting a monetary value on human life in the first place. Of course the practice originated out of Muslim Africa, and is not in conflict with the Tenets of that religion.
I do not know if all secssionists were "right wing." Or that all Blacks who wanted to embrace the idea, promoted by Communists at one time, for a Black Nation in the old Black Belt, were in fact Communists. But what you suggest as a fallacy is actually factual as to the general, if not applicable to every particular. (Pardon that turn of phrase.)
The right/left dichotomy goes back to the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly at the time of the Jacobin Revolution. The landowners & high church types--those who stood for the protection of established institutions & long vested rights, sat on the right; while those who wanted to take away those long vested rights, sat on the Left--hence, not only the Jacobins, but the Communists, Socialists (including both the Democratic Socialists and the National Socialists) are all correctly identified with the Left.
While it is possible to have an autocracy on the Right or Left, what distinguishes a Leftist autocracy is always the monolithic insistence on uniformity of thought. Now admittedly, some rightwing governments have also embraced the compulsion involved. (See Compulsion For Uniformity.)
By the way, I have not been whining about the issues, here. Incidentally, the Confederacy was the furthest thing from Nazi Germany in the period. The Confederate States had two Jewish Senators at the time of secession, one of which became the number three man in the Confederate Government. They also allowed variations in uniforms, which would have never been accepted in the Third Reich, as well as social activities during the war--such as treating the civilian population with a sense of chivalry & romance, quite different, indeed, from the ways the German Socialists (Nazis) waged war on much of the civilian population of Europe.
Superficial points of divergence, or substantive points of divergence?
My understanding of the natural law principle involved is that if a sufficiently large group of people want to leave, they have a right to do so.
This is a concept known as "Freedom."
For someone who wants to be taken as a serious debater, you sure do resort to a lot of attempted mockery.
You do know that the Constitution specifically allows for suspension of habeas, and that congress subsequently confirmed Lincoln's actions, right?
They have a right to try to do so. They have no guaranteed right to succeed.
Most pro-union debaters don't have a specific opposition to the proposition to secession - but they did (and do) with the notion of unilateral secession. The landmark case of Texas v. White notes that:
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.[7]
In other words, even respecting the wishes and desires of the population (which in the case of the southern states there is doubt that it even constituted a plurality), if we are a nation of laws, then procedure must take precedent over passion.
In the argument about the aptness of an analogy between the Revolutionary war and the WBTS I would say that the points of divergence far outweigh any similarity.
The South sought to withdraw from a Federal Union. What as a practical matter did that mean? Virginia did not make war on Virginia, Virginia did not seek to make war on the Federal Government, just to withdraw from the compact. You are confusing Government with Nation, Federation with Nation, a sovereign people with a bureaucracy.
When the founding Virginians pledged along with their corresponding allies in the other former colonies--each assuming national sovereignty--their lives, their fortunes & their sacred honor, in a solemn undertaking; they surely had a right to expect mutual respect. When more & more of the posterity of their former allies & compatriots, instead turned to insult; many considered the moral bond from the great joint venture to be dissolved.
If you formed a partnership with a group of others; if you pledged your lives, fortunes & sacred honor to a joint venture, and found yourself no longer respected by some of those joint-venturers, involved; would you feel you were the one betraying the compact, if you elected to disassociate from that venture? Well maybe you would, but most of us would not.
We are not talking about insecurity, but insult; not talking about a particular institution, so much as violation of a sacred promise to respect each the others' institutions, whatever they were. (The Constitution has many provisions that reflect that understanding--i.e., mutual respect, as an essential.)
I read this as arguing that interference with the rights of other people is an acceptable form of behavior.
As executor of the estate Lee was duty-bound to conform to the wishes stated in the will. Even at that he attempted to extend the duration before eventually manumitting the slaves.
So what are the magic words that transform an insurrection, of which the Constitution explicitly allows suppression, and a secession, which, according to you, invokes natural law and can’t be put down?
It's just that you're such a good straight man, the Bud Abbot of FR.
This is a profoundly dishonest statement. You should know better.
You're an anarchist then?
What insult? And are you saying that they dissolved the union, raised an army and started a war because their feelings were hurt?
As the Document which created the United States, and under the authority thereof created the Articles of Confederation and then the US Constitution, I would say that the principles outlined in the Declaration are authoritatively superior to what any lesser power should decree.
Certainly England had the same "Perpetual Allegiance" requirement, but the Founders explicitly rejected it.
In other words, even respecting the wishes and desires of the population (which in the case of the southern states there is doubt that it even constituted a plurality), if we are a nation of laws, then procedure must take precedent over passion.
I am one who has long argued that "Precedent" represents solidified mistakes; That all disputes should be resolved by a resort to first principles, not a tu ququoe ad vericundiam of previous opinions.
I put little stock into "appeal to tradition" as a sound logical argument.
In the argument about the aptness of an analogy between the Revolutionary war and the WBTS I would say that the points of divergence far outweigh any similarity.
You have stated such, but listed none which I can see.
In trying to make a point, you continue to cherry-pick items out of context. You show enough of a knowledge of history, that you must certainly be aware that it was a matter of some concern among the Virginia gentry, over generations, how if one would free one's servants, how to go about it in a manner that would protect those servants, many of whom were actually loved, from the absolute nightmare that would result from manumission by decree during "Reconstruction."
If you had more respect for the honorable intentions of your fellow Americans, you might have a little better understanding of the very complex dynamics involved in the subject matter.
Robert E. Lee's father & uncle, were very much a part of that commitment. Daniel Webster certainly understood it, in supporting the compromise of 1850 (see Daniel Webster Address).
Sadly, the compromise, so eloquently supported by Webster, did not stop the endless sniping against the honorable intentions of the Southern partners. It is not the subjects of that sniping that are as important as the breach of the essential mutual respect, which made the American compact possible.
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