Posted on 07/22/2015 7:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?
Was President Abraham Lincoln really for outlawing slavery? Let's look at his words. In an 1858 letter, Lincoln said, "I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists." In a Springfield, Illinois, speech, he explained: "My declarations upon this subject of Negro slavery may be misrepresented but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the Declaration (of Independence) to mean that all men were created equal in all respects." Debating Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln said, "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."
What about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? Here are his words: "I view the matter (of slaves' emancipation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." He also wrote: "I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition." When Lincoln first drafted the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union.
London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and assisting it in its war against the Union.
The Emancipation Proclamation was not a universal declaration. It specifically detailed where slaves were to be freed: only in those states "in rebellion against the United States." Slaves remained slaves in states not in rebellion — such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri. The hypocrisy of the Emancipation Proclamation came in for heavy criticism. Lincoln's own secretary of state, William Seward, sarcastically said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
Lincoln did articulate a view of secession that would have been heartily endorsed by the Confederacy: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." Lincoln expressed that view in an 1848 speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting the war with Mexico and the secession of Texas.
Why didn't Lincoln share the same feelings about Southern secession? Following the money might help with an answer. Throughout most of our nation's history, the only sources of federal revenue were excise taxes and tariffs. During the 1850s, tariffs amounted to 90 percent of federal revenue. Southern ports paid 75 percent of tariffs in 1859. What "responsible" politician would let that much revenue go?
If you choose to ignore the fact that the Declaration of Independence was the laying out of the moral basis for the separation, you’re simply willfully ignorant.
Ignorance can be cured. Willful ignorance not so much.
If you have no interest in my opinion it’s very simple: stop responding to my posts and run away.
I am saying that any number is sufficient to declare independence, but that you have to expect a fight. And, since you have to win that fight to gain what you want, the more people the better.
I am saying that any number is sufficient to try to negotiate an avenue to independence, such as Scotland did. However, the more people the better if you wish to persuade anyone else.
And, no matter what path you choose, you should not pretend to speak for God on the matter. Like the colonists, you can appeal to "the Supreme Judge of the World" for strength.
And, if the Declaration of Independence is to be your guide, you should wait until circumstances are such that you can make a good case that it has become "necessary" to seek independence. In my view, the desire to own slaves didn't meet that test. But, my view on that isn't relevant. I wasn't there.
Finally, accept that you are not God and that you don't speak for God. If you are successful, fine. If you fail, accept your loss with grace.
You keep saying that, as if the British were still in power, and as if we didn't live in a nation that specifically and explicitly proclaims a right to leave a larger Union.
Why do you keep saying that? It's like you just assume the Founders were all Liars, and didn't really mean what they said when they espoused a right given by Nature and Nature's God to leave another nation.
Why should there need to be a fight if people follow the tenets of the founding document? If Lincoln hadn't rebelled against the Declaration of Independence, there never would have been a war.
And, no matter what path you choose, you should not pretend to speak for God on the matter.
I am not speaking for God, I am pointing out that the Founders regarded it as a Divine right of mankind to leave a nation which they no longer believed suited their interests.
If you have a bone to pick about the invocation of God regarding the Declaration of Independence, you need to pick it with the Founders, and not with me. *I* didn't put it in there. They did. *I* merely point out that it IS in there.
you can make a good case
Do you have to "make a good case" to decide how you will worship? Do you have to "make a good case" to keep police from searching your home without a warrant? Do you have to "make a good case" to publish a newspaper?
Because, silly me, I thought those were rights, and that you could exercise them for whatever reasons you choose, and that you didn't have to "make a good case" in order to exercise a right.
The Right to Independence is no different. It is either a right, and therefore not requiring permission, or it is not. The founders said it was, and I believe them, and so did most people until a clever Lawyer came along and turned the whole thing on it's ear.
Now people no longer know or understand the distinction. You color as a "privilege" what is actually a right.
The problem with your interpretation of the Declaration is that you render it meaningless. Your proposal regarding the right to independence is simply not workable. That is why you get flustered if anybody asks you any practical questions like how should the existing government should determine which declarations of independence that it must honor and which declarations of independence it may properly ignore. Similarly, you are unable to cope with simple practical questions like what percentage of persons in a certain geographical area need to support a declaration to make it worthy of being automatically accepted or what geographical areas are to be considered valid for questions of independence (cities, counties states?). Without some guidelines, the government will of course be flooded with declarations. But, you can't come up with any principled guidelines and you certainly aren't going to find those answers in the Declaration of Independence. This whole model is actually coming from you.
The colonists claimed that under the circumstances they found themselves, they believed themselves to have a right to declare the colonies independent. They didn't take the next step that you take - that the existing government had no right to contest the Declaration. That's the part that you have come up with, but again, you have no specific proposals as to how that kind of system would work. And, that's because your proposal isn't workable. Don't try to hang that error of yours around the necks of our Founding Fathers. They expected a fight from Britain and they got one.
As a matter of fact, if your theory were right, you not only have an unfettered right to declare independence, you have a duty to declare independence - "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Now, do really think that the Founders meant that you have a duty to declare independence? Can you be sued for not declaring independence? Or, do you think maybe they were using the word "duty" in order to emphasize how frustrated they had become?
The Declaration was an explanation, an argument designed to justify what they were doing. It wasn't an attempt to "change the rules" of life or of revolution. They would never have imagined that anyone was going to try to use their argument to pretend that governments could no longer put down rebellions or challenge declarations of independence. You are the one who is trying to change the rules and the new system you propose is just obviously unworkable.
I have suggested that you forget about the secessionists of the 1860's. For the life of me, I can't figure out what attracts you to their attempt to challenge the obvious currents of history in which they were swimming. They were another group of history's losers.
If you want to propose some sort of secession in the future, then go for it. Learn to articulate your complaints (your "long train of abuses") and build a movement. Present the facts to the country and make your case. If you have a good case and enough support, you'll probably succeed. But forget this idea that the Founders have granted you a "right to succeed" as a new entitlement.
I kept getting a nagging sense of deja-vu as I would laugh at DegenerateLamp’s idiotic posts. And then I figured out where I had heard his schtick before....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3320327/posts
Uh, no. The states were moving away from slavery. There was a lot of terrorism from the pro-slavers in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Oh, they weren't trying to hurt anybody. /s There you go again with your crazy logic.
Now here is where you are starting to sound rational. "Prohibiting slavery was a fringe benefit" is exactly right. It was just the icing on the cake, and that is all it ever was. The real issue was "Preservation of the union", and that puts the ball right back in my court. The Union didn't have a right to preserve the Union. The Southern states had a right to leave it. Again, it's in the Declaration of Independence. The Authority cited is "God." "God Says it. I believe it. That settles it." :)
I don't believe they had the right because they didn't follow the Constitution, but apparently Lincoln was a lot more lenient than I because his administration let them go. When they stole property, tried to kill Americans at Sumter, and declared war, then they lost whatever little right they had in the Lincoln administration's mind.
You are speaking an Alien tongue right here. I cannot even make a stab at your meaning. It is literally off the map of my comprehension. It is a concept so foreign to my understanding that I must conclude you have suggested it in error.
That is why you get flustered if anybody asks you any practical questions like how should the existing government should determine which declarations of independence that it must honor and which declarations of independence it may properly ignore.
No, If I get flustered at all, it is because such a question is beyond asinine, it is a deliberate attempt to ignore the larger point, and that larger point is that the Southern States more than met the threshold set by the founders in both Population and Geographical area.
What is the point of speculating as to what number consists of Sufficient, when we must take it for granted that the Population at founding must have been so regarded? Why spend an instant on the question?
The Constitution is not the dominant authority. It cannot be regarded as a more powerful authority in American Law than the previous British Law was regarded by the Colonies.
In British Law there was no question in anyone's mind that every subject owed the King perpetual allegiance. It was an absolutely unquestioned position, and yet they regarded the Principle of the Declaration of Independence to be sufficiently strong to morally override the British Law that had ruled them all their lives.
If the Declaration can override absolute British Law, which is clear and firm on the issue of Independence, it can certainly override a weak and tenuous claim to "Perpetual Allegiance" as some assert is in the Constitution.
It was the Declaration of Independence which gave the Constitution whatever power it possesses, not the other way around.
Now I very much doubt you can grasp the point I have put forth. You have impressed me as being nothing more than a typical emotional Knee Jerker without any interest in understanding concepts such as "Natural Law", and "Rights", and I figure that I have just wasted my time typing the explanation above.
Maybe i'll get surprised.
Because without answers to those questions, your proposal won't work. The government will get 50 declarations a day, many by people or groups who are crazy enough to believe that they are serious. Your proposal is unworkable in the real world. If they put you in charge, you wouldn't have the slightest idea as to which declarations should be granted and which should be ignored.
And, because it is so obviously unworkable, I know that not one of the serious people who signed the Declaration of Independence would have supported it.
If you and your allies want independence, you either have to gain independence by agreement (negotiation) or by force. There never has been any other way and there never will be any other way. And, really, grownups have to wonder why you would try to imagine that there is some other way.
Because we don't know what number less than 2.1 million population constitutes a sufficient number to declare independence, a proposed recognition of the right of 9 million people to declare independence won't work?
Are you insane?
That's not very diplomatic, but I guess I should wonder the way I've tried to be so patient about all of this.
You have finally convinced me that none of this has anything to do with Jefferson or the Declaration of Independence or the Continental Congress. Like a dog returns to his vomit, you return time and again to the Confederacy and the secessionists of the 1860's. Come hell or high water, you are for some reason committed to trying to demonstrate that Ape Lincoln committed a crime against humanity by defending the USA and by brutally defeating those liberty-lovers who only wanted to continue owning other human beings. I can't help you with those kind of problems.
So, I think the best way of closing all this for you is to tell you that, of course, you and any number of your friends have a "right" to declare independence and you don't even have to define what you imagine to be your territory. Yes, you have that "right." And, the rest of us, including the government of the United States, has a "right" to defend its territory, including the geography that you might want to claim. So, don't forget to prepare yourself for a fight.
Lincoln doesn't need me to defend him. He remains very popular. And, nobody is going to get their slaves back. I recognize that it was a major blow to some pocketbooks. Sorry it had to come that.
Finally, I suggest that you try to find a way to reconcile yourself to our past. This is a good country. You won't find a better one. But, if you want to try, we're not operating a jail here.
Good luck, amigo! ;-)
Because this is where people's logic falters. If the Southern States didn't have the right, nobody has the right. Never again will anyone ever have the right.
The Philosophical foundation must go through that nexus of history, because there is no way to avoid it. If such a right exists, by every reasonable criteria they met it.
Therefore, you either have to demonstrate how their right to leave is substantially different from the Founders right to leave, or conclude that they were denied their right to leave.
any number of your friends have a "right" to declare independence
And here, once again, is the deliberate derogatory comparison of Nine Million people to "any number of friends".
Lincoln doesn't need me to defend him. He remains very popular.
Because he has had all the people he's ordered about (and their descendants) defending him ever since he ordered them about.
This is not complicated. Once he got into power, he had the authority to order one group of people to hate another, and if they didn't obey that order, they were cashiered or worse.
People say our military will not harm us. They say it is filled with good and decent people who will not obey orders to do something evil and wrong, yet we see Officer after Officer rolling over regarding matters of the most significant interest to the United States, and meekly obeying the most rank idiocy dictated by that current fool in the White House.
They will implement "Gay appreciation month" and say "Yes Sir! May I have more Sir?!" They will attack Chaplains in the Army for doing their Job. They will war-game "Tea Party" Americans as enemies and produce plans to attack and destroy them. Nuclear Iran? "Yes Sir!!!" May we give them our bombs Sir!?"
The same social dynamic worked during Lincoln's reign too. A Liberal President splits the nation, and then uses the forces of the Several states to smash any effort to leave his control, and at horrible costs to the nation.
He's just had very good propaganda ever since. He's also left people needing to justify their own actions, because he forced them to do his bidding. They cannot stomach the thought that they have done something wrong, even when they did. They would rather believe that what they did was right, because they are not "bad" people, and so this is what they believe. Nobody wants to believe they were led by a dictator. Ask the Germans how they feel. Had they won, Hitler would be just as popular as ole Abe Lincoln.
There is a sort of Psychological denial going on, and it has been inherited by a large number of people, and for the same reasons as it worked on their ancestors.
Well, I'd like to agree with you, but I doubt there is room up your @$$ for both of our heads.
I know, I know, anything to avoid getting accused of hate crimes ...
He isn’t DegenerateLamp for nothing.
I suspect you're right about that, but I really don't know.
What I can say is that none of the twenty-first century issues that you're complaining about in that post are the fault of Lincoln (who died 150 years ago) and none of those issues should preclude you from living a happy, successful life here in the United States.
Life can be good. ;-)
That was an excellent post Tau Food. You showed a great deal of forbearance against an extremely unpleasant FReeper. Kudos! ;’)
I suspect you believe that.
I don't know how much you have kept up with History subsequent to the Civil War, but I can point you to numerous examples of how the Civil War screwed up the nation.
For example, the 14th amendment was a well intentioned effort to secure rights for freed slaves, but it has been abused far beyond that reasonable purpose into something more like a weapon to bludgeon people's rights away.
As a conservative, I would think you were familiar to no end with the various abuses heaped upon us by the Federal courts citing of the 14th amendment. Here is a quick, but by no means complete list of various abuses that can be traced to the poorly thought out verbiage in the 14th amendment.
Wickard, Roe, Lawrence, (Federal control of commerce, Abortion, and legalizing Sodomy) Banning of prayer in public schools, "Gay Marriage", Anchor Babies, Title IX, and an Illegitimate President named "Obama."
Now is Lincoln responsible for the 14th amendment? Yes and No. It certainly wouldn't have been added to the constitution had he not did what he did, but he didn't have any personal hand in the creation of the 14th amendment.
Probably if he had, it would have been better written, and less subject to abuse.
Life can be good. ;-)
You keep saying that, as if you are oblivious to the very bad changes that have been happening and such changes as will continue to happen to our detriment.
Life has been good, (Up to the last seven, that is.) but it is becoming increasingly bad, and no amount of Pollyanna outlook is going to address the very real and frightening circumstances we are facing.
Your attitude reminds me of a sign I used to see.
"If you can stay calm, while all around you is chaos...then you probably haven't completely understood the seriousness of the situation." - Anonymous
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