I think Texas had something to do with it...
Posted on 09/27/2010 1:27:31 PM PDT by RandysRight
This article gives another perspective on liberals, libertarians and conservatives. The history both Lincoln and Sherman has been written by the victors and beyond reproach. Do we want to restore honor in this country? Can we restore honor by bringing up subjects over 100 years old? Comments are encouraged.
Randy's Right aka Randy Dye NC Freedom
The American Lenin by L. Neil Smith lneil@lneilsmith.org
It’s harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative — given the former category’s increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter’s prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment — but it’s still easy to tell a liberal from a libertarian.
Just ask about either Amendment.
If what you get back is a spirited defense of the ideas of this country’s Founding Fathers, what you’ve got is a libertarian. By shameful default, libertarians have become America’s last and only reliable stewards of the Bill of Rights.
But if — and this usually seems a bit more difficult to most people — you’d like to know whether an individual is a libertarian or a conservative, ask about Abraham Lincoln.
Suppose a woman — with plenty of personal faults herself, let that be stipulated — desired to leave her husband: partly because he made a regular practice, in order to go out and get drunk, of stealing money she had earned herself by raising chickens or taking in laundry; and partly because he’d already demonstrated a proclivity for domestic violence the first time she’d complained about his stealing.
Now, when he stood in the doorway and beat her to a bloody pulp to keep her home, would we memorialize him as a hero? Or would we treat him like a dangerous lunatic who should be locked up, if for no other reason, then for trying to maintain the appearance of a relationship where there wasn’t a relationship any more? What value, we would ask, does he find in continuing to possess her in an involuntary association, when her heart and mind had left him long ago?
History tells us that Lincoln was a politically ambitious lawyer who eagerly prostituted himself to northern industrialists who were unwilling to pay world prices for their raw materials and who, rather than practice real capitalism, enlisted brute government force — “sell to us at our price or pay a fine that’ll put you out of business” — for dealing with uncooperative southern suppliers. That’s what a tariff’s all about. In support of this “noble principle”, when southerners demonstrated what amounted to no more than token resistance, Lincoln permitted an internal war to begin that butchered more Americans than all of this country’s foreign wars — before or afterward — rolled into one.
Lincoln saw the introduction of total war on the American continent — indiscriminate mass slaughter and destruction without regard to age, gender, or combat status of the victims — and oversaw the systematic shelling and burning of entire cities for strategic and tactical purposes. For the same purposes, Lincoln declared, rather late in the war, that black slaves were now free in the south — where he had no effective jurisdiction — while declaring at the same time, somewhat more quietly but for the record nonetheless, that if maintaining slavery could have won his war for him, he’d have done that, instead.
The fact is, Lincoln didn’t abolish slavery at all, he nationalized it, imposing income taxation and military conscription upon what had been a free country before he took over — income taxation and military conscription to which newly “freed” blacks soon found themselves subjected right alongside newly-enslaved whites. If the civil war was truly fought against slavery — a dubious, “politically correct” assertion with no historical evidence to back it up — then clearly, slavery won.
Lincoln brought secret police to America, along with the traditional midnight “knock on the door”, illegally suspending the Bill of Rights and, like the Latin America dictators he anticipated, “disappearing” thousands in the north whose only crime was that they disagreed with him. To finance his crimes against humanity, Lincoln allowed the printing of worthless paper money in unprecedented volumes, ultimately plunging America into a long, grim depression — in the south, it lasted half a century — he didn’t have to live through, himself.
In the end, Lincoln didn’t unite this country — that can’t be done by force — he divided it along lines of an unspeakably ugly hatred and resentment that continue to exist almost a century and a half after they were drawn. If Lincoln could have been put on trial in Nuremburg for war crimes, he’d have received the same sentence as the highest-ranking Nazis.
If libertarians ran things, they’d melt all the Lincoln pennies, shred all the Lincoln fives, take a wrecking ball to the Lincoln Memorial, and consider erecting monuments to John Wilkes Booth. Libertarians know Lincoln as the worst President America has ever had to suffer, with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson running a distant second, third, and fourth.
Conservatives, on the other hand, adore Lincoln, publicly admire his methods, and revere him as the best President America ever had. One wonders: is this because they’d like to do, all over again, all of the things Lincoln did to the American people? Judging from their taste for executions as a substitute for individual self-defense, their penchant for putting people behind bars — more than any other country in the world, per capita, no matter how poorly it works to reduce crime — and the bitter distaste they display for Constitutional “technicalities” like the exclusionary rule, which are all that keep America from becoming the world’s largest banana republic, one is well-justified in wondering.
The troubling truth is that, more than anybody else’s, Abraham Lincoln’s career resembles and foreshadows that of V.I. Lenin, who, with somewhat better technology at his disposal, slaughtered millions of innocents — rather than mere hundreds of thousands — to enforce an impossibly stupid idea which, in the end, like forced association, was proven by history to be a resounding failure. Abraham Lincoln was America’s Lenin, and when America has finally absorbed that painful but illuminating truth, it will finally have begun to recover from the War between the States.
Source: John Ainsworth
http://www.americasremedy.com/
This article is a joke from the start.
“It’s harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative —… — but it’s still easy to tell a liberal from a libertarian.”
Yet the Libertarian party itself was founded in the 70s and marched hand in hand with liberals and Marxists of the counter-culture movement against the National Defense of America. The libertarians also joined in with the Marxist counter-culture sexual revolution in it’s Marxist agenda of the ‘abolition of family’.
And today many libertarians such as Ron Paul align perfectly with many of the views of Code Pink and International A.N.S.W.E.R. and libertarians stand side by side with these types in anti-American war rallies and on issues such as gay rights and other Marxist agenda issues whereas they seek to destroy the right of the people to representation on such issues of in the public square.
Even the title of this article shows the typical liberal calling card by calling Lincoln a terrorist. No different then how liberals have continually called Bush the world’s greatest terrorist. It seems that libertarians still have Lincoln Derangement Syndrome.
Libertarians as an ideological movement have always been infested with liberals and Marxists who seek to work against the America of the Founders by attacking conservatism from within. Every conservative seeks to maintain the most limited government possible and the maximum individual liberty for ALL. Libertarians always seek ways to distort the meaning of individual liberty and natural law into a suicide pact or trap whereas they would strip this nation of the Constitution. This was the goal of so-called libertarians during the time of Lincoln and still is today.
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.ML/NJ
I think Texas had something to do with it...
“Do you realize how many union troops were allowed by Sherman to rape women”
Zero?
It seems to me that a considerable number of Southern slave owners were routinely raping their female slaves.
The Southerners quite naturally had a guilty conscience, and imagined that everyone else was planning to do to their women what some of them had been doing to the slave women.
Since the South couldn’t win the war they themselves started on the battlefield, some Southerners have resorted to seeking revenge with slander and imaginary history. It has become tiresome.
Have mercy ;-0
I bet Thomas Jefferson did NOT tell the states that they had to ratify the Constitution before they could see what was in it...
I think your referring to them as 'equal and sovereign nation-states' badly exaggerates their status. They were neither nations or sovereign, and never were intended to be. But I agree completely with you that they were all equal. And as equals then it stands to reason that some states cannot on their own declare that the compact is violated and leave at the expense of those staying. I believe the Constitution protected all states, those wanting to leave and those wanting to stay. And in light of that I can't understand how someone can say the Constitution could be used as a club by those states wanting to leave to beat those wanting to stay. It just doesn't make sense.
...nor do I believe that many of Lincoln’s actions (i.e., suspension of habeas corpus, arresting the elected officials in Maryland, consolidation of federal power) was anything the founders had envisioned or would have approved.
Again you badly overstate the case. Lincoln's action in suspending habeas corpus may or may not have violated the Constitution. Since the Supreme Court has never ruled on the question then we can't say for sure. As for the Maryland legislature, treason is treason. The South was engaged in a bloody and violent rebellion against the U.S., a rebellion they themselves started. Some members of the Maryland legislature were advocating joining that rebellion. How can anyone not look upon that as treason? And your vague claim of 'consolidation of federal power' is hard to debate without any specifics.
Continue with your arguments please.
You should read Madison's writings:
"But the ability and the motives disclosed in the Essays induce me to say in compliance with the wish expressed, that I do not consider the proceedings of Virginia in ’98-’99 as countenancing the doctrine that a state may at will secede from its Constitutional compact with the other States. A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it."
But how, exactly, is Lincoln responsible for the overreaching government of today? You all love to claim he was a big-government statist - completely ignoring that Jefferson Davis was much, much worse - but how? In what way? Just because he opposed the Southern rebellion?
[Non-Sequitur]You should read Madison's writings:
That's for sure, Non-Sequitur. You really should.... Federalist No. 43
Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion: 1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it?
The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. Perhaps, also, an answer may be found without searching beyond the principles of the compact itself. It has been heretofore noted among the defects of the Confederation, that in many of the States it had received no higher sanction than a mere legislative ratification. The principle of reciprocality seems to require that its obligation on the other States should be reduced to the same standard. A compact between independent sovereigns, founded on ordinary acts of legislative authority, can pretend to no higher validity than a league or treaty between the parties. It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate.
2) Lincoln had reporters arrested and newspapers shut down during the war.
3)Lincoln arrested the duly elected officials of the state of Maryland and replaced them with those he knew to be sympathetic to him.
4)Lincoln had dissenters against the war arrested.
5)Lincoln defied an order from the Supreme Court and ordered the Chief Justice arrested.
6)While the Supreme Court never ruled directly on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, ex parte Milligan forbade the government from trying civilians in military court, as Lincoln's administration had done 10,000 times...
But they wouldn't. That's to say, there isn't much talk of secession where individual liberties or the size and power of government alone are concerned. There has to be either 1) a threat to some state's (or group of states') economic interests or 2) some powerful moral issue (or both 1 and 2).
Political divide and conquer would no longer be as practicable by Federal politicians.
What you'd have is political blackmail by various state elites which threaten to withdraw if they get their own way. But that doesn't preclude political divide and conquer. The federal government buys off those powerful state elites, and then it's free to do as it wishes.
If we were free to leave it is not unlikely that we would not peacefully reassemble in time, under a new Federation with stronger limitations.
So if slave-owners broke up the union because they felt their interests weren't being defended. If they walked off with what they wanted and left the rest of the states to fend for themselves, we'd have said, "Come back! We'll give you all you wanted and more!" Not very likely. And it's also not very likely that -- having gotten their hands on a government of their own -- those slave-owners would want to put themselves under a government that they might not control.
Nope. Jefferson understood the definition of "consent of the governed"..
The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl159.htm
I understand that the Articles of Confederation is NOT the Constitution, BUT the Articles state—“Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.” This is the status they held PRIOR to joining the United States of America via the Constitution....why would they accept a lesser status to ratify the Constitution? That makes no sense and gives them no benefit.
And yet they did. All of them.
You should of highlighted this portion of the quote:
“The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature’s God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. “
The Southern Rebellion was about none of these things and thus didn’t meet the requirements of Madison. It was about holding to principles against self-preservation and against the transcendent law of nature and of God.
The southern rebels were then defeated in the war it waged against the United States and yet still went on to terrorize the United States and republicans with groups such as the KKK. Wilson and the progressive movement were the result of the rebel movement of the Southern democrats and continued to fight against natural law and the people’s right to representation equally for all.
It is a joke that this article claims a dislike for Wilson and FDR but not for the Southern rebel democrats that brought us these presidents. Wilson and FDR both helped revive the old Southern rebels terror group, the KKK.
Even in todays age libertarians for the most part are partners with progressives on a majority of issues.
Geez in the orignial article of this thread the author calls for libertarians to celbrate the man who assassinated President Lincoln. This type of rhetoric is straight from the Liberal Marixst / Libertarian playbook. We have seen the same type of rhetoric from both Marxists and Libertarians in regards to Bush. A conservative would never use such barking moonbat rhetoric.
A conservative would never march with Marxists or the anti-American war traitors but a libertarian will and does all of the time.
The Constitution says under what circumstances habeas corpus may be suspended. It is silent on who can do it.
2) Lincoln had reporters arrested and newspapers shut down during the war.
That happens during wartime.
3)Lincoln arrested the duly elected officials of the state of Maryland and replaced them with those he knew to be sympathetic to him.
Completely false.
4)Lincoln had dissenters against the war arrested.
Oh please.
5)Lincoln defied an order from the Supreme Court and ordered the Chief Justice arrested.
Wrong on both counts. The Supreme Court never ruled on habeas corpus and Lincoln never ordered Taney arrested. None of the historians who have written biographies of Chief Justice Taney every found any evidence supporting the claim. Not a single one.
6)While the Supreme Court never ruled directly on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, ex parte Milligan forbade the government from trying civilians in military court, as Lincoln's administration had done 10,000 times...
Not really, no. Ex Parte Milligan ruled that military tribunals could not be used in areas where the civilian courts operated freely and openly. And once the court handed down its ruling the government certainly abided by it.
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