Posted on 02/07/2009 7:45:28 AM PST by Loud Mime
Abraham Lincoln's Birthday is this Thursday. I thought it fitting to quote from the first Republican president's debates against Stephen Douglas. Each had an hour to present their case, hardly what the mainstream media would like.
I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it.
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty - criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go South, and become most cruel slave-masters.
When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia - to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go info our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter.
>>>You wrote: “Lincoln advised sending freed slaves to Liberia in a speech in 1854, not “during the war” (pp. 16-17)”<<<
Direct quote from P 16-17: “When, before the war, [Lincoln] was asked what should be done with the slaves where they ever freed, he said, “Send them to liberia, to their own native land.””
Shall I go futher?
Then your standards for historians is very low.
He suspended them for the detainees at Gitmo.
>>He suspended them for the detainees at Gitmo.<<
Terrorists have no right to Habeas Corpus, nor do members of opposing armies during war.
Look a bit higher, Article I, Section 8, Clause 15: Congress shall have the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions".
Suppress rebellion is a federal responsibility, not dependent on any state or local government.
From what I have read so far, this thread is filled with good discussion and few ad-hominems.
No matter what the forum, you will find personal notes. But the FOUNDATION of this forum and thread is based on current law, not its twisting and mutating.
Take out the silly posts and you have a great thread.
What’s revisionist about the truth? Only the Neo-Confederates do that on this board. Like Stand watie and apparently even you.
Wardaddy, we’ve talked a few times, quite candidly about race in America (and on this Civil War stuff.) I’ve never blanketed all Southerners as being anything really or even demonstrated that I hold a grudge about slavery or am anti-South. ALl I want is the truth and for an end to this revisionism.
Maybe the North was “right” back then. But now it’s the home of the Left. Maybe even some of those roots of progressive thought were there in the abolitionists. Sometimes right can lead to great evil later. But that doesn’t mean you give up on what’s right in the now.
I’m sorry you feel that way because we’ve dealt with each other cordially in the past. But I’m not going to sit around and watch people demonize Lincoln and rewrite the entire history of the Civil War (as complex as that is, anyway) to fit their agenda of social/ethnic pride.
Do you or I like it when Afrocentric ‘education’ rewrites history to steal the legacy of Western civilization and make it “black” just to bolster the self-esteem of some black kids who only end up hating whites as a result? NO? Well, why tolerate it with the Civil War and the Sectional Divide before it?
Besides, I’m not equating you to Nazis, I’m saying the behavior and motivation of REVISIONIST Neo-confeds is similar to Holocaust deniers who are themselves either intent on bringing attention to other genocides (laudable but not at that price) or are of German descent and simply don’t want that ‘taint’ upon their heritage. Not that I care. I’m a mixed race person, so Greeks, blacks, Irish, Finns, Swedes and Native Americans have all done great and terrible things. I feel no need to revise history to make myself feel more comfortable with my ancestry.
I never equated Southerners, in general, with Nazis, I’m not sure where you get that. If I bring up the HOlocaust, it’s because I’m trying to get revisionists to be consistent or to think about other times when great evils were confronted and the ways in which they were excused, justified or revised out of existence.
I think they tolerate people who don’t have a problem calling the Civil War what it was and pointing out that just about EVERY major political conflagration leading UP to the Civil War involved slavery thus it would be natural to assume that the War itself, even if there were several other contributing factors, would not have happened or been so grisly an affair without the emotional flashpoint of slavery.
Do you really deny this? Do you deny that the Confederate Constitution enshrined the principle of “white supremacy” and that while RObert E. Lee may not have fought for slavery, that without slavery, there would not have been the sectional conflict antebellum (at least not to the point where so many lives were lost?)
Section 8 is powers of the Congress and section 9 is limitation on those powers. They do not apply to the executive.
"Except for ending slavery, fascism & communism, war has never solved anything."
You treat them as if they had nothing to do with secession, when in fact secession was the culmination of those events -- indeed, it was precisely what those political settlements had been designed to prevent!
My point was these trends would not continue after independence because the Confederate constitution dealt with the problem.
Undoubtedly wrong. The Confederate constitution dealt with the problem of expansion of slavery as follows:
(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
(Emphasis mine) You will note that these are precisely the issues that created the Sectional Crisis and led to secession in the first place. The Confederates obviously meant to deal with those problems by explicitly enshrining their own position in constitional law. If any one piece of Confederate writing can be said to reflect the Confederate position on slavery, this is it -- it's in their founding document! Indeed, the major difference between the Confederate and United States constitutions is the Confederate version's explicit wording to protect the institution of slavery.
More than that, the Confederate leaders clearly anticipated and even encouraged the expansion of slavery into new regions -- the problem had not been dealt with or defused at all. Southern attempts to move slavery into the territories would continue as a fundamental principle; and those "new territories" were, in part, those to which the North also made claim. (Some Southerners also had attempted to create slave states by raising armies to conquer vulnerable countries in the Carribean and Central America.... They were clearly not above the use of force in their cause.)
I think you can make a good argument that secession was inevitable, but that doesn't mean war was. Lincoln chose to go to war.
There would have been competition for territories, and war would certainly have followed, as had already been shown in Kansas. And in case you missed it, the South fired the first shots.
Rebellion is defined as open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government. That's a very accurate description of the Southern actions.
Rather, they attempted to leave the Union peaceably.
Bombarding a fort into surrender is an odd way of showing peaceful intent. Rather, they attempted to leave the Union peaceably.
>>>Suppress rebellion is a federal responsibility, not dependent on any state or local government.<<<
True, but there was no rebellion by the Southern states. They left the Union peaceably, as was their right.
Show me where it says he doesn't.
I will. When you show me where it says we can't secede.
Lincoln’s oath of office, like all presidents before and after him, included the vow to “defend the constitution”. That oath does NOT include a vow to “preserve the union”. Lincoln chose to walk all over the constitution to preserve the union with the belief that the “ends” justified the “means. It is my humble opinion that as of December 21, 1860 (the day after South Carolina voted to leave the union), the union was, in fact dissolved. Faced with this dilemna, Lincoln COULD have chosen to preserve the constitution, or preserve the union; and he made the choice to trash the constitution. In fact, Lincoln could no more “restore the union” any more than all the kings horses could re-assemble humpty dumpty. What Lincoln did was to create (by force) a “new” united states. The “original” united states of the founding fathers was gone. I compare it to a married couple where the wife declares the marriage over and leaves the house; then the husband chases her down the street and beats the hell out of her and drags her screaming and kicking back to the house; claiming all the while that he has “saved” the marriage.
There are various arguments on this; they all point to President Bush.
This past week, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s astonishing claim that it had the power to detain suspected “enemy combatants” at Guantánamo Bay — potentially for life — without fair proceedings or meaningful access to the federal courts. This moving reaffirmation of the so-called Great Writ of habeas corpus was probably the high court’s most important civil-liberties decision in my lifetime (and I was born in 1942). Habeas, put simply, forces jailers to produce in court legal justification for a prisoner’s incarceration. It is appropriately considered the most fundamental right of free people living under the rule of law. It is also the oldest, having been enshrined in the Magna Carta in 1215, when English barons first challenged the unchecked rule of the Crown."
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That’s a line from Jonah Goldberg’s book, “Liberal Fascism.”
It’s a good line, and a very good book.
I suppose I find the debate fruitless and the ad hominems are magnified in their effect upon me. I don’t know why I sometimes wade in because you will have the endless legal debating (which I find somewhat silly when there are millions in bondage and who would remain in a quasi-bondage and in fear of their fellow citizens because the losers of the war could not overcome seeing the servant become a free agent and master of his own destiny) and you will have the name-calling and the accusations that Lincoln was worse than Hitler (or something close to it) and that the Civil War’s real causes are found in some byzantine tariff rule or simply out of the NOrth’s unflagging desire to dominate and destroy the South because they had ‘funny’ accents or something.
>>>Bombarding a fort into surrender is an odd way of showing peaceful intent.<<<
It was their (the South’s) fort. The Union Army abandoned Fort Moultrie and occupied the previously unoccupied Fort Sumpter in the dead of night. That sounds like an Act of War by the Union Army, to me (and, I assume, to any reasonably unbiased person).
I’m going to pick up the paperback edition of that book (I hear there will be some additions to it, that’s why I want to wait) and I believe that line, while quoted by Goldberg, is from many a FReeper demonstration over the previous eight years.
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