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.
>>>”The dissociation of labor and disintegration of society, which liberty and free competition occasion, is especially injurious to the poorer class; for besides the labor necessary to support the family, the poor man is burdened with the care of finding a home, and procuring employment, and attending to all domestic wants and concerns. Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares altogether, and slavery is a form, and the very best form, of socialism.”<<<
Thanks for the source. I somewhat agree with the author, in respect that slavery might be a form “socialism”. But, if so, slavery is the worst form of socialism, not the very best. The highest form of socialism is the communist utopia that Marx envisioned, but which is impossible unless everyone becomes an angel, and “leadership” is abolished (e.g., no elite ruling class hogging all the resources).
Yeah ... poking yourself in the eye can do that.
Not to start a tangent but I would like to point out that the Soviet Union ended on a vote, not as a result of a foreign invasion and conquest.
It is preposterous to presume that the demise of the Soviet Union could have come about had not the Free World opposed its expansion with the threat -- and at times even the use -- of force. The Soviet Union fell because they were bankrupted by their attempts to maintain armed parity with the West; and also by the corrosive effects of their own totalitarian form of government, which could not compete with the infiltration of western culture.
Actual war threatened many times between the USSR and the West; that war did not occur, was due to the realization on both sides that a war would lead to unparalleled death and destruction.
This isn't actually a tangential discussion, either: like the Soviet Union, the Confederacy had expansionist aims, as did the north. Unlike in the Cold War, there would have been no serious compunction against going to war, as neither side had any concept at the time of what a total war would be like.
>>>Since the Constitution was not originated by the Congress, we must add it to what laws the executive branch enforces. See? It makes sense.<<<
What laws are in the Constitution?
“we’ll find reasons to rationalize our wrongs, rather than to deal with the great discomfort that would arise from addressing our wrongdoing”
That sounds like the one I read. I think you are right about the rationalization of wrongdoing. I fear we are exhibiting that same behavior now (guess we haven’t changed much, huh) , hope the consequences are not as catastrophic this time.
>>>Show me where it says he doesn’t.<<<
That’s the point. If a branch of government is not enumerated a particular power, then it does not have it. At least that was the argument of James Madison during a 1792 House floor debate. But then, what does James Madison know about the Constitution?
And you don't have the first edition, do you? Tommy did a lot of correcting for the subsequent printings, as he admits. But you should go read Lincoln's Peoria speech to see that quote in context.
By the way, you do know that Tommy also feels that Bush and Cheney are war criminals for invading Iraq, don't you?
>>>Rebellion is defined as open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government.<<<
I extend that to include an illegitimate, tyranical government, then I will agree that the South was in rebellion against the illegitate, tyranical government of the United States.
Wow, talk about a post that was totally not in response to what I wrote.
All I said is I don’t like historical revisionism. I even used the “Afrocentric” history fraud as an example of something I don’t hesitate to call rubbish.
Nowhere in any of my post did I speak of a grudge or ill of Southerners. All I did was speak of neo-Confederates who are also revisionists. Are we to conflate the two?
Your post is quite hostile and by the way, no one was smeared (AGAIN) as Nazis. Using an example to clarify a moral question confronting a people is hardly smearing or even linking the two.
As for my vote—I held my nose for the scumbag McCain. If I could clone someone to run for President it’d probably be some hybrid mutant mix of George Washington, von Mises, Hayek and Albert Jay Nock.
Not that I should have to prove it to someone who WENT OUT OF HIS WAY to reference past civil discussions with you, point out how this is not at ALL about black people (for me) but about an odd need to rewrite history to make one feel better about one’s heritage, when we are all products of imperfect histories and peoples, etc but I have no love or respect for Obama.
If anything he’ll prove to be the reason blacks can’t get elected to high office again after a disastrous run. Which is a shame because he’s not really even representative of the American black experience. He’s just a skin color to some people and that’s unfortunate. He is most certainly a blend of “affirmative action President” and “mass movement figurehead for a people bereft of spirituality or sense of history.”
And I don’t know, you talk about things being tolerated on a conservative forum, then you talk about how ‘black moderates’ are on here smearing the South and basically attack me in several posts when I spent all of those directed to you with a generous and welcoming tone and evincing an eager desire to not be painted with some ‘anti-Southron bigot’ brush.
I feel confident that if any objective observer were to read the posts between us, they’d feel that you were far too strong in your reaction to me, especially in your response to my initial reply to you.
>>>And you don’t have the first edition, do you?<<<
I have the first paperback edition.
>>>Tommy did a lot of correcting for the subsequent printings, as he admits.<<<
And your point is? Are you ready to dispute his historical arguments with facts rather that innuendo and ad-hominems?
>>>But you should go read Lincoln’s Peoria speech to see that quote in context.<<<
Are you referring to this part, “My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia”, or this one, “What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this”.
>>>By the way, you do know that Tommy also feels that Bush and Cheney are war criminals for invading Iraq, don’t you?<<<
Yup. The only person I agree with on everything is Jesus Christ; and what does this have to do with anything we have been discussing? If that is the best you can do, I recommend you fall back and regroup.
Imagine a group of states seceding over the right to commit infanticide (not merely the abortion of a few-day old life) and then years later people trying to distract by saying, “well, it wasn’t moral but the Union had no right to go to war to prevent them from continuing (and possibly expanding to more territory) that practice!”
Some of the same people who are die-hard pro-lifers (who often compare themselves to abolitionists, by the way) would never countenance such legal quibbling in the face enormity.
But to make themselves feel better, here are some revisionists. They’re everywhere, it’s not just this country.
I was in a flame war (I suppose) over my calling Jesse James a thug and murderer. Perhaps he WAS nice to his family and would have eventually left that life of crime and become a productive citizen but we don’t judge people by how well they adapt after being an unrepentant criminal and killer. His apologists were so wrapped up in the FEELING his legend created that they would justify his robberies (”oh, he was robbing trains and you know the rail companies were taking people’s land”) and his killings too!
It was odd. I never thought a Confederate dead-ender who killed innocent people and robbed them (not just banks or trains) would be defended into the 21st century. All because they did not want that legend tarnished because of some personal significance it had for them. They couldn’t tolerate defending an actual cold-blooded killer and robber so they invented reasons for it to salve their conscience.
Kinda like what we have on these threads (other than people who simply state their belief that secession should have been allowed and slavery isolated and cut off.) Considering what happened in the years after Reconstruction and into the SIXTIES, is it really that off to assume that the South would have maintained slavery into the 1900s? It went to 1889 or so in Brazil. It still exists in some places, so why would it not have continued in the South for another half-century or more?
Wait, so unless the North had decided to allow blacks and women to vote (did all Northern states prohibit blacks from voting? I wasn’t aware) that means no one can condemn slavery as a barbaric practice?
Wow, some of you guys sound remarkably like leftists with your “let the perfect be the enemy of the good” approach to these historical questions.
Interestingly, only when talking about this issue. If I were to condemn American history, in general, these same people would defend it as “imperfect but basically good and a positive development for the world.” But wow, let someone touch on the Civil War and all of a sudden you have to behave as if you’re in the 21st century or later to have any moral legitimacy in criticizing a savage practice.
Since our government is far more oppressive than it used to be, I guess we can no longer condemn North Korea?
Show me where anyone has made such an argument.
Thanks for citing the source for me.
It’s not like I make things up. I have something called honor. :)
>>>Examining ‘evidence’ of Lincoln’s tyranny<<<
Very good critique. I particularly liked this sentence regarding Lincoln’s belief that the National Bank was of “proven constituionality”: “Dr. DiLorenzo uses the one sentence he quotes from Neely to give the clear impression that Neely had written that Lincoln resented the restraint imposed on his political agenda by the Constitution. But Neely makes it absolutely clear that Lincoln was frustrated by partisan zealotry taking the form of constitutional argument, a very different matter.”
It reminds me of Barrack Hussein Obama whining that anyone who opposes his far-left agenda is involved in a partisan attack. Same for Princess Pelosi and Prince Reid.
Generally speaking, the “critique” is strong on rhetoric and weak on substance — a typical attack by a Lincoln cultist.
Context:
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 unde rlings? 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 for 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, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, 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.
Now, show me one political leader, north or south, who was on record as being more "enlightened" on the subject of race. And if you want to have the "transportation" debate, we certainly can. You'd be surprised how many people were in favor of it, like Thomas Jefferson.
You made mention of the status of blacks and women (as if women were more emancipated in the South?) and “that moral high ground wasn’t so high.”
If you want to debate the consequences of the war for liberty (if you feel it directly led to the centralization of government, the end of the previous arrangement, reliance on Washington, whatever) or on the various legal questions in the matter—fine.
But if you’re going to start doing the old Leftist tactic of invalidating people’s moral beliefs and human rights because that society wasn’t perfect by your standards, then don’t be surprised when someone responds to that nonsense.
The USSR collapsed because their economic system didn't work. See Mises famous paper Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth. The USSR was doomed from the start and only survived as long as it did because idiot western leaders (including ours) kept subsidizing them and bailing them out. Heck, they would have failed in the first ten years if the US hadn't fed them.
The question before the Supreme Court of the United States was, whether it was competent for a court martial, deriving its jurisdiction under state authority, to try and punish militia men drafted, detached and called forth by the president into the service of the United States, and who had refused or neglected to obey the call. The court decided, that the militia, when called into the service of the United States, were not to be considered as being in that service, or in the character of national militia, until they were mustered at the place of rendezvous, and that until then, the state retained a right, concurrent with the government of the United States, to punish their delinquency. But after the militia had been called forth, and had entered into the service of the United States, their character changed from state to national militia, and the authority of the general government over such detachments was exclusive.
James Kent, Commentaries
How exactly do you think the point of rendezvous was reached, the Militia Fairy?
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It was a nice attempt on your part to confuse the issue by drawing a parallel between the totally different Articles concerning the powers of the federal [not national] branches of government and the Article concerning the States, though.
I made no such argument. I responded to a fallacious attempt to claim a moral high ground by applying the same standard to the North that was being used to judge the South. One cannot claim that secession was invalid on the grounds that blacks didn't get to vote on it without also accepting as invalid every public act taken by the northern states.
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