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.
agree with my south and white bashing or one is a racist
it must be nice to be a protected species.....like being a tellico snail darter and being allowed to make excuses on and on rather than accepting responsibility
answer this ?
I was raised in Mississippi, lived in Haiti, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and Brasil and traveled extensively in West Africa.
You may hate the truth but blacks here are exponentially better off than the kin they left behind. That is not to say slavery was a humanitarian gesture but it has been a steady constant in the human experience since time began and mu kin were actually arguably more benevolent in it's practice in plantation life that the usual history of slavery and there is no doubt blacks in America today are better off than those Africans left behind.
Same as my ancestors who lived through Pax Romana though subjugated, it was an improvement.
If that's racist to you then tough. You are sorely lacking in an objective realistic appraisal ,of state of the world. Realism is a tenet of conservatism.
btw....calling me racist lost it's sting back in 74 or so, you can try that with yer usual white sissy
See the original. I find no such title.
Says who? The Federalist papers were propaganda favoring the new constitution. It was actually only a small minority who were unhappy with the Articles and ratification of the new constitution was a tough sell. And in any case since when does mere opinion trump law? You were claiming that the states needed some kind of explicit out clause in the constitution in order to secede. But you also say mere opinion was all that was needed to get out of the Articles. This despite the fact that the Articles declares itself to be permanent and the Constitution doesn't.
The easiest answer is probably the right one: the Articles of Confederation granted much more leeway to the individual states than the Constitution does, and it was only right and proper to allow each state to surrender that measure of sovereignty on its own decision, rather than by force.
That doesn't explain how, under the law in force at the time, nine states could secede from the government under the Articles and form a new government. You won't find the answer in the law. They were able to do it because they were sovereign. To put it in the language of Hobbes, there is no check upon a sovereign because the will of the sovereign is law.
In any case, the question is not how the states came to place themselves under the Constitution, but rather whether or not they had the right to leave once they had done so.
It absolutely is the question because the right to ratify a constitution is identical to the right to secede.
A state's vote to ratify, was an explicit surrender of some degree of state sovereignty to the Union of states, and to the ultimate supremacy of federal government where matters of multi-state concern were involved. Among other things, requiring an explicit state ratification as part of agreeing to join the union, rather obviously carries with it the burden of prohibiting a decision for dis-union.
Lol. That is known as the state suicide theory of the union, and it is nonsense. Sovereignty cannot be surrendered by implication. It has to be surrendered explicitly. Sovereignty is the right to act as final judge in all disputes within a defined sphere (usually a territory). Implication requires a judgment external to and superior to the sovereign, contradicting the very notion of a sovereign.
It's also nonsensical to think of the Federal government as a sovereign when reading the constitution. For instance the constitution delegates the power to make war to the Federal government. The power to make war is a power always associated with sovereign governments. So why is delegation necessary? Obviously it's because the Federal government is not sovereign and couldn't exercise this power were it not delegated.
This is dizzying ... you defend secession as a "sovereign" act and therefore "legal," on the basis of its being illegal in the case of the Revolution.
What I'm saying is you can't judge the legality of secession by the standards of the legal system from which the states have seceded.
But your last reply lost the context...about the HC privileges for terrorists.
Well, no ... actually, I almost never use the word "racist" at FR or elsewhere.
I choose to name you as a racist, however, due to the rather starkly racist bent of your own words.
Nice try. 'so enumeration weakens it, in cases not enumerated' precisely addresses your assertion that because secession was not enumerated, it wasn't in the contract.
The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union, but while they continue, they must retain the character of representative republics. Governments of dissimilar forms and principles cannot long maintain a binding coalition. "Greece," says Montesquieu, "was undone as soon as the king of Macedon obtained a seat in the amphyctionic council." It is probable, however, that the disproportionate force as well as the monarchical form of the new confederate had its share of influence in the event. But whether the historical fact supports the theory or not, the principle in respect to ourselves is unquestionable.
William Rawle
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In other words, as long as the individual slave holders thought slavery was OK, then it was OK for them to hold deny other human beings their unalienable rights
So said the Constitution, yes.
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Which is a rather ugly position for you to attempt to defend, I'm sure you'll agree.
As I have never attempted to defend the morality of slavery, my agreement is immaterial.
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You're the one who is explicitly defending slavery, ma'am. I'd be rather amazed if you find that at all honorable.
LOL! If you think posting pertinent writings and legal treatise to show where the federal government overstepped it's Constitutional bounds and subjugated the States is 'defending slavery', you're delusional.
“The fact that the Democrats, in all these years, have NOT filed suit on their hated George Bush concerning this matter seems, to me, to have closThe fact that the Democrats, in all these years, have NOT filed suit on their hated George Bush concerning this matter seems, to me, to have closed this argument.ed this argument.”
Not really. Habeas corpus, like most legal protections, does not apply to enemies in time of war. Though there is an approximation of justice, from time to time, it is something altogether different from what those of us who are under the jurisdiction of the government experience. For instance, when U.S. soldiers execute combatants in the field, they don’t abide by due process. They abide by the rules of engagement. That is not to say that George Bush has thrown out the fifth amendment by denying enemy combatants due process. They never had a right to assert such a protection.
well, when in Rome, eh?
http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Republican_Platform_1860.html
“Just goes to show you that leftists don’t have the market cornered on that way of debating or rationalizing responses to evil”
I might feel similarly about Lincoln had he not been so lionized by our historians. He’s just a politician, after all. If Jefferson and Washington can be taken down a notch, so should Lincoln. And FDR, for that matter. It’s dangerous to give these men all benefit of doubt.
As crazy as some “Dishonest Abe” agitators are, they have some points. It was the greatest expansion of federal government in our history: first draft, first income tax, greenbacks, etc. It ultimately killed states rights, or at least fatally maimed them until they staggered into the civil rights era. Instituting martial law, suspending habeas corpus, deportating elected officials, and censoring of the press, all in states loyal to the Union, were largely unecessary, in my opinion. Also, he bears no little responsibility for Sherman and Sheridan’s breaking of the conventions of war with their deliberate targeting of civilians.
All that, and the slavery thing is overrated. You say it was a response to evil, but we all know that fighting evil was not the primary goal. Lucky we all are that it was. It made the carnage worthwhile. And Lincoln deserves credit for making it so. But bear in mind, most of what he did, most of the liberties he took, were not to end slavery. That was a secondary issue. Not even an issue at all until two years in, in fact.
Not that I blame him. Constitutionally, he couldn’t just end slavery all at once. But the effort that has been made to paint him as an abolitionist first and foremost is extreme.
Oh, come now. History is quite clear that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to the preservation of a union of states. The fact that the Constitutional Convention occurred, and that the Constitution was ratified, refutes your statement that there was general satisfaction with the Articles of Confederation.
And in any case since when does mere opinion trump law? You were claiming that the states needed some kind of explicit out clause in the constitution in order to secede.
It's not reasonable to pretend that the states did not surrender a large measure of sovereignty when they agreed to abide by the Constitution. The agreement was for a "more perfect Union" -- to contemplate unilateral withdrawal runs counter to the basis of the decision to form a Union in the first place.
>>>they didn’t know what they were talking about, huh?<<<
Of course they did. The record is clear that Lincoln was no abolisionist. Rather he was an insane, power-hungry, political opportunist, in the same mold as B. Hussein Obama.
“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!’”
Your argument would be much stronger if Lincoln went to war to end slavery. We all know he didn’t. That was the end result, but the primary motivation was to save the Union. I am almost certain that without his deeply-held opinion that defending the Constitution meant keeping the Union exactly as it was, he never would have freed the slaves. He simply wasn’t an abolitionist until well into the way. The horrors therein convinced him that it needed a greater cause than his original cause, i.e. Union. Which says something about his original cause.
>>>So what abuses of the compact had the US government committed when South Carolina announced it was seceding?<<<
Are you kidding? The abuses started before the secession, with the prospect of tariffs that favored the industrial north if Lincoln was elected, to the detriment of the agricultural South. A protectionist tariff was a key plank of the Republican National Convention in Chigago, where Lincoln received the support of almost all of the Pennsylvania delegation, and most of the New Jersey delegation. The Senate passed the Morill tariff two days before Lincoln took office.
“Now you’re just trying to change the subject. The Confederate constitution specifically enshrined the southern position in Sectional Crisis that ultimately led to secession.”
No, he wasn’t changing the subject. He wasn’t saying that the CSA wouldn’t ever expand. He wasn’t saying that the CSA wouldn’t recognize slaves in new territory. He was saying that de facto expansion would have decreased in the CSA. The U.S. still has a process for adding states in its Constitution, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to do so any time soon. We have our reasons, as did the South.
For my part, I don’t think the long and winding road to war was characterized by the South’s ambition to expand slavery and the North’s ambition not to let slavery expand. That was the surface. The truth is that the pro-slavery South sought expansion because it was afraid of the North squashing slavery where it existed, and the North sought to contain slavery where it was because it wanted slavery to end there all the faster. Conditions would have been different with an independent South.
“And, given that the pre-eminent controversy leading up to the Civil War had to do with the expansion of slavery, it doesn’t really make much sense to argue on a basis of its withering.”
Lincoln and other free-soilers were clear on this point. They opposed the expansion of slavery not just for its own sake but also, and I think more importantly, because doing so would doom slavery to a shorter lifespan where it already existed. They were big supporters of the wither argument.
>>>Again, shooting up a fort is not a peacible action. And the right to secede unilaterally does not exist.<<<
Shooting at one’s own fort is both peaceable and justified (consider it Target Practice). Armed occupation of a fort belonging to another country is an act of war.
You are not playing with a full deck, Non-Sequitar (but I truly understand why you call yourself, Non-Sequitar).
>>>Now you’re just being silly. You think that such declarations, by which states formally decided and declared their secessions, were not an expression of public sentiment? No rational person could make such a claim.<<<
Ok. Now, where in the declarations of secession of the states is the general opinion enshrined that Slavery is the very best of Socialism (as you claimed in your original post)?
>>>Unless, sir, you’re prepared to argue that the declarations of secession did not represent the general opinions within those states — in which case the act of secession would something quite bad, indeed.<<<
I do agree that the declarations of secession represent the general opinions within those states. But I hesitate to read more into the declarations, and the events leading up to the declarations, than is historically accurate and provable.
Implied. States can't join the Union without permission from Congress. Once in states can't combine, split, change their borders by a fraction of an inch, are take any other action that impacts the interest of the other states without consent of Congress. Leaving entirely isn't any different. Or so the Supreme Court thought.
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