It sounds like the Democrats of old are the same as the Democrats of today; they just advocate government as our new slavemaster.
By the way, the website I pulled this from may be of interest to any persons interested in the war between the states.
ping
A logical, intelligent speech from a political figure? Surely this is fiction!
As I read the passage you highlighted I am struck by the fact that what Lincoln says he is agitated by is the embarrassment slavery causes to him. He expresses no particular concern for the slaves here. Lincoln and his cronies were mostly animated by their hatred, not for slavery, but for Negros.
And ANOTHER Douglass — a black one — had THIS bit of advice. His words are as timely NOW as it was when he uttered them.
“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the
ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical
one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a
struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never
did, and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit
to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and
wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue
until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress.” Frederick Douglass August 4, 1857
Give the clearly expressed intentions of a contemporary black man, we may well find ourselves having to once again impose Douglass’ limits.
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."
Reconstruction legitimized the 'democratic' actions of Lincoln, and, in effect, enslaved the Nation to the will of the federal government.
Nope, I can't think of a single thing to celebrate on Lincoln's birthday.
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"The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent.
St. George Tucker View of the Constitution of the United States – 1803 [paragraph 337]
He pretty much dumped the constitution to get his way.
That being said, I am sure we are all glad slavery ended.
A big problem I have with the south was the attack on Fort Sumter and on that supply ship.
If for instance Bush was still president and Castro attacked Gitmo, we would have tore old Fidel a new one.
Secession should have been handled diplomatically at first and in the mean time the CSA could have built up their military via European help in preparation for a possible future armed conflict. Striking first was just dumb.
thanks...to read later.
I particularly like how Lincoln acknowledges his awareness of who was who...
>>>It sounds like the Democrats of old are the same as the Democrats of today; they just advocate government as our new slavemaster. <<<
Actually, it is Lincoln’s form of “republicanism” that is more like the democrat ideology of today. Lincoln despised states rights, and preferred instead a strong central government. Conservatives of today are more like the non-slaveholding, old-South Democrats (and there were many more non-slaveholders than slaveholders). Lincoln was also an unapologetic racist who believed whites to be intellectually superior to blacks, much like the democrat party of today. Some links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e6PBcMkE1M
This is a very good YouTube lecture on Lincoln by Professor Thomas DiLorenzo
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/wilson7.html
Excerpt: “At the time when Lincoln inaugurated coercion against the seven seceding Southern states, there were (rounding off 1860 census figures) 1,387,000 slaves in the seceded states and 1,817,000 (or over 56 per cent of the total American slave population) still in the Union, including nearly 3,700 in the District of Columbia and 18 in New Jersey. It is hard to draw much of a moral to support military conquest of seceding states from that, especially as Lincoln had already declared that he had neither the right nor to desire to interfere with slavery in the states.
And what about the 488,000 free black people in the United States, more than half of whom were in the slave states. How can they be “hostages” when they discouraged and often forbidden from entering Northern states where the black population was, according to much testimony, extremely depressed and oppressed!”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo31.html
Excerpt: “The truth is that Lincoln repudiated the dictum of the Declaration of Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. He also unequivocally denied that “all men are created equal.” “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races,” he said in the August 21, 1858, debate with Stephan Douglas. “Free them [slaves], and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot, then, make them equals,” he continued.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson22.html
Excerpt: “Of course, the greatest Presidents, according to the Mainstream Intelligentsia (MSI), are those who grew the federal government the most and who exercised the most dictatorial power – that being their definition of greatness. The whole enterprise of such ratings has always seemed fishy to me. What do we mean, for instance, by Great? Genghis Kahn, Hitler, and Mao were great – in the sense that they made a great impact on history. Being Great in history is not necessarily a good thing. And greatness is surely a matter of perspective. Many may have profited from the doings of a great President, but there are also many who suffered. I doubt if very many of the 600,000 Americans who died in the War to Prevent Southern Independence would be all that enthusiastic about the greatness of Honest Abe Lincoln if they were allowed to vote. “
It works like this in the democrat mind. A fetus is subhuman and the property of the woman. The woman is the new slave master. As a result, the radical feminists have totally undone centuries of social evolution.
"Except for ending slavery, fascism & communism, war has never solved anything."
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http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Republican_Platform_1860.html