Posted on 02/11/2009 6:06:39 PM PST by Kaslin
This is the 200th birthday of the first Republican to win a national election, Abraham Lincoln. It is good for Republicans today to remember Lincoln, not to be antiquarians, but to learn from his principled defense of the Constitution.
By becoming students of Lincoln, Republicans can win elections and would deserve to win by helping America recover its constitutional source of strength and vitality.
The greatest political crisis America faces today is neither the recession nor Islamic terrorism; it's not health care, education, immigration or abortion. It is that the United States Constitution has become largely irrelevant to our politics and policies.
All three branches of government routinely ignore or twist the meaning of the Constitution, while many of our problems today are symptoms of policies that have no constitutional foundation.
If we are to recover the authority of the Constitution and the many ways it restrains and channels government power, someone or some party must offer a principled defense of the cause of constitutional government.
They must understand not only the Constitution, but also the principles that informed its original purposes and aspirations, principles found in the Declaration of Independence among other places.
No one understood that better than Lincoln.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Once they left the Union, they were no longer bound by the terms of the Constitution. Those provisions you cite did not apply to those states.
Once the states left the Union, the Federal forces were not entitled to remain in that state.
It does not grant nor deny states individually the right to succeed, however, it plainly states that states can’t go into confederation with each other. A declaration of war was not initially issued because the Federal government’s position was not to recognize said States as an autonomous nation in that their confederation violated the US Constitution. In such a case, it is questionable if the President does have the power as Commander in Chief, thus it is up for debate.. Neither sides where purists to the Constitution and can claim a high ground just based on those couple of items.
It is something we have the luxury of looking back at over one hundred years later and analyzing, at the time, decisions had to be made, real bullets where flying and the country was breaking apart. It makes the complaints people have today look like a trip to McDonald’s in comparison.
The question comes, did they go into a mutual confederation to leave the Union. If such, they would have violated the Constitution.
I'd call this historian a revisionist except that his tripe is the orthodox version of events. My advice to those who lionize Lincoln as Krannawitter does---or who haven't read about Lincoln since high school---is to study the history of what actually happened.
Dodging the issue of secession as treason (it is not), Lincoln's prevention of the meeting of the Maryland state legislature, political imprisonments in New York, the deportation of his critic Clement Vallandigham, operation of the Union army as the tool of plunder in Georgia and shutting down opposition press, this man was no Constitutionalist.
His objective was to institute Henry Clay's "American System" of central banking, protectionist tariffs and "internal improvement" boondoggles. Tariffs would have been constitutional except that they weren't uniform. Central banking and internal improvements are distinctly unconstitutional.
In short, President Lincoln defended the Constitution the way Colonel Sanders defended chicken.
It would benefit you to read some American history instead of the KKK tracts.
How so?
You are aware that Vallandigham's stay in the confederacy lasted only as long as it took them to put him on a blockade runner and ship his sorry ass out of the country. I guess nobody wanted the schmuck.
That's to ship blacks back to Africa...
That great man Abreeehaaaam Lincoln...
It does no good to hold Lincoln up as a defender or a destroyer of the Constitution. He did what he thought was right, just as Davis, Lee, et. al did what they thought was right. That’s done.
Our circumstances today differ in that nobody is interested in what the Constitution says or does not say. Judges and politicians take the Constitution to mean what they say it means. And even THAT is subject to change.
Having said that the past is over and done with, I sincerely believe that our government has grown beyond its capacity to function in any coherent way. There are three possible outcomes:
1. Keep on going the way we are going, with all our irreconcilable differences;
2. Allow a peaceful and equitable divorce; or
3. Start shooting at each other.
Option #1 is impossible and impractical. The time is rapidly disappearing for Option #2. No sane person wants Option #3. What’s it going to be?
Not KKK. I'm betting DiLorenzo or "Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War" or maybe the Kennedy boys. Am I close?
Of course it was far better that they remain in the U.S. as slaves like the Southern leaders wanted.
“Of course it was far better that they remain in the U.S. as slaves like the Southern leaders wanted.”
Slavery would have ended with the advent of mechanization and the like.
The South and The States would have taken care of their own and their problems without some on high grandiose government scheme as we have today.
Look at our country today with decaying cities and women fornicating like rabbits with the honest, hard working citizen picking up the tab...
Face it: Lincoln is a fraud...
The first commercially successful mechanical cotton harvester was introduced in the late 1930's. So, what, another 70 years of slavery was OK with you?
The South and The States would have taken care of their own and their problems without some on high grandiose government scheme as we have today.
You obviously haven't read up on Davis and his 'government'.
Look at our country today with decaying cities and women fornicating like rabbits with the honest, hard working citizen picking up the tab...
And that's Lincoln's fault, too? You people will literally blame the man for everything up to and including a rainy day.
Face it: Lincoln is a fraud...
So are many of your arguements.
“You obviously haven’t read up on Davis and his ‘government’”
Oh, but, I have great mind...
Care to give some facts?
Same thing. Anyone at all familiar with US history can see the gross errors in the Klan propaganda.
A critical review of Dilorenzo:
The Unreal Lincoln
http://www.claremont.org/publications/precepts/id.29/precept_detail.asp#
"Masugi on The Unreal Lincoln
The most serious issues for American conservatism today are naturally assumed to be the social policies, political tactics, and outright anti-Americanism of the Left. This would be the case if conservatives were not so confused — and if some of the loudest voices on the Right were not so misleading — over what it is that we are supposed to conserve. Take away the universal objection to liberals, and popular conservatism in America becomes a perplexing scene. This confusion is most apparent when attention is given to the thought, the character, and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
The first big-government liberal; conscious abuser of the executive power for tyrannical ends; contributor to the culturally destructive tendencies of radical egalitarianism; sufferer of an assortment of psychological complexes; and, of course, a racist — these are favorite tunes played over and over again by scholars and journalists who claim to be taking a new, original, or "real" look at Lincoln. Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola College, has done just that in his recent book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.
Ken Masugi, Director of the Claremont Institute Center for Local Government, has reviewed The Real Lincoln in the October 14, 2002 issue of National Review. Aside from DiLorenzo's poor attempt at historical scholarship, Masugi reminds us how gravely mistaken some conservatives are in declaring Lincoln the enemy when he taught the only true standard available in objecting to the forces of modern liberalism — the Declaration of Independence."
What militia are you in?
Well there was his trampling of states rights through conscription and the forced extension of enlistments for the duration of the war. There was the confederate income tax, and the almost confiscatory tax rates that Davis tried to enact. There were the political prisoners, on a per capita basis one was more likely to be locked up in a Jeff Davis confederacy than Abe Lincoln's U.S. There was the forced impressment of slave labor without compensation 'for the war effort'. There was the seizure of a percentage of all agricultural output without compensation 'for the war effort'. Davis forced private ship owners to reserve a large percentage of their cargo space for government goods without compensation 'for the war effort'. The was the nationalization of industries like salt, liquor, and textiles. Then there was ignoring constitutional prohibitions against protective tariffs and requirements for a supreme court. Have any defense for any of those?
“Have any defense for any of those?”
Weak...
Davis and Judah Benjamin knew slavery was dead and gone...
Davis, Lee and Stonewall Jackson had very good relationships with blacks unlike AbrEEEEEEHAAAM Lincoln, Grant and Sherman.
You did not give any sources so your remarks are just that...remarks...
“What militia are you in?”
The one that defends State Rights And Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan Conservatism...
Individual liberty requires better. You could say that the Constitution didn't fail us, that we failed it. But mankind will always have that corruptible bent. We need a Constitution with a "tamper-proof" lid.
I believe in all the grand principles in the Constitution, but they are fading quickly.
Some day, probably in a different country or on a different planet, some one will get it right. Until then, we will scurry around trying to protect ourselves with the deteriorating remains of our current constitution.
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