Lincoln's Defense Of Constitution Is Moral For Today's Republicans

IBD Editorials ^ | February 11, 2009 | Thomas Krannawitter

[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.

[Defiant]

“Ladies and gentlemen, er, we’ve just lost the picture, but, uh, what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over — ‘conquered’, if you will — by a master race of giant space ants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to…toil in their underground sugar caves.”

You should work on your knowledge of popular culture and your comprehension abilities, especially with respect to the recognition of sarcasm.

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“You should work on your knowledge of popular culture and your comprehension abilities, especially with respect to the recognition of sarcasm.”

I have no desire to be like the sheeple you are part of who looks to the government to take care of me.

If you are the new conservative, we are doomed....

[Colonel Kangaroo]

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.

The American System sure looks a lot better when the alternative was the Confederates' Assyrian System of slavery, oppression and ignorance. The best cure for dissatisfaction with Lincoln is to closely look at the other side.

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“The American System sure looks a lot better when the alternative was the Confederates’ Assyrian System of slavery, oppression and ignorance. The best cure for dissatisfaction with Lincoln is to closely look at the other side.”

Hey, Kangaroo, stop hoppin’ boy...

96 percent of the soldiers who fought for the South owned no slaves and were poor Kangaroo...jump...jump...fast...

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Lee and the south were just poor losers.

They should have been better at losing considering all they practice they had.

[Defiant]

The one that defends State Rights And Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan Conservatism...

I worked for Ronald Reagan's administration, and met Barry Goldwater when I was working in the Senate. You're version of conservatism is not theirs. Yours is the conservatism of Randy Weaver and George Wallace and Orval Faubus. A reverence of the South, a loathing of Lincoln, and an excessive willingness to overlook the ugly reasons why the South wanted to secede, are all red flags to me of someone who has issues that are outside of a reasoned conservative philosophy.

I guarantee you that Reagan revered Lincoln, and with good reason. He was a great man, whose held this nation together and allowed it to become great, instead of letting it fall apart after only 87 years and become a balkanized, impoverished, immoral failure that would have shamed our founding fathers and been immersed in hostilities for centuries to come. We'd still be fighting over North America, only there would probably be 3 or 4 "nations" instead of 2, as the south and the west would likely have split apart over some issue at some point.

The easy choice would have been to let the south go its own way. What Lincoln did was hard, and it took a great toll on him. Had he not decided to fight to maintain the Union, our nation, our people, would be a diminished people, not the light of the world and last best hope of mankind.

Continue in your fantasy world, it's easy to sit there in your pajamas complaining about the civil war 150 years ago and enjoying the lap of luxury and using the technological advances that are all an outgrowth of American power and prowess that would not have developed without what Lincoln did.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

96 percent of the soldiers who fought for the South owned no slaves and were poor

I wasn't talking about the reb soldiers particularly. I was thinking about the dummies who led the South into rebellion. I suspect 96% of them owned slaves, 99% of them were cheap crooked Democratic politicians and 100% of them were just plain stupid.

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“They should have been better at losing considering all they practice they had.”

You are going to lose going forward after what I saw today with Maxine Walters, Jessie Jackson and other Congressmem advocating diveristy in lending practices continue.

Yea...let’s here ir for Old Honest Abe...

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“I was thinking about the dummies who led the South into rebellion.”

Dummies?

They were true Patriots who lived by the Constitution and God.

That’s right God...

Good night...

[Colonel Kangaroo]

You are going to lose going forward after what I saw today with Maxine Walters, Jessie Jackson and other Congressmem advocating diveristy in lending practices continue.

People will wise up. Democrats have not changed from Jefferson Davis to Jesse Jackson. They get too greedy, they overreach for power and then the good people of the country finally wake up to their schemes.

[coon2000]

Suspension of habeas corpus is granted to Congress under Article One of the Constitution under certain circumstances.

The Southern States did not force any state to leave the Union against its’ will, you misrepresent what Madison was saying. He also said the Constitution had to be ratified, “not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.”

[Colonel Kangaroo]

They were true Patriots who lived by the Constitution and God.

We must not be talking about the same people. The people I'm talking about is a class of politicians who lied, cheated and rabble-roused themselves into a rebellion and who afterwards often avoided the consequences, leaving the bitter fruits of defeat for their despised cannon fodder.

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“I worked for Ronald Reagan's administration, and met Barry Goldwater when I was working in the Senate. You're version of conservatism is not theirs. Yours is the conservatism of Randy Weaver and George Wallace and Orval Faubus. A reverence of the South, a loathing of Lincoln, and an excessive willingness to overlook the ugly reasons why the South wanted to secede, are all red flags to me of someone who has issues that are outside of a reasoned conservative philosophy.”

Forget The War For Southern Independence...

If your are suggessting, on Free Republic, that you are a Conservative while saying you support Obama....well, this is Alice in Wonderland... By the way, I'm sitting in my nice slacks and shoes which Obama will provide for you going forward...

[Defiant]

I am slightly to the right of Reagan, but I'm not right or left of you, more like on a different scale. I'm 20th century Milton Friedman/Jean Kirpatrick. You are 19th Century Jeff Davis.

I was working in DC in the 80s, for a Senator, a Congressman, and for Reagan. During that time, I was for a 17 percent flat tax when Reagan was working for a 23 percent rate. I was against the 1986 Amnesty that he signed, although he was pushed to by Alan Simpson and resisted it. I was for more spending cuts and government shutdowns than he gave us, but understood his desire to go along with Congress to get the defense spending he wanted. I was for a stronger response to the Beirut bombing and to Iran's torture of our operatives. I was for telling Congress and Rep. Barnes to go to hell over the Contras. There were many, many issues I agreed with Reagan about, but I can't think of any where he was more conservative than me. (Nonetheless, he was our greatest President since Lincoln, and a man I would have walked through walls for.) Most libs would consider me a caveman.

So, it's amusing to me that you consider me a "new conservative" because you wish the south had won the civil war. It's not a conservative/liberal issue. 50 years ago, you and Trent Lott would have been Dems. I'd have been the same.

[Lonely Are The Brave]

“I’m 20th century Milton Friedman/Jean Kirpatrick. You are 19th Century Jeff Davis”

“There are no free lunches.”

Davis and Friedman knew that...you don’t

[Lonely Are The Brave]

Defiant wrote...(I for one welcome our new Obama Overlords.)

Come to your own conclusions if you see this...

[Defiant]

I don’t know why I let myself get involved in these Lincoln threads, they all follow the same pattern. It is odd that a supposedly conservative site has so many southern apologists on it.

[Defiant]

“There are no free lunches.”

Davis and Friedman knew that...you don’t

???? Did your head explode? WTH are you talking about?

[Defiant]

If your are suggessting, on Free Republic, that you are a Conservative while saying you support Obama....well, this is Alice in Wonderland.

Man, that's just plain funny. Someone, anyone, read post 41 and explain it to Orval.

[coon2000]

There are 3 nations in North America, are we still fighting? And had Lincoln not invaded the Southern States we would not have computers? There you have it, Lincoln was the reason why Al Gore invented the internet.