Posted on 07/15/2009 3:22:52 PM PDT by jessduntno
The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The “original” United States was dissolved on December 20th, 1860.
Lincoln created a “new” United States that is wholly unlike the original.
It was not Lincoln’s fault that when he took office he faced an insurrection of slavery lovers and political cheats.
With all due respect, I’m more concerned about the one that is being created today...and what that will mean to my kids and grandkids...
We are engaged in a new civil war and the cause is the same.
We just using peacefull means. But it is a war for the heart and soul of the country.
“We are engaged in a new civil war and the cause is the same. We just using peacefull means. But it is a war for the heart and soul of the country.”
I think we all know you are right, but it sure is hard to get us all there. I’d like to see us get it right this time. Seems like one we need to finish...this march into socialism feels like hell to me...something evil this way comes and that’s a fact...
Chicago Times (Democrat Newspaper, what else?), November 20, 1863
Here is the opinion about the motivation for the 1860-61 secession from Oliver Temple, a 19th Century Tennessee politician who knew Andrew Johnson, John Bell, Isham Harris and many pro-secessionists of the era:
"The most powerful (motivation for secession), as it always has been, in revolutionary movements, was personal ambition. There was something peculiarly facinationg to bold, ambitious men in the thought of forming a great slaveholding confederacy, embracing fifteen states over which they would bear sway; with an aristocratic class to support their authority; with cotton, the greatest wealth-producing staple the world has ever known, as the basis of unparalleled prosperity, and with an obedient, servile race to perform all labor, and minister to the comfort and wants of this superior class as long as governments should last. Of course this motive was concealed..."
Lincoln’s only aim was to fulfill the tasks mandated to him by the Constitution. Nothing more onerous than to hold federal property as commander in chief and to collect that which was lawfully due under the Constitution. Too bad the yoke of the current federal system is not as light as that of Washington, Jackson and Lincoln.
Out of curiosity, what would you have done?
Sorry your thread went to heck so fast. As soon as I saw the headline, I knew a rhetorical Fort Sumter would come within a few posts, though.
It's a shame. But just as in 1861, the rebs fired the first shot.
“Out of curiosity, what would you have done?”
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An interesting question...
In the simplest of terms, I believe
I would have let the confederate states go in peace.
I’m more concerned about the one that is being created today...and what that will mean to my kids and grandkids...I went to DC for the Fourth of July with my boys and we camped at Gettysburg for four days, walked the grounds, viewed the monuments and it was very powerful...to think that so many good men died in so short a period of time and in such a meat grinder of a battle in what had to be the closest thing to hell we have ever seen in this country, well...to think it could have all been for nothing but to further the ambitions of men like we have in DC TODAY is quite frankly not acceptable...just intolerable...
and I really don’t care about the why and the wherefore of how we got here, but here we are and WTF do we do now...it’s getting pretty ugly...
But how would that have played out? They couldn't of lived under our Constitution as slavery is inherently unconstitutional as well as contradictory to the whole founding principle of our founding.
Given the fact that we were already interwoven as far as commerce and as well as the constitution, there really was no choice, it would have had to happen as some point and time.
It was also necessary to keep a budding union together, if it couldn't be done then we never would have made it to where we are now and would have shown that the whole idea of the US was but an impossible dream.
Now we can look back and say maybe Lincoln could have done a couple of things differently, but all in all, I wish he or a man like him were in charge of the wars we are facing now.
But they were not going in peace. The more one studies the secession movement of the time, the more one sees that it was less a sober reaction to federal abuses than an opportunistic power grab by a relatively narrow group of powerful and unscrupulous people. Had Lincoln just let the southern states go, he would have not only abandoned his Constitutional duty, but he would have abandoned the people of the South to a cruel and insatiable despotism.
We have problems today for sure. But people are using the Confederates as some sort of model for what should be done today and I just don’t think there is any positive lessons applicable today from the political Confederate movement. Their motivation was wrong, their methods were shady at best, their political tactics were idiotic and they rightfully deserve their place in the dumpster of history.
And back to the original topic, I’m afraid much the public has confused government of the special interests, by the special interests, for the special interests for what Lincoln was talking about in Gettysburg. It’s an us versus them world to some and the struggle is for a piece of the big federal pie in the sky. And in the struggle, all Americans are continually marching to total slavery.
“...all Americans are continually marching to total slavery...”
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Sad
We have problems today for sure. But people are using the Confederates as some sort of model for what should be done today and I just don’t think there is any positive lessons applicable today from the political Confederate movement.
I don’t know who. I intentionally boldened the passage from the speech I felt relevant...and the ORIGINAL point, if I may be so bold, was that we are slipping away from God and Country. As far as I am concerned, at this point in history, we are on the verge of giving away the most amazing gift...FREEDOM....
People are spoiled. Freedom is not the usual condition of man through history, but too many people take it for granted.
Yep. Night Colonel.
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