Posted on 01/07/2013 4:01:08 AM PST by Kaslin
While many of our heroes have lost their gloss, Abraham Lincoln still shines brightly for many Americans because there is so much to learn from his life.
For example, in 1858 Abraham Lincoln was defeated in his race for the United States Senate by Stephen Douglas, making it Lincoln’s third electoral defeat in a row. As Lincoln emerged from the telegraph office into the rain-soaked street in Springfield, Illinois he lost his balance when his foot slipped on the slick boardwalk. Catching himself before he tumbled into the mud Lincoln muttered to under his breath, “A slip, but not a fall.”
He then smiled brightly.
Recognizing the symbolic importance for his political life of catching himself before he fell, Lincoln understood that his political career was not over despite his string of defeats. He started for home reenergized. In two years he was elected President of the United States.
“I claim not to have controlled event,” Lincoln candidly wrote in 1864, “but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”
Lincoln’s critics (both contemporary and posthumous) have often pointed to this confession as a sign that while Lincoln successfully rode the whirlwind of Civil War, he was not the builder of the nation that others have claimed- a kind of second founding father after Washington.
But it was this essentially negative trait (negative in the sense that it was passive and did not require action) that allowed Lincoln to remake US society on the basis of the words of the Declaration of Independence that declared “all men are created equal,” to include African Americans. He was able to accomplish this revolutionary object through passive management of the Civil War without turning it in to a “remorseless revolutionary struggle,” which might have irreparably divided the nation during Reconstruction.
Nowhere was Lincoln’s task more arduous than in managing and massaging the personalities of his generals (and to a lesser extent, members of Congress). Many of Lincoln’s strongest critics were generals who felt that Lincoln wasn’t taking their advice on how to conduct the war. In this chapter we will explore how Lincoln ignored personality (and public opinion) in supporting his generals and stuck to the principle of rewarding those that fought and won battles.
The most striking examples of this were the cases of General George McClellan and US Grant.
McClellan was the commander of the Army of the Potomac and later general-in-chief of all Federal forces. Mostly on the strength of a strong personality, McClellan dazzled soldiers and politicians despite the fact that he squandered several opportunities to beat the Confederates in battle. He was glamorous, good looking and just credible enough to be plausible. Lincoln however was not fooled.
Instead, Lincoln found himself drawn to the unpopular and often shy US Grant. Grant won battles even though he was publicly ridiculed for being a drunkard, slovenly and lacking in refinement. When a group protested Lincoln keeping Grant in command despite hearsay that Grant was a drunkard, Lincoln only reply was asking them what brand whiskey Grant drank so he could get some for his other generals who hadn’t yet won a battle.
Lincoln once famously observed, “I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it."
Indeed, during Lincoln’s life he was ridiculed over his origins, (from a log-cabin); his looks (he described himself as “homely”); his lack of formal education (he was mostly self-taught); his wife (who could be quite arrogant and aggressive, not to say crazy); and a great deal besides. Probably no President dealt with as much abuse as Lincoln. Yet throughout his life Lincoln rarely struck back at his critics. He maintained, instead, a firm confidence about who he was which helped him turn critics into supporters.
In 1855, for example, Lincoln was hired to represent Cyrus McCormick who was claiming patent infringement against a defendant. In addition, McCormick retained a number of better established lawyers from the eastern US, including Edwin M. Stanton. As the trial commenced in Cincinnati, the other attorneys ignored Lincoln, shutting him out of the case with Stanton going so far as to call Lincoln “that damned long armed Ape,” within his hearing. Lincoln swallowed his pride and watched the trial from the courtroom with other spectators.
When McCormick later sent Lincoln a check for his services on the case, Lincoln returned the check explaining that he really hadn’t done anything to earn it.
When the client returned the check to Lincoln and insisted that he cash the check, Lincoln again swallowed his pride and cashed the check despite his grumbling about the “rough” treatment he got from Stanton.
What’s most amazing is that Lincoln later picked Stanton to become his War Secretary after the resignation of Simon Cameron. At the time of his selection Stanton was still an avowed critic of Lincoln. Lincoln was willing to overlook this because of Stanton’s superb managerial skills. As their relationship matured Stanton became one of Lincoln’s warmest admirers. Standing at the foot of Lincoln’s bed as the latter died of a gunshot wound to the head, Stanton proclaimed of Lincoln: “Now he be belongs to the ages.”
The GOP right now could use a backward glance at Father Abraham and the lessons he bring with the ages.
Defeat in one election doesn’t always mean defeat forever. It helps, however, if you know what you where you are and whither you are tending; if you have high ideals and stick to them, as Lincoln did.
Too, we mustn’t always be so ready to excoriate our foes- foes inside our own party who are often arrogant, unreliable and closed minded, these people we call RINOs. We will later need these valuable allies to get elected and run the party.
But to those who are quick to criticize the Tea Party trend inside the GOP as unrefined and often perhaps extreme, I would remind them that just like in the case of Grant, the whiskey we drink more often leads to victory than defeat. And really, you can’t say that much about your other generals.
Since that is precisely what the Constitution said, that's exactly what I meant.
In the Priggs case, the finding is one of the biggest federal power grabs ever. From the finding itself:
Nor does it matter that the rule to which I have adverted as being exclusive of the right of the States to legislate upon the provision does not appear in it. It is exactly to such cases that the rule applies, and it must be so applied unless the contrary has been expressly provided.
Not only does this run directly counter to the legal precedent in Jack vs Martin, it perverts the entire process of enumeration AND the guarantee of the 10th Amendment by saying unless the Constitution says otherwise, the federal government can do whatever it wants!
How's that for an "unconstitutional government"?
Seven states left the Union before Lincoln even took office.
Which one? The one in 1793 was constitutional.
The Dred Scott decision forced Federal territories and their citizens far away from the South to accept slavery.
Yes, because the northern States accepted it as well when they signed the compact.
The South was indeed forcing slavery upon the entire nation by using Federal Power,
Again, I don't feel the federal laws forcing anything were constitutional. The obligation was on the States who entered into the agreement. When they didn't the South had every right to leave the compact.
I thought you earlier said that States couldn't secede under the Constitution. Which way is it?
FMCDH(BITS)
Not really, but thanks for sharing.
They seceded extra-legally.
meant to delete the last part before posting.
That pales in comparison to the embarrassment that was the Dred Scott ruling.
I believe I'll take the word of the man that Madison saw fit to appoint to the federal court of Virgina over the opinion of some anonymous Internet poster.....but thanks for sharing!
But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state.30 Nor must we forget that solemn declaration to which every one of the confederate states assented . … that whenever any form of government is destructive of the ends of its institution, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it. And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
Of the Several Forms of Government, St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Section XIII
And I’ll take the word of SCOTUS over Tucker.
Dred Scott followed the legal precedent of Jack vs Martin......which is exactly what Constitutional LAW required them to do.
If your speaking of Texas vs White, please show me where either the Constitution or the Judiciary Act of 1789 gives ANY federal court either original OR appellate jurisdiction over a case concerning a State and one of its own citizens.
Perhaps as a launch-pad. But anyone who would think that a human being was nothing more than property likely wouldn’t have any problem with the rest of taney’s excesses.
Immaterial opinion in an attempt to use a moral argument for lack of a legal one.
Have you any Constituional argument, or have you already slipped into the emoting phase?
You’re way aheand of me in that regard mama
They couldn't. Secession was their claim, not mine.
http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/Background/BackgroundElection.html
Which is pretty much exactly what I said.
Dred Scott was an atrocious decision.
It was legally and historically incorrect, as was pointed out by the dissenting opinions at the time.
Taney ignored the historical fact that free Negroes had been full citizens, with right of suffrage, in almost half of the states when the Constitution was ratified, including North Carolina (!).
He completely invented out of whole cloth the idea that there was a United States citizen that was defined differently from a citizen of any state. Find that in the Constitution!
In short, Dred Scott was a very, very bad decision. Its only probable competitor in this regard was Roe v. Wade, which like Dred Scott was written by justices determined to reach a particular verdict and working backwards from there to try to find justification.
Actually, Roe, in its original form was not all that terrible a decision. It still allowed for considerable restrictions on abortions by the states, and if it had been left that way we might not have had the 40 years of political battle it created. But it was expanded to abortion on demand at any time for any reason, which was not in the original decision.
The states had no right to leave it to form their own nation, as a foreign nation to confiscate property of the Union, or to fire upon the Union trying to resupply their people.
What's the worst the greedy slave owners would have faced had they stayed in the Union? Instead they had to start the bloodiest war in history. And even with the benefit of hindsight a small minority still cling to a lost and unjust cause.
Please show me in the Constitution where it is not allowed. Inform me. please.
I am but a traveler through this world.
FMCDH(BITS)
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