Posted on 07/19/2017 4:34:02 PM PDT by Ciaphas Cain
Jefferson took and used Locke's ideas in the Declaration of Independence, but the underpinning was Locke's idea of a right of revolution against unbearable tyranny, not some idea of self-determination at will and by force.
And by the way, did you think of any other French Philosophers that used the word "Citoyen"?
The quote I gave is from Diderot's Encyclopedia (Encyclopedie). He uses the word citoyen many times in the article to mean more than just a resident of a city.
As might be expected, "citizen" or "citoyen" originally did refer to those who lived in a city, particularly an ancient republic like Athens, but as thinkers came to imagine free republics of a larger size, they naturally applied the term to the free and empowered residents of such commonwealths.
There may have been a precedent for this even in ancient times, as Roman citizenship was (I believe) extended to people living far outside the city of Rome back in imperial times.
You people who argue with me about this would have us accept the Rebel's version in the American War of Independence, and the King's version in the US Civil War.
The colonists weren't represented in Parliament.
The slave states were represented (some might say overrepresented) in Congress.
Moreover, the war had already started before the Continental Congress declared independence.
There was ample opportunity for Southerners to air their grievances in Congress and work out a plan for the future with representatives from other states.
Instead, they declared their secession and started shooting.
In fact, our DiogenesLamp neither seeks out nor ever acknowledges facts which contradict his Lost Causer propaganda.
DiogenesLamp: "The Force Lincoln sent to attack the Confederates at Sumter was not nearly sufficient to be successful at what he was ordering them to do. It was only sufficient to get them all killed if they had done as he had ordered."
In fact DiogenesLamp well knows Lincoln's resupply mission to Fort Sumter was given final orders, in effect: No first use of force.
But Jefferson Davis had already ordered, a month earlier, military preparations to assault & seize Fort Sumter by force.
Davis's final orders were, in effect: take Fort Sumter, by any force necessary.
In that, despite Davis's later denials, and DiogenesLamp's propaganda, Davis ordered Civil War to begin.
DiogenesLamp: "Lincolns' own military advisers had told him it would require a force of 20,000 men to secure Sumter, so Lincoln knew from the very beginning his force was insufficient to do anything other than trigger a war, which is exactly what it did."
That 20,000 was the number then considered necessary to retake Fort Sumter against military opposition, so that was not Lincoln's intention.
Instead, he hoped to resupply the fort without opposition if possible, against opposition if necessary.
Lincoln did not imagine losing the fort and the beginning of war except as a worst case scenario.
DiogenesLamp: "There is an example of some facts which you don't like because they don't fit what you would prefer to believe."
Right
No sane person starts a war with no hope of victory.
For a perfect example, consider Jefferson Davis -- he must have believed in 1861 there was a good possibility of victory, otherwise he was more insane than most people think.
But then we have this: Davis refused to agree to any peace terms better than Unconditional Surrender, so perhaps he was not as sane as his supporters claim.
DiogenesLamp: "If you believe force makes right, then you believe slavery is also moral.
I do not believe it is moral, therefore I do not accept the premise that whoever is strong enough to subjugate others must therefore be allowed to do so. "
And you say that with a great smirk & guffaw, right?
Having posted endlessly in defense of slavers, you now claim to oppose slavery and those who made war to defend it?
Sorry, I don't believe that for a second.
You well know that Northern abolitionists opposed slavery on purely moral grounds, but they were a minority in 1860.
All other voters were then content with our 1787 compromise, whereby slavery was allowed to continue in states which wanted it.
Most Northerner free-staters then opposed slavery's expansion to Western territories or Northern free-states.
DiogenesLamp: "And what, pray tell, did the British do that was unlawful according to the legal authority of the time? (Which was the King.)"
It's all spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, by my count over 30 items listed, including the key ones:
In such actions Brits effectively declared themselves illegitimate combatants against Americans.
It made the American response the opposite of "at pleasure" secession, but rather revolution from necessity.
DiogenesLamp: "If you are going to argue that they broke God's law, that's one thing, but since you are insisting that the Constitution overrides God's law, then you have to justify your claims on the basis of the man made British law that was the authority at the time."
Here's the principle: governments which behave illegitimately abdicate their authority.
In first declaring & waging war on Americans, Brits became mere combatants without authority over us.
DiogenesLamp: "I don't have that problem with my position, because I argue that 'the laws of nature and of nature's God' hold sway, not the laws of man."
Believe me, I can hear your smirking guffaws from here, they're deafening.
It's because the phrase "laws of nature and Nature's God" refers back to the opening's "when... it becomes necessary".
Necessity, you remember, is the opposite of "at pleasure".
No Founder ever claimed a "right to secede" at pleasure.
Nor did any ever claim a "right to secede at pleasure" somehow accorded with "laws of nature and Nature's God", all the loud smirks & guffaws from DiogenesLamp notwithstanding.
My post #250 is self-explanatory, referring obviously to the crime you listed in your own post #240.
Given your many inaccurate & unnecessary attacks on 1860 era Republicans, I don't believe that for a minute.
Your core accusation is: we're big-city Northern Power Brokers, when the opposite was & is true.
Those people were Northern Democrats before 1860, after 1865 and are still Democrats today.
Their first interest in 1860 was in preserving good relations with their Southern-Democrat brethren & allies.
Only after Southern-Democrats broke faith with the Northern-Democrat Power Brokers did those Northerners temporarily switch sides to support Republicans (very weakly) during Civil War.
DiogenesLamp: "...we also had Teddy Roosevelt attacking the power cartels in his day."
In that you're unusual on these threads, where Teddy Roosevelt is often criticized for being... well... too Progressive & Big Government.
I defend people like TR and, say, Dwight Eisenhower, by saying: never in their wildest dreams did such men (or Lincoln!) imagine the Federal monstrosity we have today, and therefore cannot be blamed for the "Progressive" policies of an LBJ or BHO.
Criticizing such Republicans for the acts of Democrats is unjustified, unwarranted and... well... entirely typical of Democrats, blaming Republicans for their own crimes.
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