Posted on 02/19/2002 6:18:48 AM PST by liberte
Americans place Lincoln at top of greatest presidents' poll, George W. Bush ahead of Reagan Mon Feb 18, 5:16 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Abraham Lincoln has moved to the top of the list of greatest presidents in an ABC News poll for President's Day that saw George W. Bush ease ahead of Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) in the overall survey and among Republicans.
Lincoln was chosen by 20 percent, while the current president and John F. Kennedy were essentially tied for second with Kennedy at 14 percent and Bush at 13 percent. Reagan, Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt were tied for third at 8 percent apiece.
In the same ABC poll a year ago, Reagan was at the top with 18 percent, Kennedy 16 percent and Lincoln 14 percent.
Kennedy and Lincoln were tied atop the list among Democrats this year, whereas Lincoln was the easy winner among independents, and Bush and Lincoln led among Republicans, with Reagan slightly behind them.
Lincoln was first among whites, but second among blacks, who overwhelmingly chose Clinton as the greatest president. One of Lincoln's best known achievements was freeing the slaves during the Civil War. Roosevelt was the leader among those 65 and older.
The poll was conducted Feb. 13-17 among a sample of 1,025 adults and had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
No wonder America is in the sorry shape it is. No one understands what this nation is supposed to be about anymore. Lincoln was a disgrace to America.
You cannot be a traitor to a country you are no longer a citizen of.
Lincoln started what FDR finished - the destruction of the Constitution. Clinton was just a late-comer.
This has to be one of the saddest statements on the citizenry's understanding of history that I have ever read
Of course the black callers displayed perfect King's English and a 5th grade education. While they were doing this one even made a reference using expert foreign policy and international relations' terminology - flashing such terms as "axle of evil" and "Saddam Husseiny". All of this while illustrating their ability to talk in a foreign language, ebonics.
Nervertheless, I still believe that the South had a right to secede, as the constitution did not prohibit secession for any reason. There was a movement, BTW, the bring Cuba in as a slave state under Polk and later, as a member of the confederacy. If Cuba HAD become part of the antebellum USA/Confederacy, CUBANS would be flying the stars and bars as well!
George W Bush deserves to be honoured, since his handling of the war has been darn near perfect. I don't think he's made a major mistake yet in dealing with the war. Neither did his dad, but his dad's domestic record was quite a bit worse.
Clinton might have been among the worst presidents if his health care programme had passed. Call him a lucky failure. He did damage our international image, but no more than, say, Carter.
FDR has a badly mixed record; he was a great war leader, but he created the Social Security ripoff for which he must be forever cursed.
D
Didn't New York City actualy come pretty close to flying the stars and bars at one point as well?!
The majority of blacks have proven they are irrelevant in the political process and hold hysterical uninformed opinion - so their selection of Clinton just synergizes their irrelevancy and affirms their role as contributing to American satire.
It makes me sick to have to partially agree with you on this. Clinton was also one of the most charismatic actors and orators that the US presidency has had. The man was utterly corrupt, but his followers did not care, as long as he "felt their pain" and spoke to their hopes and fears. Clinton was an illusion and history will judge him for what he really accomplished, nothing of lasting significance. That such a large ethnic segment of our society regards Clinton as the best president in history is shocking. That virtually 90% percent of that segment, when it votes, votes for the Democratic party no matter how corrupt (Clinton, Maxine Waters, etc.) is another tragic statement about this society and about the black community.
I find any group that would judge Clinton as the best president in US history, to be beyond belief. I just can not fathom what that group (anyone of any background who thinks that Clinton was a great president) must value or desire as a role model.
Even a little study about Washington, the things he endured to make us a country, and his beliefs, would disserve the cause of the leftists.
Yet they love him. It makes no sense to me at all.
I don't know about that, but there was considerable symphathy for the Confederacy among the Democratic Party in the North, and its Irish-American constituents in New York who HATED being forced into service by Lincoln's draft. The most violent urban insurrection in US History (worse in terms of lives loast than the Detroit and Los Angeles riots combined) was the Draft Riot of 1863, in which "southern symphatizers" were blamed by the press.
I don't know if the Dems were in power in New York during the Civil War. I believe the Dems did not consolidate their dominance in city politics until after the war (although Tammany-style organizations were around before the war). I do know for a fact, however, that the Dem party in New York was largely pro-Southern.
Worth repeating.
Yet they love him. It makes no sense to me at all
Perfect example of the "battered wife syndrome," where women remain loyal to some bastard who beats them.
I always admired TR the Man more than I did his Presidency. Nevertheless, he is AT LEAST in the top 10. I used to enjoy visiting Sagamore Hill at Oyster Bay when I was a kid.
Pat Buchanan has always professed to have been an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, although he is not a quarter of the man that TR was. Neither is John McCain!
The Constitution says that the Constitution and the laws "made in pursuance thereof" shall be the supreme law of the land.
That includes the Militia Act of 1792 (passed at the request of George Washington) which gives the power to the president to ensure that United States courts operate in all the states. The other piece of early legislation is the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gives the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction when "civil controversies" arise between the states.
In 1862, the Supreme Court heard the Prize Cases and ruled that the actions of the "so-called confederate states" (to use their term) were rebellion and that the president was authorized to put down that rebellion.
There is no access to unilateral state secession in U.S. law, and there never was.
Walt
Wait until all the fruit has come to harvest before you can accurately judge its merit.
As for Slick, what blacks think of a man whose accomplishments are nothing more than a semen stain on the Flag is appalling. Who were they polling? Jesse? Al? The Crips, Bloods, and O.J.? Only the media hounds who became famous during his term for their outlandish & criminal behavior would be so blind as to even rank him.
There is no access to unilateral state secession in U.S. law, and there never was.
From what I understand, the Miltia Act and other Federal Initiatives passed through the 1840s were not considered to be an abridgement on secession. One of the reasons that the principle was a topic of such hot debate in the first half of the 19th century was precisely due to the fact that the Constitution was never clear on this point and subsequent Federal law was ambiguous, a reflection of the regional tensions that had existed since colonial days.
That being said, were I a southerner back in the day, I WOULD NOT have been one of the hotheads calling for secession, as a newly independent Confederate nation would have become entirely dependent on European credit for financing and would have remained an export-driven, agrarian country, with some nascent industry (in other words, similar to Latin America). There were many Southerners who opposed secession (a fact seemingly forgotten by many), yet still served their region proudly.
There are entirely too many young blacks out there who have never been told the real truth of what Dr King stood for, and in essence, Jackson, Sharpton, and company are assassinating the man all over again. Martin Luther King is now no more than a cardboard puppet for Negro "leaders" of today to stand behind mouthing THEIR wants & desires.
Only about 6% of the Union army was provided for by the draft. The vast majority were volunteers.
Crucial to the success of the whole war effort was the fact that a large number of 3 year volunteers who enlisted in 1861 RE-enlisted just as Grant's 1864 campaign was getting underway.
The CSA had generally enlisted its soldiers for 12 months and found that the army threatened to melt away in the spring of 1862 as those enlistments ended. At that time, the CSA involuntarily extended the enlistments and started a general draft a year before the Union did.
So much for the freedom loving south. And this compulsorary service was a factor in the fact that southern armies began to melt away in the summer of 1864. Desertions became a flood after Lincoln was re-elected in November, 1864.
The CSA armies mostly melted away.
Walt
Well, on this point, you will not get any argument from this yankee. The draft, the liberal printing of fiat money and the fact that the South spent much of its post-war history electing Pork-Guzzling politicians proves this point. Lew Rockwell is wrong.
btw, on MLK Day, my son (kindergarten) came home with a book he made that consisted of 6 pages of work they completed during a week they focused on MLK. As for President's Day, nothing yet - I'm holding out until after Washington's BDay - if there isn't equivalent work for our great Presidents, I'll be scolding the teacher and President. AND HE IS IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL.
The Constitution is very clear. The Constitution, and the treaties and laws passed in pursuance are the supreme law of the land; the laws of any state cannot withstand the supremacy clause.
The key element here is supremacy. If a state could unilaterally withdraw from the Union, then supremacy would rest with each state, respectively - not with the Constitution and the laws made pursuant to it. As the Constitution expressly declares the Constitution to be the Supreme Law of the land, any act that denies this supremacy (e.g., unilateral withdrawl) must be unconstitutional.
Walt
I hope thats not too Intellectual for m
I almost forgot- Nana Nana Boo Boo!
MINE, TOO!
WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY GENERAL WASHINGTON HAD TO BE SUPPLANTED BY MLK, ET AL BY THE STATISTS/ELITIST AND THEIR MORE THAN WILLING EDUCARAT HANDMAIDENS.
I recently asked my 6 year-old granddaughter "Who's the father of our country?"
Without missing a beat, she came back with "Martin Luther King."
"WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, THEY FIRST MAKE INSANE."
Our destruction MUST be just around the corner. The insanity has gone about as far as it can. Hasn't it...?
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