Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
He did?
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another ... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ...
But wait - I'm sure you mean the phrase "all men are created equal" don't you? What did Lincoln say?
"What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we know that those of the great mass of white people will not."
Abraham Lincoln, Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas, (Cleveland: Burrows Bros. Co., 1897), "First Joint Debate at Ottawa", 21 Aug 1858, p. 138.
"But even when you cease to be slaves you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoys. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours."
Abraham Lincoln, New York Daily Tribune, “The Colonization of People of African Descent" (a speech to a delegation of blacks at the White House given 14 Aug 1862), 15 Aug 1962, p. 1.
Sorry. Lincoln did NOT fight for the Union to preserve the true ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
I guess my own personal opinion is as follows. It is clear to me that the slavery issue was of KEY importance. But it wasn't the only cause. I think tariffs were of importance as well. Aristocratic slave owners and some southern politicians left the union because of slavery. This is wrong and Lincoln's cause was just in this respect.
However, many other southern citizens and politicians left because of taxation (the tariff). In this case, the southern case has more merit.
Personally, I do not agree with Libertarians on every issue. I am a conservative and thus I believe in the rule of law and a strong but not overbearing federal government.
I do however symphatize with libertarian arguements over the right to succession. I disagree that it should be absolute. If Oregon left the union because they wanted to leagalize property theft, then the fed's have a moral obligation to step in a prevent people from getting hurt. However, the reverse can be true and if the Federal government is seizing property from Oregon, then they have a right to leave the union.
PS-I dont hate Lincoln. But I do think that the civil war needs a lot more discussion and debate
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends
And on your second point, you might trouble yourself to read Lincoln for yourself, instead of the cut and paste of those interested only in attacking him. He defined his understanding of equality with clarity, as in the following passage from the last Lincoln Douglas debate:
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not mean to declare all men equal in all respects . They did not mean to say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development or social capacity.
They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal---equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society which should be familiar to all: constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people, of all colors, everywhere.
There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion---sentiments which have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to know what so humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it.
Deprivation of the People of a State of their status as a People with sovereignty isn't neutral at all. It deprecates their rights and depreciates their humanity by making them fit only to be thralls of your majoritarian and imperial system.
And I had thought that your argument in # 306 was meant to be universal, not grounded in specific American history. If I am wrong, we can return to American Principle, and leave abstract speculation aside.
False dichotomy. It's both. I speak in generalities of such basic ideas as that of a Sovereign.......and so you say that I am not speaking to American history, that I am vaporing and off-topic. And yet I very much have American history in mind, which you are at pains to show that my comments must not address, since they are "abstract speculation" and are therefore surd when in fact they are germane. I raised a powerful argument, and you reply with distractions.
I insist that Locke and the founders thought rebellion just, not "at will," but when reasonably shown to be in accord with the laws of nature and of nature's God.
I don't doubt that they did. It remains then for you to show that the Civil War was a trifling affair, over a piffling argument, for you to say that you own all the right, and that so many Southerners must have been wrong -- they disagreed with you. But you will have trouble selling me, or any Southerner, that argument. Half a million dead isn't a trifling affair, and the gravity of the South's commitment to her freedom shows your Unionist apologists to be liars on this point, when they say the South seceded for a slight cause.
Princes, or governments, rightly resist rebellion when it is not just, and a rebellion to perpetuate and extend human slavery is plainly not just.
There you go again, laying hands on Sovereignty and the right to say what is just, and what is not. Who do you think you are?
The fact of the matter is, that it was for the sovereign People of each State -- and not you -- to make that determination. You cannot gainsay them, even after the fact, no more than you can go out into the street, shoot someone dead, and make him the wrongdoer after the fact by wickedly overcoming him. That is what Lincoln did. The formal name, of course, is teleology.
Though we had a mixed regime, with residual state sovereignty, there was, in fact, a compact to make a national government, in a limited sense. That government was, in its sphere, supreme.
And the core of your Unionist argument is that its sphere was illimitable, untouchable, and wholly owned by you. That its sphere extended to telling the Peoples of the several States what their sphere was, or wasn't. Not so -- that is what the Constitution mapped out.
1. The Constitution was amended by the Bill of Rights.
2. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments explicitly reserved to the States, the People, and to individual all powers not granted the federal government, and all liberties not enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And that included the right of revolution, which the Southerners exercised upon a dire provocation of over 30 years' standing -- a series of provocations that called to their attention, however belatedly, that the United States comprised not one nation, but two. Which they corrected, in order to avoid being abused by the anticonstitutional, revolutionary Unionist faction, whose champion sought to rewrite the Constitution without the Tenth Amendment.
Your use of the word "residual" to describe State sovereignty is a weasel-word. Their sovereignty was basic, it was foundational, it was fundamental. Of course you deprecate it, because your entire theory of government depends on it. Control of a central government versus a limited one, a great prize of politics, and beyond it the sunny uplands of illimitable power -- the power of a central government that had slipped its traces by weasel-wording a few key phrases in the American political vocabulary, like Orwell's Squealer with his paint-pot and ladder, in the middle of the night. All of that was at stake, and for the sake of being able to set the policies that would develop that wealth and power, and to get the power he would need to go back on his false promises to the South and extinguish slavery as the blot on America's escutcheon that he always deemed it to be, Lincoln was willing to rewrite the Constitution the way Squealer rewrote his.
But let's get down to it. You made yourselves kings over us by might of arms -- what need have you of argument? Just do what you want. You'll do it anyway. Just don't ask us to be your suckers, your fools, as well as your playthings.
Why you think you need someone's permission before you stick a gun in his face and rob him is beyond me, and generally an otiose exercise. Maybe someone will take the time to explain it to me sometime -- why you think you need the consent of the conquered.
That government was, in its sphere, supreme. In fact, it enjoyed all the principal marks of sovereignty, much more than did the states included in it.
Still denying us our Rights? Still denying the States their sovereignty? You don't need weasel words to do it if you have the national arsenal. Just assert that you are right by victorious acts of war, and that you claim the rights of the conqueror. We'll believe you.
Robert E. Lee Jan. 23, 1861
Nice try. Notice the date....Lee was still in U.S. Army service when he said that, and Virginia's own secession was still three months of arduous politicking and discussion removed.
First, Lee erred -- didn't you notice? -- when he used the phrase "perpetual union", which doesn't appear in the Preamble. Rather, the phrase is "a more perfect Union".
Lee certainly got it right when he equated secession with revolution, but later on he shows he doesn't get it yet when he a) acknowledges that the government can be dissolved by revolution (or by convention), and yet b) doesn't connect the dots, that would lead him to the conclusion that the Confederate States' going out was the revolution of which he spoke, which would justify dissolving the Union.
IF, I repeat IF, the intent of Lincoln and the Republicans was to end slavery - A LEGAL right (albeit not a moral right) - then the proper method to end it was via Constitutional Amendment. As it was, Lincoln and the Republican Party substituted their own interpretation of the Constitution, ignoring that of 7 justices in the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln et al wanted the new states to be free from blacks (not just slaves), and insisted that blacks could not enter the new territories, exactly the opposite of DS.
Personally, I do not agree with Libertarians on every issue. I am a conservative and thus I believe in the rule of law and a strong but not overbearing federal government.
I am a conservative. I do not consider myself to be libertarian. I advocate LIMITED government at ALL levels. Especially a federal government hat adheres to the Constitution and the separation of powers.
However, many other southern citizens and politicians left because of taxation (the tariff). In this case, the southern case has more merit.
I would agree. What many on the other side fail to understand is who PAID the tariffs mattered - NOT who collected them. The corner grocery store might remit $10K a month in sales taxes to their state government, but they are not paying the tax - their CUSTOMERS are. Same with tariffs, the large collection points might be Northern, but the goods were sold (tariffs passed on in the price) to Southerners primarily.
I do however symphatize with libertarian arguements over the right to succession. I disagree that it should be absolute. If Oregon left the union because they wanted to leagalize property theft, then the fed's have a moral obligation to step in a prevent people from getting hurt. However, the reverse can be true and if the Federal government is seizing property from Oregon, then they have a right to leave the union.
The Constitution nowhere specifies that the states must remain in the union (a voluntary union at that) or upon what conditions they might leave. It is absolutely silent on that issue. What it is not silent about, is that the states possess ALL powers not delegated to the federal government (the federal government cannot force a state out), and the powers not prohibited to them (again, no prohibition against leaving).
PS-I dont hate Lincoln. But I do think that the civil war needs a lot more discussion and debate.
I don't hate Lincoln either. But I don't consider him a member of the Holy Trinity either.
Sir, I am not attacking him. I provided two QUOTES from Lincoln himself - the 1st from their debates in 1858 - the 2nd from a speech Lincoln gave to a groups of blacks assembled at the White House.
With all due respect sir, you might trouble yourself to read Lincoln for yourself, instead of the cut and paste of those interested only in glorifying him.
From your post you seem to agree that secession at will was not then constitutional. You better let DiLorenzo know that. No one that I know of denies the right to revolution when faced with intolerable oppression. So for the South to have been justified, they had to show they were being oppressed. Can you point me to their documents that claim oppression? Without oppression, secession at will is nothing but a violation of a faith solemnly pledged --- or in common terms, treason.
Here's another quote from a son of the south for you to wrap your mind around.
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.James Madison to Daniel Webster, March 15, 1833
Now if the neo-confederates and propagandists like DiLorenzo would stop intentionally “confounding” the claim to secede at will with the Natural Law right to revolution to resist oppression, the neo confederate movement would evaporate. Secession at will was not, and is not Constitutional and that is based on no less an authority than the Father of the Constitution.
I showed you in the quote from Robert E. Lee which you threw up how his quote supports the contention that secession was revolution. That isn't enough for you, because it can never be enough for you, until we arrive at "you're right, we're all wrong, sorry to have bothered you", I'm afraid. Well, sorry.
My point about your Lincoln quotation is that it is one of several easily explained "greatest hits of Lincoln's inconsistency" on equality, that he answered this silly charge with careful explanation in the 1850's, and it is a bit much to face it continually now, and that raising the quotation as though it shows he was uncommitted to the Declaration shows that you have not read much Lincoln.
One way to respond to this would be to actually take notice of the extended explanatory quotation from Lincoln which I offered.
"What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we know that those of the great mass of white people will not."
Abraham Lincoln, Political Debates Between Lincoln and Douglas, First Debate.
Lincoln is actually reading a long excerpt from his Peoria speech, and it might be worthwhile to cite the whole of what he chose to read. The next three sentences are most interesting: Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgement, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals.
We discuss the issue at some length in our book, America's Declaration Principles in Thought and Action.
Why has so much anger developed on this thread and its cousin overnight?
Regards,
Richard F.
At that point if we want to push the question further, it would return to whether the grounds were adequate, assuming you think anyone has the right to judge the question, save those in the seceeding states.
Does this seem fair?
Regards,
Richard F.
What would a 'just cause' be, and did the Confederacy have one?
FReegards,
4CJ
Does this seem fair?
Too fair, perhaps, but unlikely in any event.
Having read a few of these threads now, it seems pretty clear to me that there has been a failure thus far to even agree as to exactly what "grounds" are to be weighed for adequacy. Slavery? Oppressive tariffs? Economic strangulation? That's the first problem, and not a small one.
Should you ever reach agreement or compromise on the "grounds" to be weighed, you will face the problem of selecting an appropriate scale for measurement and that determination is hopelessly bound up with the ultimate question of who, in our complicated and intricate federal system, is legitimately empowered to decide.
In his last speech before the Senate, Jefferson Davis claimed that, under our federal system, a "sovereign" state retained the right as a "sovereign" to unilaterally secede from the Union at its pleasure and without regard to the adequacy of "grounds":
It is known to senators who have served with me here that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of state sovereignty, the right of a state to secede from the Union. . . .
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the states are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each state is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.
When all is said and done, Richard, that, in a nutshell, is the case for the right of secession. There is no other.
Among the rights contained within the BoR - the people have the right to speak out against governemnt (freedom of speech and of the press - which precludes shutting them down), to assemble in protest, to use arms against the government (as Madison wote in the Federalist Papers that was the reason for the 2nd). The only right granted to the state (since the state ratified and not individuals) was the abilty to withdraw from the union - another check against a federal behemouth. There are no conditions to exercising that right. When the states decided that the federal government was not abiding by the Constitution they could - and by themselves - rescind their voluntary ratification.
I'm not acusing. I'm stating fact. Jefferson Davis said as much in is Senate Opus. He said he didn't need a good reason to secede, just wanting to so was enough for him, and he falsly claimed that 'in the past' everyone acknowledged the right to secede at will. That was never the case.
The issue was slavery --- the expansion of slavery, and the south could not make a moral case for revolution on that basis. So they simply claimed a right that never existed to begin their revolution.
A just cause would be when the the government betrays its principles. Then the people of a state have a right to leave.
Was the south's cause a just one? I don't claim to know enough to answer that. People here seem to know a lot more about this than I do. I am just stating my general belief on succession.
I'm not sure what that means. Governments operate on laws. Nations can have 'principles' as embodied in culture or in the people themselves, but governments can only work to those principles within the law. In 1860, we had a "Nation Principle" that all men were created equal under the law. The "law" under which the government operated, however, said something else.
The "Government" has not promised anything. The government is bound to respect the Constitution, not make ‘promises concerning basic civil liberties’ It is not about promises like tax cuts, a new road, or whatever. It is law and we are a nation of laws, not promises.
Further, when we talk of 'Government" in the Federal sense, were must remember the Separation of Powers that the Framers build into the Constitution to help protect our liberties. Congress can pass a law that is unconstitutional, such as they did last month on CFR. They have often passed laws that ‘revoke’ civil rights. The executive can refuse to enforce that law, or the judiciary can overturn it. The executive branch can exceed their constitutional authority in enforcing laws. Congress can pass new laws or cut off funds to the executive in response. And the Judicial branch to rule on the constitutionality of both the laws congress passes and the actions of the executive in enforcing laws. Congress and the Executive very often get whacked by the Judicial, but by the same token, the Judicial can overstep its authority which then can be circumvented by new laws from Congress. It is a dynamic tension between branches that has served us remarkably well. When serious conflicts arise such as Roe v Wade, it is up to us as a people to address then in a political setting.
From your statement, however, you seem to imply that the state governments are more trustworthy than the Federal government when it comes to civil liberties. Historically, the opposite is true. The most common civil liberty abuses in our history have been committed by state governments, not the federal. The Judicial can and often does strike down state laws on Constitutional grounds which is where most of our serious constitutional disputes arise be it Dred Scott, Roe. V Wade or Brown v Board of Education.
If this is the case, a state elected civil government can vote to leave and that is moral.
If the situation arises where the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches all conspire to deprive liberty, have all violated their oaths to defend the Constitution, and the people have failed to change that condition through the political process, then resistance or even revolution are morally justified. But when you say it is ‘moral’ to ‘leave the union’ that does not mean it is as simple as walking away. Think about it. If the government refuses to respect the basic liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, and refuses to abide by the restriction on government action in the Constitution, why would you expect them to simply allow you to walk away. That is why people as diverse as James Madison and Robert E. Lee both said the secession at will in non-sense. It is the state then violating their duty to the constitution. If there are intolerable abuses such as you envision in your reply by an oppressive government, resistance or revolution is the only way out.
Ditto, I think you are misunderstanding me. I agree with you for the most part. State governments have restricted liberties more often in the past. My arguement is (and you agree with it) is that if the federal government does not follow the RULES it is supposed to, then the states have a right if they wish to leave.
Here is the problem with the federal government today. It is not challenged at all by the states. The states are merely a puppet of the federal government. Roe V. Wade is clearly unconstitutional, but the Federal government has allowed this law to stay in place. The states should have a right to nullify this, but they cant. So what is happening today is the federal government is getting stronger and stronger and it is taking away liberties guaranteed to all people.
The fed's today go unchallenged and THAT is not what the constitution set out to do. Extreme State Right's advocates are wrong in believing that states are supreme. But on the flip side their opponents are wrong that the Fed's are always supreme. The system was set up to make the states and fed's compete with eachother so as neither one would gain dominance.
I dont think we are in disagreement here though.
I don't disagree with you, but in the end, the people are getting exactly the government they are asking for. Our mission as Conservatives is to change people's opinions, (and in the case of Roe, change their hearts as well) to bring government back into its proper relationship with the Constitution, the states and the people.
People like DiLorenzo with his crackpot theory that it is somehow Lincoln's fault and his distorted and dishonest interpertation of history, do not help in that effort.
I think Richard and David can elaborate better than I on why these 'Civil War' debates are material to the challenges we face today.
You ask why we care about Lincoln. Lincoln saw himself as measured by the Declaration in all his political acts.
Here is a "Declarationist" manifesto from a soon to be launched web site.
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In our day, it can sometimes seem that what we call "politics" has become so complicated, technical, and contentious that only experts or scholars are really qualified to keep the ship of state on course. But in politics, as in everything else, real wisdom is not found in technical details, but in the fundamental principles from which everything else follows. From Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Reagan, to the humblest citizen today, the American heroes are those who resolve to put the truths of the Declaration at the heart of all they say or do in American politics. This is the wisdom that conceived America in liberty, has kept her in liberty for more than two centuries, and can keep her free for many more.
By becoming a member of the Declaration Alliance, you will join your efforts to ours in the perpetual labor of renewing America on the basis of this essential wisdom. Your membership signifies your determination to actively help advance the principles of the Declaration of Independence throughout American political life.
Our allegiance to the God-given truth of these principles makes us Declarationists.
Expressed most perfectly in that timeless statement of our national beliefs, the Declaration of Independence, these principles are also prudently applied in the instrument that founded the government of this country--the Constitution of the United States. Our allegiance to the Founders' incorporation of Declaration principles into the U.S. Constitution confirms us as Constitutionalists. We understand that the framework of government our Founders bequeathed us in the Constitution finds its justification and explanation--its most profound anchor and defense--in the vision of justice that is succinctly articulated in the Declaration. The Constitution is the noble attempt of our Founders to clothe the spirit of the Declaration in the flesh and bone of an actual republic.
And as with the human body, judging the significance and purpose of the parts of the Constitution without reference to the animating spirit which gives it life can lead to misunderstandings, and dangerous errors. Without the Declaration, the Constitution is too easily reduced to a procedural agreement reached by a group of men, long dead, who happened to live more or less where we live today. Why should it bind us now, we might ask? Indeed, are not the outrages of infamous Supreme Court decisions, recent presidential abuses of power, and apparently unlimited Congressional spending and regulation, just so many instances of today's elites refusing to be bound by the Constitution to which they give nominal allegiance? Openly or with sophistical rationalizations, our political leaders have long been tempted to replace the governmental order of the Constitution with other, less free modes and orders more to their liking. And as uncomfortable as it may be, we must face the fact that mere veneration of the Constitution is not a sufficient answer to such tyrannical ambition.
The Constitution does not contain its own defense; it is not self-evident that we should have a bicameral legislature, that the Congress should have the power to declare war, or that presidential vetoes should be overridden by a 2/3 majority. It is not even self-evident that the federal government should share sovereign authority with the state government, or that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government should be reserved to the states and the people.
All these things are like finely-engineered machine parts, components of a delicate engine of governance which we appreciate, venerate, and wish to defend, but which we cannot protect without looking beyond it to the purposes it serves, to the reasons it was constructed. To defend the Constitution, we must understand the principles that animate it. We must look to the Declaration. To be Constitutionalists, we must be Declarationists.
A Declarationist is one who holds that the political and philosophical truths in the Declaration are the touchstone of American political life, and that our common assent to them is the most profound ground of our union as Americans. Consequently, the truths of the Declaration are the authoritative principles to be used in interpreting the Constitution, our positive law, and our public policy. The Declaration provides the wisdom by which everything in American political life can be judged.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Consider, for example, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Note first that the operative clause of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," is preceded by a clause that gives the reason for it: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State." What is perhaps most striking about the Second Amendment is that it is so unlike almost everything else in the Constitution--it contains a reason for the determination it contains. We really should turn in wonder at the rest of the document, asking as if for the first time--what are the reasons for its parts?
But even here, when we attempt to understand the reason offered for the right "of the people to keep and bear arms," we should be struck by its evident assumption of larger goods, larger purposes, than that which the right itself concerns. Freedom to keep and bear arms is necessary because a well-regulated Militia is necessary, and a well-regulated Militia is necessary "to the security of a free State." But what is a "free State?" And why should we want one? The Constitution is silent.
It is to the Declaration that we turn to learn that a free state is a self-governing community of free men, and that the principal danger to such free self-government is from the possibility of tyrannical government. Free states are desirable because the equality in which God has created man implies that the responsibility for government is possessed equally by all, not assigned by human force or divine will to a chosen few. The freedom whose purpose the Second Amendment exists to protect is freedom from the tyranny of our own government, so that we can all join in our duty to govern our own affairs. The purpose of the right to keep and bear arms, accordingly, is revealed by the Declaration to be the preservation of the means necessary for the people to accomplish the duty of self-government, should their government be tempted to tyranny.
The Right to Life
An even clearer example of the crucial importance of the Declaration for Constitutional interpretation arises in the case of abortion. The Declaration teaches that we are all created equal. It makes explicitly clear that government power exists for the sake of securing the rights that we share by virtue of our equal status as human creatures of God. The very notion of a "right" to determine that another member of the human species—even if only an embryo—is an unequal bearer of the rights government exists to protect, and so can be legitimately killed in order that the rights of another person can be sustained, is an absurdity according to the teaching of the Declaration.
Since the Declaration makes clear that our rights arise from the dignity that we share equally with all humankind, he who would claim the right to treat another person unequally repudiates, by that very claim, the doctrine of human equality. The claim to an abortion "right" is thus a renunciation of membership in the community which the Declaration declares to be equal and self-governing. But it is this community for which the Constitution "constitutes" a government. A Constitutional right to abortion is thus untenable--for the man who claims the right to abort another under the Constitution declares, at the same time, that he is not a member of the community governed by the Constitution.
The Income Tax
Our Founders' prohibition of an income tax in the Constitution is explained by the tendency of such a tax to make government the master of the material basis of our liberty, enslavement the Declaration clearly will not tolerate. How can a people retain their power to discipline government if the government has the right to demand not only control of their every dollar, but minute accounting of every aspect of their material circumstances? But an income tax requires just such governmental control and personal accounting. Accordingly, the 16th Amendment which authorizes a Federal income tax is seen to be inconsistent with the underlying principles of the Constitution.
On issue after issue, we find that particular matters of policy are illuminated, and particular policy disputes are clearly solved, once the Declaration is restored to its rightful place as the bedrock of all American political reasoning. Again and again, we find that apparently insoluble disputes can in fact be reduced to the simple choice for or against the self-evident truths of the Declaration. And we believe that today's citizens will confirm the Founders' brave decision to take their stand with the laws of Nature and Nature's God if the particular policy disputes of our time are again effectively presented in terms of the logic of the Declaration. It is our duty to our fellow citizens, and our duty to the God who gave us the capacity for self-government, that we strive to present all these issues again in terms of that logic. This is the crucial duty of the thoughtful American citizen today, as it has been since the beginning of our blessed liberty.
The Declaration Alliance will strive to help illuminate the political questions of the day by the light of the principles of the Declaration. Our work is to help citizen and politician alike understand the reasons for the policy positions that we must take if we are to remain faithful to the founding promise of the American republic--to build a political order that will effectively secure the rights we receive from the hand of the Creator. Above all, we will stand and defend the Founders' articulation of the paramount principle of human equality--that whatever our condition or status of life, we are all perfectly equal in our human brotherhood before the Fatherhood of God Almighty.
We cannot force our fellow citizens to accept this principle again. But we can, and will, spend ourselves, our treasure, and our talents, to make sure that all Americans again remember and understand the lasting stakes of the political battles of the moment. We can, and will, do everything in our power to make sure that the great people of the United States recall the high duty that Providence has placed upon them for deliberating upon such questions--not in the base and dim light of passing material passion or interest, but in the enduring and enobling light of the Declaration's liberating principles. If we can succeed in casting this noble light on the political discussions of our time, we believe we can still trust the American people to decide aright, and to preserve liberty for generations yet to come.
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Was that to the point?
Cheers,
Richard F.
Very nicely put.
Plus, there is lovely new evidence and argument on the dreadful Dr. DiLorenzo that you must see.
Click Here
Regards,
Richard F.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo's book "The Real Lincoln" claims to provide a "new look" at Abraham Lincoln. It does no such thing. It is instead a rehash of Confederate propaganda spiced up with touches of Marxist economic analysis.
The book's thesis can be summed up by a passage from a speech delivered by the archsecessionist Roger Atkison Pryor in Charleston, S.C., just before the attack on Fort Sumter. He thanked South Carolina for annihilating "this accursed Union, reeking with corruption and insolent with excess of tyranny." Continue at the Washington Times
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