Posted on 03/31/2002 9:11:43 PM PST by Jean S
Holy Week is a season for reflecting on a great price paid, once and for all, and the life that arose in triumph over sin and evil once that price was paid. And what an unfortunate season, indeed, for some to renew their effort to extort "reparations" for slavery from their fellow citizens.
Yet, lawsuits have been filed. Those responsible propose to settle the accounts of slavery leaving the Civil War out of the equation – complete and utter nonsense. The price for the sin of slavery has already been paid, in blood.
To answer the reparations question, we must re-awaken a living understanding of the great moral drama played out in blood, treasure and human spirit on the battlefields of America a century and a half ago. President Lincoln stated in the Second Inaugural that, at the beginning of the war, "slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."
Somehow.
By this simple adverb, Lincoln captures the great question slavery posed to the soul of the nation. The war began in imperfect understanding, and concluded in clear understanding, that it had been caused by national violation of the laws of nature, and of nature's God. Lincoln spoke this truth for the nation:
If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."
The moral drama of the Civil War was the nation's discernment, in its agony, that slavery was the cause of the war not as an economic interest, not as a political provocation, but as a sin which must be paid for by the blood of North and South.
At the heart of Union sentiment was the sense that a precious common good, to which all had legitimate claim, was being denied by the illegitimate refusal of their fellow citizens in the South to accept the verdict of the 1860 election. In its various ways, the North understood that the Union was the attempt of one people to establish the possibility of self-government upon the basis of the equal dignity of all men. And so the North understood that secession in defense of slavery represented the illegitimate bid by the South to replace self-government by equal free men with its elder adversary – the tyrannical rule of the powerful over their weaker brethren.
In ever increasing numbers and with ever increasing clarity, the soldiers of the North came to understand that the cause of the Union was the cause of liberty for all men. In their letters and diaries, the leavening motive, in the chaos of war, was increasingly the belief that God called them to sacrifice their lives to repair the moral stain of slavery. And over this increasing discernment, President Lincoln exercised wise, and good and patient statesmanship. He saw, and led, a people coming to understand itself and its duty – its vocation unto death and a "new birth of freedom."
This story is so complicated, and deep, that the venal and superficial among us can continue to deny it. Pseudo-learned scribblers who find contradiction in every prudence, and hypocrisy in every generous concession, continue to offer us their "real Lincoln" and to deny that Lincoln, or the North, had any real moral purpose. They demonstrate instead only their own incapacity to recognize moral purpose in the genuine complexity of human affairs. The true Lincoln, and the true moral greatness of the Union cause, will continue to tower above their uncomprehending pettiness.
Our liberty, reborn from the Civil War's labor, remains imperfect – as we must expect of any mortal thing. Pettifogging lawyers and dishonest scholars will always be able to carp selectively and ignorantly about the warts upon our body politic.
But the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all, by the American people's deliberate acceptance of their duty to pay it when, in God's providence, Southern intransigence brought it due.
Let us resolve, this Easter season, to remember the price America paid for her sin. Let us remember and venerate the high moral purpose of those, including Lincoln, who died to make men free.
This is what I feel everytime I see some thread that says "The REAL Lincoln."
Thomas Alexander Harris 1861-64 Caspar Wistar Bell 1862-64 Aaron H. Conrow 1862-65 William Mordecai Cooke 1862-63 Thomas W. Freeman 1862-64 George G. Vest 1862-65 Robert Anthony Hatcher 1864-65 John Bullock Clark 1864-65 Thomas Lowndes Snead 1864-65 Peter Singleton Wilkes 1864-65 Nimrod Lindsay Norton 1864-65
As I often ask the "pro-choice" obfuscators, "Rights to do, or to choose, exactly what?"
What rights of the states had been lost, or were even threatened by the campaign and election of 1860?
Perhaps the best evidence to help in answering this question would be the statements of the seceeding states themselves.
I'll post some of them for you if you like.
But the main point of Keyes' moving piece is not from the 1860-1 rebellion, but from the Second Inaugural. The whole nation paid the price of the injustice of slavery in blood, and Reparations are merely a shakedown operation.
Maybe we can agree about this last notion.
Regards,
Richard F.
The war may have been formally about States' Rights, and was when it started. But just about all of the disagreements that made States' Rights a critically important cause were rooted in the slavery issue.
Missouri was on the side of the Union because the Unionists won an intra-state civil war. KY, MD and DE were other slave states on the Union side, as was WV.
KY tried to stay neutral, but went for the Union when "invaded" by confederate forces. MD was dragooned into the Union, despite strong confederate sympathies, because of Union military power and the obvious critical importance of holding MD to retaining DC.
DE, due to size and location, never had a realistic chance or much desire to secede.
All these states provided large numbers of men to the southern armies.
As N.B. Forrest said, "If we aren't fighting for slavery, I'd like to know what we are fighting for!"
As always, great wars have complex causes. Men on both sides fought for varying reasons, at least conciously. Mr. Keyes, points out, appropriately, that the perception of the cause of the war, at least on the Northern side, changed as the war went on. It is likely that a significant majority of Northern soldiers were conciously fighting to destroy slavery by 1865.
Despite the complex issues involved, it is impossible to argue logically that the antagonism and hostility between the two sections would ever have reached the point of war without the underlying issue of slavery poisoning all attempts to reach compromise.
He was strongly against slavery in exactly the same way many politicians of today are strongly against abortion. He was personally opposed and would not participate in the practice himself but would take no action to "impose his own morality" on those who wanted to own slaves.
He was "pro-choice" on slavery.
God bless the USA for leading the charge in the abolition of slavery. Maybe one day the nations of Africa and Asia who still practice slavery will follow the lead of the US.
I agree.
Maybe we can agree about this last notion."
As much as I am convinced that Lincoln was wrong to invade the South, I do agree with the notion that the blood shed in the War Between the States should be considered in the "reparations" debate.
This passage:
"If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, 'the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.'"
from the 2nd Inaugural has been characterized, correctly I believe, by Edgar Lee Masters as a kind of Calvinism that borders on insanity (will provide a quote later, no time at present). Read carefully, he seems to be saying that God himself imposed slavery (when, 10,000 B.C.? - Was Lincoln unaware that slavery had existed as long as civilization?) and punishes all of the United States for it when he finally decides slavery must end.
Would like to elaborate but have no time at present.
Since the constitution says nothing about abortion, Keyes must instead claim legal supremacy of the declaration to support federal action against abortion. Abortion's really a state issue.
This is a rigorously true statement, which of course, will have no effect whatsoever on the blindly zealous neo-confederacy apologists.
This is a rigorously true statement, which of course, will have no effect whatsoever on the blindly zealous neo-confederacy apologists.
Thank you!
As he specifically stated many times, Lincoln did not believe southerners were peculiarly wicked because slavery throve in their climate. He recognized that the northern people would have behaved in exactly the same way given the same circumstances. The wickedness came into play when southern leaders were willing to precipitate a terrible war to protect an evil institution against even a distant threat of change. And even more so when they tried to pretend the evil institution was really a righteous institution.
from the 2nd Inaugural has been characterized, correctly I believe, by Edgar Lee Masters as a kind of Calvinism that borders on insanity (will provide a quote later, no time at present). Read carefully, he seems to be saying that God himself imposed slavery (when, 10,000 B.C.? - Was Lincoln unaware that slavery had existed as long as civilization?) and punishes all of the United States for it when he finally decides slavery must end.
Preposterous analysis, obviously based on ignorance of the biblical passage Lincoln was referring to:
"Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" (Mt. 18:7)
This is a quote by Jesus, no less...probably referring to the offense that was coming by Judas--who freely chose to betray Christ--the most evil act in history, but by which God, turning it around, redeemed humanity...
Murder has been around since Cain and Abel (longer than slavery), however that doesn't make it something that doesn't justly deserve God's punishment (usually working through government)...even while God can (like He did with the murder of Jesus) work good through it...
To speculate that Lincoln was ignorant of slavery's long history is just, well, ignorant.
Lincoln's belief that the catastorphe of the Civil War was God's just judgement on BOTH South and North (the North lost more men, after all) nationally, for our sin of enslaving one group of people, is one of his most profound insights, in my opinion. One he also shared with Robert E. Lee.
The fact that so many Christians were a part of fostering the "peculiar institution" made the judgement all the more severe--as they should have known better...
Living, patriotic men, as President Lincoln said, are better than gold.
And there were enough patriotic men in Missouri to keep the slave power from taking over. The cause of the war was clearly to protect and perpetuate slavery. Tariffs were lower in 1860 than they had been in 40 years at least.
Well, how about this; Mississippi's secession document said:
"Our cause is thoroughly identified with the institution of African slavery."
so maybe JUST in Mississippi slavery was more important than tariffs. Will you accept that?
Walt
Exactly.
Here is a letter Lincoln wrote:
Thurlow Weed, esq.
Washington, March 15, 1865
My dear Sir.
Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my little notification speech, and on the recent Inaugural Address. I expect the latter to wear as well as -- perhaps better than -- any thing I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humiliation there is it, falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it.
Yours truly
It seems to me that Lincoln is saying he is as much to blame for the bloodshed as anyone.
Walt
Jim Jones?
God help us!
Cheers, and a glass, of whatever, lifted to you,
Richard F.
The price of slavery has indeed been paid by the sacrifice of Union soldiers fighting for their freedom.
At the heart of Union sentiment was the sense that a precious common good, to which all had legitimate claim, was being denied by the illegitimate refusal of their fellow citizens in the South to accept the verdict of the 1860 election.Alan Keyes generally stresses the importance of the Constitution and the limits placed on the Federal Government by it. It seems a bit hypocritical in this instance to claim that majority will and the good of Society should over rule Constitutional principle. Keyes complains about the overreach of Federal power into "State’s Rights" but Keyes approves of the precedent that set the whole expansion of Federal power in motion.
Once it is established that the States are subservient to the Union and have no choice but to shut up and agree with any imposition that a majority desires to impose then there is no longer any such thing as "States Rights." The right to leave and go your own way is essential, without that right the States have been reduced to Slaves in the Service of the Federal Government.
LOL!! That's a joke, right? The fact is that slavery had been abolished peacefully throughout the Western Hemisphere for many years BEFORE the War of Southern Independence. In most cases, the slaveowners were paid handsomely for their property. The Southern slaveowners were not ignorant and had seen this happen around them for years. The only places other than the US that war erupted over slavery was in situations where the 'abolition' party was using slaves as a coverup for other political goals
No, Keyes is so far off on this one it's not even funny. Perhaps he should pick up Dilorenzo's book or maybe even read a little Walter Williams who incidentally wrote the forward for The Real lincoln
Among the Southern states that eventually rebelled, one reason that compensated emancipation was a non-starter was that the South was making money hand over fist from slaves, and had genuinely imperial ambitions to be a world slave power. Blithely suggesting that they could be bought off the way podunk British colonies with no possible political future with or without slaves could be is typical of DiLorenzo's "reasoning."
Just while I'm on the topic of DiLorenzo, have you been following the string of documented falsehoods from his columns and book, and do you care to comment on them? Why we should pay any attention to a man's historical "summaries," when there is no evidence he has inspected any original sources, and plenty of evidence that he misrepresents even the secondary sources he cites, is beyond me.
Here's a challenge -- can you find ONE passage in the book that looks like it might possibly have resulted from DiLorenzo reading any Lincoln all by himself?
Rather, he stresses the fundamental importance of self-government, and of understanding the Constitution in light of the Declaration of Independence which articulates the conditions that make self-government possible.
To summarize his, or the Founders', political philosophy as the defense of local self-government over national is to miss the point entirely. If local government is privileged, it is precisely because it is, in most ways, closer to the authentic judgment of the people. But there are issues, and occasions, in which the national government is the better repository of our confidence in reflecting the authentic and just judgment of the people. When a bunch of white guys claim the right of "self-government" for themselves and of tyrannical oppression of darker people, the value of a national commitment to self-evident principles of justice becomes clearer.
And when a nation of people establish a Union to secure for themselves the rights and blessings of liberty, they are entitled to demand very good reasons from any of their members who decide to go off and prefer neighborhood tyranny at the expense of the common project.
The South had no such reasons to offer, and its defenders have been impotently vacillating between strident defense of white supremacy, invented economic arguments, and foundationless claims of local autonomy, ever since. Local government is no more justified than national, except in relation to fundamental principles of justice.
Cheers back at you!
Thank God and Mr. Keyes for that statement. God Bless America.
There was a system where the states had more power. It was called the Articles of Confederation and it was a total flop.
A canny observer:
"Experience has taught us, thet men will not adopt and carry into execution, measures best calculated for their own good without the intervention of a corecive power. I do not concieve we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several states."
--George Washington, 15 August 1786
The federal goverment is supreme over the states. That was essential to you being able to rant and rave in freedom about how oppressed you are. Maybe you'd like to have someone dropping mortar bombs into your back yard -- which is what you might very well have in the type of balkanized country you champion.
Walt
There is no right to secession under U.S. law, nor did the framers of the Constitution contemplate such a right.
"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds [at the constitutional convention] led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude...the constitution, which we now present, is the result of of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible."
George Washington to the Continental Congress September 17, 1787
Washington was the president of the Constitutional Convention. I think we can take his word on what the delegates thought.
Can you name a -single- delegate to the Constitutional Convention that declared for unilateral state secession?
No such right exists.
Walt
Gasp! Cough...Gag! There was no moral greatness of the Union. There are no morals when you plunder and attack innocent men, women, and children. Keyes really missed the mark on this one.
Gasp! Cough...Gag! There was no moral greatness of the Union. There are no morals when you plunder and attack innocent men, women, and children. Keyes really missed the mark on this one.
"As he hears his own lips parroting the sad cliches of 1850 does the Southerner sometimes wonder if the words are his own? Does he ever, for a moment, feel the desperation of being caught in some great time machine, like a tread mill, and doomed to eternal effort without progress? Or feel, like Sisyphus, the doom of pushing a great stone up a hill only to have the weight, like guilt, roll back over him, over and over again? When he lifts his arms to silence protest, does he ever feel, even fleetingly, that he is lifting it against some voice deep in himself?"
-- Robert Penn Warren, The legacy of the Civil War", p.56-57
Walt
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