The more I think about it, the less I like the near saint-like reverence they expressed for “The Union”
Slavery was bad, and it’s good we ended it, but it was only a VEHICLE for something greater.
The war was for STATES RIGHTS, and we lost, and the Federal Government won.
Imagine if, instead of whether or not you could own slaves, the Federal government ordered you to do something else- like buy health insurance.
Sigh. I miss Madison, Patrick Henry, and Calhoun.
I wonder what Lincoln thinks of his work now.
May Patrick Claiborne rest in peace. Too bad the politicians did not heed him as closely as his men.
Beautiful speech, but the War Between the States had nothing to do with preventing government of, buy and for the people from perishing.
The Southern states had no desire to impose their will upon the North.
Either Lincoln knew he was being false in this, or he truly was crazy.
It’s funny, there’s a book I read (because I’m a wino) called “Dinner at Mr. Jefferson’s”
It’s a bit wine centric, but only so much as the beverage is intertwined with the political objectives/issues of the day and that which were important to Jefferson and Hamilton.
I have to say, not much has changed since those days. The issues that divide this country are basically the same. It’s an easy an interesting read.
A characteristic of Lincoln was, especially after his first two years in office, in the words of Edwin Black (quoted in Ronald White’s The Eloquent President), his vanishing ego. By that he meant Lincoln’s reluctance to use personal pronouns.
Commenting on the Gettysburg Address White wrote:
“The address is full of first-person references, but every one is plural. Ten times Lincoln uses the plural we and three times us. . . . In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln says nothing of himself. At a first hearing or reading, we are aware of what is being said and not of who is saying it. Yet at a second or third hearing or reading, Lincoln’s character, the ethos or credibility, which is the first principle of Aristotle’s rhetoric, is everywhere present. His very reticence to speak about himself - how different from modern politicians - is what makes his voice by the end of the address so decisive.”
Get that, not a single personal pronoun in The Gettysburg Address. The Second Inaugural consisted of 701 words, 501 of which are one syllable. The Bible and theological language were used throughout. God is mentioned 14 times. The Bible is quoted 4 times and prayer is invoked 3 times. And yet, Lincoln used personal pronouns only twice as in “I trust” and “myself.” There were several uses of plural pronouns. White suggests it’s in poor taste to use the first person singular.
Note that “how different from modern politicians” above! In one speech Obama used a personal pronoun, “I,” “Me,” “Mine,” 199 times, or every 12 seconds. How far we’ve fallen.
Ten years later, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion and in turn the termination of pregnancy had become the most frequently performed operation on adults in the United States.
Soon, 1 out of every 3 American women were ending the life of their unborn babies.
Lincoln expressed the idea it was God's will that every drop of blood exacted from slaves by their masters must be matched by blood spilled on the battlefields of the war.
If true, how much more blood will have to be spilled to match that of innocents murdered by their mothers and fathers in this nation?
How then can any nation long endure such atrocity.
In which Mr. Lincoln, laboring under the butcher’s bill for a voluntary war to crush the original constitutional consensus, began the project of reformulating the USA as a project in messianic popular democracy.
” . . . dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Lincoln states his war was fought for the purpose of equality.
I can’t help but wonder if he was telling the truth. Or was equality just a pretext; an attempt to freight all the killings with meaning.
There's that pesky God thingy again.
Bump
Bringing up 1776 is not a good idea for someone trying to *STOP* an independence movement. It makes the other side look like heroes.
When I was a kid we had to memorize this speech in the 4th grade... it was a better time.