Remembering Lincoln: What is ‘The New Birth of Freedom’?
by Will MorriseyAs he prepared “Notes on Government” for publication in 1791, Congressman James Madison wrote a note to himself. “In proportion as slavery prevails in a State, the Government, however democratic in name, must be aristocratic in fact. The power lies in a part [of the people] instead of the whole, in the hands of property, not of numbers.” He drew a telling conclusion: “The Southern States of America,” very much including his native Virginia, “are on the same principle aristocracies.”
As an architect of the new Constitution, Madison knew that Article IV, Section 4 says, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” He knew, therefore, that the American regime contained a self-contradiction. With most Americans of his generation, he hoped that the eventual removal of slavery would remove this potentially fatal flaw. In fact many states did abolish slavery in that first, founding generation. But his “Southern States” did not. It took civil war and Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to continue the liberation that the founders had begun.
Lincoln came to the battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg to say in public what Madison in prudence could not say some seventy years before. In declaring their independence, their self-government, in 1776, “our fathers,” the founders, “brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Conceived, brought forth: this is the language of fertility, of childbirth. It is a paradoxical conception and childbirth—the work of fathers not of mothers. Somehow the signers of the Declaration of Independence were fathers and mothers, men who conceived and gave birth.
Lincoln spoke this way because he knew his Bible. “Conceived” and “brought forth” are from Numbers 11, the King James Version. An indignant Moses asks his angry God, “Was it I who conceived this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that thou shouldest say to me, ‘Carry them in thy bosom as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swearest unto thy fathers?’” Americans, the new Israelites, were brought forth from Egypt—the British Empire—and from the tyranny of Pharaoh—George III. Moses or Washington could not bear this burden alone. God tells Moses to gather the elders, and say to the people, “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the ears of the Lord.” The Lord’s Spirit will now be upon not Moses alone, but upon the elders. Moses wishes that the Spirit of prophecy were upon the whole people (Numbers 11:28). In Americas, the elders were the founders; Washington had wished that the spirit of self-government, of equal liberty, were upon the whole people.
The Declaration of Independence calls Americans a people, a people who, like the Israelites, existed before and after independence. Lincoln described the bringing forth of “a new nation”; a nation must be an independent, self-governing people. This people was conceived in liberty. Long before independent independence, before George III and Parliament had designed to reduce them to slavery, Americans had enjoyed civil liberty, self-government. The new nation was “dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal.” In part because Britain had required some colonies to permit slavery and, as recently as 1769, had vetoed a colonial enactment to suppress the slave trade, Americans had not secured the God-endowed unalienable right of equality, either for the slaves or for the free, because the violation of your natural equality potentially threatens my own by admitting the practice of unnatural inequality. This holds true even if my natural security seems secure, because bad practice can lead to the acquiescence in bad principles. The first independent Americans rejected the principle of slavery even as they tolerated its practice, and for Lincoln as for the founders this was crucial.
But since the founding generation, Americans, like the Israelites, had disregarded the laws of nature and of Nature’s God. Lincoln wrote to one of his correspondents, “When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim, ‘all men are created equal,’ a self-evident truth; but now when we are grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self-evident lie.’” The unalienable, natural equality of all men remained as true as ever, but had become self-evident to fewer people, as so many were blinded by passion. The loss of the dread of tyrants leads a selfish people to insufferable pride because that loss bespeaks a loss of the fear of God; Americans were losing their self-mastery in their chase for mastery over others.
The Civil War—the judgment of God upon the new Israelites—“tested whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” A republic, a nation dedicated to natural equality, requires popular sovereignty to secure it. Constitutional union founded upon popular self-government cannot survive an appeal from lawful ballots—the election of Lincoln in accordance with the Constitution—to unlawful bullets. As labor is prior to capital, the people are prior to government; only a government that oppresses its people, attacks the people’s own laws, can justly be overthrown by force.
The consecration of the cemetery at Gettysburg by the people—the consecrating of themselves for tomorrow, when the war would be over—reaffirmed the people’s dedication to “the unfinished work” of the nursing fathers who brought them forth from Egypt but did not live to see them enter the Promised Land. Such dedication meant that the Spirit of the Lord—for the new Israelites, the once-again self-evident truths of the Declaration—will be upon not only the nursing fathers but upon all the people. The new birth of freedom, witnessed at the Gettysburg house of the dead, meant the emancipation of slaves—one-eighth of the American population—and the full emancipation of freemen, including the former masters, who had contradicted their own right to rule by claiming a universal truth as a particular entitlement by establishing a racial aristocracy over their fellow men.
On that day, Lincoln extended his hand to Madison, redeeming the promise of the old fathers who had not lived to see the fulfillment of the founding they had conceived.
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145 Comments
Mr. Morrisey,
Thank you for a very thought provoking article.
Beautifully and powerfully written.
We the People are all Lincoln now.
Too many Americans died in the Civil War for me to respect Lincoln. A wise leader can avoid armed conflict.
The Foundes by and large rejected slavery as antithetical to the Founding principles. However, they understood at the time of the founding that they could not knit the separate colonies together if they insisted on abolishing slavery. They trusted the innate wisdom of the American people that they would not tolerate such an obvious contradiction for long as a liberty-loving people. The 3/5 Compromise language in the COTUS is a clear attempt by the writers to limit the political power of the slave-owning South while still knitting them into the union.
It's a sad and ultimately very tragic thing that it took us so long to finally move to end the injustice. Thomas Sowell explains it very well in his essay "The Real History of Slavery." We were not at all the only country to practice slavery. That was nearly universal in the world. We are unique in that we were the only nation who fought an extremely bloody war to end it.
Wow…!
you need to read the emancipation proclamation! it only frees slave in the unoccopied parts of the south it also says at its beginning that the proclamation is a tactical measure meant to win the war.quit justifying your invasion and rape of the south as a noble cause and tell it for what it was an economic war. i dont beleive in slavery and my ancesters were north carolina share croppers why do you think they fought so hard to preserve slavery? i dont think so.
I tend to agree with you. When I was a young man, in school, in Texas, Lincoln was still a cuss word. We were all taught the myths about "Honest Abe", and went through the indoctrination of how he "held the Union together", and for doing such a noble deed, they carved his head on the mountain in Indian Country, and gave him the Big Seat overlooking the Reflecting Pool in Washington.
Time, and age bring wisdom. I no longer admire Lincoln, and the older I get, the less I think of him. He gutted the Constitution. It all started with him, the removal of States Rights. It is despicable what those Yankee carpetbaggers have done to this country. He was a "Progressive" before the phrase was coined.
Very true. Also, people tend to forget that we too were slaves. Everyone was, under the King.
Good post aharris…!
Funny thing about Lincoln is how things almost turned out so very differently.
The Rebel South had the chance to take Washington D.C. early in the war, but many Southern troops did not want to cross the border to the north, as they considered the "War of Northern Agression" a war of self defence.
Unfortunately we are -1 in the wise leader dept. Also with all the progressive people in powerful positions in our country pushing the limits of our patience and constitution. How long do we watch our country be destroyed? This ultra left socialists movement needs to be squashed one way or another. I hope we can just vote them out. However, with everything I've seen in the last year I doubt like hell if these people will just bow out. It would be best for America and the world if they did. Actions speak louder then words and this administrations actions as far as I'm concerned are criminal.
Not always, pal, not always…
Here is a rather interesting quote I found:
“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
~ Jefferson Davis ~
I'm going to have to ponder it further before forming an opinion.
Yep.
I would not want the US divided. I just don't like Lincoln's methods.
Glad to see not everyone here is worshiping at the feet of Lincoln. Anyone who continues to think of him as a great President should read "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo or "The South Was Right!" by James and Walter Kennedy.
President Buchanan is ranked among historians as the worst president ever. He tried to reconcile and prevent the US civil war.
President Lincoln is ranked among historians as the best president ever. His election led to the breaking up of the Union, as States started to leave after he won but before he took office.
I'm not sure I understand why they are ranked that way.
Funny, somebody evidently doesn't like what I wrote. It is just truthful history.
Don't just drive by and give me the libtard thumbs down.
Have the stones to stand up and make a comment………
"The South Was Right" was an excellent read, and thought provoking as well.
“When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim, ‘all men are created equal,’ a self-evident truth; but now when we are grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self-evident lie.’”
Such a profound statement. "We are grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves…" We are reaping what we have sown the last 100 years at this present time. We have slumbered and have awaken to an unbelievable web of destruction woven into our political structure. I have always contended that prosperity breeds complacency. We have awoken from a deep sleep and realize thieves have been pillaging our home….
A very eloquently written piece Mr.Morrisey. Thank you!
AMEN, WC
But, this administration is very good at bowing.
YES SIR COWBOY…………x1000
To the victors go the spoils. The greatest prize, in war, is the victor gets to write the history from their viewpoint. Just imagine for a moment, how history would read today, had Adolf Hitler prevailed, and won WW II?
It wasn't mutiny. You just don't understand what it means to be Free.
A General can coordinate an attack, but he can not order Free men who to attack.
Lincoln was a tyrant and a war criminal that authorized total war on a civilian population, an unheard of military tactic under Napoleanic rules (there was no Geneva Convention). He arrested newpaper editors and closed critical papers, if you weren't with him you were against him and went to his gulags, arrested entire state governments and drove others into exile. He deliberately abused and starved Confederate POWs. Threatened the SCOTUS for pointing out that his actions were unconstitutional. He was personally responsible for the deaths of 3/4s of a million Americans. If you win the war you get to write the history. Thirty years later slavery died a natural death in Brazil without their government invading and killing their own people.
Ya know, I'm impressed. I try to learn something new everyday, and the comments and viewpoints here are thought provoking, and have made me think. We rarely discuss a topic such as this, and I rarely have the opportunity to open up about it. It is nice to know that I am not alone with my thoughts, that there are other like minded individuals out there.
Lincoln could not prevent a Civil War.
I sure hope Obama is man enough not to start one.
the civil war was not a war over slavery it was one small point of contention but states right was the leading factor . if slavery was the main point the union army would have been called the army to free slaves instead it was the union army or the army to restore the union.slavery would have come to an end on its own probably within the next 50 years but a decision that should be left to the states was taken up by the feds this caused the push for the south to secede. if the whole thing was about freedom and equality then why were there revolts in the union army over blacks getting equal treatment as white soldiers in some cases mass revolts over blacks being put in whit units in the end the black soldiers were segregated in their own units.
There were however sizable desertions when Lee crossed into Maryland during the Antietam campaign.
Indeed. My grandfather told me that his father (a slaveowner) had told him that by 1860 it was already economically disadvantageous to own a slave. Hiring free labor was cheaper.
Slavery would not have survived another generation, had the War not been fought.
This issue actually has some contemporary resonance.
Suppose, not outside possibility at all, that Britain decides the EU is a losing proposition and announces its secession. And imagine further that Brussels declares the need to Preserve the Union and sends its (largely German) troops across the Channel to return its rebellious province to its allegiance…
Some folks just don't get it. I've read enough of your material to know that you do.
Until American academia, if not the popular consensus, learns the truth of the War Between the American States and not the propaganda of the winners, do not expect the collective citizenry to have learned any meaningful lessons from that horrible conflict. With seeds sown in the concessions of the years preceding it, attempts at over-empowering the Northern States who were threatening to leave the Union (and establishing the legitimacy of Secession) the admittedly unprepared Southern States felt their legitimate interests thwarted on the national stage and attempted the same sort of Rebellion that the Colonists had executed "fourscore and seven years" previously.
The Southern armies had a better record against the North than the American Revolutionaries did against the British, but France came to the aid of the Colonists and did not come to the aid of the South. France could not find it in her interest to oppose the North as she had found it in her interest to assist the Colonists against her old enemy, England. The narrative of the virtue of the American Revolution (despite an attempted British version of the Emancipation Proclamation) and the ignobility of the War for Southern (Confederate) Independence do students of history a disservice. Consequently, America continues to deal unnecessary with fallout from that conflict some 150 years later. We need to know the Truth if it is to set us free.
Like most posts, I would contend that this is a very good article with a very cogent argument. But, I would also want to contend that this article follows the simplistic argument that slavery was a uniquely American institution based on race. Remember at the time that slavery was prevalent in North America, mainly in the south, it was an world-wide institution globally. This is in no way would mean that I support slavery, but would recognize that the argument about natural rights would also support the preposition that certain individuals would be subservient in nature. Not a race, but an amount of individuals, which can be verified in the amount of slave rebellions and the vast amount of European/Americans (among the endless groups of ethnicities) that sold their freedom, or labor, for a set amount of time. One must remember that slavery is still being practiced to this day, and is indicative of the nature of humanity and is not a national shame.
Um, yes, that is mutiny.
If our military today, all free men and women – volunteers, in fact – refused orders, they would be charged.
You have made sh*t up to try and make a point – you failed.
If Lincoln was a total "bible thumper", ok….He had a huge problem, concerning the races. God created 3 races and eventually 70 nations after the Great Flood. And He gave them boundaries and separate languages to keep everyone in their own place. Therefore, the right decision was to return the slaves, no matter race back to their homeland. The New Testament requires to promote the gospel of the Kingdom and of Christ to all races & nations. So, they were here, and we didn't have to go there to preach & teach. In the meantime, it was highly probable that the blacks that came here, were obtained from the Christian "Republic" of Ethiopia, whose future destiny was one of great destruction. When I was a kid in the 50's, we called them Ethiopian-Americans.
You just don't understand the concept of Freedom. Mutiny is a royalist concept, where Men were subject's of the Crown and not Free. A General directs the battle, but he can not make his men fight. Only a Tyrant can.
We had plenty of
I think it was the Irish who revolted against the King so that they each own at least 7 acres of land and obtain their provisions. The King owned all Hunting & Fishing Rigths and the people could be jailed for violating the King's Land.
Come on Cowboy
yes we all know Jeff was referring to "States Rights"
But in the eyes of the Creator….and as Lincoln saw it
"States Wrongs" had to be dealt with.
Consider yourself a very small minority. A wise leader has to make very difficult decisions.
Why
I think too, that the Southern States were highly resisting the East Coast Banking establishment. It lookerd like the Bankers were intending to finance both sides of the war….and fueled the issue of slavery and racial problems to get the war going.
Lincoln fooled them all, by creating the new Greenback dollar and then, and then….He Got Shot.
Are we to assume that by your short statement that you are a heavy thinker? Are you a student of history that is vaguely cognizant of the forces swirling around Lincoln at the time that resulted in the Civil War? Tyrant……you have a simple mind, a evidenced by your pathetic deduction. I imagine you do respect Obama……just wait to see the damage he creates.
Oh. I get it now.
Just like "America's wrongs" are being apologized for, and bowed for now, all over the world……..
Then the Uniformed Code of Military Justice which all U.S.Servicemembers are subject to is tyrannical?
Wrong application of the word "Wrong" there Cowboy
Obama,.. you know he believes the "STATES" (have never been) "RIGHTS"
Thank You Mr Morrisey,
Moses was getting worn out by the new Israelites as they wanted to return to Egypt. So, a division of power & authority was given. Moses became the Civil Leader and his brother Aaron became the religious leader. This caused a separation of powers, church & state idea. In the meantime, they worshipped the same Creator God.
The Civil Leader, Moses had more power legally, to monitor the condition of the "church", which would always fail 1st.
Britain and the U.S.A. are very similar to Mannesh & Epraim, the 2 sons of Jacob who were promised to receive the blessings of Abraham. The British Union Jack flag with the red "X" is symbolic of the Crossed Arms of Jacob.
These 2 brothers were prophesied by God to become a Great Colony of Nations & the other One Great Nation.
Those Blessings would continue as long as His Conditions were being met. They are not being met today, much less to know what the Conditions are….
"The eyes of Israel is blinded for a season" is the reason for many people not wanting to believe this.
If the Commander and Chief was a tyrant himself, then of course. Only a tyrant worries about mutiny.
Or a Confederate General outside Washington, D.C. according to you…
Ralph, just think, we have a little less than three years left to put up with this clown.
Makes me wish for days of yore, with Slick Willie and the Fat Chick.
Similarly to ancient Israel, we both had a civil war. The Northern States Vs the Southern states primarily caused by the behaviours and actions of King Solomon, the wisest King. He was not wise enuff to keep His Nation together. His personal behaviour was terrible by associating with women who were into witchcraft. The deal that broke the Camel's back, was a huge money deal with the Queen that involved 666 Shekels of Gold….Then, he also raised taxes (tithes) to an unlawfull level….The Norther States had an Old Testament "Tea Party" war….and They both lost!…and went into Slavery…
The Northerners went 1st, the Southerners 2ndly approximately 70 years after Christ.
Sorry there Good Ol Boy
There was nothing right about the South back then…
Just like there was nothing right about Santa Ana…
Just like there was nothing right about King George….
The only thing that is right is that it is now the 21st century and that we are still here.
The South shall rise again…..however, this time with all those factories relocting down from the north….
So you would have allowed a morally disturbing institution to continue?
States do not have rights, but powers. Any time anyone says states have rights, I just want to jump up and down because NO government has rights. Only individuals have rights.
Go travel through the poorest rural counties of the South, all the while remembering Lincolns' "greatness".
Civilized humanity could surely have found other means to solve the problem of slavery, without these con-
sequences. Tell me 'the projects' of the big cities in the north are not a consequence of Lincolns' decisions.
As our Islamic foes do, view this phase of our history in centuries rather than, "we won, you lost" end of story.
Some say the War Between the States has never really ended. This leads most to believe Southerners are
eternally bitter. No they are merely realist, still living day to day with the consequences of Lincolns' decisions.
How many of the young men, from either side, who died on the battlefields & in the barbaric prisons would
have been the great inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs of their time? Go stand in front of his Memorial &
ask 'Honest Abe'.
What makes you think that's me – maybe there's someone else reading this who knows Civil War history and military law who's not very impressed by your errors.
Enjoyed the conversation. Virginia is a great state,
The War Between the States was initiated to protect property rights. Unfortunately, the property was people. There was little nobility in the secessionist cause. Rich men used poor men to protect their aristocracy, while destroying states' rights to further an evil institution.
Might I point out that the US Civil War started before Lincoln took office, the blood shed actually started several years prior to the election of 1860, if anything it was Pres. Buchanan's inaction that was the primary cause. Bloody Kansas anyone? John Brown? Harper's Ferry? Underground railroad? If anything the share croppers in North Carolina were dups of the rich land owners, and I am not one to scream class-warfare lick today's Dems.
And National requirements for everyone to receive free public education, and a requirement to attend while still a minor, was a critical part of the Northern "reconstruction" of the South, as they called it. (Much like our invasions of Iraq and other places where we bombed the place to oblivion, and then came in and build "OUR" style governments and infrastructures to make certain the the "PEOPLE" did not go back to their old ways before we destroyed their nation for them in the name of "freedom and the American Dream"). At the end of the Civil War, there were a lot of Generals hanging around Washington with nothing to do, but that were chums with Sherman and Grant…so they got sent to the South to MANAGE the whites and the Negros. Turns out, they were caught by surprise with millions of freed slaves who were illiterate, uneducated, without marketable job skills, and no means of living outside of the plantation operations. So the Generals created public schools for Negros, and sent New England school marms down South to educate the blacks in the beginning of Big Government Paternalism. That worked so well for government (not so well for the blacks…they could read, but could not vote, nor get jobs other than at wages less than white folks were paid….) that when the Generals and the Union army took on the NEXT big American Problem….getting the Native Indians the hell off of valuable land in Georgia, etc….so they banished them as waring "savages" onto reservations where they were totally dependent upon the Fed. Govt for FOOD and CLOTHES (the white man having conveniently anhillated the Buffalo, their food and sustenance in their lives), so now they had to figure out what to do to keep these evil savages from growing up a bunch of young boys into warriors (think Taliban and Middle East with boys and no jobs and learning to fight because that was the only paying work around)….so they sent the SAME General down to establish schools for these kids….but here….they decided to make them BOARDING schools where they had to wear uniforms, cut their hair, learn English, give up ALL tribal names and customs, and abide by military organization and command….they had to get them away from their PARENTS in order to DO THIS….and they did so by explaining to the parents that if they did not send their kids to the Great White Father's schools, then they were not going to get food or clothing…so….that is how the kids got to get educated in the Paternalistic manner of the Negro Adults AND kids….government run schools to teach the CIVILIZED western ways, and to frame the USA History to conform to the fact that the Northern USA Government were the good guys, and their parents or their Southern "owners" were the evil people not to be trusted ever.
Now, the Federal Government latched on to the same plan for integration…and control of education by National demands….not by local control of the States or the communities.
Same old socialistic paternalistic pattern. Lincoln was one of the bad guys, but if he had not been killed, he would probably not been as brutal on the South as the Generals were…..under cover of the National Outrage at the Killing of Lincoln…which made it real easy to send down retribution agents to keep the South in submission by economics and military rule.
There were more African slaves sold into bondage in Brazil than in the USA. Slavery was going to go away in the USA, as it was not a profitable means of agriculture, especially with the invention of machinery. The war was unnecessary, but was a political means of destroying the Southern industry base in favor of the Northern interests.
It certainly is nothing for "Northern" States to brag about…no matter who "won" the war that killed 600,000 Americans and destroyed two generations of families. No heroism in the leadership, nor moral high ground in Pretense of Freeing the Negro Slaves…..they would have been free anyway, with no hatred left to still stir the racial pot today.
Great Article Cowboy. We get more news from Canada & the U.K. about us than we get from our own press. Thank God for FOX News, where I am actually, finally learning something.
Buchanan tried to peacefully resolve the situation. Historians fault him for trying to capitualte to the South, but since it was the South trying to leave you can't really blame him.
War broke out when Lincoln won the election, but before he took office. I don't know if Buchanan as a Lame Duck could have made peace at that point.
And then have the courage of their convictions to carry them out, and see them through to the finish.
Maybe all of the so-called "good" propaganda concerning Lincoln was simply a command for the Ethiopians to grow up & fly right???
Maybe he could have turned the slaves into Contract Workers, which many of our CA Field Workers are; while being non-citizens.
After being freed, were they given any "survival" land(s) or tools and were they able to sell their own cotton crops?
I don't think Lincoln united the country, as there is not a resolution to the same problem today.
If you think what Lincoln did was right, perhaps You are the student of Obama. Perhaps Obama like Lincoln will use Federal troops to enforce his will and disregard Congress and the Constitution.
Slavery was of course morally wrong. We should never have taken slaves from Africa.
I stopped calling the Blacks by whatever Name of Preference they want us to use. My new name for them is " Ethiopian Americans." I presume The Dutch brought them here and Britian, too. It would be personally interesting to me, if we could see those ancient shipping manifests and determine what African nation they came from….probably from Mr Obama's neighborhood where his brother is living.
How true. And, ironically, the most egregious slave traders were Muslims in 15th and 16th centuries. They raided Europe incessantly for Christian slaves.
In the real South, the past isn't dead……. it's not even past.
Since the founding in 1620, everyone "nullified" any law anywhere that intervened in the jurisdiction of the local government, usually the county. Government was to be no further than one day's horseback ride from the governed, and they took it seriously in voting, town hall meetings, even vigilante movements if all else failed, something that justifies today's Tea Party movement, as cited in The Changing Face of Democrats on Amazon as well as claysamerica.com. 19th century Democrats were the libertarians following Jefferson and Madison who stood firmly on the State's Rights issue to preserve local government. It was the Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt on up to McCain, minus Reagan, Republicans who stood for nationalism and Washington over the counties, and modern Democrats who follow Rousseau and Marx. claysamerica.com
Great Statement; So, we should have given them all copies of our Documents and sent them home so then they could have their own Free Country to work on. Because the mixing of races for a Human Cause & Projects was against biblical authority…Pres. Lincoln must have known that….But the Southern economy was dependent on cheap labor…Eli Whitney helped the South with his cotton gin invention.
Well, perhaps old Honest Abe was Progressive enough, to start the first entitlement program. As I recall, "Forty acres and a mule" was the mantra back then.
What they really needed was SEIU and ACORN.
I do happen to think that Lincoln was right. I also think it is not far-fetched to believe Progressives could attempt some act of desperation after chipping away at our freedoms, gun ownership but one. And, yes, I am studying Obama and his ilk……..while you are waiting for some New Deal. History has shown the light on that mistake.
I live up North in WI and would love to fly the Confederate Flag! along with Old Glory! It is not a "rascist" flag and it is highly related to the British Union Jack….symbolizing the Crossed Arms of Jacob….
My State didn't join the Union until 1848, while the East Coast & Southerners were here since the 1600's.
We were in effect a "toddler" Newbie on the American scene in contrast, to the seasoned Southerners.
Also, The South was aware of the problem and was working on it. So, we didn't Lincoln's War.
This won't go over well, but it is history:
http://www.civilwarhome.com/reconstruction.htm
The South was conquered.
The South was occupied.
The South was reconstructed.
All under the control of the victors.
As Cowboy said: "Lincoln was a Progressive before the label was coined….
"How long…not long"
Cowboy I'm kinda hopey this changey thing will happen a lot sooner….
This November…BIG TIME
"Working on it" ???????
Gee Greg, Today, it sounds down right like the path we should have taken….but…..I'm sorry….
Sometimes you just gotta send in the troops to speed up the process….
Where is slavery being practised? I would consider that India with its Caste System is a form of slavery, but not literal slavery where the "whip is out"….for non-performance.
There is a biblical precedent established for one race, of the Orignial three people-groups, to be subservient.
The only way that they can get out of this particular "curse", is to know and practise the New Testament teachings…
This is a punishment for something that they had done to their Father, Noah.
None of us believe in slavery is a fact on this site.
Prior to Lincoln taking office in March 1861 seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union. South Carolina, where Fort Sumter was located, could not allow a Federal fort on its soverieign territory if cessation was to mean anything. It was South Carolina which fired the first shot at Sumter and Lincoln responded by calling it a rebellion which precipitated four more states to secede. "Lincoln believed that whites were superior, and favored deportation of freed slaves." "The U.S. Senate declared from the beginning that the purpose of the war was to restore the Union and that there was no other objective. They passed the following resolution on July 26, 1861." You can read it in the government archives. Also "Free Trade" was more of an issue, as was the guaranteed right to secede which is what the South really fought for. These were taken from: "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" byThomas E. Woods Jr, Ph.D. Lincoln did not cause the war between the states (It was not a Civil War by definition) it was the attitude of a growing in power Federal government and the states in the NorthEast intransigence which became intollerable.
We did not for the first 18 months of the war have the abolition of slavery as the reason we went to war! It was for the sole purpose of saving the Union!
time to sit on the back porch with an old friend…NO.7…and watch the sun go down. and when your blue tic sighs…..all is right with the world.
rubbish.. slavery was on it's way out because of the cotton gin. slaves were no longer economical because the price of cotton had fallen so much. lincoln had no constitutional right as president to conduct an illegal war on States exercising their constitutional rights to seceed from the voluntary union of States. we are now reaping the whirlwind of the powerful federal government that continues Lincoln's legacy of trampling on the Constitution.
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Lincoln wanted free slaves deported, he believed whites were superior. His goal was first and foremost, as was that of Congress, to preserve the Union, nothing more until at least 18 months after the start of the war when another reason was necessary to justify the war.
You are right.
We immediately should have sent them back, and paid the freight.
A great feeling, isn't it?
Also add James McPherson, in his 1997 book "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War."
The Tenth Amendment of our Constitution retains the right to secede to the States, the Federal Constitution is silent on secessation. If the EU documents signed by England leave open the door to what you suggest then it is their problem, caveat emptor! They signed it, they live with it!
Not quite; the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in those parts of the south waging war against the Union, not unoccupied parts as you state. Lincoln, unlike today's crop of presidential office holders, did his best to remain true to his oath to uphold the Constitution. The constitution did not authorize him to issue a proclamation freeing the slaves; that required a constitutional amendment. He could, however, issue the proclamation he did out of military necessity because the slaves were being used by the slave owners to engage in fighting against the Union. By issuing the proclamation he did, he upheld the oath to the constitution, but more importantly, kept other slave-owning states, such as Kentucky, from entering the fight on the side of the Confederacy. Kentucky, by way of example, had slaves but had not declared war on the Union; hence, they remained unaffected by the Emancipation Proclamation.
As a Southerner and devout believer in the rights of states, and of the people, which shall ultimately supercede those of the federal government, I nevertheless love Lincoln because he was right to emancipate the slaves (white, black and other…let that provoke a thought in you) and because he was right to want to keep the Union whole.
I don't begrudge him the war, or it's horrible costs. In fact, tellingly, at the 50th anniversary of the re-enactment of the battle of Gettysburg, the Union soldiers who faced their Confederate counterparts in Pickett's charge wept as the old soldiers came forth out of the peach orchard and ran down the slope to embrace their Southern brothers in arms.
Would that more of us actually remembered history for what it really is. And God Damn to all who purposefully distort the truth to serve their own agendas of greed and hate.
You have no idea what I am waiting for.
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We had the troops sent in during the 60's race riots too. Now we have Reverse Racism which happens all of the time.
We need troops like you say, to put down rebellion.
We are a nation of Rebels, stamped with the biblical # of rebellion, the #13, similarly to the Ancient Israelite nation.
I'm expecting Britain to do that….They are making a huge mistake by joining the EU, the future "nazis". Their empire is emerging and developing acdg to the boundaries and the 2 divisions of the "holi" Roman Empire.
Thomas Jefferson started our US Navy and the Marine Corps to stop those Muslin pirates. They were pirating our American Trade ships and holding hostages for ransom. He read and studied their Qu'Ran and noted that we can not and should not negotiate with them at all! So, he gave the order: "LET'S ROLL!!!""
I didn't realize that they were actually capturing Christian-Oriented groups. I guessed that was happening, and theorized that the blacks that came here as slaves were from Ethiopia using the scriiptural references only.
Before Christ, Ethiopia was "hooked up" with the Jews, who they paid tithes to. After Christ, they were converted to Christianity….under the rulership of Queen Candace.
They would be the Prime Target fpr the Muslims, for sure.
That's right! What we have is what we have….That's the Hand were playing right now & there's no room for BS like in a poker hand.
While this Civil War was going on, or shortly thereafter, THE USA experienced the larget immigration of Europeans, an absolute historical record.
These new immigrants, had been learning The Progressive Ideology(s) in Europe. They eventually over-whelmed our under-lying Christian Belief system.
I think that we should give the Entitlement people today 10 acres and a John Deere tractor with implements….It's cheaper! Oh, and a Book of Home Remedies. The Amish are doing it.
I kinda like to see history from an American point of view…
You add up all the pros and cons… and than .. you make a choice…
So far I like the decisions we have made……
As far as troops go… the only ones that matter in my books are the ones that wear a uniform the same kind I did…..and my helmet was not blue and I do not think yours was either.
YES!
In particular, nowhere in the Constitution does it ever mention rights belonging to the states, or any branch of the federal government for that matter.
Only one branch of the government is accorded rights in our Constitution – the People.
And yes, they are a branch of the government, as they are also explicity recognized as possessing powers, just as the other branches of our government are recognized as having powers.
The very pretense of "states' rights" is an unconstitutional usurpation of a privilege solely and exclusively reserved for the People, and the concept should receive no more toleration than the absurd assertions of universal power of the Federal Government made by "Progressives" and their ilk.
From the safe distance of 150 years, it is too easy to judge the actions of the adherents of either Unionists or Secessionists. What is important is to see the passion and conviction which both sides bought to the conflict.
I am grateful that I live at the distance where I can celebrate and take pride both in the heroism of the First Virginia on day three of Gettysburg, and that of the First Minnesota and 20th Maine on the day before. I tell foreigners that, if they want to get an inkling of the American spirit, they should walk among the monuments at Gettysburg, Antiedam, or any Civil War battlefield.
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