The Messianic Qualities of Abe Lincoln

The losers couldn't write history, so they are now trying to rewrite it. How classic is that?

 

Jefferson and Madison wrote The Kentucky and Virginia Resolves which proposed that America was a Union of States. Didnt, after all, the State delegations vote to ratify the Constitution, and not individual citizens? Its obvious then that the nation is only a loose friendship between states. If one state wishes to dissolve its friendship with the others, it as a Sovereign State has the right to do so, just as one country may cancel an alliance with another.

 

So the US is simply a NAFTA-like country? Bzzzzzzt. Sorry.

 

The original 13 states formed a “Confederation,” under which each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” The Constitution didn’t change this; each sovereign state was free to reject the Constitution. The new powers of the federal government were “granted” and “delegated” by the states, which implies that the states were prior and superior to the federal government.

Even in The Federalist, the brilliant propaganda papers for ratification of the Constitution (largely written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison), the United States are constantly referred to as “the Confederacy” and “a confederate republic,” as opposed to a single “consolidated” or monolithic state. Members of a “confederacy” are by definition free to withdraw from it.

Hamilton and Madison hoped secession would never happen, but they never denied that it was a right and a practical possibility. They envisioned the people taking arms against the federal government if it exceeded its delegated powers or invaded their rights, and they admitted that this would be justified. Secession, including the resort to arms, was the final remedy against tyranny. (This is the real point of the Second Amendment.)

The Constitution itself is silent on the subject, but since secession was an established right, it didn’t have to be reaffirmed. More telling still, even the bitterest opponents of the Constitution never accused it of denying the right of secession. Three states ratified the Constitution with the provision that they could later secede if they chose; the other ten states accepted this condition as valid.

Early in the nineteenth century, some Northerners favored secession to spare their states the ignominy of union with the slave states. Later, others who wanted to remain in the Union recognized the right of the South to secede; Abraham Lincoln had many of them arrested as “traitors.” According to his ideology, an entire state could be guilty of “treason” and “rebellion.” The Constitution recognizes no such possibility.

Long before he ran for president, Lincoln himself had twice affirmed the right of secession and even armed revolution. His scruples changed when he came to power. Only a few weeks after taking office, he wrote an order for the arrest of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had attacked his unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus. His most recent biographer has said that during Lincoln’s administration there were “greater infringements on individual liberties than in any other period in American history.”

As a practical matter, the Civil War established the supremacy of the federal government over the formerly sovereign states. The states lost any power of resisting the federal government’s usurpations, and the long decline toward a totally consolidated central government began.

By 1973, the federal government was so powerful that the U.S. Supreme Court could insult the Constitution by striking down the abortion laws of all 50 states; and there was nothing the states, long since robbed of the right to secede, could do about it. That outrage was made possible by Lincoln’s triumphant war against the states, which was really his dark victory over the Constitution he was sworn to preserve.

SOURCE

 

So, who were the terrorists?

 

So, does that make you a Copperhead?

 

At that point in time there was no U.S. territory in South Carolina as South Carolina was not a part of the U.S. It was a part of the C.S.A.

The garrison could have left peacefully. The Yankees could have allowed the C.S.A. to leave peacefully. The Yankees could have tried to work out the problems with the South peacefully.

But the Yankees did not choose any of these peaceful means. And the Yankees were wrong.

 

Wrong again Ken (as usual when the Civil War is discussed). South Carolina didn't have the authority to declare itself no longer part of the country.

1. SC was being run by a group bin-laden would have been proud of. They had to be removed the same way the Taliban did.

2. Do you not see the insanity here? The Feds have military bases throughout the country. It is a good thing they had a base there too.

3. The United States (not just the north) had to make an example of the south so bad that they wouldn't try it again. Thankfully, the USA went big-brother on the south.

 

Pardon me while I remove my shoe from my mouth. Are you sure you weren't born in South Minneapolis?

Oh yes, absolutely. The contention is whether or not the Northern Californians consider So Cal to be part of the State. I'm still sticking to my predition that So Cal will do the "West Vigvinia" thing and become an new state in the next 20 years or so.

 

He was against slavery, but he was not a staunch abolitionist, no. However, the South believed him to be an abolitionist. While many on the South insist that slavery was not an issue in the secession movement, Jefferson Davis, prior to the election of Lincoln, stated that if an abolitionist president was elected, that he would call for the South to secede.

It was the opinion of the federal government that secession was not constitutionally permissable. That arguement has since been heard at the SCOTUS level, and has been confirmed. The only way to leave the union is to abandon the Constitution and leave by force, which is what the South did. OTOH, Federal troops entering the South, which Constitutionally was part of the US, was allowable. Both the North and South chose the avenues rightfully available to them. Inevitably, the South lost. Let it go.

 

Never.

Yankees 1
Rebels 0
(halftime)

 

Never.

Yankees 1
Rebels 0
(halftime) </font>[/QUOTE]Amen!

 

KenH, how is it halftime? The south was beaten to a bloody pulp and left to rot.

Thankfully the United States were able to salvage something and restore the south to the rest of the country.

 

With solemn highest esteem and reverence, I offer the following quote from our Beloved Former CSA President, Brother Jefferson Davis.

Source

 

Never.</font>[/QUOTE]Then don't expect the blacks to let slavery go, or the Native Americans to let their plight go, or the native Chicanos to let Texas or California go.

OTOH, I say the South lost. Southerners need to let it go.
Slavery is over. The decendents of slaves ned to let it go.
The siezure of Native American land is over. Native Americans need to let it go.
The fight for Texas and California are over. They're part of the US. Native Californians and Tejanos need to let it go.

 

They haven't. That's what illegal immigration is about to a very, very large extent.

 

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana

All of these were terrible parts of American history, and there are lessons to be learned from each one of these events.

Since this thread is about Abe Lincoln, I will focus on the lesson learned from his actions during this part of American history. We have the government we have today thanks to the actions of Abe Lincoln. He showed America that the Constitution and states rights mean nothing when the people are willing to rally around and support a government hungry for power.

Being taught that he was the greatest President our country has ever had and that the he fought the war to free the slaves, I have learned that you can't believe everything they teach you in school or in the history books, and we need to learn to study the facts for ourselves and use our minds that God has given us to think for ourselves.