Lincoln vs Jefferson

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Who financed Lincoln?

Every politician has someone in the background whose got a fistful of dollars, like George Soros is backing Obama. I suspect that Lincoln got the nod from the financial heavyweights because he agreed to increase tariffs. I’ll do some searching.

Ahahahahahaha[/quote]

"One of the main quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This tax was called a tariff. Southerners felt these tariffs were unfair and aimed toward them because they imported a wider variety of goods than most Northern people.

Taxes were also placed on many Southern goods that were shipped to foreign countries, an expense that was not always applied to Northern goods of equal value. An awkward economic structure allowed states and private transportation companies to do this, which also affected Southern banks that found themselves paying higher interest rates on loans made with banks in the North.

The situation grew worse after several “panics”, including one in 1857 that affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financiers found themselves burdened with high payments just to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investment."

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/gettkidz/cause.htm

Enlightenment is just a click away! Even a kiddie site has this info.

62

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
So they rebelled, and fought well for a terrible cause. A cause that not only would have left millions in bondage, but also would have ushered in an era of chaos. When laws were passed that particular governmental sections didn’t approve of, they would simply secede.

Your village doesn’t like a state tax? Secede! Your state doesn’t like a new foreign policy? Secede! That is no exaggeration – there were smaller municipalities than states that held that “opting out” was as intrinsic a right for towns and individual properties as it was for states.

[/quote]

Ummm…if you can secede or have the right to, the government who rules you has to toe the line, or you leave.

When you took your job, did you agree to permanently work there? When you moved to wherever you live, did you agree to permanently live there?

Freedom’s a bitch, eh?

By illegally smashing the Confederates, Lincoln announced that FORCE was now the permanent arbiter in this country. Disagree with the Federal Government? Well, here come the troops.

Now, we’ve got an all-powerful monstrosity that doesn’t oppress us more because its so inept. Where do you think things like holding prisoners w/o trial, suspending HC, the Patriot Act come from? Lincoln is not the Great Emancipator, he’s the Great Consolodater.

“Government of the Special Interests, by the Special Interests, and for the Special Interests.”

63

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Who financed Lincoln?

Every politician has someone in the background whose got a fistful of dollars, like George Soros is backing Obama. I suspect that Lincoln got the nod from the financial heavyweights because he agreed to increase tariffs. I’ll do some searching.

Ahahahahahaha

"One of the main quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This tax was called a tariff. Southerners felt these tariffs were unfair and aimed toward them because they imported a wider variety of goods than most Northern people.

Enlightenment is just a click away! Even a kiddie site has this info.[/quote]

You’re directly making my point. In a representative government, they ought to have been able to make their argument and convince their countrymen of the unfairness of the system. When the vote turned against them, they resorted to violence. Armed insurrection. Seccession.

The 1850’s marked the first time in American history that the South was not able to wring essentially every concession from the federal government that it wanted. When it was clear that another Buchanan, who kowtowed to sectional demands, was not in the offing, the South rebelled.

Regardless of how irritated you are, if you resort to violence in a peacetime representative government, then you ought to be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Disliking legislation is one thing… So legislate, lobby, challenge, convince, go to court, whatever. There are plenty of avenues for effecting change in the United States, in any direction you wish (as long as you can convince other people).

The South thought that representative government was good, so long as the federal government agreed with what they wanted. This attitude is a direct threat to everything that representative government stands for. You can see the same general idea in the Sunni Triangle – we will only cooperate with the elected government insofar as our interests are served. When matters look to go against us in the government, we will react with bullets and bombs.

When this is the case there is no government. Anarchy doesn’t magically coalesce into enlightened government, at least not in the history of man. Usually something very very bad has to happen to transition from chaos to civilization – a dictator, a purge, the March to the Sea, an iron boot, etc.

64

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
On and on…

No wonder the Southerners wanted to get away from this man!!

The South started seceding – and entered armed rebellion, seizing federal property and openly defying US law – before Lincoln even got onto the train to go from Illinois to Washington D.C. Your argument is silly on its face.

Did those things happen before or after the November elections?

[/quote]

After the election. I must have missed the part where Lincoln threatened to do anything to the South during his election… He made his political career opposing the EXPANSION of slavery into new states, not abolishing slavery in the states where it already existed.

He stated publically, even after the war had started, that if he could save the union by saving slavery he would do it, and that if he could save it by abolishing slavery he would do that too.

65

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
You’re directly making my point. In a representative government, they ought to have been able to make their argument and convince their countrymen of the unfairness of the system. When the vote turned against them, they resorted to violence. Armed insurrection. Seccession.[/quote]

Was what John Brown did ok?

66

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

By illegally smashing the Confederates, Lincoln announced that FORCE was now the permanent arbiter in this country. Disagree with the Federal Government? Well, here come the troops.

[/quote]

It started with Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion. In putting down the tax protesters’ uprising with federal troops, he set the precedent that Lincoln merely followed.

67

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

Ummm…if you can secede or have the right to, the government who rules you has to toe the line, or you leave.

When you took your job, did you agree to permanently work there? When you moved to wherever you live, did you agree to permanently live there?

Freedom’s a bitch, eh?[/quote]

The problem is you have presupposed that secession exists “contractually” in the same way you can freely terminate your employment. The analogy isn’t close at all.

This can’t possibly be right. You can disagree with the federal government all you want - think of it, every federal law passed had a minority that didn’t want it, so disagreement is not unusual.

If the Southern states disagreed with federal legislation, nothing wrong with that, happens all the time - but disunion by armed force constitutes treason (I didn’t write that).

And how many different ways can the Southern states abuse the process they agreed to? They tried the Nullification theory, they used secession as blackmail to get the legislation they wanted, then they turned to the newly discovered “cosntitutional right” to leaving the Union.

Let’s see it for what it was - abusing the process to advance their own naked self-interest. They continually saw the writing on the wall that they were going to be losers in the democratic arena, so they tried all these extraconstitutional measures to essentially have their cake and eat it too. They finally ran out of excuses.

68

[quote]nephorm wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
You’re directly making my point. In a representative government, they ought to have been able to make their argument and convince their countrymen of the unfairness of the system. When the vote turned against them, they resorted to violence. Armed insurrection. Seccession.

Was what John Brown did ok?[/quote]

Legally no. Morally, yes.

When you enslave a race, you lose the right to talk about freedom. John Brown, as crazy as he was, did what those in Germany during the 1930’s and 40’s would not- started an armed insurrection against the greatest crime in his country’s history.

I will see where the Brown question goes before I speak further on.

69

[quote]etaco wrote:
Headhunter wrote:

By illegally smashing the Confederates, Lincoln announced that FORCE was now the permanent arbiter in this country. Disagree with the Federal Government? Well, here come the troops.

It started with Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion. In putting down the tax protesters’ uprising with federal troops, he set the precedent that Lincoln merely followed.[/quote]

And Washington himself was merely following the example of King George, who was merely following the example of every despot before him (all the way back to Pharaoh) who has been deprived of his loot by his uppity subjects. One uses force, to coerce the people to render unto Caesar what they would otherwise withhold. That’s why they call it armed robbery.

70

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

When you enslave a race, you lose the right to talk about freedom. [/quote]

By that logic, practically no society in history has the right to talk about freedom, as all have enslaved somebody at some point. Even the Irish once practiced slavery (I believe St. Patrick was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland). Do they lose their right to talk about freedom?

The American Indians owned slaves, and the blacks, once they were freed, owned slaves. Northerners and Southerners owned slaves. Many slaves were black, some were white. No, not just of the 4- to 7-year “indentured servant” variety that they mumble over in high school history, I mean the kidnapped, sold on the block, slave for life, die in the fields variety. White people. In fact, in 17th-century America, more slaves were Irish than African…

Wait a second. NOW I think I’m beginning to understand why you feel so passionately about this issue, Irish. Well, here’s a story that is sure to fuel your fire even more:

[i]In 1855, Frederic Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York’s Central Park, was in Alabama on a pleasure trip and saw bales of cotton being thrown from a considerable height into a cargo ship’s hold. The men tossing the bales somewhat recklessly into the hold were Negroes, the men in the hold were Irish.

Olmsted inquired about this to a shipworker. “Oh,” said the worker, “the niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything.”[/i]

71

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

When you enslave a race, you lose the right to talk about freedom.
[/quote]

By this logic, we ‘lost the right’ to fight the American Revolution.

The moral superiority of the North is somewhat undermined by the fact that Northerners became much more amenable to abolition at approximately the same time they found out that slavery didn’t serve their economic interests very well.

It is always easier to denounce an evil when one’s livelihood isn’t based upon it.

72

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:

When you enslave a race, you lose the right to talk about freedom.

By that logic, practically no society in history has the right to talk about freedom, as all have enslaved somebody at some point. Even the Irish once practiced slavery (I believe St. Patrick was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland). Do they lose their right to talk about freedom?

The American Indians owned slaves, and the blacks, once they were freed, owned slaves. Northerners and Southerners owned slaves. Many slaves were black, some were white. No, not just of the 4- to 7-year “indentured servant” variety that they mumble over in high school history, I mean the kidnapped, sold on the block, slave for life, die in the fields variety. White people. In fact, in 17th-century America, more slaves were Irish than African…

Wait a second. NOW I think I’m beginning to understand why you feel so passionately about this issue, Irish. Well, here’s a story that is sure to fuel your fire even more:

[i]In 1855, Frederic Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York’s Central Park, was in Alabama on a pleasure trip and saw bales of cotton being thrown from a considerable height into a cargo ship’s hold. The men tossing the bales somewhat recklessly into the hold were Negroes, the men in the hold were Irish.

Olmsted inquired about this to a shipworker. “Oh,” said the worker, “the niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything.”[/i][/quote]

Nice sidestep. It looks like you didn’t understand irish’s point. Let me re-word what little irish was saying: The southerners were talking about their rights and how their liberties were GOING to be trampled by the newly elected Republican majority president, while at the same time holding millions of human beings in utter servitude. They fought awfully hard for…

The FREEDOM to own SLAVES.

73

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Was what John Brown did ok?

Legally no. Morally, yes.
[/quote]

So terrorism - which is precisely what John Brown perpetrated - is fine when the moral imperative is strong enough.

You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say that the South had a moral obligation to abide by the rules of the republic, but Northern abolitionists did not.

Further, I doubt you think the same thing about attacking abortion clinics.

I’ll be clear: I am no relativist and I believe that slavery of this kind is wrong. I do think, however, that in the political realm we must be cautious and slow-moving.

74

[quote]nephorm wrote:

Was what John Brown did ok?[/quote]

Armed insurrection as opposed to using the working system to achieve his aims? Have you been reading my posts?

75

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
They fought awfully hard for…

The FREEDOM to own SLAVES. [/quote]

It isn’t impossible to know that slavery is wrong, while also acknowledging that a people has very compelling reasons to protect their institutions.

76

[quote]nephorm wrote:
Varqanir wrote:

The moral superiority of the North is somewhat undermined by the fact that Northerners became much more amenable to abolition at approximately the same time they found out that slavery didn’t serve their economic interests very well.

It is always easier to denounce an evil when one’s livelihood isn’t based upon it.[/quote]

That’s probably the most shallow interpretation of the issue ever posited.

77

[quote]nephorm wrote:
ChuckyT wrote:
They fought awfully hard for…

The FREEDOM to own SLAVES.

It isn’t impossible to know that slavery is wrong, while also acknowledging that a people has very compelling reasons to protect their institutions.[/quote]

Well that kind of bullshit ends the argument with you.

78

[quote]nephorm wrote:

The moral superiority of the North is somewhat undermined by the fact that Northerners became much more amenable to abolition at approximately the same time they found out that slavery didn’t serve their economic interests very well.

It is always easier to denounce an evil when one’s livelihood isn’t based upon it.[/quote]

And as to that, what moral superiority of the North? The first colony to legalize slavery in the British New World was not Virginia, not Georgia, and not the Carolinas, but Massachusetts, followed by Connecticut, with New York and… listen up, Irish… New Jersey legalizing slavery shortly thereafter.

New Jersey allowed duty free importation of African slaves, so it became the conduit to other states (nearly all other states imposed a tax on the importation of Africans). In 1726, there were 2,581 African slaves in New Jersey. By 1790, there were 14,185, comprising nearly eight percent of the population. Slavery continued in New Jersey until it was declared illegal by the 13th Amendment, which the New Jersey legislature refused to ratify.

79

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
That’s probably the most shallow interpretation of the issue ever posited.[/quote]

I’m sure that if you look hard enough, you’ll find much shallower “interpretations.”

I don’t think it is much of a stretch to say that anytime you reduce a conflict like this to some sort of Manichean fantasy, reality has been distorted.

80

[quote]ChuckyT wrote:
nephorm wrote:

Was what John Brown did ok?

Armed insurrection as opposed to using the working system to achieve his aims? Have you been reading my posts?[/quote]

Notice how I put my question directly after a quote of yours that spoke about “working within the system.”

My point was only that there was violence outside of the “working system” on both sides.

And I think that many people - I never said you - think that John Brown using violence was ok, because they dislike slavery sooo much that it justifies violence among ostensible peers.

Slaves rebelling and killing their masters would be an entirely different issue, of course.