The American Spectator : Lincoln at Thanksgiving

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Lincoln at Thanksgiving

By Roger Kaplan on 11.24.10 @ 6:08AM

Thanks should be offered for blessings, coupled with “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.”

Too often we take good things for granted, Abraham Lincoln noted in October 1863, “bounties so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come.” He suggested the last Thursday of November be set aside as a day of Thanksgiving.

Lincoln did not doubt for one moment the reasons for the turning, during the past summer, in the fortunes of the Union side. God was on the side of the constitutional republic which, while necessarily far from perfect, offered the best chance to spread and sustain the regime of liberty established less than a century earlier. The president pointed out, however, that this was a God at once wrathful and benevolent, capable of “dealing with us in anger for our sins” while “remembering mercy.”

He said man is free to make his own bed. Faith alone and all that might be fine for Sunday sermons, but Lincoln thought more like John Winthrop than Cotton Mather. God is on the side of the big battalions, and that means men must raise and use them effectively. McClellan, Hooker, Pope, Meade had learned that their commander in chief understood that war must be left to the warriors, but responsibility for assessing their warrior virtues must fall upon the president.

Among these virtues the sense of initiative is crucial, and Lincoln, dismayed by the reluctance of the successive commanders of the army of the Potomac to pursue the rebels, judged that in Ulysses S. Grant he at last had found the terrible swift sword needed to finish the war in 1864. Already, as he said in the Thanksgiving proclamation, “the [war] theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.” He was thinking of Vicksburg, where Grant’s victory meant the Confederate forces would henceforth be fighting defensive battles on shrinking space.

As commander in chief Lincoln was completely firm and utterly humble. He showed this in his reactions to the nearly simultaneous victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. There had to be consequences — including demotions — for the failure to follow up the great battle on the northern front; but he personally apologized to Grant for expressing doubts about his tactics in the strategically crucial west.

On personal responsibility Lincoln was severe. Thanks should be offered for blessings, coupled with “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” Sooner or later, bills come due, and the “lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged” was the price for a half century’s reluctance to deal with the issue of slavery.

This goes to the core of Lincoln’s political thinking. The United States offers the last, best hope for a regime founded in liberty, but men and their political devices remain fragile and fallible. Addressing soldiers nearly a year later, he admonishes them to understand they are fighting for a system that offers the same opportunities to all, even the humblest. This depends, however, on seeing things realistically. “In no administration can there be perfect equality of action and uniform satisfaction rendered by all. But this government must be preserved in spite of the acts of any man or set of men.”

The strong, high sentiments and deep perceptions, tempered by a gritty realism about the shortcomings of human endeavor, render Lincoln perennially — if you will forgive the word — contemporary. In many respects, of course, Lincoln is anything but contemporary: can this man who had to borrow money to get to Washington before his first inauguration and accepted suits offered by an admiring tailor because he was too impecunious to buy his own bear any resemblance to the vain, imperial, double-standard types who now govern — should I say rule? — us, and not only in the White House?

No, fortunately: for so long as we remember how Lincoln is contemporary, we stand a chance, a pretty good one, too, of keeping our Republic.

About the Author

Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (150) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

jose goldfinger| 11.24.10 @ 7:46AM

Lincoln as president was "completely firm and utterly humble." That's one way of describing it. Another would be "he was a murderous dictator who wiped his ass with the constitution and slaughtered women and children to achieve his goals." If the current occupant of the WH decides to use Mr. Lincoln's tactics to achieve his goals, I wonder if the writer and others who worship at the shrine of the mythical Lincoln will be as generous with their praise.

Yankeedoodle| 11.24.10 @ 10:14AM

Now, now, please. This is a daily journal, not a locker room. Be civil and thoughtful. No president is above criticism. No policies, especially during the worst of our national crises, are ever exempt from historical scrutiny. What were Lincoln's goals? What choice of tactics did he have? Which were his preferred ones, which were forced upon him?

NeilBJ| 11.24.10 @ 10:26AM

I have recently become aware of the Lincoln myth thanks to Thomas J. DiLorenzo's, "The Real Lincoln."

Lincoln did have a way with words, but when his actions are examined a completely different picture emerges. Any tyrant can speak eloquently now and then, and Lincoln was certainly able to do that.

To think that some 620,000 lives were lost to "save the Union." His putative dismantling of the concept of state sovereignty based on his false understanding of our country's founding certainly contributed to the movement toward a more powerful central government.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:02AM

It's unfortunate that AmSpec seems to attract a lot of extreme libertarians and Lincoln-haters. DiLorenzo's book is a joke, and Lincoln had nothing to do with 20th century statism.

Why don't you Lew Rockwell types move on and stop infesting AmSpec.

NeilBJ| 11.25.10 @ 11:32AM

Applying labels to someone you disagree with is always an interesting tactic; it takes a lot more effort to come up with cogent arguments.

As for labels, I have yet to come up with how I would label myself. One label that might apply is that I am a Constitutionalist. And yes, I am a believer in maximum individual freedom, consistent with the rule of law. As for being an extreme libertarian, I don't know quite know what that would imply, so I can't accept or reject that label. (I do have a problem with the adjective "extreme.") I am disillusioned with both major parties, even though I am still a registered member of one.

As for moving on, that I will not do. I am on journey trying to understand why our country is the way it is today. There has to be a reason that we no longer follow the Constitution except when it might serve our cause. I do believe that Lincoln, who did express his frustration with the Constitution, was a one of the many Presidents who ignored the Constitution to suit their goals.

Bob| 11.26.10 @ 7:23PM

still pissed off for losing the war Neil

NeilBJ| 11.27.10 @ 11:46AM

I don't know that I would use those words, but as I continue to learn more about the War Between the States, I do find myself wondering if it would have been better if the South had won the war, a war that should never have been fought in the first place. Of course, once someone says this, they are immediately branded as a bigot who supports slavery. Alas, I cannot help what people will think regardless of what I actually believe.

My primary concern is the founding philosophy of our system of government. Our country began as a secessionist movement. You may recall that the colonies seceded from England.

Our federal government was created by the states, contrary to what Lincoln argued. The ultimate check on the power of the federal government is the principle that the states can dissolve those bonds when the federal government becomes tyrannical. This principle is clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. (It is not in the Constitution.)

The agricultural South was suffering under tariffs that benefitted the industrial North. The cause of the War was a complex mix many issues but the tariffs were probably the most important. Secession was seen by the South as the solution to the tyranny of the tariff.

When every other country abolished slavery peaceably, is it not unreasonable to expect that the U.S. could have abolished slavery peaceably also?

If the secession had succeeded, maybe the South would have rejoined the Union, once the dust settled and the wounds were healed. Most importantly, they would have established the principle that there is a check on the power of a tyrannical federal government.

Alan Brooks| 11.26.10 @ 5:28PM

Some Southerners-- and not a few-- think Lincoln was a monster. Red Phillips, for one.

Mimi| 11.24.10 @ 8:08AM

History...has had 145 years to study the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.....How much has been written and examined??? What has been desided?....He will always be judged as a Giant, in truth and GRAVITAS. Always most revered.
We should be so lucky and so fortunate to be blessed with a " COMPLETELY FIRM & UTTERLY HUMBLE " servant of " We The People" come 2012.

Len| 11.24.10 @ 10:23AM

Wow, the lies!! Lincoln was hardly poor as he was a successful railroad lawyer, and well off.

Lincoln and God? The man is not known to have once stepped inside a church let alone have given his service to God.

Lincoln and liberty? BS, the man refused to allow a people to rightfully re-assume the power that had been delegated to act on their behalf, and that of a previous generation which can never bind a present one. Liberty? How free was the press in the north, where he shut down newspapers and arrested their staff?
Liberty? How free were those protesting the unconstitutional conscription when they were shot and forced to serve a bloodthirsty, power hungry tyrant in his war to put the state above liberty and right?
Liberty? How free were the Indians being slaughtered to advance the railroads, and treaties discarded for America's westward advancement?
Liberty? How free were the people of the north to vote when Lincoln was sending his goons to the polls and singling out those who would vote against him in 64?

Okay if one loves the state and power, then sure Lincoln is your man, but please cut out the lies and be honest.

S.L. Toddard| 11.28.10 @ 10:28AM

Come on Len. Don't ruin their fun hero-worship party with all your dumb facts and truths. This isn't about history, it's about telling the American people that what they should be thankful for is their Big Government, which has been given special magical powers by God because it is "exceptional".

ton| 11.24.10 @ 10:52AM

Thank you, Len. Enough of this Lincolnophilia from the Big Sis neocon statists. Blockading medicine to the South? Jailing political opponents?Burning homes, farms and terrorizing women and children? Cynically "freeing" the slaves that he had no power to free and maintaining slavery in the states over which he ruled? Conscripting immigrants and slaughtering hundreds of thousands to prevent those who founded the union from leaving it?

Growing up in the South, we learned to despise Lincoln only slightly less than his terrorist-in-chief - Sherman. Turns out we were right.
For God and liberty and RE Lee!

Cynthia Grenier| 11.24.10 @ 11:41AM

Simple, but oh so eloquent.

Ray| 11.24.10 @ 12:18PM

"...we stand a chance, a pretty good one, too, of keeping our Republic."
I disagree. I think we're doomed. The Democrat party has created a HUGE dependent class: the Federal bureaucracy. No way to turn that around. Plus, most of the spawn from our public schools are liberals. We're doomed.

Robert Pinkerton| 11.24.10 @ 2:29PM

Entirely true, but only a small part of the reason why I think the Body Politic of the United States of America will not survive until its 25oth birthday in 2026.

RCV| 11.24.10 @ 12:24PM

As soon as I saw the headline on this article, I knew it would bring out the slew of Lincoln-hating Southern apologists. The posters above pretend to be American patriots, but what they are is a remnant of American-hating insurrectionists.

The South prior to the Civil War was an abomination in every sense of the word: a society where 3.6 million human beings were held in bondage, where families were split up and children sold like livestock. The nonsense of "states rights" was a simple mask to justify and perpetuate the system of cheap slave labor that enriched the planters and Southern financiers. They managed to convince the poor working-class whites of the region that they ought to give up their lives to preserve this system of plantation slave labor. And today, a small cadre of the faithful repeat that romantic nonsensical myth and rail against the United States of America.

God bless Abraham Lincoln, and God bless our country, one Nation, indivisible.

Christopher| 11.24.10 @ 12:42PM

What would have happened if Lincoln allowed the eleven states to secede? The remaining states and federal government could have easily abolished slavery, as some northern states had done so. The territories coming into the Union as states would have to abolish slavery. The Union would have continued to progress economically with freedom, while the Confederacy would have remained a backwater economically. There would have been great pressure on the Confederacy to abolish slavery because all the countries in the Western hemisphere and Europe had abolished slavery. Slaves in the south would easily escape to the North.
With some diplomacy Lincoln could have saved over 600,000 lives, and there may not have been the segregation in the south following reconstruction, which caused problems to this day.
It is interesting to speculate, but there is no question that there was a rush to war. And the rush to war was to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. That justification for the war came later.

Yankeedoodle| 11.24.10 @ 1:21PM

Your point is well taken, but consider that up to and through Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration, he was doing everything he could to prevent war, including very specifically the policy you propose, minus secession. He felt slavery should not be abolished by force by a central government, but he did insist on preventing its spread west.

Len| 11.24.10 @ 5:06PM

This is simply not true. First, Lincoln himself said he had no intent to abolish slavery and is on record as saying that as long the union was preserved he cared not if one slave was freed. Second, if truly wanted to prevent war all he had to do was acknowledge the southern states right to leave the union.

RCV| 11.24.10 @ 6:01PM

There was no such right to acknowledge.

Len| 11.24.10 @ 6:08PM

Oh boy, more absurdity. As the US constitution said, the powers were delegated, so to say that what was granted as a trust cannot be withdrawn when that trust is violated is to put forward a vulgar lie only a statist, humanity hater can tolerate.

RCV| 11.25.10 @ 1:03AM

Ah, but Len, it is you who are the statist and the hater of humanity. You are scrupulous about the rights of states, but curiously indifferent to the rights of humans - those 3.6 million humans enslaved. Isn't it THEM that God endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not states?

Len| 11.25.10 @ 10:48AM

Never give up on your conflation argument do you? I have never attempted to justify a state allowing slavery, nor do I have a problem with legitimate government.

RCVs flaws

1) Slavery was legal under the US constitution, so the Northern states were just as guilty then for being in a union that allowed such.

2) As I've said numerous times (and you know it but refuse to separate the two) while the south seceded because they saw slavery being threatened, the issue according to Lincoln and the congress was the union, and whether the south had a right to secede, so your continually bringing up slavery is an obvious dodge.

3) Addressing point below concerning trust. Here you seem to particularly dense. If the trust is violated it has not survived. If the trust is according to your logic to be determined by others, then it is really those others, that own the trust, and the delegation of a trust a fiction. Each state (Article 7) entered the union individually and thus was the judge of it's agent, the United States government, and just as any individual has the right to seek another lawyer or agent acting on his behalf, so does a state.

To delegate authority to an agent is not giving that agent ownership, and if you don't understand this, then you can no longer be bothered with, for surely the simplest mind understands this.

4)Really?? You don't understand that one generation can bind the next? Can I sell the rights to my grandchildrens service, or place a debt upon them for which they themselves have never agreed to? No more can those who entered an agreement that a certain party would act on their behalf obligate following generations to be parties to an agreement they never gave their consent.

5) If as you say the north was so altruistic in their war, why then were slaves being killed by the north, why were women being raped, homes looted, towns and farms burned...OH!! and why was the north at the very same time committing genocide against the Indians and violating treaties to advance the railroads?

6) Your greatest flaw? Your unspoken argument that a government established by flawed men can actually be a force for good. To elevate government by corrupt men, and we all are, to some mystic or holy force to make the world right is absurd, and nowhere in all of history has this occurred. Government should be no more than an agent between the people, or polities willingly established by the people, to act between them to ensure as much as possible that freedom is protected, and that means providing a legal system codifying consent, and a police/military force protecting such.

Red Phillips | 11.24.10 @ 1:16PM

Are you referring to all those slaves who came over here on Yankee slave ships and were legal all over the US for the vast majority of our history until the War for Southern Independence? I hope you will at least be consistent enough to denounce the entire United States as an "abomination."

And speaking of myth-making, prior to Lincoln's Invasion, the South (and the Middle States) WERE the United States. Who wrote the Constitution? Where were the majority of our Presidents from prior to Lincoln? (It's even more lopsided if you count the Middle States.) Where were the VAST majority of our statesmen from? Before the War it was the New England Yankees who were considered the peculiar people by the rest of the country. It was post-war "romantic myths" and simplistic morality tales that re-wrote that history.

It is you, not Southerners, who hate America. You hate the America that really was. A real place with a real history and real virtues and real flaws. You only love an America that is a myth, a morality tale, with virtuous Northern heroes to identify with and evil Southern villians to scapegoat. You love America as some imagined ideological state, not a real blood and soil country. Grow up. Morality tales work in professional wrestling and Saturday Morning cartoons, but that is not how the real world works.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:05AM

Megadittos RCV. Maybe if some of these anti-Lincoln imbeciles would read good books on Lincoln and throw away all the DiLorenzo crap, they'd learn a thing or two.

Mindless Lincoln Cultist| 11.25.10 @ 12:47PM

I agree Vern. Instead they should read Jaffa so they will truly understand the greatness that was the deity Lincoln.

Chadrick| 11.24.10 @ 12:41PM

Anyone that has read DiLorenzo's book knows that Lincoln was the 19th century version of Obama. Saying one thing while doing another. Anyone that thinks the Republican party should up hold the "honor" of Lincoln has not studied history for themselves. They only know what they've been taught in government runs schools.

Red Phillips | 11.24.10 @ 12:42PM

Will the "conservative" Lincoln Cultists never learn? The days are long since past when they can post Lincoln hagiography like this, even on a fairly mainstream conservative website, an have it go unchallenged. I think AmSpec now just posts these mindless paeans to Lincoln because they know it will generate a lot of comments and make their traffic stats look good.

Reading this I don't know whether to laugh or puke. It is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start. The idea that it was Lincoln and the invading North that was attempting to preserve the "constitutional republic" is laughable. Lincoln was a violent revolutionary attempting to remake the US. It was the South that was attempting to preserve the "constitutional republic" left to us by the Founders.

Before Jaffa and his band of mindless followers attempted to "conservatize" Lincoln's legacy (something far too many gullible "conservatives" have fallen for) it was widely understood that Lincoln and the North represented the forces of "progress" against those recalictrant Southerners clinging to their old fashioned ways. Which side in that conflict is the conservative one is so obvious it needs no elaboration.

This article reeks of said Jaffaite influence. More later when I have more time to deal with all the deception.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:07AM

Oh, go back to your Lew Rockwell hellhole. I'm sick of Lincoln bashers hijacking AmSpec.

Red Phillips | 11.25.10 @ 1:51PM

Vern, perhaps you should re-read my post. What part of it makes you believe I am a Rockwellian anarcho-capitalist? Was it all the references to conservatism? FYI, I am a paleoconservative, a.k.a. a real conservative, a.k.a. an authentic conservative.

In all seriousness, and I would appreciate a thoughtful answer, do you really think the Jaffaite historical revisionism represented by this article is any kind of conservatism? How so?

John| 11.24.10 @ 1:24PM

Was it worth the lives of 600,000 to preserve the Union?
Was it worth the lives of 600,000 to abolish slavery? Does it matter if they were draftees or volunteers or if they had nothing to do with slavery?

fwb| 11.24.10 @ 1:27PM

Here is a truism:

One awshit wipes out a thousand attaboys.

Lincoln did more to spit on the graves of the revolutionary patriots than ANYONE else. He was a politician's politician. He destroyed ALL that the United States was created to be, a Union of States (Nations) NOT a single nation, not a republic. Too many idiots have been brainwashed by the socialist propaganda known as the Pledge of Allegiance. The US was NOT formed as a nation. The US was NOT formed as a republic. It is a UNION, read the freaking Constitution. All references to the US as a nation or the government as national were removed during the convention because as Mr. Ellsworth stated they were NOT forming a nation or a national government. Learn stuff outside the box you called school.

Still the US is a UNION of 50 free and independent nations who legally can secede. 99.99% of what the federal government is doing is actually supposed to be done by each state independently, for better or worse. When you accept the violation of the Constitution in one area, i.e. the one YOU like, you have no place whining about violations in areas you do not like.

So just because Lincoln proclaimed a national holiday at Thanksgiving, we should forgive all the evil he brought on us? Hell, he didn't even have the Constitutional authority to make this proclamation. It was not his to do. Again read the Constitution and see his ~10 powers. The President then and now has nothing more than the limited list in the Constitution. All the rest has been stolen by usurpers.

Quartermaster| 11.24.10 @ 1:31PM

I'm thrilled to see that many who post here are able to separate fantasy from reality. Lincoln was far from our greatest President. He was a tyrant who set out to destroy the constitutional republic. He did not save the union. He destroyed it by using the northern sheep to conquer an independent country.

Slavery was under pressure the world over. This was especially true in western civilization. Today only Moslem countries have the institution. Where ever it was abolished, with the exception for the US, it was done peacefully. Lincoln's war aim was to force the south back into the union. He succeeded at the cost of 600K+ war dead and the death of Republic, replacing it with a unitary federal state where the states can be walked on by the FedGov at anytime.

Lincoln was scum. There is no way to candy coat without lying about the man.

Ray| 11.24.10 @ 2:39PM

True, but at least he could turn a phrase; and he was thoughtful, introspective, humble and devout. Something rarely seen, unfortunately, in today's politicians.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:10AM

Ray, don't bother trying to argue with Lincoln-haters. It's a waste of time. They've got their heads up their rectums so far, even a TSA worker couldn't find it.

Frank| 11.27.10 @ 9:55AM

Don't confuse myth with reality. Licoln's buddies got a kick out of the myth that was being created around him, haha.

A D Casey| 11.24.10 @ 2:47PM

Yes, Quartermaster, let us not candy coat it. Mr. Lincoln had no constitutional basis for preventing the southern states from exiting the federal union.

And let us not sugar coat the position of the southern states. They were a moral abomination dedicated to the proposition that it was proper for white Americans to enslave four million human beings for no better reason than to support the slaveholders' comfort and wealth.

I expect most Americans will weigh the damage done to the constitution against the damage that was being done to the millions of human slaves and agree that while the price was high, it was a price worth paying.

As a Texan whose ancestors came to the Republic of Texas from southern states, I am Southern to the bone. Even so, I know who in the American Civil War should be characterized as "scum". With all his human flaws, it is not Abraham Lincoln.

Jose Goldfinger| 11.24.10 @ 11:26PM

It's comforting to know that you agree that the "price was high but worth paying." Easy to say while you're sitting on your worthless ass in front of your keyboard. Mr. Lincoln didn't think the cause was important enough for his son to pay the price nor did any of his well heeled friends who ponied up the $300 to avoid military service. Mr. Lincoln was beyond scum - he was the devil's diciple and we can only hope his worthless ass is roasting as we speak.

Frank| 11.27.10 @ 9:59AM

It's not just a question of whether slavery is just but of... what to do with all the newly freed blacks? They caused a great deal of crime and had difficulty finding jobs. The social order was disrupted.

Besides, slavery has been a part of human society for thousands of years. It was slowly being ended around the time of the war, and the South would have eventually freed its slaves. Slavery certainly wouldn't be profitable today: machines are cheaper.

We still have slave owners today in America: Wall Street. Capitalism just calls it something different.

RCV| 11.24.10 @ 2:36PM

The issue before the nation at the time was not abolition, but extension of slavery into the territories. The blame for the ensuing debacle can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the planter class.

It always amazes me how people who defend secession can utter the words liberty without a whit of concern about the three and half million human beings brutalized by that system and held in abject bondage.

We've gone over this subject many times on this site, but the fact is there was no right of unilateral secession provided for in the Constitution. The states had ceded the powers of a nation -- raising armies, coining money, regulating commerce, dealing with foreign states, etc -- to the central government. There was a way, and one way only, of altering those allocations of power provided for in the Consitution: amendment, not unilateral abrogation.

Quartermaster, you are not fit to sit in the same room as Lincoln, let alone call him "scum". I notice when you so-called "conservatives" deal with the American people, you don't advertise your opinions of Lincoln and your hatred of the United States as a nation. If you did, they'd have your heads on pikes in a minute.

Len| 11.24.10 @ 4:50PM

Ah, RCV once again with his lies. As Lincoln based his actions on his fanciful "one nation" premise, and from that point refused to acknowledge that any power the federal government exercised in regard to any state was dependent on that state continuing to allow a DELEGATED power to be used on IT'S behalf. It is an absurd lie to say that the people who constitute a state must appeal to others to re-assume what is their possession.

Lincoln and subsequently the congress made their claims to act as they did based on a perpetual union, not in regards to slavery. The truth though is there can be no such thing as a perpetual union. Even were the US constitution to have said such a thing (which it does not), to say that a generation of people who are dead can bind a generation living is ridiculous and flies in the face of reason. Indeed this is one of the greatest flaws that was in the US constitution, that having seceded from the former union under the Articles of Confederation, and before that from Great Britain, the framers and makers avoided dealing with such a subject, both in declaring the right of secession, and in not expressly putting in place that process whereby future generations would have that tool provided to re-assume their power peacefully and thus make any continued union contingent on continual renewal.

And of course RCV as is his norm always seeks to intimidate people (how progressive, how Lincoln like) with his reference to people putting someone's head on a pike. If not using those words, he resorts to some phrase promising violence to those who want peacefully to exercise their rights. SPEAKING OF SCUM!!! It is always the lowest excuse of a human who resorts to brutish bestiality, rather than reason or right, and RCV makes clear what kind of subhuman he is.

RCV| 11.24.10 @ 5:59PM

...and happy Thanksgiving to you too, Len.

RCV| 11.25.10 @ 1:17AM

Your logic, Len, is so deeply flawed. If it is ridiculous, as you say, for past generations to bind the living, how can this "trust" the states supposedly gave to the central government survive? Indeed, if the current generation of residents of a "state " can abrogate the Constitution at will, why can't the residents of a county, or any city block do so? Why can't any individual simply decide that he or she is not bound by laws passed by others. Your "logic" only leads to anarchy, not liberty.

Furthermore, as I said above, you are the statist with no regards for the freedom of humans. You are so focused on the supposed rights of states, which you see as inviolate, but not of the humans held in bondage. It's to humans that God granted rights of liberty, not artificial states.

John| 11.25.10 @ 10:42AM

The answer is simple. The original states were sovereign states who joined together to form the united states of america. There are legitimate arguments on both sides whether a state can legally secede. You then have the issue of the territories that were admitted as states. These territories were never soverign. But Texas was an independent republic which joined the U.S. so Texas presents still another issue.
Counties are considered legal entitites created by each state, townships, citites, municipalites are all lega entitities created by a state statute, each state has a municipal law authorizing the municipalites. There is simply no legal basis for a county or municipality to secede because each is a creature of the state law authorizing it. States on the other hand existed before the U.S. There is no federal law authorizing a state and granting powers to a state as there is with a state authorizing and granting powers to a municipality.
All of this is interesting but irrelevant because most people now consider themselves U.S. citizens and not citizens of their state, and as a practical matter no state will ever secede again. It will lose all the "federal" money,protection, trade, commerce, people moving from one state to another
Was it worth having 600,000 young American men killed, thousands other injured, to preserve the legal fiction of a "union?" Or, to end slavery when slavery would have ended without the war, especially when many of the northern casualties were the immigrant Irish who were used by Grant as cannon fodder, when these Irish had absolutely no personal or direct involvement with slavery?
Is it a math question, sacrifice 600,000 to free 3,600,000?
All the democrats and some republicans now second guess Bush for sacrificing 5,000 Americans to free 25,000 ,000 Iraquis,(not a perfect analogy because Iraquis are not enslaved by Americans), so why can't Lincoln be second guessed, this does not make one a Lincoln hater.

Len| 11.25.10 @ 3:18PM

All states are sovereign, even those coming into being after the original union. If they were not sovereign they could not be parties to the compact per Article 7, which states that "The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same." Once a territory applied for statehood and was recognized by the other states as such, any prior claim to governing them as subordinate was given up. This is why all the states subsequently entering the union were received on "equal footing".

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 4:31PM

Absolute nonsense. The new states, save Texas, California and Hawaii, were never sovereign. They were creations of the national government, most purchased by the people of the United States as a whole with national revenues. The " equal footing" clause ensures that all states are treated equally WITHIN THE UNION. Article Seven merely addresses the point in time at which the Constitution shall become operative.

Simply another lame effort by those who oppose the NATION of the United States of America, to pretend it doesn't exist.

klarg| 11.25.10 @ 11:45AM

To RCV, I take it you have never read, "The Federalists Papers" (specifically regarding your views on the strength and centralization of the Federal government). You seem to be quite content to fabricate your own (version of) history.

RCV| 11.25.10 @ 12:53PM

Klarg, Not only have I read The Federalist papers, in my 35 years as a lawyer whose specialty was Constitutional Law, I have read and reread every word of them, something I strongly suspect you've not had the pleasure of doing.

Red Phillips | 11.25.10 @ 2:23PM

"as a lawyer whose specialty was Constitutional Law"

Well there's your problem. No group of people care less about original intent than those in the modern profession of law, and those specializing in "Constitutional Law" are the worst.

Honest question. Where you went to law school was originalism taken seriously?

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 4:35PM

Of course! To yokels like you, anyone who has actual training and knowledge and expertise in an area is automatically distrusted. Ignorance is the prime virtue in the Palin world.

Red Phillips | 11.30.10 @ 1:36PM

First of all RCV, I am not a Palin fan. She had her strong points when she was an unknown in Alaska, but she has now been entirely coopted by neocons. (She still has good enemies.) As you should have been able to detect from my comments here, I am a paleoconservative. I am not a mainstream movement conservative. So your assumption that I am a Palin supporter is based on ignorance. Perhaps you are not as smart as you think you are or else you just weren't paying attention.

That said, I will gladly accept your epithet of "yokel" and wear it with pride you elitist snob.

Did the law school you attended teach you that the Constitution means what the writers intended it to mean and the States understood it to mean when they ratified it (originalism), or did they teach you that the meaning of the Constitution is to be found in case law and precedents? Harvard and Yale sure don't teach originalism.

Yes, part of the problem is that questions of Constitutional interpretation have been entrusted to the legal guild. (They belong more appropriately to the history guild.) If that means that I am automatically distrustful of people with "actual training and knowledge and expertise" then so be it. (Funny thing though, I trust and want my plumber and auto mechanic to have "actual training and knowledge and expertise," so maybe it's just that the legal profession has uniquely earned that distrust.)

While I happily accept your designation as a yokel, don't bring your condescension back around here and expect it to not get get thrown right back at you. I will fiercely defend my fellow yokels.

Len| 11.25.10 @ 3:10PM

God?? Really, RCV, you despise God, so why bring him into the picture? Anyway, yes it is to people that God has given rights, and as such those peopel may enter into agreements with each other to form a government for their mutual benefit and protection, and thus that polity exercises the trust given to it in relation to other polities.
How silly, to attmept to take such a tack. It only makes my argument, for as you have said God gave rights to individuals and those individuals are the owners of those rights, not a government, and so no government may ever deny a people their right to re-assume what was only entrusted, not sold. Surely you understand that a property may be sold in exchange for a like and can not be taken back as neither was deprived of something, but a property under the management of someone else may always be taken out of the hands of that manager, particularly when that manager is considered to have mismanaged, or done harm in his management.
Back to God though as you brought Him up? God makes it very clear in the scriptures that it is by the action of His Spirit upon the heart of man that brings about good, not the employment of force by men, so why then your worship of government by men?

RCV| 11.25.10 @ 8:11PM

I "despise God" ? How dare you, you self - righteous ass! The real question, Len, is why you are so vehement at defending a regime dedicated to the subjugation of human beings. You profess to care about liberty, but only the
Liberty of white southerners, you little hypocrite.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:14AM

RCV, your arguments are sound, but you won't make any headway with these Lincoln-bashers. They are not really conservatives. They're libertarians of the extreme sort, most of them spawned by the drivel from the Lew Rockwell site.

RCV| 11.25.10 @ 1:23AM

Oh, I'm well aware of that, Vern. I just can't stand to see such drivel go unchallenged. They purport to be libertarians, but are quite content to sanction avstatus quo that denied millions of living, breathing human beings even the most basic of liberties. To them, South Carolina was apparently endowed with rights, but not several hundred thousand human beings who lived in that state. That's "libertarian"?

Len| 11.25.10 @ 3:28PM

Again with the conflation. Your obstinacy with this causes one to consider you as being intentionally dishonest.

AGAIN!!! Both Lincoln and the congress made no claims to having an intent to free the slaves, nor were they empowered to, and indeed prior to the southern states seceding, they were involved in insuring that those states were protected in continuing slavery. Lincoln in his first inaugural address indeed spoke in favor of an amendment to incorporate protection of slavery within the US constitution (the Corwin amendement), as I'm sure your aware of.

What you fail to realize, or are unwilling to admit (my money), is that to use force to keep people in a union is the same as using force to have people labor for you, only the manner of ruling of people is different, but both are slavery.

As I've also referenced many times while your so claimed altruistic north was freeing the slaves (not really) they were busy slaughtering the Indians, shutting down newspapers, shooting conscript protesters, burning down towns and farms, raping women, etc. So your claim of moral rightness is without merit.

Frank| 11.27.10 @ 10:01AM

RCV, I'm sure you're fit to sit in the same room as Lincoln; but neither of you are allowed in my house.

The issue of the day was trade tariffs. The cause of the war was the same as for most wars: money.

Ken Shepherd| 11.24.10 @ 9:25PM

Wow. Lots of heated opinions here.

I think it's safe to say history paints a far more complicated picture of Lincoln than the preferred vision of either the hagiographers who make him a demigod nor the haters who virulently denounce any and every aspect of his politics, policies, and prosecution of the war.

I would agree that the tendency is still towards hagiography in the public school system, but fidelity to conservatism and to sound history would dictate correcting that hagiography with dispassionate examination of Lincoln's record.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:20AM

Ken, there's no point in trying to be even-handed with the Lincoln-haters. It just feeds their hatred of Lincoln. Conservatives can find plenty of flaws in presidents or leaders, even in Lincoln, but the Lincoln-haters are ideologically driven, not historically-driven.

These Lew Rockwell libertarians hate all government, and that includes the Union, and by extension Lincoln. They won't give up their hatred of Lincoln until they give up their wicked anarchism -- but that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

Red Phillips | 11.25.10 @ 10:30AM

For the record Vern, I am not a Rockwellian anarcho-capitalist, although I do read Lew's site occasionally. I am a paleoconservative, a.k.a. a real conservative. If you think this Straussian/Jaffaite historical revisionist Lincoln Cultism is conservatism then you don't understand the meaning of the word and need a course in political philosophy 101. Also if you think it is not "ideologically driven" then you need to explore further. The fingerprints of this nonsense are all over the modern neo"conservative" agenda.

Len | 11.25.10 @ 10:51AM

Great argument Vern,I mean you made so many cogent points and totally refuted the arguments presented.

Val| 11.25.10 @ 6:01AM

If you believe that true enlightenment may only emanate forth from Washington D.C. , and that the oracles there are anointed with the purpose of controlling your life, then Lincoln was/ is your man!

Vic| 11.25.10 @ 1:25PM

While human slavery is and was a blatant violation of the natural law, so is enslaving an unwilling populace to to be slaves of the state. What the Lincoln worshipers wish to gloss over is the effects of the selective taxation on the populace of the south. This is one of the major issues dividing us to this day. Being the payers of a big portion of the taxes through tariffs at the time, the southern states felt the union had made slaves of them. Forcing taxpayers to finance a railroad which passed through not a single southern state, fueled as much of the resentment the south felt toward the union as the issue of slavery ever could. Having to help finance business that could not possibly be of benefit to you. Is that not slavery in a sense?

You will never convince me that the 90% of southerners too poor to own slaves would go along with a war to protect the institution. But if they were convinced that they themselves were being enslaved, they would gladly side with the 10%. Being forced to stay in a union against their will can hardly be called the action of a government interested in the preservation of natural law. These misguided tyrannical actions fueled much of the racism that haunts us even to this day.

I am waiting for the day when the northern busybodies and moralizers tire of their reconstruction of history, as well as the south. Rubbing our face in the actions of the tyrannical north of the 1800s does nothing to make southerners feel part of this union. I for one am quite sick of having this tyrant portrayed as some type of hero of the republic. I am quite tired of being forced to believe my ancestors were monsters. I am quite tired of having to prostrate myself before my northern betters. Perhaps he is a hero to the railroad robber barons, but to lovers of liberty, he was bloody traitor.

Pvt. Wilver| 11.25.10 @ 4:21PM

Confederate Pvt. Sam Watkins said it best: ""The United States has no North, no South, no East, no West. We are one and undivided." 600,000 men -all Americans- died in that war. Honor their memory by not refighting it!

aware| 11.26.10 @ 1:18PM

Vapid Lincoln worship. Bah!

Slack Jaw| 11.26.10 @ 2:23PM

I agree with RCV, Vern and the other Lincoln defenders. I was an abomination that all those Africans were brought to America to be slaves. They should have been left in Africa where they belong.

RCV| 11.26.10 @ 5:27PM

They should have left you in the cave with the other Neanderthals.

Slack Jaw| 11.26.10 @ 11:42PM

What is your problem RCV? I am agreeing with you you ingrate. Uprooting all those Africans and bringing them here as slaves was wrong. They should have been left in Africa which is their ancestral homeland. What part of this are you objecting to? Are you always this rude to people who agree with you?

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 4:39PM

Using the term "where they belong", you seem to be suggesting that African-Americans don' t " belong" in America in the present. If that was not your intended meaning, and you were only condemning the slave trade, I sincerely apologize.

Clint| 11.27.10 @ 10:36AM

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1861
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."

aware| 11.26.10 @ 5:15PM

A further, further perspective:
http://dailyreckoning.com/yeah-thanks-a-lot/

Steve| 11.27.10 @ 9:33AM

I'm a N.Y. Yankee by birth. I've read a number of books on Lincoln. Beyond DiLorenzo, there are several great Authors to consider:

How about Northern Pastor Charles L.C. Minor. He wrote a book in 1904 from all Northern Sources. His book was also called The Real Lincoln.
I read it, it's very good.
Or how about a book taken from Southern Diaries and Journals. Walter Brian Cisco wrote a book entitled War Crimes Against Southern Civilians. It's a horrific account of what they went through.
Both of them will make anyone who cares about our Constitution and States Rights think long and hard about this war against Southern Independence. Lincoln was for centralized power and control, he got his wish, and we live in his dream today.

Steve| 11.27.10 @ 12:04PM

Walter E. Williams
by Walter E. Williams

In 1831, long before the War between the States, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun said, "Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail." The War between the States answered that question and produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day.

Today’s federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Thomas J. DiLorenzo gives an account of how this came about in The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.

As DiLorenzo documents – contrary to conventional wisdom, books about Lincoln, and the lessons taught in schools and colleges – the War between the States was not fought to end slavery; Even if it were, a natural question arises: Why was a costly war fought to end it? African slavery existed in many parts of the Western world, but it did not take warfare to end it. Dozens of countries, including the territorial possessions of the British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, ended slavery peacefully during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Countries such as Venezuela and Colombia experienced conflict because slave emancipation was simply a ruse for revolutionaries who were seeking state power and were not motivated by emancipation per se.

Abraham Lincoln’s direct statements indicated his support for slavery; He defended slave owners’ right to own their property, saying that "when they remind us of their constitutional rights [to own slaves], I acknowledge them, not grudgingly but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the claiming of their fugitives" (in indicating support for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850).

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was little more than a political gimmick, and he admitted so in a letter to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase: "The original proclamation has no...legal justification, except as a military measure." Secretary of State William Seward said, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free. " Seward was acknowledging the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation applied only to slaves in states in rebellion against the United States and not to slaves in states not in rebellion.

The true costs of the War between the States were not the 620,000 battlefield-related deaths, out of a national population of 30 million (were we to control for population growth, that would be equivalent to roughly 5 million battlefield deaths today). The true costs were a change in the character of our government into one feared by the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Calhoun – one where states lost most of their sovereignty to the central government. Thomas Jefferson saw as the most important safeguard of the liberties of the people "the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies."

If the federal government makes encroachments on the constitutional rights of the people and the states, what are their options? In a word, their right to secede. Most of today’s Americans believe, as did Abraham Lincoln, that states do not have a right to secession, but that is false. DiLorenzo marshals numerous proofs that from the very founding of our nation the right of secession was seen as a natural right of the people and a last check on abuse by the central government. For example, at Virginia’s ratification convention, the delegates affirmed "that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to injury or oppression." In Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801), he declared, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." Jefferson was defending the rights of free speech and of secession. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America, "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disapprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." The right to secession was popularly held as well. DiLorenzo lists newspaper after newspaper editorial arguing the right of secession. Most significantly, these were Northern newspapers. In fact, the first secession movement started in the North, long before shots were fired at Fort Sumter. The New England states debated the idea of secession during the Hartford Convention of 1814–1815.

Lincoln’s intentions, as well as those of many Northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the senatorial debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that would "place at defiance the intentions of the republic’s founders." Douglas was right, and Lincoln’s vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed.

The War between the States settled by force whether states could secede. Once it was established that states cannot secede, the federal government, abetted by a Supreme Court unwilling to hold it to its constitutional restraints, was able to run amok over states’ rights, so much so that the protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments mean little or nothing today. Not only did the war lay the foundation for eventual nullification or weakening of basic constitutional protections against central government abuses, but it also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The Real Lincoln contains irrefutable evidence that a more appropriate title for Abraham Lincoln is not the Great Emancipator, but the Great Centralizer.

steve| 11.27.10 @ 12:14PM

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew.....ncoln.html

a slightly different version.

RCV| 11.27.10 @ 7:44PM

And how much consent did the 3 .6 million humans held in bondage give to the governments of those Southern states?

Steve| 11.27.10 @ 8:08PM

Many fought side by side with their Southern soldiers. You see, in those days, no one had any allegiance to a country, the allegiance was to your state, the states were sovereign, and voluntarily joined a Union. Many like Lee and Jefferson actually prepared their slaves for the day they would be free. Teaching them to read and write.
Lincoln had no intention of freeing any slaves to remain here. His plan was to deport them all. He even set up new territories for whites only. As I've said, there is a lot to learn out there those "History" books in school left out.

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 7:06PM

Please, enough with the Gone With The Wind mythology. Slavery was a brutal, cruel system. Children sold, husbands and wives separated, rape, backs scarred with whipping for the basic desire of freedom and running away. If it was as benign as you would have the uneducated believe, the South wouldn't have needed the hated Fugitive Slave Law.

As for a national identity, you are also just plain wrong. Tens of thousands of Americans -- and, by 1860, most folks outside the deep South had come to see themselves as just that -- volunteered and gave their lives to preserve the national Union. One only has to review the popular press, the songs of the time, and most especially the poignant catalouged and collected letters of soldiers to appreciate how deeply a national identity had been forged by that date.

RCV| 11.27.10 @ 7:51PM

We live in the freest, most prosperous society in human history, where a greater percentage of those governed have a voice in that governance than ever before; where we can instantly communicate freely with people around the world, and where every child born has a greater chance to succeed in life than ever before.

And, yet, those blind to all that are nostalgic for the mint-julep made-up version of the pre- war South, a society where human beings were bought and sold, brutalized at will. Sick.

Steve| 11.27.10 @ 7:59PM

Actually RCV, they were treated far worse in the North, than in the South. You see, in the South they were fed, clothed, and taught to read and write by many. It made no sense to treat them badly, they were needed for work. In fact, many Blacks owned plantations. In the book, War Crimes against Southern Civilians, some of the Black Plantation owners were tortured by Northern Soldiers. It seems they couldn't believe Blacks owned anything.
It helps to get away from the Government chools Indoctrination and read on your own. I too, was taught the P/C stuff, much of which isn't true.

John| 11.27.10 @ 8:12PM

rcv
you are moralizing about an isssue that is not an issue, who is nostalgic for slavery? it makes you feel good to act morally superior, but nobody i know is nostalgic for what you call the mint julep south. the question is should Lincoln have tried more diplomacy before over 600,000 young americans were killed to "preserve the union." You do know and agree that North did not go to war to end slavery, that reason came later. enough of your self-righteous, phony indignation.

Steve| 11.27.10 @ 12:56PM

Two guys from the Conservative Chronicle heydays on Lincoln:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese169.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sob.....j14.1.html

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 8:08AM

The first article is by Charlie Resse, an actual conservative.
The second article is by Joe Sobran, he too, was an actual conservative. I stay away from the neoconservatives these days. After studying history, I've found they don't represent true history.

axbucxdu| 11.27.10 @ 1:12PM

More Lincoln schmoozing. But we have him to thank for (fiat) greenback circulation and Section 4 of the 14th amendment, where it says government debt means exactly what the USG of the time says it means.

It was without doubt at this point that the Constitution was abrogated. Lincoln's responsible. Let's see how long this posts lasts.

Albert A.| 11.28.10 @ 12:28AM

I agree with Slack Jaw and RCV. It is a shame that all those Africans were brought here against their will as slaves. Think how much different America would be today had selfish Northern slave traders and Southern plantation owners not put their interests ahead of the long term interests of their country. We would have much less crime, our inner cities would be livable, white people wouldn't have to live in suburbs a long ways from their jobs so their kids could go to "good" schools, we would have a lot fewer Democrats in office, our national IQ would be higher, etc. We would suck at certain sports, but I would be willing to make that trade off. Again I say, shame on those wicked slave traders and owners.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 12:41AM

So it's not enough AmSpec has to suffer from the ravings of kook libertarians and anti-Lincoln fanatics. Now, it has to be persecuted by the howlings of white supremacists. AmSpec desparately needs a moderator.

Clint| 11.28.10 @ 5:27AM

Ronald Reagan July,1975:
" If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path."

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 7:51AM

Reagan was correct. The Founders were in two groups: Libertarians and Socialists.

The good guys: Jefferson, Washington
The Bad Guys: Adams and Hamilton.

So many have commented to these posts with their Government School Indoctrination point of view. I once had that as well. So, I can understand their posts, 4 years ago, without the knowledge I have now, I was one of them as well.

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 8:13AM

Vern,
Maybe it would be helpful to study. I posted Rush Limbaughs fill in host, Walter E. Williams, a black man no less, and his views. And also, two other conservatives, Charlie Reese, and Joe Sobran. Maybe you just haven't studied enough.
If you believe in the Constitution, and the limits it imposes on the Central Government, you'd be hard pressed to think Lincoln did anything to uphold that document.

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 8:40AM

I don't know Vern, I kind of like freedom of speech, and different voices to be heard on all subjects. Of course, Lincoln too, didn't like other voices to be heard, so in that respect, you and he are in sink.

aware| 11.28.10 @ 11:26AM

Vern proves that in the chest of a neo con beats the heart of a true statist. Always calling for the "authorities" to smack down the unruly ones. And if one is not available, then we must create one.

No wonder they are no use in the fight for liberty.

Hey Vern, was it not enough to burn our farms and towns, kill women and children, murder half our young men, force us to take "oaths" at bayonet point, and economically destroy the region for a century? Must we also be forced to worship at the feet of your warlord too?

Glad to be called "extreme" in the cause of individual liberty by conformists like you.

Red Phillips | 11.28.10 @ 2:54PM

Where the moderation needs to come in for a conservative website is in what articles they chose to post on the front page, not in the comments which are understood to be a free-for-all. Since RCV hasn't stepped up to the task, please explain to me how Jaffaite Lincoln historical revisionism in the name of justifying the neocon conception of America as a Jacobin ideological state is in any way conservative. Thanks.

Albert A.| 11.28.10 @ 4:25PM

I'm a white supremacist? I admitted that Africans are better at some sports. I must be a bad white supremacist. I am a fact supremacist. Everything I wrote is a fact. Do you dispute that people of African descent are disproportionately responsible for crime? Or that Africans on average have lower IQs? Or that whites flee to "good" neighborhoods with "good" schools? I dare you to disagree with any of those assertions. The truth is sometimes hard. It is not my fault that you are not willing to deal with the truth and want to censor me.

When you and RCV denounce the South for slavery you are in effect saying you wish modern America had fewer blacks. As above, this is true whether you wish to admit it or not. I am saying that I agree with you.

RCV| 11.29.10 @ 3:13PM

I decidedly do NOT wish the US had fewer blacks. Condemning the slave trade is not the same thing as damning the present-day descendants of slaves. I have many, many friends who are African-American, and they are wonderful people, who I am thankful to know. The strength and vitality of our country is in the diversity of our people, including our African-American citizens.

Burke| 11.29.10 @ 9:49PM

The strength and vitality of our country is in the diversity of our people

Could you be any more cliched PC? So I guess you will be investing in some property and moving into inner city Detroit or you will be sending your daughter or wife unaccompanied into East St. Louis? Put your money where your mouth is big boy.

RCV| 11.29.10 @ 11:34PM

And why would I do that? Believe it or not, there are blacks who don't live in Detroit slums, or commit crimes in East St Louis. There are black Americans who are cops, and lawyers, and career military officers; who are talented doctors and musicians and just plain everyday people with families and lives just like yours.

Could you be any more cliched ignorant bigot?

Burke| 11.30.10 @ 11:09PM

And why would I do that?

So you can celebrate some of that wonderful diversity you hypocrite.

gary siebel| 11.28.10 @ 12:56AM

LOL The North obviously made a serious mistake after the assassination of Lincoln. They should have exterminated every single Confederate so we wouldn't have to listen to their idiotic nonsense today.
Those who insist on displaying the Confederate -ideological as well as literal- flag must be proud to be losers, because that is what they are, and will always remain.

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 7:46AM

Well Gary, they tried their best! They destroyed most homes, Farms, and businesses in the South. Despite the illegality of the war, they killed most livestock, set all their crops on fire, and looted as much as possible.
I'm Central N.Y. born and raised.
Yes, the South lost their bid to live in Freedom. All they wanted was to be left alone, Lincoln had other plans. He went for Total War, destroying everything to maintain Centralized Power and Control.

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 4:48PM

To " live in freedom". ?? Yes, freedom to own, buy and sell 3.6 million human beings. The mistake after the Civil War was not harsh treatment of the insurrectionists. It was the crooked political deal that allowed them to reimpose white supremacy and subjugate Blacks for another hundred years.

The racists on this post are truly nauseating human beings.

john| 11.28.10 @ 5:36PM

rcv: who are the racists? define racism since you claim to be a lawyer? what about the 600,000 young americans who were killed in the war, were they all racists? you are a typical self righteous left wing liberal who throws out the word racist .

RCV| 11.28.10 @ 7:18PM

I never lightly use the term. But the people on this very post who openly wish that America had fewer blacks, who assert that slavery was benign, are by any fair term, racists.

Many of those 600,000 young Americans -- including my great-great-grandfather, who was killed at Petersburg -- were ardent abolitionists and not racists. And many young non-slave owning Southerners, who were persuaded by the planters and bankers interested in preserving cheap slave labor, that the war was in their interests, were not racists. But people who thought it was permissible to own other human beings because the color of their skin made that OK, were indeed by definition racists.

john| 11.28.10 @ 10:21PM

rcv. agree with your comment.

Clint| 11.28.10 @ 11:23PM

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861:
“I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that- ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.’ Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them."

Our military family honors our two fallen federal troopers and honors States Rights.

Clint| 11.28.10 @ 5:59AM

"The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back. "– H.L. Mencken

Steve| 11.28.10 @ 8:03AM

Clint, very good post! What people don't realize is the un constitutionality of Lincolns war. He declared war on the South. Sorry, congress must declare war. He shut down hundreds of Northern Newspapers that opposed his war, and jailed, without charges, thousands of Northerners.
The entire war, and secession movement was started of tariffs. Lincoln had pushed a bill through congress before the election to raise the tariffs on Southern Good, to fund Northern "internal improvements," what we'd call today, pork spending. The South had seen enough, and when Lincoln won the Election with 39% of the vote, Southern States decided to secede. After all, it was a Voluntary Confederacy. In fact, when adopting the constitution, three states sought, and got, conformation that it was voluntary, and could leave at any time.
There were several secession movements, prior to the South.
There was a New England secession movement, and a Middle States secession movement.
A lot of our actual American History isn't told today.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 11:51AM

For a critique of neo-confederacy, see: http://vernerable.wordpress.co.....federates/

Dave K| 11.28.10 @ 4:02PM

Vern,
Your critic of neo-confederacy contains some really sloppy thinking. You admit Lincoln was wrong to deny the states were ever sovereign but you then claim sovereignty was lost by ratifying the Constitution. This is false. When the people of the several states ratified the Constitution they did not "give up" their sovereignty, they simply delegated some of their sovereign powers to the newly created federal government. Since those powers were "delegated" they can be taken back whenever the people so decide. This is what self government is all about i.e changing political arrangements to suit the needs of the people. Lincoln's perverted thinking put the government above the law, and the law above the people. That is nothing to celebrate.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 6:25PM

You need to reread my essay, which has no sloppy thinking in it. It's because you brought slopping thinking to it. In fact Madison made it plain as day that sovereignty was not unitary but was mixed in the Constitution. Read some of his last letters on the subject.

Your state rights philosophy fits the Articles of Confederation but not the Constitution. The States more than "delegated" part of their sovereignty. They gave it up. That was the only way we could have a Constitutional government.

Abraham Lincoln was the heir of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Lew Rockwell libertarians just need to get that through their heads and celebrate Lincoln for the great statesman and belated Founding Father that he was.

Clint | 11.28.10 @ 6:46PM

Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stevens Smith, November 13, 1787:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty . . . And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Clint| 11.28.10 @ 7:06PM

Thomas Jefferson, February 15th,1791:
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition. "

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 11:09PM

Jefferson is talking about the natural right of revolution, not about "secession" of the Southern type. A State undelegates is sovereignty only by such revolution. Until the state of revolution is entered, a State has no legal or constitution right of nullification or secession.

aware| 11.29.10 @ 6:04AM

Your essay is nothing but opinion presented as dogma. Wrong on so many levels. You need to re-read the anti-federalists, especially The Farmer. They said the central government would eventually rest on force not the consent of the people. Quit trying to find Klansman under every bed and look around, do you think you are as free as your father? Is the trend toward greater State power or individual liberty?

Sherman the "humanitarian".....yeah sure.

You just end up supporting the current monster State and all it does. From the rest of your musings I think you want some kind of fascist theocracy. Call yourself "conservative" but you are actually a neo con Warfare State cheerleader.

And I would like to know what a neo-confederate is, since I've lived in the South all my life and as yet have never encountered one. Notice that no one here has insisted that you give up your deification of Lincoln, just that we don't ascribe to this view. It is you that says that we "have to get get things through our heads". Spoken like a true authoritarian.

As for the anachro-capitalists(and I'm one), compare the rantings of Rush Limbaugh, you, Gingrich, or any other current "conservatives" with the well thought out critiques of Bastiat, Robert Higgs, or Murray Rothbard to see the intellectual shallowness that conservatism has come to. Conservatism now accepts the Welfare State and contents itself with small adjustments at the edges, and even adding to the corrupt mess when in power(Bush the Lesser). Pathetic excuse for "opposition". Granted you are not as bad as the Commiecrats but you accept the ground rules set by them, the main one being the unquestioned primacy of the State in everything.

Vern Crisler| 11.29.10 @ 10:07PM

So you admit being an anti-Federalist. Go away traitor.

Since I spent several essays defending Constitutionalism and criticizing theocratic politics (as held by Gary North), I'd suggest you invest in a new pair of reading glasses.

aware| 11.30.10 @ 6:12AM

And I would suggest you take a good look at what you are defending, the current State.

Constitutionalism.....yeah the constitution has done a marvelous job at protecting liberty and preventing the rise of the Leviathan hasn't it. One would think that the document was stolen by aliens at some point and we have to get it back, instead of being here all along.

Anti federalist= traitor? Like Patrick Henry?
Or this piece of sedition from Sam Adams writing as Candidus:

"No government under heaven could have preserved a people from ruin, or kept their commerce from declining, when they were exhausting their valuable resources in paying for superfluities, and running themselves in debt to foreigners, and to each other for articles of folly and dissipation:—While this is the case, we may contend about forms of government, but no establishment will enrich a people, who wantonly spend beyond their income."

Or what about this from Brutus: “The power to borrow money is general and unlimited, and the clause so often before referred to, (the Necessary and Proper Clause) authorizes the passing (of) any laws proper and necessary to carry this into execution. Under this authority Congress may mortgage any or all the revenues of the union, as a fund to loan money upon; and it is probable, in this way, they may borrow of foreign nations, a principal sum, the interest of which will be equal to the annual revenues of the country. By this means, they may create a national debt, so large, as to exceed the ability of the county to ever sink. I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge.”

Yeah those anti federalists didn't have a clue huh? You've already shown your longing for dictatorship with calls for a moderator to silence any opposing views.

Tim*| 11.28.10 @ 12:42PM

Ulysses S. Grant:
“If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side.”

ton| 11.29.10 @ 12:28PM

Actually, the only slave in Richmond in 1865 belonged to Grant's wife. Funny how facts don't fit the myths.

Dick Simmons| 11.28.10 @ 7:50PM

To be conservative shouldn't involve worshiping at the foot of the Slave Power, regardless how you dress up that harlot with the veil of "state sovereignty". The reactionaries (and that is exactly what they are) who ignore the fact of chattel slavery and the 100 years of Jim Crow that followed are willfully blind. By rights they can't be called libertarians at ALL, for they reserved for themselves their liberties while denying them to a whole race. I too have studied the Civil War for nigh on 50 years, the area I live in was torn by the worst sectarian local division. I have the upmost respect for the Southern fighting man, but his leaders were looking for a fight and they found it.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:42PM

Agreed, and well put. That's why I refer to the Lincoln-haters and Lew Rockwell types as extreme- or hyper-libertarians. I regard myself as conservative and semi-libertarian.

Clint| 11.28.10 @ 11:09PM

Lincoln wrote on August 22, 1862:
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

Dave K| 11.28.10 @ 7:57PM

Vern,
Sorry to say Lincoln was the anti-Jefferson. A look at the Kentucky Resolutions penned by Jefferson proves this. Madison's agreement with the Virginia Resolutions puts him in the same boat with Jefferson. Madison does not say sovereignty is divided between state and federal government (how can sovereignty be divided?) he explains how sovereign "powers" were divided. In the American system the People of the individual states are the sovereigns. They create their governments. They delegate to those governments their sovereign powers to be exercised for their good. Since the people are the sovereigns they can change their governments at will. This is what the Southern states did when they seceded from the Union. They recalled the powers they delegated to the Feds and resumed them to themselves. Nothing treasonous or unAmerican about that (see Declaration of Independence)! If the people of the states gave up their sovereignty when they ratified the Constitution who did they give it up to?

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:33PM

Go crawl back under your hyper-libertarian rock....

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:35PM

Sorry, that was meant for Incitatus.

All you have to do is read Madison's letters. He himself says the basic fallacy of nullification is the idea of unitary sovereignty.

Dave K| 11.28.10 @ 8:02PM

Dick S,
One can be opposed to slavery and Lincoln's War at the same time. Slavery was no excuse for mass murder and the destruction of the Old Republic.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:39PM

It was the old South fire-eaters who were trying to destroy the Old Republic.

Incitatus| 11.28.10 @ 8:43PM

I really enjoyed this comments section. I see several articulate and knowledgeable folks on both side. Well, a little more lopsided to the Lincoln revisionism side, those people seem to present a better case.

However this drooling incoherent unimaginative harlequin Vern Crisler couldn’t come up with anything better than all these hissy sophomoric attacks. Amazing.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:10AM
Ray, don't bother trying to argue with Lincoln-haters. It's a waste of time. They've got their heads up their rectums so far, even a TSA worker couldn't find it.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:07AM
Oh, go back to your Lew Rockwell hellhole. I'm sick of Lincoln bashers hijacking AmSpec.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:05AM
Megadittos RCV. Maybe if some of these anti-Lincoln imbeciles would read good books on Lincoln and throw away all the DiLorenzo crap, they'd learn a thing or two.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:02AM
It's unfortunate that AmSpec seems to attract a lot of extreme libertarians and Lincoln-haters. DiLorenzo's book is a joke, and Lincoln had nothing to do with 20th century statism.

Why don't you Lew Rockwell types move on and stop infesting AmSpec.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:14AM
RCV, your arguments are sound, but you won't make any headway with these Lincoln-bashers. They are not really conservatives. They're libertarians of the extreme sort, most of them spawned by the drivel from the Lew Rockwell site.

Vern Crisler| 11.25.10 @ 1:20AM
Ken, there's no point in trying to be even-handed with the Lincoln-haters. It just feeds their hatred of Lincoln. Conservatives can find plenty of flaws in presidents or leaders, even in Lincoln, but the Lincoln-haters are ideologically driven, not historically-driven.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 12:41AM
So it's not enough AmSpec has to suffer from the ravings of kook libertarians and anti-Lincoln fanatics. Now, it has to be persecuted by the howlings of white supremacists. AmSpec desparately needs a moderator.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:36PM

Go crawl back under your hyper-libertarian rock....

Read Dabney| 11.28.10 @ 10:22PM

I am not interested in "natural law." I am interested in God's law. Would one of you abolitionist moralizers please point me to a Bible verse that condemns the master/slave relationship and the institution of slavery per se. I will point you to many verses that regulate the practice. Read Dabney and educate yourself.

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:38PM

Hello "Read Dabney." In fact natural law just is God's law. See Paul in the Book of Romans, who says it's the same as the covenant law.

Slavery in the Bible is not the same as the chattel slavery of the old South. Read Hodge.....

Dick Simmons| 11.28.10 @ 11:27PM

Let's see... all the Lincoln-haters here would agree. That slavery is a bad thing. For HIM.

Clint| 11.29.10 @ 12:02AM

Many Lincoln apologists seem to have no problem with the abrogation of states rights and many civil liberties, habeas corpus, freedom of speech in the press and freedom of individual speech on the soap box, and illegal imprisonment, seizures and confiscation of property.

Incitatus| 11.29.10 @ 8:22AM

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 11:51AM
For a critique of neo-confederacy, see: http://vernerable.wordpress.co.....federates/

Vern Crisler| 11.28.10 @ 10:38PM
“See Paul in the Book of Romans, who says it's the same as the covenant law.”

“Slavery in the Bible is not the same as the chattel slavery of the old South. Read Hodge..…”

Would he care to elucidate?

Vern Crisler, the quack prescriber. “Take two authors and call me in the morning.”

Writes means prescriptions but I wonder if he ever reads a menu.

Vern Crisler| 11.29.10 @ 9:10AM

Your rock is waiting.....

Dave K| 11.29.10 @ 9:24AM

Vern,
When will you tell us to whom the states surrendered their sovereignty when they ratified the Constitution? Did they give it up to the federal government? Did they give it up to a nation state that did not exist? Please answer.

Vern Crisler| 11.29.10 @ 10:05PM

They gave up PART of their sovereignty, not all of it. That's why Madison described the new Constitution as providing a unique form of government, and mixture of national and federal characteristics.

Dave K| 11.29.10 @ 11:36PM

Vern Crisler| 11.30.10 @ 12:46AM

James Madision said: "The main pillar of nullification is the assumption that sovereignty is a unit, at once indivisible and unalienable; that the states therefore individually retain it entire as they originally held it, and, consequently that no portion of it can belong to the U. S."
("Notes on Nullification," 1834.)

Thus, if you give any weight to Madison's words -- and you should -- then sovereignty under the Constitution is a divided sovereignty, shared between the States and the National Government.

It's true that the people do not "give up" their sovereignty as if it were forever alienated from them. But they can only "take it back" either through the means provided by the Constitution which they ratified, or by means of revolution.

Divided sovereignty, however, is what happens when people come together to form a compact. If they do not surrender part of their sovereignty, then they haven't really formed a compact. (Locke's point.)

Lincoln certainly understood Madisonian principles, but neo-confederates still think the Constitution was just a bigger version of the Articles of Confederation. No graver misunderstanding of the American system of government can be contemplated, and it's a misunderstanding neo-confederates and hyper-libertarians share with old Confederates.

Conservatives defend Lincoln because in doing so they are defending the founding fathers.

Red Phillips | 11.30.10 @ 1:02PM

Actually Vern, Madison was all over the place. At times he was pro-nullification. At times he was not. Read the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers. The author is not kind to Madison.

I see the point you are making about divided sovereignty, but I think you are getting it backwards. It is actually the Unionist who believe in one undivided sovereign, the Feds. Under their system the Feds share subordinate sovereignty with the States, but ultimately the Feds are the single indivisible sovereign. (This is essentially Hobbesian.) What we need is divided and competing sovereignty. With each sovereignty jealous of its own sphere. With this you have both verticle and horizontal checks and balances. Under the Unionist system you only ultimately have horizontal checks and balances. So one branch of the Feds gets to keep the other branches of the Feds in check. How is that working out for you?

Dave K| 11.30.10 @ 8:43PM

Madison's complaint with the Nullifiers was with their willingness to nullify legitimate federal law. When the states ratified the Const. they did delegate some of their sovereign powers to the feds, so those powers were not to be exercised by the states as long as they remained in the union and lived up to the compact. The Madison quote with regard to the Nullifiers is not about sovereignty pure and simple but about sovereign "powers". This is made clear by the fact that he speaks of divided sovereignty ( an oxymoron if sovereignty itself was meant) and the sovereignty of the US government ( governments are not sovereign in the American system since the people can change them). I don't think you understand the difference between sovereignty and sovereign powers. They are two different things.
Madison did acknowledge the sovereignty of the states numerous times in the Federalist. In #40 for example he asks if in establishing the Constitution the states were to be considered distinct and independent sovereigns. He answers "they are so regarded by the Constitution proposed". In the same tract he says "the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the Convention, may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation". The delegation of a few more powers to the federal government by the Constitution did not change the locus of sovereignty in the American system. It still remains with the people of the individual states.

Derek Leaberry| 11.29.10 @ 1:09PM

Lincoln is one of the greatest scoundrels of American history. He is responsible for the destruction of the First Republic, the deaths of 625,000 men, and a century of Southern poverty. Beware any Republican or "conservative" who lauds Lincoln.

RCV| 11.29.10 @ 1:53PM

Here we are on the verge of the year 2011. We live in the freeest, most prosperous country in world history, with instant access of communication to virtually everyone on earth, and more options open to us than people have ever had. We still face monumental problems including terrorism and the potential of nuclear annihilation.

And on this site, people are refighting the Civil War, others are pretending we're still an 18th century agrarian society where we could function as 50 sovereign little states, and still others are looking to model society on 1st century BC Palestine. It's like a little insane asylum here sometimes.

Red Phillips | 11.29.10 @ 7:10PM

RCV, you have stumbled upon the heart of the matter, perhaps inadvertantly or perhaps not, and I thank you for your candor.

All the moral grandstanding and posturing re. slavery you and others like you do is merely in the service of a different agenda. While different people may be more or less inclined to view the issue of slavery in the terms that it was viewed at the time, clearly no one today is pining away to re-institute slavery. So hindsight fingerwagging serves no purpose other than to attempt to discredit an argument (the true nature of the union) of which you take the opposite side in the modern debate. The issue of the nature of the union is independent of the issue of slavery even if you accept entirely the mythologized historical narrative of virtuous North vs. evil South.

As your above comment makes clear, you are a nationalist and you support a strong union and a strong central government because you think such is necessary to carry out the affairs of a modern nation and provide for our security. It is a safe assumption that you also believe it is necessary for America to be strong so we can fulfill our international role as "leader of the free world,".although you didn't say that in so many words. (It's a safe assumption because I recognize the pattern.)

You treat dismissively those who believe America "could function as 50 sovereign little states." Such is only suitable for the governing of an "18th century agrarian society" you dismissively assert.

Well there we have it. You are, by your own admission, a modernist who embraces a modern (post-French Revolution) conception of the nation state and who treats contemptuously those who wish to cling to an older conception of the state. Sometimes people who embrace the older conception of things are referred to as conservatives. Conversely, people who embrace modern ideas are often referred to as liberals or progressives.

So if you want to embrace a modern conception of the state because you think such is necessary to govern a modern society then fine. Do so. But please do so honestly. Please spare us the moral grandstanding about slavery. This debate is not about slavery. It is about the nature of the union. Also, please spare us the notion that you care one iota about what the Founders intended. Even if we grant the most generous nationalistic reading of the Constitution, conceding all the unionist arguments, the government we have today that you defend is far more centralized and vigorous than even the most ardent Federalist such as Hamilton or Morris ever envisioned. Also, please spare us any further debate about who is and who is not trying to preserve the Old Republic. And finally, please please spare us any further argument about which side in this debate is the conservative side (interested in CONSERVING) and which side is the modernist/progressive side.

If you support a vigorous centralized Federal government because you think it is necessary and good, then make that case. But please quit trying to hook your modern statism to a historic vehicle (Lincoln, the WBTS, slavery) because you think you can get some mileage out of it. You don't give a warm bucket of spit about this country as originally intended as your contempt for those who do obviously indicates.

Again, thank you for your candor.

Incitatus| 11.29.10 @ 7:39PM

People on this site are not “…refighting the Civil War, others are pretending we're still an 18th century agrarian society…”

They are setting the record straight from fallacies being harped on such as RCV’s that the war was all about slavery and that couldn’t be furthest from the truth. The war of northern aggression was about a despotic genocidal tyrant who couldn’t stomach the will of the people to secede on his watch, specially months after his inauguration.

It was about decades of Yankee economic overbearance. Lincoln made it clear during many public speeches that slavery was not the issue.

The industrialized North sold its products to the South which sold its cotton to the North. The South also hada similar trade with Europe and that was an annoyance to the North. Europe was selling many products at much lower prices and the North was losing market share big time.

So the tricky dicky Northern politicians passed protectionist legislation putting import duties on industrial products to stop the importation of European goods and force the South to buy from the North at higher prices. To boot Europe retaliated by curtailing the purchase of American cotton. Guess who ended up being sodomized? That was a case of legalized plunder and the South couldn’t take it no more and wanted out.

Moreover, the powers that be in Europe wanted to see America embroiled in civil war. France and England were eager to profit from it.

The issue of slavery was a convenient ploy and the crucial card Lincoln had to play when he saw he was really losing the war.

“… where we could function as 50 sovereign little states…”

Why couldn’t we?

Red Phillips | 11.30.10 @ 12:49PM

"Why couldn't we?"

Incitatus, RCV doesn't think we can because then we wouldn't be able to fulfill our "destiny" of "national greatness." We would have to be a humble country tending to our own affairs, and we can't have that.

Louis Vttion handbags | 12.9.10 @ 1:39AM

Hmm communism another delicate issue that causes dispute even between people that share the same opinion.
Loved the article and do agree with George's interpretation of it.
I come from a communist country so I guess my opinion is a bit blurred, but to be honest I believe that every social system has problems whereby the people suffer

weddingdress | 7.5.11 @ 4:47AM

How can sovereignty be divided? One is either the sovereign or not. The sovereign "powers" the people delegate to their governments can be divided between state and federal governments but it is the people of the individual states who are the sovereigns in the American system. They do not "give up" their sovereignty when they ratify a constitution , whether it be a state constitution or federal one. The people make the law which makes the government. They can change it at will. This is what self determination and self government is all about. Lincoln had it all upside down and backwards. Why do self styled conservative defend him? Real sadHow can sovereignty be divided? One is either the sovereign or not. The sovereign "powers" the people delegate to their governments can be divided between state and federal governments but it is the people of the individual states who are the sovereigns in the American system. They do not "give up" their sovereignty when they ratify a constitution , whether it be a state constitution or federal one. The people make the law which makes the government. They can change it at will. This is what self determination and self government is all about. Lincoln had it all upside down and backwards. Why do self styled conservative defend him? Real sad

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