Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Ron Paul thinks Abraham Lincoln started the Civil War
Republican presidential hopeful and all around crackpot Ron Paul was on Meet The Press this past weekend and capitalized on the opportunity by showing America just how kooky he is. He blamed Abraham Lincoln, arguably our most beloved president of starting the Civil War. This from MSNBC:
Paul repeated his claim that Abraham Lincoln should not have started the Civil War to get rid of slavery. “Six-hundred-thousand Americans died in the senseless Civil War,” he said. “No, he should not have gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original tenet of the Republic,” he told NBC’s Tim Russert.
“Slavery was phased out in every other country in the world,” Paul continued, responding to the question if America would still have slavery had there not been the Civil War. “The way I’m proposing that it should have been done is do it like the British Empire did — you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans?… I mean, that doesn’t sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.”
Except “buying the slaves” would give credence to the idea that humans can be bought and sold like farm animals. That was kind of the whole point in abolishing slavery.
People are not livestock.
Lincoln did not choose to go to war. The war came to him. The United States did not declare war against the Confederacy. The Confederacy declared war against the United States. The southern states illegally seceded from the United States one by one in reaction to Lincoln winning the election. They feared that Lincoln would abolish slavery. Lincoln only called from states to provide troops to assist retaking U.S. forts in southern states after the Battle of Fort Sumter.
A part of me feels sorry for Ron Paul supporters. I understand why they gravitate towards him and his candidacy. Ron Paul is the only anti-Iraq war candidate on the Republican side. Unlike most candidates in either party, Paul comes out and clearly says what he believes. It’s refreshing. The problem is that some of the stuff he comes out and says that he believes in is just plain wrong. Not philosophically wrong, but factually wrong. Like that Lincoln stated the Civil War or that a fertilized egg is a human being. To be a Ron Paul supporter, you have to chose to ignore an awful lot.
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The word is “secede.” It’s not a difficult word. Why is there no one on the Internet who can spell it right?
Leaving a union you voluntarily signed up for is not illegal. South Carolina left the Union, but Union soldiers persisted in occupying a South Carolinian fort. By not leaving Sumter in spite of repeated warnings, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson was the aggressor.
Ah, yes. “The War of Northern Aggression.” Not only do you sound like a sanctimonious prick in your first three sentences, but you seem to be from the American South as well. And the rest of your post leads me to believe that you feel the South was righteous in their defense of slavery. That’s a pretty bold statement in the 21st century. Are you truly in favor of slavery?
Tell me, are you one of the Sons of the South still fighting the “War of Northern Aggression?” I, personally, would gladly give back the entire festering cesspool of the South in a heartbeat. You can fucking have it.
Leaving the Union might not have been illegal in your opinion, but it was traitorous, disloyal, and un-American in a vast majority of the modern U.S. population’s mind.
And Fort Sumter was a federally owned fort. It was not South Carolina’s property. Major Anderson, a Major for the victorious side, was not “occupying” the fort. He was a U.S. soldier in a fort owned by the U.S. government. The fact that South Carolina had seceded does nothing to change the ownership of the fort. So when they “warned” him to leave, they were trying to take U.S. government property, which they had no rights to because of their secession.
Get your facts straight, Cooter. Y’all can fuck yerself.
The Illustrated University History, 1878, p. 504, tells us that the southern states swarmed with British agents. These conspired with local politicians to work against the best interests of the United States. Their carefully sown and nurtured propaganda developed into open rebellion and resulted in the secession of South Carolina on December 29, 1860. Within weeks another six states joined the conspiracy against the Union, and broke away to form the Confederate States of America, with Jefferson Davis as President.
The plotters raided armies, seized forts, arsenals, mints and other Union property. Even members of President Buchanan’s Cabinet conspired to destroy the Union by damaging the public credit and working to bankrupt the nation. Buchanan claimed to deplore secession but took no steps to check it, even when a U.S. ship was fired upon by South Carolina shore batteries.
History reveals that the Rothschilds were heavily involved in financing both sides in the Civil War. Lincoln put a damper on their activities when, in 1862 and 1863, he refused to pay the exorbitant rates of interest demanded by the Rothschilds and issued constitutionally-authorized, interest free United States notes. For this and other acts of patriotism Lincoln was shot down in cold-blood by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, just five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia.
And there is the REAL HISTORY of the Civil War,,feel better now? Sheepster?
I am not that versed on Civil War history myself.
Whether or not Ron Paul is factually correct on that issue is immaterial to me.
What matters is that he seems to be the best suited candidate to fix what’s wrong with this country right now.
Arguing these things is like saying that Obama got a “C-” in math in 6th grade, so “I feel sorry for Obama supporters”… WTF?
Who is Sheepster? Is that the guy from those commercials that are always on?
@Ben - Secede or succeed, it doesn’t really matter. If you are going to get your panties in a wringer over a dumb typo, you had better have some Kleenex on hand if you plan an reading my blog.
With that said, the Supreme Court already ruled on whether a state can secede from the United States. They determined that a state could not.
Peter wrote:
Your analogy is flawed. Ron Paul saying that Lincoln started the Civil War would be like Obama saying World War Two began when Poland invaded Nazi Germany in 1939. If Obama said something kooky like that, not only would I pity his supporters, I would laugh at them.
Listen, can we all agree that Ron Paul is a Libertian idiot and get on with life. He has as much chance of becoming President as G.W. going on nationwide television and confessing he made up the whole thing about Saddam and Iraq over beers with Dick and Karl (and surely didn’t think the American public were dumb shits enough to believe it!) I don’t like any canidates from either party. On election day, I plan on getting drunk and going to a cabin in the wilderness and hiding for another 4 years….maybe Canada will reopen their borders!
First of all, the United States was in no way simply defending itself during the Civil War and to suggest as much is just absurd. However, I agree that Ron Paul’s point was factually incorrect in that many states had already seceded (note spelling) by the time Lincoln took office, and it is difficult to believe he could have negotiated an abolition agreement with them at that point.
Posters on this site only go to prove that what George Orwell said in “1984″ is true: “Those who control the present, control the past.” History the way THEY want it… The un-Civil War was fought for economic reasons, and the sothern states seceded for those economic reasons, slavery being just one of many of them. Sucession was every state’s right and was not illegal, but provided for in the Constitution. The Union victory is why we have the “Big Brother” government we do today!
Jim wrote:
Where in the Constitution does it say that a state can secede from the rest of the country?
The list of idiots keeps on growing! Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, G.W. and now Jim. Holy Jesus, good night and where are the asprin!
Listen, I’ll not stand here silently while my namesake, Ron Paul, takes a drubbing at the hands of you folks.
Sure, he’s nuts. Sure, he gets facts wrong about (arguably) the most significant event in American history. Sure, he’s out of touch with probably 95 percent of Americans.
But what about all the good stuff he’s done? Like… when he stopped that meteor from colliding with the Earth. Or when he single handedly defeated Osama Bin Laden in that Indian Leg Wrestling match?
That’s the problem with you people- you focus on the negative. Think of all the fantastic things he’s already done for us. I also heard that he’s a Time Lord. Is Hillary a Time Lord? No? Well, I guess that just proves my point.
And Jim, on a more serious note, you’re fucking insane.
[...] Thanks for visiting!When Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul proclaimed that Abraham Lincoln started the American Civil War, maybe he wasn’t talking about the same Abraham Lincoln everyone assumed he was talking [...]
It is my understanding that the South decided to secede. Lincoln and the Union decided to go to war against the South. Lincoln put the whole country under marshal law and took away habeas corpus and many civil liberties to fight his war. Many people during the Civil War did not even know why they were fighting, frequently even, against their own relatives in this war, which of course Ron Paul says was unnecessary.
This war was to save the union. How would the South who had already seceded from the union be fighting a war to “save the union?” There are even quotes where Lincoln says he’d rather save the union rather than save a slave. Lincoln was hardly a strong abolitionist.
All Ron Paul is saying is that there were more peaceful ways in which the US could have abolished slavery. He is also trying to debunk the idea that Lincoln was this great abolitionist whose main goal was to end slavery. I am at least interested in learning more about these arguments that could have perhaps ended slavery in less violent manners. Perhaps the rest of you are too smart to consider those arguments though.
Why should the Civil War be a significant point for the 2008 presidential race? At least get some historian experts to have an intellectual conversation with Ron Paul about it. Watching the msm try to quiz Ron Paul on it Thursday Morning on MSNBC was kind of a joke, especially when they seemed to agree on the issue but could not see it. Then the guy calls him a crank. The only difference I think they had was just one side saw Lincoln as a hero and the other saw him in a more negative light. It’s part of the centralist power vs. state rights argument that was very crucial and even divisive.
Rick, Read the 10th amendment. “The powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States, or to the people.”
Any state can withdraw from the United States, because the Constitution doesn’t say they can’t.
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” said Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or withdraw from a larger unit.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison held that the U.S. Constitution was a compact of sovereign states which had delegated very specific powers but not sovereignty to a central government-powers which could be recalled any time. By international law sovereignty cannot be surrendered by implication, only by an express act. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any express renunciation of sovereignty by the states.
In an article entitled “The Foundations and Meaning of Secession” which appeared in the Stetson Law Review (1986), Pepperdine University Law Professor H. Newcomb Morse provides convincing evidence that the American states do indeed have the right to secede and that the Confederate states did so legally.
First, three of the original thirteen states-Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island-ratified the U.S. Constitution only conditionally. Each of these states explicitly retained the right to secede. By accepting the right of these three states to leave the Union, has the United States not tacitly accepted the right of any state to leave?
Second, over the years numerous states have nullified acts of the central government judged to be unconstitutional. These instances where national laws have been nullified give credence to the view that the compact forming the Union has already been breached and that states are morally and legally free to leave.
Third, and most importantly, the U.S. Constitution does not forbid a state from leaving the Union. According to the tenth amendment to the Constitution, anything that is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is allowed. Therefore, all states have a Constitutional right to secede.
However, two new constitutional questions concerning secession emerged shortly after the Civil War ended. First, under military occupation and control, six former Confederate states were coerced into enacting new constitutions containing clauses prohibiting secession. But in the eyes of most legal scholars, agreements of this sort made under duress are voidable at the option of the aggrieved party. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing to prevent these six states from amending their constitutions again.
During this same period of time and also under duress, the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution was ostensibly ratified. Although this amendment does not explicitly forbid secession, some have argued that it does so implicitly.
However, the fourteenth amendment is tainted by the highly questionable legality of the Union’s invasion of the South. Some legal scholars question whether the fourteenth amendment was ever constitutionally ratified.
According to the Declaration of Independence, we are endowed by our Creator with “certain unalienable rights” including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If that is the case, then it is not much of a stretch to argue that the right of secession is such a right.
Ultimately, whether or not a state is allowed to secede is neither a legal question nor a constitutional question, but rather a matter of political will. How strong is the will of the people in the departing state to be free and independent of the control of the world’s only superpower?
Did anyone bother to read that last yard-long diatribe? Me neither. But he does have three names, and that makes him suitably important.
“People are not livestock.”
But evidently they are cannon fodder to be murdered at will.
This notion that the Civil War was somehow “necessary” is what’s scary, not Dr. Paul. It’s as if you believe that the blood sacrifice of 600,000 American lives was required to atone for our collective “original sin”. And so it is intoned from the media pulpits, and so it shall be.
And you call us crazy? You want to knock intelligent design or the notion of life beginning at conception, yet here you are happy to see half a million dead because it was “necessary” per some sort of twisted Old Testament rationale. You have some internal contradictions to deal with there.
As for the “war coming to Lincoln”, that represents such a juvenile, 9th grade understanding of the Civil War as to be laughable. The copious evidence of the actual historical record is overwhelming; Saint Abraham was a racist railroad lawyer who presided over the most egregious expansion of Statism in this Nation’s history. But it takes some maturity to see past the ghosts and phantoms of a liturgical history to the real human tragedy beneath.
And this:
“Did anyone bother to read that last yard-long diatribe? Me neither. But he does have three names, and that makes him suitably important.”
What, no expletive ad hominems? Only sniffy asides this time. But certainly no attempt to understand the Constitution or our history. Just soundbytes and comfortable certitudes that have been spoonfed you. And hate. Always the hate.
Where do you think your hate will lead? When words become deeds, who do you think will win? You and your hate? Or me and my love?
Peace & Liberty
Ron Paul ‘08
“Sniffy assides.”
How can you take anyone seriously who says shit like that?
“What, no expletive ad hominems? Only sniffy asides this time. But certainly no attempt to understand the Constitution or our history. Just soundbytes and comfortable certitudes that have been spoonfed you. And hate. Always the hate.”
So because you have a skewed view of the Constitution, everyone else is wrong? You don’t even know my views on it! A little presumptuous, aren’t you?
And if you think that’s real “hate,” man, you live in a land of lollipops and daffodils shooting out of your ass. Dissent is not hate- string language isn’t, either, Candyass.
You and your love? You can blow it out your ass, dillweed. See you next November, crying when the polls close.
Do you really think I and everyone else in the country have been “spoon-fed” our beliefs? How would you know?
I know that Ron Paul supporters are just shy of being a brainwashed cult. I know- I’ve met many of them. And they all say nearly the same godddamn things. If that’s not spoon-fed brainwashing, I don’t know what is.
And to close, a “soundbyte” for you:
Go fuck yourself.
edit above:
*strong language
Evan and Kevin have it right. As for the rest of you, let’s just say it’s too bad that people so ignorant of the concept of the founding of the greatest country on earth, are allowed to vote. That’s why we have the government we have today@!! Thank you for letting me have my say, from that Fucking Insane Jim…
Yeah… so long. I wish I had your intellectual knowledge about the founding of our country. Thank god for patriots like you!
Just one more thing…
go to: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html and take the quiz. It might surprise you where YOU stand politically (that is if you’re honest).
Jim, why would it surprise me where I stand politically? I have a firm understanding in what I believe.
And where’s that?
I would love to see a Presidential debate on the causes of the War for States Rights. Unless you are a complete fool, you realize it requires a complex answer. The war took place over a 150 years ago. No other war had more books written on it. Both Democrats, and Republicans, can look at the actions of President Lincoln and state whether, or not, they endorsed those actions. Its a great hypothetical situation. Why shouldn’t the candidates take a position on an actual war? Besides its a very interesting topic. 600,000 Americans lost their lives. Can you come up with a more relevant, or as interesting, a topic? I can’t!
Lincoln was a traitor and should have been charged with treason (or preferably assasinated much sooner)! The “War for States Rights” (as it should be known as, if the Union didnt re-write history) was just that. It was more of a revolution, not unlike the American Revolution. It was economic oppresion by the Union that caused the Southern States to feel it necessary to secede. Slavery played a very minor role, if any, in the secession of the Southern States. Most southern states had already implemented plans to abolish slavery prior to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Secession was legal. See our 10th amendment. Lincoln had no Constitutional jurisdiction with which to prevent the lawful secession of the Southern States. Lincoln did implement marshal law and suspend habeas corpus and basically acted like a dictator and made up his own laws, while disregarding the Constitution. (Reminds me of George W.)
The Confederate Constitution in Section 9 - Limits on Congress, Bill of Rights states “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed” While at first that may appear to promote or allow Confederate slavery, the reality is that it allows the states to abolish it on their own terms, as many states had already began doing. Yeah, that’s right… STATE’S RIGHTS. The Confederate States were very much opposed to a Federal Government making all the rules and believed it was important to allow states to self-govern.
Keep in mind, most southern slaves were treated very well. Common sense tells you that happy workers are more productive than malnourish, abused, mistreated workers. The “free blacks” in the north that were forced to live on the streets and not allowed to work. Negros were beaten, discriminated against, and abused physically and verbally in the North.
Quotes from Lincoln you should know
“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 save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
“I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.”
“I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.”
We could argue about who fired the first shot of the (Un)Civil War all day. The bottom line is that Lincoln was a Douche-Bag and a Racist and a Traitor and the worst president in American History. (Bush is giving Lincoln some stiff competition though)
Ron Paul was simply stating that he would’ve done things differently. 600,000+ American men, women, and children did not have to DIE fighting against each other. Why couldn’t the Union just let the Southern States go? The Union wasn’t done raping the South of all its natural resources and taxing them to death.
God Bless the CSA for excercising their Constitutional Rights.
GO RON PAUL 08!!
Very well put EJ! As I said in a previous post, the vast majority of people would be surprised at just how Libertarian they are… Take the test and see!!!
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
E.J., do you have any idea how *bad* your comments reflect on Ron Paul? If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were a sock puppet for some other 4th tier candidate.
Saying that Lincoln should have been “assasinated [sic] much sooner” or that “most southern slaves were treated very well” makes your candidate look bad. Not only does he have David Duke and neo-Nazis endorsing his candidacy, but he has people like YOU.
Add the following questions to any Libertarian quiz:
1. Should Abraham Lincoln have been assasinated [sic] much sooner?
2. Were most southern slaves treated very well?
Answer YES to any of these questions and you to may be a Libertarian/fake Republican.
Rick-
Lincoln was a traitor. He betrayed the constitution and the American People. I would have personally pulled the trigger if i was alive back then.
Also, like I said. Common sense tells you that slaves would have been treated well. Maybe not in all cases, some slave owners did abuse their slaves to scare them into working harder, but most slave owners did find that rewarding hard work encouraged slaves to work harder. As a general rule of thumb, the more productive slaves were rewarded the most.
Dont believe everything you have taught in school. History is always re-written by the winning side.
I agree I may not be the best person to endorse Ron Paul, but I am a proud supporter of his none the less. At least if Ron Paul is elected, free thinkers will be allowed to still think freely.
It’s important to remember that this election is not about the past or what we agree upon about the past. This election is about the future, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who can fix that.
Who are you pulling for Rick? Hitlery Clinton, with her socialist health care plans? You sound like a dummycrat.
Jim- That quiz is a more concise version of another more in-depth one that i also scored 100% radical libertarian on. It actually makes me sick to my stomach that free-thinking people could come up with results that are not Libertarian.
Yeah, me too. It also makes me sick to my stomach that free-thinking people could come up with results that are… wait, I lost my place.
Which page of the handbook did this come from?
Damnit. Fuck that guy at Kinko’s. I think he fucked up the copies for that last 20 pages of my “How to Sound like a Libertarian” handbook. I’ll just cross-reference it with my “How to Sound Like a Sanctimonious Prick” Handbook.
RonAndrewSchooly- Awesome use of “sanctimonious” in a sentence! That word-of-the-day calendar your boyfriend got you for Hannukah is sure paying off! Keep up the good work.
e.j. wrote:
Congratulations. In one sentence, you have displayed both your homophobia and antisemitism. Doctor Paul would be proud. And to think I thought you were a nut-ball when you said you would have personally shot Lincoln if you were alive back then.
Rick- I think you have made your point clear and I appreciate you taking the time to show what you are all about. You are against free speech and most likely a supporter of big government and you are opposed to individual rights. In your response to me, you have demonstrated that you disagree with the 1st amendment to the U.S. constitution. Congratulations, the Globalists and Dummycrats would be proud of you.
e.j.- I’m writing this slowly because I assume you don’t read too fast or too well.
Are you just pissed because you had to go to Wikipedia to look up sanctimonious?
And do you seriously believe that people that disagree with you are against the 1st Amendment or are just some reactionary internet asshole?
And wouldn’t you win more people to your cause if you weren’t such a cunt?
RonAndrewStupidFuck-
I really doubt that anyone here, other than your little buddy Rick, could really give two shits about what you have to say. You are obviously very literate and articulate, but also very misinformed and downright wrong about everything that comes out of your slow-typing fingers.
Rick did imply that I shouldn’t use harmful language that could be offensive to faggots and/or Jews. I do firmly believe that any person who thinks that I should censor my beliefs or statements, because it may be percieved as harmful to others IS against free speech. You can not have free speech with boundaries. Thats why I dont mind you calling me a cunt. You dont even seem to have the balls to let us know what your cause is. My guess is that you and Rick are both just reactionary internet assholes getting boners and sucking each other off over any chance to start shit with people that aren’t dumb enough to buy into your bullshit.
It looks like I may have struck a nerve.
Why does everyone have to have a cause? What “bullshit” am I trying to get people to “buy into?”
I just enjoy needling people like you- who really are trying to sell a cause to others.
If your cause was truly worthwhile, you wouldn’t need to sell it so hard.
I don’t mean to imply that it’s not worthwhile to you- it’s obviously very important to you.
But it’s pretty funny when someone who is obviously against Ron Paul (like Rick, as evidenced by his posts,) draws the attention of supporters who then try to convert him.
And another thing- Rick isn’t trying to censor you. He just expressed his 1st Amendment right that you’re a dick (proven by what you say about Jewish people and homosexuals.)
PS- I especially liked how you very maturely called me “RonAndrewStupidFuck.” It was very cute.
RonAndrew….- At least be consistant. Am I dick or a cunt? Maybe a hybrid of the two? A dint, perhaps? I just saw stupidity in here and thought I’d rile up some stupid people. Apparently not that much different than what you are doing. You and I both know this is not where a Ron Paul supporter would be trying to convert people. Obviously there is no point in convert the truely ignorant people like Rick. This is just pure recreation for me. I would apologize for calling you RonAndrewStupidFuck, but I know that you enjoy thinking that you’ve pissed someone off, and I wouldn’t want to take away that pleasure. As for Rick, he can lick that special sweaty spot right between my hairy balls and my smelly ass hole.
-erik
p.s. I have no remorse for calling homosexuals fags. Consenting adult faggots should be allowed to practice their sexually deviant behavior as they choose, but a homosexual is still a faggot. You can’t go around calling them straight or normal, because they are not. And what exactly did I say about Jewish people? I dont see any negative references to the Jews.
How is Rick ignorant?
e.j. wrote:
Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a firm believer in giving people enough rope so then can hang themselves. It’s people like you that make having freedom of speech so important. How else would we all be able to tell what an idiot you are if you couldn’t say what you really think?
If I wanted to censor you comments, I would just censor your comments.
I would argue that you comments are more offensive to true Ron Paul backers. Not weirdos like you, but the people that believe in his lesser government/no way platform. You make your candidate look bad.
The more you find out about Ron Paul, the more nutty and silly he becomes. For instance, he doesn’t believe in evolution, even though you can literally SEE EVOLUTION occurring with your own eyes, such as in the case of the flu virus constantly evolving so that new vaccines need to be created each year, or entirely new species of microorganisms evolving into existence within labs over the course of just months.
Paul has the same backward beliefs of right-wing nuts like George W Bush and G Gordon Liddy, he just happens to be for smaller government as well. That kind of mind isn’t fit to lead the country.
And I won’t even get into how he wants to completely give free reign to corporations in hopes that the free market will magically stop them from wrongdoing, even though it almost never does in reality.
Sure Paul is better than most of the GOP candidates out there. Although, that’s kinda like being the thinnest kid in fat camp.
e.j.: It’s great to see that you are thinking for yourself but you’re making a bit of a fool of yourself.
RonAndrewSchooly: Way to use ad hominem attacks to try to prove your point. Try building a real argument for once.
Rick: I appreciate you being critical and attempting to think freely, but your argument against Ron Paul’s statements is historically incorrect.
Any non-elementary history book will tell you that the South seceded from the Union due to major political disagreements and because they feared the monopoly of power that the northern states had. This was all due to a large difference in economies between the South and the North.
At this point Abraham Lincoln should have attempted to make compromises. He decided that the South had no right to secede (this issue has been debated quite a bit). More importantly he decided at this point that going to war was necessary. Lincoln did start the war.
One compromise that would have been made with the South if we hadn’t gone to war was some kind of compensation from the major economic loss from not having slaves. When making drastic changes in laws such as this, some kind of transitioning plan is necessary. Instead we had a lot of very angry Southern states revolting and a costly war which would eventually work up enough debt to warrant creating an entity known as the IRS.
Folks, I am not an expert on Lincoln or the Civil War but I have read a few books on the topics. As far as I can see Lincoln took the anti-slavery issue as his political stand to help get himself elected. Of course when this happended the Southern states seceded since slavery was a way of life on the plantations. Lincoln didn’t have the intelligence to negotiate other alternatives and allowed a Civil War to start which wasted the lives of over 600K Americans. He is absolutely the “worst” president we ever had and I can’t envision any rebuttal to these facts.
South Carolina, when it ceded the lands for Fort Sumtner had the right of eminent domain over the land because every State had that first right before the 14th Amendment and land used by the USA was seen as concurrent domain through the state. So, clearly South Carolina should retain it, assuming secession legal. More to the point, Sumtner, itself, was ungarrisoned and had been such for several years until South Carolina seceded. According to the 1805 statute allowing the USA to use the land (you can see Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Vol. V, p501 - assuming the facts matter to you) the USA had to “keep a garrison or garrisons therein”; or “this grant or cession shall be void and of no effect.” So, by the law that allowed the garrison there, it belonged to South Carolina due to President BUchanan’s neglect. Lincoln’s representative (Secretary of State Seward himself) later told the SC commission to Washington they were going to withdraw from the fort. Two justices of the Supreme Court bear witness to the conversation in their papers (one from Alabama, the other from New York). They were, of course, planning to send reinforcements. They, as Buchanan’s boys before them, had been informed such reinforcement was an act of war against the sovereign State of South Carolina.
Let’s assume for a minute that a clearly unholdable piece of land in which NO ONE was killed in the retaking of by South Carolina required a call up of 75,000 men to defend. Why did that give the USA the right to invade a different sovereign state, namely Maryland, which hadn’t even seceded? Or, one that had, namely Virginia?
As to a declaration of war, although it violates the Constitution, which clearly meant nothing to Lincoln as subsequent acts would continue to prove, Lincoln himself declared a police action. Presidents have been calling forth the militia ever since. For the ignorant, the US Constitution said, and still does, “the Congress shall have the power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions”. He didn’t have the votes. Further, since he had sworn to uphold the Constitution, he further breeched the provision which allowed secession and required him to support it. IT was the last time the provision would be mentioned without a sneer. THat is the myth that “The US shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government”. IN spite of being an atty, he further expounded his Constitutional ignorance on JUly 4th of that year, when he said this brought up the question of whether a costitutional republic “a gov’t of the people by the same people-can or can not, maintain its territorial integrity against its own?” IN spite of all the lies you have heard, the Constitution is pretty clear on it, and if you read the Federalist papers Madison is pretty clear on it to. Lincoln must have been asleep that day in Law school. That’s right, he basically never went to school. Kinda like Bush, except he had no diplomas to prove he hadn’t been.
“Ron Paul saying that Lincoln started the Civil War would be like Obama saying World War Two began when Poland invaded Nazi Germany in 1939. ”
–The Civil War started when Lincoln had troops enter Maryland over the protestations of their governor. They preceded into the sovereign state of Virginia - a state that expressly reserved its right to seceded when it adopted the US Constition on June 26, 1788 and had fired upon and threatened exactly no one. (Kinda like attacking Iraq for what Al Qaeda did.) It didn’t start with the illegal seizure of Sumtner by US federal troops on 12/26/1860 as some Southerners have claimed. NOr, when they had to be driven from their unlawful position without a single death on 4/13/1861 as others claim. No, nobody getting killed over an untenable position could be received a number of ways. Reagan, a gunboat diplomat if there ever was one, got out of LEbanon although 200 or so soldiers died. Lincoln, however, decided to make this into causus belli. So, Ron Paul is right.
I disagree with the person who suggests Lincoln wasn’t intelligent. Considering how informally educated he was, he’s an excellent example of how much a man can accomplish through will and perseverance.
He simply underestimated how much he had pissed the South off. He didn’t mean it the way it was taken, and this can be seen by his backpedaling in his first Innaugural and the fact he was behind the despicable Corwin Amendment. IT’s a shame he was murdered and perhaps he could have put things back together in a simpler, more honorable fashion than was done. Instead, everybody but the greedy suffered and resolution of the evils attendant slavery were delayed many more decades and made more rancous than they would have been had he lived.
Publius, I don’t mind you leaving a comment or two, but this isn’t your blog. If you have a comment, feel free to leave it. If you want to write a long winded rambling post, go get a blog.