Is a special day that many forget about, some people never even know about it.
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I don’t believe that a person can fully value what they have had until they have lost it. Or in my case if they didn’t have it in the first place until they get it.
Is the USA perfect ? No of course not. Nowhere is.
Is it better than some give it credit for ? Yes, absolutely.
Like I said, and I mean this most sincerely, I love this place.
I became a US citizen some years back now and the ceremony took place in a Federal Court. There were about 20 people all there for the same reason as me. Before the start of the ceremony the presiding judge asked the foreman how many nationalities were represented in my group that day.
“14” was the answer.
The ceremony proceeded and at it’s commencement the judge said,
“That’s better there’s only one now, please sit down”
The judge then went on to give us all a brief overview of our new rights and responsibilities. The right to have an opinion that differs from other peoples and to be free to express it was the one that struck home with me. It still does.
PSam:
Consider that while Sherman wrought terrible destruction, there were no large-scale massacres. He hanged looters and murderers from his own army. So far as I know, up to that point in human history there had never been anywhere near that degree of destruction without huge mass-killings.
One thing is for sure: The desrtuction of southern ifrastructure (including severing the railnet) ended the war.
Read the pledge again. “Republic” (capital “R”) is re-defined as one nation, indivisible. That’s not a confederation of states. Our founding fathers would be horrified.
Evan,
Sure the North won. But note it had to wage war on civilians to do so. Lee did not do that in Pennsylvania. Lincoln provoked that war; one day his monument will be allowed to rust.
Flag day is over. Demographics may break up the US when the South West and California VOTE their way out of the Union. Will you favor force to keep them in?
Let’s leave this topic. We are united against the anti-human crowd and that’s what this site is about.
Yes, I agree that the pledge was a poke in the eye aimed at the south.
The two changes were pokes, of a kind, as well.
Well, for the FEDERAL government there is no authority given to do anything about immigration. See Article 1 Section 8, and the 10th amendment. So, at the Federal level, all immigration is legal.
Lee did not do that in Pennsylvania
True. (But then, Lee was no Bedford Forrest or jubal Early . . .)
We are united against the anti-human crowd and that’s what this site is about.
Thass a fack, Jack!
If Nathan led and not R. Lee
50 states there would not be.
If Nathan led and not R. Lee
50 states there would not be.
With that I find I must agree.
But with the likes of Braxton Bragg
We had the war safe in the bag.
Your side won
and my side lost.
But at such a cost! At such a cost!
Still, we’ve had our fun
Not like Bull Run
My greatgrandmother’s parents knew Lincoln well. They were in politics together, he a Republican and my great-greatgrandfather a Democrat in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln was minding his own business (they still didn’t campaign for themselves in those days), tending to his current duties and free-time activities. One of those activities was to sit down and trade anecdotes with local younger politicians, especially from the other side, laugh, smoke, and drink. It was in many of these after-work gatherings that my g-g-Gpa developed a friendship with Lincoln (his daughter described it as intimate, which back then meant like mentoring). The family farm was also on Lincoln’s mail route in earlier days so he also knew my g-g-g-Gpa.
I thank ole Abe
for this here rhyme:
“You can fool some of the people
all of the time.”
Still, it’s nothing to brag about
for in the end, the truth will out.
I reckon poor ole Abe
has found that out.
Which of the founding fathers would you also put in that special place you hold in your heart? I love reading biographies about all these men. You discover things you didn’t know, or thought you knew. The Declaration almost didn’t make it off the writing desk because of the slave issue. Here’s another one: Lincoln was initially politically neutral and even ambivalent in his own thoughts about blacks and slavery as a component of Southern life. But he slowly changed his mind about the entire issue of slavery as pressures mounted to bring in new states and territories out west. He was quite willing to compromise with the South and held out for an agreement for a very long time. You keep your slaves. New states will be slave free. It is more true to say that the West started the war more than either the North or South did.
My dear poet, you need to read more widely.
Pam,
The South wanted to secede not conquer the North. The issue was not about slavery as Lincoln himself admitted. It was about money as is usually the case. An independent South could have imported European goods without the high protectionist tariff. Smuggling across the Mason-Dixon would have undercut Northern manufactured goods. Lincoln said the South could secede as long as it continued to pay the tariff.
Over 600,000 dead and countless maimed for life. Horrific facial injuries before the day of plastic surgeries. Racial relations poisoned to this day.
I think it is you who should read more. I suggest :
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War by Thomas J. dilorenzo. I have not yet read this book myself. My views are based on other books and some critical thinking
When your views on Lincoln change, the scales will start to fall from your eyes. I wish you well.
I’d write you a poem
and perhaps Iota.
But some would say
I’ve fulfilled my quota.
PoetSam, I grew up fishing and playing in Bull Run (good place to catch crawdads and tadpoles, amongst other amphibians and reptiles). More specifically, Manassas, VA. Spent a lot of time on the battlefield park there too. The bronze (I think) statue of Stonewall Jackson is most impressive. So much so they named two schools after him.
Jeff,
What a time that was! Great men on both sides. That seems to have been forgotten in the name of political correctness.
I don’t buy it. The ACW was all about slavery.
States’ rights? States’ rights to do what?
Economics? The economics of what?
Social issues? The social issues of what?
Right to secede? Along what lines?
Irreconcilable differences? Over what issue?
It all comes back to the issue of slavery. Like a continual, gentle tapping, all on the same point.
For a damnyankee I have a lot of sympathy for the south and the southern cause. I don’t think that we need to go running around tearing down every rebel battle flag. I recognize the bravery and dedication of the south. As much as I reject chattel slavery neither do I equate it with Nazism (or the Japanese WWII model).
But the “secession-driver” was the issue of slavery. Remove that and there would almost certainly have been no ACW.
Pam:
My favorite Lincoln comment was:
I hope God is on my side. However, I must have Kentucky.
Hey guys, I try to read unbiased biographies, not ones that try to prove a point. I don’t swallow the “Lincoln was da MAN” biography (made that up) any more than I would hang on every word in a book that falls on the other side. And if I do read them (which I have, including a record of the Civil War just two years into it by an officer serving in the Confederate Army), I read the one in the middle for SURE so that I can get to a more “unrevised, un-re-written”, view. Many of the earlier Washington Biographies were white washed. Then later ones were stomped into the ground. People try to sway memories so much more so than when the people are in the middle of the current event. Its called revisionist history. It takes guts to see both sides when what you really want to do is prove your theory.
As they say, if you want to view both sides of the river, it is best done from the middle of the river.
Evan,
The US was the ONLY nation that “required” a civil war to end slavery. Why is that?
Pam,
My arguments can be made from what Lincoln himself said. Was the man a liar then? And will you still defend him?
Also, its is not bad to read biased accounts; just read one on the other side to balance it. FACTS are FACTS whatever one’s intentions.
You’ll never find the middle without knowing both ends.
Pam and Evan:
You helped inspire this rhyme:
to my fellow lost sheep
It seems to me we disagree.
That’s OK; go on your way.
There’s just one truth
and when He finds us,
you’ll see me and I’ll see thee.
(repost, ignore above)
Evan,
The US was the ONLY nation that “required” a civil war to end slavery. Why is that?
Pam,
My arguments can be made from what Lincoln HIMSELF said. Was the man a liar then? And will you still defend him?
Also, its is not bad to read biased accounts; just read one on the other side to balance it. FACTS are FACTS whatever one’s intentions.
You’ll never find the middle without knowing both ends.
Pam and Evan:
You helped inspire this rhyme:
to my fellow lost sheep
It seems to me we disagree.
That’s OK; go on your way.
There’s just one truth
and when He finds us,
you’ll see me and I’ll see thee.
Evan, read some DiLorenzo. Here’s a starter article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo44.html
No where in the definitive biography penned by David Donald, which used the Lincoln papers sealed until 1947, does it state that Lincoln believed it was okay for any state in the Union to secede without the entire Union voting for it. He told his biographer John G. Nicolay, “The right of a State to secede is not an open or debatable question.” Don’t look for these quotes before 1947 in any biography. Lincoln’s papers were sealed from 1890 until then.
Another quote: To Thurlow Weed, the New York boss of the party, he wrote, “No state can, in any way lawfully, get out of the Union, without the consent of the others…”
I would be interested in finding the quote and source for any statement that has Lincoln saying or writing that the South could secede.
ngs:
I know perfectly well Lincoln didn’t invade the south to free the slaves. I said that the ACW was “all about slavery”, and if slavery hadn’t been the issue, there would have been no secession in the first place. That’s very different.
Lincoln wanted to contain slavery to the states where it existed, in an era of expansion. That meant the south would eventually have been at the congressional mercy of the North (even in the senate).
The US was the ONLY nation that “required” a civil war to end slavery. Why is that?
It has been blamed on the cotton ‘gin, though lately that has been disputed.
(Sigh) We should have just bitten the bullet in 1807 when we had the last, best opportunity. Unfortunately that was not to be.
The transoceanic slave trade off the west coast of Africa was forcibly eliminated by the Royal Navy. Didn’t help captives in Africa much, but that’s another story involving horrible Irony. (Colin McEvedy comments on this.)
Let’s not fight “Civil War II”,
my side gray and your side blue.
Not till we deal with the global alarmists.
Then we can fight
(unless they disarm us).