Prediction: Rhinos Will Throw T-Party Under Obama Bus

[Tom Ligon]

A curious action for Lincoln, who was notoriously difficult to pin down on his religion, if any.

Another President was similarly difficult to pin down on his religion, although he was philosophically aligned with Joseph Priestly, a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson did sign a declaration for a day of Thanksgiving while Governor of Virginia, but declined to do so while President.

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises...Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. ...But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them from...civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." (Jefferson to Rev. Samuel Miller, Jan 23, 1808)

[Diogenes]

A curious action for Lincoln, who was notoriously difficult to pin down on his religion, if any.

Another President was similarly difficult to pin down on his religion, although he was philosophically aligned with Joseph Priestly, a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson did sign a declaration for a day of Thanksgiving while Governor of Virginia, but declined to do so while President.

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises...Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. ...But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them from...civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents." (Jefferson to Rev. Samuel Miller, Jan 23, 1808)

So the question is this; Was the Civil War a case of the Government enforcing a morality?


If so, should the government have enforced this morality?


Was it within the proper scope of government to enforce this morality?

[Tom Ligon]

So the question is this; Was the Civil War a case of the Government enforcing a morality?


If so, should the government have enforced this morality?


Was it within the proper scope of government to enforce this morality?

Point of reference: I was born and raised in the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. My wife and I were literally married in the shadow of the Jefferson Davis memorial.

Slavery was an abomination. So was the war that ended it. But I blame all generations from about 1640 to 1861 for not either preventing slavery or for not ending it. There was a nice little period from 1815-1820 that was probably the last realistic chance, and they missed it.

As much as I like quoting Jefferson, he had an attitude about leaving problems for the next generation. He understood the problem to an uncanny degree, but shirked it.

He predicted the Civil War a few weeks after the Missouri Compromise. He gave us "All men are created equal.", but kept slaves. And yet, he signed a letter to Benjamin Banneker, a free black, "Your Obedient and Humble Servant."

The Fire Bell in the Night:

"I thank you, Dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. it is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read the newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once concieved and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would, to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. the cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me in a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected: and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. but, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one state to another would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burthen on a greater number of co-adjutors. an abstinence too from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress, to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a state. this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state?" (Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820)

[Diogenes]

So I take your response to mean "yes."




Yes to the question that government should enforce morality.



Your position reminds me of that old joke to which this is the punchline.



"We've already decided what sort of girl you are, now we are just negotiating over the price. "


(Please take this as gentle chiding in a humorous vein.)

[Tom Ligon]

Did I say "Yes?"

I thought I'd skirted that handily.

Was keeping slaves immoral? I'd not argue against that. But the immorality is not the real issue for government. The question is really if keeping slaves was legal, and if the basis for that legality were properly supported by the Constitution.

In fact, the keeping of slaves was legal, and they were specifically mentioned in the Constitution. So it was up to society to fix the Constitution.

And there was also no prohibition in the Constitution about states seceding.

The morals of the issue should be determined by society, not government. In other words, the people should have fixed the Constitution and the laws of this land long before it got to the point of Civil War, to align them with the principles of Liberty upon which we'd claimed to found the nation. In fact, going to war was not initially justified by the goal of ending slavery, no matter how much the Abolitionists might wish it were. Not until Gettysburg did Lincoln say it was a war against slavery.

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

[mvanwink5]

Nicely put, Tom. Thank you.

[Diogenes]

Did I say "Yes?"

I thought I'd skirted that handily.

Was keeping slaves immoral? I'd not argue against that. But the immorality is not the real issue for government. The question is really if keeping slaves was legal, and if the basis for that legality were properly supported by the Constitution.

In fact, the keeping of slaves was legal, and they were specifically mentioned in the Constitution. So it was up to society to fix the Constitution.

And there was also no prohibition in the Constitution about states seceding.

The morals of the issue should be determined by society, not government. In other words, the people should have fixed the Constitution and the laws of this land long before it got to the point of Civil War, to align them with the principles of Liberty upon which we'd claimed to found the nation. In fact, going to war was not initially justified by the goal of ending slavery, no matter how much the Abolitionists might wish it were. Not until Gettysburg did Lincoln say it was a war against slavery.

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense

I have argued this topic quite a lot, and yes, the abolition of slavery was not the stated goal of the war. In fact, Lincoln let it be known that the South could keep slavery if they just ceased fighting and rejoined the Union.



But most people think it was fought over slavery, and that it was completely appropriate for the force of government to be used to right this moral wrong.



So which is it? Can we get a clear yes or a clear no? Was it right to use the force of government to force morality on those who disagreed?

[mvanwink5]

D,
You are always trying to blur morality and legality lines. This is a quadrilateral vs square issue.

[Tom Ligon]

As any true son of the south will say, the war was illegal. The states had a right to secede.

As any true proponent of liberty and justice should say, to prosecute the worst war this nation has ever experienced, by any measure, was a really idiotic way to end a practice, however abominable, that should have been ended peacefully by other means.

The Civil War happened. It was idiotic, and it resulted from a couple of centuries of idiocy. All we can do at this end of history is hope we learn from it.

Liberty is a great American value. We've paid dearly for it. We could have had it much cheaper with more wisdom. So our job today is to be wiser.

[GIThruster]

I'm sorry but you guys are just misinformed. The American Civil War was certainly fought over slavery. The entire tone and tolerance for slavery had ended in the North and the northern states were fighting over whether slavery would be permitted in the new American West. The Republicans under Lincoln's leadership and during his campaign for the Presidency, opposed allowing slavery into the US Territories and the South responded to Lincoln's election with secession because they knew where the country was headed and wanted no part of it.

There is no way to explain the War Between the States without slavery. Just because Lincoln was not willing to go to war over slavery and offered a truce with the South, does not mean slavery was not the cause of the war and in fact, it should be obvious it was the cause of the war. All of the largest slave holder states were in the South, where slaves made up almost 50% of the population. Slavery had already near ended in the North, and that was the focus of the Republicans that caused the war.

[Diogenes]

D,
You are always trying to blur morality and legality lines. This is a quadrilateral vs square issue.

I am always trying to point out what is the actual truth and always was. The Government has always been a vehicle for enforcing morality. That's what laws are. They are moral rules which have been written down.


There is no blurring, government and morality are one and the same. All that government does is to enforce somebody or a whole bunch of somebodies ideas of what is moral behavior and what is not.



All laws are enforced morality. The question isn't whether morality is going to be enforced, it is. The question is *Who's* morality is going to get enforced.


I prefer that the morality which is going to be enforced by the fist of government should be consistent and benign.

[Tom Ligon]

I'm sorry but you guys are just misinformed. The American Civil War was certainly fought over slavery. The entire tone and tolerance for slavery had ended in the North and the northern states were fighting over whether slavery would be permitted in the new American West. The Republicans under Lincoln's leadership and during his campaign for the Presidency, opposed allowing slavery into the US Territories and the South responded to Lincoln's election with secession because they knew where the country was headed and wanted no part of it.

There is no way to explain the War Between the States without slavery. Just because Lincoln was not willing to go to war over slavery and offered a truce with the South, does not mean slavery was not the cause of the war and in fact, it should be obvious it was the cause of the war. All of the largest slave holder states were in the South, where slaves made up almost 50% of the population. Slavery had already near ended in the North, and that was the focus of the Republicans that caused the war.

The cause of the US Civil War was most certainly slavery. But that's not quite the same thing as saying that it was fought over slavery. The Abolitionists would have fought for that (John Brown certainly did), but most people would have, at most, written an angry letter over the issue. In New York City there were riots in which blacks were hung by men angry over being drafted to fight for their freedom. The South was ready to fight, but under the guise of protecting States' Rights. The North wanted to prevent secession. Both sides thought it would be a little noise for a month or two, and settled quickly and cheaply.

What really was the cause of the Civil War was representation. When you look at it that way you see the real legal house of cards. The original compromises needed to build the nation used various formulae to calculate what fraction of a human being a slave was. Curiously, the South argued that a slave was, at minimum, 2/3 of a human being. The North preferred that a slave be counted as 0. So on the surface, it would seem that southerners at least counted slaves as something. But this valuation was aimed at representation in the legislature and in the Electoral College. The original balance was thrown asunder by the Louisiana Purchase, and the resulting addition of states. Each affected the balance. The Missouri Compromise was intended to maintain the balance, but Jefferson recognized that the trap was set.

The main question of representation was, of course, slavery, but that was not the only one. There was a philosophical difference between Republican (Democrat by the Civil War) and Federalist values between South and North. The Yankee traders and industrialists had very different priorities than the agricultural south, which stood to be railroaded in the national political arena. Slavery was a major component of that, but not the only one, and, in fact, the North was not without sin on the issue of slaves, either. Taxes were also a big concern ... the different economies each wanted the other to pay more taxes.

[Diogenes]

As any true son of the south will say, the war was illegal. The states had a right to secede.

As any true proponent of liberty and justice should say, to prosecute the worst war this nation has ever experienced, by any measure, was a really idiotic way to end a practice, however abominable, that should have been ended peacefully by other means.

The Civil War happened. It was idiotic, and it resulted from a couple of centuries of idiocy. All we can do at this end of history is hope we learn from it.

Liberty is a great American value. We've paid dearly for it. We could have had it much cheaper with more wisdom. So our job today is to be wiser.

Well I agree with your assessment. I think the coming period of mechanization would have taken the profit out of slavery, and with the profit would go it's reasons for existing.


The South had as much a right to secede as did the colonies from Britain, and I've always thought it was ironic that Lincoln's greatest speech was about the time the Colonies broke away from Britain four score and seven years before he made that speech. (1863-87=1776)

[Diogenes]

I'm sorry but you guys are just misinformed. The American Civil War was certainly fought over slavery. The entire tone and tolerance for slavery had ended in the North and the northern states were fighting over whether slavery would be permitted in the new American West. The Republicans under Lincoln's leadership and during his campaign for the Presidency, opposed allowing slavery into the US Territories and the South responded to Lincoln's election with secession because they knew where the country was headed and wanted no part of it.

There is no way to explain the War Between the States without slavery. Just because Lincoln was not willing to go to war over slavery and offered a truce with the South, does not mean slavery was not the cause of the war and in fact, it should be obvious it was the cause of the war. All of the largest slave holder states were in the South, where slaves made up almost 50% of the population. Slavery had already near ended in the North, and that was the focus of the Republicans that caused the war.

Maryland was still a slave owning state. But no, the war didn't start over slavery, it started over the attack on Ft. Sumter. Had the Confederacy never attacked it, it is quite likely that their secession would have been successful. It was only after the war was quite far along that people started talking about abolishing slavery. As of August of 1862 Lincoln wasn't talking about that.


To illustrate to you just how much it wasn't about slavery, I give you Lincoln's own words on the topic.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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 save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

This re-writing of history to make the war about slavery was just an effort to justify the horrible bloodshed that occurred as a result of the war. People wanted to believe there was some higher and legitimate purpose for all that death and destruction. Thus the meme was invented that it was to stamp out this horrible evil and so therefore the states who practiced it deserved all their suffering. What else could you say after you've invaded other states and killed so many of their men? You have to say something to make it look like you were in the right. "God was on our side, and because God was on our side, you deserved your smiting."



It started out "to preserve the union." It ended up as "To stamp out slavery." This is called moving the goal posts.

[GIThruster]

You misunderstand the text you quote. Lincoln cared about the Union more than the slavery issue, but he was campaigning on an anti-slavery platform well before he was elected and the South attempted to succeed. Just because the Union was more important to him than abolishing slavery, does not mean the war was not fought over slavery. It was. And saying there was no talk of slavery until the war was begun is just plain silly nonsense. Slavery had begun to be illegal in New Jersey 60 years before the war. There was a long, steady march against slavery the world around before the American Civil War and I'd remind you, it was not as if we were the first to outlaw slavery. We weren't the last either, but it was an open, regular question everyone faced every day, and that people talked about often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_ ... y_timeline