Wednesday, July 23, 2014

The Greatest Lie in American History

You can take all of the lies of Bill Clinton, all of the lies of George W. Bush, and all of the lies of Barack Obama, put them together, and it still wouldn't add up to the one monumental lie that Abraham Lincoln (it was actually Daniel Webster's lie and Lincoln ran with it) told just prior to the Civil War; namely, that the Union preceded the States and that any State which attempted to secede from it was committing treason...........................................................................................I mean, I know that Mr. Lincoln was a powerful persuader and all but on this particular issue he was either rewriting history to suit his own political purposes (lying through his teeth, in other words) or he was a total ignoramus when it came to the Constitution and/or American history. a) Literally every founding father (including the statist, Alexander Hamilton) had acknowledged the right of a state or states to secede. b) The New England states had threatened secession several times early in the 19th Century and on none of these occasions did the central government threaten invasion. c) James Madison, the father of the Constitution, stated that, "not in the opinions or intentions of the body which planned and proposed it, but in those of the state conventions where it (the Constitution) received ALL THE AUTHORITY WHICH IT POSSESSES...". d) Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island all ultimately ratified the Constitution but only after they were given reassurances that they could exit it if they desired. e) The reason that the founding fathers approved of the right of secession was because they saw it as the ONLY check on a potentially tyrannical central government. f) Jefferson and Madison authored the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, a treatise which unambiguously declared the supremacy of the individual states in the federal system (an act to which they received virtually zero criticism). g) The Declaration of Independence referred to the 13 colonies as "Free and Independent States". And h) the colonists had just fought a war to shed the repression of a powerful central government and so it is extremely unlikely that they would have willingly consented to yet another one.............................................................................................Look, I get it. All Presidents lie (and, yes, the last three in particular have told some dandies). But when you get a lie that ultimately resulted in the killing or maiming of 5% of the population, a destruction of half the country's wealth, and a post-war occupation that thoroughly destroyed the possibility of healing between the races, you really gotta call the thing for what it is, and that I've tried to do.

11 comments:

dmarks said...

That is kind of worse than the current President's lie about keeping your doctor and insurance plan under Obamacare, or Gore's "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" whopper.Worse indeed...

Les Carpenter said...

Before there was a United States of America there were individual states. The union was arrived at through mutual agreement of the individual states. Key words, mutual agreement.

But as in all things the federal state took on a life and authority of it's own and gradually became Leviathan. Lincoln was its first great and influential spokesperson.

What was it Jefferson said (my favorite American president by far), and I paraphrase... 'liberty must occasionally be refreshed with the blood of patriots.' Or something like that.

I know, I'm about to be taken out of context and horse whipped (verbally) by the wd's of the progressive universe. Such is the price of independence.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Jefferson had his flaws like the rest of them but of the 4 faces on Rushmore, I agree with you Les, his is easily the best.............And gentlemen, I find it very telling that a lot of the same people who excoriated Bush for his transgressions are altogether silent when it comes to Lincoln having done many multiples worse (closing down newspapers, deporting a Congressman, rigging elections, targeting civilians, etc.).

BB-Idaho said...

Lincoln has consistently been rated very high by historians, with an aggregate #1 rating since the surveys started in 1948. I doubt they are duped, and I happen to agree:
thankful I needn't open the door to armed men with bloodhounds looking for runaway slaves.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

History is written by the left and so of course they're going to glorify war mongering statists such Lincoln, Wilson, and TR. It's how their bread is buttered.......And Lincoln pledged to not only support the Fugitive Slave Act but to support an amendment which would have made the nullification of it illegal AND he plotted until his last breath how he was going to colonize freed blacks. He was not a decent man, BB.

BB-Idaho said...

IMO, Lincoln faced the worst situation in US history. We may
surmise an alternate history had
Douglas, Breckenridge or Bell won the election; my guess a bunch of
wrangling little principalities-but I'll leave alternate histories to imaginative guys like Newt G. We do know, however, that the US continued from that era to become a great nation and a world leader in just about every area.

Les Carpenter said...

To a large degree you are correct, history is interpreted and the written by liberals/progressives. I had a history prof tell me that back in the early "70's"... The trend continues.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

The crisis that Lincoln faced was that his tax base was leaving and he had to come up with an alternative way to pay off his rich northern industrialist supporters who bankrolled his campaign. Enter the bloodiest war in all of American history and the lousiest emancipation in all of human history.

Les Carpenter said...

I would be interested in reading Dervish Sander's views on this one. Perhaps you could allow him a day of commenting on this post?

Oh wait, never mind. He'll probably do a rather long dissertation on his Sleeping with The Devil blog or his Lying Lester's Irrational Nation blog. He has been using your posts or mine at RN USA for most of his material lately.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I suspect that he would say that Bush's lies were significantly worse. Reagan's as well.

dmarks said...

Yes, Will. And just because of their party. Remember when I showed WD that one old statement about Iraq. He said it was true if Pelosi said it, and a lie if Bush said the exact same thing. Hardly a better illustration of "political party completely crushes rationality/truth/principle" can be found.