One hundred and fifty years ago this week, Abraham Lincoln gave his first inaugural address as president of the United States. While many Americans remember the Gettysburg Address, or even Lincoln's second inaugural -- both of which are inscribed inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC -- fewer are likely to remember his first address to the nation as President. There is a reason for that. The speech is worse than uninspiring -- in fact, it includes Lincoln's endorsement of a then-proposed 13th Amendment that would have fully enshrined slavery in our nation's Constitution.
In the current age of Tea Party nostalgia for our "original" Constitution, coupled with calls for state secession and nullification of federal laws, our nation's history in the immediate pre-civil War period is a useful reminder of the "more perfect union" we live in today. No one should "celebrate" a war that took such a horrible toll in American lives. But as the nation marks the sesquicentennial of beginning of that War, we should remember what the Civil War was all about.
Today, the 13th Amendment is an inspiring affirmation of freedom, declaring that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But that inspiring Amendment was not on the table in February 1861. Instead, in his first inaugural address, President Lincoln and others sought to avoid the Civil War, in part, by further enshrining slavery in our nation's charter. A 13th Amendment proposed by Congress in 1860, and supported by President Lincoln, would have read, in part: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will... abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said state."
Though a life-long critic of slavery, even Lincoln was willing to accept this horrifying addition to our Constitution if it meant the preservation of our beloved Union. Yet even the promise of adoption of such an Amendment was not sufficient to bring states like South Carolina, which had seceded in late 1860, back into the Union, and war soon broke out.
It was only after the war, and the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, that the ratification of the 13th Amendment we have today became a possibility. President Lincoln worked hard for the Amendment's passage in Congress and celebrated it as a "King's cure" for the evil of slavery that paved the way for "the reunion of all the states perfected and so effected as to remove all causes of disturbance in the future." In the next five years, the nation also ratified the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing citizenship to everyone born in this country and broadly protecting both liberty and equality and the 15th Amendment, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting rights. All three of these Amendments grant the federal government sweeping power to enforce their respective provisions through "appropriate" legislation.
To this day, there is debate in this nation about whether the Confederacy was fighting mainly over slavery or states' rights, with the suggestion that the latter was the true, noble, cause of the Confederacy. Increasingly over the past year, Tea Party-infused politicians have been making arguments about nullification and secession, acting almost as if the Confederacy had prevailed on its states' rights plank. The reality is that the Civil War was about both slavery and states' rights, and that in its aftermath, the Constitution was changed to reflect the Union's victory on both counts. Subsequent Amendments ratified during the Progressive Era further augmented the powers of the national government, granting vast authority to tax and spend for the general welfare and providing for election by U.S. Senators by the people, not state legislatures.
These changes to our nation's charter paved the way for the United States to claw out of the Great Depression, fight on the winning side of two World Wars, and emerge in the aftermath of World War II as the wealthiest and most powerful nation in world history. It is our Constitution today, our whole Constitution including the 27 Amendments adopted over the past 220 years, which has made the United States the "exceptional" nation it is. In the debates ahead, conservatives and liberals alike should celebrate the Constitution of our time, not yearn for days long past when our Constitution, and our Union, were far less perfect.
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So how many can say what the biggest violation of states' rights was? The Fugitive Slave Law was a thousand times worse violation of that principle than anything that had a remote chance of passage through Congress before secession.
The same goes for the tariff issue. Louisiana was dominated by sugar planters who wanted their cash crop protected from the competition that the Caribbean threatened.
this constitution, which is the same one for the last 200 years, is so antiquated, so un-amendable, so not representative of the citizen sovereigns of any age, that it begs the question of whether it is even a good draft for any of the eras it has survived.
the original document was a product of its era, period. that the citizenry have never been able to easily call for changes and get them done is a sad primer for the fate of citizens in any age who are subject to philosophy and nomenclature managed by despots in the SCOTUS and prostitutes in the COTUS.
the lugubrious hierarchical structure of the document was meant to serve only the wannabe kings who dared not utter their yearnings for yet another group of petty monarchs who might favor, above all else, only them.
to still believe that to elect one person to fairly represent the needs of 300+ million is to believe in government by qaddafi.
Had Andrew Jackson, and the Missouri Compromise, never occurred, i.e. the original document with it's end to the slave trade been maintained, there would have been no need to fight a war over the slavery.
However, as most historians will tell you, the war was really about the creeping encroachment of federalism, using slavery as the flashpoint (sadly, since it would have been long gone by then had the Constitution not been infected by the earliest legislation of the nascent progressives).
I don't see that. The Constitution The closest I can find is that the importation could not be banned until 1808. (Article I, section 9). Domestic trade in slaves continued up until the Civil War.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 drew a line. No future slave state was to be created north of that line. The fuss over the Kansas-Nebraska Act arose because Northern Free Soilers feared that if the Missouri Compromise was abrogated, they might be kept out of territories.
The most famous thing Jackson did that was related to the Slavery issue was that he stopped South Carolina from nullifying laws it didn't like.
"However, as most historians will tell you, the war was really about the creeping encroachment of federalism, using slavery as the flashpoint "
This sounds bogus to me. The question of federalism took a back seat. The Republican Party was formed from a mix of Freesoil Democrats and Conscience Whigs when the previous Two Party System dissolved. The stances on federalism brought about some curious role shifts, as when Lincoln the former Whig thought it was the Treasury Secretary's responsibility to propose a currency reform plan; and his Treasury Secretary, the former Jacksonian Salmon P Chase thought it was the President's prerogative.
Republicans want to revert to a pre civil war America.
Tea partiers want to revert to the colonial era.
The reason liberals are also called 'progressives' is because what we fight for is progress, and what conservatives fight for is to go back to some prior dark age. The only shocking thing is that so many Americans can be persuaded they're right.
History proves them wrong every time, and they'll be on the wrong side of it this time too. If only they wouldn't cause so much damage while resisting the inevitable.
And it is the root of the problem. You should study the progressive movement. You may think of yourself as progressive, small p. Those in power and the ones feeding you the fictions you hold dear are Progressives, capital P.
The progressive movement is the most Regressive series of failed ideas and policies in our history.
Worse, they have failed around the world.
To those of us with a knowledge of history, and some life experience, it is actually incredible that we are actually having discussions about these ideas again, as they have done nothing but cause death, and economic calamities the world over.
Liberalism is NOT progressivism. In fact, the two are in diametric opposition to each other.
The Progressives represent the rule by elitism, we set the rules and everybody is forced to follow or they are eliminated ideals that have led this country down a continuous spiral of regrettable acts.
From Wilson's segregation of the federal bureaucracy and armed forces, to FDR's internment camps, from the end of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, to the Depression of 1920, '29, '37, etc.
For those of us who used to proudly call themselves "Liberal" the stealing of this term by the Regressives, as I call them, is one of the true disasters of political propoganda.
Progressives are the enemies of the traditional Western "Liberal" not the same.
Funny, I was going to say the same thing.
"Those in power and the ones feeding you the fictions you hold dear"
Classic first step in a fallacious argument: You define what you tihnk I believe and why you think I believe it, so you can attack that strawman. Sorry, I'm actually Canadian, and I don't listen to most of the people you talk about. I am not part of your propaganda machine. Your initial premises are self-serving and completely wrong. Try again.
"Worse, [progressives] have failed around the world."
Really? Why are those failed nations constantly ranking higher than American in quality of life, health, education, and happiness? Maybe because you're totally wrong? It is YOUR American style of neo-con capitalism that has failed, and even the stores of the worlds wealthiest and most powerful nation have not been able to cover up that dismal failure. After thirty years of dismal failure you declare yourself not just as success, but BEST EVER! How egotistical. How ignorant.
"The Progressives represent the rule by elitism..."
Who was fighting for tax cuts for the richest 2%?
"Depression of 1920, '29, '37, etc."
Only 1929 was a depression: the only point in US history when inequality was higher than today. Non-coincidence.
"To those of us with a knowledge of history" your 'points' are obvious lies.
You know as little about history as about liberalism.
Remember when Conservatives criticized Obama for not putting his hand over his heart while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance?
Apparently, the Conservatives who extoll "states rights" and/or celebrate the Confederate secessionist movement don't fully understand the meaning of "indivisible" when they recite the Pledge.
Example: first you introduce children to theories, like taxing the rich is best or global warming. Then you give examples of people accepting the theory as fact, reaching a point where it is called settled science or fair taxation.
Reality is personal income tax only provides the federal government a method of tracking and controlling individuals while allowing the elitists to reduce their taxable income.
No scientific theory is ever perfect or lasts for eternity. At some point in time the theory is altered (if not totally eliminated) based on new information. Global warming (climate change, whatever incarnation this week) has more flaws than any theory I have read. Easier to support the ancient theory that the world is flat than that scientists can predict .2 degree temperature change in 10 years yet cannot predict within tomorrow's temperature within 1 degree.
Scientists should create theories but everyone should call foul play when someone claims it is settled. People are tired of governments spending billions to force compliance and remove our right to freedom so that the general populace can be controlled by a few elitists.
Also, many northern states had declared immediately freedom for anyone who set foot in their state, and prohibited prosecution or extradition of former slaves. Far from fighting to PROTECT states rights, the south was fighting to DENY states rights, to stop northern states. If the south couldn't deny states rights, it was only a matter of time before ALL the slaves revolted and ran north.
The myth that states rights of the south had anything to do with the war is a complete myth promulgated by southern education boards ashamed of how southern culture has always forced the majority to support the plutocrats.
This is no different that German histories omitting atrocities against Jews, Japanese omitting their atrocities in WWII, and the US ignoring the Cheney administration's crimes.
Slavery was immensely profitable. Southerners then, as today, were carefully trained [by the plutocracy] to support plutocracy. Slavery depressed wages of the majority, yet southerners supported it because of the dream that someday they would be a plantation owner. This despite the fact that plantation owners lived off the taxes paid by the majority, thus didn't have to make a profit to retain their position as feudal lords. Today, southern culture still supports an oligarchy, by massive anti-union sentiment and refusing to prosecute rich people who break the law.
There are many things that can be done to improve any particular aspect of human existance, if only the Constitution did not prohibit such things. However, the prohibitions are in the Constitution to protect our "unalienable" rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as espoused in the Declaration of Independence. To fail to protect those rights is a diminishment of the freedoms guaranteed to us in the Constitution.
Fortunately, the writers of the Constitution provided for change through the amendment process. This process is made purposefully difficult, in order to discourage the diminishment of our rights. We must all think carefully, therefore, before we declare our Constitution to be outdated. The Constitution means what it meant when it was written. To think otherwise is to deny its validity. Amend it if you must, but be careful in what you do.
Irony...During the Battle of Gettysburg when Pickett (Confederate military commander) make the charge and lost. The farm where Pickett lost the battle, was owned by an African American at the time of the battle...Irony!!!
I asked my Travel Agent about a tour and she told me she "Never heard of it"
What's amazing is most of the people I know that have moved here from the North say people of different ethnic backgrounds seem to get along better here in the South than in the North. They all say how racist people are where they are from: Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, etc.
Jut more generalization from people like you that try to bash the South.
Who was that President that pushed the civil rights....you know, that guy from Texas.
Until then, please do not confuse Republicans with Libertarians.
The fact of the matter is that libertarians don't give a DARN about personal liberty. They're conservative Republicans who want to smoke dope and have sex.
As a true libertarian I do give a "darn" about personal liberty. If you want to smoke dope and have sex go for it. If that is how you pursue happiness then who am I to stand in your way? I want a life free from others telling me what I have to do. The only way oppression can be combated is to limit power - which means less government.
Not so. In the North it was called Antietam, in the South it was called Sharpsburg. Lincoln needed a Union victory upon which to base the Emancipation Proclamation. Antietam/Sharpsburg gave him that.
The Right only likes State's Rights when the state is conservative. Hence their displeasure with state's legalizing medical marijuana, assisted suicide, and same sex marriage. There are several states which would criminalize abortion if they could.
Listen to the "patriotism" on the right- they love their country so much that if they don't get their way they'll have to secede from it.
America: Love it or Leave it! Happy 1971 (swinging pendulum not included)
Hmmm...
Wasn't that about the time when Blue~est of Blue New York wanted to secede from the Union over inequitable tax distributions?
New York Dems...."they love their country so much that if they don't get their way they'll have to secede from it."