Reconsidering Abraham Lincoln

[WiseOne]

This is a fascinating story.  I wish more people were talking about it.

Same here.  I spent a good chunk of the weekend on odd/even rationed gas lines in northern NJ on behalf of elderly relatives who are, thanks to our suburban design principles, utterly car-dependent.  This post-Sandy nightmare isn't a true gas shortage, but it's a hint of what we may be in for in another 10-20 years.

[hpowders]

Here is an interesting reenactment of what Lincoln's life may have been like, Louis CK style.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/ ... 2756/  4:26

(takes a moment to load.)

Funny stuff. "Do you have the tickets"? Almost fell out of my chair laughing!

[RuralEngineer]

Lots of interesting discussion here.

I lost most of my respect for Lincoln the day I figured out that he is solely responsible for a great many of the issues that plague me (us?) today.  He is the father of federalism as we know it today, where the central government is so close to being all powerful as to not make a difference.  While State's Rights may or may not have been the driving reason behind the civil war, from a Southern perspective, State's Rights were certainly a casualty.  I view the ending of slavery as the silver lining in the travesty that was the Civil War.

I hate to make this analogy, because I don't want to be deliberately provocative, but these are the only modern social issues that are polarizing enough to be compared to slavery.

My view is that Lincoln's response to Southern secession would be similar to the Federal government using troops to close all abortion clinics by force, shooting anyone who resisted.  Now, I'm a pro-life guy, don't get me wrong.  And, unlike slavery, abortion has a 100% mortality rate.  Even so, using violence to kill or subdue any who disagree with your viewpoint would have be seen as much more than poor leadership today, which is why it's so unthinkable.

A bit in the past, but a good example of this same point of view that didn't involve secession, was what happened to Utah.  The Governor of Utah was given the choice between being invaded by Federal troops or banning polygamy.  At that time Utah was almost entirely Mormon.  While this didn't come to violence, as the Civil War did, it was only because the precedent had been set by Lincoln that the Federal Government has the absolute right to use force to override States Rights where it deems it fit.  This particular incident also had the bonus of infringing on religious freedoms as well.

I often hear people today mention that no State has the right to secede from the Union (usually in reference to Texas).  However, that is only because Abram Lincoln so firmly established that the Federal Government is perfectly willing to exterminate enormous portions of the population in order to keep that from happening.

[hpowders]

Spoken like a loyal Democrat.

[MediumTex]

Spoken like a loyal Democrat.

Are you responding to the post above?

I thought that RuralEngineer had a lot of great points without any obvious partisan slant at all.

[hpowders]

Ahhhh ..... the revisionists. 

[Pointedstick]

hpowders, maybe you could expand on your comments a bit more. We're having a really interesting conversation here and it would be a shame for it to get hijacked by name-calling.

[moda0306]

hpowders,

I don't really know what you're trying to imply.  Perhaps a bit more clarity would help.


RuralEngineer,

I have a couple problems with that perspective.  First, the attitude that Lincoln was a tyrant against peaceful Secessionists ignores that individual rights come far before states rights.  States of the South were the true tyrants, IMO.  Just because a government is smaller in size doesn't mean it's less coercive or tyrranical.  The Confederate government even drafted southerners into the war, even further effectively exercizing "big government" tyranny over individual rights.  

Second, other than slavery or secession, what other rights was Lincoln's government usurping?  It seems to me the only thing the South really cared about was slavery, and that, along with Secession, were the main things Lincoln disagreed with as state's rights.  Further, I have trouble seeing Secession as an "efficient" check on tyrannical government, mostly because it was the states, not the federal government, exercising what I deem to be the most brutal tyranny, and apparently saw little-if-no end to their practice.  This continued through the Jim Crow days in the South, where it was the state and local governments, some literally sponsoring terrorism, that were limiting the freedoms of their citizens, in an obvious case of tyranny of the majority.

I tend to think that Teddy Roosevelt (as the main republican) and a bunch of other 20th century democrats (Woodrow Wilson & FDR) tend to be the main expanders of federal powers into new areas.  However, the states of the South didn't seem to mind then (they were solidly in favor of those latter presidents), so even then, would Secession been a good tool to limit federal powers?  I guess I don't think so.

So I guess I don't even see "state's rights" as an efficient mechanism to limit tyranny, in many ways.  In fact, it perpetuated quite possibly the worst form of tyranny imaginable... that of classifying a human being as property, with no rights whatsoever.  Sovereignty is individual at it its most pure level.  Governments of any size can violate them.  It would appear to me that the general rule that the federal government is markably worse than state and local governments at usurping individual rights is a lot more flawed than the founding fathers may have realized.

[Pointedstick]

Excellent points, moda. One question that I struggle with is that once you go down the road of allowing a bigger government to force a smaller government to be more respectful of individual rights, who checks the bigger government should they ever start to behave badly themselves? Now that the federal government here in the USA is very powerful and I believe we can all agree that it violates many individual rights, how are we to deal with this? There is no larger government we can appeal to that will smack down the feds. So we're still left with our basic problem, which is government at some level oppressing individuals. But by bubbling up the power, we've rendered the government that's least accountable the most likely to be the one harming individuals.

[moda0306]

PS,

I see state and local governments as having a different but similar role as the separation of powers of the federal government.  I think having the firewalls within our federal government, with certain branches with duties specifically set up to offset the power of another branch, is a really good idea.  I tend to think the branch function of government works extremely well in some ways, but tend to think of the state sovereignty experiment to be a bit foggier.  

One thing I've noticed with commerce nowadays, is that it makes state regulations almost more of a burden (even if they're better designed, on average, due to the accountability function you mention) than federal regulations.  I know this may seem asinine, but much of it isn't really due to the overt fault of state governments, so hear me out.

If you are a business that does business with 25 states, based on the years I've spent in sales & income tax (as well as looking a bit at insurance regs for each state), I believe most businesses of this moderate size would much rather deal with slightly worse regulations from the federal government and only them, than pretty good regulations from 25 different states, with different forms, different standards, etc.  Maybe it's because I was neck deep in state tax-returns that all had different rules about them, but it was mind-boggling, and I missed the arbitrary-yet-repeatable action of simply pounding out a federal tax return.  I know sales tax and regulations are often quite a bit worse than the income tax I became accustomed to hating.  The world is simply a lot smaller now.  After seeing what kind of headache all these individual states can be, and allt he times they've failed to be the "check" on the federal government they were supposed to be, I tend to lose faith in that aspect of the American experiment.

[Pointedstick]

I understand where you're coming from, Moda. In the gun community, we have similar problems. There are some states where you can be legally carrying your gun in county A, and then drive across the line into county B and suddenly you're committing a crime because you're running afoul of some local prohibition against carrying revolvers on Sunday within 1500 feet of a hospital or some similarly ridiculous regulation. And of course, if you're transporting firearms across state lines, you need to know the law in every individual state.

Thing is, the danger of allowing the feds to just wipe the slate clean and force the states to comply with one centralized rule is that lots of people are always going to be unhappy with the outcome. Right now, us gunnies are winning the concealed-carry battles, for instance, and we're close to getting federal legislation passed that forces all the states to honor concealed carry permits issued by other states. From the perspective of regularization, standardization, and expansion of individual self defense, that's great! From the perspective of people who are frightened of guns or the possibility of their fellow citizens carrying them, this is an outrage, a travesty, a dangerous threat to public safety... you see where I'm going with this? Standardization of federal law only works better than having a patchwork of state laws if you approve of the federal law. If the federal law destroys your business, erases a right, or prohibits you from building a house on your own land, it may very well be much worse than having to deal with a patchwork quilt of state and local laws.

Not saying that federalism is some kind of golden ideal government; just playing devil's advocate here.

[moda0306]

PS,

Can't say I disagree with any of your points... looks like we're simply both obsessed with playing Devil's Advocate to the point of thread-hickacking.

I don't know the perfect combination, especially when we live in a world where interstate commerce is so prevalent compared to 1776.  In the end, trying to think through the best combination of federal, state, local, and individual sovereignty on every issue is a fruitless mental exercise compared to figuring out how to best use the freedom I DO have to enjoy life.

Pontificating and philosiphising is only rewarding for so long... Eventually you have to crack a beer and just be glad we don't have prohibition anymore (still hard to believe we ever had federal banning of alcohol... and makes me wonder whether the South supported it...).

[Pointedstick]

Pontificating and philosiphising is only rewarding for so long... Eventually you have to crack a beer and just be glad we don't have prohibition anymore (still hard to believe we ever had federal banning of alcohol... and makes me wonder whether the South supported it...).

Only Connecticut and Rhode Island voted against ratifying the 18th amendment! Pretty amazing how caught up in such a silly moralistic fever the whole country seems to have been.

But I agree, by and large we live in an incredibly free country. I think it's still important to point out the flaws, though.  Otherwise I feel like complacency will be a force for apathy in the face of oppression, when it needs to be fought!

[moda0306]

After a bit of research, it appears as if both parties were both pretty overwhelmingly in favor of prohibition, and, as you say, most states.  As a frigging amendment to the US constitution no less!!  That is no easy task!

[RuralEngineer]

hpowders,

I don't really know what you're trying to imply.  Perhaps a bit more clarity would help.


RuralEngineer,

I have a couple problems with that perspective.  First, the attitude that Lincoln was a tyrant against peaceful Secessionists ignores that individual rights come far before states rights.  States of the South were the true tyrants, IMO.  Just because a government is smaller in size doesn't mean it's less coercive or tyrranical.  The Confederate government even drafted southerners into the war, even further effectively exercizing "big government" tyranny over individual rights.  

Second, other than slavery or secession, what other rights was Lincoln's government usurping?  It seems to me the only thing the South really cared about was slavery, and that, along with Secession, were the main things Lincoln disagreed with as state's rights.  Further, I have trouble seeing Secession as an "efficient" check on tyrannical government, mostly because it was the states, not the federal government, exercising what I deem to be the most brutal tyranny, and apparently saw little-if-no end to their practice.  This continued through the Jim Crow days in the South, where it was the state and local governments, some literally sponsoring terrorism, that were limiting the freedoms of their citizens, in an obvious case of tyranny of the majority.

I tend to think that Teddy Roosevelt (as the main republican) and a bunch of other 20th century democrats (Woodrow Wilson & FDR) tend to be the main expanders of federal powers into new areas.  However, the states of the South didn't seem to mind then (they were solidly in favor of those latter presidents), so even then, would Secession been a good tool to limit federal powers?  I guess I don't think so.

So I guess I don't even see "state's rights" as an efficient mechanism to limit tyranny, in many ways.  In fact, it perpetuated quite possibly the worst form of tyranny imaginable... that of classifying a human being as property, with no rights whatsoever.  Sovereignty is individual at it its most pure level.  Governments of any size can violate them.  It would appear to me that the general rule that the federal government is markably worse than state and local governments at usurping individual rights is a lot more flawed than the founding fathers may have realized.

Lots of points to address in this post.  I'll try to list them in order.

1. You assert that individual rights come before State's rights.  However, at the time of the Civil War, slaves had no rights.  They were property.  Abraham Lincoln didn't even free the slaves in the Union and in fact, there were slave states that fought for the North.  This invalidates your entire point since it doesn't matter how immoral the South was, the point of contention wasn't illegal at all.  The North invaded the South to forcefully keep them in the Union.  You can look at this through the lens of modern morality, but that doesn't give moral weight to actions taken 150 years ago.

2. You mention that the more brutal tyranny was Southern slavery, and I agree.  However, what your argument really appears to be is that the ends justify the means.  Your argument is easily applied to justify indefinite detention in the NDAA, the targeted killing of American citizens without trial (Awlaki), or any number of other morally tenuous actions taken by the Federal Government today.  These types of actions always seem to be viewed and inspected in a vacuum, forever forgetting that scope creep is inevitable.  The Civil War didn't just lead to the abolition of slavery, it permanently made the States ultimately subservient to the Federal Government with NO recourse by removing secession as the final measure of protest.

3. Your argument that secession is not efficient strikes me as particularly weak.  Is slavery the only issue of contention between the Federal and State governments?  The Civil War didn't end secession as a means of protesting or protecting slavery, it removed secession as a check against Federal power for any reason.  An unjust foreign war, unfair taxation, abuse of public land, or even an intolerable exercising of eminent domain are all examples of issues that have now been relegated to pure majority rule at the whim of the Federal Government.  Thanks to our wonderful Supreme Court, the Federal Government now has the ability to attempt to influence your behavior through punitive taxation.  The only way fight that now is a constitutional amendment.  I don't see ANY amendment being ratified by the required number of states.  Without secession the line is drawn at simply hoping that your congressional representatives are persuasive enough to sway a majority opinion in Congress, and that the President does not block your efforts.  Today we also have to contend with Presidential fiat, to which there is increasingly no recourse.  Secession is an extremely effective check against the Federal government because it completely removes Federal authority, forcing compromise.  The fact that secession is harmful for both parties is further evidence of how effective it is.  It may not put all of the power in the hands of the individual, but it ensures that power is more concentrated with the people than a vast overarching central government does.  "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson

4. State's rights were never meant to be a mechanism to combat ALL tyranny.  It's simply a meant to protect against the tyranny of an ever growing Federal government.  The only true defense against tyranny from all sources is the Bill of Rights and the laws we build into our constitutions to ensure we are not trampled.  Just because States rights has not always functioned morally and effectively doesn't mean that it should be abolished.

5. Finally, using the fact that the defense of State's rights and the geographic bastions of small government proponents has not always been consistent as a reason to abandon States rights is incredibly foolish.  Human beings are inconsistent.  The very fact that some of the inalienable rights outlined by the Constitution are no longer valued by large portions of our population is a testament to that fact.  That doesn't mean that those ideas are less valuable because people have held them inconsistently.

[moda0306]

States have repeatedly done almost nothing to prevent the worst types of tyranny of the federal government (draft, foreign wars, japanese internment, manifest destiny, etc) while applying tyranny all their own to their respective societies.

My assertion about human rights was a philosophical one, not a functional one.  I don't think states rights should ever be placed above individual rights.  The South repeatedly tried to use states rights as a shield to their own brutal tyranny.  Further, I don't think it's settled law that states had a right to simply secede, and therefore their open attack on Union soldiers at Ft Sumpter should be viewed as at least arguably heavy provocation of war.

I don't necessarily approve of the war, but I've never fully bought into a state's right to secede, nor do I believe that this would have resulted in less tyranny over the last century and a half.

So really the only two times in US history we've seen a large backlash by states against the federal government are over slavery and civil rights... Never over the draft, internment, unnecessary war, and even SS/Medicare/medicaid/income-tax/federal-reserve.  If we're really rooting for sovereign states to be able to fight for their freedom, should we not be arguing for the rights of sovereign humans to fight for theirs?  Would you have liked to have seen a bloody revolution of slaves against white slaveowners and Southern governments?

[RuralEngineer]

Secession is settled as of the Civil War.  The Federal government will kill or otherwise subdue anyone who attempts to secede.  Peaceful secession has been deemed impossible.  Now any disagreement between the States and the Federal government that cannot be resolved diplomatically jumps straight to acknowledgement of Federal supremacy or violent revolution.

Yes, a bloody revolution by the slaves would have had more legitimacy.  Captives always have the right to fight their captors.  The slaves had both the moral right to rebel, and the legal right, since they were not citizens, but captives.  You don't seem to be seeing the difference between legal and moral justification.  The Civil War can only be debated on the basis of secession, not slavery because slavery was not illegal, however immoral it may have been.  In addition, while the Southern reason for secession may have been slavery, it was not the reason for the North's invasion.

As for Fort Sumter, the Union troops were given months to evacuate property that, as a result of Southern secession, was no longer Federal land.  Their refusal to leave was a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the South's secession.  Once they refused to leave, the only remaining choices were war or for the South to rejoin the Union.

[MachineGhost]

After a bit of research, it appears as if both parties were both pretty overwhelmingly in favor of prohibition, and, as you say, most states.  As a frigging amendment to the US constitution no less!!  That is no easy task!

Never understimate the power of the truth marching on, especially if it's women.

[MediumTex]

After a bit of research, it appears as if both parties were both pretty overwhelmingly in favor of prohibition, and, as you say, most states.  As a frigging amendment to the US constitution no less!!  That is no easy task!

Never understimate the power of the truth marching on, especially if it's women.

I'm sure that those women would have been very disappointed if you had shown them a few minutes of ads from a modern NFL game.

"It's awful.  They've brought back alcohol in the future and the women are barely wearing any clothes."

From this:



To this:

[AgAuMoney]

Further, I have trouble seeing Secession as an "efficient" check on tyrannical government, mostly because it was the states, not the federal government, exercising what I deem to be the most brutal tyranny, and apparently saw little-if-no end to their practice.  This continued through the Jim Crow days in the South, where it was the state and local governments, some literally sponsoring terrorism, that were limiting the freedoms of their citizens, in an obvious case of tyranny of the majority.

There is a quite well substantiated body of research that shows slavery was on the decline and would have naturally disappeared largely within 5-10 years and essentially entirely by the 20th century, allowed its abolition without violence.  Instead the civil war actually resulted in an immediate increase in racism, especially legal racism but also extra-legal acts of violence against blacks, which in large part reversed the previously accelerating trends and adding almost 100 years of suppression far less obvious than slavery.

[moda0306]

AgAu,

From what I can tell, based on the Declarations of Reasons for Secession, the only states right they were concerned about with much vehimence was slavery. 

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

Does it really sound like slavery was "on its way out?"  Further, does it really sound like the South cared about much else besides slavery?  The word "tariff" wasn't mentioned even once! Slavery was the "greatest material interest of the world," and "should exist in all future time."  These are the same Jeffersonian philosophers who supported Woodrow Wilson and FDR, expanding the federal government far, far more broadly than simply changing the legal status of slaves to citizens with rights.  The Republican Party was actually started, for the most part, based on its members wanting to stop the spread of slavery.

I'd love to see your sources claiming slavery was on its way out.  More and more I'm starting to think that it's nothing but revisionist history, and I would sure hope they address the reasons for secession as actually laid out by the confederate states... otherwise it's just ignoring major contributions to the debate in favor for what are most-likely half truths backing their points.

[AgAuMoney]

I'd love to see your sources claiming slavery was on its way out.

The most damning is that the emancipation proclamation was issued Jan 1863, long after the war had begun (Mar 1861).  Also Lincoln focused his efforts and talk first on eliminating slavery in the rebel states which denied his authority but initially did nothing about slavery in other 8 slave states still loyal to the north.  It seems fairly obvious to me that in looking at the Republican party and Lincoln position during that election campaign that they were pushing a strong central government with more control.  Southern states had already been feeling pressured, there had been a lot of discussion in Congress, and they hoped the election would validate the independence and autonomy of states.  It didn't, so following the example of the original American revolution they decided to leave their former affiliation.  Nearly two years later slavery became THE supposed issue.

Broader macro trends also lead to the same conclusion.  The number of slave owners was declining, the number of freed slaves was increasing.  Technology (e.g. factories, railroads, farm equipment) was much cheaper and less aggravation than slaves.  India was already beginning to displace U.S. cotton production.  Finally in other countries around the world (e.g. Europe and Canada being most like the U.S. at the time) those trends culminated with the end of slavery, without war.

[moda0306]

No offense, but that's apologist revisionism.  Read the link I attached.  They tried to secede because of pressures against the spread and existence of slavery, and little else.  The emancipation proclamation is almost irrelevant.  And how does it have anything to do with whether slavery was on its way out or not?  It was the passing of the 13th amendment, which was almost impossible to pass with only the northern states participating in the vote.  Slavery wasn't on its way out, as it was far and away GE largest reason the south was willing to go to war to secede.  He'll, they had dreams of spreading it westward and into new territories.

None of these so called fed-haters said bunk when men were drafted into WWI, the income tax was passed, the federal reserve was created, umpteen programs under FDR were passed... No, they actually voted for the likes of FDR and Woodrow Wilson in drives.  As Pointed Stick said... The states right they cared about was the institution of slavery, and the right to secede to preserve and expand it.

[AgAuMoney]

No offense, but that's apologist revisionism.  Read the link I attached.  They tried to secede because of pressures against the spread and existence of slavery, and little else.  The emancipation proclamation is almost irrelevant.

I read your link.  4 states.  4 states spouting political bullshit that made no sense then and none now.  Of course they said that and listed those issues.  It was a hot button.  Did YOU read them?  Secession would not have changed ANY of their complaints, it would only have changed their local law and their local law was NOT an issue.  So obviously those issues were NOT the reason for secession but only listed to stir up the people.

How can you claim the proclamation is "almost irrelevant"?  It goes entirely to lincoln's claimed motive, and proves that the elimination of slavery was not a concern at the start of the war.

  And how does it have anything to do with whether slavery was on its way out or not?

I addressed that in the rest of my post.

Slavery was dying everywhere and slaveholders knew that, which is why they dreamed of it expanding and it was such a hot button for them.

[moda0306]

AgAu,

So these reasons should just be ignored because they sound stupid and we should believe that men who voted for Woodrow Wilson 50 years later were really Jeffersonian philosophers who thought they'd just print up a bunch of bs on slavery being the main issue just for shits and giggles?  Sorry but you're going to have to try harder than that

If these folks had good, wholesome reasons to secede, why would they parade themselves out as oppressors?  I really have no idea what your logic is on that.

They were actually spreading slavery westward. Texas said that they wanted to have it forever.  And are we to believe that they would have ever been given anything close to full citizenship?

We all know lincoln didn't specifically fight the war over slavery, but he sure went through a lot of political capital to end it via the 13th amendment. 

Could you please attach some useful journalistic material on why you think slavery was winding down in the South?  I really have trouble buying this argument when it would at least appear that the south wanted everyone to think otherwise.