1787: The Great Decision

[PoliticalChic]

…either ending the institution of slavery, or the creation of the United States?



1.Many times I have heard the ‘time machine argument’….if you could go back in time would you……???

Often, the question is this disingenuous one, ‘would you abort a fetus that you knew would be Adolph Hitler?’ It is used as a kind of ambush of pro-life folks. The right answer is no, because you cannot tell an unborn would be, and so very many random events could alter the course of a life. A Buddhist might refer to Indra’s Net.

But, a less intense query is the above….you could either have two nations, one with slavery, one free, or the nation we now call the United States.

That is the very real question that our Founders faced.





2.In actuality, that was the conflict facing the Founders. The decision that they made was supported years later by the greatest President in the last 100 years: he told aides on many occasions, “I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.” Ronald Reagan

Just so, the Founders compromised with the slaver-owners of the South, in order to form the finest nation the world had ever seen, while planning on coming back later to finish off slavery altogether. That design can be seen in denying the South the ability to count slaves fully in the census, which would have given them perpetual control of Congress.





3.Although his party was established to end slavery, the 16th President battled, a la Ronald Reagan, to save the nation as his first priority.

In an attempt to head off the impending war, Abraham Lincoln wrote to the Democrat who would become the vice-president of the Confederacy, promising that his administration had no intention of interfering with slaver in the states where it already existed.
Sadly, this didn’t prevent the South from starting the bloodiest war in our history.





4. But Lincoln made clear the difference between the Republican and the Democrat positions on slavery:

“I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” Letter to Alexander H. Stephens
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
December 22, 1860



Did the Founders make the right choice, or wrong one?

 

[Toronado3800]

…either ending the institution of slavery, or the creation of the United States?



1.Many times I have heard the ‘time machine argument’….if you could go back in time would you……???

Often, the question is this disingenuous one, ‘would you abort a fetus that you knew would be Adolph Hitler?’ It is used as a kind of ambush of pro-life folks. The right answer is no, because you cannot tell an unborn would be, and so very many random events could alter the course of a life. A Buddhist might refer to Indra’s Net.

But, a less intense query is the above….you could either have two nations, one with slavery, one free, or the nation we now call the United States.

That is the very real question that our Founders faced.





2.In actuality, that was the conflict facing the Founders. The decision that they made was supported years later by the greatest President in the last 100 years: he told aides on many occasions, “I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.” Ronald Reagan

Just so, the Founders compromised with the slaver-owners of the South, in order to form the finest nation the world had ever seen, while planning on coming back later to finish off slavery altogether. That design can be seen in denying the South the ability to count slaves fully in the census, which would have given them perpetual control of Congress.





3.Although his party was established to end slavery, the 16th President battled, a la Ronald Reagan, to save the nation as his first priority.

In an attempt to head off the impending war, Abraham Lincoln wrote to the Democrat who would become the vice-president of the Confederacy, promising that his administration had no intention of interfering with slaver in the states where it already existed.
Sadly, this didn’t prevent the South from starting the bloodiest war in our history.





4. But Lincoln made clear the difference between the Republican and the Democrat positions on slavery:

“I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” Letter to Alexander H. Stephens
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
December 22, 1860



Did the Founders make the right choice, or wrong one?

Not a bad topic at all!

I'll vote they made an acceptable decision.

After the Revolutionary War no one had the pallet for another war so that wasn't a choice.

I'm REALLY thrilled we were a larger country by the time of the War of 1812 then last century's wars.

Damn the Civil War was bloody and would the carnage of been avoided or would there have just been a North vs South War?

 

[PoliticalChic]

5. What need be made clear is that being for or against slavery is not a geographical argument, not the North vs the South……they are the position on slavery of the political parties….Republicans vs that of Democrats. And to this day, it remains the difference.



a. A prime example is Illinois Democrat Stephen Douglas, of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas made his feelings clear:

“Now, I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. …. He belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position.

I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity for ever; and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, ….” In the First Debate with Lincoln
In the First Debate with Lincoln by Stephen Arnold Douglas. America: II. (1818-1865). Vol. IX. Bryan, William Jennings, ed. 1906. The World's Famous Orations

This was the position of the Democrat Party…and remained so. When the Republicans pried their slaves away from them, the Democrat fall-back position was segregation:
“I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Democrat George Wallace, 1963




b. A century after the Civil War, the same views, pro-slavery, from Northern Democrats:

… lest one think that only Southern Democrats were inclined against civil rights, the following Democrats were far from Southerners and all voted against allowing the 1957 civil rights bill on the calendar: Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon (a favorite target of Senator Joe McCarthy), Warren Magnuson of Washington, James Murray of Montana, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and Joseph O’Mahoney of Wyoming.

There were plenty of southern integrationists. They were Republicans.
1966- pro-integrationist Republican Winthrop Rockefeller won Arkansas, replacing Clinton-pal Orval Faubus.

 

[PoliticalChic]

And more clear is that being for or against slavery is not a geographical argument, not the North vs the South……they are the position on slavery of the political parties….Republicans vs that of Democrats. And to this day, it remains the difference.





6. More evidence that the slavery debate was a Republican-Democrat debate, rather than a North-South debate:

“In 1860…no Republican owned a slave. I don’t mean that no Republican leader owned a slave. No Republican in the country owned a slave. All the slaves in the country at the time-all four million of them- were owned by Democrats.”
“Death Of A Nation,” Dinesh D’Souza, p. 100




7. “The difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties on the leading issue of this contest, as I understand it, is, that the former consider slavery a moral, social and political wrong, while the latter [the Democrats] do not consider it either a moral, social or political wrong; and the action of each, as respects the growth of the country and the expansion of our population, is squared to meet these views.”
Abraham Lincoln at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858


As the party-sans-principles, today's Democrats are anti-white.

Well....on principle: winning power.

 

[PoliticalChic]

8. Republican Lincoln went on to remind all that, according to the Democrat Party….”Every measure of the Democratic party of late years, bearing directly or indirectly on the slavery question, has corresponded with this notion of utter indifference whether slavery or freedom shall outrun in the race of empire across the Pacific---every measure, I say, up to the Dred Scott decision, where, it seems to me, the idea is boldly suggested that slavery is better than freedom.” Abraham Lincoln at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858





9. To this day, the Democrats favor slavery over freedom…..for all races. How so?
Because now they openly champion socialism, the same theft of one’s labor as slavery is.

Southern Democrat theoretician George Fitzhugh made an interesting admission about two related desires of the Democrats: Slavery and Socialism.

" What society needed was slavery, not just for blacks, but for whites as well. "Slavery," "is a form, and the very best form, of socialism."

"Socialism," Proposes to do away with free competition; to afford protection and support at all times to the laboring class; to bring about, at least, a qualified community of property, and to associate labor. All these purposes, slavery fully land perfectly attains. [...] Socialism is already slavery in all save the master... Our only quarrel with Socialism is, that it will not honestly admit that it owes its recent revival to the failure of universal liberty, and is seeking to bring about slavery again in some form.” Fitzhugh, George (1854Sociology for the South, p. 48)



And, they remain, the party of slavery and of socialism to this day.

Didn't learn that in government school, did ya'

 

[whitehall]

You can't include Lincoln in a discussion about the "Founders". They were almost a hundred years apart. Since New Jersey was the last northern state to outlaw slavery a scant fifteen years before the Civil War and the New England cotton factories were making a fortune from slave cotton you can't point a finger at the South. The point is that every country in the world was involved in the slave trade in the 1700's but most people got over it by the 20th century. A million people were slaughtered during the Civil War, civilians and soldiers alike, and that was payback in full for the abominable institution so get over it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

You can't include Lincoln in a discussion about the "Founders". They were almost a hundred years apart. Since New Jersey was the last northern state to outlaw slavery a scant fifteen years before the Civil War and the New England cotton factories were making a fortune from slave cotton you can't point a finger at the South. The point is that every country in the world was involved in the slave trade in the 1700's but most people got over it by the 20th century. A million people were slaughtered during the Civil War, civilians and soldiers alike, and that was payback in full for the abominable institution so get over it.

1. "You can't include Lincoln in a discussion about the "Founders"."

I can include them based on their views of slavery.


2. "The point is that every country in the world was involved in the slave trade in the 1700's but most people got over it by the 20th century. "

And?


3. "that was payback in full for the abominable institution so get over it."

Certainly a valid and correct point....that was 'reparations'...

Now...what is it you'd like me to 'get over'?

 

[PoliticalChic]

10.If those who favored abolition, at the time of ratification, had chosen to end slavery….there would not have been a United States..



These are the two considerations in that decision:

a. One cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.


b. And…the decision, a compromise with evil, had to be paid for:

"At least 620,000 combatants died during the four-year struggle; recent estimates put the total closer to 750,000, or more than 2 percent of the nation’s population at that time. More soldiers died in prison camps alone than America lost during the entire Vietnam War. Perhaps more to the point, some 350,000 Union soldiers died during the conflict, abolitionists in effect if not always in intent. Adjusted for population, that would amount to almost 5 million service deaths today, amounting to a blood sacrifice more than sufficient to redeem whatever moral or intellectual inconsistencies there are to be found in America’s founding documents.

And if that’s not sufficient? Well, then, nothing will be. But for most Americans—and for much of the rest of the world—it is more than enough. "
Blood Redemption



This is the answer to the question asked in the OP.

 

[Blackrook]

I think I agree with all you've said. Slavery was a grave sin, and was paid for in blood and death, not only of the guilty, but the innocent too.

 

[regent]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.



The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

 

[Pogo]

…either ending the institution of slavery, or the creation of the United States?



1.Many times I have heard the ‘time machine argument’….if you could go back in time would you……???

Often, the question is this disingenuous one, ‘would you abort a fetus that you knew would be Adolph Hitler?’ It is used as a kind of ambush of pro-life folks. The right answer is no, because you cannot tell an unborn would be, and so very many random events could alter the course of a life. A Buddhist might refer to Indra’s Net.

But, a less intense query is the above….you could either have two nations, one with slavery, one free, or the nation we now call the United States.

That is the very real question that our Founders faced.





2.In actuality, that was the conflict facing the Founders. The decision that they made was supported years later by the greatest President in the last 100 years: he told aides on many occasions, “I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.” Ronald Reagan

Just so, the Founders compromised with the slaver-owners of the South, in order to form the finest nation the world had ever seen, while planning on coming back later to finish off slavery altogether. That design can be seen in denying the South the ability to count slaves fully in the census, which would have given them perpetual control of Congress.





3.Although his party was established to end slavery, the 16th President battled, a la Ronald Reagan, to save the nation as his first priority.

In an attempt to head off the impending war, Abraham Lincoln wrote to the Democrat who would become the vice-president of the Confederacy, promising that his administration had no intention of interfering with slaver in the states where it already existed.
Sadly, this didn’t prevent the South from starting the bloodiest war in our history.





4. But Lincoln made clear the difference between the Republican and the Democrat positions on slavery:

“I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.” Letter to Alexander H. Stephens
Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, Illinois
December 22, 1860



Did the Founders make the right choice, or wrong one?

Alexander Stephens was a Whig, Dumbass. Then he was a Unionist (1850s) and a Constitutional Unionist at the time of the 1860 election (a Whig offshoot which finished third) and the Civil War. The Confederacy, of which he was Vice-President, had no political parties.

 

[Pogo]

You can't include Lincoln in a discussion about the "Founders". They were almost a hundred years apart. Since New Jersey was the last northern state to outlaw slavery a scant fifteen years before the Civil War and the New England cotton factories were making a fortune from slave cotton you can't point a finger at the South.

That;s interesting since I know of two states I've lived in, Pennsylvania outlawed slavery in 1780 and Vermont never permitted it at all.

 

[regent]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.
+


The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

The only party I know that cut off free speech was the conservative party with their Sedition Act during Adam's term in the White House. Jefferson on taking office restored "free speech" to America. As for socialism, of the many many types what type are the Democrats pushing?
,

 

[PoliticalChic]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.
+


The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

The only party I know that cut off free speech was the conservative party with their Sedition Act during Adam's term in the White House. Jefferson on taking office restored "free speech" to America. As for socialism, of the many many types what type are the Democrats pushing?
,

Of course, as is the case for most of your post is the modifier "I know."

You know so very little, and the rest, your biases blind you about.

I can help.

I realize that those of you on the Left treat books as vampires treat a cross, break the mold and pick up a copy of this book by a real Liberal:

The only party that put an anti-free speech advocate on the Supreme Court is the Democrat Party.

Didn't you know that, you dunce?

 

[Marion Morrison]

^ I have that, never cracked it.

That being said, Lincoln jailed dissenting journalists. That's not very free speech-ish.

‘Lincoln and the Power of the Press,’ by Harold Holzer

Abraham Lincoln and Journalists - Abraham Lincoln's Classroom

 

[PoliticalChic]

^ I have that, never cracked it.

I'm gonna have to take points off if the report is late!

 

[Pogo]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.
+


The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

The only party I know that cut off free speech was the conservative party with their Sedition Act during Adam's term in the White House. Jefferson on taking office restored "free speech" to America. As for socialism, of the many many types what type are the Democrats pushing?
,

Of course, as is the case for most of your post is the modifier "I know."

You know so very little, and the rest, your biases blind you about.

I can help.

I realize that those of you on the Left treat books as vampires treat a cross, break the mold and pick up a copy of this book by a real Liberal:

The only party that put an anti-free speech advocate on the Supreme Court is the Democrat Party.

Didn't you know that, you dunce?

I for one sure didn't know that. You see, on my planet political parties don't put anybody on a Supreme Court.

Of course the key phrase is "on my planet".

 

[Marion Morrison]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.
+


The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

The only party I know that cut off free speech was the conservative party with their Sedition Act during Adam's term in the White House. Jefferson on taking office restored "free speech" to America. As for socialism, of the many many types what type are the Democrats pushing?
,

Of course, as is the case for most of your post is the modifier "I know."

You know so very little, and the rest, your biases blind you about.

I can help.

I realize that those of you on the Left treat books as vampires treat a cross, break the mold and pick up a copy of this book by a real Liberal:

The only party that put an anti-free speech advocate on the Supreme Court is the Democrat Party.

Didn't you know that, you dunce?

I for one sure didn't know that. You see, on my planet political parties don't put anybody on a Supreme Court.

Of course the key phrase is "on my planet".

I'm going to guess reality doesn't come knocking there often.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I wonder what practice Americans have today that in time will be eradicated or found unconstitutional?

Free speech if the Democrats/Liberals take charge.
Obama put an anti-free speech Leftist on the Supreme Court.
+


The Democrat Party is now running on full-blown anti-white racism, socialism, infanticide, opposition to free speech, substituting illegal alien voters for the American citizenry, and anti-Semitism…

The only party I know that cut off free speech was the conservative party with their Sedition Act during Adam's term in the White House. Jefferson on taking office restored "free speech" to America. As for socialism, of the many many types what type are the Democrats pushing?
,

Of course, as is the case for most of your post is the modifier "I know."

You know so very little, and the rest, your biases blind you about.

I can help.

I realize that those of you on the Left treat books as vampires treat a cross, break the mold and pick up a copy of this book by a real Liberal:

The only party that put an anti-free speech advocate on the Supreme Court is the Democrat Party.

Didn't you know that, you dunce?

I for one sure didn't know that. You see, on my planet political parties don't put anybody on a Supreme Court.

Of course the key phrase is "on my planet".

There's a planet just for liars????


Do us all a favor and stay there, stinky.