Read it closely, and compare to Mr. Lincoln's original.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers declared independence from the United Kingdom and then went on to form a loose confederation of independent states which was scrapped a few years later in favor of a somewhat more centralized federation of states. Some of our ancestors have been agitating since that time to further impose their values upon others, consolidate power and make the voluntary Union compulsory.Original here.
Now are are waged in a great war to centralize power and and gain economic and political benefits over Southerners, testing whether we can prevail on the battle-field and dominate the South for many generations to come. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that our vision of involuntary, centralized government might be forced upon others. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have advanced through superior manpower, funding and supply of arms. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this involuntary union, under an unconstrained executive, shall have fewer freedoms and more centralized power – and that government in Washington, DC, by Northern elites, for their economic and political interests, shall not perish from the earth.
(AP- Slightly edited to change English spelling to American English)
That guvmint of the banks, buy the banks, and for the banks shall not perish from the earth...
ReplyDeleteNot a bad exercise, but the idioms are mixed and all wrong.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't United Kingdom in '76. It was Great Britain. UK came much later.
The added vocabulary is anachronistic and jarring.
Try "conquer" instead of "impose values". Any tyrant worth his crown would not pussyfoot around the language!
And finally, if you please: I understand that Southrons still rue their ass-whooping at the hands of the hated Yankee some 150 years ago.
But can we please acknowledge this for what it is? The War Between the States did not materialize out of thin air.
The North was populated by Anglo-Saxons from the East and North of England.
The South was populated by Britons from the South and West of Britain.
The animosity between Anglo-Saxon and Briton dates to the Anglo-Saxon invasions of medieval times, amplified by the Britonic counter-invasion by William the Bastard, with the blessing of the current Pope, escalated by the Glorious Revolution and its Regicide, tempered by the Restoration, confirmed by the oppression of the Puritan/Calvinists, and carried to the shores of America with the Pilgrim Fathers, their Puritan cousins, and the Broke-but-Feeling-Royal "Distressed Cavaliers" who tried to recreate the English Manor life they were denied with Negro slaves and imported British paupers.
So the War Between the States was a reaction to the uppity pretend aristocracy of the South as much as any Yankee do-gooderism.
What was a Yankee/Puritan? First of all, they were consciously what we would call upper middle class and they imposed and enforced STRICT IMMIGRATION CONTROL over their number, a policy to allow kith and kin of good character.
Dutch New York, "New Amsterdam" was not party to the New England experiment.
Southrons were the actual "elite" of aristocratic blood and it is true the Yankee Anglo-Saxons disliked the Southern Britons from the beginning. They had conquered them twice you will recall. Resentment of the importation of millions of slaves was a problem and history confirms their assessment.
Finally, our present government is a direct offshoot of the royal model of antebellum South and bears no resemblance to the devolved, participatory democracy of New England's method of consensus among peers, carefully selected for good character and willingness to live as Reformed Christians.
So Southrons, don't bitch too much. Today's enemy looks an awful lot like the Yankees of Southern Hagiographa, except poor Whites, once indentured servants, are still on the receiving after all those years.
Further, while I agree with your complaints about the imposition of freed Negros during Reconstruction, I don't see how you have any moral leave to complain seeing as how the South bears this grudge so long and how Southrons speak approvingly of committing unspeakable carnage with respect to our present (undeclared) enemies.
Pilgrim's Pride
"Now are are waged in a great war "
ReplyDeletecorrection: engaged in, or, waging
I see that error is in the original but I don't see a simple way of contacting them.
ReplyDeletePlease make that, "the Rebels of Southern Hagiographa".
ReplyDeleteMea culpa.
"amplified by the Britonic counter-invasion by William the Bastard,"
ReplyDeleteWilliam was absolutely not a Briton. Bretagne and Normandie are not at all the same place. This is equivalent to saying Floridians are Cajun. It's bullcrap.
As for the rest of it, you should take this line of argument over to Occidental Dissent; they'll shred you right and proper over there - discussion of the North American national groupings formed within the context of the imperial USA has been a big focus. To respond specifically to a few points:
"First of all, they were consciously what we would call upper middle class and they imposed and enforced STRICT IMMIGRATION CONTROL "
The very moment the Yankee imperium had been solidly established, the floodgates of immigration were thrown open, and stayed that way until the 1920s. Then it opened up again in the 1960s, with Ted Kennedy leading the charge. The Know-Nothings were based out of the inland regions, not New England.
"Finally, our present government is a direct offshoot of the royal model of antebellum South and bears no resemblance to the devolved, participatory democracy of New England's method of consensus among peers, carefully selected for good character and willingness to live as Reformed Christians."
You are handwaving over appearances and ignoring fundamentals. There is a direct and bright line from 1700s Puritanism to 1800s Unitarianism to 1900s unprincipled liberal universalism. Southern societal norms were crushed and every attempt made to eradicate them - twice: once in the late 1860s, then again a century later. To claim that the federal government was repeatedly deploying troops against its own ideological inspiration is blatant nonsense. That New England bluebloods discarded their ancestors' habits and principles when tempted by power is unfortunate but as evidenced by history not impossible.
Mencius Moldbug has had quite a few pieces on the various Progressive leading lights (Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc) and their openly stated goal of denaturing American society and making it part of a world government - he makes a point of citing primary sources and lots of them. These people were northeastern bluebloods, not good ole boys.
Furthermore, the neofeudalism associated with the South was equally tied to very clear and distinct concepts of personal honor and reciprocal ties of responsibility. The only real influence that has had is in the military, and only because said class draws disproportionately from the South.
The current United States governmental class is directly derived from the northeastern Yankee society and their universalist ideologies. Everything about progressivism and liberalism originated in the North, most particularly in Puritan strongholds. There is plenty to criticize the South about, but these points aren't it.
"while I agree with your complaints about the imposition of freed Negros during Reconstruction, I don't see how you have any moral leave to complain seeing as how the South bears this grudge so long and how Southrons speak approvingly of committing unspeakable carnage with respect to our present (undeclared) enemies."
What is this supposed to mean? That because systematic rape and murder has been imposed for a long time, it should become acceptable? That because homicide or warfare is discussed as a defense against murder or enslavement, said murder or enslavement becomes justified?
I'd say what I think of this but I'm not yet convinced you're actually that stupid.
Rollory -
ReplyDeleteWas the institutionalization of slavery by the south not hipocritical in nature? But then again all you have to do to get around that logic is just classify African Americans as less then a man.
As I have said before, I find it interest that the South even held that position; that the North was trying to oppress them.
The truth, as I see it, is the North wanted to expand their power base and the South wanted to keep theirs the same. All the rest is each side just trying to claim the Moral High Ground.
The South was already coming to the conclusion that slave culture was of a hasle and an expense more than it was worth. As AP pointed out to me you could pay a share croper less then it cost to own a slave. I feel that it was Southern pride that kept the needed reforms from being instituted. People didn't want to be seen as giving into the Northern demands.
I don't believe there was anyone on the right side of that debacle.
If the South has the right to whine about what happend 150 years ago then African Americans have the same right.
Hmmm...
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
ReplyDeleteHmmm....
Josh-
ReplyDeleteWhat are you thinking?
Rollory,
ReplyDeleteThank you for quite proving my point. WN is a lost cause precisely because there was never a nation, a "we", to begin with, white or otherwise -- only "us" and "them" and "them" can't stand it. Your tortured narrative is proof enough.
If you will indulge me, from one of my distant cousins,
"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all maters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."
--George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1785
Just that that any number of III'ers could and have made/said similar statements. That we really didn't live up to our rhetoric the first time around are we really sure this time will be any different?
ReplyDeleteNo matter what those like Jim think, just because we have agency doesn't mean we will use it to good effect.
Or, are not responsible, or that we don't have to live with the consequences of our action.
Just that sometime we're not fully aware of what is driving us to do the things we do. Anyone that has been in and stayed in as abusive destructive relation ship can tell you that much.
H. L. Mencken handled the Gettysburg address long ago.
ReplyDelete"Note on the Gettysburg Address
by H.L. Mencken
The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."
Further, he had some things to say about Lincoln as well.
H. L. Mencken on Abraham Lincoln
As to what "started" the War Against Southern Freedom, that much is plain.
The United States Army invaded South Carolina in the middle of the night, 26 December 1860, by moving troops from Fort Moultrie on James Island over to the South Carolina owned, and empty, Fort Sumter. South Carolina gave the invading terrorists (to put it in modern language) nearly four months to vacate their land, when a United States Navy flotilla appeared off the coast near Charleston, what had become the Confederate Army was forced to bombard their own Fort Sumter to force surrender. No one was killed.
The War Against Southern Freedom was waged solely because the Yankee funded and controlled Abraham Lincoln wanted it so, the southern states had been supplying over 80% of the US government's income, so they had to be held to the United States at all costs.
Rollory came the closest to seeing the truth in these comments.
"If the South has the right to whine about what happend 150 years ago then African Americans have the same right."
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Time out. Wait a second.
The South is not demanding reparations in the form of preferential social and professional treatment, eternal northern guilt, and money.
That is the difference, and no group has the "right" to impose such on another.
"Thank you for quite proving my point. WN is a lost cause precisely because there was never a nation, a "we", to begin with, white or otherwise -- only "us" and "them" and "them" can't stand it. Your tortured narrative is proof enough."
ReplyDeleteCould you elaborate?
All I saw in Rollory's comments ("tortured narriative", as you put it) was a discussion of the points you brought up.
I saw nothing whatsoever in his comments about White Nationalism. Correct me if I'm wrong, but White Nationalism is, in my understanding, nothing more than a natural desire of some white people to live in a racially homogenous nation. Whether or not such a nation existed (a different discussion altogether) has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the validity of such a desire/objective.
The longevity of the Chinese, Japanese, and German nations among others, ("nations" being defined here as more than a geopolitical entity, but closer in meaning to "a people") testify to some of the strengths inherent in a more or less racially homogenous nation. The chaos ensuing in modern (and historic) "multicultural" nations testifies to some of the ppotential drawbacks of that approach.
A contemporary of your distant cousin once had this to say on the subject of the racial makeup of our nation-state:
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. ~Thomas Jefferson
Heck, that's on his Memorial. It's from his autobiography. No one ever remembers the next sentence, though.
Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."
All that said, not once did I see Rollory's comment address WN.
Josh/PP -
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be under the impression that I'm a southerner. I happen to live in the south for now, but I am not of these people; I am more European than anything else.
Josh:
The institutionalization of slavery was not hypocritical if one does not assume all human beings to be the same and interchangeable. They manifestly are not. Immoral, and inevitably self-destructive? Certainly. Slavery always is: it denatures and weakens those who impose it on others, and this is to my mind its most important evil (evil is always self-destructive). Hypocritical? Not in the least: the slaves were not the people who thought up the Enlightenment and had the principled habits of government that permitted institutions of limited government for citizens. Just because a government exists does not require it to be a universal government.
PP:
"WN is a lost cause precisely because there was never a nation, a "we", to begin with, white or otherwise"
I have said this myself in numerous places. The American "nation" was an ephemeral thing that sort-of/almost existed. Based on the history of national formation as seen in Europe, it would have needed several centuries of independently demarcated existence to really come into its own. That was short-circuited, and what we are left with is a white population of varying characteristics and internal rivalries but no clear identity whatsoever, ideologically predisposed to utterly deny it can even have independent and unifying identity and existence.
I am not a "White Nationalist", because "White" is not and never has been and never will be a nation.
None of this has anything to do with what I objected to in your post, and you have not disproven anything I said.
"Your tortured narrative is proof enough."
I provided specifics backing up my claims, and evidence as to why what you were saying was factually incorrect. Can you do the same? You haven't yet. Most particularly your last paragraph, which remains utterly unacceptable.
Other random comment: something that might not be known to a modern audience is that 1) the southern slaveowners financed their slave purchases the same way companies today finance capital purchases; by taking out loans from banks, 2) the banks were all Northern banks, 3) Southern independence would have meant those loan contracts were non-enforceable.
ReplyDeleteThink about that.
You left out the part about conscription (another form of slavery) and the imposition of an income tax. Both were unconstitutional in Lincoln's time as was the suspension of due process.
ReplyDeleteSlavery, as it existed then, was sanctioned by the Consitution. It was America's Original Sin, something few "Restore the Constitution!" parchment-worshippers care to consider. (Restore it to when? 1787? 1865? 1913? 1920?)
Contemporaneously, Lysander Spooner wrote:
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
Anon -
ReplyDeleteThe constitution doesn't in noway condone slavery. It doesn't condemn it either.
Sigh...,
Josh
P.S. Anonon I believe Frederick Douglass would disagree with your take on it also.
ReplyDeletehttp://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1128
"Slavery always is: it denatures and weakens those who impose it on others, and this is to my mind its most important evil (evil is always self-destructive)."
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the rest, but that's one classic line there. Thanks.
Josh, could I trouble you to speak for yourself, and allow me to speak for me? I have never, ever written or implied that "because we have agency [means] we will use it to good effect." Nor have I ever, ever written or implied "that we don't have to live with the consequences of our action."
And yet you aver both of these. Maybe reread Rollory's classic line above and extrapolate it to dishonesty. Save yourself and I'll take care of me. Deal?
Jim -
ReplyDelete"Josh, could I trouble you to speak for yourself, and allow me to speak for me? I have never, ever written or implied that "because we have agency [means] we will use it to good effect." Nor have I ever, ever written or implied "that we don't have to live with the consequences of our action."
And yet you aver both of these. [When? Examples please. - Josh] Maybe reread Rollory's classic line above and extrapolate it to dishonesty. Save yourself and I'll take care of me. Deal?"
This is why I hate having a conversation with you. Asking a question for further clarification or making a statement that this is what 'I' believe you are say, is no way trying to make a statment of fact that it was indeed was true. Only you know for a fact what your intentions are. Having a belief does not in and of itself make something true, only that the one holding it believes it to be true. A belief thats untested is an assumption.
As to what we imply or do not imply in our writing.
You or I make a statement. The reader in this case must make a derermination as to the intent of the writer using syntax and context. If the intent is still on clear the reader needs to ask the writer for clearification. If not then any belief formed after is an assumption as to the writers intent. It is then up to the writer to try to make his point clearer or prove his point.
Everthing that I have writen or questioned is from my point of view, trying to understand yours.
This is Dialectic method as I understsnd it.
Everytime, it SEEMS to ME, someone questions the validity or even suggests the the point, You are making, could be made clearer you try to put the onus on the writer to figure out what exactly is in your head.
This is a pet peeve of my, if you are going to accuse someone of something site example it will help others and both parties in the despute ascertain the validity of the accusation.
Jim I want be having anymore interaction with you, so take care,
Josh
Sorry Jim,
ReplyDelete"No matter what those like Jim think, just because we have agency doesn't mean we will use it to good effect.
Or, are not responsible, or that we don't have to live with the consequences of our action."
I did make some direct statments as to your intent with no qualifing statment that this is what I believe this is what you believe.
So, you don't actually believe what I atribited to you. Thanks, for clearing that up for me.
Oh, well to be honest, I'm not really sorry.
"And yet you aver both of these. [When? Examples please. - Josh]"
ReplyDeleteWhat, are you kidding? In this very comment thread, you wrote...
"No matter what those like Jim think, just because we have agency doesn't mean we will use it to good effect.
"Or, are not responsible, or that we don't have to live with the consequences of our action."
You implied that I believe those, and I don't. Stop appealing to mushy, meely "beliefs" and "intents." We went 70 comments deep in AP's other post about a simple, plain fact that I presented---that except for seizures, dysfunction and involuntary external forces, EVERY action that EVERY adult takes, is EXCLUSIVELY driven by his mental faculty, conscious or sub-conscious.
This is a very important fact in a political context, since any attempt to deny it is doomed to failure. As we've seen.
But instead of acknowledging the fact, you wanna talk about the words used to capture it, or what it might or might not mean, or whether it's some subjective belief, or whether it's somehow false because 100 thugs can kick one guy's ass.
Now me, I'd say this is why the world is so screwed up. So many people are thinking so "deeply" and relying on the "experts," that they don't see this simplest of facts...must simpler than, say, the Earth revolving around the Sun. And yet here you are, trying to divert attention so that they continue not to see it, and instead believe the world is in some crazy flux that depends on what people believe or how they word something.
If you could explain who benefits from such tripe, and how, then maybe I could see the point. But as I said in my very first line before, I just don't get it.
Josh,
ReplyDeleteInasmuch as Mr. Douglass was correct in his abolitionist views, the Constitution, in fact, supported slavery root and branch.
From Lincoln's first inaugural address:
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
You may also wish to consider that Lincoln regarded the Corwin Amendment (already passed by both houses of Congress) as unnecessary since the Constitution already provided power to the States to enact and preserve slavery.
"If you could explain who benefits from such tripe, and how, then maybe I could see the point. But as I said in my very first line before, I just don't get it." - Jim
ReplyDeleteIt is how we apply your simple fact that maters. People can effect the world and themselve in either a positive or negative fashion. They them selves have to choose. One of those choices is, as I believe you put it, to either treat others as people or cattle. What we believe directly effects how we
deal with the world, and the choices we make, i.e., to Govern our selves in our use of our volition. (Note: I do believe there are out side factors that limmit our ability to exercise our volition.)
The problem with the world as I see it is not that we don't recognize that we are individuals (We have pleanty of narcissists). Plus, is a fact true independent of observation. Even in your example it's not the recognition of your fact, but it's the choice of people or cattle made after that is important. How do we make, govern, this choice? Will it be an informed choice made with reason based on a formal code in the concious part of the self? Or, will it be made based on emotions, needs, disires, in an almost random less than rational manner.
To me it more important what we do with your fact than just recognizing that it is.
As to my talking for you... I too fall into the assumption.
:-(
Anon 9:24 -
ReplyDeleteWe need to define what we mean by slavery?
1). Forced Servitude, or...
2.) Owner ship of people.
The constitution never made a distinction and tryed to leave it up to the states and current laws.
Almost forgot.
ReplyDeleteRollory
My South whine comment was directed at AP in reference to an earler discussion on this topic.
"The South is not demanding reparations in the form of preferential social and professional treatment, eternal northern guilt, and money.
That is the difference, and no group has the "right" to impose such on another." - AP
I was just talking about the whiny nature of both arguements. Not to the validity of the arguements.
;-)
Rollory -
ReplyDeleteLet me get this straight you don't find it even a little bit hypocritical to be yelling, "Give us our freedom;" while standing with their boot on the throat of another.
I'm not arguing that they shouldn't of stood up for their freedoms, just that they could of been a little more universal in its application.
Side note: I have noproblem with indentured servitude; as long as the dept owed is lawful, their is no fraud, and both parts uphold their end of the bargan.
"Let me get this straight you don't find it even a little bit hypocritical to be yelling, "Give us our freedom;" while standing with their boot on the throat of another."
ReplyDeleteIf _asking_ for freedom to be granted from on high, on grounds of abstract justice, yes, it is.
They weren't asking. They were determined to take by force of arms. The difference is that they were acting on their values, not begging for them, and the actions taken were consistent with the stated values: that the government to be established and the liberties to be secured were specifically for the white population of the southern states, and particular to the preferences and values of that population. There was no question of Southerners bleeding and dying to secure a proper and just government for the negroes; that was not the point. The idea that one should bleed and die to secure the liberties of someone else with no bearing on how it benefits one's self or one's own kind - that the only good war can be one in which there is no national interest - is a modern liberal idea, and a self-destructive one. For one thing, liberty given for free without the effort to secure it personally is not properly valued nor defended, so the sacrifice is always in vain; for another, a nation that gets in the habit of fighting everybody else's battles for them will find it has nothing left for its own at the moment when it most needs such strength. (How about that Mexican border, and the signs explicitly stating the area is unsecured? What are they going to do, send the Marines? Will that work any better than in Afghanistan?)
The ancient Greeks had essentially the exact same system. As did Republican Rome.
If one is the God-Emperor of Mankind sitting on the Golden Throne dispensing justice across the Imperium, then one can start treating all groups equally. In matters of competing national interest, nondiscrimination is suicide.
You got a point they never said they believed in liberty for all.
ReplyDeleteYou lost me with the bleading & dying though. Who fighting who as the southerns owned(?) the slaves they could set them free?
The all men is created equel has been around at lest as long as this country and expressed some 85 years before the conflict in question.
Also I'm for treating all people equaly not as if the are all equal.
And if we are to judge a man by what measure are we to use. I vote that it be by ability.