BS: Gettysburg Address

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:23 PM

Bobert--

As Mick said, I know you're a good man and your heart is definitely in the right place. And, as I said, obviously Jim Crow, KKk, lynchings, etc. were abominations--but continued slavery would have been all that and more--and, under your system, totally legal.

Sure there were some masters who treated their slaves well and there were some slaves devoted to their masters--e.g. one of Stonewall Jackson's slaves followed him through his campaigns. As you know ,slavery was not the same everywhere--by and large much worse in the deep South than further north--I understand that's what Stephen Foster's much-maligned My Old Kentucky Home recognized--check the last verse. Field slaves had it much worse than house slaves (in general).

Southern apologists found justification in the Bible and talked of Northern "wage slavery" as worse. That doesn't fly--I'm sure you know why.

All slavery means absolute power for the master. Why should any person have absolute power over any other?

Maybe you've been through boot camp. If so, somebody had power over you. And obviously that's not absolute power.

The sooner slavery ended, the better.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:30 PM

One more thing, Bobert. I am definitely interested in "warts and all" pictures of cultural icons, questioning shibboleths, requiring evidence, etc. I find history so fascinating I'm not even tempted to read fiction.

So, if you can find the title and author of that book on Lincoln you were mentioning earlier, I'd be grateful.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:43 PM

Can't agree with you more, Ron...

But to kill over half million people and subject Southern black folks to another 80 yeears of terrorism???

Think about what you are sayin', my friend...

Slavery would have been history, at worst in another 50 years... BVut that's is worst case. Heck it might have been over before the end of the Union occupation in '76 if Lincoln had played his cards right...

The Civil War (which it wasn't) was a political disaster more than anything else... Lincoln had it within his powers to not ramp up a war...

You are getting terribly confused by the slavery issue in itself, Ron... No, it went well beyond slavery into just what the "United States" meant in an 1860's USA...

This was more about a state's right to some level of sovierinty, irregardless of position on slavery...

Slavery was on it's way out anyway...

BTW, 80% of the Southerners who choze to fight had never owned a slave in their entire life....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:48 PM

Q--

"If" the war had been avoided.

1) "If" is a huge "if".   As you know, southerners had already for decades been opposing restrictions on slavery--including spreading it westward.

2)   "Plantation managers would soon have realized..."--ah but economics was not the only factor in play here--the whole social system depended on slavery--and the southern elites were showing no signs of wanting to relinquish their position. Recall that even enlightened men such as Jefferson were unwilling to give up their standard of living, made possible by slavery. Many poor whites also saw slavery as the their ticket up in society.

If anybody has information on the abolitionist movement in the South mentioned by Bobert, I'd like to hear more.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:53 PM

Yes, Bobert, you're right that lots of the Southern soldiers fought to defend their homes. Who was it--Shelby Foote?-- who quoted a non- slave- owner as telling a Northerner "Why are we fighting? We're fighting 'cause you're down here."

But without the Civil War, slavery would have continued. I'd like to hear some evidence that it was "on the way out".

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 11:59 PM

Jefferson, Ron, had been dead for going on 4 decades when Lincoln was elected...

I mean no offense here at all but it seems that yer histoical persective is like, ahhhhh, everything that happened before yer time happened in justa couple of years... Hey, the Founding Fathers were all long, ***LONG*** gone when Lincoln was elected....

As fir the abolitionists in the South Google in "Underground Railway" fir starters...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: GUEST,Dáithí Ó Geanainn
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 07:49 AM

Anybody read any of Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels? Set in a world where the South did secede, and charting the history of the two nations right up to the nineteen fifties?
Chilling stuff...

(Incidentally, i'm not American - but, regardless of Lincoln's politics, still think that the Gettysburg address is a remarkable bit of oratory)
Dáithí

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 08:16 AM

Well, irregarless of this little side bar that I have thriown into the mix, yes, as far as speeches go, the speech was well written...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Big Mick
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 12:39 PM

One of the central premises you keep throwing out as if it were fact is that slavery had 50 years left at best. Then you point out the cruelty of Jim Crow and all that happened in the ensuing years. This is what makes your contention so preposterous. You accuse Ron of having a skewed view of it all, yet I believe its you that has the skewed view. Here is why.

First, to suggest that slavery would have just disappeared is ludicrous. It would have evolved, and not to the advantage of the slaves. One need only look at the capitalist role in this country to know that we would still be dealing with it. Besides this, something are simply so intolerable that they must be eradicated. The "legal" owning of another human being is just such a thing. No amount of "States Rights" arguments can make that tolerable.

Second, the level of violence and anger directed to former slaves would be the same without regard to the winning or losing of the Civil War. The KKK, Jim Crow, etc. did not create the bigotted anger and horrendous acts committed in the name of racial purity. They were simply the alibi's used for these acts. If it had gone as you suggest, they would have found new alibi's to keep the African descended peoples in their place.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: GUEST,The Ghost Of Lincoln
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 02:34 PM

I would beg to ask what words of wisdom, and kindness Bobert would have written and spoken on that day? Would he have bombasted the audience with his wit and intelligence? Unlikely i'm sure. Would his words have tried to bind the wounds of the Nation after such a battle, or just inflame everyone with his corrupted view of history? Would anyone here condem and berate me as a warmonger for simply trying to say something meaningfull and decent for the occasion? Did I not choose words of kindness and contemplation? Did I not speak in such few words, volumes of hope and prayer for a nation to heal its wounds after a relentless Civil war?

I did not think at the time that my words would have been kept in the public mind for so many years; nor expected such accolades for having written and performed a simple public duty to the fallen soldiers. However history records that my speech is regarded as a piece of literature worth reading even today; long after the words on this thread are lost in cyberspace, mine will live on forever engraved as part of my legacy to the nation.

Mr. A. Lincoln

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 04:19 PM

I think Bobert's point, Abe, is that he wouldn't have had to write anything on that day.

Seems to me Lincoln wasn't the type to claim immortailty either. You're a fake ghost, aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 05 - 11:56 PM

Bobert--

Citing the Underground Railway does not help your cause. "Underground"--so obviously not accepted by Southern elites. That is not evidence slavery was on the way out.

I cited Jefferson (yes I know he died in 1826 and the Civil War started in 1861)--as indication that as early as Jefferson southern elites were refusing to give up their slaves. If anything, the situation worsened after Jefferson--with King Cotton progressively more dominating Southern society. You have produced no evidence slavery was withering on the vine.

I consider myself from the "Dragnet" school of historiography--"Just the facts, ma'am".

That's why I believe that Bush did not make his case for invading Iraq, that the
Stratford man's case as writing Shakespeare has not been established, that there's no evidence of "No Irish Need Apply" signs in the US ( though the sentiment may well have existed), that John Smith was not "saved" by Pocahontas,----and that it's not established slavery was on its way out in 1861.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: GUEST,The Ghost Of Abraham Lincoln
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 08:30 AM

As fake as this forum, and just as meaningless, but not as mindless as most posts here.

A.L.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 09:02 AM

Well, I have stated my hypothesis about as well as it can be stated. It always difficult going back and doing a "what if", especially since so much time has elapsed and no-one here can really feel and understand the *culture* that existed in 1861...

Yes, it's much easier to deal with "knowledge" which is something that anyone who is willing to take the time can get...

The Civil War (which it wasn't) has been overly sanitized, revised and glorified for public consuumption to the point where noone has bothered to deal with the "what if's" other than discussin military tactics for whioch their are hundreds of Civil War "roundatbles" where people do nothin but that... But their aren't any "roundtables" that deal with alternatives to the war...

I find it interesting that some of my strongest allies here against the Iraqi War won't make the effort to use their imagination some here... For Einstien saif, "Imagination is more important than knowledge for knowledge tells us was is and imagination tells us what will be..."

There's really nuthin' else that I can say that I haven't allready said...

Peace

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 02:17 PM

As usual, Lincoln said it best:

AT this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it with war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the Territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease when, or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offenses cometh!"
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern there any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

There is a book about the above words: Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural by Ronald C. White, Jr. It's worth a look.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 04:37 AM

I don't suppose that 80% of Germans ever gassed a Jew. However it desirable to stop the practice as soon as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 10:32 AM

Sorry, Bobert. As we've all said before, you're a good man with your heart in the right place. But, when dealing with politics or history, I'm afraid I far prefer facts to imagination, no matter what Einstein may have said. (I really don't think he was referring to a debate like this.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 10:41 AM

Einstien said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge for knowledge tells us was is and imagination tells us what will be..."

I like that. But things like Intelligent Design are also imagination, albeit in its laziest sense.




I think a debate between Linclon and W would be an interesting screen play.

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:28 PM

Im worst ever

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:36 PM

??? I don't think that's bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 08:00 AM

Lincoln would probably advise W to go to the Theatre...............

Apart from that - Mrs Lincoln - what did you think of the play?

Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg Address
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 12:00 PM

Tell you what, Bobert & Everyone- lets all read at least

Goodwin, Doris Kearns: Team of Rivals; The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Foner, Eric: Forever Free; The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. New York : Knopf, 2005.

Lincoln's first inagural address, available HERE:

The South Carolina "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" and "Ordinance of Secession" available HERE:

to start, and then as many of these as possible:

Berlin, Ira: Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America . Cambvridge, Harnard U. Press, 2000

Litwack, Leon F.: Been In The Storm So Long; The Aftermath of Slavery. NewYork, Random House, 1979

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877. NY, Harper & Row, 1988

Foner, Eric: Freedom's Lawmakers : A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction. New York : Oxford University Press, 1993

Ellis, Joseph J.: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

Genovese: Roll, Joradan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. NY, Pantheon, 1972

Quarles, Benjamin: Allies For Freedom : Blacks and John Brown. New York : Oxford University Press, 1974.

Berlin, Ira: Generations of Captivity : A History of African-American Slaves. Belknap Press, 2003

Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States 1790-1860. Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961

Douglass, Frederick: My Bondage and My Freedom. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2002 [Orig. pub: New York : Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855]

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. [narrative of a free black kidnipped into slavery]

Levine, Bruce C: Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War. Consulting editor, Eric Foner. New York : Hill and Wang, Noonday Press, 1992.

Harris, Leslie M.: In The Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City 1626-1863. Chicahgo, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2003

and then we can continue the discussion.

Best, Greg