Thursday, February 15, 2007

That's what he said. That's what Abe Lincoln said.

"I foresee a time, should this, our beloved party, ever lose its ability to steer the ship of state, when grave danger shall assail this nation. If ever these wise guardians of the earth no longer provide the hand that guides the plough, we shall be assailed not only from within, not only by the dreadful backstab of the domestic Judas, but from without, by forces inimical to the Christian faith and hostile to the very concept of civilization. They shall attack our fair cities with machines of which men can now scarcely dream, airborne machines that shall be invented thirty-nine years from now. And they shall decimate men in their thousands with fearsome explosive devices that shall be invented four score and one years from now and which will be very nasty indeed. All of this and worse shall surely take place if people do not vote Republican. So watch it."

-- Abraham Lincoln, speech before the Republican National Convention, 1864.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joseph. Keep up the great work. This post is an example of why I visit your site every day. Eric.

Anonymous said...

Here is a thought: if the moral crime of slavery could be abstract for just one paragraph: if I could break free of the label of prejudice for just one paragraph: then perhaps it could be understood that the Northern Republican States ordered the Southern States to cease, alter, and abandoned their economics, their life styles, and their diversified choices in favor of "National Policies." The request of the North was forced upon the South with military occupation of the States against the consent of their Governors. I realize that slavery is heinous and yet the writers of the Constitution depended upon the National / federal function of Government being kept honest by reason of the diversification of the States. Yes, a great moral wrong (slavery)was corrected but the price was the submission of the Southern States to the control of one group: Republicans. The writers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights wrote with sweat and strain to do one thing: prevent any ONE leader, organization, party, or religion from becoming the ONE ruler of the USA. Their intensity in writing was to preserve the plan that the government would be OF BY and FOR We the People.

This quote does not surprise me because the real truth is that the Civil War ended the diversification of States and formed "the Republic for which we stand, ONE Nation..." Without States being diversified the USA, the constitution, the Bill of Rights does not work.

Another over looked fact: Lincoln never called for an end to slavery. Lincoln wanted to form a centralized police force with one job: to ensure that slaves and cattle were not mistreated. The Southerners objected to being policed by the North. The Emancipation Proclamation was just one last slap at the States who dared to invoke their rights under the Constitution to be diversified and self governing.

Slavery needed to be addressed and ended because man was meant to be free. However, the facts of the argument have long been covered by the greatness of ending slavery.

The Bushes are not the source of the new American Dictatorship. They simply have the guts to use what was given to them as a result of the choices of a Republican Senate, Congress and President named Lincoln.

iLarynx said...

I'm afraid some won't see your almost subtle joke.

Joseph Cannon said...

iLarynx, these days some people will take you seriously even if you wear a straw hat and a red-and-white striped jacket while carrying a bamboo pole and dancing to banjo music.

Joseph Cannon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

wqhen I clicked on your post about Lincoln and his ability to prophecy the invention of the aeroplane and his mention of "Chtistianity" (oh dear) and Judas, of all disreputable biblical figures (Oh my gosh), I got this story headed..


'Wash Times' Columnist Uses Fabricated Abraham Lincoln Quote

so my "redoubling" efforts from now to eternity (oh no another religious fanatic bang bang head) will be to go the the "original source" in whatever I think or do. How about you?

Oh incidentally that is how I discovered that Jesus is so real and available. I sked Him to reveal Himself and He did.

Anonymous said...

anon1122/1102:

kudos for acknowledging that you leaped (lept?) before you looked in the instance of this quote.

had you, however, bothered to actually look at real history prior to leaping to your bizarre conclusions regarding the civil war, etc., you might have had an instant clue as to the nuance of joe's joke.

with all due respect, i highly recommend that you strongly consider the source, the nuance, and the intent behind the 'revelation's' of jesus you claim. the carpenter of nazareth would not have dreamed of excusing the naked avarice and lust for power over persons that drove the entire set of confederate excuses to secede from the union (treason) and then attack union forces at fort sumter (aggression) that started the war.

southerners did not want to be policed by the north because they wished to pursue their enslavement of black people with impunity. this was the ONLY way they could hope to maintain their obscene hold on wealth and power in perpetuity. this remains the case today, though the impulse is shrouded in corporate power enslaving the poor and vulnerable of the world, exploiting them for glorified profits.

i hardly think jesus would condone ANY of this, even for the sake of ...diversification??? is THIS now the latest justification for states keeping the right to do whatever they wish, however heinous??

lincoln's policing effort was considered a compromise, one that was rejected. soon after the south seceded and attacked the union, he was quickly vocal about abolition, and signed the emancipation proclamation. you might consider reading his signing speech; it's quite powerful, and nothing like the way you presented him.

your final paragraph is so absurd it makes no sense. bush and his cruel, greedy, and corrupt cabal - instead of persisting in lincoln's noble legacy - have distorted and perverted it beyond recognition. the plantation mentality these idiots insist on imposing on the entire world is just about the furthest thing from lincoln's republican party that could have ever been imagined.

the only thing this republican party does to remind us of lincoln's republicans is to prove perhaps his greatest words of wisdom: you really canNOT fool all the people all the time.

however, he also noted you can fool some of the people all the time. take care you are not being duped by this outlandish revisionist history of civil history, clearly taken right out of a confederate handbook.

and i would not encourage you to tangle with me on this one; i survived most of my life in the south and am so familiar with this brand of insanity i can recite it upside down and backwards.

but again, i honor your recognition of leaping before you checked out the real quote. still, had you had a real clue about the real hisory of the real lincoln, you would have known straightaway that the quote was completely wrong.

i therefore again encourage you to reflect on what you have counted as revelations in your experience.

Anonymous said...

umm, annonymous 1122 and 1102 we are two different people. i agree that jesus would not have signed off on the south's side. I unfortunately am a failure many times in recognizing sarcasm, as presented by the quote. I in no way intended to exhonerate the south's reprehensible desires. My point was not to misrepresent Mr. Lincolm in any way. Had I picked up on the sarcasm of the quote I would have declined to respond in any way.

obviously this site is over my head please excuse me.

Anonymous said...

anon, my apologies for leaping to conclusions!

i have to doubt that this site is over your head, and i did not wish to discourage you from making comments. but i would suggest that the sarcasm in joe's pseudo-quote required only solid knowledge of the facts of the matter to grasp.

but consider this: though joe's use of this erroneous quote may have been sarcastic, the more appropriate term for the republican perpetrators of this big lie is cynicism.

i'd never really considered the fine distinction between these two foul adjectives. i thank you for that, and hope you'll continue visiting and commenting.

Anonymous said...

i want to thank you for that last post to me. your posts here and the quote put me in my own face and I wanted you to know that cynicism is easy for me. I grew up in the suburbs of Wash, DC and annually our schools took us
"downtown" to see the monuments and museums and govt bldngs not once but usually 3 or 4 times a school year. For me the most impressive was the Lincoln Memorial. Every year of school when asked to do a book report
on a famous person my was always Mr.Lincoln. So how did I get the quote wrong? I am telling you because it matters.

I was raised in the "christian right wing," the 'born again kind." Our churches frequently hosted speakers who taught us that those not of God had long ago plotted to obliterate all mention of God from American law, American history, and American culture. We were indoctrinated into believing that every writer of the constitution and participant of the revolution was in fact a "born again believer" and that as such their intentions were to place Jesus at the center and pinnacle of every aspect of American
Government and life.

We were also brain washed into believing in the existence of the perpetuation of a plot by Satan and those who hate God, the deceived, to erase the foundational relationship between God & the originators of the Constitution. For example this is how Abortion became a law, because for generations Americans were taught a lie about the "founding fathers." Namely the lie
taught was that those men were NOT Christians. I was taught that Lincoln taught himself to read by reading the bible and was a very religious man. However in the Library of Congress among lincolns personal notes on the Gettysburg address I saw where he wrote: that he had not particularly been
a religious or God fearing man until he saw Gettysburg. Was the note added by some body else, or did Lincoln write it? Was he religious or not?

One of the history teachers in church once read us a letter supposed to be from a Lincoln cabinet member, don't remember which one, that expressed
worry over Lincoln's mental state because he was heard in his room
"wailing and babbling." This of course meant that Lincoln was "speaking in tongues." This is what they taught in the churches my family took me to.
As a child I had no reason to believe that these adults would be lying to me?

I remember standing every year in awe of the 2nd inaugural address that was carved into the wall on the right (if facing lincoln). I was awed that he quoted the bible in trying to establish that the civil war may be a judgement
from God against the evils of slavery. During the term of Ron Reagan millions of dollars were spent on a makover project on every monument and historical building in DC. At the projects end the buildings were reopened on the 4th of July. So I and some friends went down for the day
and the extended celebratory fire works. I was devastated that Lincoln's beautiful speaches had been altered. Neither the Gettysburg nor 2nd Inagural
address were any thing like what I had coppied down as a child. In fact in every monument that had the references to God or Bible those were erased.

It made me wonder how this could happen under the "christian Reagan." I shared this story at a family reunion that summer and my 98 year old Aunt gave me a history book printed in 1892. It was her book from school and she had always thought that some day some one might need to look at history a bit differently.

That history book taught me that Jefferson and others were "diests," not born again Christians. The history book my Aunt gave me began the unraveling of years of brain washing.

Given this truncated depiction of this journey of mine, I guess what I wanted to share is that I am a cynic. I was originally trying to get this accross: that I wouldn't be surprised in either direction as to what any historical figure might have or have not, said. I have heard whole sermons on words that I couldn't find in my bible while I was reading along with the pastor. I guess he was a visionary? Now I am being sarcastic.

Any body can change any thing at any time and the only one's who would know the truth are the ones who had been there.

Thank you for reminding me to check the facts.

anon1122