B After The Fact

Book Review -- The Fiery Trial -- Abraham Lincoln & American Slavery -- by Eric Foner

2011-03-05T11:12:00.007-05:00

"I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky” – Abraham Lincoln.

Eric Foner is noted for his scholarship on the origins of the Republican Party, and the causes of the Civil War, on the one hand, and on Reconstruction on the other hand. In this book, he focuses on an issue concerning the Civil War itself – how did Lincoln really feel about slavery, and what did Lincoln do about slavery.

Foner is a leading scholar for the proposition that even those Americans who abhorred slavery hated it more for what it meant for white people --- competition for jobs with slaves who were working for free, the difficulty of being a free non-slaveholder in place where slavery was permitted, and the hypocrisy of being both the world’s leading beacon for freedom and its leading proponent of slavery. Few whites, including many prominent abolitionists, had much use for black people, or any real desire to live amongst them, or see them as Americans. Foner presents us with a Lincoln who is very much a man of his time.

Lincoln was born in a slave state, Kentucky, he moved as a boy to the Southern part of Indiana, which, although a free state, had a heavy Southern population, and in times to come would be the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Then as a young man Lincoln moved to Illinois, another state, which although free, was basically settled South to North. Like many other states, Illinois had a strong Black Code designed to keep blacks out of the state, and severely limiting their ability to make a living on the off-chance the state could not get individual blacks out. Foner shows that Lincoln was comfortable living in this world, and that he respected the people that came out of this world.

Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was from a slaveholding family in Kentucky.

Lincoln’s political hero was Henry Clay, Senator from Kentucky, a slaveholder who tried to find an answer for the evil of slavery. Clay’s answer was the gradual emancipation of slaves, followed by their relocation to Africa (or anywhere that wasn’t the United States). Lincoln held onto this theory of gradual emancipation and “colonization”, sometimes compensated (for the slaveholder that is, not for the decades of free labor by the slave), until just about the time that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Foner shows that as a legislator, both in Illinois and during the short time he was in Washington, Lincoln was willing to take certain anti-slavery positions. Both in Springfield in 1837, and during his one term in Congress (the second half of Polk’s term – 1847-1849), he aligned himself with those few people opposed to slavery in Washington, D.C., However, it was never the most important part of his agenda. Conversely, as a lawyer, he took at least one case where he sought the return of a fugitive slave into slavery.

Lincoln rose to prominence in the Republican Party as the proponent of the position that the Union must be preserved, and immediate abolition was no way to preserve the Union. Lincoln preferred the containment of slavery to existing areas until it could be gradually abolished. Lincoln thought that this process could take decades.

Even after secession, Lincoln was concerned about anything, including emancipation, that would drive the Border States – Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and his native Kentucky -- out of the Union. Foner shows how Lincoln came around to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and more.

One of the biggest factors for Lincoln was the insistence and persistence of those black people who wanted to serve in the Army. Certain generals were more tolerant of slaves who came behind Union lines seeking freedom. Other generals were more eager to use former slaves in the Army. A handful, such as Fremont and David Hunter, issued emancipation edicts that had to be rescinded. However, the presence of black soldiers did not appear to disturb the white soldiers as much as originally feared. Moreover, as black soldiers’ responsibility increased from support positions to the occasional combat role, Lincoln realized that he could not ask soldiers to fight and die in a war, and then send them back to slavery. Lincoln realized that he could not ask black soldiers to sacrifice without extending the right to emancipation to the soldiers’ families as well. The idea that slaves had families that a white person was bound to respect was almost as radical in the North as it was in the South. Foner shows how a general policy evolved from one when the fugitive slave laws were being enforced (even during the early months of the war) to one against returning slaves to Southerners, to active confiscation acts. Practically speaking, if a slave could find his or her way behind Union lines, they were free.

Another factor was that although Lincoln was happy to extend gradual, compensated emancipation to the slaveholders in the border states, he could not find any bargaining partners. This remained true even as the political climate changed in favor of emancipation. It remained true even as Lincoln began warning people that Lincoln felt that in delaying emancipation, he was fighting the war with an important hand tied behind his back. Border State politicians were simply not in a position to compromise. Lincoln, even in the Emancipation Proclamation itself, did not free the slaves in the Border States (everyone agreed that would require a constitutional amendment). However, the Emancipation Proclamation did not contain any provisions for gradual or compensated emancipation. This was a rather late, and perhaps startling, development, because in preliminary drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation, including one made public in September 1862, Lincoln seemed to favor some sort of compensation. He must have Kentucky, but it seemed that the cost of keeping it was getting lower.

Another factor for Lincoln was the refusal of the black elite that was already free, and those first coming to freedom, to consider themselves as less than Americans. They built this country and lived here for centuries. They were not going to leave. Of course, in any large group, there are exceptions, and Foner describes a failed attempt to actually colonize slaves that was mired in graft, and eventually had to be suspended.

Lincoln continued to believe in colonization because he believed, as a practical matter, that racial equality was against human nature. Lincoln’s private conversations, including his well-known “stories,” were that of a man of his time, full of racial epithets. His public speeches seem disappointing to the 21st century ear. However, it is important to remember that we tend to read Lincoln in a vacuum. Since we are only interested in what Lincoln had to say, we tend to ignore what other important people of the time were thinking and saying, which was almost always far worse. Lincoln was a professional politician who was not in the business of insulting his constituents. Moreover, if you parse his public statements, you realize that Lincoln never said that black people were inferior, even during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in Southern Illinois. What Lincoln did say was that since the two races could not live together as equals, he, like anyone, would prefer to be the dominant race. Not that white people deserved to be, but simply that someone had to be.

Foner traces the evolution of this position into one that was open not only to emancipation, but was open to the legal equality for all people that undergirds the 14th and 15th Amendment. It is unclear if Lincoln had changed his mind on human nature. What is clear is that Lincoln realized that the former slaves were insistent on making a new life here in America, and that America would have to find a way to accommodate that.

Foner does not focus directly on the greatest, most tragic error of Lincoln’s Presidency – his acquiescence, and perhaps his open support, of Andrew Johnson as his Vice President in 1864 Andrew Johnson was the only Senator from a seceding state, Tennessee, who refused to secede with his state. Later, Lincoln appointed Johnson to be military governor of Tennessee. There are a fair number of exchanges between Lincoln and Johnson that are recounted in Foner’s book, more than I have seen in any other book of this nature. Unlike Lincoln’s first Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin from Maine, a man Lincoln literally did not know at all, Lincoln knew something about Johnson. So it is even more tragic that Lincoln allowed the convention to pick Johnson, and thereby thrust a vengeful, spiteful, racist man, into the middle of Reconstruction. Then again, until Sherman marched through Georgia, the conventional wisdom, including Lincoln’s, was that the Republicans would lose the Election of 1864. By the time it became obvious that Lincoln did not need Johnson (or anyone) on his ticket in order to win, it was too late to change. Not that anyone thought about it.

Foner does not go easy on Lincoln. He appreciates Lincoln’s ability to change in the public eye, a trait that was probably as in short supply then as it is now. Foner shows how important the actions of the slaves themselves were in forcing the issue of their emancipation. You get the sense that Foner wants to be one of those people who say that Lincoln would have never done anything for the slaves if left to his own devices. However, the facts are more complicated than that. What makes A Fiery Trial such an interesting book is that Foner, like Lincoln, faces the facts as he finds him, and allows the facts to change his point of view.

Academy Awards -- Some Comments

2011-02-26T00:58:00.012-05:00

I have seen the following Oscar nominees:

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are Alright
The Kings Speech
The Social Network

I sort of agree with my friend Bruce Fan Is Back that in some very important ways, Inception is a better movie that either The Kings Speech or The Social Network. Most importantly, it is actually a movie, designed to be watched on a big screen, and not a TV show that is simply being marketed as a movie, which is sort of how I felt about both The Kings Speech (Masterpiece Theater) and The Social Network (an HBO movie).

Like Avatar last year, and The Aviator a few years ago, Inception is a big movie that swings for the fences and misses sometimes. I have only seen it once, which is not enough. I was completely confused at times, and fell asleep at one point (I fall asleep all the time). But all in all, Inception was something I never saw before, it was very well done, and it would be nice if the Academy voters would give breakthrough "movie movies" like Inception more credit for trying than they tend to get. Ah, well. At least it was nominated.

Unlike Leonardo diCaprio. I don't want to throw any of the Best Actor nominees under the bus, especially when I haven't seen all the movies yet. However, Leonardo DiCaprio remains our best movie actor (unless you want to tell me that someone young like Ryan Gosling has caught up to him -- I don't see enough of those movies). diCaprio is so good that I still don't think that people understand what they are seeing, and how hard it is to do. I would certainly vote for him over Colin Firth or Jesse Eisenberg this year.

Anyway, Inception isn't going to win anything else, and diCaprio wasn't even nominated. So in the realm of the possible:

I liked The Social Network more than The King's Speech. I admit the difference between the two isn't enough for me to be outraged at the good fortune The King's Speech is having in the preliminary awards. My big problem with The King's Speech is the old acting/ writing issue of stakes. I didn't understand what would happen if the King stuttered through his big important speech. Would the Nazi brother with the American divorcee wife come back to reclaim the throne? Would the Brits lose World War II? Or would -- perish the thought --- the poor King feel badly about himself? Yawn.

The Social Network, admittedly, looks like a very special episode of Sportsnight, intertwined with a very special episode of The West Wing, with a little bit of A Few Good Men thrown in. But it depicts the sort of America that we have all been living in for a while, but that Hollywood has kept in turnaround. I thought that Jesse Eisenberg kept a lot of humanity going for a character that was a jerk. But I know -- Hollywood 2011 is not awarding Oscars to movies about jerks. David Thomson argues in this week's NEW REPUBLIC that it was always thus. I don't know. See The Apartment, or Unforgiven, or Godfather II, just for starters.

I think Eisenberg over Firth. I expect to see the award go to Firth (not a tough prediction given the previous awards). The central "Swanee River" scene is like an A+++ acting class exercise. This is what we acting students are all taught to recognize as great acting, and we continue to learn our lessons well. But its really perfect stage acting, and a little too broad, IMHO, for screen acting. I liked Mark Wahlberg in "The Fighter" better than either of them. I haven't seen Jeff Bridges in True Grit.

I think Portman and Bening are interesting. Bening is acting, in the conventional sense and Portman is simply being an object of desire for the director and the cinemantographer. If it really is Portman vs Bening, then I would say Portman. I think that Bening gets nominated for the "Wow, she sleeps with Warren Beatty, and can still play gay" factor. Julianne Moore was better than either of them. But she wasn't nominated. Friends tell me Jennifer Laurence was better than all of them.

Christian Bale was great, and I expect that he'll win. Although I thought that Geoffrey Rush might win the SAG award. His part is about impersonation in the deepest sense. I don't think that what Mark Ruffalo does, in general, in pretty much every film he is in, is particularly easy. If it was, Ruffalo wouldn't work so much.

But still, Christian Bale. How could Mark Wahlberg's character be a supporting actor in his own life story? Because Christian Bale trumped him in every possible way. Just jumping into a garbage dump. And that prison scene. Talk about acting clinics.

Melissa Leo, man! That character has at least 9 kids. She got someone to not use a condom at least 9 times. Seems unbelievable. But Melissa Leo made you see how that was possible. She was still screwing everyone. Down to the last frame. But I dare you to resist her.

Finally, did Inception direct its own Goddam self? I know, the five director nominees directors reflect the 5 movies with the best chance of getting best picture. But still.

Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Giffords

2011-01-12T13:26:00.003-05:00

I listened to Sarah Palin’s Facebook video twice. It sounded like a victory tap dance on Congresswoman Giffords’ face. I continue to hold Mrs. Palin morally culpable, and this is why.

Sarah Palin prayed for this. You can call her very public “targeting” of certain Congresspeople in the cross-hairs a lot of things. A political tactic that, according to Governor Palin “both parties” have done. Maybe lobbyists have done it, on single issues in certain races. And maybe a Democrat in the occasional local race, like the one where the opponent puts out posters with a rifle in his lap, and invites constituents to come shoot M-16s with him in order to “kill” his opponent. Oh, that was the Republican in Congresswoman Giffords’ race. And maybe you can find someone on MSNBC who has done it, although not likely.

But not a call for the death of so many people, for such generalized reasons. Although there are some parallels in the call for the deaths of the doctors who exercise their constitutional rights to perform abortions. But these sorts of lists are not put together by someone who just ran for Vice-President, and who may run for President. Think of the potential reaction if Joe Kennedy, who runs a well-financed single-interest group, ran targets on people’s faces. Think of the potential reaction if John Kerry or John Edwards or Al Gore did something like this.

Sarah Palin prayed for this. And maybe she meant it. One of the reasons you’re allowed to think that she meant it is that Congresswomen Giffords publically mentioned several times that she took the matter of being targeted by Governor Palin seriously. Yet Governor Palin took no action to take the offending material down. Or to attempt to explain it. Governor Palin thought the targets spoke for themselves. And they did. Just ask the gunman who murdered the abortion doctor in Kansas, a sober, articulate spokesman for a cause that he believed in enough to kill for.

Man proposes and God disposes. Sarah Palin put up these targets, with the implication that she would support anyone who brought these targets down.

Then, maybe by coincidence, maybe not, someone gunned down Congresswoman Giffords. God answered Sarah Palin’s prayer.

That’s not to say that the gunman ever heard of Sarah Palin. That’s not to say that Sarah Palin is under any legal obligation to stop saying what she is saying or doing what she is doing. That’s not to say she was lying today when she claimed that in the context of what she was saying and doing, the “targets” were simply metaphors for “votes”. I’m only saying -- and I say this as someone on the losing side – that if Sarah Palin didn’t mean that she literally wanted some psychopath to gun down Congresswoman Giffords, then she should have prayed more carefully.

Hall of Fame Ballots Are Due In

2011-01-01T22:53:00.008-05:00

I do not have a vote with the Baseball Hall of Fame. In order to have one, you need to have been a baseball writer at a certain level of prominence for at least 10 years. I have none of those credentials.

Still, if I had a ballot I would have voted for 9 players, out of a maximum allowed of 10.

In alphabetical order

Roberto Alomar
Jeff Bagwell
Harold Baines
Bert Blyleven
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff
Jack Morris
Tim Raines

A few notes:

I've read a lot of "new Age"/ Bill James/ sabermetrical statistical analyses either defending or debunking the Hall of Fame candidacies of Blyleven and Morris. This is the way I've come out. I understand, in any given year, how much luck goes into a win-loss record. Oliver Perez wins 15 games, and he's not really that good. Felix Hernandez wins 13 games, and everyone agrees he's a Cy Young winner. However, over the long term, a starting pitcher's job is to win ballgames. And both Morris and Blyleven won a whole lot of games.

I never thought of Baines or McGriff as Hall of Famers until I looked at their stats on-line. I might feel differently about them next year.

Larry Walker is another player I never thought much about until I looked at his stats on-line. But I left him off because I did not see him play that much.

I have mixed feelings about Mark McGwire and the obvious steroid users. I am not prepared to let any of these guys in yet, but I know that in my heart of hearts, if it was up to me, I would put them in eventually. One reason is that it was obvious that something was happening, even if we weren't 100% exactly sure of what. But I watched the games anyway. And I enjoyed them immensely.

The Civil War Must Be Fought In Every Generation -- Special 14th Amendment edition

2010-08-05T19:16:00.005-04:00

My friends at the exciting new blog American-Rattlesnake want us to stay open to the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment.

That just raises the hair on my neck.

I responded:

The reason the 14th Amendment had to be enacted was because the United States had already experienced a situation where there was no birthright citizenship. That situation was called slavery.

The purpose of the 14th Amendment is to avoid the creation of a permanent underclass in this country that would have no ability to exercise their freedom. Over time, this permanent underclass would depress wages, depress rights, and drag everyone else's wages and freedoms down the drain as well.

That understanding is a big reason why so many Northerners willingly died during the Civil War to give freedom to a certain group of people, despite the fact that hardly any Northerners in the 1860s considered that group of people to be their true equals.

The 14th Amendment, as finally written into the Constitution, has nothing to do with immigration. I don't know how people can say that the Constitution is really about the things that got voted down during debate. I don't know how so many people (not necessarily your particular post, but certainly great swatches of the Tea Party movement, purported spokesmen for the Republican Party, and even the current Chief Justice) can act as if America's story is only about what the Revolutionary founders wanted, or how the Revolutionary founders might have reacted to events in the 21st Century. Equal attention, and perhaps greater attention has to be given to Abraham Lincoln, what happened during the Civil War, and what it continues to mean today.

Obviously I cannot prove this, but it seems to me that repealing the 14th Amendment or even implementing laws enforcing a strong guest worker program, would ultimately lead to the reintroduction of some form of slavery into the United States. That result is far worse than any immigration problem we have currently or will ever have.

There Are No Protestants on the Supreme Court -- A Simple Solution

2010-05-10T12:41:00.004-04:00

Far be it from me to complain about Dean Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court -- a Jewish weight-challenged Harvard lawyer from New York. Sounds like a good demographic to me.

But I feel the pain from those of you who cannot believe that a country founded by Protestants will have a Supreme Court with the same number of Protestant Justices, justices with military backgrounds, and justices from Asian-Americans backgrounds -- none.

(Are there any justices right now who ever -- like -- ran for office?)

But I have a solution.

There is a Democratic President and 59 Democratic Senators.

Why not try a little court packing?

6 additional justices -- all appointed by Obama and pushed through the Senate by Chuck Schumer.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Tom Tancredo won't let me run for President

2010-04-29T22:56:00.009-04:00

I saw Tom Tancredo on Chris Matthews the other night. I'm glad I was on an empty stomach. I don't know if Tancredo put the "more" in "moron" or if he is the Devil come to human form. Since he gets to be on TV and be a member of Congress, and I don't, I would assume he is not a moron.

Tom Tancredo said he wanted Obama to produce an original birth certificate with the ink signature of the doctor on it.

I am holding my original birth certificate, in the original envelope that was mailed to my mother.

According to what Tom Tancredo said on The Chris Matthews Show, my birth certificate is unacceptable to him, and by implication, I am not an American.

The "original" birth certificate I have is actually the negative of the original birth certificate, which is the only birth certificate the birth mother got in New York City when I was born.

(Does everyone actually have a copy of their original birth certificate lying around?)

When I needed to produce my birth certificate for the Department of Homeland Security and the Government of China, I had to go to the Brooklyn County Clerk and obtain a certified copy of the certificate. The County Clerk --who was probably not the same person who was County Clerk in 1958 -- issued another copy of the negative, and attached the Certificate of the County Clerk with his signature attached.

Still no ink signature of the doctor.

When Barack Obama produced a similar birth certificate, Tom Tancredo said it was insufficient. So I guess that Barack Obama doesn't get to run for President in Arizona. I guess I don't either.

And if my birth certificate is insufficient to run for President under Arizona law, I am sure that it is insufficient to use for the Arizona "Papers Please" law. So now I can't travel to Arizona. I don't know why I have to pay taxes to support places I can't travel to.

I know, I know. I'm white, and unlikely to be stopped on an immigration inquiry by an Arizona police officer. Unless someone who doesn't like me happens to know an Arizona police officer.

My daughter does not have a birth certificate, of course. She was found in a brick yard in Southern China. So she can't go to Arizona either. She does have a certificate of citizenship issued by the Department of Homeland Security. And I don't mean no mamby-pamby Obama Department of Homeland Security. I mean the rootin'-tootin' George W. Bush Department of Homeland Security.

Alas! There are no ink signatures on it either. Just your facsimile stamped signature and the raised seal of the Department of Homeland Security. It most certainly does not have the ink signature of the doctor who delivered my daughter (on the off-chance it was a doctor). So, it seems plenty clear that Tom Tancredo doesn't think my daughter is a citizen.

It is less clear whether a document issued by the Department of Homeland Security would be acceptable under the new Arizona law. I would hate to have my 3-year old sent back to China while the Arizona courts try to figure it out.

I would tell the Courts that since the Arizona law is curtailing my right, and the right of my daughter, to travel to Arizona, it is unconstitutional. But I can't get the people I know to listen to me most of the time. What chance do I have in Arizona?

And what if my daughter lost her certificate of citizenship by the time we get to Phoenix?

In Honor of Confederate History Month

2010-04-11T01:59:00.007-04:00

Thanks to Professor Balkin for posting these excerpts (i) from Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens explaining the reasons for secession, (ii) from the State of Mississippi proclamation of secession, (iii) from the State of South Carolina proclamation of secession and (iv) from the State of Texas proclamation of secession. (link in title above)

It is important to understand what they're really talking about when we're talking about things like "states rights" and the "tenth amendment" and "freedom and deficits for me but not for thee."

There are a great many excellent pull quotes here -- includng Stephens explanation about the errors of Jefferson and the generation that thought that slavery was a necessary evil, as opposed to the Confederate generation that understood the slavery was a manifestation of God's will.

But I think I'll go with the Texas quote:

"In all the non-slave-holding States ... the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party ... based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

. . . .

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

"That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator."

Wild Cards

2010-03-29T07:46:00.004-04:00

There has been a lot of talk in the media this week about wild card formats.

The NFL is talking about tinkering with its Week 16 and Week 17 schedules in order to avoid the situation that occurred last December. The Colts rested their starters in what was, for them, a meaningless week 16 game, giving the Jets an easy victory and the momentum they needed to reach the AFC title game as a wild card.

Major League Baseball is floating all sorts of realignment ideas to break the gridlock where the Yankees and the Red Sox rotate between AL East champ and wild card almost every year. The Tampa Bay Rays, who play in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, are arguably the third best team in baseball. They are playing in a smaller market, and win or lose, will probably have to begin to trade away this group of players at the end of the year. They couldn't possibly afford to keep them all. If the Rays don't make the playoffs this year, they may not make the playoffs for years. Fears are that without hope the franchise in Tampa Bay will slowly implode.

I feel that the purpose of the regular season should be to win the division. If you can't win your division, you should just take what you get and say "Thank You".

In the NFL, all measurements of who is the best during the regular season are approximations. Every year, each team plays only 13 of the 30 or so other teams. More than other sports it seems, the patsy you beat in September is suddenly a monster come December. So even a so-called "balanced" schedule really isn't balanced.

For me, it is more important that Payton Manning is well-rested and gets his best shot to win a title than that the final wild card spot between the 9-7 Jets and the 9-7 Texans (or however it worked out) be fair. Can you imagine the clamor if Manning had been injured in the 3rd quarter of the Jets game?

Baseball has been trying to rein in the success of the Yankees for decades now. It never works. The Yankees have reined themselves in a few times during the 60s and the early 90s -- but that's it. Even as a Mets fan, I like to see the Yankees win. It is an unusual sentiment, I know. However, I love New York more than I hate the Yankees.

Still, I understand that giving the Yankees two chances to get into the playoffs -- as either a division winner or a wild card -- may stick in some people's craw. Plus what I said before about the importance of winnning your division.

I propose the following for baseball:

Three division winners make the playoffs.

The two wild cards play a single elimination game for the last spot, or three wild cards can play a round-robin for the last spot.

The wild cards can either get in by true wild card -- you just pick cards and the team with the high card gets in.

Or they can get in by an NBA style lottery -- only in reverse -- the teams with the best records get more balls in the drum.

I would be happy to allow any team that finished above .500 (82 wins) to be in the lottery. This would help solve a second problem that baseball has, a problem greater than the first -- which is that teams with no chance fold up their tents after July 31. This provides fans in the those cities some additional chance. It also makes it harder for the Red Sox to make that Victor Martinez trade.

And for you non-New Yorkers, I have the following anti-Yankee rule. Any team that is in the playoffs one year, is ineligible for the lottery the next year. So that if the Yankees win the division every year, then everyone else has to suck it up. If the Yankees don't win the division in a given year, they would likely be ineligible for their second chance. On the other end of the lotto, it ensures that we don't see the Houston Astros, with their perennial 82-80 record, get lucky year after year.

Book Review: A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent by Robert W. Merry

2010-03-25T18:35:00.003-04:00

James Polk is often regarded as the most successful one-term President in American History. He finalized the annexation of Texas, he settled the Oregon Territory border dispute, he (started?), fought and won the Mexican War, and in doing so, turned Northwestern Mexico into the Southwestern United States. In doing so, Polk aroused passions that culminated in the American Civil War.

During the Campaign of 1844, Polk said he would only serve one term, and he stuck to his pledge even when it appeared that the Democratic Party wanted him to run in 1848. Polk must have known. Leaving the Presidency in March, he was dead by July. Polk was 53.

Polk was from Tennessee and a protégé of Andrew Jackson. He was the Speaker of the House when Jackson was President, and showed himself to be a skilled in-player. He was later Governor of Tennessee, but lost two separate bids for re-election. In 1843, Polk seemed to be politically dead in the water.

Polk angled for the Democratic Party Vice-Presidential nomination in 1844, presumably as the running mate of former President Martin Van Buren. However, when New York politics forced Van Buren to take a stand against the annexation of Texas, Polk became a “Dark Horse” Presidential candidate. He narrowly beat Henry Clay in the general election, again based on Polk’s more aggressive stance towards Texas.

Mr. Merry’s book gives us a parade of larger-than-life characters, except that they really lived: Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, General Santa Anna, Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott, Nicholas Trist, who negotiated the peace treaty with Mexico after he was fired from the job, Stephen Kearney, John Fremont, his father-in-law Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the charming and witty Sarah Polk, and perhaps most notably Secretary of State James Buchanan, who had so many more than two faces, and an extremely enigmatic John C. Calhoun, who was playing a game so deep that, until the very end, it is beyond the depth of this book.

As a result, James K. Polk often disappears from his own biography for pages on end. Merry, who is so good at giving capsule biographies of so many of the characters in this book, is often forced to pop in conclusive statements about Polk. Merry tells us that Polk was single-minded and always overly suspicious and controlling. It is surprising to see Mr. Merry’s comments on Polk in a biography that is basically supportive of Polk’s policy decisions. A more generous description of the Polk that emerges from this book is that he is a master puppeteer, or perhaps a little like Mack the Knife. (never a trace of red).

Mr. Merry must realize that the politics of the Mexican War has a lot in common with the politics of the Iraq War, although he never expressly says so. While there were real reasons to go to war with Mexico, the United States most likely manufactured the actual causus belli. After the initial patriotic charge (even Walt Whitman supported the Mexican War at first), the war became incredibly popular in certain parts of the country, and incredibly unpopular in other parts of the country. Both Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant strongly condemned the Mexican War and their judgments color the historical argument.

Mr. Merry is at his most persuasive in defending the decision to go to war with Mexico. He shows that there was a legitimate American fear that Mexico was so weak that it was creating a power vacuum that the British longed to fill. Merry also shows that the Mexicans, perhaps like Saddam Hussein later on, saw only the chaos in American policy making, and not the fist behind it.

The American war power frightened the Americans as well. They were conquering Mexico without being quite sure if they wanted it, or if it was even constitutional for the Federal goverhment to wage a war of conquest. I found these parts of the book the most interesting.

Although the book was written and published long before this year’s events, it has a lot to say about President Obama as well. Both Polk and Obama were operating with Democratic majorities that seemed huge, but were actually a coalition of many disparate elements that were out of the President’s control. There are several times during the book when it appears that the President’s own party is going to pull financing from the war. Moreover, the controversy about how slavery was going to be handled in the new Southwestern territories came from a faction in Mr. Polk’s own Democratic Party. Although Polk was pretty clear during the campaign about what his goals were, and was accomplishing only what he said he would accomplish, his party lost control of the House of Representatives during the midterm elections of 1846.

Cheney Takes The Gloves Off -- Against W

2010-02-16T01:59:00.004-05:00

Couldn't say it better than Peter Beinart does in the article linked in the title above. So I won't try to.

Money Quote --

"When they’re not accusing Obama of coddling terrorists and endangering the country, conservatives like to say he’s simply continuing Bush’s policies. But the truth is more complicated: He’s maintaining some of the policies of the Bush administration (2004-2009) because Bush himself repudiated some of the policies of the Cheney administration that reigned from 2001-2004.

"But Bush, and the other people who reined Cheney in, aren’t talking. Cheney is—and the congressional Republicans are parroting his words. As a result, the Congressional GOP is now considerably more extreme than the Bush administration. The Bush administration oversaw hundreds of civilian trials of terrorists; today’s Republicans want to defund such trials. The Bush administration stopped waterboarding; Congressional Republicans defend the practice. The Bush administration read shoebomber Richard Reid his Miranda rights; Congressional Republicans find the practice despicable. Bush said he hoped to close Guantanamo Bay; Congressional Republicans practically consider it a national treasure."

Not True!

2010-01-28T23:09:00.010-05:00

“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases ... to Controversies ..." U.S. Constitution -- Article III Section 2

"They support me. I never said I supported them." -- Ronald Reagan, refusing to give back a controversial campaign contribution.

Some observations on Citizens United. -- The Supreme Court's campaign finance ruling.

It upset me more than anything that the Supreme Court drastically expanded the scope of the original complaint from the producers who wanted a narrow exception to McCain-Feingold to show their anti-Hillary movie in the days leading up to the election. The Supremes called a special argument on short notice to find a way to overturn as much of the campaign finance ruling as possible. They stretched the "cases and controversies" provision of the Constitution beyond all recognition. The Supreme Court is not supposed to be a 9-person Congress. This time they acted as one.

The Supreme Court, in my opinion, gave a very limited holding. It said that a corporation is allowed to contribute directly to Federal campaigns. The Court said a lot of other things about what states can and cannot do in regulating corporate contributions to campaigns, and indirectly, what states can do in regulating corporations.

I find it hard to believe that the Supreme Court is going to take on the full implications of its ruling and nationalize the corporations laws of the 50 states. For example, say as a matter of state law, a corporation is defined as an organization that may not make contributions to state Governor's campaigns. I cannot imagine that the Supreme Court will attempt to overturn that law on 14th Amendment grounds. Nationalizing state corporation law can have a negative impact on corporations. For example, the Federal government will never be in a position to give corporations the sorts of protections they get in states like Delaware and Nevada.

I'm not sure what Justice Alito was talking about when he said "not true". I guess the Justice was referring to the statement that Citizens United means that foreign corporations would influence United States elections.

Obama is right in the sense that American corporations are awash with foreign investors. So when American corporations invest in individual candidates, it is unclear what the source of the money is.

Justice Alito is probably right in contesting the implication that having foreign corporations directly invest in Federal campaigns will make life too much different from what it is today. It's the same money. It's just going to be channeled differently. Or maybe not. Does the Bin Laden Corporation really want to advertise what candidates it supports?

The opinion overturned sections of the McCain-Feingold law. After watching the Senator from Arizona in action over the last 30 years, and especially over the last years, I can imagine what even the most Republican Supreme Court justice must have been thinking. Any piece of legislation with John McCain's name on it has to be unconstitutional.

Heartbreak House -- George Bernard Shaw-- Act II

2009-12-03T22:06:00.002-05:00

ELLIE. Do you think I ought to marry Mr Mangan?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [never looking up]. One rock is as good as
another to be wrecked on.

ELLIE. I am not in love with him.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Who said you were?

ELLIE. You are not surprised?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Surprised! At my age!

ELLIE. It seems to me quite fair. He wants me for one thing: I
want him for another.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Money?

ELLIE. Yes.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Well, one turns the cheek: the other kisses it.
One provides the cash: the other spends it.

ELLIE. Who will have the best of the bargain, I wonder?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You. These fellows live in an office all day.
You will have to put up with him from dinner to breakfast; but
you will both be asleep most of that time. All day you will be
quit of him; and you will be shopping with his money. If that is
too much for you, marry a seafaring man: you will be bothered
with him only three weeks in the year, perhaps.

ELLIE. That would be best of all, I suppose.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It's a dangerous thing to be married right up
to the hilt, like my daughter's husband. The man is at home all
day, like a damned soul in hell.

ELLIE. I never thought of that before.

George Bernard Shaw -- Major Barbara

2009-11-22T21:34:00.001-05:00

UNDERSHAFT. It is settled that you do not ask for the succession to the cannon business.

STEPHEN. I hope it is settled that I repudiate the cannon business.

UNDERSHAFT. Come, come! dont be so devilishly sulky: it's boyish. Freedom should be generous. Besides, I owe you a fair start in life in exchange for disinheriting you ... Well, come! is there anything you know or care for?

STEPHEN (rising and looking at him steadily). I know the difference between right and wrong.

UNDERSHAFT (hugely tickled). You dont say so! What! no capacity for business, no knowledge of law, no sympathy with art, no pretension to philosophy; only a simple knowledge of the secret that has puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers, muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of the artists: the secret of right and wrong. Why, man, youre a genius, a master of masters, a god! At twenty-four, too!

STEPHEN (keeping his temper with difficulty). You are pleased to be facetious. I pretend to nothing more than any honorable English gentleman claims as his birthright (he sits down angrily).

UNDERSHAFT. Oh, thats everybody's birthright. Look at poor little Jenny Hill, the Salvation lassie! she would think you were laughing at her if you asked her to stand up in the street and teach grammar or geography or mathematics or even drawingroom dancing; but it never occurs to her to doubt that she can teach morals and religion. You are all alike, you respectable people. You cant tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter; but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You darent handle high explosives; but youre all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! what a world!

LADY BRITOMART (uneasily). What do you think he had better do, Andrew?

UNDERSHAFT. Oh, just what he wants to do. He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career

Yankees World Series -- Quick Nerdfest Note

2009-10-28T16:21:00.005-04:00

This was an easy stat to put together, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

This will be the 7th time that the Yankees will play a World Series against the defending champion.

The previous 6 results --

In 1923, the Yankees beat the Giants.

In 1943, the Yankees beat the Cardinals.

In 1956, the Yankees beat the Dodgers.

In 1958, the Yankees beat the Braves.

In all four of these cases, the Yankees lost to the team in the previous World Series and won the rematch.

In 1976, the Reds beat the Yankees. The Yankees showed up for their rematch in 1977, except the Reds didn't. The Yankees beat the Dodgers instead.

In 1922, the Yankees lost to the Giants. The Yankees played the Giants 3 straight years -- lost in 1921 and 1922, but won in 1923.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Reflections to the Reaction To Barack Obama's Speech To Schoolchildren That Hasn't Even Been Delivered Yet)

2009-09-05T01:03:00.010-04:00

The songwriter was right.

The revolution will not be televised.

It really happened -- we elected Barack Obama.

I didn't think the country was ready. Then I saw how negatively it reacted to Sarah Palin.

Then I thought the election would be stolen. Isn't that why they fired all those U.S. Attorneys and hired all those new ones? But the margin of victory on Election Day was too large to overcome.

Then I thought they'd get to him before January 20. But they didn't.

So this country has made this profound revolutionary change.

This year.

This country.

Not those sophisticated European countries who smirk about how naive we are. What sort of cowboys we are.

Not those third world countries who consider themselves martyrs to capitalist imperialism -- those who think we spend all our waking hours being too fat, lazy and stupid to know which way the wind blows.

The United States of America -- like everyone else -- had fancy words that said that anyone, no matter how humble their background, no matter how defiled their people had once been, this country said that anyone could be President.

And in a revolutionary act unknown in the history of the world, in a free election, this country kept its word.

We elected Barack Obama President, and we swore him in.

The revolution is still not being televised.

The people who support Obama. You never see them on television They're not pretty enough. They're too busy working.

You just see these people who think they are the "Real America" venting their anger.

They thought they were dreaming, but they weren't.

Things really have changed, so of course they're angry. They have the means to create a lot of damage, and a lot of suffering.

And they will.

But I'd rather be on our side of the argument.

The side that knows that little by little, over time and blood, everyone in the United States will be able to pursue happiness.

Health Care Rationing

2009-07-24T15:49:00.002-04:00

Why do the same people who think that they have a formula for determining when Grandma is entitled to have her last operation become so jittery when it comes to the death penalty for murder?

****

The idea that health care is too expensive is beyond riduculous.

When Social Security was invented in the 1930s, and the retirement age was set at 65, we figured that we were setting an impossibly high standard, that the few people who got to 65 were lucky, and were entitled to their retirement.

Now, a 65-year old man dies, and he still has his baseball cards.

The question should not be why is health care so expensive. It's so expensive because it saves lives.

The question should be how do we save everybody's life.

I am really disappointed with the turn this health care debate is taking.

Ya Gotta Believe

2009-07-10T02:00:00.009-04:00

On July 9, 1973, the Mets beat the Astros 2-1. Although I remember the 1973 Mets as a team decimated by injuries most of the year, on July 9, they played the following line-up.

Garrett 3b
Millan 2b
Jones cf
Staub rf
Kranepool lf
Milner 1b
Hodges c
Harrelson ss
Seaver p

For those of you too young to remember, this was the line-up the team used most of the year, and certainly for most of the "Ya Gotta Believe" stretch drive, except that

(a) Ed Kranepool did not normally play left field. Cleon Jones did. The Mets basically went through 1973 without a major-league center fielder, which is how Willie Mays, at 42, found himself slipping and sliding his way through the World Series.

(b) Ron Hodges started only 37 games at catcher that year, Jerry Grote, the nominal starter, only started 76. (Duffy Dyer caught too).

Seaver was 9-4 going into the game, and finished at 19-10, but did not get the decision that night. Harry Parker did.

But even with the starting line-up basically together that night, even with the win, the Mets ended the evening at 35-46, which is generally how I remembered it, in last place, which is also how I remembered it.

This is what I did not remember. They were 12 games back at this point. Which makes their late season accomplishments all the more impressive.

What I remembered better, although I had to look it up, was that on August 30, the Mets were still in last place, but they were only 6 games back. They went 20-8 the rest of the way to win the division.

Ya Gotta Believe

Immigration

2009-06-27T18:49:00.004-04:00

I've said this before, but:

We had a full-scale guest worker program in this country for 250 years. It was called slavery.

Now certain very powerful voices, like John McCain, are saying that a full-scale guest worker program is needed again.

I am not paranoid enough to think that John McCain is looking for a return to slavery.

But despite everyone's good intentions, and professed safeguards, a full-scale guest worker program -- a huge legally sanctioned underclass -- can get us to slavery very quickly.

I am not naive enough to believe that everyone has good intentions.

The problem is not that there are jobs that Americans won't do.

The problem is not that the wages are too low.

The problem is that the true cost of certain items -- mainly food --- is too high to be politically acceptable, so someone has to bear the burden.

It says here that legalizing second-class workers is a worse solution than ignoring illegal immigration.

The problem is -- I'll let Lincoln describe it. From the last debate with Douglas

"It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."

I admit that our current tendency towards slavery (towards a permanent underclass of guest workers) comes less from an impulse towards racism than from an impulse towards union-busting. But at the end of the day, no matter what, today's union members will not be tomorrow's permanent underclass. The underclass will be non-Caucasians coming into this country from Third World nations.

And they will put the legal status of all non-Caucasians in America at risk.

It would be tragic if Barack Obama would be the President to sign this into law.

Dred Scott and Guns

2009-05-20T20:35:00.004-04:00

I am writing this as a draft, since I don't have the time, or the heart really, to go back and check my facts, but I am pretty certain they are right.

This is also a follow-up to my previous post, although not the one I intended to write, which would have been about torture.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. (The opposing point of view was that any individual right under the 2nd Amendment derived from the state's right to organize a militia, and therefore could be completely controlled by the state). As a result, the Court struck down D.C.'s blanket prohibition against individuals owning handguns. However, the Court was careful to point out that the state had the right to make restrictions on the right to hold guns, although it is not clear what those restrictions would look like.

Now, as a rider to a credit card bill, the Congress has approved a bill allowing people to carry concealed weapons in National Parks. Bush enacted a regulation to this effect in the last days of its administration, and Obama rescinded it when he came to office.

The Congress overwhelmingly passed this bill, and the passage was bipartisan. There is no indication that the President is inclined to veto his own credit card bill over this gun rider.

Proponents of the gun bill say that they merely want to assure that citizens who are passing through national parks on their travels from point A -- where guns are legal under local law --to point B -- where guns are legal under local law --- do not get jammed in the park.

This is the same argument that the slave owners made in the Dred Scott decision. Just because a slaveowner found himself in Federal territory on the way from one slave state to the other does not mean that he should be forced to give up his slave. Even if the slaveowner found himself in Federal territory for years on end.

The Dred Scott Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no right to restrict slaves in Federal territories.

The current Congress is passing a law on the same basis -- that Congress should not be restricting the 2nd Amendment to keep and bear arms --- in Federal territories.

Abraham Lincoln, in his "House Divided" speech, made the point that once Congress is banned from from acting in Federal territories, the jump banning the states from acting for themselves, is very small.

Lincoln was worried that the Taney Supreme Court would eventually make a ruling barring the states from banning slaves. The Supreme Court would say that the states had no right to force the citizens of one state to surrender their rights when they travel to another state.

I am worried that the Roberts Supreme Court would bar the states from banning guns on a similar rationale.

Mostly, I am just very very angry that I may not be able to spend any more time in Acadia National Park or on the Jacob Riis National Seashore.

How To Make The Unthinkable More Palatable -- One View

2009-05-19T11:31:00.002-04:00

“Lincoln’s ever-repeated theme throughout the [Lincoln-Douglas] debates was that in a popular government, statutes and decisions are rendered possible or impossible of execution by public sentiment. It is in reference to such sentiment that legislatures and courts determine awhat they may and may not attempt. Lincoln did not believe that Taney’s court would have had either the incentive or the temerity to pronounce the [Dred Scott] decision of 1857 in 1854.

“First the Missouri Compromise had to be repealed;

“Second the doctrine of popular sovereignty, so called, erected into a campaign plank and an election carried under that obscure banner.

“Next, the people had to be taught, that in reelecting Democrats to office, they had had endorsed the constitutional opinion which had repealed the congressional power to restrict slavery in the territories as somehow improper, if not positively unlawful.

“Only when the idea of moral objectionableness of slavery, an idea enshrined in the Missouri Compromise, as it had been earlier enshrined in the Northwest Ordinance, had been replaced by the idea of moral indifference of slavery could the Court have attempted what it did attempt. Only as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the party strategy which utilized it to change public sentiment, had in a measure succeeded was the Dred Scott decision deemed possible of execution and worth attempting.

“It was Lincoln’s contention, therefore, that if the Dred Scott decision could receive the endorsement at the polls which the Kansas-Nebraska Act had received – or, it should be said, of such an appearance of endorsement as Douglas and Buchanan claimed for it from the results of the 1856 elections – then still further revolutions might well be in store ….

“Once the idea of the sacrosanct character of property in slaves was firmly established, then indeed there might be another decision, which declared that no state had the power to prohibit slavery. Such a decision might appear intolerable and unenforceable now, Lincoln conceded. But did it appear more intolerable and unenforceable than the decision denying Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories would have appeared to Jefferson, Washington, Madison, either of the Adamses, or Monroe?”

Harry V. Jaffa –Crisis of the House Divided -- The University of Chicago Press (1959, 1982). Pages 286-287

Rick Perry backs down -- sort of

2009-05-18T14:19:00.005-04:00

Rick Perry gives aid and comfort to insurrection and rebellion in violation of the 14th Amendment (see footnotes below.

"We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

Perry backs away.

"I can't say I was surprised that critics recast my defense of federalism and fiscal discipline into advocacy for secession from the Union. I have never advocated for secession and never will."

Hendrick Hertzberg , Josh Marshall , and Ed Kilgore , remind us that Governor Perry is far from alone.

FOOTNOTES:

U.S. Constitution --- Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

U.S Constitution --- Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. …

…Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. …

"We're Americans -- We Don't Need No Stinkin' Laws"

2009-05-07T08:52:00.006-04:00

Jon Chait has a little think piece in the New Republic entitled Tortured Logic . He complains a little about why Republicans say that the rule of law applies to one President's sex life, but not to another President's torture policies.

I responded on-line, like a good Fox commentator, by raising an issue I know absolutely nothing about.

"I don't really watch 24, but my understanding is that Jack Bauer is someone who the President knows personally. I think that is an important point that is never brought up. If the President really had a handful of people (literally 10 or less) who engage in torture on behalf of truth, justice and the American way, then the President would be able to use the pardon power on the grounds of their extraordinary service to the nation. These 10 (do you even need 10) would work on the rare occasions where torture might be justified on some morally ambiguous basis. But that really was not or is not what the Republicans ever had in mind."

"Regarding the first part of your excellent essay, I believe the Republicans believe that if you are a certain sort of person worshipping a certain kind of God living in a certain part of the country, then you don't need the law to tell you what you need to do. But everyone else does."

Some More Random Comments and Footnotes on the times leading up to Secession

2009-05-04T01:15:00.008-04:00

"I have no apologies to make for having one week been a member of the American Party; for I think native-born citizens of the United States should have as much protection, as many privileges in the their home native country, as those who voluntarily select it for a home. But all secret, oath-bound political parties are dangerous to any nation, no matter how pure or patriotic the motives or principles which first bring them together. No political party can or ought to exist when one of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the right to worship God "according to the dictate of one's own conscience," or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever. Nevertheless, if a sect sets up its laws as binding above the State laws, wherever the two come in conflict this claim must be resisted and suppressed at whatever cost."

Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Chapter XVI (1885, reflecting on 1856). In this passage, Grant goes on to say that he voted for the Democrat, Buchanan, over the Republican, Fremont in the Election of 1856 (the first election where there was a Republican Party), because Grant, like so many others, feared the threat of secession from the South. The American Party candidate, former President Millard Fillmore, won only one state, Maryland, but was a major factor in the election.

***

The following quote is from Stephen A. Douglas and he made it in the first Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858. Douglas made similar quotes in several of the debates. Thanks to quotes like these, Douglas was not considered conservative enough to run as the Democratic Presidential candidate, even though Douglas managed, and had an income interest in, a plantation in Mississippi. However, Douglas believed that people had the power to vote on whether or not slavery should be legal in their own neighborhoods. This liberal apostasy became too much for the South to bear.

[When revisionist historians try to paint Lincoln as a racist (as if there is only one flavor of racist), it is best to remember that Lincoln was a professional politician, running against people like Douglas. Douglas was a mainstream Northern politician. Lincoln, of course, lost the Senate election to Douglas.]

Anyway, the Douglas quote --

"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 forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians, and other inferior races.

"Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in the basements of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal, and then asks, How can you deprive a negro of the equality which God and the Declaration of Independence awards to him? He and they maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln’s conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother; but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever."

***

I have the slightly off-beat opinion that a main reason the South left the Union is that the South, not the North, created a strong Federal government, even back then, 150 years ago. They created it, in large measure, to protect slavery, and they created it on the belief that that they set things up so that the South would never lose a major election. Then, the South lost an election.

In this view, States Rights meant that the Declaration of Independence, and the provisions of the U.S. Constitution that refer to "We, The People" were not relevant. In this view, the United States in 1860 was a Confederacy of States, and States Rights meant that what the states wanted and needed was the most important thing that the Federal government was supposed to worry about.

And some states wanted and needed slavery.

Why Does This Guy Still Have A Job?

2009-04-18T18:31:00.012-04:00

"To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country-the young men."

"In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her."

"I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heros of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict the civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration."

Sam Houston -- Governor of Texas -- 1861 -- Refusing to continue in office once Texas seceded.

****
You would think that Sam Houston would have a better sense of what the original 1845 agreement between Texas and the United States was than current Governor Rick Perry does. Houston knew that there was no right to secession in the agreement.

****

Given the enormous amount of space this blog has spent reviewing Presidential Inauguration speeches in general, and the speeches of Abraham Lincoln in particular, you are not surprised to learn that I take the word "secssion" seriously.

Far more seriously than I take the financial indiscretions of the former Governor of Illinois (whatever they were) and the sexual indiscretions of the former Governor of New York (which had more to do with hypocrisy than perversity).

Yet Spitzer and Blogo were out of a job pretty punchy quick.

Why haven't the people of Texas arose as one to drive this piece of un-American shit from office?

Clearly, something is rotten in the State of Texas.

For a governor to be speaking of secession is too serious a crime. No good that this guy might be doing in Texas is good enough to overcome the statement.

He should go down to Mexico and check out life after secession for awhile. Try to figure out why everyone wants to come into the very place he wants to leave. Or, if the Governor prefers, he can stay at home and join the ranks of the unemployed.

Feeling Groovy

2009-03-29T06:01:00.006-04:00

Last Thursday the Daily News ran a blaring headline saying something about horrible transit fare hikes, and demanded that readers call the Governor and various other Albany luminaries to save our fares. Phone numbers were printed.

Since it was so easy, I took the Daily News up on their kind offer, and called up all those nice folks and thanked them for standing tough on the issue of keeping the 59th Street Bridge toll-free.

For a lot of us living in the outer boroughs, all this noise about saving the MTA, and the current subway fare, by adding tolls to certain bridges is just another attempt to impose "congestion pricing," a concept that cannot die enough times to make me happy.

Under congestion pricing, under the plan to add tolls to the East River bridges, people are discouraged from bringing cars into Manhattan by the prohbitive cost. Instead, they are encouraged to bring their cars into my neighborhood, and neighborhoods like mine, which already lacks adequate parking, and bring their noise and congestion with them. Then they can take the subway into Manhattan.

How does the MTA propose to handle all these additional riders? By raising fares and cutting service. Apparently while the MTA spent the last decade complaining they had no money for capital improvements, they were actually taking the money they supposedly did not have, and investing it in real estate. So now, when they say they don't have any money, we're supposed to believe them.

Here's a novel idea. Why don't we audit the MTAs books? I'M ONLY KIDDING!!!

In the particular case of tolls on the 59th Street bridge, there is the added problem of no place to put the toll booths, so that people who must take the bridge no matter what the toll (including truck drivers), can turn Queens Boulevard into a exhaust-filled stand-still as they wait to pay their tolls and get on the bridge.

So thank you State legislators for hanging tough.

Natasha Richardson

2009-03-19T13:42:00.003-04:00

From today's New York Times obit

"In the performance that made her a star in the United States, she played the title role on Broadway in a 1993 revival of “Anna Christie,” Eugene O’Neill’s grueling portrait of a waterfront slattern in confrontation with the abusive men in her life. Embracing the emotional wreckage that showed in her character’s face, she modeled her makeup each night on Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.”

"Her performance, nominated for a Tony Award, was vibrantly sensual, and her scenes with her co-star, Mr. Neeson, were acclaimed as sizzling and electric."

I was there. I agree. I have never seen anything like that on stage, before or since.

"Enjoy every sandwich"

Cheap Shots

2009-03-18T09:08:00.006-04:00

If you owned a failing business which was doing nothing particularly useful -- lets call it AIG -- and your salesmen convinced the government of the United States to give it over $100 billion of no-strings attached money in order to save it, wouldn't you say you had a pretty good year, all things considered (like bankruptcy and indictments)?

Wouldn't you let those salesmen split a 1/10 of 1% commission?

Since when are companies, say defense contractors, who do business with the government not entitled to pay bonuses?

The rule of law -- because we have no good second choice.

Yeah, we could have found a legal way to hold up the bonuses and hired $100 million worth of lawyers (like me)to prevent the payment of the same amount of bonuses. And yeah, we could have found a way to negotiate a settlement. That means that every one of those executives would have had to hire a lawyer (like me). Lesson is that if you do business with the government, you better know that they are a group of lying jackals whose word is no good. A Republican wet dream, I know .. But still. There is much more important, and easier, work we all need to be doing now.

The problem it seems to me is that old chestnut -- never steal anything small. $100 billion is unfathomable. Even $100 million. But to say that 70-something people got $1 million each -- I can find my way to that sort of a number. And if I can find that number, I can get really really angry at it.

Read an op-ed from an employment compensation law professor in today's New York Times. I won't link it, because nothing in it reflects even a nodding acquaintance with reality. Yes, executive compensation agreements are terminable for "cause", but incompetence is never cause. Employee incompetence is the fault of the idiot employer who didn't know any better when he hired you.

Yes, fraud is grounds for termination of an executive compensation agreement, but no one at AIG committed fraud. You could say that the corporate culture at AIG was fraudulent, but it is hard to pin it on any one single person, or group of people, especially this group of higher-end, but not highest-end, people getting the bonuses.

It was obvious from the start that they were selling pie-in-the-sky. It was also obvious, because they said it from the start, where they thought they found the pie. And why some banks felt it was worth eating anyway.

We are learning the hard way that Ralph Nader was right when he said that from the point of view of the poor person looking at the economy that there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Different special interests line up behind different parties, but they all are feeding at the government trough. Things are run in a certain way because they benefit the most number of people on both sides of the aisle.

One problem with what Nader was saying of course, is that he was the one saying it. The other problem is that his correct diagnosis always seemed to lead to the wrong medication -- admit that Ralph Nader is God, and leave everything to him.

Obama is not like Nader, and not like Bush. He does not run around pretending to be king. And even if he was inclined to do so, no one will let him. Tough for those who long for the good old days (like last year) when it was always Daddy's fault. Now it is all, quite obviously, on us. Some call that socialism. I call it democracy.

Three Quick Notes and an Old-Fashioned Blog Post

2009-03-13T22:06:00.007-04:00

1.

Governor Sanford of South Carolina wants to take the Congressional mandate money and do what he pleases. No surprise. Some say that the causes of the Civil War began with the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of 1832 where South Carolina asserted the right to its own tariff. President Jackson received Congressional authorization to invade South Carolina. Cooler heads prevailed. Draw your own conclusions.

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2.

Governor Jindal looked so clumsy on national television that it feels like the disgraceful things he said were underreported. He basically said that the incompetence of the Republican government during Hurricane Katrina was about the best you can expect from government. Like so many Southern politicians, and their camp followers, he believes government of the people is an oxymoron. Government is somewhere apart from the people. That was not the result of the Civil War. Which is most certainly never over. Especially now. Where thanks to folks like Rush Limbaugh (not to single him out), we are learning that the Silent Majority may no longer be either.

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3.

Obama made the point, in his joint address to Congress, in his education speech, and in several other places, that in American history great, expensive projects were completed despite other crisis. However Obama uses a poor example when he says that Lincoln built the Transcontinental Railroad despite the Civil War. Actually, the Transcontinental Railroad had been deadlocked for years because Northern Senators and Southern Senators kept fighting over where the railroad should be built. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, one of the great topics of the Lincoln study I've been doing on this blog, and one of the causes of the Civil War, might never have been proposed, but for the fact that Stephen Douglas needed to get land use in order so that he could press forward with the idea that the Transcontinental Railroad could start in Chicago. Once the Southern Senators went away, it became much easier to get an agreement and proceed. If they had waited for the Southern Senators to get back to Washington, the railroad might never have been built.

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Old Fashioned Blog Post

I am looking for feedback on the following assertion, which I think is factually correct:

No President before Barack Obama has come into office on Day One facing a crisis so different from the issues that made him a Presidential candidate in the first place.

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Lincoln, for example, became President after a campaign based on slavery and on states rights in the broader sense. Few expected secession to occur between the election and the inauguration, but it was an open threat during the campaign of 1860, and a logical, if unfortunate conclusion, of the election of Lincoln.

FDR faced a financial crisis different from the financial crisis occurring during the campaign of 1932, but the Great Depression were very much the issue during the campaign.

But I can't think of another President, besides Obama, who literally came into office on Day One with the world so different than it was on Labor Day of the Election Year.

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Obviously, it is possible to disagree with President Obama's proposals on the tax code, on the environment, on health care, on energy and on education. However, these are the things Obama ran for President on. So I am a bit startled by the reaction of people that he should not pursue his agenda now.

The partisan response is that George W. Bush pursued his entire agenda after 9/11, and the same people complaining now did not complain about the idea that you could fight two wars and cut taxes at the same time. Where was their talk about irresponsible spending then? Why would you want to return the financial system to the way it was when the Republicans will simply destroy it again the next time they take power?

But I think a more honest answer is this:

Obama ran for President on a theme of "change". It seems now that some people thought he meant tweaking around the margins. And had the financial crisis not occurred, maybe it would have felt that way.

However, the reason why "change" resonated with so many voters is that despite the fact that the Reagan-Clinton-Bush system created many winners, it also created many losers. And many others who felt that there was something wrong somehow. "Change" resonated with so many people that even the Republican candidate ran on a theme of "change". People gave the Democrats 54% of the vote in an election where arguably the strongest available Republican candidate ran against the weakest available Democratic candidate.

Maybe the Silent Majority is no longer either.

Maybe the people who write for newspapers and write these blogs, and even those of us who claim to represent our own constituents and our own corporate interests and sponsors, maybe we are no longer the center of gravity in America. That is not to say that we cannot maintain our power.

President Obama has a Republican Secretary of Defense, most-likely a Republican Secretary of the Treasury, and, despite what the right-wing will tell you, a Secretary of State who comes from the conservative part of the modern Democratic Party. If these people cannot figure out how to restore the status-quo, then it's gone.

Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech -- June 16, 1858 – The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Excerpt

2009-03-13T00:01:00.001-04:00

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen- Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance-and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly matte the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different l pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece. too many or too few,-not omitting even scaffolding-or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in-in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.

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While the opinion of the court, by Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it.

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In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska Act Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche which we may ere long see filled with another Supreme Court decisions declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri. are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation.

Lincoln’s “House Divided” Speech -- June 16, 1858 – The Famous Excerpt

2009-03-12T20:55:00.001-04:00

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.

Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

From the Greatest Hits Collection

2009-03-09T15:54:00.002-04:00

I wrote this post entitled "We Had Legal Opinions" in April, 2008, another time when there was a flare-up of the torture opinion issues.

My points then and now:

a. The President of the United States cannot hide behind the legal opinion of a government attorney. That is like you hiding behind the immigration status of your cleaning woman.

b. There is no such thing as a legal opinion unless the lawyer who wrote the legal opinion is somehow on the hook for the opinion.

c. I am unaware of any field of commerce where legal opinions carry more weight than in the oil and gas industry. It is small wonder that Bush and Cheney placed totemic power in legal opinions.

d. However, there are 125,000,000 Republicans in this country. Some of them have law degrees. And some small subset of those are Republican Congressmen. Someone should have gotten the word to the President and the Vice President that there is no legal opinion where there is no attorney liability.

e. The lawyers who wrote these opinions need to be held personally accountable. And if they were only obeying orders, then the people giving the orders have to be held personally accountable. In most instances, of course, this means some sort of civil damages. Sometimes, when an accounting opinion has lead to criminial fraud, the accountants have gone to jail. Here, where a legal opinion was used to turn our sons and daughters into torture machines, a proportionate penalty needs to be appllied.

f. It is nice to have truth squads about what happened in this or that war, but it is really too late. The time to have done this was two years ago, when the Democrats controlled the Congress, but didn't have the power to do anything but hold hearings.

g. If the Speaker of the House understood her job properly, she would realize that the purpose of being Speaker of the House is being Speaker of the House. The purpose is not to elect a Democratic President.

h. If the Speaker of the House understood her job properly, we would have already had these hearings, and people would already be paying penalties.

Lincoln at Springfield – June 26, 1857 (The Dred Scott Speech) -- Excerpts

2009-03-01T17:06:00.001-05:00

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope, upon the chances of being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL MEN, black as well as white; and forthwith he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes. He will have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either, I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.

Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men crated equal — equal in 'certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

Lincoln at Kalamazoo -- August 27, 1856 - Excerpt

2009-02-26T16:36:00.004-05:00

We are a great empire. We are eighty years old. We stand at once the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and we must enquire what it is that has given us so much prosperity, and we shall understand that to give up that one thing would be to give up all future prosperity. This cause is that every man can make himself. It has been said that such a race of prosperity has been run nowhere else. We find a people on the North-east, who have a different government from ours, being ruled by a Queen. Turning to the South, we see a people who, while they boast of being free, keep their fellow beings in bondage. Compare our Free States with either, shall we say here that we have no interest in keeping that principle alive? Shall we say -- "Let it be." No -- we have an interest in the maintenance of the principles of the Government, and without this interest, it is worth nothing. I have noticed in Southern newspapers, particularly the Richmond Enquirer, the Southern view of the Free States. They insist that slavery has a right to spread. They defend it upon principle. They insist that their slaves are far better off than Northern free-men. What a mistaken view do these men have of Northern laborers! They think that men are always to remain laborers here -- but there is no such class. The man who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor for him. These men don't understand when they think in this manner of Northern free labor. When these reasons can be introduced, tell me not that we have no interest in keeping the Territories free for the settlement of free laborers.

Lincoln at Peoria --- October 16, 1854 – Excerpts 2 of 2

2009-02-22T06:04:00.000-05:00

I particularly object to the NEW position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there CAN be MORAL RIGHT in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a few [free?] people---a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity we forget right---that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it. The argument of ``Necessity'' was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only as it carried them, did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could not help; and they cast blame upon the British King for having permitted its introduction. BEFORE the constitution, they prohibited its introduction into the north-western Territory---the only country we owned, then free from it. AT the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word ``slave'' or ``slavery'' in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a ``PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR.'' In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as ``The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States NOW EXISTING, shall think proper to admit,'' &c. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers COULD not do; and MORE they WOULD not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.

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But NOW it is to be transformed into a ``sacred right.'' Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the high road to extension and perpetuity; and, with a pat on its back, says to it, ``Go, and God speed you.'' Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation---the very figure-head of the ship of State. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the OLD for the NEW faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a ``sacred right of self-government.'' These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection with his support of the Nebraska bill, called the Declaration of Independence ``a self-evident lie'' he only did what consistency and candor require all other Nebraska men to do. Of the forty odd Nebraska Senators who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I apprized that any Nebraska newspaper, or any Nebraska orator, in the whole nation, has ever yet rebuked him. If this had been said among Marion's men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the man who said it? If this had been said to the men who captured Andre, the man who said it, would probably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If it had been said in old Independence Hall, seventy-eight years ago, the very door-keeper would have throttled the man, and thrust him into the street.

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Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of ``moral right,'' back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of ``necessity.'' Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south---let all Americans---let all lovers of liberty everywhere---join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations

Lincoln at Peoria --- October 16, 1854 – Excerpts 1 of 2

2009-02-21T06:01:00.000-05:00

This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every particular; but I am sure it is sufficiently so, for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it, we have before us, the chief material enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong.

I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska---and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to take it.

This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world---enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites---causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty---criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters.

When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia ,--- to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.

When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.

But all this; to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it would for reviving the African slave trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa; and that which has so long forbid the taking them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter.

Looking For Lincoln

2009-02-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Looking For Lincoln
PBS Special with Henry Louis Gates
Channel 13 – New York
February 11, 2009

Henry Louis Gates, Harvard professor and the head of its E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, looks for Lincoln by surveying the current opinions on Lincoln amongst mainstream professors and educators, Lincoln tour guides, Lincoln impersonators, screenwriters for Lincoln films, Lincoln memorabilia collectors, a Sons of the Confederacy convention, President Clinton and President Bush, and some others.

Professor Gates mode is to attempt to reconcile his boyhood worship of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator and savior of our nation, with his more aware adult view of Lincoln as a man of his times, not above working as a lawyer to enforce runaway slave laws, a man who hated slavery more than he cared about racial equality. A man who assumed that after 100 years of gradual emancipation, the former slaves would be colonized in Africa. A President constrained by the Constitution, and who could not, and therefore did not, exercise dictatorial powers to free all the slaves the moment he became President. A man who said, “If I could free none of the slaves and preserve the Union I would do that.”

In order to be allowed to speak to Professor Gates in this documentary, you have to concede that Lincoln was a racist but …

Even within this framework, the truth about Lincoln emerges. Lincoln understood that he could not exercise the power to end slavery, unless he had the power to end slavery. In order to have that power, he had to appeal to actual voters with actual opinions. A high school girl says if Lincoln’s opinions had been too far away from those of his constituents, they never would have voted for him President, and nothing would have ever changed. Just so. I’m sure there is tape of practically everyone telling Professor Gates the same thing. But rather than giving the view too much legitimacy, by letting Doris Kearns Goodwin or President Bush say it, they left it in the mouth of this high school girl. Maybe it means that in the future, people will be smarter.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln said that since the races could not be equal, he, of course, would prefer that his own race be in the dominant position. The documentary keeps coming back to this statement as proof of Lincoln’s racism. However, this does not prove Lincoln’s racism. It shows Lincoln’s world view that people of different races could not live together equally. It was this world view, and not a feeling of white supremacy, that caused Lincoln to favor colonization as the answer until very late in the war. The documentary shows you every brick along the way to Lincoln’s understanding that colonization would not be possible, that after emancipation, the freedmen would stay, and they would need to vote, and how Lincoln’s intention to seek black suffrage drove John Wilkes Booth over the edge. But the documentary never has the courage of its conviction to call all these bricks a road.

Perhaps, like Lincoln himself, the documentary is afraid to be too far ahead of its presumed audience.

And yet, of course, I will watch it, and completely enjoy it, the next time it is on.

EW refers to this special as “soft-core porn for Lincoln geeks.” It is. It touches upon virtually every current fault line in mainstream Lincoln interpretation. It talks about his marriage, his depression, his sex life and his assassination. It shows you film clips of the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, the town of New Salem, where spent a few years in his 20s, and a host of other places I’ll never visit. There are film clips of every bad Lincoln movie ever made, and one or two good ones.

SPOILER ALERT – The neatest touch, which was never commented upon openly is that the film shows Professor Gates driving all over the country in his car, Looking For Lincoln. You see him driving and thinking, driving and thinking. Then, about an hour and twenty minutes in, the Emancipation Proclamation is discussed. After that, Professor Gates stops driving, and he is chauffeured everywhere.

Lincoln at Cooper Union -- February 27, 1860 -- Excerpts --Three of Three

2009-02-14T06:19:00.000-05:00

A few words now to Republicans. … The question recurs, what will satisfy them? … This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

****

Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality - its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension - its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Lincoln at Cooper Union -- Excerpts -- 2 of 3

2009-02-13T06:15:00.002-05:00

New York, New York
February 27, 1860

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

*****

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it … was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact - the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed. To show all this, is easy and certain.

When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?

And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live" - the men who made the Constitution - decided this same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago - decided it without division among themselves, when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

The Emancipation Proclamation

2009-02-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twentysecond day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. Johns, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South-Carolina, North-Carolina, and Virginia, (except the fortyeight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth-City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Lincoln at Cooper Union -- February 27, 1860 -- Excerpts 1 of 3

2009-02-11T16:14:00.001-05:00

If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of the same opinion - thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. ...

But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask - all Republicans desire - in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guarantees those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.

And now, if they would listen - as I suppose they will not - I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them: - You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite - license, so to speak - among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section - gets no votes in your section. … The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and not of ours.

*****

But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

*****

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.

Lincoln's Temperance Address -- Excerpts -- Part 2 of 2

2009-02-10T06:41:00.001-05:00

Washington Temperance Society
Springfield, Illinois
February 22, 1842

But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not follow, that those who have not suffered, have no part left them to perform.
***

"But," say some, "we are no drunkards; and we shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a reformed drunkard's society, whatever our influence might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this objection. If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take on himself the form of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the infinitely lesser condescension, for the temporal, and perhaps eternal salvation, of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of their own fellow creatures. Nor is the condescension very great.

****

If the relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, indeed, will this be the grandest the world shall ever have seen. Of our political revolution of '76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.

But with all these glorious results, past, present, and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood and rode in fire; and long, long after, the orphan's cry, and the widow's wail, continued to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought.

Turn now, to the temperance revolution. In it, we shall find a stronger bondage broken; a viler slavery, manumitted; a greater tyrant deposed. In it, more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it no orphans starving, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even the dram-maker, and dram seller, will have glided into other occupations so gradually, as never to have felt the change; and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness.

And what a noble ally this, to the cause of political freedom. With such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition, the sorrow quenching draughts of perfect liberty. Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!

Lincoln's Temperance Address -- Excerpts -- Part 1 of 2

2009-02-09T06:41:00.001-05:00

Temperance Address
Washington Temperance Society
Springfield, Illinois
February 22, 1842

Excerpts

(W)hen one, who has long been known as a victim of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors "clothed, and in his right mind," a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and stands up with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness, and a renewed affection; and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done; how simple his language, there is a logic, and an eloquence in it, that few, with human feelings, can resist.

****

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall be no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.

***

I have not enquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating drinks commenced; nor is it important to know. It is sufficient that to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of drinking them, is just as old as the world itself, -- that is, we have seen the one, just as long as we have seen the other. When all such of us, as have now reached the years of maturity, first opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor, recognized by everybody, used by every body, and repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the first draught of the infant, and the last draught of the dying man.

***

It is true, that even then, it was known and acknowledged, that many were greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims of it were pitied, and compassionated, just as now are the heirs of consumptions, and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace.

If, then, what I have been saying be true, is it wonderful, that some should think and act now as all thought and acted twenty years ago? And is it just to assail, contemn, or despise them, for doing so? The universal sense of mankind, on any subject, is an argument, or at least an influence not easily overcome. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an over-ruling Providence, mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought not, in justice, to be denounced for yielding to it, in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially, where they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites.

Abraham Lincoln -- The Lyceum Speech -- Excerpts -- Part 2 of 2

2009-02-08T07:06:00.001-05:00

But, it may be asked, why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long?

***

Another reason which once was; but which, to the same extent, is now no more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice, incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were, for the time, in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive; while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause--that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty.

But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. ….

They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.--Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Abraham Lincoln -- The Lyceum Speech -- Excerpts -- Part 1 of 2

2009-02-07T07:03:00.000-05:00

The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions:
Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
January 27, 1838

When men take it in their heads to day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn someone who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded. But all this even, is not the full extent of the evil.--By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.--Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men … become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed--I mean the attachment of the People. ….

The question recurs, "how shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others …

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made.--I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed. …

But, it may be asked, why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long?

“Abraham Lincoln’s Autobiography “ – June 1860 – Excerpts -- Part 2 of 2

2009-02-06T06:44:00.002-05:00

In 1846, he was elected to the lower House of Congress, and served one term only, commencing in Dec. 1847 and ending with the inauguration of Gen. Taylor, in March 1849. All the battles of the Mexican war had been fought before Mr. L. took his seat in congress, but the American army was still in Mexico, and the treaty of peace was not fully and formally ratified till the June afterwards. Much has been said of his course in Congress in regard to this war. A careful examination of the Journals and Congressional Globe shows, that he voted for all the supply measures which came up, and for all the measures in any way favorable to the officers, soldiers, and their families, who conducted the war through; with this exception that some of these measures passed without yeas and nays, leaving no record as to how particular men voted. The Journals and Globe also show him voting that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States. This is the language of Mr. Ashmun's amendment, for which Mr. L. and nearly or quite all, other Whigs of the H. R. voted.

Mr. L's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote were briefly that the President had sent Genl. Taylor into an inhabited part of the country belonging to Mexico, and not to the U.S. and thereby had provoked the first act of hostility - in fact the commencement of the war; that the place, being the county bordering on the East bank of the Rio Grande, was inhabited by native Mexicans, born there under the Mexican government; and had never submitted to, nor been conquered by Texas, or the U.S. nor transferred to either by treaty - that although Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary, Mexico had never recognized it, the people on the ground had never recognized it, and neither Texas nor the U.S. had ever enforced it - that there was a broad desert between that, and the country over which Texas had actual control - that the country where hostilities commenced, having once belonged to Mexico, must remain so, until it was somehow legally transferred, which had never been done.

Mr. L. thought the act of sending an armed force among the Mexicans, was unnecessary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way molesting, or menacing the U.S. or the people thereof; and that it was unconstitutional, because the power of levying war is vested in Congress, and not in the President. He thought the principal motive for the act, was to divert public attention from the surrender of "Fifty-four, forty, or fight" to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question.

Mr. L. was not a candidate for re-election. This was determined upon, and declared before he went to Washington, in accordance with an understanding among Whig friends, by which Col. Hardin, and Col. Baker had each previously served a single term in the same District.

“Abraham Lincoln’s Autobiography “ – June 1860 – Excerpts -- Part 1 of 2

2009-02-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, then in Hardin, now in the more recently formed county of Larue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, & grand-father, Abraham, were born in Rockingham county Virginia, whither their ancestors had come from Berks county Pennsylvania. His lineage has been traced no farther back than this. The family were originally Quakers, though in later times they have fallen away from the peculiar habits of that people. … Abraham, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by Indians about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons and two daughters. … Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the present subject, by the early death of his father, and very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was a wandering laboring boy, and grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name. ... (H)aving reached his 28th year, he married Nancy Hanks - mother of the present subject - in the year 1806. She also was born in Virginia; and relatives of hers of the name of Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles, in Macon, and in Adams counties, Illinois, and also in Iowa. The present subject has no brother or sister of the whole or half blood. He had a sister, older than himself, who was grown and married, but died many years ago, leaving no child. Also a brother, younger than himself, who died in infancy. …

At this time his father resided on Knob-creek, on the road from Bardstown Ky. to Nashville Tenn. at a point three, or three and a half miles South or South-West of Atherton's ferry on the Rolling Fork. From this place he removed to what is now Spencer county Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, A. then being in his eighth year. … In the autumn of 1818 his mother died; and a year afterwards his father married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Elizabeth-Town, Ky. - a widow, with three children of her first marriage. She proved a good and kind mother to A. and is still living in Coles Co. Illinois. There were no children of this second marriage. His father's residence continued at the same place in Indiana, till 1830. ...

March 1st. 1830 - A. having just completed his 21st. year, his father and family, with the families of the two daughters and sons-in-law, of his step-mother, left the old homestead in Indiana, and came to Illinois. Their mode of conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, or A. drove one of the teams. They reached the county of Macon, and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father and family settled a new place on the North side of the Sangamon river, at the junction of the timber-land and prairie, about ten miles Westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log-cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year. These are, or are supposed to be, the rails about which so much is being said just now, though they are far from being the first, or only rails ever made by A.

9 Days to Pitchers And Catchers -- The Yankee Years Edition

2009-02-03T09:41:00.003-05:00

In today's Newsday, Wallace Matthews repeats the old tired comment that Derek Jeter, as Yankee captain and ultimate insider, should have A-Rod's back a little more as A-Rod gets showered with even more bad press.

Joe Torre, for those of you who have either been following football, or have real lives, has written a tell-all book about the Yankees. The master of "what you see here, stays here" is having a long senior moment. In his book, if the press clippings are to be believed, Torre discloses a lot of things that we already know.

However, by adding his voice to the choir, he is sort of like the father who says, "Yes. You're right. My son is the most ugly, most stupid, most slow child in the class. I am such a hero for even getting him dressed in the morning."

But the idea that Jeter might betray Torre and stand up for A-Rod? Please.

Here is a what-if question I never see or hear asked, let alone answered, in the hundreds and thousands of e-mails, and blogs, and websites, and magazines and conversations on tv, radio, the ballpark, everywhere.

Some questions apparently, are even uglier than the ugliest kid in class.

What if Joe Torre and the Yankees, having paid more money than God to acquire the greatest shortstop in the post-World War II era, and maybe in the history of baseball, had let that greatest shortstop actually play shortstop? Do you think the results might have been different if A-Rod played short, and Jeter moved? Think the Yankees might have won at least one more game that mattered?

A fun follow-up question for those of you too old to care about A-Rod --

What if the better outfielder, Mickey Mantle, was playing center that day in 1951, and the lesser outfielder, Joe DiMaggio was playing left? What if the Yankees had simply waited to 1952 to bring Mantle up? What sort of baseball card would Mickey Mantle have?

15 Days to Pitchers and Catchers -- A little nerd fest

2009-01-28T22:57:00.006-05:00

Batting Averages
(3000 Plate Appearance)
(Careers beginning during or after 1947)

Tony Gwynn .338
Albert Pujols .334
Ichiro Suzuki .331
Todd Helton .328
Wade Boggs .328
Rod Carew .328

Vladimir Guerrero .323
Kirby Puckett .318
Roberto Clemente .317
Derek Jeter .316

Manny Ramirez .314
Nomar Garciaparra .314
Larry Walker .313
Magglio Ordonez .312
Edgar Martinez .312

Jackie Robinson .311
Chipper Jones .310
David Wright .309
Miguel Cabrera .309
Mike Piazza .308
Richie Ashburn .308

Don Mattingly .307
Matty Alou .307
Paul Molitor .306
Ralph Garr .306
Alex Rodriguez .306
Placido Polanco .306

Henry Aaron .305

Caroline, No!

2009-01-22T10:33:00.007-05:00

I have had a lot of thoughts about President Obama's speech, especially in context of the project of this blog to read and excerpt all of the previous Inauguration Speeches -- basically one a day from Thanksgiving until last week.

I think the speech is unique, without trying to put too much emphasis as to whether or not that was a good thing. President Obama evoked the heavyweights -- he used "fear" the way FDR did. He asked for us to help our neighbors in the way JFK (and for that matter Nixon and Reagan) did. Obama used the word "measure" in the old-fashioned way, in order to evoke Lincoln. He reminded his audience -- as did Truman -- that being a liberal in the United States sense of the word does not mean that you would be unwilling to fight if necessary. I also think of Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural speech about the new challenges facing the new century, and on the need for and responsibilities of national greatness.

And yet, something about this speech made it unlike any of its predecessors.

I have something to say about a tradition of conservative personal rectitude resulting in radical politics. A tradition that goes back to people like John Adams, and through to people like John Brown. It runs through the personal history of a lot of so-called "pinko" Jewish leaders. And how this contrasts with the age that we're trying to strangle -- an age of casual personal corruption and immorality masked by public proclamations of faith in old ways that never, in fact, existed.

But I haven't thought it all the way through. It is sort of what I meant when I said, in some blog posts before the election, that Barack Obama will most likely become Jimmy Carter done right. But it's not fully formed yet, and I may have to back away from it.

I am fully in the camp of those who say that Caroline Kennedy withdrew her bid to be appointed U.S. Senator from New York because Governor Patterson told her that he had decided to look elsewhere. I thought the entire point of her becoming Senator was to make sure that the family had adequate representation in the Senate. Our new information that Senator Ted Kennedy is not getting better would be a reason for Caroline Kennedy to campaign even harder, not to withdraw.

And mixing these two events in my head, the inauguration speech of our first African-American President, and the decision to be made by New York's first African-American governor, my brain spit out a name I had not thought about in a number of years:

Rev. Floyd Flake

So out of nowhere, on the odds (the lottery-like odds) that I am right, I offer up the Reverend Flake as our next Senator.

Reverend Flake's finances are extremely complicated, and my rational self tells me that he would not allow them to be held up to any more public scrutiny. But there was this impulse that I needed to share.

I will accept a silver-medal as a prognosticator if, out of the blue, Governor Patterson does present someone with a background similar to that of Reverend Flake, someone who came through the politics of local churches into the politics of local government. Someone whose patriotism is unquestioned, and whose strict personal code usually leads him to extremely liberal positions, except for those times where (like Reverend Flake), he finds himself shoulder to shoulder with people like Rudolph Giuliani.

I do not really know if such a person exists in New York today, but if he or she does, I think s/he would personify everything that President Obama was talking about on Tuesday afternoon.

Pick Yourself Up

2009-01-22T01:47:00.010-05:00

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America” -- Barack Obama – January 20, 2009

Pick Yourself Up

Music – Jerome Kern
Lyric – Dorothy Field
From the movie – “Swing Time” -- 1936
Fred and Ginger Dancing

Nothing’s impossible I have found
For when my chin is on the ground
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start all over again

Don't lose your confidence if you slip
Be grateful for a pleasant trip
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off
And start all over again

Work like a soul inspired
till the battle of the day is won
You may be sick and tired
but you'll be a man my son

Don't you remember the famous men
Who had to fall to rise again?
They picked themselves up,
Dust themselves off
And start all over again.

Barack Obama – First Inaugural Address – January 20, 2009

2009-01-20T22:01:00.002-05:00

Excerpts

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted--for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things--some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

***

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

***

We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

****

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends--honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism--these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility--a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship

Barack Obama --- Philadelphia – March 18, 2008

2009-01-19T11:19:00.001-05:00

Excerpts ---

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union ..." — 221 years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. … The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least 20 more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution — a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty and justice and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

***

(W)e may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own story. … and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.

***

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope — the audacity to hope — for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

****

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more and nothing less than what all the world's great religions demand — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

***

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation — the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

Some Notes on Reading The Inauguration Speeches

2009-01-18T02:28:00.004-05:00

In reading these speeches, and thinking about what Obama might say, one of course, is drawn to “new beginnings” in the United States: inauguration speeches by Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, either Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan. However, the one speech I was most drawn to as an analogy to Obama’s was Woodrow Wilson’s Inaugural Speech. Just about everything I posted in the excerpt seems relevant to things going on right now, and also to things that Obama had said.

Both Wilson and Obama had been professors, and Wilson’s language was more paternalistic than Obama’s, but I was really struck by this passage:

At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been "Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.*****

I did not read any background for the speeches, except for whatever I happened to know. I think I picked up the most “famous” passages, but not always. In at least two cases, where I did know something about the speech, I deliberately left out the most famous part – in Reagan’s “Star Wars” Address (the Second Inaugural – 1985), I chose a passage which stressed racial tolerance. In Clinton’s “Bridge” Address (the Second Inaugural – 1997), I chose a passages which pleaded for bipartisan harmony.

In every instance where I had a choice, I chose the passage that concerned itself with domestic politics. Relationships between the races first (usually white-black, sometimes white-Indian, and in one extraordinary passage by Taft, white-Asian immigrant). After that I tended to focus on relationships between rich and poor (which were almost always addressed by analogy), and relationships between branches of government (references to the bitterness of partisanship begin with Jefferson and are pervasive thereafter).

Some speeches left me with no choice – they were totally concerned with foreign policies – Madison’s Second Inaugural during the War of 1812, and McKinley’s Second Inaugural in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, were interesting speeches. McKinley’s speech in particular was American Imperialism writ large (and I refuse to reduce American Imperialism to a 4-letter word), and very relevant to what is going on today.

However, the Cold War speeches left me cold. Truman’s and Eisenhower’s speeches were a real slog. Even reading JFK’s speech, in the context of the other speeches, and at the remove of history, sounded more militaristic, and less idealistic, than when I posted the speech on the 45th anniversary of Dallas.

****

Related to the Cold War speeches, it was surprising how little discussion of race was included in the speeches of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. Even LBJ only spoke of race by analogy, although he spoke of it at some length. Both Nixon, the first American President in many years to speak of the limits of government, and Reagan, the first American President in over 100 years to speak overtly of states rights in an Inauguration Speech, reminded their audiences that supporters of more limited Federal government had to understand that the Federal government would maintain an active role in ending racism.

****

There are many passages about race-relations in the speeches. There are overt defenses of slavery in speeches by Van Buren, Polk, Pierce and Buchanan. What else could they say? All four men owed their jobs to the Slave Power. Taylor’s less ringing endorsement of slavery served as a warning that the people who supported electing Jefferson Davis’s father-in-law as President might have made a mistake. Taylor died within 18 months.

There is Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, which is still the one you should read if you could only stand to read one.

There is McKinley in 1897 saying that he believed that the United States had finish its good work in healing the wounds between the races. There is a heart-broken Taft in 1909 lamenting how little progress had been made, and wondering exactly how to approach the future.

****

However, for me, the most interesting exchange was a statement made by Rutherford B. Hayes, in his 1877 Inaugural Speech. Hayes was a Republican who won an election that was a virtual tie by agreeing, in a back room, to end Reconstruction on the one hand, and a counter-statement by James Garfield, also a Republican, in 1881. Garfield was cut down by an assassin a few months later.

Hayes:

The evils which afflict the Southern States can only be removed or remedied by the united and harmonious efforts of both races, actuated by motives of mutual sympathy and regard; and while in duty bound and fully determined to protect the rights of all by every constitutional means at the disposal of my Administration, I am sincerely anxious to use every legitimate influence in favor of honest and efficient local self-government as the true resource of those States for the promotion of the contentment and prosperity of their citizens. In the effort I shall make to accomplish this purpose I ask the cordial cooperation of all who cherish an interest in the welfare of the country, trusting that party ties and the prejudice of race will be freely surrendered in behalf of the great purpose to be accomplished.

Garfield:

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness … No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

Some Presidential Trivia

2009-01-16T07:15:00.000-05:00

Some of which have been on this blog before, some of which you knew all along.

56 Presidential Elections (including 2008) elected 38 men.

Presidents who were never elected and never gave Inauguration Speeches:

John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
Andrew Johnson
Chester Arthur
Gerald Ford

Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms have meant that he has been considered both our 22nd President and our 24th President.

Clinton-Bush marks only the 4th time in American History that a President has been re-elected after his predecessor has been re-elected, and the only time where the two men were from different political parties:

2 other times were Jefferson (1800-1804) Madison (1808-1812) and then Madison-Monroe (1816-1820)

The 4th time is one I never considered until I looked at the list, and may even win you a bar bet (if you are drinking with David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin) – Lincoln (1860-1864), and then Grant (1868-1872).

Of course, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like we re-elected Theodore Roosevelt (1904) and Harry Truman (1948) and LBJ (1964). But we only elected them once.

Two former Presidents ran for re-election as third party-candidates after they left office: Millard Fillmore in 1856 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

Grant campaigned for the Republican nomination in 1880, and was even leading at certain points in the convention, but did not get it (Garfield did). There may be other former Presidents who tried to get nominated again. I just happen to know about Grant.

Finally, for people who worry (or hope) for some Lazurus-like action from our current occupant:

4 former Presidents went on to formally work in the government:

William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

John Quincy Adams became a Congressman from Massachusetts.
John Tyler was a delegate to the organizational Confederate Congress, and was elected to serve, but passed away first.

And Andrew Johnson, the impeached one, briefly returned to his prior job, Senator of Tennessee.

George W. Bush -- Second Inaugural Address - January 20, 2005

2009-01-15T06:45:00.001-05:00

Excerpts

America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time.

***

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty—though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.

***

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner “Freedom Now”—they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.

George W. Bush – First Inaugural Address – January 20, 2001

2009-01-14T06:45:00.001-05:00

Excerpt

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.

Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness.

Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small.

But the stakes for America are never small. If our country does not lead the cause of freedom, it will not be led. If we do not turn the hearts of children toward knowledge and character, we will lose their gifts and undermine their idealism. If we permit our economy to drift and decline, the vulnerable will suffer most.

We must live up to the calling we share. Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.

America, at its best, is also courageous.

Our national courage has been clear in times of depression and war, when defending common dangers defined our common good. Now we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemn us. We must show courage in a time of blessing by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations.

Together, we will reclaim America’s schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives.

We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent. And we will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans.

We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge.

We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.

Bill Clinton – Second Inaugural Address – January 20, 1997

2009-01-13T06:13:00.001-05:00

Excerpts

The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future—will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all come together, or come apart?

The divide of race has been America’s constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction are no different. These forces have nearly destroyed our nation in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. And they torment the lives of millions in fractured nations all around the world.

These obsessions cripple both those who hate and, of course, those who are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the soul everywhere. We shall overcome them. And we shall replace them with the generous spirit of a people who feel at home with one another.

Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind together

****

Thirty-four years ago, the man whose life we celebrate today spoke to us down there, at the other end of this Mall, in words that moved the conscience of a nation. Like a prophet of old, he told of his dream that one day America would rise up and treat all its citizens as equals before the law and in the heart. Martin Luther King’s dream was the American Dream. His quest is our quest: the ceaseless striving to live out our true creed. Our history has been built on such dreams and labors. And by our dreams and labors we will redeem the promise of America in the 21st century.

To that effort I pledge all my strength and every power of my office. I ask the members of Congress here to join in that pledge. The American people returned to office a President of one party and a Congress of another. Surely, they did not do this to advance the politics of petty bickering and extreme partisanship they plainly deplore. No, they call on us instead to be repairers of the breach, and to move on with America’s mission.

Bill Clinton – First Inaugural Address – January 20, 1993

2009-01-12T06:45:00.001-05:00

Excerpts

Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time. Let us embrace it.

Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift—a new season of American renewal has begun.

To renew America, we must be bold.

We must do what no generation has had to do before. We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt. And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity.

****

To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better. And so I say to all of us here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America.

Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation," a government for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays.

Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs.

George Bush -- Inaugural Address - January 20, 1989

2009-01-11T07:15:00.001-05:00

Excerpts

And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your heads:

Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write on our hearts these words: "Use power to help people."
***

We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.
***

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do.
***

The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money alone could end these problems. But we have learned that is not so. And in any case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to bring down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need.

***

I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.

***

(O)ur great parties have too often been far apart and untrusting of each other. It has been this way since Vietnam. That war cleaves us still. But, friends, that war began in earnest a quarter of a century ago; and surely the statute of limitations has been reached. This is a fact: The final lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a memory. A new breeze is blowing, and the old bipartisanship must be made new again.
***

A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life.

Ronald Reagan -- Second Inaugural Address -- January 21, 1985

2009-01-10T08:42:00.002-05:00

Excerpts

Well, with heart and hand, let us stand as one today: One people under God determined that our future shall be worthy of our past. As we do, we must not repeat the well-intentioned errors of our past. We must never again abuse the trust of working men and women, by sending their earnings on a futile chase after the spiraling demands of a bloated Federal Establishment. You elected us in 1980 to end this prescription for disaster, and I don't believe you reelected us in 1984 to reverse course. …

From new freedom will spring new opportunities for growth, a more productive, fulfilled and united people, and a stronger America—an America that will lead the technological revolution, and also open its mind and heart and soul to the treasures of literature, music, and poetry, and the values of faith, courage, and love.

A dynamic economy, with more citizens working and paying taxes, will be our strongest tool to bring down budget deficits. But an almost unbroken 50 years of deficit spending has finally brought us to a time of reckoning. We have come to a turning point, a moment for hard decisions. I have asked the Cabinet and my staff a question, and now I put the same question to all of you: If not us, who? And if not now, when? It must be done by all of us going forward with a program aimed at reaching a balanced budget. We can then begin reducing the national debt.

We have already started returning to the people and to State and local governments responsibilities better handled by them. Now, there is a place for the Federal Government in matters of social compassion. …

And there is another area where the Federal Government can play a part. As an older American, I remember a time when people of different race, creed, or ethnic origin in our land found hatred and prejudice installed in social custom and, yes, in law. There is no story more heartening in our history than the progress that we have made toward the "brotherhood of man" that God intended for us. Let us resolve there will be no turning back or hesitation on the road to an America rich in dignity and abundant with opportunity for all our citizens.

Let us resolve that we the people will build an American opportunity society in which all of us—white and black, rich and poor, young and old—will go forward together arm in arm. Again, let us remember that though our heritage is one of blood lines from every corner of the Earth, we are all Americans pledged to carry on this last, best hope of man on Earth.

Ronald Reagan -- First Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1981

2009-01-09T10:58:00.002-05:00

Excerpt

Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your gracious cooperation in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.

The business of our nation goes forward. These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.

Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, causing human misery and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.

But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding—we are going to begin to act, beginning today.

The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.

****

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work—work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

Jimmy Carter -- Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1977

2009-01-08T06:45:00.000-05:00

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Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President, in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me a few years ago, opened to a timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah:

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8)

This inauguration ceremony marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our Government, and a new spirit among us all. A President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.

****

Within us, the people of the United States, there is evident a serious and purposeful rekindling of confidence. And I join in the hope that when my time as your President has ended, people might say this about our Nation:

—that we had remembered the words of Micah and renewed our search for humility, mercy, and justice;

—that we had torn down the barriers that separated those of different race and region and religion, and where there had been mistrust, built unity, with a respect for diversity;

—that we had found productive work for those able to perform it;

—that we had strengthened the American family, which is the basis of our society;

—that we had ensured respect for the law, and equal treatment under the law, for the weak and the powerful, for the rich and the poor;

—and that we had enabled our people to be proud of their own Government once again.

I would hope that the nations of the world might say that we had built a lasting peace, built not on weapons of war but on international policies which reflect our own most precious values.

These are not just my goals, and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our Nation's continuing moral strength and our belief in an undiminished, ever-expanding American dream.

Richard Milhous Nixon -- Second Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1973

2009-01-07T13:29:00.001-05:00

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Because of America's bold initiatives, 1972 will be long remembered as the year of the greatest progress since the end of World War II toward a lasting peace in the world.

The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure for generations to come.

It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace.

Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace.

Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom.

But let us clearly understand the new nature of America's role, as a result of the new policies we have adopted over these past four years.

We shall respect our treaty commitments.

We shall support vigorously the principle that no country has the right to impose its will or rule on another by force.

We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms, and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.

We shall do our share in defending peace and freedom in the world. But we shall expect others to do their share.

The time has passed when America will make every other nation's conflict our own, or make every other nation's future our responsibility, or presume to tell the people of other nations how to manage their own affairs.

Just as we respect the right of each nation to determine its own future, we also recognize the responsibility of each nation to secure its own future.

Just as America's role is indispensable in preserving the world's peace, so is each nation's role indispensable in preserving its own peace.

Together with the rest of the world, let us resolve to move forward from the beginnings we have made. Let us continue to bring down the walls of hostility which have divided the world for too long, and to build in their place bridges of understanding—so that despite profound differences between systems of government, the people of the world can be friends.

Richard Milhous Nixon --First Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1969

2009-01-06T06:45:00.000-05:00

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The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do

Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, and to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed.

What has to be done, has to be done by government and people together or it will not be done at all. The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing; with the people we can do everything.

To match the magnitude of our tasks, we need the energies of our people—enlisted not only in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal.
With these, we can build a great cathedral of the spirit—each of us raising it one stone at a time, as he reaches out to his neighbor, helping, caring, doing.

I do not offer a life of uninspiring ease. I do not call for a life of grim sacrifice. I ask you to join in a high adventure—one as rich as humanity itself, and as exciting as the times we live in.

The essence of freedom is that each of us shares in the shaping of his own destiny.
Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.

The way to fulfillment is in the use of our talents; we achieve nobility in the spirit that inspires that use.

As we measure what can be done, we shall promise only what we know we can produce, but as we chart our goals we shall be lifted by our dreams.

No man can be fully free while his neighbor is not. To go forward at all is to go forward together.

This means black and white together, as one nation, not two. The laws have caught up with our conscience. What remains is to give life to what is in the law: to ensure at last that as all are born equal in dignity before God, all are born equal in dignity before man.

Lyndon Baines Johnson -- Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1965

2009-01-05T06:25:00.000-05:00

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Under this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have become a nation—prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have kept our freedom. But we have no promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit.

I do not believe that the Great Society is the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of becoming—always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying again—but always trying and always gaining.

In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again.

If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.

If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe.

For we are a nation of believers. Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in justice and liberty and union, and in our own Union. We believe that every man must someday be free. And we believe in ourselves.

Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime—in depression and in war—they have awaited our defeat. Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could not see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again.

For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say "Farewell." Is a new world coming? We welcome it—and we will bend it to the hopes of man.

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

2009-01-04T06:41:00.000-05:00

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Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

***

So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms—and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah—to "undo the heavy burdens ... and to let the oppressed go free."

And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

****

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1957

2009-01-03T06:31:00.000-05:00

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We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom. And now, as in no other age, we seek it because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

Yet this peace we seek cannot be born of fear alone: it must be rooted in the lives of nations. There must be justice, sensed and shared by all peoples, for, without justice the world can know only a tense and unstable truce. There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak. But the law of which we speak, comprehending the values of freedom, affirms the equality of all nations, great and small.

Splendid as can be the blessings of such a peace, high will be its cost: in toil patiently sustained, in help honorably given, in sacrifice calmly borne.

We are called to meet the price of this peace.

To counter the threat of those who seek to rule by force, we must pay the costs of our own needed military strength, and help to build the security of others.

We must use our skills and knowledge and, at times, our substance, to help others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our shores. For wherever in the world a people knows desperate want, there must appear at least the spark of hope, the hope of progress—or there will surely rise at last the flames of conflict.

We recognize and accept our own deep involvement in the destiny of men everywhere. We are accordingly pledged to honor, and to strive to fortify, the authority of the United Nations. For in that body rests the best hope of our age for the assertion of that law by which all nations may live in dignity.

And, beyond this general resolve, we are called to act a responsible role in the world's great concerns or conflicts—whether they touch upon the affairs of a vast region, the fate of an island in the Pacific, or the use of a canal in the Middle East. Only in respecting the hopes and cultures of others will we practice the equality of all nations. Only as we show willingness and wisdom in giving counsel—in receiving counsel—and in sharing burdens, will we wisely perform the work of peace.

For one truth must rule all we think and all we do. No people can live to itself alone. The unity of all who dwell in freedom is their only sure defense. The economic need of all nations—in mutual dependence—makes isolation an impossibility; not even America's prosperity could long survive if other nations did not also prosper. No nation can longer be a fortress, lone and strong and safe. And any people, seeking such shelter for themselves, can now build only their own prison.

Our pledge to these principles is constant, because we believe in their rightness.

Dwight D. Eisenhower -- First Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1953

2009-01-02T07:06:00.000-05:00

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My friends, before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own. And I ask that you bow your heads:

Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the executive branch of government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and their fellow citizens everywhere.

Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of station, race, or calling.

May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen.

*****

At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith. This faith is the abiding creed of our fathers. It is our faith in the deathless dignity of man, governed by eternal moral and natural laws.

This faith defines our full view of life. It establishes, beyond debate, those gifts of the Creator that are man's inalienable rights, and that make all men equal in His sight.

In the light of this equality, we know that the virtues most cherished by free people—love of truth, pride of work, devotion to country—all are treasures equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. The men who mine coal and fire furnaces and balance ledgers and turn lathes and pick cotton and heal the sick and plant corn—all serve as proudly, and as profitably, for America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the legislators who enact laws.

This faith rules our whole way of life. It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve. It asserts that we have the right to choice of our own work and to the reward of our own toil. It inspires the initiative that makes our productivity the wonder of the world. And it warns that any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites the mockery of the tyrant.

It is because we, all of us, hold to these principles that the political changes accomplished this day do not imply turbulence, upheaval or disorder. Rather this change expresses a purpose of strengthening our dedication and devotion to the precepts of our founding documents, a conscious renewal of faith in our country and in the watchfulness of a Divine Providence.

Harry S. Truman -- Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1949

2009-01-01T07:58:00.002-05:00

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The peoples of the earth face the future with grave uncertainty, composed almost equally of great hopes and great fears. In this time of doubt, they look to the United States as never before for good will, strength, and wise leadership.

It is fitting, therefore, that we take this occasion to proclaim to the world the essential principles of the faith by which we live, and to declare our aims to all peoples.

The American people stand firm in the faith which has inspired this Nation from the beginning. We believe that all men have a right to equal justice under law and equal opportunity to share in the common good. We believe that all men have the right to freedom of thought and expression. We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.

From this faith we will not be moved.

The American people desire, and are determined to work for, a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit, and to achieve a decent and satisfying life. Above all else, our people desire, and are determined to work for, peace on earth—a just and lasting peace—based on genuine agreement freely arrived at by equals.

*****

Slowly but surely we are weaving a world fabric of international security and growing prosperity.

We are aided by all who wish to live in freedom from fear—even by those who live today in fear under their own governments.

We are aided by all who want relief from the lies of propaganda—who desire truth and sincerity.

We are aided by all who desire self-government and a voice in deciding their own affairs.

We are aided by all who long for economic security—for the security and abundance that men in free societies can enjoy.

We are aided by all who desire freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to live their own lives for useful ends.

Our allies are the millions who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

In due time, as our stability becomes manifest, as more and more nations come to know the benefits of democracy and to participate in growing abundance, I believe that those countries which now oppose us will abandon their delusions and join with the free nations of the world in a just settlement of international differences.

Events have brought our American democracy to new influence and new responsibilities. They will test our courage, our devotion to duty, and our concept of liberty.

But I say to all men, what we have achieved in liberty, we will surpass in greater liberty.

Steadfast in our faith in the Almighty, we will advance toward a world where man's freedom is secure.

To that end we will devote our strength, our resources, and our firmness of resolve. With God's help, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony, and peace.

Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Fourth Inaugural Address -- January 20, 1945

2008-12-31T06:51:00.000-05:00

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Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons—at a fearful cost—and we shall profit by them.

We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.

We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.

We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that "The only way to have a friend is to be one."

We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.

So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly—to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men—to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.

Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Third Inaugural Address -January 20, 1941

2008-12-30T06:43:00.000-05:00

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ON each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.

In Washington's day the task of the people was to create and weld together a nation.

In Lincoln's day the task of the people was to preserve that Nation from disruption from within.

In this day the task of the people is to save that Nation and its institutions from disruption from without.

***

Democracy is not dying.

We know it because we have seen it revive—and grow.

We know it cannot die—because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise—an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.

***

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the middle ages. It was written in Magna Charta.

In the Americas its impact has been irresistible. America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life—a life that should be new in freedom.

Its vitality was written into our own Mayflower Compact, into the Declaration of Independence, into the Constitution of the United States, into the Gettysburg Address.

Those who first came here to carry out the longings of their spirit, and the millions who followed, and the stock that sprang from them—all have moved forward constantly and consistently toward an ideal which in itself has gained stature and clarity with each generation.

****

The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first inaugural in 1789—words almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered ... deeply,... finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."

If we lose that sacred fire—if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear—then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will, furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense.

In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy.

For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.

We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God.

Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Second Inaugural Address --- January 20, 1937

2008-12-29T06:20:00.000-05:00

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Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"

True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.

But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.

To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.

Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?

I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on.

Franklin D. Roosevelt -- First Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1933

2008-12-28T06:03:00.001-05:00

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This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

****

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

Herbert Hoover, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1929

2008-12-27T06:02:00.002-05:00

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Enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment

Of the undoubted abuses which have grown up under the eighteenth amendment, part are due to the causes I have just mentioned; but part are due to the failure of some States to accept their share of responsibility for concurrent enforcement and to the failure of many State and local officials to accept the obligation under their oath of office zealously to enforce the laws. With the failures from these many causes has come a dangerous expansion in the criminal elements who have found enlarged opportunities in dealing in illegal liquor.

But a large responsibility rests directly upon our citizens. There would be little traffic in illegal liquor if only criminals patronized it. We must awake to the fact that this patronage from large numbers of law-abiding citizens is supplying the rewards and stimulating crime.

I have been selected by you to execute and enforce the laws of the country. I propose to do so to the extent of my own abilities, but the measure of success that the Government shall attain will depend upon the moral support which you, as citizens, extend. The duty of citizens to support the laws of the land is coequal with the duty of their Government to enforce the laws which exist. No greater national service can be given by men and women of good will—who, I know, are not unmindful of the responsibilities of citizenship—than that they should, by their example, assist in stamping out crime and outlawry by refusing participation in and condemning all transactions with illegal liquor. Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law. For our citizens to patronize the violation of a particular law on the ground that they are opposed to it is destructive of the very basis of all that protection of life, of homes and property which they rightly claim under other laws. If citizens do not like a law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage its violation; their right is openly to work for its repeal.

***

Public Health

In public health the discoveries of science have opened a new era. Many sections of our country and many groups of our citizens suffer from diseases the eradication of which are mere matters of administration and moderate expenditure. Public health service should be as fully organized and as universally incorporated into our governmental system as is public education. The returns are a thousand fold in economic benefits, and infinitely more in reduction of suffering and promotion of human happiness.

Calvin Coolidge -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1925

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In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience to law. Under a despotism the law may be imposed upon the subject. He has no voice in its making, no influence in its administration, it does not represent him. Under a free government the citizen makes his own laws, chooses his own administrators, which do represent him. Those who want their rights respected under the Constitution and the law ought to set the example themselves of observing the Constitution and the law. While there may be those of high intelligence who violate the law at times, the barbarian and the defective always violate it. Those who disregard the rules of society are not exhibiting a superior intelligence, are not promoting freedom and independence, are not following the path of civilization, but are displaying the traits of ignorance, of servitude, of savagery, and treading the way that leads back to the jungle.

The essence of a republic is representative government. Our Congress represents the people and the States. In all legislative affairs it is the natural collaborator with the President. In spite of all the criticism which often falls to its lot, I do not hesitate to say that there is no more independent and effective legislative body in the world. It is, and should be, jealous of its prerogative. I welcome its cooperation, and expect to share with it not only the responsibility, but the credit, for our common effort to secure beneficial legislation.

These are some of the principles which America represents. We have not by any means put them fully into practice, but we have strongly signified our belief in them. The encouraging feature of our country is not that it has reached its destination, but that it has overwhelmingly expressed its determination to proceed in the right direction. It is true that we could, with profit, be less sectional and more national in our thought. It would be well if we could replace much that is only a false and ignorant prejudice with a true and enlightened pride of race. But the last election showed that appeals to class and nationality had little effect. We were all found loyal to a common citizenship. The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration. We can not permit any inquisition either within or without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind of America must be forever free.

Warren G. Harding -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1921

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We are ready to associate ourselves with the nations of the world, great and small, for conference, for counsel; to seek the expressed views of world opinion; to recommend a way to approximate disarmament and relieve the crushing burdens of military and naval establishments. We elect to participate in suggesting plans for mediation, conciliation, and arbitration, and would gladly join in that expressed conscience of progress, which seeks to clarify and write the laws of international relationship, and establish a world court for the disposition of such justiciable questions as nations are agreed to submit thereto. In expressing aspirations, in seeking practical plans, in translating humanity's new concept of righteousness and justice and its hatred of war into recommended action we are ready most heartily to unite, but every commitment must be made in the exercise of our national sovereignty. Since freedom impelled, and independence inspired, and nationality exalted, a world supergovernment is contrary to everything we cherish and can have no sanction by our Republic. This is not selfishness, it is sanctity. It is not aloofness, it is security. It is not suspicion of others, it is patriotic adherence to the things which made us what we are.

****

With the nation-wide induction of womanhood into our political life, we may count upon her intuitions, her refinements, her intelligence, and her influence to exalt the social order. We count upon her exercise of the full privileges and the performance of the duties of citizenship to speed the attainment of the highest state.

****

If revolution insists upon overturning established order, let other peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no place for it in America. When World War threatened civilization we pledged our resources and our lives to its preservation, and when revolution threatens we unfurl the flag of law and order and renew our consecration. Ours is a constitutional freedom where the popular will is the law supreme and minorities are sacredly protected. Our revisions, reformations, and evolutions reflect a deliberate judgment and an orderly progress, and we mean to cure our ills, but never destroy or permit destruction by force.

****

We want an America of homes, illumined with hope and happiness, where mothers, freed from the necessity for long hours of toil beyond their own doors, may preside as befits the hearthstone of American citizenship. We want the cradle of American childhood rocked under conditions so wholesome and so hopeful that no blight may touch it in its development, and we want to provide that no selfish interest, no material necessity, no lack of opportunity shall prevent the gaining of that education so essential to best citizenship.

Woodrow Wilson, Second Inaugural Address, March 5, 1917

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Excerpt

We have been deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have not wished to wrong or injure in return; have retained throughout the consciousness of standing in some sort apart, intent upon an interest that transcended the immediate issues of the war itself.

As some of the injuries done us have become intolerable we have still been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all mankind—fair dealing, justice, the freedom to live and to be at ease against organized wrong.

***

And yet we are not the less Americans on that account. We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred. They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent. We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated mankind. These, therefore, are the things we shall stand for, whether in war or in peace:

That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the world and in the political stability of free peoples, and equally responsible for their maintenance; that the essential principle of peace is the actual equality of nations in all matters of right or privilege; that peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an armed balance of power; that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed and that no other powers should be supported by the common thought, purpose or power of the family of nations; that the seas should be equally free and safe for the use of all peoples, under rules set up by common agreement and consent, and that, so far as practicable, they should be accessible to all upon equal terms; that national armaments shall be limited to the necessities of national order and domestic safety; that the community of interest and of power upon which peace must henceforth depend imposes upon each nation the duty of seeing to it that all influences proceeding from its own citizens meant to encourage or assist revolution in other states should be sternly and effectually suppressed and prevented.

I need not argue these principles to you, my fellow countrymen; they are your own part and parcel of your own thinking and your own motives in affairs. They spring up native amongst us. Upon this as a platform of purpose and of action we can stand together

Woodrow Wilson -- First Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1913

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There has been a change of government. It began two years ago, when the House of Representatives became Democratic by a decisive majority. It has now been completed. The Senate about to assemble will also be Democratic. The offices of President and Vice-President have been put into the hands of Democrats. What does the change mean? That is the question that is uppermost in our minds to-day. That is the question I am going to try to answer, in order, if I may, to interpret the occasion.

It means much more than the mere success of a party. The success of a party means little except when the Nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose. No one can mistake the purpose for which the Nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party. It seeks to use it to interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Some old things with which we had grown familiar, and which had begun to creep into the very habit of our thought and of our lives, have altered their aspect as we have latterly looked critically upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes; have dropped their disguises and shown themselves alien and sinister.

Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life.

We see that in many things that life is very great. It is incomparably great in its material aspects, in its body of wealth, in the diversity and sweep of its energy, in the industries which have been conceived and built up by the genius of individual men and the limitless enterprise of groups of men.

It is great, also, very great, in its moral force. Nowhere else in the world have noble men and women exhibited in more striking forms the beauty and the energy of sympathy and helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the way of strength and hope. We have built up, moreover, a great system of government, which has stood through a long age as in many respects a model for those who seek to set liberty upon foundations that will endure against fortuitous change, against storm and accident. Our life contains every great thing, and contains it in rich abundance.

But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded. With riches has come inexcusable waste. We have squandered a great part of what we might have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature, without which our genius for enterprise would have been worthless and impotent, scorning to be careful, shamefully prodigal as well as admirably efficient. We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to the men and women and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years through.

****

At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been "Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.

William Howard Taft --Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1909

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The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our population has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulation secured by diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments. Meantime we must take every precaution to prevent, or failing that, to punish outbursts of race feeling among our people against foreigners of whatever nationality who have by our grant a treaty right to pursue lawful business here and to be protected against lawless assault or injury.

****

There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the negro in his necessary struggle for better conditions sought to give him the suffrage as a protection to enforce its exercise against the prevailing sentiment of the South. The movement proved to be a failure. What remains is the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the right to have statutes of States specifying qualifications for electors subjected to the test of compliance with that amendment. This is a great protection to the negro. It never will be repealed, and it never ought to be repealed. If it had not passed, it might be difficult now to adopt it; but with it in our fundamental law, the policy of Southern legislation must and will tend to obey it, and so long as the statutes of the States meet the test of this amendment and are not otherwise in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States, it is not the disposition or within the province of the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation by Southern States of their domestic affairs.

But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race, an appointment of one of their number to a local office in a community in which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere with the ease and facility with which the local government business can be done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement to the race to outweigh the recurrence and increase of race feeling which such an appointment is likely to engender. Therefore the Executive, in recognizing the negro race by appointments, must exercise a careful discretion not thereby to do it more harm than good.

Theodore Roosevelt --Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1905

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But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils, the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. ****

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

William McKinley - Second Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1901

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Four years ago we stood on the brink of war without the people knowing it and without any preparation or effort at preparation for the impending peril. I did all that in honor could be done to avert the war, but without avail. It became inevitable; and the Congress at its first regular session, without party division, provided money in anticipation of the crisis and in preparation to meet it. It came. The result was signally favorable to American arms and in the highest degree honorable to the Government. It imposed upon us obligations from which we cannot escape and from which it would be dishonorable to seek escape. We are now at peace with the world, and it is my fervent prayer that if differences arise between us and other powers they may be settled by peaceful arbitration and that hereafter we may be spared the horrors of war.

***

We face at this moment a most important question that of the future relations of the United States and Cuba. With our near neighbors we must remain close friends. The declaration of the purposes of this Government in the resolution of April 20, 1898, must be made good. Ever since the evacuation of the island by the army of Spain, the Executive, with all practicable speed, has been assisting its people in the successive steps necessary to the establishment of a free and independent government prepared to assume and perform the obligations of international law which now rest upon the United States under the treaty of Paris. The convention elected by the people to frame a constitution is approaching the completion of its labors. The transfer of American control to the new government is of such great importance, involving an obligation resulting from our intervention and the treaty of peace, that I am glad to be advised by the recent act of Congress of the policy which the legislative branch of the Government deems essential to the best interests of Cuba and the United States.

***

The peace which we are pledged to leave to the Cuban people must carry with it the guaranties of permanence. We became sponsors for the pacification of the island, and we remain accountable to the Cubans, no less than to our own country and people, for the reconstruction of Cuba as a free commonwealth on abiding foundations of right, justice, liberty, and assured order. Our enfranchisement of the people will not be completed until free Cuba shall "be a reality, not a name; a perfect entity, not a hasty experiment bearing within itself the elements of failure."

***

Our countrymen should not be deceived. We are not waging war against the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. A portion of them are making war against the United States. By far the greater part of the inhabitants recognize American sovereignty and welcome it as a guaranty of order and of security for life, property, liberty, freedom of conscience, and the pursuit of happiness. To them full protection will be given. They shall not be abandoned. We will not leave the destiny of the loyal millions the islands to the disloyal thousands who are in rebellion against the United States. Order under civil institutions will come as soon as those who now break the peace shall keep it. Force will not be needed or used when those who make war against us shall make it no more. May it end without further bloodshed, and there be ushered in the reign of peace to be made permanent by a government of liberty under law!

William McKinley -- First Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1897

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It has been the uniform practice of each President to avoid, as far as possible, the convening of Congress in extraordinary session. It is an example which, under ordinary circumstances and in the absence of a public necessity, is to be commended. But a failure to convene the representatives of the people in Congress in extra session when it involves neglect of a public duty places the responsibility of such neglect upon the Executive himself. The condition of the public Treasury, as has been indicated, demands the immediate consideration of Congress. It alone has the power to provide revenues for the Government. Not to convene it under such circumstances I can view in no other sense than the neglect of a plain duty. I do not sympathize with the sentiment that Congress in session is dangerous to our general business interests. Its members are the agents of the people, and their presence at the seat of Government in the execution of the sovereign will should not operate as an injury, but a benefit. There could be no better time to put the Government upon a sound financial and economic basis than now. The people have only recently voted that this should be done, and nothing is more binding upon the agents of their will than the obligation of immediate action. It has always seemed to me that the postponement of the meeting of Congress until more than a year after it has been chosen deprived Congress too often of the inspiration of the popular will and the country of the corresponding benefits. It is evident, therefore, that to postpone action in the presence of so great a necessity would be unwise on the part of the Executive because unjust to the interests of the people. Our action now will be freer from mere partisan consideration than if the question of tariff revision was postponed until the regular session of Congress. We are nearly two years from a Congressional election, and politics cannot so greatly distract us as if such contest was immediately pending. We can approach the problem calmly and patriotically, without fearing its effect upon an early election

Grover Cleveland --Second Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1893

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Closely related to the exaggerated confidence in our country's greatness which tends to a disregard of the rules of national safety, another danger confronts us not less serious. I refer to the prevalence of a popular disposition to expect from the operation of the Government especial and direct individual advantages.

The verdict of our voters which condemned the injustice of maintaining protection for protection's sake enjoins upon the people's servants the duty of exposing and destroying the brood of kindred evils which are the unwholesome progeny of paternalism. This is the bane of republican institutions and the constant peril of our government by the people. It degrades to the purposes of wily craft the plan of rule our fathers established and bequeathed to us as an object of our love and veneration. It perverts the patriotic sentiments of our countrymen and tempts them to pitiful calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their Government's maintenance. It undermines the self-reliance of our people and substitutes in its place dependence upon governmental favoritism. It stifles the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every ennobling trait of American citizenship.

The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people.

The acceptance of this principle leads to a refusal of bounties and subsidies, which burden the labor and thrift of a portion of our citizens to aid ill-advised or languishing enterprises in which they have no concern. It leads also to a challenge of wild and reckless pension expenditure, which overleaps the bounds of grateful recognition of patriotic service and prostitutes to vicious uses the people's prompt and generous impulse to aid those disabled in their country's defense.

Benjamin Harrison – Inaugural Address – March 4, 1889

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If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations. The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of dangerous and uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what is to be the end of this.

An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the ignorant classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor.

***

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenship more careful and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administration an unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. There are men of all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public revenues or a threat to social order. These should be identified and excluded.

Grover Cleveland -- First Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1885

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But he who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen—on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of trade, and everywhere—should share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is yours; the Government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the suffrage which executes the will of freemen is yours; the laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity—municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic.

***

The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government and their education and civilization promoted with a view to their ultimate citizenship, and that polygamy in the Territories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed.

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.

***

In the administration of a government pledged to do equal and exact justice to all men there should be no pretext for anxiety touching the protection of the freedmen in their rights or their security in the enjoyment of their privileges under the Constitution and its amendments. All discussion as to their fitness for the place accorded to them as American citizens is idle and unprofitable except as it suggests the necessity for their improvement. The fact that they are citizens entitles them to all the rights due to that relation and charges them with all its duties, obligations, and responsibilities

James Garfield – Inauguration Address – March 4, 1881

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The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the power of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to the one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this force will grow greater and bear richer fruit with the coming years.

No doubt this great change has caused serious disturbance to our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, though it was perhaps unavoidable. But those who resisted the change should remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have "followed the light as God gave them to see the light." They are rapidly laying the material foundations of self-support, widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority can lawfully extend they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the Constitution and the laws.

The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged that in many communities negro citizens are practically denied the freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest local government is impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as the latter is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of the king, it shall be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power and stifle its voice.

Rutherford B. Hayes – Inauguration Address – March 5, 1877

2008-12-14T22:59:00.001-05:00

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The sweeping revolution of the entire labor system of a large portion of our country and the advance of 4,000,000 people from a condition of servitude to that of citizenship, upon an equal footing with their former masters, could not occur without presenting problems of the gravest moment, to be dealt with by the emancipated race, by their former masters, and by the General Government, the author of the act of emancipation. That it was a wise, just, and providential act, fraught with good for all concerned, is not generally conceded throughout the country. That a moral obligation rests upon the National Government to employ its constitutional power and influence to establish the rights of the people it has emancipated, and to protect them in the enjoyment of those rights when they are infringed or assailed, is also generally admitted.

The evils which afflict the Southern States can only be removed or remedied by the united and harmonious efforts of both races, actuated by motives of mutual sympathy and regard; and while in duty bound and fully determined to protect the rights of all by every constitutional means at the disposal of my Administration, I am sincerely anxious to use every legitimate influence in favor of honest and efficient local self-government as the true resource of those States for the promotion of the contentment and prosperity of their citizens. In the effort I shall make to accomplish this purpose I ask the cordial cooperation of all who cherish an interest in the welfare of the country, trusting that party ties and the prejudice of race will be freely surrendered in behalf of the great purpose to be accomplished.

*****

The President of the United States of necessity owes his election to office to the suffrage and zealous labors of a political party, the members of which cherish with ardor and regard as of essential importance the principles of their party organization; but he should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves the country best.

In furtherance of the reform we seek, and in other important respects a change of great importance, I recommend an amendment to the Constitution prescribing a term of six years for the Presidential office and forbidding a reelection

Ulysses S. Grant – Second Inaugural Address – March 4, 1873

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The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail.

Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon, nor shall I ask that anything be done to advance the social status of the colored man, except to give him a fair chance to develop what there is good in him, give him access to the schools, and when he travels let him feel assured that his conduct will regulate the treatment and fare he will receive.

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My efforts in the future will be directed … by a humane course, to bring the aborigines of the country under the benign influences of education and civilization. It is either this or war of extermination: Wars of extermination, engaged in by people pursuing commerce and all industrial pursuits, are expensive even against the weakest people, and are demoralizing and wicked. Our superiority of strength and advantages of civilization should make us lenient toward the Indian. The wrong inflicted upon him should be taken into account and the balance placed to his credit. The moral view of the question should be considered and the question asked, Can not the Indian be made a useful and productive member of society by proper teaching and treatment? If the effort is made in good faith, we will stand better before the civilized nations of the earth and in our own consciences for having made it.

Ulysses S. Grant – First Inaugural Address – March 4, 1869

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A great debt has been contracted in securing to us and our posterity the Union. The payment of this, principal and interest, as well as the return to a specie basis as soon as it can be accomplished without material detriment to the debtor class or to the country at large, must be provided for. To protect the national honor, every dollar of Government indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract. Let it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing of our public debt will be trusted in public place, and it will go far toward strengthening a credit which ought to be the best in the world, and will ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds bearing less interest than we now pay. To this should be added a faithful collection of the revenue, a strict accountability to the Treasury for every dollar collected, and the greatest practicable retrenchment in expenditure in every department of Government.

Abraham Lincoln -- Second Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1865

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(Complete)

Fellow-Countrymen:

AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed 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 avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide 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 even 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 with 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 prayers 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 offense 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 therein 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 "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 strive on to 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 orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln -- First Inaugural Address --March 4, 1861

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(Excerpts)

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

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I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.

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In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

James Buchanan, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1857

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The whole Territorial question being thus settled upon the principle of popular sovereignty—a principle as ancient as free government itself—everything of a practical nature has been decided. No other question remains for adjustment, because all agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission for more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any human being it has been the prolific source of great evils to the master, to the slave, and to the whole country. It has alienated and estranged the people of the sister States from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased. Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far graver importance than any mere political question, because should the agitation continue it may eventually endanger the personal safety of a large portion of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that event no form of government, however admirable in itself and however productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the family altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation, which since the recent legislation of Congress is without any legitimate object.

Franklin Pierce -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1853

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I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called the "compromise measures," are strictly constitutional and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the constituted authorities of this Republic are bound to regard the rights of the South in this respect as they would view any other legal and constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs. Such have been, and are, my convictions, and upon them I shall act. I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity.

Zachary Taylor – Inaugural Address – Monday, March 5, 1849

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Chosen by the body of the people under the assurance that my Administration would be devoted to the welfare of the whole country, and not to the support of any particular section or merely local interest, I this day renew the declarations I have heretofore made and proclaim my fixed determination to maintain to the extent of my ability the Government in its original purity and to adopt as the basis of my public policy those great republican doctrines which constitute the strength of our national existence.

James K. Polk -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1845

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None can fail to see the danger to our safety and future peace if Texas remains an independent state or becomes an ally or dependency of some foreign nation more powerful than herself. Is there one among our citizens who would not prefer perpetual peace with Texas to occasional wars, which so often occur between bordering independent nations? Is there one who would not prefer free intercourse with her to high duties on all our products and manufactures which enter her ports or cross her frontiers? Is there one who would not prefer an unrestricted communication with her citizens to the frontier obstructions which must occur if she remains out of the Union? Whatever is good or evil in the local institutions of Texas will remain her own whether annexed to the United States or not. None of the present States will be responsible for them any more than they are for the local institutions of each other. They have confederated together for certain specified objects. Upon the same principle that they would refuse to form a perpetual union with Texas because of her local institutions our forefathers would have been prevented from forming our present Union. Perceiving no valid objection to the measure and many reasons for its adoption vitally affecting the peace, the safety, and the prosperity of both countries, I shall on the broad principle which formed the basis and produced the adoption of our Constitution, and not in any narrow spirit of sectional policy, endeavor by all constitutional, honorable, and appropriate means to consummate the expressed will of the people and Government of the United States by the reannexation of Texas to our Union at the earliest practicable period.

Nor will it become in a less degree my duty to assert and maintain by all constitutional means the right of the United States to that portion of our territory which lies beyond the Rocky Mountains. Our title to the country of the Oregon is "clear and unquestionable," and already are our people preparing to perfect that title by occupying it with their wives and children.

William Henry Harrison -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1841

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If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples of republics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens.

It was the beautiful remark of a distinguished English writer that "in the Roman senate Octavius had a party and Anthony a party, but the Commonwealth had none."

Yet the senate continued to meet in the temple of liberty to talk of the sacredness and beauty of the Commonwealth and gaze at the statues of the elder Brutus and of the Curtii and Decii, and the people assembled in the forum, not, as in the days of Camillus and the Scipios, to cast their free votes for annual magistrates or pass upon the acts of the senate, but to receive from the hands of the leaders of the respective parties their share of the spoils and to shout for one or the other, as those collected in Gaul or Egypt and the lesser Asia would furnish the larger dividend.

The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every tendency to a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed—does exist.

Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests—hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is with the people. Something, however, may be effected by the means which they have placed in my hands.

It is union that we want, not of a party for the sake of that party, but a union of the whole country for the sake of the whole country, for the defense of its interests and its honor against foreign aggression, for the defense of those principles for which our ancestors so gloriously contended. As far as it depends upon me it shall be accomplished.

Martin Van Buren -- Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1837

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The last, perhaps the greatest, of the prominent sources of discord and disaster supposed to lurk in our political condition was the institution of domestic slavery. Our forefathers were deeply impressed with the delicacy of this subject, and they treated it with a forbearance so evidently wise that in spite of every sinister foreboding it never until the present period disturbed the tranquillity of our common country. Such a result is sufficient evidence of the justice and the patriotism of their course; it is evidence not to be mistaken that an adherence to it can prevent all embarrassment from this as well as from every other anticipated cause of difficulty or danger. Have not recent events made it obvious to the slightest reflection that the least deviation from this spirit of forbearance is injurious to every interest, that of humanity included? Amidst the violence of excited passions this generous and fraternal feeling has been sometimes disregarded; and standing as I now do before my countrymen, in this high place of honor and of trust, I can not refrain from anxiously invoking my fellow-citizens never to be deaf to its dictates. Perceiving before my election the deep interest this subject was beginning to excite, I believed it a solemn duty fully to make known my sentiments in regard to it, and now, when every motive for misrepresentation has passed away, I trust that they will be candidly weighed and understood. At least they will be my standard of conduct in the path before me. I then declared that if the desire of those of my countrymen who were favorable to my election was gratified "I must go into the Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States, and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest interference with it in the States where it exists." I submitted also to my fellow-citizens, with fullness and frankness, the reasons which led me to this determination. The result authorizes me to believe that they have been approved and are confided in by a majority of the people of the United States, including those whom they most immediately affect. It now only remains to add that no bill conflicting with these views can ever receive my constitutional sanction.

Andrew Jackson -- Second Inaugural Address --Monday, March 4, 1833

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My experience in public concerns and the observation of a life somewhat advanced confirm the opinions long since imbibed by me, that the destruction of our State governments or the annihilation of their control over the local concerns of the people would lead directly to revolution and anarchy, and finally to despotism and military domination. In proportion, therefore, as the General Government encroaches upon the rights of the States, in the same proportion does it impair its own power and detract from its ability to fulfill the purposes of its creation. Solemnly impressed with these considerations, my countrymen will ever find me ready to exercise my constitutional powers in arresting measures which may directly or indirectly encroach upon the rights of the States or tend to consolidate all political power in the General Government. But of equal, and, indeed, of incalculable, importance is the union of these States, and the sacred duty of all to contribute to its preservation by a liberal support of the General Government in the exercise of its just powers. You have been wisely admonished to "accustom yourselves to think and speak of the Union as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of any attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts." Without union our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they never can be maintained….

The loss of liberty, of all good government, of peace, plenty, and happiness, must inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union. In supporting it, therefore, we support all that is dear to the freeman and the philanthropist.

The time at which I stand before you is full of interest. The eyes of all nations are fixed on our Republic. The event of the existing crisis will be decisive in the opinion of mankind of the practicability of our federal system of government.

Andrew Jackson -- First Inaugural Address - March 4, 1829

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It will be my sincere and constant desire to observe toward the Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people.

The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list of Executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of reform, which will require particularly the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment and have placed or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands.

In the performance of a task thus generally delineated I shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents will insure in their respective stations able and faithful cooperation, depending for the advancement of the public service more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers than on their numbers.