Lincoln On The Declaration Of Independence: 'Let Me Entreat You To Come Back'

Compliments of the University of Michigan Library Collected Works of Lincoln project.

In 1858, the United States were coming unraveled over the question of slavery, among several vexing issues.  The radical abolitionists, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison were unbending in their calls for immediate abolition, irrespective of consequences. Garrison himself, at times,  had called for dissolution of the Union over the question. Those on the other side of the question were just as unbending. Lincoln stood in the middle, for both the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery. It was a lonely stance at the time, as blood was already being spilled in the western territories. Lincoln pointed out that the founders attempted to address the long-term quandry by banning the slave-trade after 1808 in the Constitution. Obviously, this did not work, but he maintained that the effort was a noble intent, and warned against vilifying the Founders because their solution was imperfect. He appealed to the Declaration of Independence as the core set of ideas by which America should be defined, and by which all decisions should be judged.

This is an account of Lincoln's remarks, as transcribed by a stenographer:

[begin excerpt]

(Chicago Press and Tribune, August 21, 1858. The fragmentary text of this speech as given in the Press and Tribune was widely copied in other papers. Although there are reports in other papers originating from other correspondents, only this one gives a verbatim transcription of any considerable portion of the speech.)

These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: ``We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. [Applause.]

Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began---so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built. [Loud cheers.]

Now, my countrymen (Mr. Lincoln continued with great earnestness,) if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution.

Think nothing of me---take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever---but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.

You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity---the Declaration of American Independence.

The Paucity of News Coverage On The Gulf Spill Seems Strange

...but Doug Ross offers some insight and further links.

OS felt his stomach clutch as he reviewed these photos.

Jesse's July 4 Thoughts

Found here, Jesse once again integrates his financial acumen with the appeal to both reason and conscience.

It is well worth the time spent reading.

Good wishes to all.

Words That Sing Through History: The Declaration Of Independence

Here you will find the link to a transcription of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

It's always a good thing to review these words from time to time, just to keep them fresh in one's mind. OldSouth offers them in the hope that they will be read slowly and deliberately. Thomas Jefferson did not mince words, each one was carefully chosen. In Jefferson's world, words were serious things, and each had meaning.

It was an announcement, to be sure, but also as an explanation, an appeal to reason, a plea for support from the rest of the world. The signers knew that they were in uncharted waters, committing treason against the Crown, so a careful explanation was in order.

(OS has taken the liberty of formatting the copy for ease of reading.)

It's the opening of the second paragraph that sings through history:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Words have meaning. Well-crafted words, crafted to be read in public, have a peculiar power.

If you have ever been in a crowd of people on July 4, and heard these words decalimed verbatim, you probably have sensed that collective sense of awe that so often asserts itself on the occasion. Some twenty-two years ago, on one hot July 4, OldSouth, a much younger man, stood in a crowd, heard these words, sensed that a whole lot more was possible in his life than he had perhaps suspected. He decided to take action to live out those possibilities, because it was just not going to be possible for the present state of affairs to continue. It had become a matter of life-or-death, change-or-die in 1988, just like in 1776. The details don't matter, but the decision led a war of sorts in his world, and a new life built out of the ashes. It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't pretty, but all OS now has and is flows from that decision. He owes Mr. Jefferson a real debt.

The final paragraph has a power of its own. It is the definition of freedom itself.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;

that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;

and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


A most happy Fourth of July, wherever you are in the world.

Athens On Lake Michigan: Illinois Cannot Pay Its Bills, Won't Raise Taxes, And Cannot Borrow

Even the Yew Nork Times can no longer avert its eyes from what has happened to the state that sent us all The Winner of The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, whose cronies have run the place for years.

It's worth the time to read, if only to see how the cracks in the official story line that The One, having been elected, would lead us all to The Promised Land. Remember?

So, here's a taste of reality in Illinois:

...Illinois is caught between blue state convictions about social safety nets and a red state aversion to taxes. For years, the Democratic-controlled legislature has passed budgets that are, in effect, in deficit. Lawmakers routinely skip around the state’s balanced-budget law, with few consequences. (Republicans are near monolithic in voting against any tax increases and borrowings. When one broke ranks to try to keep the pension solvent, he was stripped of a committee position, reducing his pay and pension.)

The state’s income tax burden is not terribly high — Illinois ranks in the bottom half of states — and its government is not terribly large. (The budgets in New York and California, per capita, are much larger). Even if the state cut out all family and human services spending, more than half of the budget deficit would remain.

As comptroller, Mr. Hynes has trained his attention on the public and nonprofit agencies that rely on state money; he tends to roll his eyes at the notion that slashing alone is a solution.

Let's remember, this is a state run by The One's friends, where Himself cut His political teeth. This is the model he knows an endorses, the one set into motion when he moved to Washington.

Kagan And Arizona: Leading The Charge Against Enforcement Of The Law

A little bit of digging and surfing, and here we have a nugget of news about Supreme Court nominee Kagan:

Reps. Lamar Smith and Todd Tiahrt think Miss Elena's got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy.

In 2007, the state of Arizona passed an immigration law that allowed it to revoke the business licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. This provision was challenged but upheld in both the district court and even the notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Most recently, the Obama administration decided to challenge the 2007 Arizona immigration law and has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the provision. But what is a little known fact to most Americans is that it was Kagan who was the originator and driving force behind the Obama administration’s decision to ask the Court to overturn the Arizona immigration law. Kagan recently admitted as much in required disclosures to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The administration argued that Arizona’s law revoking the business licenses of businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants is unconstitutional. But this argument is completely baseless as the two lower courts already confirmed.

Furthermore, still on the books today is a 1986 federal statute that created penalties for employers that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. This law specifically addresses the question at issue in the Kagan-backed litigation. Congress authorized states to revoke the business licenses of employers that intentionally hire illegal immigrants. So why has Kagan pursued such an aggressive, unconstitutional political agenda?

The views expressed in the court brief are troubling given the Obama administration’s weak record on enforcing federal immigration laws. Compared to fiscal year 2008, the number of administrative arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in employer-sanctions cases has fallen by 80 percent, the number of criminal arrests has fallen by 68 percent, the number of indictments has fallen by 74 percent, and the number of criminal convictions has fallen by 75 percent.

Hmmm...so that's what The One means when he claims that he's got things well in hand on the border? That the crime rate is dropping?

And further questions come to mind, such as: As this case comes before the Court, assuming she is confirmed, is it proper for her be involved in the deliberations? Do judges get to rule on briefs they once wrote for one side of a dispute or another?

Given the fact that this suit continues to lose at every turn, isn't it a bit excessive to pursue it to the Supremes? What of that 'restraint' she so carefully referred in her profoundly rehearsed speeh?

Is anyone in the Senate, outside of people like Shelby and Coburn, really paying attention? Lindsay Graham certainly isn't, but he did a pretty good job playing the straight man, feeding Ms. Kagan her opportunity for the one-liner that made it to every evening news show.

Dear God, Whatever You Do, Mr. Immelt, Don't Speak Your Mind! (And Don't State The Obvious)

From the Globe and Mail:

So, GE is hosting a dinner overlooking Rome, on the roof-top of Castel Sant’Angelo, a former Vatican fortress and prison. The dinner guests are Italian business executives.
So far, so good. CEO Immelt is on hand, and addresses his audience. That's his job.

He makes the classic 'mistake' of our age: He speaks his mind.

Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, has launched a rare broadside against the Chinese government, which he accused of being increasingly hostile to foreign multinationals.

He warned that the world’s largest manufacturing company was contemplating better prospects elsewhere in resource-rich countries and that those nations did not want to be “colonised” by Chinese investors.

“I really worry about China,” Mr. Immelt told an audience of dozens of top Italian executives, referring to the Chinese government, which he accused of becoming increasingly protectionist. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.”

But wait, there's more!

Mr. Immelt also had harsh words for U.S. President Barack Obama, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” U.S. economic recovery.

Business did not like the U.S. president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.

“People are in a really bad mood [in the U.S.],” the 54-year-old executive told an audience of somewhat surprised Europeans who had seen higher levels of U.S. growth as a beacon of recovery.

“We [the U.S.] are a pathetic exporter… we have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch.”

That's what the howls of protest were triggered by: He dared criticize The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Send in the PR flacks to still the waters! OMG! OMG! OMG!

The real problem is, he's stating the obvious. And he used plain English, without the normal equivocations, to state the obvious.

If GE's board, management and PR division had a spine, they would be cheering for Jeff, giving him high-fives and attaboy's for standing up for them all, the stockholders, the employees, the customers, the country. Instead, it's disavowals and death by a thousand cuts.

Harvard Business Review shares wise words on the incident.

Things won't improve until we begin speaking in plain English, with the assumption that words have meaning.

Attaboy, Jeff!

An Interesting, If Chilling, Exchange Of Views: David Leonhardt In The New York Time

Let it never be said that OS doesn't read a variety of opinion during the course of a week. After all, this project is much about the education of the author, attempting to publicly make sense of what appears to be a nonsensical period of history.

So, in today's Yew Nork Times, we have this offering by David Leonhardt.

He has an interesting premise, that perhaps it wasn't the inflation of the 20's that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power in the early '30's, but rather the deflation that followed the 1929 crash. He debates a bit with another contributor, all very civil and informative. Then he concludes with this bit of insight:

Last year, I wrote a column pointing out that Germany was one of the few countries in the 1930s to try aggressive economic stimulus — and, as a result, escaped the Great Depression faster than other countries. Opponents of stimulus, on blogs and talk radio, then cited that column to suggest that Keynesian was a cousin of Nazism.

Well, that conclusion is a bit simplistic. Keynes was not even a second-cousin-twice-removed to a neo-Nazi. Puhhleeeeze!

At the same time, Leonhardt glosses over a chilling fact: Hitler's 'stimulus' did work, and made him a hero to 'der volk' in the late 1930's. He made the trains run on time, 'tis true. But he did it by building a massive war machine that was obviously designed for aggressive ends. How many hundreds of Stuka dive bombers and Panzaer divisions does one need to defend der Vaterland, after all? And as he pumped the economy up, civil liberties (and niceties like elections, free press, freedom of religion, etc.) went away, replaced by a blatantly pagan worship of the state and der Fuhrer. By April 1945, it could be stated with assurance that much too high a price had been paid for the Great Stimulus of the 1930's.

And then, there's that little detail of those trains that ran on time, and where they ran, and the millions of people packed upon them that were transported to their gruesome deaths.

All to emphasize, once again, the OS mantra about culture and economy. A lot more than a deflation or inflation allowed this monster to come to power and push the world over the cliff. By the time the little guy with the mustache, lunatic ideas, and ecstatic speech-making ability showed up, Germany was a disaster waiting to happen, a once-great culture in severe disarray, willing to listen to anyone who would tell them what they wished to hear whilst lining their pockets.

You Can 'Call Me Al': AlGore And His Massage Therapist

From ABC News--honest folks, ya jes' can't make this stuff up!

The dormant investigation into AlGore, winner of both The Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, into the allegations of sexual assault upon a massage therapist in 2006, is rousing its sleepy self back to life, complete with preserved clothes and DNA samples, etc., etc., etc....

According to a 73-page "Confidential Special Report" made public by authorities on June 23, the "licensed massage therapist" stated she was summoned to a suite at the upscale Lucia Hotel at the request of a guest, where "during the course of this massage session Al Gore did sexually assault me in his room."

In a detailed statement given to police more than two years after the alleged incident the woman described her surprise at arriving for the VIP massage appointment to find Al Gore drinking beer and opening his arms in a hug saying "Call Me Al."

Ya'll gotta understand something about Tennessee, the state that birthed The Inventor Of The Internet: At about every third interstate exit, next to the truck stop, ya' gotcha one of them 'massage parlors', sporting names like 'Tokyo Massage'. In other words, massage of a sort is offered, but the possibility of something somewhat, shall we say, more exotic is promised as well. The line between the theraputic trade of someone who actually offers relief from muscle spasms in the arms and shoulders and The World's Oldest Profession is somewhat blurred in the mind of your average Tennessee male. It's in the water 'round heah.

So, what's a lonely former Vice-President to do, all alone in his hotel room, far away from the sensual delights of his Tipper? He's already invented the internet, won the Nobel Prize, won the Oscar, and made himself a kajillion bucks saving the world from itself.

What would Bill do at a moment like this? Or his buddy John E from NarthCarulinah?

Well, shoot-fahr! Let's order up some Buds and get ourselves one of them 'massages', jes' lahk back home! Always cheered Bill up, 'specially after a few days of trying to keep Hillary off the warpath.

Now, the visual image of a bloated, drunk and horny AlGore is almost too awful to contemplate, but since the alleged victim put it into play, and it's in the police report, well...(eeewwww!)...

Well, anyway, in honor of The Producer Of An Inconvenient Truth, The Winner Of Both The Nobel Prize And An Oscar, and the man who came within a few hundred hanging chads of become President of the United States, Paul Simon offers his delightful song: You Can Call Me Al. It's almost like Mr. Simon was time-travelling ahead some twenty-five years as he penned the lyrics...

'The Best Option Is An Orderly Default': Roubini On Greece

Found in today's Financial Times:

It is time to recognise that Greece is not just suffering from a liquidity crisis; it is facing an insolvency crisis too. Rating agencies have started to downgrade its public debt to junk level, while spreads on Greek sovereign bonds last week spiked to new highs. The €110bn bail-out agreed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May only delays the inevitable default and risks making it disorderly when it comes. Instead, an orderly restructuring of Greece’s public debt is needed now.

The austerity measures to which Greece signed up as a condition of its bail-out require a draconian fiscal adjustment of 10 per cent of gross domestic product. This would prolong the country’s recession and still leave it with a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 148 per cent by 2016. At this level, even a small shock is likely to trigger a further debt crisis. Sharp austerity may be needed – as agreed by the Group of 20 over the weekend – to stabilise debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016 in advanced economies; but for Greece such “stabilisation” would be at levels that are unsustainable.

Compare Greece today with Argentina in 1998-2001, a crisis that culminated in a disorderly default. Argentina’s fiscal deficit at the onset was 3 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 13.6 per cent. Argentina’s public debt was 50 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 115 per cent and rising. Argentina had a current account deficit of 2 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is now 10 per cent. If Argentina was insolvent, Greece is insolvent to the power of two or three.

And that's just the beginning of his article!

Again, it's about the culture: How long has this day been coming? How many attempts have been made to stave it off, in hopes that somehow the problem would just go away?
How many trips to the brink, followed by announcements by The People In Charge Of Such Things that all is well, move on, nothing to see here...

Qatar is being called in to hoover up cash for an equity stake. That'll fix it, no worries...

It will take at least a decade to clean up this mess, but the first step in the process will have to be truth-telling: The present situation is unsustainable, and a sober solution will have to be found. No more pretending, no more delays, no more press releases. For the sake of our grandchildren, let's clean this mess up.