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Noted in Passing

Roger Kimball describes the historical roots of Our New Secessionists

Item 1: “People now marvel how it came to pass that he should have been selected as the representative man of any party. His . . . efforts, imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner, have made us the laughing stock of the whole world.”

Item 2: “A tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.”

Item 3: “He is evidently a person of very inferior cast of character, wholly unequal to the crisis.”

Item 4: “Heartfelt keening of shame and revulsion was heard throughout the land.”

These nuggets refer, of course, to the president. But which president? Items 1 and 2 refer to . . . whom? If you said “Donald Trump,” you are only half right. Item 2 does refer to President Trump. It is from David Remnick’s hysterical threnody in The New Yorker, published in the early hours of November 9, 2016. But Item 1 refers not to Trump but to Abraham Lincoln. And it comes not from some rabid secessionist but from the Salem Advocate, a newspaper published in Lincoln’s home state of central Illinois.

Items 3 and 4 are easy. Any woke member of The Resistance will guess that the “inferior character” must be Donald Trump. But it isn’t. The great orator Edward Everett was also referring to Lincoln. Item 4 comes to us from “Annals of Resistance,” a series of skirling anti-Trump dispatches in the Huffington Post.

Discuss, oh ye reincarnated members of the Confederacy wandering disconsolate back to your lines after Pickett’s Charge.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • H. Jones February 13, 2018, 2:30 PM

    Being first up, this discussion goes much deeper that Mr. Abraham Lincoln or any other combination of American Presidents. I have already placed my position on Lincoln being responsible for 700,000+ American deaths. Two simple questions and feedback is welcomed. Did the foreign countries (sovereign States) that originally created the Union have the right to remove themselves from that Union? And, adjusted for growth, could the killing of 7,000,000 Americans again take place? All else is secondary.

  • John A. Fleming February 13, 2018, 2:33 PM

    Oh Mr. Vanderleun, those who yet keen for the lost 1st Republic are going to come and beat you like a bald-headed stepchild. (And me too, for mocking their pain.)

  • Vanderleun February 13, 2018, 2:51 PM

    Well, lets not lose focus on the real issue of the first civil war and this warm up.

  • Vanderleun February 13, 2018, 2:52 PM

    To wit:
    “Similarly, the Progressive, on an individual basis, will seek to shift the focus from the topic at hand to something related, but far enough away from the topic to send the conversation off on a tangent. The most common method is “What about X?” Mention some failing of Progressives and Lefty will blurt out “what about X among your right-wingers?” Normal decent people respond to questions and Lefty uses that decency to avoid addressing the failings of his cult. Lefty naturally shifts the focus off himself…. As with the above tactic, this is all about shifting the focus from an unpleasant topic for Lefty. Put the two together and in a few questions, Lefty can shift the conversation so far from the original topic, you no longer remember what you were saying.

    “This is why you always avoid answering a question from Lefty. The surest way to send him into a panic, is to respond to the “What about X” trick with “Let’s not lose focus” and then return to the original point. An alternative is “We can talk about that, but first let’s focus on” and then get back to the issue. This almost always causes them to spasm as they are being forced to address an unpleasant topic and what they thought was an easy escape is now turning into a trap. Often, they just walk away or explode in anger.”

    Dealing With Lefty | The Z Blog

  • bgarrett February 13, 2018, 3:19 PM

    I suppose that next you will want us to believe that Lincoln freed slaves. Read the Emancipation Proclamation carefully. You will learn that he declared slaves to be freed in States where he had no jurisdiction.

  • Mike Anderson February 13, 2018, 3:41 PM

    bgarrett: Umm, wasn’t that jurisdiction thing what the War decided?

  • TJ February 13, 2018, 4:05 PM

    I agree with some of the things Trump says and does, but not all. And I think Obama actually made some good arguments (and Lincoln). But to many on the Left and Right, we are in an all-or-nothing situation. There is a lot of talking at going on, but not much talking with. Consequently, I often feel that I stand alone. I do struggle to maintain a discerning perspective, and not fall victim to “hardening of the categories”, so to speak. I value true dialectic discourse, where I say and hear things said like “you’ve got a point there”, or “I did not know that”.

  • james wilson February 13, 2018, 4:39 PM

    OK, Mike, then what only war has decided only war can undecide.

  • Anonymous February 13, 2018, 4:43 PM

    As we slouch toward Gomorrah the center cannot hold. Such a wild swing from a red-diaper baby President to an America Firster makes one wonder where the center is any more. I agree that it was the election of a President that started the first American civil war, but such a possibility was talked about throughout the decade preceding the event. Trump’s election may not bring the all-out war, but maybe the next Presidential election will. Everybody just keep talking. History has proven that, if we can learn anything from the first civil war, our government actually has four branches. The executive, legislative, judicial, and if those three fail to maintain national rectitude the fourth is civil strife leading to war. Somehow it works.

  • Doug February 13, 2018, 7:40 PM

    Hurry up. I’m itchin’ to shoot some panty waisted progressyves and my stockpile of ammo ain’t gettin’ any fresher.

  • Hale Adams February 13, 2018, 9:13 PM

    I think it was Gale Norton (a former Secretary of the Interior, if memory serves — and yes, I’m too darn lazy to look it up) who once said something along the lines of, “The states lost too much after 1865”.

    That’s as may be, but I think it can be fairly said that the country still functioned more-or-less as the Founders intended after 1865, if one makes allowance for the fact that our great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents increasingly saw themselves less as Georgians or New Yorkers or Missourians and more as Americans. It’s only natural — the “Balkanization” that existed prior to the invention of the telegraph and the railroad could not have persisted for very long in the face of vastly improved communications and transportation.

    (One may fairly quibble that modern communication technologies divide us rather than unite us — Facebook and Twitter, I’m looking at you — but the railroad is the real game-changer. It took the “travail” out of “travel”. Once it becomes possible to use only about a half-horsepower to move one gross ton of vehicle and goods along a road at about 20 miles an hour all day, every day, all sorts of wonderful things also become possible, like oranges in winter.)

    As for a loss of some real or imagined “Eden” of limited government, I wouldn’t blame Lincoln or any other politician of the mid-19th Century. I would instead take a close, hard look at Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and others of a “Progressive” stripe at the turn of the century. (That’s 1900, for any young whipper-snappers out there.) The “Leviathan State” that so many of us rail against simply wasn’t a credible option prior to the adoption of Frederick Taylor’s methods of industrial organization by political scientists and thinkers, and the applications of those methods to the problems of society.

    I’ve ranted on this subject here before, so I won’t try Gerard’s patience on the subject. Suffice it to say that the totalitarian state (of whatever ideological sort) simply isn’t possible without the Progressives’ reduction (using Taylor’s ideas) of human beings to mere tiny cogs in a big machine called “the State”.

    If one wants to restore the lost Eden (real or imagined) that the Founders intended, don’t re-fight the Civil War. Work instead to discredit Progressivism.

    My two cents’ worth, as usual.

    Hale Adams
    Pikesville, People’s still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

  • Howard Nelson February 13, 2018, 9:21 PM

    @ bgarrett–Liñcoln’s EP freed slaves wherever Union forces took control of Confederate regions,
    It further tied down Confederate troops assigned to maintain order among the Confederation u opcivilian populace now that the EP had given hope to the millions of slaves.
    Read Viktor Frankl’s experiences in the murder camps regarding the freedom of heart and mind that kept hope and faith and courage and perseverance alive until the cage doors were broken open and physical freedom could also be experienced.
    @H. Jones ~700,000 died because of the greed, power, cruelty, short-sightedness of the Confederation vampires who insisted on proliferating their coercion of Blacks to the Territories and to protecting their investments in slavery in their home states.
    Further, where is it written in U.S. law that progeny of slaves are also slaves rather than, at birth, free persons?
    Oh, I get it. If I own a fruit tree or a cow, I also own the fruit or offspring thereof. It’s a good argument for trees and cows; try it on as yourself as the slave mother and her newborns long after her enslavement. Oh, common law and States’ Rights trump and trample individual human rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. These days it smells like Islamic Sharia deserving nullification.
    Where did the Confederacy go through the calculation for the net compensation due the Union for the value of the lives and wealth lost protecting the southern colonialists against the British back in the Revolutionary War? Oh, that’s a can of non applicable worms? Why so?

    Lincoln loved the Union, believed it had to be preserved, did not believe the war would
    be so costly in lives (as did the Confederacy), was willing to sacrifice slaves in the states to continuing enslavement if the Union could be preserved but was unwilling to see it spread to the new territories.
    I believe he violated the 9th Amendment in favor of his Union preservation conviction. How many millions have been saved between the 1860’s and now because of the decency of the united USA? Be aware of the continuing chain of causes and effects.

    May all the well-intentioned fools, felons, and do-gooders burn in heaven until they’re purified and properly educated like the rest of us.

    So Importation of slaves into the USA (and its territories?) was outlawed long before 1861. How many ‘slaves’ were misdesignated and held as slaves, who in reality were kidnapped and enslaved by their mothers’ slaveowners?

  • H. Jones February 14, 2018, 9:38 AM

    So Mr. Nelson. You are explaining 1860’s reality with 2018 logic…………not gonna buy that. And, you are correct on greed. At the onset of war, which Lincoln actually started by trying to re-supply fort on sovereign South Carolina soil, the Southern States operated the third largest economy on planet Earth. Mr. Lincoln was not going to let those tariff dollars for the District of Candyland disappear for any reason. And, my question is still in place. Do you think the Federal Government would once again kill 7,000,000 Americans (number adjusted for growth)?

  • prusmc February 14, 2018, 10:24 AM

    Mr Jones, in answer to your question would the Federal Government be willing to kill 7,000 ,000 Americans today? Without question and with gusto if 90 percent of the 7,000,000 were deploreables from Red States and Red counties in Blue states. With the Department of Agriculture as well as other cabinet level organizations and associated agencies, bureaus, administrations and other Federal organizations having armed up with Swat teams, no government employee is going to risk an hours pay by not following orders. Since there is a huge number of government employees at state and local level and they are in part dependent on Federal funds they will have no qualms about using deadly force on the deamonized others. Who trusts the FBI, Homelad Secutity Police, ATFE, IRS, State Police or the appointed politicos who are city police chiefs?
    Can a deploreable group organize resistance? About 40 percent of the citizens at the Bundy Ranch were FBI informants.

  • H. Jones February 14, 2018, 12:30 PM

    Yes, I have realized over the last couple of years that the so called “War On Drugs” was nothing more than a snow job of the American public and just an excuse for local enforcement militarization. Local law enforcement was to be our last line of defense against Federal tyranny. More and more folks are digging into the real Abraham Lincoln and more and more folks are digging through the layers and discovering the truth concerning this mans destruction of our Republic. Keep in mind, this is the gentleman that was honored by the United States Communist Party at their 1938 National Convention. https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/7w6hyi/tenth_communist_party_usa_convention_in_chicago/

  • ghostsniper February 14, 2018, 2:24 PM

    @Doug, if you aren’t refreshing your back stock then you’re not doing it right.
    Ammo has but one purpose and I suppose you are ignoring it, with double consequences, both negative. I just bought another 2100 rounds of this stuff this morning because my basic stocked issue was almost reached requiring replenishment. Shoot it, replace it.

    https://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/656_2081_10000844/products_id/12843/Federal%2022%20Long%20Rifle%2036%20Grain%20Copper%20Plated%20Hollow%20Point/

  • H. Jones February 14, 2018, 3:50 PM

    Store food, ammo and method to purify water. Other Abraham Lincoln’s are being voted into office………….democracy always moves left as time advances. I challenge anyone to name one democracy that has survived. The Republic is next on the hit list.

  • Howard Nelson February 14, 2018, 5:05 PM

    H. Jones
    In reply to your 7 million American question, my answer of course would be yes, if necessary and just,
    Necessary assumes there are no better beneficial alternatives,
    Pursue the context for your 7 million question that would justify their capture or destruction, If you conjure up a justification, then we are in agreement. If you cannot, and I cannot, then we again are in agreement for a nondestructive alternative,
    Congratulations!

    Regarding the CPUSA 1938 convention, they were honoring the Lincoln of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade composed from the 2900+/- American volunteers to the Republican side opposing fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Siding with the Republicans were Communists, and other anti-Fascists from ~ 50 countries. It was the anti-Fascist Americans who named their brigade in Lincoln’s (and eventually in their own) honor,
    The Communists, like a stopped clock, got it right twice in their long day in the 20th century to now; first in Spain (except for killing some of their own) and second as a part of WW2.
    Regarding Fort Sumpter on ‘sovereign’ SC property, nooo, that was federal property, or at least under federal jurisdiction, The secessionist bombardment on the fort was essentially a home invasion by criminals, an invasion to be defended against,
    The South’s offer to reimburse the Union for federal properties being now controlled by a Confederate force is a recognition of the Union’s claim for those properties,
    Originaly, both sides thought the war would be settled in a few months. Neither side budged, both sides misjudged, and as Lincoln noted, in his 2nd Inaugural, God judged.
    “Somebody’s darlin’, somebody’s pride, who’ll tell his mother how her boy died?”

  • Vanderleun February 14, 2018, 5:32 PM

    Oh Jones, here’s the current score.

    America now the world’s oldest democracy – Washington Times

    The United States is currently the world’s oldest democracy.

    But America is no more immune from collapse than were some of history’s most stable and impressive consensual governments. Fifth-century Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Florence and Venice, and many of the elected governments of early 20th-century Western European states eventually destroyed themselves, went bankrupt or were overrun by invaders.
    ++++++

    In the scheme of things 242 years ain’t bad. And regardless of the items listed above, the USA is still steaming along. Lately… going strong.

    As for the future of The Republic…

    34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

  • H. Jones February 15, 2018, 9:24 AM

    “Regarding the CPUSA 1938 convention, they were honoring the Lincoln of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade”……………….non-sense………………………so you are saying Lincoln’s twin brother is the one in photograph?

    “The Communists, like a stopped clock, got it right twice in their long day in the 20th century to now; first in Spain (except for killing some of their own) and second as a part of WW2.
    Regarding Fort Sumpter on ‘sovereign’ SC property, nooo, that was federal property, or at least under federal jurisdiction, The secessionist bombardment on the fort was essentially a home invasion by criminals, an invasion to be defended against.”……………so your are saying Sovereign States do not have the right to exit the Union they created?

    “The South’s offer to reimburse the Union for federal properties being now controlled by a Confederate force is a recognition of the Union’s claim for those properties.” …………. Yet, the Union did not provide monies for the “property” they “freed” or destroyed? Also, the “enemy” can claim all they like……….kinda like Taiwan.

  • H. Jones February 15, 2018, 9:25 AM

    “But America is no more immune from collapse than were some of history’s most stable and impressive consensual governments. Fifth-century Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Florence and Venice, and many of the elected governments of early 20th-century Western European states eventually destroyed themselves, went bankrupt or were overrun by invaders.”………………we agree.

  • Howard Nelson February 15, 2018, 11:01 AM

    H. Jones, your replies seem to have entered, vainly, into the same vein of argument as did Cathy Newman — misdirection, deflection, misstating the comments of your opponent, beating on a skinless drum. For me, no point continuing in what has become a bog fog.
    I must now prepare my positions regarding World War 5, having experienced the results of WW’s 3 & 4 in which all parties involved were found guilty of fairness, benevolence, and excessive pizza consumption.

  • H. Jones February 15, 2018, 1:13 PM

    I agree Mr. Nelson. Liberal ideology and those that follow usually does collapse when asked and presented direct multiple questions.