Poll: Who has been the WORST President in United States History?

[Ruthless4christ]

aww man ante45, i am just gettin warmed up here! this is great!
DONT TREAD ON ME!

 

[Ruthless4christ]

When it comes to human bondage, waving a piece of paper in front of my face just doesn't carry a lot of weight with me.

Does it with you?

completely out of place, as we are not arguing wether slavery is right, rather whether lincoln waged the cival war over it.

 

[Ruthless4christ]

When people express regret that America wasn't split asunder with a hideous apartheid state on our southern border, I can only express bewilderment.

oooooooooooo.............hey guys, hey guys, i got an idea!!! lets start talking about APARTHEID!!!!!!


that was a joke...

 

[Ruthless4christ]

At which point I ask them if it would be all right if I were able to get an amendment declaring them property.

In other words, just because somebody wrote it down on paper and said the right words over it, that don't make it right. Especially not in God's eyes.

funny thing though. our country is based on the idea that the president cannot just(for any reason no matter how moral) start waging wars, and pushing people areound because he wants to. If you really start looking back in foriegn news articles to find out what people thought at the time, it was that they were shocked at the sudden coup d etat that had taken place in americas structure of governmant.

 

[Hugh Damright]

When it comes to human bondage, waving a piece of paper in front of my face just doesn't carry a lot of weight with me.

Does it with you?

Yes, it does with me ... but then I don't think of the US Constitution as just a piece of paper. I see it as a solemn compact between sovereign States. I see it as the supreme law. A piece of paper??

just because somebody wrote it down on paper and said the right words over it, that don't make it right. Especially not in God's eyes.

The Bible does not consider slavery to be a sin. Do you think that God changed his mind in the 1860's, such that slavery became a sin at that time? Or are you talking about slavery being a sin in some other religion, like for instance a false religion of egalitarianism?

 

[HJB]

well how about neglecting his constitutional duty to call congress in time of emergancy? He delayed them meeting for almost three months, meanwhile making decisions which according to the constitution, the congress should have made. (calling out malitia taking out millions of dollars out of the treasury etc.

He didn't "delay" congress meeting. Although yes he was the first to invoke war powers, no president before or since has had as extreme of a national crisis to deal with.

The Taney arrest warrant is dubious, based on no actual proof except one guy's account 20 years after the fact. And you'll have to provide some sources for your other allegations because they sound pretty shaky too.

New Mexico(inluding todays arizona) was 200,000 sq miles, yet after ten years of being a slave state....Its clear to m ethat they seceded to defend thier 12 slaves.

New Mexico was not a state. They did not secede.

Regarding your Sherman post, the comparison to Stalin can't be serious. Here is a quote from a respected southern historian, Shelby Foote, on how well-behaved Sherman's men were on the march... http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2000-01/shelbyfoote.html

"Sherman, in his march across Georgia and up through Carolina, had sixty thousand men with him. I don't know what percentage of them were illiterate. I know there were very few men in there with a delicacy of manners that you'd expect nowadays. And the whole time he made that march, those sixty thousand men, I had not heard of one case of rape. And that is one of the finest compliments I know you can pay this country and the soldiers it produced that we did not engage in these usual horrendous things that are common in civil war. The fact that we spoke the same language is not what made us close together. In fact, in most civil wars they speak the same language, and they're very savage with each other. But somehow we didn't do that."

 

[Citizen Carrier]

I guess there is more than one way to interpret doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself. It never occurred to me to think about it otherwise though. Maybe Jesus was just vamping a bit there on the Mount, buying time because the headline act's tour bus got a flat tire somewhere on the highway northbound from Judea.

I'm just wondering if when some people go to a sporting event and thousands of Americans are standing there with their hats off and their hands over their hearts during the national anthem they are standing with their hands in their pockets, staring at their feet and mumbling about that damn Lincoln.

Really, is anybody having such a miserable time in America that they truly believe that because the Confederacy lost the war Karl Marx would be pleased about how this nation turned out? That is ridiculous.

In this thread I have seen post after post criticize Lincoln.

He didn't wage the war to end slavery.

Fine. Got it. Never said otherwise.

But just let somebody try and strip away all the flags and colorful bunting and ribbons and rollicking good marching band music that has been draped over secession since the day after Appomattox and brother, you've got a problem on your hands.

I've seen a few people declare that secession wasn't done to preserve slavery.

I posted links to several Confederate documents showing that is EXACTLY what they SAID they were doing it for. If anybody can show me otherwise--using documents or speeches from the various secession conventions--that it is not the case, I welcome the education.

As far as state's rights, which I am not opposed to, there were millions of people living in the Confederacy who were counted in order to determine proportioning in the House of Representatives who probably didn't have a very high opinion of that one aspect of state's rights the Confederacy seceded over. And after that conflict, I have not read of any of them asking if they could go back to the old pre-bellum relationship between labor and management.

Perhaps this tells us something?

Yes, you should have state's rights, in basically any matter save that one.

 

[apr1775]

When it comes to human bondage, waving a piece of paper in front of my face just doesn't carry a lot of weight with me.

Ever read the writings of William Lloyd Garrison, the abolishonist newspaper publsher from Boston. He said the same thing, but the kicker is: That is why he SUPPORTED secession. He said no non slaveholding state should be in any political or economic union with slave states. The reason why non slave states didn't go along with the idea was that the non slave states were enjoying the majority of federal spending while the slave states were paying most of the federal taxes.

For those who claim secession was about slave owners wanting to maintain their ownership, and keep saying the secession documents prove it, can you do a simple cut and paste from those documents? Yes, they mention slavery, but not in the context some might have us believe.

 

[Tim Burke]

The Constitution does not make secession legal. The Articles of Cofederation made the Union "perpetual" and the Constitution then formed an even "more perfect union." It was never meant to be a Union-when-convenient.

The fact that the Constitution doesn't mention secession directly does not mean it doesn't offer guidance on the issue. The 10th Amendment is clear. The States can do anything that the Constitution doesn't expressly forbid them from doing. The Federal government can do nothing unless the Constitution expressly authorizes it. Since secession isn't mentioned as forbidden, the States can do it. Since the Federal government is not explicitly authorized to use force to stop them, they are prohibited by the Constitution from doing so.
Some of the states expressly reserved the right to secede when they ratified the Constitution. Don't take my word for it, ask Walter Williams.
Slavery is the red shirt that Lincoln's supporters wave to justify his abuses of the Constitution, as if two wrongs make a right.

 

[LanceOregon]

I find this debate becoming most disingenuous, as the bottom line is this:

Did Lincoln do what was best for the country???

It would seem to me that some folks are arguing that the constitution is an absolute, and that nothing else should ever be considered when a President tries to deal with a crisis.

But tell me this: What would have happened if Lincoln had let the south leave the union? Can you honestly say that the history following that decision would have been better?

I don't see how two competing nations here in North America could have stayed at peace, when there was so much unpopulated land to the west. There would have been all sorts of conflicts between the two countries over this. And this no doubt would have eventually led to war.

And how would these two separate nations of North America have fared in the 20th Century?? Would BOTH nations still have come to the aid of Europe during WWI and WWII??? How could that have perhaps changed world history??

Would we have ever got involved in Cuba, which led to the Spanish American War? And if that never happened, we would have never been in the Philippines. And if that had never taken place, then when Japan later moved to conquer Asia, the United States would not have been in their way. How would that have possibly changed history for the worst? The Japanese would have no doubt easily taken all of Asia, and Australia too.

Many of you are not thinking these potential consequences of secession out.


.

 

[HJB]

From the Walter Williams link:

The Founders, who feared federal consolidation of power, saw secession as the ultimate brake on federal abuse and usurpation

This is completely false. Secession is not an option that the Founders designed into the system.

Since the applicable question is Lincoln's views of secession, and whether he subverted the constitution, here is Lincoln's words from the first inaugral:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
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. 12
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? 13
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union." 14
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. 15
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 16
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 17
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority...

...Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

... This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

...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."

 

[HJB]

The fact that the Constitution doesn't mention secession directly does not mean it doesn't offer guidance on the issue. The 10th Amendment is clear. The States can do anything that the Constitution doesn't expressly forbid them from doing. The Federal government can do nothing unless the Constitution expressly authorizes it. Since secession isn't mentioned as forbidden, the States can do it. Since the Federal government is not explicitly authorized to use force to stop them, they are prohibited by the Constitution from doing so.

The constitution does not offer any guidance on secession, because it is not an acceptable recourse.

It gives other "nuclear options" like impeachment of government officials, but no nuclear options for states leaving.

It gives guidance on admitting new states, but says nothing about states being able to leave. Just an oversight?

States cannot leave because the Union IS the country. The country is not a collection of federal offices in DC. The states became an integral part of the country when they were admitted.

 

[Shane Tuttle]

States cannot leave because the Union IS the country. The country is not a collection of federal offices in DC. The states became an integral part of the country when they were admitted.

So, what you're sayin' is once you're in the "family" you stay in the "family"? Otherwise, you might as well plan on gettin' whacked?

 

[HJB]

something like that

 

[Ruthless4christ]

ok im about to call it quits on this one, HJB if you dont think my info is on the ball google it, to find out for yourself before you say i dont know what im talking about. i mean this is a message board, so we do have to look some stuff up for ourselves, since i dont have a scanner to show you compies of every referance i have. as far as taney, there is much more documented stuff on this then just the us marshels letter(which i assume to which you refer)

anyhow as far as i can see from now on no one involved in this gonna change thier mind about this any time this century, sooo......maybe we can just exchange coffee, chocalate, and tobbaco and be friends?

 

[Jeffenwulf]

I believe FDR was by far the worst POTUS in our brief history.

 

[S832]

The civil war could have been avoided if both sides had smaller egos.

 

[Hugh Damright]

Did Lincoln do what was best for the country???

Some of y'all seem very confused about what the President's job is. He is not "Governor of the State of America". The Federal Government is not empowered to do whatever is best. It simply is not a vision of limited federal government i.e. the US Constitution.

And no, he did not do what was best for the Union ... but then some of y'all don't see the US as a Union, do you?

I don't see how two competing nations here in North America could have stayed at peace ... And how would these two separate nations of North America have fared in the 20th Century??

I imagine that the USA and CSA would have made a limited compact. I think they would have agreed to an open border, common weights and measures, to come to each other's defense in times of war ... pretty much what the Constitution was intended to be in the first place, but more limited, in an attempt to keep yankees in their place. I think we'd be better off in some ways.

What concerns me most about the idea of secession is that we could end up with a Country that is nothing but yankees, and I don't think the world could tolerate such despotism. We saw an example in the reconstruction era ... complete disregard of other's sovereignty and complete disregard for rule of law.

 

[Leif]

we could end up with a Country that is nothing but yankees

You say that like it's such a bad thing.

Frankly, I'm rather glad the Confederates were put in their place. But I guess I'm just a despotic yankee at heart ...

This is nonsense. Who seriously even believes rants about 'yankees' constitutes a legitimate form of current political discourse? Does anybody mainstream even think about yankees vs. southerners anymore? Talk about stuck in the past.

 

[oneSoneK]

clinton. He IMO was a weakling who made america a joke and therefor respect was lost all around the world that we now pay for. America cant have someone like that as our leader. what dose that say to the rest of the world.. NO HONOR and therefor no respect need be shown.