Historic Quote of the Day

[marc]

I'll start with a classic.  This has begun to mean more to me recently, as I have read about the challenge facing the new nation and what the action taken by Madison, Washington and others really meant.  "We the People" is an especially significant phrase as these men, from the most influential state in the confederation, realized that the future of the great experiment meant sacrificing their identity as individual entities so we could all speak with one voice.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[Mere Nick]

"We the People" is an especially significant phrase as these men, from the most influential state in the confederation, realized that the future of the great experiment meant sacrificing their identity as individual entities so we could all speak with one voice.

Please explain what you mean a little more, because right now I couldn't disagree more.  This sounds like Borg or muslim propaganda and so I don't believe you would really mean what I understand you  to be saying.

[marc]

13 confederated colonies speaking with 13 separate voices formed an incomplete, impotent association.  They did not form a country.  What the constitution did was create a country that spoke with one voice, a voice derived from and gaining its authority from the people who made it up.  This was a scary thing for the colonists, who didn't want another King George and who thought that Hamilton and some of the others in the north had monarchical tendencies.  Washington and Madison, both from Virginia, used their influence to quiet the country's fears and to let them know that this new form of government would not quell their voices but instead would allow them an opportunity to speak louder.

So they created a government that simultaneously empowered the federal while protecting the states and the individuals.  Washington was a firm believer that only a strong national government would make what had been won in the revolution worthwhile.  The colonies were sitting ducks as long as they remained separate.  Without their binding together, the Revolution would be reversed.

Madison, together with Hamilton and John Jay, authored the Federalist Papers that helped convince the public of the rightness of this new form of government.  Madison also wrote the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, that protected the people.

The roots of the freedom, strength and duty of the new government were spelled out in the verbs of the preamble and the objects of these verbs.

to form a more perfect Union

establish Justice

insure domestic Tranquility

provide for the common defence

promote the general Welfare

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

In addition, the constitution divided up federal and state powers in a way that strengthened the union while preventing monarchy.

The states held the elections themselves, for instance.  That way the federal government couldn't control and corrupt them.

The federal government controlled the army.  That way states couldn't fight among themselves.

The states controlled the schools.  The federal government couldn't indoctrinate.

The federal government controlled the highest court.  States had to obey federal laws and could not interpret them as they saw fit.

The structure was ingenious.  Of course the most famous compromise was the makeup of the Senate (every state gets the same representation) and the House (the more people in a state, the more their say).

It was more of a challenge than we now realize.  Monarchy had made many citizens wary of a central government.  Virginia, as strong as any state, was more wary than most.  But the constitution created a way to allow both strength and freedom.

[marc]

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

[ConnieLard]

"A government that is large enough to supply everything you need is large enough to take everything you have."  (Thomas Jefferson)

[marc]

(I posted a second quote, but since it's the "quote of the day", I can't post another one until tomorrow.   )

[ConnieLard]

We're waiting with bated breath, Marc!   

[marc]

"The object [of my education bill was] to bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country for want of the means of development, and thus give activity to a mass of mind which in proportion to our population shall be the double or treble of what it is in most countries."

--Thomas Jefferson to M. Correa de Serra,

[Mere Nick]

Wonder what ol' Tom would say to this garbage

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770

[marc]

Likely he'd point to it as evidence that England was part of the Old World and was becoming increasingly less vital and was in need of revolution and renewal itself, in contrast to the New World, which was still young and full of the mental energy and inquiry needed to take us into the future.  This is why we had to cut the ties with England.

Then he'd ask what this Holocaust was that you speak of, since he died over a century before it occured. 

[marc]

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

--James Madison, The Federalist Papers

[marc]

Brother at our last Treaty held in so. Carolina We Give up to our White brothrs all the land we Could anyhow Spare, and have but little left, to raise our Women & Children Upon and we hope you wont let any people take any more from us Without our Consent: We are Neither Birds nor Fish; we can Neither Fly in the Air, nor live under Water, therfore We hope pitty will be extended towards us: we are made by the same hand and in same Shape With yourselves.

Cherokee Chief Tickagiska to George Washington, 1789. 

Washington did his best to comply with the request, but found the treaties he made ignored by settlers and land companies.

[marc]

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

William Tecumseh Sherman, May, 1865

[OldDad]

How interesting that Sherman makes his comments "without shame".  That seems to be a defining character trait for him.  And I suppose spreading blood, vengeance, and desolation while making "a hole in Georgia that will be hard to mend" and committing atrocities that would cause a New York newspaper to write of him, "It is hardly conceivable that an officer bearing a United States commission of Major General should have so far forgotten the commonest dictates of decency and humanity..." does tend to make one a little "sick," and "tired."

[marc]

fwiw, I started to post the famous quote by Robert E. Lee about it being a good thing war is so terrible, but I thought this one might get more attention.   

Sherman definitely had an unusual bent.  He seemed to justify what he did because the South had started the war, and he didn't think anyone should be immune from its effects.

Here's what he said back in 1860:

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing!

– From a speech to Prof. David F. French at the Louisiana State Seminary, Dec. 24, 1860

And then in 1864 to the mayor of Atlanta, in response to a plea for mercy:

Atlanta, Georgia,
James M. Calhoun, Mayor,
E.E. Rawson and S.C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta.

Gentleman: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace, not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose. Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes in inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufacturers, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such things at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.

      You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.

      You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.

      We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involved the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.

      You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, bu the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began the war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or title of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands and thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success.

      But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.

      Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes in Atlanta. Yours in haste,

W.T. Sherman, Major-General commanding

All of this is besides his famous "War is Hell" speech.

[OldDad]

Sherman was obviously skilled, as were most West Pointers of the day, in the hyperbolic and overly civil use of language.  He also was quite adept at producing a self-satisfying end that justified his means.  He was the first modern general.

He was also a thug.

[marc]

I tend to see him as thinking a bit too much that he was the one responsible for swinging Jehovah's terrible swift sword. Such ideas can lead to dangerous consequences.



btw, any application to current events did not occur to me until after I had typed the above paragraph, so nothing of the sort is intended.  I was thinking only of Sherman.

[James A. Wyly]

Sherman was obviously skilled, as were most West Pointers of the day, in the hyperbolic and overly civil use of language.  He also was quite adept at producing a self-satisfying end that justified his means.  He was the first modern general.

He was also a thug.

A thug?  Perhaps.  But also a realist.  After the Civil War, he came west and fought Indians on the Frontier.  It was he who articulated the U.S. policy of destroying the great buffalo herds of the West as a means of destroying the "commissary" of the Indians and forcing them into a defeated servitude of the Federal Government. 

Cruel?  Unromantic?  Yes, all that.  But effective and ultimately less cruel than other courses.

The same is true about his approach to the South.

Jim W.

[marc]

I do think it's noteworthy that he foresaw the results of the war in 1860.

I will say little else on this subject in deference to the large number of southerners on this board, but will instead quote Thomas Jefferson, from an 1785 letter from Paris to John Jay, as today's entry.

We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultivation. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it's liberty & interests by the most lasting bonds. As long therefore as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans or anything else. But our citizens will find employment in this line till their numbers, & of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal & foreign. This is not the case as yet, & probably will not be for a considerable time. As soon as it is, the surplus of hands must be turned to something else. I should then perhaps wish to turn them to the sea in preference to manufactures, because comparing the characters of the two classes I find the former the most valuable citizens. I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice & the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned.

[James A. Wyly]

I do think it's noteworthy that he foresaw the results of the war in 1860.

I will say little else on this subject in deference to the large number of southerners on this board, but will instead quote Thomas Jefferson, from an 1785 letter from Paris to John Jay, as today's entry.

We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultivation. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it's liberty & interests by the most lasting bonds. As long therefore as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans or anything else. But our citizens will find employment in this line till their numbers, & of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal & foreign. This is not the case as yet, & probably will not be for a considerable time. As soon as it is, the surplus of hands must be turned to something else. I should then perhaps wish to turn them to the sea in preference to manufactures, because comparing the characters of the two classes I find the former the most valuable citizens. I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice & the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned.

I certainly am not insulting the South.  My great-grandfather (Robert Wyly, born 1848) joined the Confederate Army and fought after his brother and my name-sake, James Wyly, was killed while fighting for the Confederacy at the Battle at Shiloh.

But it is appropriate to recognize W.T. Sherman, thuggish though he may have been, as a cold-eyed, effective realist.

Jim W.

[marc]

Understood. It's just that I have been beaten up royally here in the past few days, and I am not yet healed enough for a rematch.

And I sense that the second Tecumseh may be a dangerous topic.

[James A. Wyly]

Understood. It's just that I have been beaten up royally here in the past few days, and I am not yet healed enough for a rematch.

And I sense that the second Tecumseh may be a dangerous topic.

I've been off-line for about two months while my wife and I spent time in a motor home in the Southwest trying to thaw out.  We got back to SD last night at 2:00 a.m. to temperatures of 9 degrees Farenheit and a snow cover.  Welcome back to Spring.

Incidentally, I attended the Central CofC in Stockton, CA, last Sunday.  It was wonderful.   The minister is (somebody) Wray.  There was a "praise-team" leading the singing, a Power-Point presentation with the sermon, and announcements by a WOMAN---all new to me and very refreshing.

Jim W.

[marc]

We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom.

We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.

We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.

Let there be justice for all.

Let there be peace for all.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.

Let freedom reign.

The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!

God bless Africa!

Thank you.

--Nelson Mandela, 1st inaugural address, 1994

[marc]

Today is the 142nd anniversary of Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.

We had nothing on which to begin life over again, but we were young and strong, and began it cheerily enough. We are prosperous now, ...little grandchildren cluster about us and listen with interest to grandpapa's and grandmamma's tales of the days when they "fought and bled and died together." They can't understand how such nice people as the Yankees and ourselves ever could have fought each other. "It doesn't seem reasonable," says Nellie...who is engaged to a gentleman from Boston, where we sent her to cultivate her musical talents, but where she applied herself to other matters, 'it doesn't seem reasonable, grandmamma, when you could just as easily have settled it all comfortably without any fighting. How glad I am I wasn't living then! How thankful I am that 'Old Glory' floats alike over North and South, now!'

And so am I, my darling, so am I!

--Myrta Lockett Avary

[Mere Nick]

I do think it's noteworthy that he foresaw the results of the war in 1860.

I will say little else on this subject in deference to the large number of southerners on this board, but will instead quote Thomas Jefferson, from an 1785 letter from Paris to John Jay, as today's entry.

We have now lands enough to employ an infinite number of people in their cultivation. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it's liberty & interests by the most lasting bonds. As long therefore as they can find employment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans or anything else. But our citizens will find employment in this line till their numbers, & of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal & foreign. This is not the case as yet, & probably will not be for a considerable time. As soon as it is, the surplus of hands must be turned to something else. I should then perhaps wish to turn them to the sea in preference to manufactures, because comparing the characters of the two classes I find the former the most valuable citizens. I consider the class of artificers as the panders of vice & the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned.

I certainly am not insulting the South.  My great-grandfather (Robert Wyly, born 1848) joined the Confederate Army and fought after his brother and my name-sake, James Wyly, was killed while fighting for the Confederacy at the Battle at Shiloh.

But it is appropriate to recognize W.T. Sherman, thuggish though he may have been, as a cold-eyed, effective realist.

Jim W.

I agree.  Sherman was a brutal and nasty thug who was a living red hot poker as he ripped through my beloved South.  There's no excuse for not having such men lead our troops whenever they are asked to fight for this country. 

[marc]

When I chance to meet with any of my own Compositions, of Ten Years old, I am much inclined to think I could write with more Accuracy and Elegance then than I can now, and that I had more Sense and Knowledge then, than I have now. My Memory, and Fancy were certainly better then, and my judgment,  [illegible]  I conjecture quite as good.

--John Adams Diary, November 21, 1772.

[Jaime]

Man in the Arena - by Teddy Roosevelt

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

[normfromga]

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 10, 23 November 1787)

[Arkstfan]

Sherman is the great American dilemma.

We wish to think ourselves more genteel, more civilized, more cultured than others, but in war total brutish hostility is almost always the only course to bring peace.

Our "style" as Americans has been to fight Grant's war. We have tended to try to have better equipment or at least more equipment and win wars of attrition. Grant didn't care that his tactics might kill or injure 3 of his soldiers for every two killed or injured for the other side as long as he had the resources to keep winning battles at such a high cost. For the most part, we won the war in Europe, Africa, and the Atlantic following his basic theory. Allied armor got clobbered with kill ratios running from 2:1 for the Russian armor vs. German to 3:1 and at times as bad as 10:1 in US vs. German battles, but production was the difference with the US producing 10 to 13 tanks for every one Germany produced.

Sherman's doctrine really significantly appeared only in the air war with bombings of Dresden, fire bombing of Tokyo, and the atomic bombs.

[marc]

and as Robert McNamara said, if the Allies had lost, he would have been considered a war criminal because of his actions re the Tokyo fire bombing.  The type of people who do these things make for an interesting psychological study.  You can see what made Sherman tick when you read his quotes, and you can recognize this seed in all of us. 

[Banner]

Barton Stone while near death is asked by his doctor, "Are you willing to die in the faith you have so long taught to others?"

I love Stone's reply, he said that he was, that he believed that he had taught the truth, and that he had tried to live what he had preached to others. "But it is not by works of righteousness that I have done, but according to his mercy he saved me...It is of grace, it is all of grace."