Obama and Warren
Dec. 19th, 2008 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleA little perspective on the Obama/Warren situation might be had by reviewing Abraham Lincoln's relationship to slavery and abolitionism. Some choice quotes:
Lincoln... never put his antipathy for slavery ahead of his allegiance to the Constitution... While the common goal of abolitionists was to put an end to slavery everywhere, Lincoln ran for president in 1860 on a platform that promised to leave slavery undisturbed in the states where it already existed...
Perhaps in even starker contrast to most abolitionists, Lincoln did not believe that slaveholders were inherently evil. He argued, rather, that they were, like their Northern counterparts, merely products of their environment...
For Lincoln, the agitation and moral posturing of the abolitionists constituted the wrong approach in a democratic society, because it was ultimately incompatible with majority rule.
What a fucking sell-out, eh?
Lincoln... never put his antipathy for slavery ahead of his allegiance to the Constitution... While the common goal of abolitionists was to put an end to slavery everywhere, Lincoln ran for president in 1860 on a platform that promised to leave slavery undisturbed in the states where it already existed...
Perhaps in even starker contrast to most abolitionists, Lincoln did not believe that slaveholders were inherently evil. He argued, rather, that they were, like their Northern counterparts, merely products of their environment...
For Lincoln, the agitation and moral posturing of the abolitionists constituted the wrong approach in a democratic society, because it was ultimately incompatible with majority rule.
What a fucking sell-out, eh?
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Date: 2008-12-19 05:27 pm (UTC)