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Abraham Lincoln, America, American Government, Congress, Government, government shutdown, Lincoln, politics, The United States, U.S. Constitution
“What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices.
In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum… They now have the Constitution, under which we have lived over seventy years, and acts of Congress of their own framing, with no prospect of their being changed; and they can never have a more shallow pretext for breaking up the government, or extorting a compromise, than now.”
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Abraham Lincoln’s letter to James T. Hale. January 11th, 1861. You’ll find it in Lincoln : Speeches and Writings: 1859-1865.
Two quotes:
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” — Joseph Anthony Wittreich
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” — André Gide
Both can now be found on the quotes page.
Read another sublime letter from Lincoln below:
tedrey said:
Well, that couldn’t be more apropos today!
rrredmeat said:
How this crisis can (maybe) now work out in the GOP’s favour…
Okay so all except the most one-eyed conservative has to admit the reality that the GOP will be blamed by voters for the budget / gov’t shut down crisis. But an interesting thing may very well happen on the way to next month’s circus.
The debt ceiling D-Day is just around the corner. In fact it’s so close that it now seems VERY probable that the budget / shut down crisis will not be resolved by mid Oct and THEN an interesting thing may happen – the budget / shut down / Obama-care crisis and the debt ceiling crisis will combine into one ENORMOUS crisis that revolves around both issues.
This could be VERY interesting. Mainly because just as the public supports the Dems on the budget / shut down issue, they broadly support the GOP on the debt ceiling issue. So if the two fights turn into one BIG fight, who will the public end up supporting?
It could be a hail-mary / gift from God situation that saves the GOP.
Boehner has made it clear that he wanted to avoid the shut down confrontation in order to save his ammo for the debt ceiling crisis. And he may kinda sorta get what he wants now. The conservative wing of the GOP (I think that may be me) may then get what they really want – the opportunity to force changes to the ACA set-up with the FULL BACKING of the US electorate. Because the political conversation / vicious trench war will be about balancing our national kitty, we can make changes to Obama-care by making the simple argument that the US simply can’t afford the ACA. Because it is a financial reality and not an ideologically based argument, independent voters are much more likely to respond to it.
With a bit of luck our gleefully anticipated thumping at the polls in the mid-term elections will then remain a Democrat pipe-dream and the ACA will be amended as we’d like.
Maybe.
tedrey said:
But wouldn’t that imply serious disintegration of democratic constitutional government in this country? Is even the strongest minority opinion worth that?
Also, if independent voters were to choose on the basis of financial reality rather than Democratic or Republican ideological arguments, wouldn’t they be more likely to choose single payer?
Food,Photography & France said:
Excellent post. It’s extraordinary for a foreigner to see which part of the Constitution is vital and inviolable to Americans.
drgeraldstein said:
Perfect.
john said:
I keep wondering, how, how, how could the politics, the times and the people of that then give rise to a man like Lincoln? And how could he, self-educated, melancholy and with such a limited world view become so wise, make himself so strong and see so far and clear?
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