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#42530 09/21/01 11:59 AM
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Today's quotation from Abraham Lincoln regarding the "This too shall pass" mantra is a timely reminder of a theme that surpasses cultural and temporal bounds in the human psyche--on my office wall is a framed quotation from the Old English poem "Widsith," the refrain of which translates to "That passed, so will this." Ironically, I guess we can say about the truth of this statement, some things never change!


#42531 09/21/01 12:08 PM
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Indeed®.

This reminded me of some other wise words from the founding father:

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?


#42532 09/21/01 08:44 PM
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the founding father

hmmm . . . can Lincoln really be considered a founding father? He was very influencial in bring about the present-day US, but he wasn't around in the very beginning, so was he really a "founder"?


#42533 09/22/01 12:59 AM
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Precisely, Jazz-o. As I understand it, the term "founding fathers" means the delegates participating in the constitutional convention, no more and no less.

But of course mav, not being a US'n, cannot be expected to fully knowledgeable of precise details of US history.


#42534 09/22/01 02:09 AM
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On the other hand if you take seriously the claim of the Confederacy to sovereignty, Lincoln may not have been a founding father; it is possible, however, that he was the founding father.



#42535 09/22/01 02:35 AM
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Yours is a very interesting thought, i'peter.

Lincoln viewed himself, at least rhetorically, as preserving what had been created "for score and seven years ago", not founding something new. ("Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.")

But one could reasonably take your view that Lincoln, notwithstanding his own characterization, was in fact a "founder" in that the fundamental issue of states' rights had remained unresolved until the Civil War. Indeed, even many Northerners had felt that the southern states were within their rights (though misguided) to secede; the expression of that view was "wayward sisters, go in peace".


#42536 09/22/01 10:23 AM
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<not founding something new

He would not have been the first man to deny paternity
;)

BTW, not nec. rep. my view, just a spin, a poss and not worth more than a syl. or a second.

#42537 09/23/01 12:20 PM
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Indeed, even many Northerners had felt that the southern states were within their rights (though misguided) to secede; the expression of that view was "wayward sisters, go in peace".

I'm no lawyer, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Southern States were perfectly within their rights to secede. Wasn't it built into the original constitution?

Could be wrong, but I thought that that was the basis of the Southern view of the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression" which, if the Southern states were indeed within their rights to secede, it most certainly was!

[stirring the pot -e]



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#42538 09/23/01 02:35 PM
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CK, that's a very interesting subject that we might mark for future discussion, but I'd say that now is not an apt time to be stirring the pot with still another political discussion. (see, e.g., the results of the "gandhi" discussion.)

Besides, with of troy now a member of your harem, I trust you are too preoccupied (or too exhausted) for such a discussion.


#42539 09/23/01 03:24 PM
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...now is not an apt time to be stirring the pot with still another political discussion...

Keiva - There can be no better time... especially since the objective doesn't seem to be "political", but interpretive.

CapK - Texas had a go at it... http://www.texfiles.com/texashistory/texfiles.htm (for amusement only)



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