Any questions on the assignment?
Not here tomorrow, but available by email.
FOR NEXT MONDAY:
- Finish Allen
- Tocqueville, 9-20, 231-261, 277-315
Lincoln trained his mind by studying Euclid. In this letter, he applied what he had learned to the Declaration:
One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue, we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics, too, is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes to make his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws.
Why not the word democracy?
Securing rights
[NATIONAL TREASURE]- That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
- But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
- “evinces a design” (196-197) -- a plan-- CONSPIRACY THEORY!
Allen, ch. 18: The Bill of Particulars and the Bible (with a Seder cameo at 3:50) (And a 2019 news story...)
Lincoln's comments at Galesburg
Lincoln-Douglas Galesburg debate video at 1:08-- What crucial word did the re-enactor screw up?
Lincoln-Douglas Galesburg debate video at 1:08-- What crucial word did the re-enactor screw up?
From the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens (Allen, p. 241):
The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
- Biblical reference -- "the rivers of Babylon"
- You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. [Douglass was way ahead of his time in accepting Chinese immigration.]
- Douglass was also one of the few men at Seneca Falls.
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