• Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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    2 months ago

    Lincoln was a conservative himself. He described himself as a conservative and historians Label him as one. In the speech you cited, he was speaking as a conservative to other conservatives.

    Democrats owned slaves. Democrats still want to own slaves.

    • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Ending slavery is not a conservative position by definition. Conservatism means continuing the system that is currently in place and accepted.

      • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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        2 months ago

        Ending slavery is a conservative value. Since we believe all men are equal, slavery by default insults that position.

        • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Are you sure you’re a conservative? Most conservative views are insulting. But back in real life, it was a deeply ingrained institution at the time.

          • Neuromancer@lemm.eeM
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            2 months ago

            I am very conservative. The Republican party was started to end slavery. Lincoln was a conservative. Before joining the Republican Party he was conservative Whig. Republicans have always stood up for freedom and individual rights. In the 80’s we picked up the religious right which skewed some stances but I’m not part of the religious right.

            • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              I don’t think there’s much use in explaining this, but you don’t seem to have a very good grasp of history. Party names are not the key to ideology, and it’s baffling that people think they can compare politics from 180 and 120 years ago using current concepts. If you think modern Republicans are the party of Lincoln, let’s see… who would we see flying Confederate flags currently?

                • Bongo_Stryker@lemmy.ca
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                  2 months ago

                  Good.point.

                  This is the same reason I don’t trust any Italians from Rome. Those Romans are always going around waging wars of conquest, demanding tributes, look what they did to Carthage! I still hold them dang Romans responsible for all those crucifixions. Horrible!

                  And don’t even get me started on those Hittites! Constantly conquering people, they had slaves too! Just as bad as the democrats if not worse. Whenever I meet an Assyrian I like to personally thank them for taking care of those Hittite bastards.

    • LookBehindYouNowAndThen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Conservatives did not consider Lincoln a conservative. They considered a revolutionary. You’re lying.

      But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;” while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the “gur-reat pur-rinciple” that “if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,” fantastically called “Popular Sovereignty;” but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

      Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

      You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.