The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

Re: Fairness Doctrine in the Constitution?

Kevin --

Your statements are correct. However, the framers believed that most difficulties could be resolved in the best interests of all parties involved. They assumed that citizens sharing a common ancestry, language, culture and religion would naturally be able to govern themselves for the welfare of the whole. Majority rule - yes, but not domination of the country by people from one section, operating the machinery of government for their own purposes. Also, unless coercion was addressed in the Federalist papers, it's hard to believe that they ever envisioned a Union of states held together at gunpoint.

We are fast approaching the 150th anniversary of John Brown's abortive attack on Harper's Ferry. As the public learned afterward, the success of Brown's plan would have mean wholesale death and destruction in many of the Southern states. Brown had also planned to established an independent national government within the boundaries of the slave states. Suggestions that Brown was simply a deranged fanatic failed when financial transactions and other papers linked him with certain influential abolitionists. Widespread sympathy for his actions finally convinced white Southerners that substantial numbers within the Northern public wished to see them murdered in their homes. With other, better planned abolitionist attacks pending, the most responsible course of action would be to take immediate steps for self-defense.

Similar declarations were made by all Southern states in 1860-61. Without a full and complete understanding of Harpers Ferry and its impact on the American public in late 1859, it's difficult to understand the mindset of that period. Others have described it as an antebellum 9-11, which isn't far from the mark.

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Fairness Doctrine in the Constitution?
Re: Fairness Doctrine in the Constitution?
Re: Fairness Doctrine in the Constitution?
Re: Fairness Doctrine in the Constitution?