Abraham Lincoln

Today we wrote a little essay thing on how Abraham used the Declaration of Independence and it's "liberty to all" principle and compared it to the American Union. I think he has a good point because in the declaration, it says, "that they are endowed upon by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness", meaning that everyone has the right to liberty. It also says, "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men", meaning that the soul purpose of the government is to protect our rights and that "if any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to establish new government." So the government was created in order to protect our rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If the government fails to do so, it's our job to establish a new government that's fit to secure these ends. He compares this principle to an apple of gold, and that the constitution and the union were made to protect this principle, not the principle to protect us from the constitution and the union. Without the union, we would have minimal protection on our rights to liberty, because the free government we've established would be gone, and the country would be very similar to our mother country, Great Britain, which would be like going back to square one.

David Rice Atchison

Today

The class room was flipped today and I sat in the front and I could read the board better when we were taking notes so it was good. I'm kind of confused about the Fort Sumter thing, I think I missed something in class because I couldn't add everything up between the notes we took yesterday and the notes we took today. I'm planning on asking someone in class about it.

Abraham Lincoln

Although his speeches weren't very good, Abraham Lincoln made an effort to gain the support of the countries citizens, which is obviously really important, since he wasn't very known by most people and didn't even appear on some ballots. I think that he was going to have a hard time settling in as president because that guy's blog seemed to say that he had a lot of people against him, which is not a good way to start off your presidency, and to kick it off with some terrible speeches that disappointed his audience might plant doubts in their minds.

missed yesterday

need notes

Bloggin from Logan...

I decided to blog because I might not get internet in London and I'm actually pretty lucky because my parents know the password for the crew's network because they work here. But today we talked about whether or not slaves are people and I already knew that they weren't considered people, and I think I hate how the Supreme Court let every state be a slave state technically speaking, because it's totally setting the stage for the Civil War. I'm going to try to start that documentary this weekend, but I'm going to be really busy and I don't know if I can find time, because our arrivals 8am then I'm seeing my brother (and his new apartment, in Wimbledon!) And then on sunday taking a HOVERCRAFT to Isle of Wight for my niece's christening. It's okay if you don't believe me, I hardly believe it but it's true, google it

Kansas-Nebraska Act Of 1854

I feel like the Act was made to help settle the dispute between the North and South, but in reality it just ripped America apart even more. New territories were being added, the amount of states that were free, was equal to the amount of states were open to slavery; Uncle Tom's Cabin was already stirring up a lot of emotions around the country. All these factors were obviously going to lead to a war or competition. One of the questions on the homework was, "How were immigrants voting on their feet" (or something like that), and I think that Congress made a mistake passing the Kansas-Nebraska Act because everyone was rushing to move to the new territories to vote, whether it was in favor of becoming a slave state or free state. I just think that the Act was really half-baked.