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#3.
Aaron Burr
Remembered For: Shooting Alexander Hamilton. Back in the day, politicians settled arguments like mid 90s gangsta rappers: If you got beef, you brought it to the street. This is exactly what happened with Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Despite insults so charmingly inoffensive by today's standards that they're practically terms of affection (the word "despicable" set it all off), Hamilton and Burr still went at it like a poncy Tupac and a foppish B.I.G. When shit went down (as shit is wont to do) Hamilton's shot missed, but Burr's was fatal.
Not Remembered For: Being the Vice President of the United States of America at the time. Burr served in the New York State Assembly twice, as New York State Attorney General for two years and spent a term as a United States Senator. He took the unpopular view that women were (gasp!) intellectually equal to men, preached abolitionist ideals and once pawned his watch to buy food and medicine to save the lives of a friend's children. When he shot Hamilton he was the sitting Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson which, due to the way the voting worked at the time, meant Burr had come second in the presidential race, actually tying Jefferson on electoral votes. And he fucking shot a dude! Can you imagine the fallout today if a sitting vice president shot somebody?!
#2.
Louis XVI
Remembered For: Negligence and Decadence. As you probably learned in your high school history class (or from that guy in the Che Guevara T-shirt trying to sleep with your girlfriend at every party you've ever been to), the French Revolution was a huge turning point in history. Those poor peasants just couldn't take life under such a horrible, despotic monarch; and so they stormed the Bastille. They eventually beheaded the King and Queen, Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, who are still the popular representations of cruel excess and decadence to this day.
Not Remembered For: Helping create America! You Americans reading this: Do you like being an American? If not, then GIT OUT LIBERAL ELITIST. But if so, then you have Louis XVI to thank; he went against the advice of his closest advisors to support the colonies during the American Revolution. Without the support of the French, it is unlikely the revolution would have succeeded, and you all would be sipping tea right now in a world where everything's spelled half-backwards. If you're thankful you don't live in a terrifying maelstrom of "theatres" and "centres," well, you owe it all to the French.
Although, to be fair, it wasn't necessarily an altruistic gesture on Louis's part: He really just wanted to stick it to his historical enemy, England, without pausing to really think about the precedent overthrowing a fellow king would set (hint: It's kind of a head-choppy precedent). #1.
Neville Chamberlain
Remembered For: Sucking up to Hitler.
Probably the most hilarious thing to come out of recent politics is the below clip of a clearly crazy right-wing commentator screaming that Obama as president would likely be "an appeaser" just like that filthy Neville Chamberlain was in World War II... until he was asked what specifically Chamberlain did, when he man had to admit he had no idea: The point is, the association of Chamberlain with spineless foreign policy is so strong that it's quoted by people who don't remember elementary school history classes well enough to know who he was. All because during the rise of the Third Reich, Prime Minister Chamberlain was sent to meet with the most sinister, evil man in all of history. Instead of returning shaken from coming so close to the true depth of mankind's depravity and demanding all of Germany be razed, he came back and declared that, in exchange for giving Hitler small chunks of Europe, there would surely be "peace in our time." That's right: He met Hitler and came out of it thinking that, if anything, the man should have more control.
History would eventually prove Chamberlain to be "hilariously wrong" (or would have if there wasn't so much genocide involved), and his name is now invoked as a curse any time anyone ever suggests negotiating with an enemy rather than immediately bombing them off the map. Not Remembered For: Everything Else He Did. Before winning the Prime Minister position, Chamberlain was a successful MP, Postmaster General and Minister of Health. He was even Chancellor of the Exchequer twice (the second most important guy in British politics--like the American Vice President, except he does a bit more than just nod solemnly and give the occasional comforting neck-rub). He later passed the Factories Act, which improved the horrifying work conditions in factories and cut back on child labor. He was extremely popular and even made the cover of TIME in America.
If you're saying, "Sure, he was popular until he sold out to fucking Hitler!" you're wrong. After he made the deal in Munich his popularity shot up to 68 percent--20 points higher than what Barack Obama gets right now in the USA. Above all else, the people did not want to get into another freaking war. That's one thing some historians are trying remind everyone about Chamberlain these days. Making the deal with Hitler looks bad now, because we know how the movie ends. Not so easy at the time, when Chamberlain was at the head of a country whose military was in no shape to fight, and the only ones who had offered to stand with him if he threw down against the Nazis were the freaking French. There were no good options on the table. So instead, he came back home from making the deal with Hitler having bought a period of peace that he spent rapidly building the military that would eventually be strong enough to repel the Nazis. And by the way, the main reason they were able to mobilize so quickly was because of an earlier national program to modernize the nation's factories. A program put in place by... Neville Chamberlain. The debate rages among historians (and will probably rage in the comments) but the guy probably deserves better than to have his name thrown around as the political equivalent of "pussy." Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page. And check out some awesome leaders with awesomely heinous records, in 6 Great US Presidents and Their Crimes Against Humanity. Or check out the deceit that was spoon-fed to you while you were growing up, in The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class. And stop by our Top Picks to see why S.W.A.I.M. isn't exactly the nicest droid on the planet. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get dick jokes sent straight to your news feed. |
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HaizyMezcan, you're an idiot! The South were the ones who attacked Ft. Sumter. Also keep in mind that he liberated the slaves which was a good thing. And while you said, "Other countries did it without a war" that's true but it wasn't so much that Lincoln wanted the war. In fact when he entered office he said himself, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." He said that Northerners and Southerneres spilled the same blood in the same Revolution. Above all else he wanted to keep the Union together, he only liberated slavery because he was given the chance to. Plus it wasn't so much that Lincoln declared war on the Confederacy. The Confederacy seceded just because Lincoln got elected. That being said along with Hoover I think should go with George Dubya Bush. Like Hoover it wasn't so much he did anything wrong, it's that he took too much time to react.
That erepublic bulls**t is almost relavent to this article...except it's f**king spam. It's interesting to learn about the possible origin of hoover's hubris and mentality. However, the stock market crash far from caused the great depression. Not even the wreckless banking. The land repossions on farmers that caused the dust bowl when the loosened soil no longer kept in place by long grass came free. As you can imagine suddenly having no food and a s**tton of people out of work does horrors to an economy. Oh, by the by, before the dustbowl the flyover states weren't so bad. They even used to be populist and democrats. Before talk radio and fox.
Create your Citizen and you will have the opportunity to develop your military, economy or political career. http://www.erepublik.com/en/referrer/Sirbeg
A little known fact: all Americans are forced on entry to the UK to announce in writing they intend to go to the "centre of the theatre, and to find the colour of honour". This policy is currently under review as contravening the Geneva conventions due to the number of maelstrom induced brain implosions. We Brits maintain it's funny.
States do not possess the right to secede from the government of the United States because they are bound to it by the Constitution. And the Constitution is not an agreement among the states but rather an agreement among "the people of the United States." Therefore while "the people" may have the right to alter and even dispose of the government the Southern states did not have the right to destroy the Union of the people.
O.K. you do make a good point on the situation with the Tariffs, though you did make it sound like that was something the Republicans intended to screw over the South. As for the 10th Amendment, the Constitution does generally work by reverse precedent, meaning if it's put into the Constitution later it has precedent over the earlier stuff. It worked that way with Poll/Income Taxes (Poll Taxes actually are a very different thing from Income Taxes, and since Poll Taxes tax everyone equally regardless of personal fortunes they're a very bad idea), Prohibition, and all the slave related stuff. (It also pretty much reveals the Forefathers intention for it to be a living doc*ment.) Keep in mind pretty much the same people who authored Article Six authored the 10th Amendment. They didn't just change their minds. The key phrase in the 10th Amendment is "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution...", including Article Six! You might say that's stupid. Why even have the 10th Amendment then? Basically the 10th Amendment was put in to reassure that the States weren't to be dissolved or assimilated by the Federal government. That is, that it was meant to be a federal government rather than a centralized one. It's a similar story as the 9th Amendment not excluding (though also not guaranteeing) rights not mentioned in the Constitution. You may wonder how that still excludes the right to secede since secession isn't explicitly mentioned in the Constitution or in Federal Law. Sure you get Constitution>Federal Law>State Constitutions>State Law. However consider this, just because YOU say you've seceded doesn't mean the Constitution and Federal Law no longer apply to you. That's kind of how law works. It applies to you whether you really want it to or not.
The tariffs did not apply equally to both the North and the South. Southern cotton in 1860 accounted for nearly 60% of US exports, and was responsible for about 75% of the cotton supply in the entire world. Tariffs lower the price of exports just as much as they raise the price of imports, thus the South would be much harder hit by tariffs than the north. Basically, tariffs forced the South to buy more expensive northern machinery and sell cotton to the North at cheaper prices.
Last time I checked, the constitution also contained the 10th amendment. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As the Constitution does not mention secession, it must be a reserved right of the states.
Duh Texas, Texas was the other State in the Confederacy that had the legal right to secede. But, since Ft. Sumter didn't happen in either Texas or Virginia...
Also, those tariffs applied equally to the South as they did to the North. Now mind you I'm not saying that Tariffs are a good thing. I don't care for economic protectionism of any kind. But, that kind of invalidates your argument that it was all a big plot by the North. For that matter, the new territories only just gave the Republicans a fighting chance in the Electoral College because the College was Constitutionally required to count 3/5s of the slave population for the purposes calculating Electoral College votes. Meaning all those Southern voters were voting for their slaves the nice caretakers of the darkies that they were. The election of Abraham Lincoln was important in that the Republicans just managed to break the stranglehold on the Electoral College. Keep in mind Lincoln was not a Radical Republican. He had no intention to do any of the things you said the Republicans wanted to do to the South before the Civil War. That the Southerners weren't completely having their way with American politics is a pretty infantile reason to have tantrum, take your ball, and go home.
Here you're presuming that the South had the legal right to secede. Virginia did, in fact have the right to secede as they made it a condition of their ratification of the U.S. Constitution. (And, that condition is still on the books as it is for a couple of the States that remained in the Union. Likewise since Texas was annexed by the Union, rather than seeking and receiving Statehood, they never essentially ratified the Constitution, making it only 4 of the 50 States can legally secede.) None of the other Sates of the Confederacy had the legal right to secede, particularly since one of the Articles that they ratified was Article Six! "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States"..."shall be the supreme Law of the Land"..."any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding". That means the States pretty much sold their souls to the Federal government, and they couldn't just pretend they didn't do that. Caveat Emptor, baby!
Whether or not you think the attack on Ft. Sumter was a declaration of war depends on whether or not you think the South had the legal right to secede. If a foreign power is occupying a military base against your will in your own territory, it isn't really declaring war to force them out. Maybe Lincoln was trying to keep the country in one piece, but the country didn't need being kept in one piece. The Republican party at the time was very different than the Republican party now; it was a party of Northern interests that tended to f**k over the South. They supported high tariffs, which would both force the south to buy northern machinery instead of the less expensive foreign machinery, and substantially decrease the price of southern exports. The Republican party also supported abolition of slavery -without- compensation for slave-owners, which is how most other countries managed to abolish slavery. As southern interests was politically weakened with the addition of the new territories, you basically had one group of people (the north) subjugating a smaller group; the South had every right to secede from those conditions.
Dang, thought I cancelled that resend.
For that matter Japan declared war against us as well ... after Pearl Harbor . (They'd intended for it to be at the last minute to enhance the surprise; but their Foreign Ministry dropped the ball; and their ambassador was late. There's actually a famous photo of the ambassador leaving whatever government building in D.C. he delivered the declaration to, afterwards. And, there's this look on the face of a guy in the crowd that's like, "you a*****e".)
yeah.. sorry Hairy Mezican, the Civil War was about slavery. People's right (!) to own other people. You had one side trampling on the rights of an entire race (south), and the other overstepping the constitutional boundaries which protect our rights (north). "Lincoln deserved to be shot" Lincoln was just trying to keep his freaking country in one piece, and if you honestly believe in the people's rights, you would never support the execution of anyone without due process.
For that matter Japan declared war against us as well ... after Pearl Harbor . (They'd intended for it to be at the last minute to enhance the surprise; but their Foreign Ministry dropped the ball; and their ambassador was late. There's actually a famous photo of the ambassador leaving whatever government building in D.C. he delivered the declaration to, afterwards. And, there's this look on the face of a guy in the crowd that's like, "you a*****e".)
Another good example is that FDR never declared war against any of the Axis powers. Japan attacked us; and Germany declared war against the U.S. to stand by their ally. So, not only do you not need to declare war against someone you are already in a state of war with; but you don't need to declare war against someone who has declared war against you. War is by its nature a unilateral action.
South Carolina attacked Ft. Sumter. A declaration of war is to let the other guy know that as of this time you are at war with them. You do not need to declare war against a nation you are already at war with, because it would declaring something that is already happening.
Lincoln deserved to be shot. As far as war mongering presidents, he was way worse than Bush. No other president has jailed newspaper editors or even senators who disagreed with his policies. No other president has singlehandedly declared war without authorization from congress. No other president had a matter of policy that included fighting against women and children noncombatants, and destroyed civilian property (as opposed to collateral damage). Perhaps you believe that getting rid of slavery was worth the carnage this president inflicted; but the Civil War was not about slavery, congress even passed the Crittenden declaration stating that the north was not fighting a war to abolish slavery. Besides, every other country in the world managed to abolish slavery without some stupid war.
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