openpolitics.com

89:48

is going on here if we could have pulled

the soldiers in the Army and Potomac at

Gettysburg right after Gettysburg and

said what did you accomplish here they

would have talked all about Union that

is what they would have talked about

first to last first to last it was a war

about Union it was a war about Union

that also killed slavery and most white

Americans eventually supported

emancipation but they but not for the

reasons we’d want them to they don’t

care about black people

wish they did they didn’t they saw

emancipation as a tool to defeat the

rebels to punish what they considered

oligarchy slaveholders they didn’t think

slaveholders believed in democracy they

saw them as oligarchs they call them

oligarchs all the time the South is not

what the founders had in mind and they

could work it out in their mind that

even though a lot of the founders are

prominent slaveholders the documents and

the traditions that they bequeath

unionists in the loyal States would have

said the oligarchic slaveholding south

is totally out of step with this they

are inimical to the intent of the

founders and if they succeed in tearing

the nation apart oligarchs everywhere

can point to the United States and say

see we told you people are not capable

of self-government look at them they

can’t even have a presidential election

can’t even do that they rip their nation

apart that’s what’s at stake that’s what

and if the Union gives you those things

what is your obligation as a male a

white male of military age your

obligation is you pick up a musket and

you go do your small R Republican duty

and who is your model there who is the

model for disinterested Republican

service Stuart’s Washington George

Washington didn’t even take a salary

during the American Revolution and

George Washington did something twice

that absolutely blew people’s minds at

the time he didn’t do it once he did it

twice at the end of the Revolutionary

War

he gave up power he was the

Generalissimo they couldn’t believe it

in Europe he what did he show he’s not

Julius Caesar he’s not Oliver Cromwell

he is a man with small our Republican

virtue he went back to Mount Vernon then

he’s made president he would have been

president for life if he wanted to be

FDR had to think about it Washington

didn’t they would have just elected he

until they hauled him out of the

Executive Mansion but he did it again

he gave up power a second time and it

just absolutely mystified most people in

Europe how that could happen

didn’t mystify Americans they said this

is that’s the point

he’s the point he’s the model so in our

own little way each of us were all

members of the third Vermont in our

little way we are emulating George

Washington