After reading the story posted below, I realized that Abraham Lincoln referred to the people of the United States as “The Great Tribunal”. It is, simply stated, a sad fact that this great tribunal has become so apathetic. We the people have become so lazy and uncaring that we do not even care to change anything that our government does. We complain about the policies and politics, but how often do we actually stand up and tell them what we want? How much would change if we the people would forget about hurting everyone else’s feelings and think about our own feelings every once in a while? There are far too many complacent people in this nation and it is past time to wake up.
“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead
4 ways we're still fighting the Civil War
By John Blake, CNN
April 11, 2011 9:07 a.m. EDT
The president as dictator
Barack Obama isn't the first black president, according to some Southern secessionists. That would be Abraham Lincoln. He was called a "black Republican" and the "Great Dictator."
There a reason a large number of Americans despised Lincoln during the war. Think of the nation's recent "War on Terror." Some Americans thought Lincoln used the war to ignore the Constitution and expand the powers of the presidency.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (it gives a person who is jailed the right to challenge their detention in court) during the war and used military courts to arrests thousands of civilians.
Those legal decisions loom over post-9/11 America, historians say.
How do we treat American citizens caught attempting to bomb U.S. cities? How do we clamp down on American citizens who preach overthrowing the government? What rights do Guantanamo Bay prisoners possess?
"It's not just what does a president do against an enemy," says Blair, the Civil War historian. "It's what do you do against your own citizens to determine loyalty. That's a big debate today."
Lincoln skillfully addressed that debate, says Brian McGinty, author of "Lincoln & the Court."
He says Lincoln confronted unprecedented problems: The South was in rebellion, the nation's capital was in real danger from rebels in Virginia and their sympathizers in Maryland.
At one point, a mob blocked passage of Northern troops through Maryland to defend Washington.
"His oath of office required him to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution' and he believed that the best way to do that was to preserve the Union," McGinty says. "What good would the Constitution be if the country itself was lost?"
McGinty doesn't think Lincoln became a dictator. He says he allowed the presidential election to take place in 1864. He worked with Congress. He asked military officers to arrest disloyal persons sparingly, and he never tolerated abuse of prisoners.
Lincoln said his actions would ultimately be subject to the review of the American people, not the courts, McGinty says.
"He called the people 'The Great Tribunal' and said that they would have the final word on constitutional issues. In the end, The Great Tribunal approved of what he had done. So, for the most part, has history."
The Great Tribunal, however, has yet to render a unanimous verdict on the Civil War.
A century-and-a-half after the war ended, people still clash over the causes and meaning.
Blair says they still clash because the war doesn't fit many Americans' image of themselves or their past.
"The American story of our past has been a hopeful, helpful narrative," he says. "But it's hard for us to understand that there was a time in this country when the Constitution protected slavery, and it was actually legal.
"How do you insert the story of slavery into that?"
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/08/civil.war.today/index.html?iref=NS1
