The Democrats have rolled out a couple of dishonest talking points in support of Obama’s executive order amnesty. One is that Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 both used executive orders on immigration. What that ignores is that both were cleaning up a law duly passed by Congress. In this case, Obama is explicitly acting because Congress won’t bend to his royal will.
The new talking point, trotted out here by Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) is that this executive order is just like Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and that Obama should do it and then just let the courts decide whether his act is legal or not. Rob a bank — see if you get caught!
Seriously, that’s pretty much what he told MSNBC today. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has reportedly made similar remarks.
This is just more Democrat trolling of the American people.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime move made in order to preserve the union, a large part of which was in a state of military rebellion at the time. The Democrats started that war and sustained it, by the way.
As Lincoln wrote to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley in 1862, his paramount goal was preserving the Union.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
Lincoln was resolutely and publicly against slavery. The Republican Party was founded to destroy slavery. But Abraham Lincoln recognized that as vile as slavery was, his paramount duty as president was to preserve the Union, and restore it once the war was over.
After the war, Lincoln was so concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation stood that he had it codified into the Constitution as the 13th Amendment. That took an act of Congress and ratification by the states. The Democrats fought emancipation and equality for more than a century.
Suffice it to say, the Emancipation Proclamation is not even close to what Barack Obama is doing. He is intentionally bypassing Congress to favor non-citizens who have violated the law, and his interest is far from preserving the country. He fully intends to divide the country and provoke outrage. His Democratic Party is to some extent reprising its historic role as a nasty, bitter and divisive force in American politics.
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