The Rebellion Its Causes And Consequences

Excerpt from The Rebellion Its Causes and Consequences Mr. President and Gentlemen: In response to an invitation from a number of my fellow-citizens, I appear before you to-night to present as briefly as I can my views of the rebellion, its causes and consequences. And here let me say that the remarks which I propose to make will be in the main but a recitation of historical facts. Facts are stubborn things, and I prefer to use them in examining the question upon which I am to speak to-night, rather than resort to declamation. I do it as a duty, and to demonstrate to you beyond all dispute that the cause for which we are lighting is the cause of Justice, and Union, and Constitutional Liberty. If I could not do this I would ask no man to join the army, for I could not ask a man to enter the army to fight for injustice and oppression. I need hardly say to you that we are in the midst of a rebellion unlike any which in our history has preceded it, or indeed in the history of the world. There have been many rebellions and revolutions since the establishment of civilized governments, but this is the first attempted revolution having for its avowed object the extension and perpetuity of human slavery. All rebellions which have preceded this have been professedly to secure the rights and liberties of the people. - Therefore of all rebellions this is the most causeless and criminal which the history of the world records. The seeds of this rebellion were first sown so long ago as the year 1620, when a Dutch ship entered the mouth of James River in the then infant colony of Virginia, and committed the infamous crime of selling twenty black men as slaves. - The British Government fostered and protected the seed then sown, guarded and protected it by law and added yearly to it more than a hundred fold by fresh importations up to the date of the establishment of our independence. - The leading men of the revolution saw and, like true men, acknowledged the inhumanity, the injustice and the crime of slavery. Jefferson said, when speaking of this question, that he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just, and in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence he charged as one of the grievances of which we justly complaied at the hands of the mother country that of forcing slavery upon us. These are his priceless words: "He has waged a cruel war against human nature itself, violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men shall be bought and sold. He has prostituted his negative by suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain the execrable commerce, and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting these very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." That this truthful count in the indictment against Great Britain was stricken out of the Declaration I regret, as all liberty-loving men have regretted, but that it was stricken out, and at such a time and under the circumstances tells you better than I can tell you of the danger which imperils the life of a nation that fosters and protects a privileged class. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This volume comprises key essays by Ted Robert Gurr on the causes and consequences of organized political protest and rebellion, its outcomes and strategies for conflict management. From the Castro-inspired revolutionary movements of Latin America in the 1960s to Yugoslavia’s dissolution in ethnonational wars of the 1990s, and the popular revolts of the Arab Spring, millions of people have risked their lives by participating in protests and rebellions. Based on half a century of theorizing and social science research, this book brings together Gurr’s extensive knowledge and addresses the key questions surrounding this subject: - What grievances, hopes and hatreds motivated the protesters and rebels? - What did they gain that might have offset myriad deaths and devastation? - How effective are protest movements as alternatives to rebellions and terrorism? -What public and international responses lead away from violence and toward reforms? The essays in the volume are updated and are organized around the evolving themes of the author's research, including theoretical arguments, interpretations and references to the evidence developed in his empirical research and case studies. The concluding essays bring theory and evidence to bear on the past and future of political violence in Africa. This book will be of much interest to student of rebellion, political violence, conflict studies, security studies and IR.