Question from a Reader: how do these words, from Lincoln's Speech of 1854 on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, apply to the relationship between an Israeli man and a Palestinian man? Does Barack Obama and do American liberals dare to think of the words when we contemplate the Israeli attempt at "teaching a lesson" to the men of Gaza?
[Lincoln begins by noting that the people of one state of the U.S. should not trouble
themselves about the laws of another state regulating oysters or cranberries, then moves on to the principle of self-government with respect to slavery.]"The doctrine of self-government is right–absolutely and eternally right–but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should say that whether it has such just application depends upon whether a negro is NOT or IS a man. If he is NOT a man, why in that case, he who IS a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if a negro IS a man, is it not to that extent, a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern HIMSELF? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs ANOTHER man, that is MORE than self-government–that is despotism."
