Francis Lieber Quotes

Lieber is best known because he was assigned by President Lincoln to study the then international laws of war and prepare a manual for the guidance of union troops in the Civil War. Lincoln then issued the document as a general order.

Even in the 21st century, French Ministry of Education boasted that on any given day, they know what Algebra problems students throughout the country will be doing for homework that evening. The national government can control any aspect of French society.

Actually the Iroquois had a very sophisticated system of regular laws and government some of which was incorporated into our Constitution. However, the Iroquois sided with the British in the American Revolution and at its conclusion, most were driven out of their New York lands and became refugees in British Canada. So by 1816, the Iroquois, the most sophisticated, powerful and affluent of all the American Indian tribes were no longer consequential in America.

Ironically, many Republican leaders give lip service to decentralized government but they fight hard for centralized national government making. Many want Congress to make laws governing abortion and other family planning techniques. Some want the state to decide, but almost no Republicans want to leave these personal decisions to the local government much less the family and women involved. In business regulation as well, republican fight tooth and nail to have Federal legislation prempt state and local government about tort liability for defective products, and they always prefer that the Federal SEC make all the rules and regulations about selling stocks and bonds and do not want state or local government to “interfere”. Likewise, they have emasculated the state governments when it comes to authority over the state militias where virtually all the controls and promotions are decided by Congress and the Department of Defense and not by Governors or local politicians. Ther are many other examples. In most of the solid Republican Southern States, the local school boards cannot even select the textbooks that schools will use and the Republicans centralize this with the State government and state legislatures which they control. Democrats also are generally opposed to decentralization except for large cities having control along with the Federal government but otherwise they too do not want decentralization. For national political parties, what is the point of winning national elections of the big decisions are made locally?

This appears to be the earliest use of the phrase Lincoln later made famous in the Gettysburg Address.

The infamous breakdown in the Presidential election of 2000 was in large part the result of no rules or training for the election officials. Handley was one of the few officials who publicly admitted that the eligibility of a ballot was dependent on very subjective decisions of many different people.