I seldom speak to this forum, preferring to listen to the abundant
scholarship.  With some unease, may I suggest that the below is opinion, and
that the quote offered in support of the opinion should be applied to all
bending of the knee, as found in various political opinion.


on 6/9/10 11:16 AM, John Greenman at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> In light of President Obama's determination (as a "policy"?) to look
> forward rather than backward, when it comes to cleansing the soul of
> the nation of the filth of the rational for the Iraq war, Twain, once
> again strikes to the heart!
> 
> 
> from:
> Territorial Enterprise, April 7, 1868
> MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON.
> NUMBER XI.
> WASHINGTON, March 20, 1868
> 
> 
> ...The Republicans show a disposition to quit talking about the
> impeaching of a President on stern principle for a contemptuous
> violation of law and his oath of office; they show a disposition to
> drop the high moral ground that such a precedent must not be sent down
> to hamper posterity, and they already openly talk about the "impolicy"
> of impeaching. It would be curious to hear a Court talking of the
> "impolicy" of convicting a man for murder in the first degree. This
> everlasting compelling of honesty, morality, justice and the law to
> bend the knee to policy, is the rottenest thing in a republican form
> of government. It is cowardly, degraded and mischievous; and in its
> own good time it will bring destruction upon this broad-shouldered
> fabric of ours. I believe the Prince of Darkness could start a branch
> hell in the District of Columbia (if he has not already done it), and
> carry it on unimpeached by the Congress of the United States, even
> though the Constitution were bristling with articles forbidding hells
> in this country. And if there were moneyed offices in it, Congress
> would take stock in the concern, too,...

-- 
Linwood Cottage, Sheffield

Monarchs are usurpers and descendants of usurpers; for the reason that no
throne was ever set up in this world by the will, freely exercised, of the
only body possessing the legitimate right to set it up - the numerical mass
of the nation.
-- Mark Twain, Letter to Sylvester Baxter, 1889