Compromises, Compromising Quotes
There is a corollary to this proverb, that frequently reflects itself in Arab culture. It is that one who is not strong must never concede. To concede out of strength is manly and noble. To concede out of weakness is cowardly and base. Middle Eastern International politics is totally irrational to Westerners when a badly defeated country of group will often not even meet with the victors to discuss peace or terms of surrender. It is the victors only who can make concessions without losing dignity and respect.
This quotation is noteworthy because it is typical with every politically extremist group. Negotiation and compromise are unacceptable and even dangerous to them. Almost a century after this quotation the Tea Party was making the same kind of statements.
He was too ill to read the speech himself and it was read by James Wilson for him.
About 200 years after Voltaire made this statement, Robert F Kennedy was quoted with a similar notion. See {624825}. However, both of these echo an old Russian proverb. See {615261}.
There are many democracies that have run into this problem at many times. Even the United States had situations like this. The Adams-Jefferson Presidential Contest caused President Adams to curtail civil rights so he could not be as viciously attacked. The polarization after the first Black was elected president in 2008 was another period of destructive contention and polarization.
This was before secession and “Confederacy” as Lincoln was using the term referred to the Confederacy or the original 13 states and the territories that joined the Union thereafter.
Jinnah had whipped up his followers to violence so that Muslims were attacking Sikh and Hindu neighborhoods, burning them and murdering many occupants in different parts of India to intimidate the Indian Governmental Ruling Congress Party, The British Colonial Indian officials and the politicians in London to create a Muslim state—Pakistan—with all the territory that they demanded. Many Muslims were in turn killed in retaliatory attacks. The American diplomats and most English politicians tried to persuade Jinnah to compromise on the division of land and resources. Jinnah saw no reason at the time for compromise. However the internecine violence became so brutal and extensive that even Jinnah was shocked. The British would not be intimidated nor would the Indian Congress party and Jinnah was forced to compromise. Even with that, there were over 2 million Indians killed by the time the partition was complete. Jinnah and most other leaders were not willing to die themselves, but they were able to convince enough of their coreligionists to die.
Richardson was one of a few Westerners who, at the time, had experience negotiating with the North Koreans, and one of the very few who ever got anything from the negotiations.
The issue being debated was slavery and Calhoun was one of the major defenders of it. His admonition against compromise represents one of two general major approaches to negotiations. The first is to compromise and finally reach a consensus and this is the means by which almost every piece of major legislation in American history has been created. The second is that stated in this quotation, and it was followed by most advocates of slavery. Since compromise was not possible, civil war eventually settled the issue.
