GOP Founder on Unions

On this Presidents' Day, the Rude Pundit has a history lesson:

Just a quick one before taking a personal day: three quotes from the greatest great great president who's not Ronald Reagan (duh), since everyone's a-pondering what our forefathers and mothers might think of the Wisconsin uprising. These are from Abraham Lincoln, noted quorum-stopper and occasional Republican (whenever the GOP needs his corpse, they dig it up and make it dance, but otherwise, they just let him rot):

1. "I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world." - From a speech on March 5, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, regarding a shoemaker's strike (which, believe it or not, involved 20,000 shoemakers who were not, apparently, elves).

2. "Inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened, in all ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have without labor enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government." - From his notes about tariff policy, scribbled down on December 1, 1847.

3. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits." - From his 1861 State of the Union address, decrying "the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government."

Hey, patriots, on this Presidents' Day, suck on those stovepipe hats.