Posted on 05/12/2015 3:00:03 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
We Sons of Confederate Veterans are charged with preserving the good name of the Confederate soldier. The world, for the most part, has acknowledged what Gen. R. E. Lee described in his farewell address as the “valour and devotion” and “unsurpassed courage and fortitude” of the Confederate soldier. The Stephen D. Lee Institute program is dedicated to that part of our duty that charges us not only to honour the Confederate soldier but “to vindicate the cause for which he fought.” We are here to make the case not only for the Confederate soldier but for his cause. It is useless to proclaim the courage, skill, and sacrifice of the Confederate soldier while permitting him to be guilty of a bad cause.
Although their cause was lost it was a good cause and still has a lot to teach the world today.
In this age of Political Correctness there has never been a greater need and greater opportunity to refresh our understanding of what happened in America in the years 1861–1865 and start defending our Southern forebears as strongly as they ought to be defended. There is plenty of true history available to us. It is our job to make it known.
All the institutions of American society, including nearly all Southern institutions and leaders, are now doing their best to separate the Confederacy off from the rest of American history and push it into one dark little corner labeled “ Slavery and Treason.” Being taught at every level of the educational system is the official party line that everything good that we or anyone believe about our Confederate ancestors is a myth, and by myth they mean a pack of lies that Southerners thought up to excuse their evil deeds and defeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
If you are admitting that the Confederacy was the belligerent then why do you refer to it as "Lincoln's optional war"? Is your complaint that Lincoln didn't immediately surrender when the Confederacy started it?
Change "Lincoln" to "Roosevelt" and would you say the same about World War II?
Fair enough. So how about this instead? Might does not always make right. But sometimes, like with the Civil War, it just works out that way. Better?
Yes, and I suppose he could have fired off an angry letter to the Times as well (or is that too derisive?). The point remains that Lincoln repeatedly urged restraint, reflection, and reconciliation but the fire eaters were having none of it.
As another poster pointed out you appear to be interested in nothing less than total submission by Lincoln. Do you impose the same threshold by other presidents? Is it your preference to see the United States carved up, chewed upon, and turned under?
“If you are admitting that the Confederacy was the belligerent . . .”
The South was a belligerent. The North was a belligerent. Both were belligerents. The recognition of a nation as a belligerent in a war does not imply their cause is right or wrong.
“Might does not always make right.”
Right makes right.
The victors of the War Between the States have had everything their way since 1865 and keep saying over and over and over that they were right. That’s called victor’s justice. And it is unsurprising.
I expect presidents of the United States to submit to the Constitution. But presidents increasingly don't submit to the Constitution. The trend is to infringe on the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, and the Fourth, and the Tenth . . . and to abuse the general welfare clause, and the commerce clause . . . We will likely soon learn that the 14th amendment was intended to protect same-sex “marriage.”
The checks and balances built into the original constitution are trending toward ineffective.
Today no one - not Congress, or the Supreme Court, or a sovereign state - can stop a president from making a law as long as he has pen and a cell-phone.
‘Change “Lincoln” to “Roosevelt” and would you say the same about World War II?’
World War II is generally recognized to have started September 1, 1939. I’d say Roosevelt got into WWII two years after it started. He didn’t exactly rush into it.
No, but after Pearl Harbor would you have suggested that Roosevelt could have imposed economic sanctions without immediate war. Roosevelt could have worked with the international community to mediate a peaceful resolution to the disputes without immediate war. Roosevelt could have ordered the naval blockade of the Japan without an immediate land war. Roosevelt could have negotiated with the Japanese without an immediate war. There were several steps Roosevelt could have taken to avoid an immediate war. I mean, if he wanted to avoid an immediate war and all.
“No, but after Pearl Harbor would you have suggested that Roosevelt could have imposed economic sanctions without immediate war.”
The time to take intermediate measures is before the shooting starts. It is my understanding Roosevelt did just that - he imposed economic sanctions against Japan well before Pearl Harbor. And he conducted peace negotiations before jumping into war. Roosevelt’s government was, in fact, negotiating with the Japanese right up until the attack at PH.
Lincoln was unwilling to give economic sanctions time to work. And he was unwilling to meet with the Confederates and negotiate in good faith.
Roosevelt was a Big Government Democrat and you might suspect I do not agree with much of what he did. But I do admire his 1936 remarks when he honored General Lee in Dallas. Said Roosevelt: “I am very happy to take part in this unveiling of the statue of General Robert E. Lee.
All over the United States we recognize him as a great leader of men, as a great general. But, also, all over the United States I believe that we recognize him as something much more important than that. We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.”
But for both Lincoln and Roosevelt the shooting had started. And you are claiming that after having been attacked then Lincoln should have tried blockades, economic sanctions, international pressure, etc., etc. Well should Roosevelt have buckled down after Pearl Harbor and taken your advice instead of declaring war?
Lincoln was unwilling to give economic sanctions time to work. And he was unwilling to meet with the Confederates and negotiate in good faith.
Negotiate what exactly? Was his positions, an end to secession, even open for discussion? Based on the letter Davis sent to him, no it was not. So what was there to talk about except a surrender to everything the Confederates wanted?
Well, they were.
That’s called victor’s justice. And it is unsurprising.
And ever since the Civil War the losing side has engaged in revisionism to try and give their cause a veil of legitimacy and claims for the moral high ground. That isn't surprising either.
“Well, they were (right).”
Baltimore. Detroit. Chicago. And yes, Atlanta. You must be so proud.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3293344/posts
There, fixed it for you. To answer your question, again: No, before the shooting started - like Roosevelt did.
“Negotiate what exactly?”
Avoiding 600,000 deaths.
This case (1869) was after Lincoln’s optional war.
You do know that is how the Supreme Court works. First there has to be a violation, that is then adjudicated, and that decision is then appealed to the SCOTUS. Until unilateral secession was attempted, the SCOTUS had nothing to rule on. It was only after it was tried that the Court could even take up the issue.
Now, if the hotheads in the South had tried to secede and immediately taken it to the Courts to decide, instead of attacking Federal property, perhaps the war might have been avoided. Who knows, with Taney on the Court (may his soul burn in Hell), they may have succeeded.
But, they didn't. Instead of trying to go through the civil procedure, they chose revolt. It was they who chose the option of war. They lost.
My reference to 1869 was a shorthand way of providing the Radical Republican context to “Texas v. White.” After Lincoln's optional war which cost 600,000 dead, Lincoln's imprisonment of northern civilians without trial, suppression of the free press, and experimentation of total warfare against civilians, there was simply no way the U.S. Supreme Court could rule in T v. W that Lincoln's war was wrong and that the South did, indeed, have the right to secede.
Had the Supreme Court ruled secession legal, court members would have been impeached. The Radical Republicans just a year earlier impeached President Johnson for far less. One of the stated reasons Johnson was impeached was because he gave three speeches with the “intent to show disrespect for the Congress.”
Yes, Supreme Court members would have been impeached and convicted. They knew it . . . they read the newspapers you might say. Everyone knew the Radical Republicans were . . . well, radical. Those were kangaroo court and kangaroo congress times.
What is your dislike for Taney?
>>and nobody in Europe was willing to look upon the Confederacy as an independent country<<
Ya don’t say...
Some historians have argued that France’s real goal was to help break up the American Union, at the time in the midst of a civil war, by helping the southern Confederacy: “The Mexicans had won a great victory that kept Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build a powerful army. This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the battle of Puebla, essentially ending the Civil War.” The consequence of Cinco de Mayo to the United States has been thus recognized: “The defeat of the French army had consequences for America as well...the French defeat denied Napoleon III the opportunity to resupply the Confederate rebels for another year.”
Doesn’t cut it with me. Treasonous Rebs who were fighting to preserve the institution of slavery and who were directly responsible for the deaths of some 750.000 people. You aren’t proud to be Americans, that’s obvious.
Was it Taney who said “Slavery is the naturally intended condition for the black African’’?
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