Confederate States Of America (2005)

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

[ftD] So no slaves were freed, and no states passed laws banning slavery since the Constitution was ratified?

Lincoln's speech was praising Henry Clay. See my #2110 to fortheDeclaration to remind you that it specifically named and referred to Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay and Thomas Jefferson. The Henry Clay being praised by Abraham Lincoln did not free his slaves. Neither did Jefferson. They objected to slavery "in principle" but never freed their slaves. States which passed laws banning slavery did not free their slaves either. They declared the children of slaves would be free at a certain age or at some date certain. The slaves were not freed -- the owners were given economic impetus to sell their slaves South where they could obtain full value. The Northern slaves were not freed -- the North was ethnically cleansed of its undesired Black presence. When the WBTS broke out there were more free Blacks in the South than in the North. The North did not free slaves, they moved them South and then passed laws and/or amendments to their state constitutions to keep Blacks out.

Now, to return to Lincoln, Henry Clay, and Thomas Jefferson and my #2110.

[fortheDeclaration] Must be nice to continue to live a world of self-delusion

As in a world where folks such as Henry Clay are praised to the heavens for mouthing that they are against slavery "on principle." In practice, he and his ilk kept as many slaves as possible and never let them go. What was important, per Lincoln and his apologists, is that his mentor said he opposed slavery "on principle."

LINK

Source: Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, Savannah; Georgia, March 21, 1861

The Cornerstone Speech was delivered extemporaneously by Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, and no official printed version exists. The text below was taken from a newspaper article in the Savannah Republican, as reprinted in Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, before, during, and since the War, Philadelphia, 1886, pp. 717-729.

[Extract]

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

SOURCE: Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, 215-17.

The first address, a eulogy delivered in the Hall of Representatives in springfield, Illinois, on Tuesday, July 6, 1852, in honor of his mentor, Henry Clay, brought together the two dominant themes of his life, the grandeur of "the white man's" Declaration of Independence and the need to defent it and keep it White and pure by banishing all Blacks -- be deportation, colonization, emigration -- from what he considered a White Eden.
Lincoln inherited both ideas from Clay and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom said the words all men et cetera with great eloquence and kept their slaves and never stopped apologizing and asking others to repent before it was too late by sending their slaves -- not the capital derived from thesalves -- "back" to Africa. Lincoln was especially indebted to Clay who, he said, taught him all he knew about slavery. I think the word all is too strong, but that's the word Lincoln used, and he was in a position to know what he was talking about. Did he not tell a crowd of White people at Carlinville, "I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay. Doesn't this look like we are akin?" (CW 3:79)

--------

How could a slaveholder lead a movement in favor of the idea that all men are created equal?
Lincoln anticipated that question, saying that although Clay owned slaves he "ever was, on principle and in feeling, opposed to slavery" (CW 2:130). The key words here are on principle and in feeling. Everybody knew that Clay was one of the biggest slaveowners in Kentucky and the major architect of the series of compromises that had saved slavery in American, perhaps forever. Lincoln's fellow Illinoisan, H. Ford Douglass, said that Clay "did as much to perpetuate Negro slavery in this country as any other man who has ever lived" (Zilversmit 65). That elementary fact, known to everybody and most especially to Clay's slaves, who slaved and bled and died not in principle but in fact, was unimportant in the Lincoln ledger. What was important, Lincoln said, was that Clay was opposed to slavery "on principle."

[Non-Sequitur] No, blissful one, I was referring to the hoops that the south had to jump through to amend their constitution. It could only be done on the demand of at least three states and then needed the approval of 2/3rds of the other states. Since every southern state constitution of the time that I've seen had a clause in it somewhere that prevented the legislature from passing any legislation that might negatively impact slavery then it's interesting to speculate what might have happened to such a proposed amendment. Wouldn't voting for a convention to consider such an amendment be considered legislation that might negatively impact slavery and, as a result, be unconstitutional? It would have made an interesting supreme court case, had such an institution existed in the confederacy.

U.S. Constitution, Article 5
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

[Non-Seq] No, blissful one, I was referring to the hoops that the south had to jump through to amend their constitution. It could only be done on the demand of at least three states

The U.S. Constitution requires 2/3rds of BOTH houses to PROPOSE Amendments to the Constitution, significantly more than 3 states.

[Non-Seq] and then needed the approval of 2/3rds of the other states.

In the U.S. Constitution, the requirement is 3/4ths, which by my reckoning is more than 2/3rds.

[Non-Seq] Since every southern state constitution of the time that I've seen had a clause in it somewhere that prevented the legislature from passing any legislation that might negatively impact slavery then it's interesting to speculate what might have happened to such a proposed amendment.

It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if you had not smoked so much weed.

[Non-Seq] Wouldn't voting for a convention to consider such an amendment be considered legislation that might negatively impact slavery and, as a result, be unconstitutional?

No. A state constitution would not make a Federal act unconstitutional.

[Non-Seq] It would have made an interesting supreme court case, had such an institution existed in the confederacy.

It would be about as interesting as if the state of Kansas amended its constitution to have a clause in it somewhere that prevented the legislature from passing any legislation that might raise taxes. Would that make an increase in the Federal income tax unconstitutional? Perhaps you can try that as a test case, take it to the IRS and the Supreme Court and let us all know how it turns out.

[M. Espinola] "mumblin' word" .....It does not compute

Let's see if Lerone Bennett, Jr., of Ebony Magazine, can enlighten you.

SOURCE: Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, 1999, 6th printing 2002, pp. 184-8. (footnotes deleted)

The man Lincoln called his special friend, Ward Hill Lamon, had no particular sympathy for Blacks, but even he decried the laws of the state, saying that the Illinois Black Code was "of the most preposterous and cruel severity, -- a code that would have been a disgrace to a Slave state, and was simply an infamy in a free one. It borrowed the provisions of the most revolting laws known among men, for exiling, selling, beating, bedeviling, and torturing Negroes, whether bond or free."
The "revolting" Illinois Black Laws didn't seem to bother Lamon while he was living there. Nor did they bother Lincoln, who never said a word against the Black Laws, although they were enforced in Illinois every year he lived there and were not repealed until 1865.
Under provisions of this code, one of the severest in a Northern state, Illinois Blacks had no legal rights White people were bound to respect. It was a crime for them to settle in Illinois unless they could prove their freedom and post a $1,000 bond. John Jones, the most prominent Black in Illinois in Lincoln's day, pointed out that these provisions were in violation of the Illinois constitution, which declared "that all men are born free and independent and have an indefeasible right to enjoy liberty and pursue their own happiness." It was also, Jones noted, "a gross violation" of the United States Constitution which said "that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States."
None of this disturbed Lincoln, who lived, without audible distress, with a Black Code, commonly called Black Laws, which said that any Black found without a certificate of freedom was considered a runaway slave and could be apprehended by any White and auctioned off by the sheriff to pay the cost of his confinement.
If a Black had a certificate of freedom, he and his family were required to meet reporting and registration procedures reminiscent of a totalitarian state. The head of the family had to register all family members and provide detailed descriptions to the supervisor of the poor, who could expel the whole family at any moment.
Blacks who met these requirements were under constant surveillance and could be disciplined or arrested by any White. They could not vote, sue, or testify in court.
No Negro was safe.
No Negro was secure.
Any Negro without certified freedom papers on his person was legitimate prey of kidnappers who roamed the streets of Lincoln's Springfield and other Illinois cities and towns. By the 1850s, and especially after passage of the Compromise of 1850, which Lincoln supported, kidnapping Negroes, with the aid and support of the state and the White population, had become a profitable business.
The way it worked, N. Dwight Harris said, was that two or three White men would form a Black-hunting gang. "One would establish himself at St. Louis, or at one of the other border towns, and work up a reputation as a seller of slaves. The others would move about the Illinois counties on the lookout for Negroes -- slave or free. The freebooters never stopped to inquire whether a colored person was free or not. The question simply was, could he be carried off in safety."
If the kidnappers didn't get him, the state would.
With Lincoln's active and passive support, the state used violence to keep Blacks poor. Most trades and occupations were closed to them, and laws and customs made it difficult for them to acquire real estate.
With Lincoln's active and passive support, the state used violence to keep Blacks ignorant. Schools and colleges were for the most part closed to Blacks. A law on the apprenticeship of children said "that the master or mistress to whom such child shall be bound as aforesaid shall cause such child to be taught to read and write and the ground rules of arithmetic... except when such apprentice is a negro or mulatto."
To make matters worse, the state taxed Blacks to support public schools that were closed by law -- and by the vote of Abraham Lincoln -- to Black children. The law, which Lincoln supported, specified that the school fund should be distributed on the basis of “the number of white persons under 20 years of age.” This disturbed a number of very conservative Illinois White people. In 1853, a year before Lincoln's Peoria Declaration, the Alton Telegraph praised Ohio for establishing schools for Black children and criticized Illinois for taking money from Blacks to educate White children. No one in the legislature paid any attention to this criticism, and Lincoln, the state's most powerful Whig politician, said nothing.

During all the years of what some historians call Lincoln's rehearsal for greatness, indentured servants, “a polite phrase,” Elmer Gertz said, "for the northern brand of slaves," were hemmed in by laws and restrictions similar to the ones in Southern states. They could be whipped for being lazy, disorderly or disrespectful to the "master, or master's family."
As for the pursuit of happiness, which Lincoln occasionally paid tribute to, Blacks could not play percussion instruments, and any White could apprehend any slave or servant for "riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses and seditious speeches." It was a crime for any person to permit "any slave or slaves, servant or servants of color, to the number of three or more, to assemble in his, her or their house, out house, yard or shed for the purpose of dancing or revelling, either by night or by day…."
What did Abraham Lincoln say about these violations of government of the people, et cetera, et cetera?
He said he was in favor of the violations -- that's what he said. Not only did he back the Black Laws, but he voted to keep the suffrage lily-White and to tax Blacks to support White schools Black children couldn't, in general, attend.
In 1848 Illinois adopted a new constitution that denied Blacks the right to vote and to serve in the state militia. To make sure everyone got the message, the constitution authorized the state legislature to pass legislation barring slaves and free Negroes from settling in the state. Article XIV of the new constitution read:

The General Assembly shall at its first session under the amended constitution pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state, and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state, for the purpose of setting them free.

In February 1853, one year before Abraham Lincoln praised the "White man's" Declaration of Independence at Peoria, the legislature made it a high crime punishable by a fine for a Black to settle in the state. If a Black violator couldn't pay the fine, he or she could be sold by the sheriff to pay court costs, making some Whites fear that the new law would bring back slavery.
The architect of this Negro Exclusion Law, which was, Eugene H. Berwanger said, "undoubtedly the most severe anti-Negro measure passed by a free state," was John A. Logan, who introduced the measure "solely to improve his political stature." During debate on the issue, Logan attacked White critics of his bill, which was called "An Act To Prevent the Immigration of Free Negroes into the State." Logan said he could not understand "how it is that men can become so fanatical in their notions as to forget that they are white. Forget that sympathy over the white man and have his bosom heaving with it for those persons of color." Logan looked around the hall and said words that many of his compatriots would say in the 1990s: "It has almost become an offense to be a white man."
Neither this speech nor his Negro Exclusion Law hurt the reputation of "Black Jack" Logan, who was later named a major general by Abraham Lincoln and who is celebrated today all over Chicago as a Civil War icon.
Most Illinois Whites supported the provisions of Logan's Negro Exclusion Law, but twenty-two legislators, eleven Whigs and eleven Democrats, voted against it in the lower house. There was also strong opposition in fourteen Northern counties, particularly from Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and New England immigrants.
The severity of the Negro Exclusion Law shocked antislavery forces. Frederick Douglass was outraged by the "enormity" of an act that "coolly" proposed to "sell the bodies and souls of the blacks to increase the intelligence and refinement of the whites [and] to rob every black stranger who ventures among them to increase their literary fund." It seemed to Douglass that "the men who enacted that law had not only banished from their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame." Another editor who felt that way was Horace Greeley, who said in the New York Tribune that it was "punishment enough" for Blacks "to live among such cruel, inhospitable beings" as the White residents of Illinois, not to mention the additional burden of having to live under such a law. The New Orleans Bee said the law was "an act of special and savage ruthlessness." The Jonesboro Gazette in the land of Lincoln asked: "How long will the people of this hitherto Tree State' suffer this shameful enaction to disgrace their statute book?"
What did Lincoln say?
He didn't say a mumblin' word.
Despite his Jim Crow votes and Jim Crow style, Lincoln got up on platforms and said he believed that the Declaration of Independence gave Blacks the right to some of the rights enumerated in that document, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If he believed this -- and the evidence goes the other way -- it was news to Illinois Blacks, who were denied the right to pursue anything in Lincoln's Illinois, except poor-paying jobs that Whites shunned until economic crises lowered the color of their expectations.

[Minister of Propaganda] Well, no. They headed south to put down the war that the rebellious states started by firing on Sumter. Happy, happy nolu chan, you should know that.

You mean the war that Abraham Lincoln started? General MEIGS knew. I'm surprised you are still left out of the loop.

LINK

U. S. TRANSPORT ATLANTIC,
[New York,] April 6, 1861 -- 2k p. m.
Hon. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:
DEAR SIR: By great exertions, within less than six days from the time the subject was broached in the office of the President, a war steamer sails from this port; and the Atlantic, built under contract to be at the service of the United States in case of war, will follow this afternoon with 500 troops, of which one company is sappers and miners, one a mounted battery. The Illinois will follow on Monday with the stores which the Atlantic could not hold.
While the mere throwing of a few men into Fort Pickens may seem a small operation, the opening of a campaign is a great one.
Unless this movement is supported by ample supplies and followed up by the Navy it will be a failure. This is the beginning of the war which every statesman and soldier has foreseen since the passage of the South Carolina ordinance of secession. You will find the Army and the Navy clogged at the head with men, excellent patriotic men, men who were soldiers and sailors forty years ago, but who now merely keep active men out of the places in which they could serve the country.
If you call out volunteers you have no general to command. The general born, not made, is yet to be found who is to govern the great army which is to save the country, if saved it can be. Colonel Keyes has shown intelligence, zeal, activity, and I look for a high future for him.
England took six months to get a soldier to the Crimea. We were from May to September in getting General Taylor before Monterey. Let us be supported; we go to serve our country, and our country should not neglect us or leave us to be strangled in tape, however red.
Respectfully,
M. C. MEIGS.

[M. Espinola] "WBTS" If you mean the Civil War then we can speak.

I meant War Between the States. WBTS.

I'm going to miss you.

In the Land o' Lincoln, after the WBTS, Illinois law required Blacks to post a $1,000 bond to enter the state or own property in the state. Assembling for the purpose of dancing or reveling carried a $20 fine.
Prior to the WTBS, an 1853 Illinois law effectively barred Black people from residing in the state. Lincoln never spoke out against this law.
Ward Hill Lamon, friend of Lincoln, said the Illinois Black Code was "of the most preposterous and cruel severity, -- a code that would have been a disgrace to a Slave state, and was simply an infamy in a free one. It borrowed the provisions of the most revolting laws known among men, for exiling, selling, beating, bedeviling, and torturing Negroes, whether bond or free."
The Illinois Black Code said that any Black found without a certificate of freedom was considered a runaway slave and could be apprehended by any White and auctioned off by the sheriff to pay the cost of his confinement.
There is no record of any Lincoln dissent to any of these Black Codes in his home state.
Article XIV of the Illinois State Constitution adopted in 1848 stated:

The General Assembly shall at its first session under the amended constitution pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state, and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state, for the purpose of setting them free."

The architect of "An Act To Prevent the Immigration of Free Negroes into the State" was John A. "Black Jack" Logan. Black Jack Logan was later named a Major General by Abraham Lincoln.
Lerone Bennett, Jr. documented how various newspapers condemned the Illinois laws. Frederick Douglass expressed his outrage. "What did Lincoln say? He didn't say a mumblin' word."

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