Posted on 03/03/2008 10:37:49 AM PST by Rebeleye
They will tell you the Civil War was not about slavery. Remind them that the president and vice president of the so-called "Confederate States of America" both said it was. They will tell you that great-great grandpa Zeke fought for the South, and he never owned any slaves. Remind them that it is political leaders - not grunts - who decide whether and why a war is waged. They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
I say the same thing to liberals who want to ban guns. I tell them that I would agree once they let me (an evangelical Christian) censor movies and Internet content. That usually shuts them up. They can’t handle balance when it comes to restricting freedom. As Rush says, they are basically not logical.
I'm not embarassed at all.
You do not co-own my house.
Nor did South Carolina co-own Sumter. It was the property of the federal government. Now you can try to make the case that all federal property was the joint property of all the states but that wouldn't be all that accurate. The states exercised no control over federal property. They couldn't seize it or tax it. They couldn't force the government to sell it. Only Congress could dispose of federal property or make rules governing it. The individual states could not, other than what influence their votes in Congress had.
I do not own some other properties in common with you, the interest in which I would be giving up.
The fact that the South chose to walk away from their interest, if any there may have been, in the territories is irrelevant. You cannot say, "I'm taking this and giving up interest in that as payment" without giving the other owners right to approve or disapprove of the deal. The South didn't do that. They took what they wanted without interest in what the impact was.
The idea that the Northern government should retain property in the Confederacy and occupy that property was absurd.
Why, when it was their property to begin with?
That occupation, in itself, was an act of war.
Absolute nonsense. What single hostile act did the garrison in Sumter perform that could be considered war-like? Other than refuse to turn over their property to the rebel government, I mean?
All that remained to be done was to negotiate a monetary settlement for properties exchanged and this is what the representatives of the Confederacy hoped to do in Washington.
No they did not. The rebel representatives were there to get diplomatic recognition, period.
The Northern government apparently refused to acknowledge these representatives.
What was there to acknowledge? That they were there to deliver an ultimatum?
The history may be inconvenient, but it is what it is.
History is what it is, and not always what you say it is.
Too many people read afew books and think they have the picture. Everday for the past 17-18 years I have been doing research on my family’s genealogy. With over 3,830 persons in my data file we are a cross section of the USA. From 1650 to today we are a real mix, white, black,indian.We have fought on both sides in the civil war, Some Northerners for the South and some Southerners for the North. A good place to get clear information is FOOTNOTE.com, where you can see actual documents of that period.
Main Entry: Joke
Pronunciation: \jōk\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yācati he asks
Date: 1670
1 a: something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1): the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2): an instance of jesting : kidding < can't take a joke > c: practical joke d: laughingstock
2: something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter < consider his skiing a joke — Harold Callender > —often used in negative constructions < it is no joke to be lost in the desert >
I would be the last person to criticize other's about their spelling. But A20 was in full mouth-foaming mode, to the point where he couldn't even type straight and was posting gibberish. I was trying to lighten the situation with a joke. (See definition above)
Doubtful. If that's what he meant then I believe he would have said it. He didn't.
"Honest Abe" wasn't interested in negotiations. Stop defending the bankrupt history they taught you in high school.
Instead I should take on the Alice in Wonderland version you seem to be promoting? I think not.
What was Lincoln supposed to negotiate? An end to secession? Sorry, not part of the confederate team agenda. A reconcilliation between the two sides? Sorry, not on the confederate team agenda. Lincoln was presented with one choice, surrender. He would be allowed to give in to the rebel demands and recognize the legality of their actions, which would by definition include their acts of stealing property and walking away from debt, and nothing else. As I said, that was not an offer to negotiate, it was an ultimatum. Lincoln, not surpisingly, declined the offer. And the confederacy chose war.
And yet it happened regularly. Here's one account
One young mulatto man, with whom I was well acquainted, was killed by his master in his yard with impunity. I boarded at the same time near the place where this glaring murder was committed, and knew the master well. He had a plantation, on which he enacted, almost daily, cruel barbarities, some of them, I was informed, more terrific, if possible, than death itself. Little notice was taken of this murder, and it all passed off without any action being taken against the murderer.--Rev. Horace Moulton<Here's another
In Goochland County, Virginia, an overseer tied a slave to a tree, flogged him again and again with great severity, then piled brush around him, set it on fire, and burned him to death. The overseer was tried and imprisoned. The whole transaction may be found on the records of the court.--William PoeI can find lots more. By contrast, you'll search long and hard to find an example of a white man convicted of killing a slave. I can only think of one case, and in that one the man, Martin Posey, ordered his slave to help him kill his wife, then killed the slave to silence him, so the conviction was a two-fer with the wife killing.
In fact, in South Carolina, up until 1821, killing a slave or free black couldn't be considered murder. Instead it was termed "the highest species of misdemeanor" and punishable only by a fine.
I think not.
First question you need to truly answer is. as I think you have not done, did states have a right to secede?
If they did, then they had a right to evict others from their property. And if the tenants refused to leave, they had a right to evict them by any means necessary according to the governing laws.
Rather an interesting summation of the right: Do States Have a Right of Secession?
I didn't search long and hard. As I pointed out, I did a Google search and went to the first link they provided.
As for the examples you give about people who did murder their slaves and were not punished, of course this happened. Powerful people often get away with murder. Consider Vincent Foster. (Or maybe I should have said, "Consider Bill Clinton"?)
Finally I never maintained, nor do I now, that murder of a slave was always a capital crime or treated the same as a murder of a white. It was always illegal though, so far as I am aware.
ML/NJ
No, the question you need to truly answer is: do states have a right to secede unilaterally. And the answer to that has to be "No".
If they did, then they had a right to evict others from their property.
Regardless of secession, what rule of law suddenly changed ownership of Sumter from the federal government to South Carolina? Until you can answer that then referring to Sumter as 'their property' is patently false.
Also referring to a 30 hour bombardment which attempted to kill every man in the fort as an 'eviction' is somewhat ludicrous.
Rather an interesting summation of the right: Do States Have a Right of Secession?
Williams also ignores the question of unilateral secession, which is not surprising. I've always felt that as a lawyer and constitutional scholar, Dr. Williams makes a pretty average economist.
Really? Because reading through that paper, the author's whole point is that this case was a remarkable instance and a harbinger of changing attitudes. Look up State v. Boon to see what the NC Supreme Court had to say on the subject of slave murder in 1801.
JOHNSTON, J. The murder of a slave, appears to me, a crime of the most atrocious and barbarous nature; much more so than killing a person who is free, and on an equal footing. It is an evidence of a most depraved and cruel disposition, to murder one, so much in your power, that he is incapable of making resistance, even in his own defence . . . and had there been nothing in our acts of Assembly, I should not hesitate on this occasion to have pronounced sentence of death on the prisoner.ML/NJ. . . From the context, and taking every part of the section [of the act of 1791] under consideration, there remains no doubt in my mind respecting the intention of the Legislature; but the judges in this country . . . have laid down, and invariably adhered to, very strict rules in the construction of penal statutes in favor of life . . .
. . . judgment in this case should be arrested.
From my reading, Johnson is saying that killing a slave is very bad, and if it had been up to him, Boon would have been convicted. But the way the law had been written by the Assembly meant that his lower court conviction had to be overturned ("the judgement arrested").
That judges might have been purchased in this case doesn't seem to have occurred to you.
So you're suggesting that slave murder was technically illegal, but that slaveowner money and power corrupted the legal system and insured that the crime wasn't punished. A distinction without difference, it seems to me.
ML/NJ
I did a little more digging and it does seem to indicate a judgement overturning a verdict, for whatever reason. I found a number of usages where it is specified that an arrested judgement, like a hung jury, does not count as jeopardy for double jeopardy cases. It seems to come up when there was an error of law in the charge to begin with. Here's a citation from an English court docket:
No42 - 1st January 12 George 3 - For unjustly Detaining Imbezzling Purloining, etc, one worsted Chain val 9s, and 9lb weight of Obb Yarn val 12s, of one Samuel Browne delivered to her to be spun into Yarn and returned - contra form statute. Traversed Easter 1772. Bill found Easter 1772. Tried Easter 1772 - Guilty - Judgement arrested on motion - the offence not being Indictable [as lain] as the statute directs it to be determined in a Summary way before two Justices.As for money and power corrupting the law you should hardly be surprised.
Twas ever thus.
(see also: Simpson, O.J.)
Giving your troops leave to treat women in an ungentlemanly fashion -- which is what Butler was saying -- does not equate to organizing brothels or authorizing rape. The women of the South were notorious for the verbal abuse heaped on Union troops. In the case of New Orleans it actually extended to the emptying of chamber pots from balconies onto the heads of passing Union troops.
On the lighter side, if the Confederacy had managed to capture/kill Ben Butler, they would have been doing the Union cause a favor. Calling him a mediocre general vastly overestimates his limited talents.
To anyone with a midicum of intelligence, that would have been the signal to shut the hell up. But not to an aptly named non-sequitur (irrelevant conclusion) like your.
Nows, for once, try being a decent human being and shut up to and about me. Or are you another troll dead set on this thread ending up in the backroom? You're sure working on it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend.”
No apologies needed, this type of tripe needs to be brought up everytime it comes out. I’m fed up with revisionist history and one-note know it alls.
Modicum.
Why don't you grow up, you damned pest?
Midicum is a minimum of modicum.
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