Posted on 07/30/2013 7:15:08 AM PDT by NotYourAverageDhimmi
Conservatives are grabbing popcorn and lining up to catch a new historical drama with modern connections.
“Copperhead,” the new film from director Ron Maxwell, focuses on the Northern opponents of the American Civil War and stars Billy Campbell, Angus MacFadyen and Peter Fonda.
At least one conservative — Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com — emailed his audience to tell it about the movie “that every conservative needs to see.”
“[W]hile Copperhead is about the Civil War, believe me, it will hit close to home for every conservative fighting to preserve our Constitution and our American way of life,” Viguerie wrote. “Because Copperhead is about standing up for faith, for America, and for what’s right, just like you and I are doing today. In fact, I’ve never seen a movie with more references to the Constitution, or a movie that better sums up our current fight to stand up for American values and get our nation back on track.”
The movie, which is based on the novel by Harold Frederic, follows Abner Beech, a New York farmer who doesn’t consider himself a Yankee, and is against slavery and war in general.
Asked about whether he sees his film as conservative, Maxwell told POLITICO, “I think if ‘Copperhead’ has any relevance at all, in addition to illuminating a time and place from our common heritage, it’s as a cinematic meditation on the price of dissent. I’ve never thought of dissent as a political act belonging to the right or left. It’s an act of liberty, expression of the rights of a free person — free not just in law but free from the confines and pressures of the tyranny of the majority.”
Maxwell said while the concept of dissent is as “old as time,” in the U.S., “it’s protected in the Constitution.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The US had 16,000 troops in 1860, the vast majority of them in the west. Jefferson Davis called for 100,000 troops and a large chunk of the US army and in particular 25% of its officer corps renounced their oaths and switched their allegiance to the rebellion.
Transplanting a comment and then claiming contextual continuity is the height of intellectual dishonesty.
I'm getting the notion that dismissing histrionic types is a pretty good idea.
I'm not going to get anything approaching honesty from you anyway so you're free to leave anytime.
Which one were we asserting when we declared that people had a right to dissolve the political bonds?
Britain didn't end the war because King George reasonably saw that the colonies were morally right. He ended it because his armies had been defeated, the French were now involved on the American side, and he lost control of parliament and with it the political means to continue fighting.
Well, had he been Lincoln, he could have simply arrested the disagreeable members of Parliament, Suspended Habeas Corpus, and thrown in Jail anyone who didn't agree with his decision to continue the war.
Beyond that, you overlook the point that members of Parliament saw that the colonies were morally right, and thus withdrew their support for the war. Look up Edmund Burke.
I'm not saying that the United States should have done anything differently. But you might want to remember Benjamin Franklin said about what would have happened to them if your "reasonable" King George had won. "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." He knew what was at stake.
No one is disputing that what the Colonies did was illegal under English law. The point in question was how they could claim it was illegal under the natural law they asserted in their break with England.
The USA was supposed to respect it's OWN principles of Natural law, not those of England. According to the US Principles of Natural law, every people had a right to separate themselves from a government they no longer wanted.
The Freedom of Association implies a corollary; A Freedom to disassociate. We now have a policy of compulsory association, and it will continue to manifest itself in our current government. Think the "gay marriage" issue won't affect you? They will MAKE you accept it. Abortion in Catholic Hospitals? FORCED to accept it. Illegal immigration? Obamacare? Death Panels? Inflated Dollars? etc. I doubt not that at some point Christianity will be banned.
You won't be allowed to escape it. The financial ruin that comes with reckless states being chained to you? Why you get to share in that too!
Rejecting the principle of escape from an oppressive government will come back to haunt you, I think. Yes, many of the people who did it before were bad people, but the Precedent set in compulsory union will hereafter be used to hurt any good people who try to escape.
Apparently if you are big enough to whip the army sent to force you back, then yeah. At least according to what I can make out of your reasoning.
But a house is not a community, and a community is not a State. As the body of people wanting independence increases, at some point it becomes their right.
But let me ask you this. If a wife wants to leave her husband, is it his right to force her back?
That question is likely to become more than academic pretty soon. To be honest, I do not know enough about the history of Gibraltar to make an informed opinion on the subject.
From what I do know of it, I would say that Spain has a better claim on it than does Britain.
Something like that
Not necessarily. 15 years ago, I would have been right along side them arguing the same points. I grew up thinking that Lincoln was a hero, and that the Civil War was over Slavery and all the usual things that most people believe because they have heard it all their lives.
My first inkling that things may not be as we have been led to believe was when one of my best and oldest friends (who is black and was then Majoring in History) told me that Lincoln engineered the civil war. At the time I didn't give a thought to the civil war, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
Suffice it to say, I was shocked after what he had told me. He made a compelling case that Lincoln used his talent for manipulating and predicting people to get the Confederates to do exactly what he wanted them to do. He laid a trap, and they stupidly blundered into it.
My friend was thrilled at what he perceived as Lincoln's cleverness, and I was horrified to think that such a bloody war could have been the consequence of someone's manipulation of other people's emotions.
I'll go into what he told me in a later message, it's a bit long to include in this one. Needless to say, I had a different way of looking at Lincoln after what he dropped on me.
Only because they wanted a war -- and wanted one more than Lincoln did.
Lincoln had to take some kind of stand -- if only on paper -- to avoid the reproach that he'd stood idly by while the country tore itself apart.
War didn't have to be the result. It turned out that way because Davis was even more willing to risk war than Lincoln did.
It sounds like you're letting one college experience carry more weight in your thinking than it deserves to.
Sure it does. If the British had kept Manhattan, do you think we would have stood for it?
The matter of the building of Ft. Sumter is public record.
And who built Fort Carleton/Fort Haldimand in New York? Should we have let the British keep it then?
The British continued to occupy forts in the west, and the battle at Fallen Timbers was just in front of one. When the Indians were defeated, they sought refuge inside the fort, and were denied.
They subsequently withdrew from that fort, no need for military action by the US against it.
We had and have a long border with Canada, and haven’t felt the need to invade the fort at St. Johns on the Champlain since 1814 or so.
No, there was no need. Anderson wasn’t interdicting traffic in the harbor. Proximity does not mean evil intent.
Evil action does mean evil intent, such as when the pretended confederacy fired on the US unarmed supply ship, or on the US fort.
The US had next to no troops, and even permitted US Army officers (and WP cadets) to resign and head south.
I would have been tempted to scoop them up, and park them in a stockade, but the US didn’t do that.
Moral. They knew what they were doing was illegal under English law. Hence Franklin's comment about hanging.
The point in question was how they could claim it was illegal under the natural law they asserted in their break with England.
"Natural Law" is a very slippery thing to define and tends to mean whatever the writer wants it to mean.
The Freedom of Association implies a corollary; A Freedom to disassociate.
Indeed. And there are constitutional means for that, i.e., a vote of congress similar to the one that admitted the state, or by constitutional amendment. Failing those, all people have the right of rebellion. But invoking a right of rebellion doesn't mean those opposing your rebellion are obliged to bend over.
Ah yes, Mind control Lincoln.
He forced Davis to resign from the Senate.
He forced Beauregard to fire on Ft. Sumter.
He forced Lee to resign from the Army.
That Lincoln....
No, he didn't. But he didn't start a war to end it, either.
Lincoln didn’t unconstitutionally interfere with state internal policies absent an insurrection.
Arresting the Legislature of Maryland was not interfering with internal state policies absent an insurrection? Was Maryland having an insurrection then? First i've heard of it.
The insurrection was unconstitutional, and was begun to further and extend the evil that was slavery.
So if the insurrection had been for something that wasn't evil, then it would have been okay? You know, like the Riots in New York and Boston to protest impressment?
Isn't forcing men to fight in a conflict against their will a sort of slavery? Is it okay when Lincoln does it?
I'm getting mixed messages on this "evil of slavery" argument.
I’m not able to follow your train of thought on this one.
And when did the insurrection start? Long before Lincoln did anything to the legislature of Maryland.
Maryland had not joined it, but the insurrection was started, and the president used some of his broad powers in the face of the insurrection to fight it, even in states which were not in insurrection.
Just as the US Army was able to fight the forces of the insurrection in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
You have a quote or something? If they were going to war for Slavery, I would have thought their first attack would be at the Capitol in DC. Was Fort Sumter the seat of all the Anti-Slavery activity or something?
Which word do you not understand?
The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among 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... 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 idea of a Government built upon it—when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell.”
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.
Alexander Stephens. pretended VP of the pretended confederacy
So there's some critical mass of people that allows an area to declare itself a separate country along with all of its inhabitants, whether they wanted to or not? What is that number? Surely you can't believe that. That would mean that it's only pure popularity that allows such actions, and not any principle of human or natural law.
If a wife wants to leave her husband, is it his right to force her back?
There are certain things we call "divorce laws" and "divorce courts" that regulate how marriages are ended, how property is divided, and who owes who what. So let's ask the question a different way: If a wife suddenly announces that half of the house (say, the whole first floor) is physically hers, that all your things in that part of the house are hers, and that she's hiring paid guns to protect it, do you have any recourse?
To be fair, they did attempt to assissinate Lincoln in Maryland. Further, they attempted to stuff DC with slave power militia units to prevent Lincoln from being inaugurated.
Fortunately Pinkerson sniffed out the assassination attempt, and loyal US Army officers went around to the militia companies demanding that their officers execute a loyalty oath in front of their men. Those that refused were disbanded, the weapons collected, and the weapons issued to loyal companies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.