Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
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Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion.
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Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
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Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.
Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.
To his credit, Selznick did eliminate some of the most egregious racism in Mitchell's novel, including the frequent use of the N-word, and downplayed the role of the KKK, compared with "Birth of a Nation," by showing no hooded vigilantes.
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One can say that "GWTW" was a product of its times, when racial segregation was still the law of the South and a common practice in the North, and shouldn't be judged by today's political and moral standards. And it's true that most historical scholarship prior to the 1950s, like the movie, also portrayed slavery as a relatively benign institution and Reconstruction as unequivocally evil.
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Or as William L. Patterson of the Chicago Defender succinctly wrote: "('Gone With the Wind' is a) weapon of terror against black America."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacticket.com ...
A violation of the separation of powers and a disregard for the system of checks and balances is NEVER warranted.
"We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. kewise, we have made clear that, unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive’s discretion in the realm of detentions. Thus, while we do not question that our due process assessment must pay keen attention to the particular burdens faced by the Executive in the context of military action, it would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to the factual basis for his detention by his government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge." - United States Supreme Court, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004
Ofcourse, in the libertarian south, no one was being arrested, no presses were being stopped, no ones rights were being abused.
Quoth the ftD: "Squack! Tu quoque! Tu quoque! Davis did it too! Tu quoque!"
Do you feel the same about renegade bands of American troops who fire upon civilians and other American troops? It happened in St. Louis in 1861 when a renegade union commander armed a band of paramilitaries known as the Wide Awakes into the federal service and opened fire on civilians in the streets.
How about American troops that attack other American troops that they deem not to be radical enough for their tastes? That same band of renegades from St. Louis did just that in Missouri by instigating a war with the Missouri State Militia.
How about American troops that attack American elected officials? Our same band of Wide Awakes in Missouri subsequently marched on the state capitol and chased the legislature out of town to install their own replacements.
The Founding Fathers NEVER intended for American troops to be employed in widescale action against the American people. That is why they gave us a 2nd amendment and that is why they recognized that the people ought to be able to and should resist unjust exercises of power regardless of where they come from, be they a foreign invader or even American troops under a renegade commander and would-be despot.
"By the principles of the American revolution, arbitrary power may and ought to be resisted even by arms if necessary. The time may come when it shall be the duty of a State, in order to preserve itself from the oppression of the general government, to have recourse to the sword" - Luther Martin, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, 1788
Okay. Then let's try test #1 for the Lincoln idolater:
Name three mistakes of Abraham Lincoln and describe their nature.
Oh, he cared, of course. He cared about his precious casus belli, the thing that was going to get him what he wanted.
How about American troops that attack other American troops that they deem not to be radical enough for their tastes? That same band of renegades from St. Louis did just that in Missouri by instigating a war with the Missouri State Militia.
This business of creating a private army, a sort of Black Republican Sturmabteilung, has never been taken seriously or looked at closely as far as I can tell. Sandburg told the story, but only in terms honorific to the intrepid Captain Lyon, Hero of the Union.
The fact that Lyon did something fairly close to what Aaron Burr tried to do, and for which Swartout and Bollman were arrested by the federal authorities, one doesn't read about much.
Missouri was a State.
Abe had another idea -- dragging the South by the hair, beating her into submission by main force, and then keeping her in chains for his advantage and pleasure.
Only Congress can dispose of government property. Once again, they should have read the Constitution.
ftD - Again, notice the "Big Lie" technique. nolu coward knows full well "Ex parte Merryman was not a decision of the entire Supreme Court, but rather, one from Taney, issued all on his own. Still, he attempts to cloud the issue.
Taney was a friend and neighbor of John Merryman, and should have recused himself from the proceedings. Even then, once Taney learned that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended, he should have realized that he no longer had any jurisdiction.
Both Harry Jaffa, in A New Birth of Freedom, and Daniel Farber, in Lincoln's Constitution make the case for the correctness and constitutionality of Lincoln's emergency suspension.
Lincoln was a lawyer, well-versed in constitutional issues. He also believed in the Jeffersonian/Jacksonian idea that each branch of the government has an obligation to interpret the intent of the Constitution. Had Lincoln violated the Constitution with the suspension of the writ, Congress certainly could have impeached, or even condemned his actions. Instead, they approved.
Here, we see the propagandist nolu coward. Who is John Remington Graham? He is a radical lawyer who is known as a "righteous northerner" by the Southern League. Graham is known, recently, for his support of secession in Quebec and for losing an election for the Supreme Court in Minnesota, in which he had only established residency for about 1 month after returning from the Socialist Mecca of Canada. I will let the readers decide for themselves if the quoted passage is "scholarly" or not.
Nonsense. The south made a vague offer to discuss "subjects of interest", but only if the Lincoln Administration would recognize the legitimacy of the southern rebellion. But be that as it may, wouldn't the proper time to discuss payment have been before seizing the property? Once you've appropriated it from the legal owner then later offers to pay for it lack credibility.
Very true. One of the ex-Wide Awakes leaders later wrote about some of the stuff that went on in St. Louis. They had troopers secretly drilling inside of a warehouse and smuggled arms to them inside of falsely labelled crates. Their object was to wait until the White House transfered hands then arm these Wide Awakes out of the St. Louis arsenal and declare them mustered into the "federal army" once they had control of the government. The plot was downright Hitlerian, give that he did the exact same thing with the NSDAP's private storm squadrons once he gained power.
Quaint but the American flag did not protect slavers' ships from seizure after that trade was banned.
Source?
Even then, once Taney learned that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended, he should have realized that he no longer had any jurisdiction.
BZZZT! Wrong. The judiciary is not required to abide by an illegal act purporting to remove its jurisdiction. As Taney correctly noted, the governing law in the case was the Judicial Act of 1789, from which the court's habeas corpus jurisdiction derives and ONLY by the repeal, alteration, or suspension of which can that authority be removed (Ex Parte Bollman and Swartwout, 1807).
Both Harry Jaffa, in A New Birth of Freedom, and Daniel Farber, in Lincoln's Constitution make the case for the correctness and constitutionality of Lincoln's emergency suspension.
Jaffa has no legal credentials and by all accounts has his degree in english literature. Farber's work on the subject, as has been shown on this and other threads, may be characterized as sloppy, partisan, and severely marred by factual and logical errors.
There is no doubt that slave owners treated their slaves better than slave traders. The latter is high of my list of sh-t heels.
My generalization was correct as were your modicifications of its substance. South Carolina was an exception to that general rule in the late 1700s. And, of course, there were a few federalists in Virginia, Marshall and Henry Lee among them.
That didn't bother you when the subject was Texas vs. White and Salmon P. Chase was sitting up there writing opinions about the legality of matters in which he himself had been a principal actor, to-wit, the United States's conquest of the South.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, All the Laws But One, pg 35, quoting the New York Times of 29 May 1861.
"BZZZT! Wrong. The judiciary is not required to abide by an illegal act purporting to remove its jurisdiction."
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus had been constitutionally suspended for the purposes outlined in the Suspension Clause. Once Taney had been apprised of its suspension, his ability to issue the writ was terminated. (Farber, Lincoln's Constitution)
"Jaffa has no legal credentials and by all accounts has his degree in english literature."
You continually mis-state the case and have been unable to prove otherwise. You were given Prof. Jaffa's e-mail to verify your claims, and yet you apparently have not engaged the Professor on the subject. Prof. Jaffa is a recognized authority on the subject and has been for more that 40 years.
However, please state your credentials in the legal field, or the legal authorities you reference.
Just how many federal judges does it take for you to recognize contempt of court?
And why do you keep addressing nolu chan and "nolu coward"? I know why you're taking cheap shots at him -- he's beating you like a drum with his documentary material. (Is that why you insist that we should quote only "authoritative" [LOL!] Left-wing historians and Lincoln-idolizing biographers?) But I'm just morbidly curious about what you think you're accomplishing by using him like that.
You continue to attack the citation. I see you are unable to refute the substance of the argument.
BRRRRRAAPPPPPP!
That! for your "authorities" and your stuffed shirt, bullyboy-without-a-club.
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