Commentary: Truth blown away in sugarcoated 'Gone With the Wind'

sacbee ^ | 11-13-04

[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."

[4CJ]

Foreign owned/registered slave ships sailed with yankees as "Captain of the Flag". After a cargo of slaves was loaded and upon sighting of a foreign vessel, the vessel was "sold" to the COTF, who then ran up the American - not Confederate - flag to prevent boarding/capture of the ship and her illegal cargo.

[nolu chan]

[capitan] In their wisdom, the victorious Northerners chose to pass the 14th Amendment which provided for a legislative penalty for traitorous southern conduct - fundamentally a disqualification to hold any position of trust. It was too easy on them, in my opinion, but that is the route that was taken, politically.

Passage of the Fourteenth Amendment

The fourteenth amendment to the constitution has arguably the most sweeping and important. It is the due process of law amendment that has caused so many to our legal system. But, few know the story of the fourteenth and how the egg of "due process" was hatched.

At the Civil War's end Lincoln granted amnesty to nearly all and "with malice towards none", all the southern states were soon functioning again in a legal and proper manner. Because the war was over his emancipation proclamation was effectively ended and so the need of the thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery. There were 36 states in the union and the necessary 3/4 to pass the constitutional amendment was accomplished easily when 10 of the southern states voted for ratification.

Then came the 39th congress in December of 1865. Article 1 of the constitution states that a majority of the either house can deny the seat to any member of its respective house of congress. The Senators and Representatives of the 25 northern states voted to deny seats to the newly elected congressmen from 11 southern states. This meant that the seated congress had 182 of a possible 240 representatives, and only 50 of the rightful 72 senators. There were 36 recognized states in the union. (Keep in mind that in the 38th congress the southern representatives were allowed to vote and have their state votes count in passage of the 13th amendment).

In the beginning of the 39th congress came resolution #48 which sponsored the fourteenth amendment. The amendment was especially important to northern liberals as it's privileges and immunities clause would sweep power from states and hand it to the federal government. The sponsors of the amendment needed a two-thirds majority of each house to submit the amendment to the states for ratification, and remember, the house is short 58 representatives from the southern states and senate 22 senators as well! The constitution states amendments need the vote of "two-thirds of both houses". Does this mean of the seated members or the available seats? Well, it depends on who is counting the votes. At the time there were 33 senators in favor of the resolution #48 which was, 23 short of 2/3rds of the full compliment and 1 short of being 2/3rds of the 50 seated members. Either way you count it, passage is doomed.

NO PROBLEM. Senator John Stockton of New Jersey was elected by a plurality and not a majority vote and was seated to the senate, he was against the fourteenth . A plurality was all that was needed by New Jersey law, and other states as well, however, Stockton's seat was taken from him (after being seated) by the senate majority because he had not received a majority vote and the 33 affirmative voting senators comprised a two-thirds majority of the remaining 49 seated senators. In the house there were 120 of the 182-seated members in favor of the amendment, 2 short of the necessary two-thirds.

NO PROBLEM. Because 30 members abstained, their numbers were not recognized at all, meaning only 152 votes were recognized and 120 is well over two-thirds of the number that voted yes or no. I remind you that the full house compliment was 240 members and that 120 is 1/2 of 240 not 2/3.

Hang on, we are only half way there but it gets better.

Now the amendment must be passed by three-fourths of the states and Nebraska has been admitted meaning 28 states must ratify the 14th amendment. By March, 1867 10 states said no and 17 said yes. California then took no action on the amendment, which was the same as a no vote, meaning there could be at most 26 yes votes when all the states were counted. Then, Oregon which had voted yes with the help of two legislative members later held not to be duly elected changed its vote to no when those two state representatives were replaced by two legitimate representatives, sure doom?

NO PROBLEM. The US Congress recognized the first Oregon vote and discarded the second even though two members of the Oregon state government were not legally able to vote and replaced by the state of Oregon, remember Senator Stockton of New Jersey? The US Congress unseated him (a no vote) because it questioned his validity as a Senator, but recognized the yes votes of State representative held to be illegitimate.

Now the 39th congress passes the Reconstruction Act that placed military occupation on 10 of the 11 southern states and denied the congressional seats to those states until they passed the 14th amendment. Many northern states began to have second thoughts about the manner and validity of these federal moves, after all, what can be done to one state can later be done to yours. California now took a stand and voted no on the 14th. Maryland, Ohio and New Jersey who first voted yes, changed to no. 16 of the 37 states now said no and 3/4ths or 28 were needed to win approval and there was at most only a possible 21 yes votes when all the remaining states voted.

NO PROBLEM. 6 of the southern states that originally voted against the amendment had their legislative bodies forcibly removed by the military occupation resulting from the Reconstruction Act and changed into yes votes. Recall that the 13th amendment was passed by the 38th congress with the original and proper representatives from the southern states. Those congressmen were recognized when voting yes to 13 but thrown out when voting no on 14. Now, what to do about those states that voted yes and then changed to no?

NO PROBLEM. The congressional leaders simply recognized the original yes votes and ignored the no votes, claiming the yeses were already resolved. In other words, the states that voted no and then forced to vote yes had their new votes recognized, those who voted yes then no did not. When all states had voted, congress and Secretary of State William H Seward recognized 28 affirmative votes for ratification.

This is how the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified and made a part of our constitution on July 9, 1868. The Fourteenth is known as our "due process" and "equal protection of the law" amendment.

[nolu chan]

[cr] The Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 retrospecively ratified the President's actions. It did not say that they were illegal.

Pure Brigade horse blather.

The INDEMNITY ACT OF 1863 provided INDEMNITY from criminal prosecution. One does not obtain INDEMNITY from criminal prosecution for a lawful act.

The Act did not retrospective ratify acts by the Constitutional rapist known as the Great Usurper Abraham Lincoln.

[nolu chan]

[cr to 4CJ #1804 on late, great deleted thread (Confederate Constitution to be unveiled for holiday") "I worked for him in the 1976 primary campaign and in the 1980 campaign while I was in college. By 1984, I was prohibited from participating in partisan political campaigns, by the Hatch Act."

[cr #412] I worked in the Reagan Administration. I worked in Reagan's campaigns in 1976, 1980, and 1984.

[nolu chan]

capitan_refugio #237 8/29/2004 to GOPcap argued that "Bollman was not about habeas corpus...." Habeas Corpus, by Eric M. Freedman, NYU Press, 2001, devotes three entire chapters to Bollman.

capitan_refugio #384 8/31/2004 to nc purported three quotes to be about the SCOTUS case of Scott v. Sandford which were actually about the Missouri case of Scott v. Emerson.

capitan_refugio #386 8/31/2004 to nc vividly retold the story of how SCOTUS and CJ Taney decided the case of Lemmon v. The People. The case never went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

capitan_refugio #649 9/03/2004 to nc purported to quote from the Opinion of the Supreme Court in The Amy Warwick. The quote was of the argument of Mr. Carlisle, an attorney in the case of The Brilliante.

capitan_refugio #1370 9/18/2004 to nc attributed a quote to "Hamdi footnote." It was neither Hamdi nor a footnote. It was from a petition by an attorney.

[nolu chan]

In using the name "Indemnity Act" to designate the law of March 3, 1863, contemporary usage has been followed. Senator Trumbull and others referred to the measure while under debate as the "Indemnity Bill," and the same designation appeared in the heading of the record, as well as in many other places. Cong. Globe, 37 Cong., 3 sess., pp. 1459, 1479.)

Source: James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, Revised Edition, 1951, Chapter 11, "The Indemnity Act of 1863," p. 189, footnote 8.

If you look at HR 591, as recorded on Dec 9, 1862, the working title was "An Act to indemnify the President and other Persons for suspending the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus and acts done in pursuance thereof." It also came with a preamble which explained the reasons for the proposed Act:

The Indemnity Bill was passed on March 3, 1863.

In the House:

March 2, 1863.

THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.

INDEMNITY BILL.

The SPEAKER. The hour of one o'clock hav­ing arrived the vote will now be taken, by previ­ous order of the House, on agreeing to the report of the committee of conference on the indemnity bill

Mr. ALLEN, of Ohio, called for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question, was taken; and it was decided in the affirmative-yeas 99, nays 44; as follows:

* * *

Source: Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 3rd Session, March 2, 1863. (Page 1479)

IMAGE p. 1479, CG, 2 Mar 1863

[nolu chan]

As Chief Justice Rehnquist observed on page 44 of All the Laws But One,

Following Lincoln's justification, in his July 4 speech to Congress, for disregarding Taney's Merryman decision, [Attorney General] Bates issued an opinion justifying the President's action. It was not a very good opinion. It essentially argued thateach of the three branches of the federal government established by the Constitution was coequal with and independent of the other two. The President was thus not subordinate to the judicial branch, and so the latter could not order him, or his subordinates, to free Merryman. This proposition had been refuted by Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Marbury v. Madison more than half a century earlier.

The Constitutional rapist known as the Great Usurper Abraham Lincoln was well aware that his actions were UNCONSTITUTIONAL, but his lust for power was such that he did not care and he proceeded to rape the Constitution he had sworn to uphold.

[nolu chan]

[cr repeating known false information] Taney was a southern partisan. He should have recused himself from sitting on the case of a friend and neighbor.

You have been unable to provide any proof that Taney so much as knew John Merryman.

Chief Justice Taney was resident in Washington, D.C. with no residence in Maryland. Merryman was resident in Maryland. Presumably they were neighbors in MD and DC together. Perhaps the alleged friendship arose from going to different schools together.

Chief Justice Taney sold his home in Maryland in 1855 and moved to Washington, D.C. More specifically, he was living at 23 Blogden's Row, on Indiana Avenue, near the Court House. See Carl Brent Swisher, Roger B. Taney, pp. 471 and 472.

http://www.geocities.com/doswind/myers/supreme_11.html

According further to Tyler, Taney was poor. In an interview with Tyler, published after Taney’s death in the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, Tyler was asked : “Was Judge Taney rich, Mr. Tyler?” “No, sir,” replied Tyler, “always poor. He lived in Blagden row -- the row of stuccoed houses opposite the City Hall. They are four-storied; an iron balcony runs above the first story; two windows adjoin the hall door."

[nolu chan]

[cr] Sorry, Lincoln's actions is suspending the privilege of the writ were both constitutional and necessary.

Thus, as did Great Usurper, capitan invokes the "Law" of necessity, also known as "Executive Nullification." Not even Lincoln apologist Daniel Farber could grovel to this depth. As Farber noted, "It is fruitless to argue for a general power of executive nullification. Lincoln himself did not even offer this defense, and history speaks strongly against it."

In other words, capitan is just B.S.-ing again.

[nolu chan]

[cr] The Constitution provides the reasons for suspending the writ. That situation existed when Lincoln necessarily acted.

Article 1, Section 1 states:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

In detailing legislative powers therein granted, Article 1, Section 9 states:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases or Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Was there a Rebellion in Maryland?

Was there an Invasion of Maryland? (not counting Spoons Butler's invading thugs)

What evidence is there that on May 28, 1861 the public safety of Baltimore required the suspension of habeas corpus?

What evidence is there that this legislative power was exercised by the Legislature?

[justshutupandtakeit]

We are speaking of macro-economics here not micro invalidating your objection.

And many sources of economic growth are known while the growth is proceeding not only after. When cotton growing became profitable after the gin it was obvious to many then not merely after. Besides if your contention were true it only underlines my point and makes the choice of any policy a blind shot.

It is no inanity to point to the lack of replicatibility in economic history as a weakness in trying to make economics a science like chemistry. Nor is it an inanity to point to the fact that a different set of people using the same goals and tools will arrive at a different result.
To take the highly refined assumptions of an econometric study as productive of indisputable truth is inanity.

Communism, as theorized by Marx, was not what was seen in the USSR since his theory was to be applied in an advance capitalist society not a backward one. Its fall was the result of political issues as much as economic just as the American Revolution came about because of political issues more than economic.

Tariff issues are NOT just economic but often primarily political. Economists arguing that they don't work economically ignore the political aspects. Also ignored is the fact that there was NO Free Market for the Americans to compete in. They faced closed markets in most commodities in a world divided into Empires. Nor do they consider the willingness and ability of the older nations to glut the American markets and destroy the competition. One writer in the 19th described the process in the following words: "...it is notorious that great sums of money were expended by the British to destroy our flocks of sheep, that they might thereby ruin our manufactories. They bought up and immediately slaughtered great numbers of sheep; they bought our best machinery and sent it off to England, and hired our best mechanics and most skillful workment to go to England, simply to get them out of this country, and so hinder and destroy our existing and prospective manufactures."

You used Taussig to support your argument that the tariffs were counterproductive wrt iron but why don't we see what he said about cotton manufacture? After 1808 a period of restriction began which impeded then entirely prevented the importation of cotton goods. "In 1809 the number of mills built shot up... During the War (of 1812) the same rapid growth continued,.... These figures cannot be supposed to be at all accurate; but they indicate clearly an enormously rapid development of the manufacture of cotton." After the war ended and foreign competition began again domestic manufactures collapsed and many mills were abandoned. Congress responded with a tariff including a minimum valuation proviso which once again returned the sector to profitability. Taussig did NOT conclude the tariff was counterproductive as you implied in your iron example but merely that it was of mixed result helping some protected industries but not others.

Another statement he makes also supports my argument: "Conjecture as to what might have been is dangerous, especially in economic history, but it seems without a jar, the eager competition of well-established English manufacturers, the lack of familiarity with the processes, and the long-continued habit, especially in New England, of almost exclusive attention to agriculture, commerce, and the carrying trade, might have rendered slow and difficult the change, however inevitable it might have been, to greater attention to manufactures. Under such circumstances there might have been room for the legitimate application of protection to the cotton manufacture as a young industry."

[justshutupandtakeit]

If you are referring to Taussig's conclusions you are not doing so with accuracy since cotton and woolen manufactures were greatly expanded by the restriction on imports imposed by Jefferson then protected by tariffs. Woolens were given only "very moderate encouragement" because of the lack of a minimum valuation.

Taussig's conclusion wrt to the tariff is that it was probably unnecessary for this nation's transition to manufacturing. But one of the two reasons for this result was that the period of restriction (Jefferson's Embargo and the War of 1812) "effectually prepared the way for such a transition." Exclusion of imports is the most severe way of protecting infant industries.

[justshutupandtakeit]

One cannot argue with you regarding insanity.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Apparently you don't read what you post since the letter clearly expresses tremendous concern that RI would be treated as another country. Or does he use such terminology as "critical situation which the people of this State are placed..." just for fun? What was so critical? Why would he want to reassure the others that they were not foreigners? Why would he have even written this letter justifying RI's actions? Or stating that it wanted to see the new system in operation and have amendments adopted?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Since the big cities were the only reasons the blue states were blue removing them would achieve your need for unanimity. Unfortunately their removal would collapse the economies of the rest of the nation thus neatly cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Haiti? Very amusing.

There is little culture created outside of those states and the economy depends upon them to send taxes to the red states.

[justshutupandtakeit]

More pretension is quite unconvincing.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Hamilton not only did what I ascribe to him but much more so much more that his enemies called him a "colossus" and a "host within himself."