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 ...
If you wish to be oblivious to history, there's nothing much I can do to help you.
It was the law at the time. Consider this from the 1856 Bouvier Law Dictionary (Link).
SLAVE. A man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another.
2. A slave has no political rights, and generally has no civil rights. He can enter into no contract unless specially authorized by law; what he acquires generally, belongs to his master. The children of female slaves follow the condition of their mothers, and are themselves slaves.
3. In Maryland, Missouri and Virginia slaves are declared by statute to be personal estate, or treated as such. Anth. Shep. To. 428, 494; Misso. Laws, 558. In Kentucky, the rule is different, and they are considered real estate. 1 Kty. Rev. Laws, 566 1 Dana's R. 94.
4. In general a slave is considered a thing and not a person; but sometimes he is considered as a person; as when he commits a crime; for example, two white persons and a slave can commit a riot.
The Dred Scott ruling of that same period reflected the law and reality of the time concerning whether slaves were property or not.
The treaty by which we obtained the Louisiana Territory states that people can move their property (which included slaves at that point in time) anywhere in the territory. I thought treaties were the law of the land. But I see that Lincoln wanted to reserve the territories for "free whites" and exclude Negroes. That, of course, flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling and the Louisiana Purchase treaty.
I am not defending States breaking the Constitution, you are.
?? I'm not defending the Northern states refusing to return slaves. Oh, perhaps you are referring to secession. Show me where in the Constitution the right of secession is denied.
Yea, and I agree with him [Webster].
There is hope for you yet.
See my reply to non. You're just not following the conversation.
The "good old days" of Whiskeypapa and Grand Old Partisan smacking each other on the back and claiming victory under the crushing weight of embarassing defeat.
More on this blatant distortion. At issue is not whether or not Justice Taney lived in Maryland, at issue is whether or not Merryman was his close, personal friend.
Justice Taney might have lived in Baltimore for a while, but in the 1850 Federal Census of Baltimore County, MD, there is no Taney listed. John Merryman did not live in Baltimore city, he lived about 2 miles from Cockeysville, MD, which is appromimately 11 miles from the current city limits of Baltimore City, and would have been some 15 miles from the 1860 limits. Taney and Merryman were not close, personal friends.
The bill was designated "S-1" beause it was the first proposed bill of its type for the session.
About this subject, Professor Phillip Shaw Paludan writes:
"But certain aspects of the conflict required congressional action and the legislators reclaimed authority that Lincoln had temporarily assumed. Congress ratified most of the President's acts taken between 15 April and 4 July.... The Senate began discussing a joint resolution [note: S-1] that recited Lincoln's actions - calling the militia, blockading Southern ports, calling for volunteers, increasing the army and the navy, suspending the writ - and declared them lawful.
"Almost all Republicans supported this resolution in principle, but they had different views on validation, especially on the matter of the habeas corpus writ and the blockade. Action on those issues were set aside for the moment. Unwilling to divide themselves over the means of responding to the rebellion when the response itself was what really mattered, Congress debated and passed laws that raised up to 500,000 three-year troops, gave Lincoln power to close ports by proclamation, authorized the increase of men and ships for the Navy, endorsed the issuance of hundreds of millions in federal bonds, levied a direct tax on the states and territories of $20 million, increased the tariff, and passed an income tax. Finally, on 5 August, the day before adjournment, they returned to the authorization issue. With only five Democrats voting 'no,' Congress declared that 'all acts, proclamations and orders of the President ... (after 4 March 1861) respecting the army and the navy of the United States, and calling out or relating to the militia or volunteers from the States, are hereby approved and in all respects legalized and made valid ... as if they had been issued and done under previous express authority and direction of the Congress of the United States.'
"With one omission Congress had endorsed Lincoln's emergency actions. It did so in the greatest crisis in this nation's history - a war on American soil, directly threatening the electoral process, the constitutional system, and the loss of almost half of the nation's territory with its resources and the major ports of entry of the entire Middle West. it is hardly surprising that Congress said 'yes;' that body had said yes with far less provocation.
"The one omission concerned the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Here was an act that clearly reflected the difference in the nation's experience with foreign and domestic war. Congress had agreed to Lincoln's warmaking - his marshaling of men and materials of war, his power to kill the nation;s enemies. Yet they refused to endorse his authority to jail those enemies. Accounting for the irony was the contrast between the clear dangers of Confederate soldiers shooting Union officials and the ambiguous and more covert dangers of civilian opponents attacking with words and less obvious weapons. Still, congress did nothing to stop Lincoln from carrying out his plan. Politics was important here: Americans were sensitive about their liberties; better to stay quiet on the subject and let Lincoln take the heat. Most important, however, their inaction showed that congressmen agreed with Lincoln. They were willing to let him do whatever it was that the Constitution allowed him to do."
From The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln by Phillip Shaw Paludan, p 81-82
With regard to the habeas corpus issue in 1861, Congress took the course of acquiescense until such time as the situation demanded action. Rejection of the terms of the proposed bill are not the same as condemnation of Lincoln's actions. Paludan makes this very clear.
They never had the chance. He deported once congressional leader (Vallandigham) for speaking critically of his war and got another expelled from the senate (Bright) for suggesting they peacefully separate.
So the Republican Congress would 'let it slide' an act of tyranny?
The Republican Congress headed by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, who were more rabid and more radical in their pursuit of blood and violent conquest than even Lincoln, certainly would.
You focus on what was deferred, rather than on what was endorsed, both by Congress and by the Supreme Court.
Again, from Paludan (pg 80-81):
"Gathering Congress on the symbolic Fourth of July, Lincoln explained that 'public necessity' and 'popular demand' had called forth his action. In the absence of Congress and with rebellion a reality, it hardly seemed likely that the Framers would have opposed action to save the republic. He further explained that he had done 'nothing beyond the constitutional competency' of Congress, and he therefore expected that the legislature would ratify his actions....
"Still, Lincoln was asking Congress to validate what he had done; he did not claim authority to act arbitrarily in cases where the Constitution spoke delphically. His request was for Congressional endorsement offered to share authority, to involve both branches of government in meeting the crisis. Lincoln wanted a constitutional process in dialogue, not in conflict.
"In instances where the Constitution clearly granted authority Lincoln grasped it boldly and to its limits. He was commander in chief of the armed forces and involved himself actively into matters of strategy. He helped establish rules for governing the army, determined the nature of restored governments in reconquered territory, and his actions against slavery had significant meaning for the soldiers as well as the slaves. Resting his power on the office and the obligation to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,' Lincoln claimed 'war power' authority to use his office to the limits and to do whatever might reasonably be implied from his oath to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States' and the Union it established. As Attorney General Bates pointed out in justifying the suspension of the writ, the President had the means to execute the ends that the Constitution set forth, and 'he is ... thrown upon his own discretion as to the manner in which he will use his means to meet the varying exigencies as they arise.'
The Supreme Court agreed with the general principle. In the Prize Cases (1863) the justices were asked to decide if Lincoln's actions, taken before Congress met and declared war, were constitutional. The specific events of these cases focused on the legality of the blockade, but the principle that the Court announced ... had a wider application.... Throughout the war, the Court supported Lincoln's war making.
Crime and punishment.
Would that be the same Chief Justice Rehnquist who signed onto a ruling this summer that said this?
"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. Likewise, 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. Absent suspension of the writ by Congress, a citizen detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to this process."
You are correct about Rehnquist having a view on the matter, only his real view is absolutely nothing like the one you assign to him.
I'm sure it does. A #3map that also gives #3directions to Jessica Lynch's house.
Yes. There's been a real deficit of it going back to at least when a certain #3Hitlerfan got the boot...at least for the first time, that is.
...yet one was intended as a wartime policy and the other was not. The one intended as a military policy is also said to have accomplished something that the other purported to do but in fact did not.
As I noted previously, the fact that the protectionist tariffs compare UNFAVORABLY to the 1808 Embargo Act - a policy that virtually everybody recognizes to have done more harm than good - is more than enough to relegate them to the ash heap of history.
You mean you aren't being clear and meant to say "some slave owners are not politicians" or "not all slave owners are politicians?"
The most recent obiter dictum on the subject aside, it also the same Chief Justice correctly pointed out in a May 2000 speech, "Lincoln, with his usual incisiveness, put his finger on the debate that inevitably surrounds issues of civil liberties in wartime. If the country itself is in mortal danger, must we enforce every provision safeguarding individual liberties even though to do so will endanger the very government which is created by the Constitution? The question of whether only Congress may suspend it has never been authoritatively answered to this day, but the Lincoln administration proceeded to arrest and detain persons suspected of disloyal activities, including the mayor of Baltimore and the chief of police."
Your considered legal opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.
"Though no single opinion of the Court commanded a majority, eight of the nine justices of the Court agreed that the Executive Branch does not have the power to indefinitely hold a U.S. citizen without basic due process protections through judicial review."
This does not say anything about importation of slaves which never entirely stopped and increased in the 1850s.
Of course it is common knowledge that slaves were sold from Virginia to Mississippi, and Alabama and was a common threat to recalcitrant slaves to shape up or be shipped out.
That is simply wrong. Prior to the 17th century famines struck at least one major European city every decade or so. All it took was two consecutive years of a bad crop cycle and the people starved. That they also typically accompanied any major war in some place or another makes it physically impossible that they could have exceeded such wars in number.
Those days existed only in your dreams. What I remember is WP posting material which left the DSs sputtering in impotence. Refuting the same lies being trotted out once again by the defenders of the indefensible was his forte.
You're being slothful again, fakeit. Jefferson specifically talks of their departure from the UNION, mentioning the word union by name. He gives absolutely no reason whatsoever to support your bizarre claim that he was talking about anything other than future states.
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