Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
....snip......
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.
.......snip........
Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
......snip.........
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.
......snip.........
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.
.....snip.........
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 ...
Papers that cannot spell his name, misreport numerous facts, and misstate the law numerous times, are not reliable as a source for the matter they are screwing up about.
Your citation of Milligan is incorrect. Merryman, as 1st Lt. in the Baltimore Co. Horse Guard, a military unit which aided the cause of the insurrection, and was involved in burning railroad bridges and cutting telegraph lines to hinder the Union war effort, was arguably covered under the laws of war at the time he was apprehended. Milligan was a civilian; Merryman was not.
[capitan_refugio] Post #?
Post # 2235 to Gianni; GOPcapitalist; 4ConservativeJustices; lentulusgracchus; capitan_refugio; fortheDeclaration
The civilian courts were open and functioning.
The Federal military could not lawfully try Merryman at a military tribunal.
The bullcrap charges were dropped.
Of course, this is a provable lie that has been repeatedly proven.
It was not even alleged that the Great Usurper had suspended habeas corpus. The Great Usurper had authorized General Scott to suspend habeas corpus at the discretion of the General.
General Cadwallader sent his aide to the Court to read to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that, "He [General Cadwallader] has further to inform you, that he is duly authorized by the president of the United States, in such cases, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, for the public safety."
CJ Taney's writ was as valid as a writ can possibly be and Cadwallader committed a crime in defying it. Even an invalid writ must be obeyed until it is overruled on appeal. This was simply the lawless Lincoln usurpers going public with their defiance of the law and the courts.
Even your NYT source wrote, "We will concede, too, for the sake of the argument, that the power to suspend this writ exists only in Congress...." If the NYT is infallible, then this must be a fact.
Lincoln did NOT suspend the writ in the Merryman case. The military authorities claimed they had authority to suspend the privilege of the writ at their discretion, such authority having been given by Lincoln to General Scott, and further delegated by the military down its chain-of-command to General Cadwallader.
In reciting the previous facts and holding, Chief Justice Taney wrote in his in-chambers opinion:
... the officer to whom it was directed declined to produce the petitioner, giving as his excuse the following reasons: ..."
That he (the officer having the petitioner in custody) was duly authorized by the president of the United States, in such cases, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety.
Held, that the petitioner was entitled to be set at liberty and discharged immediately from confinement, upon the grounds following:
1. That the president, under the constitution of the United States, cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, nor authorize a military officer to do it.
In the body of his in-chambers opinion Chief Justice Taney wrote:
A copy of the warrant or order under which the prisoner was arrested was demanded by his counsel, and refused: and it is not alleged in the return, that any specific act, constituting any offence against the laws of the United States, has been charged against him upon oath, but he appears to have been arrested upon general charges of treason and rebellion, without proof, and without giving the names of the witnesses, or specifying the acts which, in the judgment of the military officer, constituted these crimes. Having the prisoner thus in custody upon these vague and unsupported accusations, he refuses to obey the writ of habeas corpus, upon the ground that he is duly authorized by the president to suspend it.
Not even arguably, so it was not argued.
2. That a military officer has no right to arrest and detain a person not subject to the rules and articles of war, for an offence against the law of the United States, except in aid of the judicial authority, and subject to its control; and if the party be arrested by the military, it is the duty of the officer to deliver him over immediately to the civil authority, to be dealt with according to law.
Ex Parte Merryman
It's rigidity is its strength, evidenced by the fact that only one man has flexed the Constitution.
He is, though, not dumber than rocks, and was thus not the target of my comment.
Interesting story: My former office mate and I were talking with some guys down the hall and he asked if there was anything interesting to do in NE Iowa. I suggested they go "caving" at spook cave and the ice caves up around Decorah.
I've lived here most of my life, so it never occurred to me that an ice cave was an oddity, but for the life of them, they couldn't figure out how it could be iced year-round. My office mate called his wife (PhD in geology), who promptly told us, "The Earth has cold spots in it, it just happens."
[New York Times]had not the prisoner been a citizen of his own State, a neighbor, and a personal friend, would not have countenanced.
[Capitan] The Times articles is eminently credible.
Your Family, Friends, and Neighbors
http://www.yffn.org/
YFFN combats conservative misinformation with new ad campaignYour Family Friends and Neighbors is launching an ad campaign to help educate Idahoans about the realities of gay marriage. It's an important initiative designed to combat the fear tactics conservative legislators and religious leaders are using in Idaho and America today. Each design will feature real Idahoans discussing their family, faith, sexuality and comfort level with gay marriage.
They are in a West-ish state.
They claim to be El Capitan's Family, friends, and neigbors.
Their claim is emminently credible.
You realize that the typo police are patrolling the thread, right?
Probably just a relict environment surviving from the last glacial event -- that would be the Younger Dryas, which is just younger than what we laughingly call the "Holocene" boundary. (News flash: Earth to People, We're still in the Pleistocene -- get ready for the resumption of continental glaciation in approximately 800-1500 years. Unless we can string things out a bit by burning all the soft coal in China).
Other relict environments are usually floral -- one in the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas, which retain elements of their old floral assemblage, which resembles the average mountainside in southern Colorado. I've been told about a valley in the Alabama Hills that has a northern Appalachian ecology (what, no kudzu?), complete with assorted maples and birch.
Like the PhD said, "it happens".
The Southern leadership was the agrarian leadership after the Northern landholders (such as the Knickerbocker patroons) were overreached and surpassed in the early 19th century by the Millocracy, and the northern version of the deferential society was replaced by the commercial model.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- all those Western farm States that sent big brigades to fight for Grant and Sherman just never got it. They never understood the issues -- because smart guys like Cameron, Stanton, Chase, Seward, and Lincoln kept their eyes on the slavery issue.
Some people still don't get it, and still don't realize that all the Western States and Territories fought on the wrong side in the Civil War, except for the mining-centered ones like California, Colorado, and Nevada.
Funny, I don't think that squares with what General Chamberlain wrote after Appomattox.
"All the news that fits."
I'll type this REAL SLOW, because you have a serious comprehension problem. The outstanding and UNSUBSTANTIATED allegation is that Chief Justice Taney and one John Merryman were close, personal friends. To substantiate this claim, all one has to do is provide documentation of written letters from one to the other expressing such sentiments. Not as convincing would be DOCUUMENTED evidence of their meeting together on any kind of a regular basis.
When was Merryman in the Maryland State Agricultural Society, and more importantly, how does this translate into a close, personal friendship with the Chief Justice?
As far as status is concerned, Robert E. Lee was a general. T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson was a general. That's status.
So far, all you have is ONE specious article, as credible as anything by-lined by Jason Blair, that CLAIMS some relationship existed. You have not provided any proof of letters or other correspondence between the gentlemen. You have not provided documented proof of their living near each other, much less in the same county. I'll concede that both lived in the same state, but that does not equate to close, personal friendship. You have not provided proof that the gentlemen attended the same societal functions, or in any way associated with each other.
Yet, based on ONE dubious, unsubstantiated article, you persist in the delusion that it must be true. Based on that criteria, Abraham Lincoln was a flaming fag.
Just some honest New York lawyers trying to get ahead....
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.