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]

Just some honest New York lawyers trying to get ahead....

They must be too close to the UN and Koffi.

[nolu chan]

Funny, I don't think that squares with what General Chamberlain wrote after Appomattox.

Well, this was just leading up to the predicted Union victory at First Manassas. (NYT May 31, "are swiftly advancing towards the soil of [Virginia], and directed by the ablest commander of his time.") In what must be an error, contradicting NYT predictions, Allan Nevins wrote, "The Union retreat, at first orderly, quickly became adisgraceful rout. As Beauregard's lines swept forward, the panic grew, and soon men were in headlong flight, amid heat, dust, anguish, and terrific profanity. W. H. Russell, riding forward on horseback, found himself among the first fugitives. "What does this mean?" he demanded, and an exhausted officer gasped: "Why, it means that we are pretty badly whipped." (Nevins, 1:218)

Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, who was there, later wrote, "Literally, three could have chased ten thousand."

[nolu chan]

"new report" = "news report"

[Gianni]

Someone later explained to me that it was heavily dependent on the lay of the land and the cave itself. Certain ones are able to trap enough "winter" during the cold months here, and receive little enough "summer" that they can remain frozen year round.

Some of them are very cool.

[lentulusgracchus]

Actually, your post is a little misleading, as it contrasts the vision of the Southern agrarian plantocracy for themselves (gracious living in a capacious house intended to shelter visitors) with the Northern industrial bigotariat's plans for everybody else: your photo is of a governmentally-subsidized (and therefore very Whiggish and Hamiltonian) worker-warehouse from which they can be plucked by the "A" train and other lumpen, disease-spreading means of "transportation" to the owner's factory gate.

A more apposite comparison would be the Rockefeller estate, with its high iron fence, Pinkerton guards, and dogs, with the welcoming open plan of the plantation. In Southern society, the visitor, the traveler, and the passing stranger are all received hospitably. In Northern Kultur, passersby are encouraged to move along, nothing to see here, by a variety of means both private and semiprivate, and extending to the Militia, which serves as a plutocratic private army of discretionary enrollment in Northern States (see Presser vs. Illinois (1886), syllabus here:

Presser vs. Illinois.

Note the date of the alleged offense, and the date of the law that made Presser a criminal. Notice also the date of incorporation of the Verein of which Presser was a leader. Supplementary information: The Verein was a labor-syndical organization, its members were labor syndicalists, and they organized in an attempt to stop their oppression under color of authority by Chicago police, who were breaking up labor meetings with truncheons and severe beatings at the behest of Chicago's political proprietors, who in turn were the leading plutocrats and employers of the city.

[capitan_refugio]

"The outstanding and UNSUBSTANTIATED allegation is that Chief Justice Taney and one John Merryman were close, personal friends.

You are exaggerating. Rehnquist quoted the Times as writing "friends and neighbors." It is a very reasonable assumption that they ran in the same "social circles."

[capitan_refugio]

A cross between a state and an existentialist.

[capitan_refugio]

So much for Iowans.

[capitan_refugio]

Circular logic again. Was Merryman an officer in an anti-Union, insurrectionist military unit, during time of war? The answer is quite obviously, "yes." Did the dishonest Taney ignore that fact. The answer is again, "yes."

The were no arguments in Merryman at all. The dishonest Taney saw to that, and the dishonest coward misrepresents the case.

[capitan_refugio]

Taney's writ was invalid. The Suspension Clause was written with a corrupt judge like Taney in mind.

[capitan_refugio]

You are just parsing. Lincoln, at that time, had authorized officers in the chain of command to suspend the privilege of the writ along the Philadelphia to Washington corridor. Insurrectionist and mob activity was present in the area, and the public safety was at risk. The Constitution provides for the privilege of the writ to be suspended in precisely these occasions.

By doing so, Lincoln stanched the insurrection in Maryland. It was the right thing to do.

[capitan_refugio]

The courts may have been open (although when staffed by southern partisans, one can argue they were not "functioning" - but that is a different argument) - but your Milligan precedent was still several years off, and preceded by Ex parte Vallandigham. The main point I make is that Merryman, as an officer, saboteur, and combatant in a anti-Union militia unit, was covered under the laws of war in a war zone.

Lincoln's arrests of insurrectionists like Merryman, and their temporary detainment until the area of unrest was again secure and the pubic safety was restored, shows that the Lincoln Adminstration followed the correct path.

[capitan_refugio]

In 1864, John Merryman fathered a male child, who died in infancy. The child's name was Roger Brooke Taney Merryman. Merryman must have been very grateful the Chief Justice wasn't able to spring him from jail.

[capitan_refugio]

It is well established Taney maintained a residence in Baltimore for more than 30 years.

[capitan_refugio]

4ConservativeJustices and GOPcapitalist:
Dumb and Dumber

[capitan_refugio]

"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"

The states that fought on the wrong side of the war were the ones that needed Reconstruction.

[Gianni]

They were east-coast transplants.

[PeaRidge]

"Only Congress can dispose of government property. Once again, they should have read the Constitution."

They knew the Constitution. Their ancestors had written it.

Lincoln should have read it himself before he sent those sailors from New York and that civilian Fox to start a war in Charleston.