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 ...
Hey, I'm not the one insisting that Taney and Merryman were friends because their great uncle's wife's second cousins are buried in the same cemetary.
...but not anywhere near Cockeysville.
It was common practice in the day to name your children after political leaders, the chief justice of the supreme court being no exception. Given that Taney attempted to help Merryman when he was being persecuted by Saint Abe, it is understandable that Merryman sought to honor Taney. That still doesn't make Merryman neighbors with Taney any more than my ggg-something grandpa became neighbors with Patrick Henry after naming one of his kids after him.
Fallacious affirmation of the consequent. The suspension of the writ itself cannot be cited as justification of its own validity.
The Suspension Clause was written with a corrupt judge like Taney in mind.
Gratuitous drivel. You have not demonstrated your allegation of corruption against Taney, nor have you demonstrated that "corrupt judges" were the purpose of the clause as found in the writings of the founding fathers.
No capitan. That would be you. Citing the suspension of the writ as justification for itself - something you've done a hundred times or more on this thread without any remorse or effort to correct its blatant falsehood - is the very definition of circular logic.
The were no arguments in Merryman at all. The dishonest Taney saw to that, and the dishonest coward misrepresents the case.
The filthy liar is lying again. Taney made it very clear when the court date was and informed the military authorities that they were summoned to be there to make their case. They chose not to, thus he had no choice but to proceed without them.
Yet even that assumption is unsubstantiated, you having provided no direct evidence that they ever met each other much less became friends. Nor have you shown that the Time's specific allegation of them being neighbors is true and in fact conclusive evidence states that it is not. Or are you going to claim next that they both shook hands one day in 1852 while visiting the graves of their dead 12th cousins in the same cemetary?
El Capitan logic: "Taney's 8th cousin twice removed Jebediah Gameliel Tawney-Hickenlopper (1710-1763) is buried next to Hester Prudence Merryman (1782-1827), great-great aunt of John Merryman by marriage. Jebediah and Hester are obviously neighbors and friends who run in the same social circle. Therefore this must also be true of Roger and John."
Taney's writ was valid. U.S. Supreme Court, 9-0.
There were no arguments in Merryman because the Executive branch sent a low level flunky to Court to tell the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court that he had been authorized to read a message from General Cadwallader and had no authorization to do more, upon which he left.
Blather by the dishonest, lying capitan_refugio does not change that fact.
The Great Usurper had no authority to suspend habeas corpus himself, and the Great Usurper had no power to "authorize" military officers to do so.
Military officers could not lawfully suspend habeas corpus.
General Cadwallader never said he had actually suspended habeas corpus.
Cadwallader's message, read by a flunky to the Chief Justice, only claimed Cadwallader had been "authorized" to suspend the writ.
The Official Record proves that Cadwallader was not (UNconsitutionally) authorized to suspend the writ until after that was read to the Chief Justice.
Your primary source, the NYT editorials of the time, state, "We will concede, too, for the sake of the argument, that the power to suspend this writ exists only in Congress." It was common knowledge of the time that only the Congress held the suspension power. The NYT even said so before CJ Taney published his opinion agreeing with the NYT.
You are simply LYING again. You know full well that the Great Usurper did NOT suspend the privilege of the writ in the Merryman case. The only paper issued by the Great Usurper was to have the Chief Justice arrested, an act the less insane D.C. Marshal thought the better of and did not do.
What is NOT established is that Merryman and Taney were social peers, or close personal friends.
And this is, of course, your usual bovine scatology.
As you have admitted, and as is well known, Merryman was an officer in an official unit of the Maryland state forces, acting under orders of the Maryland governor.
Maryland had not seceded.
The Laws of War cannot apply under such circumstance.
From the petition:
That since his arrest, he has been informed, that some order, purporting to come from one General Keim, of Pennsylvania, to this petitioner unknown, directing the arrest of the captain of some company in Baltimore county, of which company the petitioner never was and is not captain, was the pretended ground of his arrest, and is the sole ground, as he believes, on which he is now detained.
From the In-Chambers Opinion of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
The petition presents the following case: The petitioner resides in Maryland, in Baltimore county; while peaceably in his own house, with his family, it was at two o'clock on the morning of the 25th of May 1861, entered by an armed force, professing to act under military orders; he was then compelled to rise from his bed, taken into custody, and conveyed to Fort McHenry, where he is imprisoned by the commanding officer, without warrant from any lawful authority. The commander of the fort, General George Cadwalader, by whom he is detained in confinement, in his return to the writ, does not deny any of the facts alleged in the petition. He states that the prisoner was arrested by order of General Keim, of Pennsylvania, and conducted as aforesaid to Fort McHenry, by his order, and placed in his (General Cadwalader's) custody, to be there detained by him as a prisoner.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.
The case, then, is simply this: a military officer, residing in Pennsylvania, issues an order to arrest a citizen of Maryland, upon vague and indefinite charges, without any proof, so far as appears; under this order, his house is entered in the night, he is seized as a prisoner, and conveyed to Fort McHenry, and there kept in close confinement; and when a habeas corpus is served on the commanding officer, requiring him to produce the prisoner before a justice of the supreme court, in order that he may examine into the legality of the imprisonment, the answer of the officer, is that he is authorized by the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus at his discretion, and in the exercise of that discretion, suspends it in this case, and on that ground refuses obedience to the writ.
From the previously demonstrated LIES and legal INCOMPETENCE of capitan_kerryfugio:
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.
Ex parte Milligan, 9-0.
I have ancestors named "George Washington", "Thomas Jefferson", and "Alexander Stephens" to name a few.
It is well established that, at the time of the Merryman case, Chief Justice Taney's only residence for the past five years was in Washington, D.C., 57 MILES from Cockeysville, Maryland.
It is well established that, when in Baltimore, CJ Taney stayed with his daughter, whose residence was 23 MILES from Cockeysville.
It is well established that Merryman was, at the time of his arrest, awakened at about 2 a.m. while in his bed in his residence near Cockeysville, Maryland.
It is well established that CJ Taney and John Merryman were NOT neighbors.
It is well established that your source FALSELY asserted that John MERRIMAN (sic) was a citizen of Baltimore.
It is well established that CJ Taney was 46 years older than John Merryman. There is zero evidence they they were either friends or acquaintances.
What capitan fails to understand is that he's relying on a UNSUBSTANTIATED allegation. It'd would be the same as Jason Blair and the NYT printing that Capitan is a pedophile without any documentation supporting the allegation. And NO, I am NOT accussing CR of such, only pointing out that this is what the paper intended! Which is exactly why Chief Justice Rehnquist used it as an example of Northern opinion.
Now the Blue States need reconstruction. Perhaps we should reduce them all to territory status and impose right-thinking Red state government upon them -- for their own good of course -- as they are unable to govern themselves responsibly.
It is???? Please provide the address.
Said allegation is dependent on the NYT allegation that "Merriman" (sic) was a citizen of Baltimore.
The source did not know Merryman's name and falsely alleged he was a citizen of Baltimore.
As Merryman's residence is known to be near Cockeysville, and not Baltimore, the whole allegation fails.
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