Confederate States Of America (2005)

Yahoo Movies ^ | 12/31/04 | Me

[Caipirabob]

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Stars with bars:

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

Some things are better left dead in the past:

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

Compelling story or KKK wet dream?:

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

So what do you think of this movie?

[Non-Sequitur]

Do you believe the charges against John Brown were bogus? Do you think he should have been released?

Yeah I think the charges were bogus. John Brown was convicted of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia. How can someone be who was not a citizen, did not live there, and had never lived there be convicted of treason? And no, I don't think he should have been released. There were other charges that they could have brought. Murder comes to mind.

[lentulusgracchus]

Unilateral secession is never legitimate. However, Chief Justice Chase suggested there is a lawful way to leave the Union - with the consent of the other states.

Oh, yeah, right. "Oh, no, that's the red broom of the Wicked Witch of the West. I specifically asked <lie like a dog> for the green broom of the Wicked Witch of the West." </dog>

Argument of the form, "Anything other than what actually happened would actually have been legally Okay -- but what you did was legally Not Okay, because screw you."

Don't patronize us.

[lentulusgracchus]

Words of a hostile, combatant government justifying itself against its prey.

So what else is new?

How about quoting Genghis Khan for a giggle?

[lentulusgracchus]

Chase should have been the LAST person to rule on the legality of his own administrations actions.

Exactly. And exactly why Lincoln put him up.

Like naming Martin Bormann to the Nuremberg bench.

[lentulusgracchus]

A unitary "People"? I agree.

Oh, really? Got documentation? Where did we sign that deal?

As I recall, the idea of a lumpen People was specifically rejected by the Framers. If you know differently, why don't you put up your documentation from the ratification debates, the Convention itself, or the Constitution itself? Got docs? Show me the paper trail, where the People agreed to amalgamation.

[Non-Sequitur]

Except that they weren't there to demand closure, they were on their way to seize the arsenal. You know, shooting and wounding and dying.

I agree that Governor Letcher and his military aides were untimely and previous in their demarche...and should have waited until after the plebiscite before doing any such thing, just as the Carolinians should have waited out Fort Sumter...

But they didn't.

They? Who's "they"? Documentation, please.

Henry Wise, John Imboden, Thomas Jackson and members of the Virginia Militia.

And, there was no rebellion.

There most certainly was.

[Non-Sequitur]

Confederate states fail to abide by law of the land. Rebellion per Non-sequitur. Hypocrit?

Remember the definition of rebellion, "armed defiance"? Where was the armed defiance in New England?

[lentulusgracchus]

[You, quoting me] "The federal government's authority, under the Constitution, is binding on individuals, and not on States."

[You, being an ass] Chortle.

You might have read my quote from Federalist 20 before you started making a fool of yourself.

Argue with "Publius".

[Non-Sequitur]

I've made my case and made my point repeatedly...

You state your opinion time and again.

[lentulusgracchus]

[You, quoting me] "The Southern States were within their rights to leave the Union if they wanted to. It was the essence of freedom."

Unilateral secession was the essence of anarchy. You can repeat your mantra over and over again, but secession remains unlawful as a matter of law and condemned as a matter of history.

No, it wasn't and isn't.

How else do you get out of a jam, when a majority of other States gang up to turn you into the national cesspit, dumping ground, and low-rent district? If you are getting a raw deal from the Union, there is only one cure and one avenue of redress, in the face of unified determination to make your State the national chump and designated loser: leave the Union.

It recalls the old adage about two wolves and a sheep having a democratic discussion and vote about what to have for dinner.

Given the scenario above, what is your solution?

Given a State that is being manifestly abused, obviously oppressed, and moreover is being abused by an unshakable majority in the Congress, who have amended the Constitution over your objections to allow your mistreatment; given a President who has come to the reluctant but highly statesmanlike decision that your State must suffer without recourse or reprieve pro bono the rest of the Union, what do you do? Are you free, or is your State a thrall to the others -- a Cinderella, a charboy, a slave?

Secession is the cure for mistreatment by the rest, and that solution was left available to the States by the Framers. Jefferson realized that the Union might break up someday, and he wished everyone well, whether as part of one Union, or two, or three. The bottom line is the People's freedom, safety, and happiness -- which they are sovereign to ensure however they can.

If you don't believe that, then you're as big a totalitarian and empire-builder as Non-Sequitur is.

[lentulusgracchus]

[You, quoting Daniel Farber] "To the extent that the Framers had any shared understanding on this point, which is itself some­what dubious, they probably leaned toward the view that ratification signified the emergence of a national People."

Looks like you caught Farber weasel-wording. The convention delegates, who were preponderantly Federalists and represented a stacked invitation list (further skewed by the departure, after the Convention began, of some of the Antifederalists), may have wanted, some of them or even most of them, an amalgamation. But that was rejected, and it was rejected by the country as a whole, who did not want amalgamation. Reflecting what was politically possible, the delegates wrote out most of the amalgamation language and structures during the Constitutional Convention (the Preamble is about the only survival of what Hamilton and friends intended), and with the implementation of the grand compromise on the structure of Congress and the passage of the Bill of Rights, a completely different understanding of the national unity from what Farber insinuates (fair characterization under the circumstances, I think) became, in fact, the ruling spirit of the Constitution.

[lentulusgracchus]

You state your opinion time and again.

What, the documentation is a nullity? How arrogant!

You're just telling us that there is nothing we could ever say that would ever be valid, unless we capitulated and came over to your side. Do you have any frickin' idea how totally arrogant that is?

[lentulusgracchus]

Henry Wise, John Imboden, Thomas Jackson and members of the Virginia Militia.

Imboden led the cavalry column that rode up to Harper's Ferry to admire the smoking ruins.

But what did they do, that constituted improper and warlike actions against the U.S. Government, or improper relations with a foreign power (the Confederacy)?

Source material, please, or failing that, a little scholarship.

You're calling people traitors and insurgents -- back it up.

[lentulusgracchus]

This is really rich. N-S considers all the documentation we've piled up to be a nullity, but doesn't need support himself to allege treason and insurrection on the part of named individuals.

[lentulusgracchus]

The reason that the US Supreme Court was competent to decide the issue of secession is that, by agreement of all the states, the Supreme Court was the arbiter of "all cases in law and equity, arising under this Constitution."

Operative word, under.

Secession was a matter for the People to decide, and its deliberation and enactment lay outside the scope and ambit of the Constitution.

[lentulusgracchus]

They have cast off their allegiance and made war on their Government, and are nonetheless enemies because they are traitors.

When Mr. Justice Grier decided to carry Abe Lincoln's washing for him, he really did a good job, didn't he?

Delivered a class-action conviction on treason charges against nine million people.

Yeah, I want to be part of Grier's justice. Guy reads like a gauleiter announcing mass reprisals -- a veritable Alice's Restaurant of Fuehrerprinzip.

He is still reaching above his grasp. He also wrote:

Under the very peculiar Constitution of this Government, although the citizens owe supreme allegiance to the Federal Government, they owe also a qualified allegiance to the State in which they are domiciled. Their persons and property are subject to its laws.

Hence, in organizing this rebellion, they have acted as States claiming to be sovereign over all persons and property within their respective limits, and asserting a right to absolve their citizens from their allegiance to the Federal Government. Several of these States have combined to form a new confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the world as a sovereign State. Their right to do so is now being decided by wager of battle.

In so saying, Grier admits that Lincoln (and he) have suspended the Constitution for the duration, and are appealing to the god of battle for vindication of their unconstitutional acts and their coercion of States, which under the Constitution they had no right to do, and which coercion and extraconstitutionality include Grier's decision.

[TexConfederate1861]

I can of course provide one....It will take a little time, but I will provide one.

[TexConfederate1861]

Here is a start...while I look for the exact quote:

http://www.geocities.com/confederate_cause/thecause-secession3.htm

"Davis longed for his day in court to make the case for the Confederate Cause---to prove in a court of law that he was not guilty of treason and that the Confederate States had the right to secede. The best attorneys in the nation volunteered their services pro bono. It would have been the "trial of the century" and reporters from around the world would have been present. The United States government realized how flimsy their case was. There was no way they could risk a trial. The acquittal of Jefferson Davis would undo the propaganda of the U.S. government and show the world that the Confederate Cause was right. The trial was canceled and the man Dishonest Abe called a "traitor" was released. Denied the opportunity to clear his own name and that of all Confederate patriots in court, Davis expressed his case in his own two volume book , The Rise and Fall of the Conferate Government."

[TexConfederate1861]

More reading for your pleasure:

http://members.cox.net/confed/1896/article12.html
"the case of Mr. Davis the authorities at Washington and Chief Justice Chase himself decided that the charge of "treason" could not be maintained. Mr. Davis, still anxious for trial, was finally admitted to bail and was never afterwards brought before the Court. "