Confederate States Of America (2005)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Johnson issued two major amnesties while in office.

Try 4, viz. 29 May 1865, 7 Sep 1867, 4 Jul 1868, and 25 Dec 1868.

Technically the indictment remained pending until dropped altogether the following February and Davis was a free man, pardoned for his crimes.

Technically, it ended 25 Dec 1868 - a pardon is absolute. And the alleged disability provide by the 14th was a nullity until Davis et al actually were elected to office - you can't have Bills of Attainder take effect before the action was to be committed. If Davis never ran for office, the provision would not have been applied, so trial for treason was very much a possibility, and as before, said disability could easily have been removed by congress, so the federal government could never use claim that provision as any hindrance to a trial that you allege was open and shut.

Is there something wrong with you other than fried grits for brain cells? "Nazism was not ended by the firt World War" The Nazis did not rise to power until the early 1930's and WERE defeat by the Allies in 1945.

Nazism, as POPULARIZED by one Hitler, has been around far longer that 1939. A belief in a pure, master or superior race, a belief in nationalism, and attempts to purify the country by eradicating allegedly inferior races. Most European/American people in the 1800's shared this position, and numerous leaders believed in the superiority of the white race, and many Union leaders went so far as to practice ethnic cleansing/genocide during and after the War of Northern Aggression.

A certain American President, one Abraham Lincoln spoke often about the superiority of the white race, of his dream for a lily-white country, and repeatedly attempted to have blacks leave the country. After the war, for decades ethnic cleansing was praticed in the West, and Indians were slaughtered for the crime of being a red-man.

As evidenced by numerous posters on your side, there are posters here that share Sherman's view that ALL things Southern, men women and children, should have been exterminated.

The Civil War ended the Southern Slave Empire in 1865, but unfortunately post Civil War Reconstruction failed, since it should been extended at least another 150 years, in your case:)

Slavery did NOT end in America with end end of the war, it ended in the YANKEE states with the passage of the 13th Amendment MONTHS after the end of the war. Slavery exists TODAY - it has NOT been ended.

[Non-Sequitur 1300 to 4CJ] Johnson's pardon covered every southern leader not under indictment, which was everyone except Jefferson Davis.

See my #1245. LINK

In a proclamation dated December 25, 1868 (15 Stat. 711), President Johnson proclaimed and declared:

* * * unconditionally, and without reservation, to all and every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof.

This general pardon applied equally to Jefferson Davis as it did to others. It is this general pardon which terminated the possible prosecution of Jefferson Davis.
1,245 posted on 01/17/2005 3:05:34 AM CST by nolu chan

[M. Espinola #1304] And Andrew Johnson, right up there with Bill Clinton, came ultra close to being booted out of the White House.

President Johnson should have been given a medal for firing Edwin Stanton and driving him out of office.

Of course, the insane whack jobs who brought the articles of impeachment did so under the UNCONSTITUTIONAL Tenure of Office Act that they had passed in yet another of their insane and unscrupulous power grabs.

Unlike Clinton, President Johnson was impeached for attempting to defend the Constitution against the UNconstitutional actions of Congress. Unlike Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson fought to defend the Constitution and not to evade it or rape it.

LINK

U.S. Supreme Court, MYERS v. UNITED STATES, 272 U.S. 52 (1926)

A reference of the whole power of removal to general legislation by Congress is quite out of keeping with the plan of government devised by the framers of the Constitution. It could never have been intended to leave to Congress unlimited discretion to vary fundamentally the operation of the great independent executive branch of government and thus most seriously to weaken it. It would be a delegation by the convention to Congress of the function of defining the primary boundaries of another of the three great divisions of government. The inclusion of removals of executive officers in the executive power vested in the President by article 2 according to its usual definition, and the implication of his power of removal of such officers from the provision of section 2 expressly recognizing in him the power of their appoint- [272 U.S. 52, 128] ment, are a much more natural and appropriate source of the removing power.
It is reasonable to suppose also that had it been intended to give to Congress power to regulate or control removals in the manner suggested, it would have been included among the specifically enumerated legislative powers in article 1, or in the specified limitations on the executive power in article 2. The difference between the grant of legislative power under article 1 to Congress which is limited to powers therein enumerated, and the more general grant of the executive power to the President under article 2 is significant. The fact that the executive power is given in general terms strengthened by specific terms where emphasis is appropriate, and limited by direct expressions where limitation is needed, and that no express limit is placed on the power of removal by the executive is a convincing indication that none was intended.
* * *
But the chief legislation in support of the reconstruction policy of Congress was the Tenure of Office Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 430, c. 154, providing that all officers appointed by and with the consent of the Senate should hold their offices until their successors should have in like manner been appointed and qualified; that certain heads of departments, including the Secretary of War, should hold their offices during the term of the President by whom appointed and one month thereafter, subject to removal by consent of the Senate. The Tenure of Office Act was vetoed, but it was passed over the veto. The House of Representatives preferred articles of impeachment against President Johnson for refusal to comply with, and for conspiracy to defeat, the legislation above referred to, but he was acquitted for lack of a two-thirds vote for conviction in the Senate.
* * *
When on the merits we find our conclusion strongly favoring the view which prevailed in the First Congress, we have no hesitation in holding that conclusion to be correct; and it therefore follows that the Tenure of Office Act of 1867, in so far as it attempted to prevent the President from removing executive officers who had been appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, was invalid, and that subsequent legislation of the same effect was equally so.
For the reasons given, we must therefore hold that the provision of the law of 1876 by which the unrestricted power of removal of first-class postmasters is denied to the President is in violation of the Constitution and invalid. This leads to an affirmance of the judgment of the Court of Claims.

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