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Endless complaints. |
Posted on 12/31/2004 2:21:30 PM PST by 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 said that both Maryland and Missouri voted not to secede.
You have admitted that is correct.
As for as the correctness of non-sequitur's statement, that is the end of the story.
And who on these threads is saying otherwise?
Remember, however, that everyone spies on everyone, including allies.
It doesn't matter what reasons are given, if the result is the same.
Israel must not be seen as any other nation, they are God's special people.
My sentiments exactly. Scripture is VERY clear on this.
Gingrich was nothing but 'Clinton lite'.
He has no one to blame for himself for letting his giant ego get the best of him.
Thank you for the background info. I understand the position, but it seems impossible in the current world situation to be isolationist. The islamic jihadists would not permit it, even if we did pull up our borders and stay out of world affairs, both diplomatically and monetarily. I don't believe they attacked us on 9/11 because of our support for Israel, or our support for the corrupt
Saudi family for that matter. Bin Laden never mentioned the Pals and Israel until it became a good recruiting tool. My point is that democracy is an anathema to strict interpretation of islam. They cannot survive together, the jihadists stated goal is to convert or destroy America.
I don't mean to get off point here, but do we have the luxury of islolationism anymore? Are we closing the barn door after the horse ran out? I'm not at all challenging the views you expressed; and it has been an education.
You quoted Alexander Stephens on the cause of the war. Why stop there? Let's see what he thought about the right of states to secede:
Whatever intimate relationships, therefore, existed between the citizens of the respective thirty-three States constituting the Union in 1860, they were created by, or sprung from, the terms of the Compact of 1787, by which the original States as States were united. These terms were properly called the Constitution of the United States; not the Constitution of one people as one society or one nation, but the Constitution of a number of separate and distinct peoples, or political bodies, known as States. The absolute Sovereignty of these original States, respectively, was never parted with by them in that or any other Compact of Union ever entered into by them. This at least was my view of the subject. Georgia was one of these States. My allegiance therefore was, as I considered it, not due to the United States, or to the people of the United States, but to Georgia in her Sovereign capacity. Georgia had never parted with her right to command the ultimate allegiance of her citizens.
... The Sovereign power of the people of the State, which alone could regulate its relations with the other States, was not vested in the Legislature. That resided with the people of the State. It had never been delegated either to the State authorities, or the authorities created by the Articles of Union. It could be exercised only by the people of the State in a regularly-constituted Convention, embodying the real Sovereignty of the State — just such Convention as had agreed to and adopted the Constitution of the United States. It required the same power to unmake as it had to make it. ...
... The Convention was called; it was regularly and legally assembled; the Sovereign will of the State, when expressed through its properly constituted organ, was for Secession, or a withdrawal of the State from the Union. The Convention passed an Ordinance repealing and rescinding the State Ordinance of the second of January, 1788, by which Georgia became one of the United States under the constitutional Compact of 1787.
The question we were dealing with is why the South did secede.
Slavery was the main occasion or cause of the war, but not the only one. There were a host of other issues -- the money extracted from the South by means of the tariff, the tendency towards the concentration of power in the central government versus a balance of power between the states and the central government (the old Federalist versus Anti-Federalist argument), the failure of the central government to adequately protect the state of Texas against invasions of Indians and Mexican bandits.
Abolitionists had agitated for years over slavery. It was probably that that tipped the country into war. Things like John Brown's attempted slave revolution supported by abolitionists polarized the nation.
The South had contributed blood and money for the acquisition of the territories and yet Northern politicians wanted to restrict the rights of slaveholders to move into the territories in the face of the Dred Scot ruling and the treaty by which we obtained the Louisiana Territory. As the 1860 Republican platform said, "we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States." Some law abiding bunch they were.
The Union changed from a voluntary one, where states were bound only by their assent, to one of force, where a band of stronger states imposed their will by the gun. Coercion of the states had been ruled out by the Founders, but it reared its ugly head largely because of Lincoln.
As you no doubt know, Congress didn't seem to think the war was about slavery. The North's objective for the first couple of years was preservation of the Union, not ending slavery. Here is a resolution of the US House of Representatives to that effect from July 22, 1861:
Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Government, and in arms around the capitol; that in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States, unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.
The Senate passed a resolution with substantially the same wording on July 25, 1861.
True, but they had no more control over foreign policy, or even domestic policy, than a member of the British House of Lords.
This lasted until the end of World War I and in 1918 Saxe-Coburg and Gotha merged with Bavaria and Thuringen, who then joined Weimar Germany.
The merger occured in 1920, and Bavaria and Thuringia were already a part of the Wiemar Republic.
Unfortunately for the Goodspeed version, which was written in 1888 some two decades after the events, it is contradicted by at least three earlier sources.
1. The Senate Journal survived and indicates that they did indeed have a quorum.
2. The newspapers reported the votes in both houses. The Senate was 23 to 0 in favor and the House was 77 to 0 in favor - both in excess of the quorum.
3. Col John C. Moore's history of Missouri in the Civil War, published in the late 1860's, states that a quorum was present:
t was called together in extraordinary session by the proclamation of the governor. There was a quorum of each house present. The governor sent to the two houses his message recommending, among other things, the passage of an act "dissolving all political connection between the State of Missouri and the United States of America." The ordinance was passed strictly in accordance with law and parliamentary usage, was signed by the presiding officers of the two houses, attested by John T. Crisp, secretary of the senate, and Thomas M. Murray, clerk of the house, and approved by Claiborne F. Jackson
Not true. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was appointing diplomats to foreign countries all over the world and participating as a signatory in international conferences and agreements.
But the house journals do not. And the Senate journals give a date for the vote different from the announced date.
Col John C. Moore's history of Missouri in the Civil War, published in the late 1860's, states that a quorum was present:
moore claims a quorum was present but gives no numbers. Goodspeed claims a quorum was not present and offers numbers in support. Who to believe?
[ftD #1762] And who on these threads is saying otherwise? Remember, however, that everyone spies on everyone, including allies.
Jonathan Pollard was a United States citizen selling thousands of Top Secret SCI documents to a foreign government.
The level of support for Israel demanded by M. Espinola is not to support Israel if it is attacked but to obligate U.S. military support to Israel if Israel chooses to attack someone else.
[nc #1643 to M. Espinola] What does the vague phrase, "supported Israel" mean? Does it mean to politically support Israel's right to exist? Does it mean taxing Americans and giving their money to Israel? Does it mean providing military equipment and personnel to support Israel should Israel make a pre-emptive strike against an Arab nation, sparking a shooting war? Does it include releasing Israeli spies caught spying against the United States? What level of "support" is being asserted as the litmus test.
[nc #1681 to M. Espinola] Do you condemn Jonathan Pollard as a traitor to the United States?
The silence in response to that question has been deafening.
"It is difficult for me... to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant in view of the breadth, the critical importance of the United States and the high sensitivity of the information he sold to Israel... I respectfully submit that any U.S. citizen, and in particular a trusted government official, who sells U.S. secrets to any foreign nation should not be punished merely as a common criminal. Rather the punishment imposed should reflect the perfidy of the individual actions, the magnitude of the trason committed, and the needs of national security."
-- Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger
"I feel my husband and I did what we were expected to do, what our moral obligation was as Jews, what our moral obligation was as human beings. I have no regrets about that."
-- Anne Henderson-Pollard quoted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Geneson at her sentencing hearing from an interview with Mike Wallace that aired on 60 Minutes.
"With remarkable chutzpah, Israel, which receives up to $5 billion in U.S. aid annually, refuses to return documents stolen by Pollard, or allow U.S. intelligence to debrief Mossad agents who ran Pollard in order to learn the full extent of the disaster."
-- Eric Margolis, The Toronto Sun, Jan. 14, 1999
"Israel is America's best friend."
-- fortheDeclaration, 1/30/2005
The first interest of Israel is the continued existence of Israel. Israel and the USA have many common interests. We also have differences.
The House journal has never been found. I'd like to see your source on the senate journal discrepancy.
moore claims a quorum was present but gives no numbers. Goodspeed claims a quorum was not present and offers numbers in support. Who to believe?
The newspapers also gave numbers some 27 years before Goodspeed. That seems to be as good a source as any.
Shambaugh claims to have been present at the vote and also claims to have cast the lone vote against secession (thus giving him a motive to claim that a quorum wasn't present), however newspaper reports of the votes claim it was unanimous and Shambaugh may not have even been present that day (he reportedly left Neosho earlier in the month before a quorum was obtained).
For example?
The newspaper also claims that it was passed on the 2nd of November when the secession declaration is dated the 31st of October. Your newspaper seems to have a problem with accuracy.
Well, for starters there's Ernst Raven - the diplomat appointed by Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to his consulate in Texas.
You can also look at the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Constitution of 1852, http://www.heraldica.org/topics/royalty/HGSachsen-CG.htm#SCG-grundgesetz, which declares:
"§ 3. Der Herzog ist das Oberhaupt des Staates und übt als solches die Rechte der Staatsgewalt nach der Verfassung."
(Roughly, the Duke is the Head of State and holds the rights of government that this entails)
and "§ 21. Die Person des Herzogs ist unverletzlich; für seine Regierungshandlungen ist er keiner äußeren Verantwortung im Lande unterworfen."
(Roughly, the person of the Duke is supreme in sovereignty, and his actions of government are subject to no other outside country)
I was referring to after 1871 and your implication that they retained such control until 1920. I should have known better.
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