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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?
What is the birth date of this nation? Why do we celebrate July 4, 1776 as the date of our founding (as compared to some obscure date in 1787 to 1791)? Why do we refer to those who signed the Declaration of Independence as the "Founders" (and those who participated some years later in the Convention at Philadelphia as the "Framers of the Constitution")? Why do we consider the great observations in the Declaration to be our "founding principles"?
The Declaration of Independence is our charter of freedom. The Constitution provides the framework for the expression of those founding principles.
The confedero-anarchists and other lost causers need to deny the founding principles, because they support the concept of a failed nation-state that was so obviously in opposition to those principles.
Try some Pepto Bismol.
"Period. End of sentence. End of subject."
Quite correct!
It is sometimes forgotten that by July 1776, the united American colonies had been at war with the United Kingdom for over one year (if you date the onset of the war for independence to begin with the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775). Within a few days (July 12) of the proclamation of the Declaration, John Dickinson had submitted his draft for what was to become the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/contcong/07-12-76.htm
Even then, the concept of a permanent Union of the former colonies was well established. Even then, the individual colonies/states were denied the full scope of sovereign powers, in favor of the nation.
The 10th Amendment was not intend to create any new rights or even grant rights to the states. It was about "powers." And what powers were those? The powers necessary to conduct good government within the constitutional and republican framework. Secession is the antithesis of good government.
Once again, the broken record refuses to think for himself.
Historical context does matter.
Evidently not to you. If you had your way we could just gloss over Lincoln's documented lifelong belief in tax hikes and pretend he wouldn't have kept that belief in his second term despite all evidence indicating that he would have.
Lincoln was an ex-Whig. They were strong believers in a weak Presidency, letting the Congress do what it was suppose to do.
And your example of this type of "weak" president is Abraham Lincoln? BWA-HAHAHAHAHA! Sure thing, ftD. And on that same note Hillary Clinton is a conservative! /sarcasm
A Republican controlled Congress would have called the shots and Lincoln would have simply made sure that the bills were constitutional.
Evidently not seeing as he signed many bills that were blatantly unconstitutional including the income tax.
So your complaint about Lincoln as a high taxer and driving the tax issue goes against the very political philosopy he adhered to.
Sorry to intrude upon your fantasy, but the reality of Abe Lincoln simply says otherwise. He was planning to push for a massive tariff hike whether there was a war or not and openly admitted that to his advisors and friends.
He may have supported high tariff's but he would not have seen his role as interfering with the Congress in their role of making the tariff bill.
His speech in Pittsburgh circa February 1861 where he pledges to push the tariff issue through congress says otherwise.
It is not the Yankee's that we are discussing, it is the so-called conservative South
And I cited some conservative southern movements against FDR that gave him more trouble than any yankee ever did.
The only reason the South is going GOP now is because so many Yankees have moved down here.
Utter nonsense just like everything else you spew. The yankee transplants tend to vote democrat and are the primary reason why the otherwise conservative state of Florida is close in so many elections. Just look at that state's district level voting patterns to see the truth. Florida's most conservative section is its panhandle, which is almost entirely native born Floridians or transplants from neighboring Georgia and Alabama. The "chad corridor" of Fort Lauderdale through West Palm Beach, OTOH (aka the place that gave us Robert Wexler) is heavy on yankee transplants (the geezers from New York who move down there) and votes Democrat.
Still-Stephenson!?
Still, Goldwater.
And only five Southern 'conservative' states supported him out of the 11 Confederate ones. ...as opposed to ZERO states out of all of yankeeland, which LBJ carried unanimously and without effort. So?
So, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the south's record of voting Democrat prior to Goldwater is a basis for condemning them, yankeeland's unanimous support for the second biggest communist to ever run on a major ticket in 1964 is more than enough reason to condemn it. Furthermore, unlike Stephenson, LBJ actually got a chance to push his insidious programs through so the yankee states that elected him bear the blame for that as well.
In a Democrat controlled state?
Who said it was a Democrat state? Illinois had a sizable Whig party too from 1839 on and for many years in the late 1830's and early 1840's had no clear organized party system in its government.
He must have a very powerful legislater.
Evidently he was. In 1838 Lincoln even got the second highest number of votes for Speaker of the Illinois house and subsequently became one of the main Whig floor leaders.
Ike gave us the interstate highway system, would you regard him as liberal?
I already told you I regard Ike as a moderate. Robert Taft was the conservative at the time.
It was needed to fight a very costly war
The constitution is supreme, be it war or peace. Lincoln violated that constitution by imposing an income tax.
It was ended.
It was later restored.
Getting any tax is removed is tough.
So is amending the Constitution, yet they did just that so they could restore Saint Abe's income tax.
It was hard to get rid of wage and price controls after WW2 also.
That would've never been a problem had they not enacted them in the first place. Same goes for Abe's taxes.
Government does not like to give up its revenue.
And neither did Abe.
"Neutrality" was simply a convenient and temporary political dodge. There was no "neutrality" in a conflict that pitted insurrectionists against the Union.
BTW, Baltimore wasn't known as "Mob City" for no good reason.
To that, I agree.
Yeah. As in setting its limits at the Rio Grande. If my border does not go beyond the Rio Grande that means the Rio Grande is where the extent of my country's lands cease.
Many times,boundaries after wars are very fluid.
They may have been in other cases but Texas' was not. They very specifically decided on the Rio Grande as the border and obtained recognition of their country extending to that border from the U.S. and all the major European countries. Mexico persisted in violating both it and marching its armies deep into Texas, as far north as San Antonio.
I am not saying the Mexicans were right, but that there was reason for questioning on what happened and why.
Not any legitimate one. Mexico was in violation of Texas' borders as it had been constantly doing for the previous decade since they reneged on the Treaty of Velasco and initiated efforts to reconquer Texas.
Ironically, Lincoln created more animosity in MD than he generated support. After citizen Davis' murder, many Unionist-leaning folks found themselves at odds with the FedGov. Had Lincoln not ram-rodded troops through MD, he might have garnered more support.
I am sure you recall that, in mid-April 1861, there were just a few hundred federal troops defending the Capital. On the other hand, there were several thousand insurrectionist Virginia militia at Harper's Ferry.
I am sure you also recall that Baltimore was a major transportation (railroad) hub in the area, but that no one line passed directly through. This necessitated getting off one train at one station and transferring to another train at another station.
It is also true that the quickest way to reinforce the garrison in the Federal District was by rail. Consequently, the most direct route for Federal troops to get to Washington, D.C., was by rail, with the necessary transfer in Baltimore. History records that those troops were met by pro-southern, insurrectionist mobs. Why? Because the mobs supported southern secession and were opposed to the defense of the Federal District, the Federal Government, and the Lincoln Administration in general.
Mobs did not gather in response to some supposed provocation by Federal troops. The mobs were already there, and on the 19th of April, attacked the 6th Massachusetts as it was en route to Washington. In fact, mob violence was rather common place in Baltimore politics.
"Hicks was trying to preserve the peace."
I am not questioning Hicks motivation. Later troops ended up using a less direct route through Annapolis. The point being made was that troops were needed in D.C. immediately. The insurrectionist mob of Baltimore had no business trying to stop the 6th Mass. and other units from doing their duty.
"Ironically, Lincoln created more animosity in MD than he generated support."
I suppose Lincoln could have placated the Maryland mob by surrendering to Jefferson Davis. But Lincoln's job wasn't to make the Maryland criminals content. His job was to see that the laws of the land were enforced, and if a few criminal noses were tweaked in the process, so be it.
Ah, yes. A ruling by my blood cousin, crazy old John Marshall from my mother's side of the family. We visited his house in Richmond a year or so ago. I was surprised to learn on the house tour that he had a large bunch of slaves. We also saw his pew in the Bruton Church in Williamsburg.
I hesitate to point to a preamble to prove anything since the meat of the document is what controls, not the preamble. The 1789 preamble to the Bill of Rights implies that the BOR was meant to protect against abuses of the Constitution by the central government. That is in keeping with Marshall's ruling. That's what the wording of the BOR itself seems to imply too. Our forefathers (most of them anyway) wanted a central government of limited or restricted powers. BOR Preamble.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Lincoln wrote to General Scott:
"First, they have a clearly legal right to assemble; and we cannot know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful. And if we wait until they shall have acted, their arrest or dispersion will not lessen the effect of their action. Secondly, we can not permanently prevent their action."Martial law was his course of action. This enflamed the MD leadership. Hicks had gone to Lincoln, asking for HELP! He as met with martial law and invasion.
Well, that's what I was taught in elementary school too. But it pays to look at things more deeply than that.
Let’s look at some of his actions. From the Congressional Globe, July 16, 1861, page 150 and 151, Representative Burnett of Kentucky speaking:
The President of the United States has, since the adjournment of the last Congress, and prior to the commencement of the present session, violated the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments to the Constitution. …
... first amendment ... Men have been arrested all over this country without process of law, upon no other charge than they had uttered seditious language. Where is your authority to arrest a man for the utterance of seditious language? ...
The president has likewise violated the second amendment, which secures people the right to keep and bear arms. ... Arms, the private property of the citizens, have, upon mere suspicion, been taken at the order of military commanders, and are now withheld from the citizens ... [A Member: Where?] [Mr. Burnett: In my own state (Kentucky)...]
The President has violated the third amendment of the Constitution, that no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in the manner prescribed by law. Repeatedly have soldiers been quartered in the houses of private citizens during war, without any authority of law, but upon the order of those who are controlling the movements of the Government.
He has violated the fourth article of that amendment to the Constitution, which is, that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure, shall not be violated; and that no warrant shall issue except upon probably cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized. ...
The [fifth] amendment to the Constitution also declares that no person shall be held for a capital or otherwise infamous crime -- the highest crimes known to your law -- except upon the presentment and indictment of a grand jury; and yet, sir, citizens are now being deprived of their liberty, incarcerated in your fortresses and jails, and deprived of even the right of a preliminary examination, upon the mere order of the President of the United States.
No person shall be deprived of life liberty, or property without due process of law [fifth amendment]. That is another of the rights locked up in the Constitution secured to us by our fathers, and yet the President of the United States has violated that right; and the plea upon which a justification is sought is that of necessity. ...
Men are now arrested in Maryland, and they have been in other portions of the country, upon warrants issued by the Secretary of State alone, and confined in the jail of the District of Columbia. They have not been able to be reached by a writ of habeas corpus; and after they have been kept there for weeks, they have been dismissed without a statement of the charge against them [sixth amendment].
I state, as a member of this House, that the President has violated the Constitution of the United States by his proclamations of the 19th and 27th of April last, declaring a blockade of southern ports. It is one of the incidents of the war-making power to declare a blockade. It is an act of war, and Congress alone has the power to declare war. ...
Article one, section nine, clause five [sic, actually clause six], of the Constitution, declares that no preference shall be given to the ports of one State, over those of another; yet the President of the United States, of his own motion, and without authority of law, shuts up ports still claimed to be within the Union, according to the theory of the Republican party and of the President himself.
As this proclamation was made by the President with full knowledge that the Congress of the United States had, at its last session, expressly refused to pass a bill conferring upon him the power to blockade southern ports and collect the revenue outside of the ports. This blockade has been extended to our interior commerce and trade; and today, sir, the ports of loyal States are closed. My own State furnishes a striking example. Her ports are to-day closed; and her principle railroad virtually under the control and management of the Federal Government. The Constitution confers upon Congress alone the "power to regulate commerce among the several States. " ...
The President of the United States has also violated the Constitution by his orders of the 27th of April and 10th of May, authorizing the Commanding General to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. ...
The President has also violated that clause of the Constitution which says that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury of the United States, except in consequence of appropriations by law. He has taken appropriations made by Congress for one purpose and applied them to another, in violation of law ...
By his proclamation of the 3rd of May, calling into the service of the United States forty-two thousand volunteers for three and five years, by his increase of the regular Army twenty two thousand seven hundred and fourteen men, and adding to the Navy eighteen thousand seamen, he not only violated the plain letter of the Constitution in article one, eighth section, and twelfth clause [actually 12th and 13th clauses], but usurped the powers of the legislative department of this Government.
Then there was Vallandigham [Congressional Globe, July 15, 1861]:
That by the Constitution “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law;” and that in ordinary the drawing from the Treasury of money unappropriated or appropriated for one purpose, and applying the same to purposes for which no appropriations had been made by law, the President violated the Constitution.
That neither Congress, nor the President, nor the judiciary, have any constitutional power to abridge the freedom of speech or of the press; and the suspension of newspaper presses by military authority and force, and the arrest of citizens by military or civil authority, for the expression by speech, or through the press, of opinions upon political subjects, or subjects of any kind, is a violation of the Constitution.
If you consider the actions of the last paragraph legal, then I presume you would not argue against Hillary doing them if she were ever to become President.
Try to focus on what you are actually saying. Making the name of a Civil War song the title of a book on the Civil War is illegitimate? Even a reflection of Leninism? That's crazy talk. And it's victim talk. Is William Davis's "Look away! : a history of the Confederate States of America" part of the plot, too. Is he telling us not to look too closely at Dixie? Or could both titles just be an attempt to recapture part of the spirit of the time?
Polemical titles are par for the course here -- "The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War," "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men," "The South Was Right!" "Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun" -- All polemical titles that assert what they intend to prove. But nobody objects much to the titles on that score. They read -- or at least open -- the books to see what the author's say and how valid it might be. But for you, even to advance a thesis that goes counter to your own beliefs is wrong, unfair and subversive.
It would be nice if it were as you say, but in reading your posts it looks like you dismiss virtually everyone who has a serious historical appointment today. You make a lot of noise about McPherson and Foner and use them to dismiss other scholars working seriously in the field these days. If those who disagree with you vote Democrat they are Marxists or Communists to you, if they support the Republicans, you see them as corrupt Claremontites. That leaves you with the postbellum apologists for the Confederacy and their present-day followers to fall back on. If you dismiss everything we've learned in the last few decades, they may be convincing, but otherwise not.
You don't seem to have any objection to Marxist or class-based historical analysis when it supports your own opinions. It's only when it cuts the other way that you get mad. Thus, for you, an analysis of the conflict from a conservative point of view that supports the federal or unionist cause is merely a stalking horse for powerful Northern interests, while a more liberal or radical anti-slavery perspective counts as Marxist and is worthy of condemnation, even if it makes the same kind of noises about the downtrodden oppressed and the privileged oppressors that you love to make yourself.
The secret here is that there's probably more of the Marxist in you than in many of the people you are arguing with. From what I can see, you're far more influenced by Marxism than Lincoln was. That doesn't in itself invalidate your arguments, any more than it does Foner's, but it might make you less inclined to dismiss opposing viewpoints simply by slapping labels on them.
All polemical titles that assert what they intend to prove. But nobody objects much to the titles on that score.
Stipulated to. And I don't object to the titles, but to what they intend to prove. "Proving" that Lincoln fought for "freedom", as he claimed in his subversive and revolutionary Gettysburg Address, is prima facie evidence of intention to mislead for political purposes.
From what I can see, you're far more influenced by Marxism than Lincoln was.
LOL -- incontrovertibly true! Since Lincoln is certainly excluded by his date of decease from having been "influenced" by fully-articulated, worldwide-propagated Marxism himself. God, you're good! LOL!
That doesn't in itself invalidate your arguments, any more than it does Foner's......
Whaaaat....after all that ad hominem? I'm disappointed in you. I thought surely you were going to invite me to emulate the great poet by quaffing a quart of Lysol.
.... but it might make you less inclined to dismiss opposing viewpoints simply by slapping labels on them.
I dismiss them on content, as a way of high-grading my reading list. Which, you have taken care not to notice, doesn't include the Lost Cause authors or DiLorenzo, either, who are polemicists just like McPherson and Foner and the NYU Communists of 60 years ago. Oh, I'll discuss DiLorenzo's material when other people bring it in, but he isn't going to make my reading list with underbaked accusations. It's one thing to post up to someone who thinks Abraham Lincoln was fathered by Abraham Enloe, and kick his days and dates around, and another to part with good money (and my time) for 350 pages of that stuff. Let them prove their case, and I'll read about it later. On the other hand, the systematic suppression of information to the effect that Lincoln may have been illegitimate, by historical actors committed to Lincoln's cult, is another story, and so the new material being excavated from Herndon's letter archive is relevant, not to understanding Lincolnian policy, but to the historiographical policy of the Unionist "triumphalists", the keepers of the flame who sent Gutzom Borglum up Mount Rushmore with a chisel. Also qualitatively different are speculations about Lincoln as a sufferer of Marfan's and syphilis, since those might indeed have affected his policies and his family life -- and, later on, the conduct and reputation of Mary Todd Lincoln, for whom William Herndon, who had to know she despised him, pleaded with others for forbearance and understanding.
I'll read a magazine article in a minute, but if someone wants $30 and four days of my time for a book about it, I get pretty picky, and I have zero time or toleration for Reds who I think are attacking the American people through their history, for having humiliated the Marxists' false and murderous god. No quarter there, sorry.
Show me how. Cite me, quote me, analyze the argument and show how it's Marxist.
As opposed to anything else.
Being called "dishonest" and lacking in "moral frame of reference" by the great Supreme Court reporter himself is like being called chubby-cheeked by a loaded chipmunk.
Not if the other 49 States decide that your little state is the national nuclear-waste repository, biohazard dumping ground, and nucelear test range.
Not if the other States decide to plow you under and salt the ground, and forcibly deport your citizens to Antarctica because they don't like them.
It is written in letters of fire in no quadrant of the sky, that the Union has to be eternal, unbreakable or forever just and unassailable in its actions. Secession can be the proper course of action when hateful abuse is the alternative.
No, I dismiss people because of the camps they're in, recognizing that those camps have modern agenda and are up to no good. These are not scholarly disagreements, they're political ones. Their charges are best met on the political level, since that is where they are coming from.
Mark Neely is a case in point: wrote two books for the purpose of exculpating Lincoln from the charges of the Southern revisionists, and then wrote another about Jefferson Davis to attach the same charges to Davis, in a massive tu quoque argument -- a recrimination. How much of Neely do I have to read, to get my mind around the fact that he's recriminating? That his point is to vindicate the Unionist POV and inculpate the Southerners and their POV?
I suppose that, to satisy you that I'm being "fair" (which I can tell you care about from your long ad hominem post about my supposed argumentation ad hominem), I should spend the next 15 years of my life toiling in the salt-pits of historiographical studies, before I open my mouth again. But I wonder, is it worth it? If I get my PhD, will x kiss and make up? Somehow I kinda don't think so.
No, I'm not going to jump through hoops for you. I'm satisfied to post up what I think, and maybe point to some good quotes from people I think knew what they were talking about, and let our lurking neighbors decide who's being real.
And when you throw out all books written in the past half-century or so by writers at major universities, you come off sounding like a yahoo, and condemn yourself to ignorance.
Well, don't you wish? And meantime, what are you going to do about the wide and deep cadre of Leftist and liberal "growers" of the Constitution, who have been tenure-tracking one another into comfy ensconcement at those universities, and shutting out differing POV's at some of them? Some universities have a rep for lacking academic freedom. Berkeley, where a couple of your sources hole up, is one of them. Indiana University was notorious in the 30's for having Reds on their faculty; so were Columbia and NYU. But I haven't noticed you worrying about impartiality from that quarter.
That's not what you told me up above.
I don't even reject him because his book is so offensive. I reject his book because it's the work of a lazy man who doesn't bother to question or investigate but simply writes out of his own prejudices and appeals to the prejudices of others.
Didn't work hard enough for you, eh? What would have been enough? What would it have taken? Wandering all over the lot and then coming down exactly where you do?
I point out to you that he was a Rooseveltian hanger-on, because you use that style of argument, and I inform others that he had scant respect for the capacities and aspirations of African-Americans, because they tell me that's important to them,
Oh, so you cop to being a Straussian, then. A manager of others, a Hamiltonian manipulator and user. Thanks for respecting us. You know, the planter class may have had a lot of objectionable characteristics, but the Straussians share the worst of them without having contributed to the growth of the country. You recriminate against the planters, for example, that they ate their bread by the sweat of their slaves' brows, and that is indeed a substantive moral complaint. But how is it better, selfishly to direct others intellectually rather than economically?
..... but it's the shoddy quality of the work that turns me off to him, and I've looked into his book enough to confirm that impression.
If he'd been less shoddy, do you think he'd have been more inclined to see things your way?
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