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?

[capitan_refugio]

"[C]an you post something PROVING their intent was to form permanent union? Something PRE-ratification?"

It was called the "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" It stated, "And that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and that the Union shall be perpetual." It is the same union that was created in 1776, when the Declaration was made and the Article were proposed; it is the same union that that existed when the Articles were ratified during the war for independence; and it is the same union that exists today.

"Swami, could you post something that proves that the ratifiers should abide by the intent, and not by the plain written word?"

You are probably well aware that a discussion on "originalism" could occupy an entire new thread. It should suffice to say that "originalism" and "strict constructionism" go hand-in-hand. When the Supreme Court quotes from the Federalist Papers or from speeches or writing of the Founders and Framers, you can bet they are doing so to point out original intent.

When the Court ignores the original intent of the Framers, then you end up with assaults on the 2nd Amendment, and decisions like Roe v Wade and Scott v Sandford. And the Framers were very specific about one thing - if you don't like what we have written, or if you think we have left something out that needs to be addressed, use the processes we have included to amend it.

"I think the ratifications of several of the states disprove your "theory" rather easily."

You seem to be in the fringist school of thought that states were capable of placing conditions or reservations on their ratification of the Constitution. It is abundantly clear, from the writings of Madison, Hamilton, and others, as well as the records of the 1st Congress, that no conditional ratifications were made or accepted.

Sandefur put it this way, "There can be no conditional assent to the Constitution, just as (at common law) there can be no new terms in agreeing to a contract. Either the people of a state ratify the Constitution—and accept that it is the supreme law of the land—or they do not." The record shows that the people of all thirteen states, in convention, voluntarily ratified the proposed Constitution.

Take Virginia's so-called "condition": "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." That term "oppression" has popped up again. Virginia is maintaining its natural right to revolution - nothing more. Indeed, it is maintaining that right for all of the people of the country, not just the state. There is no hint of unilateral secession.

[Daveinyork]

My take on the whole issue of the Civil War is that the North was fighting to preserve the Union. The South was fighting to preserve its way of life, of which an important component was the institution of slavery.

[R. Scott]

One of many components. I see it as the Archtypical conflict between Agrarian and Industrial societies.

[M. Espinola]

Have you considered treatment?

Doctor Glomp asked all new patients to please bathe

[Non-Sequitur]

Wlat jr!

That would make you GOPcapitalist's mini-me?

[Non-Sequitur]

Wow you must be psychic! The way I see it, Linkum was just itching for his "gulf of Tonkin" incident, and he fiinally got it with the Sumter fiasco.

Does that make you psychic, too?

By the way, that little fireworks incident caused no casualties either. But Linkums aggression sure as hell did.

So if the Japanese had bombed the crap out of Pearl Harbor but not killed anyone then we never would have gotten involved in World War II? Damned unlucky for them, wasn't it?

[capitan_refugio]

"A union created by 9 states, absent the other 4. Regardless of wheter or not those 4 ever joined, a new union had been created. Two states could unite politically, when one leaves that union is gone. Same for 13, when 9 leave their political union is over."

You confuse the Union with the form of general government. The states were ratifying the plan for the new form of government. The Union had been already created. As each state ratified the document individually, there would necessarily be a period of time when 9 states had ratified and 4 had not. In fact, no state failed to ratify.

"I've added terms when agreeing to a contract, and had such done to me, both personally and in business."

As have I. But all of the parties to the agreement had to agree to the changes. They were not made unilaterally. History shows that there was no second constitutional convention, and that not all of the suggestions put forward by the states in their ratifications, or in the 1st Congress, were accepted. Yet, those states remained within the constitutional government. Why? Because their suggestions were just that - suggestions. They were not material changes to the agreement.

"They were even more specific - what had not been delegated to the federal government remaind with the states. Their is no legal requiement to amend the constitution to leave."

Although Madison believed that concept was implicit within the Constitution, the 1st Congress added a similar provision to the Bill of Rights. Amendment 10, however, only reserved rights to the States or the People, it did not create new ones. the so-called right of unilateral secession did not exist under the Articles. It was not created in the Constitution of 1787, which was designed to make the perpetual Union more perfect. Such a right was not created in the 10th Amendment. And the Supreme Court has ruled conclusively that it never existed: "The act which consummated [a state's] admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final."

"So where is it contained within the text of the constitution? Where is the statement that the union is perpetual in the constitution? "

Chief Justice Salmon Chase: "The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. it began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"

"The "union" accepted those ratifications, and by doing so, agreed to the written terms of ratification."

Sophistry. The only question before the state convention was, "Do you ratify the proposed constitution?" The document itself provided that they had no power to make changes, except through the proscribed processes.

[lentulusgracchus]

Ah but we were talking about Jeff Davis and his war.

You were trying to change the subject to Jeff Davis.

Everybody, even contemporary Northerners, knew that it was "Mr. Lincoln's War". They were right.

[Non-Sequitur]

Everybody, even contemporary Northerners, knew that it was "Mr. Lincoln's War". They were right.

"North&South" magazine has an article in their most recent issue asking historians to rank the 10 biggest mistakes of the war. Number one for several of them was Davis starting the war by firing on Sumter. So obviously 'everybody' doesn't agree with you. Maybe way, way down south in your neck of the woods they do.

[lentulusgracchus]

Well if you look at both Democrat platforms for the 1860 election you would find that both of them also pushed for the railroad.

Not quite the same route -- from a point due west of Chicago, is where Lincoln put it.

And if you want to go around blaming people, maybe you ought to blame Illinois's own Senator Douglas. Judge Douglas offered up "popular sovereignty" and the Kansas-Nebraska Act in an attempt to hustle Jeff Davis and the Southerners on the location of the railroad terminus. He offered them minimal good acreage in the West and Plains States in exchange for a priceless improvement in his own back yard.

Democrat pork was OK I guess.

Even when it was a hustle.

Plus, Judge Douglas didn't go out to kill a million people to get his way. Lincoln did. So, yeah, Democratic pork and no dead people was preferable to Republican pork, 620,000 battlefield dead and untold civilian deaths, and thirty years of declining wages and farm prices while Lincoln's factionalists got plutocratically rich. Mrs. Vanderbilt (as in, the New York Vanderbilts) used to give out large gemstones in people's soup and salads as dinner favors. She could certainly afford it -- the rubes out on the prairie and in the cotton bottoms were paying for it.

Being a member of Lincoln's triumphant faction wasn't so very different from being a hustling Tikriti or Sunni Baathist under Saddam. It was a license to gouge, abuse, and get rich. No wonder they made Grant fight so hard.

Without the cheap amusements of killing and raping people, of course. That perk was reserved for Billy Sherman's soldiery, before they were sent home to go broke breaking their backs on their own farms.

[Non-Sequitur]

Not quite the same route -- from a point due west of Chicago, is where Lincoln put it.

None of the platforms specified a route. It's interesting to note that when routes had been discussed before the war that the southern senators were all behind the railroad as long as they thought that the route would be a southern one. It wasn't the project they objected to, or the cost. Just where the pork would flow.

Plus, Judge Douglas didn't go out to kill a million people to get his way. Lincoln did. etc., etc.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

[Restorer]

The US before the Civil War was among the lowest-tax societies in history.

BTW, much of the federal government's income came from land sales, not taxes.

[Restorer]

One final note - the 60 million annual budget figure you cite was from 1859 - BEFORE Lincoln's tax hike (which did something between doubling and tripling the rate on each taxable item) went into effect and BEFORE the GOP's desired system of "internal improvement" expenditures got considered.

Ya think the tax hikes might have had something to do with the $6B war the Union was embarking on?

Not that they knew in 1860 that it would wind up costing that much.

If they had, might have dampened war enthusiasm. Although if southerners had know before Sumter how the war would turn out, they might have been a little less anxious to pull the trigger, too.

I also suspect non-military internal improvements got pushed to the back of the line for a few years.

Many of the major promoters of "internal improvements" were southerners and slaveholders. Henry Clay built his entire career on promoting them.

The opening of the southern rivers, such as the Mississippi and Red, to navigation were paid for by these horrible internal improvements. I've never seen a figure, but I wouldn't be surprised if an amount disproportionate to population was spent on such improvements in southern states.

[Ditto]

Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky were all exempt from the EP as were many counties in Confederate states were the Union forces held control. If you bothered to study the issue as opposed to looking for any excuse to bash Lincoln, (sort of like the Rats with Bush -- facts don't matter) you would understand why the Emancipation Proclamation did not, and could not possibly apply to loyal states or those areas of disloyal states under Union control.

The EP was a war time military order that only applied where military law (martial law) was in effect. As President, Lincoln had absolutely no authority under the Constitution to end slavery (read seize private property) in jurisdictions where US Courts could function. Any Court, would have rightly overturned such an order.

But as CIC, he could issue such an order to his military commanders operating under Martial Law to "free slaves" ("seize and dispose of enemy property, not end slavery) where ever they encountered slaves. As Union forces moved across the Confederacy over the next two years, nearly 3 million slaves were freed under the EP. But it took a Constitutional Amendment (the 13th which Lincoln pushed through Congress) to legally end slavery in America. It was not ratified by the necessary number of states until the end of 1865.

As a side note, very early in his 1st them, Lincoln wrote to the representatives of the 4 Union slave states urging them to end slavery (even offering Federal compensation) and reminding them that the outcome of the war would surely be the end of slavery in America and it was best for them to get ahead of the process. Before the end of the war, and before the 13th Amendment took effect, the Maryland and Missouri legislatures voted on their own to end slavery as did the western counties of Virginia as a condition of being admitted to the Union as the state of West Virginia. Delaware and Kentucky did not.

[Ditto]

The brakes on slavery began with the UK if I'm not mistaken...

Actually, the first governmental units to reject slavery were the legislatures of the states of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in 1780 when they passed legislation to end slavery in their states. Granted, they were "gradual emancipation" measures, but they were a very radical step at that time in keeping with the ideas of liberty that the war was being fought over. This was at the height of the Revolutionary War when the British were still the driving force in the Atlantic slave trade and before the British conscience kicked in.

[lentulusgracchus]

Nice cartoon -- good suckerpunch.

I can see from the date you've been saving that one for a while. Any reason why?

I also see that it was distributed by Tribune Media Services -- as in, Chicago Tribune. Seems you like stereotyping just fine, as long as it's driven by regionalism, contempt, and hatred for the South and Southerners. What do you know about the South, anyway? Ever lived there?

[lentulusgracchus]

That business about Davis's capture was a canard, forged in memory of Lincoln's first, ignominious entrance into Washington, DC.

But then, you probably knew that.

[lentulusgracchus]

"North&South" magazine has an article in their most recent issue asking historians to rank the 10 biggest mistakes of the war. Number one for several of them was Davis starting the war by firing on Sumter.

No doubt about it.

So obviously 'everybody' doesn't agree with you.

A non-sequitur. Your very signature. Just because Jeff Davis screwed the pooch, doesn't mean Lincoln didn't lay a diabolical snare for him, and thereby connive at the opening of the hostilities Lincoln needed in order to impose extraconstitutional solutions to his political problem. Which was, how do you turn an agrarian, democratic society into a rank-ordered, industrialized, "privatized" one in which the elite superrich can sidestep responsibility for anything (up to and including the Johnstown Flood, the Whiskey Ring, the Homestake strike, and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire), in spite of the People?

Maybe way, way down south in your neck of the woods they do.

Sneer noted. Bite me.

[Non-Sequitur]

Just because Jeff Davis screwed the pooch, doesn't mean Lincoln didn't lay a diabolical snare for him, and thereby connive at the opening of the hostilities Lincoln needed in order to impose extraconstitutional solutions to his political problem.

So we're back to the "Davis was too stupid to see through Lincoln's plot" excuse?