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?

[Heyworth]

How can someone as relentlessly, consistently, almost magically idiotic as yourself remember to keep breathing, Watie? The difference you're trying to express is de jure vs. de facto. In the south, until the Civil Rights era, you had LEGAL restrictions based on race. Blacks weren't allowed to drink from the same water fountains, much less go to the same schools because of the LAW.

In the north, segregation wasn't codified into law as it was in the south. It was practiced on an individual basis. Blacks lived in black neighborhoods and went to their neighborhood schools. Whites did the same. When white families flee to the suburbs to get away from minorities, they aren't doing anything illegal. Immoral, maybe, but not illegal. And schools aren't obligated to bus in kids from other school districts. I went to an all-white high school in a small town in Illinois. The reason it was all-white was that there were no black people living in my town. If we were to "desegregate" my high school, we'd have had to bus in black students from 30 miles and a county away. Did my school practice de jure segregation? No. Was it de facto segregated? Yes.

The other form of segregation in the north, "red-lining," does go on, although much less than before. Government and non-government organizations constantly send out undercover agents masquerading as home buyers to catch real estate agents who practice this. And if you ever talk to a real estate agent, they'll tell you that what they're allowed to say about certain subjects is very circumscribed. Penalties are heavy--fines, loss of licenses, etc.. Today "red lining" has given way to "steering."

[Modernman]

In the north, segregation wasn't codified into law as it was in the south. It was practiced on an individual basis.

Well, to be fair, some school districts in the North drew lines to make sure that there were overwhelmingly white schools and overwhelmingly black schools.

That was the exception, rather than the rule, however.

[Modernman]

When white families flee to the suburbs to get away from minorities, they aren't doing anything illegal.

Actually, it's more complicated than that. For example, in Detroit you not only had white flight but also black middle-class flight.

Though there certainly was a racial element to urban flight, people of any race who had the ability to do so fled places like Detroit after they went to hell in a handbag. There are several perfectly safe and respectable "black" suburbs of Detroit.

[Heyworth]

Well, to be fair, some school districts in the North drew lines to make sure that there were overwhelmingly white schools and overwhelmingly black schools.

Absolutely right. And those were the cases which were litigated and probably contributed to Watie's warped view of the subject. Today the segregation that goes on in the north is essentiallly economic. Middle-class and wealthy blacks either live in the suburbs and send their kids to the same schools as their white neighbors, or they send them to private schools. Public schools in major cities are left to the poor--black, white, or hispanic and that fact is that few poor whites live in major cities anymore. But that's a whole other conversation.

[M. Espinola]

Why don't you come up here and try, just try, preventing me from voting?

You are just a lot of talk behind the computer screen.

[M. Espinola]

Today's slithering segregationists, at least on here, being cowards, refuse to admit they have not altered their views one bit since segregation. They are abusing the term 'conservative'.

This enemy is an equal threat to America's freedoms as the ones shown below. In fact both fanatical groups have a lot in common.

The only ones happy with either collection of wackos would be companies in the bed sheet business.

[M. Espinola]

What was that you stated concerning the use of flags? The the photos posted below just stuck in deflating pin in you confederate balloon.

Just for the record do you sleep with a rebel flag bedspread?

[4CJ]

Why don't you come up here and try, just try, preventing me from voting?

Who said anything about preventing YOU from voting? I wrote, 'Then I'm happy to know that you condemn the 14th Amendment as illegal due to it's revocation of Confederate voting rights.'

You also wrote, 'Supremacist advocating despots must be weeded out from of the ranks of Republican Party once and for all.'

To which I replied, 'Yep. It's been real, but don't let the door hit you on the way out.' Why? Because almost every post from you to a Southerner/Constitutional textualist is filled by derision and scorn, insinuating and intimating that we are nothing but trailer-trash, inbred, toothless hayseeds. In other words, you are posting as a "Supremacist", yankee or otherwise.

I haven't met a liberal on our side here, to a man and woman each of them support LIMITED government, are opposed to abortion, are opposed to homosexual marriage, are in favour of the Death Penalty, are opposed to federal Pork projects, are opposed to racism, the klan and skinhead groups, the NAACLP, Je$$e Jackson and Al Sharpton, Robert Byrd, Ted 'The Swimmer' Kennedy, The President from Arkansas and his wife, Chuckie Schummer, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinswine, Russ Feingold, 'Leaky' Leahy ad nauseum, against Islamic terrorists and terrorists of any religion or ethnicity. In other words, we are conservatives.

Gonna disappear for 30 days again?

[fortheDeclaration]

In 1814 New Englanders at the Hartford Convention were making thinly veiled threats at secession in protest to 'Mr. Madison's War." Then, Southerners struck the nationalist pose (emphasis added) (Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1861-1865)

[fortheDeclaration]

Haynes is speaking of constitutional methods, not secession.

Nullification was seen as a legal alternative to secession.

As for going back to the early 1800's, the fact is that the act was considered treasonous, even as late as 1861 when Lee was writing his son.

[fortheDeclaration]

The fact is, understanding context is crucial in understanding various decisions that were made.

As for your accusations, show we discuss the slaughter of Germans in Texas, or Black troops?

As for assassination of leaders, the reason we have outlawed it in this nation is because it does open your own leaders to retaliation.

If the assertion could be proven that Lincoln approved of actions to kill Davis,(which is highly unlikely), then he was indeed wielding a double-edged sword that could cut both ways.

Ofcourse, even with that there is a context, since by April the war was for all intents over.

Killing Lincoln (and othe government officals) would simply be an act of revenge not a means to change the outcome of the war.

[fortheDeclaration]

So, Davis abused his power in 13 areas and Lincoln 18 areas.

13 is a pretty high number for a nation formed to 'resist Northern tyranny'

And ofcourse, Bensel is the final word on this matter!

The point is that the war as the context led both sides to take measures they preferred not to take.

Stop playing games and deal with the central issue. The tu quoquery of you and non-seq aside, the central and original issue was Lincoln's abuses of power. The only games that were ever played to dance around it were of a tu quoque nature and, as noted, you and non-seq were the ones who played them.

No, the smoke screen that you want to put up is to try to ignore the extreme crises that Lincoln faced and that was the reason he took, in some cases, extreme measures.

Davis had to do the same thing.

What is amazing is the amount of restraint, not the abuse, that both men displayed in this struggle.

It represented the fact that both men were trying to preserve a Constitutional form of Government and hoped to return to it fully in peace.

[fortheDeclaration]

And yet you've failed to demonstrate that Davis "stretched" his constitution anywhere near the degree that Lincoln did

Oh, now its a matter of degree!

Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism

by Mark E. Neely Jr. 240 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 • Cloth $35.00

ISBN 0-8139-1894-4

"One of the most original and important books on the Confederacy ever published." --William E. Gienapp, Harvard University

On the day Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate authorities, General Braxton Bragg reacted to a newspaper report that might have revealed the position of gun emplacements by placing the correspondent, a Southern loyalist, under arrest. Thus the Confederate army's first detention of a citizen occurred before President Lincoln had even called out troops to suppress the rebellion. During the civil war that followed, not a day would pass when Confederate military prisons did not contain political prisoners.

Based on the discovery of records of over four thousand of these prisoners, Mark E. Neely Jr.'s new book undermines the common understanding that Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were scrupulous in their respect for constitutional rights while Lincoln and the Unionists regularly violated the rights of dissenters. Neely reveals for the first time the extent of repression of Unionists and other civilians in the Confederacy, and uncovers and marshals convincing evidence that Southerners were as ready as their Northern counterparts to give up civil liberties in response to the real or imagined threats of wartime.

From the onset of hostilities, the exploits of drunken recruits prompted communities from Selma to Lynchburg to beg the Richmond government to impose martial law. Southern citizens resigned themselves to a passport system for domestic travel similar to the system of passes imposed on enslaved and free blacks before the war. These restrictive measures made commerce difficult and constrained religious activity. As one Virginian complained, "This struggle was begun in defence of Constitutional Liberty which we could not get in the United States." The Davis administration countered that the passport system was essential to prevent desertion from the army, and most Southerners accepted the passports as a necessary inconvenience, ignoring the irony that the necessities of national mobilization had changed their government from a states'-rights confederacy to a powerful, centralized authority.

After the war the records of men imprisoned by this authority were lost through a combination of happenstance and deliberate obfuscation. Their discovery and subtle interpretation by a Pulitzer Prize&emdash;winning historian explodes one of the remaining myths of Lost Cause historiography, revealing Jefferson Davis as a calculated manipulator of the symbols of liberty.

Reviews

Mark Neely's Southern Rights is a work of major significance that revises many traditional views about civil liberties in the Confederacy. By carefully analyzing the previously ignored arrest records of more than 4,000 political prisoners in the Confederacy, Neely demonstrates that in crucial ways the regulation of dissent was simultaneously more sweeping and less controversial in the Confederacy than in the Union, and in theprocess effectively calls into question the standard paeans to Confederate constitutionalism. Neely's careful scholarship reveals how little we knew previously about the formulation of Confederate policy on this issue or how Confederate laws and policies were actually enforced at the local level. This is a stimulating and provocative work that asks new questions, challenges many reigning beliefs about southern society and values, and points Confederate scholarship in new directions. With implications far beyond its particular subject, Southern Rights is one of the most original and important books on the Confederacy ever published.

--William E. Gienapp, Harvard University http://www.upress.virginia.edu/books/neely.html

[4CJ]

In 1814 New Englanders at the Hartford Convention were making thinly veiled threats at secession in protest to 'Mr. Madison's War." Then, Southerners struck the nationalist pose (emphasis added) (Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 1861-1865)

Isn't that why there was a union - to protect the states against FOREIGN aggressors. Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to provide troops for the war.

[Heyworth]

Very interesting! The title led me to some other reviews, as well. "Habeas Corpus Commissions" were apparently the Confederacy's dirty little secret until Neely dug their existence out of the National Archives (where their records were misidentified).

[fortheDeclaration]

And your point is?

Do you think I am defending the New England states?

[fortheDeclaration]

Excellent!

[Heyworth]

Here's an excerpt of one review:

Carefully combing through the voluminous Confederate Secretary of War files, Neely discovers case after case of political prisoners arrested on suspicion of disloyalty and/or Unionist sentiment. The Confederate government, and states within the Confederacy repeatedly and blatantly jailed thousands of white and black Southerners, without formal charges, trial or legal counsel, often on the mere suggestion of Unionism or disloyalty to the Confederacy. Since the Confederacy never established a judiciary branch, the state court system retained a great deal of authority, especially in the Border South like Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and North Carolina, where Confederate officials believed the greatest danger of political dissent occurred.

Neely also uncovers a little known group of Southern lawyers who worked as "habeas corpus commissioners," providing what would seem to be legal protection for individuals' liberties. However, Neely discovers that these commissioners wielded considerable power by quietly ensuring that the Confederate government could continue to arrest citizens without formal criminal charges and keep them imprisoned for months, even years. If one of these so-called commissioners did not recommend a prisoner's release, that person might remain incarcerated indefinitely. The commissioners' reports were not made public and Congress provided little oversight of their activity. After the war, the existence of these commissioners was completely and conveniently forgotten, even by the commissioners themselves. Their existence and their reports remained essentially lost in the Secretary of War papers until Neely found them filed alphabetically by the individual names of the commissioners. Neely asserts that most Confederate citizens apparently accepted the curtailment of civil liberties, the issuance of passports for travel, the prohibition of alcohol, and the presence of guards and military posts throughout the South as necessities of war. There is little evidence of protest or even concern among loyal Confederates that thousands of civilians were being arrested and imprisoned for their political beliefs without being formally charged with any crime. Nor did lawyers, of whom there were many in the South, challenge the Confederate government's authoritarian tendencies. Most Confederates' desire for societal order, Neely reasons, was stronger than their desire for individual liberty.

Even in Arkansas, where General Thomas C. Hindman declared martial law and temporarily ruled ruthlessly, there were few outspoken critics. Hindman did what Neely maintains Davis wanted to do, and later attempted to do, throughout the Confederacy: silence dissenters and focus all available manpower on mobilizing for war. In the end, Neely sees more similarities than differences between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis as wartime presidents. As the bloody war progressed, both leaders believed that their respective constitutions came second to winning the war. After the war, Davis and other purveyors of the Lost Cause left out this unpleasant part of Confederate history, instead vilifying Lincoln as dictator and championing the Southern nation as the true defender of civil liberty. Neely challenges common assumptions concerning Southern Unionists too, maintaining that ideology, idealism, and selflessness played important roles in determining political allegiances, not materialism, class consciousness, ignorance, isolation, cowardly behavior, or greater affinity with the industrializing North. In East Tennessee, for example, he finds Unionists more strongly attached to the pastoral, traditional life style than secessionists who lived closer to railroads and were more directly connected to the burgeoning market economy.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3729/is_200107/ai_n8958586

[fortheDeclaration]

Thanks!

[M. Espinola]

"Confederate voting rights?" What is that, another illusion from the demented neo-confeds? Try voting for the 'Confederate ticket' the next time at the polls.

What's the matter, does the quote I made "Supremacist advocating despots" fit you like a wet glove, that is why you responded so viciously?

You & your comrade secessionists are the only 'conservatives'? lol ..please give anyone a break. So, now hate groups are conservatives? Amazing! How interesting since the only section of this nation in which corn feed 'pro-secessionist' candidates might be able to muster enough votes to inch out a victory would be in your local hick towns.

Instead of focusing on the real threats America is confronting, you and your rabble fights for a lost cause which was lost 150 years ago. If you truly wanted secession, you would move....out of the country.