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?

[fortheDeclaration]

And that changes non-sequitur's point how?

[nolu chan]

[nc] That was your quoted comment that I responded to and destroyed. Destroyed with what?

Facts, something your posts are notably void of.

[nc] Considering the disclosure of the suppressed Booth diary with 43 sheets/86 pages missing without adequate explanation; the exculpatory material that remained in what was left of the diary; the disclosure of the panel recommendation for clemency for Mary Surratt which was withheld from the President; the failure to convict at the trial of John H. Surratt, and the imprisonment, for perjury, of a key witness from the military conspiracy trial, the government did not dare to bring Jefferson Davis to trial

Once again, assumption with no facts. All facts. Deal with it.

How do you jump to the conclusion that the Gov't was afraid that the South would [be] considered not guilty of rebellion based on the fact that Davis was not tried?

That is quite a statement. Please post the link for it.

I guess the real failure was on the part of the Confederate leadership who should have demanded a trial to get the verdict that they knew would be given.

Davis and his attorneys showed up and said they were ready to proceed. After two years, the government said it was still not ready and obtained a delay.

John Harrison Surratt had already been tried in civilian court. The half-missing Booth diary came out. The fact of the clemency recommendation came out. You do remember the charges, don't you? You do remember the exposing of perjury?

You must have your tinfoil hat on this morning.

You must have a tinfoil hat every morning.

[lentulusgracchus]

And THAT is how Supreme Court hokey-pokey was played by the radical-controlled Republican Congress.

Thanks for your recounting. As I've argued repeatedly to the people on this and other threads who seek to benefit polemically by the corrupt and self-interested decisions of the Court in e.g. Texas vs. White, "personnel is policy" on the Court, and the People needn't be overawed by political hacks in black robes handing down ex parte writs as God's own law.

Judging by the timing, Lincoln almost certainly intended Chase to be the "leader of the pack" in hammering down the South during Reconstruction.

[lentulusgracchus]

Slavery was a fortunate outcome of their victory but never, ever the primary goal.

I think you have read Lincoln and the Radicals dead wrong on that issue. I've read Lincoln's letters and speeches from 1855-6, and there cannot be the shadow of a doubt that he fully intended to terminate slavery, with or without the consent of the Southern States. Certainly Southerners were correct in their estimation of Lincoln's devotion to abolition, judging by outcomes.

The "fortunate outcome" of the war was neither "fortunate" nor, to use the more perspicuous word, fortuitous.

[lentulusgracchus]

Your eloquence does your reputation justice.

Now show us how.

[Non-Sequitur]

Your eloquence does your reputation justice.

It was the proper response to his asinine position, wasn't it?

It's clear that Section 2 is a continuation of the grounds in which the President can call out the militia. If the governor or legislature are participants in the rebellion, the "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act" that is referred to. Lincoln was within his authority to call up the militia to suppress the southern rebellion. Now if you believe that my interpretation is incorrect then I hope that you have some competent authority to back up your beliefs. If not, then your opinions and nolu chan's lame interpretation carries no more weight than mine does. And is no more correct.

[capitan_refugio]

"Just as with the Articles of Confederation, once all the members departed, that constitution was dead."

And just as history record, the Soviet Union officially died, not through secession of its member states, but by its ruling body's revocation of its own December 1922 Declaration. It had nothing to do with the Soviet "constitution."

[Non-Sequitur]

I've read Lincoln's letters and speeches from 1855-6, and there cannot be the shadow of a doubt that he fully intended to terminate slavery, with or without the consent of the Southern States.

I've read the same letters and speeches and while there can be no doubt of Lincoln's opposition to slavery, the question was still whether the rebellion was over slavery. The Union goal in that conflict, as stated over and again by Lincoln, was always the preservation of the Union itself. Given that, while the elimination of the institution was a fortuitous outcome of the conflict, it was not the goal of the Union war effort itself.

[capitan_refugio]

The neo-confederates like to loose with the truth, don't they?

[capitan_refugio]

Don't be coy - why don't you just cite your proof? I'm not into playing your games right now.

You still haven't shown it was the same person.

[capitan_refugio]

The Emancipation Proclamation was a military strategy. That is why it did not apply to areas in frim Union control.

The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September 1862. It read, in part, "all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Read some more Jethro. Get your dates right.

[capitan_refugio]

Sorry. Wrong again. The President had an obligation to respond to the insurrection. Of course, you know that already.

[capitan_refugio]

He didn't "forget."

[capitan_refugio]

Thank you, but it is lost on those knuckleheads. They continue to spew the same anti-American offal they always have.

[capitan_refugio]

"How do you jump to the conclusion that the Gov't was afraid that the South would [be] considered not guilty of rebellion based on the fact that Davis was not tried?"

I'm going to enjoy the attempt at another rationalization; but the real answer is, chemical degradation of his brain.

[capitan_refugio]

IIRC, Lincoln specifically used the phrase "obstructed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings" in his proclamation(s).

[capitan_refugio]

"It was the proper response to his asinine position, wasn't it?"

There is no position too assinine for any neo-confederate to take. They survive on rationalizations and perverted interpretations!

[capitan_refugio]

"The Union goal in that conflict, as stated over and again by Lincoln, was always the preservation of the Union itself."

Why not hearken to the words of a confederate patriot - Robert Barnwell Rhett (nee Smith), who said: "Aye - disunion, rather into a thousand fragments. And why, gentlemen, would I prefer disunion to such a Government? Because under such a government I would be a slave - a fearful slave, ruled despotically by those who do not represent me, and whose sectional interests are not mine.... If to think, to speak, to feel such sentiments as these, constitute me a disunionist and a traitor ... then gentlemen, I am a Disunionist! - I am a Traitor!" Charleston Mercury, October 18, 1830

[nolu chan]

the same being notified to the President of the United States, by an associate justice or the district judge

Are you asserting that the President of the United States was notified by an associate justice or a district judge?

Please do post the notification to which you refer.

[nolu chan]

I would recommend you read the opinion in WHITE v. HART, 80 U.S. 646 (1871) at 647, the line following "ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia."

[Non-Sequitur] Got a link?

No, I do not have a link.

As capitan_refugio is the Brigade legal expert on this opinion, perhaps he can help you.

Then again, perhaps neither of you two experts has ever seen or read the opinion about which you "know" so much.