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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?
OK.
Hardly.
Not really.
Owning your own agenda always comes first -- top of the list.
And at the top of that agenda was slavery.
[You, playing slothful induction again] Hardly.
No? What law did the States break who passed secession articles and called their Congressional delegations home?
More precisely, what completely irrelevant, subsidiary, and totally subordinate law did the Southern States break by leaving the Union?
Never happen. As I explained, the top of the list is always owning the list.
Everything else is down the list, your slothful induction to the contrary absolutely notwithstanding.
Their actions violated the Constitution, as the Supreme Court found in Texas v White. Hardly a 'completely irrelevant, subsidiary, and totally subordinate law'.
Actually, wasn't the official Confederate flag the Bonnie Blue flag? The flag usually associated with the Confederacy is the Tennessee Battle Flag in reality, the Stars and Bars.
It's funny, though. Southern as I am, seeing the modern photos, Iwo Jima, the astronaut on the moon; I realize my flag is the American flag. My g.g. grandfather was a Confederate soldier. My father was a WWII American soldier. He fought for this entire country under that flag.
Because he would be found innocent by a Virgina jury (which Johnson feared) or because his case for secession would be upheld?
The first reason is reasonable, the second one isn't.
Because if the secession of Virginia from the Union was not lawful, than the secession of several western Virginia counties from Virginia [peacably and de jure, by the way] to become the Unionist state of West Virginia was not constitutionally permissible:
U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3:
Clause 1: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
If the secession of the south was not lawful, than the creation of West Virginia was an extraconstitutional, impeachable act by an out of control dictator.
The South did not intend to overthrow the government in Washington, only to disassociate themselves from it. Accordingly, theirs was not a war of revolution, but one of independence, as per the Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence of 1965 from the British Empire, or that of India and Israel from their previous colonial master.
Odd that the supposedly free-spirited Australians never went that route....
The vast majority fought because their state governments told them to.
Why did those governments want them to fight?
Slavery.
The battle flag of the Army of Tennessee wasn't really adopted and issued until 1864, and even then there were variants, such as Forrest's 12-star version. And most of the military versions were sqare in shape rather than rectangular like the Confederate Naval Jack...which was the second such design used by the Confederacy. The first somewhat eeriely resembles the yellow stars in a circle flag of the European Union:
And the difference is?
Interesting that you blame it on Lincoln when the President has no constitutional role in creating a state.
West Virginia was created when a anti-secession segment of the Virginia legislature broke away and petitioned the U.S. Congress to be recognized as the legitimate Virginia legislature. This was done and a loyal governor, senator, and congressmen were chosen and sent to Washington. This legislature voted to partition Virginia into two states and requested permission from Congress to do so. Congress granted this permission and West Virginia was formed and later admitted as a state. All proper and within the bounds of the Constitution. Was it legal? There is some question as to whether the Virginia constitution was violated in terms of quorum for doing business, but that would be a matter for the courts to decide. But as to your claim that it was unconstitutional or impeachable. Nonsense.
Incorrect, the majority of soldiers in the Confederacy were volunteers.
They seceded because they deeply resented the North basically becoming tyrants over them and forcing them to do things that were not in the interest of the people of the South. Slavery was just one of those things. The average soldier did NOT own slaves nor did his family and did not have a dog in that fight (so to speak).
They FOUGHT because the North refused to honor the wishes of the southern states to peaceably withdraw from the Union and invaded the Confederacy. Yes, I know about Fort Sumter. The Confederacy fired on that fort because the Union was baasically told to leave Confederate land and refused (on the orders of Lincoln) in hopes of starting a war and giving the North the excuse to invade.
Please don't try to tell me that it is unconstitutional to secede when our very own Declaration of Independence says otherwise.
That's not even a properly phrased sentence, so no.
Volunteers called to the colors by their state governments. And when the volunteers weren't forthcoming, the Confederacy resorted to conscription.
The Confederacy fired on that fort because the Union was baasically told to leave Confederate land and refused (on the orders of Lincoln) in hopes of starting a war and giving the North the excuse to invade.
If your neighbors announce that they are seceding from the Union, claim your property as part of "their" country, and finally demand that you leave "their" country, are they entitled to use deadly force to effect such transfer?
Please don't try to tell me that it is unconstitutional to secede when our very own Declaration of Independence says otherwise.
First, the Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution.
Second, one has a moral right to rebel against (perceived) tyranny. It is not, in any sense of the word, a legally enforceable right.
It wasn't just "neighbors". It was entire states leaving the Union and all the lands inside their boundaries and forming a new nation. A nation has the right to evict a foreign army with which it has no treaty (assuming that they have the military power to do so, of course).
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
What part of the Declaration of Independence isn't valid? Or are you going to go the liberal route and say that the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional?
When a complete, total, instant military victory will not yield the result for which the war is claimed to be fought, that claimed reason cannot be valid.
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