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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?
But had their state governments not started the war in the first place, there would not have been a call for volunteers.
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?
You must be a product of the public school system.
An insult is not a valid way to answer a question.
Initially they were. But as of April 1862 they were forced to remain in the confederate army for the duration of the war, regardless of their original enlistment or any desire to continue serving. At that same time the confederate government instituted conscription.
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.
Let me get this straight, you're saying that the North forced slavery on an unwilling South?
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.
Sumter wasn't confederate land and the troops had every right to be there. Regardless, the south did resort to bombarding Sumter into surrender. Maybe that's why all those Yankees came on down in the first place?
Please don't try to tell me that it is unconstitutional to secede when our very own Declaration of Independence says otherwise.
We are governed by the provisions of the Constitution, not the prose of the Declaration of Independence.
How about I go the legal route and say that the Declaration of Independence is not law? It was a statement of the reasons for rebellion against the British crown.
Then rebelling against the legitimate government and forming a new nation is valid if you believe strongly enough that the reasons are valid?
Winning helps, too.
No, among other reasons, such as forcing high tariffs on foreign machinery in order to force the South to either buy inferior Northern machinery or pay high taxes. There is no doubt that the North did just that.
Sumter wasn't confederate land and the troops had every right to be there.
It was in South Carolina. South Carolina was no longer in the Union. Every government has the right to decide if they will or will not allow foreign troops on their land and they have the right to eject them by any means necessary if they can.
The Declaration of Independence is used because we all agree that it was acceptable for the colonies to secede from a nation that we all deemed as having a tyrannical government. The South just decided to dust off that right one more time. It is a basic and fundamental right of people to cease to associate with people or governments with whom they have irreconcilable differences. Sometimes that will require that the formation of a new government.
Oh, yes. Few people remember the cause of the losers. As someone else pointed out, if the South had lost IMMEDIATELY, slavery would have continued being constitutional in the U.S. for an unknown number of years.
What machinery was that?
It was in South Carolina. South Carolina was no longer in the Union. Every government has the right to decide if they will or will not allow foreign troops on their land and they have the right to eject them by any means necessary if they can.
No, Sumter was property of the United States and South Carolina had no right to decide anything concerning it. It wasn't their's.
The Declaration of Independence is used because we all agree that it was acceptable for the colonies to secede from a nation that we all deemed as having a tyrannical government.
Tyranny of the majority is not the same as tyranny with no representation at all.
And had the south won slavery would have continued being constitutional in the confederacy for an unknown number of years. So slavery can't be a bone of contention with you.
And had the south won their rebellion, their actions would still have been illegal but their victory would have made that question moot.
Re the Sumpter question: I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
As per tyranny, you are splitting hairs on whether the two wolves who voted to have a sheep for dinner allowed the sheep to have a vote or not.
The south was not a sheep, she had been the head wolf for most of our nation's history. As Alexander Stephens pointed out concerning the federal government:
"We have always had control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of Presidents chosen from the south; as well as the control and management of most of those chosen form the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty four, thus controlling the Executive Department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interest in the Legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro Tempore) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House, we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principle embassies, so as to secure the world markets for our cotton, tobacco, and suger on the best possible terms. We have had the vast majority of the higher officers of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors, and Comptrollers filling the Sxecutive department; the records show that for the last fifty years, of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic." - Alexander Stephens, January 1861
Kind of a strange situation, huh?
BTW, if they had won, the question of legality would have been moot, too. No one was ever prosecuted for the seccession of the Southern states because the Attorney General felt that the Supreme Court would rule that there was no prohibition against seccession in the Constitution, although the Union did imprison Jefferson Davis for a time after the war but eventually freed him without persuing any charges at all against him.
I think that this really pissed off many Northern congressmen and lead to the writing of 14th Amendment (which would remove and bar any person who had been a part of the rebellion), the refusal to seat the Southern congressmen in the 1869 Congress, their subsequent removal from office, and the replacement of all southern political positions with Northern political hacks, who then turned around and passed the 14th Amendment. If the South had had any military power (or will to fight) left, those acts would have prompted a second war.
I am talking about the more numerous senators and representatives that passed numerous laws to the benefit of northern states and detriment of southern ones.
The Attorney General would have walked Davis up to the gallows if he could have. The reason why Davis was never prosecuted is because of that clause in the 14th Amendment that you mentioned. Having been banned from public office because of his participation in the rebellion, Chief Justice Chase believed that additional trial and punishment would violate Davis' constitutional protections against double jeopardy and he made it clear that he would vote against conviction for that reason.
Like?
Like the tarriffs on machinery that I mentioned before. They were protectionist in nature that benefited the North to the financial detriment of the South. The south had to either pay very high tarriffs on imported machinery or buy Northern machinery that was inferior to and more expensive than imported machinery. Machinery such as boilers, cotton gins, and other industrial machinery.
Mentioned before where? What machinery did the south want to import? Heck, what machinery did they need?
Boilers, cotton gins, plows, lathes, milling machines, etc.
I suppose any guess is better than none. But rather than try to pin you down on just what the south wanted with most of those items, what with their lack of an industrial base and interest in establishing one, let me instead point you to this website. It's the text of the Morill Tariff, first voted on in 1860 and passed in March 1861 when the confederacy had long since begun their announced their secession, and held up by legions of southron supporters as the true cause of the rebellion. As near as I can tell none of the items you mentioned are included in the tariff act. None have duties applied to them.
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