Confederate Kook Still Smarts Under Civil War "Occupation" (El Rushbo Defends The Union Alert)

CALLER: Mr. Rush, don't you think you're being a hypocrite when you're not -- when you don't want the Iraqis to decide the problems themselves, especially since Abraham Lincoln took two -- two generals named Lincoln [sic--Grant] and Sherman who were responsible for the deaths of 59,000 southern people? And since you hate Confederate heritage that much, don't you think that we should allow the people of Iraq to decide their own fate?

CALLER: Okay, allow me to quote you from 2001: "The American Civil War was the first conflict in human history to set a people free from the bondage of slavery." Your quote, sir.

RUSH: I'll have this argument with you any time you want. I've been hearing from you guys since I started this show. I know, it's about states' rights, it was about freedom; it was about independence. But it was about preserving the union -- and Abraham Lincoln knew that you couldn't preserve an America with the institutions defined by our Constitution if one man was allowed to own another.

CALLER: Well, you could not preserve the Constitution as long as you could override it by military power and invasion.

CALLER: How about the preservation of the Constitution, shouldn't that be predominant?

CALLER: We have no choice, we're under occupation now. The thing about it is you still have to lie about Abraham Lincoln to prove your, to make your point.

RUSH: I'm not lying about Abraham Lincoln. What do you mean, you're still under occupation?

CALLER: Put it this way. The South was not allowed to vote its own way; we're not going to allow Iraq to vote its own government, either.

CALLER: Do you think we're really abiding by that? What they voted for, we're trying to subvert it by military occupation. No difference than what they did here for 12 years in Louisiana. You don't think we don't see that? You don't think we don't see you as a hypocrite for what you say about, oh, yeah, preserve the union, but let's never mind, let's take away the vote from those who are the voting citizens --

RUSH: I can't believe this. You are taking out your frustrations at having lost the Civil War on me and claiming I'm a hypocrite because of my stance on the Iraq war?

CALLER: I don't think you know -- I don't think you know who Abraham Lincoln was.

RUSH: I certainly know who Abraham Lincoln was. He's one of the greatest presidents in the history of the country.

RUSH: And it wasn't because he defeated the south. It was because he preserved the union.

RUSH: He did not trample the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus. He did do some things I wish Bush would do.

RUSH: It won the war, didn't it? You ever heard of Gettysburg? It won the war and that was the objective. I'll tell you what I wish Bush would do that Lincoln did. Take all these anti-war agitators and send 'em to Canada. Send the National Guard in there. Send Harry Reid over to Baghdad if he's going to be so socially --

RUSH: Absolutely, like that Ohio congressman, that Democrat that was snatched out of his house and sent down to Jefferson Davis, who also didn't want him.

CALLER: Well, the fact that Lincoln did have his secret police who went into people's houses, pulled them out in the middle of the night, and had them -- and had them --

RUSH: You know what? I hope before you die you learn to thank God for Abraham Lincoln.

CALLER: I hope before you die you learn what a racist and a bigot and a power-hungry maniac he was.

RUSH: Oh. Abraham Lincoln? How in the world you can call a guy who ended slavery a racist and a bigot? I have heard everything now. Everything, in 22 years of hosting this program, I have heard everything.

The ratification of the Constitution had nothing to do with the "State of Virginia"... it was a direct contract between the Federal government and the people of Virginia working through delegates specifically elected by the people for one and only one purpose -- to accept or reject the Constitution.

It was NOT an agreement between the states and a federal government. It was an agreement between states ['The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same'].

... But once approved, that contract was between the People and the Federal government ...

Wrong again. The parties to a contract do not change. The federal government is an AGENT of the contracting parties. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that the federal government or individuals are parties.

... it bound that state of Virginia to the Union, whether the government of that state liked it or not.

Wrong. The word perpetual - used 5 times in the AoC & Perpetual Union - had been abandoned, the word permanent, indissoluble or anything similar were not employed. And to prevent insane lunatics from asserting that it was binding, the state/people put it in writing that they could resume their delgated powers.

It was a decision of the people not of the government.

A decision of the people of each state severally.

The 10th Amendment says nothing about secession and no supreme Court decision allows it. NOTHING in the Constitution addresses secession, that's exactly why the Tenth is applicable.

No, that is why it isn't applicable.

The Constitution was not made between the states, it was made between the people of the states forming one People in those states.

Article V doesn't say a State cannot be expelled. I guess in your bizzaro world the union can expel a state, but continue to allow it to seat Senators in Congress. Using the same logic of the secessionists who justify their violating Art.1 Sec.10, Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; Just in case you're pretending to be obtuse, the Constitution applies to members of the Union. It does NOT apply to those that are not members.

Well, see that.

Or the other 49 states would have to do is declare the other state a non-state and then eject it as such.

If you can't do that, than neither can a state declare itself out of the Union (a non-state).

A state is part of the union because the people are part of the Union.

If the Congress decided that a State was no longer a State, than that Article would not apply. Then by all means, please cite section and clause of the Constitution granting the federal government the power to deem a state a non-state. I'll wait.

And find a place in the Constitution where it states a state may declare itself out of the union.

As soon as you find your section and clause, I will give you mine.

Since neither exist, it is clear that states were made to be permanent and not to be ejected from the Union or be able to separate themselves from the Union.

If a State can leave the Union and violate Art.1, then a State can be kicked out of the Union. Obviously law's not your area of expertise. It would just first have its 'statehood' denied. Not a power delegated. The Constitution was a compact among the People, not the states. Balderdash. The STATES ratified independently. States ratify amendments. A citizen of New York cannot vote in Georgia. We are not one people. As Justice Thomas wrote in US Term Limits v Thorton, '[t]he ultimate source of the Constitution's authority is the consent of the people of each individual State, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole.'

Now see how the straw men stop popping up

It seems that logic is not your strong suit.

The states, in their authority as states, had little to do with the ratification process.

To say that the Constitution was the product of the states because elections were held in each individual state, is like saying that because we have an electorial collage, it is really the states that elect the President and not the people.

A state cannot cease to be a state either by ejection or secession.

If a state could secede by declaring it self a 'non-state' (out of the Union) the other states could just as well declare a state a non-state and refuse to seat its congressional representation.

By the way, what do you guys do when you say the pledge of allegiance and come to the part, 'one nation, indivisible', cross your fingers? Hardly. We're a republic of republics.

Is that in the Pledge?

The Pledge says we are a Republic, not a 'republic of republics'

I asked you what you do when you say the pledge of allegiance and come to the part of 'one nation' indivisible'-

So you must reject the Pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

Or maybe 'indivisible' really doesn't mean indivisible.

YES, it was. and i KNOW that comments about the "character" & honor (or LACK thereof in lincoln's case) makes you (with good reason) UNcomfortable. Davis, for ONE thing didn't "lock up " his "enemies" & "throw away the key", just because he was MIFFED. lincoln FREQUENTLY made "dissenters" just "mysteriously disappear".- some PERMANENTLY!

Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. By Mark E. Neely Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999. vii, 212 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0-8139-1894-4.

Mark Neely argues that contrary to traditional interpretations, Jefferson Davis's administration and the Confederacy did not always respect personal civil liberties and sometimes interpreted the constitution loosely, thereby infringing on state and individual rights. With ample primary sources to support his thesis Neely offers a corrective to our understanding of the relationships among power, law, and civil liberties in the Confederacy.

Although Neely examines Confederate policies regarding alcohol and the peculiarities of local legal authorities, he focuses mainly on the Confederate government's handling of political prisoners and martial law. Neely culled fresh evidence from the National Archives about the fate of political prisoners detained in the South, some of whom were held captive at the Tuscaloosa prison. By studying soldiers' letters to the Confederate secretary of war, Neely has painstakingly reconstructed the existence and function of habeas corpus commissioners. He calls them a "shadow court," used to investigate and punish malcontents outside of the Confederate judicial system and often outside of Confederate constitutional protection. These records have been in the National Archives for decades, but they are poorly described in the archives' finding aids. Nevertheless, Neely uncovered more than four thousand cases involving political prisoners, which gave him a unique opportunity to follow the resolution of specific cases, as well as the policy debates, at every level of power within the Confederacy.

Neely's discussion of the Confederacy's use of martial law highlights the conservative philosophy that undergirded the Old South. Neely quotes Arkansan Thomas C. Hindman, who defended his hard-handed implementation of martial law when he argued that " `the main object of all law is the public safety"' (p. 14). Hindman was certain that his "departing from the letter of the law" would be supported by "intelligent patriots everywhere" (p. 14). What Neely finds significant here is that although few people voiced their opinions so bluntly, Hindman's position regarding personal liberty and the Constitution seems to have been common among Confederate leaders. Nor did Hindman's actions provoke the widespread outrage of Confederate citizens that one might expect. Neely notes that southerners accepted without protest similar policies throughout the Confederacy.

Southern Rights likely signals a shift in the historiography of constitutionalism and civil liberties in the mid-nineteenth-century South. For example, Manisha Sinha's recent article, "Revolution or Counterrevolution? The Political Ideology of Secession in Antebellum South Carolina" (Civil War History 46 [September 2000]: 205-26), argues that the persistent "herrenvolk" and states' rights-constitutionalist interpretations of secession have obscured the conservative bedrock beneath the Old South. As both Neely and Sinha note, the southern elite wanted order more than they wanted states' rights and personal liberties, and slavery and natural hierarchies were deemed pillars of social order. This desire, taken in part from the Burkean conservative tradition, often transcended the South's apparent reverence for individual and states' rights and written constitutions.

Tracing the roots of the Confederate constitutionalist-personal liberties interpretation, Neely adds to our continuing discovery of the extent to which former Confederates were willing to get their stories "just so" as opposed to necessarily "right." On this point Neely's work will become part of the Lost Cause scholarship. Selective memories and the careful editing of Confederate memoirs helped fashion the durable pro-Confederate interpretation of these issues. (For example, J. L. M. Curry, one of the habeas corpus commissioners, omitted his service entirely from his postwar memoirs.) Jefferson Davis, Curry, and others were so convincing that Civil War scholars in the twentieth century either believed Confederate discussions of constitutionalism or neglected the topic altogether, assuming that nothing more needed to be said.

Solidly researched, well-written, and forcefully argued, Neely's Southern Rights should find a wide readership among academic and general audiences. He has put forth a compelling argument and has backed it up.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3880/is_200201/ai_n9030918

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