Posted on 07/18/2006 12:49:14 PM PDT by aomagrat
A Confederate heritage group says its free-speech rights were violated when a landowner removed a billboard promoting Southern history near the famed Darlington Raceway.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to demonstrate at the State House next month and buy radio advertisements to complain about losing its billboard on U.S. 52, about two miles from the racetrack.
“This is the most chilling thing I’ve seen against freedom of speech,” spokesman Don Gordon said.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans bought the billboard this spring in response to remarks by a NASCAR executive about the rebel flag.
The billboard featured a Confederate flag and a checkered race flag. The message said, “Victory is Great, but Honor is Greater. Defend your Southern heritage.”
The billboard, taken down briefly in May, also listed the group’s phone number and name.
Officials of the S.C. Central Railroad, which owns the land where the billboard stood, said the message was “controversial” and needed to come down.
“It is not in our commercial interests to have billboards on our property displaying messages that might be controversial in the local community, whatever the substance of the messages,” a company spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.
“We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial and therefore asked that it be removed.”
An outdoor advertising company, hired by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, installed the sign just before Darlington’s annual Mother’s Day race. It was removed permanently June 16, according to a July 11 letter from the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans commander, Randall Burbage, to fellow members.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans says it is an international, nonprofit historical society. The group, which says it has 30,000 members nationally, has taken positions in defense of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
‘NOT ... ANYTHING FAVORABLE’
In October, NASCAR’s chief executive, Brian France, told the CBS television show “60 Minutes” the Confederate flag was “not a flag that I look at with anything favorable. That’s for sure.”
As it branches away from its traditional Southern fan base, NASCAR has tried to shed its rebel-flag-waving image. The nation’s largest stock car racing organization has started diversity programs and tried to appeal to black and Hispanic fans. The Darlington Raceway, in business for more than 50 years, has served as a pillar of NASCAR.
“A member of the France family said some uncomplimentary things, so we put that billboard up to make a statement and to stimulate new members,” the confederate veterans’ Gordon said. “We really didn’t expect anything like this to occur.”
Attempts to reach NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter were unsuccessful. However, Hunter said last spring that NASCAR did not seek to have the sign removed.
“If we find out NASCAR is involved, you can expect airplanes towing Confederate banners over every NASCAR race anywhere in this nation — forever,” Gordon said.
Mac Josey, vice president at the Darlington Raceway, said he knew nothing about the billboard and did not ask that it be removed. He said the track does not fly Confederate flags, although some fans do.
Wesley Blackwell, chairman of the Darlington County Council, said he heard about the billboard during a social gathering at the Darlington speedway in May. Blackwell said the county did not ask that the sign be removed.
‘NOT A WORD WOULD BE SAID’
The Confederate veterans group paid Palmetto Outdoor Media more than $5,000 to put up the advertisement, Gordon said. Most of the money was refunded when the sign was removed.
However, Gordon is not satisfied.
“What if it was a sign trying to bring new members to the NAACP? We all know not a word would be said,” Gordon said.
Palmetto Outdoor Media co-owner Rodney Monroe said his company’s land-lease agreement with S.C. Central Railroad has a section that called for the removal of offensive advertisements.
“We lease the property from the company and we, obviously, crossed the line as far as what was acceptable to them ... and were asked to remove the sign,” Monroe said. “We are not in the business to cause or create controversy.”
Gordon said his group had a contract with Palmetto Outdoor for the sign to stay up through part of next year.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right to free speech. However, the sign was on private property, and the property’s owner ordered it down.
Bill Rogers, director of the S.C. Press Association, said that removal violated the principle of free speech, if nothing else. The sign did not appear to be inflammatory, he said.
“I can see why they would feel their rights are violated, that if someone doesn’t like the message, they take it down,” Rogers said.
The dictionary defines sovereignty as supreme power especially over a body politic or freedom from external control. Obviously you have your own definition of the word. How about letting us in on what it is?
The point is, when the States delegated, or lent, their powers -- and they possessed them all, having reclaimed them to ratify the Constitution (which reclaiming they had to do, when you think about it) without orderly repealing or amending the Articles of Confederation under the Articles' own terms (and they never did) -- they didn't delegate them all, but retained large sections of them. Such as that which Ohio's supreme court exercised without gainsay in the recent example cited.
Any thing not delegated, remains with the People from whom it would have come, had it been delegated. Thus John Marshall in the Virginia ratification convention.
Everyone understood that, but Webster and Lincoln tried to change the deal -- for political reasons, and without warrant in the Constitution.
So the states exercise supreme power? Over what? Can they choose their form of government? No. Can they coin money or issue stamps? No. Can they negotiate with foreign goverments? No. Pass certain kinds of laws, proclaim you king, or maintain an army? No, no, and no. States can run their show within their own borders, and so long as they don't try to do any of the things that the Constitution forbids them to do. Anything else and they need permission.
The point is, when the States delegated, or lent, their powers...
Lent my ass. You mean when they gave up those powers, don't you? Your states have pretty much squat when it comes to actions outside their borders. Now the people of the United States, on the other hand, they hold supreme power. That's all the people of the United States, not just those living in the south.
Any thing not delegated, remains with the People from whom it would have come, had it been delegated
Delegated, or forbidden. You keep forgetting that part.
Everyone understood that...
Everyone, except people like Washington and Madison and Lincoln. I'll go with them over you.
No, I didn't mean "gave up" at all. Delegated is exactly the right word, used by the Framers. You got a beef, take it up with them.
You're just power-mad, and dream of a federal juggernaut that will take you anywhere over acres of cooling bodies, like one of George Lucas's armed "walkers". Your problem, not mine. I know what's in the Constitution, and I know what you and some dishonest lawyers have read into it from time to time.
Any of the things that you listed in your tirade, the States can do. All they need do is abolish the present Republic, or withdraw from it, and cast their affairs anew. With the People, you can do anything -- and most importantly, we don't have to ask for permission from you or your favorite politicians and land sharks.
Everyone, except people like Washington and Madison and Lincoln. I'll go with them over you.
Yeah? Quote them. (Oh, wait -- that's a "homework assignment"! LOL!)
What you can't stomach, is that I won't buy your lumpenproletariat definition of the People, which was a political fairy tale expressly whipped up by Webster to deny the People of a State their rights. Webster lied, Lincoln lied, and you lie.
The Philadelphia Convention considered your Websterite formula of a mass People considering the Constitution in a mass convention -- for about two minutes. It couldn't even get a second. The motion failed because the idea was rejected.
Your and Lincoln's theory of the People is bogus, counterfeit, false -- a political lie.
Webster didn't need to spin the concept of a unitary nation-state in lieu of a federal republic, in order to show that South Carolina's and Calhoun's theory of nullification was unsupportable for any State remaining in the Union, because it was directly contradicted by the stipulations of the Supremacy Clause.
Well, I don't think you can claim Madison. Here he is again in Federalist 39, meeting objections that the Constitution had about it too much of a consolidating, national character:
"But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States." And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some precision.Madison supports my conception of the identity of the People with that of the People of each State, completely -- which is a misnomer, because "my" conception is only his, drawn from his writings.Without inquiring into the accuracy of the distinction on which the objection is founded, it will be necessary to a just estimate of its force, first, to ascertain the real character of the government in question; secondly, to inquire how far the convention were authorized to propose such a government; and thirdly, how far the duty they owed to their country could supply any defect of regular authority.
First. In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced.
On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State -- the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.
That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States. It must result from the UNANIMOUS assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution......
[Skipping long discussion characterizing mixed federal/national character of governmental powers omitted, proceeding to summary conclusion]
The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
[Emphasis in bold and underlining supplied; emphasis in caps as in original.]
You, and Lincoln, are refuted.
Awwww, let the anti-American losers have their loser flag....
What? People who cling to their old country are more American than I?
Ridiculous.
No, I'd leave it to the people of the United States, you prefer some sort of all powerful, mythical 'states' screwing everyone in sight.
Yeah? Quote them.
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." -- George Washington, 1796
"The powers of the General Government, it has been said, are delegated by the States, who alone are truly sovereign, and must be exercised in subordination to the States, who alone possess supreme dominion. It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the State legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States with a request that it might be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification.
This mode of proceeding was adopted, and by the convention, by Congress, and by the State legislatures, the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject -- by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States -- and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments." -- John Marshall, 1819
Assuming that you're referring to the Supreme Court descision upholding the Connecticut Supreme Court decision in Kelso v New London then you're talking to one.
It's not that I'm in favor of the municipal governments using eminent domain powers to seize private property willy-nilly. I think that the case made by New London was marginal at best, and would lead to minor benefits for the people of New London. On the other hand, I saw eminent domain used in the county north of mine to condemn about a dozen properties for land to build the Kansas Speedway on. The resulting economic boom has led to the building of stores, restaurants, movie theaters, nad a minor league ball park around the track, and the increase in revenues from sales tax has led to significant decreases in property taxes for everyone in the county already and promises more reductions in the future. But regardless, the issue was, I believe, a state matter and the U.S. Supreme Court was right to stay out of it. The language that the Connecticut Supreme Court uses to define the process of eminent domain is no different than the language in the U.S. Constitution so there is no conflict between the two. The Connecticut Supreme Court chose to rule that the legislation passed by Connecticu that allows municipalities to use eminent domain to acquire property for public use did not violate the state constitution. This is really an example of the powers of state sovereignty, the ability to run their own show within their own borders pretty much as they see fit to do, so long as they don't violate the U.S. Constitution in the process. You may not like it, if I were the people getting the shaft in New London I doubt that I would have responded any differently, but the recourse is to vote out those who passed the legislation or get it repealed. Not to have the Supreme Court impose a solution.
You may see that, the Connecticut Supreme Court saw it differently. The Connecticut legislature passed the law that defined 'public usage' in such a way to make the use of eminent domain possible. But in the end it is a state issue, not a federal one. I would rather the states decide what 'public usage' is and not have a definition imposed on them by the Supreme Court. If any good has come out of this it's the fact that a lot of states have begun tightening up on eminent domain and the definition of 'public usage'. Isn't that better than a one size fits all decision forced on the states by the federal government?
...then they have only themselves to blame. The founding fathers set things up so that government at all levels is accountable to the people of the United States. What they never imagined was that the people would grow so apathetic that they wouldn't make use of the power they've been given.
> People who cling to their old country are more American than I?
As are people who cling to worshipping as heroes those who killed US citizens in order to maintain an institution that enslaved the ancestors of current US citizens.
Or so they would have you believe...
I don't find it a "heritage", I find it an aberration.
My people populated the South for more than 200 years before the "unpleasantness". There's way more to the South than the confederacy.
My gggrandfather was a player in the forming of the Confederacy, he just about singlehandedly propelled Tennessee into the fold.
He also served proudly in the US Senate after the defeat of the Confederacy.
I also find the hypocrisy of these loser flag-wavers complaining about hyphenated Americans is precious.
> There's way more to the South than the confederacy.
Of course there is. Just as there's more to Germany than Nazism, more to American Presidential history than Clinton, more to the worldwide space program than Shenzhou. But some people fixate. These are the kind who think that opposition to waving the swastika around means you're anti-German, or if you are opposed to the policies of Bill Clinton then you are opposed to the office of the Presidency.
If you choose to feel pride in the accomplishments of long-dead people (a dubious notion, but common enough), then Southerners, as with Northerners, Westerners, Alaskans, Hawaiians, etc., have much to be proud of. But their little war to maintain slavery... not the best choice.
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