Posted on 03/21/2008 1:43:24 PM PDT by cowboyway
Many heads turned in Ringgold Wednesday when they saw an African-American man dressed in a Confederate soldier's uniform, carrying a Confederate flag.
It wasn't a joke. H.K. Edgerton came to Ringgold to make a bold statement - he opposes city leader's removing the Confederate flag from the city's flag pole.
Edgerton says the Confederate flag is misunderstood, feared and hated because people are trying to be politically correct - which he says desecrates the honor and real meaning of the Civil War era emblem.
"I'm here because your town council climbed into bed with all the politically correct folks who are practicing social, cultural genocide here in the south land of America," Edgerton said.
Edgerton is marching against that cultural genocide as he calls it, and is getting a warm welcome from people in Ringgold who support his fight for the Confederate flag.
Jim Caldwell meet Edgerton carrying the flag and said "it's history, part of history and it don't need to be swept under the rug."
Edgerton is from Asheville, North Carolina, where he's also the immediate past president of the N.A.A.C.P. there. His visit to Ringgold marks the five-year anniversary of the same march he made from Asheville to Austin Texas - 20 miles a day, six days a week.
He says he has no respect for modern day civil rights activists who as he puts it, trash the Confederate flag.
"Just pointing to those scally-wags like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, who climbed into bed with these folks to increase their coffers to continue tainting and disturbing history," Edgerton said.
Two years ago many people packed Ringgold's city hall to protest the move by city leaders to get rid of the Confederate flag. It flies no more on the town poles.
Edgerton says many people don't understand that black men, alongside whites, fought for the Confederacy and the principals it was founded on.
"So here I am, trying to bring an understanding that there was folks who look like me who earned a place of honor and dignity here under this flag. And this flag is just as much for folks who look like me as any white man in the south land of America," Edgerton said.
Greeley's editorial, "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" was an attack on Lincoln and his administration for not more forcefully going after slavery as the root cause of the war, for not more vigorously enforcing the Confiscation Acts, and for failing to fight the south more effectively, saying "The Rebels from the first have been eager to confiscate, imprison, scourge and kill: we have fought wolves with the devices of sheep."
And here's Lincoln's reply in full:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir. I have just read yours of the 19th addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I don't believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be error; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of Official duty: and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln
Have you contracted dyslexia? You seem to keep reading "rights" when the text says "powers."
Governments don't have rights. Governments have powers. People have rights.
If he wasn’t from the south he had to be...;’}
Every one of those links was there for a reason: to illustrate to you that the SCOTUS has heard numerous cases pertaining to STATES RIGHTS.
If you still maintain that states rights is a 'euphemism' falsely gleaned from the 10th Amendment, then you should sally forth to the justice department and straighten out the justices quick before they make another horrendous error.
“Hows about explaining the American flag/Malcolm X connection cuz I can’t see it.”
You responded:
They both represent a moderate to high degree of racism by many displaying them
Both are a lousy way to make a clear point about freedom.
So, you're saying that the American flag is a symbol of racism and a lousy way to make a point clear?
If you want to be stuck on stupid, fly’m high baby!
You're an idiot.
Amendment X is found in the Bill of Rights.
Also, Google 'states rights supreme court'. You'll find hundreds of 'states rights' cases.
States rights and states powers have become synonymous through the frequent and traditional usage of the former and the obvious tie to the latter.
People have rights.
Amendment X: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Well, now you have a conundrum. The 10th Amendment clearly states that people have 'powers'.
Okay. Here's the first hit that comes up:
The phrase states' rights (and all variants of the words and the phrase) does not appear in the U.S. Constitution or its amendments -- rather the word rights is exclusively associated within the Constitution with the phrase the people , while the word powers is extensively and exclusively associated with government entities such as Congress or states. Therefore, the phrase states' powers is more technically consistent with the terminology of the authors of the U.S. Constitution, with the phrase States' rights popularized by repeated usage.Well, now you have a conundrum. The 10th Amendment clearly states that people have 'powers'.
No conundrum at all. People have rights AND powers. Governments only have powers.
Given that the fundamental principle that the source of our rights is our Creator, you're actually making a "divine right of kings" argument, saying that God also ordains our government and endows it with rights. The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that this is not the case, and that to secure the rights endowed by God, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed"
Find a single decision issued by the court that uses that phrase. Sloppy headline writing or familiar usage doesn't count.
See post #20.
Irrelevant. Lincoln's purpose, first and foremost, was to preserve the Union. That doesn't mean that the Emancipation Proclamation was an 'afterthought'. He could have defeated the Southern rebellion without freeing the slaves, but knew that he could further the cause of the war by removing slavery as a support for the confederate cause.
Did you conveniently ignore all the other links that clearly state that SCOTUS has heard cases centered around states rights?
you're actually making a "divine right of kings" argument, saying that God also ordains our government and endows it with rights.
That is totally lame.
Our form of government is of the people, by the people, for the people. A state government is made up of people of that state, elected by people of that state to dispense the business for the people of that state.
When the people of a state wish to exercise a collective right, they use the power of the elected government to pursue that right in the name of the state. Thus, states rights.
What you're suggesting is that the state government is some sort of supernatural entity without a human element. The Matrix, if you will.
So, you think that he was simply wordsmithing the EP for the first three years of the war?
but knew that he could further the cause of the war by removing slavery as a support for the confederate cause.
That is a steaming pile of bovine excrement.
Lincoln was playing politics because he was rapidly loosing the support of the north. As everybody knows, the Emancipation Proclamation is as empty of substance as a Barack Obama speech.
Hey, I’m on your side. I agree.
Like I said, find a USSC decision that uses "State's right," and you'll have a leg to stand on.
Our form of government is of the people, by the people, for the people. A state government is made up of people of that state, elected by people of that state to dispense the business for the people of that state.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,"
When the people of a state wish to exercise a collective right, they use the power of the elected government to pursue that right in the name of the state. Thus, states rights.
"...and that is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped."
What you're suggesting is that the state government is some sort of supernatural entity without a human element.
Hey, you're the one claiming that they have God-given rights.
Check your timeline. He issued the Emacipation Proclamation 16 months into the rebellion, not 36. And he was working on it 2 months before that.
That is a steaming pile of bovine excrement.
So if Lincon didn't give a rat's patootie over slavery, as you claim, then why else would he issue it if not as a weapon for combatting the rebel cause? Free the slaves and they can't be returned to their owners if they run away. Remove the slaves and you remove their labor in supporting the war effort. Why else would Lincoln have done it? It has to be for one reason or the other, doesn't it?
Lincoln was playing politics because he was rapidly loosing the support of the north.
And freeing the slaves would gain that support back? Are you really serious?
As everybody knows, the Emancipation Proclamation is as empty of substance as a Barack Obama speech.
It worked, didn't it?
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
“And what makes you think that the power to secede unilaterally is not a power prohibited to the states?”
Precedent of and or threats of set and done long before the South seceded.
Find one that says 'states powers'........
Do the people of a state have 'rights'?
It's not my claim, it's his. It's well documented.
then why else would he issue it if not as a weapon for combatting the rebel cause?
Politics, reelection, eventual dictatorship.
Remove the slaves and you remove their labor in supporting the war effort. Why else would Lincoln have done it?And freeing the slaves would gain that support back? Are you really serious?
Are YOU serious? The EP had as much effect in the South as a Bush issued Proclamation to Mexico would have to stop the flood of Mexicans into the US; IOW, none.
It worked, didn't it?
Soooo, you're a Barak Obama disciple then?
Granted, that is one DUMB-A~S mistake of mine! I carelessly read “Confederate flag” into “American flag” when you couldn’t have been more clear, not once but twice!
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