BATTLE OVER CONFEDERATE FLAG HITS HIGHWAYS

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | August 4, 2008 | Patrik Jonsson

[cowboyway]

TAMPA, FLA. - Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket.

Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-75 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified the highway intersection.]

[cowboyway]

You didn't read my post, obviously.

Read your own post, dufus. I answered it in the order that you wrote it. You started out saying that yankees fled the northeast for the South in the 1960's and later in the post wrote some gibberish about yankee flight to the west.

It's up to YOU to keep your rantings in sequential order, not me.

I see. So the 80% vote for FDR - who was the textbook definition of a Northeastern Yankee patrician - was just a highly ironic postmodern protest vote against Yankees.

So, according to you, the South gets the blame for FDR?

[cowboyway]

offending his neighbor's sensibilities, or breaking his oath and saving face.

Saving face?

What an ignorant statement.

Lee was a Southerner and refused to participate in the invasion of seceded states which, as you may or may not know, included his home state of Virginia.

[wideawake]

Nor does it say anything about 'the people' having 'rights':

Really now?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial"

"the right of trial by jury shall be preserved"

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Typical public school revisionist history yankee.

I have attended private schools exclusively.

First of all, that document WAS the secession instrument. It wasn't a threat to secede.

I didn't say the document was a "threat to secede" I said the following, quoting my own post verbatim: "The document essentially claims that South Carolina is leaving because"

Second, it documented the states that committed unconstitutional acts, such as Ohio and New Jersey and stated that if some states could violate the constitution to the economic detriment of other states without a legal remedy, then the constitution was no longer valid and the 'union' was a farce.

Upon ratifying the Constitution, the South Carolina legislature was perfectly aware that the federal government - and not any individual state - was competent to determine the constitutionality of state acts and that South Carolina had no authority to judge the constitutionality of New Jersey laws.

This was not a new discovery for South Carolinians.

Moreover, the federal Supreme Court -which was competent to judge in such matters - had upheld the substance of South Carolina's complaint in the Dred Scott case.

Have some more Kool-Aid, idiot.

It's interesting how your rhetoric gets more and more personal the more you are gotten the better of in an argument.

Let's summarize:

The proffered South Carolina document does not itemize any usurpation of its own powers by the federal government. The only concrete complaint, once all the high-flying rhetoric is cleared away, is that other states have laws that South Carolinians don't like and the federal government is not intervening in the internal affairs of those states to the extent that South Carolina would prefer.

In the actual historical circumstances of the time, the federal government was already sending teams of federal marshals into Northern states to forcibly reclaim alleged fugitive slaves - sending a team of three hundred marshals to extract one fugitive from Boston in a very famous incident.

However, the Northern states insisted upon having a legal hearing first to determine if a fugitive truly was a fugitive or whether the bounty hunter working on behalf of the slaveowner was just grabbing anyone fitting the description off the street.

South Carolinians wanted such individuals seized and transported immediately without any bothersome legal process.

This is not a usurpation by the federal government of South Carolina's powers by any stretch of the imagination.

So, I ask again, what state powers were actually usurped?

The answer is: none. None at all.

[wideawake]

So, according to you, the South gets the blame for FDR?

Check the returns. Not only were all the states that ever voted against FDR Union states during the Civil War, the states that had the largest margins for FDR were the states of the Old Confederacy.

He carried Connecticut by a tiny 1% margin.

He carried South Carolina by a 96% margin, Louisiana by a 94% margin, Missisippi by a 90% margin, etc.

[wideawake]

Lee was a Southerner and refused to participate in the invasion of seceded states which, as you may or may not know, included his home state of Virginia.

Do you know who George Thomas was?

John Bell Hood sure did.

[usmcobra]

For anyone that wants to know I rode by there today to view this flag and take a picture of it.

Apparently they only fly it on those days when News crews want to see it or when they want News Crews to see it.

I saw only the pole and it was either covered in rust or a crappy brown Primer.

As a side note I saw a hell of a lot more Star and Stripes on taller poles including one on the other side of the Highway that was hung off a mobile crane in defiance of the absent banner.

[Professional Engineer]

ping

[purpleraine]

I think the union really got him back when they started Arlington. I think about 30 years later his son or grandson got a little money out of congress.

[rustbucket]

However, the Northern states insisted upon having a legal hearing first to determine if a fugitive truly was a fugitive or whether the bounty hunter working on behalf of the slaveowner was just grabbing anyone fitting the description off the street.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, which was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court, called for a commissioner to hear evidence concerning the alleged fugitive slave. If the commissioner was satisfied from affidavits or depositions that the individual in question was indeed the escaped slave in question, the laws in various Northern states that might have called for a trial or habeas corpus or testimony of the alleged fugitive slave did not apply. The status of the individual instantly changed to that of one governed by the laws of the state from which he escaped. Northern state laws that might have given other rights or procedures to the slave did not apply.

That is not to say that in some cases innocent free Northern blacks might have been taken to the South, or, for that matter, that Northern mobs might not have intimidated a few commissioners to rule in favor of the slave. The large majority of hearings were resolved in favor of the slave owner, but many many more slaves, perhaps 10 to 1, successfully escaped.

South Carolinians wanted such individuals seized and transported immediately without any bothersome legal process.

As long as they were satisfactorily identified in the legal procedure set up under the Fugitive Slave Law, South Carolina was correct in wanting fugitive slaves returned immediately. Consider, for example, Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1843) on the clause in the Constitution concerning the return of persons owing service in another state (e.g., fugitive slaves):

The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any state law or regulation. Now certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may be fairly said, that any state law or state regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner of the slave to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labor, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom.

That's one of those rights of the people you were mentioning. In this case the slave owner is the person with rights to the services of the slave.

Once Southern states started seceding, a number of Northern states started revising or repealing their personal liberty laws that had delayed or effectively prevented the return of fugitive slaves. They were too late, however, to stem the animosity that had build up over the years in the South to the Northern nullification of the Constitution.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Sounds great

[wideawake]

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Let's examine the issue further.

That's one of those rights of the people you were mentioning. In this case the slave owner is the person with rights to the services of the slave.

The usual Lost Cause claim is that the Southern states seceded and attacked Fort Sumter not because of slavery at all, but because the federal government was usurping "states' rights."

(1) The only right Southerners convincingly claimed was being violated was the right to recover escaped slaves, as you have so well described. So multiple "rights" were not being violated - the entire controversy revolved around slaveholding and slaveholding alone.

(2) The right to recover escaped slaves was a personal right and not a "state right" - an individual South Carolinian slaveholder, and not the state of South Carolina, was the one with legal standing to assert such a right. Therefore, not only were multiple "rights" not being violated but really only one, no "state right" was being violated at all.

(3) The federal government in its legislative capacity passed the Fugitive Slave Act. The federal government in its judicial capacity approved the Fugitive Slave Act. The federal government in its executive capacity enforced the Fugitive Slave Act by sending federal agents into the northern states. Not only were multiple "rights" not being violated, not only were no "state rights" being violated in any way, the right in question was not being usurped by the federal government - it was being strenuously defended by the federal government in every way.

The offending parties were Northern states - not the federal government - and the entire issue was that Southern states interpreted the requirements of the federal statute in the way most favorable to Southern popular opinion and the Northern states interpreted the requirements of the federal statute in the way most favorable to Northern popular opinion.

Far from being grounds for rebellion or secession, this dispute over slavery - and that's precisely what is was, a dispute over slavery and nothing else - was a matter for the courts, much like other national disputes between states over land claims, etc.

The high-flying Lost Cause rhetoric that "the War Between The States was not about slavery, it was about states' rights" is resoundingly hollow and false.

And, as a practical matter, the uproar over fugitive slaves was just a minor aspect of the larger slavery agenda - the motive behind secession and war was the South's desire to expand slaveholding to the federal territories and the knowledge that the South did not have enough votes to ensure that the organization of the federal territories would go their way.

[cowboyway]

Do you know who George Thomas was?

He is remembered down South as a traitor and his blood kin disowned him during The War of Northern Aggression. After the war, he never returned to the South and was buried in New York. None of his blood relatives attended his funeral.

Lee, on the other hand, was just after the war, and today, widely recognized and respected both north and south of the Mason/Dixon line. Lee is also known as a man of honor and character by all but a few, like yourself, whose fierce hatred for the South has clouded your judgement.

[wideawake]

We were talking about the 10th Amendment.

We were talking about the Constitution, not simply the Tenth Amendment to it.

I'm sure that you have a yankee revisionist history book somewhere that you can pull out.

Always personal, never rational.

Third tier, obviously.

Always personal, never rational.

The hell you didn't! You are such a lying ass.

Always personal, never rational.

Your private schooling must have been of the penal variety.

Always personal, never rational. Clearly I was speaking rhetorically in that quote.

Unless they violate the United States constitution For instance, can New Jersey make a law that denies freedom of speech?

The competent judge of the constitutionality of New Jersey's laws is the Supreme Court of the United States, not the South Carolina State Assembly.

If you had actually read the document you would know that: 1) The document was not a 'threat' to secede but was the instrument of secession, and 2) The constitutional violations that South Carolina, and eventually the rest of the Confederacy, objected to.

I never used the word threat - which you place in quotes as if I actually wrote it, when you know that I did not. As I pointed out above, I said the document informs that South Carolina "is leaving" the Union.

Moreover, the document only describes one alleged constitutional violation - the interference with the sacred prerogative of the righteous South Carolinians to enslave other human beings.

That alleged constitutional violation was not one perpetrated by the federal government and therefore does not justify secession in any way - especially since the federal government had been doing what it was obligated to do in enforcing the law.

South Carolina's constitutional remedy for the passing of laws in other states that it deemed unfair was the federal courts - and those federal courts had already upheld the South Carolinian opinion in Dred Scott.

Your reading comprehension is so poor and your wit is so dull that I'd be surprised that you could recognize an insult if one were actually aimed towards you.

Always personal, never rational.

[Fishrrman]

“We’re currently in Stage 3”

... and dangerously close to “Stage 4” as November 4th approaches...

- John

[wideawake]

He is remembered down South as a traitor and his blood kin disowned him during The War of Northern Aggression. After the war, he never returned to the South and was buried in New York. None of his blood relatives attended his funeral.

Such is the pettiness of the Lost Cause mindset.

Luckily for Thomas, he put love of country and doing right before the opinions and prejudices of his relatives and neighbors.

Lee, on the other hand, was just after the war, and today, widely recognized and respected both north and south of the Mason/Dixon line. Lee is also known as a man of honor and character by all but a few, like yourself, whose fierce hatred for the South has clouded your judgement.

I respect Lee very much. He was an excellent warrior and a perfect gentleman in every aspect of his deportment. He is one of the greatest men the US has ever produced. He had just one fatal flaw: he valued the opinions of his social set more than he valued his oath of service to his country. He chose popularity, and he is still popular. Good for him.

[EagleandLiberty]

The south went to war to protect their rights, not to keep slaves, but to keep the federal government from getting to big.

That's completely and embarrassingly false.

Sorry, but it is the truth. The Southern states wanted the CONSITUTION as it was. They could see what was happening to the FEDERAL Government in DC. They didn't like what it was becoming. Matter of fact, if they could come back and see what the GOVERNMENT is doing now - especially with having King Harry and Queen Nancy leading - or is it MISLEADING - congress, they would be upset. the southern leaders didn't like what Washington was in 1860 -- and they wouldn't like it NOW even more.

[EagleandLiberty]

Getting too big to do what?

The south wanted the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to be what it said in the Consitution, not increasing power!! (see my post above)

[EagleandLiberty]

One nation, one flag. Put it on bumpstickers if one must, but as for flying it in public spaces - no way. Take it down.

It is on PRIVATE PROPERTY!! It should stay!!

[Non-Sequitur]

The south wanted the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to be what it said in the Consitution, not increasing power!! (see my post above)

And what power was the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT threatening to increase with the election of Lincoln?