Confederate flags on space station draw ire

MSNBC ^ | 6/13/06 | James Oberg

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Confederate flags flown aboard the international space station — and seemingly signed by a NASA astronaut — showed up last week on the online auction site eBay.

The original eBay listing indicated that the 4-by-6-inch flags were brought aboard the space station by Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov in 2004, and an accompanying photo showed a sample flag that seemed to bear Sharipov’s signature as well as that of Leroy Chiao, his NASA colleague on the station. Yet another photo showed several of the rebel flags floating in a space station module.

The item was pulled from the auction on Monday by the seller, Alex Panchenko of USSR-Russian Air-Space Collectibles Inc. in Los Angeles — and on Tuesday, Panchenko told MSNBC.com that he removed the items from sale because he had concluded the flag and the authentication documents were forgeries.

However, Robert Pearlman, editor and founder of CollectSpace, said he believes the flags are authentic.

“The picture taken of the flags aboard the station says a lot,” he said. “It would be difficult to fake, given the style and I couldn't see the motivation to do so.” The “onboard-the-ISS” stamp, added Pearlman, is not known to have been counterfeited anywhere."

The disappearance of the flags followed a round of criticism over the weekend from former space scientist Keith Cowing, publisher of NASA Watch, an independent Web log. He cited the Confederate flags as an example of “bad judgment on the ISS.”

“You'd think that someone on the U.S. side of the ISS program would have expressed some concern about flying a symbol on the ISS that many Americans associate with slavery,” Cowing wrote.

[usmcobra]

Having just read it, in its entirety I would say it was a morally righteous appeal for restrain and reflection from the south.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Clearly if you read the whole speech Lincoln was trying to hold together the union and didn't want war, the south choose war for him, and their reasons were to keep slavery as their way of life.

[Calpernia]

Now THAT I find offensive!

[Texas Mulerider]

Clearly if you read the whole speech Lincoln was trying to hold together the union and didn't want war,

That, sir, and nothing more, is precisely the point I made to Mr. Silverback when I said that in 1861 the Union "cause" consisted solely of preventing secession, or, as you put it, "trying to hold together the union.."

[usmcobra]

But having read said speech, I would be remiss if I didn't say that Lincoln recognized that only slavery was causing the South to want to secede, since that and secession were the only two items he spoke on extensively during that speech.

The south's cause for secession was slavery, the Union's "cause" was preventing secession because of slavery.

Lincoln and The Republican party believed in ending slavery Legally, by changing the constitution.

Lincoln considered the Constitution to be a contract that couldn't be broken, a more prefect union.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak — but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

Lincoln's arguments against secession are better then any of stand watie's argument for it.

[Mr. Silverback]

No offense, but I live within walking distance of the Freeport Lincoln-Douglas debate site, so I don't need a Lincoln lecture. I find it bizarre that people act like it's a new fact that he wasn't an abolitionist at the beginning of his presidency. Every time somebody "alerts" me to that fact, I wonder if the next thing I'm going to "discover" is that Jefferson owned slaves.

[Texas Mulerider]

Lincoln and The Republican party believed in ending slavery Legally, by changing the constitution.

Well, no. In March of 1861, approximately six weeks before Ft. Sumter, both houses of Congress passed the Corwin Amendment, which would have become the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Please note the date. In March of 1861 all of the Southern congressional delegations had already departed Washington, leaving nothing but Northern congressmen and senators in D.C.

The Corwin amendment would have permanently prevented Congress from interfering with the institution of slavery. Herewith the Corwin Amendment, which passed both the House and the Senate - with only Northerners voting - by the requisite majorities for a Constitutional amendment:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, namely:

ART. 13. No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

Having passed both houses of Congress, Mr. Lincoln signed the amendment (not a constitutional requirement, but as a show of support for it, which was customary in those days). The amendment was never submitted to the states for ratification, as the firing on Ft. Sumter rendered it moot. Many historians, however, including Foote, believe the amendment would have easily been ratified by the states that remained in the Union.

Righteous causes are never as cut and dried as they seem.

[Texas Mulerider]

No offense, but I live within walking distance of the Freeport Lincoln-Douglas debate site, so I don't need a Lincoln lecture.

No offense taken, and I trust you'll feel the same way when I say that someone as familiar with Mr. Lincoln as you are should know better than to promote a "righteous cause" of 1861 that didn't exist.

[Mr. Silverback]

That sound morally righteous to you?

Lincoln's second inaugural did. How are Stand Watie and the other neoconfederates measuring up to it?

[Mr. Silverback]

Aw, now you did it...we get to hear how the war wasn't about slavery, even though every article of secession mentions it explicitly.

[Mr. Silverback]

1. I believe holding the Union together was a righteous cause.

2. Recall that my term was "the righteousness of the Union cause." Stand Watie was maintaining that the Southerners were just innocent victims raped and pillaged by we blue bellied devils from up North. I used the phrase I did because I was pointing out that his silly crap about Boston schools had nothing to do with whether Massachusetts boys were doing the right thing in 1861.

You and I need to stop talking, because I keep misreading you. just too dumb to keep up, I guess.

[Mr. Silverback]

As usual, any time you give something like a verifiable detail, it falls apart under the lightest scrutiny; There's apparently no such unit as the "4th MO PARTISAN RANGERS" Here's a list of the actual Missouri partisan ranger and guerilla units:

SW, I call on you to explain this descrepancy.

First, I can also find no evidence of such a unit. I searched on every permutation I could think of, and the only references to it I can find on the entire bleedin' internet is in posts BY YOU on FR.

Second, the only Will Freeman listed on the roster of partisan rangers is a man who fought under Quantrill. The closest Quantrill's unit comes to being called the 4th MO Partisan Rangers is when Quantrill identified himself under a false name to Union troops and claimed to be an officer in the 4th Confederate Cav.

It seems either you are not being truthful, or those family traditions handed down to you are completely unreliable and your citation of them as the sole evidence to back up your view of history becomes even more silly. Got an alternate explanation? And are you still going to claim to be a Civil War expert if you can't get a unit citation right?

He has loosed the fearful lightning of his terrible swift sword
Glory, glory hallelujah

For Joshua Chamberlain and the Schofields,
Mr. Silverback

[usmcobra]

You're wrong. The Corwin Amemndment was never ratified by the states, it was however put to them to ratify. Two State legislatures ratified it, beginning with Ohio on May 13, 1861, and followed by Maryland on January 10, 1862.

The South choose not to vote on it. They had already made up their minds to rebel.

[Texas Mulerider]

Lincoln's arguments against secession are better then any of stand watie's argument for it.

Perhaps one could take Mr. Lincoln's arguments against secession more seriously if his principles had a longer shelf life than milk . Representative Abraham Lincoln, on the floor of Congress, January 12, 1848:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit.

[Texas Mulerider]

Lincoln's second inaugural did. How are Stand Watie and the other neoconfederates measuring up to it?

I agree. His second inaugural address was very good, and very thoughtful, already grasping with the thorny problems of Reconstruction.

BTW, if the comment regarding slavery was referring to me, you'll note that I have never said that secession, or the war itself, was not the result of slavery. It most certainly was, a fact of which we Southerners should own up to, and be ashamed of. But I suppose I have a low tolerance for self-righteousness on the part of certain Northerners who will not admit that, as a whole, in the 19th century the Northern population was only slightly less racist than Southerners, if at all, and that if had cotton thrived in cold climes, like, say, turnip greens, slavery wouldn't have been an issue.

[Texas Mulerider]

Your'e wrong...Two State legislatures ratified it, beginning with Ohio on May 13, 1861, and followed by Maryland on January 10, 1862.

You are absolutely right, sir. I stand corrected on the minor point of ratification. Going by memory, I guess I was giving those Union states the benefit of the doubt.

[usmcobra]

Give me the whole speech, and then let's decide on the context.

If not then suggest that Lincoln was wrong and let's give Texas back to the Mexicans.

[Texas Mulerider]

If not then suggest that Lincoln was wrong and let's give Texas back to the Mexicans.

I live here. It looks like the federal government has already decided to do so.

[MikefromOhio]

Sherman was a war criminal. Destroying railways, and supplies an army can use is proper when waging war. Destroying the city of Atlanta, burning plantations and pillaging private citizens property is a differnt matter. These things are war crimes when they are being done on AMERICAN soil. The Yankee cause was to save the union right???? SHerman violated many american citizens during his march to the sea. As far as using those tactics against the islamist, yea i support that becasue they are a foreign barbaric enemy. They deserve total war. Shermans acts however should never have been used against americans. NEVER!

Sherman WON. Anything you say to deny that sounds/smells/looks like sour grapes.

[Heyworth]

Representative Abraham Lincoln, on the floor of Congress, January 12, 1848:

We've covered this on these threads a few times. Lincoln's not talking about any constitutional process. He's specifically talking about Texas' right to rebel against Mexico and control as much land as they can and tying it to the natural right of rebellion. The south had every natural right to rebel, just as the north had every natural right to suppress the rebellion. Natural rights are fairly dog-eat-dog. The "social contract" is our surrender of some of those natural rights in order to enjoy the benefits of civilization. Note the clauses in the Constitution that speak of suppressing rebellion. What the south didn't have was a legal or constitutional right to secede.

What I always find interesting in researching this stuff is the extent to which people assumed that a break up of the union would cause civil war. Time and again you find people warning that the sectional differences would lead to war.