That sounds a lot like the kind of abuse of "eminent domain" that so many people are up in arms about now. The "sovereign state" thinking it's entitled to take whatever it wants.
A lot of people take the Confederate Battle Flag as a symbol of a rebellious attitude towards authority. They forget that these Confederates had their own federal government, intrusive legislators, domineering bureaucrats, and all the rest.
Some of them had been Whigs and nationalists who transfered their allegiance to a new government. The fiery state's rights Democrats weren't libertarians in our modern sense either. They had deep commitments to the slave system and they often found it hard to cooperate with the Richmond or with each other.
The leaders of the Confederacy weren't hard-pressed little guys getting together in their garages or dens. A lot of them were wealthy slave-owners. Not a few of them had imperial designs. Some of them were outright crazy.
I guess the idea is that we'd all be free if it weren't for Washington. I thought that way once too, but 1) state and local governments can be quite oppressive on their own, as would an alternative federal government, and 2) there was a potential for even more chaos and misery than we see today: race and class and geographical divisions might well have been even more bitter in an independent South than they are now.
Not really. The federal government seizes civilian land where they see fit. I don’t see how that is the same as a government arising and separating from the union. They are not seizing their civilians land.
“A lot of people take the Confederate Battle Flag as a symbol of a rebellious attitude towards authority. They forget that these Confederates had their own federal government, intrusive legislators, domineering bureaucrats, and all the rest”
I see the flag as a battle for freedom. I see it as an extension of the anti-federalists who knew the dangers of a large federal government. The confederate constitution is very similar to the original one, as you may know. I think they respected that document, but knew it wasn’t perfect and that it granted too much power to the federal gov. In the CSA gov, the fed gov was to be much weaker than in the union.
“The leaders of the Confederacy weren’t hard-pressed little guys getting together in their garages or dens. A lot of them were wealthy slave-owners. Not a few of them had imperial designs. Some of them were outright crazy.”
I don’t believe that. Maybe some were aristocratic slave owners, but I believe that the majority of the leaders were patriots. I refuse to believe so many young southern poor men that did not own slaves would fight a war entirely over slavery. They would not have fought if they did not believe it to be important.
“I guess the idea is that we’d all be free if it weren’t for Washington. I thought that way once too, but 1) state and local governments can be quite oppressive on their own, as would an alternative federal government, and 2) there was a potential for even more chaos and misery than we see today: race and class and geographical divisions might well have been even more bitter in an independent South than they are now.”
I see our federal government like a huge octopus with its tentacles stretching across the nation strangling the freedoms and ruling the states with absolute authority. I see 7 judges that get to set the supreme law of the land. I can see taxation beyond the wildest nightmares of the founders, and wealth redistribution that would make karl marx blush. I see million of lazy people on the gov. dole. I see agencies like the NSA that can spy on anyone for any reason. I see our rights threatened on a daily basis. I see a gov. that can suspend habeas corpus at the drop of a hat and render our rights useless. I see gov agencies that strong arm business into submission. I could go on and on. I believe some of these problems are the legacy of the south’s defeat in the war.