Posted on 12/03/2010 4:39:40 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
Event marks war's anniversary
CHARLESTON -- The shots are solely verbal -- and expected to remain that way -- but at least one Civil War Sesquicentennial event is triggering conflict.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plan to hold a $100-per-person "Secession Ball" on Dec. 20 in Gaillard Municipal Auditorium. It will feature a play highlighting key moments from the signing of South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession 150 years ago, an act that severed the state's ties to the Union and put the nation on the path to the Civil War.
Jeff Antley, who is organizing the event, said the Secession Ball honors the men who stood up for their rights.
"To say that we are commemorating and celebrating the signers of the ordinance and the act of South Carolina going that route is an accurate statement," Antley said. "The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of freedom."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plans to protest the event, said Charleston branch President Dot Scott. She deferred further comment to Lonnie Randolph, president of the state NAACP.
"It's amazing to me how history can be rewritten to be what you wanted it to be rather than what happened," Randolph said. "You couldn't pay the folks in Charleston to hold a Holocaust gala, could you? But you know, these are nothing but black people, so nobody pays them any attention."
When Southerners refer to states' rights, he said, "they are really talking about their idea of one right -- to buy and sell human beings."
Antley said that's not so.
"It has nothing to do with slavery as far as I'm concerned," he said. "What I'm doing is honoring the men from this state who stood up for their self-government and their rights under law -- the right to secede was understood."
Antley said, "Slavery is an abomination, but slavery is not just a Southern problem. It's an American problem. To lay the fault and the institution of slavery on the South is just ignorance of history."
Antley said about 500 people are expected to attend the ball, which begins with a 45-minute play and concludes with a dinner and dancing. S.C. Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, an ardent Civil War re-enactor, is among the actors in the play. The actual ordinance of secession document also will be on display.
Randolph said the state NAACP is consulting with its national office in Baltimore regarding the format of the protests, which also could extend to other 150th anniversary events. "There is not one event that's off the table," he said.
Asked whether there could be good Sesquicentennial events, Randolph said, "If there were a dialogue to sit down and discuss that event 150 years ago and how it still negatively impacts the lives of so many people in this state and around the country, that would be a good discussion, but not an event to sit down and tell lies about what happened and glamorize those people who thought America was so sorry and so bad that they wanted to blow it to hell. That's what they did -- that's what they attempted to do, and we want to make that honorable?"
Charleston is receiving increased national attention as the nation's plans for the Sesquicentennial move forward. This was where it began, with the state becoming the first to secede on Dec. 20, 1860, and firing the first shot on April 12, 1861.
Most of the Lowcountry's Sesquicentennial events have been announced with little controversy -- many involve lectures by respected historians and scholars.
In its vision statement for the observance, the National Park Service said it "will address the institution of slavery as the principal cause of the Civil War, as well as the transition from slavery to freedom -- after the war -- for the 4 million previously enslaved African Americans."
Michael Allen of the National Park Service said he is aware of plans for the Secession Ball but noted that most Sesquicentennial events have found common ground among those with differing viewpoints.
"Now some people might be upset with some pieces of the pie. I understand that," he said. "I think that's the growth of me, as a person of African decent, is to realize that people view this in different ways."
Allen said other Sesquicentennial commemorations being planned will mark events that have a strong black history component, such as Robert Smalls' theft of the Confederate ship Planter and the 54th Massachusetts' assault on Battery Wagener.
"At least what's being pulled together by various groups, be they black or white or whatever, will at least be more broad based and diverse than what was done in 1961," Allen said. "Hopefully, at the end of the day, all Carolinians can benefit from this four-year journey."
Tom O'Rourke, director of the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission, said Sesquicentennial organizers were fooling themselves if they thought the Confederate side of the story was going to be buried in the observances.
"I think there will be controversy, I think there will be hurt feelings, and I think that as this anniversary passes, we will question what else we could have done to tell the whole story," he said. "But I am OK with all of that. ... I think all discussion is progress."
Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/12/03/1847335/secession-ball-stirs-controversy.html#ixzz1737LSVRv
You’re saying two opposing things.
First you say we are a Republic, not a Democracy.
Then you say that secession is a popular vote (democracy) decision.
Which is it?
Actually, by definition, the Founders seceeded from England via a rebellion. Rebellion was the vehicle that we used to seceed.
Like a dog coming back to its own vomit, you keep trying that same ol, lame ol point.
The fact is most people, northerners, westerners, and easterners aren’t regional bigots like you. We don’t believe that all southerners are slack-jawed yokels - just you...;-)
Your definition is warped.
Prove it.
The vote was by popular vote in each state, which are entities defined in the USC. This is proper. You don't get to say if reason A or reason B is a good reason for secession if you DON'T LIVE IN THAT STATE.
Say please.
How very Democratic of you.
We are a Republic. I don't know what else to say. It's just a fact.
Now, as you may have noticed, every November, citizens to to a "polling place" and they participate in "elections". They "vote". This is a democratic mechanism that we use in this country to make some decisions and to elect certain representatives.
The fact that we allow citizens to vote, as a democratic mechanism, does not alter the fact that we are a Republic. We do not live by mob rule.
If I say we are a Republic and if I say that people vote, I am not contradicting myself. Don't be a pea wit.
No. You claimed that I had a warped definition of secede, yet you provided no proof. The burden of proof is on you.
Don't fall for the trap. Secession is up to the citizens of that state(s) to decide, external entities i.e. other states, have no say in the matter. They can accept the sovereignty of that state(s) or do something about it(which to me is tantamount to fascism).
If Vermont wants to secede and require all of their citizens to were purple and ride bikes, nothing I'm gonna do about it.
Not falling for a trap, I don’t think he actually understands that the Founders were seceeding from England when they rebelled. The Revolution (rebellion) was the vehicle by which our Founders seceeded.
But you are contradicting yourself.
In post #189 you describe the electoral process of a Representative Republic.
But in post #174 you describe a pure democratic simple majority rules process that ignores or defies the interests of many interested parties.
And that’s what unilateral secession is - one party ignoring everything, obligations, responsibilities, and duties - except for its own self-interests.
That’s why it’s been ruled unconstitutional.
Such a referendum is an example of a democratic process. It is not unconstitutional.
Now, if 70% of the people oppose homosexual marriage, I suppose one could say that this would ignore or defy the interests of many interested parties. But that's OK. Again, it is not unconstitutional.
A state-wide vote on secession would be a state-wide referendum. There is nothing inherently unconstitutional about that process.
There's nothing legally binding about it with respect to its neighboring states either.
In Article I and Article IV. States cannot split, combine, or change their borders by a fraction of an inch without consent of Congress. Why should leaving be any different?
Davis and his minions suspended habeas corpus, sent troops in the quell dissent in parts of the confderacy, imposed an income tax, and ignores his constitution at will. So how can you say that George Washington would have supported them?
Article IV, Section 3: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. "
Article I, Section 10: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress...enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power..."
Those two clauses prevent any changes, no matter how minute.
Hint: If the language is not explictly in the Constitution, as an enumerated power of the federal government, then such a "change of status" is a right reserved to the state, per the 10th.
And where is the term 'explicitly' found in the Constitution?
Depending on the state, upwards of half the people lived in a family that owned slaves. In the original southern states almost half the population was slave, and 37% of all families were slave-owning. So please spare us the stories about how only a tiny minority got any benefit from slavery. Anything seen as a threat to over a third of your population is well worth rebelling over. As the Southern states showed.
OK, if that's how you want to define it then fine. So then that would mean that the Founders won their secession while the Southerners lost theirs.
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