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 are the so boring. Nerd alert.
I might not like the guy too much, but even I have to admit that he has a perverse sense of humor.
“I confess, without shame, I am sick and tired of fighting its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers ... tis only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”
-Sherman, May 1865
Better study up on the Founders. From the Ratification of the Constitution by the State of New York; July 26, 1788 [my bold below]:
WE the Delegates of the People of the State of New York, duly elected and Met in Convention, having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America, agreed to on the seventeenth day of September, in the year One thousand Seven hundred and Eighty seven, by the Convention then assembled at Philadelphia in the Common-wealth of Pennsylvania (a Copy whereof precedes these presents) and having also seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States, Do declare and make known. ...
That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; ...
... Under these impressions and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the Explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution ... We the said Delegates, in the Name and in the behalf of the People of the State of New York Do by these presents Assent to and Ratify the said Constitution.
Hamilton and future Chief Justice John Jay voted for the ratification document that contained those statements above.
The legality of unilateral secession is clear the Constitution does not allow it.
Please show me where secession is outlawed in the Constitution.
Madison said the following on July 24, 1788 to the Virginia ratification convention [my bold and underline below]. Madison and future Chief Justice John Marshall [along with three other Federalists] wrote something similar into the Virginia ratification document and then voted along with a majority of the Virginia convention to pass that ratification document.
That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. It adds, likewise, that no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by the general government, or any of its officers, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for these purposes. There cannot be a more positive and unequivocal declaration of the principle of the adoption that every thing not granted is reserved. This is obviously and self-evidently the case, without the declaration.
Secession was not prohibited in the Constitution. The power to prohibit secession was not delegated to the federal government or to other states that might oppose the secession of a given state. Secession remained in the powers reserved to the states or the people.
No one was speaking to or of you. Sit down and be quiet.
You know as well as I do that statements such as you bolded are nice sentimentality but hold absolutely no force of law.
Your lineage is MOST impressive, and makes your credentials most impeccable. It’s an honor to make your cyber-acquaintance!
My ancestors (on my mother’s side) were on the Mayflower. Many others came from Ireland and Scotland (going back to Bobby Bruce on the one hand and the 700 kings of Ireland on the other) so I come by my antipathy to oppressors and their lickspittles quite honestly as well! There seems to be any number of the latter on this thread!
My ancestors in Bourbon County fought in the Confederate Army. Seccession was defeated in the legislatures of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland. Those parts of Kentucky and Missouri that were sympathetic to and controlled by the Confederacy and were organized as states and admitted to the CSA. The the same thing happened with West Virginia, excpet with the Union.
The concept of “Border States” was created by revisionist historians. These are the ones who claim the war was about slavery. They needed to explain away one major problem with their revision: if it was about slavery, then why was slavery legal in four Union states? Why did the Union admit West Virginia as a slave state in 1863? Why didn’t the Emancipation Proclamatin free the slaves in Union states?
Another patented Mo-joe pot-meet-kettle moment.
And you do?
Threat? What threat, punk?
Now sit like a good doggie.
What is it about you angry libtards always wanting to boss people around?
BTW, my spittoon needs a good cleaning. How bout you get cracking at that, boy.
These clowns constantly set themselves up for ridicule. It's so easy that I sometimes feel embarrassment and pity for them.
But if it makes you laugh then I'll ignore any compassion that I may have for the coven and continue to ridicule them. :~)
Why, thank you, mam!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.