Or the flag of his heritage.
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
Likewise, mstar:)
So let's make the next Confederate Ball if they will have us . . . with period dress . . .should be just good fun. I like to have fun don't you.
I do too! It's a date:)
As opposed to the imaginary yanks that invaded the South?
You pretty much take it for granted that Lincoln was a tool of the railroads, banks, and manufacturers.
As opposed to Lincoln the Emancipator?
Your own Confederate leaders were also quite wealthy and privileged men, perhaps even wealthier than their Union counterparts, but some of you just don't see that.
I've never seen anyone dispute this. Something wrong with wealth? Are you saying it's ok to privileged and elites as long as they're your privileged and elites?
Sure. For them it is. They're not the ones obsessing over the Civil War the way the secessionist klavern here is.
Oh, I see, it's ok to have a ball as long as you toe the pc correct line. Since I understand the Confederacy was right, according to the logic you employ here, that knowledge negates my right to honor my past and have some fun. I'll let ya keep your pc and just do it my way.
I doubt they think that everything that happened since 1865 has been a mistake,
Considering where we've been and where we are......I'd say it's evident there's been a mistake somewhere. Ever hear the saying, "you break it, you own it"? Well, the Confederacy didn't break it.
or that they have that strange mix of hyperpopulism and superelitism that y'all do.
You don't know the South at all.
Why thank you, Sir:) (That post was hilarious!)
Well at least we have the common decency to pretend to do that when "those strange Northern people" are around.
When they start carrying torches we can be down right inhospitable.
just works out better that way doesn't it
I was raised as you were and can't imagine it any other way! I really does just work out better this way")
Lord girl are you still up. . . I can’t sleep so here I am
Did you have a nice trip to the Shiloh battlefield?
It's implied. At least James Madison believed so.
Particularly when a number of the Original Thirteen had clauses in their ratification documents specifically RESERVING that power to themselves.
So what? They also contained clauses saying that they ratified the Constitution as passed out of convention and agreed to be bound by its provisions. Their ratification documents don't supersede the Constitution, and if an act they claim they reserved to themselves is unconstitutional then it's unconstitutional.
As the ratification documents were legally binding in setting up the Union, why ever would you think that the secession clauses should not be EQUALLY binding?
Legally binding how?
I think Hitler was supposed to say it. But if the Confederacy were truly principled champions of the peoples' will they would have granted the request for secession from the Confederacy of dissenting regions like East Tennessee. The Confederacy was guilty of hypocrisy to go along with their well known sins of slavery and bad judgment.
That ruling elite of contemptuous political manipulators had a lot in common with what conservatives rightly despise in today's leftist establishment.
Perhaps you should go back and read some of your own musings.
I was hoping to do the Shiloh trip this month, but it looks like it might be a bit on the cool side next Wednesday(high 50), but we still might try it. We've had to postpone the trip twice, so hopefully third time is the charm.
Jefferson Davis had far more in common with Adolf Hitler than any of the Yankees did.
Or possibly all three.
Or lobotomized, one of the two.
Or the flag of his heritage.
He certainly did not like journalists.
Is that you at the podium?
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