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
The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of treason. There is no right to unilaterally secede. The Confederate democrats were traitors and tyrants.
Technically speaking, a significant majority, close to 60% of "the people of SC" were not allowed to vote on the issue, they being chattel and all that.
TREASON
This word imports a betraying, treachery, or breach of allegiance.
The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death. By the same article of the Constitution, no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/t103.htm ____________________________________________________________
se·ces·sion noun \si-ˈse-shən\
Definition of SECESSION
1: withdrawal into privacy or solitude : retirement
2: formal withdrawal from an organization
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secession?show=0&t=1291395804 ____________________________________________________________
Why was Jefferson Davis never tried for treason?
There is no right to unilaterally secede.(TBI)
This is stated in the U S Constitution, where?
The Confederate democrats were traitors and tyrants. (TBI)
How so?
“The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of treason. There is no right to unilaterally secede. The Confederate democrats were traitors and tyrants.”
Your post is a demonstration of a typical liberal dumbass!
“The secession movement in South Carolina was a demonstration of treason. There is no right to unilaterally secede. The Confederate democrats were traitors and tyrants.”
Your post is a demonstration of a typical liberal dumbass!
—Make that a typical liberal damyankee dumbass.
The revolution takes place in the hearts and minds of the population before the war. The war happens after the revolution and the secession.
The founders and the colonies seceded from the crown after the revolution of heart and mind turned the population against their former loyalties. The war that followed was entirely the doing of the British in their attempt to keep what they judged was theirs.
Secession happened because a significant percentage of the population had a change of heart and loyalties that were brought about by abuses and the people getting a taste of what real freedom was like.
Secession... They no longer wanted their lives and future to be influenced by those they had been previously associated with, so they proclaimed themselves sovereign nations and then created a loose federation of those nations and called it the united states.
It was a secession because they did not sail over to England and sack the king and the parliament, and whomever else they could get their hands on. They simply stated their independence from those that had previously controlled them then sought about governing themselves.
Secession is the moral way to end an association with folks you would be just as happy to bury.
Yet it was the Confederate democrats who first formed the socialist ‘Peoples Party’ which then went on to merge with the democrat party. It was the Confederate democrats who also went on to become the Progressive democrats as well. All of these different democrat party configurations shared the common elements of support for the KKK, and for pushing perverted tyrannical views of the Constitution.
It is myth that the Confederate democrats were conservative at all. They were more alike today’s libertarians. Even today though we see libertarians marching side by side with the Marxists and Progressives on a whole host of issues.
So I would say it is you who are the liberal in the sense of being anti-freedom.
The Constitution prohibits unilateral secession with the 10th Amendment alone being that it defines certain powers to be powers of the United States. It is treasonous to usurp such powers and to hold citizens of the United States under a illegal tyrannical rule. The Confederate democrats were traitors to the United States.
A legal secession may be the best way to end an association but the Confederate democrats did not care about legality but were instead tyrants who usurped such power and were ruling tyrannically over citizens of the United States.
So what you’re saying is that those other States and Territories didn’t have the right to decide for themselves which path to follow? Am I understanding you correctly?
What, then, did the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution mean then? Rights are rights, whether they’re popular or not. Those States and Territories had the right under the US Constitution to decide for themselves which path they would choose, even if one path was morally bankrupt.
After all, if what you say is true, and the States do not have a right to determine their own future, then which is worse; the States determining that chattal slavery was acceptable or the Federal Government determining that Infanticide was acceptable? Both have, at their heart, the debate of what is considered human life and what role the Federal and State Governments have in protecting or destroying that life.
You are exactly on target here but should also point out that there were several secession movements in the United States prior to 1860 and NONE of them occurred in the south. In fact, the right of a state to seceded was UNIVERSALLY accepted in the U.S. prior to about 1850.
You want a serious answer? It's because the Emancipation Proclamation was a war measure issued under Lincoln's authority as commander in chief and applying only to those areas in rebellion. Ending slavery in the states not in rebellion would require a Constitutional amendment, and while Lincoln continually pushed for such, the Democrats remaining in Congress blocked such an amendment until after the election of 1864. The one place not in rebellion where Lincoln could end slavery without an amendment was the District of Columbia. Slavery there ended in April, 1862.
Oh, and the Emancipation Proclamation was issued after Antietam, not Gettysburg.
Running out of Mic's the Butcher needed new meat.
So I guess the part in the 10th Amendment where it delegates powers to the United States means nothing to you? Any mere majority in a state could just usurp those powers?
That is ridiculous. You only want to see the part of the 10th that talks of States rights and ignore the powers delegated to the United States. You want to use the 10th Amendment in order to destroy the 10th Amendment.
Unilateral secession is not a right.
If it was so universally accepted then please show me the part of the US Constitution that describes the process for secession.
Calling you a fascist is my right, which I choose to exercise right now.
You should see a priest and get King George III spirit exorcised form your body.
Sounds reasonable, but I do have a question. Why the delay until April of ‘62 to free the slaves in D.C.? Why not immediately after SC left the Union.
One other point that I would like to make. If Lincoln didn’t have the authority to free the slaves in the North because it would require a Constitutional Amendment, then he likewise didn’t have that authority to free the slaves in the South because either they were still a part of the Union and therefore a Constitutional Amendment was required (nothing in the Constitution states that the process for amending the Constitution can be changed due to war or rebellion) or they were actually a seperate, soverign nation who were no longer under the authority of the Federal Government. Either way, what Lincoln did was just political.
Also, thanks for the note about Antietam versus Gettysburg. I was thinking Antietam but typed Gettysburg for whatever reason.
The Constitution is, as you WELL know, completely silent on the issue and, because that is the case, secession is a RIGHT retained by the States.
Being your speech comes from one who defends the Confederate KKK coven makes your words a joke when speaking of fascism. You reek of fascism.
The Constitution though is not silent on ‘powers delegated to the United States’. Considering that you can not secede without disregarding the Constitution and usurping such powers proves that unilateral secession is not a right retained by the States.
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.