Secession ball stirs controversy

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."

"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

From The Federal Pillars series published in Massachusetts Centinel it could be argued that the individual States have a vested interest in preservation of their Union amongst themselves. Suppose only 9 states would have ratified? What fate would befall those states not ratifying? Would they have been forced at gunpoint into the Union?

That other yankee.. John Quincy Adams said it much better:

But this last of earthly powers is not necessary to the freedom or independence of states, connected together by the immediate action of the people, of whom they consist. To the people alone is there reserved, as well the dissolving, as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience, binding them to the retributive justice of Heaven.

With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as vested in the people of every state in the Union, with reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies, with reference to the Supreme head of the British empire, of which they formed a part - and under these limitations, have the people of each state in the Union a right to secede from the confederated Union itself.

Thus stands the RIGHT. But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation, is after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states, to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.

That is really funny considering this:

http://www.liberator.net/articles/KKKJeffBerry.html

Interview with The Ku Klux Klan: Jeff Berry

Imperial Wizard of The American Knights

Berry: Speaking of England, I have some members coming over in November.

Liberator: ...and they're American Knights? Berry: We're in seven other countries. We're in England, France, Germany, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland.

Liberator: Every so often you meet and plan?

Berry: Every Fourth of July, we have a Klan Congress. We meet in different places. The government tries to find out where we have it. Nothing illegal goes on. We have a picnic and celebrate the Constitution. I am the leader of The Klan. I am the face. We have judges, doctors, lawyers, senators, firemen, policemen, and everything else. That's why we know what's going on. If I was ever given truth serum, I couldn't give up any names because of all the different committees. We have it planned that way.

Liberator: How do you raise money? How is it that you get money to do the things you do: make and deliver pamphlets, hold rallies and marches, ... I'm sure there has to be some money aspect to this. How does it work?

Berry: We have a donation of $6/month, which is less than a twelve-pack of beer.

Liberator: So your organization is a church.

Berry: I'm a reverend and we have churches. We have three in Indiana [one in Butler], one in Illinois, two in South Carolina, one in North Carolina, one in Kentucky, two in Pennsylvania, one in California, and one in Arkansas.

Jeff Berry, leader of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Butler, Indiana@!!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Berry

From The Federal Pillars series published in Massachusetts Centinel it could be argued that the individual States have a vested interest in preservation of their Union amongst themselves.

I see your Massachusetts Centinel statement and raise you with the following resolutions from the Massachusetts Legislature [Source: The Daily Picayune newspaper, New Orleans, Dec 2, 1860]:

The New York Express has the following:

The Republicans and others in the North who denounce Southern secession, forget that the records of the Massachusetts legislation have them in resolutions to the following effect:

"Resolved, That the annexation of Texas is, ipse facto, a dissolution of the Union."

"Resolved, That Texas being annexed, Massachusetts is out of the Union"

These resolutions, we are told, stand unrepealed. With the personal liberty bill, these resolutions embody nullification in a two-fold form. Supposing now that Massachusetts repeals her "out of the Union act," and with it her personal liberty bill, and thus restores herself to the Union under the constitution.

Suppose only 9 states would have ratified? What fate would befall those states not ratifying? Would they have been forced at gunpoint into the Union?

George Washington did not take action to force non-ratifying states into the Union. In the records of the first Congress under the Constitution, President Washington acknowledged that non-ratifying states were not in the Union and took the position that he couldn't take action on matters within such a state.

In another matter, the first Congress levied import duties on items imported into the United States from non-ratifying states. Congress stated they would treat the imported items the same as they would items coming from any foreign state, nation, or kingdom.

... unless the several sovereign and united States recognize the secession, then the seccession is merely insurrection or rebellion and must be put down (with extreme predjudice if need be).

What happened to Madison's voluntary union of Federalist 39? What happened to the statements that states could resume their own governance in the ratification documents voted for by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (the authors of the Federalist Papers)?

You are arguing that those Founders were wrong and that other states can use force to keep states in the Union. I am reminded of de Tocqueville's observations about the United States:

"However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their sovereignty, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the states chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the Federal government easily to conquer the resistance that may be offered to it by any of its subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be specially interested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations.

If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just alluded to, the Federal government would derive its power from the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states. [Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter 19 (emphasis added)]

If you say so! Today's Republican party is not the same as the one Lincoln ruled over. In fact, you've got it dead wrong. The Republican party of the 1860's and before was largely made up of German revolutionaries who fled Europe after their failed attempts. Lincoln's war was America's Bolshevik Revolution!

Sentiment among German Americans was largely anti-slavery, especially among Forty-Eighters.[33] Hundreds of thousands of German Americans volunteered to fight for the Union in the American Civil War (1861–1865).[41] The Germans were the largest immigrant group to participate in the Civil War; over 176,000 U.S. soldiers were born in Germany.[42] A popular Union commander among Germans, Major General Franz Sigel was the highest-ranking German officer in the Union Army, with many German immigrants claiming to enlist to "fight mit Sigel."[43] The German vote in 1900 was in doubt; they opposed the "repudiation" policy of Bryan (right poster) but also disliked the overseas expansion McKinley had delivered (left poster)Although only one in four Germans fought in all-German regiments, they created the public image of the German soldier. Pennsylvania fielded five German regiments; New York eleven, and Ohio six.[41] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American#Civil_War

http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~dalbello/FLVA/activists/48ers.html

http://www.trip.net/~bobwb/schurz/speech/the48ers.html

THE '48ERS Speech at a semi-centennial banquet in Arion Hall, New York City, May 14, 1898, in honor of the old '48ers. Translated by Miss [Agathe] Schurz [daughter of Carl Schurz].

by Carl Schurz

My Friends: -- Allow me to express my sincere thanks for the honor you do us old "Forty-eighters" by your warm welcome this evening.

I have often asked myself which of the memories of my somewhat eventful life I should most wish to preserve and which I could most readily spare, and I have always come to the conclusion that the recollections of the period of 1848 are among my dearest and most precious. I would not give them up at any price.

It has become the fashion in certain quarters in Germany to scoff at the year '48 as the "mad year." That is such a foolish, yes, such an almost childish, view, of which only those are capable who cannot or will not grasp great historic facts in their true significance. It was in 1848 that the ruling German Powers so completely broke the bonds of absolutism that a return to the old form of government was made impossible. All the constitutional development they have had they owe to that period.

In 1848, for the first time, a sense of German national unity was felt and consciously developed with a life-giving force.

I was born on the left bank of the Rhine, and I distinctly remember how strong French traditions and French sympathies were among the people there in the days of my boyhood. Many of them were not sure that they did not prefer to be French rather than Prussian. The year '48 forever completely put an end to such an unsettled state of mind and in its place awakened in every heart the mighty longing for national unity which grew to be an irresistible moral impulse, until at last came the great consummation.

To us youths, however, the period of '48 was something even more than that. I have always been glad that I took part in such a movement in my early youth. Whoever has had a similar experience knows what it means to have been one of a numerous body who dedicated themselves to a cause, which to them was a noble and sacred one; who, with the boundless devotion of youth and with the idealism that is free from all thought of self or of personal interest, were ready for any sacrifice. That was the spirit of the youth of 1848. Whoever was young then will cherish the memory as a proud and dear one. I always vividly remember a tragic incident of those days. In September, 1848, I took part in a congress of students which met in Eisenach at the foot of the Wartburg. I was sent there as a delegate from the University of Bonn. The other German universities were also represented. There were present, among others, nine or ten young men, delegates of the University of Vienna, who belonged to the Academic Legion of that city. This legion played a prominent part in the revolutionary developments of the time and seemed, for a short period, to exert a decisive influence on the Austrian Government. In their headquarters, the aula of the university, the leaders of the legion received deputations bringing petitions for the redress of grievances and for the introduction of reforms, as if the armed students were, indeed, the reigning power. Then came the reaction. It had grown strong by the union of the Court party and the Army with the nationalities hostile to Germany. A violent end seemed to threaten the revolutionary movement and at the time of our student congress at Eisenach the catastrophe was rapidly approaching.

The delegates of the Vienna universities appeared at our Congress clad in the picturesque uniform of the Academic Legion; they were handsome, chivalrous youths and general favorites, owing to their winning, genial manners. We were still in the midst of our student festivities and full of youthful exuberance of spirits when our Austrian friends suddenly announced, with agitated mien, that they were obliged to return to Vienna without delay. To our question, "Why?" they answered that they had received letters from headquarters warning them that the final crisis was impending, that the cause of freedom required the presence of all her champions. In great haste they left us. I still see before me the scene of our parting. When, with a last hand-clasp, we called out, "Auf Wiedersehen!" one of them answered with a questioning inflection: "Auf Wiedersehen? we go to battle from here -- look at the lists of the fallen, perhaps you will there find our names!" It was the "Morituri salutamus" spoken in the first freshness of youth. Soon after came the terrible October fights in Vienna in which the blood of the Academic Legion flowed in streams.

Such was the spirit of a great part of the German youth of 1848. But we are asked: Were there not many fantastic vagaries indulged in? Were there not many wild blunders made and much attempted that was foolish and unattainable? Certainly. But many of the things that were then aspired to have since been realized and others should and will be realized in the course of time. The so-called "Forty-eighters" were striving principally for the realization of two great ideals: national unity and representative government. The great union of Germany has been achieved and it may be confidently predicted that the continuance of the united German Empire will be all the more firmly assured the more popular and free the form of its government. The more arbitrary the supreme power, the more dangerous will anti-nationalism become. The more popular the administration of state affairs the more patriotic will be the people and the more patriotic the people the stronger and safer the Empire. The fact that the German nation now represents a free and proud people united by a feeling of patriotism in which it rejoices, and not merely an alliance of princes, is the surest guarantee of its permanence. May the powers that be in Germany always keep in mind this fact.

The youth inspired by the spirit of '48 fought honestly for these great aims, these high ideals; he was ready to give his life for them, and whatever his mistakes or his foolhardiness the German people have every reason to be proud of him instead of scoffing at the "mad year." It is to be wished that in the youth of to-day a living spark of that same self-sacrificing idealism might be kindled and that this spark might never be choked and extinguished by a puerile ambition for personal aggrandizement.

Surely no one will deny that those German representatives of the movement of '48 who have sought and found a new home in America have always been good and conscientious citizens of their new fatherland. The intellectual freshness and vivacity which they brought with them greatly stimulated at the time the political and social life of the Germans in America, and when, with the movement of secession, danger threatened the new fatherland, the German '48ers, each in his way, were among the first who, with self-sacrificing devotion, rushed to the defense of the Union and liberty. Most of them have proved that the revolutionary agitators of 1848 could become reliable and conservative citizens under a free government. I believe that public opinion will on the whole give them a good character -- and if it does not we will give it to ourselves.

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