Confederate plaque in Texas Capitol to come down after vote

WFAA ^ | January 11, 2019 | Jason Whitely

[TexasGunLover]

AUSTIN, Texas — A historically inaccurate brass plaque honoring confederate veterans will come down after a vote this morning, WFAA has learned.

The State Preservation Board, which is in charge of the capitol building and grounds, meets this morning at 10:30 a.m. to officially decide the fate of the metal plate.

[DiogenesLamp]

Lincoln was desperate for a cause with which to rally the north to a long and very costly war of attrition with the South. “Preserving the union” was not a sufficient cause.

Moving the goalposts. The only legitimate authority for Lincoln to invade the South is the claim that secession contravenes constitutional law. (It does not.) There was no legal authority under the US constitution for Lincoln to free slaves, and in fact the constitution absolutely forbade it. (Article IV, section 2.)

Lincoln's only authority for prosecuting the war was based on suppressing "rebellion" which is a huge twisting of the meaning of the word "rebellion" to force it into a definition that justified unleashing his military powers on the Southern states. (Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase clarified that "secession is not rebellion." )

By the time the war had been going on for a year and a half, people had become so accustomed to doing whatever Lincoln told them to do, that he felt sufficiently powerful to take the step of singlehandedly declaring slavery to be illegal, and in direct contravention of constitutional law. Again, he used the assertion of "rebellion" to get people to ignore his lawbreaking on this matter.

[rockrr]

The only legitimate authority for Lincoln to invade the South is the claim that secession contravenes constitutional law.

You forget that little matter of violent armed insurrection.

[DiogenesLamp]

Firing on Fort Sumter was a mistake.

You have command of the Forces surrounding Ft. Sumter. You have been informed that a large group of battleships has been sent from New York with orders to attack you if you do not cooperate with efforts to resupply, perhaps reinforce the fortress.

You have contacted the commander of Ft. Sumter, and offered to maintain a truce with him so long as he does not fire upon your forces. He informs you that he *WILL* fire on your forces if they engage the fleet sent to attack you.

You will be faced with cannon fire from both the fort and from the Warships off the coast. Do you do nothing and wait till both forces attack you simultaneously, or do you try to neutralize one before the other gets here?

Firing on Ft. Sumter was not a mistake. It was the only rational thing someone could do in Beauregard's position.

The war was triggered when Lincoln sent the warships to force the South to submit to the continued presence of troops under Washington DC's control commanding the entrance to one of their most important harbors.

Major Anderson said this would trigger a war, and all of of Lincoln's cabinet but one told him this would trigger a war. Lincoln knew very well he was going to trigger a war, and he did it anyway.

[Redmen4ever]

I see you don’t like being called a liar. But, I was quoting your words. Hence the rabbit ears about the words “lying” and “lie.” In any case, we do have something in common.

I can read. I read the item to which you referred me concerning Florida. It didn’t give a reason. You have been given multiple opportunities to provide documentary evidence that Florida, a state you brought up, didn’t secede because of slavery.

I provided documentary evidence about Texas (which is the original subject of this thread). That documentary evidence explicitly states that that state seceded because of slavery. This is no longer a debate. You are asking people to believe you instead of there own eyes. A few other states provided documentary evidence such as did Texas as to their reasons for seceding, other states weren’t so clear.

As to whether there were other reasons, I have already said that the conflict between the increasingly rich and populous north, with its capitalist system, versus the slave-based plantation system of the south, was also a cause. The dominance of the north, and not merely the tariff, was also a cause. The dominance of the north was going to end the southern system. This is what was “Gone with the Wind.”

Capitalism was ending slavery and that was a very good thing.

As to Lincoln trying to avoid a war: The civil war cost us almost one man dead for every person freed. Living as I do in Virginia, I have friends who have relatives who died in that war. At a funeral of a friend, I saw the graves of those in his family who died in that war. (As a grandson of immigrants, there are no multi-generation burial plots in my family.) Lincoln’s long-run strategy with peace was to keep slavery out of the territories, admit additional free states, continue to welcome immigrants as free citizens, and appoint Republicans to the federal courts. Even as the war got started, he thought a quick victory could restore the status quo antebellum. As long as the union was preserved, the end of slavery would have been inevitable. But a long and costly war wasn’t avoided.

The war and its heavy toll changed Lincoln. He entered office as something of a deist. He started attending Wednesday night Bible study. His letters increasingly referred to the Bible. In his second inaugural, he touched on the ratio of the casualties to those who would be freed. For every drop of blood taken by the whip, another would be taken by the sword. He saw this as God’s judgement.

Now, at this point, I am going to imagine that you are unable to deal with the enormity of the civil war because of those casualties, because so many young men, in the prime of their life, died. Not only killed, but having to kill other men so much like them. All I will say about this, having been a soldier myself, is that I wonder how anybody can be an atheist. How do they deal with the unjust and senseless pain and death that constitutes so much of life? There are times I am hardly able to deal with it myself.

[OIFVeteran]

But it wasn’t just Lincoln’s claim. It was also what President Buchanan’s attorney general Jeremiah Black stated that states had no right to secede and Buchanan agreed with him. On top of that Congress supported President Lincoln during the war, so those congressman did not believe that a state had a right to secede.

[DiogenesLamp]

From the link:

A young Henry Adams, who was clerking for his congressman father and Corwin Amendment co-sponsor Charles Francis Adams, affirms this as well, noting that the amendment’s adoption by the narrowest of two-thirds majorities came only because of “some careful manipulation, as well as the direct influence of the new President.”

[DiogenesLamp]

How many of them mentioning the war fleet that Lincoln sent to start a war?

Probably none of them mention the war fleet. I had never heard of it until about three years ago. For some reason, it doesn't seem to get mentioned in any of the history books i've read over the years. I wonder why?

Perhaps it confuses people as to how the war started, and it doesn't make the good guys look so good?

[DoodleDawg]

How many of them mentioning the war fleet that Lincoln sent to start a war?

They're all biographies of Taney so they may have mentioned Sumter in passing, if at all. Taney really had nothing to do with it.

I had never heard of it until about three years ago. For some reason, it doesn't seem to get mentioned in any of the history books i've read over the years. I wonder why?

Two possible reasons. One, the history books you were reading were not on the rebellion. Or two, they may have referred to it by a more accurate term. Resupply effort, supply ships, something like that.

Perhaps it confuses people as to how the war started, and it doesn't make the good guys look so good?

I can think of a couple of people around here who are obviously pretty confused.

[Bull Snipe]

“For some reason, it doesn’t seem to get mentioned in any of the history books i’ve read over the years”.

Not sure what you read for Civil War History, but Nevins in his 9 volume opus, Foote in his 3 volume work, Hattaway in several of his books all mention warships being sent to escort the supply ships to Sumter. Now they do not employ the melodramatic “war fleet” as you do, but they state warships accompanied the supply ships

[Redmen4ever]

The south lost. Hence, firing on Fort Sumter was a mistake. So was Hitler invading Russia and Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. Here’s a rule: starting a war that you lose is a bad idea. It’s called a miscalculation.

[Bull Snipe]

You forgot to add that Davis’s cabinet told him firing on Fort Sumter would cause a war. Davis disregarded this and ordered Beauregard to reduce the fort, by force if necessary, before the supply ships and their escorts arrived of the entrance to Charleston.

[Redmen4ever]

Wrong. Murderers and slavers can be stopped. (However, you have to be pragmatic.) The Constitution only protected the south while the south was in the union. After the south seceded, God help them.

[DiogenesLamp]

You know, it occurs to me that perhaps the best proof that Lincoln was behind it can be demonstrated by asking the question "To whom was the benefit?"

Who benefits from the passage of this amendment? Would not the most obvious beneficiary be Lincoln? Who else stood to lose anything if the Southern states seceded?

Did the Senator from Ohio really care if the Southern states left? Did any of the Northern states really care?

Who cared? Well Lincoln did. He was the only person that would have reaped a reward from this thing, wasn't he?

[DiogenesLamp]

I am aware that this is what it was labeled, though it was not actually armed insurrection. "Insurrection" requires authority over someone, and that authority had been rescinded by a democratic vote of the people of the States, which is the same authority that legitimized the Constitution in the first place.

Also, "Insurrection" refers to a minority of the population within a nation state, it does not apply to the majority within a nation state.

Our system was a collection of nation states, each of which had authority independent of the others before they formed the confederacy under the articles of confederation.

Both New York and Virginia, in their ratification documents, reserved the right to re-assume their sovereign powers, and this ratification statement was accepted without comment by the government at the time.

[rockrr]

You’re wrong - and you know it, but I do not expect you to ever admit it.

[Bull Snipe]

So according to you, he was the only person, out of the 22 million people living in the North, concerned that seven states had seceded from the Union.

Exactly what reward would Lincoln have reaped from the ratification of the XIII Amendment.

[DiogenesLamp]

I can read. I read the item to which you referred me concerning Florida.

I made no reference to Florida, I gave you a link to Virginia's secession statement.

That documentary evidence explicitly states that that state seceded because of slavery.

Sir, you are having difficulty keeping up with the conversation. You are mixing up the contexts here. When I referred to the constant appeal to the various secession statements, (plural) as a "lie" (attempt to mislead and deceive) I had specifically meant the collective, not just Texas. I believe I made that quite clear in the context of what I was saying. A clue should have been my stipulation that only 3 or 4 made secession statements particularly addressing slavery, while the rest did not.

My complaint was regarding people citing "the secession statements", without making it clear that these "secession statements" represented a minority of all the states involved. Virginia, arguably the most powerful of all the states in the Confederacy, did *NOT* secede over slavery.

I have already said that the conflict between the increasingly rich and populous north, with its capitalist system, versus the slave-based plantation system of the south, was also a cause.

And what was the cause of this conflict? What made the "rich and populous north" hate the South so much that the South no longer wanted to be associated with them?

The dominance of the north, and not merely the tariff, was also a cause. The dominance of the north was going to end the southern system. This is what was “Gone with the Wind.”

Capitalism was ending slavery and that was a very good thing.

I can see that there are a lot of things of which you are unaware regarding the economics before the war. I assume you have a passing familiarity with economics, this being a conservative website.

Can you tell me how long term trade is sustained between nations? Specifically between the United States and Europe in 1860.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Doesn’t matter if they remove the MLK name (original name Michael King) from those streets. The crime rate will remain just as high.

[rockrr]

Well, according to the Gospel of DegenerateLamp he was hoping for a slot on Letterman’s show.

[DiogenesLamp]

And what clause of the constitution addresses whether or not a state can or cannot secede? I thought this was clarified by the Declaration of Independence, in which it was clearly stated to be a universal right of mankind, given by God.

Hard to figure how the founders could claim independence as a human right given by God, and then 11 years later say "we were just kidding."

They must also have deliberately ignored New York and Virginia's ratification statement in which they both said they could reassume the sovereign powers they were relinquishing in ratifying the Constitution.

Nobody said "boo" about that, so they either agreed with it, or they didn't want to jinx the ratification.

I assure you, had anyone objected to these declarations by Virginia or New York, it would have blown apart the Constitutional ratification. Both states certainly did not know they were entering a "roach motel" where you can check in, but you can't leave.

Apparently neither did Connecticut, because they were talking secession at the Hartford convention.

So from where does Buchanan's attorney get his theory that a nation founded on the right to independence, can't allow any of it's members to exercise the right to independence?