I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag

Dixienews.com ^ | December 24, 2001 | Lake E. High, Jr.

[CWRWinger]

Talk about bondage, have you ever heard of the IRS? Have you looked at the confiscatory tax structure in the USA? Have you looked at the extremely high interest rates on credit cards? If that isn't bondage, I don't know what is. (Actually, I could add more things to that list)

[billbears]

Well I suggest you should look at the words of Frederick Douglass who in the fall of 1861 noticed the number of blacks in the Confederate Army, or Ervin Jordan, the first black professor at the University of North Carolina who wrote The Confederate Negro as an associate professor at the University of Virginia in 1969. Perhaps you would care to delve into the records of Charleston and Savannah which amply supply documented evidence of not only blacks fighting in the War, but free blacks volunteering for the war.

Perhaps if the so called 'conservatives' on this forum that are so gung-ho to follow a Tyrant into the depths of Hades were actually to look at the historical records instead of missives coming from on high command in Richmond, they would actually see the truth.

To compare the Holocaust to the War of Southern Independence is not only an insult to my ancestors, but the millions of Jews that died at the hands of a madman

[CWRWinger]

Way to go, Shuckmaster! Good post. Merry Christmas to you, for a Free South.

[Ditto]

Before the war, Lincoln himself had pledged to leave slavery intact,

Lincoln totally opposed Westward expansion of slavery which is exactly what the radicals in the South demanded. Lincoln would not compromise on that moral issue, and the greedy slave owning bastards looking to make a big buck selling human beings out West would not back off on their demands to make every Western territory 'slave country." They knew they needed more "slave states" if they were going to keep the institution alive and growing and continue to show a profit from their human breeding farms.

BTW. Show me where Lincoln ever proposed or sponsored an amendment to guarantee slavery where it existed. I'd like to see your source for that. Such an amendment would have been redundant in the first place since the constitution already acknowledged the legality of slavery.

And where did you get the factoid that Fort Sumter was a customs house? It was no such thing. It was a mostly unnecessary Federal Fort that was build at the demand of the Charleston slavers as a public works project. (i.e. a Federally sponsored boondoggle)

And where in the US Constitution is the clause that says slavery will exist in every area added to the nation? That is what the Confederate constitution says, quite explicitly. Confederate States couldn't ban slavery even if they wanted to. Some Federalism there!

As to tariffs, as the great Constitutionalist that you are, you surely must be aware that import tariffs were the major source of income for the Federal government prior to the 16th amendment with excise tariffs running a very distant second. Below is the average rate of tariff revenue vs. the value of imports beginning in 1821. The rate would go high in a time of war (like the Mexican War, which was fully supported by and of great benefit to all of the Southern states) spike high in times of recession, and be lower at a times of peace and prosperity. You will note that the year 1860 was a nearly all time low for tariffs followed by a very steep rise to an all time high of 45% to pay for the Civil War. I would assume that nearly all of that increase was paid by citizens of the North. The fact is however, that the total federal take in taxes was meaningless it was so small. It simply had little or no impact on the average person in those days.

And if tariffs were such a big deal for the South, a deal big enough to break the Union and go to war, why was it that ever resolution of secession passed by the legislatures listed protection of the institution of slavery as their prime reason? Every one of them, Vinne, with no exceptions listed slavery as their cause. By their own words, they did not break over tariffs. They broke over the issue of slavery! Yes, it was economic --- 60% of the wealth of the South was in the form of slaves --- albeit that 60% was owned by less than 5% of the population of the South. Of course those same 5% owned all the Southern legislatures too, but I digress.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste Vinny. Quit wasting yours at these neo-Nazi web sites that are attempting to rewrite well-documented history. The Civil War is the most written and studied event in our history. Its cause was clear. It was all about slavery.

[Ditto]

Talk about bondage, have you ever heard of the IRS? Have you looked at the confiscatory tax structure in the USA? Have you looked at the extremely high interest rates on credit cards? If that isn't bondage, I don't know what is. (Actually, I could add more things to that list)

Are you really comparing you life to that of a chattel slave? Really? Wow! Can the IRS or a credit card company sell you wife and kids at auction?

[Non-Sequitur]

In effect, the South was being looted to pay for the North?s early version of industrial policy. The battle over the tariff began in 1828, with the "tariff of abomination." Thirty year later, with the South paying 87 percent of federal tariff revenue while having their livelihoods threatened by protectionist legislation, it became impossible for the two regions to be governed under the same regime.

Let me quote from Alexander Stephens, soon to be vice president of the confederacy:

"The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that...Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at.

How could tariffs be the cause is they were at the rate the southern politicians wanted them at?

The Confederate Constitution did, however, make possible the gradual elimination of slavery...

Let's quote from the confederate constitution:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

How would that make possible the gradual elimination of slavery?

Neither did he lift a finger to repeal the anti-Negro laws that besotted all Northern states, Illinois in particular.

Leaving aside for a moment the Black Codes implemented down south after the rebellion, how could the president dictate the repeal of state laws? Don't you believe in states rights?

[ml/nj]

The Civil War is the most written and studied event in our history. Its cause was clear. It was all about slavery.

One of those who writes and studies, as you say, is Professor Michael F. Holt of the University of Virginia. I had the privilege of sitting in on one of his lectures last year. (He is an extraordinary lecturer.) During that lecture he told his class that the suggestion that slavery was the primary cause of the war was:

R U B B I S H !!

I write it that way to put in text his emphasis during the lecture.

And you would say what: that Holt doesn't know what he is talking about? To be sure you could find other scholars who disagree, but your suggestion that only an ignoramus holds that slavery was not the primary cause of the war says more about you than we probably need to know.

ML/NJ

[Non-Sequitur]

As opposed to the insane hatred of all things northern exhibited by many of the sothron fanatics on this forum, I suppose?

[Non-Sequitur]

Ah, yes. The eternal 'klan and the flag' question. Let's look at some more recent photos, shall we?

Those were from the Alabam White Knights website, BTW. According to them, they have been "Serving your racial needs since 1865." You really need to thank them some time.

[Non-Sequitur]

We have no idea if Holt knows what he is talking about or not. What does he say is the cause and what evidence does he offer to support it?

[Jeff Smith]

And the the man behind the "Connecticut Compromise" was certainly not a Southerner. LOL. Guess that slipped the author's mind.

[ml/nj]

We have no idea if Holt knows what he is talking about or not. What does he say is the cause and what evidence does he offer to support it?

I assume that "we" is the Royal "We."

The guy is a Professor of History at the University of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson's University. So he brings those credentials to the table. I provided a link to an Amazon page where his most recent book is reviewed and argued about. (Did you bother to look? Let me guess: it was too much trouble.) That book is a 1200+ page tome about pre-"Civil War" politics, and you want me to present his argument here in a response to you? My one sentance attempt would be: The "Civil War" was caused by the breakdown of the two party system. Does that really help you?

My point was not whether Holt is correct, or those who suggest slavery, or economics are correct. My point was that there are very highly educated people in the field who do not think slavery was the primary cause, and it is foolish to dismiss them out of hand.

ML/NJ

[Jeff Smith]

The subsidies are funded through tax money raised from the citizens of the several states. What's your point? All states receive some subsidies, that's one of the advantages of a republican form of gov't.

The poorer Southern and Western states recieve the most money funded by taxpayers throughout the Union. Every state should carry its own weight. Massachusetts has a 5% income tax. We have own welfare programs so we should NOT have to fund the welfare programs of other states. Certain responsibilities were delegated to the States in the Constitution. Unfortunetely, the voters in my own state disagree with me and they vote for Ted Kennedys and John Kerrys.

[Non-Sequitur]

In light of the evidence to the contrary, and without seeing what they base their thesis on, it's very easy to dismiss them. Why not humor me and give me a synopsis?

[x]

But the beauty of our original system was, if the local folks(states, cities, counties, towns) got out of control, people would just flee to friendlier confines. This competition would be a check against local politicians.

True enough. You can't get away from Uncle Sam and his tax collectors. But a lot of the mid-nineteenth century unpleasantness was precisely about fetching back those who fled from local tyrants to friendlier confines.

If you really had "sovereign states," you would be surprised by the mischief they could get up to. By the Constitution, the rights of citizens of one state were to be respected by other states, but since a state could decide who was a citizen and who wasn't, it could decide what rights they would have.

One could make a case that the 14th Amendment destroyed the Old Republic. One could also make a case that by guaranteeing that citizens of the United States were also citizens of the state they resided in and fully entitled to basic rights, the 14th Amendment fullfilled that Old Republic. In other words, don't be 100% sure that you could simply have taken what you had and fled and enjoyed the same rights in your new state if the Secessionists or State's Rightists had their way.

To be sure there was potential for misuse of the 14th Amendment. It would be fulfilled in the 20th Century. But the case could be made that the real change came with the 16th Amendment and the Income Tax.

After the Civil War, people were probably freer to get up and leave one state, if they felt it didn't suit them, than they were before the war. The locals in those days might be keeping tabs on you, but the feds weren't yet.

[SlightOfTongue]

Good job. Thanks for posting a controversial article on Christmas Eve just to piss everyone off. That's the spirit.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

[WhiskeyPapa]

And where in the US Constitution is the clause that says slavery will exist in every area added to the nation?

Great stuff, Ditto.

Lincoln's Cooper Union speech in February, 1860 is where he compelling laid out two facts:

1. A clear majority of the original framers wanted to rid the nation of slavery through measures like the Northwest Ordinance. and,

2. He showed that the federal government clearly had the power to legislate the territories.

That made him a marked man in the south. And it meant that slaver plans to destroy the Union must be quickly brought to fruition. Thanks for all your resarch.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Do you know where that Lee quote from #32 comes from? I haven't studied Lee at all. The quote is intriguing.

Sure. This is a note I put up on a white supremacist newsgroup a couple of years ago(which I won't grace by naming):

Robert E. Lee is no proper hero for Americans, saying in 1865 that the best relationship of whites and blacks was that of master and slave. (1)

Lee agreed that the system of chattel slavery in the south was a positive good, both rational and Christian, and thus an institution fit to be made permanent to serve as the cornerstone of the Confederate "nation". Too, he was in fact aslave owner, his estate at Arlington being the home of 63 slaves. (2)

Lee took up arms against the United States before his letter of resignation was accepted. (3)

He was not even a very successful general, squandering his army's manpower in bloody battles that destroyed his opportunity for offensive action and ultimately led to mass desertions.

"He failed to rise above local professional concerns and view the war as a whole, displaying little interest or understanding of the overall strategic situation, demonstrating a predilection for Virginia - and Virginians - to the exclusion of all other theaters." (4)

If you like losers, Robert E. Lee is the man for you.

And Lee's honor? His statements were inconsistant and self serving:

"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom andforebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and forthe establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolvedby revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It isidle to talk of secession."

January 23, 1861 (5)

"All the South has ever desired is that the union, as formed by ourfounding fathers, should be preserved." Jan 5. 1866 (6)

Robert E. Lee is not a suitable hero for Americans today.

(1) Lee Considered, By Alan Nolan p. 21

(2) Ibid p. 10

(3) Ibid p. 52

(4) from "A Civil War Treasury" by A.A. Nofi

(5) Lee Considered By Alan Nolan p. 34

(6) Ibid p. 56

Taken all together, Lee is a bum.

Walt