Posted on 07/15/2003 6:06:12 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:05:14 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
He was, at the war's end, the senior lieutenant general in the Confederate Army, Lee's trusted friend and second-in-command of the Army of Northern Virginia --- yet it was not until 1998 that a statue was erected anywhere to honor James Longstreet. This slight can be traced to his membership in the Republican Party during Reconstruction, but even more damaging to his reputation was the image created by his postwar enemies: He became a villain in Southern eyes, a scapegoat for the Confederate defeat, and one of the South's most controversial figures.
(Excerpt) Read more at dynamic.washtimes.com ...
Certain libertarians are like that. See lewrockwell.com. The truth is that after the Civil War, the federal government shrank back to 1% of GNP. It was the coming of FDR -- elected with the support of the one-party segregationist South -- that led to the enormous and seemingly permanent escalation of government in this country.
The Dems of today couldn't have done it without the Lincoln precedent to build on. Historians are in practically unanimous agreement that Lincoln significantly consolidated power in the federal government. Some think this is good, some think this is bad, but nobody can dispute that it happened. Nor can you dispute the fact that the consolidation of federal power encourages the expansion and exercise of federal policy as we find in the welfare state of today.
If that is what you believe, then please tell us exactly who these people of the united states were and upon what authority they acted. I ask not to rebut your argument but rather out of a desire to take it to its logical ends and see where that leaves us.
How silly can you get. What are the United States, but the States that are united. For your theory to have any meaning, or make any sense, the entities would be an entity, and it would not have a plural name. It might be a United State of something, but it would not be the United States. However, one need not even point out the obvious use of words. There is compelling legal authority to absolutely refute this nonsense:
1. Declaration of Independence declared the independence of the original 13 States, and clearly defined them in unmistakable terms.
2. The Treaty Of Paris, which ended the War and obtained international recognition, specifically defined the term "the United States of America," as precisely what we have contended it to mean. That term having been clearly defined legally, 4 years before, obviously meant exactly the same thing, when it was used in the Constitution.
3. You quote the preamble of the Constitution, but ignore every thing about it. Note Article VII: "The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same." Pretty clear, isn't it that they are talking about a union of States.
4. The signatory clause is equally unequivocal: "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present this Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America, the Twelfth."
5. Suffrage for Federal elections was to be determined by each State, for itself. Thus Article I, Sec. 2. merely provided: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature." What that meant as a practical matter was that who could vote in Federal elections varied very considerably from State to State--the Union was hardly the Nazi style monolith that you try to suggest--with some States soon extending the suffrage to a broad spectrum, and others such as South Carolina, which continued to have a very restricted suffrage at least into the 1840s, very restricted.
6. The basic actions of a sovereign with respect to the daily affairs of a people are taken under what are called the "Police Power," the right to act to protect the Safety, Health & Morals of the body politic. These powers are not conferred by the Constitution to the Federal Government, they were left entirely to the States.
I could go on, with many other proivisions of the Constitution, which are wholly inconsistent with your absurd claim. Had what you claim been intended, however, the Constitution would not have employed the terminology of the independent States, but would have created an entity called "America" or perhaps "Columbia," as in "Columbia the Gem Of The Ocean," (since there was no nation known as Columbia in those days).
To the extent that the Founding Fathers recognized a common nationality, they were "Americans." When they talked about the sovereign States, they were Virginians, or Carolinians, or Pennsylvanians, etc.. Practically everyone, had a dual identity. They were, as Booker T. Washington was later to define it, in terms of race relations--one as the hand in all things common (American) but separate as the fingers in other matters.
But enough. Your claim flies in the face of the documents. I do not know what your motivation may be for insisting upon it so beligerantly, but it is not sustainable among people who have read the basic documents of American history.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Aren't we a cute fellow! You find any place in this thread, or anywhere else, where I said that slaves loved slavery! Are you unable to understand the difference between acceptance of one's lot and making the best of it, and loving one's lot? There is nothing in being in unfortunate circumstances which inevitably makes one a rebel. I here reproduce my major response to you earlier, which goes into the most details, as to my argument vis-a-vis yours, as refutation for your grossly overreaching suggestion, above:
Posted by LS to Ohioan Bill, Bill, Bill. This is truly sad. Are you really serious that you are going to try to argue that most of the slaves who "liked" their circumstances? Funny, it was damn hard to ever find ONE who wanted to be "re-enslaved" after the war. No, you are beyond the limits of reasonable evidence here, and you can't say, "well, the evidence is right, but the big picture isn't." BS.
What a foolish argument. I did not suggest that anyone "liked" his circumstances, whether master or servant, child or adult. I am sure that there were people who were content and there were people--as in every period in the human experience--who were not content. That is totally beside the point. The point is that there was no general slave revolt. The point is that most of the slaves were loyal to their society; just as most of the serfs in Europe were loyal to their societies.
The argument that you are using is that of the propagandist. I did not agree that the evidence (your evidence) was right, in the sense of being dispositive. I conceded for the sake of argument, that you had in fact seen hundreds of accounts of slaves who were rebellious against their condition. That does not mean that slaves in general were rebellious.
In fact, I remember reading some years ago, about the project to gather just such material. It was not gathered for the purpose of objectivity, but to further the aims of groups devoted to confrontational policies. The Left has always tried to exploit all human grievances, and has never scrupled at exaggerating those grievances. The purpose is to drive a wedge of hostility between the races in the South--only the Left gains from that--although many nominal Conservatives have lately been given to singing the praises of some of those who have promoted that hostility.
This tactic, gathering a list of exceptions--not to prove the rule but to prove the exceptions--has been employed effectively by totalitarian movements in the Century just ended. For an obvious example, consider how Hitler poisoned German public opinion against the German Jews, who were for the most part solid, prosperous, German citizens, integrally part of the German community. He picked out every socially reprehensible act by any Jew, and presented that as a case against a whole group. Thus while most Jews were property owners, who believed people should be free to benefit by their honest labor, he pointed out those Jews who had become Communists. Thus, while a great many Jews were playing the classical music, that Hitler loved, in German symphony orchestras, he picked out a few eccentrics, who were experimenting with unusual music forms, and charged the whole group with corrupting German music; etc., etc..
The Communists, in America, picked up every incident, where someone did something cruel or mean spirited towards any identifiable group, and did much the same sort of smear number, on the American mainstream. All forms of Socialists have collected horror stories of the "sweat shops," as well as any actually corrupt deeds committed by Capitalists, for almost two centuries. They did not admit that they were compiling lists of exceptions, rather than painting an accurate picture.
The selected listing or collection of incidents that serve a preconceived purpose, again, is the technique of the propagandist not the Historian.
It's a weak, wrong, and morally reprehensible argument for any FREE person who believes in liberty to try to make.
What is morally reprehensible is to distort history to fit one's contemporary beliefs. The Leftist propaganda that pictures those at the bottom of society, in every age, steaming with hatred against the upper classes, is a very distorted history. In point of fact, those at the bottom almost never revolt, unless and until, they are manipulated by intellectuals from the leisure classes. Thus it was essential to get Lenin back in Russia to organize the uprising of the "Proletariat." Thus intellectuals from the upper classes, in costume, led the mob in Paris against the Bastille. Many of the mob they raised for what followed, had been lining the streets to cheer the royal coach, but shortly before the Revolution.
The myth of Negro hatred of the White Southerner did not really get started until the NAACP was founded in 1909 by White Fabian Socialists, bent upon destroying Booker T. Washington's efforts to build bridges of cooperation between two races that had shared a common history and culture. No one has benefitted from creating hostility out of historic misrepresentation but the agitators.
An interesting fictionalized, but still psychologically astute, picture of the total irrationality of the hate driven mob, pursuing imaginary grievances, is provided in the second half of Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, where the anti-Catholic mob, looting and destroying the property of wealthy London Catholics, is composed in a large part of poor London Catholics. Hate is contageous, once started--as they proved in France in 1789-1795; as they proved in Russia, after 1917; as they proved in Germany after 1933. The American South does not deserve similar treatment.
There is no suggestion, whatsoever, that anyone loved bondage.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
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