Jefferson Davis: beyond a statue-tory matter

The Courier-Journal ^ | July 27, 2003 | Bill Cunningham

[thatdewd]

The writer is a circuit judge who lives in Kuttawa, Ky.

KUTTAWA, Ky. - The Courier Journal, at the behest of its columnist John David Dyche, has called for the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. Such a supposedly politically correct viewpoint reflects a shallow, selective and even hypocritical understanding of history.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yet 12 of them did exactly that in 1861. You may think they were wrong for doing so, and you may dispute their right to do so, but that there was a de facto secession in 1861 is irrefutable. Live with it.

Let's see. According to the confederate version of what happened secession was declared in Flordia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. So that would be 1...2...3...I make it 13 state and not 12. Or are you agreeing that the secession actions of the governor of Missouri and the partial legislature were illegal afer all?

[PeaRidge]

"I admit my error and apologize for my misstatements"

Good for you.

[PeaRidge]

"Sorry jack, my people came from Ireland. Never owned any, never profited from slavery."

Your ancestors did profit from slavery. You are just not aware of it.

Europeans became exposed to slavery at the time of the Crusades. Sugar crops had been introduced into the Levant in the seventh century by the Arabs. At the time, the Europeans knew honey as the only sweetening agent available. Learning of the characteristics of sugar, they immediately realized the value of sugar.

After taking over the area and particularly the sweetening industry in Palestine, the Normans and Venetians promoted and later moved the production of sugar to the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily.

From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries these colonies shipped sugar to all parts of Europe. The sugar produced there was grown on plantations which utilized slave labor.

While the slaves were primarily white, it was in these islands that Europeans developed the institutional apparatus that was eventually to be applied to blacks.

The practice of utilizing slaves then spread to Europe.

The Catholic Church not only rationalized the possession of slaves in Europe and elsewhere, but also was itself a major owner of slaves. In 1375, Pope Gregory XI viewed bondage as a just punishment for those who resisted the Church. In 1488, Pope Innocent VIII accepted slaves from Spain, and distributed them among his cardinals and nobles.

Gaining acceptance politically and socially throughout Europe, concepts on the legitimacy of slavery did not affect humanist writers of the time such as Thomas More, who held that slavery was an appropriate state of being in his vision of Utopia

During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther accepted and wrote in favor of it.

Later, the prominent champion of “inalienable rights of man”, John Locke, wrote a provision for slavery into his draft of the “Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina,” and also became an investor in the Royal African Company, the organization that enjoyed the British monopoly of the African slave trade.

Thus, the man who formulated the theory of natural liberty, and whose thesis regarding the moral obligation of men to take up arms in defense of liberty, and who later inspired many revolutionaries and abolitionists was, nevertheless, a staunch defender of slavery.

[PeaRidge]

You blow the Walt brigade's favorite post about the tariff collection points in NYC and Boston as measures of Northern not Southern tariff payment completely out of the water.

You also prove that unless one understands basic economics and trade policy effects on commerce that some are probably doomed to a one dimensional understanding of the secession as only a function of the protection of slavery and not the massive economic destruction of the South that was pending.

And it was not just the large slave-farm owners that faced the economic blight. It was anyone in the South that bought work clothes made in NYC, or blankets from Lowell, or plows from Pennsylvania, or hats from Philadelphia. They would gladly receive cotton and tobacco on their warfs, while using the government tariff system to force the South into buying their manufactured goods.

It is too bad that Walt and others like him don't try to reach for a complete understanding of the 1850's.......it was a much more interesting time and series of events than he thinks.

Thanks for attempting to help him.

[rustbucket]

However, unless you can show that President Lincoln and the congress knew their actions were unconstitutional when they took them then there is nothing wrong with their actions.

I think nolu nailed congressional awareness of the unconstitutionality of Lincoln's actions in his post above. Here's a quote from Lincoln admitting he knew what he did was unconstitutional and providing his logic for doing so.

I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensabale means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it.

[nolu chan]

Non-Seq: I love your ass. Maybe we should rename the Harvey Milk school to be The Non-Sequitur School of Liberal Empowerment.

You're cute when you go yip, yip, yip.

LINK

"That's not consistent with other things he said. And he grew in office and became a knight and a saint, and by the time the war was over he had spent his entire life fighting to free the slaves. Just like Lincoln."

The clerk in the welfare office overhears non-seq, standing in line during one of his regular visits, complaining about how he wants a job but can't find one. When non-seq gets to his window, the clerk asks him about it. Non-seq confirms there is nothing he wants more than a job... he will take anything. The clerk says "I may have just the job for you. There is this rich guy who wants someone to chaperone his beautiful daughter around Europe. She is a nymphomaniac and the father doesn't mind if you bed her as long as there is no public embarassment. The pay is $250,000 plus expenses. Are you interested?" Non-seq says, "You gotta be sh*!ing me!" Replies the clerk, "Well, you started it."

[GOPcapitalist]

Let's see. According to the confederate version of what happened secession was declared in Flordia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. So that would be 1...2...3...I make it 13 state and not 12. Or are you agreeing that the secession actions of the governor of Missouri and the partial legislature were illegal afer all?

Actually, I'm not county Kentucky in that list. It's form of the old 11, 12, or 13 controversy on how to count it. I figure that since Missouri and Kentucky were split in loyalties, and since the rightfully elected Missouri legislature voted secession but Kentucky's did not, that's the fairest way to split it.

[ought-six]

"Shame! you have just positioned yourself as supporting rape and slavery. Shame!"

Say what???

[ought-six]

"You are, to put it mildly, confused."

And you, friend, to put it mildy, are full of $hit. Check your history to see who was responsible for the tariffs. Ever hear of the Morill Tariff, for example?

[ought-six]

"ROTFLMAO. You don't even know what the hell a tariff is."

Gee, and I thought my econ classes in college dealt with that. I guess my professors didn't know what they were talking about, either.

[ought-six]

"How tariffs work is not covered in the neo-reb catechism."

What's a neo-reb? Define, please.

[ought-six]

Whew! That was a rather brief, yet very thorough and explanatory thesis on tariffs. I thank you for your input. I don't have the time to go into such detail, thus I try to massage my point in a few very terse comments. I am not always successful in getting my point across. You, however, did get your point across, and did it well, and I applaud you for it. I hope the others to whom you addressed your comments understand it and appreciate it, as well.

[lentulusgracchus]

Yea, verily, that brave Senator, that true Patriot, that common-sense lover of the Law and the Constitution who rose up so bravely to slam-dunk infidel Senator Wilson and his bill into eternity was none other than ILLINOIS SENATOR LYMAN TRUMBULL.

Thank you very much for this useful post, and yes, the presence of Trumbull in the opposition is significant. Lyman Trumbull was the old Chicago Whig who got the Senate seat that Lincoln was after when he originally challenged Stephen A. Douglas over Kansas-Nebraska in 1854. Lincoln was in the running into the late going but realized he'd topped out among the state legislators who were voting in the ballot rounds to fill the Senate seat, and so Lincoln threw his support to Lyman Trumbull and withdrew to begin his two years' wandering in the wildnerness as the Whig Party fell apart.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Trumbull made the transition to the Republican Party and became a Lincoln stalwart.

I don't know how long Trumbull survived, but a Lyman Trumbull -- whether it was this man or his scion I couldn't readily determine -- appeared as counsel for the appellant in the landmark Second Amendment case, Presser vs. Illinois, which finally was decided by the Supreme Court in 1895.

[lentulusgracchus]

Southern partisans who argue based on Tariffs are promultating a lie, just a figleaf to hide their focus on human slavery.

Oh, stop it. Southern cane plantations relied on steam engines and large rendering vats to reduce the cane syrup; this equipment was housed in large outbuildings of and was tremendously heavy and expensive equipment. In fact, it was so ponderous that a lot of it was abandoned in place, and some of it is still there, 140 years later -- not worth moving.

If this kind of high-performance equipment came from England, it was subject to the tariff. If it came from Pennsylvania instead, Philadelphia gentlemen got rich off Southern planters.

[lentulusgracchus]

Goods came into New York City from all over the world not because the consumers were all in New York but because the warehouses were there. After they got to New York they were warehoused until a buyer was found and the tariff was paid. Then they were loaded up and shipped out again all over the coast and nation, only by then the tariff had been paid so intercoastal and railroad shipping was without a tariff cost.

And if the Southern States left the Union, and built their own entrepot, or just reverted to using Havana, then both New York City and the United States Government were screeeewed!

Gee, do you think anyone might throw down a mailed gauntlet over stakes like that?

Nice post, thanks. Funny how little New York's angle on secession comes up in discussions of "causes of the Civil War".

[lentulusgracchus]

However, unless you can show that President Lincoln and the congress knew their actions were unconstitutional when they took them then there is nothing wrong with their actions.

What?!!

"But officer, I didn't know that "speed limit" meant the maximum speed limit! I took it to mean the minimum speed limit.........by interpretation!"

"Oh, well, bless you, my son -- that's all right, then! Have a nice day."

Yeah, right.

[lentulusgracchus]

It is too bad that Walt and others like him don't try to reach for a complete understanding of the 1850's....

Dude, the man doesn't care......he's a true believer, an adherent of the Apparat. He's here to spread the message, and stay on message. You only think you're having a conversation with him.

JMHO.

[lentulusgracchus]

Tell that to nolu chan, GOPcapitalist, and the rest of their merry band.

Do you think their pointing out that Lincoln's own views on the subject of race and ethnicity are a form of argumentum ad hominem, rather than an attempt to correct the intellectually reductive atmosphere of deference?

They're saying that his views were not what people project onto him, and not, as Johnnie Cochrane said about Dennis Fuhrmann, his views are racist, and therefore he's a liar. They are not, I think, descending altogether into ad hominem -- although I see someone's taking a little license, under provocation, and trying to pay back your fellow sneerers in the same coin of despite that you've showered on "defenders of slavery".

[thatdewd]

However, unless you can show that President Lincoln and the congress knew their actions were unconstitutional when they took them then there is nothing wrong with their actions...

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court let Mr. Lincoln know his actions were unconstitutional almost immediately. In writing. In the form of a legal opinion (Ex Parte Merryman, 1861). Lincoln knew. As to congress, they did eventually pass an act of suspension years later, but it did not include or even attempt to legitimise the previous actions taken by Lincoln. Also, I did not say that congress acted unconstitutionally. In fact, Section Two of that act contained language making it clear that the "States in which the administration of the laws has continued unimpaired" were not subject to the suspension, since it ordered that citizens of those States then held as "state or political" prisoners as a result of Lincoln's previous actions be immediately named and either be indicted by a Grand Jury or be released.

"...And in all cases where a grand jury, having attended any of said courts having jurisdiction in the premises, after the passage of this act, and after the furnishing of said list [of prisoner's names], as aforesaid, has terminated its session without finding an indictment, or presentment, or other proceeding against any such person, it shall be the duty of the judge of said court forthwith to make an order that any such prisoner desiring a discharge from said imprisonment be brought before him to be discharged; and every officer of the United States having custody of such prisoner is hereby directed immediately to obey and execute said judge's order; and in case he shall delay, or refuse so to do, he shall be subject to indictment..."

In other words, Habeas Corpus was still in effect in "States in which the administration of the laws has continued unimpaired". A fact Mr. Lincoln ignored, in direct violation of not only the Constitution, but the 1863 Act of Congress.

[nolu chan]

[nolu chan 356] The battle continued down to the final day of the session, August 5, 1861.

To correct one minor error in my post, the final day of the session was August 6, 1861.