Posted on 01/15/2007 9:38:08 AM PST by SmithL
Columbia, S.C. -- Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.
"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds — out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.
In Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama, also prominently mentioned in speculation about the White House sweepstakes in 2008, was a hit at a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition breakfast honoring King, even if he didn't deliver what much of the crowd clearly wanted: a declaration that he will run for president.
Obama received a standing ovation at the annual King scholarship breakfast when the Rev. Jesse Jackson introduced him with an approving reference to the Illinois Democrat's presidential aspirations.
"It's a long, nonstop line between the march in Selma in 1965 and the inauguration in Washington in 2009," said Jackson, the coalition's founder and a one-time presidential candidate himself.
Later, in an address at a King remembrance service at St. Mark's Church in suburban Harvey, Obama said: "I'm not making news today. I'm not here to make news. There will be a time for that."
More than six years after the Confederate flag was taken down from the South Carolina Capitol dome, its location in front of the Statehouse remains an issue at the heart of events celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.
Jim Hanks stood across from the Statehouse with about 35 Confederate flag supporters.
"We love this flag. We love our heritage," said Hanks, of Lexington.
Some carried signs saying: "South Carolina does not want Chris Dodd,"...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
You wish.
"Plugs" Biden, lol. I like that. It has a certain.....ring to it, doncha think? Very good.
If I recall right, Delaware was the VERY LAST state in the Union to outlaw slavery. I found this little snippet from Wikipedia.
"Two months before the end of the Civil War, however, Delaware voted on February 18, 1865 to reject the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The issue was north-versus-south inside the state, with the strong Quaker anti-slavery presence in the northern parts. The 1000 or so slaveowners in the southern parts were making a political statement. Slavery ended in Delaware only when the Thirteenth Amendment took effect in December of 1865. When the 15th Amendment gave all blacks the right to vote, the legislature in 1873 passed a poll tax (for everyone) designed to minimize the vote of blacks and poor whites. Delaware quickly adopted other Jim Crow legislation and eventually set up a dual school system topped by the black college Delaware State. From the 1870s to the 1950s, Delaware organized its politics, its legal system, its economy, and its culture on the Southern idea of segregation and the legal principal of separate but equal. The segregated school system was integrated in the mid 1950s."
When the 17th amendment turned the Senate into 100 mini-presidents.
-PJ
Sorry, plugs, I think sinator dodd beat you to it.
How very big of him, to supply a clause the Framers conspicuously failed to include in the Constitution.
</sarc>
Of course, he'll have pointed to some ..... authority for his finding, yes? Something better than l' etat, c'est moi?
Ah. The Union is a protection racket. Now I understand. Youse gotta have da vig, or youse guys will do a number on my face. I get it.
Tell Vinny I dit'n't mean no disrespect.
Like the parchment says: "...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men..."
Tell Vinny I dit'n't mean no disrespect.
Den maybe youse shouldn'a shot up his place in Sout' Carolina.
By implication it's in there. You just disagree.
Of course, he'll have pointed to some ..... authority for his finding, yes?
Well, all the authority he needs is there in Article III?
I really don't mind when Biden, Dodd, etc focus on trivial things like this if it means detracting their focus from areas where they can do actual harm. Wouldn't bother me if they tied up the floor for the next two years arguing over this subject. LOL.
I'll butt in here. Implication? Is freedom implied? It is assumed to pre-exist the Constitution. All of the rights enumerated in the BOR are assumed to pre-exist their enumeration. You cannot in any way assume that the right to break the bonds of the union doesn't exist because it is assumed to be in the wording. There is no implication in the US Constitution other than rights that are assumed to exist.
Nobody is saying that. But considering a new state is admitted only with the consent of the other states, that once in they cannot change their status by partitioning or combining with another state without consent of Congress, that they cannot change their border by a fraction of an inch without consent of Congress, that they cannot take a whole host of actions impacting the interest of other states without consent of Congress, then it doesn't take much to realize that implied in all that is the need for consent of Congress to leave.
There is no implication in the US Constitution other than rights that are assumed to exist.
We're not talking about rights, we're talking about powers reserved to the states and powers reserved to Congress. One of the powers reserved to Congress is the power to create states by admitting them into the Union, to approve changes in their status after joining, and actions impacting the interest of other states.
Well, if what you say is true, how real is the right to freedom? You say that this is about powers between states and congress - where is the redress for those who have been denied rights? The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. That has obviously been suppressed by an act of congress. What does the individual do to re-instate that right? What does the single state do? Ballot box? What if even that doesn't work? At what point does the person/state have the right to break the union bond?
What gives the states the right to use the Constitution as a tool against the remaining states? When they left the seven Southern states walked away from debt obligations and treaty obligations built up by the nation as a whole while they were a part and left those obligations to the remaining states. They walked away with every piece of federal property they could get their hands on without compensation. One of the first acts of the state of Mississippi was to announce that it was closing the river to northern traffic. While that order was shortly recinded, it did show that the south could cut off the midwest from access to the sea whenever they wanted. The Southern states did all this and there wasn't a thing the remaining states could do about it. How can the Constitution preserve and protect only those states leaving and allow them to screw over those states remaining?
Biden and Dodd apparently do not have anything better to do with their time. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
You evaded my question. Read my post again, please. I'm not debating the plus or minus of the actual secession that occurred. I am asking what do we do NOW?
The most obvious of these is the contention that Texas never ceased to be a state, yet, the people of Texas were denied representation as a state until they agreed to certain "reconstruction" acts of the U.S. Congress, as was common throughout the post war South.
I assume you're talking about, among other things, the 14th Amendment. I'm no lawyer, but didn't Congress essentially declare the former Confederate states to be "non-states," without explaining how a "non-state" could legally ratify a constitutional amendment as a precondition for readmission to the Union as a state?
No, you're holding up the Southern actions as a Constitutional solution to the problem of being picked on. And I'm pointing out the basic unfairness of the doctrine that any state can leave and use the Constitution as a way of screwing over the remaining states. If a state wants to leave then go. I don't care why they want to go. The reasons for secession don't matter. A state can, in my opinion, leave for any reason or for no reason at all. The question is how they go about it. Leaving with the consent of all the impacted parties is the only way.
Not exactly. The Reconstruction Acts stripped the Southern states of the Congressional representation and classified any state governments as provisional until certain steps were met. However, they did not make them 'non-states' or require readmission to the Union. Once the rebellious states had met the conditions imposed, then it would be their delegation that would be readmitted to Congress, not the state being readmitted to the Union. In the eyes of Congress the states had never been out of the Union to begin with so they didn't need readmission.
Just exactly how would Florida seceding screw over Wyoming?
Leaving with the consent of all the impacted parties is the only way.
Too complicated. The court cases would never end. Never.
Your attitude is scary: Nation-state above all else, including individual freedom.
You need to re-read the Bill of Rights.
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