Posted on 11/19/2007 10:09:26 AM PST by BnBlFlag
Death of Jefferson Davis Remembered - The Christmas of 1889 was a sad time in the South. By Calvin Johnson Jr. Staff Email Contact Editor Print
Jefferson Davis - AuthenticHistory.com December 6th, is the 118th anniversary of the death of a great American Hero---Jefferson Davis.
The "Politically Correct" would have you forget the past...But do not forget the history of the men and women who made the USA great.
Caution, this is a family friendly story to be shared.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans have declared 2008, the "Year of Jefferson Davis." Remembrance events will include the re-opening of "Beauvoir" on Jefferson Davis' 200th birthday---June 3, 2008. This was Davis' last home that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum will be rebuilt and re-open about two years after the house. Beauvoir is located on the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast. See more at: www.beauvoir.org
The New York Times reported the death of Jefferson Davis;
New Orleans, December 8, 1889---Quote "A careful tally of the visitors shows that about 40,000 persons, mostly women and children, viewed the remains today. This crowd included, in solemn and respectful attendance, all conditions of Whites, Blacks, ex-Confederates, ex-Federals, and even Indians and Chinamen." ---Unquote
Davis' Death was also the page 1 story in Dixie;
Excerpt: http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=204067&c=11
(Excerpt) Read more at accessnorthga.com ...
The Northern and Midwestern States also had the economic power (technology, financial system, transportation networks, and manufacturing infrastructures) to enforce the votes of their citizens.
Seceding States could have gained an ally in Britain, which had significant economic power, and the war might have gone differently, but--the blockade prevented Southern exports of cotton, and the British valued their imports of wheat from the United States far more than their imports of cotton from the Confederate States. After all, you can't eat cotton.
Bingo! Two competing economic systems...the vestiges of mercantilist ideology against which American colonists fought a War of Independence and the system of free trade, with smaller, restrained government.
Someone might want to point out to Williams that the Morrill tariff was passed in March 1861, almost 3 months after the Southern statese seceded. But then again, facts have never been his strong point.
Actually, Davis did all of the things that Lincoln is accused of. It was Davis who lost the war by refusing to remove incompetent Generals who were his friends. His draft act was sure “fair”. Draft all of the poor and middle class but leave the rich guys alone.
The executive has the prerogative of suspending habeas corpus in times of national emergency. The federal government has the authority to take measures against sedition.
Lincoln did his job.
2) The destruction of states' rights as an operative political doctrine, and the substitution of non-negotiable federalism;
States' rights as a destructive political obsession thankfully died with the adoption of the Constitution. It's a shame that so many people died because the anti-federalists apparently didn't read the memo.
3) The first pass at an income tax;
War is expensive and the Constitution provided Congress with the ability to fund armies. It's not as if the Confederacy refrained from levying taxes on income either.
4) The corruption of the procurement process for Union supplies and materiel;
In every age in every land warfare procurement presents opportunities for graft and corruption because speed and availability are far more important in wartime than careful oversight and price negotiation. This was not a novelty confined in time and place to the Union during the Civil War.
5) The lukewarm and ineffective way in which the war was waged under Scott, McClellan, & Co. in the early stages;
Great military captains do not grow on trees. The scope and technology of the Civil War was previously unprecedented and it took time to identify which officers were the most effective captains. No war has ever been prosecuted flawlessly from its very beginning to its very end - let alone an epoch-making war like that one.
6) A lasting legacy of overbearing paternalism that borders on hubris, that defies the spirit of this nation's founding, and that has been exploited to force unconscionable uniformity throughout a polyglot culture.
That's a lot of babble. "Unconscionable uniformity throughout a polyglot culture" - what concrete phenomenon is that supposed to refer to?
To suggest that Confederate soldiers were not driven as much by honor as Union troops is absurd and chauvinistic.
Of course the great men of the Confederacy were driven by honor. The question is: what was honorable about the way of life they were fighting to preserve? On balance, not much.
Lincoln, after being elected pointed out if the Morill Tariff Act did not get out of the Senate, he would propose a new one.
You lost the war. Get over it.
Beauvoir was not just damaged by Katrina it was dang near destroyed. I saw it the year after the hurricane. If that were any average Joe’s house it would have been condemned then torn down. But this year i saw it again and the work is coming along nicely. Biloxi and Beauvoir will be ready in 2008. While New Orleans still sits in piles of rubbish.
The South had blocked it in the Senate in 1860. And had the Democrats not gone off and rebelled they could have killed it in the Senate again in 1861. To say that the tariff was the reason for the Southern rebellion ignores the opinions and writings of the Southern leaders of the time. In their opinion, secession was to protect slavery and not because of the tariff.
If protective tariffs were such a bone of contention then why was one of the first acts of the confederate congress the adoption of a protective tariff?
In the seemingly hypocritical South’s case, the income collected would be controlled by “them” instead of the “Union” which they thought had it out for them.
If your perceived “enemy” was collecting “taxes” from your labor and using those “taxes” to beef themselves up I guess you would get pissed. This was there main sticking point, how the dollars were distributed.
Whoops forgot, why did many “free traders” vote for higher tariffs after the South split? Same exact reason, to raise revenue quickly to fight.
The imposition of a "one size fits all" federalism that, taken to its logical conclusion, means that every American should live, act, and think the same as every other, and that regional differences are not to be tolerated. It was this same federalism that gave rise to forced integration, environmental overregulation, and draconian meddling like the 55-mph speed limit, for example.
Of course the great men of the Confederacy were driven by honor. The question is: what was honorable about the way of life they were fighting to preserve? On balance, not much.
Hogwash. The Southern way of life was genteel, refined, and civilized, a cultural anachronism, to be sure, but not exactly hell on earth. States respected each others' sovereignty, and respected the fact that each assigned different priorities to the same values. That philosophy was in keeping with the original intent of the Colonies, in which each state held an individual charter issued by different groups to different groups for very different reasons.
The Confederacy united all its member states too -- briefly -- but with the proviso that any would be free to leave that confederacy at will.
As to the rest of your responses, I did not say that the Unions' actions couldn't be defended. I simply said that it was not without sin in its prosecution of the war.
What was so bad about how they fought? Seems the North did everything they could to win which is the goal. Nothing sinful about that.
Sherman’s “march” (Total war)? Heck, that was genius and very effective in order to get connected with the Navel fleet that would offer continuous supplies.
Thanks.
Yes, they were viewed in hindsight.
The argument isn't over whether the Union was evil and the South heroic. It is whether either side held a monopoly on honor. I contend, and maintain, that that is not true. The Union's prosecution of the war was flawed on any number of accounts, as was the Confederacy's. But both sides can point to numerous accounts of sterling behavior as well, and in some of the most demanding circumstances imaginable.
I think it is unfair (and jingoist) to project all manner of vile motives behind the South's actions during the war while exempting the Union from the same scrutiny.
Oh, give me a break. No one is compelling you to live, act or think in any way.
It was this same federalism that gave rise to forced integration
Black citizens have a right to attend public schools. Racism isn't a "regional difference" - it's a violation of constitutional rights.
environmental overregulation
This is a phenomenon of the 1960s, not the 1860s.
draconian meddling like the 55-mph speed limit, for example
If you don't like the interstates, take the back roads.
The Southern way of life was genteel, refined, and civilized, a cultural anachronism, to be sure, but not exactly hell on earth.
Genteel, refined and civilized for about the one-half of one-percent of the population that constituted the Tidewater aristocracy.
If you think the average Southern family sat in tranquil leisure on the broad verandah of their palatial home on 4000 acres, sipping juleps from silver cups and discussing Montesquieu while the strains of Chopin issued forth from the grand piano in the conservatory, you're fantasizing.
In 1860, most Southerners - black and white - spent their days as subsistence farm laborers with severely limited or nonexistent educations.
Genteel is expensive, and there wasn't much money in the South if you weren't a planter, a slave trader, a textile exporter or an attorney working for the aforementioned.
States respected each others' sovereignty, and respected the fact that each assigned different priorities to the same values.
The states are not sovereigns: the Constitution makes that perfectly clear.
That philosophy was in keeping with the original intent of the Colonies, in which each state held an individual charter issued by different groups to different groups for very different reasons.
Yes, the King and Parliament had a continuing interest in keeping the colonies separated from one another by trying to play regional issues back and forth between them: attempting to keep them divided and down.
Luckily, the Constitution put an end to the legal establishment of sectionalism.
I simply said that it was not without sin in its prosecution of the war.
Ah, but it was. No other nation in the world's history has ever shown anything approaching that level of domestic restraint during a civil war.
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