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 ...
Actually I'm not overstating at all, and am actually more correct than your post was. The confederate tariff placed a 25% duty on tobacco products. It placed a 25% duty on molasses. A 15% duty on salt and turpentine and any sort of manufactured cotton items. A 15% tariff on iron goods like iron bars, slabs, and castings. All Southern industries. All which had their prices protected by the tariff. Link
The Confederate Congress wasn't perfect, but it did a pretty good job of sticking by its principles as regards protective tariffs.
On the contrary. Read the tariff yourself.
Aristocracy and caste systems are fundamentally un-American.
This country is about meritocracy, not aristocrats and lineage.
no reason to conclude that the South was repressive
Except for the fact that 40% of the population lived as chattel slaves.
Where?
Where does the Constitution remove state sovereignty? Article VI, paragraph 2, where the states agree that the Constitution and the statutes enacted by the federal government are "the law of the land."
Sovereigns decide when to declare war. Sovereigns command the forces from their territory in time of war. Sovereigns negotiate treaties with foreign governments. Sovereigns collect duties on trade. Sovereigns regulate the value of money. Sovereigns are the sole lawmakers and final arbiters of law within their borders.
The Constitution removes all these sovereign prerogatives from the states and transfers the prerogative of warmaking, levying of duties and regulation of monetary value to Congress and enables Congress to make laws that supersede the laws of the individual states in many particulars.
The Constitution transfers the privilege of negotiating treaties to the Senate and the President. The Constitution transfers the prerogative of commanding armies to the President.
Under the US Constitution of 1789, no state is sovereign.
Each colony was established for a given purpose, by a specific group, with each granted its own sovereignty.
This explains much: you are unclear on what sovereignty is, and are therefore unaware that the King in Parliament was the sovereign of each of the colonies at the time of the Revolution.
Probably one of the most delusional statements I've ever seen on a political forum.
Civil wars are normally accompanied by the wholesale slaughter without legal process of civilians suspected of treason, the attainder and hunting down of prominent families in contravention of law and the summary execution of soldiers who go over to the other side upon their capture.
The Union eschewed all of these standard practices of times past.
Compare the treatment of the Communards in Paris in 1871 with the treatment of the pro-slavery mobs of Baltimore in 1861.
Not one person in Baltimore was executed for sedition in the attempt to overthrow the loyal government of MD or for the murder by the mob of four uniformed soldiers. In Paris, 20,000 were executed in one week in spring 1871.
The Union was and remains a model of domestic restraint in the face of treason and mutiny.
Ratification of the Constitution makes a state part of the union. Apparently, you don’t believe that repealing that ratification would remove one from the union.
Ratification of the Constitution entailed ceding legal supremacy to the federal government.
You’re wasting your time. In the eyes of many on this forum, the South = evil. There’s no point discussing it with them. It’s far better to just not feed ‘em in this case.
The South isn't evil.
Southerners made some bad cultural choices that caused a lot of damage and now the North is returning the non-favor.
However, the question is whether the Constitution permits secession. It doesn't - either logically or legally.
Tell that to the Kennedys. Or the Vanderbilts. Or Paris Hilton for that matter. You're deluded if you think there is no caste system in America, despite the fact that it is not formalized. The wealthy landowners in the ante-bellum South were generally hereditary aristocrats. The wealthy factory owners and industrialists of the North were more self-made, to be sure, but only because the Industrial Revolution created vast opportunities in the North that were not exploited in the more agrarian South. Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolution created its share of Northern aristocracy, much of which still exists today, as contrasted to the Southern gentility, which was utterly destroyed (as a social framework, if not as a philosophy) by the War.
Except for the fact that 40% of the population lived as chattel slaves.
Nominally. The lives of factory serfs in the North weren't appreciably better, nor were the lives of various immigrant populations which packed the North's industrial cities. "Slavery" is as much a concept as an institution, and the de facto slavery of the North's factories wasn't much -- if any -- of an improvement over the South's cotton pickers.
Where does the Constitution remove state sovereignty? Article VI, paragraph 2, where the states agree that the Constitution and the statutes enacted by the federal government are "the law of the land."
That's not exactly what Article VI says, is it? In fact, it says that only those laws enacted "under the authority of the United States" and in pursuance of the Constitution have such supremacy. "United States" is a plural nominative and a modifier, not a proper noun. Each state must grant its authority in order for such laws to be the law of the land. Article VI yields no sovereignty to the federal government; indeed it subordinates the law of the land to the collective authority of the states by making the states the authors of federal laws. Note that this applies only to FEDERAL laws; the Constitution specifically reserves to the states the rights to make and enforce those laws not explicitly enumerated in the body of the Constitution. There is no law forbidding secession; therefore the states were empowered to voluntarily dissociate themselves from the Union, just as they voluntarily joined it.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land; not until Marbury was federal LAW considered ascendant. And Marbury was tested -- and effectively negated -- under Dred Scot, a precedent that was not overturned until the War.
Sovereigns decide when to declare war. Sovereigns command the forces from their territory in time of war. Sovereigns negotiate treaties with foreign governments. Sovereigns collect duties on trade. Sovereigns regulate the value of money. Sovereigns are the sole lawmakers and final arbiters of law within their borders.
Certainly those are functions of sovereignty, but not its definition. States yielded up some measure of sovereignty in joining the Union, but not all of it. Where economies of scale dictated, or cultural values were uniform, states were willing to let the federal government rule. But sovereignty isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. States retained the vast majority of their own independence, yielding only those rights specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The War effectively erased that doctrine; it didn't enforce the Constitution as much as it rewrote it ... at the point of a gun.
This explains much: you are unclear on what sovereignty is, and are therefore unaware that the King in Parliament was the sovereign of each of the colonies at the time of the Revolution.
And you are unaware of the concept of plenipotentiary powers, those powers accorded most of the states' governors to act in the Crown's best interest as they saw fit, even if those acts were inconsistent with those of a neighboring colony.
Civil wars are normally accompanied by the wholesale slaughter without legal process of civilians suspected of treason, the attainder and hunting down of prominent families in contravention of law and the summary execution of soldiers who go over to the other side upon their capture.
Nonsense. Certainly those things happened, but there was no universal "model" of civil war. Some were more internecine than others, but I think you're confusing genocide with insurrection.
The Union eschewed all of these standard practices of times past.
As did the Confederacy. There was no wholesale slaughter of prisoners, no "tainting of blood" among differing schools of thought, or random execution of civilians (unless you count Sherman's siege of Atlanta and Grant's siege of Vicksburg).
Compare the treatment of the Communards in Paris in 1871 with the treatment of the pro-slavery mobs of Baltimore in 1861.
Not one person in Baltimore was executed for sedition in the attempt to overthrow the loyal government of MD or for the murder by the mob of four uniformed soldiers. In Paris, 20,000 were executed in one week in spring 1871.
The Union was and remains a model of domestic restraint in the face of treason and mutiny.
Restraint, perhaps. But you vastly overstate the case when you hold them without sin. To even suggest such a thing is irresponsible and absurd. And since the Confederacy did not engage in any such oppressive behavior either, by your measure, they too were sinless.
The Union was and remains a model of overweening, presumptive authority conjured up to sustain itself, not to benefit its constituents. Despite the Founders' fear of centralized government, and their devotion to securing the rights of states to counterbalance tyrannical authority, the Union enforced a nonexistent obligation to an imagined body, and obliterated a way of life for no better reason than that it considered it "peculiar."
No, you miss a fine point of law here. The question is whether the Constitution FORBIDS secession. The rights of the federal government are limited to those specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The absence of a positive is not a negative; the omission of a right to secession in the Constitution does not mean it doesn't exist. Quite the contrary. The "enumerated powers" clause of the 9th Amendment specifically binds that power within the states, since it is not precluded by other Constitutional provisions.
Until your owner sells your children.
At the risk of diverging even further from the point of this thread, the virtual slavery of Northern factories probably fragmented as many families as the express practice of selling slave children did in the South. Chattel slavery demotes one group from enfranchisement, to be sure. But in doing so, it also places the entire burden of that group's well-being on the owners. And no slave holder with half a brain would risk damaging a piece of property as valuable as a field hand by neglecting him or physically abusing him.
No such constraints compel the factory owner. If a serf is injured on the job, he can be discarded and another put in his place. The injured or dispossessed employee is left to fend for himself.
One of the traditions the South embodied was that of noblesse oblige. In shunning the South's gentility, the North also sacrificed the moral obligation that comes with great power. In the name of Mammon, all things are allowed.
In other words, your betters know best. Are you honestly arguing that it's better to be a slave than a free worker? Are you honestly making that comparison? Here's the difference--my great-grandfather immigrated to this country and worked a miserable job in the coal mines. His children did better than him, and their children did even better. That's why immigrants flooded to America,. By contrast, a slave's children were going to be slaves. His grandchildren were going to be slaves. His great grandchildren were going to be slaves. Conflating free labor and the opportunity for social mobility that America has always offered with slavery is mind boggling.
In the name of Mammon, all things are allowed.
Such as owning people. Don't pretend that the south's interests in slavery weren't purely economic.
“Based on what a hell hole Andersonville Prison was, he was lucky not to be hung.”
They hung Henry Wirz for that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wirz
Obviously there are elements of a caste system - however that does not make it eligible for praise or encouragement.
You are saying that the caste system of the South was a selling point. I am saying that caste systems are not selling points.
The lives of factory serfs in the North weren't appreciably better
There has never been serfdom in the US. There has been indentured servitude, chattel slavery, contracted employment and at-will employment.
Most Northern laborers were at-will employees, not attached for life by bonds of serfdom to any master or property.
the de facto slavery of the North's factories
Only a small minority of the North's population were factory workers - most Northerners worked in agriculture. The North's industrial base only seemed large in comparison to the South's nonexistent one. And de facto slavery never obtained anywhere in the North.
"United States" is a plural nominative and a modifier, not a proper noun.
Of course it's a proper noun.
The states are not the authors of federal laws - the Congress is.
And Congress is elected by apportionment of the general population and are agents of their districts, not their states.
There is no law forbidding secession
Of course there is.
Article VI makes it clear that the member states are relieved of their prerogatives in favor of the federal government in some very key areas. The entire point of secession is to be able to remove oneself from federal legal and juridical oversight, to negotiate one's own treaties with foreign powers, etc. And the states ceded these prerogatives to the federal government.
But sovereignty isn't an all-or-nothing proposition.
Of course it is. You can't half-have the power to negotiate treaties. You can't half-have the power to command armies. You can't have 15% of the ability to interpret the law.
And you are unaware of the concept of plenipotentiary powers, those powers accorded most of the states' governors to act in the Crown's best interest as they saw fit, even if those acts were inconsistent with those of a neighboring colony.
In other words, they were delegated power by the Crown to act in the Crown's name. So they were not sovereigns, but were accountable to the true sovereign: the King in Parliament.
As did the Confederacy.
I never said that Confederacy committed such crimes. You slandered the Union on that account.
Sherman's siege of Atlanta and Grant's siege of Vicksburg).
Were sieges magically declared contrary to the laws of war in the 1860s?
the Union enforced a nonexistent obligation to an imagined body
The United States exists, I assure you.
obliterated a way of life for no better reason than that it considered it "peculiar."
Or for the very good reason that this peculiar way of life rose up in armed sedition against the legally-constituted government for no good reason whatever.
Not at all. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
This is explicitly stated.
Any move by one of the constitutent states to repudiate this explicit Constitutional prerogative of the federal government, and to declare that the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land needs to seek the federal government's permission to derogate from its supremacy - not the other way around.
A "free worker" -- besides being an oxymoron -- was not measurably better off than many nominal slaves.
Are you honestly making that comparison?
Comparison, yes. Equation? No.
Conflating free labor and the opportunity for social mobility that America has always offered with slavery is mind boggling.
It is naive to say that "social mobility" was available to many of the immigrant classes in the mid-19th century. Economic realities -- including the exploitation of working classes by Northern factory aristocrats -- mired many immigrants in perpetual penury. Look at the "company towns" of the mining concerns or the abuse of Chinese and Irish labor during the railroad expansion westward.
I am not equating the two systems; wage slaves are still paid, and are -- at least ostensibly -- free to seek other employment. But there is less concrete difference between the two than the mere nomenclature would indicate.
Don't pretend that the south's interests in slavery weren't purely economic.
I didn't. But slavery as an economic necessity was fast becoming obsolete. And I daresay the slaves displaced by mechanization and "freed" from their masters would not have found their lot considerably improved for all the talk of "liberation."
And that's the reason Detroit is in such great shape today ... because all those freed slaves immediately found Eden in the loving arms of Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan. They were disenfranchised in the South; they were freed only to find themselves equally disenfranchised in the North. Their "liberation" was only an illusion. The fact is, there wasn't adequate demand for their labor anywhere in this country, and the sudden, if nobly intentioned, release of millions of slaves into the labor market resulted in near-catastrophic train of abuses. It took a brush with communism to halt the North's continued exploitation of serf labor.
The War ended slavery in the South. It gave birth to it in the North, and not just for Blacks.
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