Posted on 06/06/2009 2:57:37 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
by Charley Reese
Most of the political problems in this country won't be settled until more folks realize the South was right.
I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.
Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.
For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that's not all.
When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.
One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.
It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States . The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren't, and the South's worst enemy knew that.
Abraham Lincoln's invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it's as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn't want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.
As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here's how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.
Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.
Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.
So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.
“When you argue the confederate position, you are arguing for abolishing not just the Constitution, but the USA itself.”
Typical BS. At NO TIME was the South interested in taking control of the entire country. What they were interested in was removing the heavy hand of government from interfering with their lives and their livelihood. Kinda sound familiar?
Well, I’ve been seeing this for years actually, but then again, I live in the Lone Star State and we talk about this kind of thing over breakfast.
Save your Dixie Cups!!!The South Shall Riiise Agin!!!
Blockade has a specific definition in international law. A dozen or so commerce raiders operating all over the world doesn’t fit that definition.
In actual fact, one of the first acts of the CSA was an embargo on cotton exports. They were under the mistaken impression this would force the UK to enter the war on their side. As the Union blockade wasn’t particularly effective for the first couple of years, they could have accumulated huge foreign reserves if they hadn’t prohibited cotton exports. A truly classic example of the invincible arrogance of the southern elite.
Fascinating, isn’t it? At the start of the conflict the South was vociferous in its insistence that the war was being fought to protect their domestic institutions, code for slavery. Northern politicians, OTOH, claimed slavery had nothing to do with it, only preservation of the Union.
Once the was was lost (and won), these positions flipped. Southerners retrospectively discovered secession had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery, while northerners remembered it as a glorious crusade for human freedom.
....”they’re a Commie or a Confederate......either way ,they’re a traitor.....”
Listen up you Yankee Prick. I served this Country in the United States Marine Corps. But if it comes down to it again, I’ll serve my Native State, Texas and the South just as my Great Grandfather did. And if you don’t like it too bad. Do something about it.
I’m sick of you and people like you. We don’t have anything to talk about any more.
I can understand how our ancestors felt.
I’m ready to Secede and you if you want to kill me for just wanting to be left alone we’ll just have to git it on again!
Based on what rule of law?
It’s also interest that if Reese is true then the rebel government under Davis was about as far from the “confederate position” as you can possibly get.
Except that all but 13 of the states didn't voluntarily associate anything. Then were admitted, allowed to join only with the permission of the majority of the other states as expressed by a vote in Congress.
He also overlooked the fact that the confederate constitution also protected slave imports.
In the North it's known as War of Southern Rebellion.
If you think they were on the wrong side then you don't know history.
You have a right to try. But as the South found out, you have no guarantee of success. Then or now.
One of the more idiotic, asinine claims constantly made by the Southron brigade is that anyone who does not support the Southern rebellion has to be a liberal. Nice to see that some things never change.
“Any agreement to cede the federal government land for a fort to protect Charleston harbor was, therefore, null and void.”
By what authority was such an agreement null and void?
How far does that authority extend?
If a citizen of New York owned a plantation in South Carolina would that citizen have lost ownership of the plantation under the circumstances?
If a citizen of South Carolina owned a factory in New York would that citizen have lost ownership of the factory under the circumstances?
How about Louisiana, today or then? It was never a stand alone polity outside of the United States as was South Carolina. The land within the bounds of the State of Louisiana was bought from France by the United States. If Louisiana seceded today or then, should any agreement between the United States and the people of Louisiana to cede that land for the establishment of the State of Louisiana become null and void and the land revert to United States ownership?
They tried to. But when Leonidas Polk led a rebel army in an invasion of Kentucky in the fall of 1861 they went over to the Union camp.
I do not intend to defend slavery, but slavery existed before the Confederacy. Slavery was a dying economic system with the advent of machinery. It would have been abolished in a short time if the Civil War had not occurred.
Just as women did not receive the vote until the 20th century in America, and now that they do, the South would have abolished slavery in a very short period of time.
Slavery was never an integral part of southern life. Ninety percent of slaves were owned by ten percent of the population. What I am trying to say is this. The South never claimed that blacks were not people, it was the U.S. Supreme Court that declared that blacks were not people. It was the Congress of the United States that passed laws saying that Negroes were only 2/3 a person. The South wanted to count them as a whole person. If the Confederacy had won their Independence, there would be no slavery and the rights of all citizen would be protected, including Blacks.
Charleston harbor. So what?
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