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.
Dixie ping
I need to be in on this thread.
Where is Guantanamo Bay bay? If the Cubans decided to start shelling Guantanamo Bay, you'd be on their side?
False.
"Curiously, the Confederate constitution outlawed slave trafficking."
No need to buy any new imported ones when the domestic population was self-supporting.
I do, only on the basis that the government is the one that dictates the coinage and paper put out. Grant would have been PC. I will admit I could be totally dead wrong on this aspect, but as with civil war history, I love Roman history, but even reading it then, especially written by the likes of Caesar, you always have to stop and ponder the other side of things.
There is logic in that reasoning and my answer would be no.
“Interesting that when Grant died, very few folks lamented his passing. At the death of General Robert E. Lee, it was reported that even battle-hardened UNION vets who faced him and his troops in the field wept.”
Union General Oliver Howard said that in several wars he fought only two great Generals. One was Robert E. Lee. The other was Nez Perce Chief Joseph.
I assume that as a union general he didn't fight Grant.
What the hell are you talking about?
Typical homophobic, racist, insensitive conservative!
Everybody knows that the War of Northern Agression was about slavery!
Fifty relentless years of propag... errrr... re-education has made that crystal clear!
Just saying.
The American Public has never had a grasp of the historical nuances of the growth of totalitarianism masquerading as federalism.
Unfortunately, the republic never envisioned the central control of every detail of individual lives. But look around; that's where we are.
< /sarc >
But until the socialists, progressives and societal leeches figure it out, they are having a collective orgasm.
But, just for consideration...............
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban-American_Treaty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Sumter
The south requested they leave and no longer considered Union forces to be welcome there.
Fair enough, lemme ask you this, if half the states decided to leave now and fighting broke out, would you support a suspension of the rights to Habeas Corpus by Obama?
Dang, I must be Confederate Canadian.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that various Southern had the authority to succeed and did so. Even then, Fort Sumter and other Federal installations were still property of the United States government much as the United States still had claim to Guantanamo Bay after the Cuban Revolution. And the South had no more legitimacy in attacking Fort Sumter than the Cubans would have attacking Guantanamo Bay (and if you want to mention provocative acts by the North as being sufficient instigation, then I’ll just mention the Bay of Pigs, assassination attempts against Castro, the attack against Cubans in Granada, and so on as plenty of instigation against Cuba).
As for history and victors, the picture of Grant was added to the $50 in 1913, his memoirs sold quite well after his death in 1885, his tomb was completed in 1897, and the presidential pension (in part motivated by Grant’s poverty) was enacted in 1958 which all suggest a rather long stretch of time during which Grant was positively viewed. Maybe people in the South never warmed up to him but it’s hardly fair to say that nobody cared about his passing.
“CWII, coming soon to a neighborhood near you!”
....you got that right! only this time it won’t be about lofty philosophical/constitutional principals....it will be race war; plain and simple.
see: Thomas Chittum’s “Civil War Two”
http://www.timebomb2000.com/misc/CWII.pdf
I generally think of it as a contract or compact or agreement.
“And if you are not, does it indicate that you take issue with the first principle that the STATES CREATED THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT...”
I take absolutely no issue with that. My issue is with the misunderstanding of that; with those who think the States do not predate the Constitution and the existence of the United States somehow hinges on the existence of the Constitution.
“And, although we are instructed to be long-suffering, at what point do those evils become UNsufferable?”
They are already insufferably for some. A better question is at what point do they become unsufferable to enough people that they do something about them (other than run away).
Fair enough.
Amazing. Articles and essays about the confederacy and secessionism are popping up all over the place. Lincoln is being second-guessed and states are loudly asserting their claims of sovereignty vis-a-vis the federal government. I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime.
Even then, Fort Sumter and other Federal installations were still property of the United States government much as the United States still had claim to Guantanamo Bay after the Cuban Revolution.
On this point though, one could argue that the south had partial rights to claim as well.
“We have the right to dissolve a government that no longer serves us and reform it in a way that meets our satisfaction”
###########
A profound statement! I wish this would ring loud through out the country, and fall upon silenced ears & minds!
Ping!
I totally reject that "all or nothing" characterization!
There are collective imperatives and needs that only a central government can provide which protects all states equally, and which a gaggle of individual states cannot; to name the obvious ones, national defence, international treaties and commerce, transportation, regional large physical projects addressing a basic need such as flood control and power generation, uniform physical standards.
It certainly should not include the legality of such things as access to abortion, and the form and function of education, and paradoxically, the access to alcohol and tobacco. Think about that for a moment.
And then there is the runaway combination of self-serving corrupt national politicians, and the culture of public "charity."
If it ain't voluntary, it ain't Charity!
Just saying.
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