House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

politico.com ^ | 6/23/16 | Matthew Nussbaum

[ColdOne]

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.

The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "What would have made Southern slave owners give up slavery?"

Pelham: "Dunmore’s Proclamation. The Philipsburg Proclamation.
Both would have ended American slavery nearly 90 years earlier."

In fact, Brits did not begin to abolish slavery as a matter of law until 1833.
So any offers of freedom such as Dunmore's in Virginia (1776) and Clinton's at Philipsburg, NY (1779) were strictly war-time expediency, not connected to any larger national abolitionist principles.

Virginians responded to Dunmore's proclamation with one of their own promising:

"...that all negro or other slaves, conspiring to rebel or make insurrection, shall suffer death, and be excluded all benefit of clergy..."

In the end both Dunmore's and Clinton's Phillipsburg proclamations failed because the British war effort failed.
But it's thought they did encourage up to 100,000 American slaves (about 20% of all slaves) to seek British protection.

So Dunmore & Clinton's proclamations during the Revolutionary War roughly correspond to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation during the Civil War.
A significant difference is the United States followed up in 1865 with the 13th Amendment permanently abolishing slavery in all states.
By contrast, after the Revolutionary War the Brits resettled about 3,000 escaped slaves in Nova Scotia.
The fate of all others is unknown.

Lord Dunmore & Sir Clinton:

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "And the crop in question. Not unrelated ones.

DiogenesLamp: "Not the point.
I mentioned the McCormick reaper because most people had heard of it."

DoodleDawg: "Which didn't get introduced until 1912, didn't work, and was never marketed."

DiogenesLamp: "1889, was preceded by others, and would have possibly amounted to something had the available capital been there instead of New York."

The issue here is DL & others' claim that, somehow by itself, farm mechanization and factory industrialization would have, magically, abolished slavery within a few decades after 1860.
In fact there's no evidence to suggest such a thing.

What historical evidence does report is that blacks then as now make great factory workers producing all of modern machinery, which they themselves are fully capable of operating.
So had blacks remained as slaves after, say, 1865 their "owners" could easily hire them out to factories, or as farm machinery operators.
Nothing in modern industrialization by itself works against legalized slavery.

Indeed, it was precisely their fear of slave-gangs leased from Southern states being used as Union-busters up North (via the SCOTUS Dred-Scott decision) which finally began to radicalize Northern anti-slavery attitudes.

African American factory workers circa First World War:

African American railroad workers circa 1900:

Farm machinery operator late 1800s:

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "King George III wasn't so insane as to kill 750,000 people to subjugate the seceded states.
He stopped at around 15,000 dead."

In fact, US deaths totaled over 25,000 with another 25,000 wounded.
Those alone were equivalent to 500,000 in the US Civil War (3 million population in 1780 vs. 30 million in 1860).

But Brits and their allies in North America, including sailors, suffered at least that many dead & wounded over the 1775 to 1783 time period.
So, by Civil War equivalents, deaths on both sides in the Revolutionary War roughly matched to those of the Civil War.

But, of course, King George was in no way, shape or form directly counting up deaths as his decision-making factor on whether to stop or continue war against Americans.
One reason is that none of those involved were voters for the King's or Parliament jobs.
So, what really mattered to Georgie Boy's parliament was battlefield success vs money cost of operations.
When the money costs got too high and success too little, then they threw in the towel and called it quits.

By contrast, President Lincoln's job was on the line if his war efforts failed.
Fortunately for Lincoln, they didn't.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "So how would an independent Confederacy been any different?"

DiogenesLamp: "Well, FedZilla and the New York Empire barons wouldn't be getting the money.
Considering those are the same adversaries we are currently facing, I think that would be a pretty good thing."

In fact, New Yorkers' share of world cotton revenues sank to zero during the Civil War and yet they survived, adjusted and continued to prosper.
Today cotton as a percentage of US national wealth is almost insignificant to anyone not directly involved, and that includes New Yorkers.

DiogenesLamp: "There would probably have been Charleston-Richmond empire barons, but they would certainly be smaller and less powerful than the ones we now have in New York and Washington DC."

In fact, they would have been much smaller than the cotton barons of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama where 80% of US cotton was grown.
Even by 1860, Eastern states like Virginia and South Carolina were back-water economies in the international cotton trade.

DiogenesLamp: "Oh, and the nation would have been true to the rights asserted in it's own Declaration of Independence.
That would have been a moral victory for the nation."

In fact, by 1776 Brits had provoked, started and declared war on Americans many months before Congress responded with its Declaration of Independence.
So their declaration was not some voluntary at pleasure initiative out of the blue, but rather a necessity for survival.

Likewise in 1861 Confederates had provoked, started and declared war on the United States months before Lincoln responded by sending troops to defeat their rebellion.
So the appropriate comparison is with British of 1776 and Confederates of 1861.
In both wars Americans responded by defeating the aggressor force.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp responding to DoodleDawg's remarks on the alleged early demise of slavery had the Confederacy won: "A few years?
Nobody said 'a few years.'
It would have taken decades, but again, how much is your life worth?
In exchange for the lives of 750,000 men, I think three decades is not unreasonable.

How long did it take in Massachusetts? 150 years?"

First of all, it's important to understand that "a few years" might well apply to such border slave-states as Delaware, Maryland or even Missouri where slavery did indeed seem to be "dying out" in 1860.
But that was certainly not the case in Deep South states where slavery had never been more profitable and necessary to produce King Cotton.
Those states had no incentive -- none, zero, nada incentive -- to abolish their peculiar and highly lucrative institution.

Especially after fighting a Civil War to prevent abolition, it's impossible to imagine Deep South slave-holders or their descendants' descendants ever voluntarily submitting to abolition.

So we are not talking about "a few years", or even "a few decades" but rather we're talking about "several generations" if ever, to voluntarily abolish slavery in the Deep South assuming a Confederate victory in the Civil War.

Second, the cost in lives of Civil War was huge, but was started by Confederates and could have been ended by them on any given day with much better terms than the Unconditional Surrender they received in April 1865.

Third, slavery in its American colonies was a matter of British law before July 4, 1776.
So Massachusetts and other colonies had no lawful ability to abolish slavery, even if they wanted to.
After 1776 Northern states almost immediately began gradually abolishing slavery, beginning with Vermont (1777), Pennsylvania (1780), New Hampshire (1783) and also Massachusetts (1783), which declared slavery unconstitutional thus abolishing it immediately, the first state to do so.

So claiming Massachusetts took 150 years is ludicrous.
In fact, it took three years after Massachusetts ratified its new state constitution in 1780.

[DoodleDawg]

You guys have at it. I’ll sit this one out.

[BroJoeK]

FRiends,
Back on the question of farm mechanization, I found a photo labeled as, "First cotton picker in Florida", dated 1954:

This photo is dated 1919, planting cotton in California:

From 1942:

1881 McCormick twine binder:

Point is: 1) Serious mechanization did not reach cotton farming until the 20th century, and
2) African Americans were/are just as capable of both producing such machines in factories and operating them in fields as others, both before and after the "peculiar institution" ruled them.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: " In fact, 'free states' were impossible without amending the constitution."

According to both DiogenesLamp and the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.
That's what turned highly tolerant-of-southern-slavery Northerners into solid anti-slavery-expansion Republican voters in 1860.

[BroJoeK]

sargon: "Without the righteous cause of ending Slavery, the willpower and impetus simply wouldn't have existed for the North to fight the Civil War."

Exactly correct.
It's most odd that our loudest pro-Confederate here relies almost exclusively on Marxist economic interpretations to justify what in any other context is not only unjustifiable, it's also inexplicable.

[DiogenesLamp]

By 1804 all Northern states had begun abolition and by 1840 that process was essentially complete in the North.

Except for Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia. Also you ignore the game playing they did while "abolishing" slavery. Northerners would take their slaves south and sell them so as to get their money back.

You also ignore the fact that the need for unskilled labor was waning in the North, and slaves were becoming increasingly worthless there anyways. It isn't such a hard moral decision to let go of something that was no longer valuable to you anyways.

What Northerners did not accept was the continued expansion of slavery into western territories or, via the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, into their own states.

Well first of all, the Constitution pretty much makes it impossible to ban slavery without a constitutional amendment, and all those states that declared themselves "Free" states, were instantly in contradiction to an article of the constitution which said slaves would be returned to the person to whom their labor was due. If states pass laws preventing this, they are DEFYING THE CONSTITUTION AND ARE THEREFORE IN REBELLION!

Try to spin it, but it still comes back to meaning that the constitution protected slavery in *ALL* the states.

Secondly, I have recently read of a new way of looking at northern opposition to slavery in the territories. It is an idea I hadn't previously considered, but dovetails quite nicely with my theory that the Power Barons of New York were pretty much running things on a basis of enriching themselves and increasing their power.

"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.

Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

"As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly provable by State papers that Washington, considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again – and that years ago, when the two Carolinas began to train their militia expressly for Secession, commissioners sent to treat with them and to represent the disastrous policy of such secession, never hinted it would be rebellion."

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Slavery was already preserved.
Lincoln even gave his assurances that he would continue it.
How about you stop lying about this?
The South went to war because the North Invaded."

How about you stop lying about this?

In fact the Confederacy provoked, started, declared and prosecuted war on the United States months before a single Confederate soldier died in battle and before any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.

So the Confederacy went to war because it wanted to, not because of any Union invasion.
Further the Confederacy continued to fight their war for years after defeat became inevitable, but a "kinder & gentler" peace was still easily negotiable.

[DiogenesLamp]

According to both DiogenesLamp and the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.

And according to a plain reading of Article IV section 2.

The Constitution *REQUIRES* slaves be returned to their Masters. A state law that interferes with this Constitutional requirement is in DEFIANCE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

So how do you create a "free" state? What state law can you pass that will not require all states to return slaves back to their masters?

It seems an insolvable problem to me, short of a constitutional amendment. (which they finally did *AFTER* the war.)

Perhaps you can explain how a state can do such a thing and not be called to heel by Article IV, section 2?

How do you make a "free" state so long as that constitutional clause remains in effect?

[DiogenesLamp]

In fact the Confederacy provoked, started, declared and prosecuted war on the United States months before a single Confederate soldier died in battle and before any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.

I am not going to buy in to your stupid "Gulf Of Tonkin" argument.

A *WAR* was not started until someone crossed the border with 35,000 men intent on killing people in a land that wanted to be independent from their masters.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "It was the Stars and Bars under which their bondage ended.
The Union only freed the slaves in the South.
It didn't free the slaves in the Union states."

Surely even DiogenesLamp must snort at posting such a ludicrous argument, seemingly with a straight face. In fact, Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation covered all slaves in Confederate territory under Union Army control.
Yes, in early 1863 that freed "only" tens of thousands but by war's end it included several million.
So every one of those slaves previously held in bondage under the Confederate flag was freed by forces serving the United States flag.

At war's end the Confederacy surrendered unconditionally and Southern states helped ratify the 13th Amendment by law totally & permanently abolishing slavery -- under the United States flag.

[DiogenesLamp]

First of all, it's important to understand that "a few years" might well apply to such border slave-states as Delaware, Maryland or even Missouri where slavery did indeed seem to be "dying out" in 1860.

Plot it on a time/geography map. It started in Massachusetts, and spread elsewhere. It spread more quickly in the north simply because slaves had become a whole lot less worthwhile and therefore less valuable. The more it attempted to spread in geographical areas where slavery was still making money, the more resistance it encountered.

It's easy to give up something when the cost to you is little, it is another thing entirely to give up something when the cost to you is great. Had the northern moralizers simply bought the slaves and freed them, they would have been putting their money where their mouth is, but as with today, the Liberal North would rather have Government impose *THEIR* preferred morality on everyone else.

Nowadays it is about "Homosexual marriages" and "transgenders in bathrooms" but do not doubt it. The northern liberals are always on the cutting edge of new moral revelations which they will gleefully impose on the rest of us through government force and power.

But the Union did not go to war with the South to end slavery. The Union went to war with the South because an independent South represented a dire financial threat to the monied interests of the Washington D.C./ Boston corridor.

[DiogenesLamp]

"Four Score and Seven years" of slavery under this flag.

Andy they claim they ended it because the Southern states wanted independence?

Why did they wait till then?

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, in early 1863 that freed "only" tens of thousands but by war's end it included several million. So every one of those slaves previously held in bondage under the Confederate flag was freed by forces serving the United States flag.

Not in the Union. Only in the enemy states.

The Government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the coming conflict....The principle asserted is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."

London Spectator on the Emancipation Proclamation

[BroJoeK]

WarIsHellAintItYall: "Some few ships were bought by Southern investors.
Operating them at a profit was another issue.
Federal mail and cargo contracts enabled northern lines to operate until freight trade grew to support a packet arrangement.
After that began, independent owners were few and far between."

All such talk may, or may not, apply to the 20% of Southern cotton which shipped from Atlantic coast ports.
The rest shipped from Gulf Coast ports with half from New Orleans alone.
And New Orleans reported that 85% of its cotton shipped directly to customers in Europe, only 15% to Northern Americans.

As for who all owned & operated those many-hundreds of cotton-cargo ships we are not told, but there's no reason to suppose owner-operators were not more often Southerners than anyone else.
After all, if you were a southern planter with 1,000 bales of cotton to sell, would you not chose a Southern carrier over one of those d*mnyankee ships?

[BroJoeK]

WarIsHellAintItYall: "With these technical advancements, cotton was loaded onto the coastal packets, shipped to New York via these fast boats, offloaded to warehousing,and shipped out on the large V-bottomed ships that sailed the high seas to Liverpool.
All along the way, the middlemen took their cut and New York merchants prospered."

But only for that 20% of US cotton which shipped from Atlantic ports.
Half of US cotton shipped from New Orleans and 85% of that directly to Europe, only 15% to Northern US customers.
Most of the rest of US cotton also shipped from Gulf Coast ports in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama since that is where the cotton was grown.

As for who owned & operated cotton-carrying ships on the Gulf Coast, we are not told, but there's no reason to think they were anyone particular other than Southerners.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "As I said, if New York wasn't taking in 200 million per year from slave earned revenue, they wouldn't have given a sh*t about whether the South seceded or not.
You may think it wasn't about money, but the facts demonstrate clearly that *IT WAS ABOUT MONEY.*
It's always about money."

Only to insane nihilistic Marxists who have no real ideas outside economic dialectical materialism.

Normal American conservatives understand that many people, indeed most people, are motivated by ideals much different from, and stronger than, strict economic utility.

So it's a bit ironic that Marxist economic dialectical materialism could find its last refuge amongst today's faux-Confederates.