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]

rustbucket: "The date set by the Constitution for the next session to begin was December 2, 1861.
The only other way Congress could reconvene before then was if Lincoln reconvened them, which he did at a date of his choosing, July 4, 1861."

Right, he called them back five months early.
So let's notice some facts about this:

1. Pro-Confederate claims that the Federal government was in dire financial straights are not supported by Lincoln's choice to call Congress back in July.
   If the Federal government was as hard-up as they allege, then Lincoln would need Congress immediately.
   But he didn't.

2. Lincoln only called up 75,000 Union troops, this six weeks after the Confederacy called up 100,000 troops.
   So why only 75,000?
   The answer is: 75,000 is the maximum Lincoln could call without Congressional approval.
   The fact that Lincoln did not call for more, or call Congress into session immediately, means Lincoln did not feel the need at that time.

3. When Congress came into session in July it effectively approved everything Lincoln did in the interim.

[DiogenesLamp]

If the Federal government was as hard-up as they allege, then Lincoln would need Congress immediately. But he didn't.

Because Congress can manufacture money out of thin air?

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Another outstanding post/research Rustbucket.
That ends another BroCanard crusade of misrepresentations."

Rubbish & nonsense.
See my post #1,681 above.

The take-away is this: Lincoln did not need Congress sooner than July 1861, and when Congress did convene it effectively approved everything Lincoln did in the interim.

PeaRidge: "Inherent in your post is the fact that it is obvious that the Republican Party/Congress/Supreme Court failed in its responsibility to restrain Lincoln in his effort to use the military to control a Federal financial crisis.
At their feet and his lies the responsibility for the most horrible war in this country's history."

More nonsense.
First let's set aside the fact that there were no Republicans on the Supreme Court in 1861.
Yes, Lincoln eventually appointed five justices, but none in 1861.

Second, after Fort Sumter Congress and the Union public in general supported Lincoln's responses.
That's in part because Fort Sumter had the same effect on Americans as Pearl Harbor 80 years later.

So, responsibility for Civil War belongs to those Fire Eaters who first declared their secession, then provoked war, started war, formally declared war and refused to end their war on any terms more favorable than "unconditional surrender".

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "The Whig Party (by 1860 essentially defunct) had been in favor of high tariffs.
In the past, Whigs had filed a resolution in favor of impeaching President Tyler because he vetoed a high tariff bill."

Important to remember, FRiend, that when the old Whigs split in two, Northern Whigs became Republicans while Southern Whigs became Americans, aka "Know Nothings".
Today we mostly scorn & mock the old "Know Nothings", but in truth, they were & are our FRiends.
Consider, for example, the election of 1848, the last election won by a Whig.
Notice those Southern counties carried by Whigs (brown):

Many of the old Whigs / Americans remained loyal after 1861.

Today we see the old Whig / American / "Know-Nothing" agenda revived with great difficulty within Republicans, using the slogan "American First" and under the astonishing leadership of a candidate who could well be our next President.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Rather than drag up ridiculous comparisons, you can just say you don't want to answer the question."

Rather than continue telling cockamamie lies, you could just confess you have no clue about the real truth, and more important, don't care.

DiogenesLamp: "Obviously Captain Porter thought he was engaging in some act that might get him sunk.
It's hard to characterize it as anything but a deliberate act of belligerence.
It was apparently Lincoln's backup plan to make sure a war started."

Whenever law enforcement confronts armed lawbreakers, the general rule is not to use deadly force unless threated.
Union forces were threatened repeatedly in those days.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "And in 1861 they were Big City Republicans. You say they can live anywhere, but for some reason they chose to live in or near very wealthy cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington DC and Chicago."

A little research could produce a much longer list of major metropolitan areas which dominate the US economically.
For example, this listing shows nearly 400 US metropolitan areas, totaling 87% of all Americans.

Of those only about 15% live in the cities you list:

1. New York = 20 million = #1
   
2. Los Angeles = 13 million = #2
   
3. Chigago = 10 million = #3
   
4. Washington = 6 million = #6
   
5. Boston = 5 million = #10

6. Total = 54 million = ~15% of all Americans

Some of the large metropolitan areas you forgot include:

1. Dallas-Fort Worth = #4
   
2. Houston = #5
   
3. Philadelphia = #7
   
4. Miami = #8
   
5. Atlanta = #9
   
6. San Francisco =#11
   
7. Phoenix = #12
   
8. San Bernardino =#13
   
9. Detroit = #14
   
10. etc., etc., etc...

All of these metropolitan areas have their own commercial, manufacturing and financial centers, not necessarily dependent on New Yorkers or anyone else.

Point is: your efforts here to equate specific geography (i.e., "Northeasterners") with political wickedness are just ridiculous, and you should give it up.

[DiogenesLamp]

You post responses that make me realize you didn't understand the point to which you are responding. Population level has nothing to do with it.

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa: "God forgives Joe. I don’t. Not a man like this."

More than just God.
At Appomattox in 1865, General Lee surrendered unconditionally and his army was allowed to return home in peace -- keeping their horses, belongings and side arms.

After Appomattox in 1865 President Andrew Johnson eventually pardoned all former Confederates, and a major effort was made to return Confederate states to the union.
This included recognizing the leadership of many Confederate officers, among them Forrest.
So my Dad trained for WWII at Camp Forrest in Tennessee.

Current Army forts named after Confederates include: Beauregard, Benning, Bragg, Gordon, Hill, Hood, Lee, Pickett, Polk & Rucker.
The old Camp Forrest closed after WWII.

That's why today's efforts to go back and purge our history of all politically incorrect references seems to me strange & misplaced.
Consider also, that we name military assets after native Americans -- Black Hawk & Apache helicopters come to mind.
So we don't object to honoring our former enemies for their courage, skills & accomplishments.
And centuries later, we don't look too carefully at their misbehaviors.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You post responses that make me realize you didn't understand the point to which you are responding.
Population level has nothing to do with it."

Of course it does, because population follows employment -- the more jobs a city offers, the more people can live there.
So New York metropolitan is a huge city -- over 20 million, meaning wealth & jobs for all those people -- but that's still barely 6% of all Americans.
And those five cities you listed still include only 15% of Americans.
So most Americans, most jobs and wealth reside elsewhere than just the top few metropolitan centers.

Again, the problem is not geography, it's attitudes & behaviors regardless of where they happen to live.

[DiogenesLamp]

Instead of trying to understand my point, you just argue about irrelevant factors. This is why I don’t try very hard to persuade you about anything, it’s like i’m speaking a foreign language or something.

[jmacusa]

Joe, I never said purge the history books of anything. I want the unvarnished truth about what the South did and what it intended to do and the Civil War was VERY MUCH about slavery. We don't venerate German generals. There are Fts. Meade, Kearney, and McCllean. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the worlds first hate group that terrorized blacks, whites(including Catholics, of which I am one) and Jews. To put it succinctly F**k Nathan Bedford Forrest and the horse he rode in on.

[jmacusa]

Joe, I never said purge the history books of anything. I want the unvarnished truth about what the South did and what it intended to do and the Civil War was VERY MUCH about slavery. We don't venerate German generals. There are Fts. Meade, Kearney, and McCllean. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the worlds first hate group that terrorized blacks, whites(including Catholics, of which I am one) and Jews. To put it succinctly F**k Nathan Bedford Forrest and the horse he rode in on.

[x]

... it’s like i’m speaking a foreign language or something. ...

So that's what it is.

Maybe google translate can turn your posts into comprehensible English.

[rockrr]

Even with google it’s gonna be GIGO...

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Instead of trying to understand my point, you just argue about irrelevant factors."

No, I fully understand your point, which is both nonsense and irrelevant.
That's why I address what is important here.

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa: "I want the unvarnished truth about what the South did and what it intended to do and the Civil War was VERY MUCH about slavery."

Of course, and Forrest was a slave-trader before the war.

jmacusa: "We don't venerate German generals."

Of course, but among students of the period several are recognized as outstanding military officers who made the best of impossible situations.
One in particular was in recent years honored in Iraq by naming a coalition operation after him: Desert Fox.

jmacusa: "Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the worlds first hate group..."

I think a more careful study will show that Forrest resigned when he learned it was being used as such.

jmacusa: "To put it succinctly F**k Nathan Bedford Forrest and the horse he rode in on."

My great grandfather's unit did better than that.
They defeated and wounded Forrest in battle (Tupelo), to my knowledge the only Union unit to do that.

Bottom line is that Forrest was certainly a complicated leader who inspired great loyalty among his troops and respect among his enemies.
As I said before, he was innovative and cunning and by the end of his life made peace with former enemies and former slaves.
I bear him no posthumous animosity.

[jmacusa]

Joe, I respect your vast knowledge of the CW but I've no use for Forrest or any other Reb generals. There is a far Higher Authority these men have faced. I can only wonder as to how HE administered that authority.

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa: "There is a far Higher Authority these men have faced. I can only wonder as to how HE administered that authority."

Agreed, but by His standards none of us are worth more than the dirt He made us from, and to which we will all-too-soon return.
Recognizing that, He gave us Word for protection and how much or how sincerely Forrest ever accepted His Word, we don't know.
But I do recommend to you Forrest's own words from July 1875,

"a speech before an organization of black Southerners advocating racial reconciliation, called the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association.
At this, his last public appearance...".

Forrest's own words here speak to me of a man who was not only innovative and cunning, but also wise.

[jmacusa]

God made us in HIS imagine Joe. What HE did, alone among all HIS other creations is give us free will. When we take that will back from HIM, that’s when the trouble starts. Me? I try as much as possible to walk humbly and live usefully under HIS grace. Humility is knowing one is not God.

[rustbucket]

Right, he [rb: Lincoln] called them [rb: Congress] back five months early.

That makes my point. Why didn't Lincoln call his Congress back earlier, say about two weeks after Fort Sumter like Jefferson Davis did his? Wasn't the situation serious enough?

1.Pro-Confederate claims that the Federal government was in dire financial straights are not supported by Lincoln's choice to call Congress back in July.
If the Federal government was as hard-up as they allege, then Lincoln would need Congress immediately.

Was the New York Times pro-Confederate? It reported what was said about the depleted state of the Treasury in February 1861 (i.e., the financial straits) [Link].

You make a strange argument for the delay in reconvening Congress. While Lincoln's incentive to provoke war was economic, his objective after the attack on Fort Sumter expedition was to cement that war in place by invading the South and blockading their ports, all without any Congressional interference. That was his way of solving the two-tariff situation that had the potential to ruin the Northern economy.

As I noted far above in this thread, Lincoln was still concerned with getting sufficient revenue to run the government after the attack on Fort Sumter. He used that as an excuse for not moving toward peace and conciliation as urged by the Baltimore delegation that had an audience with him ("... what is to become of the revenue? I shall have no government -- no resources."). He wouldn't have sufficient revenue if he didn't blockade Southern ports. So, he didn't want peace.

So, how did Lincoln get funds without convening Congress? He took funds authorized by Congress for one purpose and used them for another purpose. Bur that is unconstitutional.

Members of Congress pointed out the following unconstitutional acts that Lincoln did while he kept Congress out of session until July 4, 1861 including unconstitutionally moving funds around. The following is just a partial list of the unconstitutional acts Congress members accused Lincoln of doing:

(1) No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. Lincoln violated this part of the Constitution by spending unauthorized money and shifting money from authorized purposes.

(2) Congress has the power to raise and support armies, not Lincoln. Congress has the power to provide and maintain a navy, not Lincoln. Lincoln accepted the service of volunteers for three years without warrant of law. Congress has the power to control the size of the Army and Navy, not Lincoln.

(3) Congress alone had the power to declare war and blockade the ports of a belligerent.

Those weren't the only unconstitutional things that Lincoln or members of his administration did during that pre-July period:

(4) The suspension of habeas corpus by the executive when it is clear (to me and others anyway including Hamilton and Jay) that the Legislature is the body with that power. If Lincoln had that power, why did Congress in 1863 authorize him to do it in the future?

Lincoln delegated the power to suspend habeas corpus (or the privilege, etc.) to Army officers, their subordinates, and the Secretary of War. Such power was even used to prevent inquiry into whether individual soldiers were underage, hardly a matter requiring the suspension of habeas corpus. The Lincoln Administration kept a judge under house arrest to prevent him from going to court. They arrested another judge for trying to follow Ex parte Merryman, which was a legal court order.

Speaking of Ex parte Merryman, here is an excerpt from that order by Chief Justice Taney that says [my emphasis below]:

The Constitution provides, as I have before said, that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." It declares that's the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." It provides that the party accused shall be entitled to a speedy trial in a court of justice.

And these great and fundamental laws which Congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms. Such is the case now before me, and I can only say that if the authority which the Constitution has confided, to the Judiciary Department, and judicial offices may thus upon any pretext and under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power at its discretion, the people or the United States are no longer living under a Government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.

Several Bill of Rights Amendments were violated by Lincoln in the case of Merryman. As Taney said, even Congress itself couldn’t suspend them. (Much less approve them after the fact.)

So, during the interim between the attack on Fort Sumter and the delayed recall of Congress, Lincoln assumed the powers of Congress, the powers of the Judicial Branch, and even violated some of the Bill of Rights.

I presume you have been upset by Obama rewriting the Affordable Care Act on his own multiple times. Similarly, I suspect that you didn’t like Obama accomplishing what Congress would not pass by using regulations issued by the EPA and other government departments. You’ve probably been upset by the Obama Administration stonewalling legal requests for documents and his departments continuing to do what courts had ruled that they stop doing.

How do you justify Lincoln doing what he did? Or is it OK with you that Obama assumed Legislative and Judicial powers also? Remember from Ex Parte Milligan (1866) about the Lincoln military trying Milligan while the civil courts in Indiana were open and running:

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

Congress can’t excuse or approve obvious violations of the Constitution after the fact. They don’t have that power. Such power would lead to anarchy or despotism. It would have been consistent with the Constitution if Lincoln had quickly convened Congress and had them authorize his actions beforehand.

All of this reminds me of Comey and Lynch not charging Hillary with her obvious violations of law. Lincoln was their president -- they weren't going to go after their guy for violating the Constitution.

Back to the question of Lincoln and the expedition to Fort Sumter. Lincoln had accomplished what he wanted with his expedition to Fort Sumter. He had to solve the two tariff situation that would ruin the Northern economy. I previously posted that his cabinet and military advisors had told him the result of Fox’s expedition would be a shooting war. Remember what he told Gustavus Fox who conceived the plan and was in charge of the expedition?

"You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Ft. Sumter, even if it had failed; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the results."

When I followed that with, “The result of the Sumter expedition was war,” you replied:

[You]:… with war now started, he could take military actions to defeat the rebellion.

Precisely. He got the war he wanted. Lincoln took an action that his advisors told him would provoke war, and afterwards he seemed satisfied that it resulted in war. After the attack on Fort Sumter, he proclaimed a blockade on Southern ports, an internationally recognized act of war. The blockade would solve the two tariff problem that the Northern port cities and merchants (and Lincoln) had been so concerned about.

Tariff revenue was already collapsing due to the Morrill tariff and loss of Southern trade. I've posted how the revenue in 1861 compared with 1860 revenue [Link, note also that old "pro-Confederate" New York Times of yours quoted about the revenue in this link also]. Maybe the Federal government issued bonds or got loans to get money to keep running. Or perhaps that shortage of funds and revenue is why Lincoln unconstitutionally moved funds that Congress had appropriated for one purpose and spent it in another area.

More later.