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.

[rustbucket]

They had no business “inspecting”. That was the job of the US Navy or the Coast Guard. So, OK - if it was acceptable for insurrectionists to be “inspecting” on the Mississippi, then it should also be entirely acceptable for an established and legitimate organization such as the US Navy to be “inspecting” outside of the Charleston Harbor.

Tomato and tomahto is right. You say insurections, I say states that had a right to secede. So, we get back to the argument about secession, which was not prohibited by the US Constitution but was covered by the Tenth Amendment as well as the ratification documents of several states.

Mississippi had seceded. So had South Carolina. They were no longer in the United States. But perhaps you don't believe in the Tenth Amendment or in what the ratifiers said about what the Constitution meant. Madison however did. He said the following about how the Constitution should be interpreted (Source: Madison's letter to M. L. Hurbert, May 1830):

But whatever respect may be thought due to the intention of the Convention, which prepared & proposed the Constitution, as presumptive evidence of the general understanding at the time of the language used, it must be kept in mind that the only authoritative intentions were those of the people of the States, as expressed thro' the Conventions which ratified the Constitution.

You apparently belong to the camp of those who want to coerce other states to the point of having a civil war. As Hamilton warned in the New York Ratification Convention:

It has been well observed, that to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. A failure of compliance will never be confined to a single State. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts or any large State should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would not they have influence to procure assistance, especially from those States which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a Government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself -- a Government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government.

I suspect we know which side of Hamilton's statement you favor.

Lincoln's blockade of the Confederacy was an Act of War. That is why SCOTUS recognized Lincoln's blockade proclamation as The start of the war, rather than the attack on Fort Sumter. Clashes of arms such as what happened at Fort Sumter may or may not be considered the start of war.

In fact, consider the steps that Lincoln took to provoke war and his sending of a battle fleet to South Carolina with the stated intention of forcing their way into South Carolina's waters if opposed. The following post of mine and the links it contains might help you understand: [Link]

[rockrr]

The 10th amendment didn’t apply. The rebels knew it in theory and war proved it in practice. The south had no “right” other than through open rebellion, to leave the United States. A war decided that. A supreme court decision affirmed that.

The acts of war came long before Lincoln took steps to rein in the insurrectionists. They came not from the union but from the southern states in rebellion.

[DiogenesLamp]

The cause of war, pure and simple, was the Confederate military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.

Rockrr is fond of listing all sorts of examples where Southern forces took over formerly Union installations and assets, but he/she never seems to notice that none of these were deemed sufficient to provoke a war.

Charleston was the primary port through which all European trade would flow. The reason it was a sticking point, is because *THAT* port represented the dire financial threat to the North. They simply could not allow regular and profitable trade with Europe to develop.

I do not think you are adequately counting the costs that allowing competing European trade (at low tariff rates) would have had on the economic conditions in New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

[DiogenesLamp]

First of all, Lincoln assured nobody he would abandon Fort Sumter. Yes, he did offer in negotiations with Virginia Unionists to swap "a fort for a state" -- if Virginia agreed to adjourn its secession convention and remain in the Union, then Lincoln would withdraw from Fort Sumter. But Virginians refused Lincoln's offer, and so it was withdrawn.

So as the old punchline goes:

"We've already determined what sort of girl you are, now we are just haggling over the price. "

The fact that Lincoln was admittedly willing to give it up means that the principle under which he claims to have been fighting (to preserve the Union) is negotiable. Therefore it isn't really a principle at all, but instead it was merely his price for a deal which would allow Independence for some Southern states.

Second, Lincoln announced his resupply mission to Fort Sumter directly to South Carolina Governor Pickens.

One does not need, what was it? 1,800 armed men to "resupply" a fort.

Of course that was not nearly sufficient to take the area by force, so it appears the only purpose of loading so many men and arms aboard ships was to convince the Confederates that he was going to deliberately violate the existing armistice.

The fact that he took great pains to conceal the assemblage of his forces from the Northern Public (it was completely impossible for him to conceal it from Confederate spies and sympathizers) indicates that he knew very well how it would be regarded if it's existence, and of what it consisted, became widely known to the Northern civilian populace.

So if it was innocent, why hide it? Why the skullduggery?

[DiogenesLamp]

I'm not even going to entertain the argument that Pearl Harbor and Ft Sumter have any resemblance.

That is a fever swamp idea which is unworthy of any serious consideration.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Then you launch off on whether to count specie.
It was precious metals used as payment for something.
Nothing in the your data tables says to whom or for what."

What these numbers clearly show is that your conclusions are strongly influenced by what you decide to include or exclude.
My figure of $357 million total exports is based on including only half of the "species" exports shown in the reference.
Had I included all $58 million of species exports, total exports would be $392 million, making cotton exports of $192 million less than 50%.

You talk about "re-exports" as if they should be summarily dismissed, but I don't see why.
If, for example, a New York merchant buys up a ship-load of, say, coffee from Columbia, brings it to New York where he offloads half for US customers, refills that half-ship with cotton he purchased from the South and then sends the ship on to customers in Manchester, England, England, across the Atlantic... see, I believe one commodity is just as much a export as the other, at least in terms of profits received by that New York merchant.

Again, my point is: the overall US import-export picture in 1861 was as complicated, and subject to interpretations, as it is today, and not amenable to such simplistic statements as, "Southern cotton & tobacco represented 75+% of all US exports."

PeaRidge: "Hanson lists exports by type.
Your figure is cotton and does not include Southern exports of tobacco, food, semi-finished cotton goods, chemicals, hemp, or the proportional value of finished cotton."

You are including much as "southern exports" which not-necessarily were Deep South or even Upper South exports.
Tobacco, for example, even today is produced in such non-southern states as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut and Indiana.
So it is far from safe to assume that all non-cotton agricultural exports in 1861 came from future Confederate states.

PeaRidge: "DeBow and Kettel have done excellent work on pulling together the entire data listings.
That data shows the Southern contributions to export value in the 75 to 87#% range depending on year."

Again, I'm saying they overstate the value of future-Confederate state exports while understating the value of total 1860 US exports.

PeaRidge: "The statistical tables from Treasury records do break out by source such as foreign countries transshipping through US ports."

But "foreign countries" did not transship through US ports.
Instead, as my example above shows, US merchants purchased foreign products, brought them into the US, often added value to them, such as converting cotton to cloth, then "transshipped" to other foreign customers.

In the process, the US merchants charged a profit, which was then used to help pay for imports from foreign countries, including tariffs for the US treasury.

PeaRidge: "So, you see, that has to be factored out because it was not sourced production."

Of course, for your purposes of maximizing the importance of Southern cotton, tobacco, etc., exports and minimizing the value of other US export related products & services, you would naturally wish to exclude everything possible.

But in reality, there was a much bigger picture here in 1860, of which future Confederate state exports were indeed important, perhaps 50+%, but were by no means the only games in town as represented by your 75% to 87% figures.

[rockrr]

Like a dog returning to its vomit DegenerateLamp is returning to its tired strawman.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "It happened when those troops were firing a salute. It wasn’t in defending the fort."

Again, two points:

1. That no Union troops were killed directly by Confederate fire is no thanks to Confederate intentions, who certainly intended to harm as many Union troops as necessary to force surrender.
   Indeed, Union Major Anderson told Beauregard's representatives that he must surrender soon anyway, due to lack of food, but Confederates were not willing to wait.
   They insisted that Anderson's surrender be to an act of military force by them, not Fort Sumter's exhausted food supplies.

2. That two died and six were wounded during Anderson's surrender ceremony highlights the fact that those were caused by Confederate military actions -- acts of war -- against the United States Army.

[BroJoeK]

x: "...the idea that Fort Sumter was some kind of unendurable threat to the whole state of South Carolina just won't fly."

Thanks! Three excellent analogies make this case:

1. British forts on US territory for years after the Revolutionary war.
   Brits maintained at least half a dozen forts in New York, Ohio and Michigan for up to 14 years after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
   They were never considered a casus belli and were patiently negotiated away by John Jay's treaty of 1796.

2. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor exactly illustrates how the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was unequivocally and act of war against the United States.

3. The US base at Guantanamo illustrates the fact that a change in government in Cuba in no way invalidates the US military's legal right to occupy its base there, just as the Deep South's declarations of secession in no way invalidated US ownership of forts, ships, arsenals & mints, etc. in those states.

[BroJoeK]

x: "It wouldn't have been hard for someone with obvious pro-secession sympathies to piece together fragments of a conversation to produce something that put Lincoln in a bad light."

Similar, as I've pointed out before, to the way today's dishonest media takes Donald Trump's words out of context to make him sound silly, or heartless.
It's an age-old practice which works especially well when people don't know all the facts, and wish to believe the worst.

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket to rockrr: "Given all that, do you think Lincoln might have been seriously concerned about tariff revenue at that point in time or not?
And if not, why not?
And if yes, would it have been unreasonable for Lincoln to have mentioned that concern on two separate occasions (one of which was a meeting he requested)?"

There can be no doubt that Lincoln must have been concerned about future Federal revenues, that only makes sense, given the circumstances.
But the issue here is, was that concern, as clearly implied by pro-Confederate apologists, the driving force behind Lincoln's "push for war"?

The answer is, no, Lincoln did not "push for war" and would certainly have dealt with such issues short of war, had the Confederacy not started war at Fort Sumter.

But as we can see even today, it's very easy to take a few words out of context to make somebody look silly or worse.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting PeaRidge: "Isn’t it interesting that lots of folks harp endlessly about slavery but never mention the word Mississippi."

DiogenesLamp responding: "I believe they always start the conversation off with 'slavery' because without it, they realize that it was an immoral invasion."

Total rubbish.
Nobody posting here makes such arguments, all know better.
You two are simply concocting a straw-man argument far easier to defeat than any substantive posts by those in support of the Republic and Republicans.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp responding to x: "The troops on those ships that were sent to reinforce Ft. Sumter."

There were some troops aboard Lincoln's resupply ships.
But Lincoln's orders to them, and his promise to South Carolina Governor Pickens, was that no attempt to land them would be made so long as the resupply mission was not opposed by Confederates.

[rockrr]

Speaking of strawmen, did you happen to see DegenerateLamp’s post #385? It let that one sit and stink in the sunshine for a couple of days before moving on to a new dodge.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "These other deaths were the result of an accident while firing a salute."

Sure, a salute in the surrender ceremony forced by Confederate military actions.
They were just as certainly casualties of war as were, for example, Hawaiian civilians killed during the Japanese attack by US projectiles fired at Japanese bombers.

In both cases, enemy actions were the root cause of those deaths.

[DiogenesLamp]

British forts on US territory for years after the Revolutionary war. Brits maintained at least half a dozen forts in New York, Ohio and Michigan for up to 14 years after the Treaty of Paris in 1783. They were never considered a casus belli and were patiently negotiated away by John Jay's treaty of 1796.

None of which maintained an array of cannons pointed at the incoming ships attempting to trade at any Primary port.

If you have an example of British maintaining forts overlooking the entrance to Boston's, New York's, or Philadelphia's harbors, then I will concede you have a point.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge to DiogenesLamp: "In all, consisted of eight warships, carrying twenty-six guns and one thousand, four hundred men."

I don't think those are the correct numbers of ships or men which actually arrived off Charleston port.
Regardless, the number intended to reinforce Fort Sumter, only if necessary, was a much smaller sub-set of that total of 1,400 men.

[Pelham]

You’re stretching. Even the NPS lists it as an accidental death and not a battle casualty.

“It’s interesting to note that Hough died an accidental death when a cannon discharged while he was loading it. This occurred the day after the battle ended, during a surrender ceremony”

https://www.nps.gov/fosu/faqs.htm

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge to DiogenesLamp: "In his letter of introduction to President Buchanan of January 12, Governor Pickens of South Carolina said,

'I have determined to send to you Hon. I. W. Hayne, the attorney-general of the State of South Carolina, and have instructed him to demand the surrender of Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, to the constituted authorities of the State of South Carolina.' "

That was just one of many such demands made by Governor Pickens and other secessionists.
All such demands and all related threats against Union officials, firings on Union ships, seizures of Union property, etc. -- all those were unequivocal provocations of war.

The actual Confederate military assault on Fort Sumter was a clear act of war, the beginning of Civil War, followed soon after by a formal Confederate declaration of war against the United States, May 6, 1861.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nobody posting here makes such arguments, all know better.

If you guys aren't focusing on slavery, then you aren't the people to which we are referring.

But yes, most people who discuss this topic go immediately to the "They deserved it because of SLAVERY!" argument.