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.

[DiogenesLamp]

Sorry to be the one to tell you the truth on this, but here it is: the real distinction is not "North versus South". Rather, it's "Big Cities versus small towns and rural".

And that is still the dynamic we are facing today.

[DiogenesLamp]

So the first questions we need to ask are, did these alleged "robber barons" break existing laws of their time, or were laws written after the fact to stop what voters saw as unhappy results?

When you own the lawmakers, you can tailor make laws to support your businesses... And they did.

Second, if "robber barons" did allegedly break existing laws, were they prosecuted and what were the results?

I refer you to Hillary as a recent example of how this works out in practice.

In Northern states slavery was abolished peacefully and gradually, no need for violence or confiscations of property.

And the same would have eventually occurred in the Southern states had people left them alone. I have read about how the abolition movement took shape since the Declaration of Independence kickstarted it, and it's outcome was inevitable.

It would have happened in the border states before it got to the deeper South, but the social dynamic were impossible to stop. Many of the Slaveowners had become wealthy enough to feel guilty over their source of income.

Charles Dickens covers this ground in his book "American Notes."

But Slavery was not the proximate cause of the war. It was Slave produced money that was the cause, on both sides.

Any and all the economic issues you claim were so important to them could have been reasonably negotiated away, but they never did.

So you assert.

After the first year or so, the economic cause of the war became irrelevant. Too much blood had been shed, and it had become a war of Domination and Revenge on the part of the North, and a war to get away from oppression on the part of the South.

[DiogenesLamp]

Did you imagine that argument makes sense? It doesn't, you know.

It makes very good sense. I think you are suffering from an effect known as "cognitive dissonance" that keeps you from grasping the point.

Lincoln had neither the power to give away states, nor to hold them. His attempt to "Make a Deal" would have exceeded his authority whichever way it would have worked out.

Lincoln didn't "refuse to let them" go. Virginia's secession convention had already voted not to secede, and Lincoln simply wanted them to adjourn and go home, go you "get" that?

Are you implying that Lincoln had no intention of keeping his word about the trade which he had no authority to make?

I actually find that to be a believable prospect.

Yes, if Lincoln was lying in making his offer, (to get them to go home) then he wasn't really exceeding his authority. It is only if he had kept his word regarding his "deal" that he would have been exceeding his authority.

This still does not portray Lincoln in a very good light.

[DiogenesLamp]

But in fact, they had no causes whatever -- none, zero, nada.

Who are *YOU* to tell other people that their desire for independence must meet with your approval?

A cause sufficient to want independence is entirely in the eyes of the beholder. King George III did not think the colonists were so put upon that it justified their independence, but they thought otherwise.

You seem to have that grain of Liberal Fascism running through you where you think you get to pass moral judgement on other people who do not live up to what you believe is correct or proper.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

[DiogenesLamp]

And so you, ahem, conjecture that those allegedly "secret orders" which we don't know about somehow contradicted those other official orders which we do have on record?

If they did not, then why would they be kept secret? Why keep secret something that says the exact same thing as something which is not secret?

Do you think Lincoln simply amused himself with pointless pranks?

Links have been posted to copies of orders which confirmed Lincoln's message to SC Governor Pickens, that no Union troops would reinforce Fort Sumter if they met no resistance.

Well the Letter sent to Major Anderson by the Secretary of War gave him authority to surrender. If that's not telegraphing your intentions, I don't know what is.

Apparently they knew exactly what would be the outcome of their effort.

[DiogenesLamp]

But, of course, it was Jefferson Davis who ordered the war, just as surely as the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

Whenever you bring this up, I'll just toss your message into the trash. This attempt at an analogy is unworthy of consideration.

Someone that compares Pearl Harbor to Ft. Sumter is just loony toons in my book.

[PeaRidge]

The only event related to a declaration of war was Lincoln's issuance of personnel call up and a blockade of Charleston. These commands were signed by President Lincoln on April 17-19, 1861, ordered the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States to his proclamation blockading the South, and thus made it official. Under international law of the era, declaration of a blockade is an act of war, and thus after the conflict the United States Supreme Court held the institution of the blockade to constitute the legal commencement of the Civil War.

No doubt you may be inclined to rely on your choice of historians for their opinions....the libraries and Google are full of them. However, for the purposes of consummation of war time issues, the United States government itself affixed the beginning on Lincoln's actions, with no transactional relationship to Charleston Harbor.

[PeaRidge]

Brojoke: You gave this Lincoln quote.....

“The Government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.””

But you did not think this one was important?

“The words `coercion' and `invasion' are in great use about these days.

"What, then, is `coercion'? What is `invasion'? Would the marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion? I very frankly say, I think it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit.” - Abraham Lincoln, February 11, 1861

He sent the Navy down to do just that two months later.

Lincoln: "But what about my tariff."

[PeaRidge]

You said: “But the question on the table is whether our Founders’ Original Intent was that states could “at pleasure” unilaterally declare secession.
I’ve seen nothing to support claims they did.”

And you have seen nothing to refute the right of secession.

Come back when you have a better argument.

[PeaRidge]

Brojoke: “But regardless of how often you post it, it's still irrelevant to this discussion, because that document only addresses, for certain legal purposes, when the US government first responded (still with words, not bullets!) to actual Confederate acts of war against it.”

No, that document, as you put it, is a Supreme Court ruling affixing the date of the beginning of the war.

It occurred in Lincoln's office.

[PeaRidge]

Your source that you quoted says this: “In general, the tariff increased duties 20 percent on certain manufactured goods and 10 percent on specified raw materials.”

That is factually misleading. First from U.S. Tariff Rates - Ratio of Import Duties to Values: 1821-1996.

"In its first year of operation, the Morrill Tariff increased the effective rate collected on dutiable imports by approximately 70%. In 1860 American tariff rates were among the lowest in the world and also at historical lows by 19th century standards, the average rate for 1857 through 1860 being around 17% overall (ad valorem), or 21% on dutiable items only. The Morrill Tariff immediately raised these averages to about 26% overall or 36% on dutiable items,

Here from Taussig and Adams:

“The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden tripled.”

[PeaRidge]

Brojoke, I don't think there is any better example of your endless exaggerations and canards than this statement of yours: "

So, bottom line: at 4:30 AM, as Confederates began their 4,000 gun bombardment

Fort Moultrie had three 8-inch Columbiads, two 8-inch howitzers, five 32-pound smoothbores, and four 24-pounders. Outside of Moultrie were five 10-inch mortars, two 32-pounders, two 24-pounders, and a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore. The floating battery next to Fort Moultrie had two 42-pounders and two 32-pounders on a raft protected by iron shielding. Fort Johnson on James Island had one 24-pounder and four 10-inch mortars. At Cummings Point on Morris Island, the Confederates had emplaced seven 10-inch mortars, two 42-pounders, an English Blakely rifled cannon, and three 8-inch Columbiads.

That was a grand total of 46 guns.

[x]

So what you're saying is, you were taught a simplistic version of the Civil War in grade school, saw things were more complicated when you got to high school, and then picked up another simplistic version of the Civil War and what it was about later. A lot of us went through that. But we came to see through those oversimplified Lost Cause myths and don't torment people with them any more.

I don't have the time or the energy to retell how I came to see through neoconfederate mythology, and in any case, it's obvious from your posts that you're not ready. You're too resentful of some supposed Yankee elite that you blame for everything that went wrong, too unwilling to see the differences between how things were in different historical epochs and too quick to see things in extreme terms.

So, for example, you jump to the conclusion that Northerners "*hated* [African-Americans], probably more so than did Southern whites" rather than seeing how complex things could be in both the North and the South. It has to be a simplistic win-lose with you. You see instances of Northern racism and make them the rule, while ignoring or minimizing Southern racism.

Blacks and Whites could live together in Northern cities, with some friction to be sure, but there was coexistence. I wouldn't know how to generalize, but I certainly wouldn't say the condition of African-Americans or White attitudes towards people of color were worse in the North than in the South.

Your talk of "globalism" in the 1860s is also out of place. It suggests that you really don't know what you're talking about. Objections to Soros or Gates or Buffett today, aren't just about they're being rich. There is a whole sense of "globalism" that you ignore in your haste to make a crude smear.

[rustbucket]

Somehow it is fitting that your post is number 666.

You have never refuted any of my recent posts (I grant you Harriet Lane) while I have refuted all of yours, refutations which you always refuse to acknowledge.

Bwahahaha! A comment that is both vainglorious boasting and incorrect at the same time. A twofer! Oh well, here you go again:

(Sigh), as I've repeatedly explained, none of those states, and no founder ever suggested unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession "at pleasure" or "for light and transient causes" were considered constitutional, lawful or appropriate.

The South did not secede "at pleasure" or for the "light and transient causes," the Declaration of Independence cautioned against. Helper's Book is an example of the many sorts of things that might have influenced the South to secede. Helper's book was endorsed by a majority of Republicans in Congress. The book, which they distributed, contained statements like these:

... our purpose is as fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and -- so help us God -- abolish it we will! [page 187]

We believe it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the destiny of this party [Republican] to give the death-blow to slavery; ... [page 234]

We are determined to abolish slavery at all hazards ... [page 149]

And then there was Lincoln saying the "government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."

An economic threat against slavery, the main pillar of Southern economy, by the party coming into power in Washington, was bound to be taken seriously by the South as an economic existential threat. Much the same way perhaps that the seceded South's use the 1857 US tariff was seen as an existential threat to the Northern economy. It was such a threat to the North’s economy because the North had just shot themselves in the foot (or other significant part of the anatomy) by passing the Morrill Tariff, which was substantially higher than the 1857 US tariff. As I have pointed out on this thread, future Northern tariff revenue was thought by many, including Lincoln, to be in serious trouble because of the two different tariffs.

You said “unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession …”.

In 1788-90 states had peaceably, unilaterally and with the approval of their own state conventions withdrawn from Union under the Articles of Confederation. Where in the Constitution was the right of states to use the power that they had just exercised taken away from them? Under the Constitution, secession wasn’t prohibited to the states, and other states and the federal government were not given the power to stop it. It was therefore a power retained by the states under the Tenth Amendment. They had it and exercised it while under the Articles; it wasn’t taken away by the Constitution; they still had it after the Constitution was ratified. It was a peaceful, legal way out of the Union for a state, should the Union not work out well for them.

From "Free, Sovereign, and Independent States, The Intended Meaning of the American Constitution" by John Remington Graham (2009). Page 178:

Among the powers reserved to the several States was the right of the people of each state in convention to take back the authority delegated to the federal government under the United States Constitution, and thereby to secede from the union.

Let's see whether that book’s interpretation agrees with statements made during the ratification. As far as what the Founders said, cue Hamilton and Jay (two of the three authors of The Federalist Papers), and the other New Yorkers (Founders all) who ratified the Constitution and said in their ratification document [my emphasis below]:

That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness

... Under these impressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution

Well, that agrees with the interpretation of the book above, IMO. And it does not require any outside approval for of a state individually to reassume their powers of government.

And then, of course, there was Madison, the other author of The Federalist Papers, telling the country in Federalist 45 before the Constitution was ratified [my emphasis below]:

Were the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union.

How does one judge "public happiness?" Many Southern states asked their voters directly whether to secede and were given approval to go ahead. Their publics were not happy remaining in the Union.

Here is another quote from Graham's book above (same page):

Amendment X added nothing new, but confirmed what the main body of the Constitution was already understood to mean. It was meant, not only as a safeguard against forced construction of the powers of the Union, but also or but to give solemnity to the constitutional custom allowed in extraordinary circumstances revolutionary but peaceable and lawful alterations in government.

This reminds me of a few things Madison said. Here is Madison in Congress in 1789 talking about the proposed Amendments in the Bill of Rights [Link]:

I find, from looking into the amendments proposed by the State conventions, that several are particularly anxious that it should be declared in the Constitution, that the powers not therein delegated should be reserved to the several States. Perhaps words which may define this more precisely than the whole of the instrument now does, may be considered as superfluous. I admit they may be deemed unnecessary: but there can be no harm in making such a declaration, if gentlemen will allow that the fact is as stated. I am sure I understand it so, and do therefore propose it.

In other words, it's not needed because the Constitution already means that, but it doesn't hurt to add it.

And Madison again [Link]:

In a speech delivered to the House of Representatives while the Bill of Rights remained pending in the states, James Madison reminded the assembly that the proponents of the Constitution had assured the states that “the general government could not exceed the expressly delegated powers.”

And the statement Madison said in the Virginia Ratification Convention and which I posted to you earlier:

"An observation fell from a gentleman, on the same side with myself, which deserves to be attended to. If we be dissatisfied with the national government, if we should choose to renounce it, this is an additional safeguard to our defence."

To this you said: Assuming your quote is authentic, confirmed by Madison himself?

Madison spoke those words on June 16, 1788 [Link or Link 2, starts on page 414 and continues on page 415 of Elliot's Debates]

By the way, I word-searched the text of that Ratification Convention's minutes and found two previous mentions of the word "dissatisfied," but they were not used in the context of Madison’s statement. Neither were the words "withdraw," "leave," or "secede" previously used in any way like what Madison said in the quote above. It may be that similar words had been said by someone else and that previous statement had not been captured by the minutes. In any event, Madison said or repeated them and was using them to counter Patrick Henry's concerns about the Constitution.

rustbucket: "imported manufactured goods generally paid 24 to 32 percent tariff rate under the 1857 tariff law, not the 15% you quoted."

BroJoeK: What, do you suppose I make these numbers up?
That 15% average number comes from here, and is readily compared to averages from earlier and later years.
It also compares to reports that the Confederacy's average tariffs (which were seldom collected) were also 15%.

I see that I must speak or post very slowly when posting to you. I have no trouble with the average tariff rate under the 1857 US tariff being 15%. Raw materials imported into the United States were typically tariffed at low rates, e.g., 4%, 8% and so on. Manufactured goods were normally taxed at higher than average rates, like I said, 24 or 32% typically. The Chicago Times quote I posted was referring to manufacturers. Manufactured goods were taxed at rates above the average tariff rate. Look up a table of the 1857 rates if you don’t believe me. I have no problem with the initial average tariff rate of the South being 15%. They used the existing 1857 tariff rate for a while until they agreed on lowering the tariff rate on a number of items a short while later.

[rustbucket]

“but also or but to give solemnity” should have been “but to give solemnity”. I dictated the words but garbled them.

[BroJoeK]

HangUpNow: "Firstly, there is NOTHING more bizarre and delusional than your utterly insane Alinsky-ite characterization that myself and DiogenesLamp are, 'Marxists/Democrat/Alinksyite posers consumed with Liberal angst.' "

Of course you are -- Alinskyite in your practice of putting insult before reasoned argument, after all: why bother to answer a point rationally when insults are much quicker and sometimes more effective.
Marxist in your use of Marxist terms like "bourgeois" and insane railing against "the rich" or "New England Power Elites", "Robber Barons", etc.

HangUpNow: "Secondly, *my* understanding of the newly revealed 'history' is the truth as opposed to the traditionally-indoctrinated/fabricated myths, 'Da North fought ovah slavery' meme; 'Lincoln saved da Union.'; 'Da South started a YUGE war at Charleston.' "

Well, aside from your fake illiterate language, those are all historically, factually true.
Of course, real history is vastly more complicated than simple grade-school teachings, but those teachings are still true, regardless of underlying complexities.

HangUpNow: "You can keep on failing to answer the devastating detailed rebuttals and dynamics forged by DiogenesLamp, Rustbucket, and PeaRidge;
You can keep on ignoring the simple principle of the righteous, rightful, and legal personal and State sovereignty issue of the Confederacy..."

But I've "ignored" nothing, have addressed and destroyed each and every argument you & they raised, at great length & detail.
The fact that you personally loathe & despise the truth doesn't make it any less true.

As for any possible considerations of any "simple principle" the Confederacy may, or may not, have represented, all that they threw away when they provoked, started and formally declared war on the United States.
At that point their fate was sealed, unconditional surrender, and any conceivable consideration of "principles" ended.

Sorry about that.

HangUpNow: "You and your cohorts have failed to make you case that a coercive blitzkrieg by Lincoln and his cabal of profiteering pirates and vampires that wound up killing 700,000 Americans, maimed hundreds of thousands more, and scorched earth policy upon the South was justifiable, legal, moral, or necessary. PERIOD."

Of course we have, in great detail, over and over again.
But you good folks loathe & despise the truth so much you'd refuse to see it even if it were slapping you in your faces.
Which it is.

[PeaRidge]

Brojoke, you have continually said that the Confederacy “ formally declared war on the United States.”

Yet when asked to produce the War Declaration, you have not reacted.

Let me help you find it.

It would begin with a date, and at the top of the document it would say, Declaration of War.

Below that it would say that, “The Congress of the Confederate States, having voted in the majority, do hereby declare War on the Union States of America.

It would bear the signature of the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and Jefferson Davis.

See if you can locate it.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Many other African-Americans in the North had similar experiences.

DiogenesLamp: "A Few.
Those who weren't participants of Liberal virtue signaling generally had a pretty difficult time."

Slave-holders of that time, and pro-Confederates today, often claim that, whereas they loved their slaves like members of their own families, Northerners hated blacks even more than their own "wage-slaves".
Well, at least part of that is true, since DNA studies on African-Americans show a large percentage of European blood.

But the other question -- were slaves better off in the South, or as freed-men in the North -- can be answered simply:

1. Of the South's 4 million slaves (in 1860), how many escaped North each year?
   Was it not a few thousand, at least?
   
2. Of the North & Border states half million freed-blacks, how many of them voluntarily returned to slavery in the South?
   Was it not zero?

So the ratio of those blacks who preferred freedom, regardless of how tough conditions were in the cold North, to those who voluntarily chose slavery was in the neighborhood of thousands to zero.

I'd think that would settle it, don't you?

DiogenesLamp: "European imports paid for by Southern products.
The Government ran on the money collected on these imports..."

I have gone back to review the numbers available on 1860 era exports (here, here and here) and am still satisfied that Southern cotton and tobacco combined were closer to 50% or 60% of total exports than the 75% to 87% often asserted.
This still makes cotton & tobacco hugely important, but begins to explain how, during Civil War, the North was able to so quickly adjust its economy and still raise up the $billions needed to pay for war.

A related claim we sometimes hear is that not only did 75% of Federal revenues come from the South, but also 75% of Federal spending went to the North.
So here is an analysis -- summary & detailed listing -- of Federal spending at that time.
It shows that, except for pensions, Federal spending was much closer to 50-50 North & South than any other round number.

DiogenesLamp: "The larger body of Trade which was represented by those tariff collections would have mostly moved to Southern ports because this would allow both the Europeans who were buying the Southern Products and the Southerners who were supplying them, to avoid the middlemen."

So, what exactly prevents that from happening today?
Are there "jiggered" laws on the books forcing shippers to use Northern ports instead of Southern?
I don't think so, and of course the greatest ports in 1860, including New Orleans & Baltimore, still are, while many others have grown up to match & surpass them, including six ports in Texas, five more in Louisiana, four in California, three in Florida, and one each in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia & Virginia, plus many others.

In the mean time, Charleston SC remains stuck at #34 of the largest US ports.
So this whole notion that somehow Charleston was going to become the New-New York seems unjustified by anything concrete.

DiogenesLamp: "Almost all the money funneled through New York.
The Warehousing, Insurance, Shipping, and Banking Industries all involved in the European trade, and the vast bulk of their transactions revolved around goods produced by Slave Labor in the South."

Sure, New York then was the largest port, but far from the only one.
Combined, Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans roughly matched New York in size.
Indeed, New Orleans in 1857 reported shipping half the total US cotton exports of that year.
Of that, only 15% went to US customers, the rest to Europe.

So, point is: it's impossible to say that New York alone, or indeed that Northern ports alone ruled over US exports.

DiogenesLamp: "Today is the same.
New York ran global corporations still use third world slave labor to manufacture the products they distribute."

Hardly!
Today New York City is headquarters for 44 of Fortune's top 500 US corporations -- less that 10%.
The state of New York has 56, still about 10%.
Other states with larger numbers include California (52) & Texas (55).
Combined, those big states have about 1/3 of all headquarters, which means that 2/3 of top US corporations are scattered out amongst all the rest.
Among the states with the highest numbers of corporate headquarters are the already mentioned Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia from the Old Confederacy.

DiogenesLamp: "They were trying to become the globalists that the New York wealthy businessmen already were.
So long as all their traffic funneled through New York hands, that was never going to happen."

But it didn't all "funnel through New York", about half of cotton exports shipped out of New Orleans!
Then as now, New York was far from the only center of commerce & trade Southerners could use.

New Orleans, circa 1860:

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to PeaRidge: " It seems clear to me that Lincoln had no strict adherence to either principle, and would simply go whichever way he thought would benefit him the most."

That's only because you stubbornly refuse to understand the real Lincoln and only substitute your caricature of "Ape" Lincoln instead.

In reality, as opposed to your Lost Cause fantasies, Lincoln held first to the principle of preserving the Union, as much as possible, without starting a war.
Thus he negotiated with Virginians offering them "a fort for a state", to give up Fort Sumter if they promised to adjourn their secession convention.

The fact that Virginians turned down Lincoln's offer reflects poorly on them, not Lincoln.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I'm not even going to entertain this notion.
I flatly reject it.
I am more like to question the sanity of anyone who suggests a comparison between the two. "

Entertain what you want.
Reject what you wish.
Question whatever you like.

The fact remains that Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor were exactly equivalent in their effect on US public opinion, and were remarkably similar in many other aspects.
To cite just one: Japanese attacked with hundreds of aircraft -- flying artillery, while the Confederate Army attacked with thousands of artillery pieces.

So the suggestion that Fort Sumter was just an insignificant or "minor incident" doesn't stand up to closer examination.