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Court Backs Confederate Banner Ban At Cemetery (No 1st Amendment, 3000 Confederates Buried There!)
Post ^ | December 20, 2001 | Brooke A. Masters

Posted on 12/20/2001 4:02:40 PM PST by t-shirt

Court Backs Confederate Banner Ban At Cemetery U.S. Judge's Ruling Reversed on Appeal By Brooke A. Masters Washington Post

Thursday, December 20, 2001

The Department of Veterans Affairs can ban the daily display of the Confederate battle flag at a Maryland cemetery where more than 3,000 Southern prisoners are buried, a federal appeals court has ruled, reversing a lower court decision that said the ban violated the First Amendment....

See Entire Washington Post Story by clicking here


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dixielist
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To: Accountable One
Can anyone here truly deny that we are a divided country to this day?

I can't deny it. Especially since the very men who fought against each other were able to shake hands and slap backs at the Gettysburg Reunion yet here on the place you would least expect it you've got simplistic and hateful political correctness.

All of this US flag banning we've seen since Sept. 11th has generally resulted because these places have policies in place that were designed to prohibit the Confederate flag from schools and workplaces but have been carried to the next step by bureaucrats. An ironic and interesting lesson.
21 posted on 12/20/2001 9:37:41 PM PST by Arkinsaw
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To: gfactor
The great think about the Taliban is that the politically correct can take a break from comparing people they don't like to Nazi's. Variety is the spice of life.
22 posted on 12/20/2001 9:39:16 PM PST by Arkinsaw
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Comment #23 Removed by Moderator

To: WhiskeyPapa
Talk about a one trick pony! Is it just me, or do you frolic about FR looking exclusively for arguments about the civil war? Just curious...
24 posted on 12/20/2001 10:13:22 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: t-shirt
So go fly the flag there and forget what the court said. What is it with all these winners out there that follow every stupid unconstitutional ruling that could not be enforced if you simply go there and do it anyhow.

Where is the cementary? Someone give me a confederate flag. I'll go there and do it myself if you are afraid. It is not that difficult to protect your free speech rights people. Just SPEAK! or in this case, wave your flag.

25 posted on 12/20/2001 10:16:22 PM PST by BJungNan
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To: harmel
Confederates did not go around killing women and children like the Taliban. The Confederates seceded leagally from the rebels (Lincoln) who were running the government of the USA. Confederates do not hate Christianity like the Talibans do. The Taliban will never produce a man like Robt. E. Lee. The Taliban are absolute cowards, Confederates are brave Patriots who possessed moral character.

Now go crawl back under your du rock.

26 posted on 12/21/2001 12:46:36 AM PST by CWRWinger
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To: WhiskeyPapa
Walt, they're only trying to honor their ancestors, and if they were traitors, they were never charged nor tried. Even the trial of Davis was abandoned. If the federal government had proof of treason - considering all the historical documents and millions of eyewitnesses - then it would have been an easy case. Yet the case was never brought. Why? Could it be that the North knew it would lose?

Has this county, and the courts in particular, gone insane with the PC mentality? The thought police are alive and well.

27 posted on 12/21/2001 5:14:53 AM PST by 4CJ
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To: 4ConservativeJustices
Davis was never tried for legal and political reasons. After his capture Davis was held at Fortress Monroe and was headed for a military trial. The Johnson government soon decided that any trial for treason would have to be in a civil court in Virginia, the base of Davis' alleged treasonable activities of directing armed rebellion against the United States. Neither John C. Underwood, circuit court judge for the District of Virginia, nor Chief Justice Chase, who presided over the circuit including the Virginia district, felt that they had any authority over the case as long as Davis was held by the military. Chase in particular wanted to avoid the issue and he continued to find excuses to avoid hearing the case. Unfortunately Underwood's character was called questionable (he once said that he could pack a jury to convict anyone) so Chase's presence was considered essential for a respectable verdict.

Because of the issues of military control of Davis' imprisonment, Chase refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus. Around May 1867 a writ was brought and Davis was taken to Richmond and transferred to the authority of the Federal courts. He appeared before Underwood on May 13, 1867, bail was set at $100,000, and the bond was immediately posted. Davis then left the country to reunite whith his family who were living in Canada, although he returned in November 1867 for his trial. Davis was released on his own recognizance and he went to Europe.

Over the next year Andrew Johnson was impeached and nearly convicted and the 14th Amendment was passed and ratified. Johnson began to fear that if Davis were tried and acquitted he would be impeached again and removed from office. So for political reasons, nothing further was done until after the 1868 election. During this time, Chief Justice Chase made known to Davis' attorneys that it was his opinion that the third section of the 14th Amendment nullified the indictment against Davis. His contention was that by stripping the right to vote from high Confederate officials, a punishment for treasonable activities had been legislated and therefor Davis could not be tried and punished again for the same crime. Davis' friends reminded his lawyers that Davis wanted a trial because he saw it as an opportunity to vindicate both himself and the actions of the Confederacy. Davis' lawyers, however, pointed out that Davis' life was at stake, and there was a general agreement that they could not pass up the opportunity to arrange what they believed to be an honorable settlement.

On November 30, 1868, Davis' lawyers filed a motion requiring that the government attorneys show cause why the indictment should not be quashed. A hearing on the motion was held before Chase and Underwood on December 3-4, and on the 5th they announced their finding. The vote was split--Chase favoring laying aside the indictment, and Underwood, who had overseen the grand juries responsible for the indictment, wanting the case to be tried. The certificate of division between Chase and Underwood was forwarded to the Supreme Court, and the indictment technically remained pending, but no more action was ever taken. It was clear that Chase would favor overturning a guilty verdict, making the government hesitant to proceed. The Davis case remained on the circuit court docket for February 15, 1869, but the government indicated at that time that it would not prosecute. The indictment was, therefore, dismissed, as were indictments against thirty-seven other ex-Confederates, including Robert E. Lee.

Had Davis been brought to trial is there any question he would have been convicted? In my mind there is no doubt at all, although not because I feel he was guilty. Given his notoriety, plus the fact that they were trying him in Virginia, there is no way that an impartial jury could have been found. So I don't doubt that the prosecution would have crafted a jury that would have given them the verdict that they wanted.

28 posted on 12/21/2001 5:27:51 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: The_Expatriate
And while we're at it, dig up all those traitors who fought against the Mother Country during the American Rebellion!

Perhaps you'd like to lay out the long train of abuses prior to 1860 that parallels that of pre 1776.

In point of fact, the best thing you can say about CSA veterans is that they were duped into fighting against their own best interests by the slave power.

Walt

29 posted on 12/21/2001 5:30:55 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: harmel

Like it or not, the Confederate Flag and the Confederate States are part of AMERICAN history. How could they be traitors if they broke away and formed their own government? Especially taking their cue from the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence?! You know ... 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' Lemmeesee, in your view, because they lost their bid for States rights, that means that there should never be any mention of the Confederacy again. Aren't you a died in the wool PC Yankee!

The South has a right to fly that flag over the graves of her sons. They fought for their native soil, in an unsuccessful bid to keep it from federal tyranny. But then you are the type who would believe everything that comes out of Washington D.C. and are gullible enough to believe the Federal Government, acting in the interest of peace and insuring the domestic tranquillity, had every right to go and subjugate the Southern States under its bootheels.

Your equating the Confederacy with the Taliban shows your ignorance of history, and the Confederates who fought for their freedoms would rise up against you if they were able. I hope Santa will bring you a brain and some tact for Christmas this year.

Long live the Confederacy!

30 posted on 12/21/2001 5:33:07 AM PST by Colt .45
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To: Non-Sequitur
The vote was split--Chase favoring laying aside the indictment, and Underwood, who had overseen the grand juries responsible for the indictment, wanting the case to be tried

Former Secretary of the Treasury Chase laying aside the indictment. Well Non, you know what I have to say about that and human nature proves it. Chase could convict a dead man, but this case and Texas v.White were a little too close to laying blame on others and we know that he couldn't do that

31 posted on 12/21/2001 5:35:30 AM PST by billbears
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To: 4ConservativeJustices
Walt, they're only trying to honor their ancestors, and if they were traitors, they were never charged nor tried. Even the trial of Davis was abandoned. If the federal government had proof of treason - considering all the historical documents and millions of eyewitnesses - then it would have been an easy case.

Well, as I say, you don't seem very familair with the record.

Any trial for treason would have to have been in the state where the treason occured. In Davis' case, that would be in Virginia or perhaps Alabama (the first CSA capital being in Montgomery). There was a real fear that no jury the government could empanel would convict Davis, Lee and the other traitors. Well, let me paste a letter.

From a newsgroup; not written by me. Consider:

"The issue about trying Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens and other political leaders of the Confederacy for treason was a complex one.

There were two reasons for not doing trying them: first was the feeling that a trial, if successful, would have created a martyr. In 1865, Jefferson Davis' trial would probably been applauded by most Confederates! But the exaggerated rumors of his mistreatment by Nelson Miles while Davis was held at Fortress Monroe changed the image of Davis among white Southerners from a hated incompetent to a martyr to the Lost Cause.

Carl Schurz commented on this in a speech in the Senate: "There is not a single example of such magnanimity in the history of the world," declared Carl, "and it may be truly said that in acting as it did, this Republic was a century ahead of its time."

Early Twentieth Century American historian James Ford Rhodes wrote, "With a just feeling of pride may we honour the officials and citizens, the Republicans and the Democrats, who contributed to this grand result. For assuredly it was a sublime thing that, despite the contentious partisanship of the time, men bitterly opposed on almost every other question, could agree that the highest wisdom demanded that Davis be released from prison and that he be not punished or even tried; that those in control recognized what had hitherto been so little appreciated 'that the grass soon grows over blood shed upon the battle field, but never over blood shed upon the scaffold.'"

That said, there was another and, I suspect, equally potent issue. It had nothing to do with the number of Republicans on the Supreme Court or with long term thinking on the impact of executing ex-Confederates for treason. Instead it had to do with the United States Constitution's very restrictive clause on what constitutes treason and, even more important, where and how charges of treason must be tried: Article III, Section 2 provides "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed," and Section 3 states "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason." The Constitutional Convention had deliberately made it difficult to convict someone of treason, because of fears of abuse. In addition, Chief Justice John Marshall, sitting as a district court judge in Richmond (much like his successor, Taney, had done in ex parte Merryman) in the Aaron Burr trial had set very high standards, in Marshall's case to embarrass his political enemy, Thomas Jefferson.

There have only been a handful of treason trials in American history: several men involved in the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s were convicted but later pardoned. In ex parte Bollman, 8 US (4 Cr) 75 (1807), one of the Burr conspirators was freed because the indictment was in the District of Columbia and Bollman had not been there. Chief Justice Marshall ruled that the indictment and trial would have to be held where the alleged treason had actually occurred, not, to carry the argument to the Civil War, in Pennsylvania, because, even though the Army of Northern Virginia paid a visit, President Davis was never there. The Burr Trial, United States v. Burr, 8 US (4 Cr.) 469, Appx. (1807) ruled that Burr could not be convicted unless two witnesses testified to Burr's actual involvement. Since that was a secret conspiracy, there was no one to testify against Burr.

After 1807 it was World War II before there was another Treason Trial! Of the three, only two were upheld. In the United States treason is an extremely difficult crime to prosecute. Facing this issue, the Johnson Administration wanted the best legal counsel possible if it was to try any of the Confederate leadership. They appointed a sort of Special Prosecutor, a man most of us know for a very different reason: Richard Henry Dana, Jr. Many of us read, back in junior high, his classic sea story, Two Years Before the Mast. What we forget is that Dana wrote the book, not as an adventure story for boys, but as an expose on the conditions faced by the common seamen of the 1840s. After completing law school, Dana became a leading attorney defending the less fortunate, whether they were seamen abused by their captains or employers, or accused escaped slaves.

In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Dana as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Massachusetts. As such, in 1863, he successfully defended the United States in the Prize Cases before the United States Supreme Court (these were a group of cases, consolidated for appeal, on the capture of ships attempting to break the blockade of the Confederate ports. The issue argued revolved around two separate issues: was the Rebellion a "war" and when did the "Civil War" begin, in April, '61, with President Lincoln's Declaration of a blockade or in the summer when Congress approved what the president had done. The court unanimously ruled in favor of the administration's position that the Rebellion was a war but more narrowly (5-4) supporting the premise that the president's call for troops on April marked the beginning of the war. Not surprisingly Chief Justice Taney felt that the war could only begin when Congress said it did, very much as he had done in ex parte Merryman [67 U.S. (2 Black) 635, on line at http://www2.law.cornell.edu]])

The first question in any post-war treason trial was, had Davis waged war against the United States? Obviously. Second, where had he waged war? Probably in Virginia. Perhaps in Montgomery.

Well, then, he would have to be tried in Virginia, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. This was the court which, sitting in Richmond, had indicted not only Davis, but also a number of prominent Confederates, including Robert E. Lee.

Now the rub: according to Article II, Section 2, Davis, and anyone else, would have to be tried in Virginia, before a jury of Virginians! Remember that no blacks would qualify for a jury, indeed, if would have been hard to empanel a jury, which did not contain either ex-Confederates or Confederate sympathizers. And Dana was very concerned about the ability of the Government to convince twelve Virginians that Davis had committed a crime.

Let Dana, in a letter to Attorney General W.M. Evarts on August 24, 1868, expressed his opinion why there should be no attempt to try Davis (and by extension, any other Confederate) for their activities during the War. The letter is a little long but I think it important to allow you to read all of it:

SIR, While preparing with yourself, before you assumed your present post, to perform the honorable duty the President had assigned to us, of conducting the trial of Jefferson Davis, you know how much my mind was moved, from the first, by doubts of the expediency of trying him at all. The reasons which prevented my presenting those doubts no longer exist, and they have so ripened into conviction that I feel it my duty to lay them before you in form, as you now hold a post of official responsibly for the proceeding. After the most serious reflection, I cannot see any good reason why the Government should make a question whether the late civil war was treason, and whether Jefferson Davis took any part in it, and submit those questions to the decision of a petit jury of the vicinage of Richmond at nisi prius. As the Constitution in terms settles the fact that our republic is a state against which treason may be committed, the only constitutional question attending the late war was whether a levying of war against the United States which would otherwise be treason, is relieved of that character by the fact that it took the form of secession from the Union by state authority. In other words the legal issue was, whether secession by a State is a right, making an act legal and obligatory upon the nation which would otherwise have been treason. This issue I suppose to have been settled by the action of every department of the Government, by the action of the people itself, and by those events which are definitive in the affairs of men.

The Supreme Court In the Prize Causes held, by happily a unanimous opinion, that acts of the States, whether secession ordinances, or in whatever form cast, could not be brought into the cases, as justifications for the war, and had no legal effect on the character of the war, or on the political status of territory or persons or property, and that the line of enemy's territory was a question of fact, depending upon the line of bayonets of an actual war. The rule in the Prize Causes has been steadily followed in the Supreme Court since, and in the Circuit Courts, without an intimation of a doubt. That the law making and executive departments have treated this secession and war as treason, is matter of history, as well as is the action of the people in the highest sanction of war. It cannot be doubted that the Circuit Court at the trial will instruct the jury, in conformity with these decisions, that the late attempt to establish and sustain by war an independent empire within the United States was treason. The only question of fact submitted to the Jury will be whether Jefferson Davis took any part in the war. As it is one of the great facts of history that he was its head, civil and military, why should we desire to make a question of it and refer its decision to a jury, with power to find in the negative or affirmative, or to disagree? It is not an appropriate question for the decision of a jury; certainly it is not a fact which a Government should, without great cause, give a jury a chance to ignore.

We know that these indictments are to be tried in what was for five years enemy's territory, which is not yet restored to the exercise of all its political functions, and where the fires are not extinct. We know that it only requires one dissentient juror to defeat the Government and give Jefferson Davis and his favorers a triumph. Now, is not such a result one which we must include in our calculation of possibilities? Whatever modes may be legally adopted to draw a jury, or to purge it, and whatever the influence of the court or of counsel, we know that a favorer of treason may get upon the jury. But that is not necessary. A fear of personal violence or social ostracism may be enough to induce one man to withhold his assent from the verdict, especially as be need not come forward personally, nor give a reason, even in the jury-room. This possible result would be most humiliating to the Government and people of this country, and none the less so from the fact that it would be absurd. The Government would be stopped in its judicial course because it could neither assume nor judicially determine that Jefferson Davis took part in the late civil war. Such a result would also bring into doubt the adequacy of our penal system to deal with such cases as this.

If it were important to secure a verdict as a means of punishing the defendant, the question would present itself differently. But it would be beneath the dignity of the Government and of the issue, to inflict upon him a minor punishment; and, as to a sentence of death, I am sure that, after this lapse of time and after all that has occurred in the interval, the people of the United States would not desire to see it enforced.

In fine, after the fullest consideration, it seems to me that, by pursuing the trial, the Government can get only a re-affirmation by a Circuit Court at nisi prius of a rule of public law settled for this country in every way in which such a matter can be settled, only giving to a jury drawn from the region of the rebellion a chance to disregard the law when announced. It gives that jury a like opportunity to ignore the fact that Jefferson Davis took any part in the late civil war. And one man upon the jury can secure these results. The risks of such absurd and discreditable issues of a great state trial are assumed for the sake of a verdict which, if obtained, will settle nothing in law or national practice not now settled, and nothing in fact not now history, while no judgment rendered thereon do we think will be ever executed.

Besides these reasons, and perhaps because of them, I think that the public interest in the trial has ceased among the most earnest and loyal citizens. If your views and those of the President should be in favor of proceeding with the trial, I am confident that I can do my duty as counsel, to the utmost of my ability and with all zeal. For my doubts are not what the verdict ought to be. On the contrary, I should feel all the more strongly, if the trial is begun, the importance of a victory to the Government, and the necessity of putting forth all powers and using all lawful means to secure it. Still, I feel it my duty to say that if the President should judge otherwise, my position in the cause is at his disposal."

President Johnson noted on the letter, "This opinion must be filed with care, A.J."

On the following Christmas, President Johnson issued an amnesty proclamation which included Davis, and, as a result, in the following February an order of nolle prosequi was entered, and Davis and his bondsmen were released. [end]

But there is no doubt that Lee, Davis, ain in fact EVERY CSA soldier met the treason definition as given in the Constitution.

Walt

32 posted on 12/21/2001 5:42:15 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: Colt .45
Long live the Confederacy!

Fortunately, the confederacy is as dead as Kelsey's nuts.

Walt

33 posted on 12/21/2001 5:45:13 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: WhiskeyPapa

You'd be surprised to know that it is still alive and well! No, they don't want slavery back, but they do want their rights, culture and heritage! Go to this website here: http://www.confederateamerica.com/. This is not a link so you'll have to type that in!

34 posted on 12/21/2001 5:49:19 AM PST by Colt .45
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To: t-shirt
I know I will pay hell for this question, but I will ask it anyway?

Would it be appropriate to fly a Soviet Flag at the Walker's burial site? (Not the Taliban guy, the soviet spies guy.)

35 posted on 12/21/2001 5:52:31 AM PST by dpa5923
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To: billbears
Yeah, billbears, I know how you view Supreme Court decisions. Those you agree with are valid and those you don't agree with are tainted. But Chase did Davis a favor and you know it. Had Davis been tried he would have been convicted. The government would have picked a jury that would have guaranteed that.
36 posted on 12/21/2001 5:53:49 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: GOPcapitalist;WhiskeyPapa
Do a self search on the boy. He posts to other threads rarely and when he does, his liberal/socialist opinions shine through very brightly. He's obviously a two time Clinton voter.
37 posted on 12/21/2001 6:02:22 AM PST by Twodees
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To: Non-Sequitur
The government would have picked a jury that would have guaranteed that

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with that view. However a trial would have brought unwanted attention to the actions of Chief Justice Chase, for surely Davis would have testified in his own defense, and the documentation that has been provided here many times on tax structure, would have shown that the actions of Chase not only helped to start the war, but to extend it as well

38 posted on 12/21/2001 6:02:36 AM PST by billbears
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To: billbears
Yeah sure. The government would have let Davis put them on trial? In your dreams. As it was, Davis was allowed to finish his days in genteel poverty and well-deserved obscurity. And after the old boy croaked it didn't take Varina Davis long to make a bee-line to New York City so she could spend the rest of her days among the Yankees, did it?
39 posted on 12/21/2001 6:22:37 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
New York City

Considering that many in the city either supported the issue in the early days of the War as seen in the newspapers of the day and that the riots of 1863 clearly showed that those citizens did not want to fight the South, at least they were smart yankees

40 posted on 12/21/2001 6:27:49 AM PST by billbears
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