Posted on 04/24/2002 9:33:49 AM PDT by wasp69
RICHMOND - It's only a two-hour drive from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House here on Clay Street.
It took four years and more than 600,000 lives to make that same journey during the second American Revolution, now officially known as the US Civil War.
It's odd that this nation's bloodiest war, a war between brothers, stretched from 1861 until 1865 when the capital of the COnfederate States of America in Richmond is only 100 miles south from the capital of the United States of America in Washington.
Thousands of Americans annually visit Civil War battlefields, museums and monuments.
Enthusiasts study in passionate detail the leaders, military strategy and battles of the Civil War.
My fascination with the Civil War has less to do with military engagements than with the motivations of up to 1.5 million Southern men and boys wiling to die to tear the nation in two in defense of slavery, an utterly indefedsible institution.
Had the conflict, also known as the War of the Southern Planters, been fought only by Southern slave owners, it would have been over in weeks rather than years.
As it was, brilliant and charismatic Confederate Generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson led armies of poor, non-slave-owning Southerners into battle and came dangerously close to winning the war.
My mother's and father's ancestors were Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. I'm pleased that their side lost.
As a young man I fought for passage of civil rights laws that would eliminate the vestiges of slavery and the continued denial of equal rights to black Americans. What, I wondered, could my Confederate ancestors have been thinking?
I did not find the answer during my tour of the White House of the Confederacy or in the next-door Museum of the Confederacy.
A curator at the museum understood my state of perplexity but could only tell me that it's impossible to judge the decisions of my Confederate ancestors based on todays standards.
Although slavery was central to the decision by the Southern states to break away from the Union, many causes over the years led to conflict.
Sectional rivalry developed as the North became industrialized and gained population with European immigration.
The North wanted to build roads, canals and railroads to accommodate growing industries. Without personal or corporate taxation, revenue was raised by tariffs, which protected Northern products and increased prices of imported goods needed by the nonindustrialized South.
Southerners felt they were being gouged by their Northern brethern. They also felt that the states, not the federal government, had the authority to regulate commerce and other affairs. They also felt that the states had the right under the Constitution to separate from the Union, an idea that had strong supporters in both the North and South.
Deciding whether new territories and states would be slave or nonslave became a North-South fight for power in Congress and within the federal government.
Northern abolitionists demonized the Southerners and backed them into their own regional corner. Many Americans in the early years of the nation felt stronger regional and state pride than national pride.
Lee, who did not want to break up the Union, declined an offer to command the Union Army. He chose fight for Virginia and the South.
There must be lessons to be learned from the Civil War that can be applied to current and future conflicts.
There is no way to shoehorn legal unilateral state secession into Article 1, section 8, or into the Supremacy clause or any way to get around the Militia Act's requirement that United States law operate in all the states.
So Mr. Nicolay is correct when he said that attempts at secession try to make the parts greater than the whole and turns the pyramid of authority on its apex.
Walt
“Ignore the document?” My friend, I have a link to the Articles of Confederation posted on my FR homepage. Let’s take a look at a few specifics:
Article XIII. Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
And now let us examine Article VII of the United States Constitution:
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same
Note any contradictions? The Articles required “any alteration” in their terms to be “confirmed by the legislatures of every State.” Nevertheless, the Constitution was ‘established’ upon the ratification of only “nine States.” Your choices are:
1) To declare the Constitution null and void, because it was ‘established’ at a time and in a manner that ‘ignored’ three specific requirements of Article XIII:
(a) that the Articles be "inviolably observed by every State" (after all, adopting a new Constitution with the agreement of only eight co-States appears to violate the 'unanimous amendment' clause); and
(b) that “every State” confirm alterations to its terms (remember, the Constitution – which certainly qualified as an “alteration” - went into effect upon the ratification of the ninth State, not the thirteenth); and
(c) that “the Union shall be perpetual” (if the nine ratifying States were bound by the terms of the new Constitution, and the four non-ratifying States were not, only a madman would attempt to claim that all thirteen remained members of one “perpetual” union).
2) Or, on the other hand, you might wish to refer to the second of the Articles of Confederation:
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Apparently the Founders believed the “sovereignty, freedom, and independence” of the individual States to have precedence over the requirements of Article XIII - that the States, in a word, could lawfully secede. If so, then the Constitution is valid - but your apparent distaste for the idea of ‘sovereign, free, and independent’ States and the right of secession is shown to be invalid...
;>)
”In General Trimble’s, and the immediately neighboring brigades, there is in progress, at this hour, one of the most glorious revivals I ever witnessed. The audiences and the interest have grown to glorious dimensions. It would rejoice you over-deeply to glance for once instant on our night-meeting in the wildwoods, under the full moon, aided by the light of our sidestands. You would behold a mass of men seated on the earth all around you...fringed in all its circumference by a line of standing officers and soldiers – two or three deep – all exhibiting the most solemn and respectful earnestness that a Christian assembly ever displayed.”
Very pious.
"Walter Taylor wrote in his diary toward the end of February [1865] that they were "trying to corner this old army, but like a brave lion brought to bay at last it is determined to resist to the death, and if die it must die game." Indeed, the men who remained, and knew there would be no immediate peace, did not give up. "We had early forbidden ourselves to think of any end to the struggle except a successful one," wrote a cavalryman,"and that being an impossibility, we avoided the subject altogether."
The fervid religiosity which swept through the camps at Fredericksburg 'was replaced by a wild, occult mysticism. Omens were found in dried springs and hens' eggs and impending disaster seemed only to strengthen faith in some unnamable thing which would end the suffering. "I think 'hardly any man in that army entertained a thought of coming out of the struggle alive. The only question with each was when his time was to come, 'and a sort of gloomy fatalism took possession of many minds. Believing that they must be killed sooner or later, and that the hour and manner of their deaths were unalterably fixed, many became singularly reckless."
"The Generals" p. 421 by Nancy Scott Anderson and Dwight Anderson.
Walt
Obviously you can’t “'quote a direct warrant from the Constitution’ prohibiting secession,” or you would have done so. Let’s evaluate your attempts “to deduce one, by implication:”
Article I, Section 8 mentions “insurrections,” not ‘secessions.’ You ‘imply’ that the two are identical. Let’s see what the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the ‘insurrectionists’ responsible for the Whiskey Rebellion had to say on the subject:
If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth [“on the application of the constituted authorities of each state”] to subdue it.
Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.
The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on [the state] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed...
The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union, but while they continue, they must retain the character of representative republics.
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1825
So much for your attempt to “deduce...by implication” a prohibition of secession in Article I, Section 8.
Let’s proceed to “the Supremacy clause” in Article VI:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof...shall be the supreme Law of the land.
Given that the Constitution nowhere prohibits secession, and given that the Tenth Amendment guarantees that all “powers not delegated...nor prohibited...are reserved to the States, respectively” and their people, “the Supremacy clause” appears to guarantee the right of secession, not prohibit it. Your second attempt to “deduce [a prohibition of secession] by implication” fails as well.
But since you raised the subject of “the Supremacy clause,” and I enjoy highlighting the numerous contradictions inherent in your beliefs, allow me to ask a question. On the one hand, you repeatedly cite “the Supremacy clause,” which states that the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the land.” On the other hand, you would have us believe that the majority opinion of the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land. Which is it? John Taylor addressed the issue nearly two centuries ago:
The word supreme is used twice in the constitution, once in reference to the superiority of the highest federal court over the inferior federal courts, and again in declaring "that the constitution, and laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby." Did it mean to create two supremacies, one in the court, and another in the constitution? Are they colateral, or is one superior to the other? Is the court supreme over the constitution, or the constitution supreme over the court? Are "the judges in every state" to obey the articles of the union, or the construction of these articles by the supreme federal court?
The project for a national government [by Hamilton, Randolph, and others, which was considered and discarded at the constitutional convention], gave a supremacy over the articles of the constitution it advocated, to the legislative, judiciary, and executive, and did not propose that the constitution should be supreme over these departments, because it would have involved a contradiction. As they were to have had a supreme power of construing its articles, these articles could not possess a supreme power over their constructions. But a federal system required that the articles of union should be invested with supremacy, over the instruments created to obey and execute them. Hence they are declared to be so in reference to all these instruments, without excepting the federal court. And hence the right of altering these articles is retained by [the States as] parties.
I thought you would find Mr. Taylor’s comments enlightening: tell us, in your opinion “(i)s the court supreme over the constitution, or the constitution supreme over the court?”
While you are considering an answer, let’s see how you “deduce...by implication” a prohibition of secession from the “Militia Act.” I assume you are referring to Section 2:
And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, the same being notified to the President of the United States, by an associate justice or the district judge, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state, where such combinations may happen, shall refuse, or be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislature of the United States be not in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto, as may be necessary, and the use of militia, so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session.
Gosh, Walt, I don’t see any prohibition of secession in the Militia Act. Frankly, for the legislation to be at all relevant, you must first “deduce...by implication” the illegality of secession from some other source – else the seceded States would in no way be subject to “the laws of the United States.” By the way, since you seem to favor the opinions of "the occupants of...executive mansions," let’s see what President Buchanan had to say regarding the application of the Militia Act to the secession of the Southern States:
Under the act of 1795, the President is precluded from acting even upon his own personal and absolute knowledge of the existence of such an insurrection. Before he can call forth the militia for its suppression, he must first be applied to for this purpose by the appropriate State authorities, in the manner prescribed by the Constitution.
It would appear that not everyone possesses your ability to “deduce...by implication” a prohibition of secession from the Militia Act.
So Mr. Nicolay is correct when he said that attempts at secession try to make the parts greater than the whole and turns the pyramid of authority on its apex.
Actually, you have only succeeded in proving Mr. Nicolay to be a ‘monumental hypocrite’ (“Care to fill in for Mr. Nicolay and ‘quote a direct warrant from the Constitution’ prohibiting secession? Or do the believers in ‘union-at-any-cost’ seek ‘to deduce one, by implication?’” ;>). But tell us, Walt: what, exactly, sits at the top of your “pyramid of authority?” Hmm?
But since you seem to agree that both Lincoln and Davis came down squarely on the right of the central government to coerce the states, why don't you start a thread condemning Davis?
I will leave that to those who consider his opinions to be more relevant than do I. Perhaps you should undertake the task: it would be interesting to see whether you quote Mr. Davis ‘the authoritative statesman’ (as you sometimes do), or Mr. Davis ‘the vile traitor’ (as you do on other occasions) – or both. Just another of your many contradictions...
I don't believe in coercive governmemts.
Really? One would never guess that from your posts:
"The Government has certain implied powers....among these powers clearly, is the right of the Union to coerce the states....(t)he Tenth amendment doesn't even apply....
The Judiciary Act of 1789 gives the federal government the absolute right to throw down any state law....
Walt
188 Posted on 10/03/1999 04:02:59 PDT by WhiskyPapa
Look at the date: you’ve been advocating ‘coercive government’ for years...
I do firmly believe that the Government has the right simply to maintain its own existance.
And where, precisely, is that right delegated to the federal government by the Constitution? Or have you decided that the federal government’s own court is “supreme,” and that the Constitution, the States, and the people ‘can go fish?’
;>)
Still humming the Battle Hymn, eh? But let it not be said I refused to contribute, when you elected to change the subject to “wild, occult mysticism.” From the same reference quoted previously
“Eventually, racked by grief but energized by the hope held out by the Hydesville Rappings, [Harriet Beecher Stowe] turned to seances, attempting to find beyond the hand of death the renewed life of her stricken son. Her husband had similar yearnings. For many years, Calvin Stowe had communed directly with the dead, testifying that, as a child, ‘every night after I had gone to bed and the candle was removed, a very pleasant-looking human face would peer at me [from near a place on the wall] and gradually press forward his head, neck, shoulders, and finally his whole body as far as the waist, through the opening, and then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would withdraw in the same manner in which he had entered.’ Harriet followed her husband into this world of visions, though only for a short time...
“[Within a few years] (e)ach of Stowe’s stories was more vivid than the last, and more controversial. In one, a man who refuses food to a runaway slave is called before God, who orders him out of heaven with the words ‘Depart from me ye accursed.’ The story...owes much to her new vision of universal justice – that emancipators are the ‘elect,’ while the slaveholders are damned for all eternity. Implicit in her writings is her belief that acting against slavery is a necessary expiation, a physical sacrifice, that could be exemplified in the shedding of blood. Union soldiers would be blessed in marching off to war against slaveholders, she thought, ever as much as Jesus was in sacrificing himself for sinners...”
I find Ms. Stowe’s views rather reminiscent of those of Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers - her understanding of the Scriptures was apparently no more sound than most ‘unionists’ understanding of the Constitution. Perhaps the woman to whom Abraham Lincoln attributed the start of the war should have remained a (relatively) harmless ‘mystic’...
;>)
;>)
Nevertheless, it remains. The north intentionally framed the war around slavery.
"Mr. Lincoln arrived in Washington and took up the reigns of control. It soon became very evident that, so far as the Republican party is concerned, secession if properly managed is rather a benefit than a misfortune. Anti-slavery was the only ground on which it could act with anything like unanimity. In ordinary times, the tariff bill would have broken it down, and even under the tremendous pressure of disunion, the struggle over the Cabinet shook it to its very center. On all questions except that of slavery it can never act together with any reliable degree of concert, made up as it is of incongruous elements freshly and roughly joined together." - Henry Adams, The Great Secession Winter of 1860-61, penned in the Spring of 1861, published in 1909.
I take it then you are withdrawing your now debunked earlier charge that the 'Great Secession Winter' was not written by the Henry Adams?
a goodly number of Republicans felt the North would be much better off without the degrading leaching abomination of the vile fleshmongering perverts of the south, this is true.
So in other words, your only response to the above factual reference by Adams in which he specifically admits the north intentionally framed the issue around slavery and avoided other issues like the tariff is to unleash your latest string of vague ad hominem attacks upon southerners. So much for your argumentation skills. But then again, what else should we expect to find in vitriol-laced comments of an intellectual lightweight with a known history of perpetrating fraud on this forum such as yourself?
Tell them what else Adams says, like this:
The grand corporation known under the name of the slavepower, peculiarly offensive as it was, no only to the spirit of our Government but to that of our religion and whole civilization, did very shortly pervert the whole body politic, and as in an inevitable result of its very existence, the nation divided into parties, one of which favored its continuing to control the government; the other striving to rescue the power from its hands. While maintaining the Constitution and its grants, good or bad as they might be thought, their effort was to reduce the evil results of such grants to their lowest possible standard and to raise the good results to their highest. After a long and bitter contest the slave power for for the first time defeated, and deprived, not of its legitimate power, not of its priviledges as origionally granted in the Constitution, but of its control of the Government; and suddenly in the fury of its unbridled license, it raised its hand to destroy that Government. The great secession winter of 1860-61 was therefore the crucial test of our political system.
That's nice and all, but completely irrelevant to the fact that Adams admitted that the Republican party intentionally framed the secession crisis around the issue of slavery. It is a known fact on what side Adams himself stood, in light of which the above quotations are only evidence.
I also see that you have, since your recent embarrassment, made an effort to find Adams' original text. At least that little task wasn't too difficult for you, Llan-ey.
I couldn't imagine you using a legitimate source.
Oh wait. So you are disputing the legitimacy of Adams' text now? In that case, nevermind the previous two sentences. Here we go again...
Now I know why you were, you were misrepresenting it's meaning.
Logic entails that for you to know why I am doing X, you must first establish that I am doing X. In your case, X is found in your assertion that I am "misrepresenting" the meaning of Adams' text. You have neither established that much, nor even taken the task of establishing it upon yourself, therefore your above statement fails you. I guess some things never change, Llan-ey.
That's nice, but let's take a look at what it means. Adams specifically stated "In ordinary times, the tariff bill would have broken it down," it being the unanimaty of the GOP. The central issue of this statement lies in the terms "in ordinary times," referencing that the issue would be divisive in non-secession crisis times, meaning times prior to the crisis as at the time Adams wrote (1861), the crisis was the immediate situation. Therefore the reference is to the situation in pre-crisis times, where consensus was lost in the divisive tariff issue.
Because some Southerners thought that the right to let chewin' tabacky spit dribble down one's chin was inherent?
Most of the folks in the North, and most certainly Lincoln, could simply not imagine
Interesting. Then again history is always viewed in hindsight. I think it an overstatement to suggest that Lincoln could not comprehend the South seceding. It is also an extreme oversimplification to break down the entire secession crisis attitude on two sides of a single line, both by you or Walt or even Adams or anybody for that matter. By early December 1860, many of the northern newspapers already saw that one coming, at least in the deep south, and urged Lincoln to focus his attention on holding first the Gulf states, and after they went in February, the border states.
It is true that many thought the war would be over in a few months. Seward was of that opinion, and it reflected through Adams as, aside from his father, Seward was a prominent influence on him at the time. On the other hand, far from being unimaginable, commentaries on the december opening of the second session very clearly indicate heavy hostility between factions. Bancroft's historical analysis notes that between the southern dems and northern reps, the session opened on an extremely bitter divide to the point that the two would not even speak to each other informally as friends, much less politically. After secession was well under way, a lingering Senator Wigfall repeatedly referenced this division as having taken on an extremely personal tone beyond simply arguing political issues. He used several speeches to criticize what he put simply to be northern name calling rather than substantive debate on the issues. During one incident, Wigfall and several northern senators got into a bickering match on the senate floor after northerners had gone into a long string of personal insults against southerners by name. In a sense it was part of the same antics that had dominated the speeches of the extreme portions of the north for the latter half of the previous decade. Surely you recall the famous incident in which the "damned fool" Sumner was beaten by Rep. Brooks. The incident that sparked the caning was a lengthy Sumner speech against slavery in which Sen. Sumner, rather than simply arguing the issue, took cheap shots at the physical handicaps of Sen. Butler of South Carolina. At the time of Texas' secession, Wigfall very clearly took personal issue with yankees who had been, some of them for years, using the Senate chamber as a platform from which to insult southerners by name calling. As evidenced in many of your posts, Llan-ey, some things never change.
southerners would ever be so stupid
And as I said, some things never change.
as to go over the deep end like a relentless fool
Not even 142 years after the fact.
I recently heard an interesting characterization of the war itself. It was said that the north fought for duty - a duty to hold the union. The south fought for honor - honor which had been violated by the north. The person who made this characterization followed by noting it as evidence that good things could legitimately be found in both sides of the conflict, as both duty and honor are virtuous qualities.
But viewed in those terms, it could similarly be said that they characterize a mindset among many figures on either side. Among many of the secessionists, I think a legitimate case could be made that they considered their honor to have been insulted and violated by the north. That alone did not cause secession, but as a part of the bigger picture, it definately weighed in throughout the conflict.
Quite sad, isn't it? His alter-ego/former persona LLAN-DDEUSSANT did the same thing here a few months ago before it got booted. It only took him those few months to change his name to Titus Fikus and re-register, and it only took me a few encounters with him in the week that followed to figure out it was the same guy.
He was postulating to me once the impact of the British and Portugese Empires with absolutely no awareness of the centuries differences in their development. He is an idiot.
I can only imagine his hypothesis in that one. He's sort of like a pseudo-intellectual who thrives on "showing off" in posts. He sees a topic, normally civil war or israel related but not always, digs up some loosly related but largely irrelevant fact off his search engine, and trys to get himself into the conversation by posting a lengthy commentary on it. When anybody trys to rebut him, he responds by (of all ironic things!) insulting their intelligence and proclaiming his purported learned superiority. His new alter ego has toned it down a bit as that was one of the main things that got him booted from FR a few months ago, but it's definately still there.
There is no direct warrant in the Constitution prohibiting secession in so many words. The whole document does so.
There are also no explicit prohibitions against rape, murder or abortion in the Constitution either. You lay out all these detailed arguments that simply will not be compelling to any fair minded person. They'll more likely take the view of Justice James Wilson in 1793:
"Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, will be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation."
Really, all your argument does is give life to the words of George Washington in 1796:
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."
-- George Washington, farewell address, 1796.
Even more succintly, you are condemned from the mouth of Thomas Jefferson:
"We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is free to combat it."
Thomas Jefferson March 4, 1801
Your opinion is in error.
I don't see how anyone can fault Abraham Lincoln and the brave Union soldiers, or the people of the United States, for preserving the government of Washington.
It is almost as silly as saying that we'd be better off in a Balkanized United States.
Whatever problems we have, we are better off facing them together.
Walt
I'm the twelth of fourteen children.
My father was in the Marine Corps in France during World War One. Like many veterans, he wouldn't discuss his activities. He stayed at the same building at Portsmouth, VA. in 1919 that I was in when I was at Sea School Atlantic in 1974.
My dad raised ten children during the great depression on a farm in West Tennessee. My oldest half sister Becky told me that my father would go out hunting varmints, and if they heard three shots, they knew he had shot three varmints.
So I guess Marines are pretty good shots.
When I was at recruit training at Parris Island in 1973, we fired for qualification on December 20. We had drawn brand new M16A1's. the series juist ahead of ours had M-14's. I am glad to say that I was issued one of those great weapons at my first duty station, the Marine Detachment on U.S.S. Simon Lake.
In any case, at PI we had M-16's. You may or you may not know if you are left handed, (as I am) when you fire a brand new M-16A1, the empty casings eject and hit you in the face. I had a black streak of powder from the corner of my mouth to my ear every day we fired on the rifle range.
Of course one of the purposes of recruit training is to inure one to the vagaries of life, so that virtually NOTHING impresses a U.S. Marine over much. So it didn't seem the least bit strange to me that every round I fired would eject a shell that hit me in the face. Just another day at the office.
My Senior Drill Instructor called me over at one point, grabbed my cheek with the black streak, and said, "doesn't that hurt, private?"
"No, Senior Drill Instructor," I said.
He gave my cheek a twist, and said, "Seems like it would. Get out of my sight."
It was 20 degrees when we fired for qualification, but I still shot a 215, which was a pretty good score.
I like guns. I like 'em fine.
think they especially come in handy when the government of Washington and Lincoln are threatened.
Walt
"No further evidence is necessary of who's side God was on?" LOL! Only if you belong to the 'Church of Napoleon!' What was it your 'prophet' said?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery."
And so you conclude, as your 'prophet' did, that God favored the North. Tell us, sport, did God also favor the Communist Chinese over the Tibetans? Hmm? And the North Vietnamese? Does God favor Fidel Castro? What say you?
ROTFLMAO!
;>)
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