Posted on 02/17/2003 10:41:15 AM PST by stainlessbanner
Director says 'Gods' has Southern slant, but 'full humanity'
The North may have won the Civil War, but in Hollywood, the South reigns triumphant.
That was certainly true in 1915, when D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation portrayed the conflict as a war of Northern aggression where order was restored only by the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. It was true in 1939, when Gone With the Wind looked back on the antebellum South as an unrivalled period of grace and beauty never to be seen again. It was true when Clint Eastwood played The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Confederate war veteran who has run afoul of Northern "justice."
(Excerpt) Read more at sunspot.net ...
We're on a thread concerning the 'noble south'. What better place to discuss the noble south's ignoble leader? I realize that you don't care about it, it's much more convenient to criticize the North's leadership than it is to face up to the massive failings of the south's.
Lincoln's volumous words on the subject indicate that the last thing he wanted was to share this land with blacks, whether they were slaves or freed.
And the south was perfectly happy with blacks, so long as they were slave. Every southern state had laws restricting the freedom of free blacks in their state, most had laws designed to get rid of those free blacks that they had and make sure no more came in, and every southern leader fully supported those positions. Is that part of the 'noble south' of legend? Why aren't you interested in that?
My, aren't we friendly this morning? I believe otherwise. The Constitution is silent on the subject other than forbidding slave imports after 1808. The fact that it does not forbid it meant that slavery was legal. In fact, the real Constitution did not mention slaves or slavert even once while the confederate constitution mentions it 10 times.
The Confederate Constitution prohibited the importation of African slaves, something the US Constitution did not.
Maybe you should try reading the confederate constitution before you make statements like that. Article I, section 9, clause 1:
"The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same."
It rather than forbidding slave imports it specifically protected slave imports from parts of the United States.
What, you think they yankee slavers had morals?
About the same level as those southerners who were the purchasers of the slaves. Without demand there would have been no need for supply, would there? Southerners were running slaves into the south in violation of international law well into the late-1850's or early 1860's.
Both of these are accurrate & appropriate labels.
"Civil War" greatly misrepresents that conflict. It was most definitely not a Civil War. Yet, that is the label chosen.
I suggest this is/was not merely an imbecilic mistake. It is/was a strategic, purposeful decision designed to instill a most desired belief & attitude.
If the infliction of war on the South was so noble; why the need for this fundamental deception? (hint: it wasn't noble or just....it was shameful)
Of course.
The last time I looked (at least in my copy of the Constitution) the President of the US is not a member of the Supreme Court, or an arbiter of such matters.
Irrelevant -- secessionists have no Constitutional complaint, you just admitted as much above.
Read your Constitution - Article I - "and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be ..."
Irrelevant -- secessionists have no Constitutional complaint, you just admitted as much above.
You secessionists can't withdraw from the Constitution and then demand its protection. You have no Constitutional argument after you secede. It doesn't apply to you. It is irrelevant. Stop mentioning it, you are just wasting our time.
The timeline is that six states seceded even before Lincoln took office. In their own minds they were foreign powers and therefore had no Constitutional protections. In fact in their own minds they were hostile powers -- seizing and attacking federal forts -- engaging in acts of war on the US.
The south wanted the common lands to be enjoyed by whites and their slaves. The idea that the southern leaders promoted free access by free blacks is ridiculous. All southern states had laws at one time or another prohibiting free blacks from entering the state, some had constitutional clauses limiting the ability to free those slaves that were in the state, and one (Virginia) had a clause in their constitution stating that any slave freed had 12 months to leave the state entirely or else be sold back into slavery.
Yet you castigate the North alone, condemn President Lincoln alone, and don't have a word of criticizm for the south. Sainthood for their leaders is OK regardless of the fact that their racial views were worse?
I haven't read any speeches by Douglas etc...
Then you really should. If you think Lincoln was bad when it comes to opinions of blacks, try Douglas.
Anyone who loves this country and is not a racist would understand that limiting the territories to whites only would naturally prevent ALL blacks from settling in the west.
And anyone who read the speeches and writings of southern leaders would understand that their idea of black access to the territories was for slaves only.
I'm pretty sure we did invade Germany. I seem to recall talk of a guy named Hitler, etc. Seems he was enslaving Europe.
Non,,now I can agree with you on that. :)
You need to read up on Davis a bit more. His actions in ignoring the confederate constitution and imposing government controls on the public and on private industry make Lincoln look like a rank amature.
Legal secession has long been a historical fact, not limited to the US (it happened before), nor prohibited by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court disagrees with you. They ruled that unilateral secession as practiced by the southern states was unconstitutional.
The new President, in his inaugural address recognizes their right to leave, and only demands that the government "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts".
I think that you are mistaken there. President Lincoln was quite clear in his belief that the Union was perpetual and unbroken.
Understanding that the powers not delegated to the federal government belonged to the states, lacking any prohibition in the Constitution, as the parties to the Constitution, the south seceded.
Their understanding turned out to be flawed, as the Supreme Court pointed out in Texas v. White.
While they were arguing for the expansion, it doesn't seem that they were arguing against free blacks from migrating west.
They were arguing for the expansion of slavery into the west. If you are correct in you opinion that Lincoln wanted all blacks kept out of the territories then I'm not aware of a single southern politician who disagreed with him. In the only known instance where Jefferson Davis expressed an opinion on a post-slavery America his solution was to 'encourage' free blacks to migrate to Central and South America. That doesn't sound like someone willing to allow an integrated territory to me.
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