Posted on 03/12/2003 9:32:49 AM PST by Phlap
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A former city worker who was fired for refusing to remove a Confederate flag license plate from his truck is suing the city of Tampa.
In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Larry A. Carpenter, 47, said his First Amendment right to free speech was violated when he was fired over the dispute.
Carpenter was ordered in January 2002 to remove the license plate or park his truck off city property. He refused to do either, was cited for insubordination and was fired from his job as a traffic maintenance specialist in the Public Works Department.
Carpenter's attorney, J. Benton Stewart II, said his client, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, is proud of his heritage and merely wants the city to develop a written policy that is uniformly applied.
Stewart said other city workers who drive vehicles with bumper stickers bearing political slogans and offensive statements are allowed to park on city property.
Messages left with City Attorney Jim Palermo were not immediately returned. Carpenter declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
And I'm not justifying slavery by saying that most slaveowners were good to their slaves and some were bad. What I am saying is that a good amount of the myth around lincoln rests on the fact that he was some sort of savior and that if not for him, slavery would still exist today. Historically that is about as far from truth as you can get, considering that in every other nation slavery had been abolished peacefully over time
Employees are no less the 'public' than anyone else. Taking an employment position does not mean that you give up your rights as a citizen.
The "state" is now passing laws that can be used to punish someone for simply espousing an unpopular point of view. Other viewpoints will be next, and it could be yours or mine.
Very good point!
Actually, this issue has gotten to such a ridiculous point that I think it's fun to watch them squirm, because they don't have the guts to just get a life.
This ,,,could be a reason why.
Wilmot, explained to King Gelele: "England has been doing her utmost to stop the slave trade in this country. Much money has been spent, and many lives sacrificed to obtain this desirable end, but hitherto without success. I have come to ask you to put an end to this traffic and to enter into some treaty with me."
Gelele refused: "If white men came to buy, why should I not sell?" Wilmot asked how much money he needed. "No money will induce me...I am not like the kings of Lagos and Benin. There are only two kings in Africa, Ashanti and Dahomey: I am King of all the Blacks. Nothing will compensate me for the lose of the slave trade."
Gelele also told Burton, "If I cannot sell my captives taken in war, I must kill them, and surely the English would not like that. -King Gelele of Africa
Of course it was racist. It still is racist. And some blacks are some of the most racist people on earth.
That's what I was saying in the first place. If more blacks want to be treated fairly, then maybe they're going to have to reciprocate.
And since America is being flooded by people who do not have to carry the obligatory guilt trip, blacks are going to lose concessions granted them in the 60's and beyond.
Therefore, it's in their own best interests to grow up (the blacks who are racist and whining that they continue to be oppressed).
First of all, the south fought on the basis of states rights.
The only right at issue was to make slaves of other men.
"I am a plain, blunt-spoken man. We say that man has a right to property in man. We say that slaves are our property. We say that it is the duty of every government to protect its property everywhere. If you wish to settle this matter, declare that slaves are property, and like all other property entitled to be protected in every quarter of the globe, on land and sea, Say that to us, and then the difficulty is settled."
-- Louis Wigfall, Texas Senator
Soon to be CSA congressman Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."
"It cannot be believed that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North if the feelings and opinions now existing among them had existed when the Constitution was framed. There was then no tariff -- no negro fanaticism. It was the delegates from New England who proposed in the Convention which framed the Constitution, to the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, that if they would agree to give Congress the power of regulating commerce by a majority, that they would support the extension of the African slave-trade for twenty years. African Slavery existed in all the States but one. The idea that they would be made to pay that tribute to their Northern confederates which they had refused to pay to Great Britain, or that the institution of African Slavery would be made the grand basis of a sectional organization of the North to rule the South, never crossed their imaginations. The Union of the Constitution was a Union of slaveholding States."
--Robert Barnwell Rhett
Such comments were typical.
You've seen this before.
Walt
BTW, is that an illustration out of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin? That's ironic because slavery did not exist the way this fiction said it did. Slave owners did not treat their slaves like Simon Legree did. It would not have been economically expedient to kill one's investment.
In point of fact, after the civil war, many slaves chose to remain with their owners.
Also, it was not until Stowe published her work that many began to feel slavery was an issue. And her work was entirely fiction.
"You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to this your white soldiers are lost to you, and one reason why this proposition is received with favor by some portions of the army is because they hope that when the negro comes in they can retire. You cannot keep white and black troops together, and you cannot trust negroes alone. They won't make soldiers, as they are wanting in every qualification necessary to make one."
--Howell Cobb, Georgia senator
Mr. Wickham said that our brave soldiers, who have fought so long and nobly, would not stand to be thus placed side by side with negro soldiers. He was opposed to such a measure. The day that such a bill passed Congress sounds the death knell of this Confederacy. The very moment an order goes forth from the War Department authorizing the arming and organizing of negro soldiers there was an eternal end to this struggle."
-- From the debate in the rebel congress, 1865
Mr. Edgerton is pursuing something not based in the record.
Walt
That's incorrect.
(Abraham) Lincoln said he did not wage war on the Confederacy to stop slavery. He felt slavery was on the path of total extinction. (In other words, slavery would fail of its own accord.)
In 1862 Lincoln said "my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union." He felt that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in states where it already existed. Lincoln hoped that after the war was over he could gradually stop slavery.
Note: one of the possible solutions Lincoln considered was shipping former slaves back to Africa.
(This information here.
But, you already know all this.
(Abraham) Lincoln said he did not wage war on the Confederacy to stop slavery.
It takes two sides to make a war. The south was determined on a society based on slavery. The election of a Republican candidate showed that slavery might no be longer sufficiently protected by the government -- that it would no longer help them enough to "get their bread from the sweat of other men's faces," to use Lincoln's phrase.
They tried to bolt.
Lincoln, and the other loyal Union men were not going to let that happen. --They-- fought for the ideals of representative government. You just can't bolt when you don't like the outcome of an election.
The cause of the war was clearly slavery.
Walt
Why are you neo-rebs so reluctant to quote the whole letter?
"Hon. Horace Greeley:
"Dear Sir,
"I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
"As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt.
"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the neared the Union will be "the Union as it was". If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln"
Lincoln clearly -knew- that slavery was a state institution protected by the Constitution. That is why he was a big proponent of the 13th amendment ending slavery.
He was always trying to stop the fighting, and to that end, all through 1862 he floated compensated emancipation schemes and colonization schemes.
After black troops were enlisted to fight under Old Glory, Lincoln began preparing the way for full civil rights for them.
Walt
You're wrong. Slavery was an issue but it was not the only issue. I've already posted Lincoln's thoughts on the matter. He felt slavery would die, by itself. It (slavery) was not the issue revisionism would have us believe.
At issue was a) the North wanting to preserve the Union and b) the South wanting to preserve their sovereignty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.