Posted on 05/13/2003 6:17:13 AM PDT by VMI70
This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.
On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.
This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.
FRee dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
That's not true. Any of the rebels could easily have been hung under the law.
Look at John Merryman -- a citizen of Maryland -- who burned bridges to impede the passage of federal troops, actively raised rebel units and was a serving officer in the insurgent army. Was he not guilty of treason under the law? And he was a citizen of Maryland, which did not even publish the same sort of bogus secession documents that the so-called seceded states published.
The reason that none of the rebels were hanged as the traitors they so clearly were is that it would not have helped reunite the country, which was the purpose of the exercise after all.
Merryman WAS in the hands of the government -- he WAS indicted for treason and he could have been hanged for his openly treasonous acts.
But he was released.
Carl Schurz commented on the United States not trying the Rebels in a speech in the Senate: "There is not a single example of such magnanimity in the history of the world," declared Schurz, "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.'"
Walt
Lee was the personal owner of as many of 10 slaves. Sixty-three slaves lived at Arlington. Lee had control of them through marriage.
Grant owned one slave for a brief time in 1859, as I recall.
Julia Dent Grant has the usage of several slaves belonging to her father.
Walt
What I can't stomach is the willful perversion of the record that is seen on FR every day.
Are you not going to call out the person on this thread who called Sherman a vicious murderer of everyone in his path?
Is that the sort of historical objectivity you approve of?
Walt
"And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question whether a democracy -- a government of the people, by the same people -- can, or can not, maintain it's territorial integrity, against it's own domestic foes-- It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretences made in this case, or on any other pretences, or arbitrarily, without any pretence, break up their Government, and thus practicaly put an end to free government upon the earth."
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61
Walt
Good thing Washington, Jefferson and the others didn't know that.
As for whether or not secession is legitimate under the US Constitution or not, that question became moot once the constition al promises of limited government were abrogated and trampled underfoot.
The founding fathers would most certainly not recognize today's government as resembling anything they had intended to govern the America they founded.
It's downright unAmerican. It's ironic, though, that the war fought in the 1770s was really the First American War of Secession, since they did not intend to bring about a regime change in England or Great Britain, only establish a self-government for the former colonies. That attempted by the Confederacy was the second, and was most certainly neither a *civil war* nor a *war between the states.*
I suspect that we'll see a breakup of the USA similar to that of the Soviet Union, possibly within my lifetime.
That may constitute the Third.
-archy-/-
Are you a professor at a Southern college for any chance?
That is flatly false and any general history of the war will tell you that it is false.
Slavery was a state institution clearly protected in the Constitution. President Lincoln had NO power to affect it in the normal course of administering the government. He had revoked emancipation initiatives by Generals Hunter and Butler early in the war.
He based the EP on his constitutional powers as commander in chief of the armed forces.
He wrote a famous letter to James Conkling for public distribution:
"But, to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure, which is not consistent with even your view, provided you are for the Union-- I suggested compensated emancipation; to which you replied you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way, as to save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means--
You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps would have it retracted-- You say it is unconstitutional-- I think differently. I think the constitution invests it's commander-in-chief, with the law of war in time of war-- The most that can be said, if so much, is that slaves are property. Is there -- has there ever been -- any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it, helps us, or hurts the enemy?
Armies, the world over, destroy enemie's property when they can not use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy-- Civilized beligerents do all in their power to help themselves, or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel-- Among the exceptions are the massacres of vanquished foes, and non-combattants, male and female.
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than you can bring the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think it's retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction, than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt, returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us, since it's the issue of the proclamation as before.
You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistence to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.
I thought that that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistence to you-- Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do, in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people act upon motives-- Why should they do any thing for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive -- even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept."
8/23/63
You obviously don't know the history.
President Lincoln well knew that the EP only had force as a war measure. That is why he was a strong advocate of the 13th amendment.
Walt
I was born and raised in Chattanooga. I have a BA in History from UT.
Walt
But Lee did not.
"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession." January 23, 1861
The Supreme Court made abundantly clear early in the life of the nation that the states WERE NOT completely sovereign under the Constitution.
The --People-- have maintained the Union. It belongs to them, not the states. The big four court cases-- Cohens, McCullough, Martin and Chisholm from early in the nation's life make this plain. In all of those cases, the nature of the government is emphasized:
"Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner.
By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."
--Chief Justice John Jay, Chisholm v. Georgia 1793
"In the case now to be determined, the defendant, a sovereign state, denies the obligation of a law enacted by the legislature of the Union...In discussing this question, the counsel for the state of Maryland deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument as not emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent states. It would be difficult to maintain this position....
--John Marshall, majority opinon McCullough v. Maryland 1819
"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory.
The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."
--Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821
"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the people of the United States."
-Justice Story, Martin v, Hunter's Lessee, 1816
The sovereignty of the United States rests on the people, not the States.
It was dishonorable for the slave holders to wait 40 + years and then say they disagreed.
Walt
"According to the US Census of 1860, there were only 64 slaves in all of the "Free" States and Territories in that year: 29 in Utah Territory, 15 in Nebraska Territory, 2 in Kansas Territory, and 18 in New Jersey. New Jersey had abolished slavery and the New Jersey slaves had the right to freedom but were too old or sick or otherwise unemployable to voluntarily abandon the security of their status. Of course, there were 432,586 slaves in the slave-owning "Southern" states and territories that remained loyal to the Union, including Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and the New Mexico Territory. But in no case can these border states and territories be described as "up north."
Walt
You know, I never--ever-- feel compelled to state that I oppose slavery.
Walt
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