Jefferson Davis: beyond a statue-tory matter

The Courier-Journal ^ | July 27, 2003 | Bill Cunningham

[thatdewd]

The writer is a circuit judge who lives in Kuttawa, Ky.

KUTTAWA, Ky. - The Courier Journal, at the behest of its columnist John David Dyche, has called for the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. Such a supposedly politically correct viewpoint reflects a shallow, selective and even hypocritical understanding of history.

[rustbucket]

There were no confederate district federal courts, at least no records exist of any decision being handed down by one. There was no confederate supreme court, no confederate judiciary at all other than individual state courts.

Then how do you explain the following from the November 24, 1864, Daily Picayune?

Our readers have seen the anouncement of the sentence of A. W. McKee by a court-marshal in Louisiana, to be shot, and of the decision by Judge Moise, of the Confederate States District Court in Louisiana, that the court marshal had no jurisdiction over McKee [a civilian], and releasing him from their bonds, to answer any civil offense for which he might be prosecuted.

You seem fond of making claims that others would have a hard time disproving. In this case, however, Gotcha!

This supposedly nonexistent 1864 Confederate States District Court seems to have anticipated the 1866 US Supreme Court ruling in ex parte Milligan. Pity the Yankees didn't have courts willing to stand up in wartime for their citizens' rights (Taney's ex parte Merryman ruling excepted).

[4CJ]

Hey Walt, are in timeout again?

[4CJ]

Based on this record and the words of his own mouth, we can say that the "great emancipator" was one of the major supporters of slavery in the United States for at least fifty-four of his fifty six years.

Give the responses from his own Attorney General in 1864 regarding Lincoln's Colonization Secretary and Gen. Butler in 1865, the last two years are suspect as well.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I don't know what to make of your passage. Perhaps Davis sent nominations to the CSA Congress for offices which were never created.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Congress, the Supreme Court, and nearly every patriot on the country agreed with President Lincoln's decision not to let rebels run around unmolested, though neo-Confederates today have a probelm with it.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Show us evidence that a CSA court system existed.

[thatdewd]

There were no confederate district federal courts, at least no records exist of any decision being handed down by one...

The United States National Archives and Records Administration disagrees with you. They have the records of these courts in the National Archives (Record Group 21). See below:

21.2.6 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Middle Division of the District of Alabama

21.2.9 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Southern Division of the District of Alabama

21.11.3 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Northern District of Florida

21.12.4 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Northern Division of the District of Georgia

21.12.9 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Southern Division of the District of Georgia

21.20.5 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the District of Louisiana

21.26.2 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Northern Division of the District of Mississippi

21.35.6 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the District of North Carolina

21.45.5 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Middle Division of the District of Tennessee

21.46.7 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Southern District of Texas

21.46.10 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Western District of Texas

21.49.6 Records of the Confederate States District Court for the Western District of Virginia

I may have missed some, but the point is made. I hope the source is acceptable to you...

[4CJ]

South Carolina repealed its granting of Fort Sumter's property to federal control with its ordinance of secession.

South Carolina ceded the property in 1804 CONDITIONAL that it be improved within 3 years, and fully garrisoned. Failure to do so was grounds for recission. When Sumter was being planned, the state ceded that property in the shoals under the same terms.

But you do have a valid point. The federal government did not possess the sovereign right of eminent domain. The Constitution required that the state cede the property to the federal government, not that the feds could exercise the right of eminent domain; "all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be."

[Grand Old Partisan]

Not bad. Perhaps you are right, though they could not have had much power if they did exist since by decree of "President" Davis all disputes between states and residents of states and different states were to be adjudicated by the CSA Attorney General, not any CSA court system.

[4CJ]

Jeff Davis was an unmitigated SOB.

Can't you just feel the love? </sarcasm>

[Grand Old Partisan]

Yes, I feel the love. PalmerizedCaddis clearly loves the United States of America, and so has no sympathy for traitors such as Jefferson Davis.

[rustbucket]

Good find.

[thatdewd]

Congress, the Supreme Court, and nearly every patriot on the country agreed with President Lincoln's decision not to let rebels run around unmolested, though neo-Confederates today have a probelm with it.

LOL, I guess that's why the SUPREME COURT ruled it UNCONSTITUTIONAL. As to the others you mentioned, do you think the ones that spent the war rotting in jail cells with no charges filed against them agreed with him as well? Can you say "Police State"?

[4CJ]

Document how a region with less than 40% of the entire population, and 30% of thse being slaves, managed to pay 66% of all federal taxes.

The total amount of duty paid during this forty years [1821-1861] on imposts was $1,191,874,443, of which

The South paid,.....................$799,508,378
The North paid,..................... 392,365,065
                                               ------------
       Difference,.....................$407,144,313
Stephen D. Carpenter, "Mr. Lincoln's Testimony", The Logic of History, Madison, WI: S. D. Carpenter, 1864, p. 21.

67.08% to be exact.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The Supreme Court did not rule it unconstitutional, and Copngress specifically suppported the President's action. Remember, Congress was out of session when the rebellion began, and no patriot with cdommon sense belived rebels should be able to run around unmolested unti lthen.. Morever, the Founding Fathers' Milita Act 0f 1792 authorized the President to put down rebellion without congressional authorization, and rounding up rebels and throwing them in prison is part of putting down rebellions.

Again, patriots at the time agreed with President Lincoln, while rebels and their modern-day fans were opposed.

[4CJ]

and so has no sympathy for traitors such as Jefferson Davis.

Never tired nor convicted. Empty words. But if it was such an open and shut case, the federal government could have easily proven it's case. They did not, and could not. They were scared that Jefferson Davis would be found innocent, legally vindicating the South and condemning the North, Lincoln and the Radical Republicans.

Remember, in the Prize Cases, Justice Grier wrote for the majority:

Several of these States have combined to form a new confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the world as a sovereign State. Their right to do so is now being decided by wager of battle.

The justices did not state that it was illegal nor unconstitutional.

[Grand Old Partisan]

President Lincoln emphatically opposed trials for any rebel. The only reason President Johnson imprisoned Davis was Davis' refusal to acknowledge Johnson as his President, by requesting a pardon -- an act most rebels, including Ropbert Lee, had the class to do, but not your hero, Jefferson Davis.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Your point about Jefferson Davis not being tried for treason because of Lincoln, the North, and the Radical Republicans is especially ridiculous because the man who imprisoned Jefferson Davis without trial was President Andrew Johnson -- not Lincoln, a southerner, and a Democrat, arch-enemy of the Radical Republicans.

[thatdewd]

The Supreme Court did not rule it unconstitutional...

YES, they did. TWICE. Ex Parte Merryman in 1861, and Ex Parte Milligan in 1866.

...and Copngress specifically suppported the President's action. Remember, Congress was out of session...

When did the Legislative Branch suspend the writ as the Constitution clearly shows only they can?

Morever, the Founding Fathers' Milita Act 0f 1792 authorized the President to put down rebellion without congressional authorization, and rounding up rebels and throwing them in prison is part of putting down rebellions.

He could arrest and charge "rebels" with a crime, couldn't he? But he didn't, did he? He chose instead to violate the Constitution and throw out the Bill of Rights in order to deal with his "problems" using police state tactics against his own citizenry in the North. His suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was illegal, and a blatant violation of the Constitution.

[GOPcapitalist]

The addition to Stone Mountain should be MLK's likenss just above Jeff Davis' likeness.

Nah. MLK's politics went too far to the left on too many issues. Though I suppose you believe, at least in your own mind, that this suggestion was to in some way offend the likenesses Jeff Davis et al, I am willing to ignore that for the moment and propose a modification of your suggestion that I would readily endorse. If you desire to propose it I will be among the first to sign your petition.

Here goes: Why not put a likeness of Booker T. Washington on Stone Mountain or in another similar place of veneration in the south? Washington, unlike King, was born a slave and knew exactly what slavery was all about. He knew its hardships, he knew the hardships of the war, he knew the hardships of reconstruction, and he knew the hardships of racial discrimination as he experienced them all in ways that MLK could never have dreamed of.

Yet despite all that, Washington took a higher ground than any other civil rights activist since. He sought recourse from discrimination not by taking revenge upon the people of the past and present, not by offending their memories, and not by pissing on their likenesses as you would suggest, but rather by turning to hard work, Christian morals, a decent education, and a willingness to fight wrong by rising above it. Washington always considered himself a southerner and took great pride in being from our part of the nation. He publicly said so way back in 1896 in the midst of Jim Crow's worst effects. You should follow his lead and try doing some of the same.