Posted on 09/30/2003 12:19:22 PM PDT by sheltonmac
The South's unconditional surrender in 1865 apparently was unacceptable to today's Neo-Confederates.
They'd like to rewrite history, demonizing Abraham Lincoln and the federal government that forced them to remain in the awful United States against their will.
On top of that, now they are opposing the U.S. Navy's plan to bury the crew of the CSS H.L. Hunley under the American flag next year.
The Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. In 1863, it rammed and fatally damaged the Union warship USS Housatonic with a fixed torpedo, but then the manually driven sub sank on its way home, killing its eight-man crew.
It might have been a lucky shot from the Housatonic, leaks caused by the torpedo explosion, an accidental strike by another Union ship, malfunction of its snorkel valves, damage to its steering planes or getting stuck in the mud.
In any case, the Navy found and raised its remains and plans a full-dress military funeral and burial service on April 17, 2004, in Charleston, S.C. The four-mile funeral procession is expected to draw 10,000 to 20,000 people, many in period costume or Confederate battle dress.
But the Sons of Confederate Veterans, generally a moderate group that works diligently to preserve Southern history and heritage, has a radical wing that is salivating with anger.
One Texas Confederate has drawn 1,600 signatures on a petition saying "the flag of their eternal enemy, the United States of America," must not fly over the Hunley crew's funeral.
To their credit, the funeral's organizers will leave the U.S. flag flying.
After all, the search and preservation of the Hunley artifacts, as well as the funeral itself, were paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Also, the Hunley crew was born under the Stars and Stripes. The Confederacy was never an internationally recognized nation, so the crewmen also died as citizens of the United States.
They were in rebellion, but they were still Americans.
This whole issue is an insult to all Southerners who fought under the U.S. flag before and since the Civil War.
But it isn't the only outrage by rabid secessionists.
They are also opposing the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.
According to an article by Bob Moser and published in the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine "Intelligence Report," which monitors right-wing and hate groups, the U.S. Historical Society announced it was donating a statue of Lincoln to Richmond.
Lincoln visited that city in April 1865 to begin healing the wounds caused by the war.
The proposed life-sized statue has Lincoln resting on a bench, looking sad, his arm around his 12-year-old son, Tad. The base of the statue has a quote from his second inaugural address.
However, the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised a stink, calling Lincoln a tyrant and war criminal. Neo-Confederates are trying to make Lincoln "a figure few history students would recognize: a racist dictator who trashed the Constitution and turned the USA into an imperialist welfare state," Moser's article says.
White supremacist groups have jumped onto the bandwagon. Their motto is "Taking America back starts with taking Lincoln down."
Actually, if it weren't for the forgiving nature of Lincoln, Richmond would be a smoking hole in the ground and hundreds of Confederate leaders -- including Jefferson Davis -- would be hanging from trees from Fredericksburg, Va., to Atlanta.
Robert E. Lee said, "I surrendered as much to Lincoln's goodness as I did to Grant's armies."
Revisionist history to suit a political agenda is as intellectually abhorrent as whitewashing slavery itself. It's racism under a different flag. While it's not a criminal offense, it is a crime against truth and history.
I'm not talking about re-enactors here. These folks just want to live history. But the Neo-Confederate movement is a disguised attempt to change history.
In the end, the Confederacy was out-fought, out-lasted, eventually out-generaled and totally over-matched. It was a criminal idea to start with, and its success would have changed the course of modern history for the worse.
Coming to that realization cost this nation half a million lives.
So I hope that all Neo-Confederates -- 140 years after the fact -- can finally get out of their racist, twisted, angry time machine and join us here in 2003.
free dixie,sw
we southrons are PALEO-Confederates.
it's just a term of derision made up by the hatefilled, arrogant, ignorant statists/socialists out of the most extreme, south-HATING fringe of northeastern academia.thus it is a meaningless term.
free dixie,sw
free the southland,sw
You state: "(1) Congress cannot pass a law which alters the Constitution - such can only happen by amendment." True. However, Congress passes laws every year that are not specifically addressed in the Constitution. The constitution provides a framework within which the government is supposed to work. As James Madison argued, it would be imprudent to "confine a government to the exercise of expressed powers." It was a battle Madison won in the 1st congress, when developing the Bill of Rights. I believe that the Tenth amendment is more than just a "declaratory truism." It acted to limit the national government, and at the same time, put limits on the powers of the State governments to intrude into "national" affairs.
Were Congress to pass a law with regard to secession, it would certainly face a challenge in the court system. The US Supreme Court has already ruled that unilateral secession is not Constitutional, but in doing so, provided a legal method ... secession by consent. A framework based on consent could very well pass muster.
"(2) The constitution is silent on unilateral secession - an amendment allowing for something on which the Constitution is silent would be redundant with BOR #10."
Amendments to the Constitution have been made precisely because it was silent on an issue. Many of the Framers thought that the "Bill of Rights" was unnecessary because they were self-evident. But the Constitution has been amended to address issues such as liquor prohibition, income taxes, race as a bar to the right to vote, sufferage, etc., and amendment proposals amendments concerning issues child labor, flag buring, etc. I would not find any amendment clarifying an issue to be "redundant." Several of the existing Amendments are in this catagory as well (Presidential diability, electorals vote for D.C., etc.)
"(3) The supreme court cannot modify the terms of the Constitution any more than the legislature could in (1)."
But the Supreme Court can interpret what the intent of the law was. Conceivably, the USSC could hear a case based on the principle of secession (hypothetical: San Francisco decides and declares it wants to become a city-state, autonomous from California). Is this not a matter the Court would not to address, especially if the 9th Circus Court of Appeals (in San Francisco) agreed with their socialist insanity?
That's because you never bothered to read the Chief Justice's decision. Let me quote:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into a indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The Act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the Union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States."
So the Chief Justice is not saying that that "a more perfect union" equals no secession. He is saing "a more perfect union" equals no unilateral secession
CapnR NOW says that CapnR speculated. Did CapnR speculate, or did he say Chief Justice Chase ruled?
REALITY CHECK:
[CapnR to Gianni #1426] Chief Justice Chase did not alter one word of the Constitution. He ruled that the original intent of the framers was that the Union was paramount and that unilateral secession was, is, and will remain illegal.
No, N-S, I've read the decision, as I've read the Constitution (you claim to have done so, but didn't know that the authority for Congress to maintain an army and navy comes from Article I Section 8, until I pointed it out to you), so of course I'm curious about this alleged ban on unilateral secession that Justice Chase was fantasizing about. Oh, that's right, it doesn't exiest. He made it up out of whole cloth. That's why he could not cite any Constitutional language to support his claim, only a mangling of what he claimed the Founders would have meant if they had broached the subject of secession. But, of course they didn't do that either...
[CapnR] But, when these allied sovereigns converted their league into a government... yada, yada, yada, yada.
RETURN OF CONTEXT:
The Supreme Court on the status of the states before the Constitution:
As preliminary to the very able discussions of the constitution, which we have heard from the bar, and as having some influence on its construction, reference has been made to the political situation of these States, anterior to its formation.
All of your POST-constitutional blather is irrelevant to the PRE-constitutional status of the states commented upon by CJ Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden.
Well when it comes to irrelevant posts, who better than you should know?
Not really.
Your ideas are completely independent of logic and law, and are connected to each other only by the source from which they emanate.
Oh, this is fun, let's try another example.
France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the other members of the European Union are completely independent, and are connected to each other only by a league.
They share a common currency, the Euro. Citizens of the EU can seek employment in the territory of any EU member. Well, isn't that special?
Your argument makes no sense, and you have to make up stuff to support it. I'm pointing out historical facts; you're making up procedures that are not in the Constitution, and stretching the English language and Preamble beyond credibility. I burned you in my Reply No. 1376 by pointing out that the Preamble is an introduction and in no way gives any power to the federal gov't, or restricts the rights of the states. You cannot intellectually defend Chase's specious claim any more than he could.
They did not propagate any national government back then at all. By the Constitution they created a Federal government.
What was there to challenge?
"We the said Delegates in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia do by these presents assent to and ratify the Constitution recommended on the seventeenth day of September one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven by the Federal Convention for the Government of the United States hereby announcing to all those whom it may concern that the said Constitution is binding upon the said People according to an authentic Copy hereto annexed in the Words following..." - Virginia Ratification Document
"We the said Delegates, in the Name and in the behalf of the People of the State of New York Do by these presents Assent to and Ratify the said Constitution..." - New York Ratification Document
They ratified the Constitution as approved by convention, including the part that said that the Constitution, and the laws made in persuance thereof, were to be the supreme law of the land, and were not superceded by any ratification document. If Virginia believed that they could leave whenever they wanted to, well, they were wrong.
Your argument makes no sense, and you have to make up stuff to support it. Your arguement is pure nonsense. You make up powers out of thin air, totally ignoring powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. You spout out how secession is legal and ignore the fact that I have never, ever said that it wasn't, only the unilateral acts of secession as practiced by the southern states. So you seem to make up stuff to argue about.
I burned you in my Reply No. 1376...
Yeah, you're a legend for it. Hope that doesn't make me upity, boss.
You may want to read the Constitution before commenting on it. The only areas in which the federal government represents the supreme law of the land are those in which the states gave specific authority to act as such. All other rights and powers are reserved to the states.
Furthermore, the ratification documents were not just trashed without being read. If the authorities involved had had problems with the concept of secession, then of course a corrective remedy would have been discussed. Of course they had no problem with the idea.
Where in the Constitution does it proclaim such? It doesn't - the converse is true, the Constitution EXPLICITLY requires 'Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.' Full credit, not partial, not pick and choose - Full credit.
Secondly, nowhere does the Constitution require the assent of any state before one can leave - unilateral acession is prohibited, not unilateral secession.
Thirdly, if Chase is wishing to contend that the Constitution is simply the Articles extended, then "[e]ach 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."
Fourthly, if he continues this charade, and relies on the Preamble for justification, then why overlook the framers intent to "secure the Blessings of Liberty"? 'Liberty - Freedom from restraint. The power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature.' Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Rev 6th ed., 1856.
Fifthly, where in the Constitution does it state that the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of Constitutional questions? It doesn't - the creature of the states is not their sovereign.
Sixthly, the Supremacy clause does NOT apply to the people of the several states. Nothing in the Constitution prevents them from changing their form of government.
Lastly, it's ludicrous to assert the the Union is perpetual, when the perpetual union was abandoned. The union was not made "more perfect" - to form a NEW union they REMOVED the requirement for consent to change. The founders did not perfect the existing union - requiring the assent of 13 states, they formed a new union of 9 states. According to Madison in the Federalist Papers, this power of secession had been "unveiled."
Your 'thought process' is truly laughable! You accuse me of making up powers and laws, but then go on to proscribe certain types of secession as being constitutional while others are not! Show me the Article and Section that comes from! You accuse me of not knowing the authority of Congress, but by your own admission you didn't know it was Article I Section 8 that gave Congress certain powers, thinking rather that it was the Preamble! That was a good one! Where in Article I Section 8 does Congress have the power to prevent a state from seceding?
And I'm still waiting for you to address the reason why the Founders went to so much trouble to hash out admission processes and other things, but never included anything about secession being illegal. You claim secession is legal, but not unilateral secession. Surely, you're not claiming that Madison et al. simply forgot to put that in there, are you? Don't ignore this point - I'll hound you until you answer it or admit you're wrong. I made Walt admit there is no explicit Constitutional prohibition or federal law against secession; I'll do the same to you.
Neo-confederates are the figments of their imagination - an invented enemy. Something like a "pink" elephant.
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