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.
See what I mean? I can't win with you.
I've seen this red herring before. Sometimes too, posted are Virginia's ratification verbiage and Rhode Island's ratification verbiage. They all use similar language. Let's look at it from a "legal process" perspective.
All three States ratified the Constitution sans "Bill of Rights." Of the three, only Rhode Island did not participate in the debate over the BoR in the 1st congress. After their initial ratification of the Constitution, all three were bound by any and all amendments which were proposed and accepted in the Constitutional process. (Are we still on the same page?)
You correctly note that the language in New York's ratification document (as well as Virginia and Rhode Island) anticipates the Tenth Amendment. However, when the Tenth Amendment was accepted into the Constitution, it came with a legislative history. Whatever New York (or VA or RI) may have thought they meant at the original ratification had been superceded in that respect by what Congress meant in its Tenth Amendment proposal, because the States are bound by new Amendment.
Let me give you an example. Let's suppose, hypothetically, a State, at ratification of the Constitution, had included language that it would only allow white men over the age of 21 participate in the electoral process, Several Amendments to the Constitution exist today which change the intent of that State's ratification language. The State is legally and morally bound to accept the revison.
So to, when Rhode Island includes the words "not expressly delegated" they ape language that had been twice rejected by congress in drafting the Amendment. These three States are bound by the language, sense, and intent of Congress, despite what they have earlier written.
Part of James Madison's prevailing argument in the 1st Congress was that the federal government must not be bound to the exercise of "express powers," but accorded "powers of implication." The record is clear. The legislative history of the Tenth Amendment allows the federal government "powers of implication."
We can go further than that, and review the failed motions to change the proposed Tenth Amendment. Thomas Tucker "thought every power to be expressly given that could be clearly comprehended within any accurate definition of the general power." Tucker's motion to amend failed. The failed argument of Tucker helps us understand the original intent of the Tenth Amendment. Madison envisioned a central government of "limited and enumerated powers" but one where those powers were not narrowly defined, and could, in fact be of rather broad scope.
You go on to aver that there was an "express reservation of the right to secede" in New York's ratification document, and yet the expression, "right to secede" is no where to be found. You believe that "right" in implied in the phrase, "... the Powers of the Government may be resumed by the People." That is debatable. And clearly, from the discussion above, New York's intent is not what New York is bound to, but rather, New York is bound to the intent of the Framers.
Let's go one step further. Let's assume New York's reservation is valid. How then does one states reservation become operable for another state that did not make or claim a similar privilige? If taken to its extreme, if a state is allowed to modify the intent of an amendment by reservations, then no amendment has any real meaning and no law can be equitably enforced. In short, there is no Constitutional Union.
That is why I must reject your crafty arguments, as did The Chase Court when it ruled the "right of secession" was not part of the intent of the framers.
Obviously what you actually said was:
[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.
Orwellian logic prevails."
Normally I would not quote from the writings of Professor Francisco F. Martin, an internationalist legal scholar, but in this case, he sums up the argument nicely.
"Comment: As I (F. F. Martin) argued in an earlier posting, the Framers in settling on a non-unanimity rule were legally justified to do so because several of the states had violated the Articles of Confederation by, e.g., entering into treaties with other foreign states (viz., Va, Md. NY, Pa., Ga.). This relieved the other states from observing their treaty obligations under the Articles with those states that had breached the Articles. This was the point partially made by Madison. However, some states did not violate the Articles; therefore, the Articles were still binding. This was conformed to the customary international law governing multilateral treaties. However, because it was unclear exactly which and how many states had violated the Articles, a compromise was required. (For example, did Massachusetts violate the Articles by maintaining troops and a navy? Or, were such troops a militia and was the navy necessary for combating piracy -- two exceptions allowed under the Articles?) The solution -- a legal one, I submit – was to use the 9-state rule under the Articles for entering into a new treaty. Unanimous consent was required only for amendment -- not for establishing a new treaty, such as the Constitution."
Professor Martin takes the position that the Articles and the Constitution of 1787 are treaties between sovereign states (certainly a position you would support as well). But that issue is not really germane. Martin's fundamental finding was that "unanimous consent was required only for amendment." Which is what I had stated earlier.
I wouldn't know. Someone who looks for the 19th century American definition of national and federal in a 21st century British encyclopedia will have to tell us all.
As you do not even know the difference between national and federal as they apply to the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, you have firmly established that you are unqualified to form a rational opinion regarding the government of that era.
But please, do not stop posting. You provide much needed comic relief.
What was the birthdate of the Confederate States of America?
Do let us all know when you find your 21st Century Articles of Confederation.
I will notify MENSA and The Cranial Sect of your towering intellect.
Really? When given a chace to acknowledge the validity of the decision, here, you flat out state that unilateral secession as practiced by the southern states was legal, in complete disregard of the Supreme Court decision which stated the opposite. Clearly only those decisions you agree with must be valid. In your humble opinion, of course.
I'm sorry, Marse HenryLee, but I was being accurate. You claim that the ratification documents allowed Virginia to secede at will. Yet, as we have seen, the Supreme Court has ruled that unilateral secession was not permitted under the Constitution. Therefore, you must be claiming that the ratification documents trump the Constitution, since you base your claim for this right on those documents.
No, I am a brain insemination specialist. I take intellectually challenged fellows, such as yourself, into a cow pasture, and there I stretch a cow vagina over your head. I then summon the biggest, meanest bull in the pasture and see if he can't inseminate some brains into you.
Their argument doesn't seem to be that states can't leave, only that states can't leave peacefully. Apparently to some, "Last resort" should place the emphasis on "Last."
Is it having grown up drooling over Daisy Duke...
Translation: All males, 25 to 50 years of age.
Try again. The arguement is that states can leave, so long as they do it after consulting with and gaining the approval of the majority of the affected parties through a vote in Congress. Your arguement is that the states may leave at a whim, walking away from obligations and taking whatever community property that they wish and if the rest of the states don't like it then you'll shell them into submission.
Non-Sequitur: I'm sorry, Marse HenryLee, but I was being accurate. You claim that the ratification documents allowed Virginia to secede at will. Yet, as we have seen, the Supreme Court has ruled that unilateral secession was not permitted under the Constitution. Therefore, you must be claiming that the ratification documents trump the Constitution, since you base your claim for this right on those documents.
Do you realize you're wrong when you post your garbage, or are you incapable of reading? Where did I claim that the ratification documents trump the Constitution? Where or how do I indicate that I base my claim for a right of secession on them? So, given your lack of a legitimate argument, you fall back on a misinterpretation (either willful or through ignorance, on the part of Chase, take your pick) of a phrase in the Preamble, an introductory paragraph giving no authority to anyone, outlinging no processes, and simply existing to introduce the body of the document, as stated by James Madison and Supreme Court justices.
Non-Sequitur: When given a chace to acknowledge the validity of the decision, here, you flat out state that unilateral secession as practiced by the southern states was legal, in complete disregard of the Supreme Court decision which stated the opposite. Clearly only those decisions you agree with must be valid. In your humble opinion, of course.
I did not address validity. You cannot show one part of my above statement that is inaccurate, or simply a difference of opinion between us. There was no prohibition against secession as of 1861, and an honest reading of Chase's opinion shows just how far he had to stretch the English language and creduility in order to arrive at his (probably pre-determined) opinion.
The same place that said that they could succeede(sp) on a whim.
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