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.
You, sir, are about the last person on this forum to accuse someone of being rude, considering the invectives you use in each and every one of your posts.
Of the original 13 existing members of the Articles [Vermont was a independent state, seceded from New York/New Hampshire in 1777 and remained independent until 1792], an offer was tendered for ratification. Neither Congress nor any of the 13 states were required to consent.
Which ones were granted dispensation from abiding with the Constitution?
Where it it written that they must remain in the union? Where is it written that the Federal government must approve of the state constitutions, and authorize the people of the state to change their state constitution?
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States, at such time as he may deem best for the public interest, may submit the constitution which was framed by the convention which met in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday, the third day of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, to the voters of said State, registered at the date of said submission, for ratification or rejection...Sec. 3 And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States may in like manner submit the constitution of Texas to the voters of said State ...
Sec. 4 And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States may in like manner resubmit the constitution of Mississippi to the voters of said State ...
All ratified the Constitution as it stood, and that included the procedures for adding new states to the Union.
Where it it written that they must remain in the union?
Where are those quotes from?
"Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals.
"There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.
"I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
-Lincoln (Lincoln's first reply to Douglas, 1858, Ottowa, IL)
True. But of the 1st 13, No state could have refused to accept the ratifications - thre was no congress under the new government. And the Constitution is SILENT on the process of leaving, and whether or not it requires consent.
True, but since the Constitution required the consent of the other states to join the Union, and required the consent of the other states to combine or split up or change borders by a fraction of an inch, the it makes more sense to infer that consent of the other states would be required to leave as well.
My bad. 'An Act Authorizing the submission of the constitutions of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas to a vote of the people, and authorizing the election of State officers, provided by the said constitutions, and members of Congress.' HR 405, passed by the House 6 Apr 1869, the Senate 9 Apr 1869.
On 9 Apr 1869, the Senate added the following clause proposed by Senator Morton:
And be it further enacted, That, before the States of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas shall be admitted to representation in Congress, their several legislatures, which may be hereafter lawfully organized, shall ratify the fifteenth article which has been proposed by Congress to the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States,The bill passed by a vote of 44-9. Where does the Constitution grant the federal government the power to FORCE a state to ratify an amendment?
And not only was it fiction, but Alex Haley was successfully sued by another black author for plagiarism!
There is nothing in the Constitution requiring a state to negotiate with the federal government in order to secede. As we have discussed, the federal government was originally intended to be bound by the explicitly-stated powers given to it by the states in the Constitution, and the states hold all other powers, as stated in the Tenth Amendment. And so, as with the NFL replay system, since there is no indisputable evidence to overturn the original call - the states seceding - the play stands. Now all you Yankees git goin' out of our fair Southland, an' be sure to show yer passports if you want to visit us! ;>)
Not necessarily. Entering the Union, or splitting an existing state into several, dilutes the power of the other extant states, and grants rights, privileges, power, etc., to the new state. A seceding state simply leaves and does not affect the power of those left behind (except maybe making their senators' votes more valuable), and removes, not grant, that state's rights, privileges, power, etc.
Maybe to you but not to me.
Here is an enumeration of the objects which made it necessary to establish this government; and when we are called on to decide whether a subject he within our powers, we ought not to lose sight of the purposes for which the government was created. When it is recollected that all the powers now possessed by the general and state governments belonged originally to the latter, and that the former is constructed from grants of power yielded up by the state governments, the fair and just conclusion would be, that no other power was conferred except what was plainly and expressly given. But if doubt could exist, the 10th article in the amendments to the Constitution settles this question. It declares that "the powers not the United States the Constitution, nor prohibited by it delegated to the states, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people," The conclusion hence arises, that this government is one of limited, delegated powers, and can only act on subjects expressly placed under its control by the Constitution, and upon such other matters as may be necessarily and properly within the sphere of its action, to enable it to carry the enumerated and specified powers into execution, and without which the powers granted would be inoperative.
Grundy, Elliot's Debates, Vol IV, p. 521.
The state governments did not derive their powers from the general government; but each government derived its powers from the people, and each was to act according to the powers given it. Would any gentleman deny this? He demanded if powers not given were retained by implication. Could any man say so? Could any man say that this power was not retained by the states, as they had not given it away? For, says he, does not a power remain till it is given away? ... All the restraints intended to be laid on the state governments (besides where an exclusive power is expressly given to Congress) are contained in the 10th section of the 1st article.
John Marshall [future US Chief Justice], Elliot's Debates, Vol III, pp. 419-420.
Stand, did your Indian ancestors ever have anyone they considered an honorable opponent? I consider XRdsRev to be one. Cut him some slack.
On Freepmail yesterday, XRdsRev was able to track down for me my wife's ancestor who died at Point Lookout. XRdsRev found the units he served with, his rank, the battle and date where he was captured, the two Northern prisons he was sent to (the last one being Point Lookout; the family was not aware of the first one), and the date of his death, which was apparently shortly after he arrived at Point Lookout. Perhaps he was wounded, having been captured less than a month before his death. All this was consistent with the few pieces of information that had been handed down through the family from 140 years ago.
I'm not sure why his death doesn't appear on the records at Point Lookout. Poor record keeping or missing records, I would guess. Deliberate strategy to underreport death numbers in Northern prisons? I kind of doubt it, but it is not that inconsistent with the PR campaign the North was waging at the time with respect to Andersonville.
I understand that there are a number of other missing prisoner deaths at Point Lookout. As an example in Beitzell's book on Point Lookout shows, only 5 out of 21 known deaths recorded in one prisoner's diary appear on the official record.
You are a member of the POW association for Point Lookout. What do they say about the number who died there?
The leaving state walks away from the duties and obligations that the country as a whole entered into while that state was a member. That can have a negative impact on the interests of the remaining states and such fairness alone would require that those issues be addressed and settled by mutual consent before the seceding state leaves.
It seems illogical to me to assume that when the Constitution reqires the approval of other states for a state to be admitted, and the approval of the other states for any change in status while in the Union, that it would not require the approval of the other states in order to leave.
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