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.
Who's excusing it? Was it not legal, and the states agreed that it exist within the union? Why excuse the slavery of the North, and only protest against the South?
He also said of the power to prohibit the importation of slaves after the year 1807: "Attempts have been made to pervert this clause into an objection against the Constitution, by representing it on one side as a criminal toleration of an illicit practice, and on another as calculated to prevent voluntary and beneficial emigrations from Europe to America."
Advocating the abolition of the slave-trade, Mr Madison said: "The dictates of humanity, the principles of the people, the national safety and happiness, and prudent policy, require it of us. It is to be hoped, that by expressing a national disapprobation of the trade, we may destroy it, and save our country from reproaches, and out posterity from the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with slaves." . . . "It is wrong to admit into the Constitituion the idea that there can be property in man."
In the Federal Convention,, he said, "And in the third place, where slavery exists, the Republican theory becomes still more fallacious." . . . "We have seen the mere distinction of color made, in the most enlightened perod of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."
Then there is this from his biography: "James Madison himself, however, lived all his life in Orange county on a 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) plantation that produced tobacco and grains and was worked by perhaps 100 slaves. Though he abhorred slavery and had no use for the aristocratic airs of Virginia society, he remained a Virginia planter, working within the traditional political system of family-based power and accepting the responsibility this entailed. He also bore the burden of depending all his life on a slave system that he could never square with his republican beliefs."
In the worlds of Edmund Randolph: "To the studious attention of those vandals who contend that the above provison requires the rendition of fugitive slaves, we respectfully commend the following resolution which, it will be obsesrved, was unanimously adopted:-" . . . "On motion of Mr Randolph, the word 'servitude' was struck out and 'service' unanimously inserted - the former being thought ot express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligation of free persons."
I will assume the "worlds" you refer to includes our planet. In any case, this can also be found from Madison's report on the Federal Convention: "Mr. RANDOLPH was for committing in order that some middle ground might, if possible, be found. He could never agree to the clause as it stands. He wd. sooner risk the constitution. He dwelt on the dilemma to which the Convention was exposed. By agreeing to the clause, it would revolt the Quakers, the Methodists, and many others in the States having no slaves. On the other hand, two States might be lost to the Union. Let us then, he said, try the chance of a commitment."
And then there is this (as reported by Madison) from the Federal Convention: "General PINKNEY declared it to be his firm opinion that if himself & all his colleagues were to sign the Constitution & use their personal influence, it would be of no avail towards obtaining the assent of their Constituents. S. Carolina & Georgia cannot do without slaves. As to Virginia she will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, & she has more than she wants. It would be unequal to require S. C. & Georgia to confederate on such unequal terms."
In other words, the clause was a compromise.
Note too Mr Madison's explantion of the 3/5ths apportionment rule, that it expressed the obvious truth that the labor of a man denied his freedom was worth only 3/5ths of the labor of a freeman . . . A generous estimate, to be sure, particularly in light of the depths to which the south trashed itself economically under the slave system.
I agree with the first part. I believe there may have been other factors in the second part, such as tariffs and, later, war.
Yes, it was taken as a compromise, but it was understood in the Northern states, and by many in the South, particularly among the enlightened in Virginia, to mean the end of slavery in the US by 1807, not just the importation of slaves. They did recognize the critical need to keep the Union together in order to keep out foreign influence. Then there is this from his biography: "James Madison himself, however, lived all his life in Orange county on a 5,000-acre (2,000-hectare) plantation that produced tobacco and grains and was worked by perhaps 100 slaves. Though he abhorred slavery and had no use for the aristocratic airs of Virginia society, he remained a Virginia planter, working within the traditional political system of family-based power and accepting the responsibility this entailed. He also bore the burden of depending all his life on a slave system that he could never square with his republican beliefs."
Like Jefferson, he was trapped in the system. When Jefferson died he did not own slaves. The bank did. How could he free them? The perenniel condition of the plantation owners, particularly in Virginia, was one of indebtedness.
Southern society though did find the notion of the direct offspring of white masters entering another white man's servitude unpalatable, though later laws were written to see this happened.
In other words, the clause was a compromise
Not the service clause, but the ending of the slave trade clause. Don't confuse them. They were never related except in the Democratic Party history of the US. Even the Taney Court got that right. So too did the Northern states who refused to honor the Fugitive Slave Act.
I agree with the first part. I believe there may have been other factors in the second part, such as tariffs and, later, war. <\i>
More Democratic nonsense. THe southern states were always begger states. In 1850, only 5% of the tariff was collected in the south, but more than half of Federal expenditures were in the south. A real money maker. Take out the costs of cotton from it's profits, and Fedearl largesse often provided more dollars to the southern economy than cotton.
The relatively few who made signigicant income from the slave system couldn't or wouldn't accept the fact that the system was driving the south into ignorance and poverty, but it was. While the rest of the nation was growing in leaps and bounds, the south was crawling, with three whites emigrating for every one that immigrated.
The biggest criticism that Lincoln had to contend when he sent a Naval ship down to Charleston to collect the tariffs was that if was not cost effective. The use of the ship cost far more than the normal income from the Charleston tariff. Clearly, the collection of that tariff was merely symbolic, and few indeed are the times in history that a war was started over the right to have your pocket picked.
Read the Democratic Party histories. You will find you are spouting them word for word.
On the 22nd [of April 1861], a deputation of six members from each of the five Christian Associations of Young Men in Baltimore, headed by Dr. Fuller, and eloquent clergyman of the Baptist church, went to Washington and had an interview with the President. He received them with a sort of rude formality. Dr. Fuller said, that Maryland had first moved in adopting the constitution, and yet the first blood in this war was shed on her soil; he then interceded for a peaceful separation, entreated that no more troops should pass through Baltimore, impressed upun Mr. Lincoln the terrible responsibility resting on him - that on him depended peace or war - a fratricidal conflict or a happy settlement.
"But," said Lincoln, "what am I to do?"
"Let the country know that you are disposed to recognize the Southern Confederacy," answered Dr. Fuller, "and peace will instantly take the place of anxiety and suspense and war may be averted."
"And what is to become of the revenue?" rejoined Lincoln, "I shall have no government, no resources!" [emphasis in original]
Robert Reid Howison, "History of the War", excerpted in Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. 34, Issue 8, August 1862, Richmond, VA., pp. 420-421.
And another similar account of the preceding:
"But," said Mr. Lincoln, "what am I to do?" "Why, sir, let the country know that you are disposed to recognize the independance of the Southern States. I say nothing of secession; recognize the fact that they have formed a government of their own; that they will never be united again with the North, and and peace will instantly take the place of anxiety and suspense, and war may be averted."Additionally, the meeting was written up in the Baltimore Sun 23 Apr 1861 edition, and that of two additional Baltimore papers.
"And what is to become of the revenue?" was the reply. "I shall have no government - no revenues." [emphasis mine]
Evert A. Duyckinck, National history of the war for the union, civil, military and naval: Founded on official and other authentic documents, New York: Johnson Fry & Co., 1861.
It sounds like Lincoln was the beggar.
How so? Read the entire debate and Douglas starts out by savaging Lincoln on race, claiming that we wants to bring blacks up to an equal level with whites. After the attack from Douglas the politically smart thing for Lincoln to have done would have been to get down in the mud and condemn the whole idea that blacks were in any way the equal of a white. But instead Lincoln takes the position that in most respects, and especially in most important respects, the black man and the white man should share equal footing. Both should enjoy the blessings of liberty and equal protection from the government to pursue those blessings.
As to the institution of slavery, Lincoln says that he has no plans to interfere with it, and could not legally do so even if he did. As a senator that was perfectly correct. But in and around that you managed to miss parts where he makes it clear that if it were up to him he would end slavery, gradually, to be sure, but end it. He would not permit it to expand into the territories, equating such actions with the slave trade itself. And, as you said, he promotes the idea of equality in the eyes of the law between blacks and whites. All concepts foreign to southern leaders.
Democratic nonsense, huh? I picked this up somewhere:
"... on December 10, 1860, the Republican Party newspaper, the Daily Chicago Times, warned: "Let the South adopt the free-trade system and the North’s commerce must be reduced to less than half what it now is" (because of the much higher tariff rate there). The new Confederate Constitution outlawed protectionist tariffs altogether."
"On April 2, 1861, another Republican Party newspaper, the Newark Daily Advertiser, warned ominously that Southerners had apparently "taken to their bosoms the liberal and popular doctrine of free trade" and that they "might be willing to go . . . toward free trade with the European powers" which "must operate to the serious disadvantage of the North" as "commerce will be largely diverted to the Southern cities.""
""We apprehend," the New Jersey Republicans wrote, that "the chief instigator of the present troubles -- South Carolina--have all along for years been preparing the way for the adoption of free trade." This, they insisted, must be avoided at all cost by "the closing of the [Southern] ports" by military force, if necessary."
It appears that, at least, some in the North (and Republicans, at that!) were willing to go to war to protect Southern tariffs which you consider, well, mediocre.
BTW. Your version is much different from this one...
"From the time of the first Congress in 1789 to the outbreak of the Civil War there was dissension between the northern and the southern states over the matter of protective tariffs, or import duties on manufactured goods. Northern industries wanted high tariffs in order to protect their factories and laborers from cheaper European products. Demanding that "American laborers shall be protected against the pauper labor of Europe," tariff proponents argued that the taxes gave "employment to thousands of [American] mechanics, artisans, [and] laborers."
The vast majority of American industry was located in the northern states, whereas the economies of the agricultural southern states were based on the export of raw materials and the importation of manufactured goods. The South held few manufacturing concerns, and southerners had to pay higher prices for goods in order to subsidize northern profits.
The collected tariffs were used to fund public projects in the North such as improvements to roads, harbors and rivers. From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects. More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense.
Under the Militia Act of 1792, that is left to the sole determination of the president.
Walt
Bogus quote.
90% of the tariff revenue was collected in northern ports. One southern customs house -lost- money.
Walt
WP: The supremacy clause.
Really? Let’s take a look at “the supremacy clause:”
“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...”
Obviously, “the supremacy clause” contains no prohibition of State secession, unless by reference to some other specific portion of “this Constitution;” or “laws... made in pursuance thereof” (again potentially referring to another specific portion of “this Constitution”); or “treaties.” To substantiate your argument, you therefore have only three options:
1) show which specific clause of “this Constitution” expressly prohibits State secession; or
2) show which law, “made in pursuance” of a specific clause of “this Constitution,” prohibits State secession; or
3) quote the specific written terms of a “treaty” prohibiting State secession.
While attempting to cobble together an answer, please bear in mind the specific written terms of the Tenth Amendment, and remember that Mr. Madison gutted the “common defense and general welfare” argument over two centuries ago (please refer to his Report on the Virginia Resolutions of 1800). In fact, despite your protestations to the contrary, the Constitution nowhere prohibits secession; no treaty prohibits State secession; and no law prohibiting State secession can be said to have been made “in pursuance of” a Constitution which clearly reserves such ‘undelegated’ and ‘unprohibited’ powers as secession to the States and their people.
The federal government is supreme over the states.
Absolute nonsense. The federal government may not eliminate any State; the federal government can not even change a State’s boundaries “without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned” (Article IV, Section 3). The States on the other hand, can completely eliminate the federal government (via the amendatory process specified in Article V), and your supposedly “supreme” federal government would have no lawful recourse whatsoever.
The sovereignty of the United States rests on the people, not the States.
Actually, “{the sovereignty of the United States rests on the people” of the individual States. Since you apparently prefer judicial opinion to the written words of the Constitution, perhaps you will find value in the following:
”Our system of government rests on one overriding principle: all power stems from the consent of the people. To phrase the principle in this way, however, is to be imprecise about something important to the notion of -reserved- powers. The ultimate source of the Constitution's authority is the consent of the people of each individual State, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole.
”...Because the people of the several States are the only true source of power, however, the Federal Government enjoys no authority beyond what the Constitution confers: the Federal Government's powers are limited and enumerated. In the words of Justice Black, -[t]he United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source- ...
”...As far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, ...the States can exercise all powers that the Constitution does not withhold from them. The Federal Government and the States thus face different default rules: where the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power - that is, where the Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary implication - the Federal Government lacks that power and the States enjoy it.
”...[T]he [Tenth] Amendment does make clear that powers reside at the state level except where the Constitution removes them from that level. All powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the Federal Government nor prohibits to the States are controlled by the people of each State... it would make no sense to speak of powers as being reserved to the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole, because the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.”
Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas, U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 1995
With regard to the question of term limits (and State secession as well ;>), “the Constitution is simply silent.” And as Mr. Justice Thomas notes, “where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people.”
;>)
"Criminals?" Really? Which law, precisely, did the secessionists violate? Or do you believe they violated some sort of 'unwritten law?'
;>)
1) I inquired as to which clause of the United States Constitution prohibits State secession. The opinion of a federal court - no matter how high - is not equivalent to the specific, written terms of the Constitution. Nearly two centuries ago, John Taylor of Caroline asked: “Is the court supreme over the constitution, or the constitution supreme over the court?” I (and many other republicans) suggest the former; the unionists (and many current members of the Democrat party ;>) suggest the latter.
2) The court states that the union is “perpetual,” citing the Articles of Confederation. The terms “perpetual” or “perpetuate” do indeed appear in the Articles, in writing, no less than six times. Unfortunately for those who put forward the “perpetual” union argument, however, neither term appears in the Constitution even once, despite the fact that substantial portions of the new Constitution were copied verbatim from the Articles of Confederation. The term “perpetual” was no doubt omitted purposely, and for sound reasons: because the Constitution was established upon the ratification of only the ninth State (see Article VII), the Constitution in essence required that the supposedly “perpetual” union of thirteen States be dissolved during the ratification process. This simple fact was explicitly acknowledged by James Madison in Federalist No. 43, wherein he noted that “no political relation can subsist between the assenting [ratifying] and dissenting [non-ratifying] States.” Mr. Madison did hope that “moderation...and prudence” would promote “a speedy triumph over the obstacles to reunion.” Needless to say, one can not anticipate “reunion” without there first being disunion. Quite obviously, the “perpetual” union theory is pseudo-historical hogwash - even when presented from the federal bench.
3) Recognizing the glaring weaknesses in their “perpetual” union argument, the members of the court attempted to shore up their defenses by citing the “more perfect Union" clause in the preamble, insisting that it is “difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words.” In reality, it is quite easy to “convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words:” one need only look to the specific written language of the Articles of Confederation. If the new constitutional union was intended to be binding in perpetuity, the compact could quite simply have said so, in English, in writing, just as the Articles did - and yet it does not. Finally, the post-war unionist court apparently suggested that a perpetually-binding contract is somehow a prerequisite for a “more perfect union.” Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in politics as in marriage, the opposite is true: only a “more perfect union” - one that is based on “moderation... and prudence” rather than brute force - has any hope of producing a “perpetual” relationship. James Madison commented on this simple fact during the debates in the federal convention (May 31, 1787): “Mr. MADISON, observed that the more he reflected on the use of force [by the proposed federal government against a State], the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively and not individually. A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
4) I do agree with one of the court’s declarations: “The union between Texas and the other States was as complete as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the Union between the original States.” As the history of constitutional ratification proves, “the Union between the original States” could be dissolved, and was in fact dissolved: the State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, for example, existed as a sovereign entity, outside of the union, for nearly two years (1788-1790). And when Rhode Island belatedly ratified the Constitution, that State explicitly reserved the right of secession, in writing, declaring “[t]hat the powers of government may be reassumed by the people [of Rhode Island], whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness.”
Links to the documents I referenced above are available at my FR homepage.
In summary, just because an ‘opinion’ is offered by political appointees wearing black robes in no way guarantees that said ‘opinion’ is logical, constitutional, or consistent with documented historical fact.
;>)
The case Marbury vs Madison established the Court's right to declare legislation unconstitutional and to review the legality of legislation. That is a necessary check on the Congress...
Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Marbury vs Madison makes entertaining reading. He notes “that courts, as well as other [federal] departments, are bound by [the Constitution],” but also claims that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” In other words, A>B (the Constitution is supreme over the court) and B>A (the court is supreme over the Constitution, claiming the right to “say what the law is”). The illogic of Marshall's opinion is absolutely breathtaking.
Marshall attempted to claim an exclusive right to constitutional review for the federal court, a concept that had been discredited by James Madison three years earlier:
”... it is objected, that the [federal] judicial authority is to he regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution in the last resort.”
”...the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution... supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other [federal] departments, but that the judicial department, also, may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the [States as] parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority as well as by another--by the judiciary as well as by the executive, or the legislature.
”However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the [federal] government; not in relation to the rights of the [States as] parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial, as well as the other departments, hold their delegated trusts. On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.”
Report on the Virginia Resolutions, 1800
In other words, the States provided the ultimate “check on the Congress” - and on the executive and judicial branches, as well. “Any other hypothesis... would annul the authority” upon which the Constitution was founded, and “might subvert forever... the very Constitution which all [federal departments] were instituted to preserve.” Madison’s logic is impeccable. If you haven’t had a chance to read his Report, you can find a link to the full text at my FR homepage. (While you’re at it, follow the link to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration on the Principles of the Constitution, and on the Violations of Them, which acknowledges the right of State secession. Every public school in the country refers to Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration, but h*ll will freeze over before you see the 1825 Declaration mentioned ;>)
;>)
By the way, have you noticed that our new friend 'Held_to_Ransom' seems to exhibit the same bizarre Woodrow Wilson fetish as some of our older (banned ;>) friends? How nice!
;>)
The Militia Act is an absolute bar to unilateral state secession, as the Supreme Court indicated in the Prize Cases ruling.
Whatever else secession is, it is not legal in U.S. law.
Walt
From the Militia Act:
"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, the same being notified to the President of the United States, by an associate justice or the district judge, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a state, where such combinations may happen, shall refuse, or be insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the President, if the legislature of the United States be not in session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia of any other state or states most convenient thereto, as may be necessary, and the use of militia, so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the ensuing session....
The President shall by proclamation command such insurgents to disburse, and to retire peaceably to their abodes."
Which is exactly what President Lincoln did on 4/15/61
Walt
Show which clause expressly allows it.
The Supreme Court referred to the secessionists as traitors. All your blue smoke and mirrors won't make secession legal under U.S. law. It was revolution, as the movers clearly knew.
Walt
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