Posted on 07/07/2012 11:51:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At the height of the holiday shopping season of 1860, a bookseller in Richmond, Va., placed a telling advertisement in The Daily Dispatch promoting a selection of "Elegant Books for Christmas and New Year's Presents." Notably, the list of two dozen "choice books, suitable for Holiday Gifts" included five works by the late Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott in "various beautiful bindings."
Sir Walter Scott not only dominated gift book lists on the eve of the Civil War but also dominated Southern literary taste throughout the conflict. His highly idealized depiction of the age of chivalry allowed Southern readers and writers to find positive meaning in war's horrors, hardships and innumerable deaths. And his works inspired countless wartime imitators, who drew upon his romantic conception of combat.
In 1814 Scott had begun his ascension to the heights of literary stardom with the publication of the historical romance "Waverley," which was soon followed by other novels in the so-called Waverley series. The works were an immediate and immense success in Great Britain and America. Over the course of many volumes, Scott glamorized the Middle Ages, at once shaping and popularizing what we now consider the classic tale of chivalry. As one enamored 19th-century reader explained, each of Scott's romances focused upon the "manners and habits of the most interesting and chivalrous periods of Scottish [and] British history."
Among Scott's most famous works was "Ivanhoe," published in 1820. The romance, set in the 12th century, presents a tale of intrigue, love and valor. The plot traces the fortunes of young Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he strives, despite his father's opposition, to gain the hand of the beautiful Lady Rowena. In the course of Ivanhoe's adventures, Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood appear, and Ivanhoe performs many a remarkable feat.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
pearidge (sic), you have a habit of jumping in with your pseudo-eloquent snoblurbs (that’s a good one!) while thinking you have the answer in hand.
It doesn’t much matter what you’re talking about because you reliably hold an fringe outlier opinion that is quite out of touch with reality.
But I always appreciate your attempts at humor.
Don’t go changing!
State militia have no business firing on federal troops. They were armed by the federal government in any case.
Until the insurrection broke out there was no blockade.
There was NO “state property” involved, the Fort had been properly deeded to the federal government decades before 1861. South Carolina had no more right to it than Virginia would have.
Every one of Lincoln’s actions against the RAT Rebellion was appropriate and the whole thing was ILLEGAL from beginning to end. There was no southern national rights involved and no violation not fully authorized in the Constitution against an insurrection. See Article I, Section 8, paragraph 15. It isn’t even worth debating such silliness.
Unlike the Idiot Brigade of the Southrons I was born and raised in the South on pure Slaverocracy propaganda. But I eventually learned real history, not so much in the schools, and how the Slavers ruined the South for a hundred years after the Wah.
Apparently you are the product of NO educational system since all would laugh at your ridiculous claims.
peaRidge (sic) has some peculiar marx fetish and sees paleo-commies behind every bush.
To paraphrase the Great One: “Well, the trouble with our lost Cause Loser friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so”.
If they worked no harder than you do in learning history then they were bums.
Since the Ruling Class of the South viewed work as something to avoid at all cost, I can only conclude your ancestors were among those led down the primrose path by the Slaver aristocracy to their own destruction. Don’t feel bad though those fools destroyed the whole South.
Western economic history has progressed from slavery to feudalism to free enterprise hence the slavery system was obsolete twice over.
The “threat” was from the destruction of the Union and the Constitution not from economic competition from planters.
So thanks to Lincoln the US was ahead of Brazil. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
Had the Slavers not been complete political idiots Lincoln would have never won the election. He had only 38% of the popular vote. But those fools split the Democrat party into three parts guaranteeing a loss. Their leadership was just as astute in dividing the Union illegally.
Yes, I am aware that you consider the constitution to be “irrelevant” how else can violating it be justified?
He was talking about me.
Clearly we are dealing with someone who knows nothing that wouldn’t have been at home in Margrett Mitchell’s nonsense.
Just more of the “Happy Darky” crap.
Don’t rule out a male Cynthia look at Shirley Povich.
My feelings toward you are any indication of past sentiments felt by my NON-SLAVE owning farmer ancestors, then I can understand the sheer joy of firing on, bayoneting and other wise cracking the skulls of arrogant mush brained statist thugs in blue.
It’s like the South has/had two groups, blacks(slaves) and rich white guys(plantation owners). Everyone else that existed then, and now for that matter, are invisible.
Yeah, it is difficult to face the truth and those who insist on telling it often are threatened by those whose miserable lives are built around absolute lies.
Perhaps you should go to an exorcist and have those demons exorcised.
I look good in blue, it sets off my beautiful eyes my gorgeous girlfriend always tells me.
It is hilarious that you have been incapable of refuting even ONE of my propositions or answer even ONE of my questions. That is the only response you Defenders of the Slaver Revolt have outside of posting long irrelevant links often not even correctly read.
Your just a statist boot licker, nothing more. Boring.
Poor whites were almost as screwed by the Slavers’ system as the slaves. A huge minority of the former could not read so had little ability to resist the Ruling Class’s idiocy.
But the hill country folk was opposed to the War For the Slavers and had to be DRAFTED into the Slavers’ armies. W. Carolinas, N. Ala., N. Ga., N. Arkansas, W. Virginia and E. Tennessee saw Slaver Impressment officers seize those who fled service in the Slaver armies. Over 100,000 from these regions became soldiers in the Union armies to fight those destroying their homeland.
But we know how Scarlett felt about the poor whites don’t we? After all “Gone With The Wind” has a whole episode wherein the NOBLE SLAVER WIFE dies from nursing the po’ white trash woman. I’ll try and keep my history on the level of GWtW so you will understand.
Do the voices in your head tell you what to type? You posts are more fantastic with each passing day.
Excuse me for butting in to this “conversation” but would you be kind enough to point out to me the provision in the U.S. Constitution which prevents a state from seceding from the union?
It must be in the penumbra because I have, thus far, been unable to find it.
It isn’t enumerated in the Constitution....but then you knew that.
A constitution is a fundamental law inviolate by the parties outside of due process. There was no need to specify that it could not be unilaterally abrogated. It is a foundation and the union built upon it collapses just as a house collapses when its foundation is destroyed.
The “Father of the Constitution”, James Madison, wrote to Alexander Hamilton describing the nature of the Union formed by that constitution as “once in the Union always in the Union”. There was NO “conditional ratification” which could be revoked.
Not only that but many of the states in the Cornfederacy were CREATED by the federal government either by treaty, conquest or purchase. Virginia, NC, SC and Ga. might have had some slight claim to having been a party to the original founding and able to regain their “sovereignty” but not the others. All were involved in insurrection.
It should also be noted that in the original US government the Articles of Confederation declared that the Union was PERPETUAL. Since the constitution declared it was intended to form a “more perfect” Union it built upon that declaration of perpetuity. A change in the form of government of that Union did not change that sentiment. Nor would a Union capable of being split “more perfect.”
I need no voices to respond to the bilge you try and spread.
“Happy Darkies” sing as the sun goes down
after a lazy day under a broiling sun.
Central-va thinks with freedom they will drown.
Best keep them in chains for it is such fun.
Ignore the houses they built, the roads they cut,
ignore the bricks they formed, the clothes they sewed.
They cannot be freed, who would pick Massa up off his butt?
If freed who would raise the children, and carry the load?
But it is really for the best and is our right
that we keep them under the whip and lash.
So we punish if they learn to read and write
then we claim to free them would be unwise and rash.
But everyone knows in their heart of hearts
that defending this abomination shows little smarts.
Oh, yeah. You forget that the “state” in 1860 was TINY. There was hardly a boot to lick.
I am sure it is very “boring” to have to take shot after shot with no sensible response. I would be “bored” in your shoes too. Feel free to slink away at any time.
That's what I thought! It isn't there and never has been!
You are, as usual as wrong as wrong can be! There would have BEEN no ratification of the Constitution had not every one of the states who ratified it firmly believed that they had the right to leave when the union no longer served them!
That was the understanding of everyone at the time and went unquestioned for more than 50 years!
"Although the federal government can, in no possible view, be considered as a party to a compact made anterior to its existence, and by which it was, in fact, created; yet as the creature of that compact, it must be bound by it, to its creators, the several states in the union, and the citizens thereof. Having no existence but under the constitution, nor any rights, but such as that instrument confers; and those very rights being in fact duties; it can possess no legitimate power, but such, as is absolutely necessary for the performance of a duty, prescribed and enjoined by the constitution. Its duties, then, become the exact measure of its powers; and wherever it exerts a power for any other purpose, than the performance of a duty prescribed by the constitution, it transgresses its proper limits, and violates the public trust. Its duties, being moreover imposed for the general benefit and security of the several states, in their politic character; and of the people, both in their sovereign, and individual capacity, if these objects be not obtained, the government will not answer the end of its creation: it is therefore bound to the several states, respectively, and to every citizen thereof, for the due execution of those duties. And the observance of this obligation is enforced, by the solemn sanction of an oath, from all who administer the government. The constitution of the United States, then being that instrument by which the federal government hath been created; its powers defined, and limited; and the duties, and functions of its several departments prescribed; the government, thus established, may be pronounced to be a confederate republic, composed of several independent, and sovereign democratic states, united for their common defence, and security against foreign nations, and for the purposes of harmony, and mutual intercourse between each other; each state retaining an entire liberty of exercising, as it thinks proper, all those parts of its sovereignty, which are not mentioned in the constitution, or act of union, as parts that ought to be exercised in common. It is the supreme law of the land, and as such binding upon the federal government; the several states; and finally upon all the citizens of the United States.... It can not be controlled, or altered without the express consent of the body politic of three fourths of the states in the union, or, of the people, of an equal number of the states. To prevent the necessity of an immediate appeal to the latter, a method is pointed out, by which amendments may be proposed and ratified by the concurrent act of two thirds of both houses of congress, and three fourths of the state legislatures: but if congress should neglect to propose amendments in this way, when they may be deemed necessary, the concurrent sense of two thirds of the state legislatures may enforce congress to call a convention, the amendments proposed by which, when ratified by the conventions of three fourths of the states, become valid, as a part of the constitution. In either mode, the assent of the body politic of the states, is necessary, either to complete, or to originate the measure."
“Their submission to it’s operation is voluntary: it’s councils, it’s engagements, it’s authority are theirs, modified, and united. It’s sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of it’s functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent."
Both excerpted from:
BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE, TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS, OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES; AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. IN FIVE VOLUMES. WITH AN APPENDIX TO EACH VOLUME, CONTAINING SHORT TRACTS UPON SUCH SUBJECTS AS APPEARED NECESSARY TO FORM A CONNECTED VIEW OF THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA, AS A MEMBER OF THE FEDERAL UNION.
BY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, PROFESSOR OF LAW, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WILLIAM AND MARY, AND ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE GENERAL COURT IN VIRGINIA.
PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM YOUNG BIRCH, AND ABRAHAM SMALL, NO. 17, SOUTH SECOND-STREET. ROBERT CARR, PRINTER. 1803.
The inability to secede is in the logic and definition of a constitution.
Conditional ratification was never an option for the state ratification conventions. The question was to be answered with a “yes” or a “no” not a “yes, if...” It was explicitly voted down at the NY convention after receipt of the Madison letter.
The states were never truly sovereign most did not even have constitutions as states until the Union was formed. Americans fought for NATIONAL independence and the generation of the Founders thought of themselves as one People.
It was that PEOPLE gathered in conventions in the states (for administrative convenience) which ratified the constitution.
In reality, Congress EXPLICITLY forbid ratification by state legislatures PRECISELY because, if considered as just another state legislative act, it could be revoked by another legislative act.
St. George Tucker quotes don’t change these facts. Nor do they refute what I said. In fact, he specifies how the Union could be CONSTITUTIONALLY changed. A procedure the Slavers never tried.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.