Posted on 06/06/2009 2:57:37 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
by Charley Reese
Most of the political problems in this country won't be settled until more folks realize the South was right.
I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.
Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.
For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that's not all.
When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.
One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.
It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States . The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren't, and the South's worst enemy knew that.
Abraham Lincoln's invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it's as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn't want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.
As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here's how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.
Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.
Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.
So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.
Yeah, but the current Federal government knows all, does all, and controls all situation is doing the same thing.
When you argue for gun control, which is based on the slave era laws of the South, you are arguing the Confederate position. See what the Democrats did after Reconstruction was abandoned - Jim Crow laws forbidding blacks from owning guns, or VOTING. I say that as an American whose heritage comes from both north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Those who argue the abolishment of the Constitution certainly are anti-USA and sadly enough are so inept that they know not what they are promoting with their indiscretions of present directive.
Yep. Time for the south (and the west) to rise again...
Our public screwls had done a fine job ensuring the average person doesn’t know the vast difference between mob rule (aka a democracy) and a Republic.
Too bad that the Confederates cynically prostituted the Constitution in service of what they really cared about, an institution antithetical to the principles underpinning the Constitution and upon which the country was founded. In doing so, they harmed the credibility of everyone who truly cared about the Constitution that came after.
I disagree.
The Constitution is a VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION entered into by the states. The Feds DID NOT CREATE THE STATES, the STATES CREATED THE FED. If you’re under 40, you probably never learned that in school or perhaps have forgotten it. States wishing to void that contract have every right to do so.
We are already hearing TALK of that now and, if BO continues down this road (and as a marxist, he will), it will move BEYOND TALK.
And it might have been helpful it you’d actually READ Charley’s piece.
CWII, coming soon to a neighborhood near you!
Which, mind you, is a right of the people if the government is dictating what is to be done. The framers of the Constitution stated as such themselves.
If you’re talking about slavery, the institution was dying of it’s own inefficiencies and costs of upkeep. And MUCH of the funding for the slave trade was centered in the NORTH!
Then there’s THIS!
Black LIBERATION theology and reparations for slavery?
When a black woman is one of the richest people in America?
When a black man was Secretary of State??
When a black woman was Secretary of State?
When black men have sat — and do sit — on the Supreme Court??
When a black would-be despot sits in the White House?????
When countless black men have risen to the top of the ranks of the richest in professional sports and show business?? Men like Hank Aaron. Men like Bill Cosby who... (Never mind. As we all know, Bill’s either an Uncle Tom or Oreo Cookie, depending on which black race pimp you listen to.)
Liberation Theology?
Liberation from WHAT? The chance to achieve and succeed??
Give me a break!!
Let me make it clear right up front: I am NOT a racist. I supported Herman Cain in his run for the Senate. And if he ever runs again, I would probably support him again.
I also consider Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams two of the finest economists and minds extant today. In case you don’t know them, both are black.
Sowell, Williams and Cain – among others — have spoken out against those fellow blacks who castigate and vilify America for a slavery now long in our past. And ALL thinking men and women oppose the periodic calls for reparations. (When he ran, I supported Alan Keyes. I even spoke in his stead on the RTKABA at a Capitol rally and was asked to fill in for him on his radio show at the time. Sadly, while I still consider Alan a good man, I have had to rethink my support since he came out FOR reparations.)
The fact is that the modern descendants of slaves brought here in chains in admittedly miserable, soul-gutting conditions now calling for reparations need to remember something:
They should not only be glad to be in America, they should be glad to be ANYWHERE!
Had their ancestors NOT been brought OUT of Africa – many by Muslim slave raiders —the blood of those ancestors would have run into the earth over there several centuries ago, victims of the OTHER black tribes that captured them in one of the interminable tribal conflicts STILL ravaging that sad continent and these modern day would-be “plaintiffs” would not even exist.
And I would remind you that slavery is STILL practiced in parts of Africa (mainly by muslims) and Asia today.
95% of the African slaves who were transported across the Atlantic went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions, and that less than 5% of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States, it was remarkable that the vast majority of academic research, films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrated only on the American involvement, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.
And should the great-great-great grandchildren of SLAVE OWNING BLACKS also be subject to PAYING these reparations? If so, how do we find THEM?
And I have traced MY family back to the SLAVS. Although the term looks to be related to “slave,” depending on your source, it either means “glory” or “worshipper.” But my family research indicates that many of my of my ancestors LIVED lives of virtual slavery to some despot or other. Do I qualify for reparations? From whom?? And it begs a question: Are most of us now living here are headed into a modern form off that servitude? But that’s a topic for another discussion.
The official US Census of 1830 lists 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-”Selling Poor Steven”, American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90
Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers’ Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378
And the holier-than-thou Northern liberals are strangely silent on recent archeological evidence from NEW YORK CITY clearly tracing the financing of the slave trade to NORTHERN BUSINESSMEN!!
At the height of his remarkable boxing career, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), once declared “I’m glad my great-grandpa got on that boat.”
And author Robert Hitt Neill tells of attending a Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Conference years ago with several other authors. Among them was Alex Hailey, celebrated author of “Roots.” Watching a TV news show, a group of them watched a demonstration in a Southern state against the “Rebel” flag incorporated into that state’s flag. The very next report covered a famine in Africa. Graphic images showed dead bodies, starving children with distended tummies and runny noses and dying people covered with flies, too weak to brush them away.
Mr. Hailey intoned in a low, serious voice, “Every time an American black sees a story like that, they should find a Confederate flag and kiss it.” He then pointed to the TV screen and continued, “Because these would be me and my descendants, except for American slavery. I thank God that my family and I are here instead of there.”
Next problem!
That's why he was elected President twice, why Congress instituted presidential pensions essentially on his behalf, why he appears on the $50 bill, why the memoirs that he completed just before his death sold over 300,000 copies and earned his family over $450,000, and why Grant's Tomb is the largest mausoleum in North America. Seriously, the claims by Confederate apologists just keep getting more and more absurd.
I wonder why?
I wonder why?
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states.
I find the "intact" argument quite persuasive. I do think it might have been bad news with fewer states in the Union, opening the likelihood of France or England playing the CSA and USA off each other. But a President other than Lincoln might have succeed in knitting the states back together.
Lincoln broke so much china "preserving the Union" by destroying half of it that we still haven't gotten over his garbling of Federalism. There is still confusion over the powers of the states versus the Federal government, and among the branches of the Federal government, because Lincoln muddied the issues beyond repair.
I still say the 13th and 14th amendments don't trump the previous 12.
Civil War? In the South it is known as the War of Northern Aggression.
The Southern states seceded, and then they were defeated in war. If they wanted to be separate then they should have won the war instead of losing it.
I'm getting less and less enamored of the geographical entity known as the United States. I am getting more and more fond of the freedoms embodied in the "heart and mind" construct we call America.
I am willing to be that no one currently participating on FR will live long enough see the Constitution restored to its full health.
My great-great grandfather came down here with the 80th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and fought at Chicamauga, Vicksburg and went to the sea with Sherman.
And my wife’s people also fought on the Union side.
Now that we know some real history, I fear they were on the wrong side.
True, and not everyone is perfect.
Still, “be proud you’re a rebel ‘cause the South’s gonna do it again!” — Charlie Daniels
North, East, and West are directions, but the South is a country.
I thought this was a discussion about the justness (or unjustness) of the Southern cause in the Civil War. Then you went off on this weird, irrelevant tangent about black liberation theology and reparations, none of which has anything to do with whether the South was justified or mitigates the wickedness of slavery. Color me confused. Oh well, you started the thread, it’s your baby. I’ll move along now.
We need a leader like Sherman today — making war so hard on the enemy that they will not want to fight us for 150 years. War is hell, not a social program.
I happily argue the Confederate position and I believe I have the Constitution on my side. We have the right to dissolve a government that no longer serves us and reform it in a way that meets our satisfaction. That is the point of Charlie Reese’s argument. He is correct.
Quite so.
Aside from the good points of the Southern position, we are where we are, today is much different.
It simply appears somebody forgot to tell this gentleman the North won the war.
Question. When the Romans became an empire, who got to write history???
Where is Ft. Sumter?
I guess North Carolina and Virginia have seceeded from the South since they elected Obama. If not, can we kick them out?
Where’s Gettysburg?
I gather from your screen name that you are not clever enough to come up with your own but had to hijack the derisive nickname applied by a hostile media to the late Senator Joseph McCarthy.
You probably don’t know or care but he actually outed some 55 commies nested in the State Department who — because there were still a few Americans in government at the time — lost their sensitive jobs and the ability to spy for their marxist masters.
Sadly, he didn’t get them all and we are now paying the price for that.
Now it’s back under your comfy rock over at Dimocrat Underground to bask in the praise of your fellow travelers for so successfully lurking at FR.
Buh-bye!
No, no, we are on your point here of first shot fired.
If you are against the internationalist New World Order, you are supporting the Confederate position. If you are pro-NWO, you are for the “Union” position.
As the Civil War was nearing its close, even Lincoln realized that he had (perhaps inadvertently) created a monster, with giant corporations with international reach calling the shots. But then he was assassinated, the South lay prostrate, and poor Andrew Johnson was overwhelmed by forces he could neither master nor understand.
Before the Civil War, the US (a decentralized republic) was in no position to participate in a NWO, let alone host it. After the Civil War, that all changed. We are still living with the consequences, which grow worse and worse with every succeeding decade. This is all accelerating under Obama.
Its probably because Lee fought very valiantly, ultimately failed, and then retired gracefully (becoming I believe, a surprisingly effective educator).
Grant OTOH, fought very valiantly, won by a cynical if effective process of attrition, and then went into politics, which is a surefire way to get folk riled up at you at the best of times. He was a great general, but not a particularly successful president, and as he did the latter after the former, he tended to get remembered for his failures as POTUS rather than his successes as General of all the armies.
What really matters is who fired the last shots.
Did I err in perceiving that your comments starting me down that road WERE alluding to SLAVERY??
Well, so did the US constitution - at least until the emancipation proclamation after Antietem.
Curiously, the Confederate constitution outlawed slave trafficking.
HAHAHA, where is Ft. Sumter?
“I guess North Carolina and Virginia have seceeded from the South since they elected Obama. If not, can we kick them out?”
Excellent point! The kick is up, and it is good!
When you associate conservatism with the confederacy you are being set up and you’re stepping right into it.
The key is liberty. If you try to use the constitution to defend bondage you have completely lost the plot.
The GOP was the abolition party, its founding members were church folk who couldn’t abide institutionalized bondage. They were a minority party, and in the normal course of events they ought never to have been able to win a national election but they did, and within a decade of the GOP’s founding, slavery was gone.
I don’t apologize; the defeat of the slaveocracy is our legacy.
The Democratic Party is the party of slavery, jim crow race repression, the klan, lynch mobs, firehoses, firebombs, and continues to be the party of race obsession. That is their legacy.
If you are a Republican and if you are a “classic liberal” conservative you must never make the mistake of trying to defend slavery or race obsession; never let the Democrats maneuver you into defending what is their legacy. Slavery and jim crow race repression is their history; let them own it and let them defend it.
True, very true. No one here though is advocating slavery. The Civil War was not just a slavery good/slavery bad conflict though.
I stand for the USA and for the Constitution, and against those who want to abolish them.
the fur’s really flying here,
save for reference
Fort Sumter is in the USA!
So the federal government had the right to hold on to the southern states?
They weren’t wrong about slavery. That much I’m sure of. Neither were they wrong about the Union.
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