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Copperhead
American Thinker ^ | June 28, 2013 | Thomas Lifson

Posted on 06/28/2013 12:23:43 AM PDT by neverdem

It's a miracle! A fascinating and compelling movie whose plot is driven by the protagonist's fidelity to the Constitution. (In fact there were more mentions of the Constitution than any other movie I have ever seen.) You have never seen a movie like Copperhead, and you ought to take the opportunity to see it on a big screen if you live in one of the forty-some cities where it is opening today. But even if you don't, it is available today via all on-demand platforms, which is a great strategy to reach the widely dispersed audience that would appreciate this movie and have access to on-demand via cable, satellite, or the internet.

The story covers several months starting in the spring of 1862, as the Civil War began to felt in upstate New York, where dairy farmer Abner Beech holds a very politically incorrect view for his time and place: he is a so-called Copperhead who believes that the war was unwise, that President Lincoln has violated the Constitution in his conduct of the war, and the Confederacy should be allowed to go its own way or reunite with the Union, as it wishes.

Far from being a racist indifferent to slavery, Beech deplores it, and the viewer discovers that he has been secretly part of the Underground Railroad funneling fugitive slaves to Canada. The neighbors that react negatively to his stance have no clue as to his beliefs, and the abuse he endures is in the end tragic in unexpected ways. I won't spoil the plot, but it is the very opposite of a preachy, talky movie about politics. The characters have depth, the acting and directing are terrific, and the plot moves forward in a completely logical and compelling manner. There is romance, conflict, violence, and much more...

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: copperhead
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To: All
This post is to everyone but rockrr. If you want a cogent non biased short history of the Copperheads read this:

Lincoln’s Critics: The Copperheads

Jennifer L. Weber

Click here. U of Mich

41 posted on 06/28/2013 8:24:07 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Sherman Logan
But then there were probably some Vietnam War opponents who hated Communism.

Some? Almost all.

The age group most supportive of the Vietnam war was the under 30 age group, and by February 1969 they were down to 47% approval while the 30-49 age group was at 43% and the over 49 year old age group was at 31%, and the numbers were plummeting from there.

By 1970 it was (same age groups) at 41%--37%--25% and still sinking.

42 posted on 06/28/2013 8:30:50 AM PDT by ansel12 (Libertarians, Gays = in all marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws.)
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To: central_va
Your derangement convinces me that this novel was probably based on fact.

Let's unpack that statement.

Because I gave you solid, checkable historical information, I am therefore "deranged."

That's a hard thesis to defend.

From there you extrapolate that Frederic's novel "probably" had a factual underpinning.

I hope you realize how illogical that is.

It was written by a Yankee, about Yankees for Yankees.

Frederic was an American expatriate, living in London. He changed his last name from Frederick to Frederic, to seem more cultured and cosmopolitan.

He was 9 when the Civil War ended.

The characters in the novel were certainly upstate New Yorkers.

It was written in England by an American for an international audience, not just readers in the Northern US.

Its message is: "just because Abner Beech opposed the Civil War and supported the Confederacy does not mean that he supported slavery."

Who would find this message heartwarming?

Two groups among his broader readership would have found this appealing: Northern American Democrats, who were trying to sweep their previous support for slavery under the rug, and English Liberals who were trying to sweep their history as pro-slavery Palmerston Tories under the rug.

Feel-good fiction for revisionists.

43 posted on 06/28/2013 8:31:11 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake

44 posted on 06/28/2013 8:36:15 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: wideawake

Like I said I haven’t read it yet. I just ordered a copy. My Kindle is busted, going for hard copy.


45 posted on 06/28/2013 8:38:05 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

That’s what I like about you cva - always the reliable revisionist.


46 posted on 06/28/2013 9:06:12 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: central_va

Since when do you get pro southern revisionism from U of Michigan? Is this something new?


47 posted on 06/28/2013 9:08:30 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va
The Republic is dead and Lincoln started the ball rolling towards FedGov™ domination.

Your southron ancestors unfortunately rather stupidly conflated the States' Rights Issue with the Slavery Issue, thereby dooming constitutional States' Rights to a slow, inexorable death.

Thanks a great big Yankee Bunch. Now that the Slavery Issue was handled to our Abolitionary satisfaction, we now have to somehow go back and extricate States' Rights from the enduring mess left behind by the Civil War.

The only smart southrons were those very few who saw that Slavery was a dead issue; that the SOUTH should be first to free the slaves (and draft them into their military), and to fight the war exclusively for States' Rights, particularly the right to secede.

48 posted on 06/28/2013 9:18:25 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
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To: neverdem

Found it on On Demand, today only. Ordered up and will watch tonight. Thanks


49 posted on 06/28/2013 9:21:08 AM PDT by IwaCornDogs ("There Will Be Bamboozeling" ~ Nobama 08')
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To: Kenny Bunk
Your southron ancestors unfortunately rather stupidly conflated the States' Rights Issue with the Slavery Issue, thereby dooming constitutional States' Rights to a slow, inexorable death.

Thanks a great big Yankee Bunch. Now that the Slavery Issue was handled to our Abolitionary satisfaction, we now have to somehow go back and extricate States' Rights from the enduring mess left behind by the Civil War.

The only smart southrons were those very few who saw that Slavery was a dead issue; that the SOUTH should be first to free the slaves (and draft them into their military), and to fight the war exclusively for States' Rights, particularly the right to secede.

Yes hind sight is 20/20. THe South had 6 month to have mutual defense treaty signed with GB, which should have been done b4 Sumter.

50 posted on 06/28/2013 9:25:22 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va; rockrr; All
"In the mid-nineteenth century Abolitionists were considered a small group of crazy people, radical kooks , even in the North."

All your ilk and your hatred and of Lincoln is so way off the mark. The Civil War began on January 9, 1861, a Democratic Slave state of South Carolina fired the first shots on fort Sumter by its cadets from The Citadel, The Military College. This was way before Lincoln was inaugurated – March 4, 1861.

But this post of yours that I quote here gives hope. It shows that when a few right minded people get together and strive to do what is Biblically correct, they may just be blessed with victory. Hopefully there still is a remnant like the "crazy, radical kook abolitionists" in the US that will bring back the recognition of God in our laws, end abortion, keep marriage between a man and a woman, etc.

51 posted on 06/28/2013 9:42:26 AM PDT by celmak
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To: central_va
Interesting the European machinations going on in those days!

The Russians sided massively with the Union, The Frogs were agonizingly on the fence, and the Brits only wanted cotton and gold. Had the Confederacy freed the slaves, they probably would have had Britain as an ally.

Now, damn it, how do we get States' Rights back on the damned table?

52 posted on 06/28/2013 9:59:47 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
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To: central_va; Kenny Bunk
mutual defense treaty

Could never, ever have happened.

The Confederates, in their wildest dreams, could not have imagined Great Britain intervening militarily.

What they were hoping for was financial assistance and military supplies to counterbalance the North's technological and industrial edge.

There was a chance this could happen - not a good one - but a chance, until the Emancipation Proclamation.

53 posted on 06/28/2013 10:02:39 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: Kenny Bunk

Had the Confederacy freed the slaves, they probably would have had Britain as an ally...

...maybe, who knows...but it would never have happened, the southron economy was too heavily invested in unpaid labor, which was expensive enough as it was without the doling out of wages...as for the brits aiding the cause, the only real possibility was for help in running the Union blockade, a bandaid remedy at best, and a fleeting one at that...

...hopefully people aren’t sitting around here in 2013 thinking that Victoria was going to dispatch entire British divisions to the fields of Virginia and Tennessee, in order to influence an internecine conflict having no real impact on her country...after all, cotton could be had from Egypt and other areas as well...


54 posted on 06/28/2013 10:18:50 AM PDT by IrishBrigade
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To: Kenny Bunk

I believe that the Brits, and to some small extent the French were hanging back watching to see how it went with a hungry eye towards a (southern-fried) piece of the spoils.


55 posted on 06/28/2013 10:26:44 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr
Well the Frogs under Nap III were trying to hang on in Mexico and were frightened of the Union Army, which at the time was really turning into quite an impressive and impressively equipped outfit.

As Lincoln noted, the Union Army was so well equipped, it could well afford to also sort of equip the Confederate Army, which depended in part on captured US supplies and equipment throughout the whole war!

56 posted on 06/28/2013 10:39:03 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
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To: IrishBrigade
cotton could be had from Egypt and other areas as well...

I hope the bloody Gippos give the CSA credit for really putting their cotton industry in high gear!

57 posted on 06/28/2013 10:41:07 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
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To: ansel12

My point was that very few of the radical, demonstrating opponents of the war were die-hard Communists, just as very few of the Copperhead Democrats were not thorough-going racists, even by the standards of the time.

To be sure, just about everybody back then was racist by today’s standards, but there are degrees of racism, as there in most things. To use anti-Semitism as an example, it ranges from the guy who doesn’t want his daughter to marry a Jew to the guy who wants to kill them all. That’s a pretty broad range.


58 posted on 06/28/2013 11:13:58 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Kenny Bunk
"Now, damn it, how do we get States' Rights back on the damned table?

As long as arms are not involved (as the Democrat Slavers did), what's stopping secession now?

59 posted on 06/28/2013 11:32:15 AM PDT by celmak
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To: Crim; rockrr
Copperhead...aka peace democrat....were very pro slavery ....the thought that a copperhead would have anything to do with freeing slaves is laughable...

You can find the text of the original 1893 novel online. There's nothing in there about Abner Beech wanting to free the slaves.

Beech tells the narrator about the evils of the abolitionists, "who desired to establish negro sovereignty in the Republic, and to compel each white girl to marry a black man."

Later on, "when our church-going community had reached the conclusion that a man couldn't be a Christian and hold such views on the slave question as Beech held, it was only a very short step to the conviction that such a man would water his milk," and Beech's dairy business dries up.

And the novel was true to what we know of the historical record. I guess the filmmaker, Ron Maxwell, couldn't handle the truth or didn't think his followers could.

60 posted on 06/28/2013 2:01:37 PM PDT by x
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