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.
Sorry, but I don't buy that. The "us versus them" business is just politics as usual. You could compare Davis to Lincoln under this rubric. Lincoln divided the country into the secessionists (them) and the Unionists (us). Before that, he divided the country between those who wanted to expand slavery into the territories (them) and those who didn't (us). That's just the way politicians behave. Some hypocritically pretend otherwise, such as Obama, but all it is is pretense.
The reason there are so many attempts to compare today's Dems with the old Dixiecrats is fallout from Political Correctness. PC makes it almost impossible to criticize the left outright, so ways have to be found around the barriers. One of the ways is to water down any attack on modern leftists with an equally bitter attack on a non-PC target.
A good example of this in action is the writer Salman Rushdie. He had to hide for over a decade because Muslims put a bounty on his head. But he never criticizes Islam outright. It isn't permissible under PC rules to do that. You can attack Christianity outright, but not Islam. Any criticism of Islam must be very, very restrained. One way is to praise Islam as a religion of peace, and assert that Islamic terrorists are extremists who aren't really Islamic. This reached fever pitch in Britain when Jacqui Smith started calling Islamic terrorism "anti-Islamic violence".
Another way is the route practiced by Rushdie, Bill Maher, and others, and attack all religions. Thus, Rushdie only criticizes Islam as part of a critique on all religion, with special venom directed at Christianity.
In modern PC America, criticizing anti-white policies is forbidden. In fact, it's considered racist to oppose anti-white policies. So almost no one ever outright opposes such policies. The only way they can be opposed is tangentially, with a watered-down opposition that spends more time ranting about anti-black policies of the past than attacking present anti-white policies. A favorite, of course, is to claim that the Dems' racial identity politics (Sotomayor, etc.) are just a variation on the old Dixiecrats and their support for slavery or Jim Crow. The typical argument goes something like this:
"The Democrats have always practiced racial politics. They once supported slavery and Jim Crow. Today, they still divide us by race by supporting affirmative action plans and promoting racial identity types such as Sotomayor. This doesn't seem to comport with Dr. King's dream of a land where people are judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin."
The Dems just laugh at such a weak argument because they know whites are a whipped people and that King's dream was never really color blind in the first place. As the white populations of Western nations dwindle relative to the non-white, the left will laugh even more at such arguments. What would terrify the Dems is this question: Do whites have a right to maintain their historic majorities in the nations they founded?
That is a question which terrifies the left, and the mainstream right for that matter. The whole world agrees that China should retain its Chinese majority, that Japan should retain its Japanese majority, that all black majority nations should retain their black majorities, that Latin American nations should remain Latino, that Muslim nations should remain Muslim. But proper opinion dictates that white majority nations should not have a comparable policy. Instead, they are to open their borders to others until whites are displaced as the majority population.
Neither George Bush nor Barack Obama would have any problem with the assertion that Thailand should remain majority Thai, or that South Africa should remain majority black. But both would balk at the idea that Sweden should remain majority white. Sweden is to become multicultural, as are all Western nations, with the long range goal being the displacement of the traditional white majority.
It sounds shocking to hear that said outright, but it's true. And as long as the only criticism we can have of Nancy Pelosi and Company on racial issues is that they're "not really any different than the old Dixiecrats", we're doomed because the Dems will just go right on pushing La Raza and black radicalism while we're meekly asking them to fulfill King's dream.
From what I read of John C. Calhoun's opinion of Jefferson's statement, he knew what it was saying about slavery and he did not like it. Sadly, Calhoun's opinions carried much weight and had a lot to blame for the deterioration of the Southern opinion of slavery between 1789 and 1860.
No doubt Jefferson was troubled by slavery, but he wasn't a racial egalitarian.
Agree with all of your points, except for this one. In Latin America, there is no "Latino" race. Latin American nations are a mixture of various races. My GFs country (Brazil) is about 45% mixed, 40% white, 12% black, with the remainder Asian and Amerindian. In Mexico, where "La Raza Cosmica" was developed (and this idea ONLY had currency in Mexico), whereby, per Vasconcelos, the Mexican people combined the best of both the European and the Amerindian, about a third to 40% of the nation is comprised of pure-blooded Indians, and 25% speak an indigenous language.
This silly concept of a "Latino" race is a stupid invention of Los Estados Unidos, and our corrupt culture, which has NEVER been sane on the issue of race and ethnicity.
The leftist focus is always on America, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Those are the lands the left is obsessed with altering into something else. That means either racial transformation or religious (Islam) or both. Opposition to this has to be suppressed, and short of passing hate speech laws the way to do it is to label any objection as racism, intolerance, etc.
Thus, we're divided into two factions. The left aggressively pursues the demographic transformation of the West through explicit identity politics. The right either goes along with this (Bush & McCain pandering to La Raza, the Tories supporting multiculturalism, etc.) or at best meekly begs the left to stop being so racial and instead to “fulfill King's dream”.
In other words, we have one faction which is aggressively trying to turn the West into non-white territory, and another which says “race doesn't matter”, which means they won't really do anything to stop the other faction.
To say nothing of the people in the middle who say both things within the span of a few seconds. Yes, there are alot of folks who say "we are a multicultural melting pot."
Speaking of Latin America, you gotta love how one of the great icons of "Third Worldism," Fidel Castro, is himself the child of European immigrants. Lula's grandparents are from the Azores, which I guess makes him a self-hating white man. Notice that the latter made his comments in Europe (they were laughed at in Brazil).
I’m really still too busy laughing at you attempting to re-write history into whatever worldview you’re trying to push to really respond....
Debts? Supremacy? Oaths? To what do you refer? If supremacy, what clause in the Constitution grants it in this case?
Taney believed in twisting the Constitution six ways from Sunday.
You want a living Constitution? He was a strict constructionist.
Where in the document can you find support for his asinine interpretation?
Asinine? 7-2 is hardly asinine. Again, there was no federal citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited it to whites, and 'on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein lie shall have resided for the term of one year at least.' A state could also prevent an alien from being naturalized, 'no person heretofore proscribed by any state, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an act of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed.'
The Militia Act of 1795 cited above limited service to 'able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States.
If the Constitution supported federal citizenship for blacks, we wouldn't have needed the 14th Amendment. Where in the document can you find support for any other asinine interpretation?
Supremacy. In this case the par that says the 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; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." South Carolina's law that allowed them to seize British Subjects and sell them into slavery was a violation of agreements made with the Great Britain. That should trump state law, and would to any lawyer who's agenda didn't override their understanding of the Constitution.
You want a living Constitution? He was a strict constructionist.
Absolute nonsense.
Asinine? 7-2 is hardly asinine.
One justice wrote the opinion, not seven. One justice put his pre-conceived agenda into that opinion, not seven. And only one found restrictions in the Constitution that no sane man would find.
f the Constitution supported federal citizenship for blacks, we wouldn't have needed the 14th Amendment. Where in the document can you find support for any other asinine interpretation?
The 14th Amendment was required to override the Scott v. Sanford decision. Nothing in the Constitution can be read as denying citizenship based on race, with the specific exception of Indians.
And another thing. A 'strict constructionist' would have found that Scott had no standing to bring his case to the Supreme Court since he was property and not a person, upheld the lower court ruling, and ended it there. But Taney was no constructionist. He was the worst kind of liberal jurist, finding all sorts of meaning in the Constitution to support he pre-conceived opinions.
The South Carolina law allowed for the blacks to be held while foreign vessels were in port - they knew beforehand. The law was in response the alarm caused the prior year by a failed slave revolt in Charleston led by former slave Denmark Vesey.
When the vessel left the ship's captain had to pay the costs of detainment. New York had laws similar allowing them to "quarantine" entire ships, just as other northern states prohibited the entry of free blacks. A little biased in your position?
SC Justice Johnson, sitting on the 6th Circuit court, did rule against the state in a habeas corpus petition, be refused to issue the writ [Elkison v. Deliesseline, 8 Fed. Cas. 493, 494 (1823)].
In his 1832 opinion Taney wrote,
The Constitution it is true has declared that a Treaty shall be the supreme law. But in order to make it so the stipulations must be within the Treaty making power. A Treaty would be void which interfered with the powers expressly delegated to Congress. So it would be void if it came in conflict with rights reserved to the states. ...It may be said however that the law of S. Carolina is more severe and oppressive than is necessary for its own protection. Upon examining its provisions I am ready to admit that milder measures would I think have secured the object and would have created less dissatisfaction.
US Supreme Court Justice Johnson, not South Carolina, my abbreviation might be confusing to some.
It is tough to rewrite history when you are quoting the Official Records, ....you know, the government publication.
Or is that what you are laughing about?
I think Zachary Taylor s/h finished the job.
imVho, the CSA might not have been a LOT more decent to the Native Nations, had we won our war dixie independence, BUT the CSA could have hardly been worse.
further, i suspect that the treatment of the Nations would have been MUCH better, if only because of "benign neglect".
free dixie,sw
I do not suggest that.
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner (I was out of town on business, and did not have internet access).
Actually, you do suggest it, when you make the specious argument regarding a State adopting a non-republican form of government, while remaining a member State of the federal union.
I make a statement about what you posted in 317, specifically the following quote:
“To deny this right [of State secession] would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.” William Rawle, ‘A View of the Constitution of the United States of America,’ 1829
My statement is that the part of the quote stating “...the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed” is false.
Apparently Rawle thought the people could turn right and left simultaneously. (That would include all cases.) I disagree.
Allow me to congratulate you for constructing an argument that is based entirely on taking a quote out of context. Post 317 is largely irrelevant, because I provided the entire context in Post 319 - and you continue to ignore it. You suggest that "Apparently Rawle thought the people could turn right and left simultaneously" (i.e., adopt a non-republican form of State government, and continue to remain within the existing union). In fact, if you had bothered to read Post 319 (which, by the way, was addressed specifically to you), you would have found the following:
"The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved [by the individual States]...but while they continue [to choose to remain within the union], they must retain the character of representative republics."
In other words, Mr. Rawle recognized that a State that wished to adopt a non-republican form of government could NOT continue to be a member State in the federal union. My analogy was entirely correct.
Let's turn the question around a little. Do you agree with Rawle that “...the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed” which, bearing in mind that that is one of the many “all cases”, would include determining to adopt a non-republican form of government and still remain a part of the union?
"[O]ne of the many 'all cases', would include determining to adopt a non-republican form of government and still remain a part of the union," only if you insist on taking Mr. Rawle's comments out of context - which you obviously do. I agree with Mr. Rawle - I do not agree with you.
If you answer “yes”, you and I disagree. If you answer “no”, you and I agree, on this anyway.
You would be correct, if I agreed with arguments based on willful ignorance. I do not...
As I noted in Post 380, "[n]ine does not equal thirteen." When the first nine States ratified the Constitution, they established a new government under the specific written terms of that compact (Article VII of the United States Constitution - "The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same"). The new government was established between the nine ratifying States, NOT between the four non-ratifying States. This despite the fact that the previous compact required unanimous agreement by all thirteen member States (see Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation) - and unanimous agreement did not then exist.
And yet you suggest that the first nine ratifying States did not formally withdraw (i.e., secede) from the union formed under the Articles of Confederation. Apparently you believe that at that point in time, all thirteen States were members of a single union, even though four had agreed only to the terms of the Articles of Confederation, while nine had established a new Constitution (and a new government) between themselves. Or perhaps you are suggesting that the four non-ratifying States had somehow withdrawn from the union? If so, how did that happen?
You may "deny" that the ratifying States seceded from the union formed under the Articles - but you are clearly denying historical fact.
In fact at least some of the Ratifications indicate a continuous Union, with reference to it being the twelfth year of the Independence of the United States and so forth.
Note that the following quote (emphasis added) supports my view that there was only one continuous Union, not the replacement of one union by another:
“In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union,” (From the “Letter of the President of the Federal Convention, Dated September 17, 1787, to the President of Congress, Transmitting the Constitution”)
When the first nine States ratified the Constitution, that agreement was established between them. If it was "one continuous union," as you suggest, then how did the non-ratifying States end up as non-members? Were they somehow ejected from the union by the ratifying States? Or were they somehow (perhaps 'magically' ;>) still members, even though they had not agreed to the terms of the Constitution? If the latter case, it would appear that the last four States had no choice in the matter, that their ratifications were not necessary, and that, if ratifications were eventually provided, they were absolutely meaningless, because the last States to ratify had never ceased to be members of the union.
I think the Constitution is irrelevant to secession or to agreement forced or not about secession, except perhaps in that it provides for a forum (Congress) where the matter might be discussed. But it is definitely irrelevant in that any State wishing to secede does not need a basis in the Constitution for doing so...
Interesting opinion.
You must be a lawyer if you think that everything depends on “formal law”.
Perhaps you would care to answer the question I asked on this thread earlier:
Should government be bound by morality, or by law?
;>)
Anyway, that particular "formal law" - the United States Constitution did not exist at the beginning of the perpetual Union.
To which "perpetual Union" are you referring? The self-proclaimed "perpetual" union formed under the terms of the Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England in 1643? Or the self-proclaimed "perpetual" union formed under the terms of the Articles of Confederation in 1781? Neither one proved to be "perpetual," no matter what the original intent may have been.
WIJG: ...and as a side note, several of the ratifying States reserved the right of secession, in writing, in their ratification documents...
KK: I don’t recall seeing that in the ratification documents, although I could have missed seeing it in the longer ones like those of Virginia, New York and North Carolina. Can you provide ”several” specific citations?
Sure:
New York: "WE the Delegates of the People of the State of New York... Do declare and make known... That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness..."
Rhode Island: "We the Delegates of the People of the State of Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantations... do declare and make known... That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness..."
Virginia: "We the Delegates of the People of Virginia... Do in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."
;>)
WIJG: Unlike the compact that preceded it, the Constitution nowhere requires a "perpetual" union, and it nowhere prohibits State secession.
KK: So what? As a common law document it doesn’t need to.
You consider the Constitution to be "a common law document?" James Madison disagreed - in fact, he found the idea "repugnant:"
The fundamental principle of the Revolution was, that the colonies were co-ordinate members with each other, and with Great Britain, of an empire, united by a common executive sovereign, but not united by any common legislative sovereign. The legislative power was maintained to be as complete in each American parliament, as in the British parliament...
...The assertion by Great Britain of a power to make laws for the other members of the empire in all cases whatsoever, ended in the discovery that she had a right to make laws for them in no cases whatsoever.
Such being the ground of our Revolution, no support nor colour can be drawn from it, for the doctrine that the common law is binding on these states as one society. The doctrine, on the contrary, is evidently repugnant to the fundamental principle of the Revolution.
- James Madison, Report of 1799
The Constitution is binding (with regard to it's specific written terms) "on these states as one society." According to Mr. Madison, the common law is not - and therefore is not incorporated within the Constitution.
The specific written terms of the Constitution (and the limited power delegated to Mr. Lincoln under those terms) clearly apply only to member States within the Constitutional union. When Mr. Washington was President, he did not assume or suggest that his executive authority as President of the United States extended to any State outside the union (Rhode Island, for example, prior to May 1790).
Strict construction of the Constitution is greatest guarantee of our liberties...
Would you therefore agree that the Tenth Amendment means what it says - or not? Secessionists specifically cited the Tenth Amendment - and the Constitution nowhere prohibited the unilateral withdrawal of States from the federal union, nor did it delegate to the federal government any power to prevent secession. But apparently (in your opinion) Mr. Lincoln thought the reserved rights of the States and their people were of less importance than 'delivering the mail' - a "megalomania" that killed over 600,000 Americans...
No way ...
Captain, are you still fighting the same battle on here :)
are you still telling the same old tired/stupid DAMNyankee LIES???
fwiw, i'm a "captain" of nothing.
free dixie,sw
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