Legend of a 'noble South' rises again

Sun Movie Critic ^ | February 16, 2003 | Chris Kaltenbach

[stainlessbanner]

Director says 'Gods' has Southern slant, but 'full humanity'

The North may have won the Civil War, but in Hollywood, the South reigns triumphant.

That was certainly true in 1915, when D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation portrayed the conflict as a war of Northern aggression where order was restored only by the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. It was true in 1939, when Gone With the Wind looked back on the antebellum South as an unrivalled period of grace and beauty never to be seen again. It was true when Clint Eastwood played The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Confederate war veteran who has run afoul of Northern "justice."

[mac_truck]

Thanks Dog, for making my point.

Whats next, your own homeland?

[groanup]

thanks

[DBtoo]

I have come to the conclusion that those in Hollywood hate the South and Southern people. I believe many people have formed their impressions of the South from movies such as
"Mississippi Burning" and "Rosewood". The white characters are always portrayed as cruel, one-dimensional bigots. It's been a beef with me for a long time. Also, the History Channel has it's share of anti-South programming. I'm glad to hear about this new movie.

[SCDogPapa]

Excellent post Sweet Liberty!!

It amazes me how many of these people, don't realize what has been lost. Hopefully "we", North and South, someday, may get it back.

[DBtoo]

My father's family lived in Southern Louisiana since the 1700s; they came directly from France. So many South-bashers are totally unaware of the beauty and richness of Southern culture, getting their distorted views from the propaganda they see on their tv or movie screen. When they think of the South, they think of slavery and lynchings, thanks to our very biased media. And now Southerners are being equated with nazis. It makes me cringe the way the term nazi is being thrown around so recklessly these days.

These people have to know that the north had slavery, and that the vast majority of those in the South did not own slaves. Yet the stereotypes still persist. And now people from the south are.......nazis!! When will this nonsense and ignorance end?

[DBtoo]

What in the heck do nazi concentration camp guards have to do with the old South? Why are so many people obsessed with nazis and want to relate them to other times, places, and events? My relatives from Louisiana are not nazis and never were. Plus they are/were French, and French people are all cowards and weasels by your kind of logic.

[DBtoo]

You can't judge people who lived more than 100 years ago by modern standards.

PC hadn't come into existence yet.

[DBtoo]

Safe-guarded slave imports?

From "America! A Concise History" by Rorabaugh and Critchlow:

"...Another compromise provision gave Congress the right to abolish the African slave trade in 1808. In fact, few new slaves entered the United States after 1787, every state except South Carolina banned the overseas trade, and Congress did abolish this trade in 1808."

[mac_truck]

I think non-seq was referring to the Confederate Constitution on the issue of safeguaring slave imports, not the US constitution.

[wardaddy]

These same idiots use the movie Mississippi Burning as totally accurate "sums it all up" historical reference...lol

[DBtoo]

It sounded to me that non-sec was implying that the African slave trade was still going ahead full steam at the time of the Civil War, and that the Confederates wanted to preserve it though it had ceased years before.

[mac_truck]

The Confederacy wanted to revive the slave trade, especially those states in the lower south.

In 1858 the lower house of the Louisiana legislature authorised the importtion of "apprentices" from Africa in an attempt to circumvent the ban. The upper house of the Louisiana legislature defeated the bill.

Delegates to the Commercial Convention in Vicksburg in 1859 called for a repeal on the ban on slave imports. While not members of the US Congress, this group represented signifigant and influential business interests in the lower south

The ban on the importation of slaves was repeatedly violated by the south in the 1850s. Charles Lamar and the schooner Wanderer, being one famous example.

[Non-Sequitur]

Another compromise provision gave Congress the right to abolish the African slave trade in 1808. In fact, few new slaves entered the United States after 1787, every state except South Carolina banned the overseas trade, and Congress did abolish this trade in 1808.

Some southerners were ignoring the ban and running slaves into southern ports well into the late 1850's.

[Non-Sequitur]

It sounded to me that non-sec was implying that the African slave trade was still going ahead full steam at the time of the Civil War, and that the Confederates wanted to preserve it though it had ceased years before.

Did it? Look up the history of a gentleman named Charles Lamar. Charles Agustus Lafayette Lamr to be precise, who ran slaves into the south throughout the 1850's. In 1858 his ship, the Wanderer, picked up 600 slaves in Africa and ran the 400 survivors into Georgia. The federal government got wind of it and filed charges against him in Savannah. A local grand jury indicted him for it and they were almost lynched as tools of the Northern abolitionists. He beat the charge, or got off with a minor sentence, accounts vary. In any case he was importing slaves...let's see...why, he was importing slaves 50 years after you said the slave trade ended. How about that? He must not have known about it.

And the confederate constitution still protected slave imports.

[Non-Sequitur]

You can't judge people who lived more than 100 years ago by modern standards.

And yet that's what the sothron supporters try to do with President Lincoln.

[WhiskeyPapa]

What in the heck do nazi concentration camp guards have to do with the old South?

It's a simple concept. Should --everyone-- be allowed to celebrate their history? It sounds way too PC for me.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

Obviously nonsense, as Lincoln's aim was the maintenance of the Union.

He claimed it was, yet little reason exists to believe him. In fact, Alexis de Tocqueville famously predicted that if some states went to war to coerce and suppress other states, they would likely do under the "borrowed name" of the union.

If tariffs were an issue, he would have offered a course of action to address that grievance.

Not if collecting taxes were more important to The Lincoln than giving them up. Considering his obsession with collecting tariffs throughout the secession crisis, all indications suggest that they were.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Obviously nonsense, as Lincoln's aim was the maintenance of the Union.

He claimed it was, yet little reason exists to believe him.

You can't really believe the crap you post.

Do you think Lincoln's call for volunteers on 15 April, 1861 was filled to overflowing because of tariffs? That hundreds of thousands of loyal Union men joined the army to fight for tariffs?

It's complete nonsense. They joined because this made sense to them:

"And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people, can, or cannot, maintain its territorial integrity, against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals too few in numbers to control administration, according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their Government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth."

A. Lincoln 7/4/61

It is just complete nonsense to say that the war was fought over tariffs.

Loyal Union men, north and south fought for Union. The rebels fought to maintain slavery. Slavery was the cause of the war.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

If tariffs were an issue, he would have offered a course of action to address that grievance.

Not if collecting taxes were more important to The Lincoln than giving them up.

You can't show they were. You can only make a bigger fool of yourself.

This is what was important to Lincoln (speech at Independence Hall):

Mr. Cuyler:

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can say in return, Sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle of idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the Government, and then it will be compelled to act in self-defence.

My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something toward raising the flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. (Cries of "No, no") I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by."

22 February, 1861

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

They are afraid. They tremble in fear at the very sight of the Confederate flag.

South Carolina...cannot get out of this Union until she conquers this government. The revenues must and will be collected at her ports, and any resistance on her part will lead to war. At the close of that war we can tell with certainty whether she is in or out of the Union. While this government endures there can be no disunion...If the overt act on the part of South Carolina takes place on or after the 4th of March, 1861, then the duty of executing the laws will devolve upon Mr. Lincoln. The laws of the United States must be executed-- the President has no discretionary power on the subject -- his duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Mr. Lincoln will perform that duty. Disunion by armed force is treason, and treason must and will be put down at all hazards. The Union is not, and cannot be dissolved until this government is overthrown by the traitors who have raised the disunion flag. Can they overthrow it? We think not.

Illinois State Journal, November 14, 1860

Your disunion flag will do you no better now than it did in 1860.

It -will- mark you as a traitor though.

Walt