Whistlin’ “Dixie” with Frank Rich
“Just Whistlin’ ‘Dixie’”: that is (as The American Heritage Dictionary puts it), engaging in “unrealistically rosy fantasizing.” But “Dixie” is also a name for the American South, you know the magical “land of cotton”— and, never forget, the land of slavery.
Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, can never, ever forget it, and, more to the point, he wants to be sure that you never forget it, either. What a moment it must have been in the Rich household when the phrase “just whistling ‘Dixie’” floated into Frank’s mind as he sat down to write about the “extremist” right-wingers who go to tea parties, hate Barack Obama because he is black, and spew racist epithets at every opportunity.
All of Frank Rich’s columns are special. They do a lot to make the New York Times the paper it is today. But Rich’s “Welcome to Confederate History Month” on Saturday is something extra special even by Rich’s standards.
The intent of the column was to rescue the standard-issue, ready-made left-wing narrative according to which anyone who dissents from the progressive playbook is racist. Anyone who dissents visibly — by, for example, participating in the tea parties springing up all over the country — is not simply racist but also an extremist.
The narrative has been having a tough time of it lately, though. Three black congressmen claim that various unnamed tea partiers not only hurled racist epithets at them but also spat on them during a demonstration at the Capitol on March 20th. Problem is, no-one who was there can confirm the allegations and the video they said they had is nowhere to be found.
Not, of course, that Rich’s comrades in the leftstream media haven’t tried mightily to push the “tea-partiers-are-racist” narrative. One of the most embarrassing moments — embarrassing, that is, for NBC — came when an NBC reporter asked a black tea partier whether he felt “uncomfortable” in the midst of all those, you know, WHITE PEOPLE. Really stupid question, but the chap’s response was a model of understated brilliance: “no,” he said, smiling, “no, these are my people, Americans.”
“These are my people, Americans.” Pretty simple. It’s the sort of answer Ward Connerly has been advocating for decades.
But it’s not the sort of answer Frank Rich wants. Take issues like race out of the narrative — take away, that is, the whole smelly machinery of the politics of grievance — and what does the Left have to work with?
Poor Frank Rich. How is it that conservatives can criticize him for playing the race card? Imagine, people even made fun of him for suggesting that “race might be animating anti-Obama hotheads like those who packed assault weapons at presidential town hall meetings on health care last summer.” Frank, Frank: watch what you link to! Here’s the fellow who showed up with a (perfectly legal) firearm:
Speaking of firearms, Rich thought he had found his smoking gun when he discovered that Robert McDonnell, the (Republican) Governor of Virginia had issued a state proclamation celebrating April as Confederate History Month.
Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear! How could he have been so . . . insensitive. Doesn’t the Governor know that for some people (people, I mean, like Frank Rich) the word “Confederate,” when used to refer to the Southern States circa 1860, is irredeemably racist? Some public-spirited person should send Rich a copy of Pascal Bruckner’s remarkable new book, The Tyranny of Guilt. (I review the book in a forthcoming issue of National Review.) “We Euro-Americans,” Bruckner writes, “are endlessly atoning for what we have inflicted upon other parts of humanity. How can we fail to see that this leads us to live off self-denunciation while taking a strange pride in being the worst? Self-denigration is all too clearly a form of indirect self-glorification.”
Frank Rich and his buddies are only speaking to the choir. The purple and red state voters are not paying attention to their nonsense. If anything, it motivates them! Purple state people are particularly waking up to reality. They are learning not to trust the MSM.
Frank Rich has his head in a very dark place, and he is a poor excuse for a man. He was born in Washington, DC and attended Harvard U. We must not expect him to have any understanding of what it means to be a Southerner.
I am proud to say that I grew up in the South; I was a champion of Martin Luther King and civil rights; and I believe that slavery (like legalized abortion) was an unmitigated evil.
My oldest relatives remember talk of two young cousins who died in Northern Virginia during the War Between the States; and I am glad that Southerners continue to honor their dead.
Roger, you’ve simply got to stop reading the NY Times. Clearly, it’s driving you bonkers. There are other news sources tailor-made for someone like you….
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/fox-news-its-very-finest
Wow!! I’ll be watching O’Reilly tonight to see if and how he addresses this one. This is blatant.
When I addressed the Augusta, Maine tea party I detected no sheeted & hooded figures among the two thousand attendants. Investigating further I asked all racists present to raise their hands. No hands. So I called on all the fascists & Nazis present to identify themselves in like fashion. No hands.
However I did see several people who had brown shirts on. And he crowd was all white.
Frank Rich: “Living proof that cavorting with off-Broadway chorus boys and spending too much time wrangling invitations to the right opening night parties will eventually wreak havoc on one’s brain cells.”
Question: How many states has Frank Rich visited?
Answer: Only three–the state of “Disbelief,” the state of “Denial,” and the state of “Confusion.”
Only 53 more to go!
What Frank and his ilk fail to recognize is that the Civil War was a very complex issue and not so easy explanations. To many states, it WAS about their Constitional rights. Slavery was a bi-product of that cause, an overiding one, but a bi-product nontheless.
That the Northeast liberal elitist’s would be trodding out the race card now, when Obama’s approval ratings are at an all time low and not looking to improve much in the near future, is right out of their playbook.
In the decades prior to the war, the North had used it’s numerical advantages in DC to pass laws that forced people to buy northern made machine goods, rather than cheaper and superior British tools. They had also banned the sale of cotton to anyone other than northern mills, meaning that even though Europeans were willing to pay more, they were banned from buying.
There were many causes for the war, slavery wasn’t the most important for most people. Only a tiny fraction of people in the south ever owned a slave. Most poor whites had to compete with the blacks for unskilled labor.
Consider this, slavery was an issue before the War of Northern Aggression. Yet it is used to define the whole issue. Even Lincoln did not acknowledge this. He only wanted to restore the Union, whatever that is. He thus used the power to the US to prevent another peoples self determination and thus freedom. Slavery was not unique to the American South. In fact, if you are of European extraction, then your ancestors were likely slaves at one time. Slavery was on the way out when the war started and with the secession of the South, would have died naturaly in a few years.
Now, if we have a Civil War tomorrow, the issue will be the passage of the health care laws. Is this the real issue or the fact that those of the Northeast (Yankees) can not leave everyone alone?
If we are so bad here in the South, let us leave.
The Emancipaton Proclomation wasn’t issued until the war was about 3 years old. (The North had been losing for most of that time.) The EP also only covered slave states that were part of the secessionist movement. In other words, it only covered those areas where the north had no influence at the time. Any slave states that stayed in the Union got to keep their slaves.
Frankly, I’m all for secession.
Leftists should fear this far over and above the November elections. An outrageous idea? Nope. A bit ahead of its time, perhaps. If events play out, we will see.
It is interesting to note that one of Rush Limbaugh’s guest hosts, Walter Williams, is a firm believer in the constitutionality of a state’s right to secede.
The idea of secession is not new, nor is it unique to the South. Vermont has an ongoing movement to secede, as does Texas (and probably several other states as well).
To MarkTheGreat: Excellent observation, and something that I recognized many years ago. Lincoln issued the EP knowing full well that it carried no validity. It was applied to a part of the country over which he had no control at the time. Consider this – if the South had won the war, the EP obviously would have been invalid. Since the North won the war, slavery was (in theory, anyway) abolished, making the EP invalid. And it did exclude the Northern/border states that still had slave populations.
Alaska also has a secessionist party. Palin’s husband is alleged to have once been a member of this party.
“Now they are the party of the neo-segregationist ideology of political correctness.”
PC? What about “affirmative action” — racial preferences under an anodyne name.
Ah yes, another gem from Ellesworth Toohey. Liberal columnists have it so easy. They start off with their preconceived conclusion, and then just invent stuff so the narrative fits that conclusion. A Liberal I know tried that crap that right-wing Republicans were racists and the sainted Democrats the saviour of Blacks. I let him have it. I told him the Democrats were the party of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, and segregation. The Liberals chose a Southerner as their VP candidate EVERY time from 1932 through 1960 and ALL (except Henry Wallace, who was a Communist) were segregationists. The Liberal icon, Adlai Stevenson, had John Sparkman of Alabama and Estes Keefhauver of Tennessee as VP candidates (Keefhauver was a drunk to boot!). The Liberals were content to take those Southern racist votes, and threw Blacks to the wolves. Only when they suckered Blacks with the line that they were for civil rights and didn’t need those Southern votes any more did Democrats suddenly discover that, gee, those Southern KKK guys really were racists. Go back and look at the pictures from the 1920s with KKK members in their hoods on the floor of Democrat National Conventions. As Casey Stengel said, “You can look it up!”
I find it ironic that the song DIXIE was composed by a New Yorker.
I’m black and while I live in Va, and have no personal love for Confederate Month, Rich is talking through his you know what. This is a state that
1) was the capital of the Confederate States of America
2) the first state to voluntarily hire a black man for its governor (Yankee NY was the second)
3) in order to celebrate MLK Day, the VA congress had to negotiate with the good ol boys and make it Lee-Jackson-King Day (which as a young student at the time, did not care as I got a day off)
in short, VA has its push and pull issues with black/white and Civil War relations, but we survive. Many blacks do not approve and are sanely proving it; a recent black fraternity refused to show up to pick up an award from McDonnell because of this decision. Reading Rich’s article torqued me because he trying to feel superior at Virginia’s expense.
I voted for McD and don’t agree with what he did. However, I voted for him for jobs and to follow the rules. He’ll be out anyway in four years b/c my commonwealth has a one-term limit for governors (betcha Rich did not know that)
Rachel: While your moderate tone is nice, the fact that you criticize the governor and the state for implied racist motives, you praise a “black fraternity” for their actions. Huh? Isn’t that segregationist? Doesn’t that fly in the face of “separate but equal” SCOTUS ruling? Why can blacks have their own colleges and fraternities but white Americans cannot send their children to local schools which are predomiately white-and safer than inner city black dominated schools?
I am white and I am offended that we have a Black History month. If we can have a black history month, why can’t we have a Confederate Month to celebrate the history of the south? Why is it that black history is to be celebrated by the liberals and confederate history is to be denigrated?
Confederate history is to be denigrated because there is nothing to celebrate about the history of the confederacy. The south built an economy based on the blood and tears of other human beings. It reduced people to the same status as beasts of burden. You might as well have Nazi history month. To draw a parallel between a historically black fraternity or college and a group of states that fought for their “right” to own other people is obscene.
I suggest you pick up and read a history book ( not written by a revisionist liberal) about the Civil War. The South was correct in wanting to limit the Federal Government’s power— as the rest of the country is finally starting to realize almost 150 years later.
The CSA didn’t want to return the federal gov’t to constitutional limits–it never had yet broken them.
The Confederate South was treason to the Constitution and treason to the American Revolution. It was about the oligarchy which had ruled the South trying to stay the biggest fish in their pond–their national influence was waning–by destroying the nation and the constitution to make their pond smaller.
The Tea Partiers have nothing in common with the South–we the think the constitution was a good idea.
Would you like to try some reality to go with that huge dose of paranoia?
Where in the constitution do you find the article that forbids secession?
As to the Fed govt not violating the constitution, are you one of those guys who thinks the constition permits just about everything?
I suggest you actually learn some history. What was taught to you in the public schools bears little relationship to reality.
Remember, more blacks fought for the South than fought for the North.
What’s that got to do with it? It was still all about the clique which had ruled the South staying the biggest fish in their pond by making their pond smaller, and doing treason to the nation and constitution to do it.
BTW, a fact about the CSA constitution, it was almost identical to the American constitution, except it declared slavery legally preserved in perpetuity.
So what do you think it was really all about then, when that was what they cared to change?
Why don’t you study a little history. Then you can come back and apologize to the class.
Tom,
One little, tiny inconvient fact. The US had a constitutional amendment
that would have contiued slavery as well. Lincoln backed it.
What would have happen if Lincoln had not been shot? Try all blacks]
even those who had fought for the Union, being shipped to Africa.
The villification of Southerners will never end. Northern bigotry will never cease. In a sense, that is what the Civil War was about, whether Northerners could lord over the South (and the rest of the Nation) which it did for many a year….and continues in its quest to this day.
Both the US and the South were slaver nations. This was a white man’s war. The Norths economic and political imperial subjugation was the purpose. Sarah Palin is representative of the Uppity Outside the East Coast Corridor yokel, who needs to be put in their place.
The differences that marked the Civil War continue to this day. We are still fighting the Civil War, through more peaceable means. Whether it comes to seccession again or a hot war or is settled peaceably, who can tell. The North’s desire for hegemony via a concentration of centralized Federal power continues.
Long may the Confederates be honored by those who continue the fight.
You are absolutely right. Blacks seem to have this “gimme” mentality where they feel that are deserving of special treatment because of past injustices. Slavery was evil, that is a fact. However, many, many countries owned and dealt with the slave trade and it is still live and well in Africa/Arabia today. Try opening an all-white university or club today, or even operating an all-white company. You would be sued and/or shut down before it even started.
Rachal,
Stop and think. What does the Confederacy represent? Racism. Hardly. They had slavery, but that was the law of the land and fully supported by the North. Have you every looked at the black laws of the Northern states, do you even know of them? The states in the North had laws prohibiting blacks from living in the state and specfically indicated that they were inferior. The War of Northern Aggression did not occur to free blacks. Did you know that many blacks in the South owned slaves? Did you know that the middle class in the South was almost all black?
The South was fighting for freedom. In short order slavery would have died and blacks would be free as well. Now, we are all slaves. If you endorse the South, you are actually endorsing freedom and the system that we were supposed to have before Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, LBJ and now Obama.
You go Rachel…My high school years were spent in Boston during forced-busing..It was the most horrendous event in the history of this country…Some nut-job liberal judge said that the best thing for the blacks in Boston was to FORCE them to go to another school…A black resident of the neighborhood said,”Why are you doing this to us!!!..At least we know where our children are!!”…School buses were prounced upon by whites,trying to overturn the buses with children in them…One time they threw a steel pipe thru the window of a bus, shattering the glass which embedded itself on a little girl…It all ended with that famous photo of a white guy using an american flag to stab a black man with it…ALL THIS happened in the holiest city and state of liberalism…The state of Kennedy and Kerry…I remind many liberals of this and they can’t give a good response…Those events destroyed the black community in Boston…I will never forget it as long as I live…Liberal ideology at its worst…
Jerry Stephenson, a black minister, not only gave the invocation at the Tax Day Tea Party here in Louisville, but gave a rousing speech on the sorry state of education both here and nationally. His opening line was; “You don’t look like racist hillbillies — you look like Americans!” I am sure RIch would have been confounded to hear the mostly white crowd give him several rousing ovations apparently unaware that they were cheering a black man!
Maybe the crowd forgot that he was black, just like Chris Matthews forgot “for an hour ” that Obama is black. (hehe)
Roger, dissent is the highest form of patriotism only when it is indistinguishable from the talking points of Fidel Castro or Osama bin Laden.
Actually, Rob, there is another name for affirmative action, which is the idea that people will have diverse ideas, approaches, and ways of doing things by the fact of their race or ethnicity–it’s called “racial profiling.” What’s the difference between the two?
I’m a conservative. I’m a Republican. I can’t stand Frank Rich or his ilk. He makes me puke. I think what’s happened to the Democratic Party in the last 30 years is a tragedy. I LOVED this column, as in, I was (wow!) even going to tweet it (not an everyday occurrence for what that’s worth) — right until that last paragraph.
That’s because to me, the word “Confederate” when used to refer to the Southern States circa 1860 is irredeemably racist. Irredeemable.
There are some things it is appropriate to feel guilty about. The “state” founded to preserve slavery in America is one of them.
When I was writing a political blog one of my most frequent targets of contempt was that sad RINO Arlen Spector, he of, “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me.” But if being a “right-winger,” which I’ve thought I was since high school and have spent my entire adult life being “accused” of being by the other side, means rationalizing the cause of the Confederacy as a mere political disagreement, I guess the “party left me,” too.
I don’t think I’m the only one, though. And thought I doubt I’ll make any friends among the red-meat crowd for saying this, I am doing it because I think it’s important that other Reagan Republicans like me know that they’re not alone and, no, the Confederacy is not “okay.”
Right on, Ron. Totally with you on this.
The confederacy is just a part of history. Southerners take pride in being southern just like others take pride in other things, and they occasionally choose to express that in the form of remembrance of history.
The confederacy is over, so why are so many people still upset? No one alive today was enslaved in the south. The guilt of white people today is abhorent, and has given rise to a racist society in which the non-white is gifted innumerable advantages.
True conservatives monitor merit, and don’t give a damn what color you are. Everyone should be allowed to celebrate historical events as they see fit. We are all Americans.
The confederacy’s history should be remembered but not celebrated. Remember that your ancestors fought bravely to preserve a system that was the greatest evil ever perpetuated until the holocaust. You can celebrate whatever history you want, burn a cross in your front yard if you feel like it. This is America and you have that right, but if you do then you’re choosing to remember the good things about your history and ignore the atrocities.
You graduated from Berkley, didn’t you ?
His ancestors fought to protect their freedom from a federal govt that was trying to take it away.
@Cad
Michigan, actually. Go Blue! Berkeley is a good school though, at least for some subjects. Where did you go?
@Mark
His ancestors fought in defense of a “nation” in which 40% of the population could be bought and sold like cattle. The fact that you would even use the word ‘freedom’ in reference to the CSA shows that you have either no conscience or no sense of irony.
Paul,
I see that you have bought into the lie that the Civil War was about slavery.
As has been pointed out several times. Slavery was already dying, the war was about the North turning the South into a colony that it could suck dry.
So much bigotry, so little knowledge. If you truely believe that the Confederacy was founded to preserve slavery, then you don’t know what you are talking about. Try reading some actual history rather than the bilge spoon fed in public schools.
I took a little history in college, actually. And if where I went to college was a public school, well, my parents and I are entitled to a LOT of money back.
You could look it up. Whereas regarding you, “Mark the Great,” we just have your name to assure us of your greatness.
As to your claim that you even went to college, we only have your word on that. As to your claim that you have read some history, no one could tell from your ignorant comments.
‘But “Dixie” is also a name for the American South, you know the magical “land of cotton”— and, never forget, the land of slavery. Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, can never, ever forget it, and, more to the point, he wants to be sure that you never forget it, either.’
He’s like one of those pesky Jews who keep wanting the world to remember the Holocaust. Enough already! Right, Roger?
“It turns out that the tea partiers are by and large just folks…” with crazy ideas:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041203390.html
Funny, but I never saw people like you moaning about the militant far left during the Bush administration and I don’t see people like you ever denouncing what the liberal far left does at G-8 Summit Meetings or at the recent Global Warming conference in Denmark, where major riots and massive arrests were the order of the day. So, how many Tea Party members have been arrested so far at any of these events? Oh, that’s right, NOBODY. How many Tea Party members have destroyed private property or broken windows? Oh, that’s right, NOBODY. There may be extremists in every movement, but the difference is that Tea Party members actually RESPECT the law, unlike people on the far left. Just ask Bill Ayers (who, by the way is a friend of our president)how “peaceful” the far left is. I’m making it my mission in life to call out liars like you. We are not going to sit back and be slandered by friends of Frank Rich, like YOU! Deal with it.
Rich mentions the evil Orval Faubus, the Gov of Arkansas; if memory serves me correctly Orval was a Democrat !
Thank GOD we don’t have idiots like Frank Rich writing books about the Civil War. We should leave that job to the experts, like Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote. What troubles me is that some people may actually believe the junk Rich shovels out. But, in the end, I’m confident that the American people will see through the lies being promoted by worthless degenerates like Frank Rich. With the demise of American newspapers, especially The New York Times, I think Rich is preaching to a smaller and smaller crowd each and every week, which is a good thing. So stand firm, Tea Party members, just like another famous American did, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Not even The New York Times can tear down a great stone wall.
Ah, Joseph, are you a new troll, or just a new moniker on one of the old ones? No matter, you faulty logic and talking points are the same. . . . How much is georgie paying you?
Frank Rich has been so far out of the mainstream of America he makes Bubba Clinton look like a moderate Democrat. No real usefulness reading the NY Times unless you are tired of reading Pravda. The tea parties are the best thing America has seen from the grass roots since the California tax revolt 40 years ago.
We used to posit that false patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel but I guess we’ll have to update the saying that false charges of racism are the last refuge of a scoundrel, or a Democrat.
Copperheads have always been the party of slavery. Plantation or collective: what’s the difference?
What Roger calls “The Narrative” is the Left’s teaching of a truth that transcends facts. It’s called a parable. Witness Al Gore’s famous misstatements about little old ladies who drive from Iowa to town hall debates in Boston, or Congressmen who hear racist voices that are inaudible to others, or turtles dying from plastic bags and balloons, or hockey stick graphs, or people not being treated because they are uninsured or impecunious, or sharks that ply the old sea lanes used by slavers. What we see and hear from them are imaginary events that portray a “greater truth.”
All these occurences enrage people with intelligence or a sense that character matters. But the Left pols and the media always shrug them off with a “so what?” The issue for the Left, after all, is whether what they report as fact illustrates a correctly understood moral or political condition. Thus they seem stunned when anyone even cares whether something is factual. The point is that the story “could” be true, or “may as well” be true. Carping about whether something is historically or factually accurate is, to true believers, as insulting as asking Jesus whether the prodigal son was really served fatted calf.
Whenever I read Frank Rich I can only think, “Wow – Ellsworth Toohey lives!”
I find it simply amazing that some people find it appropriate to denigrate the South,( a pretty large part of the nation), and to try to smear the tea partiers in any way possible. We give awards for being smart, is there one for being stupid? Do the democrats think that this will win them voters? What a joke!
Leftists desperately need a fantasy enemy to justify their own power lust.
Hey, Chris Mathews is raising the stakes. Opposing Obama is not just “racism” any more, it’s “sedition!” :-0
Exactly what liberals were accused of for opposing Bush. Get used to it, nancyboy.
Why do liberals feel the need to lie about things that are so easily checked?
White southners take a lot pride in our Confederate ancestors. Not for the evil of slavery but for how well they fought against the invading armies of the north. Do NYT columnists talk about Malcom X’s vile racism during Black History Month? Ironically, he is praised for extolling the powers of self reliance and integrity. Which, in the political culture of the Black Congressional Caucus would make him, along with Booker T. Washington, a “Tom.”
And who was the president who ordered the murder of all those southern patriots? A Republican!
Well, sure you celebrate them because they DID fight so well. BUT as Grant said of Lee, never did any man fight so well for such a bad cause. And there it is.
And what was the cause ? To tell Washington to kiss their rear end ? And Washington refused to let them leave, instead choosing to invade and destroy the South to teach it a lesson ? After seeing what the occupants in Washington are doing to the Tea Party, I guess some things never change !
Frank Rich, like so many writers at the nytimes and in the msm in general, starts out with some repetitive, hackneyed theis and then beats the bushes looking for examples he can twist and contort to fit that thesis.
In determination to make his preferred narrative “true”, Rich isn’t much elevated over the genuinely stupid Keith Olbermann or the hysterical Chris Matthews.
“Self-denigration is all too clearly a form of indirect self-glorification.”
It must be personal, insisting (on any topic) on a preferred narrative, contorting oneself to support a predetermined convoluted stance.
People like Rich seem to be in abundance over at the increasingly irrelevant Grey Lady.
Maybe it’s the élitist impulse & they wake up each new day, determined to spend that day again distorting & pushing away truth, so they can look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the day and congratulate themselves on how “enlightened” they are vis à vis all those dumb, racist “tea party” rubes out there in the hinterland.
Can anyone help me, please? I’ve forgotten what the progressives say when you point out that there were black brigades, volunteer brigades fighting FOR the Confederacy in the was that Lincoln begun.
I also seem to have misplaced their response when it is pointed out that Lincoln’s opinions of blacks was not all that far from Margaret Sanger’s and the rest of her Eugenics friends.
The disguising of historical perspective with The Dogma often makes PC positions laughable, as if their antics were not so already. Shame they control the US versions of Pravda.
Sorry, typed too fast… correction: the WAR that Lincoln began….
The Confederate States of America couldn’t even bring itself to let blacks fight in that war that had nothing to do with slavery until March 13, 1865, when the war was as good as lost. As Robert E. Lee said, “We must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves.” Lee suggested the slaves be freed as a condition of fighting, but the Confederate Congress couldn’t bring itself to do that. Indeed, the whole concept was an affront to the brave (white) men of the Confederacy, who were fighting and dying for–well, not for slavery, right? Um, well, here’s what Charleston Courie said during the debate over the bill: “God’s institution of labor, and the primary political element of our Confederation of Government, state sovereignty…must stand or fall together. To talk of maintaining independence while we abolish slavery is simply to talk folly.”
Anyway, yeah, there were a couple of thousands of human chattel who were, surprise, told to report for military duty and, surprise, did what they were told. But maybe you’re right and they did this with pride in the Confederacy, or of their “home” states. But I don’t know what their ideology would really have been–whether they were motivated by “states’ rights,” as you seem to suggest, or by the continuation of their complete unconditional subjugation, which would be a truly impressive, but would still be problematic as tending to prove that, well, the Civil War was somehow related to slavery, which I know is bad. But none of them seemed to publish any articles or memoirs on this, which is not surprising since it was against the law to teach them to read, much less write.
What a proud heritage.
One of my great-greatgrandfathers died during the Seven Days battles outside of Richmond (Gaines Mill). He was of Scots-Irish descent. Another great-greatgrandfather died in the cornfield at Sharpsburg. He was of Germanic descent. Both were average farmers in Iredell County in the North Carolina Piedmont. Neither owned slaves.
North Carolina was a state that did not secede until after Fort Sumter. Indeed, North Carolina voted down secession in early 1862. Only when Lincoln asked the states to contribute soldiers for war against the Confederacy did North Carolina secede (as well as Virginia and Tennessee, if I recall correctly).
My family still has the letters between one of the grandfathers and his family during his time in service. There is much discussion in these letters about what needs to be done to protect their homes and state, and “patriotism”. There is no mention whatsover of slavery.
Was slavery the proximate cause of the War? Yes. Would there have been war without slavery? No. Was Slavery evil? Yes.
I have been to the killing fields of Gaines Mill and Sharpsburg. I marvel at the dedication, the determination and the bravery that my ancestors displayed in those battles.
My head tells me that slavery would have continued in the South had the Confederacy won the War. So, I am glad that for that reason the South lost. Yet, when I stand on Seminary Ridge across from the copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge, I can’t help but admire with my heart how close “we” came during that campaign.
So, it’s complicated.
I am also a White Southerner well acquainted with the history of the Civil War. I am also well acquainted with the meaning of the word sedition which was really what the Civil War was all about for the South, not just slavery but rather the South’s entire way of life as opposed to life in the Union, that is, agricultural versus industrial, class structured society versus equality of opportunity, and of course a wealthy favored few ruling over a large mass of slaves and dirt poor White farmers.
The South was very lucky and had some excellent fighting Generals in the first years of the War, while the North was still confused and uncertain about whether to even fight, just take a look at George McClellan, who really didn’t want to fight the South at all and hoped that cooler Southern heads would prevail and the War could be avoided. But be that as it may, the South lost, and while the South whined and moaned about the horrors of Reconstruction, they were lucky they had been beaten by other Americans because if it had been the British or anyone else, they would have strung up every second, fifth, or tenth Southern male from every available tree or light post for their armed uprising against the legitimate government of the United States of America.
Every state has the right to seceed.
States Rights and secession are one thing, but taking up arms against the government of the United States is treason of the worst kind, and in most countries is punished with death.
The south tried to leave peaceably. The North refused to allow them to go. The South only took up arms after the north went to war to force them to return.
Every state has the right to secede after they get an amendment passed to the constitution which says the constitution no longer applies to them. The south chose treason to the constitution, the nation, and the American Revolution instead, and they were well paid for it.
Please point to the passage of the constitution that says states do not have the right to seceed.
I can’t find it.
The Delcaration of Indpendance declares that when the govt is no longer serving the needs of it’s citizens, those citizens have the right to end their relationship with that govt.
The people who just fought a war to free themselves from England, would not have written a constitution that required everyone to remain a part of it, forever.
They recognized that the right to seceed was so basic, it didn’t have to be spelled out.
Slavery was already dying as an institution at the time of the war. It would have been gone in another generation. It had already reached the point where only the super rich of the day could afford to own slaves.
Nope. Slavery works just fine, ask the Soviets or the North Koreans. It would have stayed intact and if anything have become worse as it persisted–the southern body politic was entirely dependent on maintaining the class distinctions, effectively the noble class, which the existence of slavery underpinned.
man, you do like playing the fool
What Soviet Union? The cost of their system caused their collapse.
N. Korea, it’s collapsing as well.
Please try to study next time.
I’m not the fool, Mark. I think you are. The soviet union hung around for 70 years and had great influence over around a third of the globe.
It was evil and very nasty piece of work, but by any historical standard it was quite successful.
And with just very slight twists to history, it would be a going concern today.
Yes you are fool, since you cite examples that disprove your point.
If the Soviet Union is such a successful model, where is it. Oh yea, it collapsed on it’s own. We didn’t have to go to war to destroy it.
to # 29 Tom:
Well said.
Another white southerner here. The interesting thing about these accusations of racism is that it parallels the bloody shirt campaigns post-civil war. Republicans used the real fears that northerners had about the south to drive votes toward the Republican party. Over time, the country changed, and these fears faded. Republicans continued to use the issues to move votes, but these efforts became less effective. Post civil rights era, the Democrats have used real fears about racism to drive votes toward Democrats. These fears have faded, but it doesn’t keep Democrats from trying to beat that same drum.
“bloody shirt” is the perfect metaphor for Rich’s article. By focusing on pro-slave, antebellum “Dixie”, Rich wants to peg the South as such today. That race card may work with whites, but what about blacks that live in the south like myself?
Lets turn the spotlight on the Richlites.
They don’t have tea parties, they smoke dope- and want to legalize it, too.
They very sincerely testify to their right to butcher their innocent, unborn children.
They scream their “coming outs” and boast of their homosexual perversions.
They insist that central government must own and control all commercial activity.
Their panacea is despotic, coercive control of every individual by a collocation of Czars in Washington, DC.
(This arrangement is also known by the name of “Slavery”.)
Fines, imprisonment and “disappearance” await dissenters.(This arrangement is also known as “Communism.”
Finally, they deny the existence of their Creator and spit on their Savior.They detest His covenant and persecute His adherents.
Now, considering the above facts, how much of the unscriptural, illogical, vicious feces these dolts spout, do you choose to accept?
Ya know, the blogosphere is getting to be a lot like the MSM was about ten years ago.
Most of the “news” is about what some other blogger or journalist wrote…and how far off the reservation they went…
You folks at PJM might wanna keep an eye on that. It didn’t work for the MSM, and look where they ended up!
At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in NEW YORK CITY, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the “black” and “yellow” peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.
Sanger’s other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as “scientific” and “humanitarian.” And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America’s human “breeding stock” and purging America’s “bad strains.” These “strains” included the “shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South.”
SOURCE: http://www.blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
Black History doesn’t stop with the Civil War.
Blacks (and Whites) need to wake up to the fact that it has always been the Republicans who are on their side. It was a Republican president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was Republicans who voted to give the vote to Black men in 1876. It was a Republican, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Democrats largely voted against this bill, with Robert Byrd leading the filibuster on the Senate floor.) Liberals’ darling and Hillary Clinton’s heroine, Margaret Sanger, was a eugenecist who wanted to eliminate Blacks from the population through reproductive engineering. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society wasn’t so great for Blacks. As Jonah Goldberg notes in his book, “Liberal Fascism,” commenting on the welfare programs of the Great Society, “When welfare seemed to cause fathers to abandon their families, liberals responded that payments should be extended to families where the father remains at home. But this in turn encouraged recipients to stay or become unemployed. The answer to that? Give money to employed poor fathers, too. But this in turn created an incentive to families to split up the moment the father moved out of poverty, so they wouldn’t lose their benefits. Meanwhile, if you criticized any of this, you were a fascist.”
Liberals have destroyed the Black family in America.
Also, look at our failing American cities: Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, etc., are hell-holes because the Liberals want them to be. The Liberals want (their ideology demands it) minority groups (which includes the Hispanics) to be under-educated, under- or unemployed, dependent on government largesse, and socially fractured.
Exactly who are the racists??????
Several comments pointed out that the Democrats were the party of slavery and that it was a Republican who led the war against the South. All of which is perfectly true. It’s also obvious, however, that there has been a huge reversal in American politics. In a great many ways, Obama, ironically a senator from Illinois, is the heir of Lincoln and the contemporary Democratic party is now based on the states and groups that were formerly the base of the Republicans. They have ideological similarities with the original Republicans as well, especially in regards support for what used to be called “national improvements” (what you folks call socialism).
It is doubtless going too far to call the modern Republican party the party of Jefferson Davis, but it is plain fact that Dixie is its center of gravity. No Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of white voters for generations; and absent southern conservative voters, the Republicans would have been fresh out of luck in most elections. When LBJ’s civil rights legislation drove the Southerners into the embrace of the Republicans, it had to seem like a wonderful thing for Nixon, et. al.; but gifts are not free. You’ve got ‘em. Enjoy ‘em.
What seems obvious to you, is rarely obvious to someone who knows how to think for themselves.
The only way in which Obama is an heir to Lincoln, is that both were willing to suspend the constitution and didn’t care how many they killed so long as the govt could be made stronger.
Here’s the thing: there are plenty of reasons one might oppose this or that policy of Obama. I oppose quite a few of them myself. This business of Obama destroying the constitution and killing millions is way over the top. If you don’t automatically assume that everybody you disagree with is some sort of monster in disguise, it just seems nuts. For example, the new health care law may or may not be an improvement on the old system, but it is hardly some radical innovation and it isn’t going to send anybody to a Gulag. Why the hysteria?
Govt is in the process of taking over 1/7th of the economy. Over the objections of a solid majority of citizens? That’s not a reason for concern?
And yes, as Obama has stated over and over again, this is just the first step. Add to that the bill just passed is designed to bankrupt existing insurance companies.
As to the deaths, Obama is raising CAFE standards. That will kill thousands to 10′s of thousands of people a year. 10′s of thousands more will die as their access to health care is cut off, to control costs.
The only people who suspended the constitution in the civil war were the southerners, who up and said it didn’t exist for the anymore. They got shot for their trouble, which was what they deserved.
I don’t think you can name one “crime” of Lincoln’s the South shrank from, and I can name several of theirs which he did never commit.
In particular, you cannot name one power the feds had after the war which they did not have before the war or a new power which Lincoln ever sought.
You are simply believing or at least repeating a lie.
Can you name the part of the constitution that forbids secession?
As to Lincoln’s crimes, they have been quite adequately listed by myself and others.
The fact that you refuse to see what is in front of your face is your problem.
Trivially easy, yes. The supremacy clause among others.
The Founders were not creating anything other than a government which was fully sovereign in the areas of law where the constitution granted it powers to make law, and the entire point of the president being able to call out the militia and being the chief magistrate is that the national government could enforce it’s laws.
They were not creating an “agent of the states”, they were creating a limited government–but a real government–and the states signed on to it.
And per the rest, no, you have listed no crimes of Lincoln’s. What you have called crimes are either not crimes at all, not then or now, or are perfectly reasonable exercises of executive power in time of war.
I’m still waiting for you to list the clause in the constitution that required the states to stay?
Even though it isn’t necessary, I will list one portion that quite explicitly granted them the right to leave. The 10th ammd.
As to your inability to see what is in front of you, that has been well demonstrated.
Hey Jimmy Boy, I hope you are enjoying your democrat hellholes of Detroit, NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, DC, Nawlins and San Freak Sicko. Personally, I like my experiences in relatively free of communism Phoenix, where we have smart men like Joe Arpaio(I guy youd probalby love to hate since he actually treats CRIMINALS like the scum they are) and JD Heyworth. In my neighberhood we deal with problem children by ourselves, whether black, white, or hispanic. We do have laws here allowing us to carry weapons, even unconcealed ones. Seems to have a real negative effect on crime. You can now return to your job of being a Jeremiah Wright wannabe, without the United “church of christ”(church my ass) as cover.
Let’s see,
I believe in the Constitution, the federal system and government it created (state governments and a federal government)and that the Founders actually meant what they stated in the 10th Amemendment. Therefore I am a racist.
The liberals certainly have logic on their side don’t they?
No doubt their reasoned accusation will smite the forces of racism and result in further congressional victories for Democrats come November 2nd, 2010.
No doubt.
I know most everyone would agree that I am not a right winger. However, I read the article and it appears that Mr. Rich is trying to make hay from old straw on this one. Ok, the T-Parties first began a year or so ago and yes, with alot of twisted, dejected bushites and a few loose cannons. But many of us, including this writer, have seen this movement evolve into a real force in American politics, no matter how dismissive the left might be. I think they are on the right track with Sarah P and Michelle B and a few others ready to make their impact on the next Republican convention, and possibly beyond. Of course, their problems only really begin….if and when they win. Maybe Frank Rich should talk a little less, and listnen a bit more eh?They might find leadership a bit more difficult to tackle than a few loose cannons. Good Luck to them !
I was raised in a small town 20 miles Northwest of Atlanta Georgia and came of age in the early 1960′s and thus I was witness to the end of the age of segregation and Jim Crow and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. I can recall the White and Colored restrooms, water fountains, theater entrances, and I was the unwilling witness to the often violent reactions of some White Southerners to attempts by local Blacks to integrate lunch counters, parks, theaters, and schools. I can also recall that the vast majority of Whites in my community were entirely law abiding and peaceful in reaction to allowing Blacks to eat in the same restaurant with them, attend the same schools as their children, or worship in the same church as they did.
The simple truth of the matter was that the Civil Rights Movement was the result of America’s White Community coming to grips with perhaps the most terrible and divisive problem America ever faced, and having the courage to admit that they were responsible for centuries of pervasive discrimination against Black Americans and guilty of some of the worst expressions of bigotry and racism in the world, especially in a nation which at least paid lip service to the equality of all people.
America’s White Community sacrificed almost a million of it’s young men to correct the scourge of American slavery in the Civil War, a fact often forgotten or deliberately ignored by most present day African American leaders. And just as forgotten or ignored were the sacrifices of hundreds of White Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and Baptist young men and women who suffered beatings, humiliation, and sometimes even death to travel to the Deep South to register Black Americans to vote or assist them in attending all White schools, as well as the majority White dominated Houses of Congress and the Senate which crafted and passed legislation outlawing racial discrimination and attempting to insure Civil Rights for all Americans, Black and White. It was not the American Black Community which was responsible for the Civil Rights Movement but rather decent, moral, and truly American Whites who put an end to the evil of racial discrimination.
What most people forget is that Jim Crow was a system of laws. Laws impossed by govt because most people weren’t racist enough for those in power. They needed laws to keep blacks out of restaurants, because most restaurants were more interested in the color of money than the color of skin. They needed laws to keep blacks out of the best jobs, because most employers only wanted to hire the best person for the job.
Liberty Ship at 16 above,
Rich is definitely speaking to a smaller and smaller crowd. The left keeps pushing the racist argument to their detriment. Fewer and fewer people are receptive to the charge. It makes the lefties look less credible with each unproven utterance.
The progressives have also missed the demographics of the TEA partiers who have a huge number of independent and democrat followers. They scream “racists!” and alienate themselves further from voters who might elect their kind from time to time. Politically maladroit? In spades.
I say, keep up the commentary Frank Rich; you can’t fix stupid. And, by the way, thanks for the help.
As a southerner, I appreciate your coming to our defense Mr. Kimball. Just a couple of weeks ago, the opportunity of a lifetime landed in my lap and I got to go see the 1st and 2nd rounds of The Masters, yes the world-renowned golf tournament held in the deep-south, ex-conferderate state of Georgia. The crowd was made up of mostly older, affluent white southerners, so I braced myself every time a minority golfer walked past for the inevitable “get a rope!” or “white power!” from some drunk ignoramus. To be utter disbelief, polite clapping prevailed, with standing ovations for Tiger Woods, who as the product of an interracial marriage and a rabid adulterer would seem to elicit at least some boorishness from the white, southern, and by extension racist crowd. But no, it seemed as though they were mostly interested in Tiger’s golf game, not his skin color, genetalia, religion, or any of those other liberal obsessions. I’d like to know the last time Mr. Rich came and visited the old confederacy and where all of the lynchings and cross-burnings took place while he was here. He might be surprised to find out that most of us abhor George Wallace (another famous Democrat) and really dig MLK. I read his column regularly and I agree with Mr. Kimball that yesterday’s column was indeed a high-water mark even for Frank Rich. He sounds as though everything he knows about the south he learned from Gone With the Wind.
George Wallace matured a lot in his later years, and he and his wife, who also became a Governor of Alabama, realized that poverty, a poor educational system, and an a backwater economy afflicted White and Black Alabmans all together. George and his wife went on to both disavow their earlier bigotry, which was largely feigned in order to attract White voters anyway, and to lead Alabama to becoming an attractive place to live and work, for Blacks and Whites.
To Jason S.: Everything Rich knows about the South DOES come from Gone With The Wind. He’s nothing but a film critic, and a lousy one at that.
Actually, he’s a former theater critic. They called him “The Butcher of Broadway.”
We should be kind.
It must have been very traumatic for the poor guy when at the very hour of Mr. Obama’s inauguration, the New Jerusalem neglected to descend magisterially from the heavens in celebration and approval.
We can all take solace in the fact that, since it was in the Times, nobody read it.
We all stopped lynchin’ fellers years ago ’round heah, but I reckon an exemption might be made fer ol’ Frank Rich! (Facetiously speaking of course!)
4. John Frary “When I addressed the Augusta, Maine tea party I detected no sheeted & hooded figures among the two thousand attendants. Investigating further I asked all racists present to raise their hands. No hands.
Well if that doesn’t prove there were no racists present, nothing will!
Re: Paul Gross #10: Wow, you mean a black man can rhetorically kiss the asses of a Tea Party group (“You don’t look like racist hillbillies — you look like Americans!”) and get an ovation? Why I’m as confounded as you believe Frank Rich might be. I mean, who woulda thunk it?
lincoln freed the slaves and obama wants them back
Were the black slave owners in the south racist against blacks? Were the wight slaves owned by whites a victim of racism?
At least we avoided, if only barely, refighting the Civil War on this thread.
Yes, I think that Rich marginalizes himself as do all those who play the race card here, BUT, these people do sense, not completely incorrectly, that it is a combination of Obama, the man, which DOES include his race, his party, and the programs he has supported, which has set so many folks into such a sh*t fit. I would estimate that 20-30% of the responders on this site have muttered or stated overtly sentiments which hint (to put it politely) of sedition or the civil war to come. Yes, politics do get people riled up, and talk, especially on the internet is cheap, but such talk seems completely over-the-top in a rational discussion of the next up or down votes by our law-makers and soon by us. Is such talk typical of Tea-Partiers? I don’t know; you tell me.
It is possible that my 20-30% is high, that I over-react to such remarks when I hear them. If so, give me your number.
The most perceptive words on slavery came from Thomas Sowell: “Slavery was called the “peculiar institution” because it was so contrary to American principles. However, a closer examination of history shows that it was those principles that were peculiar, not slavery.
Involuntary servitude has permeated human history and it still exists in certain places.
Every person reading this had ancestors who were slaves. Every person reading this had ancestors who owned slaves. Those that were slaves generally, although not universally, sort of opposed it. Those that owned slaves generally, although not universally, supported it and sought to keep it. They thought it necessary to their well-being.
And that is the only way human beings can behave.
There were villains from about 1858-1862. They went under the title Knights of the Golden Circle. Their rank and file adherents were in the South. Their Headquarters was in the North and in Europe as well. They sucessfully inflamed emotions and made rational discourse and sensisble compromise effectively impossible. KGC was a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy that promoted and got a fratricidial war.
And like all real conspiracies, it has never been the subject of conspiracy theories galore.
Learn from that.
Concerning secession: Secession is a natural right of all human beings. It simply means that “I do not wish to continue my assosciation with you and will now take my leave.”
In the geo-political world, secession, along with re-association, needs to be spelled out in unambiguous terms. Everybody needs to know how it can and cannot be done. This omission remains the greatest flaw of our constitution. We continue to pay the price. We do maintain a federal system of government but we have not had a federal union since 1861. Federal unions cannot be preserved by force of arms against components who desire dissolution. It is like having government outlawing divorce. You may prevent a decree, but that which remains is hardly a marraige anymore.
My folks seceded from England in 1776. They seceded from Mexico in 1836. Regrettably, their attempts at trifecta ran afoul of Uncle Billy. But the opportunity to try again is actuarily certain at some future date.
Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals study logistics.
The logistics leading to 1861-65 consisted of forcibly transfering income from areas with lower per capita incomes to areas with higher per capita incomes. Anytime this becomes commonplace, the “donors” suffer paranoia and the “recipients” suffer an even larger case of hubris. Nemisis is certain to follow.
The Beast came to life again in the early 1990s. Its most visible results were the “militas”. Equally potent but unseen were networks of cartels masquerading
as the environmentally concerned. The Republican victory in 1994 came just in time to put the Beast back to sleep again.
We are in increasingly severe need for another and more potent electoral tranquilizer dart. The encumbrance
in the White House and his cohorts on Capitol Hill have embarked on a course that requires mal-transfer at levels that are at least disastrous and perhaps catastrophic.
So Mote It Be!
Just as O’Reilly and Goldberg get in a snit over their peers, Stewart and Maher, writers do the same thing when analyzing their fellow columnists.
The rest of us aren’t paying that much attention to the in-fighting/disagreements but are reassured that you are policing one another to some extent.
I don’t subscribe to their reactionary papers,over-the-top magazines, or watch their programs(neither do my more leftist acquaintances-what’s that all about ?). I want their miserable ratings to inform them.
Frank Rich never wrote a word I could agree with and was a waste of time.I don’t wish him ill, I just never think of him at all. Basically, he’s a hasbeen.
This article does reveal a lot of truth in regards to the left-leaning media, along with reinforcing why so many lefties are in salvage mode.
Somehow, I am more informed by reading the blogs.
The goal for Lefty is to not discuss health care, and us idiot conservatives are taking the bait. We’re playing checkers, and they’re playing chess. Quit discussing “our racism”, and get back to health care. Let’s talk about this out of control government that is setting itself up in this bank regulation bill to have ultimate authority to walk into any financial institution and take it over if they feel like it. Through the executive branch of our government with no input from Congress, no less. We are allowing ourselves to become distracted due to the “seriousness of the charges”, while this regime takes over every segment of our economy and anoints itself with massive, uncontrolled power. We better get back to the real issues facing our country,kids.
Want to see racism?
Take a look at Detroit. 60 years of the Democratic party and the radical left’s racism via “social experimentation” has turned a once thriving city into a post apocalyptic hell hole that no one wants to live in. Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia are all well on the way to being just like Detroit. NYC and Boston aren’t too far behind.
San Francisco, Portland and Seattle despite being bastions of “liberal inclusiveness” are some of the “whitest” cities around-they are enclaves of the rich, sanctimonious liberal leftard.
The Civil War in 1861 may have been all about slavery, partly about slavery, or not about slavery at all; but Obama and the Democrats are all about making serfs of a good many of us in 2010, not only in the South, but in the nation as a whole.
@ MarkTheGreat, April 20, 2010 – 5:16 am
“Would you like to try some reality to go with that huge dose of paranoia?”
WTF are you jabbering about?
“Where in the constitution do you find the article that forbids secession?”
Answered above, as soon as the filters let it through.
“As to the Fed govt not violating the constitution, are you one of those guys who thinks the constition permits just about everything?”
Again, WTF are you jabbering about? The Feds hadn’t violated the constitution in 1860–the CSA had no justification for it existence. It took ’til 1890′s for things to get moving in the “Progressive” direction, and Lincoln had nothing to do with it, he was 30 years dead.
You haven’t pointed to anything. You have just made an absurd claim that if a govt is legitimate, then nobody can part from it. Which is absurd, but then again, so are you.
I love the way people who love big govt get antsy when anyone talks about secession.
“You have just made an absurd claim that if a govt is legitimate, then nobody can part from it.”
If a government is legitimate, then it gets to enforce its laws, by war if need be. I don’t love big government, I respect the American Revolution, the Founders, and the Constitution. This distinguishes me from you, who as a Confederate Apologist hate these things, and like the Confederates want to see them evaporate into history.
If you like the Confederacy, you love treason to what I love, which are the founding principles of America.
And I’m fine with secession I would otherwise oppose if it were done legally, or if it is done is support of liberty and those founding principles and there is no other better option. None of those circumstances describe the Confederacy, which in contrast to what it tried to destroy, what it stood in opposition to, was an evil of an ordinal nature.
So I’ll ask you one more time, how in 1860 had the feds violated the constitution so as to justify secession in your eyes?
“I’m still waiting for you to list the clause in the constitution that required the states to stay?”
Stay? They were subject to laws written pursuant to the constitution, and the feds were permitted to use force to suppress an insurrection against those laws. If that means they were required to stay, then they were.
“Even though it isn’t necessary, I will list one portion that quite explicitly granted them the right to leave. The 10th ammd.
As to your inability to see what is in front of you, that has been well demonstrated.”
Please quote the portion of the you think is explicitly empowering states to ignore the rest of the constitution whenever the feel like it? My copy reads as this:
–The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.–
Since enforcement powers with respect to other powers granted the United States are delegated to the United States, that means States having joined the Union have no legally legitimate means to ignore those laws absent an amendment to that effect. The Confederacy also lacks moral justification for its treason.
Mark the Great is a smart guy.
“Mark the Great is a smart guy. /sarcasm”
Fixed that for you.
this game is terrific