I wish I were in the land of traitors, rattlesnakes and alligators

[wiegie]

Jeff Schweitzer

The Confederacy: Kill the Myth Once and For All

 

On April 3, 1865, Richmond, Virginia, fell to Union soldiers as Confederate troops retreated to the West, exhausted, weak, and low on supplies. The end would come soon thereafter. On April 5, Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant started an exchange of notes that would lead to Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9. As we approach this important anniversary, the time is upon us to consider, and ultimately reject, the sterilized myths of the Confederacy.

 

Southerners who claim a deep national pride celebrate their ancestors' efforts to dissolve the very union of states whose flag they now so proudly fly. They honor a campaign to destroy our country but claim the mantle of patriot. That makes no sense. The contradiction is always swept under the rug, but that must stop. Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of the war's first battle; that is a good time to close this chapter of hypocrisy and inconsistency. A southern loyalist cannot be a patriot; the two ideals are mutually incompatible. You cannot simultaneously love the United States and love the idea of destroying the United States. To claim both is insane, the equivalent of declaring that you love all Mexican food but hate enchiladas. The claims are each exclusive of the other and therefore by definition both cannot be true.

 

Let us take one issue off the table immediately. Certainly one can rightly honor the bravery of fallen soldiers no matter whether they wore blue or grey. We can appreciate the rare military genius of Robert E. Lee, and the loyalty and dedication of Stonewall Jackson, George Pickett and Nathan Forrest. These generals and the men they led fought valiantly, with integrity, with honor, for a cause in which they believed passionately. For this we owe them our deepest respect.

 

But honoring the man is not equivalent to honoring the cause for which he fought. The cause championed by the South should cover every American with shame. Have no doubt that the South was at war to dismantle our nation, to destroy our Constitution. For this goal of secession, of which nobody should be proud, more than 630,000 soldiers (some claim up to 700,000) were killed or wounded in four years of hellish war. To put this in perspective consider that the entire population of the United States at war's end was 35 million, putting war casualties at nearly 2% of the total populace. Equivalent rates of casualties today would result in 5 million dead or wounded, dwarfing our losses in World War II, or any other war.

 

Why did 2% of our population suffer death or maiming? Over the issue of state sovereignty and the interpretation of the Tenth Amendment (ratified in 1791). The text is simple enough: "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." But we also have the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, which say, "This 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."

 

Simply put, 11 southern states seceded from the Union in protest against federal legislation that limited the expansion of slavery claiming that such legislation violated the tenth amendment, which they argued trumped the Supremacy Clause. The war was indeed about protecting the institution of slavery, but only as a specific case of a state's right to declare a federal law null and void.

 

The inherent tension between Article VI and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution has kept lawyers busy and wealthy since our founding, and the argument goes on today. But the South went a significant step further than arguing a case. In seceding from the Union those states declared the U.S. Constitution dead. The president of the United States, sworn to uphold the Constitution, had no choice but to take whatever measures were necessary to fulfill his commitment. So war came.

 

So what exactly about that history would lead one to fly a Confederate flag over a state capitol building, or paste one on a F150 bumper or wear one on a T-shirt? Is the South proud of its efforts to protect slavery? Or attempting to destroy the United States through dissolution? For starting a war in which 2% of the population died? For losing the war? These are odd banners to carry around for nearly 150 years.

 

Perhaps the pride comes from the fact that the South stood up to a greater power, at least checking or slowing the pace of an expanding federalism. But even that does not pass the smell test; by starting but then losing the war the South created the exact opposite effect, solidifying federal power like never before.

 

But damn if the South does not hold on to the war as if they never actually lost, fighting incongruously for a hopeless cause of questionable value while simultaneously wrapping themselves in the American flag! So we get oddities like Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell proclaiming April "Confederate History Month" without ever mentioning slavery. When questioned about this curious oversight, McDonnell lamely explained that "there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia." Really? If slavery was not among the most "significant" issues for Virginia, exactly what other state right was being violated by federal law leading to the Civil War? Does McDonnell even know the history of the war? Sadly, McDonnell is the not the first governor of his state to explicitly omit slavery from lofty declarations. Former Republican Virginia Governor Republican George Allen also failed to recognize slavery when making a similar proclamation. Seems to be a disease of Republican governors, a historic irony given the role of the young Republican Party in the war.

 

The South started and lost a war that nearly destroyed the United States in pursuit of a terrible cause. Let it go. Let. It. Go. You fought well but lost decisively. Your cause was unjust. Your actions were treasonous. There is no part of the Confederate cause of which to be proud. There is no moral high ground here. Waving the American flag while fiercely defending the effort to tear that flag down is untenable. Make a choice; be a proud American or a proud Confederate. You cannot possibly be both.

[Pope Flick]

[Perchoutofwater]

If it was all about slavery, explain Lincoln's first inaugural address? If it was all about slavery how do you explain the Corwin Amendment, which passed both the house and senate, and would have been ratified had the South wanted to stay in the union? If the civil war was about slavery, how come the North started invading the South in 1861 but the Emancipation Proclamation didn't come until 1863, and then it only effected the slave states that had left the union. The slave states that stayed were allowed to keep their slaves. Why did the District of Colombia allow slavery for a full year after the start of the civil war? All of the above is direct verifiable history that seems to be forgot by the revisionist North that makes sure that information isn't portrayed in the history books we were given to read. Nope, the revisionist wanted everyone to believe it was all about slavery (Lincoln actually wanted to send all freed slaves back to Africa and in most Northern states people of African decent were not allowed to reside), that it had nothing to do with Lincoln's desire for a central bank like his mentor Clay, it had nothing to do with the way the the protectionist tariffs helped the North to the detriment to the South. It had nothing to do with the fact that the South actually paid more in federal taxes than the North, but received fewer fortifications, subsidies for rail roads, and light houses.

 

Weigie, if it was about slavery and not economics why did the South need to secede when the Corwin Amendment was sent to the states for ratification and had the South not left the union there were enough states to ratify it?

 

Southerners felt the federal government was playing cronyism, and no longer adhering to the Constitution. Lincoln was tied to the railroad and northern factories. He was a dictator, and the South saw him for what he was. Lincoln jailed members of congress that disagreed with him. He had a warrant issued for the arrest of a supreme court justice, because the justice had the nerve to tell him he didn't have the constitutional authority to do what he was doing. Lincoln shut down 1/3 of the newspapers in the North and had their owners and editors jailed for writing articles against his agenda. There is no contradiction with the South wanting to secede from the Union run by a tyrant like that and having patriotism. The South held the Constitution dear and when they saw their government was staring to ignore it, they did what many Northern states threatened to do during the war of 1812, they seceded.

 

Some more interesting facts about Dishonest Abe.

Edited April 10, 2010 by Perchoutofwater

[polksalet]

I can never tell when Wiege is being serious.

[The Mucca]

The North Won!! No wonder this Country is so screwed up now.

[millerx]

 

BTW, Perch, your link seems to be down or not working.

[Perchoutofwater]

 

BTW, Perch, your link seems to be down or not working.

 

try it now

[Ursa Majoris]

If the civil war was about slavery, how come the North started invading the South in 1861

 

It might be because the south fired on Fort Sumter, like all the history books say.

 

In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republican victory in that election resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing and incoming US administrations rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion.

 

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

[bushwacked]

 

BTW, Perch, your link seems to be down or not working.

 

It works, but Perch accidentally linked it to a bizarre institute, with a funny foreigner name, with people who are obsessed with Defending the Confederacy.

 

Rockwell headed the Mises Institute, "Rockwell and the prominent theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist 'paleoconservatives.'

 

I'm sure Perch didn't mean to actually post that particular link and isn't a fan of the Mises Institute.

Edited April 10, 2010 by bushwacked

[Perchoutofwater]

It works, but Perch accidentally linked it to a bizarre institute, with a funny foreigner name, with people who are obsessed with Defending the Confederacy.

 

 

 

I'm sure Perch didn't mean to actually post that particular link and isn't a fan of the Mises Institute.

 

I posted the link for the factual information it provided. As usual rather than discuss the facts you attack the messenger in an attempt to discredit. What facts in the link are incorrect?

[Azazello1313]

we've had this discussion before, and now as before, I will say, read the various southern states' declarations of secession....why those states were seceding in their own words. they talk an awful lot about slavery, and never mention tarriffs or any of the other stuff perch always wants to cling to. the civil war was about a lot of different issues, but all of them basically tied back in one way or another to slavery. the south wanted to preserve it, the north was feeling the need to abolish it. those are quite simply the facts.

 

that said, I do think it's pretty lame to try and rub those states' noses in it 150 years later.

[Azazello1313]

It works, but Perch accidentally linked it to a bizarre institute, with a funny foreigner name, with people who are obsessed with Defending the Confederacy.

 

umm, the institute is named after the austrian economist ludwig von mises, and really has nothing to do with defending the confederacy.

[Perchoutofwater]

It might be because the south fired on Fort Sumter, like all the history books say.

 

Do you believe it was about slavery considering the Corwin Amendment had passed, and what Lincoln had said during his inaugural?

 

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, was very clear about what he was saying: Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and whenever that consent is withdrawn, it is the right of the people to "alter or abolish" that government and "to institute a new government."

 

In his inaugural Jefferson stated " "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it."

 

In an August 12, 1803 letter to John C. Breckinridge Jefferson addressed the same issue, in light of the New England Federalists’ secession movement in response to his Louisiana Purchase. If there were a "separation" into two confederacies, he wrote, "God bless them both, & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better."

 

In December of 1814 representatives from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont met at the Hartford Convention to discuss possibly leaving the union.

 

The fact of the matte was the founders believed secession was a right.

 

In Lincoln's first inaugural address, in addition to supporting the Corwin Amendment which the South liked as did the District of Colombia, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky; Lincoln also stated the following:

 

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts..

 

Interestingly enough the tariffs which helped the North and hurt the South were going to be doubled. Lincoln pretty much stated he would send an invading army into the South to collect these tariffs. Based on secession which was held as a right by the founders, the North's should have vacated the fort, but instead they moved to reinforce it with additional troops. Does this not seem like an act of war to you?

[Perchoutofwater]

we've had this discussion before, and now as before, I will say, read the various southern states' declarations of secession....why those states were seceding in their own words. they talk an awful lot about slavery, and never mention tarriffs or any of the other stuff perch always wants to cling to. the civil war was about a lot of different issues, but all of them basically tied back in one way or another to slavery. the south wanted to preserve it, the north was feeling the need to abolish it. those are quite simply the facts.

 

that said, I do think it's pretty lame to try and rub those states' noses in it 150 years later.

 

Again if it was about slavery didn't the Corwin Amendment take care of that? Besides, the federal government had already banned the importation of slaves, and the states had agreed to that. That didn't cause a civil war. The practice of slavery was dying out. Within a generation it would have been gone anyway, as Irish were cheaper (the north figured this out), and new technologies were reducing the need of labor. If Lincoln and for that matter the North really gave a crap, why not do what every other civilized nation did to end slavery?

Edited April 10, 2010 by Perchoutofwater

[bushwacked]

umm, the institute is named after the austrian economist ludwig von mises, and really has nothing to do with defending the confederacy.

 

Ummmm...

 

 

Ludwig von Mises publications have been supportive of the Confederate States of America's secession, which precipitated the American Civil War....Lew Rockwell responded to these criticisms by writing "We have published revisionist accounts of the origins of the Civil War that demonstrate that the tariff bred more conflict between the South and the feds than slavery. For that, we were decried as a dangerous institutional proponent of “neoconfederate” ideology. Why not just plain old Confederate ideology? The addition of the prefix neo is supposed to conjure up other dangers, like those associated with the term neo-Nazi. These are desperate tactics of people who know, in their heart of hearts, that they are on the wrong side of history."

 

 

 

Sometimes it takes a full circle effort to realize I was specifically referring to the clandestine looney fringe group he got his info from, not the guy who it was exploited from.

Edited April 10, 2010 by bushwacked

[whomper]

On April 3, 1865, Richmond, Virginia, fell to Union soldiers as Confederate troops retreated to the West, exhausted, weak, and low on supplies.

 

Suck it TimC

[Clubfoothead]

Suck it TimC

 

 

What the Southern states did, for whatever their reasons, was secede. That makes them traitors. There is no Constutional authority whatsoever for that action.

[SLAYER]

Suck it TimC

Hey Tim want to start another secession

[BeeR]

that said, I do think it's pretty lame to try and rub those states' noses in it 150 years later.

Oh cmon. This is the Great Liberal Era. Dredging up stuff like the Civil War and slavery (yet again) is a cool hip thing to do. Where's the reparations dammit?

 

 

Anyway - trolling or not, I say If ol Sparky Schweitzer here really wanted to "reject the sterilized myths," he should start w/the fact that very few Southerners are walking around waving a Confederate flag. And, like a lot of mindless liberals, he seems to think having pride in one's heritage equates to "gosh I wish we still had slavery." Brilliant!

 

If he really wants to combat hypocrisy and inconsistency, he should focus on race relations in this country today instead of a war that ended ~150 years ago.

 

PS: those who think being a traitor is automatically so terrible might want to keep in mind that it's the reason our country exists in the first place as it describes every one of our founding fathers.

Edited April 10, 2010 by BeeR

[Clubfoothead]

Oh cmon. This is the Great Liberal Era. Dredging up stuff like the Civil War and slavery (yet again) is a cool hip thing to do. Where's the reparations dammit?

 

 

I don't think the Govenor of Virginia is a liberal.

 

And the founders were traitors - to England, not America as the southern states who seceeded were.