Confederacy

The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln 1865: Still Affecting America Today!

Ronald Leave a comment

On this day, at around the hour I am writing this, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC, by actor John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, who wished to reverse the Union victory accomplished five days earlier by the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

Lincoln looks better all of the time, and we are now commemorating the sequicentennial of the Civil War, which lasted officially from April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, and killed two percent of the population, approximately 620,000 men!

The sectionalism that helped to cause the Civil War still exists, and much of the South is celebrating the Civil War anniversary, rather than just commemorating it!

American history would have been quite different if Lincoln had lived, and it is still the greatest human tragedy of the nation’s history, as far as any individual’s role in history is concerned.

Much is published regularly about Lincoln, but the mountain of material never stops, and a lot of attention will be given to it over the next four years because of it being 150 years ago, a notable anniversary!

A movie well worth seeing, opening tomorrow, is THE CONSPIRATOR, which portrays the assassination of Lincoln, and the supposed complicity of Mary Surratt, who ran the rooming house where the Lincoln conspiracy was discussed by the group involved in the plot, including her son, John Surratt, who escaped punishment for his complicity in the event, but had his mother become the first woman executed in American history, due to a military tribunal illegally condemning four of the conspirators to death, rather than having trial by a civilian jury!

The movie informs us of the unconstitutional actions taken by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who was in such a hurry to eliminate the conspirators that he broke the Bill of Rights, a troubling followup to the tragedy of the Civil War!

It is a warning that even in crisis, we must not forget the Constitution and Bill of Rights, too often ignored in the name of national security!

Back To the 19th Century Mentality: Proposed Amendment Would Permit State Nullification Of Federal Laws! Have We Failed To Learn The Meaning Of Our Constitution? :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Just as we begin to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the beginnings of the Civil War over the next year, we now see a movement promoted by Congressional Republicans, including future House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, to propose a constitutional amendment that would allow states to overrule any act of Congress, effectively nullification of federal law! 🙁

This battle was fought by Andrew Jackson in the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833, when he threatened John C. Calhoun and South Carolina with federal military intervention if that state refused to obey the federal tariff law.

It was also being threatened by Zachary Taylor if any state attempted secession during the debate over the Compromise of 1850.

It was also the reaction of Abraham Lincoln when the Southern states seceded from the Union and seized American military property and bases in 1860-1861.

These were three Presidents of different parties, all from Southern slave states of birth, who were ready to uphold the federal government’s authority over the states, and actually led to Lincoln’s actions against the Confederacy during the Civil War.

But now, a century a a half after this issue was supposed to have been resolved by the Northern victory, there is a push on to allow just that–states refusing to obey the federal laws and Constitution and claiming the right to do so! 🙁

If the legislatures of two thirds of the states–34–voted for such a repeal of a federal law, it would not be in effect. So far, 12 states have supported such an amendment being introduced.

Of course, two thirds of the House of Representatives and two thirds of the Senate would have to agree to such an amendment, which is hard to imagine, as it would limit their own power and authority.

Additionally, 38 states, three fourths, would have to ratify such an amendment, and that also seems extremely unlikely, as there are more than 12 states which certainly, in a political sense, would oppose such a concept.

While one cannot be sure of the exact dynamics of which states would be opposed to such an amendment, were it to make it through the House of Representatives and Senate, the likelihood would be that the following states would NOT support such an amendment: Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii.

Thirteen of these seventeen states would be enough to stop such an amendment, and realize that there are other states that might also oppose it, including Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, and New Mexico, which would bring the total to a potential 25.

And also realize, in other states that might be seen as supporting such an amendment, all that would be needed to defeat it is a one vote margin of defeat in one of the two houses of the state legislature.

Another consideration is that such an amendment would allow small states with small populations to have equal influence on such nullification, despite having, in many cases, tiny population totals as compared to large states, so even large states which might be motivated to support such an amendment would not be pleased that small states would have an inequitable influence on repeal of federal laws.

So basically, this is all demagoguery, and a sign that many people do not understand their own Constitution, and the concept that ONLY the national government can speak for the nation through the tortorous process of passing laws through our Congress, and that the state legislatures, many of them incompetent and corrupt on a far greater level than our Congress, have no ability or competence or justification to interfere with what is good for the nation at large,whether they like it or not!

A Grim Anniversary: 150 Years Ago South Carolina Voted Secession From The Union! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

On this day, December 20, in the year 1860, exactly 150 years ago, South Carolina became the first state to vote ordinances of secession and break away from the Union, after many years of such threats going back to 1832-1833 during the Nullification Crisis over the protective tariff during the administration of Andrew Jackson!

Hard to believe, but South Carolina is tonight “celebrating” that anniversary with a reading of the secession ordinance, a party and dance and banquet, as if this is an honorable moment in history to commemorate! 🙁

It is one thing to honor the dead of the Confederate side of the Civil War, and to promote the history of the Confederacy, as in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

But it is NOT a time to celebrate or glorify the treason of the South which was out to destroy the Union, and to keep African Americans in slavery for all time! 🙁

This is unfortunate proof of the reality that the old scars of the Civil War remain much too fresh and unhealed, and that we have a long way to go before we can say that this nation is “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all!”

Virginia Reasserts Confederate History Myths On Eve Of 150th Anniversary Of Beginning Of The Civil War! :(

Ronald Leave a comment

Next April will mark the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and unfortunately, the Commonwealth of Virginia is actively working to promote a myth about that war: that slavery was not a major cause of the war, and that thousands of African American slaves fought for the Confederacy to promote and protect “homes and livelihood”! 🙁

First, Governor Robert McDonnell introduced Confederate History Month last April without mentioning the role of slavery in the Civil War.

Now it has been discovered that a 4th grade textbook in Virginia public schools includes a statement that says black Confederate soldiers in the thousands fought for the South in the Civil War, including two battalions under the leadership of General Stonewall Jackson!

These statements are totally false, and were based on an internet search which utilized assertions by a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has spread that rumor which has no basis in fact!

The Virginia Education Department did a poor job of vetting this textbook, and the fact that in the year 2010 we are having distorted history being promoted by the Governor and by the Education Department of the state of Virginia is indeed, very troubling, and should be condemned!

It is alarming that the South is continuing to promote a view long repudiated, and that what Southern Democrats used to do, uphold racism and discrimination, is now being promoted by Southern Republicans–a far cry from the honorable Republican party of Abraham Lincoln which upheld racial equality, freed the slaves, and promoted black citizenship and voting rights at the birth of the GOP!

The Civil War Revives Again! Virginia’s Governor Stirs A Controversy! :(

Ronald 2 Comments

A year from now, the country will be commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, which cost the lives of about 620,000 Americans.

The scars of that war, the most significant single event in American history, have never been healed, as many white Southerners, descendants of the Confederate side of the war, continue to wave the Confederate flag on their cars and homes, and still look at the North as the “Yankees” and Abraham Lincoln as the devil personified.

Some Southern states still fly the Confederate flag on their public buildings, and the most amazing development of all is that many Southerners, who once despised the Republican party for their prosecution of the war, their Reconstruction of the South, and for Lincoln being the first Republican President, now are loyal Republicans, with a complete switch around evident, as Republicans reign in much of the South, and now embrace the view that they once fought and died for a century and a half ago!

To many Southerners, it is not the “Civil War”, but rather the “War Between the States”, or “The War for Southern Independence”, or “The War of Northern Aggression”. Slavery as the major factor in the coming of the war is ignored, as states rights and the movement to be independent are emphasized.

This is exactly what the newly elected Republican governor of Virginia has now declared, as he decided to issue an official proclamation making April a month to commemorate as “Confederate History Month”.

This has stirred old passions on both sides of the war controversy, and it has led to Governor Bob McDonnell belatedly apologizing for failing to mention slavery as a reason for the war, instead emphasizing states rights and independence desires as the factors that led to war.

It is good that McDonnell has at least acknowledged one day late that slavery was a terrible institution that should be seen as the major reason for the outbreak of the war. But it does not make up for the reality that many white Southerners wish to ignore that reality, and some fail to see how African Americans feel insulted by any display publicly of the Confederate flag.

Virginia has come a long way from the days of slavery and segregation, and with the growth of the northern suburbs outside Washington, D.C., it has become much more “mainstream” and has been seen as a progressive oriented state, more than probably any other Southern state. But the Republican party of Virginia is conducting itself in recent years to look more like Republicans in South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas and other states where governors and other public officials have been shameful in their advocacy of “secession”, “interposition”, “states rights” and other bad memories of the years preceding the Civil War, and the long degradation of racial segregation for a century beyond the Civil War.

It is one thing to say that students should know the history of the Civil War, and know what the Confederacy was all about. It is fine to learn about it, and to have museums devoted to study of the topic, such as the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, a fascinating place that left a very strong impression on the author when he visited it on vacation in Virginia in 2007.

However, it is not justified to glorify the Confederacy and to propagandize for a lost cause that was evil to begin with–to defend slavery and to wish to break up a nation created by the Founding Fathers to last for the duration of time! It is not appropriate for the governor of Virginia to encourage a distortion of history, and to use the Civil War to promote a political agenda designed to divide the races and the nation at large!

So despite his belated apology for the omission of the subject of slavery, what the Virginia governor has done shows lack of sensitivity and good judgment, and must be used as an example of what should not be done next year on the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of war! Instead, we all need to unite in understanding the great tragedy of that war, that Americans had to fight Americans to promote the basic purpose of the founding of the nation–freedom, liberty, and equality!