"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

[phrodeau]

You opted not to the previous posting, which stated quite clearly:

The financial base of New England's antebellum manufacturing boom was money it had made in shipping. And that shipping money was largely acquired directly or indirectly from slavery, whether by importing Africans to the Americas, transporting slave-grown cotton to England, or hauling Pennsylvania wheat and Rhode Island rum to the slave-labor colonies of the Caribbean.​

The basis of the southern economy was agriculture...

Those crops were sown and reaped with slave labor, and God favored them with abundance, reinforcing their faith in a God who approves of slavery.

 

[Queersetti]

You opted not to the previous posting, which stated quite clearly:

The financial base of New England's antebellum manufacturing boom was money it had made in shipping. And that shipping money was largely acquired directly or indirectly from slavery, whether by importing Africans to the Americas, transporting slave-grown cotton to England, or hauling Pennsylvania wheat and Rhode Island rum to the slave-labor colonies of the Caribbean.​

The basis of the southern economy was agriculture...

Agriculture that relied on the use of slave labor. Absolutely no one denies that there was northern complicity in slavery.

I used to teach this stuff to 15 year olds, and they all understood it.

 

[coachdb18]

Agriculture that relied on the use of slave labor. Absolutely no one denies that there was northern complicity in slavery.

I used to teach this stuff to 15 year olds, and they all understood it.

Perhaps you also taught how to patronize those you look down your nose upon, as your clear sense of superiority makes you do, which is in keeping with the manner in which slavery was treated in the North. You of course have such a superior position, with all your built-in Northern liberal superiority and all....

Loved your recent push-poll of right-minded 'like thinkers' installed in your audacious Hall of Fame too LOL...

 

[Queersetti]

Perhaps you also taught how to patronize those you look down your nose upon, as your clear sense of superiority makes you do, which is in keeping with the manner in which slavery was treated in the North. You of course have such a superior position, with all your built-in Northern liberal superiority and all....

Well, yes. It's New England. We look down our noses at everybody.

 

[DrDelirium]

Didn't realize there was a big 'ex-confederate assimilation problem' there in England!

Well, England did support the Confederacy.

 

[jaF0]

 

[Shagly]

Well, yes. It's New England. We look down our noses at everybody.

...especially politicians.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Why are we still waiting for those ex-confederates to assimilate?

Because they're all long dead.

 

[adrina]

Because they're all long dead.

They don't look very dead.

 

[jaF0]

They don't look very dead.

Those aren't ex-confederates. Those are redneck degenerates.

 

[coachdb18]

Because they're all long dead.

Still waiting for England to make an apology for all its profiting off slave picked cotton for its industrially successful textile mills, transported by Northern ships to their shores. Maybe we're just waiting in vain for English profiteers to 'assimilate'? Glad the English never took advantage of any of their colonies either nor their people in them!

 

[adrina]

Those aren't ex-confederates. Those are redneck degenerates.

Technically that is very correct. However they seem to have some issues with their loyalties as they are happily standing holding confederate flags - google is awash with images just like these.

The confederacy is no more. But the loyalty to it... that's not quite so clear cut.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

The confederates did not become citizens of another nation, so your analogy doesn't work.

Somewhat separate issues, and I could be faulted for coupling them together. The primary issue with regard to Hypoxia's prior post is that there was no statute or Constitutional language prohibiting secession, and very specific language (neither contradicted by Supreme Court rulings at that time or by the 14th Amendment not yet in existence) that said that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" (9th Amendment) and 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." (10th Amendment).

Boy, that sure sounds to me like it leaves plenty of room for sovereign states who voluntarily and affirmatively form a union to voluntarily and affirmatively leave it.

And the subsequent fact that said Confederate citizens never became citizens of another country because that legal right was not respected does not refute the legal rationale of the disrespected right.

 

[doowdniw]

They don't look very dead.

If I was going to pick a rebel flag, I would definitely go with the Wonder Woman version. Cause boobs.

 

[Hypoxia]

Show me the law at that time that made secession illegal. I'll wait.

Bear with me; I'm necessarily citing from memory here. (More eye surgery soon.) IIRC the States are granted powers not specified in the Constitution, but Congress is specifically given the power of admitting states, and thus of statehood itself. I.e. a state is a State if and only if Congress says so, with legislation. Congress could certainly grant a State separation from the Union. But unilateral secession violates Congress' control of membership of the Union, and so is unconstitutional, thus illegal.

Meanwhile, when people emigrate and become citizens of other countries does that make them criminally traitorous to their birth nations by virtue of their voluntary renunciation of citizenship?

IF the birth and new host nations are at war; AND the emigrant/defector aids their new host in its war; AND the new host nation loses the war; THEN the subject can expect to be hanged. It's happened.

To avoid treason charges, don't wage war on your birth nation unless you know it'll lose.

 

[Shagly]

Bear with me; I'm necessarily citing from memory here. (More eye surgery soon.) IIRC the States are granted powers not specified in the Constitution, but Congress is specifically given the power of admitting states, and thus of statehood itself. I.e. a state is a State if and only if Congress says so, with legislation. Congress could certainly grant a State separation from the Union. But unilateral secession violates Congress' control of membership of the Union, and so is unconstitutional, thus illegal.

IF the birth and new host nations are at war; AND the emigrant/defector aids their new host in its war; AND the new host nation loses the war; THEN the subject can expect to be hanged. It's happened.

To avoid treason charges, don't wage war on your birth nation unless you know it'll lose.

I say it's time for another revolution, internally.

 

[DrDelirium]

Bear with me; I'm necessarily citing from memory here. (More eye surgery soon.) IIRC the States are granted powers not specified in the Constitution, but Congress is specifically given the power of admitting states, and thus of statehood itself. I.e. a state is a State if and only if Congress says so, with legislation. Congress could certainly grant a State separation from the Union. But unilateral secession violates Congress' control of membership of the Union, and so is unconstitutional, thus illegal.

That's a reasonable interpretation. On the other hand, the Declaration of Independence takes a rather different view. The Declaration is certainly not the Constitution, but in interpreting the Constitution it is often the practice to consult the intent of the framers and the Declaration ought not to be dismissed. It could be argued that, given the absence of Constitutional language addressing the question of secession, the very clear language of the premier document of the United States ought to have some weight. In addition, the specific language of the Land Ordinance of 1784 refers to a process in which the inhabitants of a territory apply to Congress for admission to the Union. There is an implication of voluntary association here, and it seems that the lack of attention to the issue of secession in the Constitution falls short of granting to the Congress the right to enforce involuntary participation in the Union. I think that while the war adjudicated this case clearly, prior to the war there was no clear legal basis for involuntary membership in the Union. At the very least, the US was founded upon the idea that in a serious disagreement regarding policy, the people have a right to resort to arms to detach themselves from the state and form a new state. Naturally this is not embodied in the Constitution, but neither does the Constitution repudiate the Declaration. Perhaps a lot of trouble in this country and the world might have been avoided if the Founders had included specific constitutional procedures for secession.
This is not a defense of slavery or Southern slave owners or Southern culture. It is worth noting, however, that in the general time frame of the Civil War, all parts of the world that were in a process of industrial development repudiated slavery, one way or another. It seems doubtful that the Confederacy would have been a lasting exception even if they had been allowed to leave the Union peacefully.