RSS Feed MenuWhat is it about getting elected that allows a person to forget who actually does the electing?
While certainly baffling, the political disposition that led to Governor McDonnell’s Confederate homage is all too familiar. Once in office, the successful politician quickly comes to believe that the people who come to his office and daily ask for favors actually represent significant constituencies.
They rarely do.
Yet, each appropriation season Congress easily succumbs to the mirage of numbers. The staged and financed citizen fly-ins by Washington-directed cash-seeking interest groups lead staffers and members to conclude that these groups actually represent significant motivated voters. In fact, their numbers are dwarfed by those who would prefer that Congress politely decline requests to increase appropriations or create new government programs.
The real story in Virginia is how its talented governor fell into this trap so easily. The proclamation was requested by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that represents hardly anybody. Yet a term-limited governor with national aspirations decided to satisfy this parochial interest because it is a so-called constituency that needs to be rewarded.
The only thing sadder than Governor McDonnell’s damaging acquiescence to the request of this faux-stituent is that elected officials, who should know better, jump for these groups every day.
JimBob // Apr 13, 2010 at 2:10 pm
The SCVs don’t represent anyone? Southern Governors have been doing exactly what McDonnell did for years. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush did it. David Frum and his ilk are so out of touch with every day Americans it it laughable. Just trying to be noticed. Pretty sad all the way around.
DFL // Apr 13, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Anyone who does not defend their people and their history deserve to be trampled on. True Virginians, sons of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Lee, will not let themselves be trampled on.
Independent // Apr 13, 2010 at 4:46 pm
For a fake poster named Henry Clay to take issue with anything dealing with southern honor or the Confederacy –which was about military service to your community, not slavery; about protecting states’ rights, not opposing Yankee do-gooders Hell bent on enforcing their will on the Nation –is an obscene rape of historical perspective.
Gov McDonnell has already indicated that he’s altering the proclamation… he’s sincerely apologized as well as any Obama or Kennedy or Slick Willy could when their personal missteps actually warranted an apology.
But does Hank Clay note that in his hatchet job of McDonnell?
Nope.
Same old tired postings, with the same old tired agenda of bashing GOPers.
And this site is supposedly for conservatives intent on rebuilding the movement?
LOL! What a joke. What a failure.
EdCoughlin // Apr 13, 2010 at 6:13 pm
I really wish the Frum Forum would stop posting articles about the Confederacy flap, all it does is bring out the crazies like the civil war apologists above. It is almost as disheartening reading these comments as it was watching Pat Buchannon, who I usually respect, claim that both the union and confederacy were equally right and that slavery was barely an issue.
The last two governors before McDonnell did NOT celebrate any Confederacy remembrance day. Do not claim that it had to be done or is commonplace. There should be no Confederacy day just like there is no Benedict Arnold day. Traitors should be left to the dustbin of history and forgotten.
The Confederacy was not about protecting life and home, none of those were under attack. The only thing Lincoln was going to take away was the expansion of slavery to new territories and that was too much for the South to bear. The South fought the war to keep their slaves pure and simple, the other issues were incidental.
I don’t know why so many still act as though such actions were justified. You don’t see a ton of Germans celebrating Nazi month and talking about how any discussion of World War 2 should be free of references to concentration camps and Jewish suppression.
It should be no different here, the Confederacy and slavery are the blackest of marks on the national conscience, as bad as anything done by the Germans at their worst. Stop celebrating the history of a bigoted traitorous cause.
Slavery and the Confederacy have no part in the Republican party if you know anything about history.
The Emancipation of slaves and the violent suppression of the Confederate traitors were undertaken by a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln; the Civil War was won by a Republican general, Ulysses S. Grant, who later became a Republican president who championed the cause of reconstruction on behalf of blacks in the south more then anyone else. There is no bashing the Republican party involved in calling out those who seek to denigrate the very history of that party with the taint of slavery and treachery that, in fact, the Republican party was founded in the 1850s to fight against.
JimBob // Apr 13, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Ed Coughlin, ever hear of the Corwin Amendment? It was passed by both Houses of Congress and Lincoln supported it. It read :
“No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” –Joint Resolution of Congress, Adopted March 2, 1861
No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution. Slavery forever. So much for your theory.
EdCoughlin // Apr 13, 2010 at 7:31 pm
So….Jimbob….you’re trying to argue that even in the 1860s the Republicans were pro slave?
I think the below quote will pretty much put to rest this Lincoln as pro slave theory, perplexing as it may be.
” That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”
Doesn’t get much clearer then that.
Also that Corwin Amendment was indeed passed by the legislature (though Linclon only tacitly supported it) and went to the states for ratification. Ohio and Maryland endorsed it but to this day they are the only states to officially endorse it leaving 35 or 36 more states to go to get slavery back into the mix since 3/4ths of states need to approve, maybe you missed that part of civics class. Good luck with that one either way.
Also, like with the ban on alcohol, they could have just repealed that amendment with another amendment the way the 21st nullifies the 18th. Regardless are you really taking a pro slavery position due to a technicality (one that was never actually enacted)?
Independent // Apr 13, 2010 at 7:39 pm
EdC, I think for someone so Yankee in his thinking to presume he knows what motivated the South, the Confederacy or even the 75+ years of American history leading up to the War of Northern Aggression is about as crazy as crazy can get at FF.
The War wasn’t about slavery… it was about states rights. It was a political battle that dates back to the effort of Yankee interests to pitch the Articles of Confederation and impose a strong, federal, centralized govt so the northern economic interests could be advanced.
Lincoln didn’t “free the slaves” as so many Yankee stooges think… his famous E-Proclamation didn’t get drafted until late, 1862 and it only applied to slaves in CSA states… his effort at fostering and fomenting rebellion by the slaves against the slave-holding interests… and it did absolutely jack-nothing.
Learn history. We’re all unionists now… the war is over. No one won.
MSheridan // Apr 13, 2010 at 8:17 pm
For what it’s worth, this Confederate apology crap isn’t unique to the Right. There’s been some on display at DailyKos over the last few days as well. The community dealt with it with facts, not at all hard to do when you’ve got the Cornerstone Speech and the states’ declarations of the causes of secession to point to. Looks like EdCoughlin could use some help from a few sane Republicans. Or will Independent and his friends carry the day here?
EdCoughlin // Apr 13, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Independent
I’m not sure what history books you read, but I’m pretty sure the Union won. Lee with his handful of soldiers accepted unconditional surrender on behalf of confederate forces…or do you have one of those weird conspiracy theorist technicalities that prove the civil war isn’t over or was somehow decided differently?
Really though? States rights? Like what right? The right to their own postal service? Maybe you mean the right to elect a local dog catcher? Oh the right to have slaves without yankee interference, that’s the one! Yah those kinds of states rights have NOTHING to do with slavery.
What economic interests do you mean? Oh not wanting to compete with states that employ slave labor when they have to pay free men a wage? You mean that one? Well good for the North in advancing that interest.
Please also read the Lincoln quote again. It says “within any state or any part of a state” so it applied to ALL states, union and confederacy. It freed the slaves period. They were guaranteed continued freedom by the 13th amendment in 1865, this is pretty easy textbook stuff here.
I mean don’t schools teach this stuff anymore? I mean California has the 3rd worst schools in the nation and I learned this stuff. Maybe bigotry somehow rendered you deaf and blind in that part of US history class, who knows.
Really though isn’t this site supposed to be home to a different kind of Republican? Who brought in the Stormfront white supremacist crowd? Don’t you guys have robes to bleach, black congressmen to denigrate and tea party militias to form?
Just please don’t call yourselves Republicans, as tarnished as that label has become 150 years after Lincoln it is still too good for you if you are going to defend traitors and bigots over your own nation.
MkeC // Apr 13, 2010 at 10:40 pm
I’ve been posting this from Ulysses S. Grants memoirs which has a great take on the whole “states rights” issue.
“…Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.
This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of this particular institution.”
Independent // Apr 14, 2010 at 8:58 am
EdC writes: “I’m not sure what history books you read, but I’m pretty sure the Union won.”
Right, that’s why I said the unionists won, you idiot. Maybe you need a reading comprehension course as well as some history classes?
If the phrase “states rights” is foreign to you, I can’t begin to apologize enough for the poor quality of your apparent “edja-ma-kay-shun in publick skewls”; I went to private schools so I don’t suffer from that embarrassment. I wonder when the commenters at FF will go back and learn American history before presuming to teach others on a subject they clearly know nothing about?
I’m not asking you to do original scholarly research, EdC… all you have to do to overwhelm that fundamental failure you call an “education” is look at the wiki citation on Lincoln’s E-Proc:
“The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named ten specific states where it would apply. Lincoln issued the Executive Order by his authority as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy” under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution.[1]
The proclamation did not name the slave-holding border states of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, or Delaware, which had never declared a secession, and so it did not free any slaves there. The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, so it also was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties that were in the process of forming West Virginia, as well as seven other named counties and two cities. Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and thirteen named parishes of Louisiana, all of which were also already mostly under Federal control at the time of the Proclamation.
The Emancipation Proclamation was criticized at the time for freeing only the slaves over which the Union had no power. Although most slaves were not freed immediately, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the day it went into effect[2] in parts of nine of the ten states to which it applied (Texas being the exception).[3] In every Confederate state (except Tennessee and Texas), the Proclamation went into immediate effect in Union-occupied areas and at least 20,000 slaves[2][3] were freed at once on January 1, 1863.”
We’re talking about the EProc in (these were my words) “late 1862″. Got that, EdC? That would be a reference to the original EProc. Gheesh.
Of course, like all good liberals, when faced with the failures of your shallow argument, it’s time to pull out the race-baiting card. “Racist” Bigot!”, Ed C cries from the this rampart of farLeft troll protecting democrat ditch digging bigots. Bleaching hoods and threatening black legislators? Right, you moron.
And you think I’m the bigot? It’s your pure projection of your own character trait, bigot EdC. Get a clue. And you can start instructing others on historical fact when you finally embrace one in your own life.
MkeC // Apr 14, 2010 at 10:15 am
Independent,
For you to call some one else an idiot is kinda funny. You need to get your money back from the private schools you attended pronto, because they did not teach you American history. Obviously cause for secession was slavery. Obviously the cause for war was succession. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… big surprise its a duck!
Just ask confederate Vice President Stephens:
“The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.” Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth…”
As I posted above the states whose rights were being violated were the Northern states whose citizens were being forced to help enforce slave laws.
Independent // Apr 14, 2010 at 1:05 pm
MkeC or EdC or whomever it is… like I said, you probably shouldn’t be trying to teach anyone history lessons –or are you one of those farLeft liberals who think it’s “her-story” instead of history… wouldn’t surprise anyone here.
CSA Veep Stephens quote is from his address to the some of the CSA Constitutional delegates that attended Montgomery earlier.
It’s called the Cornerstone Speech. It was all about why the CSA constitution would have to be fundamentally different from the US Constitution adopted in 1787. You should read it because it’s clear from taking the quote out of context, you still don’t know jack.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76
Thanks for agreeing that you were wrong about the Lincoln’s E-Proc and it’s application to only specific Confederate states still in rebellion.
You’ve got a long way to go before you’re ready to debate on these issues. Spend some time learning –that publick skewl educ-ma-kashun is showing, pal.
EdCoughlin // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I have a really hard time folowing your arguements Independent because they are textually and intellectually incoherent.
At best you can prove that the emancipation was limited which proves what? Within three years every last slave had been made free and soon after extended the right to vote (even if some southern states made it impossible to exercise that right regularly).
I mean you bring up these obscure documents and justifications that have no real effect on the law today or the baseline reality of the time period you are speaking of.
In 1869 White v. Texas established the supremacy of the federal government as the law of the land. The phrase “states rights” was often a coded phrase to mean allowing unfettered slavery or, later, allowing home rule without reconstruction interference; home rule which often included heavy restrictions on blacks which in many ways resembled the system of slavery.
Modern case law has shown time and time again that the federal government remains supreme. In Reitman v. Mulkey (1967) they overturned California Prop 14 which allowed discrimination in home sales (Reagan was a big proponent) because the equal protection clause of the FEDERAL Constitution took precedence. The idea that the 10th amendment somehow cordons off areas the federal government can’t touch is a myth. At most it creates areas the federal government can’t take over without passing a law or amendment that gives them the authority to take it over.
Finally on the states rights as a codeword for racisim I take that from the history of the Dixiecrats and Strom Thurmond (the states rights democratic party was the official name of the segregationist Dixiecrats). Further George Wallace who said in his inaugural address “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” later remarked that he should have replaced segregation with states rights. He, of course, then claimed that segregation was only one of many states rights issues, just like southerners like to claim slavery wasn’t a big part of the civil war.
If anyone who doesn’t think that the confederacy was a good idea is “far left” incidentally you’re living in a country of leftists outside of narrow pockets of the old dominion.
Feel free to keep it up with the ad hominem attacks though, it really fits in with the whole white angry racist tea party mentality America has come to know lately. Maybe you’d like to leave me threatening messages or throw a brick through my window too if you’re not too busy burning crosses and bleaching hooded robes to find the time.
MkeC // Apr 14, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Independent,
Based on your reading comprehension those private schools robbed you blind.
First its MkeC not EdC, just look a the thread, genius.
Second,
Stephens lists five clear improvements in the Confederate Constitution over the US Constitution.
1) No duties or tariffs
2) No federal authority over internal improvements
3) Direct participation of cabinet ministers
4) Changes in the tenure of the national President
and in Stephens words: “Last but not least”
5) A foundation upon Slavery as the natural order of civilization
Of these, ONLY slavery does he describe as the foundation of the Confederacy!!!
He devotees about 750 words to enumerating the benefits of slavery and about 1000 words to the other complaints combined!!!
Your feeble attempt to claim I am taking this out of context is a sign only of your own intellectual cowardice.
If you can’t find a REAL counterfactual, that is, an authoritative contemporary source that says slavery was NOT an issue you should stay quiet because you are just embarrassing yourself.
Tell your parents to get a refund!
Independent // Apr 15, 2010 at 11:02 am
MkeC, I would wager and win that you are EdC… trolls love to use the fiction of multiple names posted in succession to present the image of support for their views where none otherwise exists.
You write: “I mean you bring up these obscure documents”… like Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation? LOL> and you think I’m being intellectual deficient? LOL!
Nawh, I stand by my points: you need to restore the multiple character postings to a single banner, get some reading comprehension coursework under your belt, spend some time learning about the political battle over states’ rights that consumed our Nation’s first 100 yrs of political history and has repeatedly raised itself on important occasions in the last 100 yrs.
Slavery wasn’t the cause of the War of Northern Aggression. Lincoln had many opportunities to craft a lasting settlement of the political conflicts that lead up to the hostilities if he had only been able to corral the radicals of his day. States’ rights, as guaranteed in political compromise after political compromise from the Founding Fathers onward, was the issue. Not slavery. Stephens’ comments in Savannah on the eve of hostilities to the slaveholders is no less different than today’s garden variety of Obama pitstip “townhall” meeting staged for political, partisan gain.
It’s still a pig with lipstick –whether it was Stephens doing it 140+ yrs ago or Obama doing it last week. And it’s no different. Audience, in politics, is everything; just like in selling snake oil.