imported post
sudden valley gunner wrote:
Tawnos wrote:
sudden valley gunner wrote:
Again the ignorance of people, the confederate flag has nothing to do with racism but with cultural pride. A former president of NAACP, wears a confederate uniform and carries a confederate flag around his town in the south. Then to compare it to gun racks shows this guys ignorance takes another leap forward in my mind one thing has nothing to do with another. Another perfect example of how people follow the other sheep and don't do any reasoning for themselves.
Why are people carrying around the naval battle standard and not the actual flag? Why does the basis of the confederacy have nothing to do with "cultural pride" and everything to do with slave ownership?
Claim what you want about state's rights and such, but make no mistake:
The confederacy was about slaves, not states.
You are mistaken confederacy wasn't about slavery and neither was the civil war.
Are you just arguing the point without analysis, or do you really believe that. Yes, there were a lot of things at stake there, but look at the bigger picture: the Confederation's Constitution.
I'll start at the top and work down, since you seem unlikely to read it without me doing it here, outlining how the Confederacy, in many ways, strengthened the Federal government and made slave ownership set in legal "stone":
Article I
Section 2: The CSA removed the ability for a State to decide who is a person in the state eligible to vote. It instead consolidated that power with the federal government.
Section 4: Consolidates the power from section 2 such that States lack the power to choose who may represent them and how.
Section 7: Gives the President line-item veto power. This makes the Federal government able to more carefully control those laws voted on by the state, as the Federal government gains the power to veto partial measures with the same restrictions of overturning a veto as today.
Section 9 (3): They didn't even remove the right of the federal government to suspend Habeus Corpus!
Section 9 (4): NO law may be passed that bans slave ownership.
Section 9 (6): Congress (federal government again) gains the power to levy taxes on inter-state trade.
Article 2: nothing of interest, really
Article 3:
Section 2 (2):States aren't allowed to work things out between themselves, the Federal government still remains the arbiter of inter-state justice.
Article 4:
Section 1: The federal government still mandates that each state honor each other state's court rulings. States are not allowed to independently rule on issues.
Section 2 (1): Slaves are property that may be brought anywhere. It's federally mandated that states allow the free trafficking of slaves without interference.
Section 2 (3): Slaves are not legally allowed to flee to non-slave areas. They are to be returned (no Dred Scott here).
Section 3 (3): All new states added to the CSA are "slave" states.
Section 3 (4): The federal government may still send federal troops into states.
And the summary, which was already written well:
Overall, the CSA constitution does not radically alter the federal system that was set up under the United States constitution. It is thus very debatable as to whether the CSA was a significantly more pro-"states' rights" country (as supporters claim) in any meaningful sense. At least three states rights are explicitly taken away- the freedom of states to grant voting rights to non-citizens, the freedom of states to outlaw slavery within their borders, and the freedom of states to trade freely with each other.
States only gain four minor rights under the Confederate system- the power to enter into treaties with other states to regulate waterways, the power to tax foreign and domestic ships that use their waterways, the power to impeach federally-appointed state officials, and the power to distribute "bills of credit." When people champion the cause of reclaiming state power from the feds, are matters like these at the tops of their lists of priorities?
As previously noted, the CSA constitution does not modify many of the most controversial (from a states' rights perspective) clauses of the American constitution, including the "Supremacy" clause (6-1-3), the "Commerce" clause (1-8-3) and the "Necessary and Proper" clause (1-8-18). Nor does the CSA take away the federal government's right to suspend habeus corpus or "suppress insurrections."
As far as slave-owning rights go, however, the document is much more effective. Indeed, CSA constitution seems to barely stop short of making owning slaves mandatory. Four different clauses entrench the legality of slavery in a number of different ways, and together they virtually guarantee that any sort of future anti-slave law or policy will be unconstitutional. People can claim the Civil War was "not about slavery" until the cows come home, but the fact remains that anyone who fought for the Confederacy was fighting for a country in which a universal right to own slaves was one of the most entrenched laws of the land.
In the end, however, many of the most interesting changes introduced in the CSA constitution have nothing to do with federalism or slavery at all. The President's term limit and line-item veto, along with the various fiscal restraints, and the ability of cabinet members to answer questions on the floor of Congress are all innovative, neutral ideals whose merits may still be worth pondering today.
With that said, how can you honestly claim that slavery wasn't the issue of the day? Can you provide any counter analysis based on the wording of their own "law of the land" that shows they were really concerned about State's rights, and not about the right to own slaves? As stated in the above quote, in the third paragraph, "the CSA constitution does not modify many of the most controversial (from a states' rights perspective) clauses of the American constitution." This is telling, and damning evidence.
Plus you ignored htat most people who wave a "confederate" flag are actually waving the Confederate Naval Jack, not the CSA flag. Why wave a battle standard if you're proud of history, why not the actual country flag?