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Actually - that is your opinion. Neither wrong nor right, but opinion. I may agree with you about that, but that would still be nevertheless our beliefs.
Fact is that this particular flag is comprised of the colours red [4 triangles], blue [the cross], and white [13 stars], and was used during the War Between The States by the forces known as the Confederate States of America.
True. You are right and I am wrong.
However the only people I know who think otherwise are people who are actually parading the flag.
It sadly has such a negative history that most people see it that way.
Plus the Confederate is dead. Lets all celebrate being Americans united, not divided over race and geography.
I don't know about how one would feel. I do know that in some societies, like Rome, or in Anglo-Saxon England, slaves had rights that extended to things like some protection against physical brutality, the right to marry and for the married couple to be kept together with their children, and even the right to purchase one's freedom. None of these rights were legally afforded slaves in the American south -- which is not to say that some slaves were not treated humanely, only that this treatment was not legally guaranteed to them.
I've spent time early this morning reading through all of the posts on the last five or so pages, just to get myself caught up on the discussion. (Noting again that people still tend to 'pop in' and throw spaghetti at the wall without having read any of it. And hopefully we continue to ignore those distractions.)
Anyway, having caught up I am struck by your particular argument. Your only point seems to be that slavery in the South was a little bit worse than slavery in the north, therefore, the South deserves condemnation while the north does not....or something to that effect. It's almost like saying if two people have Aids and one of them contracted it through homosexual intercourse, that one and only that one must have a worse case of it and is somehow worse off than the other and surely is going straight to hell.
That may be a weak analogy, so let me try another. Two guys are speeding through town breaking off mailboxes with baseball bats. Upon being apprehended, one is found to have a note folded into his shirt pocket stating his intention to destroy all the mailboxes on Main Street. The other has no note, and in fact denies his activities, although they're captured on police video. The man with the note in his pocket is sentenced to six months in jail and the one who professes he really didn't mean anything by it and professes that his intent was not evil, begs for and is given a pass.
I'm almost struck dumb by this sudden discussion of 'degrees of slavery'. So now we have moved from finger pointing to total denial to partial admission to degrees of badness. As if we are discussing just how pregnant one might be.
I have repeatedly described the difference between slavery as traditionally defined vs. chattel slavery as defined in the South. I recommend that you do some research and come to your own conclusions, if you don't accept mine.
No you haven't. You've only said that the South put it to paper and the rest simply implies that it must have somehow been worse in the South because of that. That is what I, and many others it seems are having a hard time coming to grips with.
Now you can do one of two things. You can either just come to grips that your argument is weak, or you can come up with codified laws from other places in the New World that had slavery during that time period that clearly state how many more "rights" the slaves in those areas had...
FWIW Mauritania (maybe until VERY recently, but it may still be going on) had a widespread practice of chattel slavery, but I guess since it wasn't codified that it wasn't as bad, right??? If you don't believe me Take a look (http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/chattelslavery.html - broken link)... Kinda shoots a hole in your assertion that the South was the only society to practice chattel slavery right???
Last edited by Rhett_Butler; 10-03-2007 at 05:58 AM..
What I "imply" is rarely different from what I post. You are most creative in your interpretations of my thoughts, though.
But you "imply" that the north had no business restoring the union, in accordance with paragraph 10, of Section I of the Constitution. You may consider that "arguable", if you wish. But the argument is over.
That argument has been at the VERY least shown to be highly debateable already in this thread and at best debunked....
At least you're arguing back on track with what I was originally commenting about though.
My problem with this assertion is first, as has already been brought to your attention, that this was most likely meaning treaties with foreign powers, but let's assume for a moment that maybe it doesn't mean that..... Then you need to show me where the Constitution prohibits any state from leaving the Union. And once a state leaves the Union it would no longer be bound by it's laws, no???
When I think that the colonies united to throw off a common government that they deemed "over-stepping it's authority" I would wonder why ANY of those colonies would knowingly enter into a new Union under a central government without also feeling they have a right to exit this union if they felt it wasn't serving their purposes adequately.... Truth is the authors of the Constitution specifically avoided the mention of slavery for the reason of not being able to get all states to ratify the document if any decision, one way or the other, was declared in the document. How could it then decide later to start legislating with regards to it without expecting some sort of revolt with the explaination of, "Hey, this isn't what we signed on for!!!!". To know the South is to know that they would have NEVER signed away their ability to self-govern to a greater extent and their rights to become autonomous again and, in fact, they didn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
And please look up the word "snide" in the dictionary. I have been nothing but respectful and (to the best of my ability) accurate in my posts on this topic.
Well it's hard to read intent sometimes so I'll apologize for that. However, I'd be careful about telling people that "They need to research this" or they need to "look up that" as though you are the end all be all authority..... I take your implication that "I don't know my history" as NOTHING short of a snide remark.
Last edited by Rhett_Butler; 10-03-2007 at 06:06 AM..
That argument has been at the VERY least shown to be highly debateable already in this thread and at best debunked....
At least you're arguing back on track with what I was originally commenting about though.
My problem with this assertion is first, as has already been brought to your attention, that this was most likely meaning treaties with foreign powers, but let's assume for a moment that maybe it doesn't mean that..... Then you need to show me where the Constitution prohibits any state from leaving the Union. And once a state leaves the Union it would no longer be bound by it's laws, no???
When I think that the colonies united to throw off a common government that they deemed "over-stepping it's authority" I would wonder why ANY of those colonies would knowingly enter into a new Union under a central government without also feeling they have a right to exit this union if they felt it wasn't serving their purposes adequately.... Truth is the authors of the Constitution specifically avoided the mention of slavery for the reason of not being able to get all states to ratify the document if any decision, one way or the other, was declared in the document. How could it then decide later to start legislating with regards to it without expecting some sort of revolt with the explaination of, "Hey, this isn't what we signed on for!!!!". To know the South is to know that they would have NEVER signed away their ability to self-govern to a greater extent and their rights to become autonomous again and, in fact, they didn't.
Well it's hard to read intent sometimes so I'll apologize for that. However, I'd be careful about telling people that "They need to research this" or they need to "look up that" as though you are the end all be all authority..... I take your implication that "I don't know my history" as NOTHING short of a snide remark.
1. You say you've "debunked" Article I of the Constitution in this thread? I'm sorry, but to my mind, that is patently absurd.
2. Reminding people that there may be information with which they are not familiar is not "snide", as you put it. Neither does it indicate that the person doing the reminding is the "end all be all authority": heck, if anything, it is an indication that the person making the reference has had to do a considerable amount of reading, studying, and thinking about the issues at hand. I assure you that there is a great deal of humility in my hard-won, if rudimentary, knowledge of American history.
I regret that you take my remarks on this post as personal insults. I did not intend to them be so. Nor was I interested in casting aspersions on people of any section of our country.
I entered this thread making a point about the Constitution, which is the legal basis of our democracy. You have indicated several times that you believe that that document is somehow "voluntary", and thus not binding. Since we have a fundamental disagreement about the nature of our country's legal foundation, I don't think you and I have anything further to talk about on this topic.
I do, however, look forward to discussing other things with you on this board, and hope you will keep an open mind about my intentions in doing so.
I too am trying to catch up on this thread, and one of the first things that leapt out at me was the assertion that only in the South did there exist "chattel slavery."
The first official legal recognition of chattel slavery as a legal institution in British North America was in Massachusetts, in 1641, with the “Body of Liberties.” Slavery was legalized in New Plymouth and Connecticut when it was incorporated into the Articles of the New England Confederation (1643). Rhode Island enacted a similar law in 1652. That means New England had formal, legal slavery a full generation before it was established in the South. Not until 1664 did Maryland declare that all blacks held in the colony, and all those imported in the future, would serve for life, as would their offspring. Virginia followed suit by the end of the decade. New York and New Jersey acquired legal slavery when they passed to English control in the 1660s. Pennsylvania, founded only in 1682, followed in 1700, with a law for regulation of servants and slaves.
And from the "Introduction" to the same well researched piece:
The elements which characterized Southern slavery in the 19th century, and which New England abolitionists claimed to view with abhorrence, all were present from an early date in the North. Practices such as the breeding of slaves like animals for market, or the crime of slave mothers killing their infants, testify that slavery's brutalizing force was at work in New England. Philadelphia brickmaker John Coats was just one of the Northern masters who kept his slave workers in iron collars with hackles. Newspaper advertisements in the North offer abundant evidence of slave families broken up by sales or inheritance. One Boston ad of 1732, for example, lists a 19-year-old woman and her 6-month-old infant, to be sold either "together or apart."[5] Advertisements for runaways in New York and Philadelphia newspapers sometimes mention suspicions that they had gone off to try to find wives who had been sold to distant purchasers.
Generally, however, as the numbers of slaves were fewer in the North than in the South, the controls and tactics were less severe. The Puritan influence in Massachusetts lent a particular character to slavery there and sometimes eased its severity. On the other hand, the paternal interest that 19th century Southern owners attempted to cultivate for their slaves was absent in the North, for the most part, and the colonies there had to resort to laws to prevent masters from simply turning their slaves out in the streets when the slaves grew old or infirm. And across the North an evident pattern emerges: the more slaves lived in a place, the wider the controls, and the more brutal the punishments for transgressions.
Methinks Reb has slipped in here on his coffee break and successfully *debunked* several pages of the gentleman's argument. I am still reeling at the suggestion of degrees of slavery, as if to imply that one is acceptable and another is not. That somehow one might be better off if he is allowed a privilege or two as opposed to no privilege. "A rose by any other name...." But, to even consider that possibility is to claim knowledge of who had what privilege a century and a half ago and none of us is privy to that, now is we?
And since we've veered the discussion off onto the sideroad of degrees or which was worse, let's discuss whether one should be offended by a flag that he doesn't recognize or one about which he understands nothing. For the sake of discussion, The First National and The Bonnie Blue... It's still my contention that these can't really offend since one cannot be offended by that which is, to him, meaningless.
As with the Confederate Battle Flag, people won't be offended until others jump up and down and insist that they should be.
And God help us all when it becomes general knowledge that The Yellow Rose of Texas was not a plant.
Methinks Reb has slipped in here on his coffee break and successfully *debunked* several pages of the gentleman's argument. I am still reeling at the suggestion of degrees of slavery, as if to imply that one is acceptable and another is not. That somehow one might be better off if he is allowed a privilege or two as opposed to no privilege. "A 1rose by any other name...." But, to even consider that possibility is to claim knowledge of who had what privilege a century and a half ago and none of us is privy to that, now is we?
1. If one is unimpressed with the impact of chattel slavery on our national psyche, maybe they just haven't been paying attention to the recent events in Louisiana, or any of the other nearly daily flare-ups of contining racial discord in our country. Or do they think that African-Americans are all riled up over nothing?
2. The difference is not a "privilege or two"; it is the difference between being considered a human being or a thing. The spurious argument that "none of us is privy" to what happened 150 years ago is on its face an argument for the curtailment historical research. Perhaps some find that persuasive. I do not.
And since we've veered the discussion off onto the sideroad of degrees or which was worse, let's discuss whether one should be offended by a flag that he doesn't recognize or one about which he understands nothing. For the sake of discussion, The First National and The Bonnie Blue... It's still my contention that these can't really offend since one cannot be offended by that which is, to him, meaningless.
I would counter that anything which is offensive has meaning, if only to the person offended. A person should feel free to categorize another's interpretation as flawed, but not to assume that they are simply ignorant because they do not share one's own.
As with the Confederate Battle Flag, people won't be offended until others jump up and down and insist that they should be.
And God help us all when it becomes general knowledge that The Yellow Rose of Texas was not a plant.
I entered this thread prepared to ask some relatively innocuous questions about the varieties of the "Confederate flag", but was rebuffed for asking a question about the Constitution. I remain unpersuaded by the reasoning of those who disagreed with me, and dismayed at the excess heat and minimal light that this topic engenders.
1. You say you've "debunked" Article I of the Constitution in this thread? I'm sorry, but to my mind, that is patently absurd.
Trying to steer the argument into a ditch I see..... No, the Article is fine. You've been told on numerous occasions that it refers to treaties with foreign powers and on all of those occasions you have refused to address that and ALSO refused to address my assertion that nowhere does the Constitution bar states from leaving the Union.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
2. Reminding people that there may be information with which they are not familiar is not "snide", as you put it. Neither does it indicate that the person doing the reminding is the "end all be all authority": heck, if anything, it is an indication that the person making the reference has had to do a considerable amount of reading, studying, and thinking about the issues at hand. I assure you that there is a great deal of humility in my hard-won, if rudimentary, knowledge of American history.
The way in which we remind people can be snide however. If you meant that "Obviously I don't know much about history" when I too have a boat load of "hard-won knowledge of American history" as just a friendly reminder then I'm sorry. I've never seen a "friendly reminder" put in a more rude manner, but perhaps it's the medium in which we're communicating that somehow is clouding your intent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
I regret that you take my remarks on this post as personal insults. I did not intend to them be so. Nor was I interested in casting aspersions on people of any section of our country.
That's fine. Let's move on then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
I entered this thread making a point about the Constitution, which is the legal basis of our democracy. You have indicated several times that you believe that that document is somehow "voluntary", and thus not binding. Since we have a fundamental disagreement about the nature of our country's legal foundation, I don't think you and I have anything further to talk about on this topic.
Very well..... Since you haven't addressed ANY of the points made by myself or others with regard to your Constitutional objections OR about the existence of chattel slavery in NUMEROUS other societies as well as in the Northern States. I too must come to the same conclusion.
BTW if you think about it what requires the worst in a man.... To treat a slave horribly believing them to be property??? Or treating a slave horribly believing that he/she is a human being??? I know my vote.
With regards to the Constitution I'm not suggesting the document was "voluntary", but each state's willingness to enter into an agreement was certainly voluntary... Much as slavery was ignored by the original document, so was the issue of a state leaving the Union. I'm guessing the latter was by as much the same design as the former in that you can't tell a bunch of separate colonies who just threw off one oppressive government that they are now signing a permanent and binding contract that they cannot leave with a new central government and actually have any hope of them signing it........
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
I do, however, look forward to discussing other things with you on this board, and hope you will keep an open mind about my intentions in doing so.
I entered this thread prepared to ask some relatively innocuous questions about the varieties of the "Confederate flag", but was rebuffed for asking a question about the Constitution. I remain unpersuaded by the reasoning of those who disagreed with me, and dismayed at the excess heat and minimal light that this topic engenders.
The problem is that your arguments are getting shot full of holes and instead of plugging those holes you just hang up a new figurative piece of cloth in pristine condition which contains the exact same arguments as before so forgive people for getting a little exasperated while they attempt to have a discussion with you....
You aren't addressing any of the disputes that people have with your data.
1) Referring to Article I of the Constitution referencing alliances with foreign powers.
2) That there is no clause in it about the requirement of all states to remain within the Union.
3) The fact that you have been shown that NUMEROUS other societies have/had chattel slavery and that it is hardly unique to the south.
You simply redecorate your arguments without addressing any of this....
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeledaf
1. If one is unimpressed with the impact of chattel slavery on our national psyche, maybe they just haven't been paying attention to the recent events in Louisiana, or any of the other nearly daily flare-ups of contining racial discord in our country. Or do they think that African-Americans are all riled up over nothing?
Like this is out of left field..... No one is arguing the merits of how slavery affected society at this time. You tried to claim that the American South was the only society to have chattel slavery and you were called on that. To turn and imply now that because someone dared dispute your first assertion that chattel slavery didnt' exist outside the south as meaning that they must be unsympathetic to the plight slavery caused among African Americans is a HORRIBLE misdirection of the argument.
Anyway, we agreed we are done, so we are done...
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