school renaming, statue removal

[Aquitaine]

Originally Posted by oldtoiletsmkgdflrpots

For the last time, the American Civil War was not about states’ rights - Quartz

Ah, sorry, I didn't realize a 'digital reporter' on the Internet had written the last word.

Get back to me once you're finished reading Shelby Foote, or at least an actual historian.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I guess I'm not sure what else you're looking for here. You indicated that Buchanan himself believed secession to be legal; he did not (he just also didn't believe that war to reverse secession was legal - great solution there, Pres!).

The difference is, he clearly stated that he didn't think Congress had the authority to block states from leaving. At the same time, he thought that the totality of our experience up to that point, was that states leaving at their will was a bad thing. What it gets down to, is an argument much like the recent SC ruling. You are arguing on Justice Kennedy's side of the equation -- this is what we want, therefore it is constitutional. I'm on Roberts' side -- it may be desirable, but it isn't in the document.

As far as the 1869 ruling, like I said -- post facto justification of the destruction of the South. Like there was going to be any other possibility? So sorry for Sherman's men raping your women? So sorry we burnt your cities to the ground? You were right after all? Yea, right.

[Aquitaine]

You are arguing on Justice Kennedy's side of the equation -- this is what we want, therefore it is constitutional. I'm on Roberts' side -- it may be desirable, but it isn't in the document.

I wouldn't argue Kennedy's side in that ruling. The legal logic is similar, but the question is not the same. One is a little closer to reducto ad absurdum than the other. It reminds me of a recent piece, I think in the New Yorker, of a guy who burnishes his feminist credentials in touting what a great marriage he has because he allows his wife to go on dates and sleep around with other men. Yes, he's promoting his spouse's interests and happiness as part of the marriage contract, but doing so that literally and to that result so undermines the thing to begin with that whatever you're left with afterwards can't be called much of a union. That result is fairly unique to this question: it is difficult to imagine many, or even any other legal questions besides 'can we quit this thing' where the defense of 'the Constitution doesn't explicitly say you can't' is truly as ruinous as it would've been there. Kennedy's history-seeking prose would like us to believe that of marriage as well, but in his case it's hard to see the tide of state law changing in his favor and then say 'but the States can't be trusted with this.'

The fact is that secession, rebellion, whatever you want to call it - is so final that to permit it is to grant a 'push the pram over' escape hatch to any group of politicians sufficiently alienated by their neighbors or the Feds. The consequences would be, as Buchanan said, to undo in a matter of hours what had taken decades (now centuries) to build. Do you really mean to say that you think we would all be better off had the US simply shrugged and said 'well they voted on it' and permitted secession?

I lean toward a relatively conservative reading of most things - if the authors wanted it to say something else, they'd have used their words - but it was already revolutionary enough to start a country for the people, by the people, and of the people; I'm not aware (though I will ask some history nerds in my acquaintance) that serious thought was ever given by the framers to planning ends. The irony, of course, is that the tenth amendment would probably be considerably stronger today than it is had not the South tried to take advantage of its protection to prop up the institution of slavery. In much the same as the Second Amendment is weakened in a practical if not always legal fashion when buffoons go around packing heat and letting everyone know about it; it's a privilege we have in this country, and like freedom of expression it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly.

post facto justification of the destruction of the South

I don't read that ruling as justification, but recognition. The justification was a state of war. "Sorry" doesn't factor into it. You're right, of course, that the only absolute 'truth' in such recognition is 'we won, so swallow this,' but again, do you mean to say that we (either here in Texas, or elsewhere in the United States) would be better off as a people had there been some other outcome?

[scm53]

I don't read that ruling as justification, but recognition. The justification was a state of war.

There was only a state of war, because northern troops invaded the south in 1862. There was absolutely nothing legal about the entire affair, from the use of the Militia Acts -- which were intended for when Congress wasn't in session, and the President must act -- to authorize the invasion of the South, to the suspension of habeas corpus by Lincoln, ruled illegal by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which Lincoln refused to comply with, to the use of military tribunals to try civilians -- also found unconstitutuonal. That's before we get to the looting, plunder, and raping of Southern states and its people. That may be the first application of "total war". Problem was, there was no declaration of war. So by what authority did that -- or the ouster of legally elected governments -- occur?

You're right, of course, that the only absolute 'truth' in such recognition is 'we won, so swallow this,' but again, do you mean to say that we (either here in Texas, or elsewhere in the United States) would be better off as a people had there been some other outcome?

That's one of the great imponderables, isn't it?. If one could say that we in Texas would look exactly like we do in 2015, just that we were part of a Confederate States of America, then I'd say almost certainly. The legitimate question is, would we look the same? That can only be the subject of speculation.

[Aquitaine]

That can only be the subject of speculation.

To be sure, but that's what I'm asking you to do. The 10th amendment wins the day and peaceful secession occurs. Now what?

Your characterization of the war clearly suggests that you think it should not have happened, or at least not happened the way it did; that the potential dissolution of the union (and persistence of slavery in the South for at least some time longer) are preferable to what did happen.

Otherwise, 'there was nothing legal about the entire affair' can characterize most every civil war. I'm not aware of any that unfolded in a well-behaved, orderly manner with no violations of the law or individual rights.

It seems to me that, when you're in power and you've got an inevitable tide rolling your way - particularly one with a strong moral or legal basis, like the abolition of slavery or the prohibition against single-sex marriage (arguably tides of different strengths, but tides nonetheless) - that you can see it coming, embrace it, and get a say in how it unfolds, or you can fight it to the end and lose whatever input you had into the process. What if the South had said 'we'll end slavery, give us a fifteen year process to do it'? Who knows if if that compromise would have gone over everywhere, but if it had, they would've kept a lot more control over their affairs.

[Mistinguette]

Jefferson Davis had ZERO to do with Texas, University of Texas or anything. The Littlefield guy paid to have his hero's statue put up didn't he? Enough of him. Sam Houston was opposed to secession. Stick another statue of Sam Houston up. Janis Joplin has more to do with UT than Jeff Davis did. Time for him to go. Stick up a Joplin statue instead (or a Matthew McConaughey).