April 12, 1861

Stacy McCain has a column in the AmSpec about the silence which greets the anniversary of our nation's most momentous event. It's a good column, without animosity North or South, so a gentleman ought let it pass without comment.

Howsomever, I'm a Good Old Yankee, as the song doesn't go, so I find myself recollecting the issue as Lincoln did:

I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

But these issues are a-moulderin' in the grave, as the song does go, so let us offer the gallant salutes that the belligerents of that fateful day offered each other:



"The cannon and the rifle are the most approved weapons of warfare, and the musket will have to yield the pole to them." Prescient words, as are the admission that the rifled cannon hardly fired for want of shot: such plagued the Confederates for the duration.

One More Thing Re: Confederate Flags

If I was in charge of the NAACP down in South Carolina, here's what I'd do:




1. Buy up as much private land as possible near any state landmark that flies the Confederate flag.




2. Construct a large statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman on said land (But Sherman marched through Georgia, you say? Yes, he did. But Sherman's boys regarded So. Carolina as the state "to blame" for the war, because they were the first to secede, and so they ripped that state up in the spring of 1865 with double the fury that they had loosed on Georgia the previous fall).




3. When offended white folk come round, simply state that the statues reminds black South Carolinians of their history and heritage, and their desire to celebrate the man who loosed them from bondage. If someone suggests that President Lincoln was that man, smile politely and say that the Emancipation Proclamation was all very good, but it was the Union Army that freed the slaves, wherever they went, and since Sherman's army was the first Union troops to do more than land on the beaches of South Carolina so that rebels could shoot them, he is therefore the chief agent of emancipation for South Carolina's black population. This is a state issue, see?




4. Guard the statues from vandals. Failing that, be sure to wipe off the rotten eggs and wads of filth from the statues each morning.




5. Wait for the offended white folk to get the point. If they never do, at least you'll have something to look at that doesn't remind you of the bad old days.

I'm a Good Old Rebel

The mess with Howard Dean provides me with a perfect microcosm of exactly what's wrong with the substance of American political discussion, and how it has degenerated into a stupid game of symbol-waving and "gotcha" playing.


All Howard Dean was trying to say was that he wanted average Joes in the South to vote for him. He never expressed affinity for the Confederate flag or what it stood for. Even Al Sharpton concedes that. Dean was using the term as a descriptor, not as a rally point.


I know that. You know that. I know you know, and vice versa. Everybody knows. So why do we care about this?


I hate the Confederate flag. I don't disapprove of it, I don't express concern at it's multicultural message. I hate it. My familiy's from Pennsylvania; I have two ancestors who fought in blue during the Civil War (Yes, the CIVIL WAR, not the "War Between the States," not the "War of Northern Agression," the Civil War. You don't get to name it, because YOU LOST. Dig?), and I know plenty about the roots of that conflict. Don't whine to me that Jeff Davis was just about to free the slaves (He was only even considering it because the Confederate Army was desperate for manpower in the spring of 1865, and he never quite got around to it, because U.S. Grant, who by the way could have whupped Stonewall Jackson any day of the week and twice on Sunday, when that fundamentalist looney would be sitting on his duff eating lemons, saved him the trouble). Don't cry to me about how horrible and illegal President Lincoln's actions were (have you ever known a state to permit a portion of it to break away without a fight? What do you think this is, a playpen?).
Especially don't throw all that grandiose state's right's rhetoric in my face, as though none of you chuckleheads had even heard of slavery before Lincoln was elected (then what did you secede for? Tarriffs?). If the principle of state's rights has been eroded well past anything the Founders might have intended, and I think it has, then it's well past time that Southrons admitted their share of culpability in that erosion. To wit: one of the reasons the Federal Government has aggrandized itself and broken down state's rights piece by piece was because you lot used the principle of state's rights as a shield for something else. It wasn't the only reason, and you're not the only ones to blame (nor are you the only racists 'round these United States, nor are you primarily racists now). But you didn't help, because no one bought it.


Given as that's my opinion, you can probably describe for yourselves my reactions when I see Confederate flags. As far as I'm concerned, you might as well start singing about how you'da wished you killed three million yankees instead of what you got. But the important thing is that it's my reaction. I know that the person who puts a rebel flag on their window is not necessarily saying "I hate niggers and yankees." Most of the time he's trying to say, "I'm from the South, and I'm proud," or sometimes "I'm a bad-ass Hell-raiser." So most of the time I let it slide. I do wish that they'd find another symbol, but it's really none of my business what folks in Georgia fly from their homes and pickups. The people I've met on the few occasions I've been South have been honest, plain-dealing Americans. We need more of 'em, truth be told. And Howard Dean wants more of them in the Democratic party.


Instead, he's being mocked. In the "youth debate" on MTV a few nights ago (Voting is sooooo kewl!!!!), Dean got pinned down to admitting that the confederate flag is a racist symbol. So now Al Sharpton gets to condemn him for wanting racists in his party, and John Edwards can pee on him for calling Southerners racists. See that? Because of a single image Dean used, the Loud Unqualified Candidtate and the I'm-the-New-Clinton-Look-at-me-Look-at-Me candidate get to make themselves look better based on things that Howard Dean didn't say and doesn't think. I'm not a fan of Howard Dean, and I won't be voting for him should he win the nomination, but we owe it to our republic to listen to what our candidates are saying, and not how what they're saying makes us feel. So we should treat Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, and the rest of the Nine Walkers (yes, even Sharpton). We might, if we're feeling crazy, decide to treat the President that way, too.