RSS
Dec. 3: This Day in History
On this date in 1868 the trial of the traitor Jefferson Davis began. This trial also marked the first time African Americans were permitted to serve on a jury. The charges of treason were dropped and the trial suspended just over two months later when then President Johnson issued an unqualified general war amnesty to all persons.
Davis escaped justice and went on to lead a fruitful life finally meeting his maker and answering for his egregious sins on December 6, 1889. His great accomplishments as a military man, senator and businessman will for ever be overshadowed by his truly disgusting act of treason, his responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and his abhorrent support for the maltreatment of his fellow Man.
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Wow. I had no idea it was “charitable” to call treason that which is expressly allowed in the preamble to the Constitution (“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…”) and sinful that which is not condemned in Sacred Scripture or Tradition.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Here we go with the Civil War again.
I believe this assessment of Davis is overly harsh. One would not condemn a foot solider in the Confederate ranks as treasonous. (And if he would, I would seriously question his good sense. After all, saying that the Confederate soldier is guilty of treason is equivalent to admitting that any soldier who participates on the losing side of a war is a war criminal. I would tread cautiously here.) In fact, Davis ascended to the presidency reluctantly, if I recall my history correctly. He wanted to stay in Mississippi with the troops he commanded and fight alongside his brothers – No more treasonous than Lee, Longstreet, Johnston, or Jackson. However, the presidency was thrust upon him by the people of the South. In that sense, he is no different than any politician who is called upon by his people to lead them.
I wonder if the Union had lost if Davis would have had Lincoln executed as a criminal. I doubt it. The North acted properly in granting amnesty to those who took up arms against the Union. The overriding need at that time was to heal the nation and seeking retribution against the South’s leadership would have sorely hampered that end.
As V points out, Southerners believed they were justified in their actions. I have argued that they were mistaken, but I would not go so far as to brand them traitors.
Had the rebellion been limited to a few individuals, it would be proper to label them so, but in light of the widespread support and (mistaken) belief in the righteousness of their cause, that label does not fit.
It should be noted that Davis was not the instigator of the rebellion (indeed he argued against secession); he only took up the presidency of the newly formed government after events were underway. In that sense, it may even be said that he acted with patriotism.
In fact, he sent a delegation to Washington to try to stave off armed conflict whereby the South would pay the North for any property that the Union would have to cede to the Confederacy as well as the South’s portion of the federal debt.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Oh, defending treason, are we, Karl? String up the traitors!
December 4th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I thought that might excite some.
But, Karl, I do have a problem with your line of reasoning on treason. You seem obsessed with numbers rather than the rule of law. An interesting thing considering your recent degree. Treason is treason whether one person commits the act or ten million. The word is not defined by the number of co-conspirators. Your obsession with numbers manifested itself in your earlier posts condemning voters who cast theirs for third parties. Then you declared most of them culpable for murder and abortion. I am perplexed by your devotion to numbers.
As to Mr. Davis, I thought I was fair. He did have a distinguished background; he did go on to lead a fruitful life. He did preside over an unjust and disastrous war. His actions did result in death. He did not have to answer for his war crimes. So what if he was talked into it? If a crowd whips one up into a frenzy to rape and murder, is the individual not responsible for his actions? If a nation demands its ruler to lead them in rape and murder is he not guilty of crime simply because he was asked to do so by a violent and sadistic mob?
December 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Funny. Your sister argued the exact same objection to my response this morning. Perhaps it is a family failing, this failure to grasp the importance of numbers.
Bill, if you are correct, then the argument that our Founders propounded that when government becomes destructive to common good of the people, that the people have the natural right to abolish that government – in that case, through armed rebellion – has no meaning. Indeed, your stance would force you to declare the founding of this nation as born of and tainted by the reek of treason. I didn’t realize you were such a Tory. Viva Britannia, eh Bill?
December 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Shall I throw your well argued position on the difference between the Civil War and the American Revolution back at you? You know the difference. Numbers had nothing to do with it.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Oh, and indeed, great minds think alike. As it happens they are often connected genetically.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
“The North acted properly in granting amnesty to those who took up arms against the Union.”
Amnesty for what if not armed rebellion, aka treason?
December 4th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Shall I throw your well argued position on the difference between the Civil War and the American Revolution back at you? You know the difference.
I would be interested to see if you could throw my argument about the essential difference between the two rebellions in my face without committing the logical fallacy of equating the man with the people. Jeff Davis was not the South.
Amnesty for what if not armed rebellion, aka treason?
At the conclusion of the Civil War 500,000 Americans lay dead. Should the Union have added to their number the rest of the fighting population of the southern states? If not, then why not? By your reasoning each and every one of those soldiers who toted a rifle against their rightful government were traitors whose necks needed strecthing. Perhaps your position is tempered by the fact that there were so many of them…?
December 4th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Davis was not the South. No argument there. But he was in a position of power and influence. He wielded both wrongly. Persons of power and influence have a duty, a responsibility to use both for the Good.
I agree that amnesty was the right call by Johnson. However, it was after all amnesty for treason. That is my argument with you. It was treason: each and everyone of the confederates was a traitor. Amnesty was the only way to bring them back in to the fold. Amnesty forgives, it does not forget.
December 4th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Had the South won the war, should they have strung Lincoln up as a tyrant and war criminal?
After all, the victors write the histories and the story would essentially have been that Union aggressors invaded the Confederacy bent on dominion over a people who had simply asserted their natural right to disengage from a voluntary compact – a right that would have been conclusively proven through victory on the battlefield. Indeed, to that end, Davis had sent delegations to Washington to negotiate for the payment of lands that “belonged” to the federal government in an attempt to make the separation peaceful – an attempt that was cruelly rebuffed by Lincoln.
Along those lines, the Confederacy could have branded Lincoln a blood-thirsty tyrant who committed atrocities in the name of empire. (There. I believe I have successfully channelled Dean May).
December 4th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Haha, yes you have. The argument works if one truly believes that the Truth and the Good is only discernible by the outcome of actions rather than by looking at them objectively.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Is secession akin to rebellion? It seems to me that rebellion seeks to over throw the current government and replace it with something else. Secession does not want to overthrow the current government but rather wishes to leave it and start something else. Secession does not eliminate the government of which it does not approve. Essentially, rebellion is government A is bad we have to replace it with government B. Secession is government A is bad but those who like it can keep it, we’ll just start over with government B. Does that make any sense? If it does, I don’t necessarily agree that secession is treason so much as it is merely misguided and foolish.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Hmmm, very interesting. I am gonna have to ponder that for awhile.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I can understand your position but it still does not relate to the South.
First, the Confederacy sought to take land from the U.S., this is treason. Not specific state lands, but U.S. territories. Second, they may have started off as secessionists but they eventually moved to invasion and desired to conquer and occupy the North. They were traitors.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
What land did the South seek to take from the North? Cuba? Only after the war had been in progress for two years did Lee gamble that an invasion of the North would bring them to their senses. In the end, that turned out to be a monumental blunder. But, one could hardly say that the South’s intentions in secession were to conquer any lands. Indeed, the North’s invasion of the South is far more suspect in that respect than ever was Lee’s gambit into Pennsylvania.
Your argument that the South’s war was one of occupation is a reversal of the facts and is ingenuous at best, given the facts in the record. I strongly suspect that had that gambit secured the independence of the South that any “conquered” land would have been ceded back to the North. Let us not confuse the issues.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Then lets us also not make assumptions unsupported by the evidence!
December 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
The South sought territories in the West. They did invade the North, sought Cuba, and started the war with the first shots.
All in the name of secession conducted illegally. They did not like the result of an election, they wanted to hold on to slavery and felt that it would be amended out of the Constitution. They did not play by the rules outlined in the Compact they submitted themselves to. They instead started a war!
December 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
That was me.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
The South as part of the United States had an equal right to the unincorporated territories in the west. The question as to which Union they wished to join, if any, properly was with the individual populations of each of those territories. Indeed, the reaction of the North to the secession of the South may well have played a part in those territories’ decisions as to which territory was more in keeping with the idea of State sovereignty. It would have been interesting to see to which union those territories might have aligned themselves if the South had prevailed. I have my own suspicions as to how those determinations might have proceeded.
Cuba was not a territory of the United States, although Davis and many southern politicians openly had designs on the annexation of Cuba.
The South fired the first shots to their detriment. That was their fatal mistake. I have argued, and stand by my former argument, that the South’s justification for separation was flimsy if not outright invalid. Nonetheless, the North would have been hard pressed to justify their invasion had the separation remained entirely peaceful. Lincoln successfully maneuvered the South into firing on Sumter and giving the North a pretext for invasion. Had cooler heads prevailed, it would have been interesting to see whether Lincoln could have justified an invasion. Even though the South’s secession was illegal, as you point out, I believe it likely would have been successful if not for their rashness in taking Lincoln’s bait.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am
“I believe it likely would have been successful if not for their rashness in taking Lincoln’s bait.”
Maybe, the World will never know. What is certain is that war wuld have been justified, if not simply delayed, solely on the grounds of ending slavery on the continent.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am
umm, that should be “would.”
December 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Just like the rest of the world will be justified in unilaterally waging war on you and your children because you stubbornly hang on to the right to keep and bear arms as a natural right even if you never intend to exercise it and abhor the practice in private.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Nice V. Way to equate human life and freedom with lifeless cold hard iron. I can see you obviously care for your fellow man.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I can see that you don’t: those guns are not left to themselves, and the outrageous violence done with them is more than enough reason for enlightened postmodern contemporaries to utilize your reasoning to unilaterally bring us back into the Union of civilized nations, by force, and with no quarter. Noone was killing their slaves wholesale. Americans are killing other Americans by the shipload daily, and it is high time you recognized that the very life issue you dare to bring up depends upon their action! Their eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord (sic). Their truth (sic) is marching on. *
*nota bene: the usage of these antiquated terms “Lord” and “truth” is not intended to endorse religion or to deny the relative nature of truth. In line with EU constitutional principles, these lines are adapted for rhetorical and historico-realistic purposes. -Eds.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Besides, the Europeans all ended the institution of slavery peacefully. And now they are quickly leading the way toward further recognition of the value of life by banning most possession of firearms by private citizens.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:52 am
And if you respond without appreciating the huge chunk of irony in my pocket, I’ll virtually slap you.
Your reasoning needs retooling, Bill.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Now, now, V. lets not get our bloomers in a bunch. You can virtually slap me if you like; to you its irony, to me it further demonstrates your ignorance.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Ignorance of what?
December 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Seriously, the UN and NATO (to which we have contractually pledged ourselves) both have a history of such police actions. Why, using your logic, is there any difference? They see it as a matter of life-and-death. They could easily be whipped up into a frenzy worthy of the Iraq-war proponents so as to bring us into line. Far more Americans are dying of gun-related violence than ever died of slavery. And noone got converted to Christianity and inherited the benefits of Western civilization by means of getting shot and killed. There are precious few animist descendants of African slaves among us. Which is worse, Bill? If you don’t mind, respond to each of these points so the poor benighted devils like me can be brought up out of darkness and begin to act like you.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Pretty please, Bill?
December 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
See #24 above V. That is far as I will go with your ridiculousness.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
That’s what I thought. Cornered. The po-mos win, Bill.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Yes, V. I refuse to play your little reindeer games and so you win. Be a good boy and sit content.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I’m not a po-mo (postmodernist), so your silly refusal to back up your rhetoric is a loss for you and for anyone you wished to convince or explain things to. I didn’t win. The enemy did. You don’t care to defend your views. That’s a shame. I presented a reasonable criticism of your view and presented the hypothetical consequences of where your logic leads. If you want to pretend it doesn’t, that’s your business. But these aren’t reindeer games, these are the fundamentals underlying your worldview.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Really, V.? Seriously? You really want an argument as to why slavery is fundamentally immoral?
December 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
You are scary.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Good Lord, Bill. No, I want an argument against my hypothetical position from your standpoint. Try… just try… to make a non-self-contradictory case. You can’t do it without equivocating, which ought to tell you something about your position. Damn, it’s like living with a six year old.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I’ll spell it out for you. You advocated war — total, burn-’em-to-the-ground, no quarter war — against states which seceded over many issues, one of which was their constitutionally protected right to engage in a morally repugnant practice. I gave you an equally repugnant (for the sake of this argument) practice to which you subscribe and am asking you to explain why other, more advanced Europeans or whomever should not decimate you and yours like Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and so on did.
Why shouldn’t some nation or amalgam of nations wage war on you and yours because you are citizens of a society which not only permits but funds abortion on demand?
You, I’ve no doubt, should be able to easily dispatch with my hypothetical position. Go.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
So now its abortion? That does present an argument. Well done. You sucessfully changed from your utterly unintelligent gun argument.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
One could make an argument for end of abortion or at least institutionalized abortion through force. This, like slavery, is a direct evil that ought to be eliminated.
December 12th, 2008 at 6:36 am
There isn’t any difference in waging war against people who insist that their right to keep and bear arms over against the better societal good of keeping the carnage inflicted by people with those guns and waging war against people who permit (tacitly or overtly) carnage by dilation and curettage. My gun argument, hypothetical though it was, was anything but unintelligent.
So, if it’s so easy to make the case for WAR against US, please do it.
I submit that it’s you who is scary. Warmonger. There are better means which comport with just war doctrine.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Replace “that” with “on” in my first sentence above, please.
The point stands regardless of the instrument. Wanton murder is much more wicked than the practice of slavery, whether that murder is committed with a gun or a surgical implement. And you can’t exactly just decide to start a war to bring back the “gun” states into the union, or just the “abortion states now, can you? Which is why I say you are taking the part of those who will be waging the war against you and your family. Our soldiers are sworn to defend the Constitution, and that means the 2nd amendment (now specifically recognized as an individual right) and all the emanations and penumbrae that allowed a supposed right to privacy to permit abortion. Something tells me Sherman didn’t stop to ask whether specific people supported or opposed slavery. Hell, I doubt he even asked if they supported or opposed secession.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Warmonger! Ha! Because I an imagine a hypothetical situation where force could be justified to end abortion, that makes me a warmonger? I fully acknowledge a better means. Have I ever called for war against the U.S.? I posit that you are closer to a traitor than I could ever be, mister “slavery is morally justified cause its in te Bible and states sould seceed over it.”
Your arguments are laughably unintelligent! But what does it matter, “its like living with a six year old” right?
December 12th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I never argued that Sherman was right minded in his tactics! I never even mention Sherman!
December 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am
So the “Civil” War was just or unjust? Just in its conception, unjust in its prosecution? If the latter, what does that say about the results? The reconstruction amendments?
Where did you see me say “slavery is morally justified cause its in te Bible and states sould seceed over it.”? You didn’t. You are slashing and hacking at straw men. Desperate. And mine are “laughably unintelligent? You can’t even perceive the correct nature of an argument presented to you.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:04 am
“Wow. I had no idea it was …sinful that which is not condemned in Sacred Scripture or Tradition.”
How’s that?
I am done with this argument with you V. The longer it goes on the more I come to see you inanity on this topic. Make sure to lower the Stars and Bars before sunset.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I didn’t ever say it was morally justified. I said it is not condemned in the Scriptures or Tradition as sinful. There is a difference. You are wise to bow out. You have repeatedly failed to make basic distinctions.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I am reminded of something the VP once said on the Senate floor to a Sen. from VT….
December 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
And I am reminded of something our Lord said about “Raca.”
December 12th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I prefer more modern curses.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
A little like the pot calling the kettle black, no?
December 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I guess I don’t understand. Jesus said he who says “Raca,” that is “fool” to his brother (meaning cursing his brother with malicious intent) has committed murder in his heart. I wasn’t calling you Raca. You cursed me. I was trying to charitably remind you that you shouldn’t do that. But you seem fond of damning people, like the Russians. Or cursing me with anatomical referents. I wasn’t cursing you. I don’t think I have done so. I have certainly been abrasive, but with a charitable motivation. I don’t understand how your curses and ad hominems could be construed as charitable. But maybe you meant “F[---] you” (Cheney’s term) in a good way.
[Edited by Karl to make PG-13 - Sorry V. for the intrusion]
December 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
You go ahead and infer whatever you want based on misreading me and misunderstanding me. Beat up all the straw men you want. Or realize that you haven’t been dealing fairly, but have mistakenly attributed things to me so as to jump on your construction of my argument. I hope you feel better.
December 12th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
first, I believe the Veep said “go F-yourself.”
Second, I understand “Raca.” The closest in translation as I have learned is “to spit upon.” But that was years ago in philosophy classes I am removed from. Maybe the translation is wrong. Any way, as I said, I prefered to use more modern insults.
Third, you have insulted and cursed, many times, myself and others dating from the inception of this site. But that i neither here nor there to my fourth point.
Fourth, and most importantly, I let you get to me. I have always taken great pride in not allowing that to happen in political/philosophical discussions. As a result, I did cuse you and for that you have my apology. It was unfair no matter what transpired before it.
December 12th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Sorry if I “got to you.” I am sure you’re right about me insulting others. I hope I never cursed anyone. I, too, apologize.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
You, V., have several times argued that slavery was a right, not sinful and excusable because it converted africans to christianity. You have argued that the South was moral and defended its various positions. YOU DID.
NEVER did I call you a racist. If the shoe fits, wear it but I did not put it on you.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
No. I stated the fact that it was a constitutionally protected right. Apparently, abortion is a constitutionally protected right these days. Saying they are is not the same as agreeing with them.
I have not said slavery was “not sinful.” I said that various authorities saw fit to remain prudentially silent as to its morality. This is not the same as calling it moral or adiaphora.
I have never argued that it was “excusable;” rather, I made a comparison between the effects of slavery and the effects of gun violence directly related to your ridiculous assertion that I have no value for the life of my fellow man. A comparison which happened to point out that a good came out of a bad. And a good proportionally much greater than any I can think of stemming from wanton mayhem.
I have argued various things about the South, but among them has not been a defense of chattel slavery. I have vigorously argued against your lines of “reasoning” for prosecuting a horrific war against the South, where ending slavery never was one of the stated goals until long after the hostilities were in full swing. That you want to pretend that this was the only or even the primary reason for the “Civil War” is beyond naive and inexcusable.
You called me “scary” after feigning incredulity when you presumed (incorrectly) that I was asking you for a moral argument against slavery. I had not asked for that, as I went on to point out. Just like I’m pointing out your other errors now. You didn’t come right out and call me a racist, that’s true. But that was a rather pregnant term to leave hanging like that, don’t you think?
To tie the threads together, I made a reductio ad absurdam argument using your logic and labeling you as an anti-Asian (and anti-Eurasian) bigot. I suppose I could have coyly called you “scary” instead. Needless to say, I don’t really believe you’re a racist. I have my doubts whether you thought or think of me in like fashion. Even after your now-retracted apology.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
No, I do not believe that backing the South makes one a racist. It makes one either depraved of a heart and common sense, but not a racist per se.
But yes, apology retracted. And, finally, I am done with you. Good riddance.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Good luck in the future. Regardless of what your opinion of me is, you should refrain from making the vast leaps you are all-too-eager to do, e.g. “backing the South,” “lacking concern for your fellow man,” being bereft of common sense or depraved (concerning those who did or do support the Confederacy), etc. etc. etc. Reasonable people tend to weary of those who continue to make such snap, ill-informed, hyperbolic judgmental statements. You will only be doing yourself a favor by exercising more prudential verbiage. I’ll take my leave of you at your behest and leave you to your compatriots.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
*sigh*
V., V., V. Many of your previous comments have been deleted or I would be happy to share them with you again. Your positions on the South and Slavery are available in other sources I choose to not make public. So be careful before you state that my statements are “snap, ill-informed, hyperbolic judgmental statements.”
December 18th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I’m able to locate all of the comments I’ve made here.
Should I share previous correspondence clearly stating my “positions on the South and Slavery”?
Who, exactly, do you think I am?
December 18th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I have my issues with you V., but I will not out you. Somethings some people choose to keep private.
December 19th, 2008 at 9:41 am
You know better than to suggest that I am being inconsistent with my previously articulated positions. There is not any substantive difference. I have not, and never will advocate slavery. I have plainly stated that the Southern — and any other — states had, and have, a right to secede any time they wish to do so. There is nothing sacramental about the constitutional contract. It is not a covenant, and there is a specifically articulated “out” in it. Its very existence presupposes it.
This thread started with you calling honorable though flawed men (just like you: honorable yet flawed) traitors who escaped justice.
Your rationale, namely, that because they supposedly had designs on expanding its territory and sanctioned slavery, the South was thereby a rogue state comprised entirely of traitors and egregious sinners can just as easily be turned against the United States and its secesson from Britain. The colonists and Founders were advocates of slavery. They (as often as not), in their “Manifest Destiny” of grand designs on territorial conquest, slaughtered many thousands of my ancestors. They illegally seceded from their sovereign kingdom and parliament, to which they had pledged themselves as subjects. So, if anyone deserves the criticism, I’d say it’s “your team.” They spawned what you criticize in such rancorous fashion, seems to me.