re: How are you remembering Union Soldiers that died in the Civil War

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Of course. That makes the acts of the various states acts of rebellion against lawful authorities, just like the Colonies had done. Right?

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Yeah, actually it does just that.

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There was never a CSA.

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You make some good points in all of your other posts*. I don't agree with you 100 percent all the time, and on this point, I don't agree with you.

First, the Confederate States of America did exist. This view is supported almost unanimously by historians.

Second, if the Confederate States of America had won its independence, then the USA would have continued to exist, minus some states.


* That point you made about the "Perpetual Union" in the Articles of Confederation was a good point. I never noticed that before.

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but in the 2012 Lincoln movie by Spielberg

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Wow! Just Wow!

Is that honestly the level of discussion you bring?

Steven Spielberg makes wonderfully fanciful movies.
In instances like Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and Lincoln he takes "artistic license" wherever he desires. As with Stone's JFK-type BS, it is about the boxoffice, not the truth. Spielberg's "historical" productions are just slightly more factually accurate than Raiders of the Lost Ark or E.T.. Great entertainment though.

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I'd like to see this frik stick bring his arse on up to Lexington Va and come to the Stone Wall Jackson cemetery on a pretty Saturday or Sunday afternoon and tell all the good folks there from all over the South (and some from Yankeeland too) who have Confederate ancestors about how unworthy of acclaim they are. I won't hold my breath though.

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Been there many, many times.

I live near Natural Bridge. Ain't far to Lex. I go out to check up on Stonewall every time I go to town, weather permitting.
Unfortunately, this year the Commies that run Lex decided they would schedule a MLK birthday celebration on the Saturday that Lee-Jackson Day has always been celebrated. Sucks big time. Had it on Sunday, but wasn't the same.
Also, visitors to the RE Lee tomb on the W&L campus have been generally treated like shite by the W&L admins for several years now.

Yea, that big stink happened when I first moved here 3 years ago. On it's face it wasn't that big a deal. However, Lexington is a small town, and everybody knew that a few people of influence at W&L wanted the Confederate items removed from the Lee tomb just to discourage a certain type of tourist from coming on campus. Many people got pissed and the SCV got involved. It didn't change any minds however.
Actually, the average student at W&L doesn't really care about the issue. Most of them are from small towns in the South. You know the type I'm talking about. Civic club joiners and the like. The admin and faculty are another story.
I'm originally from Barnesville Ga., the next county over from Thomaston, Upson County Ga, the birth place of John Brown Gordon. Being from Alabama, you probably know about him. He commanded a unit from there. He was in the mining business up around Sand Mountain. Was pretty much a failure in life until he joined the Confederate army. Was a hell of a soldier though. All my mother's family fought in his unit later on.

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but in the 2012 Lincoln movie by Spielberg

Wow! Just Wow! Is that honestly the level of discussion you bring?

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That the state laws were in effect despite the people being in rebellion was a position that Lincoln held. How do you think it got in the movie?



This is an image from that scene in the movie.

Here is the quote:

"I decided that the Constitution gives me war powers, but no one knows just exactly what those powers are. Some say they don't exist. I don't know. I decided I needed them to exist to uphold my oath to protect the Constitution, which I decided meant that I could take the rebel's slaves from them as property confiscated in war. That might recommend to suspicion that I agree with the rebs that their slaves are property in the first place. Of course I don't, never have, I'm glad to see any man free, and if calling a man property, or war contraband, does the trick... Why I caught at the opportunity. Now here's where it gets truly slippery. I use the law allowing for the seizure of property in a war knowing it applies only to the property of governments and citizens of belligerent nations. But the South ain't a nation, that's why I can't negotiate with'em. If in fact the Negroes are property according to law, have I the right to take the rebels' property from 'em, if I insist they're rebels only, and not citizens of a belligerent country? And slipperier still: I maintain it ain't our actual Southern states in rebellion but only the rebels living in those states, the laws of which states remain in force. The laws of which states remain in force. That means, that since it's states' laws that determine whether Negroes can be sold as slaves, as property - the Federal government doesn't have a say in that, least not yet then Negroes in those states are slaves, hence property, hence my war powers allow me to confiscate'em as such. So I confiscated 'em. But if I'm a respecter of states' laws, how then can I legally free'em with my Proclamation, as I done, unless I'm cancelling states' laws? I felt the war demanded it; my oath demanded it; I felt right with myself; and I hoped it was legal to do it, I'm hoping still. Two years ago I proclaimed these people emancipated - "then, hence forward and forever free."But let's say the courts decide I had no authority to do it. They might well decide that. Say there's no amendment abolishing slavery. Say it's after the war, and I can no longer use my war powers to just ignore the courts' decisions, like I sometimes felt I had to do. Might those people I freed be ordered back into slavery? That's why I'd like to get the Thirteenth Amendment through the House, and on its way to ratification by the states, wrap the whole slavery thing up, forever and aye. As soon as I'm able. Now. End of this month. And I'd like you to stand behind me. Like my cabinet's most always done."

LINK

That is a position Lincoln held. Why you would object to it being quoted from a movie I can't fathom. You don't like it, I suppose but tough shite.

The scene continues:

John Usher: It seems to me, sir, you're describing precisely the sort of dictator the Democrats have been howling about.

James Speed: Dictators aren't susceptible to law.

John Usher: Neither is he! He just said as much! Ignoring the courts? Twisting meanings? What reins him in from, from...

Abraham Lincoln: Well, the people do that, I suppose. I signed the Emancipation Proclamation a year and half before my second election. I felt I was within my power to do it; however I also felt that I might be wrong about that; I knew the people would tell me. I gave 'em a year and half to think about it. And they re-elected me.
[pauses]
Abraham Lincoln: And come February the first, I intend to sign the Thirteenth Amendment."

Pow.

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If in fact the Negroes are property according to law, have I the right to take the rebels' property from 'em, if I insist they're rebels only, and not citizens of a belligerent country?

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I know what eagle eyes you guys have. I am sure you saw it right away - reference to the Prize Cases.

"Justice Robert Grier wrote the 5-4 majority opinion stating, "...it is not necessary to constitute war, that both parties should be acknowledged as independent nations or sovereign States." While the court acknowledged that the United States Congress had, in July 1861, adopted a law ratifying and approving the President's proclamation after the fact, as well as other actions taken since then to prosecute the war, that was not the point. Grier further wrote, "...The President was bound to meet it [the war] in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name." By this decision, the Supreme Court upheld the President's executive powers to act in accordance with the Presidential oath of office, "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" and to act expediently as the Commander-in-Chief in time of war—a de facto war existing since April 12, 1861."

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See how that works?

Under U.S. law the so-called CSA didn't have to be a belligerent nation for the president's war powers to act on it.

That idea also underpins the Emancipation Proclamation.

Isn't that great?

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I had an ancestor who served under Gordon at Gettysburg. 13th Ga Evans Brigade, Gordon's Division. He was wounded and captured on July 2,1863 and died on July 22, 1863. I also had another ancestor that served in the same regiment and he was killed on July 9, 1864 at Monocacy, Md. I had many ancestors that served in Georgia Regiments in the ANV.

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You probably know that Governor Brown did everything he could to impede the Richmond government.


Civil War Years

Governor Brown had been concerned about the growing power of the central government in Washington, D.C. Soon he became increasingly concerned as well about the growing power of the Confederate government, which had moved to Richmond, Virginia, in June after the war started in April 1861. The first disputes over controlling and equipping Georgia forces were ominous, for the Confederacy could hope to win only by a centralized, unified war effort. Soon the disputes escalated, and in April 1862 Brown directly and openly challenged the new Confederate draft. It was the first national draft in American history, a revolutionary but necessary action to mobilize limited Southern white manpower against a vastly more populous enemy. Despite a lack of support by the state supreme court and the legislature, Governor Brown tried to exempt state military forces. As the draft kept expanding and drawing more manpower out of the state, the governor kept resurrecting his forces with Georgians too young or too old for conscription. This became a kind of ritual struggle between the governor and Confederate president Jefferson Davis, accompanied by bitter correspondence, as Brown's defiance set an example for other states to further cripple the faltering draft. He also provided exemptions for thousands of Georgia men who found jobs in a rapidly expanding state bureaucracy.

...Nevertheless, the hallmark of his wartime administration was his resistance to the authority of the central Confederate government, a policy that was soon copied by some other Confederate governors and that helped to undermine the overall war effort. Governor Brown's opposition surfaced in many fields. He opposed the army's impressments of goods and especially slave laborers. He frustrated Confederate efforts to seize the Western and Atlantic Railroad and to impose occasional martial law. He bitterly criticized Confederate tax and blockade-running policies. Over time the war-weary legislature backed him more often, and influential politicians like Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens and former secretary of state Robert Toombs became his open allies as morale slumped in Georgia."

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Died of a theory.