Neo-Confederate Hooey

Even bringing this topic into your blog invites the vampire to enter the house….

I know the feeling. The desire to wrap myself in the flag and smite the traitor to Applepieism is strong when you run into some die hard southron or libertarian who wants to scream at you that we should return to our True Republican Roots and assasinate Ceasar for the good of the people.

The problem, I think, is that states rights and secession are truly part of the revolutionary intellectual babble of english whiggery that is retained in our schizophrenic political philosophy. The colonial states maintained staunchly their 175 year sense of sovereignty and submitted to unified nationalism with reservations. While most Americans understood that we had fundamentally accepted a nation-state status with the final Constitution, many of the instruments of government reflected a tension of rules in the way they ceded authority. The example I am most sensitive to was the absence of a real national army until after the War of 1812. The States managed militia was the backbone of Defense until this decentralized management of force failed to win the objectives of that war.

I usually wind up calling neo-confederates ‘provincials ‘. The assignation causes great distress. But narrow-minded sectionalism and retention of rights at any cost is the luxury of a very myopic world view. Slavery was a political disease that needed reform. The slaveholding states secession was foolhardy; a slap in the face to those founders who saw them selves as building the American Empire (I use that term with amusement – the US Senate used it in their farewell message to George Washington.)

We adore our snotty nosed kid past, and the sublime virtue of pouting and getting what we want no matter how distracting it is to the household. The indiscretion of secession was a tragedy. But we are loath to kill our kids when they transgress. We neither wished or could afford to have the southern states stand in a corner for 150 years for their act against national interest. Folks who insist that the South was right are minimalists failing to see the strategic scope of their affectation. They have a constitutional right to be silly – until they start making bombs. Then I put my uniform back on and start whistling “marching thru Georgia”.

Eric,

Have you ever read “When in the Course of Human Events?” I’ve only thumbed through it, but would like to know your opinion if you have read it.

Paul

It’s so rare that Booklist comes out and pointedly denounces a book.

I thought your response was spot on. It is frustrating to read neo-confederate screed. The choice seems to be to let them post unchallenged or tilt at windmills.

It is a shame that these folks get through our educational system.

Trish

Eric, all I can say is wow….after reading that reply it reminds me why I never win any of the debates with my wife who just happens to have a JD after her name as well. Good work.

Andy

Dear Mr. Wittenberg: I feel awful about raising this point, as I share your feelings about Neo-Confederates. But there is something worth discussing in the political writings of John C. Calhoun, principally his theory of concurrent majorities. In his “Disquisition on Government” (published posthumously in 1851) he laid out this theory, intended as a means to prevent majorities from abusing minorities, by vesting something like a veto in the latter. As interpreted by his successors, it did provide a serious intellectual–although not legal–basis for secession. Historian Jon Roland points out that today, while Calhoun’s racism can be dismissed without much thought, “his discussion of the problem of protecting the rights of a minority against a persistent majority, and how the problem might be solved constitutionally, is relevant today as special interests combine to exceed the constitutional limits on powers originally intended by the Founders, and in seeking benefits for themselves, operate to infringe the rights of others.”

I note this because Calhoun’s writings have always struck me as a bit underrated. He graduated from Yale, and served in Congress in 1810 and was James Monroe’s Secretary of State. I mention these things because his early career intersected with a few of the Framers (with whom he had contact) as well as giants such as John Marshall. Calhoun was an active constitutionalist–and a serious thinker whose writings, while they ultimately helped advise those leading the rebellion, still resonate on several levels.

Love your provocative posts! Sexy!

An interesting take on Calhoun’s concurrent majority can be found in:

Safford, John L. “John C. Calhoun, Lani Guinier, and Minority Rights.” PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), 211-216.

Lani Guinier was (is) a black Jewish woman briefly proposed by President Bill Clinton as a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Guinier was an advocate of allowing minorities specifically affected by a given piece of legislation the right to veto (nullify) that legislation; in effect, she was a proponent of the ideas of John C. Calhoun.

Calhoun, in formulating his ideas about nullification (of which secession is an outgrowth), was basing them on the sentiment expressed here (among others):

“..the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy..”

That’s from the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, written by none other than Thomas Jefferson. While I am not an advocate of secession, then or now, I think the argument about it (in general, not this particular one) frequently ignores/forgets that the division between Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian ideas about the nature and relationship of the federal government to the states had not been resolved by the 1830s (Calhoun’s first Ordinance of Secession), nor by 1861.

Dave Kelly’s first paragraph was right on…the issue of states’ rights was real and not an abstraction. In fact, we still argue about it today (see Roe v. Wade, gay marriage, etc.) The ‘neo-Confederate’ you quote also has a point in saying that (paraphrasing) ‘secession wasn’t against the law (i.e., addressed in the Constitution) then or now.’ Although you didn’t address this point, it’s a valid one, and I think it’s part of the reason that the argument continues in 2006.

LOL. I have to chuckle at people like Eric who miss the question every time. You see, the question is not whether the South was RIGHT to secede. The question is: IS SECESSION LEGAL? Is there anything in the Constitution which states that a state may leave the others if the people of said state decide to do so.

From the 1861 example: Why did the United States government take so long to consider armed invasion of the Southern states? If secession had been illegal, why didn’t the government just send in the troops right away? Why allow these so-called ‘Rebel’ states to form their own government, complete with a President, a Congress, its own Constitution? Had the United States acted immediately, I might be more inclined to buy into your neo-Unionist hooey (touche’).

BUT: Let us take the example to the modern day, and something that most of us can get a fair grip on since we see it in our newspapers and on our TV sets.

Drug cartels have obviously invaded the state of Arizona. They have set up sniper posts in the mountains. They have threatened, and in some cases carried out those threats, against AZ law enforcement officers. The Federal government (whose job it is to repel invasions) hasn’t done jack-shit to stop the invasion, so AZ has enacted a law to deal with the problem. In typical liberal-idiot fashion, the Obama syndicate (ooops, I mean adminstration) turns around and sues AZ for defending itself in the only way it can. Furthermore, it allows the government of the country from which the cartels come to file an Amicus Curae (Friend of the Court) brief whining about the treatment of its citizens WHO ARE IN ARIZONA ILLEGALLY IN THE FIRST PLACE! Now, if Governor Brewer were to call the legislature into special session and call for an ordinance of secession to take AZ out of the Union because the USG has failed to do its job to protect the people of AZ from invasion, IS SHE JUSTIFIED? I say HELL YES.

What say you?

hey Barry,
You said that Jackson’s horse was named Elise.
I am curious which Jackson this is.

thank you for the information
Ben