Ole Miss basketball players kneel during anthem

TIDE-HSV

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There is no correlation between The War Between The States and college athletics. Those that make it so are comical.

The people that do are in an extreme minority.
There may not be in your mind, but there certainly is in many OM grads, their children and their grandchildren. I go to their reunions and have to listen to them. (Well, I finally refused.) Their flags, mascots, etc. were their way of holding on to their nostalgia for slavery. There's a very good reason they have to pay well for African American athletes...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Honestly, the reason I remember it is that I live on a battlefield from that war. 300 yards from my house is a cemetery with 50 soldiers who fought in that war. But simple reminiscence is morally ambivalent. Russians can remember the Red Army’s sacrifice and today's Germans can recall the Wehrmacht, and neither of those regimes was particularly honorable. What is worth remembering, however is that a monstrous wrong was committed (besides the monstrous wrong of slavery).
The voters of eleven states, by wide margins, declared their intention to leave the Union. They did not trust the Republicans and they withdrew their consent. The response of the federal government and the northern states, in preventing them was both antidemocratic and unconstitutional. 36% of Alabama families owned slaves (31% for the seceding states overall), so a hefty majority were not even guilty of the sin of slaveholding, yet their government was overthrown and their votes violently suppressed. Add to that episodes like the 1862 sack of Athens, Alabama, the 1864 burning of Shenandoah Valley, and the 1865 burning of Columbia, South Carolina, and insult is added to injury. Add that most northerners (not all, to their credit) were as guilty of racism as white southerners, and the sanctimony is hard to swallow.
Today, California has a Democratic majority in both the state House and state Senate, and a Democratic governor, and is pretty solidly dedicated to the preservation of abortion rights unimpaired. President Trump could declare that California, therefore, does not have a “republican form of government” as stipulated by the Constitution, and thus he is ordering the army to invade the state and overthrow the California government. His logic, however, would be about as sound as the Republicans of 1861-1865. If your gut reaction is “I’d like to see him try. We would stop him,” then you are getting in touch with your inner Confederate.
The American Revolution established the principle that the legitimacy of government lies on the consent of the governed. The Republican response in 1861 negated that principle.
The Founders in 1787-1790 established that the people have the right to dictate to their government what powers it has. The Civil War established the contrary principle that the government tells the people what rights they retain and the people have no right to limit their government. I think those contrasts are worth remembering.
TW, does it bother you at all that there is no explicit right of secession contained in the Constitution? (I know this is an ancient argument which we're not going to settle here.) I'm just wondering which of the usual arrows you will pluck out of your quiver to justify the two-way door...
 

81usaf92

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There may not be in your mind, but there certainly is in many OM grads, their children and their grandchildren. I go to their reunions and have to listen to them. (Well, I finally refused.) Their flags, mascots, etc. were their way of holding on to their nostalgia for slavery. There's a very good reason they have to pay well for African American athletes...
I think my issue is that pretty much every SEC school has distanced themselves from their Civil War heritage, but Ole Miss does half measures at best

FWIW yes UA still has Morgan hall and Amelia Gorgas library. But they at least make a good reason for keeping both. Ole Miss is like “ yeah we will take away Col Reb, Dixie, and flag handles, but we have to keep the tradition of the Confederate Grove and the name of those brave Rebels”. Pretty much would’ve been better if they just kept everything and looking totally tone deaf instead of looking knowingly racist and ignorant
 
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Tidewater

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It's interesting how you applaud the German form of remembrance coupled with national shame and growth, while championing the Confederate brand of remembrance coupled with pride and stagnation.
German remembrance is complicated, as I'm sure you are aware. Almost every little German dorf has some memorial to the soldiers from that village who died 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. No celebration of causes, just the fact that young men died.
One German colleague, whose father was drafted at the age of 17 and fought in the 7th Panzer Division on the east front and survived the war (barely), told me, "I don't approve of the Holocaust, but I didn't do it." He is pretty much over apologizing for something he had no hand in.
On the other hand, I witnessed one German explaining who controls the international finance system. He put his hands together with palms up, little fingers joined, like reading a book and started bobbing his head back and forth, like you see people doing at the Wailing Wall. He was born and raised in East Germany. The DDR never really de-Nazified. They avoided it by proclaiming Nazism the sin solely of the West German "other."
I suppose it's easier for some to dismiss human slavery than attempted genocide, but I merely see them as different brands of evil, both deserving of contempt.

The fact that Germany has proactively stomped out any Lost Cause BS has made them a better and more united people. We made a grave mistake not doing the same.
I think German response to catastrophic defeat in 1945 were colored by the attempted negotiated settlement in 1918-1919. The fact that the German army was not (yet) completely defeated on the ground before the armistice opened the door to the "Stabbed in the Back" theory Hitler exploited in his quest for political power. There was no mistaking the degree of German defeat in 1945, and the revelation of the Holocaust made any favorable memories of the Nazi regime untenable to most Germans.
The analogies with the Civil War are not tight.
The Holocaust was state policy. As were the aggressive invasions of unoffending neighboring states and the ruthless exploitation of their people and resources.
Slavery was an individual act. Every state in the Union in 1776 had tolerated slaveholding. States, in general, did not own slaves, and Jefferson Davis's April 1861 declaration of Confederate foreign policy was quite different from Nazi Germany's:
Jefferson Davis said:
We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor and independence; we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.
That seems a far cry from fighting for "lebensraum."

You seem comfortable with uncritically touting Republican Party slogans (which honestly, seems a bit odd, given your political predilections). No matter how many Republican Party slogans one repeats, Virginia's withdrawal from the Union was both democratic and constitutional and the federal (and northern state) policy of stopping them by force of arms was both antidemocratic and unconstitutional.
Virginia Convention of 1861 said:
The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention, on the 25th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eight-eight, having declared that the powers granted them under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States. Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain that the Ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that the said Constitution of the United State of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.
The Convention had voted down a secession resolution on April 4th, 1861. This one was adopted on April 17, 1861. Slavery had not changed a whit in the intervening thirteen days. The nature of the Union had. Virginia wanted no part of a Union held together by bayonets. The consent of the governed should decide. That strikes me as a principle worthy of remembrance.
 
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GrayTide

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Back on topic; I have grown tired of seeing black athletes kneel during the national anthem and then the non-stop rhetoric from sportscasters and newcasters on either side. I no longer care whether they stand, kneel or lay down, that is their decision and they are entitltled to suffer whatever repurcussions come their way. You can control your behavior but you cannot control the consequences.
 

Tidewater

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TW, does it bother you at all that there is no explicit right of secession contained in the Constitution? (I know this is an ancient argument which we're not going to settle here.) I'm just wondering which of the usual arrows you will pluck out of your quiver to justify the two-way door...
I used to think of the division of labor between state and federal governments in rationalistic terms. The federal government should handle interstate and international issues, and a state should handle issues solely within that state.
Then I read Elliott’s Debates. [https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwed.html] and
I discovered just how limited the Founders intended the general government to be. The record forced me to adjust my views.
A UVA law school grad told me (maybe you could confirm your experience) that Constitutional Law consist of constitutional case law, that, in general, law school students never read the debates of the state conventions that (as Madison said) gave the Constitution its meaning.
“Whatever veneration might be entertained for the body of men who formed our Constitution, the sense of that body could never be regarded as the oracular guide in expounding the Constitution. As the instrument came from them it was nothing more than the draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through the several State Conventions. If we were to look, therefore, for the meaning of the instrument beyond the face of the instrument, we must look for it, not in the General Convention, which proposed, but in the State Conventions, which accepted and ratified the Constitution.” (James Madison, April 1796 in the House of Representatives. Annals of Congress, Fourth Congress, First Session, p. 776.)

“As a guide in expounding and applying the provisions of the Constitution, the debates and incidental decisions of the Convention can have no authoritative character. However desirable it be that they should be preserved as a gratification to the laudable curiosity felt by every people to trace the origin and progress of their political Institutions, & as a source perhaps of some lights on the Science of Govt. the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution, but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State Conventions where it recd. all the Authority which it possesses.” (James Madison to Thomas Ritchie, September 15, 1821. Writings of Madison, 9:71-2, note.)

So, what do the state conventions say? One might think that this would cause methodological challenges, since different people in thirteen different states could all say different things, but that is not the case. Two positions formed on the proposed constitution: (1) the state conventions should not ratify because the powers of the federal government were vague and the system would become abusive and (2) the proposed constitution was safe to ratify because the general government would be strictly limited to those powers enumerated in the constitution. Based on this interpretation, the constitution passed in all thirteen colonies.
To the individual cases:
 

Tidewater

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Massachusetts
In the Massachusetts Convention, on January 15, 1788, Christopher Gore observed, “in the proposed Constitution, the powers of the whole government are limited to certain national objects, and are accurately defined.” (Elliott’s Debates, 2:16-18)
Massachusetts in her ratification instrument resolved “That it be explicitly declared, that all powers not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several states, to be by them exercised. (Elliott’s Debates, 2:131).

Pennsylvania
In the Pennsylvania Convention, October 28, 1787, James Wilson. “In this Constitution, the citizens of the United States appear dispensing a part of their original power in what manner and what proportion they think fit. They never part with the whole; and they retain the right of recalling what they part with. When, therefore, they possess, as I have already mentioned, the fee-simple of authority, why should they have recourse to the minute and subordinate remedies, which can be necessary only to those who pass the fee, and reserve only a rent-charge?” (Elliot’s Debates, 2:437.)
James Wilson speaking to the public said, “When the people established the powers of legislation under their separate governments, they invested their representatives with every right and authority which they did not in explicit terms reserve; and therefore upon every question respecting the jurisdiction of the House of Assembly, if the frame of government is silent, the jurisdiction is efficient and complete. But in delegating federal powers, another criterion was necessarily introduced, and the congressional power is to be collected, not from tacit implication, but from the positive grant expressed in the instrument of the union. Hence, it is evident, that in the former case everything which is not reserved is given; but in the latter the reverse of the proposition prevails, and everything which is not given is reserved.” (https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/1787-wilson-address-to-the-people-of-philadelphia-speech)

December 11, 1787, Thomas McKean said, “this government embraces only enumerated powers. In a single state, annual elections may be proper; the more so, when the legislative powers extend to all cases; but in such an extent of country as the United States, and when the powers are circumscribed, there is not that necessity, nor are the objects of the general government of that nature as to be acquired immediately by every capacity.” (Elliot’s Debates, 2:533.)
Thomas McKean said, “Another objection was taken from these words of the Constitution—'to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or office thereof.’ And, in declaring ‘that this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land,’ this has at last been conceded, that, though it is explicit enough, yet it gives to Congress no further powers than those already enumerated. Those that first said it gave to Congress the power of superseding the state governments, cannot persist in it; for no person can, with a tolerable face, read the clauses over, and infer that such may be the consequence. (Elliot’s Debates, 2:538-9)
December 11, 1787, Thomas McKean said, “the powers of Congress, being derived from the people in the mode pointed out by this Constitution, and being therein enumerated and positively granted, can be no other than what this positive grant conveys. … With respect to executive officers, they have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them.”

North Carolina
In the NC Convention, on July 28th, 1788, Archibald MacLaine said, “The powers of Congress are limited and enumerated. We say we have given them those powers, but we do not say we have given them more. We retain all those rights which we have not given away to the general government. … If they can assume powers not enumerated, there was no occasion for enumerating any powers. … if we had all power before, and give away but a part, we still retain the rest. It is as plain a thing as possibly can be, that Congress can have no power but what we expressly give them.” (Elliot’s Debates, 4:140 – 141.)
Gov. Johnston said, “the gentleman says that a bill of rights was necessary. It appears to me, sir, that it would have been the highest absurdity to undertake to define what rights the people of the United States were entitled to; for that would be as much as to say they were entitled to nothing else. A bill of rights may be necessary in a monarchical government, whose powers are undefined. Were we in the situation of a monarchical country? No, sir. Every right could not be enumerated, and the omitted rights would be sacrificed, if security arose from an enumeration. The Congress cannot assume any other powers than those expressly given them, without a palpable violation of the Constitution. (Elliot’s Debates, 4:142)
Future Supreme Court Justice James Iredell said, “Of what use, therefore, can a bill of rights be in this Constitution, where the people expressly declare how much power they do give, and consequently retain all they do not? It is a declaration of particular powers by the people to their representatives, for particular purposes. It may be considered as a great power of attorney, under which no power can be exercised but what is expressly given. Did any man ever hear, before, that at the end of a power of attorney it was said that the attorney should not exercise more power than was there given him? Suppose, for instance, a man had lands in the counties of Anson and Caswell, and he should give another a power of attorney to sell his lands in Anson, would the other have any authority to sell the lands in Caswell? or could he, without absurdity, say, "'Tis true you have not expressly authorized me to sell the lands in Caswell; but as you had lands there, and did not say I should not, I thought I might as well sell those lands as the other." (Elliot’s Debates, 4:148-9).
On July 29th 1788, James Iredell said, “…If the Congress should claim any power not given them, it would be as bare a usurpation as making a king in America. If this Constitution be adopted, it must be presumed the instrument will be in the hands of every man in America, to see whether authority be usurped; and any person by inspecting it may see if the power claimed be enumerated. If it be not, he will know it to be a usurpation.” (Elliot’s Debates, 4:172)
On July 30th 1788, Iredell continued: “The powers of the government are particularly enumerated and defined: they can claim no others but such as are so enumerated. In my opinion, they are excluded as much from the exercise of any other authority as they could be by the strongest negative clause that could be framed.” (Elliot’s Debates, 4:219-220)
Finally, just so there would be no confusion the state of New York, Virginia and Rhode Island made explicit the terms under which they had delegated powers to the federal government.
 
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Tidewater

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Virginia
In the Virginia Convention, on June 5th, 1788, Edmund Pendleton said, “We, the people, possessing all power, form a government, such as we think will secure happiness: and suppose, in adopting this plan, we should be mistaken in the end; where is the cause of alarm on that quarter? In the same plan we point out an easy and quiet method of reforming what may be found amiss. No, but, say gentlemen, we have put the introduction of that method in the hands of our servants, who will interrupt it from motives of self-interest. What then? We will resist, did my friend say? conveying an idea of force. Who shall dare to resist the people? No, we will assemble in Convention; wholly recall our delegated powers, or reform them so as to prevent such abuse; and punish those servants who have perverted powers, designed for our happiness, to their own emolument.”
June 6th, 1788, James Madison said “In some respects it is a government of a federal nature; in others, it is of a consolidated nature. Even if we attend to the manner in which the Constitution is investigated, ratified, and made the act of the people of America, I can say, notwithstanding what the honorable gentleman (Patrick Henry who opposed ratification) has alleged, that this government is not completely consolidated, nor is it entirely federal. Who are parties to it? The people—but not the people as composing one great body; but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties. Were it, as the gentleman asserts, a consolidated government, the assent of a majority of the people would be sufficient for its establishment; and, as a majority have adopted it already, the remaining states would be bound by the act of the majority, even if they unanimously reprobated it. Were it such a government as is suggested, it would be now binding on the people of this state, without having had the privilege of deliberating upon it. But, sir, no state is bound by it, as it is, without its own consent.”

“If Virginia was separated from all the states, her power and authority would extend to all cases: in like manner, were all powers vested in the general government, it would be a consolidated government; but the powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”
On June 20th, 1788, John Marshall said, “…Has the government of the United States power to make laws on every subject? … Can they go beyond the delegated powers? If they were to make a law not warranted by any of the powers enumerated, it would be considered by the judges as an infringement of the Constitution which they are to guard. They would not consider such a law as coming under their jurisdiction.

On June 21st, 1788, Gov. Edmund Randolph said, “If I did believe, with the honorable gentleman, that all power not expressly retained was given up by the people, I would detest this government.
But I never thought so, nor do I now. If, in the ratification, we put words to this purpose, "and that all authority not given is retained by the people, and may be resumed when perverted to their oppression; and that no right can be cancelled, abridged, or restrained, by the Congress, or any officer of the United States,"—I say, if we do this, I conceive that, as this style of ratification would manifest the principles on which Virginia adopted it, we should be at liberty to consider as a violation of the Constitution every exercise of a power not expressly delegated therein. I see no objection to this. It is demonstrably clear to me that rights not given are retained.”
On June 24th, 1788, James Madison said, “The observations made by a gentleman lately up, on that subject, correspond precisely with my opinion. That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. It adds, likewise, that no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by the general government, or any of its officers, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for these purposes. There cannot be a more positive and unequivocal declaration of the principle of the adoption – that every thing not granted is reserved. This is obviously and self-evidently the case, without the declaration. Can the general government exercise any power not delegated? If an enumeration be made of our rights, will it not be implied that every thing omitted is given to the general government? Has not the honorable gentleman himself admitted that an imperfect enumeration is dangerous? Does the Constitution say that they shall not alter the law of descents, or do those things which would subvert the whole system of the state laws? If it did, what was not excepted would be granted. Does it follow, from the omission of such restrictions that they can exercise powers not delegated? The reverse of the proposition holds. The delegation alone warrants the exercise of any power.”
So Virginia’s ratification was worded this way: We the Delegates of the people of Virginia, … do … declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will.

New York
During the debate in New York over ratification, Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” (Federalist 45)

On June 28, 1788, Alexander Hamilton addressed “the obvious and important principle in confederated governments, that whatever is not expressly given to the federal head is reserved to the members. The truth of this principle must strike every intelligent mind. In the first formation of government (i.e. in the Hobbesian or Lockean “time out of mind” sense), by the association of individuals, every power of the community is delegated, because the government is to extend to every possible object; nothing is reserved but the unalienable rights of mankind: but, when a number of these societies unite for certain purposes, the rule is different, and from the plainest reason—they have already delegated their sovereignty and their powers to their several (i.e. state) governments; and these cannot be recalled, and given to another, without an express act.” (Elliott’s Debates, 2:362-363).

New York declared in her ratification an even lower bar than Virginia had:
“That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.”

Rhode Island, when she finally bestirred herself to join the Union, declared: “That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness. That the rights of the states respectively to nominate and appoint all state officers, and every other power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or to the departments of government thereof, remain to the people of the several states, or their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the Constitution which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.”

As for the silence of the document on secession, the enumeration of federal powers and the reservation of powers not prohibited to the states means the issue was up to the states to decide.
For secession to have been prohibited, the federal power to compel membership would have to have been listed in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), and the prohibition of the power of states to leave the Union would have to have been in Article I, Section 10. Just to be certain that the condition precedent upon which they ratified the Constitution and joined the Union, Virginia, New York and Rhode Island all explicitly said that, should the powers delegated be abused or should the happiness of the people require it, they reserved the right to resume their delegated powers.
 
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Tidewater

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So are you saying the constitution did not address rebellions or insurrections? We know it did. What would exempt states from falling under those clauses in the constitution addressing the subject?
Insurrections by individuals, certainly. States, however, are the integers of our system. States created the federal government and delegated powers to it. You might say that the federal government, in attempting to employ powers the Constitution denies to it, is itself engaging in a rebellion against the Constitution.

The position southern states advanced was the they were no longer in the Union, and thus the Constitution longer applied them.

Jefferson Davis in his farewell to the United States Senate in 1861, after Mississippi seceded said it this way:
Jefferson Davis said:
A State finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is, in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the benefits, (and they are known to be many,) deprives herself of the advantages, (they are known to be great,) severs all the ties of affection, (and they are close and enduring,) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.
 
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