The Bosque Boys

We have touched a nerve here at Bosqueboys with Farmer's postings on the Confederate flag, and on the justification arguments for secession, and on the causes of the Civil War. Lots of passion.

I cannot believe that this emotional response simply relates to an event a century and a half ago. Indeed, Rue-Mur talks much of the present.

May I open a related thread? I invite you to comment on why the Confederate flag, and the Civil War, etc., is an emotional issue for you today. What gives you the fire that you've shown in your comments?

I am a sucker for an underdog-chasing-his-dream story, especially if the story has a happy ending. Here, from Breitbart, the story of the son of Jamaican immigrant parents to Britain who pursued his dream of owning a farm, has realized that dream, has contributed to the social well-being of the nation, and now is standing for Parliement as a Conservative candidate. Three Cheers!

Powerline has this list of questions for those of you who still may think that the mainstream media is unbiased. The questions are rational in tone and content, and concern coverage of the UN scandals.

We had so much fun with this yesterday, let's recap and start again with a more honest focus on one of the most resilient and fertile questions of American history: Was the Civil War fought over slavery?

My thesis (and this is key): The North did not begin the war to end slavery, but the South began the war to protect slavery.

The Election of 1860, in which the Republican Party swept 18 out of 18 free states, relegated the South to minority status. For several decades, a vast majority of Southerners had agreed that Northern rule was the end of “liberty” as they knew it. The new regional party, unlike the national parties that had come before, was so far removed from Southern sensibilities that it was not even on the ballot in most Southern states in 1860.

The election of Abraham Lincoln was an earthquake. Even as Lincoln promised that he would leave slavery undisturbed in the places in which it already existed, the South could not afford to accept that pledge. For at least a decade leading up to the watershed election, the South had asked for assurances, and, now, instead, they got Lincoln. The man who saw slavery as a great evil that must eventually be extinguished. “A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.” The Party of “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men” was now ascendant, and “Spot Resolution” Lincoln was at the crest of the wave.

The secession crisis of 1860-61 was not unlike previous standoffs between the two sections. Ten years earlier, the South had conducted furious preparations to leave the Union over the disposition of the slave question in the newly acquired territories in the West. The result of the turmoil then was the Compromise of 1850, on which the South reneged four years later, when Southern leaders demanded slavery be extended into the Kansas territory, in violation of the thirty-four year-old Missouri Compromise.

But the election of Lincoln, and more importantly the unprecedented regional majority, proved the final straw. As a last gasp, the South demanded that Lincoln agree to the extension of slavery into the West. Lincoln refused. And the War came.

Lincoln did not bring the Union into the fight to end slavery. He is famous for saying:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

Having said that, the war did end slavery.

Was the South's fight merely to protect state rights? Again, the great question: What right were the seceding states defending? The right to secede? What right was in danger in the winter of 1860-61? What had changed? What was behind the secession at that moment?

Ironically, the failed secession was the end of state sovereignty as a viable counterweight to the power of the central government. Ironic, that is, because, in effect, state rights theory committed suicide. From the Civil War, the federal government emerged ascendant. No one would ever argue that the states were co-equal seats of authority again. No one would ever entertain the notion that secession was a possibility again.

Michael Yon is doing the best reporting, in my opinion, from on the ground in Iraq and other places. Here is the start of another series. Here is the webpage. Make it a Favorite.

What to make of these reports recently out of Iran? (I am late with this, but between a visit from my son in the service and the stomach flu, I'm behind on everything.)

From Gateway Pundit: Iranian Cellphone Users Report Eruption of Navy Clashes With US. Apparently Iranian cell phones displayed this news, which was later denied by the governor of the southern province.

Also from Gateway Pundit: More on the ... "Iranian UFO Mega-Blast" and here : 3 Explosions In the West & 1 MASSIVE UFO BLAST In Central Iran! The Fars News Agency (official) reported the blasts and the UFO.

What conclusions may be drawn? One freak-out news story could mean nothing, two in short succession could mean something. (1) There may be more tension within Iran over the possibility of conflict with the US than we have thought, in those circumstances rumors become "news" quickly. This is, I think, the most likely explanation. (2) The US government has begun a psy-ops campaign to raise the tension level in Iran. We sometimes forget that the Iranian regime is not inherently stable. The dominant ethnic group within Iran makes up not much over 50 percent of the population and so the nation may be susceptible to destabilization. I don't this it likely, though, that we have started psy-ops on Iran since I don't think it likely that we are about to start an "Iranian project" with support slipping for our Iraq project. (3) The war against Iran has started and the US media just do not know it yet. The UFO was really a US missle. Least likely explanation, I think, see (2) above.

Programming Note: Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this vibrant discussion. I invite you to read my latest post, which confronts the question of slavery as a cause of the Civil War in a more direct maner: "Re-Waging the Civil War."

In honor of MLK, evidently, Senators Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, two candidates for the Democratic nomination for president, attended an NAACP rally in front of the South Carolina statehouse in Columbia. Both senators agreed that the Confederate flag, which formerly flew over the capitol dome but still remains on the property, has no place on the capitol grounds (read the Washington Post story here).

The actions of Senators Dodd and Biden strike me as pure demagoguery. Was this the most meaningful message they could have imparted on MLK day? Or was this their best shot at getting on TV and touching a hot-button issue with a vital constituency?

Back over at the Liberty Papers, Kevin makes an argument for dumping the Confederate flag (and the monument to Confederate veterans as well) because "the Confederacy existed for sole purpose of allowing the enslavement of other human beings."

Those Liberty Boys sure are hard on the Confederacy. Lighten up fellas.

Having said that, for different reasons, I agree that the public display of the Confederate flag is problematic and ought to fade into the sunset.

My comment I attached to Kevin's post:

Sadly, the honorable history of the Confederate battle flag is largely irrelevant.

The flag is a negative symbol in the South for two reasons:

1) it was co-opted by the Klan and became a symbol of violence toward African Americans; and

2) it was adopted by the massive resistance that emerged during the post-Brown Civil Rights years in the South. The Rebel flags found their way onto Southern state flags as a symbol of modern defiance rather than an homage to the tradition of bravery among a mostly non-slaveholding force of fighting men during the Civil War.

Too bad–-but that is the reality. There is a time-honored Christian principle of laying down non-essential symbols and practices that offend others.

Southern whites need to forego the flag as a measure of their desire to live in harmony with their neighbors.

LGF has links to the documentary in which undercover reporters go inside UK mosques to see if what is said on the inside inside matches what is said to the outside. (It doesn't) To quote LGF, evidence of Islamic supremacism, shocking misogyny, and support for violence at a number of Britain’s leading mosques and Muslim institutions.

Selected passages from, "Letter From a Birmingham Jail," King's greatest public pronouncement:

"But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

"Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..."

"So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

» Read More

In case anyone is interested:

I have engaged in a conversation on the "Liberty Papers" concerning the right of the South to Secede.

Here is the post and thread of comments that followed.

Also, a related post on "Wake Up America" entitled the "War of Northern Aggression" argues that the South was right to secede, the war was never really over (the last 150 years was interlude), and Southerners might well walk away again--perhaps in the near future.

Here is my first post on the Liberty Papers thread, which sums up my view in a nutshell:

A Right to Secede?

Yes and No.

The lack of clarity in re secession allows enough gray area for lawyers and constitutionalists to make persuasive arguments for either position.

The right to secede flows from the original process of ratifying the Constitution. That is, if South Carolina voluntarily entered the Union through the process of a ratification convention, they ought to have the right to voluntarily exit the Union through a de-ratification convention.

Lincoln’s answer: South Carolina had entered into a perpetual union contract. Once in–they could never leave. How many perpetual union contracts have you entered into in your life? They are pretty rare. The Mafia comes to mind: “you walk in; you are carried out.” We generally do not view those sorts of arrangements as humane.

The Election of 1860, and the emergence of an entirely regional party (the GOP), signalled the end of the South as an equal player in the national government. At least, that was the argument.

True, Lincoln and the Republicans promised not to disturb slavery where it existed, which should have been enough–for we all know that politicians don’t lie or change their minds or shift their rhetoric later when it suits their needs.

In the end, I agree that the secession was about slavery. From the Northern point of view, the war not about slavery until much later. But the South attempted to bolt the Union in order to protect slavery. From our perspective, there is no defending that motivation.

Read the entire post and comment thread here.