# Confederate sympathizers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 10, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010 "2012-01-10T02:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/101 "2012-01-11T07:43:28Z")
In fact, it’s hard to think of any cause that was embraced on a wide scale in the U.S. on the basis of “states’ rights” BESIDES slavery and, later, segregation, at least post-1830 or so. The blips of “states’ rights” rhetoric in reference to things like the periodic federal crackdowns on medical marijuana are rather uncoordinated and really don’t rely on the argument for anything more than ironically pointing out hypocrisy. “States rights” doesn’t get anyone off the hook for slavery because “states rights” MEANS slavery. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/102 "2012-01-11T08:06:31Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Fine, but how does that have anything at all to do with the Confederacy? > > As noted above, the CSA Constitution was, if anything, LESS states’ rights friendly than the US Constitution. So, claiming the war was about states’ rights rather than slavery is, at best, revisionism and, at worst, a pathetic attempt to deflect attention away from the slavery issue. Maybe states’ rights (plural) is a bit off, but I would say disagreement over the specific states’ right to secede was the cause of the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![dorsk188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@dorsk188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorsk188)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/103 "2012-01-11T11:08:55Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > The Confederacy was not rejecting external rule in favor of local autonomy. They were trying to create a nation with more central rule because they were losing the demographic battle to dominate the North. As the nation grew, and population tilted toward the north, centralized Southern rule **was** more local than the prospect of a roughly half-Southern / half-Northern federal government. True, Richmond wasn’t geographically much closer to Montgomery, but it was ideologically more closely aligned. Maybe it’s a bad analogy, but imagine your group of friends is choosing where to go for dinner. About half want Chinese and half want Pasta. Rather than fight over it, the group splits and people get what they want on this central issue of food type. Even if the Pasta group is dominated by a bossy friend that demands a crappy restaurant, they still get pasta rather than the prospect of Chinese. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What else do you expect? Every cause is a matter of good vs. evil. Hypothetically, if every citizen in Hawaii wanted to secede from the United States today. Not for any particular purpose, but just because they want to be governed locally. Would it be a matter of good and evil? Is it more moral to force people in a region living today to remain part of our country just because the law says so? If they seceded, would it be moral to kill Hawaiians until they agree to return? I don’t think a country’s boarders are sacrosanct, and I don’t see the moral imperative to make sure the country’s territory never shrinks. Hypothetically, if Canada legalized race-based slavery, with all of the abuses perpetrated by the American South historically. Should the United States go to war and annex them to halt the practice? There’s certainly a moral imperative to do something like that, but if every country invaded another to “right a wrong”, how do we deal with a Saudi invasion of the UAE to impose Sharia Law? The Civil War is so often treated like WWII by people. It’s a “good war”, where the good guys fought the bad guys, and the good guys won. But there is something fundamentally different about the inward horror of Confederate slavery and the outward aggression of Hitler’s Germany. People treat the Civil War as if it is a cut-and-dried obvious issue, but I think it’s far more complex and muddled. There is certainly a moral clarity, but the governance issue is actually worth discussing on its own merits, but those conversations can’t seem to happen. Usually, there are Southerners that are regionally loyal, and thus irrational, but in this thread, I see more of the opposite: an irrational reveling in the moral superiority of the North’s argument and a denigration of anyone putting forward a more complex view. Costs of a brutal war and racial history since aside, I’m personally very satisfied with how the situation worked out. At the same time, I don’t like the idea of compulsory participation in one particular country’s government, and I don’t think the moral imperative to end slavery necessarily meets the threshold to invade a separate entity. (Lest you think me a sovereign citizen-type, I just want to add, I would be fine in compulsory participation in a world government, possibly structured in tiers of federalism. My problem is with concept of sovereignty of individual nation states. If Switzerland can be self-governed, why not Montana? It just smacks me as arbitrary.) > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Am I reckless in assuming there is considerable overlap, nowadays, between Neo-Confederates and White Nationalists? The reveling I mentioned rubs some Southerners the wrong way. Most people in the South don’t think about it much at all, and when they do, they’re glad it turned out as it did (roughly speaking). Some Southerners have a geographic loyalty that gets rankled by the revelry of some Northerners I mentioned, and that is what leads to things like individual rednecks with stars and bars t-shirts. Because so many of the peers do it in the South, there really isn’t an association with slavery or race for most people. I personally have had to sit down my father and explain to him why he couldn’t paint a big Confederate flag on the hood of his car, because he wanted to call it “The Rebel”. It’s usually not racist, just a racial numbness that needs to be patiently explained away. People who aren’t racist tend to get it, eventually. ---
**Author:** ![dorsk188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@dorsk188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorsk188)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/104 "2012-01-11T11:16:33Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > In fact, it’s hard to think of any cause that was embraced on a wide scale in the U.S. on the basis of “states’ rights” BESIDES slavery and, later, segregation, at least post-1830 or so. The blips of “states’ rights” rhetoric in reference to things like the periodic federal crackdowns on medical marijuana are rather uncoordinated and really don’t rely on the argument for anything more than ironically pointing out hypocrisy. “States rights” doesn’t get anyone off the hook for slavery because “states rights” MEANS slavery. Just because racists are better organized and louder doesn’t mean the mechanism they use is inherently racist. There are plenty of states’ rights issues that are less controversial (most criminal laws, national guard, alcohol prohibition, etc.). States’ rights is the principal argument in favor of gay marriage as it is currently available, and the bigots are the ones trying to nationalize it with a federal amendment. Granted, eventually the goal is national gay marriage, but right now it rests on the states’ right to decide their marriage laws. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/105 "2012-01-11T13:16:01Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Though, of course, it was about slavery and nothing else, every serious historian supports this, and denying this is itself a form of apologism for slavery/the Confederacy/present-day racism, on par with creationism in both its igorance of academic consensus among qualified people and in the ridiculous motivations for making the denial (also, usually believed in by the same people). Except that “every serious historians” would clarify “about slavery” and then we’d be about where we are in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/106 "2012-01-11T13:17:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If the South were like Germany, no states would raise the battle flag, only a fringe of loonies would fly it on their trucks, and there would be a large and well maintained museum of slavery in Richmond, giving the stories of the suffering of the slaves. … and if slavery was like the holocaust, which it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/107 "2012-01-11T13:21:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Am I reckless in assuming there is considerable overlap, nowadays, between Neo-Confederates and White Nationalists? … or community organizers and the Nation of Islam? What’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Bambro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df705f/32.png) [@Bambro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambro)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/108 "2012-01-11T14:51:37Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > And like it or not, **those guys cause everyone from your neck of the woods to look bad** , and that particular species of American is more likely to be found in the southern parts of the US, particularly the rural areas, than in, say, New York City. Or Miami. Or Duluth. (bolding mine) This type of argument would not be tolerated for someone who holds the entire Middle East, or all Muslims in contempt because “that’s where the terrorists come from”, so why should it be tolerated for people who hold the south in contempt due to a minority of people who have racist views? To say that the south is a hotbed of racism because some folks do admitedly hold racist views seems to contradict the idea that it would be wrong to blame all muslims because a minority of people who hold the same beliefs engage in terrorism. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/109 "2012-01-11T15:04:50Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > And like it or not, those guys cause everyone from your neck of the woods to look bad, and that particular species of American is more likely to be found in the southern parts of the US, particularly the rural areas, than in, say, New York City. Or Miami. Or Duluth. I grew up in the South, and am acutely aware of the varied meanings of the Confederate flag. I personally dislike it and think it should not be worn or flown, but I understand other viewpoints. However, when Yankees or Canadians fly it, it irritates the hell out of me. [thread=599736]Here’s my thread on this issue[/thread]. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/110 "2012-01-11T16:05:22Z")
> [@dorsk188](#): > > As the nation grew, and population tilted toward the north, centralized Southern rule **was** more local than the prospect of a roughly half-Southern / half-Northern federal government. True, Richmond wasn’t geographically much closer to Montgomery, but it was ideologically more closely aligned. Maybe it’s a bad analogy, but imagine your group of friends is choosing where to go for dinner. About half want Chinese and half want Pasta. Rather than fight over it, the group splits and people get what they want on this central issue of food type. Even if the Pasta group is dominated by a bossy friend that demands a crappy restaurant, they still get pasta rather than the prospect of Chinese. To make your analogy accurate, you would have add these factors: 1. The group had been going out to eat for years and the pasta eaters had been dominate the whole time, even insisting that the Chinese eaters never go off on their own to have Chinese. 2. The pasta eaters insisted that new members of the group could only join if they kept the current ratio (more pasta eaters) intact, and had in fact beaten up new members who threatened that balance. 3. The pasta eaters left not to avoid eating Chinese, but because the Chinese eaters were almost to the point were they would not have to pay for the pasta eaters food. 4. The new group of pasta eaters set up their group in such a way that no one who joined could ever leave, no one could ever eat Chinese, and everyone had to eat the same kind of pasta. Point being, you can’t claim the Civil War was about local control. It was about an oligarchy attempting to strengthen their control. An oligarchy whose power was based on slavery. They would have preferred to stay in the union if they could exert more control on the North. The Confederates did want local autonomy. They just wanted to be the ones in control. They needed slavery to expand to do that. That was what the war was about. > [@dorsk188](#): > > Hypothetically, if every citizen in Hawaii wanted to secede from the United States today. Not for any particular purpose, but just because they want to be governed locally. Would it be a matter of good and evil? Is it more moral to force people in a region living today to remain part of our country just because the law says so? If they seceded, would it be moral to kill Hawaiians until they agree to return? I don’t think a country’s boarders are sacrosanct, and I don’t see the moral imperative to make sure the country’s territory never shrinks. Hawaii is a special case as they did not come into the Union voluntarily. But even so, if 100% of all citizens of Hawaii voted to leave, there Senators and Reps could introduce and a bill to make it happen. Would it work? In reality, I doubt it, but in reality you would be lucky to 10% of the citizens of Hawaii to support independence. > [@dorsk188](#): > > Hypothetically, if Canada legalized race-based slavery, with all of the abuses perpetrated by the American South historically. Should the United States go to war and annex them to halt the practice? There’s certainly a moral imperative to do something like that, but if every country invaded another to “right a wrong”, how do we deal with a Saudi invasion of the UAE to impose Sharia Law? > > The Civil War is so often treated like WWII by people. It’s a “good war”, where the good guys fought the bad guys, and the good guys won. But there is something fundamentally different about the inward horror of Confederate slavery and the outward aggression of Hitler’s Germany. People treat the Civil War as if it is a cut-and-dried obvious issue, but I think it’s far more complex and muddled. There is certainly a moral clarity, but the governance issue is actually worth discussing on its own merits, but those conversations can’t seem to happen. Usually, there are Southerners that are regionally loyal, and thus irrational, but in this thread, I see more of the opposite: an irrational reveling in the moral superiority of the North’s argument and a denigration of anyone putting forward a more complex view. > > Costs of a brutal war and racial history since aside, I’m personally very satisfied with how the situation worked out. At the same time, I don’t like the idea of compulsory participation in one particular country’s government, and I don’t think the moral imperative to end slavery necessarily meets the threshold to invade a separate entity. (Lest you think me a sovereign citizen-type, I just want to add, I would be fine in compulsory participation in a world government, possibly structured in tiers of federalism. My problem is with concept of sovereignty of individual nation states. If Switzerland can be self-governed, why not Montana? It just smacks me as arbitrary.) What is your lower limit? If Montana, why not Sheridon county? If Sheridon, why not Plentywood township? If Plentywood, why not the Woldon family ranch? If the Woldon family ranch, why not Jack Woldon? Also, if how about the people in the state that don’t want to secede? Do they get stripped of their citizenship or give up their property? > [@dorsk188](#): > > The reveling I mentioned rubs some Southerners the wrong way. Most people in the South don’t think about it much at all, and when they do, they’re glad it turned out as it did (roughly speaking). > > Some Southerners have a geographic loyalty that gets rankled by the revelry of some Northerners I mentioned, and that is what leads to things like individual rednecks with stars and bars t-shirts. Because so many of the peers do it in the South, there really isn’t an association with slavery or race for most people. I personally have had to sit down my father and explain to him why he couldn’t paint a big Confederate flag on the hood of his car, because he wanted to call it “The Rebel”. It’s usually not racist, just a racial numbness that needs to be patiently explained away. People who aren’t racist tend to get it, eventually. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/111 "2012-01-11T16:54:55Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > To make your analogy accurate, you would have add these factors: > 1Hawaii is a special case as they did not come into the Union voluntarily. Nice analogy, I like it. Actually they did. Really. It’s true that the Royal Family was against it, but they and their supporters were a tiny minority. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/112 "2012-01-11T17:13:11Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Maybe states’ rights (plural) is a bit off, but I would say disagreement over the specific states’ right to secede was the cause of the Civil War. That’s simply more apologism. If not for slavery, there would have been no significant rift between the states for the break up. I’ll remind you yet again to check the [CSA Constitution](http://www.usconstitution.net/csa.html). While the CSA member states assumed they had the right to secede (which is obvious, since they exercised it), it is also clear the rest of the USA didn’t agree. Yet, considering the disagreement, the CSA didn’t think to enumerate this explicit right to secede in their constitution. Look for it. I would expect it to be there if it was actually the CSA’s root cause for the war. But they did include 3 or 4 explicit bits about slavery and the rights of slaveholders, which made slavery the law of the land, whether or not individual states wanted it. So, the classic reason for the Civil War holds up. There’s NOTHING in the CSA constitution about this particular states’ right (the right to secede) while there’s plenty about rights due to slaveholders, rights denied to slaves, and the lack of any state’s right to abolish slavery. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/113 "2012-01-11T17:16:12Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > … or community organizers and the Nation of Islam? What’s the point? No, I’m sure there is no overlap between Neo-Confederates and NOI. If there were, that would be a very important thing to know. And the point is that this thread is **about** Neo-Confederates. I doubt many Neo-Confederates are community organizers of any kind, either. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/114 "2012-01-11T17:17:16Z")
The people of South Carolina (or Hawaii) do not have a right to leave the Union. The reason is simple. The people of a particular state do not own it. I (as a Marylander) have South Carolina as part of my country. I have a stake in South Carolina. The people in South Carolina cannot take part of my country away from me. In the same way, the people of Marlboro County cannot take ‘their’ county out of South Carolina without the permission of all South Carolinians. In the same way Bennettsville cannot leave Marlboro County unless the people of the entire county give their OK. In the same way, the residents of 123 Maple Street in Bennettsville cannot tell the United States, South Carolina, Marlboro County and Bennettsville to go lump it as their house is part of the greater whole. Look how upset Virginia was when the free people of West Virginia decided to tell Richmond to hit the road. Somehow that seemed wrong to them although they themselves just voted to leave the US. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/115 "2012-01-11T17:17:52Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > … and if slavery was like the holocaust, which it wasn’t. True, slaves were considered to be too valuable to kill just to kill. Now, if half of them on slave ships died during the voyage, that was the cost of doing business. But my point is not that slavery was like the Holocaust. It was that these are two cases of nations that did terrible things as a matter of national policy. Today the leaders of one of them admit to it, are deeply ashamed, and do their best to educate their people so that they will never forget. The other seems to want to minimize the impact, remember the fight to keep their oppressive lifestyle with pride, and tries to deny or minimize the cost in human life of them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/116 "2012-01-11T17:18:47Z")
> [@dorsk188](#): > > The reveling I mentioned rubs some Southerners the wrong way. Most people in the South don’t think about it much at all, and when they do, they’re glad it turned out as it did (roughly speaking). > > Some Southerners have a geographic loyalty that gets rankled by the revelry of some Northerners I mentioned, and that is what leads to things like individual rednecks with stars and bars t-shirts. Because so many of the peers do it in the South, there really isn’t an association with slavery or race for most people. I personally have had to sit down my father and explain to him why he couldn’t paint a big Confederate flag on the hood of his car, because he wanted to call it “The Rebel”. It’s usually not racist, just a racial numbness that needs to be patiently explained away. People who aren’t racist tend to get it, eventually. But, now you’re **not** talking about actual active Neo-Confederates, like the ones in the OP. If you are an active Neo-Confederate, I would say odds are good that you’re also an active White Nationalist of some kind – in fact, nowadays on the organized ultra-right, Neo-Confederates seem to be a **subset** of WNs, just like the Skinheads and the various Neo-Nazis are. Klanwatch is perfectly justified in lumping them together under the heading of “hate groups.” (They include “Black Separatists” under the same heading, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/117 "2012-01-11T17:25:24Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Maybe states’ rights (plural) is a bit off, but I would say disagreement over the specific states’ right to secede was the cause of the Civil War. So, now you have retreated to the position that the Southern states seceded to prove that they could secede? You think the Southern leaders really thought this was sufficient for a war? Maybe California should secede to protect our medical marijuana. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/118 "2012-01-11T17:42:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Nice analogy, I like it. > > Actually they did. Really. It’s true that the Royal Family was against it, but they and their supporters were a tiny minority. A majority of white planters wanted to. Not a majority of Hawaiians. I have never heard anything otherwise and would appreciate a cite if you can find one. ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/119 "2012-01-11T18:00:24Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > I have an idea… like it or not, slavery was legal, had been for hundreds of years, and many livelihoods depended on it. > > Exterminating jews was never any of those things by any stretch of the imagination. Right. Many in this thread are judging the actions of people in the past based upon our currently-held assumptions. Lincoln is considered by many to be the “father” of US Federalism. Prior to the Civil War states rights was a serious issue, and hotly debated. Looking back, it’s easy to say “why were they so upset?” because we didn’t live in those times. Same for the practice of slavery; it was a common practice for many around the world, not just in the US, and now it’s hard to believe that it was an accepted practice. As for exterminating Jews; I don’t this was ever a common practice. Unless you count the Babylonians. . . and the Egyptians. . . and the. . . ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/120 "2012-01-11T18:06:01Z")
In 1893 the Queen renounced the island’s Constitution, wanting to bring back a near absolute monarchy, and also the Taboo system where basically the Queen would own a lot of territory which would be inviolate, and also remove citizenship from any who were not 100% native, and raisng funds by the sale of opium. True, many of those who formed the Committee of Safety were white, but had been citizens for a while. The Head of the Committee had not only been born in Hawaii, he was 3rd generation and was fluent in the native language. But yes, he was white. By the Queens light, that would have made him unable to vote. By and large this move by the Queen was unpopular. There was no real resistance to her overthrow. Her cabinet did not support her coup. Wiki has some great info on this. But if you want to continue this, we need to take it elsewhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010.md?page=7)