Which I’ve never said it was. Are you really this benighted or just incapable of taking on actual statements other than by posting almost 60 year old Tom Lehrer lyrics in some sort of “wit by association” attempt and (barely) paraphrasing wikipedia articles you just read to sound like your own insights?
I no more rewrite history than you read it.
Explain how trying Jefferson Davis for treason would require trying everybody associated with the Confederacy for treason. Davis was a notorious micromanager, it was one of the things that damned him as a political commander, there was not a single aspect of the war that he was not directly involved in, thus, as was said of Göring 81 years later, “His guilt is unique in its enormity”, and I doubt you would argue this.
So, honest question, no bitching or accusations, how would this one trial necessitate “hundreds of thousands”- or even two- others? Wirz was tried and hanged for Andersonville yet he was neither the only officer there nor was Andersonville’s mortality rate any higher than a couple of other PoW camps yet it never set off a round of trials- just him, that’s all. How would Davis have been different?
A pardon is “an act of grace, proceeding from the power intrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.” (See Burdick v. United States.) To accept a pardon is implicitly to admit one’s guilt. The purposes of this general pardon and amnesty were the commendable but clearly political ones “that the authority of the government of the United States may be restored, and that peace, order, and freedom may be established”. Instead of having trials for every single person arguably guilt of treason, and probably re-igniting the war in the process, better to grant an “act of grace” and, with conditions, forgive and forget.
I’m saying that the general decision not to try anyone for treason–not even the hapless Major Wirz was tried for “treason”–was in part a political decision (not just a legal one). Given Jefferson Davis’ greater role, it would be downright bizarre to argue that everyone with lesser guilt than him required the intervention of a political act to be spared possible prosecution, but then Davis himself escaped prosecution solely on the legal merits.
The charges against Davis were never thrown out by a court, and he obviously was never acquitted. The charges were dropped by the prosecution. I think this was in part part of the larger political decision not to hunt down those who had participated in the “rebellion”.
You should have been warned by the moderator a long time ago, but I don’t blame them for not catching your veiled insults. Wading through the piles of rambling bullshit that you mistake for coherent writing is a lot to ask from anyone.
Why do you think this? The soldiers had already been paroled- millions of them- all ranks- when they surrendered. It was a standard issue document; go to footnote.com and you can pull them up all day- they were in no danger of prosecution, so that left only the generals and the government. There was no reason it would need lead to decimation of the ranks or anything like- just Davis and Stephens and - well, basically people who could fit in one prison anywhere in the nation- would have really been in danger. There’s no factual merit to it would have required massive trials and executions. So why drop the charges? Why let Davis off scot free?
Once again, nothing substantive, just furor.
Do you honestly believe that any neutral reader of this thread who knows anything about debate or history and has no agenda or motive would believe that I have not written better and more coherently, shown way more command of facts and of language, and consistently made better arguments and rebuttals than you have throughout this thread? Not a rhetorical question, I’m curious: do you really think you’ve bested me anywhere in this debate or even held your own with factual knowledge or with the merits or design of any argument you have made on those occasions when you were attempting to make an argument rather than a personal statement?
Because of politics. What else could be the reason? If a review of history clearly indicates that he was guilty of this (i.e. there isn’t any doubt that he initiated rebellion against his own country…and the fight that was waged was real and bloody…) what are you suggesting with this question? That the Union didn’t really believe Davis was a traitor, and therefore it’s wrong to say it’s a clearcut issue now? That the whole matter is sooo complex and sooo complicated that it’s wrong to simply call these guys traitors and not worry about the nicknames they gave their coon dogs?
The thing is, I believe you when you say you aren’t a friend of the Confederates and you think Davis et al are traitors, yadda yadda yadda, but then you pipe up with some whiny question like this which suggests you want history to appear more ambiguous than it was so the Confederate “heroes” don’t look so bad. It’s a transparent move, though.
Eh the confederacy was evil and people proud of it are either evil pieces of shit or profoundly stupid. As noted earlier in the thread the Confederacy formed as a result of the anti-slave states becoming powerful enough to out vote the slaving monsters.
The thing is American history is full of monsters and evil pieces of shit. We have an ethnic cleansing piece of shit war criminal on our twenty dollar bill. What’s the difference between Andrew Jackson, Masanobu Tsuji, or a slaver’s ship?
Your memory is conveniently short.
Here’s an appraisal of why Jefferson Davis was not convicted of treason (from those Northern devils at Rice University) :), and it has nothing to do with Davis being an elegant Southern gentleman, the languages he spoke or the slaves he didn’t whip.
Yep, especially that bit about renaming streets/bridges that currently celebrate “Confederate heroes” being equivalent to the Taliban destroying ancient works of art. The “Sampiro” award for worst analogy is a legacy you can be proud of.
How about the chance he would have been acquitted because the issue of the legality of secession (which had been proposed and attempted many times and many ways in many regions of the nation including NYC itself during the war) was a gray area?
How about the chance he would have been acquitted because the issue of the legality of secession (which had been proposed and attempted many times and many ways in many regions of the nation including NYC itself during the war) was a gray area?
How about the chance he would have been acquitted because the issue of the legality of secession (which had been proposed and attempted many times and many ways in many regions of the nation including NYC itself during the war) was a gray area?
[quote]
That the whole matter is sooo complex and sooo complicated that it’s wrong to simply call these guys traitors and not worry about the nicknames they gave their coon dogs?
The fact you have no knowledge base to draw from does not mean you should use the politicians trick of deriding it in others. And yes, it is a complex and complicated matter.
History is far more ambiguous than clear cut always.
If it’s important to you. But you’re wrong.
You earlier said “Horace Greeley spoke publicly of their doubts as to his guilt (and paid his bail)”. What Greeley actually said was a bit more complicated than that:
Greeley wasn’t arguing that Davis was not guilty. He was arguing that Davis wasn’t any more guilty than anyone else, and that the interests of reconciliation and restoring peace and harmony would be ill-served by hanging Davis.
[quote=“Jackmannii, post:310, topic:516994”]
Your memory is conveniently short.QUOTE]
Once again your skill at cutting and pasting is evidenced but your skill at analysis not so much. Tom Lehrer has a whole catalogue you haven’t quoted from yet- stick to that. Read your own cut and pastes: asking why southerners not changing the names of things named generations ago for people who have been dead for a century and did shitty things when they were alive is a character flaw while non-southerners not changing the names of things named generations ago for people who have been dead for a century and did shitty things when they were alive is not worthy of attack. That’s a tad difference than saying secession and slavery themselves were no more than character flaws and it is either dishonest or moronic to try and make it say that. I make no judgment as to which.
I have also never said that the charges were dropped against Davis because he was a nice guy (he wasn’t). This too is either dishonest or moronic on your part. I make no judgment as to which.
My comment on the Taliban was hyperbole to demonstrate slippery slope, which is allowed in debate. Stalin removed Trotsky from pictures, Egyptians chiseled off the names of pharaohs they didn’t like from monuments they built, the Taliban destroyed Buddhas- other than degree how is removing the past from evidence in America any more commendable? (And again, does anybody really think this is about the names of bridges?)
As of 1868 the United States Supreme Court did not seem to find the legality of secession to be a “gray area”. Given the country’s own revolutionary past, the morality of secession and the politics of secession might be gray areas. But not, according to the ultimate arbiters of legality, the legality of it.
Which brings us back to the point that what happened or didn’t happen to Jeff Davis was a political question, not just a legal one.
THIS- everyone pay attention because I’m about to pay MEBuckner a compliment- THIS is a good cite and well argued.
So do you think the lawyers at the time would have had no chance whatever of getting a conviction for treason?
Gee, I dunno. I do know you haven’t bested me. You are an ineffective communicator. Jewels of insight could be dripping from your posts, but they are lost in a sea of superfluous snot trails that take themselves way too seriously. Half the time it doesn’t even seem like you know what your own point is because you argue against things that you should be agreeing with, if your repeated asides and disclaimers are to be believed.
Maybe you think you are rocking and rolling in this debate, but to me, it only appears as if you’re enthralled with reading your own writing.
Since you asked.
Different wording, but my point exactly. Why’s the south more villainous than having a holiday and feast this week celebrated by cartoonish cut outs and elementary school pageants honoring the same group of people who before inviting the Indians to din-din started by denouncing Indians as satanic savages and afterwards stole more and more and more of their land and ultimately burned their men, women and children alive (not just once) in battle?
It’s not, so pass the turkey and get on with your lives.
I’ll admit I rather like it at times, but I think your closest friends would argue that you’ve added nothing substantive to this debate. Nothing at all.
The legality of secession is neither here nor there when it comes to historical fact: Davis made war with the United States, thus causing massive bloodshed and pain all around.
Maybe a good lawyer could make a somewhat convincing argument for why Davis was technically not guilty of treason, but it would only be based on a technicality.
Should this change how we view him now? Of course not. OJ was found not guilty.
I have no idea what the question means. Where have I argued anything about what chance the lawyers of the time–I assume you mean the prosecturs–would have had of getting a conviction for treason? I never said it was a sure thing they could have convicted Davis–we all know guilty people aren’t always convicted; partly that’s just the way our system is set up. “Better ninety-nine guilty men go free”, and so forth; not to mention that the system of trial by jury means Davis could have been acquitted for political reasons if the wrong (or right) jury were chosen.
But what I’ve been arguing is that in the end it was felt better not to even try to get a conviction. The prosecution chose not to pursue the matter. And one argument for this decision not to pursue the treason charges against Davis was part of the overall political argument against pursuing treason charges against anybody at all.