This situation in Alabama speaks to a greater national political problem. What happened in Alabama is happening every day in our Congress.
Our American legislatures have to be, and I believe that I am in the majority, forums for reasoned debate that is totally free from any sort of threat to the person, reputation and future livelihood of any legislator.
However, the threat to persons in national politics has reached a level that suggests that political opponents will pursue “fishing expeditions” and “dirt digging investigations” in order to find a political ‘message’ to destroy strong leadership in the opposing political party.
This behavior distracts the voting public from the political issues that that voting public should address and instead forces many party-line voters to take ‘knee jerk’ political positions supporting their pary and leaves the independent voters wondering whether there is anyone in political life who can be trusted with national leadership.
Any politician who resorts to fist-fighting on the floor of a legislative body brands himself a big loser and needs some serious time out in which to grow up.
Despite the polarization of American politics over the past 15 years (cf. #2), physical attacks among legislators remain rare.
If Sen. Bishop, the assailant, wants to redeem his honor, he should apologize to Sen. Barron and other senators and offer to accept formal censure.
PS: Perhaps Don Gander [#1] can pay an admiring visit to Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe, both well known for responding forcefully to critics who impugn their “honor.”
Fist fighting amongst legislators has a rich national heritage in this great country of ours:
On February 15 [1798] Rep. Matthew Lyon of Vermont and Rep. Roger Griswold of Connecticut engaged in a schoolyard brawl on the floor of the House of Representatives. The trouble had begun on January 30, when a group of members were chatting informally by the fireplace during a pause to count votes. Lyon, a rabid anti-Federalist, accused Connecticut’s Federalist representatives of opposing the interests of their constituents in order to enrich themselves. With a printing press and six months in the state, he said, he could easily set things right. Griswold, sitting nearby, jumped at the opportunity to take a dig at Lyon. “If you go into Connecticut,†he said, “you had better bring your wooden sword.â€
The gibe was an allusion to Lyon’s Revolutionary War record. On an isolated and unpopular mission near the Canadian border in 1776, men under Lyon’s command had mutinied. A court-martial had responded by cashiering him, along with some other officers. The action was taken to restore discipline among the raw Continental troops and was not a slap at Lyon, who later rejoined the Army and served with distinction in the Saratoga campaign. Nonetheless, a canard sprang up that Lyon had been made to wear a wooden sword as a symbol of cowardice.
Lyon countered Griswold’s volley of wit with a volley of saliva. A Federalist immediately moved to expel the Vermonter, and the House spent two weeks debating the momentous question. The feisty Lyon uncharacteristically issued an apology for his action, which the Federalists ignored. On February 14 the House voted in favor of expulsion by a partyline vote of 52 to 44, well short of the necessary two-thirds majority.
Griswold had prepared for this outcome by purchasing a stout hickory walking stick. The next day, before the start of business, he crept over to the unsuspecting Lyon, who was examining some papers. In a letter, Griswold describes what ensued: “I gave him the first blow—I call’d him a scoundrel & struck him with my cane, and pursued him with more than twenty blows on his head and back until he got possession of a pair of tongues [i.e., tongs], when I threw him down and after giving him several blows with my fist, I was taken off by his friends.â€
After the honorable members had been separated, Lyon made the customary display of empty bravado, saying, “I wish I had been left alone awhile.†Refreshed with drinks of water, the combatants made angry noises and threatened to renew hostilities, but as Griswold explained with evident disappointment (after describing the damage he had already inflicted), “I might perhaps have given him a second beating but the House was called to order.â€
Professor Fate [#6]: Long time since 1798 or even 1856. Congressional fistfights occurred in the days when the House and Senate floors were so sodden with tobacco-laden saliva that Charles Dickens wondered how members could walk without slipping. Indeed, fistfights went out before chewing tobacco.
As your “rich national heritage” link indicates, a congressional fistfight “inspired scores of cartoons and newspaper jests” even in 1798.
BTW, congressional procedure was consciously designed to dampen confrontation and reduce the potential for altercations. You face the presiding officer, not your opponents. You address the presiding officer. You can enter into a colloquy with other members only by special permission. Very different from English practice. Think of how the opposing parties face off against each other in the House of Commons, at twice the length of a sword.
BTW, congressional procedure was consciously designed to dampen confrontation and reduce the potential for altercations.
Irenaeus,
I am not so sure that Britain is immune to the same problems. Your debates in the House of Commons can get pretty unruly. And if I recall there is a red line on the floor in front of each bench across which it is still forbidden for an MP to cross in debate. That red line marks the distance of a sword held at full arms length ending at the opposite red line. I don’t think it was put there for amusement.
Ad Orientem [#13]: For better or worse, the House of Commons has not adopted the same debate-dampening devices as the U.S. Senate and House. On top of which British parliamentary leaders speak in a much lively, more incisive way than their U.S. counterparts.
Prof. Fate [#10]: Still no “rich national heritage.” The brawlers of 1798 got ridiculed. The cane-wielding thug of 1856 helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste in the eyes of Northern moderates.
I agree with Irenaeus on this one. Being civilized means keeping your tongue and passions under control. You are right, Prof. Fate, that human nature does not change — “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” — yet, we can strive to overcome it, or be doomed to repeating the story of Cain and Abel.
RE: “The cane-wielding thug of 1856 helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste in the eyes of Northern moderates.”
But, as with all rhetoric, one wishes to appeal to one’s own audience, which in his case, was indubitably NOT the “Northern moderates”. In fact, the Northern moderates didn’t have enough votes, it seems, to expel Brooks from the House, and he was adored in South Carolina, [as well as Virginia, if one takes the Richmond Enquirer seriously] and was re-elected to his seat.
Sounds as if the speech was pretty bad, too, — gross, in fact, even by today’s standards — and Brooks considered it an insult.
In those days, you know, people actually believed that they had honor to insult and defend, even if they resorted to crude ways of defense, contrary to our own civilized and unsavage century.
saj … He didn’t drive out the money changers, their animals, or overturn their tables by asking nicely. If the money changers were not struck, it was probably because they were smart enough to quit the field, but resort to violence, He did!
It goes on in church assemblies as well. The same sort of thing, only with more fists flying, happened on the floor of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. in Denver in 1961, and the result was a new Baptist denomination, the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
I’ve heard shouting matches in TEC assemblies, but have seen no fisticuffs (yet). TEC’s leaders are too dignified and sophisticated for that. They hire lawyers to punch out somebody’s lights.
Of course the cane-wielding thug of 1856 did not aim to appeal to Northern moderates [#18]; he was posturing for his own slave-owning, slave-raping caste. That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.
Acting honorably is important. But you don’t act honorably when you commit crimes in the name of honor.
Nor do you act honorably when you devote yourself (as this thug did) to defending an inquitous system of legalized battery, mayhem, and rape. Think of how the thug’s caste routinely bullied and humiliated black people—all the while standing ready to kill any black person who raised a hand to defend the remains of his or her honor.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Our Lord made clear that the mentality of the duel and the vendetta has no place in the Christian life. Nor are they on balance desirable at a purely human level. The world’s most intractable conflicts occur largely in the sorts of places most preoccupied with personal honor and vengeance—and those who suffer and die are themselves mostly innocent.
RE: “That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.”
LOL. Who cares?
RE: “Think of how the thug’s caste routinely bullied and humiliated black people—all the while standing ready to kill any black person who raised a hand to defend the remains of his or her honor.”
Irenaeus, your bias shows in your flaming rhetoric. Pity.
Why so angry at Southerners, the vast vast majority of which never owned even one slave???
No — the caning incident in defense of one’s friend’s honor was typical behavior of Southerners in general of that period — as well as Scottish and Irish folks, my descendants, and not merely your “slave owner’s caste”. And Southerners in general [not merely your loathed caste] admired it, as Yankees did not.
I both understand and respect the system, though I’ve no wish for it to be emulated, as much as I understand and respect the Roman system, or the feudal system, though again, I’ve no wish for their systems to be emulated either.
You can try to make such a system only applicable to the small percentage of Southern slave holders, but in reality the system applied to the Southern culture as a whole and not merely the large property-owning caste which you despise so extrovertedly.
I say the above not in order to convince you otherwise, since it’s no concern of mine, but to make certain that I am on record as someone who does not despise Southern culture, as you do. I respect and understand it, though I see its flaws.
Sarah [#24]: In mauling Senator Sumner on the Senate floor, Rep. Brooks drew widespread condemnation in the North and Midwest, underscoring that most Americans did not regard physical violence among legislators as healthy or honorable. That bears directly on the extent to which such violence has been prevalent or socially acceptable—an issue discussed on 12 of the 21 preceding comments on this thread. You can respond, “LOL. Who cares?†but the point remains relevant and important.
My comment [#22] very deliberately referred to the slave-owning caste, not all Southerners. I grew up in the South and have Southern roots stretching back more than two centuries. But that is no reason for me to romanticize slavery or sprinkle admiration on its defenders. If you feel you must identify with slaveholders and their culture, that is your choice. It is broadly consistent with your opposition to desegregation laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and your admiration for secessionists like Jefferson Davis. But there are certainly plenty of ways to respect the good parts of Southern culture while deploring slave-holding and its many abuses.
God condemns abuse of power, whether by slaveholders or by the revisionist rulers of ECUSA. Your comments here and on Stand Firm show keen sensitivity to abuse of power by ECUSA revisionists and their political allies but considerable insouciance toward other abuses of power. (“It doesn’t bother me at all†is one of your common responses.) A nice parallel exists between the House’s failure to expel Brooks [#18] and ECUSA’s failure to curtail revisionists’ abuses.
RE: “In mauling Senator Sumner on the Senate floor, Rep. Brooks drew widespread condemnation in the North and Midwest, underscoring that most Americans did not regard physical violence among legislators as healthy or honorable.”
No — it underscored that those politicians on one side of the fence and a part of one culture, didn’t like those on the other side of the fence and in the other culture, and saw a nice chance to make some hay in a political environment in which one side wished to expand and increase the Federal government and move beyond the constitutional republic that had been created.
Again — the culture of the South was indeed quite different [still is] from the North, in both bad ways and good ways. And the “defense of one’s honor” with horsewhipping and caning was a *Southern cultural practice* NOT a “slave-holding” cultural practice.
RE: “You can respond, “LOL. Who cares?†but the point remains relevant and important.”
I responded “LOL Who cares” to your statement right here: “That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.”
But as I have continued to point out . . . the man and his constituents DID NOT CARE about “Northern moderates” [nice progressive use of the term “moderate” there, too — you’ve learned well from your ECUSA experiences, I see].
RE: “My comment [#22] very deliberately referred to the slave-owning caste, not all Southerners. I grew up in the South and have Southern roots stretching back more than two centuries. But that is no reason for me to romanticize slavery or sprinkle admiration on its defenders. If you feel you must identify with slaveholders and their culture, that is your choice. It is broadly consistent with your opposition to desegregation laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and your admiration for secessionists like Jefferson Davis. But there are certainly plenty of ways to respect the good parts of Southern culture while deploring slave-holding and its many abuses.”
No, YOU decided to make the act of “defending one’s honor” about evil slave-holders, when in reality it was about Southern culture in general and widely lauded by Southerners, the vast majority of whom were NOT slave holders. It nicely points out your own prejudice and bile. And I note that you continue to maintain it in your statement above with a host of inanities, contradictions, and incoherencies.
I haven’t chosen at all to “romanticize slavery” and find it a repellent horrible practice that God has punished the South for to this day. As to whether I “sprinkle admiration on its defenders” or “identify with slaveholders and their culture” I certainly do, to the extent that there is much to admire about many, including Roman emperors and philosophers, Greek playwrights, and Japanese Samurai. The fact that you might be able to defend or admire Cicero, for instance, but to denounce Jeff Davis, indicates again the prejudice and bile with which you hold the South and its leaders.
I am a Southerner, and I identify with Southern culture and history, whether slaveholding or not [again, a “tiny minority” of Southerners held slaves, and the rest worked like dogs in their own plots of land], and unlike those afflicted with an admiration for large grandiose intrusive Federal governments, [commonly called liberals], I don’t attempt to live in a rosy state of denial, or smug arrogant condescending political correctness concerning my background and heritage and culture, which is indeed the South.
The fact that you evidence such ignorance in your mistaken comparison of the evils of slavery with my opposition to desegregation laws in private venues [not public Federal venues] is a rich example of your irrational emotional approach. The desegregation laws of private property merely 1) continued and heightened the prejudice against minorities setting back their entrance into society by decades — once again offering a priceless example of the Federal government taking actions with sincere good intentions, to ill effect, 2) increased the power of the Federal government [which for you, of course, is a benefit, not a flaw], and 3) denigrated private property rights, the effects of which, believe me, Irenaeus, will be escalating from now onward. I believe that people should be allowed to actually own their own places of business, not pretend to own them while the government strips their ownership of all meaningful rights of use. Your inability to see the difference between the wicked practice of the wrongful ownership of another human being and the very good practice of the rightful ownership of one’s own place of business nicely demonstrates the incoherence of your own thinking with regards to most of politics.
And oh yes, my preferred Southern heroes of the Civil War are of course Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart, not Jeff Davis at all. Both Lee and Jackson rightly fought not for the maintenance of slaveholding, but for the real point of the war by the leaders on both sides — restricting the Federal government’s gross and corrupt expansion and careful stripping away of the freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution. Slaveholding was a nice populist thing for Northern politicians and leaders to grab onto to further their agenda — which is a great parallel to our ECUSA Dear Leaders, I might add.
Again, for a liberal, I recognize that the above is a benefit, not a flaw, but for a conservative like me I am quite aware of the horrors of an inflated State.
You and I are on the opposite sides of the fence on these foundational issues in politics.
Thanks for the petty trivialization of those important issues into “you like slaveholders, you sinner”, while you deal with your liberal white Southern guilt, attempt to pile that on me [no thanks], and address whatever it is that the South has done to you to make you so bitter and angry towards that culture.
Sarah: You have outdone yourself. In your comment #28, you falsify history, exalt unchristian behavior, and mirror the tactics of ECUSA’s radical reappraisers.
I. THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT A REVOLT AGAINST BIG GOVERNMENT
You argue that the “real point†of the Civil War was to “restrict[] the Federal government’s gross and corrupt expansion and careful stripping away of the freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution.†In your view, Northerners “wished to expand and increase the Federal government and move beyond the constitutional republic that had been created.†They sought a “large grandiose intrusive Federal government.†Southerners resisted these usurpations. Northern opposition to slavery was a mere pretext for inflating government and oppressing the South: “a nice populist thing for Northern politicians and leaders to grab onto to further their agenda.â€
This is wholesale fiction. The federal government was friendly to slaveholders. They and their allies had long controlled it. The Three-Fifths Rule had bulked up their numbers in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives. Slave-state senators constrained the admission of new free states so as to keep half the Senate in pro-slavery hands even as U.S. population and economic growth centered on the North and Midwest. Slaveholders and their allies had made the federal government what it was. When it interfered with freedom and property, it typically did so with their approval or at their behest, notably in the heavy-handed Fugitive Slave Act.
Far from having undergone a “gross and corrupt expansion,†the federal government was small. From 1851 through 1860, total federal spending averaged $60 million a year. That amounted to $2.25 per person (or in 2007 dollars, $56 per person).
As for states’ rights, Henry Adams rightly noted slaveholders’ role as a force for centralization: “Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use.â€
Pre-Civil War political conflict centered not on whether the federal government had grown too large but on whether slavery should expand into territories such as Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Arizona. Republicans opposed any such expansion. They also pledged not to interfere with slavery in the slave states but rather (in the words of their 1860 platform) to maintain “inviolate…the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.â€
But the South’s leading citizens had come to believe that their slavery-based way of life could survive only if slavery spread to new territory. Maintaining slavery where it existed would not do: slavery must expand or die. Southern hardliners accordingly sought to establish slavery on the Great Plains and in the Southwest and to annex foreign territory (e.g., Cuba) suitable for new slave states. The 1860 Southern Democratic (Breckinridge) platform emphasized fostering slavery in the territories, annexing Cuba, and more strictly enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. It said nary a word about “gross and corrupt expansion†of the federal government. The hardliners could not bear the prospect of a president opposed to expanding slavery. They accordingly led the first seven Confederate states out of the Union even before Lincoln took office.
Confabulated “history†provides a shoddy foundation for political ideology, culture war, or personal insult.
II. THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY SUFFUSED THE ATTACK ON SENATOR SUMNER
In the event that give rise to this exchange of comments, Rep. Preston Brooks walked onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, caught Senator Charles Sumner at his desk, and bludgeoned Sumner with a heavy cane, asserting that Sumner’s “Crime Against Kansas†speech had slandered Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler.
You view this assault as an individual affair in which Brooks honored the dictates of his Southern culture. You accordingly regard my reference to slavery as a gratuitous slur on the South, asserting that I “decided to make the act of ‘defending one’s honor’ about evil slave-holders, when in reality it was about Southern culture in general.â€
On the contrary, this event was all about slavery. Butler had made his mark on history by helping open Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. Sumner’s speech was about slavery. He specifically argued that Butler’s devotion to spreading slavery had set up the bloody civil war then raging in Kansas. (Under the Missouri Compromise, Congress would create no new slave states north of the 36th parallel. Thus Kansas, Nebraska, and other parts of the Great Plains would enter the Union as free states. But the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, co-authored by Butler, opened those states to slavery if local voters so desired. The ensuing political and military struggle became known as “Bleeding Kansas.â€)
According to Sumner, Butler “believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words.†If anyone criticized slavery or sought to restrain its spread, Butler would come vehemently to its defense. Sumner went on to criticize South Carolina’s role in perpetuating and propagating slavery.
The debate over slavery suffused the entire episode. Hence my reference to how Preston Brooks “helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste.†Which he did. Like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the caning episode gave slavery a human face, stoking antislavery sentiment in the North and Midwest and bringing fence-sitters into the antislavery camp. As the Daily Herald of Wilmington, N.C., observed, “the affair has been a perfect Godsend to the Abolitionists.â€
I also rightly noted the irony of Brooks mauling Sumner in the name of his cousin’s “honor†(i.e., his cousin’s supposed right not to undergo harsh criticism)—even as Brooks and his cousin devoted their political careers to championing a “system of legalized battery, mayhem, and rape†that gave millions of black people no chance to defend their honor.
III. YOU MIRROR ECUSA REVISIONISTS’ TACTICS
ECUSA’s ruling revisionists employ an array of tactics to harass critics and deflect attention from inconvenient facts and logic. They engage in pejorative labeling, summarily dismissing critics as “sexist,†“racist,†“patriarchal,†“homophobic,†or the like. They equate criticism or disapproval with hatred (e.g., treating criticism of homosexual conduct as tantamount to hatred of homosexuals as human beings). They deploy reductionist psychology (e.g., “you’re only saying that because…â€) and even purport to psychoanalyze people they have never met.
You have used many of the same tactics here:
â— Because I criticize Rep. Brooks’ conduct in the context of his support for slavery, you say I am “angry at Southerners†and “despise Southern culture.â€
â— Because you think I might view the Roman orator Cicero more favorably than Brooks or Jefferson Davis, you declare that “indicates again the prejudice and bile with which [I] hold the South and its leaders.â€
â— You announce, more grandly, that I:
—♥ “live in a rosy state of denialâ€;
—♥ practice “smug arrogant condescending political correctnessâ€; and
—♥ attack you as a way to act out what you term “your liberal white Southern guilt…and….whatever it is that the South has done to you to make you so bitter and angry towards that culture.â€
Like ECUSA revisionists, you need to bear in mind that we can criticize individuals, groups, actions, or systems without hating the people involved.
Like ECUSA revisionists, you should also remember the dangers of subordinating principled judgment to tribal affinity. As I wrote earlier [#25], “God condemns abuse of power, whether by slaveholders or by the revisionist rulers of ECUSA.†He does not leave us free to assail abuse of power when others do it and then enjoy it when our side does it. He calls us to an allegiance higher than kin, clan, cause, or country. Will we follow Him?
I would tend to look up to a polititian that defends himself and honor.
DonGander
This situation in Alabama speaks to a greater national political problem. What happened in Alabama is happening every day in our Congress.
Our American legislatures have to be, and I believe that I am in the majority, forums for reasoned debate that is totally free from any sort of threat to the person, reputation and future livelihood of any legislator.
However, the threat to persons in national politics has reached a level that suggests that political opponents will pursue “fishing expeditions” and “dirt digging investigations” in order to find a political ‘message’ to destroy strong leadership in the opposing political party.
This behavior distracts the voting public from the political issues that that voting public should address and instead forces many party-line voters to take ‘knee jerk’ political positions supporting their pary and leaves the independent voters wondering whether there is anyone in political life who can be trusted with national leadership.
Oh for the good old days when southern gentlemen settled their differences with grace and dignity…
“Pistols for two and coffee for one.”
Any politician who resorts to fist-fighting on the floor of a legislative body brands himself a big loser and needs some serious time out in which to grow up.
Despite the polarization of American politics over the past 15 years (cf. #2), physical attacks among legislators remain rare.
If Sen. Bishop, the assailant, wants to redeem his honor, he should apologize to Sen. Barron and other senators and offer to accept formal censure.
PS: Perhaps Don Gander [#1] can pay an admiring visit to Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe, both well known for responding forcefully to critics who impugn their “honor.”
What Mr Barron meant to say, was to call him a “son of a Bishop”.
Fist fighting amongst legislators has a rich national heritage in this great country of ours:
Being called an s.o.b. isn’t a hitting offence.
Now being called a lib’rul . . . 😉
Professor Fate [#6]: Long time since 1798 or even 1856. Congressional fistfights occurred in the days when the House and Senate floors were so sodden with tobacco-laden saliva that Charles Dickens wondered how members could walk without slipping. Indeed, fistfights went out before chewing tobacco.
As your “rich national heritage” link indicates, a congressional fistfight “inspired scores of cartoons and newspaper jests” even in 1798.
BTW, congressional procedure was consciously designed to dampen confrontation and reduce the potential for altercations. You face the presiding officer, not your opponents. You address the presiding officer. You can enter into a colloquy with other members only by special permission. Very different from English practice. Think of how the opposing parties face off against each other in the House of Commons, at twice the length of a sword.
Amateurs.
Irenaeus:
Be it 1798, 1856, or 2007 human nature does not change one iota.
It really sounds like a Dallas City Council Meeting. :cheese:
Irenaeus – I sort of admire a spiritual leader that resorted to violence on the temple steps……
Violence is not the answer to everything … but sometimes it is the answer to some things, and of course, Moms are off limits!
D
Irenaeus,
I am not so sure that Britain is immune to the same problems. Your debates in the House of Commons can get pretty unruly. And if I recall there is a red line on the floor in front of each bench across which it is still forbidden for an MP to cross in debate. That red line marks the distance of a sword held at full arms length ending at the opposite red line. I don’t think it was put there for amusement.
Ad Orientem [#13]: For better or worse, the House of Commons has not adopted the same debate-dampening devices as the U.S. Senate and House. On top of which British parliamentary leaders speak in a much lively, more incisive way than their U.S. counterparts.
Prof. Fate [#10]: Still no “rich national heritage.” The brawlers of 1798 got ridiculed. The cane-wielding thug of 1856 helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste in the eyes of Northern moderates.
The hitter should definitely apologize. So should the guy who called him an s.o.b. As the Virginian said, “When you say that, smile.”
Irenaeus 14: One man’s riches is another’s poverty…
I agree with Irenaeus on this one. Being civilized means keeping your tongue and passions under control. You are right, Prof. Fate, that human nature does not change — “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” — yet, we can strive to overcome it, or be doomed to repeating the story of Cain and Abel.
RE: “The cane-wielding thug of 1856 helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste in the eyes of Northern moderates.”
But, as with all rhetoric, one wishes to appeal to one’s own audience, which in his case, was indubitably NOT the “Northern moderates”. In fact, the Northern moderates didn’t have enough votes, it seems, to expel Brooks from the House, and he was adored in South Carolina, [as well as Virginia, if one takes the Richmond Enquirer seriously] and was re-elected to his seat.
Sounds as if the speech was pretty bad, too, — gross, in fact, even by today’s standards — and Brooks considered it an insult.
In those days, you know, people actually believed that they had honor to insult and defend, even if they resorted to crude ways of defense, contrary to our own civilized and unsavage century.
D. Hamilton — Jesus never hit anyone that I can find in the gospels. He suffered quite a bit of name calling also. This is disgraceful behavior.
saj … He didn’t drive out the money changers, their animals, or overturn their tables by asking nicely. If the money changers were not struck, it was probably because they were smart enough to quit the field, but resort to violence, He did!
D
Gosh, road rage inside the house.
It goes on in church assemblies as well. The same sort of thing, only with more fists flying, happened on the floor of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. in Denver in 1961, and the result was a new Baptist denomination, the Progressive National Baptist Convention.
I’ve heard shouting matches in TEC assemblies, but have seen no fisticuffs (yet). TEC’s leaders are too dignified and sophisticated for that. They hire lawyers to punch out somebody’s lights.
w.w.
Of course the cane-wielding thug of 1856 did not aim to appeal to Northern moderates [#18]; he was posturing for his own slave-owning, slave-raping caste. That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.
Acting honorably is important. But you don’t act honorably when you commit crimes in the name of honor.
Nor do you act honorably when you devote yourself (as this thug did) to defending an inquitous system of legalized battery, mayhem, and rape. Think of how the thug’s caste routinely bullied and humiliated black people—all the while standing ready to kill any black person who raised a hand to defend the remains of his or her honor.
_ _ _ _ _ _
Our Lord made clear that the mentality of the duel and the vendetta has no place in the Christian life. Nor are they on balance desirable at a purely human level. The world’s most intractable conflicts occur largely in the sorts of places most preoccupied with personal honor and vengeance—and those who suffer and die are themselves mostly innocent.
D Hamilton,
Re: Your #20
You beat me (no pun) to it. Jesus was no pacifist.
RE: “That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.”
LOL. Who cares?
RE: “Think of how the thug’s caste routinely bullied and humiliated black people—all the while standing ready to kill any black person who raised a hand to defend the remains of his or her honor.”
Irenaeus, your bias shows in your flaming rhetoric. Pity.
Why so angry at Southerners, the vast vast majority of which never owned even one slave???
No — the caning incident in defense of one’s friend’s honor was typical behavior of Southerners in general of that period — as well as Scottish and Irish folks, my descendants, and not merely your “slave owner’s caste”. And Southerners in general [not merely your loathed caste] admired it, as Yankees did not.
I both understand and respect the system, though I’ve no wish for it to be emulated, as much as I understand and respect the Roman system, or the feudal system, though again, I’ve no wish for their systems to be emulated either.
You can try to make such a system only applicable to the small percentage of Southern slave holders, but in reality the system applied to the Southern culture as a whole and not merely the large property-owning caste which you despise so extrovertedly.
I say the above not in order to convince you otherwise, since it’s no concern of mine, but to make certain that I am on record as someone who does not despise Southern culture, as you do. I respect and understand it, though I see its flaws.
Sarah [#24]: In mauling Senator Sumner on the Senate floor, Rep. Brooks drew widespread condemnation in the North and Midwest, underscoring that most Americans did not regard physical violence among legislators as healthy or honorable. That bears directly on the extent to which such violence has been prevalent or socially acceptable—an issue discussed on 12 of the 21 preceding comments on this thread. You can respond, “LOL. Who cares?†but the point remains relevant and important.
My comment [#22] very deliberately referred to the slave-owning caste, not all Southerners. I grew up in the South and have Southern roots stretching back more than two centuries. But that is no reason for me to romanticize slavery or sprinkle admiration on its defenders. If you feel you must identify with slaveholders and their culture, that is your choice. It is broadly consistent with your opposition to desegregation laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and your admiration for secessionists like Jefferson Davis. But there are certainly plenty of ways to respect the good parts of Southern culture while deploring slave-holding and its many abuses.
God condemns abuse of power, whether by slaveholders or by the revisionist rulers of ECUSA. Your comments here and on Stand Firm show keen sensitivity to abuse of power by ECUSA revisionists and their political allies but considerable insouciance toward other abuses of power. (“It doesn’t bother me at all†is one of your common responses.) A nice parallel exists between the House’s failure to expel Brooks [#18] and ECUSA’s failure to curtail revisionists’ abuses.
There are a lot of politicians that I’d like to hit, too.
Found while doing other historical research: a good cartoon of the 1798 brawl referred to by Prof. Fate [#6]: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16960/16960-h/images/205.png
RE: “In mauling Senator Sumner on the Senate floor, Rep. Brooks drew widespread condemnation in the North and Midwest, underscoring that most Americans did not regard physical violence among legislators as healthy or honorable.”
No — it underscored that those politicians on one side of the fence and a part of one culture, didn’t like those on the other side of the fence and in the other culture, and saw a nice chance to make some hay in a political environment in which one side wished to expand and increase the Federal government and move beyond the constitutional republic that had been created.
Again — the culture of the South was indeed quite different [still is] from the North, in both bad ways and good ways. And the “defense of one’s honor” with horsewhipping and caning was a *Southern cultural practice* NOT a “slave-holding” cultural practice.
RE: “You can respond, “LOL. Who cares?†but the point remains relevant and important.”
I responded “LOL Who cares” to your statement right here: “That made his conduct all the more instructive to Northern moderates.”
But as I have continued to point out . . . the man and his constituents DID NOT CARE about “Northern moderates” [nice progressive use of the term “moderate” there, too — you’ve learned well from your ECUSA experiences, I see].
RE: “My comment [#22] very deliberately referred to the slave-owning caste, not all Southerners. I grew up in the South and have Southern roots stretching back more than two centuries. But that is no reason for me to romanticize slavery or sprinkle admiration on its defenders. If you feel you must identify with slaveholders and their culture, that is your choice. It is broadly consistent with your opposition to desegregation laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and your admiration for secessionists like Jefferson Davis. But there are certainly plenty of ways to respect the good parts of Southern culture while deploring slave-holding and its many abuses.”
No, YOU decided to make the act of “defending one’s honor” about evil slave-holders, when in reality it was about Southern culture in general and widely lauded by Southerners, the vast majority of whom were NOT slave holders. It nicely points out your own prejudice and bile. And I note that you continue to maintain it in your statement above with a host of inanities, contradictions, and incoherencies.
I haven’t chosen at all to “romanticize slavery” and find it a repellent horrible practice that God has punished the South for to this day. As to whether I “sprinkle admiration on its defenders” or “identify with slaveholders and their culture” I certainly do, to the extent that there is much to admire about many, including Roman emperors and philosophers, Greek playwrights, and Japanese Samurai. The fact that you might be able to defend or admire Cicero, for instance, but to denounce Jeff Davis, indicates again the prejudice and bile with which you hold the South and its leaders.
I am a Southerner, and I identify with Southern culture and history, whether slaveholding or not [again, a “tiny minority” of Southerners held slaves, and the rest worked like dogs in their own plots of land], and unlike those afflicted with an admiration for large grandiose intrusive Federal governments, [commonly called liberals], I don’t attempt to live in a rosy state of denial, or smug arrogant condescending political correctness concerning my background and heritage and culture, which is indeed the South.
The fact that you evidence such ignorance in your mistaken comparison of the evils of slavery with my opposition to desegregation laws in private venues [not public Federal venues] is a rich example of your irrational emotional approach. The desegregation laws of private property merely 1) continued and heightened the prejudice against minorities setting back their entrance into society by decades — once again offering a priceless example of the Federal government taking actions with sincere good intentions, to ill effect, 2) increased the power of the Federal government [which for you, of course, is a benefit, not a flaw], and 3) denigrated private property rights, the effects of which, believe me, Irenaeus, will be escalating from now onward. I believe that people should be allowed to actually own their own places of business, not pretend to own them while the government strips their ownership of all meaningful rights of use. Your inability to see the difference between the wicked practice of the wrongful ownership of another human being and the very good practice of the rightful ownership of one’s own place of business nicely demonstrates the incoherence of your own thinking with regards to most of politics.
And oh yes, my preferred Southern heroes of the Civil War are of course Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart, not Jeff Davis at all. Both Lee and Jackson rightly fought not for the maintenance of slaveholding, but for the real point of the war by the leaders on both sides — restricting the Federal government’s gross and corrupt expansion and careful stripping away of the freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution. Slaveholding was a nice populist thing for Northern politicians and leaders to grab onto to further their agenda — which is a great parallel to our ECUSA Dear Leaders, I might add.
Again, for a liberal, I recognize that the above is a benefit, not a flaw, but for a conservative like me I am quite aware of the horrors of an inflated State.
You and I are on the opposite sides of the fence on these foundational issues in politics.
Thanks for the petty trivialization of those important issues into “you like slaveholders, you sinner”, while you deal with your liberal white Southern guilt, attempt to pile that on me [no thanks], and address whatever it is that the South has done to you to make you so bitter and angry towards that culture.
Sarah: You have outdone yourself. In your comment #28, you falsify history, exalt unchristian behavior, and mirror the tactics of ECUSA’s radical reappraisers.
I. THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT A REVOLT AGAINST BIG GOVERNMENT
You argue that the “real point†of the Civil War was to “restrict[] the Federal government’s gross and corrupt expansion and careful stripping away of the freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution.†In your view, Northerners “wished to expand and increase the Federal government and move beyond the constitutional republic that had been created.†They sought a “large grandiose intrusive Federal government.†Southerners resisted these usurpations. Northern opposition to slavery was a mere pretext for inflating government and oppressing the South: “a nice populist thing for Northern politicians and leaders to grab onto to further their agenda.â€
This is wholesale fiction. The federal government was friendly to slaveholders. They and their allies had long controlled it. The Three-Fifths Rule had bulked up their numbers in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives. Slave-state senators constrained the admission of new free states so as to keep half the Senate in pro-slavery hands even as U.S. population and economic growth centered on the North and Midwest. Slaveholders and their allies had made the federal government what it was. When it interfered with freedom and property, it typically did so with their approval or at their behest, notably in the heavy-handed Fugitive Slave Act.
Far from having undergone a “gross and corrupt expansion,†the federal government was small. From 1851 through 1860, total federal spending averaged $60 million a year. That amounted to $2.25 per person (or in 2007 dollars, $56 per person).
As for states’ rights, Henry Adams rightly noted slaveholders’ role as a force for centralization: “Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use.â€
Pre-Civil War political conflict centered not on whether the federal government had grown too large but on whether slavery should expand into territories such as Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Arizona. Republicans opposed any such expansion. They also pledged not to interfere with slavery in the slave states but rather (in the words of their 1860 platform) to maintain “inviolate…the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.â€
But the South’s leading citizens had come to believe that their slavery-based way of life could survive only if slavery spread to new territory. Maintaining slavery where it existed would not do: slavery must expand or die. Southern hardliners accordingly sought to establish slavery on the Great Plains and in the Southwest and to annex foreign territory (e.g., Cuba) suitable for new slave states. The 1860 Southern Democratic (Breckinridge) platform emphasized fostering slavery in the territories, annexing Cuba, and more strictly enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. It said nary a word about “gross and corrupt expansion†of the federal government. The hardliners could not bear the prospect of a president opposed to expanding slavery. They accordingly led the first seven Confederate states out of the Union even before Lincoln took office.
Confabulated “history†provides a shoddy foundation for political ideology, culture war, or personal insult.
II. THE POLITICS OF SLAVERY SUFFUSED THE ATTACK ON SENATOR SUMNER
In the event that give rise to this exchange of comments, Rep. Preston Brooks walked onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, caught Senator Charles Sumner at his desk, and bludgeoned Sumner with a heavy cane, asserting that Sumner’s “Crime Against Kansas†speech had slandered Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler.
You view this assault as an individual affair in which Brooks honored the dictates of his Southern culture. You accordingly regard my reference to slavery as a gratuitous slur on the South, asserting that I “decided to make the act of ‘defending one’s honor’ about evil slave-holders, when in reality it was about Southern culture in general.â€
On the contrary, this event was all about slavery. Butler had made his mark on history by helping open Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. Sumner’s speech was about slavery. He specifically argued that Butler’s devotion to spreading slavery had set up the bloody civil war then raging in Kansas. (Under the Missouri Compromise, Congress would create no new slave states north of the 36th parallel. Thus Kansas, Nebraska, and other parts of the Great Plains would enter the Union as free states. But the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, co-authored by Butler, opened those states to slavery if local voters so desired. The ensuing political and military struggle became known as “Bleeding Kansas.â€)
According to Sumner, Butler “believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words.†If anyone criticized slavery or sought to restrain its spread, Butler would come vehemently to its defense. Sumner went on to criticize South Carolina’s role in perpetuating and propagating slavery.
The debate over slavery suffused the entire episode. Hence my reference to how Preston Brooks “helped discredit his slave-owning, slavery-idolizing caste.†Which he did. Like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the caning episode gave slavery a human face, stoking antislavery sentiment in the North and Midwest and bringing fence-sitters into the antislavery camp. As the Daily Herald of Wilmington, N.C., observed, “the affair has been a perfect Godsend to the Abolitionists.â€
I also rightly noted the irony of Brooks mauling Sumner in the name of his cousin’s “honor†(i.e., his cousin’s supposed right not to undergo harsh criticism)—even as Brooks and his cousin devoted their political careers to championing a “system of legalized battery, mayhem, and rape†that gave millions of black people no chance to defend their honor.
III. YOU MIRROR ECUSA REVISIONISTS’ TACTICS
ECUSA’s ruling revisionists employ an array of tactics to harass critics and deflect attention from inconvenient facts and logic. They engage in pejorative labeling, summarily dismissing critics as “sexist,†“racist,†“patriarchal,†“homophobic,†or the like. They equate criticism or disapproval with hatred (e.g., treating criticism of homosexual conduct as tantamount to hatred of homosexuals as human beings). They deploy reductionist psychology (e.g., “you’re only saying that because…â€) and even purport to psychoanalyze people they have never met.
You have used many of the same tactics here:
â— Because I criticize Rep. Brooks’ conduct in the context of his support for slavery, you say I am “angry at Southerners†and “despise Southern culture.â€
â— Because you think I might view the Roman orator Cicero more favorably than Brooks or Jefferson Davis, you declare that “indicates again the prejudice and bile with which [I] hold the South and its leaders.â€
â— You announce, more grandly, that I:
—♥ “live in a rosy state of denialâ€;
—♥ practice “smug arrogant condescending political correctnessâ€; and
—♥ attack you as a way to act out what you term “your liberal white Southern guilt…and….whatever it is that the South has done to you to make you so bitter and angry towards that culture.â€
Like ECUSA revisionists, you need to bear in mind that we can criticize individuals, groups, actions, or systems without hating the people involved.
Like ECUSA revisionists, you should also remember the dangers of subordinating principled judgment to tribal affinity. As I wrote earlier [#25], “God condemns abuse of power, whether by slaveholders or by the revisionist rulers of ECUSA.†He does not leave us free to assail abuse of power when others do it and then enjoy it when our side does it. He calls us to an allegiance higher than kin, clan, cause, or country. Will we follow Him?