A History Lesson for the Candidates

I watched the Republican candidates debate again last night.  And then this morning I watched the pundits pick it apart. 

The candidates said a lot of different things, most of which I disagreed with, but one thing in particular jumped out at me.  Newt Gingrich wants to call judges to the Congress and impeach them if they write opinions that are contrary to the majority of the legislators.  Michelle Bachmann agreed with him and went even further by stating that the judicial branch was intended to be the weakest of the three branches of government.  Some pundits agreed with Bachmann, stating that the Federalist Papers implied that the Judicial branch was supposed to be the weakest of the three branches of government. 

This entire argument is ludicrous.  In the first place, the Federalist Papers are a collection of opinion pieces written by Alexander Hamilton about the way he viewed the U.S. Constitution.  They are not the law and were never meant to be.  They are just opinions.  I’m amazed that two candidates, one a historian and the other a Tea Party Constitutionalist, don’t know that according to Article I, sections 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution, all three branches are actually equal. 

Let’s have a brief history review.  The Executive branch has certain powers, checked by the Legislative branch, and both are checked by the Judicial branch.  In other words, if the legislature writes a bill and votes to pass it into law,  it has to be submitted to the president for approval.  If the president agrees with the law he signs the bill and it becomes law.  If he disagrees with the bill or any part of it he can veto it and send it back to Congress.  With a 2/3 vote the Congress can over-ride the President’s veto and the bill would become law despite his objections.  If anyone, an individual or a state, disagrees with the law they have the opportunity to claim that it is unconstitutional.  The Judicial branch then reviews the law and decides if it is within the guidelines of the Constitution.  If they decide that it is not, then the law is overturned.

A perfect example of this is the continuing struggle by Congress to pass a law banning flag-burning.  The Supreme Court has several times overturned any effort, stating that flag burning can be considered an expression of speech and thus protected by Article 1 of the Bill of Rights.

Mr. Gingrich thinks that some “liberal”  judges are “activist”, making their own laws by overturning real laws.  Those judges, he says, should be called to Congress and questioned.  As Ron Paul said last night, that would be opening a whole can of worms.  Any judge’s decision can be overturned by a higher court.  Mr. Gingrich then went on to say that Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with him because he tried during his presidency to change the judicial system.  Well, as far as I know, and I’m not a Ph.D. like Mr. Gingrich, Lincoln vehemently disagreed with Roger Taney’s deciding opinion in the Dred Scott case, but he never tried to change it.  He also suspended the writ of Habeus Corpus by executive order which was overturned by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roger Taney.  [i]

The Republican candidates keep referring to the Federalist Papers as if they were law.  As I stated above the papers were a collection of opinion pieces and in no way intended to be law.  They also forget to mention, or more likely choose to ignore, that there was a collection of Anti-Federalist Papers written by Hamilton’s opponents, most notably James Madison. 

They also fail to recognize the meaning of the Federalist Papers.  The term “Federalist” itself implies a strong central government with limited states’ rights.  This is exactly the opposite of what the modern Republican party believes in.  The only thing in the Federalist Papers that coincides with modern Republican beliefs is the opinion that major industrialists be a major influence in the policies of the government.

They need to review the Constitution and their history books. 

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[i] Lincoln suspended the writ as an emergency measure to prevent the state of Maryland from voting for secession immediately after the beginning of the Civil War.  Congress objected to this executive order and took it to the Supreme Court.  The court, led by chief justice Roger Taney, a native of Maryland, ruled against Lincoln.  Lincoln ignored Taney’s decision, and although as the President in the time of insurrection or rebellion he had the Constitutional power to order the suspension without Congressional approval, in order to expand the suspension to some secessionist or anti-draft mid-western states,  he formally asked Congress to approve of the suspension. They agreed.  By the way, three later presidents suspended the writ.  U.S. Grant in order to stop the KKK in some southern states, FDR to send Japanese, German and Italian Americans to internment camps during WWII and George W. Bush to arrest  any suspected “military combatants” during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  All did so without Congressional approval. 

The Field So Far

The economic outlook is kind of grim.  The stimulus plan hasn’t worked as well as we thought it would.  Should President Obama be worried about his reelection hopes?

Well, here’s who he seems to be contending against so far. 

Newt Gingrich:  On his third or fourth wife.  One of those wives he divorced while she was recovering from cancer surgery in order to marry his mistress.  He has explained his moral lapses by stating that he had such passion for his public service to a country that he loves so much that he lost himself in the moment.  Huh?

 Mitt Romney is back-pedaling away from his own health insurance program so vigorously that he may hurt himself.  And I mean literally physically hurt himself.

Michelle Bachmann making a speech in Iowa months ago explained that our founding fathers “worked tirelessly” to rid the nation of the horrible blight and scourge of slavery.  “John Quincy Adams worked all his life to rid this country of slavery.”  I have to give credit where it’s due, she’s right that J.Q. Adams did spend his 17 years in the House of Representatives after he was the president to change the 3/5 clause in the Constitution. But he was not one of the founding fathers.  In fact about half of the founding fathers, George Washington, James Madison, James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, the author of the phrase “All men are created equal” were slave holders.  She also seems to think that the first shots of the Revolution happened in New Hampshire, while in fact Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts.

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey just reluctantly handed over a personal check to the state treasurer to pay for the use of state police helicopters to attend his son’s high school baseball games after months of claiming that the state can’t afford to pay for police and firefighter pensions. 

John Boehner, after the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives made a speech on the steps of the Capitol, explaining that Republicans believe in a strict interpretation of the Constitution.  He then proceeded to read what he thought was the preamble to the Constitution.  It was the Declaration of Independence.  (I saw this live on CNN and what amazed me was that no Republican standing near him seemed to know the difference).

Now Sarah Palin is on her bus tour, for whatever reason.  She went to Boston today.  When asked what she and her family did today she said, and I have to paraphrase here, “Well we saw where Paul Revere hung out as a teenager which was kinda cool, ya know before he went off to warn the British that we were coming so that they would know with all the bells ringing and the gunshots that they couldn’t mess with us and take our guns away.”  Huh?  

With minds like this even I could win.  Obama has nothing to worry about.

Happy 150th Anniversary

Years ago I had a friend from Dallas named Bert, whom I met through work.  He was a big burly man with a deep gravelly voice and an even deeper Texas accent.  When he first met me his first question was, “Barbara are you a Yankee or a damned Yankee?”  I asked what the difference was and he answered,  “A Yankee is a Northerner who comes to visit us, and a damned Yankee comes to stay.”  

It was my first inkling that the Civil War has never really ended.

Today, April 12^th, marks the 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  At 4:30 a.m. Confederate forces at Fort Moultrie unleashed a barrage of artillery fire at Fort Sumter, a federal military installation in Charleston harbor.   More than 38 hours later Fort Sumter surrendered.  Except for a mule, there was no blood shed in this first action of the war, prompting former South Carolina Senator James Chestnut to boast that the Confederate forces were so superior that only a thimble full of blood would be spilled before the Union surrendered.  The war lasted four years and caused over 620,000 casualties before the Confederates finally surrendered.

But the war didn’t really end with General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.  The era of Reconstruction, which included Federal occupation, increased taxes and carpetbaggers who bought land for pennies on the dollar, lasted until 1877.  After Reconstruction the South fought back with the KKK and Jim Crow laws.  They lost their last battle when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  

I have participated in many Civil War forums over the years, and I’m still amazed at the number of people who continue to deny the true cause of the Civil War.    I’ve heard everything from states’ rights to high tariffs all the way down to Lincoln was just an evil dictator.  I have never heard a Southern apologist admit that the war was about slavery.

In fact, slavery was the cause.  And the Civil War didn’t really start on April 12, 1861.  It started in 1787 when the Constitution was ratified where in Article I Section 2 it outlines the apportionment of representatives “among the several states according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”  All other persons referred to slaves. 

In the 74 intervening years the Southern slave holding states threatened to secede several times trying to protect that 3/5 clause and their equal representation in Congress.  To maintain the Union, Northern congressman appeased them with one compromise after another.  But when Lincoln, who said that he wished to restrict the territorial enlargement of slavery into the new west, was elected to the presidency, the Southern states seceded one after another.  The era of compromise was over.

That “peculiar institution” of slavery was the basis of the Southern agrarian economy, and if they didn’t have political equality in Congress their ability to sustain slavery as an economic institution was doomed.  

There is no article in our Constitution that forbids secession of any state.  So the argument that the slave holding states had a right to secede is plausible.  But they were seceding to protect the right to own slaves.  There were cultural and social issues involved as well, all stemming from the institution of slavery, but the “states’ rights” argument is an easy way to gloss over the moral issue of slavery by claiming that they had a right to secede, thus claiming that Lincoln had initiated a war of “Northern Aggression”.  

Lincoln had been thinking and speaking about the future of slavery for years prior to his presidency because he believed that the thoughts and ideals of human equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence outweighed the strict limitations of the Constitution.  In his “House Divided” speech to the Illinois state senate in 1858 he proclaimed his belief that “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other.”

Lincoln was right.  And it took much more than just a thimble full of blood.  

Ironically Bert and I became very good friends.  I sent him postcards and a bullet from Gettysburg and he sent me a huge box of shrapnel from Vicksburg.   Though he never would admit that the war was about slavery, and he always called me Yank, we overcame our sectional and political differences.    Bert passed away a while ago and I miss him.  But he can rest in peace knowing that I’ll never be a damned Yankee.

Humanitarianism and Oil 

On Monday, March 28^th President Obama spoke to the nation explaining the reasons that the United States is engaged with NATO in implementing a NO-FLY zone over Libyan air space.  In this speech he said that it was primarily for humanitarian purposes, to protect innocent civilians from Moammar Gaddafi’s forces.  He also stated that our intervention was to protect strategic interests in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, to prevent mass evacuations of refugees from inundating two nations that have new and fragile interim governments.

That’s all well and good.  But in the meantime our gas prices have risen by almost a dollar since this civil war in Libya started about a month ago.    At the time the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Libyan exports, including oil.  Although Libya supplies only 2% of the world’s oil, it is their biggest money-maker.  (80% of the country is desert.)

Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP have all been granted licenses for off-shore oil drilling by Libya since 2005.  All three companies complied with the UN sanctions and American ex-patriots were evacuated from the oil rigs.   Exxon Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has said, “There is no supply shortage.  We’ve had no problem replacing the Libyan crude we were lifting”, adding that Exxon does not produce crude in Libya but does process the oil at its Trecate refinery in Italy.[1]  Tillerson also stated that Exxon Mobil has been able to replace Libyan crude with other sources at its Mediterranean refineries.[2]

So why are they raising the price of gas?  Quite simply, because they can.   We need it and they’re the only ones that supply it.  Any crisis in the Middle East gives them a false excuse to raise the prices and thereby make huge profits while the rest of the country suffers.  The price of everything automatically increases because transportation costs increase.  And yet most Americans are not making a higher salary.

Most of our military actions of the 20^th century have been about oil.  We placed an oil embargo on Japan when they invaded China in the 1930’s and in turn they attacked our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in order to keep us from enforcing it.  We led a UN police action in Korea presumably to prevent Communist China from conquering all of Korea, when really it was to protect oil interests off the coast of Korea.  Vietnam – we took over when France capitulated.  Was it to prevent the spread of Communism?  No, it was all about the oil off the coast.

Are we really to believe that this action in Libya is for humanitarian reasons?  There are now several revolutions against dictators throughout the Middle East and Africa.  Syria doesn’t supply us with any oil and we have no diplomatic relations with them.  Jordan and Bahrain are two of our closest Middle East allies so we can’t back the rebels there although they too are being slaughtered in the streets.  And Yemen is being overrun by Al Quada led rebels.  In the Ivory Coast over one thousand people were slaughtered in one town in one day.

 Oh, but there’s no oil there. 

(Reuters.com, 2011)

(UPI.com, 2009)

(Journal, 2011)

Herring, George C., “America and Vietnam: The Unending War”  (1992)  Taking Sides – Clashing Views on Contraversial Issues in American History Vol. 2, Sixth Edition. 

(Interpretations of American History - Patterns and Perspectives, 1992)

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[1] Reuters.com, March 9, 2011

[2] Dallas Business Journal, March 17, 2011