Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:54:00 EDT
From:         Travis Kidd <TKIDD@CLEMSON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: The War Between the Jasons

On Wed, 9 Sep 1992 00:13:00 EST JCOCURUL@DREW.BITNET said:
>> Really????  I am going to have to check this out.  But the constitut ion
>> also says that no state shall be deprived of its equal representatio n
>> in the Senate.  (Art 5, I think, the same one that deals with amendm ents
>> to the Constitution)

> Article V pertains to amendments.
But does it ONLY pertain to amandments?

>> Quite simply--the Civil War was fought to save the Union.  The Emanc i-
>> pation Proclamation was a war tactic.

> the latter is true, but by the end of the war slavery was surely at
> issue too, even the South agreed that slavery was defeated with the
> Southern armies in 1865 -- most of it accepted the 13th Amendment.
Yep--the constitution of S.C. says something like "The institution of
slavery having been abolished by the United States authorities, slavery
shall never again exist in this state."

> But, the people of the North wanted more than simple freedom of
> slaves, they wanted them to have certain rights and that too was a
> goal by the end of the war.  To protect these rights, the 14th
Well, OK, you said people, not states.  The Northern states were not
exactly pro-equal rights, you know!  You probably won't find too many
Pennsylvania voter registration cards from the time with a black persons
name on them--at least not before the civil war.

And, BTW, let me say that the 14th amendment does not grant anyone the
right to vote, nor does it prohibit discrimination in voting.  The 15th
does that.  So, the states can still prohibit voting for a variety of
reasons.
> amendment came into play with the additional idea that the United
> States was a country not a collection of mostly independent states --
> a strong union was another result of the war and the 14th showed that
> too.  The Civil War had many aims: slavery, union, and deciding the power
> of the states in regard to the federal gov't were the most visual, and
> the North won deciding all three.
De facto, maybe.

>> cations.  I'm still wondering whether anybody sued about this...if n ot,
>> then I accept that the statute of limitations makes the amendments
>> valid--if so, then what did the courts say?
>
> Article IV Sec. 4 speaks of guaranteeing every state a Republican Form
> of Gov't.  The 14th and 15th did this by giving the blacks citizen
> rights as people in republican gov'ts have.  The South also was a
> defeated region and committed treason against the United States and
> Congress has the right to punish treason.  The courts didn't have
> power over the Reconstruction (prepare to be shocked) for the Congress
> has power to decided the court's power and limited here.
OK--this is quite true.  I wish I could argue with you here, but I
can't.  Did Congress in fact limit such power?

>> So one need not go to school with other races to be equal to them,
>> right?
> ok, let me get this straight: you are comparing unisex bathrooms with
> uniracial ones?  or maybe school and bathrooms?  do you perhaps see a
> difference between Jack and Jill going to the toilet together and Jack
> (white) and Jill (black) going to school together? NO?  Can't help you
> then.
Well, can anybody else, then?  Does it have anything to do with moral
standards??
-Travis
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