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Publick Occurrences 2.0

May 6, 2009

Still an Open Question after 600,000 Deaths

Filed under: Ben Carp's Posts,Civil War Era,Conservatives,Constitution,Jacksonian Era — Benjamin Carp @ 10:37 am

Via Matthew Yglesias (who ponders Confederate place names), Ed Kilgore discusses the “sovereignty resolutions” that have suddenly become popular, particularly (though not exclusively) in southern legislatures.  Atrios kicks in the snark.

Go read the posts, come back, discuss.

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5 Comments »

  1. Now that I have only 1 more lecture to go, I will probably do a post on this state sovereignty thing, but let me first say that Matt Yglesias is not being very “historically informed” when he complains about Confederate place names. I get as irritated by the Jeff Davis cult as the next academic liberal, but surely we don’t need to rename the whole South after General Sherman and Thad Stevens just to prove the North won the Civil War. That’s not the way to improve white southern attitudes (quite the contrary, they’d love to rail against Yankees stealing their culture n’ heritage), and there’s something to be said for keeping reminders of past evils on the landscape to prevent them from being forgotten. Also, the names do not always mean what Matt thinks they do. The downtown streets in Tallahassee include a Monroe and an Adams street along with Calhoun, memorializing Calhoun’s role, as a strong nationalist War Secretary, in the acquisition of Florida. It is important not to buy into the Dixiecrat meme that nationalism is always liberal.

    Comment by Jeff Pasley — May 6, 2009 @ 12:00 pm

  2. Some good points–I’ll look forward to your post. Your comment reminded me of a good post I read on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s blog (from Sporcupine, one of his commenters):

    http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/04/the_battle_flag.php

    Coates did a series of posts pondering the contemporary meaning of the Confederate flag over the past few weeks.

    Comment by Benjamin Carp — May 6, 2009 @ 2:05 pm

  3. I’d like to echo Jeff’s point that these names don’t always mean what some people assume they do. A couple of Matt’s commenters point out that there is a Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, which is about as un-Southern a place as there is. But it was named after the Secretary of War Calhoun (who was responsible for sending army surveyors to Minnesota in 1817, and for authorizing the construction of Fort Snelling), not for the Proto-Secessionist Calhoun. This may open up all sorts of matters of authorial intention—did you name that lake or street or school after him in honor of the stuff he did that we like or the stuff he did that we hate?—which may be impossible to untangle. (For instance, I’m sure the Dakota and Ojibwe were less excited about the construction of Fort Snelling than the people who named the lake after Calhoun.) But renaming everything Calhoun after Charles Sumner is probably not the best solution.

    All the same, I’m not wild about that statue of Robert E. Lee in the Capitol.

    Comment by Mr. Sidetable — May 6, 2009 @ 4:39 pm

  4. The Mediterranean climate, widespread throughout the south of France (except in the mountainous southwest), is one of cool winters, hot summers, and limited rainfall. The mean temperature is about 11°c (53°f) at Paris and 15°c (59°f) at Nice.

    Comment by rüyada görmek — August 6, 2011 @ 8:11 pm

  5. In central and southern France, annual rainfall is light to moderate, ranging from about 68 cm (27 in) at Paris to 100 cm (39 in) at Bordeaux. Rainfall is heavy in Brittany, the northern coastal areas, and the mountainous areas, where it reaches more than 112 cm (44 in).

    Comment by dini videolar — August 6, 2011 @ 8:13 pm

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