Mississippi Finally Ratifies The 13th Amendment
It took 148 years, but the State of Mississippi has finally ratified the 13th Amendment:
Oscar-nominated “Lincoln,” which depicts the political fight to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, played a role in Mississippi officially ratifying the amendment this month — a century and a half later.
The story opens, not surprisingly, in a movie theater.
Last November, Dr. Ranjan Batra, associate professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, saw the Steven Spielberg film and wondered afterward what happened when the states voted on ratification.
That night, Batra — a native of India who became a U.S. citizen in 2008 — went on the usconstitution.net website, learning the rest of the story.
After Congress voted for the 13th Amendment in January 1864, the measure went to the states for ratification.
On Dec. 6, 1864, the amendment received the two-thirds’ vote it needed when Georgia became the 27th state to ratify it. States that rejected the measure included Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey and Mississippi.
In the months and years that followed, states continued to ratify the amendment, including those that had initially rejected it. New Jersey ratified the amendment in 1866, Delaware in 1901 and Kentucky in 1976.
But there was an asterisk beside Mississippi. A note read: “Mississippi ratified the amendment in 1995, but because the state never officially notified the US Archivist, the ratification is not official.”
Welcome to the 19th Century, Mississippians!
and it only took 148 years ….
People who believe that America’s ‘race problem’ is past history, and think that Obama has been particularly or especially divisive when it comes to race, are delusional.
next up the 21st amendment
@al-Ameda: I rather doubt that the Mississippi government was sitting in the shadows, thinking, “Yeah… we still haven’t notified the Archivist! That’ll keep them uppity whatevers down.”
Burgess is probably right, on the theory that stupidity explains more than malice does.
@al-Ameda:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
@al-Ameda:
“and it only took 148 years ….”
Hey, I’ll give you one guess as to which political party controlled the Mississippi State legislature for all those years.
@Septimius:
That would be whatever party was the home to racist bastards at the time. And now whatever party is the home of racist bastards.
Nothing changes, just the names, and the slogans.
Racist bastards remain racist bastards.
“Segregation now, segregation forever!”
It still haunts us.
It will for some time.
@Liberal Capitalist:
Yep, that would be the Democratic Party.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that a legislative employee charged with sending things to the archivist, “forgot” to do so as a way to stick a finger in the eye of the evil Unionists. The Civil War was not forgotten by any stretch of the imagination when I lived in Atlanta in the early 90’s. The Journal-Constitution had an article at least once a week dredging up some new atrocity by Sherman’s army, or subtly implying that being a slave in the South was better than being a freeman in the North.
God, when I think of the damage we did to ourselves as a country by putting so many people into positions of power (Speaker, Majority/Minority leader, committee chairs) that came up through states that had the worst governmental outcomes in the union… Worst schools, worst infrastructure, worst health care, worst life spans, worst race relations, worst prisons, and on and on. We let them assume power and we spent thirty years focused on flag burning, school prayer, abortion and anti union diatribes while the rest of the world caught up to us and passed us by and our infrastructure rotted away.
@Septimius:
Southern Democrats = today’s Republicans
That’s right, today we know them as Republicans.
@John Burgess:
Okay John, they probably just forgot.
Ah, Mississippi – the State paradise to which the other 49 states’ Republicans aspire.
@al-Ameda:
Um, no. Southern Democrats = Southern Democrats. Democrats controlled the Mississippi Senate from about 1876 until 2004. Democrats controlled the Mississippi House from 1876 until 2012! That’s right. All those retrograde Mississippi racists elected Democrats for 100 years, all through Jim Crow and segregation. Then, the Civil Rights movement came and, guess what, they kept on electing Democrats for another 40 years.
I know it hurts your little brain, but facts are facts.
@Septimius:
Facts are that following passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Southern Democrats moved over to the Republican Party. I’m sorry that you missed about 48 years of modern political history.
@MarkedMan:
That’s a nice story, except for the fact that 30 years ago, the Speaker of the House was Tip O’Neill. He was from Massachusetts. The Democrats controlled the House, so all committee chairs were Democrats. O’Neill was succeeded by fellow Democrat Jim Wright. Wright was from Texas. He had to resign from Congress because he was corrupt. He was followed by Democrat Tom Foley of Washington. Newt Gingrich was Speaker for only 4 years from 1995-1999. After him, it was Denny Hastert. He was from Illinois.
30 years ago, the Senate Majority leader was Howard Baker. He was from Tennessee. He was Majority leader from 1981-1985. According to Wikipedia, “Baker is often regarded as one of the most successful senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility.” He was succeeded for 2 years by Bob Dole. Dole was from Kansas. The Minority Leader at the time was Robert Byrd. He succeeded Dole for 2 years in 1987. He was from West Virginia, one of the states with the “Worst schools, worst infrastructure, worst health care, worst life spans, worst race relations, worst prisons, and on and on.” He was a former Klansman and a lifelong Democrat. He must be the guy who let our infrastructure rot away and let the rest of the world pass us by.
@Septimius: Wow. What a surprise the democrats controlled the Mississippi state legislature for that long. Except that a little bit has changed in 148 years. The Republics were founded as anti=expansionists, but I don’t think that’s applicable now either.
@al-Ameda:
“Facts are that following passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Southern Democrats moved over to the Republican Party.”
No. They really didn’t. They remained Democrats, and they kept winning elections as Democrats. For example, Congressman Jamie Whitten of Mississippi. He served in Congress for 53 years from 1941 to 1995. He voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 and 1968. And, he was a Democrat until the day he died.
@Septimius: Are there non-Southerners who joined in the defeatist “we can’t do anything” agenda I associate with the abysmal Souther leadership (Delay, Cantor, Blunt, Gingrich, Helms, Lott immediately spring to mind)? Yes. Are some of the defeatist Southerners Dems rather than Repubs? Yes (Byrd is a good example here. He only led in Pork). So? My point is that we shouldn’t be awarding leadership positions to people who came up through failed states, unless they have shown abilities in overcoming those failures. The people named above wear those failures as a badge of pride. Was it Trent Lott who, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee bragged that he had never been outside the continental US and didn’t even have a passport? Or was that the illustrious Strom Thurmond?
Mississippi was also the last state to ratify the 19th amendment, in 1984. Just an oversight I’m sure.
You hear that noise? It’s superdestroyer, and he’s weeping.
@Septimius: “Hey, I’ll give you one guess as to which political party controlled the Mississippi State legislature for all those years. ”
The same one which controls it today (name changing not counting).
This was overdue, obviously. 1995 was overdue. Obviously. And we shouldn’t be going on and throwing any parades or anything.
But if we actually want states to do things like this, make these symbolic gestures better late than never, our response should not be another round of “F*** the South!”
Nice to see Mississippi taking a step forward in civil rights.
It would be nice to see them make some economic progress as well.
The state currently takes $2.02 in federal funding for every dollar it sends to Washington…just a little more than Sarah Palin’s Alaska and Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana.
I got a kick out of this graf:
Talk about a motley crew of states, eh? Obviously the presence of Delaware and New Jersey do not fit “the narrative.” In a million years you wouldn’t see those items as the 2nd much less the 1st graf of a media article about the 13th Amendment.
Race is an amazing and quite surreal topic on comment threads of Internet blogs. Precisely because of the demographics of comment threads of Internet blogs. Lily white. Suburban. Young. Inexperienced. Cocooned. That the segregationists all were Democrats strikes a lot of nerves. That whites in the Deep South continued voting largely for Democrats for many decades following the Civil Rights Act, especially in state and local elections, also strikes a lot of nerves. C’est la vie.
Actually what strikes nerves is maroons that deny history in order to strike nerves.
@Tsar Nicholas:
Really? Is that your experience?
As it is not mine.
I was born in Detroit, grew up in a working class neighborhood.
Had the National Guard at the end of my street back in ’68.
Parents were both immigrants as children.
Funny how life provides insight to some, and nothing to others.
@Septimius:
I’m sorry that you cannot recognize that Southern Democrats have moved over to, and/or morphed into today’s Republicans. It is a modern political fact of life. In the early 1960s, the Republican Party and northern Democrats generally supported civil rights legislation, it was Southern Democrats who formed the basis of opposition. Once the 1964 Act passed white southern voters moved over to the GOP and many Southern legislators changed party affiliation, because they could be more comfortable in their racism in the modern Republican Party. And from 1968 forward the Republican Party exploited race resentment to great (and successful) effect in presidential elections (aka, the Southern Strategy.”)
@C. Clavin:
I’d be willing to trade Mississippi to Mexico for Oaxaca – do you think Mexico would make that deal? I don’t.
@C. Clavin: Institute a flat tax and/or reduce the scope of the federal government and you can likely bring that number down. Are you game?
It depends on the details of the flat tax. Too many of the schemes are regressive…even if they hide it well in the details.
As for size and scope…that’s the wrong basis for judgement…Government should be smarter. I’m all for that.
Flat taxes are generated regressive compared to what we have now. But it would reduce the balance of transfer because Mississippans would pay more taxes and New Yorkers less. And reducing the size and scope of government would also reduce overall transfers. Then those Bastardsin MMississippi would have to get real jobs. Amirite?
I suspect NY and other blue states would still be carrying the
red stateswelfare queens…Jindal, Palin, and the rest.It would at least reduce the margins. I just find it unsavory for good, generous, humanitarian liberals to berate the beneficiaries of their preferred policies. A robust federal government and progressive tax structure are inherently going to favor wealthier and more expensive states over those with larger pockets of poverty, lower incomes, and lower costs of living. If that’s a problem, look at the policies. Unless, of course, the entire point of the enterprise is to make yourself feel better at the expense of others.
@al-Ameda:
Other than Strom Thurmond, name one southern segregationist who switched parties so he could continue to be a racist. Seriously, name one.
Because I can name dozens of segregationists who remained Democrats after the 1964 Act passed. Many of them remained in office for decades. For chrissakes, by his own admission, Robert Byrd didn’t have his racial awakening until 1982 (at the ripe, old age of 65). He was the Senate Majority leader from 1977-1981. That’s right. The Democrats chose an avowed racist to lead the Senate some 13 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
If you are going to look at policies then first you have to question the efficacy of Conservative policies in Conservative States…they don’t seem to be working so well…
http://thecentristword.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/red-state-socialism.jpg
Now Jindal is going to eliminate the state income tax in LA…do you think that’s going to make things better or worse? I predict LA will soon be top of the Red State welfare queen list
@C. Clavin: Sure, if you completely disregard cause and effect, bathe in corellation-causation ignorance, and pretend that Mississippi would be just like New Jersey if only they adopted the latter’s policies. Then it absolutely makes sense to look at it that way.
Well…there is a reason red states are all takers…
@MarkedMan:
Oh, MarkedMan, let us not forget Illinois and the city of Chicago, famous around the world for their corruption (the last two governors went to Federal prison for corruption, and let’s not even get into the culture of corruption that pervades Chicago politics), fiscal irresponsibility, violence, terrible prisons, failed school systems, failed cities.
This is what produced our current President, and a number of the people around him, including his first Secretary of State What-Does-It-Matter Clinton.
Our current Senate majority leader hails from Nevada, the state that led so much of the real-estate market over the cliff, with its main attraction built with Mafia-controlled Teamster money. By the way, Senator Reid has not held one vote on a budget during the entire Obama administration. When it suggested he do this, he rages that the suggestion is a ‘political trick’. What glowing leadership!
Let us not forget Nancy ‘We-have-to-pass-the-bill-to-know-what’s-in-it’ Pelosi, from the Great State of Kuhlofornia, that shining example of wise and restrained governance, from which businesses flee. That shiny new Nissan HQ in Franklin Tennessee is a monument to the California tax system, and the Democrat machine that forged it.
Mississippi has many faults, but it also has more black mayors and county executives than New York. Unlike New York, it does not run massive operating deficits.
Slavery is over? Who knew?
It would appear that them thar good ol’ boys in the deep South don’t mingle much beyond their own lily-white neighborhoods.
@C. Clavin: Oh, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I just don’t think it can be reduced to some formula where if only Louisiana (a middle-of-the-pack state, tax-wise) could be like New Jersey, everything would be fixed. I think it’s actually easier to say that poorer states in general gravitate towards Republican politics than it is that Republican politics causes states to be poor. And I think a robust economy actually helps liberalism.
But this is all so complicated. Much easier to say “Ha! Poor people! Losers! Get a real job!” Innit?
If one thing is for sure…it’s that no one should aspire to be like NJ.
You are correct…but just because red staters are voting for Republican policies that exacerbate their conditions…that doesn’t mean the Republican policies aren’t exacerbating their conditions.
What was that book…”Whats wrong with Kansas?”…or something like that?
Take look at what has happened to inequality since Reagan won the economic argument and then started a war on the middle class.
JIndal’s move from an income tax to consumption taxes is going to hurt the poor more.
De-regulation that allows events like the BP spill impact the poor more.
Abortion laws impact the poor more.
Keeping the minimum wage artificially low impacts the poor more.
Not investing in education impacts the poor more.
And so on…and so forth…
Sorry…but taking $2.02 for every dollar you send to Washington is indeed running a massive operating deficit.
How’s that Red State education treating you?
The things you learn from these blogs…
Turns out Tennessee spent millions luring Nissan to move 1300 of their employees there.
So much for the un-fettered free-market and Government not choosing winners and losers.
Who knew those good ol’ boys in TN were such socialists?
@OldSouth:
Speaking of “What-Does-It-Matter” — In 1980, Ronald Reagan had no problem delivering a State’s Rights Speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where, infamously in 1964. three civil rights workers were murdered.
@C. Clavin: Well, there are policies that hurt the poor (depending on how you look at it) and policies that help make/keep states poor.
From your list, it actually starts to get complicated. The problem in Montana and Wyoming isn’t that they aren’t “investing” in education. They are, large amounts of money. The problem is that their best and brightest leave. Idaho and Utah very much need low-wage jobs because the alternative is less likely to be higher-wage jobs and more likely to be that they can’t attract the employers that they do (phone banks are popular there, for good reasons, and a lot better than there not being phone banks there). Nowhere was the moratorium on offshore drilling more unpopular than it was in Louisiana, because if those jobs go they aren’t going to be replaced by nanotechnology jobs. All of this feeds into itself and certain cycles are borne. Red states adopting blue state policies as more likely to become Maine than Massachusetts and could end up even worse off than they are because the policies are a bad fit for the particulars of the state in question.
I can take or leave any of the policies in question (I have my opinions, but they’re subject to review, and contrary to what you might understandably assume are not by-the-numbers conservative/Republican). I’ve lived in red states and I’ve lived in blue states, and I’ve lived in donor states and I’ve lived in beneficiary states. The facts on the ground suggest a situation far more complicated than “If only those states over there would adopt the policies of these states over here, they wouldn’t be such icky leaches.”
Reality is a complicated thing.
Yeah sure…the world is not black and white…this or that…and one size don’t fit all. I don’t believe I ever said it did. The fact is…by that very reasoning…the solution to Republican policies hurting Republican states is not to apply Progressive policies…it’s not one way or the other. The abject failure of Republican economic and social theories only proves that Republicanism is a failure. It doesn’t necessarily endorse Progressivism. The answer is to forge a new theory of Republicanism (which is definitely not Conservatism). Because it ain’t working.
@C. Clavin: A proposal which rests on the notion that the economic state is a result of the economic policies of those states. Which may be true, but still rests on assumptions not held by a lot of people. I honestly don’t know what policy prescriptions would economically make my current state look like other states with which it shares little in common. I think the comparative problems of Mississippi (easily my least favorite state in the country) or Montana (a state I am more fond of) go way beyond politics. And saying “elect people that will make your state economically better” is about as great advice as “get a job”. And criticizing them for failing to have done so is rather problematic along similar lines. And usually not said with the intent to help.
I think you are right…I am assigning more credit and/or blame than is actually due.
@Septimius:
You mean the Dixiecrats who became the conservative/reactionary wing of the current Republican party. In some ways the current Republican makes these boys look life brownie.
@Tsar Nicholas: that must have been when the Republicans were running them……what a bunch of history rejects we have in here- schools really don’t teach much I guess?
@al-Ameda: funny, yet black republicans are called oreo’s, zebras and worse with no dismay from the left? and the south didn’t really start voting for republicans until jimmy carter scared them straight. the “south” these days are full of ex-northerners who got wise and left the rust belt, not home grown liberal racists as they used to be. nice try though.
@bill:
I’m sorry that you missed the last 48 years of modern political history, Bill.
Why do you think that Blacks now vote about 90% Democratic? Is it because they don’t realize just how beneficial it would be for them to be Republicans?
Oh yes of course, because the reason this wasn’t done sooner was because the poor little feelings of Southerners had been hurt…
Actually, the problem is that many Republican politicians bitch and moan about the federal government and taxes while happily sucking at the federal teat for all they can get…and most of those Republicans just happen to come from red states that recieve more than they pay in taxes…
Well, that does seem to be Republican policy these days…
This is the primary piece of evidence that the Republican Party is hostile to blacks, among other minorities…unless someone wants to make the argument that most black people are just stupid…
@An Interested Party: There are lots of things I don’t like about conservatives and Republicans. The thing is, I don’t like it when Democrats emulate those things I don’t like about conservatives, either. I’m funny that way, I guess.
Makers and takers doesn’t suddenly become intelligent discourse because we’re talking about states and not people. If people are benefitting from government apparatus you support, it isn’t up to them to be grateful or know their place. Just like it isn’t up to me to pass on tax cuts I don’t support. Red states benefit because we have a social contracts that doesn’t spend money in proportionality to how much taxes they pay. Do you seek to change that contract?
I personally would have little problem kicking more things back to the state level and by extension reducing the differential. Few liberals seem to agree, except when it comes to inane chest-thumping.
Regarding F the South, I don’t care as much about Mississippi feelings as I don’t hate Mississippi actually becomes a better place. That means not spitting on it when it does what I want it to do. I want them to change their flag next. The constant disdain thrown in their direction, even when they take a tiny step in the right direction, makes that less likely.
Ahh, but is it really people benefitting from government apparatus so much as it is representatives and senators from those states who try to feed from the government trough as much as possible, particularly representatives and senators who talk about shrinking government, except when it comes to their states, alas…
Such as?
The thing is, Mississippi hasn’t really been in a good position since it had a cotton economy during the time when slavery was legal…rather telling, that…
Actually, what makes it even less likely than that is their clinging to a glorious fantasy about the past, with “The War of Northern Aggression” and all of that…people in other parts of the country being nice to them won’t change that…
@An Interested Party: Then disdain feeds their sense of victim hood. Which is why it contributes to the problem. I do agree it’s not the only – or prime – one, but it doesn’t help at all. I was raised in the south. I left the south and did so for many reasons and most of it I would never go back to (to stay). Mississippi is my least favorite part of the region I likely won’t return to. But I want positive change and the attitudes that they are met with simply don’t help.
When you talk about red state moochers, you’re not just talking about politicians. But since we are talking about politicians, either we want them to accept things like Medicaid expansion or we don’t. If we do, getting high and mighty when they do strikes me as problematic. If you don’t want Louisiana to have that money, don’t support the program. If you support the program, don’tdiscourage them ffrom taking the money. That’s my view, anyway. It works similarly between people and governments. I don’t support federally funded broadband outside of select circumstances, but if it came to pass I wouldn’t want my state to take a pass on it. I consider the IHS to be a worthwhile program and want the governor of Arizona to let that money through regardless of how much she rails against the federal government.
Long day tomorrow, so I’m going to have to check out of this conversation.
I do get the frustration with politicians talking about limited government on one hand and then seeking out superfluous spending on the other. Bridge to Nowhere and all that. I think it’s a bit problematic to extrapolate from this too much, however. Idaho and Utah, for instance, may be beneficiary states, but not because of excessive spending there (per-capita, we spend less in Utah than we do in 48 other states, and we spend as much in Idaho as we do in California). We do spend some significant amounts in the south, though a lot of that is devoted to segments of the population from which the politicians complaining about government subsidies receive comparatively few votes. And objecting to spending in the abstract does not necessitate objection to all spending. (I mean, I have difficulty taking anyone seriously who talks about cutting spending but wants to leave the military off-limits, but military spending in a state is not, by my accounting, leaching, because it’s money-for-service.)
None of this is to say that the GOP doesn’t have some serious issues with the limited government thing. Namely, it has failed to come to terms with its election rhetoric and its need to govern. At the state level, they actually often do quite well, in part because there they have to govern and there is only so much they can lambast the concept of governance. At the federal level, and in discussions of federal politics, they have found a method of completely divorcing rhetoric from governance. Which from there it becomes like my dog behind a fence. Behind the safety of the fence, she can bark as loud as she wants to. But it doesn’t solve her problem.
My main reason for “picking” on liberals here is because, well, this place is mostly populated by liberals and those few conservatives get all sorts of negative response for everything they say and there’s not much point on me joining the fray. But yeah, a lot of what I am objecting to originated from the other side. I still don’t like to see it emulated. The secondary reason is my objection to the characterization of where I am, and where I’m from, when I see the differences between those two places and the two donor states I have lived in the meantime as wrong-headed. I don’t care the politics, there just isn’t any group of citizens for which it is appropriate to talk about how great it would be if we just swapped them out to Mexico or could make them not-Americans. Especially when it pertains to an occasion when the a state that actually, finally, got something right. I want them to get more stuff right, and I consider the contemptuousness in cases like this an obstacle.
Peace out.
@Trumwill: You might be surprised to know that I agree with everything you said, and feel you said it well. I am not against Mississippi or the rest of the Bible Belt. But just as I do not feel we should push incompetents of any stripe out of their citizenship, I don’t think we should be rewarding them with national leadership positions, whether Dem or Repub, unless they have demonstrated an ability to overcome the deficiencies of the state governments they hail from. The people I called out not only didn’t overcome those deficiencies, they celebrate them.
@al-Ameda:
Why do you think that Blacks now vote about 90% Democratic? Is it because they don’t realize just how beneficial it would be for them to be Republicans?
Free stuff? It’s not like that 12% of the voting bloc has done much to adapt to the rest of the country to begin with.. Wave after wave of immigrants have already passed them as a whole (African immigrants too). If I didn’t know any better I’d think the vast majority are just kind of stuck in 2nd gear and have no desire to hit the clutch.
So yes, it would not be beneficial for most of them to have to join the rest of us and work, pay axes, be responsible,vote republican, etc.
Heck, blacks are fairing even worse under obama, unemployment is nearly double than that of whites- but that’s ok to them I guess?
My girlfriends black, obama voter too- so spare me the “racist” bs.
…
That you actually think this is a defense against being a bigot is sad. And spare us the “if I didn’t know better” part. We all know that’s exactly what you think.
As for me, I think a toxic mixture of poverty, racism, post-industrial economic changes, and yes, cultural factors are at work (this is the category where I put things like the # of single mothers, which I think is largely the result of economics + the drug war + the social safety net). I think the pre-existing factors (racism, poverty) dug the hole, and the other factors make climbing out of the hole all the more difficult. This all applies, perhaps even moreso, for Native Americans (I guess they’re just stucking in 2nd gear with no desire for betterment too?).
Yet I see some reasons for hope. Declining highschool dropout rates. Modest gains in test scores. A dramatic drop in violent crime (I figure growing up in a warzone isn’t exactly conducive to successfully navigating civilized society). And, without overstating things, the continued decline of racism.
I could also list reasons for pessimism, of course. I’ll pass for today.
The only people who benefit from Republicans are the wealthiest amongst us.
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/cbpp%20income%20inequality%202011.png
@Rob in CT: i don’t need a defense as i’m not, i grew up in the northeast and have friends of all colors/races. realism sucks but it is what it is. if you’re in high school or college then maybe you haven’t actually witnessed what i’m taking about or live in some insulated world looking in. whatever, doesn’t matter much as there’s nothing anybody will do about it.
Translation: I don’t hate black people, some of my best friends are black…meanwhile, I wonder if any of his black friends fall into this category…
@bill:
You, like Mitt and the rest of the Republican crew, are completely hung up on the “free stuff” meme. Also, who accused you of being a racist?