[Deil the Yin]

Originally Posted by beedee

and all this time i thought it was wisconsin: Come smell our dairy air



Brian

brilliant!

[ghostlight]

I would like to thank everyone who has participated for this very educational thread. I've been reading and absorbing this information over the past few days and it's given me a lot to think about in regards to the question, "Should I consider joining the clan society associated with my family name?" The answer is clearly a very individual decision and it's nice to see varied opinions on the subject backed up with so much history. Thank you!

[thescot]

Originally Posted by Wolfhawk

. . .The reason (in my understanding) that Texas was enticed to join the Union was the problem of Mexico. Once that problem was removed, the need to the unions protection was not as paramount, as Texas was now stronger and able handle their problem better. There are questions about the legality of the US to pass a resolution to annex Texas anyway.

This is quite interesting, but I believe that Sam Houston and Andrew Jackson were on pretty good terms, both coming from Tennessee politics and all. And that figured pominently in Houston's travels to Texas.

I read many years ago--can't cite the source--that Houston had a couple of reasons to leave Tennessee:
1. Woman trouble (or maybe that's women)
2. That his first marriage to Eliza ended due to an oozing wound from the War of 1812( ?) that never healed, and the divorce caused a scandal
3. That Old Hickory had his eye on Texas and wanted Houston to go down there and pick a fight.

I think I got a lot of this from an old biography called The Raven or something like that, but that was in another country, and, besides, the wnch is dead. (Pardon the literary allusion. Can't help it.)

I borrowed the book from a history teacher in the 11th grade who turned me on to history.

If none of this is accepted history . . .oh. well.

We'll just go to Scotland, wear kilts, and forget the Alamo.

[thescot]

Originally Posted by 10buckstew

. . .(America 'the free' didn't have Civil Rights passed until 1968!)
. . .

Well, if you refer to the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as the beginning of civil rights in the US, then you should point out that the law is only applicable in the southern states. Which would, I guess, imply that the other 39 or so states (depending on whether you use Obama's count) have no civil rights.

A statement which I believe begs a reference to the first 10 amendments to the Constitution (Commony refered to as the Bill of Rights) which guaranatee civil rights. They may not have been universally applied, but they were not invented in 1968.

Gosh I love a good discussion on this site.

[wvpiper]

Originally Posted by thescot

Well, if you refer to the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as the beginning of civil rights in the US, then you should point out that the law is only applicable in the southern states. Which would, I guess, imply that the other 39 or so states (depending on whether you use Obama's count) have no civil rights.

do you mean the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Either way, they both apply to all 50 states. They may have been passed to address specific problems predominate in the South, but they're applicable to all.

[gilmore]

Originally Posted by wvpiper

do you mean the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Either way, they both apply to all 50 states. They may have been passed to address specific problems predominate in the South, but they're applicable to all.

You got the dates right, but the latter part of the info isn't quite accurate.

The Voting Rights Act does apply to all 50 states, but only to those with a history of governmental discrimination in voting. Want to guess where those states are? I believe, though, it has been used a few times in a very few counties and cities outside the South that had a history of racial and other discrimination in voting, and that didn't involve African Americans. But my memory may be faulty. It has been decades since I worked on voting rights litigation.

[wvpiper]

Originally Posted by gilmore

You got the dates right, but the latter part of the info isn't quite accurate.

The Voting Rights Act does apply to all 50 states, but only to those with a history of governmental discrimination in voting. Want to guess where those states are? I believe, though, it has been used a few times in a very few counties and cities outside the South that had a history of racial and other discrimination in voting, and that didn't involve African Americans. But my memory may be faulty. It has been decades since I worked on voting rights litigation.

You've echoed my point. The problems may have been primarily southern based, but the laws do not specifically single out a state, or region. It is applicable to all 50 states.

[gilmore]

Originally Posted by wvpiper

You've echoed my point. The problems may have been primarily southern based, but the laws do not specifically single out a state, or region. It is applicable to all 50 states.

True, but that is something of a disingenius way of putting it.

The Voting Rights Act is, in this regard we are discussing, very much like what are called "population bills" and are often used in legislation that purportedly applies to an entire state (if passed by a state legislature) or the entire country. These bills are written so that they apply only to, say, a "county having more than 234,378 residents but less than 235,000 residents at the time of the 2000 census," and, hence, there is only one possible county the bill could apply to. I just isn't named.

The Voting Rights Act was written similarly, so that as a practical matter it involves only the Southern states (with a very few local exceptions outside the South,) although of course racial and other discrimination in voting had occured throughout the country, though not as recently as in the South, where it was intended to remedy more recent and more blatant methods of keeping African Americans from voting.

[ronstew]

This gets my vote for Furthest Off-Topic Thread in the History of Xmarks.

(And I am aware that there is irony implicit in my comment.)

[Panache]

Originally Posted by ronstew

This gets my vote for Furthest Off-Topic Thread in the History of Xmarks.

(And I am aware that there is irony implicit in my comment.)

And with that very appropriate comment the Mod Squad has decided that this thread has veered far from the original post and it is now time to close it

Cheers

Jamie and The Mod Squad