a review of QIN DYNASTY ALLIANCES (Da Qin Di Guo)

QIN DYNASTY ALLIANCES is a Chinese made for TV historical romance subtitled in English. The series plots the career of Ying Si, Lord Huiwen of Qin (Ch'in) who with the help of Premier Khang Hi transformed Qin (Ch'in) from a marginal state on the fringe of the Chinese world into a superpower which would eventually unify China and put an end to the Era of the Warring States, a period of endless war between the Chinese states. How Premier Zhang accomplished Qin's rise to power and Lord Huiwen ascension to the title King was his advocacy of "horizontal alliances," a system of checks and balances, a structure for moderating the conflict between the contending Chinese states. Qin's rivals following unstable vertical alliance that invariably unraveled in the midst of military operations floundered.

Perpetual war has its costs. Eventually King Huiwen loses a brother in combat and falls into a deep depression leading to his demise. The state King Huiwen forged would give China its name.

While the production is magnificent and the music is awe inspiring, it would help if there were more background notes on Chinese history for the benefit of those unfamiliar with Chinese history.

"History will tell terrible lies about us." ~ MG Patrick Cleburne CSA

On November 23, 1963, President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas ending in a bloody coup the Camelot myth created for him of the virtuous princeling and his beautiful spouse taking power to set things aright. Likely, while the bullet was fired by a half - crazed local gadfly, a colorful odd-ball with publicly proclaimed communist leanings, the order came from Kennedy's successor President Johnson through General Ted Walker, the commander of the Berlin garrison, whom Kennedy had forced to resign from the service owing to Walker's tiff with Eleanor Roosevelt who openly despised Kennedy.

The Kennedy's Camelot myth of poor Irish immigrants who made good would have comfortably fit into champaign mist left by the bubbly palp of Lawrence Welk's 1950 America, but it covered a great deal of perfidy in the real Kennedy legacy most recently during the Roaring 20s of stock manipulation and rum running but with even deeper roots in the dark side of American history, involvement in the slave trade and selling contraband to the Confederacy. Among those buried in the convenient rewriting the past was even a 19th century Kennedy who was a famous author in his own time, a friend of the renowned English writer Thackery.

Gone from the American story were John Sullivan and John Barry from the American side in the Revolution and Charles B O'Hara from the English ranks whose performance repulsing the Americans at Guildford Courthouse merited him the honor of surrendering at Yorktown and appointment as Governor of Gibraltar, the cornerstone of the British Empire. There are some faint bardic recollections of an Irish presence in Northern ranks in the Civil War left by the performance of protestant Victor McLaughlin in John Wayne's cavalry trilogy, but what happened below the Mason - Dixon Line was obliterated.

Southerners may despise Catholics generally and Irish in particular, contributing to the choice of Dallas as the set for the Kennedy assassination. However, both Southern Anthems were composed by Irish, Dixie by Douglass Decatur Emmet and Bonnie Blue Flag by Henry McCarthy. The North had a marching song The Boys in the Irish Brigade; the south had two known versions of the same song with the Missouri version, Kelly's Irish Brigade, being the most mean - spirited war song ever written, probably due to the pure viciousness of the war in Missouri. Abram Ryan, author of CSA and the Conquered Banner, was the poet laureate of the Confederacy.

However, the most interesting part of the story belongs to John Cummings, a backwoods preacher who was arrested for defying The Ironclad Oath. In the Civil War, with loyalties subject to question, loyal states and the federal government enacted laws which required persons to pledge allegiance to the US and deny sympathies or assistance to rebels. In Missouri, the anti - Catholic know - nothing Charles Drake, ironically a graduate of a former Catholic College of St Joseph at Bardstown, Kentucky, proposed a Constitutional disenfranchisement for Confederate sympathizers so broad that an act of mercy or charity however trite to a rebel could disqualify a person from voting, holding office or practicing a profession. Clergy were not exempted.

Despite the know - nothing sympathies of Drake, enforcement against the clergy was conducted on a non - denominational basis. Most clergy were left off the hook, by friendly Sheriffs or found bail posted by parishioners or Confederate sympathizers. A number of Protestant and Catholic Clergy ended up in jail, including John A Cummings. Little is directly known about Cummings or his sympathies in the war. Indeed, somehow that issue was never broached in his trial. The issue was black and white: will you sign the oath?

His conviction was appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court where Cummings was represented by eminent counsel, Robert Alexander Campbell, later a Lt Governor of Missouri and Whittelsey. Constitutional issues were weighty: religious freedom, freedom of speech, usurpation of Congress' power to declare the punishment for treason, bill of attainder, and ex post facto law. The Missouri court found the law neutral on religion, restricting its privileges only insofar as a state could restrict any other lawful business. The law did not constitute an ex post facto law since it did not make past support of the confederacy a crime, but disqualified former adherents of the Confederacy from political office and professions.

In the US Supreme Court, Cummings was represented by the best lawyers of the 19th century David Dudley Field, Reveredy Johnson, Montgomery Blair, and interestingly enough Alexander Garesche. The issue was that of a bill of attainder and ex post facto law. The religious freedom issue would not reach the Supreme Court for 50 more years.

The Supreme Court reasoned that since the Ironclad Oath made crimes of acts which were not offences at the time they were committed, the Ironclad Oath constituted an ex post facto law by imposing a punishment for an act not punishable at the time it was committed and providing an additional punishment to that prescribed when the act was committed. The court warned "suppose that, in the progress of events, persons now in the minority in the State should obtain the ascendency, … the most flagrant invasion of private rights, in periods of excitement, may be enacted, and individuals, and even whole classes, may be deprived of political and civil rights." In the companion case of In Re Garland, the readmission of a former Confederate to the Bar, the Court following Reveredy Johnson's argument, described the Ironclad Oath as a mere wartime measure, which should be discarded as unnecessary.

What happened afterward to John Cummings? The historical record is unclear. However, the presence of Alexander Garesche, former Confederate disbarred in Missouri on Cumming's legal team in the US Supreme Court, may give hint to Cumming's and Kenrick's political sympathies.

Cumming's superior Peter Kenrick, the Catholic Bishop in St Louis, officially claimed neutrality in the War Between the States, but is said to have provided in secret chaplains to the Rebel Army. There was a view among Catholics in the South that the war represented a conflict between a remnant of Christian civilization in the South against the rampant, imperious materialism prevalent in the North. On December 15, 1861, Reverend John Bannon, against the advice of friends, slipped away from St John the Apostle and Evangelist Church in St Louis. He left a note for Bishop Kenrick announcing his intent to join the Rebel Army as a Chaplain. The note was left unopened and unread.

Assisted by Alexander Garesche and others in crossing through enemy lines, Bannon joined Sterling Price's camp and bore witness to the brutal combat in the trans-Mississippi Department. Vanquished on the field, rebel forces retreated across the Mississippi where Bannon, treating the wounded and dying, followed the Rebel army from Corinth to Vicksburg where he was paroled by the victorious Union. Shipped to Richmond, Bannon was made a full - fledged Confederate Chaplain and sent by blockade runner to Ireland on a diplomatic mission to counteract efforts of Bishop John Hughes of New York to recruit Union soldiers there.

Further south in New Orleans, Archbishop Jean Marie Odin, of Archdiocese of New Orleans openly welcomed the repudiation of the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln and Louisiana's secession from the United States. The Catholic Orleans Guard's muster in support of the Confederacy raised such enthusiasm that the Archdiocese held a special mass at the St. Louis Cathedral to bless the colors and pray for the success of Confederate Arms. Catholic chaplains were assigned to various Louisianan units.

Although the Bishop openly embraced the Confederacy, his clergy recruited in France vehemently opposed slavery. Among them Ignace Francois Turgis, popular chaplain of the Bataille des Gardes d'Orleans, nonetheless heroically ministered to the fallen Creoles on the battlefield at Shiloh. After the war, he was permitted his own chapel to treat with the soldiers who returned from the war.

Some say as many as 40,000 Irish fought for the Confederacy. Among them, Charleston's Irish Volunteers carried a green company flag. Made of white and green silk, gold fringed, with eleven golden stars on each side, over wreaths of oak leaves, olive and the shamrock and bearing the inscription, 'Erin Go Bragh,'' the flag was blessed by Bishop Patrick Lynch.

On December 13, 1862, the North's Irish legion the 69th NY marched through defiles up Marye's Heights into the withering fire of the South's Irish Brigade the 24th Georgia Regiment. The ill - conceived attack came at a staggering price; half the enlisted men of the 69th were killed in action along with all but one officer. The Battle is recalled in Lee's Irish Brigade, the less volatile version of the South's Irish Brigade song.

The Kennedy family rewrote the American story with the assistance of the Arthurian legend and in a sense becoming victim to the script they wrote. Arthur finally defeated in battle failed to hold back the darkness. And in a sense, in - coming President Johnson unleashed the darkness, buying the White Liberal's silence by giving them everything they wanted, creating a firestorm of upheaval, a virtual revolution which continues to foster immorality and bankrupt the nation.