Posted on 05/25/2009 2:47:18 PM PDT by kristinn
President Barack Obama sent a wreath Monday to a memorial for soldiers who fought on the side of slavery during the Civil War, continuing a 90-year-old Memorial Day tradition despite being urged by historians to “break this chain of racism.”
The first black U.S. president also started a new tradition by sending a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington honoring the 200,000 black soldiers who fought for Union forces in America’s bloodiest conflict.
“We ask you to break this chain of racism stretching back to Woodrow Wilson and not send a wreath or other token of esteem to the Arlington Confederate Monument,” a group of historians urged Obama earlier this month.
“This monument should not be elevated in prestige above other monuments by a presidential wreath,” the scholars said.
Obama did not mention the controversy in remarks at Arlington National Cemetary after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, which holds the remains of unidentified soldiers from World Wars I and II and the Korean War.
The cemetary is built on the former estate of General Robert E. Lee, who led the Condederate forces and is revered in American history despite fighting on behalf of states who wanted slavery to continue and spread.
Lee’s home still stands at the top of the hill overlooking nearly a quarter of a million graves and across the Potomac River from the memorial to slain President Abraham Lincoln, who led the Union to victory in the conflict from 1861 to 1865 and was assassinated just after the war was won.
SNIP
Obama also sent wreaths to memorials for those who died in the explosion of the USS Maine and in the Spanish American war.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Of course, his white family owned slaves and he owns 300 million slaves.
Thank you, President Obama, for not forgetting our heroes.
so he thinks
I am glad that my ancestors are included in his memorial. I have ancestors that fought in all of our wars, including the revolution.
Don’t you just get the feeling that he is gritting his teeth having to honor veterans? I know inside he hates our military traditions.
I guess these “historians” just forget about the thousands of Black Americans — many freedmen — who fought FOR the Confederacy? I suppose they also neglected to learn about the thousands of native Americans from “Indian Territory” (aka Oklahoma) who fought FOR the Confederacy under the leadership of Cherokee chief Stand Watie? Oh, almost NONE of them owned a slave..!
Yeah, you politically correct, historical revisionists... Don’t think you can just spout off what you WANT to be the truth. Don’t think YOU set the narrative. :-) Just a friendly reminder that the truth won’t go away.
BTTT
Credit where credit is due. He ignored the politically correct pressure on this one. It would have been very easy to let this one slip by and gig a group where he gets little support in favor of a group who does support him. But he maintained an honorable tradition of reconciliation.
Kudos on this one.
And lest we forget that American Muslims also lie in Arlington, having given all for their country...
Copyright © 2007 A. Gondring. All rights reserved and all that junk.
Only adjustment was cropping, rotation, and lightening the brightness
to bring out the writing in the face of the sun glare
General Robert E. Lee, who led the Condederate forces....
&&
I guess they are something like the Confederate forces.
Credit where credit is due.
&&
Agreed
bump
And all this time I thought the Civil war was fought over States Rights. Silly me.....
For the 100th time,Barry is dealing his Race Cards!
What a pathetic redundant stunt.
Can you imagine how many white sympathizers receive absolution for their ancestors? Barry never deviates from his selected
Crowd of shamed white people! Barry is as predictable as *Cap and Trade*
I’d like to know just who are those “scholars” and “historians” who urged the president not to honor the confederate dead.
Sorry but I do not trust Zero or Muslims.
“President Barack Obama sent a wreath Monday to a memorial for soldiers who fought on the side of slavery during the Civil War,”
Grrrr.
They're listed at the end of their Letter.
I.m with you-let’s see the list. I know it contains James McPherson, Princeton U., and Bill Ayers. Anyone know anymore about this?
Factually correct, if somewhat overstated.
Shocking and disgraceful.
Anyone who doesn't think that slavery figured first and foremost in their decision hasn't read the quotes of the Southern leaders.
I see that Bill Ayers is on that list.
My first degree was in history. Slavery was a reason for the war but not THE reason. Lots of liberals would like to rewrite that part of our history.
Yes yes yes, I know, but the overstatement gets me I guess.
My very very poor great great grandfather did not die fighting for slavery. Might would have been the unintended consequences, but even when the Civil War started, it wasn’t about slavery for Lincoln either. That became the pet issue.
I know all media thinks we are all a bunch of ingrown hicks down here, but it still offends my greataunt who lost a grandfather in that war. Granted, it was before her mother was born, but still, she didn’t get to sit on a knee and other grandfatherly things.
Historians over the decades have become a bunch of leftist clowns.
“I see that Bill Ayers is on that list.”
Bill Ayers is an historian? I thought his “specialty” was education - or indoctrination, if you prefer. In any event, he’s a left-wing crank.
Are they talking about Gen. Grant?
Even Lincoln himself didn't think the war was about slavery:
On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after he had already discussed a draft of it with his cabinet in July, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. [5]
Must be because we all know he had slaves. Can’t tell public educated libs that though.
Lincoln was a great champion of othe Constitution and one of our greatest presidents.
Was he smirking and playing with his crotch?
Doesn't the next POTUS have to do the same thing for it to become a tradition? I mean technically if the next Pres doesn't do the same is this really a tradition?
I made shishkebab today, it's a new Memorial Day tradition... unless I don't make them next year.
I wish there was a way to prosecute those who revise history and accuse others wrongly of crimes. To accuse Southerners of fighting on the side of slavery is libelous, similar to the current mislabeling of enhanced interrogation techniques which likely saved thousands of American lives as torture. America hating liberals are really starting to stretch the envelope. I hope, for their sake, it doesn't break.
I think in this case compromise was the perfect course. It's proof that even a blind man can hit a home run every once in a while if he gets enough at bats.
Does that surprise you? And what's with Matt Jennings, Student. Couldn't they find enough academics?
It was THE reason. It was the single, most important motivation for the South's actions by a considerable margin.
Not for Lincoln, no. But there are two sides to every conflict. Why did the confederacy secede? And later start the war?
I know all media thinks we are all a bunch of ingrown hicks down here, but it still offends my greataunt who lost a grandfather in that war. Granted, it was before her mother was born, but still, she didn’t get to sit on a knee and other grandfatherly things.
My father lost his two brothers in World War II. I didn't get to sit on their knee and do nephew things. Yet for some apparently inexplicable reason I don't hold any hatred for Germany or Japan. People hate because they want to hate; any old reason will do sometimes.
That would be, in part, the wreath he laid at Arlington. They're talking about the one he sent to the rebel memorial.
Not when the rebellion broke out, no.
LOL
Nope, not surprised at all. And you're right, having to list a student says something about what they're pushing for. It's good that even Obama can recognize that all the dead were just American soldiers, even if they were in different American armies (and navies). I didn't expect it of him.
Hate? Who said anything about hate?
Anyone who doesn't agree with N-S views on Union "preservation" at all costs, even marxism, is a secesh hate monger.
Hate, offended, she still has a thing for Yankees.
Autumn, might as well give it up. Some think they’re the font of all knowledge and it’s not worth arguing with them!
My Confederate ancestors didn’t fight in the war to “preserve” their slaves, they did it to protect their homes and their state.
Some want to judge the events of the past through the lens of today. You and I know that slavery as a cause wasn’t the reason the War of Northern Aggression started, just as much as we know that the slaves in the North weren’t freed until AFTER the war was over.
The last slaves to be freed in the United States were those held by slaveowners in the North.
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