Posted on 06/25/2015 9:37:52 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Atlanta — As America seeks answers to a senseless massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., last week by an avowed white supremacist, Confederate symbols, statuary, and legends are under siege from Memphis, Tenn., to Atlanta.
But it’s the United States Capitol that has emerged as a crucible for the larger debate, as lawmakers rethink the meaning and value of displaying statues of these Southern icons.
Georgia designated Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, as one of the two persons notable in its history to represent the state in the halls of Congress, for example. Virginia picked Gen. Robert E. Lee, the iconic military hero of the Confederacy.
But as Confederate iconography comes under attack, a difficult question is arising: How far should a national housecleaning go, given that Washington is awash in Confederate remembrances and many Founding Fathers owned slaves.
As speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D) of California, without fanfare, moved the Lee statue from Statuary Hall to a less prominent site known as the crypt, one floor down. She replaced it with a statue of Rosa Parks. In 2009, Alabama replaced a statue of Confederate hero Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry with one of Helen Keller. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Haha. Not if I can help it.
How many of our presidents owned slaves?
-—snip-—
GEORGE WASHINGTON (between 250-350 slaves)
- THOMAS JEFFERSON (about 200)
- JAMES MADISON (more than 100)
- JAMES MONROE (about 75)
- ANDREW JACKSON (fewer than 200)
- Martin Van Buren (one)
- William Henry Harrison (eleven)
- JOHN TYLER (about 70)
- JAMES POLK (about 25)
- ZACHARY TAYLOR (fewer than 150)
- Andrew Johnson (probably eight)
- Ulysses S. Grant (probably five)
It’s a commonplace that Abraham Lincoln never trafficked in slaves, much less owned them – indeed, he “freed the slaves.” But here’s the shocker: Although the slave trade had been abolished in the District of Columbia in 1850, slaves inhabited the capital for another 15 years – till the end of the Civil War. Dwell on that thought: Lincoln fought the Civil War in a slave city – the Great Emancipator inhabited a White House staffed by slaves.
-—snip-—
One final point. Most historians argue that the biggest challenge the founders failed to confront was the existence of slavery on American soil. Our earliest presidents struggled to find solutions. The most radical proposal in the early days of the republic was to ship slaves and other blacks back to Africa. Jefferson was keen on the idea, believing that blacks would eventually have to be removed from the U.S. or else whites would live in perpetual dread that the slaves would rise up in rebellion. Such fears prompted a later president, James Monroe, to support the creation of the American Colonization Society (founded 1816-1817).
The Society was not just well-intentioned. It raised money, acquired lands in what is present-day Liberia, and supported passage of emancipated slaves, former indentured servants, and free blacks across the Atlantic to the west coast of Africa. The Society named the major settlement in the colony Monrovia in honor of our nation’s fifth president.
http://hauensteincenter.org/slaveholding/
The left have their own heroes.
any street, building or monument with the racist LBJ associated with it has to go
“I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” —Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”—Lyndon B. Johnson
No doubt the American Left prefers we take a page from the Moslem playbook and tear down ALL statues older then a year or two, replacing them with communist heroes.
I’m sure the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba would sell us a few hundred Marxist icons, cheap.
Time to dynamite Stone Mountain and Mount Rushmore to erase the Demoncrat Party’s racist past.
I’m serious when I say two things.
1. They will get around to this at some point when they think they can get away with it. It’s all going to go down the memory hole.
2. The spirit of genocide resides in the Democratic party. It is being incubated and will flower in the near future. But they need to remove memory of the Founding Fathers before that can happen.
The Dem Massas know they can still control the darkies.
The honkies, not so much.
How Robert “Sheets” Byrd, Grand Kleagle?
Next could be Lincoln who was born I the South...Kentucky..
and then there is his wife who’s family owned slaves..also from Kentucky..
B. Obama (325,098,979)
First they came for my lawn jockey, but I did not have one and made no stand. Then they came for my Confederate flag and again I was silent.
Next they came for my Nathan Bedford Forrest Statues and I will be the first to try to save these from the fools in the media.
This rush to ban or remove anything southern, confederate, etc reminds me of another group that used to do this. Didn’t the old soviet union do similar idiocy when one ruler died or was removed from power? Wouldn’t they run around trying to scrub every picture, statue, mention of him? Don’t third world dictators do similar things,erasing their predecessors? All these people calling for v this or that ban...embarrassing and stupid. In their rush of superficial, feel-good zeal they completely miss the wildly dangerous precedent they are establishing. We, as the land of the free, with liberty and justice for all, are no more.
” But they need to remove memory of the Founding Fathers before that can happen.”
They’ve already accomplished that. Just ask any young person what they know about our founding fathers or the founding of this nation.
The Christian Cross could soon be on the “progressive” chopping block. The KKK uses it in their symbology.
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