Abbott promises to "look into" Confederate plaque in Capitol [Austin TX]

Associated Press ^ | Oct 27, 2017 9:16 PM EDT | Paul J. Weber

[Olog-hai]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott denied that he favors removing from the Texas Capitol a Confederate plaque that says slavery was not an underlying cause of the Civil War after a black lawmaker who privately met with the Republican governor earlier Friday said Abbott indicated support for taking it down.

Democratic state Rep. Eric Johnson, who for months has called for removing a plaque titled “Children of the Confederacy Creed,” which has hung in the Capitol since 1959, initially praised Abbott following an hour-long meeting in Dallas. He said Abbott had agreed the plaque was inaccurate and, according to Johnson, indicated support for taking it down.

But his mood soured after Abbott’s office gave a conflicting account of the meeting, saying the governor did not agree to remove that plaque and that state officials would study the matter.

“On the plaque, the Governor told Rep. Johnson he would ask the State Preservation Board to look into the issue, specifically the history of the plaque, as well as the history of the removal of a similar plaque at the Texas Supreme Court,” his spokeswoman Ciara Matthews said. …

[Rurudyne]

The New Danes have learned men are cowards who will give them the Dane Geld they demand ... so the New Danes will not only never go away (I.e. stop making new demands for tribute to their offended sensibilities) but they will only grow more demanding, more outraged, and more offended. It’s just human nature that they do so.

[iowamark]

"“Corner Stone” Speech
Alexander H. Stephens
Savannah, Georgia
March 21, 1861

...I was remarking that we are passing through one of the greatest revolutions in the annals of the world. Seven States have within the last three months thrown off an old government and formed a new...

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.""

[eartick]

He said Abbott had agreed the plaque was inaccurate and, according to Johnson, indicated support for taking it down.

One thing is certain, a politician lies but for damn certain a lying racist black politician damn sure lies.

Abbott, we are watching these matters very close.....

[onedoug]

I would have fought with the South though, as with the majority of those who did, I too would never have owned a slave.
So what have we all become since? A nation thus enslaved to evermore onerous taxation to support a rabble, white, black, hispanic, what have you, that will not work but instead sucks our sustenance away.
A nation that no longer wins wars.

[DoodleDawg]

...that the War Between the States was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery...

Fake news.

[Bulwyf]

How is that fake? I read the plaque, it looks spot on.

[DoodleDawg]

How is that fake? I read the plaque, it looks spot on.

Because it was a rebellion and it was about slavery.

[Bulwyf]

Are you making jokes?

I’m not American, I’m Albertan, and even we know it was about consolidating power in DC. Slavery wasn’t even brought up until later in the war when Lincoln needed public support to raise more funds.

The only people that think it was about slavery are even SJW types. I don’t think you’re in that category.

[DoodleDawg]

I’m not American, I’m Albertan, and even we know it was about consolidating power in DC. Slavery wasn’t even brought up until later in the war when Lincoln needed public support to raise more funds.

I suggest you look at the writings of the Southern leaders of the time.

First, was it a rebellion? "I hope therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a recourse to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble,49 and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession." - Robert Lee, January 1861

Was it about slavery? "The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." - John S. Mosby, "Mosby's Memoirs", p. 20

[Bulwyf]

Two people said something?

Look at what actually happened. War of northern aggression. There’s no way to explain it otherwise. Also, the men the North “freed” were pressed into service and used as cannon fodder. Hurray the rescuers. Slavery was on the way out regardless. Industrialization was taking over. There is a reason blacks fled to Nova Scotia and such, they feared the North.

Lincoln had slaves, as did most of the other big shots then. I guess it’s ok though, as long as we knock off any who value freedom over a tyrannical central government. The civil war was the beginning of the end of the US.

I wish it wasn’t the case, and I’ll go down swinging with like minded Christian men who won’t accept tyranny.

[DoodleDawg]

Two people said something?

You want more? OK.

"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depoulation and barbarism." - South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt, 1860

"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt "The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South... This war is the servant of slavery." - Rev John Wrightman, South Carolina, 1861.

"[Recruiting slaves into the army] is abolition doctrine ... the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." - Editorial, Jan 1865, North Carolina Standard

"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865

As the last and crowning act of insult and outrage upon the people of the South, the citizens of the Northern States, by overwhelming majorities, on the 6th day of November last, elected Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, President and Vice President of the United States. Whilst it may be admitted that the mere election of any man to the Presidency, is not, per se, a sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; yet, when the issues upon, and circumstances under which he was elected, are properly appreciated and understood, the question arises whether a due regard to the interest, honor, and safety of their citizens, in view of this and all the other antecedent wrongs and outrages, do not render it the imperative duty of the Southern States to resume the powers they have delegated to the Federal Government, and interpose their sovereignty for the protection of their citizens.

What, then are the circumstances under which, and the issues upon which he was elected? His own declarations, and the current history of the times, but too plainly indicate he was elected by a Northern sectional vote, against the most solemn warnings and protestations of the whole South. He stands forth as the representative of the fanaticism of the North, which, for the last quarter of a century, has been making war upon the South, her property, her civilization, her institutions, and her interests; as the representative of that party which overrides all Constitutional barriers, ignores the obligations of official oaths, and acknowledges allegiance to a higher law than the Constitution, striking down the sovereignty and equality of the States, and resting its claims to popular favor upon the one dogma, the Equality of the Races, white and black." -- Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession

SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana

This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last. -- Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Convention

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession

What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention

Gentlemen, I see before me men who have observed all the records of human life, and many, perhaps, who have been chief actors in many of its gravest scenes, and I ask such men if in all their lore of human society they can offer an example like this? South Carolina has 300,000 whites, and 400,000 slaves. These 300,000 whites depend for their whole system of civilization on these 400,000 slaves. Twenty millions of people, with one of the strongest Governments on the face of the earth, decree the extermination of these 400,000 slaves, and then ask, is honor, is interest, is liberty, is right, is justice, is life, worth the struggle?

Gentlemen, I have thus very rapidly endeavored to group before you the causes which have produced the action of the people of South Carolina. -- Speech of John Preston to the Virginia Convention

This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us.

If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable --- -- Address of William L. Harris of Mississippi

But I trust I may not be intrusive if I refer for a moment to the circumstances which prompted South Carolina in the act of her own immediate secession, in which some have charged a want of courtesy and respect for her Southern sister States. She had not been disturbed by discord or conflict in the recent canvass for president or vice-president of the United States. She had waited for the result in the calm apprehension that the Black Republican party would succeed. She had, within a year, invited her sister Southern States to a conference with her on our mutual impending danger. Her legislature was called in extra session to cast her vote for president and vice-president, through electors, of the United States and before they adjourned the telegraphic wires conveyed the intelligence that Lincoln was elected by a sectional vote, whose platform was that of the Black Republican party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this continent and the elevation of our own slaves to equality with ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the act that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged in the most earnest terms to secede at once, and prepared as we were, with not a dissenting voice in the State, South Carolina struck the blow and we are now satisfied that none have struck too soon, for when we are now threatened with the sword and the bayonet by a Democratic administration for the exercise of this high and inalienable right, what might we meet under the dominion of such a party and such a president as Lincoln and his minions. -- Speech of John McQueen, the Secession Commissioner from South Carolina to Texas

History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention

[DoodleDawg]

Look at what actually happened. War of northern aggression. There’s no way to explain it otherwise. Also, the men the North “freed” were pressed into service and used as cannon fodder. Hurray the rescuers. Slavery was on the way out regardless. Industrialization was taking over. There is a reason blacks fled to Nova Scotia and such, they feared the North.

You really haven't looked into the rebellion at all, have you?

Lincoln had slaves, as did most of the other big shots then. I guess it’s ok though, as long as we knock off any who value freedom over a tyrannical central government. The civil war was the beginning of the end of the US.

(*sigh*) Even the most hard-core Confederate supporter would never suggest something so easily proven as false as the claim Lincoln owned slaves. There is zero evidence supporting that claim. None, zip, nada, zilch. Claims like that do not support your cause, they only make a mockery of it.

I wish it wasn’t the case, and I’ll go down swinging with like minded Christian men who won’t accept tyranny.

Knock yourself out.

[rockrr]

Lincoln had no slaves and there was no “tyrannical central government”.

[Bulwyf]

Sorry for delayed response.

I’m not going to argue, I don’t have the time in a day nor the energy. We’ll have to disagree on a few things, but look at history and look at the beginning of the downfall. Look at the events which led to Wilson later in and FDR etc. It’s not just recent history which has been against us and the constitution.

[rockrr]

I’m not going to argue

That's fine. But if you make false claims you should expect to be called out for them. Lincoln owned no slaves. It's easily verified. There is no ambiguity or circumstantial to it.

The nearest thing to a "tyrannical government" that existed in the United States in the 1850's was in the slave states. They owned other human beings. They forced their ugly institution onto the other free states. They went to war against their own nation in order to defend and perpetuate their unholy circumstance!

I have looked at history and the only "downfall" has been the downfall of the slaver's utterly corrupt regime.

[Bulwyf]

Lincoln thought that blacks shouldn’t have same rights as whites as well.

History has been scrubbed clean and they keep trying to do it.

There’s only ever been a very small number of actual good presidents. I think there’s one now, but there’s a big uphill battle first.

[rockrr]

Lincoln thought that blacks shouldn’t have same rights as whites as well.

That's (essentially) correct although his attitudes on race evolved quicker than most when forced by circumstance to examine and deal with it. No one disputes this and no one is hiding or scrubbing anything.

[jmacusa]

And if the South had won would it have freed the slaves? And further more, what kind of country would we be?

[onedoug]

As I stated, I would never have owned a slave, as the majority of individuals who fought for the South didn't either.

I could've seen it dying a natural death, as an increasingly mechanized economy came to the fore, and the costs of maintaining the institution became more and more prohibitive. I believe there were still many in the South who saw this writing on the wall.

I would have.

And further more, what kind of country would we be?

A nation thus enslaved to evermore onerous taxation to support a rabble, white, black, hispanic, what have you, that will not work but instead sucks our sustenance away.

A nation that no longer wins wars, internal or external.