U.S. Marines boot recruits with Confederate tattoos

I don't see how the Confederate flag fits any of the above criteria.

Personally I think this is all a colossal over-reaction on the part of the recruiter. However I suppose the case the recruiter is claiming is that since the rebel flag is frequently misused by the Klan, and since it was the symbol of a cause which waged a bloody war against the U.S. then it is an anti-American symbol.

I'm not from the South dummy.
But two of my ancestors were killed in the ape's war.

Lincoln’s intolerance was legendary and his first resort was violence as well.

For example?
*********************

Intolerance:

Negro equality? Fudge!” — Abraham Lincoln, Fragments: Notes for Speeches, Sept. 1859 (Vol. III)

“If I could save The Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it” — Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley

“I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District [of Columbia].” — Abraham Lincoln, 1862

“The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.” — Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854

“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in the favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary.” — Abraham Lincoln, “Lincoln’s Reply to Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858,” in “Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990), p. 445

“I will say, then, that I am not nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races-—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race.” — Abraham Lincoln, “Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, September 18, 1858, Charleston, Illinois,” in “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings” (New York: Library of America, 1989), p. 636, and in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5, page 371

“Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this.... We cannot, then, make them equals.” — Abraham Lincoln, “Lincoln’s Reply to Douglas,” p. 444

“What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races.” — Abraham Lincoln, Spoken at Springfield, Illinois on July 17th, 1858; from Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 1894, Volume 1, page 273

“We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top abolitionists, while some Northern Men go South and become most cruel masters. When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said the institution exists, and it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would possibly be to free all slaves and send them to Liberia to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me that this would not be best for them. If they were all landed there in a day they would all perish in the next ten days, and there is not surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all and keep them among us as underlings. Is it quite certain that this would alter their conditions? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. We cannot make them our equals. A system of gradual emancipation might well be adopted, and I will not undertake to judge our Southern friends for tardiness in this matter.” — Abraham Lincoln in speeches at Peoria, Illinois

“I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States, not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I will give them any legislation for reclaiming their fugitive slaves.” — Abraham Lincoln in speeches at Peoria, Illinois

“The point the Republican party wanted to stress was to oppose making slave States out of the newly acquired territory, not abolishing slavery as it then existed. “ — Abraham Lincoln in a speech at Peoria, Illinois

“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Address on the Capitol steps, 1861

“Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a Republican administration would directly or indirectly interfere with their slaves, or with them about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.” — Letter from Abraham Lincoln to A.H. Stephens, Public and Private Letters of Alexander Stephens, p. 150

“My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union.” — Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley

“Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get an answer out of me to the question whether I am in favor of Negro citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. (applause from audience) He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of Negro citizenship. (renewed applause) If the state of Illinois has the power to grant Negroes citizenship, I shall be opposed to it. (cries of “here, here” and “good, good” from audience) That is all I have to say.” — Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 1857

Mr. Wendell Phillips said that Lincoln was badgered into issuing the emancipation proclamation, and that after it was issued, Lincoln said it was the greatest folly of his life. President Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation evidently had in mind to colonize or segregate the slaves if freed:

“It is my purpose to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the government existing there.”

Abraham Lincoln later said, in discussing the options of colonizing them with segregated areas of Texas, Mississippi and South Carolina:

“If we turn 200,000 armed Negroes in the South, among their former owners, from whom we have taken their arms, it will inevitably lead to a race war. It cannot be done. The Negroes must be gotten rid of.”

Violence:

The Despotism of Abraham Lincoln Conceded By Northern Testimony
by Charles L.C. Minor

If any are scandalized or startled at seeing Lincoln called usurper or despot, they are invited to observe that he was denounced as both by many great Republican leaders of his own day. The words in which Fremont, Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, and Horace Greeley, all stanchest of Republicans and Abolitionists, issued their call for the convention of Republicans that met at Cleveland, Ohio, May 31, 1864, for the sole purpose of defeating Mr. Lincoln’s second election, were as follows: “The public liberty was in danger”; that its object was to arouse the people “and bring them to realize that while we are saturating Southern soil with the best blood of the country in the name of liberty, we have really parted with it at home.”(1)
Capt. C.C. Chesney, of the Royal Engineers, says, the garrison of Washington was being drained, not so much for Mead’s re-enforcement as to check the insurrection in New York.(2) And when Lee had retired to the Rapidan, Chesney says of Meade in his front, “Large detachments were at this time made from his strength to increase the garrison which was to aid General Dix in enforcing the obnoxious conscription in New York.” Again he speaks of Lincoln and his Cabinet as reducing the Army of the Potomac largely in order to carry out the conscription, which they had been obliged to postpone in New York.(3) Thirty thousand troops under General Dix occupied that rebellious city in August, 1863, and the obnoxious ballot was enforced without further resistance, in spite of “the strenuous opposition of Governor Seymour.”
Rhodes tells of “open dissatisfaction which in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin broke out into positive violence over the draft necessary under the call for 300,000 militia.”(4)
Among many records of the suppression of newspapers we have the following, in a letter of Gen. John A. Dix to Secretary Stanton, February 18, 1862:
Samuel Sands Mills, publisher and proprietor, and Thomas H. Piggott, editor, of The South, were arrested last evening, kept in the station-house during the night, and sent to Fort McHenry this morning. The office of The South was seized last evening, and is in possession of the police. John H. Mills, a partner in the concern, has also been arrested, and will be sent to Fort McHenry immediately.(5)
The same has in a note, “For the full proceedings of the House on July 18, 1861, concerning the charges against May, the attack by a Baltimore man on the Federal troops, and Chief of Police Kane’s connection therewith, see Congressional Globe for July 20, 1861, et seq.”(6)
The same gives Pinkerton’s report of the arrest, about midnight, 12th September, 1861, of Messrs. Scott, Wallis, F. Key Howard, Hall, May and Warfield.(7)
The same volume tells of the arrest of Messrs. Flanders Brothers, editors of the Gazette, Franklin county, N.Y., for complete opposition to the war — and of exclusion of the Gazette from the mails.(8)
Rhodes describes the suppression of a “disloyal” paper in Cincinnati, and the exclusion from the mails of the New York World and the suppression of the Chicago Times by General Burnside, and says of Burnside’s orders, “Strange pronunciamentos were these to apply to the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where there was no war; where the courts were open and the people were living under the American Constitution and English law.”(9) Could there be more conclusive evidence of the attitude of Chicago and the great States he names, for which Chicago is a great commercial centre, than Rhodes’ record, as follows: “The Times had gone beyond any print, North or South, in its opposition to the war and its devotion to the interests of the rebellion.” Rhodes goes on to say that “the President yielded... but he deserves no credit... for he simply responded to the outburst of sentiment” in Chicago, manifested by action of the city government and the States government, “which sentiment,” he adds, “was beginning to spread over the whole North.”(10) Rhodes’ note on page 253, quoted from the Chicago Tribune of June 5, 1863, gives more light on the matter and fixes the date of the events.
We have Lincoln’s own order to General Dix of May 18, 1864 to “arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors, proprietors and publishers of the New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce.”(11) The two journals were the very embodiment of all that was most respected, so that General Dix hesitated, and was compelled to obey by peremptory letters from Secretary Stanton.(12) Rhodes mentions “the arrest of a crippled newsboy for selling the New York Daily News in Connecticut.”(13)
It would be difficult to characterize the above described usurpations in language stronger than was applied at the time. Rhodes quotes from a lecture of Wendell Phillips delivered in New York and Boston, December, 1861, as follows:
Lieber says that habeas corpus, free meetings like this, and a free press, are the three elements which distinguish liberty from despotism. All that Saxon blood has gained in the battles and toils of two hundred years are these three things. But today, Mr. Chairman, every one of them — habeas corpus, the right of free meeting, and a free press — is annihilated in every square mile of the Republic. We live today, every one of us, under martial law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastile, with a warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis XIV, any man whom he pleases. And you know that neither press nor lips may venture to arraign the Government without being silenced. At this very moment one thousand men at least are “bastiled” by an authority as despotic as that of Louis.... For the first time in our history government spies frequent our great cities.(14)
And Rhodes quotes protests of Robert C. Winthrop, in a speech of November 2, 1864 — almost three years later — of “newspapers silenced and suppressed at the tinkling of an executive bell a thousand miles away from the scene of hostilities.”(15)
And Rhodes goes on:
Yet the matter did not go unquestioned. Senator Trumbull introduced a resolution asking information from the Secretary of State in regard to these arrests, and, in his remarks supporting it, pointed out the injustice and needlessness of such procedure. ‘What are we coming to,’ he asked, ‘if arrests may be made at the whim or the caprice of a Cabinet Minister?’ and, when Senator Hale asked, ‘Have not arrests been made in violation of the great principles of our Constitution?’ no one could gainsay it....
In truth, the apprehension of men in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, and northern New York on suspicion that they were traitors, instead of leaving them to be dealt with by the public sentiment of their thoroughly loyal communities, savored rather of an absolute monarch than of a desire to govern in a constitutional way.(16)
Rhodes quotes from a letter from Schleinden to Sumner: “One of the most interesting features of the present state of things is the unlimited power exercised by the Government. Mr. Lincoln is in that respect the equal, if not the superior, of Louis Napoleon”(17); and Rhodes refers, too, to “the comparison constantly made in England between the coup d’etat of Louis Napoleon and the coup d’etat of Abraham Lincoln,” and, excusing the use of such power, adds, “The county attorney of Illinois had assumed the power of a dictator”(18) — and this as early as July, 1861.
Rhodes’ History of the United States is one of the latest records in this matter. While he eulogizes Lincoln as ardently as any other, he speaks of “the enormity of the acts done under his authority,” and says, “he stands responsible for the casting into prison of citizens of the United States to be counted by thousands on orders as arbitrary as the Lettres de Cachet of Louis XIV,” when the mode of procedure might have been, “as in Great Britain in her crises between 1793 and 1802, on legal warrants,” and he pronounces Lincoln’s conduct “inexpedient, unnecessary, and wrong.”(19) And Rhodes says more specifically on the same page, “After careful consideration... I do not hesitate to condemn the arbitrary arrests and the arbitrary interference with the freedom of the press in States which were not in the theatre of the war and where the courts were open... that the offenders should have been prosecuted according to law, or, if their offenses were not indictable, permitted to go free.” Besides all this, Rhodes gives unqualified commendation to Governor Seymour for a patriotic spirit and proper jealousy for his country’s liberty shown in his bitter opposition to Lincoln’s usurpations, and shows how very far Seymour’s resentment towards Lincoln went. Rhodes even calls Lincoln a “tyrant.” Of a proclamation issued two days after the edict of Emancipation (Sept. 24, 1862) he says, after giving particulars of it, that it “applied to the whole country.... and was the assumption of the authority exercised by an absolute monarch.”(20) And he quotes Joel Parker, Professor of Law in Harvard, as follows: “Do you not perceive that the President is not only an absolute monarch, but that his is an absolutely uncontrollable government, a perfect military despotism?” And Rhodes says of Curtis, a Justice of the Supreme Court, that “he now published a pamphlet, entitled Executive Power, which called Lincoln ‘a usurper’ and his power ‘a military despotism.” And Rhodes adds, “Indeed it is not surprising that it gave currency to an opinion that he intended to suppress free discussion of political events.”(21)
Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia for 1864 calls the Wade-Davis Manifesto, which will be described below, “a bitter attack on the President, remarkable as coming from the leaders of his own party,”(22) and this Rhodes quotes without dissent(23) and even gives the following commendation of Wade and Davis: “Their criticism of the Executive for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus for arbitrary arrests, for the abridgment of the freedom of speech and of writing, was justly taken and undoubtedly had influence for good on the legislation of the session.”(24) This commendation, like what he gives Seymour and others for bitter opposition to Lincoln and denunciation of him, sounds strange, coming from Rhodes.
Rhodes twice concedes Lincoln’s full responsibility for the despotic acts of his ministers, Stanton and Seward,(25) but appends to the latter the following — a feeble defense indeed:
It is not probable that Lincoln of his own motion would have ordered them, for although at times he acted without warrant of the Constitution, he had a profound preference for it.... It was undoubtedly disagreeable to him to be called by Vallandigham “the Caesar of the American Republic,” and by Wendell Phillips “a more unlimited despot than the world knows this side of China,” and to be aware that Senator Grimes described a call at the White House, for the purpose of seeing the President, as “an attempt to approach the footstool of the power enthroned at the other end of the Avenue.”(26)
The above follows his account of very notable arrests arbitrarily made in Northern States.(27)
William A. Dunning, President of Columbia University, says in his Essays on the Civil War, dated 1989, that President Lincoln’s Proclamation of September 24, 1862, was “a perfect plot for a military despotism,” and that “the very demonstrative resistance of the people to the Government only made the military arrests more frequent,” and that “Mr. Lincoln asserted the existence of martial law... throughout the United States.”(28) He says, “thousands were so dealt with,” and that “the records of the War Department contain the reports of hundreds of trials by military commissions with punishments varying from light fines to banishment and death.”(29)
Lalor’s Encyclopedia says the records of the Provost Marshal’s office in Washington show thirty-eight thousand political prisoners, but Rhodes says the number is exaggerated.(30) Holland’s Lincoln shows that when Lincoln killed, by “pocketing” it, a bill for the reconstruction of the Union which Congress had just passed, Ben Wade and Winter Davis, aided by Greeley, published in Greeley’s Tribune, of August 5th, “a bitter manifesto.”(31) It is charged that the President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law “holds the electoral vote of the rebel States at the discretion of his personal ambition,” and that “a more studied outrage on the authority of the people has never been perpetrated.” A.K. McClure’s Lincoln and Men of the War Times(32) gives the same account.(33) Channing says:
Many persons in the North thought that the Southerners had a perfect right to secede if they wished. Some of these persons sympathized so thoroughly with the Southerners that they gave them important information and did all they could to hinder Lincoln in conquering the South. It was hard to prove anything against these Southern sympathizers, but it was dangerous to leave them at liberty. So Lincoln ordered many of them to be arrested and locked up. Lincoln now suspended the operation of the writ of habeas corpus. This action angered many persons who were quite willing that the Southerners should be compelled to obey the law, but did not like to have their neighbors arrested and locked up without a trial.(34)
And Channing goes on, “The draft was bitterly resisted in some parts of the North, especially in New York city.”(35)

Endnotes

1. It is interesting to compare these words with those in which John Paul Jones gave a warning to the great Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, when Jefferson asked and obtained from him an elaborate memorandum of his views of the merits of the Constitution when it was finished. His words in the memorandum are as follows:
Though General Washington might be safely trusted with such tempting power as the chief command of the fleet and the army, yet, depend on it, in some other hands it could not fail to overset the liberties of America.... Deprive the President of the power or the right to draw his sword and lead the fleet and the army, under some plausible pretext or under any circumstances whatever, to cut the throats of part of his fellow citizens in order to make himself tyrant over the rest.
2. C.C. Chesney, A Military View of Recent Campaigns in Virginia and Maryland (London, England: Smith, Elder, and Company, 1863), Volume II, page 131.

3. Chesney, ibid., page 149.

4. James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States (New York: MacMillan Company, 1902), Volume IV, page 164.

5. War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume II, page 788.

6. Ibid., page 791.

7. Ibid., page 795.

8. Ibid., pages 938, 956.

9. Rhodes, History, Volume IV, pages 175, 253.

10. Rhodes, ibid., page 254.

11. Official Records, Serial Number 135, page 388.

12. Reference: Ibid.

13. Rhodes, History, Volume III, page 555.

14. Rhodes, ibid.

15. Rhodes, ibid., page 534.

16. Rhodes, ibid., pages 556, 557. Lincoln has been accused by no one else of “capriciousness.” Does not this book show that the States Rhodes names, and all the rest where these despotic methods were used, were not “thoroughly loyal,” and that at least four of them would have joined the Confederacy if Lincoln had not restrained them by these methods and other similar defiance of all constitutional restraint?

17. Rhodes, ibid., page 442.

18. Rhodes, ibid., page 514.

19. Rhodes, ibid., Volume IV, page 230. “Wrong” it was, doubtless; but was it inexpedient or unnecessary? Without it would the people of the States called “loyal” have continued the war or re-elected Lincoln?

20. Rhodes, ibid., pages 169-172.

21. Rhodes, ibid., page 170.

22. Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1864 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1865), page 307.

23. Rhodes, History, Volume IV, page 487.

24. Rhodes, ibid., page 229.

25. Reference: Rhodes, ibid., pages 169, 556.

26. Rhodes, ibid., page 556.

27. Reference: Rhodes, ibid., pages 555-557.

28. William A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (1898), pages 24, 39.

29. Dunning, ibid., page 46.

30. Reference: Rhodes, History, Volume IV, page 230.

31. J.G. Holland, Life of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Massachusetts: Gurdon Bill and Company, 1866), pages 476ff.

32. A.K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Times Publishing Company, 1892).

33. See also James Schouler, History of the United States of America Under the Constitution (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899), page 331ff.

34. Edward Channing, Short History of the United States (New York: The Macmillam Company, 1900), page 331.

35. Channing, ibid., page 332.

But two of my ancestors were killed in the ape's war.

Maybe you should blame Jeff Davis? He started it.

that has to rank as one of FR’s dumbest posts ever eh?

Certainly. I notice that said poster has yet to respond to anyone. Tucked tail and ran?

I have been biting my tongue reading through the revised crap they are spewing... It’s so far off that I wonder if it came from the Kremlin itself to keep us separated (infighting).

I definitely get a strong sense of “jackass” coming from them every time they accuse us Southerners of being one... I honestly can’t tell if they are liberal, are just need to read some actual education/history.

I always like reading the history of the USA (and, of course the War of Northern Aggression), but I avoid the threads here because it turns into something as bad as this has.. and gets nowhere :/

Much I want to say... but I don’t want to feed the revisionists.. and I prefer staying below their radar :p

Anyway, thak you all for having the patience to put up with it..

Bikk

Boy if anyone wanted to see exactly how divisive that particular symbol is, all they would have to do is take a gander at this thread!

"...Hopefully the kid will take history classes and learn that the Confederacy is not a fit symbol for "Southern pride"..."

You are wrong, as usual. Your overt hatred of all things Southern makes your comments 2-dimensional and predictable.

What Chet99 is to pitbull threads you are to any thread referencing the South or Southern values.

Just because a thing is Southern don't make it automatically racist.

"My Southern family has been, and continues to be, Republicans."

Good, then my post had nothing to do with you but was directed at those who support the JACKASS party both north and south.

"The democratic party of those times was not the same as that of today."

Sure they are....DUmocrats of then and now seek to split apart this nation. Both then and now the party actively seeks out America's enemies to join them in that cause.

"The KKK of the post Civil War era, was not the same as that of today."

The Klan wasn't started to bring anyone to justice, quite the opposite....not sure where that revisionist history is coming from. The hooded thugs were formed by southern DUmocrats to terrorize anyone sent to impose law in the south.

You know, you can just post a link to whatever rebel website you did the cut and paste from. It's easier.

For example?

To begin with, half your quotes are an attemtp to portray Lincoln as a racist, which when judged by today's standards he certainly is. But if you are going to label Lincoln intolerant for these quotes then if you are at all honest don't you also have to condemn men like Lee and Davis and Jackson for views towards blacks that make Lincoln look good by comparison? If you want to be at all honest that is.

Let's look at the quotes you took out of context, shall we?

“If I could save The Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it” — Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Horace Greeley

There's more to that. The quote, in context, goes:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."

Puts a whole new view on it, don't you think?

“I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District [of Columbia].” — Abraham Lincoln, 1862

Another quote out of context. What Lincoln wrote was:

"I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District, not but I would be glad to see it abolished, but as to the time and manner of doing it. If some one or more of the border-states would move fast, I should greatly prefer it; but if this can not be in a reasonable time, I would like the bill to have the three main features---gradual---compensation---and vote of the people"

Clearly Lincoln supported emancipation in the District but worried about the timing and the means.

“The point the Republican party wanted to stress was to oppose making slave States out of the newly acquired territory, not abolishing slavery as it then existed. “ — Abraham Lincoln in a speech at Peoria, Illinois

What exactly do you find offensive about this quote and the rest where Lincoln denies wanting to end slavery where it existed? I would think that as a confederate supporter you would be all for it. You may have an issue with his opposition to expanding slavery but you would support the continuation of slavery were it existed.

Mr. Wendell Phillips said that Lincoln was badgered into issuing the emancipation proclamation, and that after it was issued, Lincoln said it was the greatest folly of his life.

Absolutely false without a shred of evidence to support it.

It is my purpose to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the government existing there.”

Lincoln supported voluntary emigration. So what? So did James Monroe, John Breckenridge, and Robert Lee. Do you condemn those men as well?

“If we turn 200,000 armed Negroes in the South, among their former owners, from whom we have taken their arms, it will inevitably lead to a race war. It cannot be done. The Negroes must be gotten rid of.”

One problem with that. Lincoln never said it.

OK I've got to ask. What kind of idiot gets a tattoo on the inside of their mouth?

Bangers and banger wanna-bees.

...and, of course the War of Northern Aggression...

Talk about revised crap!

Boy if anyone wanted to see exactly how divisive that particular symbol is, all they would have to do is take a gander at this thread!

Too True.

So is the state flag of Mississippi racist and anti-American?

My father always told me when you enlist you sign away much of this freedom...he has seen Army soldiers when he served in Korea who were reprimanded (for any tatoo) and disciplined for “destruction of military property”.

Two guys in my outfit were charged with the same crime because they got sunburned on one 80 degree day(very rare during the 2 full summers I was there) in Germany back in the early 60s. They couldn't work for 3 days and were brought up on charges.

So is the state flag of Mississippi racist and anti-American?

In my opinion? No. What the people of Mississippi choose to fly over their state property is their concern and not mine. I said earlier that I thought the recruiter had overreacted on the whole tattoo issue.

From one who is still in the armed forces...we
(and our tattoo’s) are everywhere!!!!
Some have the stars and bars in their pockets at all times...its a required part of the uniform!! (hahaha)

Also we just took a tour of Gettysburg as a unit, Lots of confederate kepi’s were bought and worn that day and we are a unit from the north..

It takes a strong personal constitution to actually read history and find out that your country is every bit a much run by propaganda as the Soviet Union was and act on the facts. These pro-Lincoln liberals only follow him on these threads because they are for Obama’s view of a Communist central government and the dissolution of the States.

“Sorry, I’ve never seen either a Mexican flag “

I have.

You have a hard time believing historical facts, so this doesn’t surprise me.