Posted on 01/20/2016 5:03:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.
During the "Civil War," ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels" (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861).
"For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." (Horace Greeley, in his book, "The American Conflict").
"Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number (of Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde" (report by Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission).
In April 1861, a Petersburg, Virginia, newspaper proposed "three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg" after 70 blacks offered "to act in whatever capacity" had been "assigned to them" in defense of Virginia.
Those are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served as soldiers, freemen and slaves on the side of the Confederacy. The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite so simple as the nation's race "experts" make it. They want us to believe the flag is a symbol of racism. Yes, racists have used the Confederate flag as their symbol, but racists have also marched behind the U.S. flag and have used the Bible. Would anyone suggest banning the U.S. flag from state buildings and references to the Bible?
Black civil rights activists, their white liberal supporters and historically ignorant Americans who attack the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic Southern black ancestors who marched, fought and died not to protect slavery but to protect their homeland from Northern aggression. They don't deserve the dishonor. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a black professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."
It is a "thing" acknowledged and protected by constitutional guarantee. If it is indistinguishable in appearance from a "right", the fault lies with the people who wrote and ratified the guarantee of it.
Had they not done so, they couldn't have kept England at bay anyway. The war of 1812, (primarily a war of offensive behavior to Northern sailors and shipping interests) would have ended early the great experiment that is the United States.
My reply is that you will likely see presently that Lincoln exceeded those standards you named in your previous response, but you do not know the particulars of it yet.
I'm hoping Pea Ridge will post the appropriate letters showing what Lincoln actually did, specifically those belligerent things of which most people are unaware.
I could find them again myself, but I think Pea Ridge knows exactly where they are.
Why am I not surprised that you don't seem to know about King George III the fruitcake?
You are also getting my point wrong. Lincoln was WORSE than King George the III, because Mad King George stopped the bloodshed after 15,000 casualties.
The truth is not that simple.
Confederate States President Jefferson Davis described the attack by Lincoln's fleet on Charleston Harbor in his Message To the Confederate States Congress April 29, 1861:
"That this maneuver (Lincoln's surprise attack) failed in its purpose was not the fault of those who contrived it. A heavy tempest delayed the arrival of the expedition and gave time to the commander of our forces at Charleston to ask and receive the instructions of this Government. I directed a proposal to be made to the commander of Fort Sumter that we would abstain from directing our fire on Fort Sumter if he would promise not to open fire on our forces unless first attacked.
"This proposal was refused and the conclusion was reached that the design of the United States was to place the besieging (Confederate) force at Charleston between the simultaneous fire of the (U.S.) fleet and the fort. There remained, therefore, no alternative but to direct that the fort (Sumter) should at once be reduced."
The Constitution acknowledges the existence of slavery in the United States in others articles of the Constitution also, But acknowledgement of its existence does not protected as a right. The Federal government end the importation of slaves, it could prevent slaves from being transported to the territories yet to be states. The lack of conferral of legal standing to the institution of slavery was a compromise made to get a Constitution that all of the colonies would buy into.
Thanks
I do not understand what motivated the Northern soldiers to fight and die for four bloody years, except to end slavery.
Preserving the Union, and preserving the tax revenue from Southern states, are too nebulous, and are too distant, to create that kind of dedication.
By the way, my great-great grandfather, an Illinois farmer and Lutheran minister, was wounded at Pea Ridge. My Dad, now dead, had a really cool photograph of himself and his older brother marching with my G-GG in a Civil War veterans parade in Chicago.
And that's 5,000 to 10,000 percent more than you revisionists Yankees usually admit to.
I grew up believing the Union was right, and Lincoln was a hero. Ironically enough, it was my best friend in High School who is black, and who was majoring in History when he was attending college, that corrected my previous understanding.
He out and out told me that Lincoln deliberately and with malicious aforethought, engineered the start of the civil war. While he was chortling to himself about how clever Lincoln was, I was thinking to myself that the whole thing was a horrible tragedy. That so many people shouldn't have needed to die to resolve this.
From the Official Records:
March 28, 1861, the US Congress adjourned.
March 29, 1861
To the Secretary of the Navy
I desire that an expedition, to move by sea be go ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum attached: and that you co-operate with the Secretary of War for that object.
Signed: Abraham Lincoln
The memorandum attached called for:
From the Navy, three ships of war, the Pocahontas, the Pawnee and the Harriet Lane; and 300 seamen, and one month's stores.
From the War Department, 200 men, ready to leave garrison; and one year's stores.
April 1, 1861 by General Scott
April 2, 1861 approved by Abraham Lincoln
To: Brevet Colonel Harvey Brown, U.S. Army
You have been designated to take command of an expedition to reinforce and hold Fort Pickens in the harbor of Pensacola. You will proceed to New York where steam transportation for four companies will be engaged; — and putting on board such supplies as you can ship without delay proceed at once to your destination. The object and destination of this expedition will be communicated to no one to whom it is not already known. Signed: Winfield Scott
Signed approved: Abraham Lincoln
April 4, 1861
To: Lieut. Col. H.L. Scott, Aide de Camp
This will be handed to you by Captain G.V. Fox, an ex-officer of the Navy. He is charged by authority here, with the command of an expedition (under cover of certain ships of war) whose object is, to reinforce Fort Sumter.
To embark with Captain Fox, you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about 200, to be immediately organized at fort Columbus, with competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence, with other necessaries needed for the augmented garrison at Fort Sumter.
Signed: Winfield Scott
Love of country. If your government orders you to fight, and threatens to hang or imprison you if you don't, that's pretty good motivation. If they toss on a cherry like "ending slavery", of course that's what you're gonna tell people you fought for. Of course "ending slavery" didn't become a goal of the war until about two years after it started.
Preserving the Union, and preserving the tax revenue from Southern states, are too nebulous, and are too distant, to create that kind of dedication.
For the common man certainly. For the movers and shakers that order them to do it, it was not nebulous at all. It was one of their prime concerns.
When are you going to stop backing the losing side?
I did not misunderstand you. Lincoln ordered those men to war for his reasons...not theirs’.
You are simply unaware of the facts.
Pea Ridge is the name of the family farm in South Carolina, located northwest of Columbia by about 25 miles. Historians state that Sherman moved northeast from Columbia. I can assure you his “bummers” were foraging out at least that distance from his flanks....burning, killing livestock, and stealing anything of value.
You know the answer, non-sequitur. How many times have you been banned from FR for being the commie troll that you are?
2.2 million Union soldiers fought, and 365,000 Union soldiers died, over a four year period, simply because “Lincoln ordered” them to war?
You are right.
I must be unaware of the facts.
I have never been banded from this site. Have been booted off of DU a few times though. Still unwilling to answer the question. I think I know why.
Thrill us with your insight, non-sequitur.
(Never been "banded" from this site? Interesting choice of words......)
I grew up in Md. Legend has it four people in the county voted for Lincoln, and they were asked to leave. Breckinridge carried the state.
Using Hollywood and a fictional character. Says it all Lampster.
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