Posted on 12/16/2023 9:27:14 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
1/ Within the next several days, barring intervention from Congress, the Biden Regime, in violation of the law, will remove the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, commissioned to celebrate the reconciliation of North and South.
@blueandgray1864 @oilfieldRando
2/ The memorial is considered the masterwork of the renowned Jewish-American sculptor Sir Moses Ezekiel (a former Confederate soldier who was described by his biographer as “adamantly opposed to slavery") who is buried at its base.
3/ Ezekiel, knighted by the King of Italy, was so dedicated to North-South reconciliation that he would later host commanding Union General Ulysses S. Grant at his studio.
4/ Yet in the wake of the George Floyd moral panic, this memorial was scheduled for removal, though its removal is being done in violation of several federal laws and the clear text of the legislation, which excludes graves.
5/ As former Democrat Senator and Navy Secretary Jim Webb said:
“What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley understood about the Confederate soldiers who opposed him on the battlefield that eludes today’s monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?”
6/ In fact, at the time it was constructed, some major Confederate groups opposed it because they opposed the reconciliation it symbolized.
7/ Webb, a Vietnam Veteran, has spoken about taking groups of North and South Vietnamese to the monument to show how the U.S. reconciled successfully after a bitter civil war
8/ 44 House Republicans have signed a letter opposing the removal but every Republican should be on record as opposing this lawless action
9/ But of course, this is never *really* about the Confederacy or “Confederate Statues”. The same spirit animated the recent removal of the statue of Thomas Jefferson from the New York City Council, where it had stood for 187 years.
LOL! Ridiculous. No it was not and no it did not promote socialism. Where do you even come up with this antihistorical nonsense? Yes it nationalized war production in some key industries and did claim some property under eminent domain because yes, it was wartime, but practically every country in a major war does that. Yes, the union did similar thing including imposing the first income tax even though that was unconstitutional.
Read freeper LS’s book, and Look Away. The lay the facts out.
Google Salt Socalism.
Also, the article War Socalism, and the Confedrate defeat.
I’ve read tons of books on this. The Confederate government did not promote socialism and was in fact considerably smaller than the Union government.
I’ve read that article. I disagree with its claim that the Confederate government exercised more economic control than the Union government did. The confederate central government’s powers were vastly more limited than those of the US federal government. States did not have to comply to nearly the extent they did in the US.
“Was this even up to debate?! I had thought that it was generally well known that Lincoln himself had said, “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.”
Since the war started, Lincoln’s intentions in fighting the war have been up for debate. Initially Lincoln said he would only fight to collect taxes. That cause did not inspire after the casualties begin to accumulate so other explanations were required.
Even now, on this board, there are those that say there was one, and only one reason for the war: slavery.
See post 24 on this thread: “there was one cause of the actual war, without which there would not have been any war; secession...if you need any enlightenment of the reasons backing secession, read the declarations of cause for the states of SC, GA, TX, and MS...”
And post 143: “I think Lincoln was pretty sure what he intended to do about Slavery. I think the South was pretty sure what he intended to do also. That’s why they left.”
So yes, there is debate.
Sometimes I wonder: Why did the most powerful nation on earth with a pro-slavery constitution fight a smaller nation with a pro-slavery constitution? Was it to force the smaller nation to allow the people in the larger nation to vote for abolition?
That doesn’t make sense and is why I say we may never know the real reasons Lincoln did what he did - unless it did have something to do with money.
Go read Freeper Ls’s book.
That doesn’t make sense and is why I say we may never know the real reasons Lincoln did what he did - unless it did have something to do with money.
Well firstly, freeing the slaves was not his intent in March of 1861 when he openly called for the passage of the Corwin amendment, which would have kept them as slaves until every last state gave them up voluntarily.
And secondly, it was absolutely impossible to free the slaves by keeping the Union together *UNLESS* you used your military force to deny the states their rights to their own elections and own elected representatives, which therefore allowed you to put in puppet governments that *YOU* control.
Which is what Lincoln did. None of those southern states that voted for the 13th amendment would ever have done so without bayonets at their back and commands from Washington DC to do so.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are all illegitimate because they were ratified by military force, and not by consent of the governed.
The US Constitution is not supposed to work that way, and so far as i'm concerned, using military force to control state governments to pass constitutional amendments is absolutely illegal.
So in effect, Lincoln didn't "preserve the Union" what he did was create a dictatorship that was called "the Union", but was in fact quite different from the Constitutional Union they claimed to be preserving.
Had he preserved the actual Union, he never could have freed the slaves. There were 16 slave states. It would take a Union of 66 States to outvote them. We still don't have a Union that big.
I am certainly not able to prove this; and will listen to other views, without debate.
“As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. 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. 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.
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 every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.”
I am sure you can appreciate the distinction between “official duty” and “personal wish”. Or maybe not.
Wasn't a moot point by April of 1861. Arguably, Lincoln may have been doing some historical revisionism in his 1862 correspondence with Horace Greeley which discussed slavery, etc.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are all illegitimate because they were ratified by military force, and not by consent of the governed.
It seems reasonable that rightly or wrongly the 13th / 14th / 15th Amendments were going to be passed after the Civil War. And as you have pointed out in the past, these Amendment built on each other. An example was black suffrage - it was inevitable after the 13th passed. And it would take decades longer before disenfranchisement of blacks voting, anti-miscegenation laws, and the like were rendered enforceable or outlawed altogether.
I am thinking I didn't explain my point clearly enough. You could not have passed those amendments *WITHOUT* the Washington DC government controlling those southern states.
In other words, they weren't ratified by a legitimate government of the citizens, they were ratified by Military decree.
Everyone at the time just looked the other way as the basic concept of "consent of the governed" was turned on it's head so that the group in power could impose it's anti-democratic will on everyone else.
Our constitution was never intended to operate under military rule controlling the states' ratification process.
At the very least, those states should not have been allowed to ratify anything until occupation forces had left. They were not manifesting their own will. They were puppets of Washington DC.
I understand.
But here we are. Perhaps the end result (emancipation, citizenship, black suffrage, etc) could have been achieved by other means. One wonders how much longer slavery, anti-miscegenation laws would have continued in an alternate setting.
Lincoln’s primary interest in preserving the Union was because it was his, sworn to, oath of office. He’d just become Chief Executive. He explains it all in his First Inaugural.
He certainly wasn’t stupid, but you certainly are. How many times has the Corwin Amendment been explained to you? You persist in making a mountain out of a mole hill. The Corwin Amendment pertained to States Rights (to choose for themselves to be Slave or Free). And to expressly and irrevocably keep the Federal Government out of it. That’s all. Period. With non of your pretzel logic. All you Lost Causers must be feeding from the same sty. Others like you are now repeating your hysterical revisionism.
For the purpose of this post, let’s accept at face value what President Lincoln wrote - and your advocacy of it - to Horace Greeley August 22, 1862.
Wrote the President: “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. 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.”
If this quote does nothing else it destroys the argument that Lincoln and the north fought a scorched earth war for some high moral principle like “freeing the slaves.”
The northern states were fighting for their version of the union in which central government control was several percent higher than their economic and political competitors in the south wanted. The northern states were fighting for a union without the ninth and tenth amendments and without the troublesome DOI concept of consent of the governed. Lincoln would accept all the slavery necessary to get that kind of union. At least that is what Lincoln wrote to Greeley that particular day.
It doesn’t make sense to me why you now want to forfeit waving the bloody red slavery card which has been played masterfully for over 150 years. As recently as post 143 you were invoking slavery! slavery! slavery!
If the South did not believe that Lincoln intended to “come for their Slaves”, why did they leave the Union?
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