Posted on 03/28/2008 12:15:10 PM PDT by cowboyway
Over the last few months, celebrations for Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday have drawn attention to the Kentucky native's life and his legacy as president. But the 200-year anniversary of another Kentucky president's birth, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, is receiving mixed reviews.
"I'll say it this way - winners write history," said Ron Bryant, a Lexington historian writing a book on Davis. "We need heroes, we need villains. Lincoln became a hero and Davis a villain."
Davis was born in what is now Todd County, Ky., in 1808, one year before Lincoln. Davis served as the only president of the 11 southern states that seceded from the Union between 1861 and 1865. The Confederate States of America surrendered in 1865, and Davis was locked in prison the same year.
Despite being denounced by many civil rights groups, signs of Davis' legacy can still be found throughout the state.
In Southwest Kentucky, a structure resembling the Washington Monument stands in memory of Davis. At 351 feet tall, the Jefferson Davis Monument is the fourth largest freestanding obelisk in the world, according to Kentucky State Parks.
Although Kentucky never seceded from the Union, a statue of Davis stands in the rotunda in the state's Capitol building.
"The Civil War is still very much alive in many places," said Cliff Howard, a Jefferson Davis impersonator. "Kentucky was on both sides of the fence. It still is."
Having heard of Kentucky's reputation for "being a little backward," integrated strategic communications senior James Davidson Jr. was not surprised about Davis' statue in the Capitol building.
Davidson, first-vice president of UK's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said a statue of Davis leaves a bad impression.
"What is Frankfort saying to the rest of Kentucky with it being there?" Davidson said. "I respect everyone's heritage and Southern tradition, but given the history, I think it shouldn't be there."
The statue of Davis, installed in 1936, is one of five statues in the Capitol building. Lincoln is the largest in the center, and Davis stands in the corner behind his right shoulder. Former Kentucky Congressman Henry Clay, physician and drafter of the state constitution Ephraim McDowell and former Vice President Alben Barkley also stand in the rotunda.
The last time Davis' statue came into debate was 2003, when a coalition of African-American groups protested its presence in the Capitol building. A state advisory committee left the issue up to former Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who took no action during his term.
Gov. Steve Beshear does not plan to remove the statue because Davis is a historical figure who represents part of Kentucky's cultural history, a spokeswoman said.
Student Government President Nick Phelps said his feelings on the statue in the Capitol building resembled how he felt during a controversy two years ago about a 46-foot mural in Memorial Hall depicting the history of Lexington and its surrounding area. The mural, which some said stereotyped American Indians and blacks, was not removed.
"I was not in support of removing the mural, so I would not support removing Jefferson Davis," Phelps said. "I don't think we should remove history. I think it removes the question, 'Who is he?' "
Many students might ask the same question about Davis.
In Kentucky, the Civil War is part of the middle school curriculum. Unless students take an advanced placement history course in high school, that's usually the last time they focus on 19th century American history, said Nayasha Owens-Morton, a U.S. history and African-American history teacher at Bryan Station Traditional High School.
William Campbell has taught a class on Lincoln at UK for about 10 years as an English and honors professor. Students going into his class know little about the confederate president, he said.
"About Jefferson Davis, Kentuckians tend to know that he was from our state, that there's a memorial dedicated to him somewhere in the state, and that he was the president of the Confederacy," Campbell said. "Of Lincoln's writings, most have read only the Gettysburg Address. Of Davis's writings, most have read nothing."
‘Fraid not...he’s too busy posturing...
If my ancestors had gone to war to preserve human slavery, I’d be resorting to idiotic shell games too.
Results 1 - 10 of about 8,530,000 for “abraham lincoln”
It doesn't surprise me that you would make something up.
Typical lying yankee.
The results bar in Google doesn't have quotations around the search text. Simply pathetic.
Cute.
Now, why don’t you and your little doggy scamper back over to the Britney Spears threads.............
How could I set aside a thread filled with your laughable jackass ideas?
What blather are you posting now?
So far you haven't offered a single rebuttal.
Oh, oh! I can tell you why!
You don't have any.................
Sure. What state's right was being denied?
northern reason for initiating hostilities: Politics.
The North did not initiate hostilities, the South did.
Up till now, the South has never started a war...
Other than 1861.
...but we've shown that we won't back down, even in the face of overwhelming odds. We're still like that, so, tread lightly.
Sure. The South gonna rise again. Someday. Maybe. Sooner or later.
Like I've told you before, you yankees should be thanking us for remaining in the union, otherwise, the north would be flying the Hammer & Sickle.
ROTFLMAO!!!! You protected us from the commies but still gave us Clinton and Carter and LBJ. Thanks a lot.
Ridiculous to you, perhaps. But then again your grasp of historical fact has always appeared to be a bit tenuous.
It's hard to imagine how you could top the above statement but you've somehow managed to do so.
You must be using Good Ol' Google or some such website. If I google Abraham Lincoln I get 8,790,000 hits. If I google Jefferson Davis I get 2,160,000. Of course I can google my name and get 12,600 hits, so I wouldn't place too much emphasis on those stats.
I said a 'de facto' acquittal, which it was. Nolle prosequi was a nice tidy way for the corrupt yankee government to extricate themselves from the tangled web they had woven and to not have to face the court of world opinion with a public trial.
In your imagination, perhaps. Legally nolle prosequi implies neither guilt or acquittal.
Nolle prosequi was a nice tidy way for the corrupt yankee government to extricate themselves from the tangled web they had woven and to not have to face the court of world opinion with a public trial.
I dount that world opinion gave a damn about Davis' fate one way or the other.
It has been shown on this thread (see post #66) that Lincoln purposely violated agreements with SC in order to commence hostilities.
Again, in your dreams. Any agreement South Carolina may have had with Buchanan had been violated by them long before Lincoln was inaugurated.
One might ask the same of you. But as I've said many times in the past, I'm on sights like this because for people like you supporting your 'heritage' usually involves lying about mine. Someone's got to correct you.
Yeah. Does this mean that you're done?
Nope. You've caught up to me. I need to stay ahead.
The myths are always written by the losers. The losers always see themselves as the 'victims'.
Do you want to discuss the "Tariff of Abominations" in the 1820's and/or the Nullification Crisis of the 1830's?
Sure. Let 'er rip.
There you go. Economics.
There you go. Myths.
Bin Laden made a point of doing that to us, too. Someday descendents of Al Qaeda veterans will sing praises about his videotaped peacemaking efforts.
What the hell does that have to do with Abe Lincoln?
Davis was never even tried for treason so I don't think that the likes of you can convict him here or anywhere else.
If those damn Yankees were as evil as you portray, Davis would have been shot on sight. Lincoln's policy was reconciliation and reconstruction, not revenge.
These special interests would have suffered serious financial loss if a low tariff Confederate States of America were allowed to peacefully, democratically and constitutionally secede from the United States
Funny how economically, the North prospered during the war without revenue from the South while the southern economy collapsed without Northern markets to sell to.
There was nothing Constitutional about unilateral secession. It was treason and rebellion done for the benftit of a few.
No one ever said it was except guys like you who like to set up straw men.
The Union didn't go to war to end slavery, but the Confederates did go to war to continue the expansion of slavery.
And like in most wars, after the first battles, objectives begin to change. By 1865, the Union was fighting to end slavery, but that is not what they started out to do. That was just a happy by product of a sad chapter.
...And cite comparisons of google search results as some sort of popularity (or relevancy) poll...
Resorting to personal abuse?
That’s a sure sign you’ve lost the argument and you know it.
That was not the issue as much as demographics were. The slave population grew far faster than the white population. By 1860, several of the deep South states had larger slave than free populations. That was fine -- to a point, as long as the demand for slaves in newly settled areas continued. The delemia of the slave economy was two fold. First, minus expansion, with a rapidly increasing supply of slaves and a deminishing demand as the plantation system reached its geographical limits, the value of slaves would plumet destroying the largest single source of wealth in the deep south especially.
Secondly, slavery contained within its current limits would have over another generation or so placed the ever smaller white population in very great risk from a hostile black population. Expansion was also a safety valve that kept the slave populations within controllable limits.
Lincoln and the Republican party's opposition to the further expansion of slavery is what drove the south into secession. They saw their lives and fortunes at risk if slavery were to be contained.
Tough to grow cotton in Nebraska.
True, but the gold, silver and copper mines of the west would have been worked by slaves instead of free men if the Slaveocracy had their way with expansion.
Of 218 replies at this point, you've posted 54 of them.
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