....................... 
Slavery for 4 years..................... Slavery for 86 years.
Which flag has deeper history of Slavery?
(ignore the 48 stars)
Posted on 10/19/2004 5:14:54 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
As I drove down 5th street yesterday, I spied a bumper sticker that addresses an issue I have been waiting for an excuse to write about. It was in the back window of a pickup truck, whose ability to operate I found simply amazing, strategically situated between an empty gun rack and another sticker depicting Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame) urinating on "Osama" with a devilish grin on his face.
I will leave the "Osama" reference and defamation of an innocent newspaper comic strip character alone for the purposes of this article, and will concentrate on the content of the other bumper sticker. It was a simple, Confederate flag, next to which was written the words, "Heritage not Hate". Now, if I have ever read something more deserving of one of my diatribes, I cannot recall.
This statement, which for the record I believe to be sheer nonsense, speaks of an issue with which I had very limited experience before relocating to North Carolina, but an issue of importance nonetheless.
All my life, the Confederate flag was something of a joke to me. M history classes in high school and earlier had taught me that the Confederate defeat during the Civil War was a good thing, that the moral argument against slavery (espoused by the Lincoln government in Washington) was a black and white issue, about right and wrong, and that the Union triumph is 1865 was righteous.
Granted, the history I was taught spoke from a biased perspective, from the moral high ground of the abolitionists and northern intellectuals, and never really addressed the true, underlying reasons for the Civil War, which I would come to learn much later. After considering all the information I have been able to locate on the subject, after long hours of trying to understand just where the Confederacy was coming from and why they wanted to defend their way of life, I have come to a few conclusions.
Naturally, these conclusions reflect my upbringing and Northern perspective, and I am more than confident than my loyal readers will have more than a few comments of their own to contribute.
First of all, "Heritage not Hate", is an extreme cop out. Sure, the Confederate flag, displayed in the year 2004, some 140 years after the actual conflict ended, may stand for some long forgotten Southern pride issue. It may stand for the struggles that people in the Southeastern region of the United States suffered through and the wars that they fought.
It may stand for some perceived difference between the North and South, which apparently has persisted to this day, and may fondly recall the era of Southern dominance of the United States.
Woops, little mistake there. The South has never "dominated" anything. It is another region within the greater whole, just as it was then and remains so today. As for the "Not Hate" part of the bumper sticker, a more laughable statement I cannot recall. There are far too many damning coincidences that will forever relegate the Stars and Bars to the level of racist propaganda.
Why is it that hate groups all over the country, to this day, fly the Confederate flag as a symbol of their ideology. White Supremacist organizations,
, the sad, pitiful remnants of the Klu Klux Klan, along with many other neo-Nazi and racially motivated groups all include the Confederate flag amongst their symbols of worship.
Is this coincidence? Are people who fly the Confederate flag, be it in bumper sticker form or on the end of a flagpole, trying to align themselves with such openly evil and backward-thinking organizations? I don't think so. I think that people fly the flag to recall the once glorious Confederated states of America and celebrate their history, while at the same time somehow overlooking the racial implications inherent in the very symbol they hold so high.
Make no mistake. Whether you choose to recognize it or not, the fact remains the same: The Confederate flag is a racist symbol. It was during the Civil War, it remains so today. I challenge anyone to show me an African-American person with a Confederate Flag bumper sticker or "The South will rise again" written in their computers screensaver.
Is this a coincidence? You would sooner find a swastika flying outside the Israel embassy as you would a Confederate flag flying at an N.A.A.C.P rally. To me, the symbols have long been morally relative to each other. Both stand for hate, oppression, and the wanton murder and destruction of a group of people because of some perceived inferiorities. Plantation owners in the South, before and during the Civil War, treated slaves the same way they treated horses and sheep.
They were not human beings, quite the contrary. They could be bought and sold like farm equipment and with as much compassion. So to during the Nazi era in Germany; Jews were not considered people in the same way that German citizens were, therefore their wholesale murder could be justified. Anyone who cannot see the glaring similarities between the Confederate flag and the Swastika needs to pick up a history book and do some research.
If you care to display a symbol that represents the brutality and viciousness and lack of humanity that was involved in something like the slave trade, as the Confederate flag clearly does, you are entitled. The first Amendment to the Constitution allows you the freedom to display just about whatever you care to, but consider this. If you are going to fly the Stars and Bars, don't sugar coat it. Don't downplay the racial aspects and idealize the cultural aspects. They are one in the same.
Be up front and honest about your feelings. Confederacy= Hate I think would be a far more realistic bumper sticker, and as we speak I am in negotiations to have a number of said bumper stickers produced. Let us just call a spade a spade and forget about the "Heritage not Hate" nonsense. It is hateful, you know it is, and beating around the bush about it only takes away from the power of the argument. Let the responsive mud slinging commence!
Fort Sumter contained U.S. soldiers manning their post. Why should the leave the fort when it was U.S. property?
The south legally left the union, or don't you know your constitution. Amendment 10 - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It seems to me that modern jurists have ignored this ammendment.
I've read it. I disagree with your contention that unilateral secession was a power reserved to the states.
It was never about slavery. Historians know that, you should too. It was about the constitution and the right of the states.
Of course not. I suppose that's why slavery was by far the single most often mentioned reason for the rebellion.
Whereas, slaveholders in the North treated their slaves with kindness and generosity and brotherhood, which is the only reason the North did not invade Delaware and Maryland.
Slavery in the South stood for hate, oppression, and the wanton murder and destruction of a group of people. Slavery in the North stood for kindness and brotherhood. There is no moral relativism there. There was a clear-cut distinction.
Genocide of the native Indian population was God's will. (In the WBTS, Indian nations allied with the CSA. Apparently they knew somebody was slaughtering them and the buffalo, and it wasn't the CSA.) (It sure was nice of them Indians to just give us all that land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.)
With Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court (8-1) found segregation was Constitutional. (That is the Supreme Court of the USA, not the CSA.)
The Act of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat 103-104) provided:That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof....
Chinese were excluded until 1943.
For true Nazi-like behaviour, one should look at the actions of General Ulysses S. Grant. He threw the whole 12 tribes of Israel out of his district, on 24 hours notice. Indeed, Grant wrote in an official order, "The Israelites especially should be kept out."
O.R. Series 1, Vol. 17, Part 2, p. 330
LA GRANGE, TENN., November 9, 1862.
Major-General HURLBUT, Jackson, Tenn.:
Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out.
What troops have you now, exclusive of Stevenson's brigade?
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
O.R. Series 1, Vol. 17, Part 2, p. 337
LA GRANGE, November 10, 1862.
General WEBSTER, Jackson, Tenn.:
Give orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them.
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. 13TH A. C., DEPT. OF THE TENN.,
Numbers 11.
Holly Springs, December 17, 1862.
The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.
Post commanders will see that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters.
No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.
By order of Major General U. S. Grant:
JNO. A. RAWLINS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
O.R. Series 1, Vol. 17, Part 2, p. 421
O.R. Series 1, Vol. 17, Part 2, p. 422
HDQRS. THIRTEENTH A. C., DEPT. OF THE TENN.,
Oxford, Miss., December 17, 1862.
Honorable C. P. WOLCOTT,
Assistant Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:
I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the spice regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department, but they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel everywhere. They will land any wood-yard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves they will act as agents for some one else, who will be at military post with a Treasury permit to to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold.
There is but one way that I know that I know of to reach this case; that is, for Government to buy all the cotton at a fixed rate and sent it to Cairo, Saint Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all traders (they are a curse to the army) might be expelled.
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
Another damnyankee shooting off his mouth about something of which he knows nothing.
Tennessee in June 1861 became the first in the South to legislate the use of free black soldiers. The governor was authorized to enroll those between the ages of fifteen and fifty, to be paid $18 a month and the same rations and clothing as white soldiers; the black men appeared in two black regiments in Memphis by September.
Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995) pp. 218-219
Citing the official US Census of 1830, there were 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-"Selling Poor Steven", American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90
Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers' Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378
"In 1650 there were only 300 negroes in Virginia, about one percent of the population. They weren't slaves any more than the approximately 4,000 white indentured servants working out their loans for passage money to Virginia, and who were granted 50 acres each when freed from their indentures, so they could raise their own tobacco.
Slavery was established in 1654 when Anthony Johnson, Northampton County, convinced the court that he was entitled to the lifetime services of John Casor, a negro. This was the first judicial approval of life servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
But who was Anthony Johnson, winner of this epoch-making decision? Anthony Johnson was a negro himself, one of the original 20 brought to Jamestown (1619) and 'sold' to the colonists. By 1623 he had earned his freedom and by 1651, was prosperous enough to import five 'servants' of his own, for which he received a grant of 250 acres as 'headrights.'
Anthony Johnson ought to be in a 'Book of Firsts.' As the most ambitious of the first 20, he could have been the first negro to set foot on Virginia soil. He was Virginia's first free negro and first to establish a negro community, first negro landowner, first negro slave owner and as the first, white or black, to secure slave status for a servant, he was actually the founder of slavery in Virginia. A remarkable man." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/johnson.html
I found the reference, out of Michael A. Hoffman II's "They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America" : Joseph Cinque was himself a slave trader, selling his fellow blacks into this horror after he himself was set free by a US court.
Amistad producer Debbie Allen calls this destabilizing fact a "rumor." She'd better. If the thinking public, black and white, discover that "noble" Cinque later sold his own people in the very manner he condemned, then there will be a second mutiny, this time against Spielberg and his shameless hoaxing.
Here is Samuel Eliot Morrison, one of the most distinguished of American historians, writing in his "Oxford History of the American People,"
(New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1965), p. 520:
"The most famous case involving slavery, until eclipsed by Dred Scott's, was that of the Amistad in 1839. She was a Spanish slave ship carrying 53 newly imported Negroes who were being moved from Havana to another Cuban port. Under the leadership of an upstanding Negro named Cinqué, they mutinied and killed captain and crew. Then, ignorant of navigation, they had to rely on a white man whom they had spared to sail the ship.
"He stealthily steered north, the Amistad was picked up off Long Island by a United States warship, taken into New Haven, and with her cargo placed in charge of the federal marshal. Then what a legal hassle! Spain demanded that the slaves be given up to be tried for piracy, and President Van Buren attempted to do so but did not quite dare.
"Lewis Tappan and Roger Sherman Baldwin, a Connecticut abolitionist, undertook to free them by legal process, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. John Quincy Adams, persuaded to act as their attorney, argued that the Negroes be freed, on the ground that the slave trade was illegal both by American and Spanish law, and that mankind had a natural right to freedom.
"The court with a majority of Southerners, was so impressed by the old statesman's eloquence that it ordered Cinqué and the other Negroes set free, and they were returned to Africa. The ironic epilogue is that Cinqué, once home, set himself up as a slave trader."
(End quotation from historian Samuel Eliot Morrison)
BLACK SLAVEOWNERS
http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm
Child slavery today in West Africa?
http://gbgm-umc.org/nwo/99ja/child.html
Slavery throughout historyhttp://www.freetheslaves.net/slavery_today/slavery.html
"To pursue the concept of racial entitlement--even for the most admirable and benign of purposes--is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American."
--Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take it away from those who are willing to work and give it to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps the group that had the strongest vested interest in seeing the South victorious were the black slaveowners. In 1830 approximately 1,556 black slaveowners in the deep South owned 7,188 slaves. About 25% of all free blacks owned slaves. A few of these were men who purchased their family members to protect or free them, but most were people who saw slavery as the best way to economic wealth and independence for themselves. The American dream in the antebellum South was just as powerful for free blacks as whites and it included the use of slaves for self-improvement. They bought and sold slaves for profit and exploited their labor just like their white counterparts.
Richard Rollins
After their capture one group of white Virginia slave owners and Afro-Virginians were asked if they would take the oath of allegiance to the United States in exchange for their freedom. One free negro indignantly replied: "I can't take no such oaf as dat. I'm a secesh nigger." A slave from this same group, upon learning that his master had refused, proudly exclaimed, "I can't take no oath dat Massa won't take." A second slave agreed: "I ain't going out here on no dishonorable terms." On another occasion a captured Virginia planter took the oath, but slave remained faithful to the Confederacy and refused. This slave returned to Virginia by a flag of truce boat and expressed disgust at his owner's disloyalty: "Massa had no principles." Confederate prisoners of war paid tribute to the loyalty, ingenuity, and diligence of "kind-hearted" blacks who attended to their needs and considered them fellow Southerners.
Ervin L. Jordan, Jr.
The last thing the UN is trying to do is reduce slavery throughout the world!
There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach and in the destruction of lives.
Contact Us
Staff Contact Information
October 22, 2003
The East Carolinian
Second Floor Old Cafeteria Complex Greenville, NC 27858
Phone: 252.328.6366
FAX: 252.328.6558
Amanda Lingerfelt
Editor in Chief, TEC 252.328.6557 editor@theeastcarolinian.com
Robbie Derr
Features Editor 252.328.6366 features@theeastcarolinian.com
Tony Zoppo
Sports Editor 252.328.6366 sports@theeastcarolinian.com
Tanesha Sistrunk
Photo Editor 252.328.6366 photoeditor@theeastcarolinian.com
Nina Coefield
Head Copy Editor 252.328.6366 copyeditor@theeastcarolinian.com
Stephanie R. Whitlock
Graphic Designer 252.328.5366 whitlocks@mail.ecu.edu
Advertising Department
252.328.2000 ads@theeastcarolinian.com
Got a news tip?
Call 252.328.6366 Email editor@theeastcarolinian.com
.......................
Slavery for 4 years..................... Slavery for 86 years.
Which flag has deeper history of Slavery?
(ignore the 48 stars)
This is a fine example of a **** Yankee. :)
I bought a Stars and Bars flag several years ago at Chattanooga/Chickamauga National Battlefield and hung it up in my apartment's living room. Nobody who ever saw it knew what the heck it was or that it was a "Confederate flag."
}:-)4
Actually, "shooting up" Ft. Sumter has been misunderstood.
Ft. Sumter was a firing range for Confederate Gunners. The Yankees made the mistake of standing down range :)
Noni....Who invaded who? The South didn't invade the North.
So the term "War of Northern Agression" is more acurate.
Nah, I want him to go to Boston because liberals always seem to think that Boston is some sort of multicultural, englightened Mecca. I remember what happened up there when they tried to bus students around to integrate the schools in the mid-70s, AFTER every school in the South was integrated. Anybody else remember what went on in South Boston about that time? A little racial nastiness, perhaps?
}:-)4
I "fly" the CBF as an emblem on my SCV state license tag. Those who have problems with it will usually demonstrate their hatred first.
To have been aged 18 to 40 in 1861 and not have fought, one had better have been disabled, despite their ideology of slavery. Many fought because it was the honorable neighborhood thing to do, to protect their way of life from an invader. Those who didn't enlist for service were considered worse then than the Vietnam draft evaders of the 60's & 70's.
That being said, I'm proud to fly the CBF in honor of the sacrifice my grandparents made. Rather than "running", they stood, they fought, many died, and they fought honorably.
Yet when one of my grandparents finished his service as a Corporal, when he arrived back home, he threw his jacket underneath his house for his dog to sleep on because the time of warring with our Northern counterparts had come to an end. The war was over. He hung his muzzle-loader by the triggerguard on a nail under a shed on the tobacco barn. There it stayed until the guard rusted into and it fell on the ground and broke the stock. The last time it was fired would be on the day he died in 1917.
Ft. Sumter was in the CSA not the USA and had no lease agreement or treaty that would allow them to maintain a military presence in the CSA.
The 10th Amendment is the seperation between the federal government and the state government. Most liberals tend to believe, as you, that the states have no individual rights. So you understand, there is NO right in the Constitution that prohibits a state from leaving the USA, therefore, the 10th Amendment takes over and gives the States the authority to make those decisions on their own. This also goes for Abortion, state right to permit/disallow religion in public facilities, and even speed limits. Unfortunately, liberal jurists interpret the Constitution however they wish and continue to "read into" the Constitution rather than take the document literally as the signers intended.
On the war/slavery issue. Prior to Lincoln's election (1857, 1858) he stated he had no intention to emancipate the slaves. His intention with attacking th south was to stop the seperation of the states. Additionally, he illegally arrested Maryland legislators who were on their way to vote on secession and also arrested the governor of Delaware who was ready to approve secession.
The states had a right to leave, and did so. They were brought back in by force and NEVER reapproved for statehood, thereby making them still seperated from the USA.
What good is the Constitution if judges interpret it any way they want? No more prayer in schools (not in the Constitution). No more Pledge of allegiance (not in the Constitution). Federal government determining whether a woman has the right to let a baby live or die (I missed the Constitutional amendment that makes unborn babies property (slaves).
Amen.
The U.S. wound up invading Japan and Germany in World War II. Does that make the U.S. the aggressor? Or where Germany and Japan the aggressors, regardless of invasion, because they initiated the war? The south resorted to war when they fired on Sumter. Having intiated hostilities you can hardly complain when war comes to you, now can you?
Well, I suppose it depends on the viewpoint now doesn't it?!
To Southerners, LINCOLN was the aggressor. He could have withdrawn the troops from Southern Soil, as was requested. He chose not to do so, and to attempt to resupply said troops, KNOWING FULL WELL, that the Confederacy would never tolerate such actions. So therefore he started the ball rolling. And to compare Germany and Japan is totally assinine! Both of those countries committed actions of agression FIRST. The South never invaded the North. So once again, the term "War of NORTHERN AGRESSION" is correct.
One wasn't necessary. Fort Sumter was the property of the federal government and even had the southern acts of secession been legal that does not automatically transfer ownership to the Davis regime. Sumter would remained U.S. property until Congress voted to dispose of it.
The 10th Amendment is the seperation between the federal government and the state government. Most liberals tend to believe, as you, that the states have no individual rights. So you understand, there is NO right in the Constitution that prohibits a state from leaving the USA, therefore, the 10th Amendment takes over and gives the States the authority to make those decisions on their own. This also goes for Abortion, state right to permit/disallow religion in public facilities, and even speed limits. Unfortunately, liberal jurists interpret the Constitution however they wish and continue to "read into" the Constitution rather than take the document literally as the signers intended.
That is complete idiocy. The states are guaranteed considerable amount of freedom under the Constitution, but only those not reserved to Congress or forbidden under the Constitution. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to admit states and approve any change in their status. That includes leaving. Had the southern states tried to leave in the same manner as most of them joined, with the approval of a majority of the other states through a vote in Congress, then the south would be a separate country today.
On the war/slavery issue. Prior to Lincoln's election (1857, 1858) he stated he had no intention to emancipate the slaves. His intention with attacking th south was to stop the seperation of the states. Additionally, he illegally arrested Maryland legislators who were on their way to vote on secession and also arrested the governor of Delaware who was ready to approve secession.
Complete nonsense. Lincoln's aim was to preserve the Union and prevent the southern rebellion. Your claims about the Maryland legislature and the governor of Delaware are 9 parts myth and only one part truth. Like most southron arguements.
The states had a right to leave, and did so. They were brought back in by force and NEVER reapproved for statehood, thereby making them still seperated from the USA.
In theory there is absolutely no reason why a state cannot leave the Union. But logically it should be done in the same manner as states are admitted. And that is through a majority vote in both houses of Congress.
Amen.
Whatever.
It's election time. It is also time to start playing the race card again. Same old play book.
Maybe it is mentioned since those that won the war wrote the history books.....How about that theory?!
Well of course he is, since southerners have to justify the war somehow. But Lincoln took no hostile actions against the south, other than holding on to that property not already seized by the southern states. He did not threaten Charleston, did not fire on anyone regardless of provocation. Lincoln set out to resupply Charleston rather than allow it to be starved into surrender. He made his intentions clear in a letter to Governor Pickens. There need have been no war at all, except that the south chose to start one.
And to compare Germany and Japan is totally assinine! Both of those countries committed actions of agression FIRST.
Bombarding Sumter into submission would certainly qualify as an act of aggression.
The South never invaded the North. So once again, the term "War of NORTHERN AGRESSION" is correct.
The south started the war. The North took the war to them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.