Looking back at the Confederacy with modern eyes

Fort Worth Star-Telegram ^ | January 22, 2007 | JERRY PATTERSON (Texas Land Commisioner)

[Dog Gone]

Any attempt to judge our history by today's standards -- out of the context in which it occurred -- is at best problematic and at worst dishonest.

For example, consider the following quotations:

"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished."

"[T]here is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

By today's standards, the person who made the first statement, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, would be considered enlightened. The person who made the second, President Abraham Lincoln, would be considered a white supremacist.

Many believe that the War Between the States was solely about slavery and that the Confederacy is synonymous with racism. That conclusion is faulty because the premise is inaccurate.

If slavery had been the sole or even the predominant issue in sparking the Civil War, this statement by Lincoln is puzzling: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it."

If preserving slavery was the South's sole motive for waging war, why did Lee free his slaves before the war began? In 1856, he said slavery was "a moral and political evil in any country."

Why was Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation effective in 1863 rather than when the war started in 1861? And why did it free only the slaves in the Confederacy and not in Northern or border states?

If slavery was the only reason for the Civil War, how do you explain Texas Gov. Sam Houston's support for the Union and for the institution of slavery? In light of the fact that 90 percent of Confederate soldiers owned no slaves, is it logical to assume they would have put their own lives at risk so that slave-owning aristocrats could continue their privileged status?

There are few simple and concise answers to these questions.

One answer, however, is that most Southerners' allegiance was to their sovereign states first and the Union second. They believed that states freely joined the Union without coercion and were free to leave.

You could say they really believed in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- the "powers not delegated" clause. They believed that the federal government should be responsible for the common defense, a postal service and little else. They viewed the Union Army as an invader, not an emancipator.

I am not attempting to trivialize slavery. It is a dark chapter in our history, North and South alike.

However, I am a proud Southerner and a proud descendent of Confederate soldiers. I honor their service because, to me, it represents the sacrifice of life and livelihood that Southerners made for a cause more important to them than their personal security and self-interest.

I'm aware of the genocidal war conducted by my country against the American Indian, but I'm still a proud American. And I'm also aware of the atrocities that occurred at My Lai, but I am proud of my service as a Marine in Vietnam.

If the Confederate flag represented slavery, the U.S. flag must represent slavery even more so.

Slavery existed for four years under the Stars and Bars and for almost 100 years under the Stars and Stripes.

If the few hundred members of racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan want to adopt the Confederate flag as their symbol, over the objections of millions of Southerners, should we believe it has been corrupted for all time?

Given that the KKK has adopted the cross for its burnings, should churches across the country remove this symbol of Christian faith from all places of worship?

Should we diminish the service of the Buffalo Soldiers (black U.S. cavalry troopers of the late 1800s) because they were an integral part of a war that subjugated and enslaved the Plains Indians?

No. We should not surrender the Confederate flag or the cross to the racists, and we should not tear down the monuments.

Retroactive cleansing of history is doomed to failure because it is, at heart, a lie. We should memorialize and commemorate all of our soldiers who served honorably -- those who wore blue or gray or served as Buffalo Soldiers -- whether or not we in today's enlightened world completely support their actions.

---

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. As a state senator, he sponsored legislation establishing the Juneteenth Commission for the purpose of funding a Juneteenth monument on the Texas Capitol grounds.

[brityank]

" It has been to a large extent assumed that negro slavery was the cause of that war. This is not strictly true. It was the occasion of the war, but not the principal cause of the war. The real cause of the war was sectional jealousy, the greed of gain, and the lust of political power by the Eastern States. The changing opinions of civilized nations on the subject of slavery furnished the occasion which enabled political demagogues to get up a crusade which enabled them in the end to overthrow, in part at least, the Constitution of the United States, and to change the character of the Federal government by a successful revolution."
[Address of Hon. John H. Reagan, only surviving member of the Confederate States Cabinet, before the R. E. Lee Camp, at Fort Worth, Texas., April 19, 1903.]

... the lust of political power by the Eastern States. ... ... enabled political demagogues to get up a crusade which enabled them in the end to overthrow, in part at least, the Constitution of the United States, and to change the character of the Federal government by a successful revolution.

Nothing much has changed; we still have the Eastern Establishment (and their allies on the Left Coast) denigrating the desires and aspirations of Fly-over Country.

[Non-Sequitur]

My God, you have swallowed the confederate kool-aid down to the bottom of the barrel, haven't you?

The Treaty of Paris was not signed with the "United States", as the current federal entity is known, but with the above listed "free, sovereign and independent states", being united in the matter of signing a treaty with England.

Well, no. If you bother to read the preamble you would see it's between George III and the United States. If you look in Article 3, Article 6, Article 8, you see the it is the United States mentioned, not individual 'sovereign' states. The documents is signed by representatives of the United States, not the individual states. Finally the King of England did not supercede the Articles of Confederation.

If my neighbors and I hire a real estate expert to be our agent in negotiating with a mall developer, it would be absurd in the extreme that this expert would later take legal measures and use coercion to prevent any of us from withdrawing from our agreement to engage him, especially if he started to get abusive, hike his fees and send his hit men to strong-arm us into using his brother's trash service and to otherwise pay him for "protection".

I have absolutely no idea what point you're trying to make here.

You can post all day long that Congress passed laws legalizing Confiscation of people and states in rebellion, but that only serves to prove my point, for Confiscation is a taking that is in violation of the Constitution itself. The very reason the States sought to leave the union was exactly because it had become an abusive relationship, one that increasingly bore no relationship to the original deal.

And I would point out that just because you say it was done in violation of the Constitution doesn't make your statement factually correct. The Supreme Court examined the issue and upheld the Constitutionality of the confiscation acts.

They had every right to seek to peacefully leave. When that was no longer an option, they had every right to leave under whatever circumstances they could manage.

They had no right to walk away from obligations built up by the nation as a whole while they were a part, or to walk off with whatever federal property they could get their hands on. And they had no right to walk out unilaterally, as the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v White.

[Non-Sequitur]

JERRY PATTERSON forgot to mention that when Robert E. Lee freed his slaves BEFORE THE WAR and declared slavery an abomination, Ulysses S. Grant purchased a female slave to be his wife's servant.

Robert Lee did not free his wife's slaves until December 1862.

JERRY PATTERSON also forgot to mention that with the end of the war, and the right to vote being bestowed upon the freed slaves, the right to vote was taken away from the white population. The KKK came about only because of the disenfranchisement of the southern white voters.

They why did they take it out on the black population?

[x]

Well said. There's a lot to agree with in what you say. But people are going to have different understandings of the Confederacy.

If your great-great-grandfather was an ordinary soldier it may strike you as obvious that the Confederacy "never had a new philosophy or dogma other than 'we don't want to be dominated by you and forced to change our ways.'"

If you come at it through books, and read what the militant fire-eaters who pushed secession through wrote, you'll disagree, and think that the founding politicians of the Confederacy very much did have an ideology, and not one that most Americans would approve of today.

The problem with these controversies is that people are fighting over symbols which we can only cheer or jeer. When we put things in words, there's a lot that we can agree on, but if it's a yes or no argument about whether to fly a flag or not in a given place at a given time, it's harder to find common ground.

[Dog Gone]

The arguments about the Civil War will last here at this forum and elsewhere for many more generations. There were good people and bad people on both sides of the war, although I'd argue the good far outnumbered the bad.

The cost to the country was incalculable, not only in terms of the horrific casualties sustained on both sides, but in damage to infrastructure, and lost opportunities.

And then there were the decades of Reconstruction and the bitterness on both sides that accompanied that. Much of that has been healed today, but it's obvious that there is still lingering bitterness by those not willing to put that behind them. I would have thought a couple epic wars that we engaged in as united country since that time, with the descendants of Union and Confederate veterans fighting side by side for America against a common enemy, would have erased the animosity, and it probably has for the most part.

But there is a whole new generation who wants to use the symbols of the Confederacy to press a new agenda, one which I think dishonors the real sacrifices of those who happened to live below the Mason-Dixon line. It's not right.

I think many of us who still remember and honor those who fought in the Civil War are paying respect to those who had a part in a glorious and horrible struggle, one which changed this nation forever.

Those who want to keep the wounds open, long after all those who participated in that struggle are gone, are not doing so out of honor. And that applies equally to those who continue to sneer at the South, and those in the South who continue to refer to the war as "The War of Northern Aggression."

And those race-baiters who want to erase any reference to the Confederacy in pursuit of a completely different agenda are the lowest of them all.

[contemplator]

Ulysses S. Grant purchased a female slave to be his wife's servant. Grant's slave remained a slave until the 13th amendment to the constitution.

Do you have a source for this? The only slave I have ever read about in conjunction with Grant was one whom his father-in-law foisted upon him. Although he was under extreme pressure due to a lack of money, he opted to free the slave rather than sell him.

[contemplator]

I stand corrected. Grant freed his slaves just before the war.

Please do a little research before passing on outright myths. In Mary Robinson’s July 24, 1885, recollections, during an interview for the St. Louis Republican memorial to Grant following his death, she noted that “he always said he wanted to give his wife’s slaves their freedom as soon as he was able.” In 1859, Grant freed William Jones, the only slave he is known to have owned. This is the slave that his father-in-law foisted on him, Grant never owned a femlae slave. The 13th Amendment did not pass until 1865.

In regards to slavery, the only bit of slander anyone has been able to stick to Grant was the fact that he was heard to have said to his fellow officers at the outset of the war that he was not fighting to free the slaves. Keep in mind that during this period abolitionist sympathizers were not popular in the Northern officer corps. Grant definitely needed the support of his fellow officers if he was to be effective in any leadership position, and it is likely that these statements were made out of the necessity.

Grant's wife was the sister of his West Point roommate, and they married shortly after Grant grauduated from the academy. Although she was from a slave holding family, Grant went out of his way to seperate himself from the institution of slavery on moral grounds. His father, Jesse Grant was an ardent, outspoken abolitionist. It is entirely likely that Grants true views on the matter were heavily influenced by Jesse.

His actions as president made it very clear where he stood on the matter. U.S. Grant was probably one of the most moral of all of our presidents. His record on civil rights far surpasses all other U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson who would not have been able to accomplish anything had he not been able to enforce the work Grant had already done and had been virtually ignored for almost 100 years.

[atomic conspiracy]

The left's objective in seeking to destroy Confederate monuments and demonizing Confederate symbols is obviously not to address some kind of historical wrong or set the record straight.
They know nothing, and care less, about the facts of history and would cheerfully re-write them in a second if it suited their purposes. Their real objective is to gain more power, the power to influence, the power to command, the power to coerce and subjugate by criminalizing and dismissing the views of others.
The ongoing historical debate is simply an opportunity to do that and, demonic beasts that they are, they reflexively seize that opportunity.
What would you expect from an ideology that is built around using government power to rob their neighbors and substitue government largesse for personal responsibility?

[M. Espinola]

"If it is "divisive" to make comments defending the south, why is it not divisive to make comments attacking it"

You are demonstrating clear signs of a self inflicted inferiority complex, plus the fact of being overly P/C on the dead issue of the very lost cause.

"Finally, just for fun and since you brought it up, how many casualties would have occurred in the Civil War if the Union had permitted the Confederacy to secede?"

What an incredible irresponsible comment. in your view it's fine to break up America, slash it in two and in 1860 the ruling slavocracy would have continued and expanded - just ducky..(sarc)

It must have been a real kick in the head when segregation ended as in the final nail in the coffin of 'the pro-slavery/segregationist south will never rise again'. Not all is lost, you could always set up a small lunch counter in your cellar - and sit they all by yourself .....

[TN4Liberty]

Another thing liberals like to do when confronted with logic that is beyond them is call names. I'm not saying you are liberal, but you sure make conservatives look bad.

You have yet to see the disconnect in your logic when you say that people who disagree with your point are divisive, but you are not. That was my point, yet you just want to call names. Your logic is flawed, regardless of what happened 140 years ago.

Trust me, you don't give me an inferiority complex. Not even close.

Maybe your attitude about this is so strongly held that you cannot see the problem with that logic. I obviously don't have the words to show it to you. So I give up. Go continue to make stupid arguments.

[stainlessbanner]

Bringing up the rear. Just in case you missed this one.

Thanks for the pings, friends. Keep up the good work.

[StoneWall Brigade]

Thanks for the ping SB

[RobbyS]

To placate Sistani.

[Van Jenerette]

If all things related to the Confederacy are 'bad' then:

SHOULD WE CHANGE the names of FEDERAL MILITARY FORTS AND POSTS NAMED TO HONOR CONFEDERATE GENERALS

If the flag flown to honor our dead soldiers is racist, bigoted, wrong, and a painful reminder of slavery then isn't it logical that it would be 'racist, bigoted, and a painful reminder of slavery' for to continue to honor the names of Confederate Generals above federal military installations in this country?
With places like Fort Bragg named for Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and Fort Benning named in honor of BG Henry Benning and Fort Rucker, Alabama, Fort Polk, Fort Hood, Fort Lee, Fort A.P. Hill; all named in honor of Confederate officers who led these soldiers - what is the standard?
Will these same voices demand the Secretary of Defense to change the names of the Federal military installations named in honor of the Confederacy and its leaders?
Every soldier that is stationed and serves at one of these forts, is in a sense honoring a Confederate General and the Confederacy every day; even when they write their addresses on a letter home to their families. What is the standard; is there one set of rules for the federal government and another for the states?
The truth is that the American Civil War is not so simple to slice it into a black and white issue. Brothers fought brother, Irish fought Irish, Jewish Confederates fought Jewish Union soldiers, there were Confederate Native American units as well as Hispanic Confederates and Black Americans served on both sides of that war. Complexity is central to the issues that led to that terrible war and complexity continued right into the conduct of that war. And it remains complex to this day.
The fact is, we as a people have become a new American that is not simply black or white or yellow or brown and millions of Americans today, of all races and colors, are descendants of soldiers who served on both sides in our Civil War. We have a common history and a shared heritage and it is time we move on.

One of the largest and most impressive sites at Arlington Cemetery is the Confederate Memorial Monument...

Of course there is a Confederate Monument at Arlington - a very very large monument. Remember, it has only become Politically Incorrect to honor our fallen Southern heros and our Battle Flag for about the past 10-years. By the turn of the last Century (1900) the soldiers who fought the war, and the Federal Government had a great deal of respect for each other and in 1900 a section in Arlington was authorized for the exclusive burial of Confederates soldiers and their wives.

The Memorial Monument was sculpted by Moses Ezekiel who also made a famous statue of George Washington. Ezekiel served as a Sergeant of Company C of the Cadets, Virginia Military Institute during the Civil War. After that service, he graduated from VMI in 1866 - he is buried near the base of the Memorial. He was also a Jewish Confederate. Yes, there were many of them along with Native American Confederates, Hispanic Confederates and even Black Confederates.

The cornerstone of the Monument was laid in 1912 and one of the speakers was James Tanner, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic(Union Veterans Organization). The Monument was dedicated on June 4, 1914 with President Woodrow Wilson making the principal address before a crowd which included thousands of former Union and Confederate soldiers.

Anyway, there is pretty good site which contains some great pictures and information of the Arlington Confederate Monument itself at the following: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/csa-mem.htm

More information on specific Confederate burials at Arlington National Cemetery is at: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/csa.htm

A few that may be of particular interest is a Canadian Confederate Jerry Cronan one of 40,000 Canadians who had fought in the American Civil War, Joseph Wheeler
Lieutenant General, Confederate States, Major General, United States Army and a Member of the United States Congress, and Juliet Ann Opie Hopkins Nurse, Confederate States of America who was wounded in battle and was called the "Florence Nightingale of the South." and many others.

For additional information check out the official US Government Arlington site at: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/Confederate_Memorial.html

Even President George W. Bush has kept alive the tradition of the wreathat the Confederate Memorial at Arlington:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/csa-mem-bush.htm

Map of Confederate Memorial: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/interactive_map/Section16.html#17

Images from Google: http://images.google.com/images?q=confederate+memorial+arlington&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

 

NOTE: I'm sorry for the History Lesson, but I have to repress a head-shake when someone buys into the Neo-History of the South and the Politically Correct attitude towards Confederate names. How many people realize that there are dozens of FEDERAL MILITARY INSTALLATIONS today that are named in honor of Southern Generals? I suppose these same people would take issue with Ft. Bragg - home of our Special Forces and Delta Force - etc. Bragg was a Confederate General....just go down the list and see for yourself. Ft. Benning, Fort Lee, Fort Polk...etc....maybe we need to rename these Federally Funded 'Confederate Honoring' Military Bases to something more PC?! Fort Jane Fonda? Fort Bill Clinton - Fort Lincoln....oy vey!

Katherine & Van Jenerette

www.jenerette.com

www.jenerette.com/desertstorm

Arlington Cemetery Main Page & Information

Images from the Monument

The South Carolina State & National Flag

[Van Jenerette]

Perspective time; please remember history, if we arn't careful we'll have to pull Abraham Lincoln out of our schools or rename Ft. Worth Texas, because Hispancis will discover he fought and killed their ancestors in the Mexican War. Uh, oh; so did Grant - change the money....etc...etc...
Lincoln re-affirmed his strong support for gradual emancipation coupled with resettlement in his second annual message to Congress of December 1, 1862 and this proposal had five basic elements:

1. Because slavery was a "domestic institution," and thus the concern of the states alone, they -- and not the federal government -- were to voluntarily emancipate the slaves.

2. Slave-holders would be fully compensated for their loss.

3. The federal government would assist the states, with bonds as grants in aid, in meeting the financial burden of compensation.

4. Emancipation would be carried out gradually: the states would have until the year 1900 to free their slaves.

5. The freed blacks would be resettled outside the United States.

Bottom line: History is pretty rough on many sides and we're stuck with it.

A few more tidbits:

In early 1863, Lincoln discussed with his Register of the Treasury a plan to "remove the whole colored race of the slave states into Texas."

source: 102. N. Weyl and W. Marina, American Statesmen on Slavery and the Negro (1971), pp. 228-229. Source cited: L. E. Chittenden, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.; Lincoln apparently also gave consideration to setting aside Florida as a black asylum or reservation. See: Paul J. Scheips, "Lincoln ... , " The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 37, No. 4 (October 1952), p. 419.

The attempt to keep changing names of things to satisfy the uneducated could go on an on. We need to stop it.

[RobbyS]

The South, it seems, went to war for the reason opposite to that for which the Old Northwest went to war. We went to war to keep the slaves as our property; the Northwest went to war to keep our property out of Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

[stainlessbanner]

Hi Van Jenerette - great posts.

In 1862, Lincoln addressed some freedmen by persuading them to relocated to Liberia or Central America. Lincoln states Blacks and Whites cannot live together. An image of the 1862 original newspaper article is here

[stainlessbanner]

Great book, Nephi. You can listen Professor Dilorenzo's lectures here

[LeoWindhorse]

Deo Vindice !

[Van Jenerette]

http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jala/14.2/vorenberg.html