Posted on 10/11/2007 2:41:12 PM PDT by Lorianne
Nelson Winbush is intent on defending the flag of his grandfather. It's just surprising which flag that is. ___
KISSIMMEE -- Nelson Winbush rotates a miniature flag holder he keeps on his mantel, imagining how the banners would appear in a Civil War battle.
The Stars and Bars, he explains, looked too much like the Union flag to prevent friendly fire. The Confederacy responded by fashioning the distinctive Southern Cross -- better known as the rebel flag.
Winbush, 78, is a retired assistant principal with a master's degree, a thoughtful man whose world view developed from listening to his grandfather's stories about serving the South in the "War Between the States."
His grandfather's casket was draped with a Confederate flag. His mother pounded out her Confederate heritage on a typewriter. He wears a rebel flag pinned to the collar of his polo shirt.
Winbush is also black.
"You've never seen nothing like me, have you?"
* * *
Winbush's nondescript white brick house near Kissimmee's quaint downtown is cluttered with the mess of a life spent hoarding history.
Under the glass of his coffee table lie family photos, all of smiling black people. On top sits Ebony magazine.
Winbush is retired and a widower who keeps a strict schedule of household chores, family visits and Confederate events. He often eats at Fat Boy's Barbecue, where his Sons of Confederate Veterans camp meets.
Winbush's words could come from the mouth of any white son of a Confederate veteran. They subscribe to a sort of religion about the war, a different version than mainstream America.
The tenets, repeated endlessly by loyalists:
The war was not about slavery. The South had the constitutional right to secede. Confederate soldiers were battling for their homes and their families. President Lincoln was a despot. Most importantly, the victors write the history.
But Winbush has a conceptual canyon to bridge: How can a black man defend a movement that sought to keep his people enslaved?
* * *
Winbush is one of at most a handful of black members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in the country. He knows skeptics question his story and his sanity.
To win them over, he pulls out his grandfather's pension papers, reunion photos and obituary. He also gives speeches, mostly before white audiences.
Winbush believes the South seceded because the federal government taxed it disproportionately. It was a matter of states' rights, not slavery, which was going extinct as the United States became more industrialized, he says. He denies that President Lincoln freed the slaves, explaining that the Emancipation Proclamation affected only the Confederate states, which were no longer under his authority.
"It was an exercise in rhetoric, that's all," Winbush says.
His views run counter to many historical accounts. Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III, the field operations chief for the NAACP, called Winbush's arguments illogical. Rivers spoke with Winbush by telephone a few years ago, intrigued by his position. Rivers remembers him being loud and sincere, holding fast to his convictions.
"I was courteous and respectful and respectfully disagreed with him," Rivers said. "This is America. He has a right to believe what he wants to."
At one speech, Winbush stood in front of the square battle flag that draped his grandfather's coffin, retelling the stories he has told so many times that the words emerge in identical iterations.
At the end of his talk, he held the microphone to a stereo and played a song by the Rebelaires, with a sorrowful, bluesy rhythm: "You may not believe me, but things was just that way. Black is nothing other than a darker shade of rebel gray."
Once other Confederates recognize that his story is real, they love him. Opponents often attack white Confederates as ignorant or racist. Winbush is harder to dismiss. If nothing else, the naysayers are more willing to listen.
"It kinda wipes out the whole segregation and hate and racism issue," said Christopher Hall, 29, commander of Winbush's SCV camp. "Coming from him, that really can't be an argument."
* * *
Winbush's views were once more widespread, even in the land of theme parks and turnpikes.
Florida was the third state to secede. Its Civil War governor, John Milton, shot himself rather than rejoin the North, telling the Legislature, "Death would be preferable to reunion." Former Gov. Lawton Chiles defended the Confederate flag in 1996 when black lawmakers asked for its removal from the Capitol.
"You can't erase history," Chiles said at the time.
But now neo-Confederates are losing this second war of culture and memory.
Confederate flags are coming down, especially from the tops of Southern statehouses, including Florida's in 2001.
The agrarian Bible Belt has become the Sun Belt, full of northerners with few deep roots in the area. Identification with the South as a region has declined since the World War II era, which united the country with patriotism and the interstate system. Areas of South Florida, for instance, are known better as the sixth borough of New York than part of the Deep South.
High school teachers don't preach the righteousness of the South. And historians, for the most part, agree that the Civil War was about slavery, undermining the standard neo-Confederate argument.
But Confederate loyalists are digging in. Winbush considers the South his homeland. And his family history, because it's rarer than that of white Confederates, is in danger of extinction.
* * *
Slowly, in his deep, rough voice, Winbush tells the story of a young slave from a Tennessee plantation named Louis Napoleon Nelson, who went to war as a teenager with the sons of his master.
"They grew up together," Winbush says.
At first his grandfather cooked and looked out for the others, but later he saw action, fighting with a rifle under the command of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader and plantation owner.
At Shiloh, a two-day battle in 1862 in which more than 23,000 American men were killed or wounded, the Confederate Army needed a chaplain. Louis Nelson couldn't read or write, but he had memorized the King James Bible.
He stayed on as chaplain for the next four campaigns, leading services for both Confederate and Union soldiers, before they headed back to the battlefield.
He also foraged for food. One time, he killed a mule, cut out a quarter and hauled it back to his comrades.
"When you don't have anything else, mule meat tastes pretty good," he would tell his grandson.
Some topics even the loquacious grandfather considered off limits. He wouldn't talk about the Union siege of Vicksburg, a bloody battle that captured an important Mississippi River port and effectively split the South.
After the war, he lived as a free man on the James Oldham plantation for 12 more years. Then he became a plasterer, traveling the South to work on houses.
Over the years, he went to 39 Confederate reunions, wearing a woolly gray uniform that Winbush still has.In photos, he stands next to two white men who accompanied him to soldiers' reunions until they were old men. Through the sepia gleams a dignity earned on the battlefield.
"When he came back, that was storytelling time," Winbush says.
His grandfather died in 1934 at the age of 88. The local paper ran an obituary that called him a "darky." Winbush is proud that his grandfather's death was marked at all.
* * *
Winbush grew up in the house his grandfather built in 1908, a two-story yellow structure with a wraparound porch in Ripley, Tenn. The Oldham plantation, where his grandfather was a slave, provided the wood in recognition of his loyalty to the family.
Winbush and his siblings lived in a family of educators. His grandmother and mother were teachers. He says he first went to school as a baby in a basket.
All three children went to college. Winbush studied biology in hopes of becoming a doctor but didn't have enough money for medical school. He switched to studying physical education.
Winbush moved to Florida in 1955, a year after the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision mandated school desegregation. Like many around the country, Osceola County schools remained segregated for several more years.
He didn't mind the divide because he felt both black and white students got a better education by not being able to use racial conflict as an excuse. When the superintendent, a friend of his, decided it was time to integrate in the late 1960s, Winbush agreed. The time had come, he thought, when people could accept the change.
Winbush thinks that people will get along if they know each other. He says he never suffered any blatant racism. The small Southern towns he lived in were familiar and accepting.
He remembers the "I Have A Dream" speech that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He respects King but disagrees with his reverence for Lincoln.
Winbush wasn't moved by the speech. King was just speaking the truth, he says, but it didn't change the daily reality of blacks.
* * *
Winbush's convictions about the war lay dormant until 1991, when the NAACP began an all-out campaign against the Confederate flag, saying it was a symbol of hatred. It vowed to have it removed from public places by the end of the decade.
Winbush saw it differently, and he was retiring. He no longer worried about what some "Yankee boss" would think.
"I got fed up about all this politically correct mess," he says.
He joined the Sons and started speaking at their events. He twice appeared before the Virginia Legislature to dissuade them from taking down the flag. He collects clippings of newspaper stories written about his speeches. One shows him posing in front of a statute of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Winbush acknowledges that misuse of the Confederate flag has made it a symbol of hate in some people's eyes. But he says the American flag is just as racist. Troops of color are sent to die disproportionately in American wars, he says, and the Stars and Stripes flew above slave ships.
Rivers, the NAACP official, said people like Winbush need to let go of their family history and admit that all people, even those now dead, are imperfect.
"Just because your grandfather was wrong does not mean you can't break the generational curse and not be wrong too," he says.
* * *
Winbush is the last direct link to his grandfather, someone who heard the stories firsthand and felt the passion.
He feels the legacy of Confederate soldiers like his grandfather won't survive unless the history is passed within families, from one generation to the next.
But it's not easy. Even Winbush's son, a Naval Academy graduate who works for IBM, once suggested Winbush donate his Confederate collection to a museum.
"This is the only way some people will find out what did happen," he said. "The history books leave it out."
Winbush knows he won't be around forever. He only hopes that someone will continue to tell the stories.
Times researchers Carolyn Edds and John Martin contributed to this report. Stephanie Garry can be reached at sgarry@sptimes.com.
An opponent of the Rebel Flag. Nuff said.
I might also add that she's atypical of the type of people Georgia usually sends the Congress. She was purely the product of Voting Rights Act racial gerrymandering.
You asked...
Thanks for mentioning the Neely works. I didn't know about them. It confirms a big picture of abusive Confederate government the is in accord with all the local histories I've read of my area.
And it's refreshing to see a reference to a real scholar's work on these threads as opposed to DiLorenzo's glorified toilet paper.
And as usual, no reb seems very interested in discussing the reign of Tyrant Jeff. I guess it's hard enough defending the Confederacy without acknowledging they teated southern white people badly as well.
I most certainly did, because Georgia has traditionally has had one of the finest congressional delegations sent to Washington. To find exceptions you have to single out specially gerrymandered oddities, who actually agree with you on the Confederacy related issues under discussion in these Dixie threads.
Georgia delegation ACU ratings for 2006:
Kingston (R): 92
Bishop (D): 64
Marshall (D): 72
McKinney (D): 9
Lewis (D): 4
Price (R): 92
Linder (R): 96
Westmoreland (R): 92
Norwood (R): 92
Deal (R): 92
Gingrey (R): 92
Barrow (D): 76
Scott (D): 32
The two complete nutjobs, McKinney & Lewis, are in specially gerrymandered districts, and those two representatives are the products of political movements that foam at the mouth at the sight of a Confederate Flag. In other words, they're your allies on this issue.
And it's refreshing to see a reference to a real scholar's work on these threads as opposed to DiLorenzo's glorified toilet paper.
Mark Neely is a typical Lincoln cultist. Everything Lincoln did no matter how unconscionable was somehow in aid of some higher purpose, despite everything Lincold says to the contrary; while the southerners, who were trying to fend off an invasion somehow had nefarious ulterior motives for every action they took.
DiLorenzo on the other hand is a careful and meticulous scholar. You don't have to take my word for it. Just compare book rankings on Amazon and you can clearly see who is more credible.
TYPO!!! ...has traditionally had...
If Amazon rankings are now the measure of academic credibility, "The DaVinci Code" is far more credible than either work.
You say that, and I'd be willing to bet that not only have you not read either of his books but that you had never even heard of him prior to 7:48:18 PM on the 14th when I posted their titles.
Everything Lincoln did no matter how unconscionable was somehow in aid of some higher purpose, despite everything Lincold says to the contrary; while the southerners, who were trying to fend off an invasion somehow had nefarious ulterior motives for every action they took.
Of course you would say that. No crime is too great for you to excuse. The fact of the matter is that the 'nvasion' you use to justify the unconstitutional actions of Jeff Davis and his congess was self inflicted. And that Davis and his congress ignored their own constitution in ways any legitimate government would not have contemplated.
DiLorenzo on the other hand is a careful and meticulous scholar. You don't have to take my word for it. Just compare book rankings on Amazon and you can clearly see who is more credible.
All the Amazon rankings show is that Tommmy's book is more popular. Which is not surprising, fiction generally outsells serious history by a considerable margin. But to use your standards, wouldn't you have to agree that Tommy Dilusional's scholarship in "The Real Lincoln" pales in comparison to the scholarship Dan Brown put into "The DaVinci Code"?
It must really suck to be you - a pathological liar with a Bizzaro-wold MBA.
It was a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. No one had suspended the privilege, and I correctly pointed out that President Jefferson had requested that Congress suspend the privilege. You are the one lying - it's your nature. The case says exactly what I have stated, that it was a petition to the court for habeas corpus. From Justice Marshall, As preliminary to any investigation of the merits of this motion ... [what motion?]
A writ of habeas corpus was granted. The following day - with 4 justices hearing the case - a majority held that Bollman and Swartwout should be released from custody.
The inquiry therefore on this motion will be, whether by any statute, compatible with the constitution of the United States, the power to award a writ of habeas corpus, in such a case as that of Erick Bollman and Samuel Swartwout, has been given to this court. ... [has the court the power?]
The appropriate process of bringing up a prisoner, not committed by the court itself, to be bailed, is by the writ now applied for. Of consequence, a court possessing the power to bail prisoners not committed by itself, may award a writ of habeas corpus for the exercise of that power. ... [it has]
If, by the sound construction of the act of congress, the power to award writs of habeas corpus in order to examine into the cause of commitment is given to this court, it remains to inquire whether this be a case in which the writ ought to be granted. ... [what would prevent the court from doing so]
If the act of congress gives this court the power to award a writ of habeas corpus in the present case, it remains to inquire whether that act be compatible with the constitution. ... [has the privilege been suspended?]
If at any time the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this act in the courts of the United States, it is for the legislature to say so. [not the President, the legislature is the body that can suspend the privilege.]
The motion, therefore, must be granted.
So Chief Justice Marshall's comments were made in dicta.
The issue before the court was a petition for habeas corpus. Since the LEGISLATURE had not suspended the privilege, the court ruled that it could issues the writ. From Lectlaw.com: dicta - The part of a judicial opinion which is merely a judge's editorializing and does not directly address the specifics of the case at bar; extraneous material which is merely informative or explanatory.
What is the dictum stated in the case?
Of equal interest is what Justice O'Connor had to say on the subject during an address ...'
Not a court opinion.
Justice Rehnquist was even more explicit on the subject in an address to a Tidewater Bar Association dinner ...
Not a court opinion.
Given that two distinguished Supreme Court justices have clearly said that the question has not been answered, I find your continued insistence that you, personally, have answered it to be a bit, well, pathetic.
O'Connor avoids the issue, Rehnquist is simply one of hundreds of justices entitled to the own personal opinion. But again, Justice O'Connor's comment certainly doesn't agree with her LATER judicial opinion, in which she held that the writ of habeas corpus 'has remained a critical check on the Executive' I doubt very seriously that Justice O'Connor believed the Executive could suspend the writ.
Not really. At least I seem to have a firmer grasp on reality. You seem to be slipping into stand watie mode more and more with each passing day.
No one had suspended the privilege, and I correctly pointed out that President Jefferson had requested that Congress suspend the privilege.
If no one has suspended the writ then how could the court rule on who may suspend it and who may not? Courts are limited to ruling on what is before them at any given time. That's just the way that they work. Since nobody had suspended habeas corpus in the Bollman case then Chief Justice Marshall's comments on who may suspend habeas corpus constitute obiter dicta and are not binding. But none of this should be new to you. It's been explained to you time and again.
The issue before the court was a petition for habeas corpus.
But the question of who may suspend habeas corpus was not an issue before the court.
What is the dictum stated in the case?
The dicta, you mean? Chief Justice Marshall's statement that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus. Since habeas corpus had not been suspended then it was not a matter for a court to issue a ruling on.
Not a court opinion.
No, but a comment made by Supreme Court justice of some experience. And at the risk of stating the obvious, I should point out that in Hamdi v Rumsfeld habeas corpus had not been suspended either. Not by Congress. Not by the president. In fact Justice Scalia, writing for the minority, specifically states that the writ of habeas corpus has not been suspended. What the court ruled in Hamdi was that a U.S. citizen could not be denied due process. You might want to add the Hamdi decision to your reading list. Right after the Bollman decision.
Not a court opinion.
But again a learned opinion expressed by a respected jurist who is far more knowledgeable of the law and the rulings of the Supreme Court than you or I.
O'Connor avoids the issue, Rehnquist is simply one of hundreds of justices entitled to the own personal opinion.
But in both cases, the justices are stating fact. The question of who may suspend habeas corpus has never been brought before the entire court for a ruling. And because it has not, then the Chief Justice is correct when he stated that the question has never been definitively answered. Unless we take your word as the final word on the subject. And I don't think I'm willing to do that.
Gee noni. I think you've got it. I will forever change my reasoning and adopt yours. Obviously, to those that have Bizarro-world MBA's, unilateral secession is perfectly constitutional!!! The issue of unilateral secession was never before the court, so therefore Southern secessions were legal. Whoo hooo, way to go, you've proven our case - Chase was blatantly wrong!!! After all, the court never ruled on the legality of Georgia seceding, per your reasoning, along with Rehquist's and O'Connors, nothing NEVER before the court previously was illegal or could be.
Whoo hoo, we should pack the court with Bizarro-world MBA's, and dang if that court wouldn't find almost everything legal. Yankees and Lincolnites marrying their dogs - per noni and the court never illegal. Lincolnites and sex with sheep - perfectly legal. Lincolnites marrying and buggering each other - perfectly legal. Why have laws, per your reasoning if it had never came before the court, until then, everything is legal.
I think a </sarcasm> tag is redundant here.
You would have to adopt some form of reasoning to begin with before you can change it.
The issue of unilateral secession was never before the court, so therefore Southern secessions were legal.
Assuming that you aren't still talking about Bollman or Hamdi but have switched to Texas v. White then actually yes secession was an issue before the court. The defense had argued that "...Texas by her rebellious courses had so far changed her status, as one of the United States, as to be disqualified from suing in [the Supreme Court]." The very nature of the defenses required the Court to rule if they had jurisdiction. In order to do that they had to rule if Texas was or was not a state in the Union. And in order to determine that they had to rule on the validity of their acts of secession.
Why not add the Texas v. White decision to your reading list?
After all, the court never ruled on the legality of Georgia seceding, per your reasoning, along with Rehquist's and O'Connors, nothing NEVER before the court previously was illegal or could be.
The Court never ruled on the rights of defendents to legal counsel in North Dakota or Virginia or Texas, either. But the ruling in Miranda v. Arizona covered those states as well. In the Furman v. Georgia case, the Court ruled on the death penalty as practiced in Georgia and Texas. But their ruling impacted death penalty sentancing procedures in all states with capital punishment. Likewise, the court's ruling on unilateral secession as practiced by Texas also struck down the secession acts of the other rebel states.
I think a </sarcasm> tag is redundant here.
Yeah, but the barf alert was missing.
lol. I tell you, you must post more often!!!!
The CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the court. This is an original suit in this court, in which the State of Texas, claiming certain bonds of the United States as her property, asks an injunction to restrain the defendants from receiving payment from the National government, and to compel the surrender of the bonds to the State.
That's the issue before the court in Texas v. White, as stated by Justice Chase. Everything else is dicta.
Why not add the Texas v. White decision to your reading list?
Tell me noni, who were the Justices involved in the ex parte Bollman decision. I can name every one of them. What was the split, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 4-1, 5-4, 4-3 or 5-2? Who where the lawyers for each party? What party refused a pardon and turned states evidence? Which party later robbed the US Treasury of more than a million dollars? Who was the judge that issued the writ? What was the clerk's name, and on what date was it issued?
Yeah, but the barf alert was missing.
Yours and Shelia Jackson-Lee's.
Not surprisingly you would be wrong. Again I would suggest that you actually read the decision. Under the facts of the case you would find:
"The questions, therefore, were:
1. A minor preliminary one; the question presented by Chiles's answer, as to whether sufficient authority was shown for the prosecution of the suit in the name and in behalf of Texas.
2. A great and principal one; a question of jurisdiction, viz., whether Texas, at the time of the bill filed or now, was one of the United States of America, and so competent to file an original bill here.
3. Assuming that she was, a question whether the respective defendants, any, all, or who of them, were proper subjects for the injunction prayed, as holding the bonds without sufficient title, and herein-and more particularly as respected Hardenberg, and Birch, Murray & Co.-a question of negotiable paper, and the extent to which holders, asserting themselves holders bon a fide and for value, of paper payable 'to bearer,' held it discharged of precedent equities.
4. A question as to the effect of the payments, at the treasury, of the bonds of Hardenberg and of the four bonds of Birch, Murray & Co."
So you can see that the question of whether or not Texas was a state with the right to file suit in the Supreme Court was indeed a "great and principle" question before the court. And how could they determine if Texas was a state without ruling on the Constitutionality of her acts of secession. So Chief Justice Chase's comments were not obiter dicta but rationes decidendi.
Tell me noni, who were the Justices involved in the ex parte Bollman decision. I can name every one of them.
So can I. Chief Justice Marshall, Justices Cushing, Chase, Johnson, Livingston, and Washington.
What was the split, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 4-1, 5-4, 4-3 or 5-2?
None of the above. It was a 5-1 decision with Justice Johnson the lone dissenter. Are you sure you read it?
Who where the lawyers for each party?
Ceaser Rodney for the U.S. Robert Goodloe Harper for Bollman and Swartwout.
What party refused a pardon and turned states evidence? Which party later robbed the US Treasury of more than a million dollars? Who was the judge that issued the writ? What was the clerk's name, and on what date was it issued?
What is your point?
Yours and Shelia Jackson-Lee's.
Where does she come into the picture?
I'm in a hurry, but you obviously haven't read it. Justice William Cushing did not attend Feb 1807 term due to severe illness.
None of the above. It was a 5-1 decision with Justice Johnson the lone dissenter. Are you sure you read it?
Sure, but you didn't. It was 3-2. 'In this case I feel myself much relieved from the painful sensation resulting from the necessity of dissenting from the majority of the court, in being supported by the opinion of one of my brethren [Chase], who is prevented by indisposition from attending.'
Ceaser Rodney for the U.S. Robert Goodloe Harper for Bollman and Swartwout.
Rodney and Walter Jones for the prosecution. Harper, Charles Lee, F. S. Key and Luther Martin for Bollman and Swartwout.
According to Marshall, Bollman turned state's evidence but refused a pardon. Swartwout became Collector for the Port of New York, whereby he deprived the Federal Treasury of over 1 million dollars.
The 'dicta' that you and others refer too was in reference to the second decision (removal of the charges), especially by the Government. Marshall gave his own reasons later why the court did so.
Justice Chases' opinion begins AFTER this text. His opening statement is thus, '[t]his is an original suit in this court, in which the State of Texas, claiming certain bonds of the United States as her property, asks an injunction to restrain the defendants from receiving payment from the National government, and to compel the surrender of the bonds to the State.
You get credit for trying to adress the issue. But somehow you reb worshipers can't seem to feel that a southerner abused by Thug Jeff and his gang is as valuable as a Copperhead Yankee detained by Lincoln. I've not decided if it's because you do not think that a southerner is worth as much as a Yankee or whether you just hold Lincoln to a higher standard than Boss Davis.
DiLorenzo on the other hand is a careful and meticulous scholar. You don't have to take my word for it. Just compare book rankings on Amazon and you can clearly see who is more credible.
DiLorenzo is a writer who is very meticulous to twist everything to the most one-sided distortion of a man ever written. But there's always a market for those who wish to soothe southern suckers with itching ears. DiLorenzo knows what his market craves and he has a good talent for shoveling the garbage.
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.