Posted on 06/13/2003 6:22:01 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
After attending the Confederate Memorial Day service on June 1 in Higginsville, I found myself believing our nation should be ashamed for not giving more respect and recognition to our ancestors.
I understand that some find the Confederate flag offensive because they feel it represents slavery and oppression. Well, here are the facts: The Confederate flag flew over the South from 1861 to 1865. That's a total of four years. The U.S. Constitution was ratified in April 1789, and that document protected and condoned the institution of slavery from 1789 to 1861. In other words, if we denigrate the Confederate flag for representing slavery for four years, shouldn't we also vilify the U.S. flag for representing slavery for 72 years? Unless we're hypocrites, it is clear that one flag is no less pure than the other.
A fascinating aspect of studying the Civil War is researching the issues that led to the confrontation. The more you read, the less black-and-white the issues become. President Abraham Lincoln said he would do anything to save the union, even if that meant preserving the institution of slavery. Lincoln's focus was obviously on the union, not slavery.
In another case, historians William McFeely and Gene Smith write that Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to "throw down his sword" if he thought he was fighting to end slavery.
Closer to home, in 1864, Col. William Switzler, one of the most respected Union men in Boone County, purchased a slave named Dick for $126. What makes this transaction interesting is not only the fact that Switzler was a Union man but that he bought the slave one year after the issuance of the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, history students know the proclamation did not include slaves living in the North or in border states such as Missouri.
So if this war was fought strictly over slavery, why were so many Unionists reluctant to act like that was the issue?
In reviewing the motives that led to the Civil War, one should read the letters soldiers wrote home to their loved ones. Historian John Perry, who studied the soldier's correspondence, says in his three years of research, he failed to find one letter that referred to slavery from Confederate or Union soldiers.
Perry says that Yankees tended to write about preserving the Union and Confederates wrote about protecting their rights from a too-powerful federal government. The numerous letters failed to specifically say soldiers were fighting either to destroy or protect the institution of slavery. Shelby Foote, in his three-volume Civil War history, recounts an incident in which a Union soldier asks a Confederate prisoner captured in Tennessee why he was fighting. The rebel responded, "Because you're down here."
History tends to overlook the South's efforts to resolve the issue of slavery. For example, in 1863, because of a shortage of manpower, Lincoln permitted the enlistment of black soldiers into the Union Army. Battlefield documents bear out the fact that these units were composed of some of the finest fighting men in the war. Unfortunately for these brave soldiers, the Union used them as cannon fodder, preferring to sacrifice black lives instead of whites.
These courageous black Union soldiers experienced a Pyrrhic victory for their right to engage in combat. However, history has little to say about the South's same effort in 1865. The Confederacy, its own troop strength depleted, offered slaves freedom if they volunteered for the army.
We know that between 75,000 and 100,000 blacks responded to this call, causing Frederick Douglass to bemoan the fact that blacks were joining the Confederacy. But the assimilation of black slaves into the Confederate army was short-lived as the war came to an end before the government's policy could be fully implemented.
It's tragic that Missouri does not do more to recognize the bravery of the men who fought in the Missouri Confederate brigades who fought valiantly in every battle they were engaged in. To many Confederate generals, the Missouri brigades were considered the best fighting units in the South.
The courage these boys from Missouri demonstrated at Port Gibson and Champion Hill, Miss., Franklin, Tenn., and Fort Blakely, Ala., represent just a few of the incredible sacrifices they withstood on the battlefield. Missouri should celebrate their struggles instead of damning them.
For the real story about the Missouri Confederate brigades, one should read Phil Gottschalk and Philip Tucker's excellent books about these units. The amount of blood spilled by these Missouri boys on the field of battle will make you cry.
Our Confederate ancestors deserve better from this nation. They fought for what they believed in and lost. Most important, we should remember that when they surrendered, they gave up the fight completely. Defeated Confederate soldiers did not resort to guerrilla warfare or form renegade bands that refused to surrender. These men simply laid down their arms, went home and lived peacefully under the U.S. flag. When these ex-Confederates died, they died Americans.
During the postwar period, ex-Confederates overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party. This party, led in Missouri by Rep. Dick Gephardt and Gov. Bob Holden, has chosen to turn its back on its fallen sons.
The act of pulling down Confederate flags at two obscure Confederate cemeteries for the sake of promoting Gephardt's hopeless quest for the presidency was a cowardly decision. I pray these men will rethink their decision.
The reality is, when it comes to slavery, the Confederate and United States flags drip with an equal amount of blood.
In other words, you can't quit and take your ball with you.
On another note, my appreciation for Licoln's understanding and eloquence continues to grow. We were in DC a few weeks ago and stopped by the memorial. Amongst the typical groups of students, the kids were mocking the "Four score ..."
As a kid, you're subject to teachers constantly haranging about the importance of the great men in our republic. It's only as you get older, and maybe even end up in a communications role, that you really begin to realize the level Jefferson, Lincoln, et al were operating.
mac_truck => as in hit by one.
Ah, yes. The vile Thaddeus Stevens. Now we know why you left off his name. I think it was one of his colleagues who remarked upon Stevens' death that the Republican party had finally been emancipated. Truer words were never spoken in that day.
So which anonymous sleazebag are you gonna quote next, Partisan? Ingersoll? Sumner? Blaine? I understand though - if those types were all I had, I wouldn't be very proud of displaying their names either.
Fierce, yes, but no more so than Abraham Lincoln’s resolve in his second inaugural address: “Yet, if God will that [the Civil War] continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with a sword, as it was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”
So in other words, Lincoln was blaming God for his own war. I believe in saner circles that is known as blasphemy.
You should try and familiarize yourself with the whole speech.
"The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?"
Lincoln doesn't claim what you suggest.
Walt
Not at all. But as I said previously, those who venerate his blasphemy are of questionable sanity.
Thaddeus Stevens, the villian of the pro-Ku Klux Klan movie "Birth of a Nation" and the object of your scorn, was the greatest Republican who ever lived.
And you question my "own grip on sanity." Stevens was a scumbag, just like Sumner, Ingersoll, Blaine, Grant and the rest of their ilk. They were corrupt sleazy self serving politicians who defined an era of corruption, robber barons, and government predicated on the acquisition of power. To venerate them is an act as repulsive, if not more so, as claiming Bill Clinton to be a "statesman."
Sure he does. The cut n paste you provide sets him up to do exactly that.
What matters to me of Lincoln's speech is not the standard of Frederick Douglass but rather the standard of God. Blaming God for a war that you yourself created is an act of blasphemy. Lincoln did that therefore Lincoln is a blasphemer.
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