Imagine that.
Walt
Fantasy.
"It's pure fantasy,' contends James McPherson, a Princeton historian and one of the nation's leading Civil War scholars. Adds Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service: 'It's b.s., wishful thinking.' Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy, has studied the records of 150,000 Southern soldiers and found fewer than a dozen were black. 'Of course, if I documented 12, someone would start adding zeros,' he says.
"These and other scholars say claims about black rebels derive from unreliable anecdotes, a blurring of soldiers and laborers, and the rapid spread on the Internet of what Mr. McPherson calls 'pseudohistory.' Thousands of blacks did accompany rebel troops -- as servants, cooks, teamsters and musicians. Most were slaves who served involuntarily; until the final days of the war, the Confederacy staunchly refused to enlist black soldiers.
"Some blacks carried guns for their masters and wore spare or cast-off uniforms, which may help explain eyewitness accounts of blacks units. But any blacks who actually fought did so unofficially, either out of personal loyalty or self-defense, many historians say.
"They also bristle at what they see as the disingenuous twist on political correctness fueling the black Confederate fad. 'It's a search for a multicultural Confederacy, a desperate desire to feel better about your ancestors,' says Leslie Rowland, a University of Maryland historian. 'If you suggest that some blacks supported the South, then you can deny that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy.'
"David Blight, an Amherst College historian, likens the trend to bygone notions about happy plantation darkies.' Confederate groups invited devoted ex-slaves to reunions and even won Senate approval in 1923 for a "mammy" monument in Washington (it was never built). Black Confederates, Mr. Blight says, are a new and more palatable way to 'legitimize the Confederacy.'"
-- Wall Street Journal, May 8, 1997
Walt
No they don't.
And insisting that they do will only breed resentment and hostility.
As individuals, however, it's an different matter entirely.
Since we, as a nation, are divided (evenly in my opinion) as to whether we should remember, acknowlege and admire things "Southern", as a nation this will forever be problematical.
I am not a southerner and have never even been to the South, but nevertheless know from learning history (on my own, mostly) that there is much to be admired and respected there.
The South was and is a whole lot more than slavery and I will not allow anyone to "make up my opinion" for me no matter how sincere their misguided effort to define the South for me.
It's no less a personal choice than admiring "womens studies", "multiculturalism", moral and "international relativism": Corruptions of good ideas gone psychotic.
To those contolling twits among us, who seem to exist solely to extol the benefits of ignorance and a big mouth I say **** off!
You can try forever, riot and burn and destroy in the name of a "kinder" view of history, but you'll never legislate reality in the hearts and minds of a free people.
I respect and admire Southern history. But I have found little to admire in history elsewhere since the middle of the 18th century.
Certainly not today.
Stainless, this is without a doubt the most ridiculous article you've posted out of a pethora of ridiculous articles.
It's clear that the secessionists would "rend the Union even by war" to protect slavery.
It's just as clear that loyal Union men fought to preserve the ideals of democratic government. The latter wouldn't have happened without the former.
Walt
The point many seem to miss is that Gephardt basically ordered Holden to take isolated Confederate Battle flags down. There was no debate or discussion. Gephardt thinks he's right about everything and acts like Joe Stalin here in Missouri when in fact he's never held a statewide office. He needs to be taken down a couple notches if you ask me.
Some people on this thread say they like the FR because it gives them the chance to exercise their 1st Admendment rights of free speech. Someone needs to ask Gephardt and Holden about 1st Admendment rights pertaining to the Confederate Battle flag.
I'll admit I'm not an expert on the letter of the law concerning the rights of seccession but if obvious that this war was an American tragidy. But today is 2003 and we have bigger fish to fry.
To see how ridiculous these antics are, from the standpoint of the patriotic American mainstream, one need only look at General MacArthur's inspiring farewell to West Point in 1962, in which he equated the grey of the Confederacy as an honored part of the American military tradition. (See Duty, Honor, Country.)
There was not one peep of protest at the equation, although recordings of the speech were probably the most widely replayed of any in our history--as well as being published in manuals printed by the Department of Defense, after MacArthur's death, two years later.
Between 1900 and Bill Clinton, only crack-pots assailed the honor of the Confederates.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site