The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Sam Davis - Confederate Hero (Nov-1863)

Good Morning Snippy. Sad News for Bentfeather too today.

Bump for lunch.

About all the feds did in 1860 was fight indians, deliver the mail........and enforce the fugitive slave act.

Now that's odd. Cause a brief review of Lincolnian legislation indicates more:

Morrill Tariff Act of 1861
Income Tax Act of 1861
Homestead Act of 1862
Morrill Land Grant College Act of 1862
Transcontinental Railroad Subsidy Acts of 1862, 1863, and 1864
Comptroller of the Currency created 1863
National Banking Acts of 1863, 1864, and 1865
Contract Labor Act of 1864
Tariff expansions of 1863 and 1864
Department of Agriculture created 1862
Bureau of Printing and Engraving created 1863

(Source: Daniel Elazar, Economic Change in the Civil War)

Looks to me like the government did quite a bit more than simply delivering the mail etc.

Sorry WP, I do not intend to get into any argument or drawn out battle or rehash over this ... but it has plenty of basis in fact.

The tarriffs on incoming products and taxes on exports being imposed by the majority northern states on the south (to the tune of 60-70 million dollars per year at the time), particularly over the cotton issue, were examples of federal intrusions that rankled southerners. There were many more. The Federal government is not just the executive branch ... it is also the House and Senate and the Judiciary. What they do and the laws they pass and interpret are the basis for what the Executive Branch upholds. It was true then too and the various tarrif acts and other tax laws that favored the northern states were driving a weges into southerners who felt that since the states came together to form the Union, that the Union could not become greater than those who formed it.

Lee and many others were good men who were clearly fighting for and considered their own home states as where their duty lay. Lee was clearly not fighting for slavery. But, in the end, he and the south in general viewed the northern armies as invading armies and armies of aggression. The south had no intent of forcing its will on the north, the opposite was true, I have already indicated where I stand on this, that in the end this was necessary, particuarly as a student of history and seeing what would have happened had it not occurred. That does not change the fact that at the time, this is how many of the people in the south viewed it.

Lee was offered command of the volunteer army Lincoln was raising, but he turned it down knowing how his state assembly would react if a northern army attempted transit through Virginia. He was convinced that the raising of such an army would do more to drive the nation towards a major and prolonged armed conflict than almost anything else. The rest is history. IMHO, Lee was agruably the best general ... most loved and most capable ... ever produced in the history of our nation. It is tragic that his talents were applied as they were.

But ... there I go. I believe that God in Heaven was for a maintenance of the Union. I also believe Lincoln, had he lived, would have formulated a much more unifying rehabilitation and less costic one ... I also believe that he was killed for that (just my opinion). I do not believe that the reconstruction had anything to do with the good of the Union ... it led to many of the problems we faced as a nation later. As Lincoln himself said ...

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, (and) more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe...corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."-Abraham Lincoln

We can both throw quotes around all day.

My bottom line is that the Union had to hold, that slavery had to go away (and I believe would have gone away on its own accord over time anyway) and that ultimately the war empowered and led to a much more centralized and intrusive federal government. The first two points in all of that was absolutely neccessary ... the latter point we are still grapling with and will ultimately have to also turn around.

Best regards.

Thank you Sam. Prayers offered.

I love these pictures. Keep them coming!!

Thanks for all you do, SAMWolf.

Current Military News

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Staff Sgt. Tommy L. Reece builds a solar shower at Baghdad International Airport. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Cherie A. Thurlby

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Two soldiers hold a banner, thanking troops for their efforts during Operation Iraqi Freedom, from the people of Minnesota, delivered by U.S. Representative Gil Gutknecht during his visit to the wounded and tour of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where many of the wounded are treated before returning to the United States. Gutknecht, along with six other members of Congress toured the hospital 15 April 2003. U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech Sgt. Maria L. Taylor

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Very nice application of a new classic, SAM.

Comforting prayers going up for our Bentfeather...she and her family have given so much to this country.

HJ

Thanks HiJinx.

Feather shared pictures of Walter with us a few times and talked about him quite a bit.

I almost feel as if I knew him.

INteresting.
He was a soldier to the last.
Very few are ever born who are like that.

Current Military News
Homecoming

U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., center, a Former POW, shares a laugh with his father Ron, left, and mother Kaye upon returning to his home in Lithia Springs, Ga., Tuesday, April 22, 2003. Young, a helicopter pilot, was held in Iraq (news - web sites) for three weeks before being rescued with six other POWs last week. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)

Apache helicopter pilot Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., 26, yellow shirt, poses with family and friends including his father, Ron Young Sr., third from right, for pictures on the tarmac at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta before walking to a waiting van on his return to Georgia, Tuesday, April 22, 2003. (AP Photo/Ric Feld)

Apache helicopter pilot Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., 26, wearing yellow shirt, is embraced as he walks on the tarmac in Atlanta at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport from a Delta jet to a waiting van on his return to Georgia, Tuesday, April 22, 2003.

Apache helicopter pilot Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Jr., 26, left, stops to talk on the tarmac in Atlanta at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport as he walks from a Delta jet to a waiting van on his return to Georgia, Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Lee, who was offered the job of leading the Northern Army, and who declined because he would not lead a northern army into or through his own state, was in the habit of freeing his own slaves. He was not fighting for slavery in the least ... but for his own state which he felt he owed a higher duty than to the Union.

Folks of that persuasion held, that the states that came together to form the Union were greater than the Union. That the clay could not become greater than the potter.

It is an ideological arguement that persists to this day ... and an interesting and compelling one from a pure ideological standpoint.

But from the very real, practical standpoint ... given the designs of the European powers at the time and given the history that unfolded, it is clear that the Union had to become something greater than the sum of its parts. otherwise, when the 20th century rolled around and the great fascist and communist dictators came to power and threatened the world, a fractured America would not have been able to become the arsenal for liberty that it became.

No ... IMHO, God's hand was and is in the preservation of the Union. Unfortunately, as Lincoln feared, powerful and decietful individuals and institutions have risen up and turned the Union from its constitutional path to the point of threatening the root of its existence today.

Best regards my friend, and thank you for the thread(s).

Jeff

There were three slave states that stayed with the Union. Two of these were Maryland and Delaware. I am not sure which the third one was. It is interesting that the EP did not apply to those states while the war was going on.

I wonder about people like you who turn on their own. Did you get beat up a lot in high school or did the girls refuse to have anything to do with you or something?

Thank you Jeff Head. I agree with your opinion on Lee, he was one of the greatest generals this nation has produced.

He made some bad decisions during the war, deciding to fight at Gettysburg after the 2nd day being one of them, but his handling of the Army was for the most part outstanding.

IMHO Maryland was forced to stay in the Union by a quick movement into that State of Federal troops to ensure it didn't secede. I believe Kentucky was the 3rd slave State to stay in the Union. Also Virginia split with a new STate of West Virginia being formed.

Yes, his decision at Gettysburg was fateful and disasterous for the south. But, as always, hindsight is 20-20. He felt that if he could take them in Pickett's charge, that he could swiftly bring the war to conclusion by delivering what he felt was the hammer blow to the North's moral.

It didn't work that way (and I believe for the reasons I have already metnioned) and he was forced to continue to scrap and apply his exceptional leadership skills and strategy with much inferior numbers and equipment until Appomatax.

I'll tell you, the heroics of those days at Gettysburg (among so many other places) are astounding. Chamberlain ... what a man with his charge down slope from defensive positions when they were about to be over-run! Lew Armistead's penetration past the bloody angle and to the "high tide" of the south and his fateful and ironic/tragic meeting with his friend Winfield Scott's forces!

God grant that all of our heroic actions now and in the future can be made by dedicated, heroic, virtuous and committed Americans with one, united aim ... that of preserving and restoring our Constitutional Republic in the face of all enemies, foreign or domestic ... and God grant that we can muster the same types of courage, honor, virtue and commitment that so many of those folks displayed.

Based on our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq I believe God has granted our wishes.

Oops ... in my prior post, that would be Lew Armistead and Winfield Scott Hancock.

... and yes, I agree based on the performance by our forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe we here at home must continue to show equal mettle, and I believe in the face of the seditious anti-American protests ... that we did.

I pray it holds into the future, particularly if we ever one day come up against foes either foreign or domestic who threaten and challenge us on a scale like that of World War II. To this point, the terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists have not been able to rise to that type of challenge. I pray they never do.

I still feel we should watch for and remain vigilant against an unholy alliance between them and the Red Chinese and N. Koreans and continue to pray for our leaders and their ability to be inspired to the point to diffuse and avoid such circumstances. In the end, it will be our faith, virtue, courage and morality that allow us to overcome whatever adversary steps up to the plate.

Again, best regards.

Jeff

I will agree with Mo1 I have learned more from this site than all the schooling that they teach now days. I know my sons get more from Freerepublic than they do in school now days.