Posted on 09/08/2017 11:35:05 AM PDT by Javeth
We are witnessing a growing trend of angry attempts to erase past racial injustices through attacks upon Civil War monuments, those symbolically associated with a tragic era of slavery.
Inflamed by violence leading to a death characterized in the media as a "white supremacist rally" protesting removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia hundreds of other statues, markers and other symbols memorializing important Confederate figures and events are now also under siege throughout the nation.
If we are to erase evidence and symbols of historical injustices, where does this end? After all, why stop with Confederate leaders when great blame for racial intolerance and misery can be attributed to Northern leaders for terrible oppressions directed to indigenous Indian populations?
Injustices against people like my great grandmother’s Winnebago tribal members who were forcibly relocated to reservations in Minnesota and Nebraska, for example.
So if we’re really serious about removing public memorials to "white supremacists," shouldn’t those who perpetrated devastating racial assaults upon true Native Americans be included? And why not begin with Grant’s Tomb in New York, N.Y.?
I’m referring, of course, to President Ulysses S. Grant, whose administration transferred vast tribal lands to private pioneers, land speculators, and railroad and mining companies.
If not actual genocide, his solution to the "Indian problem" certainly influenced a cultural genocide. As he explained, "I see no substitute for such a system, except in placing all the Indians on large reservations, as rapidly as it can be done."
As white settlers continued to push Indians off their tribal lands, those on reservations experienced increasing poverty and desperation. Meanwhile, Grant’s administration oversaw the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad and the great slaughters of the Plains buffalo which destroyed their traditional ways of life.
Rebellions against Grant’s Indian "peace policies" led to tragic massacres and military conflicts. Included were the Modoc War in California, the Red River War in Texas, the Nez Perce conflict in Oregon, and the Black Hills campaign and Battle of the Little Bighorn led by George Armstrong Custer.
Efforts by great chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and Cochise who led battles to preserve their lands and ways of life were ultimately defeated. They were no match for frontier generals commanding ever-growing armies and devastating weaponry.
As Oglala Chief Red Cloud told Grant upon visiting the White House in 1870, "The riches we have in this world . . . we cannot take with us to the next world. . . . "Then I wish to know why agents are sent out to us who do nothing but rob us and get the riches of this world away from us."
Grant predicted in 1874 that "a few years more will relieve our frontiers from danger of Indian depredations." Assisted by another Union leader, his prediction was provident.
General William Tecumseh Sherman who began his military career under then-General Grant in the first Battle of Bull Run of 1862 worked to bring about a "final Indian solution." In 1865 Sherman assumed command of a campaign against the Plains Indians in support of powerful politically-connected interests, including corporations involved in building the transcontinental railroads.
Following the War Between the States and his 1864 "scorched-earth" torching of Atlanta and pillaging of civilian properties which laid waste to lives and livelihoods along a large swath of Northern Georgia, Sherman renewed his Indian extermination conquest. In 1865 he was given command of the Military District of the Missouri which commenced a 25-year-long war against the Plains Indians.
As Sherman wrote to Grant in 1867, "We are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress [of the railroads]." He clearly described his assigned Indian extermination objective as being "to prosecute the war with vindictive earnestness . . . till [the Indians] are obliterated or beg for mercy."
Sherman assured his subordinate General Philip H. Sheridan, "I will back you with my whole authority, and stand between you and any efforts that may be attempted in your rear to restrain your purpose or check your troops." This referred to prior authorization to kill as many women and children that Sheridan and his subordinates thought necessary when attacking Indian villages.
Both Sherman and Sheridan are forever associated with the slogan "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." So let’s also schedule the two large Washington, D.C. equestrian monuments dedicated to Sherman and Sheridan for demolition too.
Alternatively, we might heed some advice offered by Texas Governor Greg Abbot in an American Statesman article, "We must remember that our history isn’t perfect. If we do not learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it . . . instead of trying to bury our past, we must learn from it and ensure it doesn’t happen again." He added that "tearing down" those symbols won’t change the past, nor will it help the nation’s future."
“Sir, General Grant, sir, we are getting our butts royally kicked here, the Sioux are way too strong for us and if we don’t do something more serious, we’ll lose this stinking war. Let us loose to make them really hurt, sir.”
May we see your data on this?
The reason I ask: this sounds like something you made up to justify Sherman’s extermination plans.
In truth, didn’t you just make this up? I can’t help but notice Sherman’s use of the word “extermination” has been omitted from your account.
Extermination is such an unhappy word.
Is it your intent to use this made up exchange between Sherman and Grant as justification for actually killing native American women and children including infants and lap babies?
They didn't have "native Americans" back then, only Injuns.
Great point. And words are so important.
Earlier I made a post (below) that many admirers of Sherman seem to really like.
First. The word genocide wasn't invented until 1944 so Sherman could not have committed genocide during the Indian Wars.
Second. History records only that Sherman wanted to exterminate Indian people. (”We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”)
Third. Genocide, by definition, is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Sherman - this is tricky here - just wanted extermination, not genocide.
There it is: a defense of Sherman against the charge of genocide. How does it sound to your ear?
Really, I don't think you're that stupid, you just enjoy toying and refusing to confess a perfectly valid historical point.
Again, that point is: Sherman's extermination recommendation to Grant was neither approved nor acted on, period.
The result, as Sherman could have predicted, is that the US and our Crow allies lost Red Cloud's War and the Sioux took over territory we were trying to defend.
Did the Sioux then "exterminate" or "genocide", in whole or "in part" any Crow still living on their newly conquered territory?
We don't know, but we do know that neither Sioux nor Crow worried about fine points of legal definitions of such words as "genocide" & "exterminate" in whole or "in part".
jeffersondem: "May we see your data on this?"
You're looking at it.
My claim is that Grant neither approved nor took action on Sherman's recommendation.
The evidence for that is:
Now I sincerely apologize for saying you aren't that stupid.
Obviously, I was mistaken.
I'm pretty sure the Indians and the Confederates felt the same way. So who went into who's territory and created the confrontation between "him or me"?
I'm sure they did, too. I'm reminded of an old indian saying, "Don't start shyt you can't finish"
So who went into who's territory and created the confrontation between "him or me"?
That would be the rebels.
Physical Self defense is always moral, because it is existential. The first law of nature is survival.
2) Surely one can care about what other people or living beings feel and suffer without wanting to live among them or thinking them equals.
Yes, but most of the North did not look at it this way. The Abolitionists did, (a tiny portion of the populace back then) most of the population simply wanted them kept far away from themselves. They didn't care what happened to them so long as they personally didn't have to deal with them.
Thousands cried over Uncle Tom's Cabin.
It was a very well written book that celebrates Christianity and contrasts it with the evils of slavery. It was also propaganda. Liberals have always linked entertainment and propaganda. They cannot help themselves.
They might not have believed that Blacks were their equals and might not have wanted to live among them and share their burdens, but who are you, smug, depraved modern creature, to say that their feelings weren't real.
The book moved the populace, which was in fact the intention of the Author and those who spread the book. It helped move opinion because Uncle Tom could be seen as a thoroughly decent man with great Christian faith. People could empathize and see his humanity and faith shinning through. It resonated with them.
But they still didn't want blacks living near them.
No, the "heart" of what you're crying about is as much in Atlanta or Dallas or Phoenix or Miami as much as it is in New York or Boston or Los Angeles.
I am always trying to understand if I have an accurate picture of the world, and what you say here conforms to one of the theories that I keep in the back of my mind; That it is simply Urban society that is the font of Liberalism and decadence, and so long as you have a large city, you will have people grasping for power and people trying to export immoral ideas.
But New York is the defacto financial center of the Nation and the World, and it is no accident that it wields power far beyond just it's representation in Congress. It has special influence in the affairs of government.
Modern urban American or global culture certainly isn't tied down in New York or Washington or Boston. It has a home in every large city and even beyond them. Is that entirely a bad thing, given how things were fifty years ago in much of the country?
This is what I am seeing as well. Every large city is prone to Liberalism and hedonism, and they seek to export their nasty beliefs to influence the larger Nation. They often have greater influence because their power and wealth is so concentrated, but again, New York is the heart of the Financial system in this Nation, and it is no accident that it is, and it is no accident that it wields far greater power in the US than does any other city, though nowadays San Francisco has become quite significant as well.
If there will always be an Establishment maybe it's time to stop crying over the fact that there was one 100 or 150 years ago. If there's always a struggle between Establishments, some rising and some falling, maybe we ought to recognize that and stop kidding ourselves that history can be otherwise.
The founders rightly recognized that the key to stable government is balancing the factions and setting them to hold each other in check. Having more people diluting the concentration of power is and always was in our best interest.
And even with a Constitution, establishments or elites exist and prevail. That is, as you say, human nature.
Competition in the market is good. Monopoly is not.
That doesn't mean that freedom and a life worth living can't be maintained by playing elites off against each other, but maybe it's time to stop pretending that you have some kind of great alternative to the way things have always been.
I think you are trying to mix several issues in a manner that the connections between them are not readily apparent. My primary argument regarding the Confederates is that as a matter of principle, they had a right to leave our government and form one of their own more to their liking. Whether this "alternative" benefits us or not is irrelevant to my point that they had a right to go this direction.
The Northern Industrial/Government coalition defeated these people, but in so doing they became the greater threat the rest of us have had to face for the last 150 years.
Sure, if you want to radically oversimplify things.
I think it provides clarity. Look at the election maps. You see the same divide over and over again. Rural v Urban. Rural v Urban. In election after election, you have the big cities trying to go one way, (always in the direction of greater concentration of power) and the countryside trying to prevent it.
The Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian divide is an easy to see demarcation between the two political groups, and it clarifies much of history that isn't readily apparent just by looking at things such as party names. Republicans in 1860 were Liberal Urbanites who wanted greater government involvement in Industry and who supported Higher taxes and government subsidies.
In real-life politics the two tendencies are mixed together and always were. Any country wholly devoted to one side or the other would probably fail.
Yes, in real life many people are a mix, but the Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian distinction serves as the center of mass for each group.
Oh? "They" did that? Very convenient.
(regarding the 20 trillion in acknowledged debt and the 100 trillion or more in unfunded obligations) It would seem to me that one must conclude this was either foolishness or it was deliberate. Accepting the premise that it was deliberate, should we not wonder who stood to benefit as a result of this excessive government debt?
Cui bono?
“Now I sincerely apologize for saying you aren’t that stupid.”
I can see you are struggling to find just the right language to direct my way.
Here’s some historical verbal venom you can use verbatim.
“Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! ... I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians. ... Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
Sure there was a dislike for industrialization, but when you have an extra 100 million dollars to spend in 1860, just what exactly are you going to be able to spend it on? At some point the market forces were going to make it happen whether they liked it or not. Too many dollars chasing too little "accepted" investments will create a condition in which non accepted investments will eventually muscle their way through anyway.
I can't help noticing how you switch back and forth from post to post. One minute you're saying the Northern Establishment was created after the Civil War, and the next you're saying it caused the Civil War.
No, those are your words, not mine. I've said that the North Eastern Industrial/Government establishment beast began before the Civil War, (1830s or so) and that the Civil War caused it to gain even more strength. It was a baby in 1860, (but strong enough to elect Lincoln despite total opposition by all the Southern States) but it became ever more powerful as a consequence of the change in the fundamental relationship between the Federal Government and the states.
In fact, Northern commercial elites had to compete politically with Southern agricultural elites before the Civil War and it was as often the latter who got their way.
By "their way" you mean a repeal of the tariff of abominations, for which they were paying the lion's share of the costs? Well that's mighty sporting of you old chap, for throwing them a bone. Much of what the Northern Commercial Elites wanted was inherently unfair to the Southerners, but they didn't really care. They had the votes, and they were working to keep and expand their coalition to keep that majority.
After the war, Northern commerce and industry took off, but they didn't strictly speaking need a war to achieve that.
Well first of all, they had wiped out their potential economic competition, so they became "the only game in town." Second of all, they had instituted borrowing and spending policies, and some of this spending paid off in terms of expanding markets and more economic activity. Innovations and developments also helped boost their economic markets, and of course the Government triggered a lot of investment in Railroads by giving huge tracts of land to the connected oligarchs.
On the contrary, the few who shared your vision of Southern industrialization needed a war more than the Northerners did. They needed to break existing commercial ties to encourage Southern domestic industry.
What "existing commercial ties" did the Southerners need to break to export Cotton and other products to Europe without high tariff's on their returning money?
It was from this increased capital that Southern Industry would have been funded. It would have taken a decade or more, but eventually the Southern factories would have been built and thereafter competed with the Northern factories.
He just sent warships and troops with orders to attack if they were opposed in transporting more guns and men to fort Sumter.
All the time i'm going to spend on your message.
I do not know that this is the "only" evidence for this claim, but I will note that you dispute this number.
So how many people did die from starvation, disease and exposure as a result of Union armies invading their land?
This one I’m not even going to bother with. Lincoln sent the war fleet. Pretty much everyone told him this would cause a war, so one must conclude he intended to start it with this aggressive act.
They said "if you be not resisted." (or some such) That they would be resisted in landing more troops and arms in the fort was a foregone conclusion. Nobody in the South believed Lincoln anymore. He had already sent the fleet with orders to land reinforcements in the fort before he sent the letter to Pickens saying he wasn't going to reinforce the fort.
And they all had second thoughts, especially Wells (from Connecticut) & Chase (from Ohio).
Their "second thoughts" were wrong, and their first thoughts were correct. They rightly saw that the effort would trigger an unnecessary war, and that is exactly what happened.
They came to believe that if war was inevitable anyway, then Fort Sumter was as good a place as any to let it start.
It wasn't inevitable if the unwelcome guests had simply left after being informed they were no longer wanted. It was the refusal to leave that escalated the situation.
First of all, where do you get off accepting the premise that the Indians must be confined to "reservations"? Is this not like "concentration camps"?
Second of all, the Federal Troops simply did not care if they were on their reservations or not, if they were peaceful or not. Read the following example.
" Black Kettle had been a great warrior in his youth. Now, in late summer of middle age, he was a widely recognized Chief of the Southern Cheyenne. Accompanied by Lean Bear, he had recently been to Washington and shook hands with the Great Father Lincoln. Lean Bear and Black Kettle had been friends since they were babies; it must have blown their minds to visit the Capitol City. It is not hard to imagine them walking amidst all the bustle and building thinking,, just what are these white folks trying to do? President Lincoln presented them with pretty medals to wear and papers stating that they were good friends of the United States. But since then, things had been getting more confusing on the plains. There was talk of soldiers attacking Cheyenne. "One morning Lean Bear rode out to meet the Bluecoats as they approached the Cheyenne camp on Ash Creek. He wore the medal and brought the papers to show the soldiers that he was peaceful. When he was close enough, they opened fired and killed him. Black Kettle did not understand this. He and Lean Bear tried to avoid conflicts and steered their people away from the unforseen dangers encountered through too much contact with buffalo hunters, stage roads, white man's forts and railroads...
In 1864, officials in Colorado issued an ultimatum; all friendly Indians should surrender by reporting to the local forts where they would be instructed on what to do and be protected. Hostile Indians and those not complying with this form of surrender would be hunted down and killed. The soldiers who killed Lean Bear had been instructed to kill Indians, period."
"On November 29, 1864, troops under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington, a former Methodist preacher with political ambitions, attacked and destroyed the Cheyenne camp of Chief Black Kettle and Chief White Antelope by Sand Creek, on the plains of eastern Colorado. Upon hearing the approaching soldiers in the early morning light, White Antelope went out to meet them. The Bluecoats raised their rifles and White Antelope sang a death song as the bullets tore through him. Black Kettle stood in the middle of the camp and raised his American flag as well as a white flag in case anyone thought the first one was just a souvenir. The previous year in Washington, Colonel Greenwood, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, had presented Black Kettle with this huge 34 star flag, saying that soldiers would not fire upon anyone standing under the Stars and Stripes. Black Kettle always mounted it above his tipi in the middle of the village when he stayed in one place for any length of time. He and the other chiefs in his camp had already declared themselves at peace and were led to believe they had done what they were told to do. They were now under the military protection of Fort Lyon. So the Chief held up the poles in the early November air and his breath condensed into mist as he called to his people and with prayerful confidence, told them not to be afraid, that the soldiers would not hurt them. Chivington's troops then opened fire from both sides of the camp, shooting directly into the crowd around Black Kettle and scattering them.'
" Conservative estimates figure the Indian dead at 105 women and children and 28 men. The Army also drove off about six hundred horses and mules. In a few nauseating hours, a gang of white devils had "destroyed the lives and power of every Cheyenne and Arapaho chief who had held out for peace." (Dee Brown) The slaughter would soon caused a massive public reaction, but what exactly had happened on the banks of Sand Creek was not immediately obvious to the general public. The soldiers, many of them drunk, had killed indiscriminately. After the battle, they went on to scalp, bash in skulls and otherwise mutilate the dead. Officers and enlisted men alike cut off the private parts of men, women and children and kept them as souvenirs. Others cut off fingers to obtain rings. Women and children prisoners were killed and scalped by the Bluecoats who were "wading in gore" as Chivington had promised. A full two weeks after the massacre, the Colonel was honored with a big parade through the streets of Denver. He even appeared onstage displaying some of his grisly trophies. A Denver editorial boasted, "Among the brilliant feats of arms in Indian warfare, the recent campaign of our Colorado volunteers will stand in history with few rivals, and none to exceed it in final results." They go on to state, "Colorado soldiers have again covered themselves with glory."
In this case "start shyt" is living in your own land where others want to impose their presence on you.
That would be the rebels.
I'm at a loss here as to understand what you mean. The Invading armies went from North to South, not South to North.
Wrong.
I'm at a loss here as to understand what you mean. The Invading armies went from North to South, not South to North.
Wrong again.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Brazil thought it was sitting pretty because everybody wanted coffee and needed rubber, but both could be grown elsewhere, so their dreams didn't become a reality. If cotton was king, how long before the British, French, Russian, and Turkish empires and countries like Mexico and Brazil got into production in a big way? And would you really want to put your trust in the British Empire, given what they did to Ireland, India, China, and Africa?
Plus, where are you getting your figures from? A lot of money that slavers "earned" for their cotton was used to buy goods and services from Northerners. Slaveowners weren't going to be able to keep all the stuff they bought and also get the money that Northerners had to pay in import tariffs.
Moreover, how would the Confederate government be financed? Export taxes on cotton was one major means. That would tend to make Confederate cotton higher priced and less desired in international markets. The CSA would have its own tariffs as well, and you can bet that if the Confederacy really got going, there would be debates about whether to have a protective tariff to support infant industries. Either become a dumping ground for European manufactures or institute the same policies you'd been belly-aching about for years -- that was the choice they'd face.
Much of what the Northern Commercial Elites wanted was inherently unfair to the Southerners, but they didn't really care. They had the votes, and they were working to keep and expand their coalition to keep that majority.
Not really true. Southerners got their own way on most issues before the Civil War. Pennsylvanians cared passionately about tariffs on iron and steel. The rest of the North wasn't that committed. It was secession and the costs of the war that tipped the balance towards greater protectionism.
What "existing commercial ties" did the Southerners need to break to export Cotton and other products to Europe without high tariff's on their returning money?
You think every slaveowner was p.o.ed at New York City and longed to fulfill your vision of industrialization? Doubtful. They'd been doing business with Northerners for decades. A war would shake things up and break long-standing ties. The fantasies of some guy two centuries later wouldn't be strong enough to do that.
Every large city is prone to Liberalism and hedonism, and they seek to export their nasty beliefs to influence the larger Nation. They often have greater influence because their power and wealth is so concentrated, but again, New York is the heart of the Financial system in this Nation, and it is no accident that it is, and it is no accident that it wields far greater power in the US than does any other city, though nowadays San Francisco has become quite significant as well.
The biggest city and biggest financial center has power. One in 16 Americans lives in greater New York. Add together the whole population of the states in the area and it may be more like one in ten. And these are all richer than average states.
But, still it's not like there some kind of virus in New York or Boston that the rest of the country is immune to. Not if we're talking about cities. First big city lesbian mayor - Texas. Head of Planned Parenthood - Texas. Head of NOW - Louisiana. The head of NARAL was at least born in Texas. Cities are liberal, and that applies to the whole country.
In the Roosevelt years New York State had 45 Representatives in Congress. It still had 43 in the Kennedy-Johnson years. Now it has 27. In 1900 all but one of the ten largest US cities was located North and East of Missouri's borders. Today, more of the top ten cities and metro areas are located outside of that box than in it. New York City and the Northeast don't have the power they once did.
You're living in some episode of Mad Men, or That Girl with New York as the center of the universe. In way you're lucky to be stuck in that fantasy: the 60s in New York from what people say was an exciting time to be alive. But the Internet, if nothing else, changed all that.
The Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian divide is an easy to see demarcation between the two political groups, and it clarifies much of history that isn't readily apparent just by looking at things such as party names. Republicans in 1860 were Liberal Urbanites who wanted greater government involvement in Industry and who supported Higher taxes and government subsidies.
Right, no difference between Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller and Oprah or Charlie Rose or Rachel Maddow. All liberals who wanted higher taxes and greater government involvement in their businesses. That is ridiculous. Nineteenth century businessmen were metrosexuals, too I guess.
Your confusion may be the fault of Rockwell and his crew who put everybody who disagrees with them into one group and ignore the real differences between their opponents. What you will find, though, is that adults can have real and serious differences of opinion that don't involve your own pet ideas and don't fit into your own simplistic categories.
(regarding the 20 trillion in acknowledged debt and the 100 trillion or more in unfunded obligations) It would seem to me that one must conclude this was either foolishness or it was deliberate. Accepting the premise that it was deliberate, should we not wonder who stood to benefit as a result of this excessive government debt?
Cui bono?
You never supported a war or a tax cut that raised deficits? You don't have friends or relatives or ancestors who voted for higher government spending and higher deficits now, or 100 or 70 or 50 years ago when it mattered. You are probably the only person in the country who has no responsibility for any of that. Better to blame a conspiracy.
It turns out that while Black Kettle was himself peaceful, not all his young warriors saw things the same way, and he did not have them under control.
One result was a large number of dead white settlers, bodies mutilated, women & children abducted.
So it became a political issue and one aspiring leader found fame & glory by ending the threat from Black Kettles' warriors.
Of course none of this is justified in today's terms, but you do history a disservice when you chose to tell only one side of the story.
Naturally, everyone understands when your real purpose is not history, but just anti-American propaganda.
I think we should also remove all the monuments commemorating the black Buffalo Soldiers for their genocidal attacks against the Native Americans during the 1800’s......
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