After Confederate statues fall, is Lincoln Memorial next?

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country.” — Robert E. Lee 1856

Could Gen. Robert E.l Lee’s sentiments deter the “tear down those monuments” crowd?

Given their current success in removing monuments to Confederate generals, ignorant politicians and those whose hobby is going through life seeking to be offended, soon will run out of things to be offended by. Why not broaden the list of "offensive" symbols to include slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and a host of other founders?

Here in Texas you could add slave owning Texas heroes such as Sam Houston, Jim Bowie and William Travis.

Should we banish from public view all monuments to past historical figures who supported white supremacy, advocated secession or made racist comments?

Consider Abraham Lincoln. In addition to the Lincoln monument in the nation’s capital, there’s probably not a major city in the country without a school, street or park named after Lincoln (Abilene once had Lincoln Middle School).

What do Lincoln's own words tell us about “Honest Abe”, "the Great Emancipator?"

During one of the famous 1858 debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln explained to the crowd: “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . I am not now nor have ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . . there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

During another debate with Douglas, Lincoln opined: “I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels . . . there’s not one person there out of eight who is pure white”.

In Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address, he endorsed a constitutional amendment, known as the Corwin Amendment, which would forever protect slavery where it existed, telling the audience: “I have no objection to its (Corwin Amendment) being made express and irrevocable”. Lincoln's goal was to save the Union, writing to abolitionist Horace Greeley: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it”.

Virtually all white men of that time were white supremacists. Lincoln was no exception, and his comments belie his reputation.

Consider his remarks he made in Congress on January 12, 1848: “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one which suits them better. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much territory as they inhabit.” This is exactly what the seceding states did in 1861.

Another discomforting fact for today’s advocates of political correctness: In 2011 I sponsored a commemorative license plate for Buffalo soldiers, iconic black U.S. cavalrymen who served on the frontier. Couldn’t today's Native Americans claim buffalo soldiers participated in a genocidal war against an entire race of people - the American Plains Indians – enslaving them on reservations?

If we’re going to measure Confederates of 150 years ago by today’s standards, shouldn’t we do the same with Lincoln?

Today, it's Confederates. Who’s next? Buffalo soldiers? Our nation’s founders? Our Texas heroes? The possibilities are limitless.

Jerry Patterson is a former Texas land commissioner, state senator and retired Marine Vietnam veteran.

Bull Snipe: "...Davis said 'A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest.
The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.
To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus, absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.' "

Thanks for a hugely informative post.
I'm almost certain that at some point I saw this quote, or something like it, attributed to Lincoln.

Bull Snipe: "The quotation attributed to Davis was actually made by Thomas Jefferson."

Hmmmmm… Jefferson was scrupulous in advocating constitutionally limited Federal powers until... until he became President Jefferson, then not so much.

Bull Snipe: "The [Confederate] commissioner and his associates exercised the powers of a court and could also arrest any Confederate citizen and question his or her loyalty.
However, the subject under arrest was not entitled to a lawyer, a jury, or any of the legal protections allowed to a defendant in court.
The government designated its opponents as political prisoners and dispatched them to prisons in Richmond or Salisbury."

One key point in this habeas corpus discussion is that Southerners arrested by Confederate authorities for disloyalty roughly equaled in proportion the numbers of Northerners arrested for disloyalty by the Federal government.
Both sides did it.

Curiously, when faced with data like this, Lost Causers like, say, DiogenesLamp respond, in effect: "it doesn't matter what Jefferson Davis did, it only matters that Lincoln was bad, bad, baaaaaaad, I tell you."

Inconvenient facts that Lincoln idolators don’t want to know. Screws with their PC narrative.

Regarding the possible renaming of Stonewall Jackson Middle School: No better epitaph can be written for an educator today (or naming of a school memorializing him for advancing education), than that he would risk prison to educate children.

Before the Civil War, in the state of Virginia, Stonewall Jackson broke the law every Sunday. For that, many slaves and black freedmen in Lexington, Va., revered him and considered him a hero of the African-American community. At that time, according to Virginia law, it was illegal to teach African-Americans to read and write. However, Jackson believed that everyone deserved to be educated and established the Lexington Presbyterian Church Sunday School in 1855, where together with his wife, he taught African-American children to read and write.

Even after he’d left Lexington to join the Civil War, Jackson never forgot his students; and, sent money to them and the church school, until he was killed in the war.

Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War was a leading advocate for thousands of black Confederate soldiers, as corroborated by a member of Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet. Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, the chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission — today’s equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency — said in 1862, he saw over 3,000 well-armed black Confederate soldiers in Stonewall Jackson’s army in Frederick, Md., and that those soldiers were “manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army.” (Steiner Report, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11.)

In this era of taking down Confederate memorials, in Roanoke, Va., there’s one at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, where since 1892, for 125 years, Stonewall Jackson has been memorialized in a stained-glass window. That’s not a big surprise considering he was a famous Confederate general and a Virginian — that is, until you meet its African-American congregation. Third-generation member Joyce Bolden says the window is not about Gen. Jackson, but Jackson the man, who before the war led a Bible study for his slaves — including the parents of an early pastor. “This was a monument to the future of the African American race,” she said. “Stonewall Jackson was as a human being and as a man of Christ, of faith. He defied all the laws of the South by educating his slaves. He taught them to read and write.”

This fever today to erase Confederate memorials — will that make America a better nation? Will a single inner-city school improve? Will we have a single meaningful step toward finding a way to responsibly end mass incarceration? Will community and police relations improve at all? Will racial harmony be achieved?

Of course not. In fact, by screaming their invectives at dead Confederates from 150 years ago, the social-justice warriors will be rewarded with yet another round of pop-culture accolades that will empower them to engage yet another target. And at the end of the day, America will be more ignorant, the cultural left will be more self-righteous, and our nation’s history will be viewed as an infinitely malleable tool for delivering only left-approved, politically correct messages to the hearts and minds of our citizens.

The many thousands of men who risked their lives and spilled blood to defeat the Confederacy would be appalled. Abraham Lincoln would see the malice toward all, the charity toward none. Ulysses S Grant would be shocked at the notion, for example, that Pickett’s Charge represented “false valor” (as Democratic Party leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said), and the great warrior-poet-abolitionist Joshua Chamberlain (who said on the occasion of the South’s surrender at Appomattox, it was “honor answering honor”), would be disgusted at the idea of destroying Confederate memorials to make a political statement.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-do-not-rename-stonewall-jackson-school-front-burner-20180314-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1jk5MGGgkV1gb7VaKlpyZVMqjikOJfqtLuqlGi_bP_4fvXPMPkfGwwx9c

Bull Snipe:

No, they were not. Jefferson Davis’s foot prints can be found all over the Confederate Constitution just as Abraham Lincoln’s foot prints can be found all over the United States Constitution. On this matter Davis said “A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus, absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.” The Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus from February 1862 until February 1863 and again from February 1864 until August 1864, and afterward authorized Confederate president Jefferson Davis to suspend the writ as he saw fit. But before the Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of habeas corpus, the Confederate Congress and Jefferson were not shy about Unconstitutional actions. In August 1861, the Confederate legislature passed the Alien Enemies Act This law allowed the government to arrest any person living in the Confederacy who did not acknowledge himself as a citizen of the Confederate States of America. Enforcement of those laws fell to the Habeas Corpus Commissioner, a position created by the president in August 1861 and approved by the Confederate Congress in 1862. The commissioner and his associates exercised the powers of a court and could also arrest any Confederate citizen and question his or her loyalty. However, the subject under arrest was not entitled to a lawyer, a jury, or any of the legal protections allowed to a defendant in court. The government designated its opponents as political prisoners and dispatched them to prisons in Richmond or Salisbury. None of the above is authorized by the Confederate Constitution. The Confederate government also prohibited the sale of liquor in 1862. Not a power granted by the Confederate Constitution. On April 16, 1862, the Confederacy enacted a national draft. In addition, the Confederate Government unilaterally extend the enlistments of every man in the Army to three years, regardless of what enlistment contract the soldiers had signed with their state governments. These acts are not authorized by the Confederate Constitution. In 1862 the Confederate Government placed an embargo on all cotton grown in the Confederacy. In addition, the Government burned 2 million bales of cotton, this authority to do this cannot be found in the Confederate Constitution. In August of 1861 The Confederate Congress imposed a “War Tax”. The law covered property of more than $500 (Confederate) in value and several luxury items. The tax was also levied on ownership of slaves. The Confederate Constitution does not grant that taxing authority. in the autumn of 1862, The Confederate Congress created a civilian pass system which forbade civilian travel without the approval of national authorities. This power is not granted the Confederate Constitution.

Yes they were.

"The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously — talks for his country with "buts" and "ifs" and "ands." (Collected Works of Lincoln, vol. 6, pp. 264—265.)

One of those imprisoned for fourteen months for simply questioning the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus was Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key and editor of the Baltimore Exchange newspaper. In response to an editorial in his newspaper that was critical of the fact that the Lincoln administration had imprisoned without due process the mayor of Baltimore, Congressman Henry May, and some twenty members of the Maryland legislature, he was imprisoned near the very spot where his grandfather composed the Star Spangled Banner. After his release, he noted the deep irony of his grandfather's beloved flag flying over "the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed" (John Marshall, American Bastile, pp. 645—646).

After his release, Francis Key Howard wrote a book about his experiences entitled Fourteen Months in American Bastilles in which he described daily life as "a constant agony, the jailers as modified monsters and the government as an unfeeling persecutor which took delight in abusing its political prisoners" (Sprague, p. 284). In his defense and whitewashing of Lincoln's civil liberties abuses even Lincoln apologist Mark Neely, Jr., author of The Fate of Liberty, noted that in Fort Lafayette (aka “the American Bastille”) and in other dungeons where political prisoners where held, "Handcuffs and hanging by the wrists were rare [but not nonexistent], but in the summer of 1863 the army had developed a water torture that came to be used routinely" (p. 110) Repeatedly, whenever Congress asked for information on the arrests, he replied that it was not in the public interest to furnish the information (p. 302).

In May 1861 the New York Journal of Commerce published a list of 100 Northern newspapers that opposed the Lincoln administration. Lincoln ordered the Postmaster General and the army to shut them all down.

May 18, 1864, Lincoln order that directly issued to General John Dix: "You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce . . . and prohibit any further publication thereof . . . you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison . . . the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers." For good measure, all telegraph communication in the North was censored as well.

"Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)

"With the suspension of habeas corpus [the right not to be arrested without reasonable charges being presented], Lincoln authorized General Scott to make arrests without specific charges to protect secessionist Marylanders from interfering with communications between Washington and the rest of the Union. In the next few months, Baltimore's Mayor William Brown, the police chief, and nine members of the Maryland legislature were arrested to prevent them from voting to secede from the Union. . . .

"Twice more during the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, including the suspension 'throughout the United States' on September 24, 1862. Although the records are somewhat unclear, more than thirteen thousand Americans, most of them opposition Democrats, were arrested during the war years, giving rise to the charge that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 182-183)

Lincoln won New York state by 7000 votes "with the help of federal bayonets," wrote Pulitzer Prize—winning Lincoln biographer David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered.....ie vote rigging.

The border states were systematically disarmed, and two "confiscation acts" were written into law in which any U.S. citizen could have all of his private property confiscated by the government for such "crimes" as "falsely exalting the motives of the traitors"; "overstating the success of our adversaries"; and "inflaming party spirit among ourselves." Informers who turned in their neighbors could keep 50 percent of their neighbors' property; the other half when to the U.S. treasury. In Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln James G. Randall painstakingly details all of these attacks on constitutional liberty, and more.

Bull Snipe:

If Davis had been lobbying the Confederate Congress for a while on the issue of emancipation in exchange for Diplomatic recognition by the Brits and French, there should be s series of letters, minutes of meetings or statements in Memoires to this effect. You would substantiate your case considerable if you were to provide documented references to those discussions or meetings. Otherwise all we are left with is your opinion that Davis did such a thing. My answer to that is that you'll have to read for yourself. I can provide you these sources directly. I'm not going to spend huge amounts of time digging around to show Davis had lobbied Congress earlier though I've read from several sources that he had. If you choose to disbelieve because I refuse to go on an hours long goose chase...*shrug*...so be it.

"Beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war "was for the defense of the institution of slavery" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim "demagogues." Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted "the Confederates were not battling for slavery" and that "slavery had never been the key issue" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).

"Precious few textbooks mention the fact that by 1864 key Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were prepared to abolish slavery. As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation. In 1864 Jefferson Davis officially recommended that slaves who performed faithful service in non-combat positions in the Confederate army should be freed. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a "moral and political evil" years before the war (Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232). By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously."

DoodleDawg:

Nonsense. You have offered your completely bogus, unsupported claim that their actions were constitutional, despite the fact that the constitution clearly prohibited them, by offering some lame explanation that "treaties madde them constitutional." That is completely false. Treaties cannot override the constitution, not even the Confederate one.

You say its bogus. Maybe it even is. However if both the President and the Congress went along with it then it would be done regardless of the actual constitutional niceties....as we both know. They'd hardly be the only government in North America to have trampled on their constitution in order to do what they thought necessary to win.

Did they give their approval? If so, when?

1864. and in anticipation of your next tiresome gambit, feel free to look it up for yourself.

It would be proof that the court existed and that Davis and his congress had not ignored their constitution in that area, and would provide evidence that Davis might not be willing to ignore his constitution in other areas.

As we both know, exigencies of war had not provided the opportunity for them to do that yet. It rated as a lower priority than defending the country. Was it unconstitutional? Possibly. So what? If the political power structure went along with it then it would be done.

PS. Whatever happened to "let's both agree that each of us thinks the other an idiot and there is nothing to be gained from further discussion"? You just can't help yourself can you?

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.