After Confederate statues fall, is Lincoln Memorial next?

https://www.reporternews.com ^ | March 9, 2019 | Jerry Patterson

[NKP_Vet]

“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?

Probably not.

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.”

Lincoln's prejudices weren’t limited to blacks.

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.

Was Lincoln opposed to secession?

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.

[rockrr]

If we are to believe DegenerateLamp the north was involved in a civil war from the beginning of the union - they just didn’t know it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Telling the truth about how the money flowed is not a qualifier. It is the essential ingredient in understanding how the power blocks of New York and Washington DC launched a war against their financial competitors.

[DoodleDawg]

Telling the truth about how the money flowed is not a qualifier.

First you say there was no direct trade with the South and Europe. Then you say there was but the money flowed through New York. That's a qualifier to an obviously false statement.

[jeffersondem]

“I don't know about “smeared” unless questioning your “most read author” claim is smearing.”

I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I did write, “ONE of America's most-read authors. . .” (emphasis added)

If you have information that contradicts, I would, of course, want to read it.

[DoodleDawg]

I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I did write, “ONE of America's most-read authors. . .” (emphasis added)

If you have information that contradicts, I would, of course, want to read it.

And I asked if you had a source for the quote other than a lost cause Facebook site. Do you?

[DiogenesLamp]

There were plenty of sinners to go around and too few saints, but reasonable people understand about proportionality.

Do reasonable people understand about money streams, and who is making the profits?

Washington DC and New York were both making huge profits for very little work from slave production in the South. This is why Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment which kept the status quo of slavery in the South, but opposed the Crittenden Amendment which would have given the South greater representation in Congress, and thereby threaten the cozy deal New York and Washington DC had going on.

New York and Washington DC are still exploiting the rest of us. To conservatives who have been paying attention, the New York media manipulates the public into voting to support liberal spending policies in Washington DC. Washington DC bureaucracy and the "establishment" also work to keep taxpayer money (from the rest of us slaves) flowing through New York and Washington DC.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting: "It has been estimated that New York received forty percent of all cotton revenues since the city supplied insurance, shipping, and financing services and New York merchants sold goods to Southern planters."

This claim is far too vague to have any meaning -- 40% of what, based on what numbers and what calculations?
Admittedly, cotton was the US #1 export, by far, representing 50% of all US exports, and New York was a huge port city, producing circa 75% of all Federal import tariff revenues.
But half of US cotton shipped directly from New Orleans and easily 25% more from other Southern ports.

So 40% of what?
Of cotton exported through New York?
Maybe 20% of all US cotton exports?
Which would be 10% of all US exports?
And this is a huge problem, yet never mentioned by people at the time, why, exactly?

DiogenesLamp quoting: "The trade with the South, which has been estimated at $200,000,000 annually, was an impressive sum at the time."

Sure, here are some basic numbers from 1860:

• 1860 cotton exports: ~$200 million.
  
• Northern "exports" to the South: ~$200 million.
  
• Total US exports, including specie: ~$400 million.
  
• Total US imports: ~$400 million.
  
• Total US GDP: $4.4 billion
  
• Total US asset values: $20 billion.
  
• Total "market value" of US slaves: $4 billion.

DiogenesLamp quoting: "Most New Yorkers did not care that the cotton was produced by slaves because for them it became sanitized once it left the plantation."

Right, fellow Democrats -- economic, political & social partners: Northern Big City & Southern planter globalist Democrats ruled New York and Washington, DC, from ~1801 until secession in 1861.

Republicans then as now were a very different group of people -- rural, small town, suburban, religious, patriotic, professionals, small business, "middle class", anti-slavery, constitutionalists.

[DiogenesLamp]

I am aware that areas under Union control were exempted. Sometimes brevity is more beneficial than absolute accuracy.

The point I am making is that Union slavery continued while "rebel" slavery stopped.

Slavery was therefore not the crux of the Union's goal. Submission was.

[DiogenesLamp]

DiogenesLamp generally ignores anything you write because no one has time to waste dealing with the circular logic and false equivalencies that you stream out through your firehose responses.

[DiogenesLamp]

He’s made that claim before on other threads, that the reason they rebelled doesn’t matter. Claiming that because there is a natural right to rebellion...

Get it right. "Natural right to *INDEPENDENCE*."

As you have so elequontly pointed out, the founding fathers didn’t think so.

He has not "so eloquently" pointed this out, because it is clearly incorrect factually. As Franklin said, "One of the greatest tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts. "

The founders put no conditions on the right to independence. They listed their "causes" as a courtesy, and they clearly tell you they are only listing their causes out of "respect for the opinions of mankind."

One is not required to respect the opinions of mankind in order to exercise a fundamental right. One does not have to explain one's reasons for wanting to disassociate from people whom they saw as exploiting them.

[DiogenesLamp]

When New York is collecting all the money, and paying off their friends in Washington DC, it isn't "trade." It's Feudalism.

"Trade" is where people voluntarily exchange goods with each other, and both profit from the deal without intervention from third party parasites.

The parasite class of New York and Washington DC are still exploiting the rest of us. This is why the media works very hard to get liberal politicians elected to Congress and the Presidency. It's their most effective method to keep the money power in New York and Washington DC.

The rest of us taxpayers just pay the bill for this unified power block in the North East.

Here's another map for you. Perhaps repetition and showing you where the money goes, will eventually have you grasping the bigger picture of how things have been working for a long time.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Washington DC and New York were both making huge profits for very little work from slave production in the South."

In 1860 Washington DC collected about $53 million in tariff revenues, about 75% of that from New York City.
Studies show Federal revenues were distributed roughly proportionately across the country, North & South.

Of course, if you define "the North" as everywhere north of, say, Charleston, SC, then, sure, "the North" got most of Federal revenues.

DiogenesLamp: "New York and Washington DC are still exploiting the rest of us"

Here is a more accurate map showing that higher income counties generally (but not always) correspond to larger cities, which not coincidentally, also have much higher costs of living.
There is no data to suggest that such higher incomes lead automatically to higher average quality of life.

Indeed, that's exactly why so many of us live as far off the beaten path as we can get -- money is not everything no matter what your pal Karl Marx told you, FRiend.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "DiogenesLamp generally ignores anything you write because no one has time to waste dealing with the circular logic and false equivalencies that you stream out through your firehose responses."

When I have time I thoroughly enjoy answering your many lies with facts & logic.
By contrast, you have no time to deal with facts or logic, only just enough time to repeat your lies.

I understand.

[DiogenesLamp]

Noise. I show the highest income counties of which the vast majority are Washington DC redistribution systems for taxpayer money, and you put out "Well, here is the rest of the economic activity."

Irrelevant, and just intended to muddle the clarity I am providing by pointing out who is getting rich from taxpayer dollars.

Washington DC, enabled by the New York financial, publishing, and media empire, is exploiting the nation to enrich the "elites" who generally live in this region.

They are lords. We are peasants.

[DiogenesLamp]

You just repeat the same irrelevant crap. You never address the salient point. You go knock down strawmen of your own creation, and I do not have time to waste reading your irrelevant spiel.

[rockrr]

If you weren’t such a hack sophist you would have identified who you were quoting (ideally with a link for proper context). Instead you chose to make a half-assed game of it, inviting (nay) begging for controversy.

You lose.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "He has not "so eloquently" pointed this out, because it is clearly incorrect factually."

Actually, DiogenesLamp has no idea what I may have "so eloquently" pointed out because, by his own admission he refuses to read my posts.
So his claim that I am "clearly incorrect factually" is merely an argument from ignorance -- he doesn't know it to be true (won't read it) so claims it's false.

DiogenesLamp: "As Franklin said, 'One of the greatest tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts.' "

Franklin was indeed the author of many pithy quotes, but this one in particular is not cited by more reputable quote sources -- it sounds "off" for his time & station.

Regardless, your Marxist smearing of 1860s Republicans, especially Lincoln, are far from a "beautiful theory", they are ugly & disgraceful but somehow immune to whatever "brutal facts" may discredit them.

DiogenesLamp: "The founders put no conditions on the right to independence.
They listed their "causes" as a courtesy,"

Of course they did put, listed clearly in plain sight -- the first condition is "necessity" and another is "a long train of abuses & usurpations" of which they then itemized about two dozen, including:

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

That is a far cry from 1860 Fire Eater "at pleasure" complaints about potential Northern restrictions on slavery's expansion.

DiogenesLamp: "One does not have to explain one's reasons for wanting to disassociate from people whom they saw as exploiting them."

Of course, as a free individual you are entitled to associate or disassociate yourself from whomever you wish -- within the defined limits of contracts you've agreed to.

But townships, counties, cities & states?
Not so much, according to our Founders' examples: they said it took necessity created by a long train of abuses & usurpations, etc.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "They are lords.
We are peasants. "

My map shows plenty of wealthy people live outside NY & DC.
As for "peasant" or "slave", that might refer to Democrats.
Republicans have always been a different kind of people.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You just repeat the same irrelevant crap.
You never address the salient point.
You go knock down strawmen of your own creation, and I do not have time to waste reading your irrelevant spiel. "

Nonsense, in every post I destroy your alleged "salient points".
But you refuse to read & comprehend, you close your eyes and just keep on repeating your same old, same old, same old...

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

It has been estimated that New York received forty percent of all cotton revenues since the city supplied insurance, shipping, and financing services and New York merchants sold goods to Southern planters.

A fact that says less about the New York being the business and financial capital of America from colonial times to the present day than it does the south's failure to establish its own insurance, shipping, financing services and merchant class. As Louis Wigfall told a British journalist,

"We are a peculiar people, sir! You don’t understand us, and you can’t understand us, because we are known to you only by Northern writers and Northern papers, who know nothing of us themselves, or misrepresent what they do know. We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no cities—we don’t want them, have no literature—we don’t need any yet. We have no press—we are glad of it. We do not require a press, because we go out and discuss all public questions from the stump with our people. We have no commercial marine—no navy—we don’t want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures: we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."

The truth is that the southern cotton interests were eager to borrow money, buy insurance, and all the rest from the north and would rather do that than set up their own financial infrastructure. Apparently the south was only interested in industries that could utilize slave labor, and shipping, insurance, and finance don't qualify and were thus below the dignity of southern gentlemen.