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.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I’m just waiting for him to blame the war on the Illuminati.

[Bull Snipe]

yes prices would have been lower for goods from Europe. Would the South moved toward in industrial base, probably not.

Clearly the introduction of large volumes of European manufactured goods to the South at greatly reduced prices due to very low tariffs would be detrimental to Southern manufacturing of similar products. Tredegar thrived and profited because of high tariffs. Without those tariffs,
the Brits could undersell every manufacturer in the South.
That is why protectionism. Even with the use of slave labor (which most Southern manufacturers used to some extent) Southern manufacturing would be overwhelmed by European competition.

“Profits made by Southern corporations, would not only ramp up Southern shipping.” .

For the reasons stated above, there would be no Southern corporations involved in manufacturing. What shipping was under Southern ownership would most probably die out due to the unrestricted access British shipping would have to all Southern ports

Southern companies could import these goods and distribute them through the Mississippi river watershed to huge swaths of the Midwest. Only as far North as the Missouri/Kentucky border on the Mississippi, beyond that point is the United States. You presume that the Federal Government would take no actions to strengthen border security and increase customs collection efforts on goods coming in from the South. Smuggling is illegal and insurance companies will not insure goods that are going to be involved in illegal commerce. If the financial impact of smuggling became bothersome, my bet is that the U.S. Government would take positive steps to stop it. Maybe a wall along the border.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "By becoming independent, US Protectionist laws no longer applied, and the South could import as many European manufactured goods as they desired, and this would directly impact sales of Northern goods to the South. "

There were no "protectionist laws" preventing anyone from importing whatever they wanted.
The 1846 US Warehousing Law did allow merchants to use bonded warehouses to store imports and not pay tariffs until sold.
New York became the largest warehousing port, but nothing prevented merchants from using others, and they did, most notably New Orleans.

DiogenesLamp: "But Wait!
It would not only cause them massive loss of sales to the South, Southern companies could import these goods and distribute them through the Mississippi river watershed to huge swaths of the Midwest, and they could also distribute goods all along their borders to the Northern states.
Another massive financial impact to the same Industrial barons of the North."

Complete fantasy since Southern importers would pay tariffs twice -- the Confederate tariff first, then the Union tariff.
There's no way they could compete against Union merchants selling to Union customers.

DiogenesLamp: "But Wait!
Profits made by Southern corporations would not only ramp up Southern shipping, it would attract Northern experts to move south and set up manufacturing facilities in Southern cities, which would then also compete directly against the Northern industrial barons."

Maybe... a hundred years later, when sanitation improvements eliminated Southern epidemics like yellow fever and air-conditioning made Southern summers more livable.

But the Deep South white population in 1860 was only 10% of the US total (Deep South today is 23%) and so 90% of imports, other than luxury goods, would still go elsewhere.

DiogenesLamp: "But Wait!
Over time, states realizing that their financial interests were better served by the Confederacy than by the New York controlled Northern coalition, would eventually chose to join the Confederacy, starting with all the border states.
Over time, the Confederacy would grow at the expense of the Union."

Here DiogenesLamp untethers his fantasies from any connections to reality.
One key fact he ignores is that no Northerner -- none, zip, nada -- was willing to accept slavery as the price for joining the Confederacy.
Another is that because Confederates were eager for war, they'd first have to win the war to impose terms which might make further secessions attractive.
Finally, the Great Lakes and railroads made Northern shipping just as economical as Mississippi River steamboats.

DiogenesLamp: "The businessmen of the Northern industries were nobody's fools.
They could see the threat to their power and control, and they certainly wanted none of it, and the simplest way to stop it was to go to war with the South, blockade all their trade, and smash this upstart government that would threaten their money streams."

Maybe... Democrats, erstwhile political allies, economic partners & social family of Southern planters, first supported their secessions but began to turn when Confederates renounced their debts in the spring of 1861.

DiogenesLamp: "And so the war was about Money and Power, but they did everything they could to convince naive people that it was about the "milk of human kindness", and gullible people bought it and still repeat this nonsense today! "

Nonsense.
Americans went to war in 1861 for the same reasons we went to war in 1776, 1812, 1846, 1898, 1917, 1941 and 2011 -- because we believed we'd been attacked.
No more complicated explanations were needed for those other wars, or for events after Fort Sumter in 1861.

DiogenesLamp: "You would think that people could grasp that when Lincoln offered them effectively permanent protection for slavery through the Corwin Amendment, that slavery wasn't what either the North or South really cared about.
But some people are just dense when it comes to seeing things as they truly are."

From Day One slavery was a big part of it -- secessionists used slavery as their #1 justification.
During the war slavery became increasingly important to the Union, in the form of Contraband, Confiscation Laws, Emancipation, colored regiments & abolition.
So there was no time after spring of 1861 during which slavery was not an important issue:

"...any man who pretends to believe that this is not a war for the emancipation of the blacks, and that the whole course of the Yankee government has not only been directed to the abolition of slavery, but even to a stirring up of servile insurrections, is either a fool or a liar."
CSA Gen. John Hunt Morgan, November 1862

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "As I pointed out in the Wikipedia article on the Crittenden compromise, both sides acknowledged that slavery wasn't going to be significant anywhere in New Mexico or Arizona or Nevada."

According to this source by 1860 the number of slaves in New Mexico was already at least hundreds if not thousands.

The key feature of Crittenden was it reestablished the old Missouri Compromise 36-30 line between slave & free territories.
Democrats liked it, but Republicans opposed expanding slavery beyond states where it was already lawful.

"Raw power"?
Maybe for some, but people like Abe Lincoln also believed slavery was morally wrong and should be opposed where possible.

[DoodleDawg]

Clearly the introduction of European manufactured goods to the South at greatly reduced prices (due to removal of high tariffs) would be detrimental to Northern sales of similar products.

But the European goods would have the same tariff applied to them that the U.S. goods would so that would have given both a level playing field. Add to that the lower transportation and insurance cost on U.S. goods due to their closer proximity to the South and the U.S. could well have the cost advantage over the European goods.

Didn't think of that, did you?

[DoodleDawg]

Saying default law is in fact default law, and special made-up law must be explicitly spelled out is an asinine theory?

LOL! No. Twisting Article IV like a pretzel and adding words that aren't there is asinine.

I tell you things you don't like. You refuse to believe them because you don't like them, not because you can factually refute them.

I don't believe them because they are absolute nonsense.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "So by all means please tell us how an existing Confederate state could outlaw slavery within its borders..."

DiogenesLamp: "You assert such, but George Washington begs to differ....
Where does a state get the authority to free slaves?
Their own laws cannot do it, because this is expressly prohibited by Article IV, section 2. "

I think DiogenesLamp well knows George Washington is a great argument against his own ludicrous constitutional law interpretation.
One key fact about Washington is that he not only wanted to abolish slavery, as President he willingly obeyed Pennsylvania's abolition law by cycling his slaves back to Virginia after the specified time.

Washington, you might remember, was President of the 1787 Constitution Convention in Philadelphia and would know better than anyone just what the Constitution says & means.
George Washington had no problems with Pennsylvania & other states abolishing slavery, he only wished the whole country would too.

Neither did other recognized Constitution experts like James Madison & Alexander Hamilton object to states abolition.
Nor did anyone of that time, even 1860 era Fire Eaters never claimed states' abolition was somehow unconstitutional.

It took a 21st Century genius like DiogenesLamp to "figure out" what nobody back in the day ever realized.

Pretty amazing, isn't it?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Clearly the introduction of European manufactured goods to the South at greatly reduced prices (due to removal of high tariffs) would be detrimental to Northern sales of similar products.
Would you have us believe that European goods would not have hurt Northern sales?"

DiogenesLamp's problem with this argument is he forgets, if he ever learned, the timeline of events in 1861.

1. In March Confederates passed their first tariff, basically the old 1856 US Tariff rates with some minor changes.
   
2. Over the next few months they collected about $2 million with it.
3. On May 21, 1861 Confederates passed a new tariff to take effect on August 31.
   This new tariff was said to be lower than the March tariff, but by August the Union blockade was taking effect and so it produced very little in revenues.

The Union blockade had been planned many years, if not decades, earlier as a response to potential rebellion, so it cannot have come as a surprise to the former Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis.

Bottom line: it's ludicrous to suggest merchants would want to pay tariffs twice by importing first to a Confederate city then re-exporting to a Union state.

[rockrr]

Ah, but what did Washington know? He certainly was no match for the mighty DegenerateLamp!

[Bull Snipe]

DL is dealing in “what if history”. pure speculation of what might have been had the Confederacy been successful in existing for more than four years. IMO, wishful thinking on his part.

[FLT-bird]

DoodleDawg: How tiresome. We have to repeat the same quotes because you just can't help yourself and feel some strange compulsive need to keep writing to me after we each agreed that there was nothing constructive about talking at each other any further.

"The most remarkable features of the new instrument sprang from the purifying and reforming zeal of the delegates, who hoped to create a more guarded and virtuous government than that of Washington. The President was to hold office six years, and be ineligible for reelection. Expenditures were to be limited by a variety of careful provisions, and the President was given budgetary control over appropriations which Congress could break only by a two-thirds vote. Subordinate employees were protected against the forays of the spoils system. No bounties were ever to be paid out of the Treasury, no protective tariff was to be passed, and no post office deficit was to be permitted. The electoral college system was retained, but as a far-reaching innovation, Cabinet members were given seats in Congress for the discussion of departmental affairs. Some of these changes were unmistakable improvements, and the spirit behind all of them was an earnest desire to make government more honest and efficient." (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 435)

"The framers of the Confederate constitution improved upon the Constitution of the United States in a number of minor ways, designed to produce 'the elimination of political waste, the promotion of economical government, and the keeping of each echelon of complex government within its appointed orbit.' So effective were these changes that William M. Robinson, Jr., has termed the document 'the peak contribution of America to political science.' The process of amendment was altered. With certain exceptions Congress was not to appropriate money except by two-thirds vote of both houses. The amount and purpose of each appropriation were to be precisely specified; and after the fulfillment of a public contract Congress was not to grant any extra compensation to the contractor. 'Riders' on money bills were discouraged by the provision that the President might veto a given item of an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. Each law was to deal with 'but one subject,' to be expressed in the title." (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 157, 159)

". . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .

"The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .

". . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction." (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)

The Confederate Constitution banned the slave trade from anywhere but the places it was legal before secession ie it was still legal from slaveholding US states but nowhere else. That was effectively no change from what the US Constitution had said with the expiration of the grandfather clause in 1810.

It also expressly allowed states which had banned slavery to join the CSA. The clause you cite allowed people from other states to transit with their slaves. It did not require those states that had banned slavery to become slaveholding states. You've tried these weak arguments before and failed already.

[FLT-bird]

DiogenesLamp

Raw power. It was *ALWAYS* about raw power. Our Civil War opponents simply do not want to believe that the vast bulk of the people on their side in 1860 were simply duped into believing this astro turf crap which had the real purpose of holding onto control of the Congress. I might be able to wake them up a bit by pointing out what Lyndon Baines Johnson did. They might be able to see this because it's so disconnected from what they want to believe about the political machinations of 1860, so they don't have an emotional interest vested in believing certain things that are clearly not supported by history. Lyndon Baines Johnson was a racist Southern Democrat who clearly had no love for black people. After Republicans pushed through the 24th amendment that allowed non-taxpayers to vote, Johnson immediately put forth his "War on Poverty". Did Johnson do this out of a deep abiding concern for black people, or did Johnson do this because the "poor" had just become a massive new voting block which could be ridden to power in Washington DC? Who among you supporters of the war against the South believe that Johnson suddenly had a change of heart and just wanted to help black people? Again, if you people think the "milk of human kindness" is what motivates power blocks to move huge amounts of money and resources in efforts to gain and hold power, you are laughingly naive. It's about power. It's *always* about power, because power is how you get the money.

Yep. I've posted dozens of Northern editorials showing it was all about keeping the Southern states which were their cash cows in and using their greater population and thus more votes to bilk the Southern states out of ever more of the money they generated in order to line Northern pockets.

[Bull Snipe]

“After Republicans pushed through the 24th amendment that allowed non-taxpayers to vote.”

Complete BS. In 1962 (When the XXIV Amendment was passed) The Senate was 62 Democrat, and 37 Republican. The House was 261 Democrat, 173 Republican. In addition only 5 states out of 50 still levied a poll tax to vote. Those states were Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. The other 45 states of the Union were not effected by the XXIV

Please explain how the Republican could push through the XXIV Amendment when they did not have control of the Congress of the United States. Also explain how just 5 Southern states that had poll taxes, at the time the amendment was passed made LBJ’s great society possible.
We await your response.

[DiogenesLamp]

But the European goods would have the same tariff applied to them that the U.S. goods would so that would have given both a level playing field. Add to that the lower transportation and insurance cost on U.S. goods due to their closer proximity to the South and the U.S. could well have the cost advantage over the European goods.

If tariffs set at 10% were advantageous to the Northern industrialists, their Washington DC puppet would have set the tariffs at 10%.

Clearly they believed protectionism was necessary, or they wouldn't have created the protectionist tariffs and other protectionist laws in the first place.

The New York Evening Post certainly didn't see things your way.

"Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent., which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports."

Read the whole thing. They certainly didn't believe as you did that the North would win economically under this situation. They saw things as I do, that Southern independence would be a financial catastrophe for existing big monied industrialists in the North.

[Bull Snipe]

“Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent., which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports”

and not an ounce more would be bought from Tredegar, it would have to fold its operations. The South would have only retail and agriculture, no manufacturing.

[FLT-bird]

I didn’t write the post you’re responding to.

[Bull Snipe]

my bad

[DoodleDawg]

How tiresome

Tiresome indeed. Here is a novel concept. Why not quote from the actual Confederate constitution and show where it allows slave-free states to join and where it bans all slave imports. You can do that, can't you.

The Confederate Constitution banned the slave trade from anywhere but the places it was legal before secession ie it was still legal from slaveholding US states but nowhere else.

In other words it protected slave imports.

It also expressly allowed states which had banned slavery to join the CSA.

If it expressly allowed it then quote the clause.

[DoodleDawg]

If tariffs set at 10% were advantageous to the Northern industrialists, their Washington DC puppet would have set the tariffs at 10%.

Are you really that obtuse? We're talking about the Confederate tariff and not the U.S. one.

The New York Evening Post certainly didn't see things your way.

I can point you to dozens of editorials and columns that said Trump actually did collude with the Russians and his actions were criminal. Does that mean the President did?

But just out of curiosity how many railroad rails were imported from Europe prior to the rebellion?

[FLT-bird]

Yes it is tiresomel - yet you keep doing it.

I have provided you quotes from multiple sources showing that Southerners meant exactly what they had been saying about limiting spending, crushing crony capitalism, keeping power decentralized and far from showing any kind of evangelical zeal for slavery, they largely just kept things as they were. Hell, the main differences between the Confederate Constitution and the US Constitution were the limitations on the power of government - not over slavery and that’s to say nothing of the US Constitution with the Corwin Amendment being a part of it.