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.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Asking the same question of the US Constitution shows that you do indeed understand the point that unless "free states" are explicitly permitted by the document, they cannot exist.
You grasp the concept for the Confederate Constitution, now grasp the exact same concept for the US Constitution."

Once again: there's nothing in the US Constitution which prevents states from abolishing slavery, and only one clause, Fugitive Slaves, which directly requires them to recognize slavery legally.

By contrast the Confederate constitution added three new provision effectively preventing any Confederate state from abolishing slavery:

1. No laws against slavery
2. No restrictions on movement & sojourn of slaves
3. No prohibitions on slavery in Confederate territories.

Given these preconditions, how could a free-state ever join the Confederacy?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You don't want to believe that Southern independence was a serious financial threat to powerful Northern interests because you would rather believe the Armies of God marched to insure Justice or something.
You don't want your Mythology tainted with demonstrable facts that shows it to be false."

More or less by accident I stumbled on this link from 2015 which must come from the mother-load of Lost Causer proof-texts.
To find them you have to page down about half-way, then you see posted 10 Lost Cause quotes that are frequently repeated on these threads.
They run from December 1860 through March 30, 1861 with a post-script from October 1862.
They constitute for Lost Causers "proof positive" that Civil War was not all-about slavery, but rather "raw power", "Northeastern power brokers" and "money flows from Europe".

So, first of all, please review my post #538 above which addresses one of those 10 quotes, about tariffs on railroad iron.
The fact is the fears expressed were misplaced and overblown.
The South consumed only 10% of total US iron, and could not possibly have re-exported to Union customers without paying Union tariffs.

Second, the "real reasons" for war in 1861 were the same as in 1776, 1812, 1846, 1898, 1917, 1941 & 2011 among other dates -- because Americans believed we'd been attacked, no deeper logic or explanations required.

As for why did President Lincoln send his resupply mission to Charleston in April 1861 -- to support President Buchanan's long-before promise not to surrender Fort Sumter without a fight.
Jefferson Davis' assault on Union troops there was a clear act of rebellion, and so Civil War was on.

Economics, "raw power", "money flows from Europe", etc., etc., can be interesting, but they don't explain Americans' response after Fort Sumter any more than they do in 1941 after Pearl Harbor -- regardless of how much Lost Causers hate to hear the truth of it.

[DoodleDawg]

I may have exhausted my questions but since you haven’t had any answers then I guess you figure that you win. So be it.

[DoodleDawg]

Nope. Stop trying to take the focus off of the US Constitution.

The original claim and the resulting questions were on the Confederate constitution. Then you blundered in and injected your inane question pertaining to your weird interpretation of Article IV.

[DoodleDawg]

This refusal to grasp relatively simple concepts is one of the reason why I dislike attempting to engage in any discussion with you.

But it's your idiotic and asinine interpretations and opinions that you claim as fact that makes dealing with you so amusing.

[FLT-bird]

Oh I’ve provided plenty of answers - complete with sources. They just weren’t the answers you would ever accept because.....snicker snicker that’s the whole trolling 101 gag. To just keep asking questions, pretend no answer is ever good enough and try to get the mark to waste vast amounts of time - and hopefully get really PO’d.

It’s as if you think I haven’t been around and seen it all before.....

[DoodleDawg]

Oh I’ve provided plenty of answers - complete with sources.

Plenty of answers, but few if any for the questions I've asked.

It’s as if you think I haven’t been around and seen it all before.....

The bullsh*t spouted by lost causers like you and DiogenesLamp is so imaginative and amusing that I don't think we'll ever see it all. It seems like y'all have an endless supply.

[DiogenesLamp]

No. I had already made the point that if it isn't specifically mentioned as a "special case" in the US Constitution, then by default, states could not legally prohibit an acknowledged right by citizens of other states.

You claimed this argument was wrong, but you put forth the exact same argument regarding the Confederate Constitution.

You understand the necessity of allowing "free states" when it comes to the Confederate constitution, but you absolutely and unequivocally refuse to understand that this exact legal concept also applies to the US Constitution.

If it isn't in there, it doesn't exist. "Free States" were illegal in the US, right from the beginning. They demand a "special case" consideration for "property", without being explicitly clear on the point that this sort of "property" was an agreed to exception.

And George Washington more or less ignored these "free state" laws.

[DiogenesLamp]

But it's your idiotic and asinine interpretations and opinions that you claim as fact that makes dealing with you so amusing.

They are also your idiotic and asinine interpretations and opinions, so far as the Confederate Constitution is concerned.

If free states aren't explicitly allowed, then the document cannot be interpreted as allowing them.

*YOUR INTERPRETATION!*

Your shoe put on your foot.

[FLT-bird]

As I said this is the gag. Ask endless questions. Pretend any answer given is not good enough. Rinse, repeat.

I find the bullsh*t spouted by you PC Revisionists to be hilarious. A lot of it is self contradictory - especially by anyone claiming to be a conservative. But of course y’all will tie yourselves into pretzels trying to convince yourselves the Leftists in Academia who came up with this Revisionist line of BS to suit their 1960s politics suddenly discovered capital T Platonic truth over 100 years after the events in question.

[Bull Snipe]

“offset by economic benefits to the larger industries of the South” There were no larger industries in the South except agriculture. It that arena, the South a rock solid economic ground, it was a world competitor. Move outside of agriculture, and the South was 30 years behind the British and French and 20 years behind the North in capacity and capability. Remove the protective tariffs, what advantage could Southern manufacturing employ to be competitive. Shipping would become almost exclusively British. The Brits and the French would flood the South with there products manufactured cheaper than anything the South could accomplish. And the Southern Constitution forbade the Government from interfering.
The South would remain an agricultural powerhouse for decades, but its ability to diversify into manufacturing would be problematic.

This is my opinion, just as your opinion is the opposite. Since the Confederacy did not survive, our opinions of what might have been are purely speculative in nature. Rhetorical exercises at best.

[DiogenesLamp]

The South would remain an agricultural powerhouse for decades, but its ability to diversify into manufacturing would be problematic.

For the sake of discussion let us say this is "true." Even if it is true, it is irrelevant to the economic damage this would cause to powerful men in the North, and the New York economy specifically.

The point here isn't whether the South was making a mistake in becoming independent, the point is that the South becoming independent was a strong economic incentive to the powerful people in the North to stop them.

The power men of the North regarded the South's efforts to become independent as a serious economic threat to their own industries.

Thus, war. Not to stop human suffering, but to prevent an economic threat to wealthy and powerful people who's descendents are still running the United States of America today.

We know of them as the "Establishment" and "Crony Capitalist" "influence buyers." They own the media. They own Washington DC, and have since the 1850s.

[Bull Snipe]

So your only concern is the economic damage that it would cause in the North.

[DiogenesLamp]

So how about quoting the clause in the constitution that explicitly allows for slave-free states? Never mind the rest of the crap in your post, I’d settle for that.

This one still makes me chuckle. :)

[DiogenesLamp]

So your only concern is the economic damage that it would cause in the North.

My concern is demonstrating why the North had a very powerful motive to launch a war against the South, and one which had nothing at all to do with concern about the South's peculiar institution.

I think the changes caused by independence would have caused a massive economic boom in the South, and so too thought the various Southern Newspapers of the time, and so too thought various Northern Newspapers of the time.

[DoodleDawg]

I could spend the next day or two linking to the posts of yours that are side-splitting and never come close to the end. You are an endless source of amusement.

[DiogenesLamp]

Meh. I don't care. That you claim to find my arguments funny is either a case of you whistling past the graveyard, or an admission that you can't grasp the points put before you.

May you have much mirth. :)

[Bull Snipe]

your opinion is a cabal of New York bankers and Abraham Lincoln decided to drag 31,000,000 people into Civil War to protect tariffs the government collected and insurance and shipping that might have gone elsewhere. Once the decision was made, Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln alone personally orchestrated events to fool the South into firing first. Have I got that correct.

[rockrr]

Yep, even before he had to power or authority to effectuate any of it ;’}

[DiogenesLamp]

your opinion is a cabal of New York bankers and Abraham Lincoln decided to drag 31,000,000 people into Civil War

Nobody at that time thought it would turn into the horror that it became. Many thought it would be over quickly. Someone said all the bloodshed could be wiped up with a handkerchief.

to protect tariffs the government collected and insurance and shipping that might have gone elsewhere.

You forgot the 230 million that was funneling through New York with both them and Washington DC getting the bulk of it. You forgot the threat caused by loss of the Southern markets to European competition. You forgot the loss of the Midwestern Markets due to Southern companies moving European products up the Mississippi Watershed, and you forgot the threat caused by the capitalization of competing industries in the South. You forgot a lot of other economic threats to this same power block in the North.

Once the decision was made, Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln alone personally orchestrated events to fool the South into firing first.

Who detached the Powhatan with secret orders to prevent the War fleet from carrying out it's attack on Charleston?

You say you can't learn much from "what if" history, but here's a "what if" that I think we can all learn about. If the Powhatan had arrived as all the publicly known written orders said it would do, that group of warships would have been put into the position of attacking the shore batteries. David Dixon Porter himself has said that if they had followed through with their mission as their orders had said, they would have been sunk.

We know that Lincoln's government knew what array of forces they faced, because Anderson had sent maps and drawings as well as detailed reports about what those forces were.

Any sane man would have immediately recognized that sending five warships into that array of cannons was a suicide mission. Had they been able to follow the orders they were given, it would have been five sunk warships, and who knows how many dead soldiers/sailors.

Was Lincoln an idiot, or did he never intend for those ships to exchange gunfire with the shore batteries?

You tell me. It seems too much to beg of luck that he "accidentally" detached the command ship, and were it not for this accident, a lot of people would have been killed.

But yeah, most of what you have written is the cartoon version, but it is somewhat in the right direction.

Lincoln, representing powerful economic interests in the North, sought to trigger what he believed would be a quick little war, that would end the nonsense of the South governing themselves, and quickly restore them back to their proper place as the cash cows for well connected Northern power brokers, and funders of Washington DC "mercantilism". (Really corporate subsidies from the taxpayers to influential people.)

And he made a tremendous mistake in his clever little plan. He didn't realize the degree of resistance which would arise and turn his quick little war into a horrible bloody disaster.