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]

Wardaddy: " Many of these same nuts were nevertrumpers It’s a segment of culture I didn’t know existed till I came here. "

I've never seen a "never trumper" on these threads, "obnoxious" or otherwise, and I do check out a lot of them.

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, we’ve all discovered a segment of society here we’d rather have not met!

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird to DiogenesLamp: "I have to admit you have the patience of a saint though I don’t know why you bother with the same utterly obsessed 2-3 PC Revisionists who spring up in EVERY thread in which the subject is mentioned."

DiogenesLamp's patience is indeed commendable, his persistence in repeating lies long since debunked, not so much.

As for "obsessed 2-3 PC Revisionists", those would be our Lost Causers, trying to rewrite the words of their own Confederate ancestors.
Posters here defending true history are a lot more numerous.

FLT-bird to DiogenesLamp: "The funnies of all is rocksinhishead who doesn’t even bother trying to make arguments instead just spewing bile nonstop just like the standard Leftists you see on DU or Huffpo or some other such cyber cesspool. "

So can we take this to mean FLT-bird is an expert on Leftists, DU & Huffpo? And he got such expertise how, exactly?

In all fairness to rockrr, he tailors responses to the intellectual capacities of posters.
Perhaps he simply judges FLT-bird's a little lower than the median?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

The March 30 piece is interesting beyond your cherry picking. “Can Government for an instant rest under the imputation of counseling or permitting legislation that raises rebel provinces to power upon the ruins of those that remain faithful, and that secures to the favorable consideration of the civilized world a revolt, whose sole motive was the perpetuation of Slavery?”

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

DiogenesLamp's patience is indeed commendable, his persistence in repeating lies long since debunked, not so much.

Were you here in the Stand Watie days? Diogenes is the new Stand Watie, but without the stuck caps lock button.

[rockrr]

There will never be another Stan Wattie. He was one of a kind LoL

[FLT-bird]

We’ve gone down this road hundreds if not thousands of times before. I am not going to waste my time with your responding to respond posts in which you endlessly spew your ignorant and false PC Revisionist drivel. I will just continue to laugh at your ridiculous lies and your pathetic obsession.

20th attempt.

[FLT-bird]

Bubba Ho-Tep:

The March 30 piece is interesting beyond your cherry picking. “Can Government for an instant rest under the imputation of counseling or permitting legislation that raises rebel provinces to power upon the ruins of those that remain faithful, and that secures to the favorable consideration of the civilized world a revolt, whose sole motive was the perpetuation of Slavery?”

That's what they falsely claimed the original 7 seceding states' motive was. We know however what the North's motive was.....money and nothing else. The NY times made that quite clear in their March 30th article. Your only lame attempt at a response was to claim their clear statements as to their own motives were "cherry picking".

[FLT-bird]

Yes, unfortunately there are a few of these lovers of Big government and crony capitalism who try to masquerade as Conservatives even though their ridiculous “all about slavery” PC dogma came straight from avowed Leftists in Academia starting in the 1980s.

[BroJoeK]

Bubba Ho-Tep quoting NYTimes: "...a revolt, whose sole motive was the perpetuation of Slavery?"

FLT-bird: "That's what they falsely claimed the original 7 seceding states' motive was."

Obviously, according to FLT-bird, secessionists themselves were lying when they wrote:

1. "...an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution."
   South Carolina Reasons for Secession, December 24, 1860

2. "It is not at all surprising, while such is the character of the Government of the United States, that it should assume to possess power over all the institutions of the country.
   The agitations on the subject of Slavery in the South are the natural results of the consolidation of the Government.
   Responsibility follows power; and if the people of the North have the power by Congress "to promote the general welfare of the United States," by any means they deem expedient, why should they not assail and overthrow the institution of Slavery in the South? "
   Robert Rhett, South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States, December 24, 1860

3. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
   Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
   Mississippi Reasons for secession, January 9, 1861

4. "Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security..."
   Alabama Ordinance of Secession, January 11, 1861

5. "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."
   Georgia Reasons for Secession, January 29, 1861

6. "They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
   For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States."
   Texas Reasons for secession, February 2, 1861.

7. "The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.
   This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
   Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split."
   He was right.
   What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact."
   Alexander Stephens, Corner Stone Speech, March 21, 1861

Seven out of seven say: slavery.
So, when our Lost Causers tell us it's just "Leftist Academics" revisionism which claims "all about slavery", do they include as "Leftist Academics" these Deep South Fire Eaters who wrote the original secession documents?

[miss marmelstein]

I agree. A lot of conservatives don’t know where they pick up their ideas or “morals” from. Around here, you can’t even say Robert E. Lee was a good general before some idiot doesn’t just disagree, he screams at you without even knowing who you are, what your background is or what exactly is your attitude towards the Civil War. Mine? Forgive and forget - especially if “your side” won, lol.

[BroJoeK]

Bubba Ho-Tep: "Were you here in the Stand Watie days?
Diogenes is the new Stand Watie, but without the stuck caps lock button."

To his credit, DiogenesLamp is reasonably skilled with html and almost always polite.
He does, like Stand Watie sometimes go big on key ideas.

And I do vaguely remember Stand Watie, plus a good many others from way back...
But seems to me they were quite different from today's group in that I don't remember any of them responding -- or rather non-responding -- in the way a good many do today.
Consider FLT-bird's post #607, whenever did the old timers do that?
DiogenesLamp does a similar thing, once per thread, then refuses to respond, just starts over with the same-old same-old on a new thread...

Oh well...

[mac_truck]

I've never seen a "never trumper" on these threads,

CatherineofAragon was a notorious FR #nevertrumper who coincidentally was also a good old Yankee basher.

Considering Trump's NY pedigree one might argue she was at least being consistent.

[rockrr]

the Southern states were quite content to leave without ever claiming any of the Western territories

You know that isn't true. The confederates had agents and provocateurs in almost every state and territory agitating for admission to the regime.

[rockrr]

I’ve never seen anyone - oldtimer or other - that ever did anything as silly as those boilerplate “20th attempt” thingies. Pathetic.

[DiogenesLamp]

“That proves subjugation is “right”, if you have enough power. It is the same foundation on which the Union is built.”

You think subjugation is morally right? Then how is slavery morally wrong? It's the same thing. "Might makes right."

I reject that. I believe in "Consent of the Governed."

[DiogenesLamp]

I often admire your patience as well. :)

[DiogenesLamp]

So according to you, the New York money power took the United States to war in order to preserve the wealth that flowed to their coffers through the slave-powered cotton economy.

New York/Washington DC power coalition. Nowadays known as the "Acela corridor." Yes.

But let us be clear about this. The war was for the protection of their wealth and power in several ways.

1. To ensure Southern production income flowed through New York and Washington DC.
2. To stop European goods from coming into the country at lower prices so as to displace their own products in the market places of the US.
3. To stop the capitalization of Southern businesses that would eventually compete with them.
4. To stop the center of wealth and power from shifting away from New York.

And naturally, at the end of that war, they freed the slaves because why again?.

Why did they break slavery? As of August of 1862, Lincoln was still saying that a peaceful resolution which included slavery was still possible. Even his emancipation proclamation protected slavery in areas under Union Control. As late as 1865, General Sherman, in a speech to a captured confederate city said that a year ago they could have still kept their slaves, but now it is too late.

Why did they break slavery? Several reasons, most dominant among them I think is revenge.
1. They wanted to hurt the people who fought them as badly as they could.
2. Other reasons include breaking the South's financial back because at this point there was so much hatred that anyone with eyes to see could have told you the South would be bent on revenge, and they would have clearly turned all their economic resources to accomplishing this task.
3. Payoff political allies that wanted this.
4. Create a newly enfranchised voting class that could be depended upon to always vote Republican, and thus giving them power in Congress.

Also there is the general fact that most people of the North hated slavery, and this would be a popular move in those states. But to clarify that, I need to make it clear that this hatred of the idea that people had "free" workers whom they didn't have to pay. This is distinctly different from hating slavery because you saw it as injustice. This was hating slavery because you saw it as a threat to people who worked for wages. It was slavery hatred motivated by self interest, not morality, and this was in fact the dominant form of hatred of slavery throughout the North. Those who hated slavery for moral reasons were the tiniest minority of the population, and were generally regarded as kooks by most people.

Also, they had so badly wrecked the South's cotton export economy, that it just wasn't that big of a prize anymore, even if they could keep it's income routing through New York. Those years of blockade had allowed European competitors to create enough supply that the South no longer had the ability to control the market as they did before the war.

Without that blockade, nobody would have ever been able to create new cotton plantations that would be capable of showing a profit. Because of the blockade, they were able to create these new suppliers, and once they existed, they would thereafter be critical suppliers to the European textile manufacturers.

So the South's main business was mostly destroyed anyways.

[DiogenesLamp]

Here is some further reading on the subject.

The government is now a check-writing, wealth-redistribution machine that costs trillions.

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "I’ve never seen anyone - oldtimer or other - that ever did anything as silly as those boilerplate “20th attempt” thingies. Pathetic."

Sad to say, I taught him that little maneuver, several months ago, but in my case it was legit.
Then as now FLT-bird was dominating a CW thread, with many lengthy posts repeating the same arguments over & over.
So I started counting them up.
He never "got" the message, but picked up on that technique, applying it indiscriminately regardless of what I post to him.

On another thread I noticed where an amused spectator and central_va were speculating on the soldierly qualities of our comrade-in-arms, wbarmy.
Their discussion went like this:

an amused spectator: "It's interesting to read the opinions of people like wbarmy on the Internet, when we know that wbarmy would have soiled himself if asked to walk across the field of Pickett's Charge.
The critics of Robert E. Lee are yellow revisionist dogs."

central_va: "He would of turned tail long before hitting Emmitsburg Pike."

They're on the wrong track here, wbarmy would be on the east side of The Angle, I think with the 69th PA fighting Irish who took the brunt from Armistead & Garnett after most of the 71st PA & 58th NY skedaddled.
But it's an interesting idea -- where would we put our FRiends FLT-bird & DiogenesLamp in such a scenario?

They come on strong, attack wildly, but then disappear when the opposition gets too heavy.
I'm thinking maybe a John Bell Hood, one of Jefferson Davis' favorite young generals.