Posted on 07/02/2002 3:37:44 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
The Osceola Sentinel SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1998 -- An Edition of The Orlando Sentinel
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Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk
History doesn't lie. Right? Well, the winners want history to make them look good. Sometimes the losers get their say, too.
Perspectives can change. Villains can be made to look like heroes. Interpreting the past can lead to lively debates. And because it is history, often the only confirmation comes from what was written down or told orally through generations.
Even so, care must be taken.
When talk turns to the Civil War and blacks' role with the Confederacy, there is no room for revisionist theories for Asa R Gordon.
For instance:
The Confederate states were interested in white supremacy.
The war between North and South was not about states' rights or a War of Southern independence. States' rights and independence are WHATS of the Civil War. The WHY of it was to preserve slavery, Gordon told a small group at St. James AME Zion church in Kissimmee last week.
Simply put, there should be no memorials honoring men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They and others resigned from the Union Army and fought against their country.
They were rebels, and they are traitors to the United States. Nations normally don't honor traitors, Gordon, a retired astrophysicist, said to a crowd that included a group from the Osceola Children's Home.
People normally don' t build memorials for traitors, racists or those who practice genocide.
There are no memorials to the Nazis.
In the United States, Confederate memorials dot the countryside. The flag is flown with pride. The Nazi flag - and Nazi leaders - inspire hatred.
It should he no different for Lee and others who fought for the South. The real heroes, Gordon said, are those Southerners who fought for the North.
As for those who try to promote the idea that blacks were willing soldiers for the South, Gordon's research disproves it.
In a lecture that was close to three hours long, the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C. -based Douglass Institute of Government left no doubt about the fantasies and historical myths of Afro-Confederates.
"The South won in peace what it lost on the battlefield," Gordon said.
The commitment to the neo-Confederate movement is often emotional rather than intellectual, he said. It cannot stand the scrutiny of scholarship. The belief that blacks willingly served in the Confederate Army is ludicrous and harmful, he said.
"A slave didn't have a choice. If his master said he was going, the slave couldn't say no. He was a slave."
Those who say blacks fought for the South should look at Confederate documents, which ban blacks serving as regular members of the Army. They also need to look at records showing that those who did serve deserted when they got the chance.
Propagation of the present-day theories make it hard for people to realize that blacks were unhappy about their condition, Gordon said.
"How can you owe a people anything, if in fact they were so satisfied with the state that suppressed them?" he asked. "How can you correct that legacy if you are in denial about the true reasons?"
Gordon's visit was sponsored by Ann Tyler and Evan McKissic. McKissic, a retired Osceola teacher, has been critical of the theories of another retired local teacher, Nelson Winbush.
Winbush travels the country recounting the stories of his grandfather, who he said willingly and proudly served with Southern forces.
"I try to get the truth out. I talked with my grandfather, and I know what he said," Winbush said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Pino welcomes comments. He can be reached at (407) 931-5935, by e- mail at OSOpino1@aol.com, by fax at (407)931-5959 or by mail at The Osceola Sentinel, 804 W. Emmett St., Kissimmee, 34741.
Myth. Absolutely not supported in the record.
By what mechanisms? The ATF? IRS? BLM?
Nonsense.
"We have the Executive with us, and the Senate & in all probability the H.R. too. Besides we have repealed the Missouri line & the Supreme Court in a decision of great power, has declared it, & all kindred measures on the part of the Federal Govt. unconstitutional null & void. So, that before our enemies can reach us, they must first break down the Supreme Court - change the Senate & seize the Executive & by an open appeal to Revolution, restore the Missouri line, repeal the Fugitive slave law & change the whole governt. As long as the Govt. is on our side I am for sustaining it, & using its power for our benefit, & placing the screws upon the throats of our opponents". - Francis W. Pickens, June,1857
How is it that you know better than the governor of South Carolina?
Walt
I give you the Civil War as evidence otherwise.
Maybe I'm just not getting your point...........or maybe I am. If you're only here to offer your "proof" that the Civil War was fought to protect the institution of slavery (your "proof" consisting of excerpted speeches; see my point on this above), then I'm sorry........you're failing.
Do you want me to go back to other threads and post their comments here? Several of them have said just that.
I gave you my rational above. Reconstruction was a direct reaction to what the southern states did after the war, especially their attempt to re-establish slavery. Why do you think they would have acted any differently if Lincoln were still president?
The fact is most of the South was dirt poor, lacked education, did not own slaves, and were not in a position to know much more than what the local paper, delivered about once a month in some areas, said about the Fed over stepping it's bounds. Patriotism was more confined to the feelings for ones community or State than for a nation.
One either joined because his State, his family, and his neighbors were under attack than for any ideals or debate about slavery. Or in some cases the fighting man was conscripted.
Patriotism has always begun with community outward, ones family, town, state, country. Which ever comes under attack gleans the most patriotic fervor. For the common man, what was understood was that his area of the world was under threat, and I suspect that this was all that was needed to make many of them lock and load.
I wonder what Mr. Nelson thought of Pickett and his men?
As for Asa's page (and Walt posting it which I still can't believe), it just another example of the strange bedfellows yankees are having to rely on to keep the truth of the South out of the headlines.
A respectful tip of the hat back to a fellow Florida Cracker, countryman, and patriot.
You don't seem very familiar with the history.
Eleven of the first 15 presidents were southerners. The most invasive federal law BY FAR -- the one that made the biggest mockery of states rights was the Fugitive Slave Act. It nullified the personal liberty laws of the northern states and I believe it required unwilling persons to assist in capturing escaped slaves by drafting them into posses to assist in recapturing these slaves .
So much for states rights.
Not only that, but southerners were able to dictate the tariff rates. They were, as Alexander Stephens said, "exactly" what southern votes made them. And they were lower in 1860 than they had been in 40 years. These are facts. They are verifiable.
Now, when you consider that the federal government was funded almost entirely by the tariff, it was southerners who were driving these events, not northerners.
I haven't yet mentioned the Dredd Scott decision. This very pro-southern decision that said that black men had no rights that whites were bound to accept, was made in the face of the fact that 5 states allowed blacks to vote. I quoted the record-- a statement of Governor Pickens of South Carolina. You need to find some support for your position in the record. But it's not there.
The record is plain. You don't seem very familiar with it.
By "mechanisms" I meant for you to expound on how the federal government was interfering with the rights of southerners. The agencies I listed, ATF, IRS, BLM -- they didn't exist. Neither did Social Security, AFDC, etc. In fact, the feds had the most tiny influence on the lives of the people of the day. That was true before the war and it was true after the war for decades.
Walt
Your comment about juding history by the value-of-the-moment is so true - we have seen our leadership/politicians defacing historical memorials, gravesites, flags, and other symbols. These socialist/revisionist yahoos are doing it to Southern memorials as well as Union, Revolutionary, etc - our collective history as a people. The war on Southern heritage is the war on American heritage. This stuff has to stop!
One thing here is obvious: You have spent a lot of time digging about in an attempt to prove YOUR point, not necessarily attempting to learn the whole story. I do know a bit about Southern history, for I have lived in practically every state in the southern U.S. and have taken a little time to learn something about each one........including its history. I do not claim in any way to be an expert on such things, but I DO know an agenda when I see one. Check your assumptions, my friend. They're not selling here.
Ahh ... another ANTI-states-rights "conservative" heard from!
I've seen your posts on the subject many times and perhaps this has been asked before, but I'd like you to address it.
I can't help wondering (in these perilous times) why folks don't find more appropriate targets for their hate (too strong?). I offer the Islamists, for one.
Ahh ... another ANTI-states-rights "conservative" heard from!
I'm sorry I confused you with sarcasm.
Slavery is not legal in the US now. I take this as evidence that the South lost.
States' rights do not trump anything at the federal level. I take this as evidence that the south lost.
I'm trying to state that the current facts speak against this "historian"'s claim that the South won during the peace what they lost during the war.
I don't know why you percieve this as being anti-States' Rights on my part.
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