Posted on 12/22/2002 7:56:45 AM PST by GeneD
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - The U.S. National Park Service has embarked on an effort to change its interpretive materials at major Civil War battlefields to get rid of a Southern bias and emphasize the horrors of slavery.
Nowhere is the project more striking than at Gettysburg, site of the largest battle ever fought on American soil, where plans are going ahead to build a new visitors center and museum at a cost of $95 million that will completely change the way the conflict is presented to visitors.
"For the past 100 years, we've been presenting this battlefield as the high watermark of the Confederacy and focusing on the personal valor of the soldiers who fought here," said Gettysburg Park Superintendent John Latschar.
"We want to change the perception so that Gettysburg becomes known internationally as the place of a 'new rebirth of freedom,"' he said, quoting President Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" made on Nov. 19, 1863, five months after the battle.
"We want to get away from the traditional descriptions of who shot whom, where and into discussions of why they were shooting one another," Latschar said.
The project seems particularly relevant following the furor over Republican Sen. Trent Lott's recent remarks seeming to endorse racial segregation, which forced many Americans to revisit one of the uglier chapters of the nation's history.
When it opens in 2006, the new museum will offer visitors a narrative of the entire Civil War, putting the battle into its larger historical context. Latschar said he was inspired by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., which sets out to tell a story rather than to display historical artifacts behind glass cases.
"Our current museum is absolutely abysmal. It tells no story. It's a curator's museum with no rhyme or reason," Latschar said.
It is also failing to preserve the 700,000 items in its collection, including 350,000 maps, documents and photographs, many of which were rotting away or crumbling into dust until they were put into temporary storage.
FEW BLACKS VISIT
Around 1.8 million people visit Gettysburg every year. Latschar said a disproportionate number were men and the park attracts very few black visitors.
In 1998, he invited three prominent historians to examine the site. Their conclusion: that Gettysburg's interpretive programs had a "pervasive southern sympathy."
The same was true at most if not all of the 28 Civil War sites operated by the National Parks Service. A report to Congress delivered in March 2000 found that only nine did an adequate job of addressing slavery in their exhibits.
Another six, including Gettysburg, gave it a cursory mention. The rest did not mention it at all. Most parks are now trying to correct the situation.
Park rangers and licensed guides at Gettysburg and other sites have already changed their presentations in line with the new policy. Now, park authorities are taking a look at brochures, handouts and roadside signs.
According to Dwight Pitcaithley, chief historian of the National Park Service, the South had tremendous success in promoting its "lost cause" theory.
The theory rested on three propositions: that the war was fought over "states' rights" and not over slavery; that there was no dishonor in defeat since the Confederacy lost only because it was overwhelmed by the richer north; and that slavery was a benign institution and most slaves were content with their lot and faithful to their masters.
"Much of the public conversation today about the Civil War and its meaning for contemporary society is shaped by structured forgetting and wishful thinking" he said.
Been surfing the web again? Good, shows initiative.
All The Founders Constitution does, as near as I can tell from the on-line version, is post the Marshall decision under the heading Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2. And I'll agree, as I've said all along, that the Chief Justice clearly states his belief that only the legislature can suspend habeas corpus. There it is, clear as day. No doubt at all about that.
But that wasn't my question. I have not doubted that the Chief Justice said that. I have questioned all along your claim that the remarks were not made in dictum and that they constitute a decision on the constitutionality of Lincoln's actions, and you claim that you are right and Chief Justice Rehnquist is wrong. In fact, the reverse is true. Who may suspend habeas corpus has never been definitively answered. The Chief Justice is right and you are wrong.
I'll post a couple of links for you. The first is the definition of Obiter Dictum since you don't seem to understand what it is. The second is a series of links which refer to the Chief Justice's comments and clearly identify them as being made in dictum:
Law vs.Order, or Habeas vs. Hobbs
Case law, footnote 1695
Treason and the Constitution
Finally, here is a great article by Eric Freedman called Just Because John Marshall Said It Doesn't Make It So . You need Adobe Acrobat for it and while Mr. Freedman isn't writing on the suspension of habeas corpus he does not that the Chief Justices remarks were made in dictum.
I'll conclude by repeating that I personally don't believe that President Lincoln's action on habeas corpus were Constitutional. I agree with Chief Justice Marshall and I believe that had the matter been taken to the full court then the Supreme Court would have ruled against him. But my opinon and your opinion and even Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Bollman do not constitute a definitive decision on whether Lincoln's actions were legal.
at least 15,000 CS POWs were MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD at Point Lookout POW (DEATH) Camp alone. it was cheaper to drown,bayonet,bludgeon or shoot the CSA prisoners than it was to feed them!
free dixie,sw
don't you think it ODD at the very least that lincoln did NOT free any slaves that he COULD lawfully have freed?
free dixie,sw
talking commonsense to ole' wp is like trying to teach a hog to sing opera;it tires you to no good result and only bores the hog. wp is UN-teachable,imVho.
free dixie,sw
the plaques were removed by the Chief Justice of the TXSC, a DIMocRAT who was/is a GORON!
free dixie,sw
you can thank the USSC for the klan being able to mis-use our flags!
Ralph Green,our CIC of the SCV, sued the KKK to stop the mis-use years ago;alas, the USSC in a 9 to 0 decision said the SCV/UDC could not protect our flags,monuments & other CSA symbols from mis-use by haters/bigots/scum!
free dixie,sw
the truth is you do NOT WANT to believe the TRUTH, as it makes the evilspirited,hatefilled,arrogant damnyankees look like the ogres & WAR CRIMINALS that they surely were!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
if this ACTUALLY occurrs, i'll give my $$$$$$$ to privately-funded battlefields like Cedar Creek!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
the Law of Land Warfare states that private property MAY be utilized for the duration of that conflict by an invading foreign force, BUT the private property MUST be returned, undamaged, to the owner at the conclusion of the war!
as usual, you do NOT know of which you speak. better stick to posting long,boring,off-point drivel;it's what you excel at.
free dixie,sw
free dixie NOW,sw
free dixie,sw
free the south,sw
the federal camps,arsenals,installations & other property was the property of ALL the people in the union at the time of secession.
after lawful secession happened, the federal property located in the new CSA, remained the property of the citizens of the STATES where it was located.
free dixie,sw
free dixie NOW,sw
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