Statue of Abe Lincoln: "...a slap in the face of a lot of brave men..."

The Cincinnati Enquirer ^ | Friday, December 27, 2002 | AP

[yankeedame]

Friday, December 27, 2002

Lincoln statue won't be embraced by all

The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. - Abraham Lincoln is returning to the capital of the Confederacy, much to the chagrin of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Five days before the Civil War ended in April 1865, the president and his youngest child, Tad, traveled to still-smoldering Richmond soon after Southern forces abandoned the city in flames. On April 5, 2003, the 138th anniversary of that visit, a bronze statue of the pair commissioned by the United States Historical Society will be unveiled at the Civil War Visitor Center of the National Park Service.

"Here is a national hero, a small boy, and a beautiful city by the James River, all united again," said Robert Kline, chairman of the nonprofit group society, which works on behalf of museums and other groups on projects of historic and artistic value. "This time Lincoln's in Richmond for all time."

Richmond, home to towering statues of Confederacy figures including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, was abandoned after Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attacked on April 2, 1965.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans view the Lincoln statue as "a slap in the face of a lot of brave men and women who went through four years of unbelievable hell fighting an invasion of Virginia led by President Lincoln," Brag Bowling, the SCV Virginia commander, said Thursday. The group had only recently learned of the statue, and had no immediate plans to protest.

The life-size statue by sculptor David Frech will show Lincoln and his son on a bench against a granite wall. The words "To Bind Up The Nation's Wounds" will be etched into a capstone.

[crystalk]

All white? Still Christian?

[Cultural Jihad]

The only problem with booth plan was he didn't do it soon enough ...

Wouldn't you be happier over at politicalviolencerepublic.com?

[NittanyLion]

what is objectionable to a monument to an American president in an American city?

That's my question too. It seems the only ones keeping this alive are the leftists who profit from balkanizing society and the ones who are [evidently] still upset about the outcome of the war. And as near as I can tell both groups are still living in a time 135 years ago.

[talleyman]

...these hillbillys ...
There are no "hillbillys" involved in this dispute, and your name-calling exemplifies the Yankee persona.

[NittanyLion]

I say put in there just to piss people off.

I'm not at all convinced that putting a statue of an American president in Richmond is eing done to piss people off.

[wideawake]

Bismark was not on the winning side, Mr Wake

Let me get this straight: you're claiming that Prussia lost the Franco-Prussian War, and that Napoleon III's forces actually defeated the Prussian army instead of the other way around?

Or are you admitting that Prussia won and France lost, and you're claiming instead that Bismarck was never Chancellor of Prussia and therefore not on the winning side?

Explain yourself.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The irony is, had Lincoln lived, things in the South would have been much better immediately after the war - Lincoln wanted to pursue a policy of conciliation, but upon his assassination the Radical Republicans in Congress drove the agenda and Johnson had limited ability to stop them, since they could overrride his veto.

That is exactly right; Lincoln refused even to consider whether or not the so-called seceded states were even ever out of the Union. He refused to consider treason trials for any rebel leader.

He was for a soft peace, which he had begun with the reconstruction government in Louisiana in 1863. He received much abuse from his own party for vetoing the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864. This bill threw out Lincoln's "10% plan" and substituted an iron clad oath of -never- having supported the CSA in order to vote. It also set up military districts with military governors.

Winston Churchill called Lincoln "the last protector of the prostrate south."

The question really is whether or not Richmond -deserves- a statue of Lincoln.

Walt

[talleyman]

OK...Is this better... Redneck Idiots. Inbred Morons. Backward-ass Country F##ks. Like those descriptions better?
Ah, such compelling rhetoric! Thank God we have people like you to "bind up the wounds".

[CyberCowboy777]

I do not deny that the unjust can win, look at Clinton.

Also, I do not consider the South unjust, both sides where full of great people.

But prayers for freedom were stronger from the north and from the religious around the world for the north. No matter the "real" cause of the war, the fact that pastors, clergy, politicians (inside and outside the States) and followers of Christ were fighting and sacrificing to save people from slavery worked against the south.

The south's leadership was stupid not to take slavery off the table in the very beginning, they did not and even included the preservation of it in articles of secession. They burned themselves by not being the most right. Good ideas or not, they were wrong not to immediately free all slaves and apologize for ever taken part in the practice. At that point the South could have made all these other points in a valid context.

Prayers work and the south could not get the prayers of many outside their own borders and even had many inside their borders praying against them.

BTW- my ancestors fought on both sides. We even have a few heroes of the south in the blood.

[k2blader]

Exactly.

[talleyman]

1965? You kinda figure Grant would have retired by then.
Old soldiers never die, they just fail to pass muster.

[wideawake]

You don't have to pay income tax either. You can always take a job that pays less than $13K a year.

A tariff is the government saying: you can't buy certain things until I get my cut. Either way, the government is restricting your free use of your own income.

The Confederate cotton tariff was a response to a military blockade. If the South didn't have to take desperation war measures, it's highly unlikely that any tariff would ever have existed.

[EternalVigilance]

The proposed memorial

[ContentiousObjector]

if you guys won the civil war then what is the deal with all the American presidents from the confederacy?

If you won the civil war, then why the hell do I have an American passport?

If you won the civil war then why am I paying taxes to the American IRS?

[laotzu]

"Stop trying to be a victim of my words"

Sorry. My mistake.

They way you automatically added insult with your every point had me assuming you were a liberal. I see now that was unfair.

Clearly, I have oppressed you, and pretended to be the victim. That is the true shame of it.

The power of insult to sway the intellect, and influence others to your cause cannot be underestimated. But..before I interrupted..you were making a point involving 'Inbred Morons'; please continue....

[WhiskeyPapa]

You don't have to pay income tax either. You can always take a job that pays less than $13K a year.

I don't want to do that.

I do want an interstate system, I do want meat inspected and doctors certified, I do want Al Qaeda not to cut my throat -- all things I can't afford by myself.

You want some sort of nirvana that does not admit of the human condition. The secessionists wanted to balkanize us. Thank God they were thrown down in defeat.

Walt

[CyberCowboy777]

The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power "to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States."


As indicated in Article I, Section 8: duties, imposts, and excises are legitimate revenue-raising measures on which the United States government may properly rely. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out, the legitimate costs of the federal government can be borne either by taxes on American citizens and businesses or by tariffs on foreign companies and products. The latter is preferable to the former.

[CyberCowboy777]

In Article I, Section 9, the original document made clear that "no Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." It is moreover established that "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."

[wideawake]

My ancestors won the Civil War because they all lived in New York and my two ancestors who actually fought in the War fought in US Grant's army.

Maybe that explains your passport, W2 and the Johnson, Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and GW Bush administrations.

[ContentiousObjector]

I am sorry, I had you confused with someone else