Posted on 07/23/2003 10:03:09 AM PDT by justshutupandtakeit
In Back to Basics for the Republican Party author Michael Zak (FR's distinguished patriot, Grand Old Partisian) undertakes the heroic and herculean task of clearing the name of the Republican Party from the thicket of lies, distortions and misrepresentations which has been cultivated by the Democrat/media alliance. Since any partisian argument in today's America must begin with the refutation of chronic and consistent lies told about the GOP, Zak's book provides the necessary ammunition to do just that.
This well-written, interesting and enjoyable tour of GOP history can be of use to any patriot who wants to know the truth about the histories of the two major parties. It traces the origins of the GOP to the proto-Republican, Alexander Hamilton, and the Federalists and that of the Democrat Party to its ancestors Jefferson, Clinton and Burr. A brief survery of Federalist and Whig antecedents and policies is sketched to give historic context to events. Since the GOP was created and grew in opposition to the policies and failures of the Democrat Party to extend the benefits of the Constitution to all Americans, that party's history is also examined.
And a sorry history it is. A story of treachery, short-sightedness, racism and economic ignorance unfolds as we see the Democrats consistently for 170+ years fight against allowing the Blacks a chance to achieve full freedom and economic success. Opposition to that fight has defined the best of the GOP's actions. Every advance in Civil Rights for Blacks has come from GOP initiatives and against Democrat opposition. Every setback for Blacks achieving constitutional protection has come from Democrat intitiatives and against GOP opposition. Racists have led the Democrats during most of their history, in sharp contrast to Republicans. All the evils visited against Black are of Democrat design. Democrats created and maintained the KKK, the Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes, it was Democrats lynching Blacks, beating Blacks, exploiting Blacks and perpetrating murderous riots which killed Blacks in
Zak rescues the reputation of the party from the slanders thrown against it during the Civil War and Reconstruction, many of which are popular around FR. He also clearly shows the mistaken disavowal of GOP principles which brought the modern party to its lowest state and allowed the demagogues of Democrats to paint the party as "racist." This was because of the disastrous turn to States' Rights which grew from the Goldwater campaign. It was the final straw in the process which transformed the share of the Black vote from 90-95% GOP to 90% democrat. A modern tragedy of immense proportions.
This is a book which should be studied carefully by Republicans in order to counter the barrage of Lies trumpeted daily by the RAT/media. While it is a work of a partisian, Back to Basics does not hesitate to point to GOP mistakes, failures and incompetence in carrying out its mission nor does it neglect to give Democrats credit when credit is due for actions which are productive of good for our nation as a whole. Unfortunately, those are far too few.
In order to effectively plan for the future we must be fully aware of the past, Zak helps us achieve that awareness.
The Constitution probably wouldn't have been ratified if it said that states couldn't resume their sovereign powers if needed. If I remember correctly, even with conditions the ratification vote was fairly close in Virginia and New York. It is hard to see a practical Union forming without those two major states.
Apparently, conditions placed on ratification of the Constitution by the states that formed the Union can be ignored, but the condition placed on Southern states that they must ratify the proposed 14th Amendment in order to regain representation in Congress must be followed.
Then again, Justice O'Connor ignores the 14th Amendment. Perhaps we should not allow Justice O'Connor and the liberal Justices the right to vote on Supreme Court cases until they accept the 14th Amendment. After all, if it was OK to put this condition on Southern states, it ought to be OK to put it on Supreme Court justices.
[nc] After WW II the Allies were assisting nations whose infrastructure had been devastated. The last rebel state left by the Union was Texas. Texas suffered no appreciable infrastructure devastation. They must have been there for some other reason.
[GOP] No state ever left the Union.
I was not saying that Texas left the union. The subject is reconstruction. I was saying that Texas was the last rebel state from which the occupying forces of the North departed. After a very long time, eventually the occupying forces departed Texas.
As the infrastructure of Texas had not been destroyed during the war, I am questioning what the occupying forces were doing during those years which was analagous to what the U.S. troops did in Germany or Japan after World War II.
The 11th NC Infantry, CSA of Pettigrew's Brigade (Kirkland's), in Heth's Division:
Fought at White Hall, Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Siege of Petersburg.
Richard D.S. Hartgrove served in Company E. He died at Pt. Lookout POW Camp after being captured at Gettysburg. He was also wounded 3 times.
Name: Richard Dobbs Spaight Hartgrove
Birth: 1844
Death: 19 Mar 1865, Point Lookout, MD
Burial: Point Lookout, MD
Father: Benjamin Hartgrove (1804-<1877)
Mother: Mary Catherine Anthony (1806->1877)
Military Notes for Richard Dobbs Spaight Hartgrove
He seems to have been named for Richard Dobbs Spaight, Sr., Governor of North Carolina from 1792-1795.
Richard served in the Civil War as a private in the 11th Regiment Co. E of the North Carolina Troops of the CSA. He served with his brother William and, like William, was wounded at both White Hall on 16 December 1862, and at Gettysburg around 1-3 July 1863. He was captured at Burgess Mill near Petersburg on 27 October 1864 and was a prisoner at Point Lookout Prison Camp in Maryland until his death of pneumonia.
The 37th NC Infantry, CSA of Branch's Brigade (Lane's), in A. P. Hill's Division (Pender's):
Fought at Hanover Court House, 2nd Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Siege of Petersburg.
Sgt. William Sellers enlisted in Company D on 2 Mar 1863. He was taken prisoner at Gettysburg and confined at Point Lookout, MD.
Name: William Monroe Sellers
Birth: abt 1823
Census: 17 Sep 1850, Cleveland Co, NC
Death: bef 1870
Father: George Sellers {Jr} (<1794-1836)
Mother: Anna Mary Froneberger (1793-1869)
Military Notes for William Monroe Sellers
He served in the Civil War. Sgt. William Sellers enlisted in Company D, 37th NC Infantry on 2 Mar 1863. He was taken prisoner at Gettysburg and confined at Point Lookout, MD.
The 55th NC Infantry, CSA of Davis's Brigade (Cooke's), in Heth's Division:
Fought at Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Siege of Petersburg
Sgt. William Lawson Brown enlisted in Company C 31 May 1862. He was wounded and taken prisoner at Gettysburg. He was surrendered at Appomatox.
Name: William Lawson Brown
Birth: 28 Jul 1842
Death: 31 Jan 1916
Burial: Cherryville, Gaston Co, NC, St. John's Lutheran Church
Father: John Brown (1809-1888)
Mother: Mary Magdalene Caldwell (1807-1897)
Military Notes for William Lawson Brown
He served in the Civil War enlisting in Company C, 55th NC Infantry on 31 May 1862. He was wounded and taken prisoner at Gettysburg. He was surrendered at Appomatox.
BARNES & NOBLE
Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies
by Arthur W. Bergeron (Editor), Thomas Cartwright, Ervin L., Jr Jordan, Richard Rollins (Editor), Rudolph Young
Product Details:
ISBN: 0963899392
Format: Paperback, 172pp
Pub. Date: June 1997
Publisher: Rank and File Publications
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 123,023
Black Confederates: An Anthology about Black Southerners
Paperback, October 2001
Product Details:
ISBN: 1565549376
Format: Paperback, 208pp
Pub. Date: October 2001
Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company, Incorporated
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 286,436
AMAZON
Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies
by Arthur W. Bergeron (Editor), Thomas Cartwright, Ervin L., Jr Jordan, Richard Rollins (Editor), Rudolph Young
Product Details
Paperback: 172 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.55 x 9.01 x 6.01
Publisher: Rank & File Pub; 2nd edition (June 1997)
ISBN: 0963899392
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 117,651
Black Southerners in Confederate Armies
by J. H. Segars (Editor), Charles K. Barrow (Editor), Charles K.Barrow
Product Details
Paperback: 240 pages
Dimensions (in inches): 0.75 x 9.00 x 6.00
Publisher: Southern Lion Books Inc; (May 1, 2001)
ISBN: 0966245415
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 386,597
Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War 1862-1865
by Noah Andre Trudeau
Product Details
Paperback: 576 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.79 x 8.54 x 5.88
Publisher: Back Bay Books; (January 1999)
ISBN: 0316853445
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 308,146
Apparently that agenda doesn't include Black Liberation theory, since McPherson recently took revisonist historian, and black liberation theorist Lerone Bennett to task over the numerous inaccuracies written about Lincoln in Bennett's book 'Forced to Glory'.
Said book has been used recently by your side to support several misguided arguments.
I am the one who has quoted from Bennett's book. Come along chihuahua, I want to hear you say yo quiero taco bell.
I would have gladly posted the McPherson joke of a review but it is from the New York Times so I had to post the other negative review. McPherson fared no better.
Early in his review, McPherson admits, "Least important are the factual errors, for there are not many."
That rapidly does McPherson's leftist diatribe dissolve into a difference of opinion. He cannot cite errors of fact. Suffering from the handicap that he could not find errors of fact, he had to fall back on typical intellectually dishonest crap. It is the sort of stuff the Wlat Brigade likes to quote without attribution.
Bennett answered many of McPherson's attacks in the book, before McPherson ever made them.
Says Bennett, a biographer "tells us first that 'Lincoln wouldn't force Negro suffrage on Louisiana' and adds afterward that Lincoln was 'sympathetic to the Negroes' he had just denied the suffrage by his failure to ask for equal rights." This is from what Bennett calls the Auteur School practicing anticipatory absolution. McPherson charges "Bennett never acknowledges that Lincoln was 'sensitive to the wrongs of the Negroes.'"
McPherson quotes Gideon Welles to maintain that, "the President objected unequivocally to compulsion." Bennett looks at the written published official government document of James Mitchell. McPherson ignores that document as the Wlat Brigade is attempting to do.
McPherson maintains that Lincoln never said anything in 1865 to indicate that Blacks would have to colonize. This is contradicted by Butler's Book which McPherson ignores.
McPherson asserts that, "Lincoln transcended his prejudices." He appointed James Mitchell as Agent of Emigration and was still fighting to keep him in December 1864.
McPherson berates Bennett for using the term "deportation." However, McPherson fails to note that Bennett documented Lincoln's repeated use of that specific term, including in a speech to Congress.
McPherson berates Bennett for being "oblivious of Lincoln's capacity for growth, which enabled him to transcend the racist environment of his youth."
Is that a fact?
The adult Lincoln said "... in our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom" (CW 2:276)
The adult Lincoln said he was opposed to "the n-----s and white people ... marrying together" (CW 3:20)
The adult Lincoln said, "I am not in favor of Negro citizenship."
The adult Lincoln said, "I have all the while maintained that inasmuch as there is a physical inequality bewteen the white and black, that the blacks must remain inferior...."
General James S. Wadsworth said that Lincoln was contemptuous of abolitionists and "spoke often of the slaves as cattle."
Donn Piatt said Lincoln expressed "no sympathy for the slave" and no dislike for slaveowners and "laughed at the Abolitionists as a disturbing element easily controlled."
Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his Journal that Lincoln "thinks emancipation almost morally wrong and resorts to it only as a desperate measure..."
Jessie Benton Fremont called Lincoln "the Pontius Pilate of the Slaves"
As for the intellectual honesty, or lack thereof, of Dr. McPherson, he starts his review out with a whopper and goes downhill from there. McPherson relates the story of how Frederick Douglass visited the white House and gives that favorite Wlatian quote, "I was never more quickly or more ocmpletely put at ease in the presence of a great man than in that of Abraham Lincoln..." yada yada yada.
Dr. McPherson gives his reader no indication that the quote is from more than 20 years after Lincoln was dead, when it was de rigueur to praise Lincoln. Dr. McPherson makes not a mention of any of the derogatory comments of Frederick Douglass aimed at Lincoln in life. Dr. McPherson makes not a mention of what Frederick Douglass felt truth compelled him to say at the dedication of the Lincoln memorial, April 14, 1876:
Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, the silent continent of eternity. It must be admitted, truch compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. (FD 4:312, italics added)
Black Historian
Documents Lincoln's Racism
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 26, 2000
Abraham Lincoln "was a racist who opposed equal rights for black people, who loved minstrel shows, who used the N-word, who wanted to deport all blacks," a veteran journalist and historian says.
"There has been a systematic attempt to keep the American public from knowing the real Lincoln and the depth of his commitment to white supremacy," says Lerone Bennett Jr., whose new book, "Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream," examines Lincoln's record.
While the book may be shocking to readers accustomed to viewing the nation's 16th president as "The Great Emancipator," Mr. Bennett denounces that view as the "Massa Lincoln Myth."
"We're dealing with a 135-year-old problem here," says Mr. Bennett, executive editor of Ebony magazine. "It's one of the most extraordinary efforts I know of to hide a whole man and a whole history, particularly when that man is one of the most celebrated men in American history."
"Forced Into Glory" is creating a stir both inside and outside academia.
The book is a "full-scale assault on Lincoln´s reputation," Columbia University history professor Eric Foner declared in a 2,000- word review in the Los Angeles Times. In the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a University of Florida professor called Mr. Bennett's book a "compelling critique." Time magazine columnist Jack E. White said the book "rips off the cover" of attempts by historians to hide "the unflattering truth about Lincoln's racist ideals."
Drawing on historical documents, "Forced Into Glory" chronicles Lincoln's racial beliefs and his actions toward blacks and slavery:
* Lincoln publicly referred to blacks by the most offensive racial slur. In one speech, Lincoln said he opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories because he didn't want the West "to become an asylum for slavery and n-----s."
* Lincoln was, in the words of one friend, "especially fond of Negro minstrel shows," attending blackface performances in Chicago and Washington. At an 1860 performance of Rumsey and Newcomb's Minstrels, Lincoln "clapped his great hands, demanding an encore, louder than anyone" when the minstrels performed "Dixie." Lincoln was also fond of what he called "darky" jokes, Mr. Bennett documents.
* Lincoln envisioned and advocated an all-white West, declaring at Alton, Ill., in 1858, that he was "in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home ... as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over."
* Lincoln supported his home state's law, passed in 1853, forbidding blacks to move to Illinois. The Illinois state constitution, adopted in 1848, called for laws to "effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state."
* Lincoln blamed blacks for the Civil War, telling them, "But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another."
* Lincoln claimed that "the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white."
* Repeatedly over the course of his career, Lincoln urged that American blacks be sent to Africa or elsewhere.
In 1854, Lincoln declared his "first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia ; to their own native land." In 1860, Lincoln called for the "emancipation and deportation" of slaves.
In his State of the Union addresses as president, he twice called for the deportation of blacks. In 1865, in the last days of his life, Lincoln said of blacks, "I believe it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves."
Such facts may not be well-known, but they are "not hidden in the records. ... You can't read the Lincoln record without realizing all that," Mr. Bennett says.
Lincoln became "a secular saint," Mr. Bennett says, partly because of the circumstances of his 1865 assassination, immediately after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
"Without question, I think the manner of his death, the time of his death . . . all these were major factors in turning Lincoln into the American icon," Mr. Bennett says, noting that Lincoln was later praised even by those who had been his harshest critics during his life.
"There was an explosion of emotion in the North" after Lincoln's assassination, Mr. Bennett says. Lincoln "was appropriated, he was used."
Historians have hidden much of the truth about that era, Mr. Bennett adds.
"People in the North don't know how deeply involved the North was in slavery," he says, adding that Illinois "had one of the worst black codes in America. People don't know that. . . . Black people were hunted like beasts of the field on the streets of Chicago, with Lincoln's support."
Lincoln still has his defenders, of course. In criticizing Mr. Bennett's book, syndicated columnist Steve Chapman has said that Lincoln's "racial attitudes evolved as he grew older."
Mr. Chapman also cited the opinion of Civil War historian James McPherson that if Lincoln had pursued a more vigorous anti-slavery policy, he would have lost support in the North and, ultimately, lost the war against the Confederacy.
In recent years, Lincoln has been most commonly criticized by conservatives who see him as centralizing federal power and trampling on constitutional rights. The late historian M.E. Bradford was denied appointment as chairman of the National Endowment of the Humanities in 1981 when his critics including columnist George Will drew attention to Mr. Bradford's anti-Lincoln writings.
Mr. Bennett's criticism in "Forced Into Glory," however, is from the left, faulting Lincoln for opposing racial equality. Mr. Bennett, 71, first took on the Lincoln myth in 1968, writing an Ebony magazine article that caused "a firestorm all across the country," he says.
Despite the controversy, the article did begin "what some historians say was a re-evaluation of Lincoln" a re-evaluation that has not gone far enough, he says.
"Major historians will talk about this problem of reinterpreting Lincoln, but they will do it at the end of a 700-page book, in the footnotes," Mr. Bennett says.
The idea of turning that 1968 Lincoln article into a book "was never far from my mind," Mr. Bennett says. "But about seven years ago, I started working on it again. I started putting together a group of essays . . . and as I read it again, I started adding to it, and it became 600 pages, 700 pages I had to cut out 200 pages."
It was worth the effort, he says, to help Americans face the real Lincoln.
"The myth is an obstacle to understanding," Mr. Bennett says. Lincoln "is a metaphor for our real determination to evade the race problem in this country."
Lincoln gets credit for the Emancipation Proclamation, which did not actually free any slaves, Mr. Bennett says.
"The most famous act in American history never happened," he says, noting that Lincoln issued the proclamation only under pressure from Radical Republicans in Congress men such as Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.
Along with abolitionists such as Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, the Radicals were "the real emancipators," Mr. Bennett says. "There were several major white leaders [during the Civil War] who are virtually unknown today, who were far in advance of anything Lincoln believed."
It is a "moral imperative" for Americans to know the truth about Lincoln, Mr. Bennett says.
"Cynics may not believe that the truth will set you free; but lies will definitely enslave you," he says. "I don't see any way to get away from the duty to tell the truth."
There were not more than a handful, and no organized units until the last weeks.
Walt
LOL! That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
The following is from "To Die in Chicago"
Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas 1862-65
by George Levy, 973.772
from page 49, Table I
BLACK PRISONERS CAPTURED AT FORT DONALDSON
James, black. Co. H, 7th Texas Infantry. Property of W.D.Powell.
Captured February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson. Remarks: Enlisted [in
Federal service].
Sam [Samuel Hill], contraband. Co. H. 7th Texas Infantry. Property
of J.S. Crawford. Captured February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson.
Remarks: Exchanged via Cairo
Nathan, contraband. Co. H. 7th Texas Infantry. Property of T.H.
Cray. Captured February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson. Remarks:
Enlisted [in Federal service].
Joseph Matthews, negro. Co. C, 20th Mississippi Infantry. Captured
February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson. Remarks: Released uncondi-
tionally September 10, 1862.
G. Blackwood, colored. Co. C, 3rd Tennessee Infantry. Captured
February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson. Remarks: none
Isaac Wood, negro. Co. E, 20th Mississippi Infantry. Captured
February 16, 1862 at Fort Donaldson. Remarks: Exchanged Sept 29/62
via Cairo.
Three of these men were undoubtedly servants, and four appeared
to be soldiers. The army was not reluctant to jain black prisoners.
Racism in the North was widespread and society discriminated against
blacks in education, employment, and civil rights. Black children
attended segregated shools in Chicago, for example. Tucker did not
even list slaves owned by Confederate officers.
...
The seven blacks remained at Camp Douglas because three belonged
to enlistted men, and the rest were either free men or slaves without
masters. Some claimed to be soldiers. Others denied it. "One thing
is certain," the Tribune notd, "that many of them are as well dressed
as the commissioned officers we have seen."
Nor, frankly, do I think that Hamilton was anywhere near as much of a Statist as you seek to imply. He was more in that direction than Jefferson, but at the time of the Constitutional debates, he was not that far from Jefferson's close friend Madison.
It is you and the would be Republican spokesman, with whom I have a beef. And it is the two of you that I was comparing to the Nazis--not in what Hamilton actually did, but in the looney tunes view of the Constitution that you try to attribute to him.
Nor was I advocating breaking the German nation up into anything. Germany is composed of a number of quite distinct States, some strong, some weak. Hitler did not just advocate that they work together, as the American States did under both the Articles and the Constitution, he sought to weld them into one super-State (precisely what you seem to be suggesting for these United States.) Hitler's first major act, after the contrived crisis, with the burning of the Parliament, was to destroy States Rights in Germany. His goal was hardly anything, any of the Founding Fathers would have countenanced. The last thing they visualized was a ranting mob, completely dependent upon Government at any level.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
False. There were many such instances. They included blacks joining their state militaries especially in places such as Tennessee where this was legal from June 1861 to the end of the war. They included black cooks and teamsters taking up arms to fill gaps in battles ranging from skirmishes to major events such as Chickamauga. They also included two regiments of black soldiers raised in Richmond in March 1865, one of which saw combat near Sailor's Creek in early april.
when on their own "free" blacks in New Orleans formed two regiments, but the rebels would have nothing to do with them.
False. As I have previously shown to you, there are several military correspondences between the state of Louisiana and those black regiments including orders for action to defend the city and words of commendation for their service.
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