Posted on 09/30/2003 12:19:22 PM PDT by sheltonmac
The South's unconditional surrender in 1865 apparently was unacceptable to today's Neo-Confederates.
They'd like to rewrite history, demonizing Abraham Lincoln and the federal government that forced them to remain in the awful United States against their will.
On top of that, now they are opposing the U.S. Navy's plan to bury the crew of the CSS H.L. Hunley under the American flag next year.
The Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. In 1863, it rammed and fatally damaged the Union warship USS Housatonic with a fixed torpedo, but then the manually driven sub sank on its way home, killing its eight-man crew.
It might have been a lucky shot from the Housatonic, leaks caused by the torpedo explosion, an accidental strike by another Union ship, malfunction of its snorkel valves, damage to its steering planes or getting stuck in the mud.
In any case, the Navy found and raised its remains and plans a full-dress military funeral and burial service on April 17, 2004, in Charleston, S.C. The four-mile funeral procession is expected to draw 10,000 to 20,000 people, many in period costume or Confederate battle dress.
But the Sons of Confederate Veterans, generally a moderate group that works diligently to preserve Southern history and heritage, has a radical wing that is salivating with anger.
One Texas Confederate has drawn 1,600 signatures on a petition saying "the flag of their eternal enemy, the United States of America," must not fly over the Hunley crew's funeral.
To their credit, the funeral's organizers will leave the U.S. flag flying.
After all, the search and preservation of the Hunley artifacts, as well as the funeral itself, were paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Also, the Hunley crew was born under the Stars and Stripes. The Confederacy was never an internationally recognized nation, so the crewmen also died as citizens of the United States.
They were in rebellion, but they were still Americans.
This whole issue is an insult to all Southerners who fought under the U.S. flag before and since the Civil War.
But it isn't the only outrage by rabid secessionists.
They are also opposing the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.
According to an article by Bob Moser and published in the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine "Intelligence Report," which monitors right-wing and hate groups, the U.S. Historical Society announced it was donating a statue of Lincoln to Richmond.
Lincoln visited that city in April 1865 to begin healing the wounds caused by the war.
The proposed life-sized statue has Lincoln resting on a bench, looking sad, his arm around his 12-year-old son, Tad. The base of the statue has a quote from his second inaugural address.
However, the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised a stink, calling Lincoln a tyrant and war criminal. Neo-Confederates are trying to make Lincoln "a figure few history students would recognize: a racist dictator who trashed the Constitution and turned the USA into an imperialist welfare state," Moser's article says.
White supremacist groups have jumped onto the bandwagon. Their motto is "Taking America back starts with taking Lincoln down."
Actually, if it weren't for the forgiving nature of Lincoln, Richmond would be a smoking hole in the ground and hundreds of Confederate leaders -- including Jefferson Davis -- would be hanging from trees from Fredericksburg, Va., to Atlanta.
Robert E. Lee said, "I surrendered as much to Lincoln's goodness as I did to Grant's armies."
Revisionist history to suit a political agenda is as intellectually abhorrent as whitewashing slavery itself. It's racism under a different flag. While it's not a criminal offense, it is a crime against truth and history.
I'm not talking about re-enactors here. These folks just want to live history. But the Neo-Confederate movement is a disguised attempt to change history.
In the end, the Confederacy was out-fought, out-lasted, eventually out-generaled and totally over-matched. It was a criminal idea to start with, and its success would have changed the course of modern history for the worse.
Coming to that realization cost this nation half a million lives.
So I hope that all Neo-Confederates -- 140 years after the fact -- can finally get out of their racist, twisted, angry time machine and join us here in 2003.
Revisionist Yankee BS. Aunt Charity Anderson, a former slave, in the Slave Narratives actually wished for the old days of slavery comapred to emancipation. One slave asked her master to buy hundreds more, there are accounts of slaves willingly volunteering & fighting for the Confederacy. The Yankees were the one that threw slaves overboard, the ones that sailed to Africa, the ones that plugged the rectums of dysentic slaves to hide their disease.
Uncilivilzed, barbarous, ignorant, stupid, malevolent, evil, illiterate. Underrstand?
You don't need to describe yourself, I can form my own opinion.
Burn that trash rag so people don't know you ever had one.
Again, I don't understand why you want me to burn my American flag.
Farragut could only scare the city into letting him put up a flag. Common sense to avoid a shelling.
We already know that the city only had a thousand men to defend it, and that Farragut had a fleet of 24 ships. According to Butler's Book, p. 358:
In two days after the bombardment commenced I had six thousand troops in the river in different sailing vessels, and I had more in the Great Republic, a sailing ship of three thousand tons burden, which could not get over the bar. The army was all ready.Add to that 'Captain Porter, with his fleet of twenty-one bomb-schooners', and 'Captain Farragut's fleet should remain out of fire, as a reserve, just below the bomb-vessels. The army, or so much of it as transportation could be found for, should remain at the mouth of the river.'
Scared the town into 'letting him put up a flag'? Wow, the invades had almost 50 ships, well over 6,000 men in the army, plus all the men on the ships. Faced with better than 7 to 1 odds, it still took 10 days to subdue the Forts & the city.
The man who sanitized and civilized New Orleans, the man who put nearly 200,000 Americans of African heritage into arms to fight for their freedom
LOL! You mean CONSCRIPTED - it wasn't like they had a choice.
the man who gave Grant the ways and means to beat that piece of garbage slave master Lee, and the man who's Army Corps of Americans of African heritage hwo could knock down Lee's best foul racist bastards
Butler was a crook from the word go. The policies he gave Grant - the attack and murder of innocent civilians, the rape and torture of Southern women and children, the starvation of families, the enslavement of blacks, the capture and destruction of entires towns, the enslavement of the women of Roswell GA, the theft of BILLIONS of Southern property. Is that what you mean? I'm gald you admire him so much, I'm sure you have much in common.
Abe at his last cabinet meeting 1865, what he actually DID.
Louisiana, he said, had framed and presented one of the best constitutions that had ever been formed. He wished they had permitted negroes who had property, or could read, to vote; but this was a question which they must decide for themselves.
A. Lincoln, April 14, 1865
Unfortunately, Booth was involved in conspiracies against Lincoln long before that, and the record on this case is no more corroborated than the Butler account. So in true Whiskeypapa tradition, I say again:
It didn't happen. Show me a quote from Booth after April 11th stating the reasons why he was going to kill Lincoln.
How dare you defame US servicemen on the basis of their race! Shame on you!
No. He was actually an elderly farmer and circuit preacher. His kids were confederate soldiers but they stayed with their units. He was murdered by Milroy for simply hiding another neighbor who was on the murder list.
What right do you have to complain that the was hunted as beast?
Every right in the world.
That Booth promised on April 11 to kill President Lincoln is well accepted by historians.
That he met with Butler on or about 10 April is not.
Your little "step across this line, no wait, step inside this circle," sashay is pathetic. Prove that Booth said he was going to kill Lincoln on 4/12, or 4/13? Are you suggesting that he dispatched his henchmen to kill Seward and Johnson without saying, "and oh by the way, I'll kill the president."
Sorry to break in on your fantasy. Are you going to ask for proof that Seward was stabbed? How do we know that Paine did --in fact-- SAY he was going to kill Seward? I mean, he broke into the house and all, and he DID stab Seward, but how do we know he SAID this was his goal?
Idiot.
Walt
As long as it ultimately provided for general freedom.
Walt
That's the day that President Lincoln refused to consider any treason trials for captured rebels.
Walt
It did not provide any right for Blacks to vote, then or ever.
You've seen this before:
"Lincoln's address on April 11 triggered Booth's shift from thought to action. In the crowd outside the White House that evening, he heard the President recommend suffrage for blacks who were educated or had served in the Union armies. "That means nigger citizenship," the actor muttered, and he vowed, "That is the last speech he will ever make." He urged Paine to shoot the President on the spot. When Paine refused, Booth turned in disgust to his other companion, David Herold, and exclaimed, "By God, I'll put him through."
-- "Lincoln" p. 588, by David Donald
Booth steeled himself to shoot Lincoln because Lincoln proposed voting rights for blacks. This is well supported in the record.
Of course I have seen that fairy tale, Walt. You claim it is well documented. Now we shall see about that.
Please provide Donald's footnote source for who supposedly was told this fairy tale by one of the parties allegedly present.
If Donald provided no source, please provide a citation to a source who claims to have heard this fairy tale from one of the parties allegedly present.
Please provide a citation to any source who claims to have heard this faily tale from one of the parties allegedly present who claims that Davy Herold was there.
Please provide the true identify of Lewis Thornton Powell, aka Lewis Payne, aka Lewis Paine.
You say this "is well-supported in the record." Show me.
I provided several quotes from elsewhere in "Look Away" to challenge the attributed source, the New York Citizen. I showed the original source being alleged as Col. C.S. Armee [CSA] purportedly writing as Charles E.L. Stuart, which just happened to be the name of Bonnie Prince Charlie, once pretender to the throne of England, (House of Stuart).
I do not expect everyone to agree with all my conclusions. One may well refute some conclusion, and I recall x recently doing exactly that regarding Henry Halleck. I posted that he was correct, I was wrong, and explained why.
I believe the source relied upon by William C. Davis for his purported quote of Jefferson Davis is at best, unreliable.
I do not have the book by Rehnquist, and I seem to have only the one book by William Davis. I do not specifically recall, but it is possible I made reference to William C. Davis being quoted or cited in someone else's work.
I'm glad you see your own tactics for what they are.
Of course, I am a Yankee and so, for my Southern friends, I should like to explain the problem with HTR.
All Southerners know what White Trash is, and to understand New Englanders, you should understand that they are the Northern equivalent of White Trash.
They live amidst the poverty and squalor of a declined area which was never much to begin with. They once had shipping, but then the slave trade went away and they lost their primary industry. Back in the day, Newport, Rhode Island, alone took an estimated 59,070 slaves to America before the Revolution. Between 1709 and 1807, Rhode Island merchants sponsored at least 934 slaving voyages to the coast of Africa and carried an estimated 106,544 slaves to the New World.
To understand the second-class existence and trash mentality of these poor unfortunate people, you must understand an area which glorifies baked beans, clam chowder and maple syrup, while living in the shadow of the great Empire State.
New England has never been able to compete politically or economically and they must daily confront being an insignificant peninsula dominated in every way by the great state of New York.
Of course, some, as did HTR, go to New York in hopes of escaping the squalor and depression of New England. Daily they come to New York hoping to find a way to feed themselves and their families, a Northern equivalent of the migrant farm workers elsewhere. Some, such as HTR, can relate their knowledge of welfare lines, and even imagine redneck communities in Manhattan.
Theirs is a cold, desolate land, full of despair and void of a future. They have that desperate loser's hope to feel better than somebody, anybody. In their squalor, their misguided minds have been taught that if they put someone else down, it will somehow raise them up. This is why they attack Southerners. It derives from their feeling of failure and inferiority. The greater the inferiority complex, the more strident is the attack. So, one should feel compassion for HTR as he bleats out his pain.
Also, Southern gentlemen should not feel too harsh about his manners or lack thereof. This simply stems from their failures and inadequacies in life. It is just the way New Englanders are. They are almost French in that respect. HTR probably learned it from his mother and she from her mother for generations. They are just the common gutter people of the North and can't help it.
One should note the patriotism of the typical New Englander during the Civil War. For example, the Boston Herald noted of one draft, that, "In the Fourth District 1,135 men have been examined, and of these 938 were declared by the Board to be exempt, 70 had paid the commutation fee, 10 were passed as fit for duty, and 108 substitutes were accepted." Of 1,135 called, 10 were accepted. And so it is determined that 0.88% were patriots who answered the call.
New England is famous for burning people at the stake, and some people who personify New England are Ted Kennedy, Jim Jeffords, and that quintessential New Englander, Boston Corbett. All new Englanders should aspire to the accomplishments of Boston Corbett. Also, one should not forget their great leader, Barney Frank.
Thinking of Barney Frank, he is truly one of the greatest living New Englanders. Amidst pervasive prejudice and persecution, he has risen to be a leader of his community. This surely speaks to his greatness.
In like manner, it seems only fitting to note the even more profound greatness of Abraham Lincoln. To rise above the pervasive prejudice and persecution of 19th century America took greatness indeed, and was a mark of the man who rose above his orientation to become President of the United States.
As noted in Salon, that online bastion of liberalism:
|LINK
The 28-year-old traveler was tall, with rough hands, a chiseled jaw and unforgettable, deep-set, melancholy eyes. He arrived in town, his worldly possessions in two battered suitcases, and inquired at a general store about buying some bedding. But the price was far beyond his budget. The strikingly handsome 23-year-old merchant took pity on the man and invited him into his own bed, free of charge, which happened to be just upstairs. The traveler inspected the bed and, looking into the merchant's sparkling blue eyes, agreed on the spot. For the next four years the two men shared that bed along with their most private fears and desires.If this sounds like the opening of a homoerotic dime-store novel whose subsequent scenes feature fiery loins and ecstatic eruptions, hold your panting. The year is 1837, the place Springfield, Ill., and the leading men none other than our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, and his lifelong friend Joshua Speed.
* * *
Larry Kramer, the 62-year-old gay rights hell-raiser, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter ("Women in Love") and Pulitzer-nominated playwright ("The Normal Heart"), ... in February, at a gay and lesbian conference in Madison, Wis., ... read a portion of his unfinished book, "The American People" -- which, in the course of describing the history of gays in early America, avers that Lincoln and Speed were not merely bedfellows but lovers.
"There's no question in my mind he was a gay man and a totally gay man," Kramer declares. "It wasn't just a period, but something that went on his whole life."
===
Gay Today observes:
|LINK|
Quoting Joshua Speed's letters in reference to Lincoln, Kramer read to his Madison audience: "He often kisses me when I tease him, often to shut me up. . . . He would grab me up by his long arms and hug and hug.''One of Speed's letter that Kramer quoted told how the later-to-be U.S. President felt hungry for affection: "Yes, our Abe is like a school girl,'' said Speed.
=====
At GayHeroes.com, it is written:
|LINK|
In "Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years" (1926), Carl Sandberg wrote that their relationship had "a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets," which some have taken as a veiled reference to homosexuality. In 1995, just after Bob Dole rejected campaign contributions from the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, Log Cabin member W. Scott Thompson was quoted in the New York Times as saying that gays should feel welcome in the party, "given that the founder was gay."
=====
At PlanetOut, they observe:
|LINK|
Two bachelors sharing a bed in the mid-19th century was not uncommon. Lincoln and Speed, however, also shared their deepest confidences, including a fear of women and marriage. As one woman whom Lincoln briefly courted saw it, "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness." Lincoln told Speed that "our forebodings, for which you and I are rather peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense."
Was their relationship sexual? As early as 1926, Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg intimated that it was; it had "a streak of lavender and soft spots as May violets," he wrote -- code words in Sandburg's day for homosexuality.
Most recently, writer Larry Kramer claims to have turned up a diary belonging to Speed and letters between the two men that were hidden under the floorboards of the old general store. "Our Abe is like a school girl, always demanding physical affection," Speed reportedly wrote. "He often kisses me when I tease him." Speed's language suggests that, even if the men's relationship wasn't sexually consummated, there was a strong homoerotic current running through it.
As one woman whom Lincoln briefly courted saw it, "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness." Lincoln told Speed that "our forebodings, for which you and I are rather peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense."
=====
Mrs. Lincoln's older sister said, "he was a cold man, had no affection, was not social, was abstracted, thoughtful... could not hold a lengthy conversaiton with a lady, was not sufficiently educated and intelligent in the female line to do so."
The Insanity File, The Case of Mary Todd Lincoln, by Mark E. Neely, Jr. and R. Gerald McMurtry, 1986, p. 55. =====
At JC Online, it is shown that Abe is out multilingually.
|LINK|
Dois escritores especializados em temas sobre a homossexualidade, e que estão prestes a lançar biografias de Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), afirmam que o estadista norte-americano era gay.
====
In The Hill, there is a Hill News report:
|LINK|
Head of gay Republicans wonders about Honest AbeA growing number of gays believe Honest Abe was one of them, said [Patrick] Guerriero, [President of the Log Cabin Republicans] whose organization represents thousands of gay Republicans.
Lincoln’s sexual orientation has been the subject of several recent books and articles. Writer Larry Kramer claims that Lincoln, as a young lawyer in Springfield, Ill., bunked for several years with a local storeowner named Joshua Speed. According to Kramer, Speed wrote in his diary that Lincoln “often kisses me when I tease him” and that the two would frequently “hug and hug.”
====
That 'steeling' required a considerable amount of brandy, if stories be true.
Donald's sources for page 588:
588 "at present": Wilson,john Wilkes Booth, pp. 50-54; Tidwell, Come Retribution, p. 405.
588 if he wished: Benn Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators (facsimile ed.; New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1954), pp. 44-45.
588 to the tyrant: Furtwangler, Assassin on Stage, argues that the theatrical tradition of tyrannicide helped shape Booth's actions.
588 "will ever make": William Hanchett, The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), p. 37.
Dr. McPherson uses the same source (Hanchett) and says:
"At least one listener interpreted this speech as moving Lincoln closer to the Radical Republicans. "That means nigger citizenship," snarled John Wilkes Booth to a companion. "Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make."
- "Battle Cry of Freedom" p. 852 by James McPherson
It's as certain as anything in the historial record that Booth threatened to kill President Lincoln because Lincoln favored black suffrage.
Went through this a while back with another moron.
You can find this story related on literally dozens of websites.
Walt
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