Do tell...
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.
Now that you mention it, yeah it was. Don't know what came over me. Sorry about that.
Do tell...
I think not. By their very action of seceding from the union instead of attacking the capitol of said nation and attempting to overthrow the government, it is plain to see the South just wanted to leave. But a certain President couldn't do without his tax money now could he?
I get the impression that many Confederate veterans were not nearly as bitter against the Union as many Freepers currently are.
I beg to differ. The difference at that time is that while a tragedy at the loss of 600,000+ souls had occurred, for the years immediately following and I would say up until the early 20th century, these men were respected. However after 50+ years of dragging their names through the mud as some sort of evil men, I would hope they would at least want to defend their honor and set the record straight. As long as these continuous acts of hatred come against the brave soldiers of the South, and as long as our heritage is made the laughing stock in every form of media unjustly while the praise of anti-Semites, thugs, and criminals continues, there will be anger
LOL, at least I wouldn't tell anyone if I was working on it. That's like saying I worked on my 1981 Mustang in my spare time (and yes I owned one many years ago and yes it was an absolute POS)
If you question the legitimacy of secession on suffrage grounds then you must also question the legitimacy of Lincoln's election, and all presidents before him, on the exact same grounds. Women couldn't vote in that election, be they from the north or south. Most northern states also had laws that prohibited free blacks from voting and some even prevented them from taking up residence within their borders. So in effect the entire northern electorate consisted of white males just like the southern electorate.
Danged if it doesn't look like him. ;-)
Thank you for the help Wardaddy and Stainlessbanner.
A damnYankee ;)
Lemme guess. Public school student?
In my opinion, there are a hell of a lot of FReepers who would have remained loyal to the crown. Consider that only a third of the colonialists even supported rebellion in the first place.
DU is around the corner to the left.
No, I just do not think he held as much grudge against Southerners, white and black who fought the Union, as do you , sir/madam as the case may be.
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