Perspective: Die-hard Confederates should be reconstructed

St. Augustine Record ^ | 09/27/2003 | Peter Guinta

[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.

[stand watie]

according to the African American Museum in New Orleans, bejamin "the beast" butler told the Native Guards that if they didn't "volunteer" they would be sold into slavery.

free dixie,sw

[rustbucket]

Thanks for the reference to Point Lookout records. Unfortunately the link you provided doesn't work.

I'm interested because my wife's great-grandfather is known to have died there as a prisoner and is not listed in the death records we've been able to find.

[stand watie]

i suggest that you go do some research from the origional sources and stop reading damnyankee propaganda.

i've been doing exactly that for over 20 years and what i've said is accurate.

if truth offends you, or anyone else here, that's OK.

free dixie,sw

[Question_Assumptions]

If you aren't interested in changing minds, then by all means stand on the truth and ignore the delivery. If you really want to change minds then, like it or not, delivery matters.

[XRdsRev]

If you can post his name and unit, I can run it through the database here. I can't guarantee that it will produce results but I am happy to try.

One thing you need to remember about the death records is that many soldiers went into the camp and were identified but later died as unknowns. If they died without identification and no one could identify them, they were buried "unknown" and listed on death records as such.

[stand watie]

don't you WISH you were correct?

sorry, but i've read the 1st person accounts and have been a member of the desendents assn at PLPOWC for several years.

GO to PLPOWC and ask the curator of the museum for the truth.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

FYI, i'm not your buddy.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

EXACTLY!

it's hard to tell whether the creeps @naaLcp or the shysters at the splc are worse.

free dixie,sw

[Cobra Scott]

When I own a piece of property, it is both my property and a part of my town, county, state, and country. So the land is mine and also a part of my country. I can't unilaterally decide that my property is a part of the Bahamas because I like their tax structure better, a part of the UK because I think the US is illegitimate, or a part of Syria if I decided that the Islamofascists were right. And you can't have a modern nation or a civilization if every property owner is given that sort of sovereignty.

Oops, what about property siezed from southerners? Slaves = property until the 13th amendment.

Its long and complicated, and you cannot justify any of it except in the context of the times. You cannot justify Lincoln's "profiteering" in the Council Bluffs land issue in the context of today, because such action would surely result in impeachment.

[Question_Assumptions]

Do you really want an honest answer?

I wouldn't have asked the question if I didn't. I'm well aware that logically consistent opinions that differ from my own can exist and I'm interested to see where their boundaries are.

[stand watie]

your ancestor is likely one of thousands of the DISAPPEARRED, who lost their lives to the cruelty & hatefulness of the damnyankees.

serena, of FR, also is one of the desendents of a "mysteriously disappearred" CSA POW.

true southrons honor your ancestor as a HERO-MARTYR to the TRUE CAUSE.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

TRUTH is important to southrons;delivery & spin has forever been the province of the LIAR.

i choose TRUTH.

free dixie,sw

[XRdsRev]

When are you going on tour to promote your new book "Capital Letters are for Damn Yankee's".

[stand watie]

ridicule is the last stand of a person who has lost the argument.

you might think on that.

free dixie,sw

[Question_Assumptions]

Oops, what about property siezed from southerners? Slaves = property until the 13th amendment.

I address that in a later post. I think that slave owners could certainly have made a "taking" case that they deserved just compensation for the property that the Federal government seized from them.

Its long and complicated, and you cannot justify any of it except in the context of the times. You cannot justify Lincoln's "profiteering" in the Council Bluffs land issue in the context of today, because such action would surely result in impeachment.

Please note that I do not see this as a 100% right and 100% wrong issue. The North did things that I think were wrong and the South did things that I think were right. And I think that trying to frame this as a "One Side 100% Right and One Side 100% Wrong" issue isn't helpful.

[Question_Assumptions]

TRUTH is important to southrons;delivery & spin has forever been the province of the LIAR.

If you don't like spin then don't do it. I didn't say that truth wasn't important. I said that it was easier to get truth across if you deliver it properly. I had thought that good manners and polite speech were important to southerners. Apparently, that's been replaced with orneriness and invective.

[XRdsRev]

Yo my main man Stand,

Why are you wasting valuable time sitting behind a computer ???

Shouldn't a die hard Super Confederate like you be out loading yer Enfield and fighting the evil Damn yankees ???

The South ain't never gonna rise again if you spend your day sitting on yer posterior reading Free Republic. All the other Super Confederates are yelling "thar sits Stand like a sack a taters".

Seriously though. All this South will Rise again talk is getting boring. Are you guys actually ever going to rise again or are you just going to keep complaining about the "late unpleasantness" ?

[Texas Federalist]

I can't address your argument that the 5th Amendment "taking" clause justifies the actions of the Yankees in the War of Northern Aggression because, as you have laid it out, it is nonsensical because you haven't connected your logic that the government can take property for just compensation with the conclusion that the South was unjustified in seceding. I will however, address your deficient method of constitutional interpretation.

Your argument that the Constitution is "clear" is unsupported by your own contention that the meaning of the language is gleaned from implication. (Love the oxymoron, "clear impliaction") I also love the argument that when a phrase is succeptable to one or more interpretations, we can choose an interpretation completely at odds with the individuals who drafted the language. Somewhere, James Madison is spinning in his grave.

Your contention is that the Constitution imparts no personal property rights wrong. Read the Ninth Amendment the enumeration of certain rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People." What are these "rights retained by the people". A simple canon of constuction is that we look to the intent of the drafter when a phrase is not clear on its face. Evidence shows that the intent of the framers in drafting the Ninth Amendment was to include those rights in the Constitution that were granted by God: including the right to own property or to choose your own government, or even to secede. The framers did leave us room to "construct" and add meaning to ambiguous phrases of the constitution so as to fulfil their intentions. Even your allegedly clear "just compensation clause" is unclear. (i.e. What compensation, if any, is "just".)

Aside from your deficient methods of interpreting Constitutional text, your core argument is a nonsensical: the takings clause allows government to take property for public use as long as it gives the owner just compensation, so the South had no right to secede. ?????????

[XRdsRev]

"ridicule is the last stand of a person who has lost the argument."

You know Stand, I wasn't going to ridicule you, but reading your numerous silly posts, where you seem to feel free to accuse Damn Yankees (as you call them) of every sin under the sun, says to me that you are someone who is not deserving of any respect since you show none yourself.

There are many great spokespersons for the Confederacy but desk-jocky Super Confederates like yourself just keep giving the CS a black eye.

[Rebelbase]

Attention S.W. Virginia and N.W. NC Freepers

There is a re-enactment campout complete with battles, suttlers, food, etc. at the J.E.B. Birthplace known as Laural Hill in Ararat VA. Sat. and Sun. this weekenend 10-4 and 10-5.

13th Annual Civil War Encampment & Reenactment JEB Stuart.org

One thing the battle guys do here is to shoot a period field artillery piece at barrels of water from 150 yards. Nice water explosions!