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.
you're really good at posting drivel, lies & distortions of everything about the CSA flags; perhaps you'd be thought better of on the forum, if there was some balance to your posts.
BUT i guess that's why we southrons on FR call you the Yankee Minister of Propaganda.
free dixie,sw
I think you would like Look Away by historian William C. Davis. It is available in paperback.
you're really good at posting drivel, lies & distortions of everything about the CSA flags; perhaps you'd be thought better of on the forum, if there was some balance to your posts.
BUT i guess that's why we southrons on FR call you the Yankee Minister of Propaganda.
free dixie,sw
you're really good at posting drivel, lies & distortions of everything about the CSA flags; perhaps you'd be thought better of on the forum, if there was some balance to your posts.
BUT i guess that's why we southrons on FR call you the Yankee Minister of Propaganda.
free dixie,sw
The US Supreme Court is the ultimate authority when it comes to the interpretation of the Constitution.
And that was decided by whom? That's right: the Supreme Court itself. So I guess the founders were wrong when they made the Constitution the supreme law of the land. Ben Franklin was just whistling Dixie (if you'll pardon the expression) when he said, "It is every American's right, and obligation, to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."
What it boils down to is not what is actually written in the document but what nine people in black robes says it means. Forgive me if I don't jump on board the judicial oligarchy bandwagon.
"I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization"*Maelstorm, I found the supporting quote for you.
-Lincoln (1862, Annual Address to Congress)
I do not recall supporting Davis for his views on "colonization/deporatation" - in fact, I'm not sure we have ever discussed it.
NOT ONCE DID HE EVEN TRY TO PREVENT OR SETTLE THE CIVIL WAR IN A PEACEFUL MANNER!!!!
HE WAS TO BUSY TRYING TO TAX THE SOUTH TO DEATH!!!!
Which by the way, if you actually read the words of his speeches, they will remind you of Clinton's speeches.
He has no proof, but tossing red herrings in the debate serves his purpose.
This debate has been going on a long time, and other people are more expert and interested in these questions than I am. One thing I have noticed is how much Confederate types ignore the explosive situation of the times. It was a very chaotic time. The air was charged with thoughts of war and revolution, and we're told now that things were much more calm and peaceful than they were. The secessionists were hardly peace-loving petitioners for the redress of grievances. They flirted with war and, in Davis's case, embraced it.
The recklessness of Southern leaders might have been excused if there was a real threat of tyranny at the time. Had they acted more prudentially they might have achieved their goals without war, though the realization of their aims would hardly have been something praiseworthy either.
The fact that things have gone wrong since 1865 has been used to justify the rebellion, but it's not enough to whitewash the secessionists. Neither their aims nor their means were particularly laudable.
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