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.
Then was or was not Bill Clinton culpable for Joycelyn Elders' schemes to teach sexuality to 6 year olds? After all, did he not appoint her to the job?
President Lincoln was the recipient of the report.
He also appointed Mitchell to the job.
You haven't presented any indication that he requested the report, or any indication that he knew what the report contained before he received it.
He appointed Mitchell to the job of colonization commissioner and was well aware of Mitchell's views so why should he have been surprised. Also we can say as a fact that Lincoln did not strongly object to the report's contents. If he did he would have fired Mitchell. Instead he fought to keep Mitchell for the explicit purpose of CONTINUING his colonization work.
I suppose that firing Mitchell would have been the modern way of dealing with something like this
...IF Lincoln strongly objected to what Mitchell said. You have given no indication that Lincoln ever objected to it while all the facts indicate that Lincoln wanted Mitchell to continue his work and openly said so in November 1864. And no - the fact that Mitchell's scheme was never implemented is NOT proof that Lincoln rejected it. Policy takes time and money to carry out and during wars there are lots of policies competing for both. Since Lincoln requested his AG to order Mitchell retained on the job in November 1864 all reasonable indications are that he was still developing and persuing the policy of colonization. And if one is to accept Ben Butler's acoount he was still developing it only a few days before he died.
but instead Lincoln chose to ignore the recommendations.
Did he though? Sure, he didn't drop everything else he was doing to implement them right away. That would have been stupid since he only had a major war going on in the background. Yet nowhere do we find any indication that Lincoln ever repudiated Mitchell's report (or colonization itself for that matter). And we know that as of November 1864 he was still having Mitchell come up with colonization schemes. It is therefore perfectly plausible and in fact somewhat likely that Lincoln never rejected Mitchell's proposal at all and quite possibly would have implemented it had he lived past the war.
How so? By identifying Charles Halpine as the editor of the New York Citizen? Absent a copy of the issue of the paper I don't see how you can claim the quote is bogus based on what nolu-chan has provided.
He didn't implement them, or anything resembling them, in the almost 3 years left his presidency.
That is ridiculous. There is no evidence whatsoever that Lincoln would have implemented the plan, during the war or after it.
LOL!
Actually yes there is. It is indirect evidence but it establishes for certain that Lincoln was still pushing colonization up until his death. It also establishes that Lincoln still favored Mitchell for that job, thus indicating that he had no significant dispute with Mitchell's previous actions in the colonization office. Bates' Nov. 30th letter responds to a now-lost request by Lincoln, which he describes as an inquiry "to retain the Revd Mr Mitchell as your assistant or aid" for "the emigration or Colonizing of the freed blacks."
Lincoln would not have made this request to Bates if he did not desire to continue colonization. He also would not have retained Mitchell in it if he had significant disputes on how to proceed with colonization.
There is also the issue of Lincoln's conversation with Benjamin Butler sometime around April 10, 1865. The policy that was allegedly espoused in that meeting by Lincoln is actually fairly close to Mitchell's view. Butler's account has Lincoln stating the following:
" But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don't get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us, to the amount, I believe, of some one hundred and fifty thousand men. I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves. You have been a stanch friend of the race from the time you first advised me to enlist them at New Orleans. You have had a good deal of experience in moving bodies of men by water,--your movement up the James was a magnificent one. Now, we shall have no use for our very large navy; what, then, are our difficulties in sending all the blacks away?"
Unfortunately only Butler and Lincoln were present at this conversation so Butler's testimony is the only one in existence (Lincoln died less than a week later). Some have argued that this constitutes reason to doubt Butler's account. I have yet to see any credible reason why it should though. The common argument that no record exists of Butler and Lincoln meeting in this time is a false one. John Hay's records include a memorandum scheduling an appointment for Butler with Lincoln on April 11th.
Bolerium Books
2141 Mission Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94110
[civil rights] What Lincoln said about integration reprinted by popular request. Shreveport Journal, Shreveport. no date, the 60s, Single leaf on lightweight stock, 8.5 x 6.5 inches, reproduces the editorial page masthead with six lines specific to this handbill, then the brief "editorial" --about 300 words. Edgeworn, a little scorched, by age or heat uncertain.
The Shreveport Journal is pleased to reprint--by popular request--its recent editorial.. The demand for extra copies has been so great that our supply of Journals for that date has been exhausted.. Lincoln quoted as "not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes .. physical difference .. no greater calamity than assimilation..
He was also fighting a war at the time. Butler's account suggests that his attention shifted to colonization as a direct result of the war's impending conclusion. It was to be a followup policy - what they did next with the war out of the way.
When Mitchell submitted his report to Lincoln he even said it was not a priority right away and should be put off until more pressing matters (i.e. the war) were settled - "we need not now stimulate expensive emigration...On the return of peace when the draft on the Treasury for war purposes subsides, then may we stimulate more expensive and extended emigration then may our ships of war, be used as transports and surplus arms used to give respectability to Anglo-african civilization."
The CJ was resolving the matter of jurisdiction, as is explicitly stated in the opinion.
Does the CJ argue the facts of the case? With whom does he argue? And what of the merits of the case?
So why do you quote him chapter line and verse? Perhaps you didn't get it directly from Wilson, but indirectly through the KKK?
Reagan, by the way, understood the history you don't.
So be it. Is it your position that somehow the Chief Justice was not saying that the southern acts of secession were not illegal?
During the course of that war he managed to propose other colinization plans that didn't resemble the one proposed by Mitchell. He had time for that.
Applying your standards, I assume you have no doubts of the accuracy of the Davis quote.
No surprise there. Lincoln, as has been freely admitted, was a supporter of colonization. But, as has been pointed out, there is a big difference between voluntary colonization as supported by Lincoln and the forced deportation you claim he was planning. There is no evidence that Lincoln was planning that either during or after the war, Butler comments notwithstanding. In 1858 Lincoln discounted the whole idea purging the U.S. of blacks by noting the logistics involved made it impossible. You would have us believe that 7 years later he changed his mind and thought that expelling 4 million people was suddenly possible?
Have you seen the original source? Can you post a link to if? Without seeing it I'm not sure how you can discount it like you do.
Do you acknowledge the authenticity of the Lincoln quote about the tariff?
The ones that 4CJ quoted? I don't have a problem with those. But the one I was referring to originally was the quote from Colonel Baldwin's deposition given in 1865 on a meeting allegedly held with Lincoln in 1861. That's the one most frequently quoted.
I don't quote Wilson chapter, line or verse. Regarding the KKK - sorry, that's your club, not mine. I moved in next door to blacks, their kids swim in our pool. We have block parties as well, no one is excluded.
A yankee that moved into our neighborhood did ask me how to keep blacks from moving next door to him. I replied, "Move back North."
free dixie,sw
but what else would you expect from the damnyankee's Minister of Propaganda?????
free the southland,sw
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