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.
since you've been away, we've gotten several more damn fools/damnyankees on the forum.
held_to_ransom is one of the most ignorant, un-tutored & ignorantly arrogant of the group.
free dixie,sw
Good to hear from you, SW! Sorry I've been 'missing in action.' I wish I had the time to get back here as often as I would like!
As for H_t_R, he does remind me of several other posters, all of whom displayed a uniquely arrogant and offensive writing style, and who possessed (or were possessed by ;>) a rather strange obsession with Woodrow Wilson (among other things ;>). They were all banned - which isn't to say they won't ever be back! Just give 'em enough rope, though, and they will always get themselves banned again. Kinda funny, really...
God will vindicate!
;>)
Indeed. IIRC they even shipped the stone to create Fort Sumter island with from up north. And I'm sure those poor yankee quarry owners lodged protest about that when the feds came to buy their rocks!
That's the problem. He is never specific because he simply does not have specifics. I asked him once to provide a source for some economic claims he made. He effectively responded "the congressional record." I replied by noting that there are several million pages of congressional record and asked him to specify which ones. He effectively responded "all of it." In other words, he didn't have anything to show.
See Woodrow Wilson's 'History of the American People.' Note that Wilson didn't include Americans of African Heritage in the grouping 'American People.' Outside of the obvious racism, everything else you cough up comes from Wilson and the official party line on US history of the Democratic Party.
Apparently, you have been reconstructed in race relations, but not in history.
I find it curious that the condemnation is reserved for a PART of a country that participated in the practice of slavery when the entire country had done so at one time, each state agreeing to it via their ratification of the Constitution.
Please note that the constitution called for the end of the slave trade in 1807, and that the service clause does not refer to servitude as southerners came to later interpret it. The Northern states all ended slavery by 1807, with the exception of the states where existing slaves were grandfathered under the laws that ended slavery otherwise. Using the constitution as a defense of slavery in the manner you do is a major feature of the official texts of the KKK. and it remains a delusion of most white power organizations. Get rid of it. Get civilized. Burn that horse manure rag of treason. It is, was and always will be an offense in the sight of God.
What he said was that he would not mind if some intelligent Blacks or Black ex-servicemen were allowed to vote.
That is -not- what he said.
"it is also unsatificatory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
A. Lincoln, April 11, 1865
Walt
That's not what the documents say. AG Edward Bates very specifically says in his letter that Mitchell is to be retained to continue implementing colonization.
You don't have an interpretation, you have an anecdote.
As Non-Sequitur noted, if President Lincoln supported colonization late in his administration, where is the condemnation of that from people like Sumner and Douglass? It's not there, because it had become a non-issue.
President Lincoln supported voting rights for black soldiers and he never suggested that anyone be forced out of the country.
This is all so bizarre; President Lincoln's ideas were much advanced for the time, but he gets attacked.
Walt
You can lie like a Clinton.
Well, here's the letter.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, February 18. 1864.
Yours of the 12th was received yesterday. If I were to judge from the letter, without any external knowledge, I should suppose that all the colored people South of Washington were struggling to get to Massachusetts; that Massachusetts was anxious to receive and retain the whole of them as permament citizens; and that the United States Government here was interposing and preventing this. But I suppose these are neither really the facts, nor meant to be asserted as true by you. Coming down to what I suppose to be the real facts, you are engaged in trying to raise colored troops for the U. S. and wish to take recruits from Virginia, through Washington, to Massachusetts for that object; and the loyal Governor of Virginia, also trying to raise troops for us, objects to you taking his material away; while we, having to care for all, and being responsible alike to all, have to do as much for him, as we would have to do for you, if he was, by our authority, taking men from Massachusetts to fill up Virginia regiments. No more than this has been intended by me; nor, as I think, by the Secretary of War. There may have been some abuses of this, as a rule, which, if known, should be prevented in future.
If, however, it be really true that Massachusetts wishes to afford a permanent home within her borders, for all, or even a large number of colored persons who will come to her, I shall be only too glad to know it. It would give relief in a very difficult point; and I would not for a moment hinder from going, any person who is free by the terms of the proclamation or any of the acts of Congress."
This letter is the -only- thing I've seen that suggests President Lincoln's ideas late in his administration on where blacks should settle; it blasts the interpretation of those who say he wanted blacks out of the country. They have no words of his to support their position.
Walt
A few days before Lincoln died, he was consulting with Benjamin Butler yet again about colonization.
I haven't seen any credible evidence that President Lincoln and Butler even met in this time frame; even if they did there is no way to corroborate what Butler said, the only credible way to use that material is to say that "Butler said Lincoln said."
Walt
Prove it then. Quote Lincoln saying so much as one single word in repudiation of colonization.
Show in his words after 1862 that he supported it.
There are none, it was a dead letter.
Refer to President Lincoln's letter to Governor Andrew of Massachsetts posted earlier in the thread. Giving premanent residence to blacks would relieve a very difficult point. President Lincoln knew blacks were going to be living in this country. He played the colonization card in 1862 and no one was buying it. That is why he supported voting rights for them.
Walt
If you are an example of southern courtesy then I rest my case.
IF true, so what? Where are any lies?
Please note that the constitution called for the end of the slave trade in 1807, and that the service clause does not refer to servitude as southerners came to later interpret it
Read the debates and you'll find otherwise.
The Northern states all ended slavery by 1807, with the exception of the states where existing slaves were grandfathered under the laws that ended slavery otherwise.
Guess again. Illinois practiced slavery under the guise of "indentured servitude" until 1865. The prohibited blacks from immigrating into the state, as did many other states.
Using the constitution as a defense of slavery in the manner you do is a major feature of the official texts of the KKK. and it remains a delusion of most white power organizations
Wrong again. I defend the Constitution, which legalized it until ended by amendment. I condemn slavery, and those who who made the profits off the slave trade - only to discover morals after the money dried up.
Burn that horse manure rag of treason. It is, was and always will be an offense in the sight of God.
It was the flag that African slaves saw flying from American ships, but I doubt that the flag of the US is an offense to God oh mystical one. Pray tell, but how would you know what God's opinion on this is?
So how many ships did Butler figure it would take to move 4 million people to Panama?
Speaking of crazy, how does this support your crazy claim that Lincoln wanted to forcibly expel 4 million black men, women, and children?
Did they? How about a contemporary law dictionary, or dictionary of any kind? Every time Lincoln uses the word 'deport' it seems to be included with voluntary colonization plans. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I don' think it means what you think it means."
No, I'm just pointing out the folly of believing that the government or the states can act in a unilateral fashion where the interests of other states are involved.
The southern states tried to pertetuate slavery under the guise of the Black Codes into 1868'
The prohibited blacks from immigrating into the state, as did many other states.
Including Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, of course. I assume that your failure to mention them was just an oversight.
No, blacks were free to work and earn wages. But I did run across an article in 1956 where blacks were prevented by homeowners and banks from purchasing property - in Michigan IIRC.
I assume that your failure to mention them was just an oversight.
No, that's what "many other states" means. It was shorter than listing all the southen, northern and western states that had similar laws.
They were free to work. The wages part depended on who held their employment contract.
No, that's what "many other states" means.
Y'all love to mention laws in Illinois or Oregon, conveniently forgetting the laws in all the southern states.
free dixie,sw
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