Looking for the Hen’s Tooth
"Politics is too serious a matter to be left to politicians." —De Gaulle
Some things are, as they say, harder to find than a hen's tooth:
An American college without a commercial sports program.
A Republican politician who really believes in “family values.”
A federal judge who actually follows the law.
A federal judge who has any familiarity with the real U.S. Constitution that was ratified by the people of the States.
A liberal or neocon who knows any actual history.
A liberal who apologises and takes responsibility for what they did to Rhodesia.
A liberal who apologises and takes responsibility for what they have done to us.
A Communist brought to justice for crimes against humanity.
A Lincoln admirer who knows anything at all about the real man and his historical context.
A Republican who understands Russell Kirk's observation that "the acquisitive instinct" is a very different thing from "the conservative disposition."
Entries(RSS)
To the Mayor of Atlanta,
We don't want your negroes or your horses or your houses or your lands or anything you have, but we do want, and will have, a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and if it involves the destruction of your improvements we cannot help it. You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers that live by falsehood and excitement, and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters the better for you. I repeat then that by the original compact of government the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, custom-houses, &c., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition and molded shells and shot to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, and desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can now only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect an early success. But, my dear sirs, when that peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter. Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them and build for them in more quiet places proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.
Yours, in haste,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major-General, Commanding.