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)
Dr. Wilson,
One might say that Robert Mugabe is the current face of liberalism in "Rhodesia"; however, its seems that he is falling out of favor with some of the liberal establishment in the West of late because his brash actions are letting the cat out of the bag: democracy and voting are not what they are claimed to be. Perhaps, in a dialectic sort of way, we need our "Mugabe" so that we too can finally see through the sham. Since, the current administration has managed to create a special command for Africa, which we might label our Afrikakorp, some future administration, particularly one with an "African connection,' might well be sending "our" Afrikakorp against Mr. Mugabe.
I like the one about "commercial" sports. A friend of mine likes to say that "commerce is a noble profession," a sentiment with which I agree almost every time I drive my Buick. But in this usage I take it to mean that colleges use sports to make money--or to try to make money. At last count there were no institutions of higher learning (that is, zero) that make money from sports for things other than, you guessed it, sports! Joe Paterno and Bob Knight may give large amounts of their own money to their universities' libraries, but Penn State's football money and Indiana's basketball money do not finance higher learning. If one goes to the other end of the scale, that is, the "purer" athletics of Division III schools, one finds that the highest quality sports programs are used primarily to recruit students and, you guessed it, to raise money! Except Swarthmore, which a number of years ago fired its football coach after an undefeated season for "undue emphasis upon winning." None of this, of course, dampens my enthusiasm for watching, playing, coaching or rooting for college teams.
Unfortunately the college football programs at most universities, certainly the ones in the South anyway, are forced to support the entire athletic department because all other programs, with the exception of men's basketball, fail to generate revenue. It's a shame college football has become so grotesquely commercial, because it's remarkably conservative -- the same teams win every year, wearing the same uniforms they have always worn. And, believe it or not, most fans actually like it that way. Conservatism's triumphs have been too few lately to take even the smallest ones for granted.
PLaces like Ohio State, Florida, Florida St, are really just semi pro football teams with universities attached to them!!!!
"A Republican politician who really believes in 'family values.'"
Yes, when speaking of fundamental virtues pursuant to family, virtues which, if one claims to be a Christian, glorify God, edify the Church, honor one's parents, demonstrate loyalty, respect and adoration to one's spouse, fulfill obligations to one's children, one's kith and one's kin, then the "great Republican," the right honorable Newt Gingrich comes to mind. A score or more of other "leading" Republicans seem to be of the same "greatness."
"A federal judge who has any familiarity with the real U.S. Constitution that was ratified by the people of the States.'
Yes, as flawed as the men of the Louisiana state legislature are and as nebulous as their real motives may be, let's say pandering to the sense of justice of Louisianans, i.e. execute child rapists, while robbing us through various nefarious schemes, those men, duly elected, at least passed a law and our courts and juries at least convicted on the law that a rapist of a young child is to be punished by death. Yet, the nine divines, appointed for life in a branch of the general government which is the agent of the states and the servant of the people, in lordly and unconstitutional fashion, based on the extra-constitutional power of judicial review and founded on the unlawful 14th amendment and on a twist of that 14th that even its drafters did not intend - the federal courts get jurisdiction in state matters - have struck down what the people of Louisiana want as punishment for a heinous crimes as passed by our legislature and carried out by our courts and juries. Such "judgments" mock the mockery of "government of, for and by the people."
How many Division I "affletes" would be attending a university if they were not proficient at running fast, and jumping high?
I was at a local watering hole a few years ago and I was standing, conversing with a group of acquaintances when I noticed a guy standing there who I did not know. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. The guy looked at me incredulously and in a language that only barely resembled English he said something to the effect of “you don’t know who I am, man? I’m Rasheed Marshall, man. I’m the quarterback for WVU.” And then he walked away angered and amazed that I had no idea who he was…
Regarding college commercial sports. I can longer get annoyed at it. So what if College football is "commercial"? It supports all the other sports, including women sports, gives the college free publicity, provides on the job training to football players, and enjoyment to millions of football fans.
If want college football played by true students then simply put height and weight limits on the players. No basketball player taller than say 6-2, or football players over 200 lbs. That would put skill at a premium and allow normal people to play.
As for Lincoln I admire the man and know a little about him. He wasn't the saint some make out to be, but compare him to other Civil War Politicians - his greatness is self evident.
pablo H @ 7
Your words:
"As for Lincoln I admire the man and know a little about him. He wasn’t the saint some make out to be, but compare him to other Civil War Politicians - his greatness is self evident."
Self evident? Actually, the prevailing facts point to the exact opposite of his being "great" in any positive sense of that word!
@7-8:
Depends whether one means "great" in morality, significance, or something else.
In some ways, at least, he was self-evidently great. In others, it is far more arguable.
I agree with Pablo H that, unlike most of the rest of the list here, the Lincoln example does not ring true. It assumes that everyone who knows something about what Lincoln did will, necessarily, find him condemnable on balance.
While most people who admire Lincoln fail to appreciate how little they know about his actions as President and the case against those actions, that is a very different statement than the one to which Pablo has objected.
RMP: I should have begun, "As RMP notes . . ."
Lincoln was "great" in the sense that any tyrant is "great." "Great" men, in that sense, are generally bad men...
If you're a nationalist, Lincoln was a hero.
If you're a patriot, Lincoln was a monster.
He is "great" in the sense that no one can be ambivalent about him.
"Great" in that he wielded great power...
Its absurd to compare Lincoln to some mythical standard and find him wanting. He has to be compared to actual living and breathing pols during the Civil war. And Compared to Jeff Davis, Seward, Johnson, Benjamin, Fremont, Stevens, Yancy, Sumner, Chase, et al. he was a giant. He tried again and again to get the South to listen to reason and to moderate the radical republicans.
As he said to Stephens, agree to "reunion" and "emancipation" & the South can end the war with any conditions. He also agreed to a compromise which would have kept the South from secession. The South however refused any compromise that would exclude slavery from future territories.
Lincoln is great as Hitler and Stalin are great, and for much the same reasons.
Pablo, your knowledge is limited. The Confederacy sent emissaries to Washington to meet with the 'great' man and attempt to resolve conflicts. They sat for hours without any contact. Lincoln sought the complete and total subjugation of the South. Nothing less. The entire conflict boiled down to money and the 'great' man represented the northern industrialist, whose desire was to plunder the country for their benefit. The question of the territories was a question of representation in the senate. The house had already been lost.
No question Lincoln was the shrewdest politician in the field.
Pablo wrote, "...would have kept the South from secession..." A nationalist sentiment.
"Compared to Jeff Davis...he was a giant."
Lincoln had one, and only one, undeniable talent, aside from waging aggresive war. His gift for stirring rhetoric in short bursts reveals real power with language. He could keep it up for about two minutes and makes in that time an impression of greatness, which is why he first came to promenience as a shill for the railroads.
Jeff Davis, a far greater man, requires some time to make an impression, largely because he was keeping his mind on the subject at hand. Try reading Lincoln for an hour and then Jeff Davis for an hour, and then tells us whose company you prefer. Lincoln begins sounding like a windbag while Davis exhibits the quiet dignity and even a gentle humor far beyond Lincoln's--which is why the Confederate president endured chains and indignities to his person with the fortitude of a saint. Compared to Jeff Davis, Lincoln was an ambulance chaser with financial backing.
Scotsbard,
I don't share your admiration of Jeff Davis. The war was lost by Sept 1864 yet he refused to negotiate for peace. All the problems of reconstruction could have been avoided. Instead he drafted 50 year old men and 17 year old boys and jabbered about "Dying in the last ditch" - until April 1865.
Needless to say *he* didn't die in any ditch, but fled to Mexico (unsuccessfully) with Benjamin and some Confederate treasury gold. He didn't even fight when captured. Later, he made some cowardly BS about how he didn't fight because of his wife, blah blah.
The whole civil war, particularly in the South, was a rich mans war, and a poor mans fight. Except for a few large slaveholders, the war made no sense at all, and compromise not succession would have protected states and Southern rights.
Lincoln started and waged aggressive war against half the United States.
Lincoln removed the US Constitution permanently from American law and polity.
Lincoln arrested hundreds of federal officials and state legislators elected by the people, for his own personal gain.
Lincoln directly approved and ordered the mass torture and murder of tens of thousands of good, law-abiding Americans.
pablo h-
You just made this up.
You don't belong here.
Get out.
Everything Pablo H points out about Lincoln just supports the view of Lincoln as a tyrant. "Agreed to a compromise that would have kept the South from secession"? The South didn't need to agree to any sort of compromise, they had every right to secede and did so. The act of waging war against a portion of the country that had every right to secede is the act of criminality.
Pablo H,
Now you done it !! You got the meanest bloodhound in southern territory after ye'self so when I check back in a day or two, Old Red ( pcH ) will have the whole lot of you yankees in one tree holleren dixie.
Pablo. Like so many others you are the unfortunate victim of lies told by the victors, which can only be believed by people who don't know anything of the real facts, which was my original point. Jeff Davis never used the term "die in the last ditch." He was not fleeing to Mexico but was heading west to continue the fight. He never used his wife as an excuse. Lincoln made that remark to Stephens after Southerners had suffered four years of brutal invasion. Stephens indicated the South was willing to accept emancipation, but not conquest. When Stephens, who was genuinely concerned about the welfare of the black people, asked Lincoln what would become of them, how they would get along under the new conditions, Lincoln replied "Root, Hog, or die." This was a quote from a minstrel song and typical of his flippancy, as when he called for a rollicking song when shown Union war graves and cracked jokes when people made earnest please for peace. Besides which, Southerners had no reason to believfe Lincoln about peace since his deviousness was already well known. The biggest lie of all is that the South was driven by large planters. The South was a white man's democracy. In fact, large planters generally opposed secession because their property was guaranteed if remaining in the U.S. Lincoln was not a threat to large slaveholders, he was a threat to the daily life and freedom of the entire South. Take a look at William Marvel's MR. LINCOLN GOES TO WAR. He shows that the Union armies and casualties were made up disperoportionately of workmen facing poverty and unemployment and of foreign immigrants. Well to do people in the North never served unless they particularly wanted to,and suffered few deaths. Like Lincoln's son and most of the Adamses they stayed safe, while nearly every man in the South served. Sherman himself complained about Southern morale and sacrifice of all classes while well-to-do Northerners showed no such dedication. It was the Union cause which was truly a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.
These lies persist because self-righteousness against the South is one of the few things that holds together the shoddy culture of Yankees (in the precise meaning of that term).
Fortunately, the many good points in Dr. Wilson's #23 do not lead necessarily to #24. And even more fortunately, idiotic statements like the first sentence in MAP's #15 tend to negate much of whatever else is said of Mr. Lincoln's war. Getting back to the much more interesting topic of "commercial sports" in colleges, I must admit that I don't resent much of it either. Except, and this is a big except, that it's the ordinary taxpayers who fund most of the commerce. The stadiums and domes built for gladitorial combat are very expensive. I've often thought that the more or less permanent presence of a circus tent in the middle of Florida State's athletic complex pretty much expresses it all.
Mr. Wilson, thanks for the response. I"ll certainly give "William Marvel’s MR. LINCOLN GOES TO WAR" a try. I'll only address a few of your points since I'm not a writer.
The Union cause was a "rich mans war and a poor mans fight" but so was the Souths. Why else the draft law of 1862 or drafting of 50 year old men in 1864? Why else the 20 Slaves law that exempted any man with 20 slaves from the confederate draft? Why else the massive desertion rate from the Confederate army or the secession of West Virginia?
The South may have been a white mans democracy but a very limited one. The large slave holders (20 slaves or more) ran the South in 1862 and dominated politics. Davis himself was a large slaveholder.
I've never understood what the average Southerner (non slaveholding) got out of secession - except a confederate uniform and a pine coffin. If they went to war for states rights, why did they invade Missouri or Kentucky and try to force these states against their will to be part of the confederacy? And why would anyone who believed in "states rights" accept a draft and diktates from Richmond?
My dislike of Davis is simply reinforced by your statement that "he was heading west to continue the struggle". What struggle?
The war was over in April 1865. As President, he knew the war was lost militarily in the fall of 1864. His continuing "the struggle" just resulted in unnecessary death and destruction. His failure to fight against capture - after his vainglorious speeches - was cowardly and disgusting.
Pable, you make all these accusations against Davis but you seem unwilling to turn the same critical eye to Lincoln for having started an unnecessary war which could have been avoided very easily. Why are you doing this?
Dr Wilson may correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the import tariff, affecting the price of things such as blankets, have hurt poor Southerners more than the rich? So perhaps it could be called a poor man's war after all.
Obviously the common people of the South had some reason to want to be free of the Yankee yolk, or they wouldn't have supported secession.
Who said that the Confederacy invaded Missouri or Kentucky? The yankees did that. Anyone who knows anything about the history of these two states should know this. I dont believe that West Virginia was made a new state either legally or by any means that can be said to demonstrate the will of the people.
"Who said that the Confederacy invaded Missouri or Kentucky? The yankees did that. Anyone who knows anything about the history of these two states should know this."
Are you joking? There were confederate senators from MO and Kentucky sitting in the Confederate senate. The confederacy considered these states part of the Confederacy. They invaded both states in 1851-1862. The confederate army would "pick up" men of military age in Kentucky and MO and impress them into service.
All of my family from what is now West Virginia who were in the 8th VA cavalry were certainly not impressed into Confederate service. The "Wheeling Conventions" were nothing but shams.
Roy is correct. The secession votes held in pro-Confederate counties of what now constitutes the state of West Virginia were shams, as well. In Logan County, for example, Federal troops kept Confederate sympathizers away from polling booths at gun-point. Had the counties been allowed to vote according to their local majorities, West Virginia would be reduced to a sliver along the Ohio River.
Which underscores Dr. Wilson's point: the Confederacy was ultimately not about planter hegemony, anti-Whiggism, or even slavery. There is no sufficient explanation for tens of thousands of white men of modest means taking up arms to fight against the U.S. Federal government apart from patriotism.
Were there sub-regions within the South loyal to Lincoln and the Union? Of course -- no armed conflict in history has ever seen 100% support for any side. Pablo mentions the high desertion rate in the Confederate ranks. That is true, but again underscores the point: when the soldiers of modest means got letters from home indicating that their loved ones' stores were being confiscated, they began to realize that the centralized government in Richmond was hardly better than the one in Washington. The war had ceased to be about the preservation of the Southern people and become instead the defense of the Confederate government. That, coupled with strategic errors by the high command, led to desertions. As long as the objective was tangible, the Southern soldier was more than a match for his opponent. The defeat of the Southern armies stemmed as much from a loss of purpose as it did dwindling supplies and manpower.
Pablo, there could be no compromise. Lincoln and the Republicans had made that very clear, which is the very reason that secession happened. New England had threatened to seceed at least twice in the past without talk of war. You seem to believe that leaving the 'greatest government on earth' is somehow the greatest crime. Also the Lincoln regime sent the military into Mo. and seized control of the state government, quite in violation of law, just one of a long, long, long list of violations. I still stand firm that Lincoln is to be compared to Hitler and Stalin. And Dr. Wilson's post at #24 is, as usual, dead-on accurate. A gigantic Yankee myth was created to justify crimes of greed and conceit. The South was driven back into this dismal union at the point of the bayonet, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to like it, or, for that matter, our self-righteous conquerors. As Jefferson Davis, a truly great man, said: We just want to be left alone.
Much of the Southern man's will to fight came from 19th century Romanticism. He went off to war because that's what men did, they fought, and some died (not you of course, but those other guys). The same Romanticism that pushed the Southern man off to war in 1861 is pushing him off to war today, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Our Southern Martial Spirit encourages us to admire men in uniforms that put themselves in danger, under the presumption they're protecting the "innocents" here at home. Notice this same Martial Spirit permeates much of the non-Yankee North: Italians, Irish, Poles, etc.; for example: the firemen of FDNY on 9/11/01.
The leaders of the Confederacy new they would have no power, no say, no input, in a United States dominated by the North. They opted out, and men of the South followed. Whether or not they were better off in a Republic Union or the Confederate South never crossed their minds. They were going to fight for their state, which had always meant more to Americans, that is, until after Reconstruction. The Propaganda of Reconstruction turned, for example, an Alabamian into a United Statesian.
Mr. Hall #33. Quite right, it was an age of romanticism and the South suffered from it. But the North suffered much more. One does not have to be a romantic to fight against an invader bent on conquest; one does have to be either a romantic or a self-serving hypocrite to wage war to save "the sacred Union."
That a conspiracy was afoot seems certain. With the advent of the newspaper, the Northern press began to portray the Southerner (their fellow countryman it should be reminded) as though something subhuman. I have seen a lot here of late that Lincoln was being treated with mercury. The ensuing insanity would account for many of the atrocities he approved. But the question as to how the people in the North were driven to such a war and the atrocities interests me. Dr. Fleming of late wrote a piece describing (I’m paraphrasing) how the modern nation state reduces an enemy to something less than human in the eyes of the masses in order to motivate them to actions they would not ordinarily commit and for reasons that may not even be in their best interests. Before the ‘Iraq war’ I saw Bush throw out ever reason he could find to justify an obvious act of aggression. Yet, once the attack was underway, the battle cry became; “Free the Iraqis”. Now, those dying there are doing so ‘for our freedoms’….? Why are we really there and to benefit whom? The same questions could be asked of that Great War.
In an interesting little essay between covers, North and South: What They Fought For, leftist historian James MacPherson (a real Lincoln-lover) shows that while northern men said they were fighting for the glorious union or to teach the rebs a lesson, Southern soldiers inevitably said (as did their leaders) they were fighting to defend their homes and women from an aggressive invader. The only excuse for someone like poor Pablo is the ignorance imposed by a nationalist regime. It is like what I heard from Rush, yesterday, justifying Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is always OK to target and attack civilians. By the same token, butchers like Sherman and Sheridan and their bosses--Grant, Halleck, Lincoln--were justified in making war on Southern civilians. What are the consequences of this? We simply cannot accuse others of what we not only do but what we say we are justified in doing. No more demonizing of Hitler and Stalin, no more nonsense about the ethnic cleansing practiced by Bosnian Serbs. War is Hell and so we are justified in any demonic behavior.
There is only one hitch to this argument. If we are willing to make it we are morally speaking mad dogs who deserve to be killed. As I said, Pablo can be forgiven for his near-total ignorance of the War, but if, upon being informed, he were to continue to justify an illegal and criminal regime that practiced systematic oppression, and mass-murder, he would forfeit the right to be treated as a moral human being. As it is, he should have the good sense to defer to Prof. Wilson's vastly superior knowledge.
By the way, I have never seen any evidence that Lincoln was much good at anything. He was a minor lawyer who took any case for money, botched his term in Congress, blundered his way through his presidency when a slightly more able man might have avoided war or at least made peace. We should pity him, I suppose, the way we should pity losers like Jimmie Carter and Barack Obama, men who have defied the Peter Principle by rising (albeit in unusual times) to a level astronomically higher than their competence. This, by the way, is the burden of David Donald's most recent and rather dishonest book on Lincoln. Lincoln was not so much a monster as an feeble man who drifted with currents he could not control. Where Donald is wrong is in refusing to see that, incompetent or not, Lincoln made very bad decisions that were catastrophically bad for the people, white and black, of the north and south.
pablo @ 27 wrote: "I’ve never understood what the average Southerner (non slaveholding) got out of secession - except a confederate uniform and a pine coffin."
Are you kidding? If they had been successful, they would have had their own country, living under laws pleasing to them. You know, kind of like if we could secede from this pile that passes for a country we live in today.
This notion that you seem to have that the Southern cause was the slaveholders' cause is naive in the extreme. Poor whites (who were generally much worse off than the slaves were) and other non-slaveholders made common cause with slaveholders inasmuch as the bulk of the Southern economy depended on slave labor at that time, but there was certainly much more involved than simple economic interest. Patriotism--understood as fidelity to the Constitution actually framed and ratified by their forebears--localism, indignation, a desire to repay old insults; all of these were involved...and finally, yes, principle.
The thing you need to get through your head is that Southerners actually wanted a separate country. Yes, it's true. For some reason Yankee sympathizers tend to think the South's secession was all a big sham somehow, or that it was a movement popular only with the big boys. Wrong. It was the common folk particularly who overwhelmingly rejected Yankee ways, manners, and domination, and wished to be free of them.
Dr. Fleming,
You are a well-read, level headed person. Can you please expand on the following, since it seems rather extreme:
"By the same token, butchers like Sherman and Sheridan and their bosses–Grant, Halleck, Lincoln–were justified in making war on Southern civilians. What are the consequences of this?"
Are you implying that Grant and Sherman (to name two) were war criminals? Or no better than Bomber Harris or Curtis Le May?
Those men ordered attacks that killed hundreds of thousands.
From my meager reading of CW history, Sherman lived in Louisiana prior to the CW, was a life long friend of Joe Johnston, had no beef against slavery and battled against Stanton and the Radical Republicans. His army lived off the land (as Armies had always done) and destroyed bridges, railroads, cotton mills. I know of no murders, rapes, or other crimes against civilians ordered by him. He was in fact outraged by the use land mines (called torpedoes).
Pablo H @ 38
Dr. Fleming I am not, nor would I consider answering for him.
However, your words:
"Are you implying that Grant and Sherman (to name two) were war criminals? Or no better than Bomber Harris or Curtis Le May?
Those men ordered attacks that killed hundreds of thousands."
This comparison is unclear. Are you acknowledge that Harris and Le May were "war criminals," a term which needs some clarification in and of itself, and that the acts of Grant and Sherman do not rise to that level of barbarism - the one set criminals and the other not; or are you saying that Harris and Le May were not war criminals despite the attacks which they ordered, attacks which killed hundreds of thousands, ergo Grant and Sherman who allegedly did "less" can certainly not be?
Your words:
"From my meager reading of CW history,..."
Given your responses in previous posts on this thread, you have, as rendered supra, made a true statement. I respectfully suggest that you revisit Sherman in your studies. Infra, please find some suggested reading:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson24.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson11.html
Does no one ever mention that 1861 America was but a mere thirteen years removed from 1848 Europe? The two histories are not separate, you know...
Was it that the Confederates, or the Yankees, "rebellious"?
THAT is the question that shall be remained unanswered in "properly Reconstructed" America.
Pablo, Sherman was a forerunner of Harris and Lemay. Look at the burning of Atlanta, among many other things. The only difference was the level of destructive technology available at the time. The will was the same. It's hard to believe that you've never heard of rapes, murders, etc. committed by his army or that he not only condoned them, but encouraged them as part of his policy as commander. Volumes have been written about this. He was indeed a war criminal. He should have been hanged.
Pablo, I wrote as I did in the belief that you are a decent man who has been victimized by modern education.
Yes, I am saying Sherman was no better than Bomber Harris, indeed, far worse, because his criminal campaign of mass looting, burning, and raping was not aimed at a national enemy against whom his country had fought a few decades earlier in a terrible war but against people whom he had known, his fellow Americans. How many civilians died as a result of the Union's decision to make war on civilians? No one knows but most estimates I have read are in excess of the roughly 600,000 military deaths. The majority were black, some of them killed in cold blood because they became an annoyance as they followed the troops, but most from the starvation that followed the destruction of an agrarian economy. I am not at all an expert in these matters and have only done casual reading except in certain regions, such as South Carolina and Missouri. Some jackass keeps on writing in to complain about Quantrill, an Ohioan whose deeds were not known to the Confederate commanders. But the deliberate murders, lootings, and ethnic cleansing committed by, for example, General Thomas Ewing, whose General Order #11 is so tragically portrayed by George Caleb Bingham, a unionist (if memory serves.) Read up on why Cole Younger joined up with Quantrill, after the Yankees tortured his father to death simply because he would not tell them where he had hidden his money or read WG Simms' meticulous account of how Sherman burned Columbia, SC and the outrages committed by the troops and by vicious scoundrels like Black Jack Logan of Illinois, or look up the sack of Athens Alabama (in which women of both races were raped), the perpetrator of which, a lunatic Cossack colonel, although condemned by a court martial was reinstated and promoted by Lincoln. But why go on? The Union attitude is summed up by Phil Sheridan, later as an observer of the Franco-Prussian War. Though most Europeans had condemned France for starting the conflict, opinion shifted when the Prussians brutally besieged Paris. This was not enough for Sheridan, who shocked the Prussians by telling them how he and his boys used to manage these things. They should be left with nothing but their eyes, to weep with, he told the astonished Prussians.
What was the South guilty of? The decision to leave a union that had become odious to them after 3 generations, a union for which southerners had fought and died for disproportionately. Say, if you like, that they had reached the wrong conclusion or a conclusion you do not like, but Lincoln refused all negotiation and deliberately provoked a war, as he said he did, in attempting to reinforce Ft. Sumter. The result was the most terrible war of the 19th century.
Lee's father was a hero of the revolution; his wife was the descendant of Martha Custis Washington, their 17th century plantation Arlington an almost sacred memorial of our nation's first first lady was confiscated by the vile union government out of pure meanness. They locked up poor President Davis in a cold damp cell and would not permit his wife to provide warm clothing--they hoped he would die because they knew they could not put him on trial without incurring the censure of the civilized world. Or, read sometime about what the union did in the siege of Charleston, the most beautiful and civilized city in North America. (Milby Burton's book, by the way, is excellent). But every part of the South has tales to tell, not legends, but documented cases of looting, arson, rape, and murder.
That most Southerners no longer care much about the systematic atrocities ordered by the union government and carried out by its armies is not so much a sign that they have forgiven the north as that they have been victimized by a Northern system of government education that has made them as ignorant as anyone in Illinois. But I hope you will understand why Southerners--all too few--who do remember find the platitudes of the History Channel or Ken Burns just a little offensive. To defend Lincoln and condemn the South is a little like telling the Ukrainians that Hitler was right. There was a time when good men in the South made common cause with their counterparts in the North and preferred not to speak too plainly about the late unpleasantness, but with the Civil Rights Revolution that once again subjected southern states to Reconstruction and with the growing smugness and hypocrisy of northerners who praise Lincoln and condemn slavery--the mote in their Southern neighbors' eyes--and refuse to take note of the beam in their own--a pointless and criminal war-- some young men feel they have had enough.
Not all northerners were evil; many were indifferent to the War or opposed it, and of those who supported it, some thought it should have been fought honorably. There is no point in demonizing all "Yankees." But the new style of national history is giving the South much the same message as a sheriff is said to have given to women facing rape: Don't fight it; just roll over and enjoy it.
All one really has to do to appreciate the Southern view is to lay realistic and factual accounts of the words and deeds of both sides together and compare them. Who had the superior character and the superior cause can be in little doubt.
Mr. Pablo,
For whom can I speak on the matter concerning the events between 1861 and 1865? For my kith and kin, of course.
I had one great-grandfather, three great great-grandfathers and one great great-uncle who fought in various units which served in the armies of the Confederate States of America.
Of those five, the five about whom I know, there likely being more, three were yeoman farmers, one was a merchant and one was a logger. They all lived in the uplands of the Louisiana wold and represented families that had come into Louisiana from the Carolinas via Mississippi.
None of the men who served were among those conscripted. Based on what the family has handed down, none of them were particularly partisan on either side of the secession issue. They all served for the duration of the war. Three served in Louisiana, fighting their final set of battles under General Richard Taylor. One served in the Army of Tennessee, and one served in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Only one of the five owned slaves, actually a slave. That ancestor, at the age of sixteen had married my great great-grandmother when she was fourteen. He had built them a one-room, pine-slab house deep in the rugged Kisatchie Hills of the western march of Louisiana, that part of Louisiana which had been and then still was much of a no-man's land. One year later, my great grandmother was born. In that same year, the war broke out. My great great-grandfather volunteered at seventeen and was sent with Richard Taylor, while he was under Stonewall Jackson, to Virgina. To help his young wife keep an upland farm whose cash crop was hog tallow, he purchased a young, six-year-old orphan slave and built him a miniature version of the one-room house which he had already built for his family.
The great great uncle who served owned no slaves but was the nephew of my great great-grandfather who did. That GGGF has ten children, all too young to serve. He, his wife and his children worked along side his slaves eking out a living with upland cotton and hog tallow. He lived in a slab house, and the slaves lived in miniature versions thereof. They ate the same food, drank the same water - out of a creek, went to the same church - a family church, were buried in the same cemetery - a family cemetery in which I plan to wait for the Resurrection, and held most of the same things dear. When children were born into my ancestor's household, black women were there as midwives. When slave kids were born, by GGGM and the older girls of the family were there as midwives. In difficult times, the duties of the wet nurse were shared. Now, in matter of the polity in those days, women, children and slaves were subordinate, but things certainly were not "segregated." I, of course, would not allege how slavery was everywhere. I can, however, attest to how it was among my people as reflected in letters, in diaries and in the oral traditions of the family. I am fortunate enough to have known kinsmen who grew up with my ancestors of that era.
Mr. Pablo,
My kinsmen went to war because they saw Mr. Lincoln's invasion as a threat to home and hearth, to kith and kin, to blood and soil and to the rights of freeholders. They were right. Butler and Banks plundered, raped and burned their way through Louisiana, for three long years in the south and east and finally into the heart of Louisiana and into the northwest of Louisiana in the Red River Campaign. Among Banks' plundering, raping and burning troops were ten thousand on loan from Sherman. My mother, who is now ninety-one, sat at the knee of her grandmother, Alabama Madden Jones. One branch of the family called her Aunt Al and the other Aunt Bam. She was the daughter of the GGGF who owned the slaves. Her family was just far enough north not to feel the presence of Union troops; however, she told of the aftermath - of the hundreds of refugees, mostly slaves, fleeing the ravaged Red River Delta. According to my mother, her grandmother remembered seeing, as a little girl, Confederate Governor Henry Watkins Allen coming to Minden, Louisiana, to personally oversee the relief effort which he had so ably organized.
So, in these climes, there are indeed yet a number of us who have a memory of these things. Historical memories are never perfect; however, they are at the very least as accurate as the stories of the court historians who have an agenda in their tellings.
"Read up on why Cole Younger joined up with Quantrill, after the Yankees tortured his father to death simply because he would not tell them where he had hidden his money."
Quantrill burned Lawrence, Kansas to the ground because the Union refused, after repeated warnings, to remove women and children from the unsafe four story brick building the Yankee Government was using to detain them in Kansas City. When the building finally collapsed resulting in the, avoidable, unnecessary and predicted deaths, Quantrill reacted violently by riding over to Lawrence and exacting eye for eye, tooth for tooth, retribution as is so often done in wars of this type.
As for Missouri, my own ancestors volunteered for cavalry duty with General Sterling Price after their country was invaded, their farms burned and independent types rounded up and imprisoned as unpatriotic.( Yes, folks like Mr. Frum and Mao come from a long line of do--gooders who believe in helping others by killing and maiming as many as is required now, so that future generations might have a life (however dishonorable that life might be ) and yet have it in more abundance--- as in " more for them and less for you" . What else could any self respecting Governor do but call up the guard against this type of invasion and destruction of his own state ?
The first white settler in my neck of the woods, old man Akins, was actually from upstate New York. That didn't stop all four or five of his sons from joining Confederate partisan units when the Yankees invaded this area. It also didn't stop three or four Yankees from showing up at his farm, forcing him to take his mule out to the back of the field and shoot it, and then shooting him. I wont mention what they may have done to his daughters.
After the war, his sons, who had known who these Yankees were and where they were from (all from the same community), went North on the hunt, kidnapped all of them, brought them all the way back tied in a wagon, and killed them on the same spot where they had murdered their father.
This story is well documented by local historians and has been published in the local historical society paper. How many more true stories like these are out there?
Quantrill's raid on Lawrence harmed no women, unlike the U.S. army's normal operations.
"a rich man's war and a poor man's fight" pretty much describes every war, though one could also say "an old man's war and a young man's fight".
I think the thing with the past is to remember it, learn from it, but try not to be embittered by it and obsessed with past wrongs. That's what's wrong with the Middle East, after all. Or those folks in Northern Ireland for whom the Battle of the Boyne is like something that happened yesterday.
My attitude about the Civil War (had a great great grandfather who served in the CSA Army) is that it was 140 some years ago, it was a great tragedy and a national disaster, we lost, let's move on with our lives. To what purpose is it to remind ourselves over and over of the perfidy of Lincoln or Sherman? Are we not to forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us? Shouldn't we be worried about what a mess things are today? I mean, I like history and all that, but I have to say I don't lie awake at night stewing over Mr. Lincoln and company. We can't go back in time and change history, however much we may wish to.
Far more bad stuff is likely to result from people who treat every little tinpot dictator today like a new Hitler and are always vaporing about 1939 and Munich and all that. The argumentum ad Hitlerum, as it were. This has caused much mischief lately.
"To what purpose is it to remind ourselves over and over of the perfidy of Lincoln or Sherman?"
I don't know.
"Are we not to forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us?"
We absolutely are.
"Shouldn’t we be worried about what a mess things are today?"
We should.
Just as a point of clarification: The Ohio State University athletic program does, in fact, profit the university. It does not merely pay for its own expenditures, or exist only to make possible a bewildering number of pointless Title IX sports.
That's not to say that the size and pervasive nature of OSU athletics are positive goods, of course.