Honestly, Abe!
"A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." —Matthew 5:14
How many Americans are aware that Abraham Lincoln was well known for telling dirty stories, engaged in antics (like playing with his feet) when he did not want to answer questions, and was flippant when his attention was called to Union soldiers' graves?
That he kept his son safely at Harvard during the war? (Robert E. Lee's son was kidnapped from home while severely wounded and brutally imprisoned away from his dying wife and children.)
That Lincoln was a wealthy corporate lawyer with the biggest mansion in Springfield and a private railroad car placed at his disposal by capitalists?
That while very clever and articulate, his knowledge of American and world history, the origins of the Constitution and of the Founding Fathers, of foreign languages, economics, science, and most other subjects was nearly non-existent. His legal success was based on clever manipulation of juries. His political success was based on (mostly clandestine) tactics, Biblical sounding rhetoric, capitalist support, and prolific promises of government jobs and contracts.
That he was the least known, the least distinguished, and the least popular man who was ever elected President before or since.
Karl Marx enthusiastically supported Lincoln because—?
Hitler admired Lincoln because—?
Before he was president Lincoln made one practical proposal for the end of slavery. He outlined a program of gradual emancipation by which slavery would have ended in New Jersey in 1914.
Those who knew Lincoln most closely and for the longest period of time were agreed that he had two predominant character traits: ambition and secretiveness. Almost all first-hand immediate impressions of Lincoln, including those of most people on his side, reveal not a wise, deep, warm, sorrowful man, but a practiced dissimulator with a remote amoral core. His behaviour fits the pattern described as "passive-aggressive." He also exhibited traits of "crackpot realism." A crackpot realist is a cynic who believes that everybody he deals with is acting in bad faith. By being aware of this, he thinks that he can outsmart and manipulate others.
How many people know that Lincoln struck many of those he encountered as actually physically grotesque—arms and legs too long and a deformed face? He did not resemble Henry Fonda in the least, or even Raymond Massey.
Who was the only American President who complained publicly about "the troublesome presence of free negroes"?
How many people know that Lincoln approved a proposed Thirteenth Amendment which would have guaranteed non-interference with slavery in the South, as long as no black people could be brought to unsettled territories which Northern capitalists were eager to exploit—and those capitalists could continue their tariff "protection"?
A large amount of Lincoln's papers were destroyed by his son. Why? Wouldn't you think every scrap of paper associated with such a revered figure would be saved?
The French have looked again at their history and have lowered their once high opinion of Robespierre and their other brutal revolutionaries. The Russians have done the same with Lenin. When will Americans experience the humbling and healing process of grasping the truth about Lincoln's brutal war of conquest against free Americans? A people who are in such denial are in moral peril. And a people whose most revered symbol is a corporate lawyer and scheming politician in an armchair are little to be admired.
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#101 - Clyde, I am as concerned with "racism" as you are when you are lauding Pettigrew and other rebs...
And as for inspiring, I think you can tell by the all mudflaps, antenna flags, window decals, bumper stickers, and decaled white tee shirts at roadside barbeque stands how "inspiring" the Confederate legacy has been and to what social strata it has held such broad appeal...
Somethin' to be proud of...
Edit: Make that "at Dollar General, Walmart, Waffle House and roadside barbeque stands". There - now I've got the whole line-up.
Scott @ 104 & 105,
Contempt for the common man. How very New England liberal. I cannot say I'm surprised.
#106 - no, say rather "contempt for disinformation and misrepresentation." I have nothing but sympathy for victims.
Sympathy, like FDR had sympathy for southerners when he confiscated and flooded their land?
and may I point out that many of them were black...
Scott @ 104 and 105
You brought up Taft and Lodge in response to posts by Dr. Wilson at 88 and MAP at 92.
Even in the jumbled state of the barbaric minds of post-modern Americans whose cultural markers of anything prior to yesterday are about as vague as the names of their last "partner" in fornication, the names of Washington, Jefferson, Calhoun, Jackson, Lee and Davis "enjoy" some recall, even if that recall is blurred and distorted. Lodge and Taft, chronologically much more recent than the former, are not in the minds of "those people" at all.
While I can myself sometimes get right high minded about Confederate symbols, the fact is that among Southerns, real people who have such symbols on mudflaps, antenna flags, window decals, bumper stickers, and decaled white tee shirts at roadside barbeque stands, etc., the symbols have survived and are part of the folk customs of the region, quite naturally and in spite of concerted efforts by the government, the media and the education establishment to remove them, which should tell you that there is yet and still and objective correlative between the symbols and the people. The symbols of the "nation" or the "empire" on the other hand, while unfurled, raised, lowered and lauded on command in Pavlovian fashion have not come to that state naturally but through indoctrination, schooling and by law.
While one can still wear a Confederate symbol into a Walmart, a Dollar General or a Waffle House, one will no longer find them sold there. One chain restaurant, a Southern chain, used to sell tiny Confederate Battle Flags. It went PC and no longer does. A good friend of mine who frequents the chain always carries about one-half dozen in and sticks them in the same container with the U.S. flags of the same size. It is his great delight when he can be present as a customer takes one up to the cashier. Before every tiny item got a digital code, some where actually sold. One practices one's passive resistance to the leviathan where one can!
Dr. Wilson was merely making you aware that there is a quid pro quo in the bladder contest associated with that particular element of the Marxist narrative, namely "racism"!
Scott @ 107
Your post:
"#106 - no, say rather “contempt for disinformation and misrepresentation.” I have nothing but sympathy for victims."
When you use the term "victim," does it bring a sense of superiority and is it supposed to engender in the rest of us a vague feeling of guilt? The Marxist narrative does get tiresome after a while, or as we say in these climes, "That old dog just don't hunt no more!"
110 - Confederate symbols are certainly a folk custom in the South (and perhaps elsewhere, for that matter).
You, like everyone else on this board, have failed to respond in any way to the contention that slavery, secession and the Confederacy were intimately intertwined, undergirded and justified by the basic notion that African-Americans were an inferior race to that of white Anglo-Saxons. And while I acknowledge that the non-southern states derived (sometimes great) economic benefit from slavery, I take no pride in it and I won't try to justify it.
On the other hand, taking pride in the symbols of the Old South and the Confederacy itself seems to be like an addiction to some; like alcoholism, they try to deny it, or justify it, or recharacterize it, minimize it, or question the motives of the others who question it. But in the end, one cannot escape the essential truths about those symbols, the misguided society they represent, and what taking pride in them fully means.
111 - I have no sense of superiority over you. Your spirited defense of the indefensible and lack of an answer to my question (above) says all that needs to be said about subconscious guilt.
Maybe "no one" talks about R.A. Taft these days in the South - but I can tell you that many people in the North still hold similar beliefs, even if they cannot articulate the author of them.
One need not be a Neo-Confederate to believe that the federal government is 1) too big, 2) wastes too much money, 3) that we should avoid foreign entangle ments wherever possible, 4) that unbridled illegal immigration into this country is bad policy and a national security issue, that 5) the family is the building block for society and is increasingly under attack, and 6) that ever- burgeoning, ever more pervasive "technology" does not equate to "progress" in our society (see Leo Marx).
Where do you get your silly notions of equality?
"Scott"-
It is striking that you should chose as your model for attacking the South a man who was always its loyal friend. I mean Robert A. Taft.
It is also striking that you should chose as your model a man who was called a "Nazi" for his vociferous criticism of the Nuremberg trials, a schoolyard slur which Taft feared not at all.
Maybe no one where you live talks about R.A. Taft these days, but maybe you should have read up on him.
You see, you have been throwing out random names and bubble-gum history, and when an expert points out your silliness, you don't get it. You can't.
You show little knowledge of conservative politics, so it is safe to assume you are not who you pretend to be.
But there are two obvious assumptions running through everything you say:
(1) Your racial goal to genocide the "Posterity" of the US Constitution; and
(2) The South scares the living hell in you.
Number two is well-deserved.
114 - You're so smart. I can't believe I didn't understand all of this before. So I won't argue any longer - you can have your sycophantic discussion boards to yourself.
I've certainly enjoyed this little soiree, however. Almost as much as Sherman enjoyed his trip South back in the day...
Old times aren't forgotten, right?
"My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom."
-W.T. Sherman
Wow. Sherman, like so many others of his ilk, misquoted Scripture. Cut 'n paste is at least 150 years old.
Sherman's malice must have been directed at the Southern plain folk. He didn't feel that way about Joseph E. Johnston; or, if he did, may Johnston's magnanimity toward Sherman pour hot coals on his head.
Rublev's Dog @ 116
It is perhaps that Mr. Sherman thought himself to be a god or lord and could, therefore, leave that most important element of the quote to be inferred. The gentleman who gave the quote to which you refer appeared to work along the same lines.
As to "pour hot coals on his head," I recall that in my earliest days in Sunday school, I had an image of some medieval folk "pouring" coals on the heads of the besieging enemy. Later, as I entered my teens, my good pastor of nineteen years - Moses Eli Mercer or Bro. Mose - gave me and others among our "young deacons" to understand that it was really an act of charity which St. Paul was describing. It seems that the context would be that a neighbor, not having given the proper attention to his home fires, would be compelled to unexpectedly extend hospitality to an unanticipated guest late at night. Not to do injury to his honor as a host, the careless neighbor would come to the good Christian to borrow coals which he did not deserve. The vessel in which the careless neighbor would receive and carry the coals was transported on his head. In charity, giving that which he himself needed to someone who did not deserve them, the good Christian would share his coals, always at some risk to himself, lest an unanticipated guest come to him.
Dr. Fleming, Dr. Wolf or some other learned person on this forum, including you, may well know if Bro. Mose 's understanding is the historically accurate one. In the name of Charity, I prefer it to the one of my imagination.
Perhaps General Johnston was showing charity to Sherman. Certainly it would be something which Sherman did not deserve.
Ah, so it appears that the arrogant, completely mannerless, hateful anti-Southern bigot Scott got himself into a debate he realised he couldn't win, then decided to leave to avoid defeat, claiming a fake victory to soothe his false ego and to insult the rest of us. How typical of his leftist kind.
Scott @ 115
Your approval of Sherman's murderous march through the South makes me wonder what other campaigns of ruin you would support to ensure that others are delivered from their inequality. I would hazard a guess that your leveling instinct would keep us all in a constant state of war.
This brings up an important question: If freeing slaves was the main issue driving Lincoln's war, would he have taken martial actions against the Southern States had they not seceded?
I may have erred in using the word 'martial'. More properly, what would Lincoln have done to free the slaves if the South had stayed in the Union? It is unlikely he would have ever threatened the use of force on their behalf. In fact it is unlikely he would have done anything to seriously change their status.
In comment #112, our leftist guest Mr. Scott expresses indignation and anger over the fact that slavery was an institution that reflected the belief that whites were better than blacks. In the typical leftist fashion of creating an atmosphere of guilt in Western civilization (Marx would be proud of Mr. Scott), he apparently wants us to reject that notion and repent of the sin of slavery.
I believe we should accept what we know to be true. Of course slavery was a result of the ultimate belief that whites were better than blacks - better, that is, at the things in life that determine our station in it. Consider that, unless they are raised by suburban middle-class whites, blacks exhibit the following:
1) Behavioral, speech, and personal conduct patterns that whites tend to find undesirable to be around for too long
2) Very large sexual appetites, resulting in many out-of-wedlock births
3) A poor capacity to become educated - at least by Western standards
These tendencies by blacks relegated them to a position in life where they were constantly instructed in their daily activities. Whites were the dominant race in the American nation, its institutions were run by them, blacks were not able to live up to the standards set by whites - who were over 90% of the American populace, so in essence yes, blacks were put in a station in life which reflected the fact that whites performed the aforementioned feats BETTER than blacks.
As for Mr. Scott, he doesn't have to worry, 99% of white people around my age (18-20s) will cringe like a scolded dog when he hurls his Marxist anti-slavery sermons at them. But here at Chronicles, he won't get good patriotic Americans to apologize for the fact that our forefathers built a society and national order that reflected reality.
Especially not I.
#117, Mr. Peters, thank you for that excellent account of Bro Mose's teaching. Lest there be any misunderstanding among other readers, I was suggesting that Johnston's action was genuinely charitable toward Mr. Sherman, and as such should bring embarrassment upon the latter and others of similar disposition. God alone knows Sherman's heart and His Son will judge him righteously.
#119, Brock, a reading of Genovese's works on antebellum black-white relations in the South reveals that Southern whites' attitudes toward blacks were not based on Darwinism. There is a reason honest cultural studies of Southern plain folk have been largely avoided in academia; they don't fit accepted Marxist models.
Scott,
Someone who would revel in the rape and pillage of their neighbors is no Christian, no patriot, and no conservative. However, that is no surprise, as these views reflect full compliance with the modern socialist Pagan Reformation. May God have mercy on your soul.
It is reported that once outside agitators (haven’t we met a few on this forum?) increased the fears of a slave insurrection, harsh laws were enacted. However, these were rarely, if at all, enforced. Masters tended to ignore them as a result of an out-dated, archaic, and abandoned principle: Christian compassion. The purpose here is not to make light of slavery, but to show the contrast with the present system - ends justify means – and well demonstrated by the actions of Lincoln and Sherman.
Joe Johnston was the worst General the Confederates had - no wonder Sherman liked him.
The only chance for the Confederates was to have put Hood in charge in May of 1864 and try to counterattack before Sherman reached Atlanta. But Davis believed Johnston when he said all the retreating was just a prelude to a grand counteroffensive.
Joe Johnston was a fine general, though at fault for not keeping his President informed of his plans. His remarks about Sherman were long after the war and a gentlemanly act to promote reconciliation--a reply to the other side's gesture of asking him to be a pallbearer for Sherman's funeral, I believe. This effort of reconciliation was common to people on both sides by the 1880s. Perhaps Johnston also appreciated Sherman's offer of generous surrender terms at Durham's Station---a generosity which was deceitfully revoked by Lincoln after Johnston had laid down arms.
Dr. Wilson:
Your words from #127
"This effort of reconciliation was common to people on both sides by the 1880s."
This effort of reconciliation and the cultural "truce" which flowed out of it, has obviously ended. Based on your observations and understandings, when did it begin to break down?
Mr. Peters, This is a complex subject. Will make a good discussion when we next have the pleasure of a visit. The short answer is that Yankee society suffers spells of insanity every second or third generation. One of the usual phenomena of these spells is a projection of their faults onto the South, their standby "internal oreintal."