The New Intolerance
"This was a recognition of American terrorists."
That is CNN's Roland Martin's summary judgment of the 258,000 men and boys who fell fighting for the Confederacy in a war that cost as many American lives as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.
Martin reflects the hysteria that seized Obamaville on hearing that Gov. Bob McDonnell had declared Confederate History Month in the Old Dominion. Virginia leads the nation in Civil War battlefields.
So loud was the howling that in 24 hours McDonnell had backpedaled and issued an apology that he had not mentioned slavery.
Unfortunately, the governor missed a teaching moment—at the outset of the 150th anniversary of America's bloodiest war.
Slavery was indeed evil, but it existed in the Americas a century before the oldest of our founding fathers was even born. Five of our first seven presidents were slaveholders.
But Virginia did not secede in defense of slavery. Indeed, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, March 4, 1861, Virginia was still in the Union. Only South Carolina, Georgia and the five Gulf states had seceded and created the Confederate States of America.
At the firing on Fort Sumter, April 12-13, 1865, the first shots of the Civil War, Virginia was still inside the Union. Indeed, there were more slave states in the Union than in the Confederacy. But, on April 15, Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers from the state militias to march south and crush the new Confederacy.
Two days later, April 17, Virginia seceded rather than provide soldiers or militia to participate in a war on their brethren. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas followed Virginia out over the same issue. They would not be a party to a war on their kinfolk.
Slavery was not the cause of this war. Secession was—that and Lincoln's determination to drown the nation in blood if necessary to make the Union whole again.
Nor did Lincoln ever deny it.
In his first inaugural, Lincoln sought to appease the states that had seceded by endorsing a constitutional amendment to make slavery permanent in the 15 states where it then existed. He even offered to help the Southern states run down fugitive slaves.
In 1862, Lincoln wrote Horace Greeley that if he could restore the Union without freeing one slave he would do it. The Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, freed only those slaves Lincoln had no power to free—those still under Confederate rule. As for slaves in the Union states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, they remained the property of their owners.
As for "terrorists," no army fought more honorably than Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Few deny that.
The great terrorist in that war was William Tecumseh Sherman, who violated all the known rules of war by looting, burning and pillaging on his infamous March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman would later be given command of the war against the Plains Indians and advocate extermination of the Sioux.
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian" is attributed both to Sherman and Gen. Phil Sheridan, who burned the Shenandoah and carried out Sherman's ruthless policy against the Indians. Both have statues and circles named for them in Washington, D.C.
If Martin thinks Sherman a hero, he might study what happened to the slave women of Columbia, S.C., when "Uncle Billy's" boys in blue arrived to burn the city.
What of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, at whose request McDonnell issued his proclamation? What racist deeds have they perpetrated of late?
They tend the graves of Confederate dead and place flags on Memorial Day. They contributed to the restoration of the home of Jefferson Davis, damaged by Hurricane Katrina. They publish the Confederate Veteran, a magazine that relates stories of the ancestors they love to remember. They join environmentalists in fighting to preserve Civil War battlefields. They do re-enactments of Civil War battles with men and boys whose ancestors fought for the Union. And they defend the monuments to their ancestors and the flag under which they fought.
Why are they vilified?
Because they are Southern white Christian men—none of whom defends slavery, but all of whom are defiantly proud of the South, its ancient faith and their forefathers who fell in the Lost Cause.
Undeniably, the Civil War ended in the abolition of slavery and restoration of the Union. But the Southern states believed they had the same right to rid themselves of a government to which they no longer felt allegiance as did Washington, Jefferson and Madison, all slave-owners, who could no longer give loyalty to the king of England.
Consider closely this latest skirmish in a culture war that may yet make an end to any idea of nationhood, and you will see whence the real hate is coming. It is not from Gov. McDonnell or the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
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I don't think any other people in time misunderstand their own history as do the American people. The visarel hatred for the old Confederacy, and the South in general stems not from ignorance, but rather knowledge that its people were more honorable and held to higher values than their detractors.
Today marks the anniversary of Appomattox and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Lee the practical end of the misnamed Civil War. But it really was the death of the Republic as invisoned by the founding fathers and the triumph of Hamilton's corporatism and the consolidation of power in Washington DC. Is it any wonder that our rulers in Washington would howl that anyone would want to honor people as Menchen stated were they real ones fighting for representative government.
The truth of Churchill's “History is written by the victors” is nowhere more evident than the prevailing understanding of The Late Unpleasentness.
I've always considered the 'real' end of the CSA to be May 10, 1865, when President Davis was captured enroute to the final stand in Texas with EK Smith and Jubal Early.
But yes, its all very sad. Sam Francis, God rest his soul, used to have a series called 'Abolishing America', and here is more proof of that right here. I remember hearing awhile back leftists whined that here in Ohio a Confederate POW cemetery had little CSA flags on the graves; instead they had removed and replaced with nothing.
What a disgusting mess of a pseudo-country the U.S. is. My family on both sides were here in the 1600s and played a modest part in everything since. And I am lectured about my own evil history by someone named Ramesh Ponurru The U.S. is not a country, it is a dead carcass being picked over by international con artists.
Roland Martin's statement claiming Confederates were terrorists is either idiotic or insidious. I wonder if he has ever pondered what would have come of him if the country had not moved from endentured servitude(white bondage)to using African slaves?
Then there a so called history professor McPherson who described the SCV as a neo-Confederate group of White Supremacists. He should look up meaning of 'neo'. The SCV was founded 104 years ago. I always new Ivy league schools were overrated. You maybe a white supremacist if you have a Confederate ancestor, and most definitely if you are proud of it.
@5: The Old World has very graciously taken me back home. There are many good men over here and I would say you are more desperately needed where you are, but no one there is really capable of understanding you or of listening to you.
We are here waiting, whenever you are ready to evacuate that burnt-out old colonial shell. If you so wish, feel free to remember the [Confœderate] flag.
(I feel like the poster boy for moving to Europe...)
@3: History is usually written by the leftists, actually, regardless of who wins: otherwise, the French would have ceased worshipping Napoleon long ago and there would still be statues of Franco in Madrid.
A fine essay, but I have three quibbles: (1) the use of "Civil War," an inaccurate term. At the time, some on both sides referred to it as the War of 1861, e.g., look at Union soldiers' identity disks. There is no official title. "Civil War" has probably gained popularity because it is short to say and write. (2) Virginia didn't secede until the statewide referendum on May 23, 1861. Unlike other Confederate states, the Commonwealth didn't depend on the legislature or a special assembly to vote on secession. At Fairfax Court House (present day City of Fairfax), the vote for secession was 151-6; the 6 being primarily transplanted New Yorkers. Fairfax County approved of secession by 862 to 289; 12 of the 15 precincts voted in favor, with four voting unanimously. Most of the "no" votes were Yankee transplants. Alexandria voted for secession knowing full well she'd be occupied and the Yankees obliged the next day and remained for the duration. My great-great-grandpa was a pro-Union slaveowner in Missouri. (3) There are Jewish members of the SCV and a Cemetery for Hebrew Confederate Soldiers in Richmond. It's true most Southerners were Protestants and Roman Catholics (a surprisingly large number of the latter). There are books about Jewish Confederate soldiers.
Those who long for the emergence of the new man, the collective of autonomous individuals (oxymoron,who has been emancipated from the responsibilities, obligations and duties of relationships to God, to family, to Church and to local community; from the traditions, customs, habits, taboos and moral precepts engendered by those commonwealths; and from the symbols, processes and institutions thereof, so that the autonomous individual, that Promethean self, can follow unrestrained his whims, desires, lusts and compulsions, know that they have need of a powerful ally in their quest, namely the Hobbesian state - an abstract corporation which has a monopoly on coercion, the ability to define the limits of its own power and which is driven by a powerful will, in our case "social democracy" with the elites who manipulate the masses behind it.
Only this Hobbesian state - consolidated and centralized - has the power to banish God, destroy the family, put the Church into retreat and subsume, counter to subsidiarity, the authority and duties of local communities and the states.
The emergence of the Hobbesian state in the 19th century came in the guise of "nationalism." Bismark in Germany, Garibaldi and his allies in Italy and Lincoln and the Republicans in America were the architects of their respective versions of the Hobbesian state, each with the use of iron and blood to forge the new "nationalist" state, with Lincoln waging the bloodiest of these wars and created the most abstract form of the "nationalist" state.
What these would-be Promethean "selves," who are actually estranged, alienated and shriveled selves must believe is that their ally, the Hobbesian state had "noble" beginnings, despite the enormity of the evil, particularly in Lincoln's version, which it unleashed: total war against the land itself, against civilians, against women and children, black and white. This enormous evil has to be justified. That "justification" has been "found" by creating an abstract version of domestic servitude in the antebellum South and by portraying that abstract version as the most evil of all historical institutions. In short, their enormity is excused by a greater, if abstract, enormity.
This is why "these people" will never allow another narrative, a truer narrative, see much of the light of day; for it will undermine the Hobbesian state without which they cannot exist; for only with the aid of the Hobbesian state can they attempt to overthrow the order of being.
Today, tomorrow and Sunday, we are reenacting the Battle of Pleasant Hill, on of a series of battles marking General Bank's retreat back down the Red River after his initial defeat at Mansfield. We had lots of school kids at the reenactment site today, a site actually on the original battlefield. One of the visiting pupils had heard of McDonnell's proclamation and his subsequent crawfishing. I attempted to explain that as best as I could. Of course, our governor, Bobby Jindal, refused to make such a proclamation, despite requests by the SCV and by state legislators. However, our Secretary of State, Jay Dardenne, has end run the Governor. He has set up an exhibition which is to open with great fanfare on Sunday, 18 April 2010, at 2:00 p.m. in Baton Rouge and last into mid-May. It is to celebrate the life and the life's work of his wife's kinsman - Judah P. Benjamin. Several hundred of us will attend the open reception. I doubt that the Governor will be there.
Whatever your views on a war that started 150 years ago, Lincoln, the avowed freethinker (he acted like one), was a Machiavellian totalitarian who imitated Napoleon or Caesar rather than George Washington. This process of coerced centralization of power and government continues today not only in Washington but also throughout the world.
The wast and east coast people who condemn Confederate History Month are also the same people who shout the loudest for the current genocide against blacks called government sponsored abortion. In the 50 million lives taken since Roe v Wade, the incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 black women have had about 16 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated "Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 36 million, the missing 16 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America's Black community would now number 52 million persons. It would be 36 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member."
There is only one word for the do-gooders, socialists and liberals who dominate American cultural and political life and rail and rant about the remembering brave men and ancestors who fought honorably in a war that should always be remembered as a national tragedy of epic proportions - Hypocrites!
Hit piece on the Confederacy.
Today, on All Things Considered on NPR, Linda Wertheimer interviewed Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of African Studies at the University of Princeton.
Dr. Harris-Lacewell, said to be in her thirties, represented that she was from Virginia, with her father being a Southerner and her mother being from Washington State. She told Wertheimer that the school system in Virginia gave a version of the War Between the States or Yankee Aggression, terms most condescendingly used, which utterly appalled her mother, suggesting that her Washington-born mother was much more enlightened than was her Virginia/Southern born father. (One should be careful how and whom one marries!)
Wertheimer fed her the questions, and she expound that the war was about slavery and nothing else, that slaves got no compensation for their work, that even without slavery the South committed treason, and that McDonnell's proclamation was an affront to our first black President. (I am not capable of delivering her words with the quiet but deadly venom of her delivery.)
If you have low blood pressure, a listen to the "interview," available at NPR, All Things Considered, should raise it to the proper level. Those with chronic high blood pressure should be sure their wills are in order.
So the hateful bigots who want me and my people to cease to exist are attacking like hounds again. Let them. Their empire is dying and when it collapses they will go down with it, and their socio-political 'order' and it's accompanying propaganda will disappear just like they want Southerners to disappear.
Then the truth will have a chance to come out at long last.
Meanwhile, watch these scum and dont forget who they are. They may be in desperate need of a real job someday, and we must be sure not to oblige or assist.
To hell with the empire. It must go and now it will because the fools who run it have pushed things too far. We just need to ride it out, difficult as that may be at times.
A shameful episode, due in part to McDonnell's capitulation. I'd have given anything to see him go up on stage and tell the expectant pseuds to go to hell like the blighters they are. That our politicians don't mount the slightest defense against the silliest charges demonstrates what a zombie nation this is.
One thing I like to remember is that materially speaking the Southerners in 1861 had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. They fought anyway, as long as they could. Would that we had one person alive today with half the courage.
Isnt McDonnell just another carpetbagging Republican governor ? I cant say Im surprised.
Because I was in a hotel that had very limited TV options (otherwise I would never tune to CNN) I happened to see the disgusting spectacle of a "discussion" between the representative of the Confederate Veterans and the tag-team duo of Anderson Cooper and Roland Martin.
Now the man who coined the phrase "two heads are better than one" certainly never saw the Cooper/Martin team perform or he wouldn't have uttered such a line. It amazed me that two such willfully ignorant, rude, illogical and poorly-spoken people would take to the international airways just to display for the world what simpletons look and sound like; given their performance they couldn't have had any other intentions.
Martin was hysterical the entire time and kept repeating his few lines like a steroid-crazed parrot. Cooper was his straight man, muttering his talking points in a sneering fashion before giving his guest a few seconds to speak. The guest calmly tried to get these two to understand that such a proclamation was exactly what was necessary to actually educate people, but it continually fell on deaf ears.
I completely agree with Matt #14 above; the governor should have stood his ground. If there is one thing we know about our mainstream media in addition to their proclivity to spout propaganda, it is that they are cowardly. They won't dare attack the groups that wouldn't stand for this kind of slander.
Sadly, the CNN understanding of the conflict in question is the one largely held by our fellow citizens (subjects?) This is one indicator of just why we are in this sad state today.
There are valid reasons that Pat Buchanan is hated so deeply by America's cultural Marxists. It also should be noted that the libertarians despise him too.
I've tried to restrain myself, but it's no use: I have to ask a question here, let it expose my ignorance as it may.
If Lincoln promised to leave slavery alone in the states where it existed, and this promise was made in March, why, a month later, was Fort Sumter fired on?
I can well imagine that this is a question that has been pondered and probably agonized over innumerable times. I ask it in the spirit of a student seeking to learn.
Why does mr. buchanan seem to think that slavery was evil?
I second joe johnson's comment. Nobody need be intimidated by the laughable and self-righteous assertion that giving someone food, water, shelter, and clothing in exchange for involuntary labor is evil. Just like all scared and guilt-ridden white men out there, Pat once again kowtowed to the cultural Marxist lobby that is the MSM. I have seen him do it too often in the past to find him worth reading anymore.
Mr. Jacobi @ 18
There are more capable men than I who frequent this forum; however, I venture to suggest the following:
1. While slavery was indeed a compelling issue in the Cotton States, it was not the only issue, and it certainly was not the principle. Lincoln's "overture" simply did not satisfy.
2. They did not trust Lincoln.
3. Lincoln's actions which created the pretext surrounding Ft. Sumpter - unconstitutional, cladestine, dangerous to the Confederacy, and against prevailing international law - had to be answered.
5. Lincoln's actions against the Confederacy int the context of Ft. Sumter simply proved that he meant what he had said, albeit in cunning duplicity: he was not going to distrub slavery but he was going to collect the tariff, hence Ft. Sumter and Charleston, to satify to corporatism which was at the core of the Republican reality, i.e. the transfer of wealth through taxes to the cronies which supported the party.
Again, there are better men than I who can give better answers.
Lincoln performed a stupenous act of stealth and manipulation in forcing the Charleston Confederates to fire on Fort Sumter 149 years ago today. After months of negotiations and no overt acts of agression toward the Federals the Confederates finally decided to read some of the dispatches they had been allowing through from Washington to the Fort. They were shocked to learn that they had been played by Lincoln and Forts Commander, Major Anderson and a Federal floatilla was in route to reinforce the Fort after repeated assurances to the Confederate enyoys no such action would be taken. Lincoln new they would be forced to fire when the fleet entered the harbor. The bombardment began just prior to the Federal reinforcements arrival. When they did arrive at the Harbor entrance they made no effort to assist their comrades in the Fort. Their orders were from Lincoln himself not to assist if the bombardment had commenced.
The Federals in Charleston were originally stationed at forts onshore,not at Fort Sumter. Major Anderson ordered the cannons spiked and the troops withdrawn to Sumter under comver of darkness on Christmas morning. One interesting fact that many don't know or do not wish to discuss. Fort Sumter was actually property of the state of South Carolina.
Mr. Jacobi, to add to the excellent points already made: Why should Southerners allow a fort that had been built with their tax money and to defend them against attack be allowed as a base for a foreign power whose duplicity and hostility had been unmistakeable.
It is worth adding that every other U.S. military installation in the Confederacy had already been peacefully surrendered to the States in which they were located. (With the exception of Ft. Pickens at Pensacola, where the federal officers and the State militia were enjoying a gentleman's agreement to maintain the status quo until a political settlement had been made. The Confederates, as is never mentioned, had already offered not only to pay for the federal property but to assume their share of the U.S. governbment debt.
I think a ray of light may have penetrated the Chicago public school-induced fog that has always surrounded this question in my mind. Up here, we get the story triple-filtered: the first layer consists in being in a government school; the second in being in the North; the third and most formidable in being in Illinois, the self-proclaimed "Land O Lincoln". The Sumter story, to the best of my recollection, was told to me as an unprovoked attack on outgunned, outnumbered Federal troops. The reinforcements, in this version, are described as coming "too late" to save their comrades; I recall no mention of the fact that they were dispatched before the firing began.
My thanks to Robert M. Peters and Bryan for your responses. I give credit to Dr. Wilson, however, for finding the hidden spring that opened the door to the light: the phrase "base for a foreign power". With those words, much fell into place. Once one understands the fort to have been seen in this light, the measures taken against it assume an ineluctable military logic.
Dr.Wilson thank you for bringing Ft.Pickens into the discussion. It was there Lincoln made the first stealth attempt to induce the Confederates to fire the first shot in early April. He refused to recognize the amiable agreement made prior to his taking office between the State of Florida, later the CSA forces and Federals holding Ft. Pickens. Lincoln secretly gave full command of the fleet sent to Pensacola to a navy Lieutenant. When the Confederates saw the fleet of ships and realized Ft.Pickens had been reinforced they did not attack as it was hoped. Lincoln had underestimated the facilations of the Confederate Commander, Braxton Bragg.
An excellent book to read on Ft. Pickens and Sumter.
"Lincoln Takes Command:How Lincoln Got the War He Wanted"
John Shipley Tilley copyright 1941
I just could not believe it when I saw that the CNN guy thought Confederate soldiers were the same as Al-Quada. They weren't the ones who targeted innocent civilians. That was Sherman and Sheridan. And if the Confederate soldiers were terrorists, so were the Founding Fathers and the Continental Army as they were fighting for the same thing. I do , however, find it hard to believe that there is anyone today that thinks that slavery is ok. Are we not all created in the image of God? By what right does one person own another person created in God's image and likeness? And then there's the Golden Rule. Unless you would be willing to be a slave yourself, you shouldn't advocate this for others. Some might point out to slavery being in the Bible. The Old Testament directs the Hebrews to offer their slaves freedom after 7 years. The slavery in place during the Roman empire was an odious institution and Christians suffered under it. I think that had the CSA been allowed to depart the Union in peace, slavery would have ended peacefully. It did in every other country in Europe and the Americas, with the exception of Haiti, where there was a revolt.
Lastly, I do not think it is totally correct to speak of libertarians not liking Pat Buchanan. For one thing, libertarians are too diverse and unorganized to be thought of as a block. Pat's columns are prominently featured on the Lew Rockwell site. While many libertarians would not agree with Pat's protectionism, they recognize him as in agreement on the evil of runaway federal government, empire building, the badness of the neocons, etc. I am sort of a libertarian myself, though I prefer to be known as just someone who believes we should actually follow the Constitution and Pat is one of my heroes!
"And if the Confederate soldiers were terrorists, so were the Founding Fathers and the Continental Army as they were fighting for the same thing"
Deirdre, so thoroughly has the left brainwashed America through television that even simple facts like this do not penetrate their thinking. Here:
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0409/buchanan-both-sides-civil-war/
the author claims that Buchanan "appears to defend slavery" because he defended the right to secession. Americans as a people are too stupid to understand that "secession" means "independence", or that every July 4th they celebrate secession.