Statues defaced, toppled nationwide

[Blackwater 53393]

10 hours ago, MizPete said:

did you know Nathan Bedford Forrest started the Klan to resist harm done by carpetbaggers in the post-war South.  It went bad so quickly that Forrest distanced himself from it.  I blame them for the image that the battle flag apparently represents today.

 

Forrest was a man of his time!!  YES!! The Klan was originally established as a vigilante organization to “encourage proper conduct” among the citizenry.

 They would haul a drunken head of household or a father who shirked his familial duties out and “convince” them to do better!!

 

It quickly degenerated into an organization of thugs bent on murder and mayhem, mostly of a racial nature.

 

Forrest immediately and publicly disavowed his association with the Klan and loudly condemned the organization!!

 

YES!! Forrest owned and dealt in slaves.  It was an accepted and legal practice and even went on legally in some Union states for a short while AFTER the war. (Remember!! The Emancipation Proclamation ONLY applied to those states that were attempting to exit the union!!)

 

Forrest was loyal to his state and chose to defend it when hostilities broke out, much the same as did many officers and soldiers of the time!

 

Forrest was also a brilliant tactician and brave to a fault. He had several horses shot out from under him and was wounded more than once, LEADING his troops in battle!  He also won at least one battle without firing a shot! He captured Murfreesboro, Tennessee by circling the town several times with the same small detachment, convincing the opposing command that they were severely outnumbered. Forrest’s tactics are taught in all the great military schools, all the way to West Point!!

 

The one (questionable) blot on his military record is the Fort Pillow incident. There are many unanswered questions surrounding this episode, but it pales in comparison to the acts carried out against southern soldiers and citizens during William T. Sherman’s “March to the Sea”!!

 

The vilification of southern soldiers, citizens, and leaders of the time is wrong.  Judgement of anyone by standards not of their time is wrong!  The war was fought over a number of differences, not the least of which was slavery, but it was not the only reason!!  States rights and the right of self determination were the actual reasons for secession. It was revolution, the same as the revolution of the thirteen original colonies against the King and Great Britain!

 

Most all of those who fought on behalf of the Confederacy did so for the protection of home and hearth! Forrest was no different!

He battled those who sought to impose the will of what he and most others felt was an oppressive, over reaching government that they no longer recognized as their own. In retrospect, secession was in fact legal and the Confederacy was, for a short bloody time, a legitimate nation!!

 

It is history!!  It should be studied and learned from!  It should NOT be edited or especially rewritten! Times change! Facts don’t! Every man should be judged by the standards of his time! The mores and folkways of today were built on history!  If history is ignored or editorialized, little if anything can be learned from it!!

 

[Utah Bob #35998]

I’m waiting on the inevitable attack on Stone Mountain.

[Blackwater 53393]

9 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I’m waiting on the inevitable attack on Stone Mountain.

 

You KNOW it’s gonna happen!!!

[Buckshot Bob]

10 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I’m waiting on the inevitable attack on Stone Mountain.

A couple years ago I had a class for work at Agilent about a hour south of Atlanta. On Friday we got out early and I asked the instructor if there were any good tourist traps to see . He said go see Stone Mountain before the liberals destroy it . It’s a gorgeous park the wife and I rode the cable car and she had to ride the duck boat . The movies in the theater were definitely a different version of the war than I was taught in the Mi public schools  . I was amazed how many Japanese tourists were there 

[MizPete]

When they go for Stone Mtn we're gonna need a volunteer army.  Start with a bunch of pickup trucks.  In the bed of each truck, we need four lawn chairs, two coolers, two people with rifles, and two people with shotguns.  I'm gonna need an umbrella over my lawn chair.

[Blackwater 53393]

Might orta’ give Ol’ Green an oil change!!  Y’all hafta’ provide your own lawn chairs!!

[Cemetery]

12 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

In retrospect, secession was in fact legal and the Confederacy was, for a short bloody time, a legitimate nation!!

 

Didn't Lincoln do some thing that basically made illegal/impossible for States to secede?

 

I'm under the impression that each State was basically it's own nation, and the 'Union' worked in the way the European Union works, today.  But after the civil war the kibosh was put on this.

 

And I bring this up since I recall reading NYC wanting to secede, and Georgia wanted to secede from the Confederacy.

 

Makes ya wonder, if Lincoln did do something, then I guess that stopped all the talk of California wanting to secede because they didn't like Trump being in the White House.

[MizPete]

What Mr. Lincoln did was ignore the fact that secession was not unconstitutional at that time.  The States were not exactly their own nations but the confederation was much looser, and people generally felt loyalty first to their sovereign States and to the union second.  The constitution already provided that the States were autonomous insofar as their laws did not contradict national law.  Mr. Lincoln was dedicated to preserving the union.  I must confess I do not know what prohibits secession at this time but there must be something (one nation, indivisible...).  I can't put my hands on my copy of the constitution & its amendments but I feel pretty sure they made it official after the Recent Unpleasantness.  I'd vote for an exception if California still wants to go.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

George Mason University Economics Professor Walt Williams holds that the conflict was not a "Civil War;"  rather, it was a "War of Independence," as much as the American Revolution.

 

He's well worth reading.

 

Quote

We call the war of 1861 the Civil War. But is that right? A civil war is a struggle between two or more entities trying to take over the central government. Confederate President Jefferson Davis no more sought to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington sought to take over London in 1776. Both wars, those of 1776 and 1861, were wars of independence. Such a recognition does not require one to sanction the horrors of slavery. We might ask, How much of the war was about slavery?

 

WALTER WILLIAMS: Myth and misunderstanding about the Civil War

 

WALTER WILLIAMS: Reexamining the root causes of the Civil War

[Blackwater 53393]

There’s little question that it was a revolution! It was a struggle for independence, contested by powers seeking to keep the new nation from leaving the Union, taking the agriculture and raw materials the North so desperately needed for its survival.

 

Lincoln was losing the war in 1863 and knew it!  People of the North were quickly tiring of the conflict and the cost. Ol’ Abe decided to make it a “Holy War” by making slavery the leading issue and dragged the media and the public into his crusade!!

 

 The war was fought over money!!!

[MizPete]

2 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

The war was fought over money!!!

As are all wars.

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Back to the question of what motivated secession. Here's my take:

 

All deference to Mr. Williams, Lincoln's stance does not indicate he supported slavery, just that he felt he did not have the Constitutional authority to end it. This is supported by his action in the Emancipation Proclamation -- slaves in territories under Union control (under Constitutional authority) were not freed. Slaves in territory not under Union control (in rebellion to Constitutional authority) were freed. Considerations of equality had nothing to do with Lincoln's position. The issue of Constitutional protection of property goes to the root cause of secession. Here's why I believe that:

 

From the beginning of the U.S., legislative power was generally balanced between slave and free states in the senate. Equal numbers of each side meant neither side could pass a law the other side was against (a part of the 'gentlemen's agreement' was that the vice president would abstain from breaking such a tie vote). This balance was maintained through various means, and sometimes a territory that wanted to become a state on one side would be held up until a territory from the other side petitioned for statehood. One example would be Florida territory waiting 8 years to become a slave state, until Iowa was ready to join as a free state. When either side got a little ahead, the balance was fairly quickly returned.

 

Socially, while many in the North thought slavery was bad, most looked at it as not being their problem. Many northerners were even against emancipation, particularly factory workers who believed freedmen would take the already low-paying jobs in factories away from workers struggling to survive. Abolitionists were sometimes attacked in the North; William Lloyd Garrison had to be locked in jail to keep a mob from dragging him to death through Boston.

 

Then along came the Compromise of 1850. California became a free state (giving free states a two-vote advantage in the senate), and the Fugitive Slave Act made the federal government complicit in recovering runaway slaves and forced northerners to cooperate against their will under penalty of law. I believe it was the tipping point that made slavery a 'dead man walking'.

 

The Fugitive Slave Act angered many in the North, and in combination with a hugely popular series of articles which were collected into the book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, activated strong public opposition to slavery. Then the Kansas-Nebraska Act set aside the long-standing geographical limitation to slavery established by the Missouri Compromise, and made people in the North feel they had been betrayed. As a result, when Kansas petitioned to join the Union as a slave state (which would have brought the senate back into balance), congress rejected the motion, citing voting irregularities and violence as the reason.

 

At this point, the South recognized that given public sentiment in the North, and Northern dominance of congress, there would never be another slave state. On the other hand, immigration and western expansion guaranteed there would be more free states added. Maryland and Delaware were slave states with declining slave populations, and therefore were on their way to becoming free states as well. At the rate at which the country was growing, it was possible, even likely, that within one generation there would be a sufficient number of free states to adopt a Constitutional amendment that banned slavery, even over the opposition of the slave states. The only way slave states could avoid that end would be to not be subject to the Constitution. And there was only one way for Southern states to avoid being subject to the Constitution.

[Dirty Dan Dawkins]

On 6/21/2020 at 9:33 PM, Okiepan said:

The 54th Mass statue with Col Shaw in Boston was defaced as well , why ? 

Old, white guy, bad.

 

Im sure they’d tear a John Brown statue down based on such grounds.

Anybody with a beard like that, that’s not tattooed, pierced or in skinny jeans MUST be a racist Southern hillbilly.

[Blackwater 53393]

Think I’ll have some T shirts printed up that just say, “I’M HERE FOR MY PRIVILEGE!!”

[Buckshot Bob]

When the statues strike back 

 

[Dirty Dan Dawkins]

14 hours ago, Ozark Huckleberry said:

Back to the question of what motivated secession. Here's my take:

 

All deference to Mr. Williams, Lincoln's stance does not indicate he supported slavery, just that he felt he did not have the Constitutional authority to end it. This is supported by his action in the Emancipation Proclamation -- slaves in territories under Union control (under Constitutional authority) were not freed. Slaves in territory not under Union control (in rebellion to Constitutional authority) were freed. Considerations of equality had nothing to do with Lincoln's position. The issue of Constitutional protection of property goes to the root cause of secession. Here's why I believe that:

 

From the beginning of the U.S., legislative power was generally balanced between slave and free states in the senate. Equal numbers of each side meant neither side could pass a law the other side was against (a part of the 'gentlemen's agreement' was that the vice president would abstain from breaking such a tie vote). This balance was maintained through various means, and sometimes a territory that wanted to become a state on one side would be held up until a territory from the other side petitioned for statehood. One example would be Florida territory waiting 8 years to become a slave state, until Iowa was ready to join as a free state. When either side got a little ahead, the balance was fairly quickly returned.

 

Socially, while many in the North thought slavery was bad, most looked at it as not being their problem. Many northerners were even against emancipation, particularly factory workers who believed freedmen would take the already low-paying jobs in factories away from workers struggling to survive. Abolitionists were sometimes attacked in the North; William Lloyd Garrison had to be locked in jail to keep a mob from dragging him to death through Boston.

 

Then along came the Compromise of 1850. California became a free state (giving free states a two-vote advantage in the senate), and the Fugitive Slave Act made the federal government complicit in recovering runaway slaves and forced northerners to cooperate against their will under penalty of law. I believe it was the tipping point that made slavery a 'dead man walking'.

 

The Fugitive Slave Act angered many in the North, and in combination with a hugely popular series of articles which were collected into the book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, activated strong public opposition to slavery. Then the Kansas-Nebraska Act set aside the long-standing geographical limitation to slavery established by the Missouri Compromise, and made people in the North feel they had been betrayed. As a result, when Kansas petitioned to join the Union as a slave state (which would have brought the senate back into balance), congress rejected the motion, citing voting irregularities and violence as the reason.

 

At this point, the South recognized that given public sentiment in the North, and Northern dominance of congress, there would never be another slave state. On the other hand, immigration and western expansion guaranteed there would be more free states added. Maryland and Delaware were slave states with declining slave populations, and therefore were on their way to becoming free states as well. At the rate at which the country was growing, it was possible, even likely, that within one generation there would be a sufficient number of free states to adopt a Constitutional amendment that banned slavery, even over the opposition of the slave states. The only way slave states could avoid that end would be to not be subject to the Constitution. And there was only one way for Southern states to avoid being subject to the Constitution.

 

I have had similar inclinations myself.
If you read the declarations of secession from the Southern states, they hammer away on legality of slavery, anti slave states, property rights etc up front in those documents, then jump in to rights conveyed under constitution, or by God, to break away, rebel etc. whatever you wish to call it.
 

My history teachers, here in Georgia, all taught slavery had nothing to do with the South becoming independent, and that Lincoln didn’t fight for slavery but to preserve the union. The latter may be true, but the former, I think my teachers were full of s*** for teaching such nonsense when the Southern states own secession documents built their case for secession in defense of their, at the time, legal right to slavery and their property rights ( that property being slaves).
 

The argument also has been made that most that fought, for the South, fought not for slavery ( most apparently did not own slaves) but loyalty to states etc. My opinion has tried to resolve that over years and I get past the power of conscription, the power of wealthy land owners and politicians over a largely poor agrarian population and the ginning up of anger, fear and resentment to far away devil Yankee folk. I have often wondered if they were no more than the BLM/ANTIFA/George Soros/Hitler personalities of the time manipulating ignorant, fearful minds into a doomed endeavor to preserve their own wealth and plantation lifestyle. Never underestimate the willful ignorance of conceited pride and mob mentality.
 

I have to admit, I have let go of much of the Southern pride, the myths and legends, bygone ignorance, foolishness and fallacy.  We all had ancestors from the dark and Middle Ages that clinged to ignorant notions. Why don’t we stand and cheer that on too?

 

But, I’m not going to join some “cause “ for this or that, just practice justice and equality in my own life. People can practice and enjoy whatever they believe, whether it’s fact or fiction or if I’m right or wrong.
 

I will admit though, the idea of AH Stephens State Park bothers me, if not alone for his “Cornerstone Speech.
 

 

 

 

[Utah Bob #35998]

Due to statues being generally stone or bronze, it’s difficult for the hooligans to discern if it’s a Yank or Reb. So the just tear down everything that looks vaguely Civil War. And apparently anything prior to that too.

Come to think of it I imagine the ignorant hooligans wouldn’t know the difference between Lee and Grant even if they were shown a full color portrait.

[Injun Ryder, SASS #36201L]

Remember when the world was outraged when the taliban did this?