The American Spectator

aware| 2.16.09 @ 6:58AM

"Honest" Abe...phooey! Why not just slobber all over the feet of his god-like statue in Washington. Destroyer of the Union, instituter of the nation state. Hypocrite par excellence! Most successful killer of Americans in history. Since him there's been no stopping the power grabs of the Federal government. Mass conscription, income taxes, war on civilians, oppression of dissenters ... whats not to love?

Thomas| 2.16.09 @ 9:47AM

Give the "Great Emancipator" label a rest, please. Whatever his personal feelings concerning slavery, The Civil War was not fought over slavery. The slavery problem did, indeed, spark the succession, but Lincoln did not invade the Confederacy to free the slaves. He invaded the South to force the Confederate States to re-join the United States of America.

He did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until 1863, two years into the war. He never ordered the abolition of slavery in the slave holding Union states at all. The war was about Federal Power. If the Southern states were allowed to leave the Union, then it was feared that the United States would soon disappear into a group of separate weak federations, and that could not be allowed. What Lincoln did was to assure the dominance of the federal government over the states and their people. Lincoln was a Federalist and as such, the Union must be preserved at all costs.

It is striking that the left is so enamored of Lincoln, as he embodied everything that they say they hated. He invaded a peaceful neighboring country that posed no military threat to the Union. He suspended habeas corpus and civilians were subject to trial by military tribunal and he instituted Federal conscription into the Federal military.

Whether Lincoln was a Great President or not would depend largely upon where you stand on the concept of Federal Supremecy.

Crusader| 2.16.09 @ 9:53AM

It bothers me when a lib refers to the USA as a "democracy" but it is disheartening to see it used here on an alleged conservative site. Just a reminder, a democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner. The US of A is (supposed to be) a Democratic Republic.

We debated Lincoln on the other thread but to say he "increased the sum total of freedom?" Haha! If "freedom" means states were now subserviant to the all-powerful fed, then yes he certainly laid the groundwork for that.

jose goldfinger| 2.16.09 @ 10:49AM

Seems like the comments section is a better source of information than the columns. Maybe TAS should recruit some of its readers for future opinion pieces.

LEN| 2.16.09 @ 11:10AM

What a bunch of rot. The Constitution was put in place for the benefit of the States, not to bind them to it.

Joe Blow| 2.16.09 @ 11:39AM

Good ol` Abe suspended Habeas corpus

-Ignored Supreme Court rulings ( Ex parte MERRYMAN )

-Then stacked the Supreme Court with his stooges.

-Believed in a a massive centralized govt. with Clay/Keynes economics as it`s basis.

- Was a white supremicist

-Considered the Emancipation Proclamation nothing more than a practical war measure to win.

-Countermanded orders by Union generals to free slaves.

-Burned southern cities to the ground, a war crime.

-Originally wanted to send slaves back,whether to Africa, Chiriqui Resettlement Plan, Haiti, etc.

Basically, a tyrant.

Jimbo| 2.16.09 @ 12:47PM

To anyone who has read the many documents written at that time, the underlying issue of the Civil War was slavery. Legal issues of maintaining the Union were related as all of the states that left the union referred heavily to the slavery issue in their articles of separation. The Confederacy was certainly no pure democracy. Prior to secession, they had conscription (for slave patrols) and there was no freedom of speech or press as antislavery preachers were jailed and sermons against slavery were not allowed to be published. During the war they raised taxes and issued worthless fiat money. Lincoln was not perfect but was a great man, especially compared to his cowardly Confederate counterpart - Jefferson Davis, who tried to evade capture by wearing womens clothes.

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 1:06PM

Lincoln saved the Union, a false concept of the Union that existed only in his mind. The Union preceded the states. Yeah right. And in the process destroyed the Republic of the Founders.

My fellow posters are making me proud. As I said on another thread, the days when Lincoln can be praised on a conservative website by "conservative" writers are gone.

Lincoln conserved nothing. He was a revolutionary. Understanding this is key to getting authentic American conservatism right.

Interloper| 2.16.09 @ 2:32PM

Roger Kaplan, you happened to publish this piece after more than the usual complement of neo-Confederates had been summoned to this site to defend The Myth of the Gallant South and demonize President Lincoln on a different thread.

Your observations about the sophistication of Lincoln's use of speech is a thoughtful one. He had a gift for delivering an idea not when he first considered it, but when the time was ripe. Some people confuse that strategy with waffling.

Surely, no thoughtful person believes that the ante-Bellum South represents freedom or that President Lincoln represents evil. Seems to me that is the simplest answer to your critics.

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 2:47PM

As I pointed out on another thread, the fact that Interloper, our token liberal and PC obsessive, likes Lincoln should cause conservative who praise Lincoln to think.

However much Interloper may want to muddy the waters, the issue is do you support our old federated republic as the Founders intended, or do you support a modern post French Revolution unitary ideological nation state? That Interloper supports the latter is understandable. He is a liberal. But no authentic American conservative can. Period!

Interloper| 2.16.09 @ 2:53PM

It seems to me that the average American, who has no sympathy for those who deny civil rights to their fellow citizens, and who applauds the demise of the abomination known as the Confederacy, must not be a conservative under the interpretation of one of the site's Lost Causers.

Pete the Mediocre| 2.16.09 @ 3:00PM

Red and the rest of the Lincoln bashers should be ashamed. You are denigrating one of the greatest men in this nation's history. You may disagree as to whether the Union should be saved, but Abe didn't sneak up on anyone. His vow to save the Union was clearly stated during the campaign.

Do you really want to contemplate what a divided nation would look like and how much history would be altered if secession (not succession, Tom) had been allowed to stand?

You little mice aren't worth a puddle of warm spit that Honest Abe might have left on the streets of DC.

Anthony| 2.16.09 @ 3:31PM

Thomas has it mostly right, although I disagree with Thomas' benign view of the Confederacy and the evil motive attributed to Lincoln. Lincoln was indeed very political in his use of the slavery issue, for the reason, as Thomas points out, that Lincoln was consumed with the preservation of the United States. I happen to agree with this, as I hope most posters do as well. Lincoln was not conflicted on the issue of slavery, he was however conflicted on how to achieve its elimination at the cost of the United States. To say he put the country ahead of the issue is a fair point. As President, he used the slave issue as a wedge at times to keep border states Union and cause disruption in the slave states. He recognized that blacks would make a considerable contribution to the war effort, albeit, the issue of serving along side Union troops was a bit of a sticky wicket. Lincoln used speeches to hint, cajole, threaten, and pacify the many diverse groups he had to deal with. No president has delt with such huge pressures on a daily basis. Lincoln was even a better general and tactician than the military staff he inherited. Yet through all this, he remained a modest and humble man. His was a remarkable balancing act, that no U.S. president ever had to re-create. Lincoln knew slavery would die on its own accord, he just wasn't going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory to rush the process. Perhaps that doesn't make him the "Great Emancipator" ,but as we all know, people and history are very subtle, and achievement comes in very circuitious ways. Truly he and Washington were our greatest Presidents, with Reagan a close third. (That's for Jeremiah & friends to choke on)

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 3:35PM

Pete is upping the ante with his mean spirited reply. Likely a sign that his dearly held assumptions are being challenged. Note I have not called names. Just calmly made the case that Lincoln was a revolutionary and can't be celebrated by conservatives.

The idea that America as presently formed would not have been around to play the role it subsequently did in history is often repeated but nonsensical. The people in 1861 did not have the benefit of 2009 hindsight. You are asking them to have a crystal ball. It also betrays an attitude of America as the indispensable nation. The conservative does not want his nation to be indispensable. The conservative wants his nation to be normal. (The patriot, of course, loves his normal nation the best because it is his.) It is the revolutionary who wants his nation to be indispensable or exceptional.

Interloper, I have never claimed numbers on my side nor would I. But there are a lot of people who self-identify as conservatives, who have conservative temperaments, but who hold conventional views of Lincoln and the War. This is unfortunate, but these are the people paleocons need to reach and slowly are reaching. To get them away from the inherent nationalism and centralism of Lincoln’s post war America and focused on restoring the limited federated polity that the Founder’s and the original generations of Americans bequeath us.

Sualco| 2.16.09 @ 3:44PM

I am still waiting for someone to point out the legal principle that allowed Lincon to use force and what we now would call war crimes to force free states to continue to bend knee to the Federal Governement. Why was it "legal" to force them to stay when their elected governements chose to leave the union? Only that the Federal Gov't had the ability to do it and could write the history after ward to justify it. Any other view is agenda.

Michael| 2.16.09 @ 3:58PM

Jimbo, it didn't happen. Jefferson Davis was wearing his regular suit when he was captured. Stop listening to the "mainstream" historians.

Louis Jenkins| 2.16.09 @ 4:49PM

Lincoln was well known for his oratory although he didn't have a great voice. The first speaker that addressed the crowd at Gettysburg, in Nov. 1863, waxed on for an hour or so, and except for a few no one remembers his name or what he said. (I don't unless I look it up.) Lincoln's Gettysburg address, penned while on the train to Gettysburg, was short and to the point, and after it was delivered most commentators and listeners were dissappointed. But it is now remembered as his best speech. In those days good public speaking was a valued trait, as it was a form of entertainment, not just an address on policies, politics, etc. Regardless of my personal thoughts on his war policies, what some of his generals did, or the Constitution as related to the states, I have to give him that.
"Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech." Lincoln July 1, 1850

A cold winter night in Ill. found Lincoln seeking shelter in an inn. He was working as a circuit attorney at the time. The inn was full of lawyers all sitting as close to a stove as possible. "Gentlemen, its cold as Hell tonight," Lincoln greeted. One of the lawyers quipped, " Well, Mr. Lincoln, since you're such an expert on Hell, why don't you tell us what it is like?" Undisturbed by the challenge Lincoln replied, "Hell is just like this place, all the lawyers are pushed up against the hottest part."

Todd| 2.16.09 @ 6:19PM

It is annoying that a number of so-called conservatives here feel the need to bash Lincoln due to their hurt feelings over the civil war. Linclon kept the country together using the necessary force and was able to abolish the evil of slavery which allowed this country to achieve its true greatness in the 20th century. The South should thank Lincoln for not letting them relegate themselves to a backwards slave nation and instead remain part of the great experiment the is the USA. It pains me to take the side of someone like the Interloper but don't let that get in the way of honoring one of our great Presidents. Joe Blow, you are especially biased in your history and to call Lincoln a white supremicist is one of the most outrageous slanders on his good name I have ever heard. You should be very ashamed .

S.L. Toddard| 2.16.09 @ 6:57PM

Joe Blow is known elsewhere on this blog as Bob (or BlowBob) and the other thread pointed out that the Inertgroper is a former Leavenworth inmate. Don't we deserve better libturds on this blog?

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 8:17PM

Todd, what is annoying is people who call themselves conservatives who praise Lincoln. Lincoln kept the country together alright with the "necessary force." (Nice euphemism for total war and war crimes.) But he destroyed the Republic as originally intended. He destroyed it and erected another one in its place.

What is even more annoying is being lectured about how Southerners ought to be glad Lincoln invaded us. Yeah that burning, raping and pillaging was just grand. Just so glad he decided to kill some of my ancestors.

I have maintained throughout that authentic American conservatism rightly looks upon Lincoln as a revolutionary. As a destroyer, not a conserver. Someone who changed the fundamental character of the country. I have seen no one even attempt to dispute this. (It really is factually indisputable.) They just resort to pro-Lincoln boilerplate.

At least have the common decency to admit you are defending a radical.

Alan Brooks| 2.16.09 @ 8:40PM

'malice towards none' wasn't real.
but charity for all is necessary-- what happens when the welfare checks start bouncing?

Thomas| 2.16.09 @ 8:42PM

Anthony,

I hold no benign view of the Confederacy. But, I will say that the Confederacy was no more, nor less, evil than the Union. The North may not have had slavery, as it was practiced in the South, but indentured servitude was still a viable practice there, not to mention the practice of placing workers in company housing and forcing them to buy from company stores. Economic slavery in the North was not much better than physical slavery in the South. It must be remembered that the world and America of the mid-1800's bore little resemblance to the America of today. Living standards and conditions that were considered commonplace and even comfortable would not be tolerated anywhere in this country today. It was a different time and a different world.

The invasion of the Confederacy by the Union forces under Lincoln was not for the purpose of freeing slaves, but of forcing the Confederate States to return to the Union. That was of paramount importance. Slavery, which had existed in America since before the inception of the United States, was a very distant second and most politicians felt that the slavery question would resolve itself over time.

Now, it must be remembered, that without a Union victory in the Civil War, it is very likely that the political make-up of the North American continent would be much different that it is today. Without a unified United States of America, the whole world might look very much different that it does today. It is probably safe to say that without the American Civil War and the Union victory, we might not even be discussing this and almost certainly not in this language.

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 9:18PM

"we might not even be discussing this and almost certainly not in this language."

Thomas, this is interventionist nonsense. If what is now America was divided into a Union and a Confederacy, what country, pray tell, would have invaded us and made us speak their language? Surely you are not suggesting that Japan, Germany or Russia was capable of invading, occupying and subduing the entire North American Continent. There is NO reasonable scenario whereby we would be speaking any language other than English. Why do people say such silly things? Have you been watching too much Red Dawn?

Rich Rostrom| 2.16.09 @ 10:10PM

Thomas:

"The Civil War was not fought over slavery." Rubbish. The South declared secession and went to war to preserve slavery. They said so at the time, openly and at great length. The North went to war to preserve the Union - but the South tried to destroy the Union to protect slavery.

Also: if the Union had not prevailed, yes, America would look very different. But (and I play with alternate constantly) I cannot imagine a plausible scenario in which English is not the common language of North America.

Also: while indentured servitude was common in colonial America, it largely disappeared after independence, and was unknown in 1860.

In any case, note that the operators of the "dark satanic mills" of New England and Pennsylvania didn't have to flog their workers, and didn't maintain a force of "paterollers" to keep them from running away. In fact they couldn't - they had to pay their workers, and pay them enough to get them to work willingly (instead of going to work for somebody else, or homesteading a farm on the frontier).

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 10:34PM

Rich, slavery was clearly a cause of secession, but it was not a cause of the War per se. There was one and only one cause of the War. Lincoln invaded us. Had Lincoln not invaded us, no War. Secession is and was a peaceful act. Secession did not need to be viewed as a provocative act. It is certainly not an act to be undertaken lightly, but it was only viewed as provocative by Lincoln because he had a false conception of the Union. (Whether he really believed it or it was just a convenient rhetorical lie is debatable.)

Todd| 2.16.09 @ 11:13PM

Poor Red Phillips, can't put the civil war behind him and admit the South was in the wrong. As for me, I will stay with the American Spectator, National Review, and WSJ in saluting our great President Abraham Lincoln in preserving the Union.

Gary| 2.16.09 @ 11:14PM

Lincoln committed war crimes when he held CSA soldiers in inhumane prisons and when he ordered his generals to burn southern cities. If he hadn't been shot, and the CSA had won the war, he would have been hanged for his war crimes.

Lincoln freed the slaves in the CSA, but left the slaves in the Union in bondage, working for their masters. Today, the sons and daughters of these slaves are enslaved by the government. They are held in servitude to the Democratic party, paid welfare and food stamps to vote for Democrats.

bernardo| 2.16.09 @ 11:37PM

This was an interesting piece about a great man. Far too many conservatives and even libertarians get the Civil War wrong, here and in other forums. Of course the war was about slavery. The confederates left the union because they wanted to preserve slavery and because they feared an anti-slavery government. Lincoln’s views on the evil of slavery and the rights of man are clear enough, now and at the time. Certainly the southern secessionists understood them. As to charges of hypocrisy or unnecessary gradualism, as president at each step he did and said as much as he could consistent with the political and strategic situation, and what he did worked. The war resulted in the complete abolition of slavery. He saved the union and brought the nation much closer to realizing its founding ideals.

Red Phillips| 2.16.09 @ 11:54PM

"As for me, I will stay with the American Spectator, National Review, and WSJ in saluting our great President Abraham Lincoln in preserving the Union."

Todd, American Spectator is a mixed bag as it has paleo sympathetic writers. But NR and the WSJ are pure neo"conservative" organs. And surprise surprise, they like Lincoln. Thanks for making my case for me. Real conservatives don't praise Lincoln.

Interloper| 2.16.09 @ 11:58PM

Thomas, you are engaged in a particularly pernicious type of apologia for the Confederacy:

"But, I will say that the Confederacy was no more, nor less, evil than the Union. The North may not have had slavery, as it was practiced in the South, but indentured servitude was still a viable practice there, not to mention the practice of placing workers in company housing and forcing them to buy from company stores."

Indentured servitude cannot hold a candle to chattel slavery for evilness. The indentured volunteered to be servants in return for passage to the New World or were criminals made to serve their time as servants. Black people did not volunteer to come to these parts once slavery was guaranteed. Nor had they committed crimes or done anything to deserve having their freedom stolen from them. Most important, European chattel slavery was the only form of the practice in which infants were born into slavery with hardly any chance of ever being free. Furthermore, once their indentures were over, white people could become part of the citizenry, including owning black people as slaves. I repeat. There is NO comparison.

Ignorance like yours is only a stone's throw away from buying the neo-Confederates' entire programme. Like other forms of racism, it relies on denying the humanity of people who aren't white.

JimP| 2.17.09 @ 11:25AM

RED PHILLIPS: It is useless, my friend. No matter what is said, those who want to beatify Lincoln are going to do so. They are going to misconstrue what is said, misquote commeters, ignore facts and citations that are given- frequently while asking for citations, attack you for being a neo-Confederate apologist bigot or sore loser, accuse you of ‘crabbing’ info from sources, refer to keeping the Union together because the Union is sacrosanct to them regardless of the means used or the results, or make arguments based on unprovable assumptions. We saw all this at the ‘PIC Guide to the Civil War’ thread too. They are not willing to check the sources for themselves with an open mind; and I am not referring merely to books referenced, I am talking about checking the citations in the books to verify the information which when done supports the positions that you and others have expressed. To the extent that any of them do research, they look for evidence that only supports their previous held beliefs and stop there. It is essentially the Hamiltonians v the Jeffersonians – big federal government v ordered maximum individual liberty via limited government.

Sulaco| 2.17.09 @ 12:36PM

Still waiting for the legal principle in the Constitution that allowed Lincon to use max force to hold a voluntary union together.....still waiting amid sounds of silence...

Thomas| 2.17.09 @ 12:56PM

Interloper,

I am not advocating slavery in any form, nor am I equating Southern slavery with indentured servitude. My point is simply that the North had its own problems and was not much better than the South as far as human rights was concerned. You are merely regurgitating the public school "history" of slavery in the United States. In point of fact, indentured servitude was not the result of a "criminal" act, but rather a financial compact between private citizens that essentially reduced one party to be the slave of another. It was backed by the power of the State. Violation of the terms of the contract by the "servant' usually resulted in the beating or imprisonment of the "servant". Now as to the "evil of slavery". Of course it is evil. It was a practice that had to be eradicated. But, it was not eradicated in the existing states of the Union during the Civil War and, in fact, "apprentices" [freed slaves who were "sponsored" by whites in Union slave states] existed until the 1890's. And a largely overlooked fact in the discussion of why the Southern states would choose succession over the question of slavery is the population of the South in 1860. According to the 1860 census, the number of slaves to freemen was almost equal in the states of the future Confederacy. Try to imagine giving the vote to 300 million illegal immigrants in today's United States, overnight. Welcome to the anti-bellum South. I am not defending the institution of slavery, I am only trying to point out that most people have a very simplistic understanding of the true problem posed by that institution in the United States of the mid-1800's. As I said, it was a different time and a different culture.

And yes, the Confederacy succeeded from the Union because of the anti-slavery movement in the United States. But that is not the reason for the Civil War. The North invaded the South for only one reason, to restore the Union. Not to free the slaves in this country. Most Northern volunteers did not join the military to free slaves, but to punish the "traitors" of the Confederacy. The Confederate citizens were considered traitors to the United States, not because they owned slaves [which most of them did not], but because they had the gall to succeed from the Union. It was all about the Union, not slavery.

Red Phillips| 2.17.09 @ 2:04PM

Sulaco, I fear you will be waiting a VERY long time.

JimP| 2.17.09 @ 2:15PM

Here is what H.L. Mencken said about the Gettysburg Address:
“But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination— ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue.
“The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary.” — Journalist H.L. Mencken, From “Five Men at Random,” “Prejudices: Third Series,” 1922, pp. 171-76: First printed, in part, in the “Smart Set,” May, 1920, p. 141

Now, I wonder why he said that? Of course, it is only his opinion.

Interloper| 2.17.09 @ 3:11PM

Thomas, it is unfortunate that you are too brain-washed to realize you are defending not only slavery, but white supremacy in general.

• As Rich already said, your reliance on indentured servitude to justify slavery is born of ignorance. Indentured servitude was never nearly equivalent to chattel slavery and it ended long before the Civil War. Many indentured persons were indeed criminals. England used the practice as a way to limit its large prison populations.

There were no post-war 'apprenticeships' to re-enslave black people in the North after the Civil War, though sharecropping and penal servitude often did so in the South. (One can only wonder what ludicrous neo-Confederate source you picked that up from.)

• Also ludicrous is the claim that slavery was still a problem in the North at the time of the Civil War. There were about five million people of African descent in the country in 1860. Four million of them were slaves in the South. Thousands of others were slaves in sections of the West and mid-West. Some were owned by Southerners who maintained residences North of the Mason-Dixon line. Since Northern states either outlawed slavery or allowed slavery to exist only for short periods, usually six months, these slave owners would rotate their slaves to keep from freeing them. (Among the early practitioners was George Washington for his real property in Pennsylvania.) The rest of the black population, fewer than a half million, was free.

• Yes, states such as South Carolina and Mississippi were majority black for much of their histories. That is because they, along with Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia and Texas, had the wealthiest planters with the largest plantations. Some of oligarchy owned thousands of slaves. However, to assume that the presence of large numbers of black people somehow means democracy is irrelevant, as you do, is racist to the core. That was the underlying 'principle' of apartheid, which was ongoing through most of the lives of all of us 30 or older. People of color have no lesser right to freedom and participation in democracy than white people.

• Despite all your dodging and denial, you still are claiming that slavery was not the major cause of the Civil War. Absolutely wrong. The 'states rights' at issue was the 'right' to own slaves. That is why the Confederate constitutions guarantee slavery in perpetuity. Left to the Southern oligarchy, there would still be slavery today. Considering how recent the end of apartheid is, that really could have occurred.

As important as the history of the Civil War period is, one should also look beyond it. Reconstruction was followed by terrorism and continuing dehumanization of Southern blacks for more than a century. In the Southern states that are the usual suspects, unofficial denial of equal rights to people who are not white remains with us today. That is not the record of people who care about 'freedom.'

Darren| 2.17.09 @ 8:34PM

Please read "The Evil Lincoln" (http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Evil-Lincoln-by-Darren-Wolfe-090214-839.html) for a realistic view of Abe.

JimP| 2.18.09 @ 8:11AM

Another excellent reference site- SLAVENORTH.COM
Read it all. You will be shocked. It also has citations and all are from Northern sources.

Michele San Pietro| 2.18.09 @ 9:43AM

Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest statesmen in history. He changed things for the better and payed with his own life.

Sulaco| 2.18.09 @ 2:24PM

No Michele he "paid" with 60,000 dead soldiers and 300,000 wounded, and thats only on the Union/Empire side.

Interloper| 2.18.09 @ 3:24PM

Michele, to understand neo-Confederates you have to realize that to them slavery was not the horror normal people know it was. That is why they will ignore slavery, dismiss it as irrelevant, say that indentured servitude was equivalent, refuse to acknowledge chattel slavery was worse than other forms of bondage, falsely claim the South intended to end slavery on its own, and deny that slavery was the major cause of the Civil War. Underlying that refusal to see slavery for what it was, is of course, that deeply held psychological belief in white supremacy. The whole time the neo-Confederates are denying the humanity of as many as 30 million people treated as chattel to enrich others, they will blather on about 'freedom,' not even recognizing the irony of what they are doing.

Neo-Confederates often have had generations of racism ingrained. Most Southern leaders, including those of today, grew up in households in which the kinds of things you are hearing from the neo-Confederates here were passed from generation to generation. Above, one of the dimmer wits cited H.L. Mencken, an influential 20th-century journalist who was a white supremacist. Mencken was considered 'liberal' for his time because he was not enthusiastic about lynching blacks. In fact, if you read most Southern newspapers prior to the late 1960s or early 1970s, segregation and other racist practices are heartily defended by most journalists, who were all white.

Just last month, a segregationist, Katon Dawson of South Carolina, came in second place to lead the Republican National Committee. Another candidate for the position, from Tennessee, dropped out of the race after being criticized for distributing a racist 'parody.' Southern writer William Faulkner said the past is never over. For these people, that is certainly true.

Red Phillips| 2.18.09 @ 4:33PM

Interloper is losing his argument so he resorts to what he knows best, pure PC right think.

Don't you get it? All white people are supposed to routinely engage in self loathing and public self flagellation in order to inoculate themselves against the charge of racism. Failure to do so is proof positive of guilt.

On the other hand, public grandstanding on race and the frequent resort to the charge of racism against others, is proof above all else of moral virtue. It doesn’t mater how you actually treat people in real life or how you live your life so long as you mouth the correct PC platitudes.

It is straight from the SPLC playbook, and Interloper has obviously committed it to memory. And Morris Dees and crew got it from Marcuse and others. It is called Cultural Marxism and Interloper is singing their tune.

BTW Interloper, I don’t think you answered my question I asked on another thread. Is it OK to discriminate against unborn babies?

Michele San Pietro| 2.18.09 @ 6:32PM

Dear Sulaco and Interloper, I am sorry, but I totally disagree with you. A war without casualties is unthinkable, by your same, totally wrong, token, we could say the war against Nazism was also unfair. And that Southerners were simply terrible toward those poor blacks is an historical truth, why doing as Holocaust negationists do?

Sulaco| 2.19.09 @ 12:18PM

Michele AGAIN please repeat for me the legal or Constitutional principle that he used to destroy free states, kill 1/2 million people. States that voluntarily joined and according to all documents done by the founders could leave at will. Third request and still waiting. The war with the Nazis was defense against attack and an enemy bent on destroying every nation on the globe. How does this in ANY way equate to the war of northern aggression?

Interloper| 2.19.09 @ 4:15PM

Sulaco, how could there be four million people considered property in what you refer to as "free states"? Seems rather contradictory.

Sulaco| 2.20.09 @ 11:19AM

Again this is not a debate about slavery, it was bad OK? And as an institution it was on the decline and most historians beleave would have died out without the war. Gee no murder of whole cities think of that. Did the war hurry the death? No one knows, but it did cost oceans of blood and our freedoms as states as listed in the Constitution. Free as in independent states that voluntarily joined an association of states now called the USA. They were free to leave at any time they wanted to leave this assocation until Lincon. Up to Lincon we were a free group of states in cooperation. After Lincon we were and ARE a prisoner class held in thrall by threat of force and death. Try and look up from your bias and see the whole picture.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.09 @ 2:44PM

Yes, honest Abe was dishonest in very many ways, as 99 percent of politicians are-- meaning dihonesty is an asset not a liability.
FDR was past master.

so Obama will do just fine.

Alan Brooks| 3.11.09 @ 2:47PM

dishonesty is a political asset, not dihonesty-- sorry, I'm a victim of publik skooling
jes another victimologist.

but I do believe Obama has what it takes to be another FDR.

Alan brooks| 3.11.09 @ 6:41PM

and Interlocust has what it takes to be a victimologist like Sharpton.

Interlocust, my white guilt ended nov 4th '08