The American Spectator : Leftist Race Baiting in Virginia

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Leftist Race Baiting in Virginia

Gov. McDonnell was right to honor Confederate soldiers, and slavery had nothing to do with it. Just ask Democratic Senator James Webb.

The Left’s unconscionable and shameful race baiting continues, and for rankly partisan political purposes.

First there was the attempt to depict the Tea Party movement as racist. The lack of absolutely any evidence whatsoever to support this noxious charge didn’t deter the rabid Left, of course. After all, why worry about things such as honor, fairness and truth when your goal is to smear and destroy your political opponents?

Now, there is the outrageous attempt by the legacy media to depict Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell as somehow playing the race card because he issued a proclamation honoring Confederate soldiers.

Why is this controversial? Because of slavery, we are lectured. The Civil War was about slavery, and the Confederacy defended slavery.

This line of thought, in turn, has invited all sorts of vitriolic demagoguery and historical slander by leftist race baiters whose only claim to fame seems to be their historical ignorance.

CNN “political contributor” Roland S. Martin, for instance, last night compared Confederate soldiers to “Nazis.”

“These folks committed treason by taking up arms against the United States. You celebrate that? They were domestic terrorists.”

Has Mr. Martin no sense of decency? Has he no sense of honor and shame? Of course we don’t celebrate the Confederates’ “treason against the United States.” And of course we don’t celebrate slavery.

In fact, anyone who knows anything about American history knows that for most Southerners, and for most Confederate soldiers, the Civil War (or War Between the States) was absolutely not about slavery. It was about resisting Yankee aggression, and defending their liberty, their honor and their homeland.

The Confederate soldiers, moreover, were quite courageous and valiant in battle. And it is their courage and valor, and their implacable commitment to family and community, that we honor and celebrate.

The idea that Confederate History Month is about slavery is simply and verifiably false and historically inaccurate. And leftist racist baiters like Roland Martin know this. They know that no one (obviously) defends, let alone honors, slavery. Slavery was (obviously) wrong.

Yet Martin and other leftist race baiters continue to demagogue this issue because they want to score cheap and unearned political points. They want to smear their political opponents so they can win illicit and shameful political and legislative victories.

Today, after all, there are few things worse to be called than a racist or even racially insensitive. Indeed, the stigma of these charges burns deeply in the American soul and psyche, and not without reason, given our nation’s historical missteps and mistakes.

However, it is equally true that the Left has a shameful history of viciously and falsely crying racism to smear its political opponents; and that this is happening now with alarming frequency. The latest case in point: Bob McDonnell.

Now, it so happens that the Civil War turned out to be very much about slavery. But again, it must be emphasized, that’s not what motivated most Southerners to fight.

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About the Author

John R. Guardiano blogs at www.ResCon1.com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @ResCon1.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (188) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Julie Anne Burton| 4.8.10 @ 6:34AM

Thank you, Mr. Guardiano, for writing an article which eloquently states that which I've been trying to articulate to misinformed Northerners for decades. I was born in the North, but moved to the South for my adolescence, and very quickly learned that what I'd been taught about the Civil War to that point was the twisted re-writing of history by the victors. I think all students of the Civil War should have to read contemporaneous writings and look at the statistics of slave ownership in which states, what slaves were freed first, etc. I've been fighting this battle all day with various people, and now I can simply point them to your article, to my great relief and lowering of my blood pressure.

thomas brooks| 4.8.10 @ 6:41PM

I agree with the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who said:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Francis| 4.9.10 @ 8:32AM

Then there's Mississippi's declaration of causes of secession:

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

And Georgia's:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

And South Carolina's:
...For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

And Texas'
...She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy.

The Confederacy certainly thought it was all about slavery. I don't understand why people claim that this was merely a smokescreen - what was the Confederacy using slavery to conceal?

Gerald Stephens| 4.10.10 @ 7:50PM

POLITICAL RACIST VITUPERATION…

Paraphrasing Senator Benson’s quip in his VP debate with Senator Quayle, “I knew John Kennedy and you’re no Kennedy”, actually reading Alexander Stephens reveals a person of considerable intellect and Mr. Brooks you’re no historian. A citation for the attribution would be useful to your rehabilitation.

Then too, Francis, it appears as though your recitation is suspect.

In 1828 the Congress and President John Quincy Adams initiated law providing protective tariffs on imports of manufactured and other products for the purpose of protecting America’s fledgling industry, agriculture, and the wages of citizen’s labor. Southern free traders equally interested in protecting a flourishing trade with Europe in primarily cotton and tobacco vociferously opposed such importation tariffs fearful that Europe would retaliate thus diminishing the regional southern economy.

The tariffs were reduced in 1830 and again in 1832 under President Andrew Jackson. The issue was again revisited before congress in 1832 instigating at times bitter debate between representatives of the manufacturing states and those of the southern regional interests. The issue remained unresolved to either side’s satisfaction and contributed to and escalated a penetrating examination of state’s rights. The latter most accepted as the principle reason for the separation within the Union.

The confederate soldier was no less the equal of his northern counterpart in his belief that he fought for an inherent noble cause, the survival of his freedoms. Those who would besmirch tribute to confederate soldiers either received a diminished education or agitate for ulterior motives, the most prominent being race baiting.

This is response from one of no relation to Alexander Stephens, and recipient of a diminished ‘northern’ Civil War schooling.

Proud Of Being Ignorant| 4.9.10 @ 3:36AM

Proud Of Being Ignorant
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
A lot of you have e-mailed me to note that Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has decided to honor those who fought to preserve, and extend, white supremacy. I don't really have much to say. The GOP is, effectively, the party of willfully unlettered Utopians. It is the party of choice for those who believe global warming is a hoax, that humans roamed the earth with dinosaurs, and that homosexuals should work harder at not being gay.

That the party of unadulterated quackery also believes that Birth Of A Nation is more true to the Civil War than Battle Cry Of Freedom, is to be expected. Ignorance does not respect boundaries. It is, at times, qualified and those who know more, often struggle to say more. But people who believe that the Census is actually a covert attempt to put Americans in concentration camps, are also likely to believe that slavery was incidental to the Civil War.

This is who they are--the proud and ignorant. If you believe that if we still had segregation we wouldn't "have had all these problems," this is the movement for you. If you believe that your president is a Muslim sleeper agent, this is the movement for you. If you honor a flag raised explicitly to destroy this country then this is the movement for you. If you flirt with secession, even now, then this movement is for you. If you are a "Real American" with no demonstrable interest in "Real America" then, by God, this movement of alchemists and creationists, of anti-science and hair tonic, is for you.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/nat.....ant/38569/
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 5:53PM

Wasn't Martin Luther King a republican? Would the Civil Rights Act have become law without considerable republican congressional support? Excuse me, but wasn't Bull Connor, the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, who viciously fought against integration by using fire hoses and police attack dogs against pro-civil right marcher-a democrat? How about Robert Byrd, senator from West Virginia; wasn't he a member of the KKK? Wasn't senator William Fullbright from Arkansas, a democrat, who authored the Southern Manifesto opposing integration, prior to mentoring Bill Clinton?

Thanks, but no thanks, I'll take the republican party, by far the lesser of two evils, over the democrat party any time. You've got a lot to learn, or you're just conveniently engaging in a bit duplicitous misinformation; and like I always advice those of your ilk posting herein: You're not fooling anyone.

John Guardiano| 4.11.10 @ 11:17PM

Ms. Burton,
Thank you for your kind words. You are very gracious.

I find this entire mini-brouhaha sadly disappointing because it betrays willful historical ignorance and purposeful left-wing smearing of conservatives over an issue that doesn't even exist today: chattel slavery.

However, as I noted here at the American Spectator on Mar. 26 in the "The Civil War History of Obamacare," there is a real likelihood that we are about to institutionalize in America a new form of (economic and generational) slavery. This because of the impending entitlement explosion precipitated by "comprehensive national healthcare reform."

I think the Left's moral exhibitionism and moral preening over the Confederacy is an attempt to divert attention from its own concerted efforts to impose this new form of economic and generational slavery on America.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words. It is, I think, important to be always historically honest and truthful. Sometimes, as we've seen, being historically honest and truthful invites cheap political demagoguery, but so be it. I think most people can see through the demagoguery.

They know that no one today defends slavery. They know that America, whatever its sins, simply isn't in the same league, morally, as the the fascists, the Nazis, and the terrorists; and that it is profoundly dishonest -- and wrong -- to suggest that we are.

Best,
John

cclevel| 4.8.10 @ 7:37AM

We are living in amazing times, desparate times in my opinion. We were told this President is about hope and change, a uniter not a divider. What I am witnessing is the absolute opposite. We are witnessing the left to include our leaders bait those in opposition to their idealogue. We witnessed this at the Tea Party just a few weeks ago with the Black Caucus marching through a crowd followed by false accusations. We witness the Speaker of the House bait members protesting the bill by walking through the midst of them. Now we witness this absurd claim by the ACLU, who by their very nature are racist, make this absurd claim. What is happening to our country? We must be careful as it seem even our own leaders are seeking to provoke many of it's citizens in order to marginalize us.

Mary| 4.8.10 @ 5:09PM

The members of the Black Caucus did not go "marching through a crowd" during a Tea Party event. They were walking up the steps to their place of employment, the Capitol. Surely they are allowed to do that? There were numerous witnesses to people shouting racial slurs at Andre Carson and John Lewis and there is video of someone spitting at Emmanuel Cleaver. However, Carson and Lewis responded to the incidents by basically saying, "hey, it happens" but have said very little else about it. Remember, Lewis was beaten nearly to death during the Civil Right era, I doubt being called names really moves him. The person who spit at Cleaver was arrested but Cleaver did not file charges and has stated publicly in interviews that he will not criticize the Tea Party movement as a whole for the actions of an individual.

JimE| 4.8.10 @ 6:12PM

Useful idiot.

Akaky| 4.8.10 @ 6:25PM

Yes, the Congressional Black Caucus walked up the steps to their place of employment, which is strange given the fact that their offices are connected to the Capitol building by a web of underground tunnels. If I were a more cynical man, I might think that the whole point of having the CBC walk through the outraged throng of the people they allegedly represent was to elicit the very racial slurs and assaults on personal dignity that they claim to have endured. As for Congressman Cleaver, the man he said spat on him is clearly seen shouting at him from the sidelines and it seems that the flying spit flew accidentally as the man shouted nonracial epithets at the Congressman. As for the N-Bomb, if someone did use it, the word completely missed every recording device in a crowd saturated with every manner of recording device. Even some of the Congressmen had their cellphones out and five will get you ten if someone in the crowd had used the word, the video would have been on YouTube that night. That no one has seen the Congressional cameras’ view of these events suggests to me that the files are probably resting on some staff member’s technodork nephew’s computer even as we speak, awaiting epithet insertion at the appropriate places. The left cannot and will not permit the masses’ lack of cooperation to spoil a perfectly good narrative.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 9:54PM

That's right, blame the victims of outrageous behavior. So what if they walked up the steps of the Capitol to an historic vote on Heathcare? None of the turds that spit on them had any right to do that. And, "he made me do it because he baited me" does not hold up in a Court of Law as a defense. Nobody is justified legally, period. What happened to "follow the rule of law" Patriots? Or are you just patriots when your people are in charge? Could that be it?

timb| 4.10.10 @ 10:40AM

Purple, just because a group of black guys walked in front of a group of Spectator subscribers, nee neo-Confederate symps, means they got what they deserved. Why back in the glory days of the Spectator crowd (like Jim above), a black man who didn't show proper deference to his Tea Party betters could be arrested or beaten. My, my how this country has changed, since the democrats rejected Strom Thurman and the Spectator crowd and his brave Dixiecrat challenge.

Don't you know, Purple, that just like civil rights and slavery, the health care bill is about freedom? Freedom to die of curable illness is right there with freedom to keep blacks from voting and freedom to own other people...apparently.

"Southerners" like Tom (the "author") of this piece of treason worship, who, ironically, makes his living sucking at the government teat and then complains about too much government or how the Civil War was not about what it is about what we all know it was about.

Akaky| 4.10.10 @ 1:54PM

Outrageous behavior? I saw no outrageous behavior. I saw American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and assembly to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And I saw elected representatives of the people deliberately trying to provoke a violent (in word and deed) reaction from that group of citizens. With regard to spitting, I quite agree, this is indeed swinish behavior and not therefore excusable, but you use the plural here, suggesting that more than one person in the crowd spat at more than one Congressmen. Other than the one incident with Congressman Cleaver, who appears to have been spat upon accidentally (even the Congressman concedes that) the Congressional Black Caucus seems to have reached the Capitol remarkably dry. Given the large numbers of reporters, police officers, and cameras in the vicinity, it seems a little odd that only one Congressman complained of spitting and that no one seems to have heard the N-word being flung liberally about except for the Congressional Black Caucus, which seems to suggest either exceptionally keen hearing on their part, or an overly active imagination, or, if you choose to be cynical, a deliberate attempt to delegitimize the public's anger over Obamacare.

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 6:18PM

Check your sources. No one was arrested, even though there was a police officer next to Mr. Cleaver. There is plenty of video and audio of the event, and no one has been able to demonstrate that racial slurs were screamed at anyone, let alone anyone having been spat upon. Moreover, Capitol Police, as amply reported, made no arrests, and reported no untoward racial comments were heard. You say John Lewis was nearly beaten to death during the Civil Rights era? Yes, he was (and everyone knows he's been milking it for everything it's worth), but that more than forty years ago, and it wasn't Tea Partiers or republicans. It was democrats like Bull Connor, the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, who beat him and other protesters. Mr. Cleaver might have said that he would not criticize the Tea Party movement as a whole, but every other democrat and mainstream media outlet is doing so. As to your claim that Carson and Lewis responded by saying, "hey, it happens," they were not saying that at first, though they might have said it afterwards, when it was obvious by countless video and audio recordings of the event in question showing no one spitting or hurling any racial insults at anyone. As to these gentlemen walking to their place of employment, they could have done it like they usually do by way of the Capitol and congressional office building tunnels, which they are acustomed to doing. They did it for show, believing that they would irk the crowd, as evinced by congressman Jackson recording the event as he walked through the site of the demonstration. So, please, provide tangible evidence to support your claims, for otherwise, they do not amount to anything more than biased hearsay. And we already get enough of that from the mainstream media.

Al| 4.8.10 @ 7:37AM

I'm with Mark Levin on this one: "do we have to go through this every time?!" It's part of our history and heritage whether we like it or not and many had ancestors who died in that horrible side regardless of what side they were on. Of course, this is probably being fueled by democrats who would rather re-write history since the slave holders and southerners were democrats after all.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:00PM

Don't be stupid. When anyone glorifies the Nazi regime in any way, the oppression of the Jews is always brought to the forefront. The act of slavery is so agregious it overshadows anything else that the South stood for, just as the good that Hitler did for Germany is overshadowed by the Holocaust.
"In 1860 fewer than five percent of the people in the South owned slaves, and fewer than twenty percent were involved with slavery in any capacity " - Hmmm, that sounds to me like 10% of the American people pay 90% of the taxes, yet 50% of the American people want lower taxes - for whom?

Young and Educated| 4.9.10 @ 12:01PM

I'm completely in agreement with you.
I'm pretty sure Hitler was a very great and organized leader. He commanded such reverence from so many people. He was a great leader. He also caused the torture and death of millions of people.
Unfortunately, I think that can be applied to this case.
I agree that there are reasons why the people of the South engaged in war other than slavery, but it was the main reason for the North. The question here is this: why was it not important to the South then that the multitude of human beings they were enslaving be free? Why not let those people go and say that they want to treaty, not revolt?
No one is saying that all the soldiers of the Union were saints in time of war, but they fought so that I could have become who I am today.
I am from Virginia, and I know much about the Confederacy. We are taught from young children about the history of Virginia and I’ve been to historical landmarks around the state all my life. But, still in the few years I have been alive, I cannot see how a month of celebration for the Confederacy will benefit me or my neighbors.

Rick V.| 4.13.10 @ 9:13AM

Young and Educated,
I've always felt the same way about Black History Month but, then again, I was not "taught from young children about the history of Virginia." I learned from adults. I recommend others do the same.

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 7:37PM

"Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany." Care to guess whose quote that is? Yeah, Mr. Hitler did a lot of good for Germany alright; that is, of course, if you don't take into account Germany having been leveled, occupied and partitioned for more than 40 years. That plus millions of dead, including those from the holocaust, as well as millions of maimed and displaced, as the result of conflagration he created. Yeah, he did a lot of good, alright. I guess you think so highly of him because, like you, he was a fellow socialist. Gotcha!

You wrote: "The act of slavery is so agregious (I supposed you meant to write: egregious) it overshadows anything else that the South stood for..." The governor of Virginia did not defend or advocate slavery by omitting it in his declaration. More to the point, as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, there were more slaves in Union states than in the South (does their slave-owning overshadow anything else they might have stood for, also?) and Virginia was still in the Union, when South Carolina, Georgia and the five Gulf states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. On April 15, following the attack on Fort Sumter, S. Carolina (not Virginia) on April 12, 1961, Lincoln issued a call for 70,000+ volunteers from state militias to march south and destroy the new Confederacy. On April 17, opposed to providing soldiers or militia to participate in a war against their brethren, The Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union, and was followed by North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

You further wrote: "Hmmm, that sounds to me like 10% of the American people pay 90% of the taxes, yet 50% of the American people want lower taxes - for whom?" Actually, it is the top 1 percent of earners (of which I am not one) that pay most of the income taxes. The rest, given that as reported 47% of American households will not pay taxes this year, are paid by the middle class. I guess you haven't figured it out, rich folks, like your lefty Hollywood type friends, as well as millionaires such as Ms. Pelosi, Senator Kohl, and the late senator Kennedy, all democrats, prefer to pay their accountants to find and use all possible loopholes and exemptions than pay taxes, which the overwhelming majority of middle class folks cannot afford to do.

By the way, didn't a certain presidential candidate not too long ago promised first that no one making under $250,000 would pay any taxes? Just wait until Obamacare begins to bite, and long dreamed of by the democrats, Cap and trade, VAT (Value Added Tax) get voted into law. Here in California anyone making more than $47, 500 a year pays the same rate of state taxes as anyone making over 1 million dollars per year (does that answer your question?). Do you care to guess who controls both houses of the legislature? Democrats, that's who. The ones who nauseatingly continue to tell us they're for the little guys. Yeah, right.

By the way, initiating your comments or replies to others by admonishing them not to be stupid doesn't make you any wiser or smarter. If anything, it makes you appear rather pedantic and uncouth. Keep the peace and see you on 11/02/2010.

Richard Baker| 4.8.10 @ 7:37AM

A Confederate prisoner was asked why he was fighting and he replied to the Union officer asking the question, "Because you're here." This event happened often during the War and was reason enough for the martial activities of most Southerners.

Rick V.| 4.8.10 @ 10:45AM

Mr. baker,
If I'm not mistaken, that quote was referenced in the book "Battle Cry of Freedom", my favorite one-volume history of the Civil War period and the incredible socio-economic transition that shook our country in the period leading up Lincoln's election. If memory serves, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but I'm not sure where I heard that. Is it not ironic that the Southern states are still fighting against Northern control, and against the same party that championed slavery in the 1800's? And yet the pot continues to call the kettle ... oh, never mind.

Rick V.| 4.8.10 @ 10:46AM

Sorry, please pardon the typo, Mr. Baker.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:11PM

So the rich with slaves in the South convinced the poor slobs to fight for them by appealing to their 'patriotism', when the poor slobs would get nothing from winning the war- Just like many poor slobs in this day and age are hoodwinked by the rich bumper sticker philosophies to vote against their own better interests and keep voting in the rich capitalist Republicans and friends who don't give a damn about the rural or working class whites.

timb| 4.10.10 @ 10:44AM

That cinches it for me! An unsourced opinion of a uneducated cracker, reported third hand beats the declarations of Confederate legislators, the Confederate constitution, and Jefferson Davis.

So, Dick Baker, were the Yankees being aggressors when Lee invaded Maryland or Pennsylvania or Kentucky or Indiana or when Confederate troops murdered black at Fort Pillow or slaughtered families in Missouri and Kansas? You know, since "we were there" and all.

Richard Ranger| 4.8.10 @ 7:48AM

Baloney, Mr. Guardiano. Please read this speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens: http://teachingamericanhistory.....tprint=76. Yes, we have to go through this every time, unless conservatives like Mark Levin wish that what some call 'conservatism' become a dog-whistle mechanism for racism. Individual Southerners took up arms to defend their state and their region for a multitude of motives, and served their cause heroically. But that cause was conceived in race supremacy, and waged to preserve the 'peculiar institution' of slavery. To fail to acknowledge this is ahistorical, and beyond blindness.

Dan| 4.8.10 @ 9:24AM

From the speech by Stephens:
"We have stretched out lines of railroads from the seaboard to the mountains; dug down the hills, and filled up the valleys at a cost of not less than $25,000,000. All this was done to open an outlet for our products of the interior, and those to the west of us, to reach the marts of the world. No State was in greater need of such facilities than Georgia, but we did not ask that these works should be made by appropriations out of the common treasury. The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise."

States rights, baby, states rights.

Tom| 4.8.10 @ 10:50AM

Dan,
I doubt absent slavery there would have been secession. Whatever the motives of individual Confederate soldiers theirs was a constitution that codified racial superiority. I do not think most Confederate soldiers were NAZIs, but then again neither were most German soldiers.
Tom

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:16PM

Excellent point! The threat of the end of slavery was an economic threat for the wealthy in the South, and most Confederate soldiers were manipulated using their patriotism against them, like the Republicans do to the current crop of Republican followers. They are so wrong, and the right will always win out.

Kiki| 4.8.10 @ 2:39PM

Who laid the rail, dug the hills and filled up the valleys? On whose backs was the South built? The entire 'enterprise' you use in your argument is the very argument for maintainging human beings in servitude. You sir, have a very selective and frightening memory.

mossdale| 4.8.10 @ 2:46PM

How much of those impressive works were built with slave labor?

Sean| 4.8.10 @ 4:33PM

What's missing from the 5% owned slaves tripe is that the south was propelled economically by slaves, and whether or not they actually built the public works isn't material, would the south have had the money to build those impressive works without the free labor they received from subjugating other human beings?

Sean| 4.8.10 @ 4:33PM

Slott Ruibins| 4.8.10 @ 8:53PM

States' rights? Ha! Check out this little tidbit from Alexander Stephens' Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861, The Athenaeum, Savannah Georgia: “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution – African slavery as it exists amongst us – the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. ...Our new government is founded upon... the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition.”

Dan| 4.8.10 @ 9:34AM

Yes, Stephens goes on and on about the Negro as inferior. That is because the notion of inferiority was necessary to circumvent the Constitution. If all men are NOT created equal, then those that are "not" do not count politically. The relationship between racism and black slavery was constructed by Southern Democrats as a way to maneuver past the equality clause.
Confederate soldiers may or may not have held those views, but they certainly did not march barefoot into Pennsylvania because they were worried that the black man would be "let off the plantation."
The Confederate flag stands for what is great about Americans, self-reliance and self-determination, and with the current political climate showing signs of similarity to events prior to the Civil War, we just might see more of it.

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 8:01PM

Lincoln also made comments stating that he thought Negros were inferior. So perhaps it wasn't the thought alone, but actual slavery that was the difference between them.

tim| 4.10.10 @ 10:47AM

You're claiming Lincoln's belief in the social and political and economic plight of black people meant he was NOT an abolitionist?

Weird, maybe you should have finished page 2 of that Lincoln biography you started

MaryAnn| 4.8.10 @ 9:52AM

It has been acknowledged and apologized for, for decades. For how long must this be made an issue? The American people have moved beyond it; it is past time for people like Al Sharpton and others to accept it. It is also time for them to realize that the cry of "racism", every time they find themselves losing an argument, is no longer working.

DDavis| 4.8.10 @ 5:48PM

But Mary Ann, if the American people have moved on why have a Confederate History Month?

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:23PM

It's like Germany leaving out the Holocaust in any history of Hitler, Nazi Germany. Hitler took the Germans out of the depression, but brought shame to the nation ultimately. In the South, slavery was their shame, so they don't like to remember it, understandably. But unless every Southerner today can stand up and say with conviction "Barack Obama is my President - I may not agree with everything he does, I may not have voted for him, but he is my President too" , will I believe racism is behind us. Can you honestly say that would happen when the "N" word is still used to denigrate black people?

Don| 4.8.10 @ 3:04PM

Not blind Pal, deliberately misleading. This isn't about southern soldiers, it is about white racism now. I have a southern heritage. Southerners whether Conservative or Liberal are generally far more comfortable with the fact that America is populated by more than one Race. The Civil war was about slavery and a whole lot of White Boys died fighting to Free the Blacks. No Yankee liberal wants to acknowledge this. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Those rich southerners were not going to give up their slaves and the poor southern boys, God bless'em, really believed the civilization depended on White Supremacy. Gentlemen, this is what happens when you feed stray animals. :: ))

JimE| 4.8.10 @ 6:14PM

Useful idiot troll.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:27PM

You prove the point that racism is not dead with your response.

JimE| 4.8.10 @ 11:00PM

Go play your white guilt game elsewhere. You seem to forget that the magic negro just gave islamic terrorists protected victim status.

timb| 4.10.10 @ 10:51AM

Yes, I forgot how stunning your racism is from earlier in the thread, so I guess I should not be surprised that you oppose giving other people the rights they were born with. Hell, if you're against black Americans claiming their birthright, why you think a foreigner can claim a universal human right.

Jim, you need a king (besides Limbaugh) who can tell you whom to hate and whom to love. After all, you believe when the government tells you who the bad guy (without trial). I feel sorry for you.

brigid| 4.8.10 @ 7:53AM

First and foremost General Robert E. Lee did not believe in slavery even though he had slaves. If he was pro slavery why was he offered the command of the northern army? He declined this offer and decided to fight for Virginia as he understood the civil war was an attempt to impose the Federal government over State rights as outlined by the Founders.

The word racism is starting to lose it sting as it is so overused and abused.

John - TMF| 4.8.10 @ 9:55AM

This, unfortunately because Lee holds a high place in my historical list of great generals, is incorrect.

Robert E. Lee was a slave owner (a low number - Army life was not conducive to the support of dependent servants). His most odious and callous act (above the ownership of any number of other human beings) was to delay the manumission of slaves that he inherited from his father-in-law. His treatment of them during the full five year maximum period of the terms of Custis's will was problematic when viewed in the most optimistic of terms .

That he did eventually execute the manumission order in 1863 is of little consequence because the Emancipation Proclamation made the exercise moot.

Lee was a great general whose military brilliance is tarnished by his social class, and their adherence to a fundamentally immoral practice.

Lee's greatest contribution to this nation is his final decision to offer the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to US Grant at Appomattox Court House, instead of continuing a guerrilla war. This act of great courage and military bearing, served as the first wrap in the binding of the wound of the Civil War.

Perspective in all things.

The Mighty Fahvaag

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 10:46AM

Lee was obviously a charming fellow who commanded great respect from his troops, but if you're looking for a great strategist, look no further than General Stonewall Jackson. Lee was an idiot by way of comparison.

loulou| 4.8.10 @ 12:55PM

Lee was a gentleman.
He didn't have the ruthlessness of Jackson.

Don | 4.8.10 @ 3:07PM

Now there is something one cannot argue with certainly many slave owners did not believe in slavery, just the resultant benefits of owning human beings. To say other wise is to say all Nazis at concentration camps were anti Semitic.

timb| 4.10.10 @ 10:53AM

Greatest traitor in American history championed by Republicans!

600,000 died because this man chose to violate his oath. The mind boggles that this man could be any more celebrated than Benedict Arnold

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 8:01AM

It is race war not revolution links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…slaves. John R. Guardiano is a writer and analyst who focuses on political, military, and public-policy issues. He resides in Arlington, Virginia ( www.twitter.com/Guardian0 ). http://spectator.org/archives/2010/0...ting-in-virgin Flanders The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a…

Melvin| 4.8.10 @ 8:02AM

Oh horsesqueeze please don't patronize that the Civil War was based on slavery. First the Civil War was not a Civil War, but acutally a war between the states.
The war between the states was based on Northern economic industrial aggression.
And if one researches deeper you'll find out that many rank and file Southerners were either indentured servants themselves and the vast majority didn't care for slavery and a movement was afoot to grant freedom to Black Slaves in many of the Southern State's Legislatures.

ncatty| 4.8.10 @ 9:13AM

I suppose your reference to indentured servants is figurative rather than literal, as that practice is associated with the colonial era, not 1861.

Melvin| 4.8.10 @ 9:28AM

A little bit both but leaning more to figuratively. Since the South was agriculturally based, and since many Southern citizens were products of indentured servitude by nature of still being dirt poor due to the diminishing effects of servitude through colonialism.
But then after the War Between the States everyone was back to square one again, and had to begin crawling out of poverty.

loulou| 4.8.10 @ 12:58PM

Melvin, you're absolutely correct. Slavery was not the issue. The vast majority of southerners did not own slaves and initially did not want to go to war to fight for the rich slaveowners.

And the correct term IS War Between the States.

JayJay| 4.8.10 @ 3:19PM

The term used in our household has always been the War of Northern Aggression. As for the Stephens speech that everyone seems to want to throw at me... well just consider Stephens as Jeff Davis' Joe Biden. Both Lee and Davis felt that slavery would fade away naturally and even Lincoln had a view that the slaves were inferior and considered sending them either to a colony somewhere or back to Africa. He also said if he could win this war without freeing one slave, that is what he would do. In Missouri, after the Supreme Court ruled it legal to own slaves and one of his generals disobeyed that order, he had him replaced. Several of the so called slave states fought for the North... Delaware is one and actually there were more slaves in DE at the time than there were in NC.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:32PM

According to whom, and accepted by whom? Civil War is the correct term when a county is divided against itself, for whatever reason. Get rid of the emotion, and be factual.

timb| 4.10.10 @ 10:55AM

Care to link to any of your lies, Melvin? The States seceded to PROTECT slavery.

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 8:16AM

The B&R Thursday Edition | Bob Parks: Black & Right 2010 links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…make Will Obamacare Turn The US Into A Banana Republic? I firmly believe since blacks are mostly poor, Obama wants the rest of the country to suffer as well. That’s right, I said it! Leftist Race Baiting in Virginia You know, I’m a northerner but I have no problem with Virginia (my current residence) celebrating their heritage, sans slavery. Maybe the left should check out the Democrat history…

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 8:32AM

Appeasement of Treason Continues « his vorpal sword links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…writing in the American Spectator (that Scaife-founded, Phillips owned magazine for rabid Reb-publicans and Confederate-servatives). Guardo writes, in part (and thus earning his FT Award): Leftist Race Baiting in Virginia By John R. Guardiano on 4.8.10 @ 6:08AM … CNN “political contributor” Roland S. Martin, for instance, last night compared Confederate soldiers to “Nazis.”…

Ryan| 4.8.10 @ 8:48AM

To oversimplify the issue down to one or two things - slaver, states' rights, or what have you - is to be intellectually dishonest. Period. It's a complicated issue and a complicated time.

1. Slavery WAS an issue. It was the states' right that was being fought over. If slavery wasn't an issue, would there have been a Civil War?

2. Racism was just as rampant in the North as the South. Blacks were essentially held with almost as much disdain as to their capabilities which were erroneously attributed to race there as the South.

3. Lincoln had one goal - to preserve the Union. Period. He made a ton of mistakes, probably did a few unconstitutional issues, but that was his primary goal. He was a decent man who made some hard choices that had one central element.

4. Slavery was going to be out within 50 years. It was becoming both socially and economically impractical. The war speeded the process, and the aftermath - Reconstruction - probably did more to fester racism in the South than had the war not occurred.

ncatty| 4.8.10 @ 9:18AM

I agree with points 1 through 3. However, the last attempts by the South to phase out slavery ended in the 1830s. In the run up to the war, there was a strong movement to re-open the slave trade and expand the practice to places like Cuba. In addition, pro-slavers were emboldened by the Dred Scott decision. I am not sure that the trend was inevitably and unequivocally towards freedom.

Ryan| 4.8.10 @ 9:48AM

Economically, it was. Re-opening the slave trade was probably just as likely a power play as anything else. The cotton gin and the internal combustion engine was the beginning of the end for slavery in the South. Any plantation that kept slavery going was probably going to fall behind.

loulou| 4.8.10 @ 1:00PM

I'm not sure Lincoln was a decent man. He ran roughshod over our constitution. Lincoln benefits from massive mythology.

John - TMF| 4.8.10 @ 5:14PM

Ok. Final history lesson for today.

The President of the United States hold three offices overlaid in one. He(for the sake of the English challenged I will also say She, here just once.) is Head of State, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and the Chief Executive. Sometimes those powers overlap, sometimes they operate in parallel, and sometimes one power must be exercised with more vigor than the others.

Abraham Lincoln was elected the President of the entire United States. He held his office based on the full total of states in the union at the time of that election. The 1860-1861 secession of the Southern states left the US Congress in a peculiar position. The House of Representatives had enough members to present a quorum, the Senate, however, often did not (Border state issues abounded). The Legislative Branch was therefore crippled. This would change as the war shifted and more Senators from the border states felt better able to maintain a quorum, but for the first few years of the war Congress was operating in unknown legal territory. Such is the nature of Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln conducted the Civil War with the powers given to him as a Sovereign Head of State, and the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.

As such, he operated under the portion of the Constitution and his oath of office, to preserve, protect, and defend it against enemies foreign, AND DOMESTIC.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and there are broad latitudes concerning the Executive powers of Head of State and Commander in Chief.

Lincoln was one of the absolute moral, political, and social giants of the 19th Century, here, and in the remainder of the world.

He towers above most average men for his wit, wisdom, and fortitude. This nation is blessed by his having been elected. Few other men would have had the courage to do what he did to save this nation from itself.

Cheers,

The Mighty Fahvaag

John - TMF| 4.8.10 @ 8:51AM

1. The controversy was indeed trumped up for blatant political purposes. Governor McDonnell response and apology for omitting an acknowledgment regarding the issue at hand was sincere, eloquent, and accurate.

It should suffice and the issue rested.

2. Virginia's part in the Civil War was profound and its sacrifice immense. It took more than one hundred years for the Commonwealth to truly pull itself out from under the crushing burdens of the war and its aftermath. Some of those burdens were self-inflicted, but they were manifold.

Understanding and studying the role of Virginia in the Confederacy and the Civil War is critical. Without studious examination by all, without rancor or imposition of fallacy, we will be forever doomed to repeat the cycles that led to the war.

3. The practice and spread of the institution of chattel slavery was the underlying, proximate, and triggering cause of the American Civil War. To deny that fact is to deny "four score and seven years" of US political and social history prior to the event.

Almost nothing regarding the expansion and configuration of the resulting territories and states can be removed from the Compromises of 1820, 1850, The Kansas Nebraska Act, and the final legal destruction of the concept of a Free State by the 1857 Dred Scott Decision.

Ignorance of historical reality might issue some form of psychic comfort; however it is just as odious as the politically correct attempt to erase history coming from racists and apologists on the Left.

4. It is true that the vast majority of Southern men who fought, bled, starved, and died were not owners of slaves. It is also true that they marched ably and willingly to the orders and promptings of the Planter Class, that did own slaves. This Planter Class not only owned human beings as property, they were insistent on spreading that social order to the remainder of the unincorporated nation as well as maintaining it in their own states.

That was and is a tragedy. I have been reminded often over the years of good people serving ably in a questionable/evil cause are still rowing for Satan.

In conclusion: I honor both sides in the American Civil War. My eldest is named for two of my favorite generals, one Union and one Confederate. This nation is what it is because of its history. If we fail to objectively study that history we will be doomed. If we fail to honor the brave men who fought on both sides of the bloodiest conflict in our history, we will be destined to hate each other into eternity.

The Confederacy was wrong. It demanded the expansion and continuation of a social/economic practice that was abhorrent and inexcusable. It misconstrued the nature of the Sovereignty of the United States in relation to its constituted government. It bled itself white defending a cause not worth defense.

That being said it also in no way reduces the personal bravery and sacrifice of the individual Confederate soldier in the defense of his home.

Perspective in all things. We lack perspective of late, to our detriment.

Regards,

The Mighty Fahvaag

Richard Ranger| 4.8.10 @ 9:34AM

John - TMF. Thank you. Eloquently and fairly put. I do think that the Governor's follow up to the proclamation fills the hole left in the earlier proclamation. For my part, Yankee born, and proud to have been a resident of 13 different states and the District of Columbia, I stand with Gen. Joshua Chamberlain's order to his soldiers to "carry arms" as Gen. John Brown Gordon led his Confederate soldiers up the lane at Appomattox.

Perspective in all things, as John said.

Richard

Hart Williams | 4.8.10 @ 8:55AM

No matter WHAT the reasons for the Civil War, the Southern states of the Confederacy engaged in armed insurrection against the lawfully elected government of the United States of America, because they didn't like the outcome of an election. The states remaining loyal, including slave states, were forced to supply troops to put down an armed insurrection, costing hundreds of thousands of lives. You might call it "secession" and rationalize it any way you like, but it was, in every technical, legal and moral sense, treason.

Next you'll be wanting to honor Al Qaeda, even though they killed far fewer Americans for THEIR selfish reasons. The argument that you honor the rebels without honoring the treason is as absurd as saying "rebels didn't kill United States soldiers, it was the bullets that killed them."

bull-gator| 4.8.10 @ 9:09AM

No, Hart, the South was invaded by an armed invader determined to enforce federal government mandates in direct violation of the 10th amendment. The same thing, less the armed invader, is happening in this country today. Treason is a harsh word, but if treason is what it takes to be free, then treason it shall be. Just look at what happened at Lexington Green. Were they Patriots or treasonous British subjects? You tell me.

GeoffreyDinosaurs| 4.8.10 @ 5:07PM

"bull-gator", the 10th Amendment in no way allows States to secede from our indissoluble Union. You make it seem like President Lincoln just decided for no good reason to send U.S. troops to the South.

Like "Hart" said, the southern states didn't just illegally secede from the Union (mind you, this was literally before & just as Lincoln was assuming office), they engaged in armed insurrection & treason against our Nation (in direct contravention of Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution).

As for the American Revolution, this, I think, is more debatable. It is my view that the crown & the government of Great Britain abdicated their right to govern the Colonies through continued crimes & abuses, which is touched upon in the Declaration of Independence. You'll probably retort that the "North" continually oppressed & abused the South, which is your opinion & your right.

What made the Revolution just was that oppressive & unaccountable governments (i.e. governments that are not Constitutional Republics, that do not allow democratic means to electing officials, & do not preserve & defend individual liberty) abdicate their right to govern. Great Britain of that time fits my definition in a way, I feel, the United States didn't & still does not.

The Union & the Constitution Forever!
G

MLG| 4.8.10 @ 9:03AM

Ryan is correct on all points especially on the one that this is not an easy issue. It was complicated then it is complicated now. But to say that the Union went to war against the Southern States to abolish slaver is false. The Union went to war to keep those states for seceding - period. Lincoln was anti-slavery but that is not why he went to war. Many Northern cities had protests and NYC had riots when the Emancipation Proclamation was announced; bigotry and rascism of the that time did not know the difference between North and South. Slavery was and still is Evil - Period. It needed to be gotten rid of - Period; but as Ryan said, the motivations of each side are complex and layered.

Ryan| 4.8.10 @ 9:50AM

Would the South have seceded if slavery wasn't an issue?

Akaky| 4.8.10 @ 6:41PM

No. Frankly, I think James MacPherson hit it on the head: slavery was the state's right the Confederacy was defending. No one was arguing about South Carolina's right to operate its own school system. That being said, the idea that Southerners should deny an important part of their history has more to do with current politics than with history. If we go down this route, then we must hold the buffalo soldiers equally responsible for the oppression of the American Indian as the government that sent them to the West. Given that the service of the buffalo soldiers is a source of pride in the black community, I doubt that this is going to happen. However, if you choose to denigrate the service of Confederate soldiers then to be morally consistent you must then you must hold the buffalo soldiers to the same standard.

Akaky| 4.8.10 @ 6:43PM

My apologies for the double you must up above; proofreading is a wonderful thing-I must do it more often.

Stormy| 4.8.10 @ 9:26AM

Public schools are attempting to revise textbooks and curriculum so that American history starts in 1877, completely ignoring historical perspective of the Civil War. Their perspective is that the South lost the war, period. There is nothing more to be learned by examining that period of time. The South was racist and slaveholders. For that matter, they also will disregard the founding of our country, as Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and Washington were just old white guys in bad wigs, and most of them were slaveholders. What's to learn from them? Children today need to start thinking "globally" and learn what our role is in the new world order. I know this sounds weird, but it is actually what is happening.

Death to Traitors| 4.8.10 @ 9:32AM

I find it mildly amusing how a person can be labeled against America when he/she dares to bring to light one of America's weaknesses (lack of healthcare in America, corporate greed, the invasion of Iraq), yet there is an entire group of people that defend traitors and they have the audacity to fly the American flag next to the Confederate flag.

However, the true irony is that the election of Lincoln may have been the south's luckiest hour. If the south had attempted to succeed under another president (let us assume Jackson), he would have probably crucified every stinking traitor he could find. By the way, it did try and he scared them into submission. Instead of doing that, Lincoln offered olive branches to the traitors. Yet, Lincoln is seen as the enemy.

I'll be very clear with all those that attempt to justify the position of traitors. If I was president, at the end of the Civil War, you and your ilk wouldn't even exist. I would have gathered all of your ancestors, skinned their rotten corpses, and created the longest crucification line in history. It would have made the Roman use of the practice seem like children's play.

In addition, to those secessionists out there, I would like to see that happen. I wonder who is going to win that battle. I'll take the side that spends $800 billion dollars a year on defense.
.

Ryan| 4.8.10 @ 9:52AM

How could secession be a treasonable offense? Under that argument, the few Americans who denounce their citizenship and move abroad commit treason.

Indiana Alex| 4.8.10 @ 9:53AM

And i can't stand when liberals think that words don't mean anything.

Please for the love of Obama, Please stop thinking you can interchange the words "health care" and "health insurance" and have them mean the same thing. They are completely different, and it is so intellectually dishonest for you morons to either keep repeating what you hear, or simply think you can change the meaning of words because you care.

Health insurance exists no more. Insurance requires some form of actuarial evaluation of risk. This is now illegal and will raise insurance rates for everyone. Thanks a lot.

Health care existed for everyone prior to this idiot bill. Only now, the costs of "health care" will also increase dramatically for everyone.

Again, thanks a lot for that.

Petronius| 4.8.10 @ 11:57AM

Keep it up D-T. Death comes for all. I'm not surprised in the least that you want to be numbered with the worst oppressors ever, that to you, the government of this nation is merely an extension of Your personal ethos, and that we are obliged to submit because you and your mob of uncivilized trash yell the loudest. I'm so happy you feel that way. The only reason you're alive to spout your venom is because Sheriff Woods didn't have his troops blow your ignorant ass to bits in Grant Park back in '68 when you committed treason en mass.
And please go on thinking that your Regime will have the armed forces to kill us when CW II starts.
Those soldiers are Our friends and neighbors.

Death to Traitors| 4.8.10 @ 12:34PM

Ironically, the worse oppressors ever ( I am assuming you mean the Romans) built the foundations that are the cornerstones our civilization. But, this is a story for another time. In regards to your allusion to Vietnam, I wasn’t born in 1968. But, you make a very bad mistake by equating the actions of those people with that of the Confederates. The protestors against the Vietnam War didn’t want to succeed from the union, but instead attempted to reform the government by using their guaranteed right to organize and express their collective voices against the war. By the way, wasn’t the justification behind Vietnam found to be a complete hoax? In hindsight, what you think was wrong turns out like something you should have been a part of. Now, was their actions over the top and sometimes aimed at the wrong people—especially the soldiers fighting the war? Yes, but the Confederates are in a league of their own. They actively campaigned to destroy the United States. To take that city upon the hill, which Reagan talked about, and laid it asunder. It puzzles me to no end how anyone who calls themselves an American can stand up for the traitors of the Confederacy.
With all respect, I don’t hope for CWII. Anyone that does is insane and mired in an ideology of self destruction. However, I will say plainly that a person who talks of succeeding from the country, because they can’t deal with the fact they lost an election, is no friend or neighbor of mine. We all play under the same rules, and sometimes they go against us. Hell, I didn’t like the fact Bush II stole the election in 2000. But, I didn’t go around saying that the blue states should succeed. Why are people saying that now? Simply, they are hypocrites—the vilest creatures ever to be born. That is the sin of the confederates. They thought they didn’t have to play by the rules. They were special and above the rest of the country. They didn’t want Lincoln, and like a spoiled child, refused to go along with the decision. In the end, they didn’t get the punishment they should have and we are paying for it.

Petronius| 4.8.10 @ 3:26PM

I was thinking you aspire to become Pol Pot since you want us all dead who refuse to become Your Slaves. And we may well Secede again! But this time you will not see southern politicians walking out of Congress. All the producers will just quit working as our earnings are confiscated and given to the parasites in our midst, but I digress.
The mass misunderstanding concerning The War of Northern Invasion is a primary component of the concretinism of the garden variety left, abolition not withstanding. The pot began to boil in the 1830's when Southern planters sent raw cotton to Lancashire mills in British bottoms. The shipping magnates from Baltimore to Boston were left high and dry. Follow the Money. There was hell to pay because they weren't getting their cut. There were more millionaires in Mississippi than Manhattan. When the uppity sanctimonious yankees started to threaten their trade, the South simply wanted to take their ball and go home. The northern states would not allow this, so they crushed the South in that war and totally destroyed all of it's capital. When the shooting finally ceased with the surrender of Stand Waitie's forces on 25 June, 1865, white Southerers had nothing except what was about their person and became aliens in their own country. And the Lincoln Government did it not to liberate the black slaves held by the planters, but to persecute those planters for defying them. And you embody that horrid sentiment to a T. The one thing that has changed what used to be American society most is the complexion of snobbery. Ergo charges of racism are bogus. As to who are the most vile creatures among us. That is expressed through behavior. Real Americans are honest, industrious, and virtuous. We are not predators, perverts, or parasites. All who practice any of the latter should be banished and not allowed to live here. The Gentlemen who founded our republic did it to facilitate the concept of empire building at the personal level; a thing which Crown and Parlaiment would not countenance. It is likewise abhorrent to President Obama and his thugocracy. Turning this country in an economic basket case to reduce those who have any ambition to serfdom serves only the interests of the ignorant, indolent, intolerant, infantile slugs who refuse to compete. Welcome to the ant hill.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:47PM

How would the South feel about flying the Union Jack (Britain's flag) on all Southern capitols? The British almost split the colonies to keep the South under their control... so it is part of their history too. For the same reason, the Confederate Flag should fade into history, just like we expect all immigrants to become Americans, and put away their old country's flag in favor of the American Flag - it's a sign of respect and allegiance to the country you support. By using competing symbols, you provide fodder to those who can attack you for lack of patriotism.

tonypal| 4.8.10 @ 9:49AM

I think Mark Levin had it right on last night's show. Essentially, it's bad to honor the confederate flag because it stands for slavery, etc. Yet politicians and citizens have no qualms over joining a political party - that would be the Democrat party - that was the party of slavery. So perhaps in addition to banning the confederate flag due to what it represents, we need to ban the Democrat party for what it actually did.

JimP| 4.8.10 @ 12:47PM

We should also ban the Stars and Stripes because it stood for slavery also: and it stood for the illegal New England slave trade that continued to take slaves to Central and South America and the Caribbean after slave trading was outlawed by Congress in 1809. Everyone in the North looked the otherway when it came to the slave trade because it was very, very lucrative for the North. People need to face it, slavery was LEGAL in the USA until the end of the war. Lincoln never freed the slaves in the border states. The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to areas of the Confederacy that were not controlled by Union Army forces.

JayJay| 4.8.10 @ 3:36PM

The Emancipation Proclamation did not free any slaves, not even one. Lincoln was a President and slavery was legal. A proclamation even by him could not overturn an established law... unless he was a dictator and that he was not. It did, however, change how many viewed it from a war over state's rights to one over slavery.

Matt Morehouse| 4.8.10 @ 9:57AM

$800 billion in defense is wasted when commanded by a Coward in Chief.

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 10:34AM

No need to worry, the draft dodging, cut-n-run from al Qaeda coward is out of office now. Relax and enjoy what someone with an IQ can do to improve your world, while you whine about it the whole time :)

JimE| 4.8.10 @ 6:19PM

Jon, still trying to sell your obama commemorative plates and tee shirts. Too bad clown, obama won't tell anyone his IQ so you must be talking about someone else.

Ronnie| 4.8.10 @ 7:48PM

And you have the audacity to call other people trolls and idiots. Good God, you're a moron.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 10:50PM

I love it.... Republicans always seem to be ruled by emotion - fear, anger, lust, greed, you name it. that's why they always make the wrong decisions in who they support. But they don't see the forest for the trees.

JimE| 4.8.10 @ 11:08PM

Ronnie, purplegay and JonB, all members of the same collective, whinning about slavery but willing to become slaves of the states. You buffoons were not to be found when the mexicans ran their flag up in CA. Take your hipocracy and hit the road trolls.

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 9:48AM

JimEeeeeee - please learn how to spell hypocrisy. "Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions." So, in light of the definition of hypocrisy - if you didn't like the Mexican flag flying in CA, and you're okay with promoting the Confederacy - who's the hypocrit here?

Nick| 4.9.10 @ 1:34PM

PurpleJackass,

I love it when someone admonishes someone else for misspelling a word, and then misspells a variant of the same word, HYPOCRITE!

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 10:15PM

LIMPNICK - WOW! what an important point to make... impressive....

Ned| 4.8.10 @ 10:01AM

In the end, after horrible bloodshed on both sides we kissed, no matter how difficult, and made up. Afterwards both sides rewrote history to put themselves in a better light.
We returned to the same house, no longer divided by war, and lived together as before.
When we fight foreign enemies we do not originate from the same house and we do not return to a shared one after the fight.
Since we are brothers once again we are duty bound to show respect for each other’s courage, tenacity, valor, and honor shown during the war.
We must recognize the causes, but forget blame and punishment as much as possible, or we are likely to find ourselves at war again.

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 10:30AM

Hey, it's not like they're honoring fallen SS soldiers at the Bitteberg Cemetary, or anything like that, like Reagan did.

Petronius| 4.8.10 @ 12:39PM

J B couldn't get further off base.
The late President Reagan made a significant statement about the results of totalitarian government. Look at the dates on those headstones in Bitteberg cemetery and see that many were just teenagers. Come 1933 they were in diapers. And they grew up being taught that that 'der Fuhrer" was the center of the universe; and "what Germany needs is not butter, but guns." Contemplate for just 1 minute what kind of (human?) being you would be having experienced such an upbringing.
The result was utter ruin with the dead in 8 figures. Those who do not learn from history.....

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 8:03PM

True, however Reagan fought against the formation of Democracies in Central America supporting the Dictators down there, and armed the Ayatollah and Saddam. Strange fellow, no?

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:05PM

Keep in mind what we are teaching our children today with all the outrageous behavior having gun rally's and anti-government signs and posters. What will become of our tender grapes?

Nick| 4.9.10 @ 1:43AM

PurpleJackass,

It's too bad your "tender grapes" never dropped!

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 9:52AM

What's your problem? You want your kids to think violence is okay? Don't you know that the radio and more so television has a huge impact on kids? If our leaders promote such outrageous behavior to score political points, how will kids know the difference between a political ploy to win votes, and what the leaders really want? Any parent knows consistency is what kids need.

Nick| 4.9.10 @ 1:48PM

PurpleJackass,

I have no problem.

And, all kids should learn how to us a firearm. It builds character and confidence. Self-defense is a God-given right.

There is nothing intrinsicly evil about violence, if it is used to defend yourself.

As Dirty Harry famously said, "Nothing wrong with shooting, as long as the right people get shot."

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 10:16PM

We can only hope you win a Darwin award and save the gene pool...

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 7:47PM

They'll become raisins?

Nick| 4.8.10 @ 7:10PM

Jon B,

Are you back again?
Pay no attention to him folks.

He peddles lies and marxist propaganda. Oops! Redundant.

Like the lie that President Reagan gave the Soviets $425 billion.

After 3 days of trying to belittle those of us who called him out on his lie, he finally admitted his fabrication.

Although, he then claimed it was a mistake That it was actually $425 million, but he offered no source. Just his deeply flawed memories.

Mark Vickery| 4.8.10 @ 10:38AM

Good post, but this was a pretty stupid controversy for the Governor to subject himself to. And, Rich Lowery at NR recommends this ...

Perhaps his contribution to Confederate History Month henceforth should be reading the “cornerstone speech” by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens:

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 11:36AM

Strawman Building in Defense of Treason in Defense of Slavery : Lawyers, Guns & Mone links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…in Defense of Treason in Defense of Slavery Strawman Building in Defense of Treason in Defense of Slavery [ 0 ] April 8, 2010 | Scott Lemieux In attempting to defend the indefensible, John Guardino says that picking on Bob McDonnell’s celebration of pro-slavery treason is unfair because many Confederate soliders were not personally motivated by slavery. Actually, even more pathetically he says…

Paul W.| 4.8.10 @ 11:58AM

John- TMF and Bryan pretty much got it right. This is a complex subject with many facets to consider. Most Confederate troop were not owners of slaves and were fighting for "kith and kin". But they knew full well the system for which they fought so long, so hard, and so well was based on slavery. No matter how poor or socially inferior, a white Souterner could always take comfort in the fact he was always superior to the slaves, and, if fortunate enough, could one day become a slave owner himself.

The main fear of those who led the secession movement was that, one way or the other, they were going to lose their economic and social system built on slavery. Thoe who fought for the South should be honored for their bravery and sacrifice, but not for the cause for which they defended so well.

JimP| 4.8.10 @ 12:42PM

"But they knew full well the system for which they fought so long, so hard, and so well was based on slavery."

This statement is only partly true. What is also true is that the vast majority of Northerners were NOT fighting to free the slaves. Primary source documents have proven this over and over. Abolitionists amounted to roughly the same percentage as slave owners fighting to preserve slavery in the South. Northerners willingly tolerated the continuation of the New England slave trade right up to the beginning of the war: even though it had been outlawed since 1809. There was NO moral superiority in the North vis a vis slavery or prejudice toward Black people. The idea that everybody in the North fought to free the slaves took hold after Lincoln was assassinated, which is also confirmed by primary source documents. The North fought because the South was paying 70+% of the federal taxes that funded the North's 'shovel ready' internal improvements (infrastructure etc) and if the South got free the North would have no one to pay but themselves. This is all historical fact that you never read in Lincoln hagiographies and simplistic history texts.

Petronius| 4.8.10 @ 12:17PM

The worms are out of the can again. No matter how much and how often "aggrieved minorities" are patronized and subsidized it's never enough. What they are really after is same kind of monopoly the jewish community has vis a vis, sympathy for the holocaust. 3 million Polish Catholics and 750,000 gypsies died with them along with some of our own soldiers. So what.
The vital interest at stake here is the #1"minority" position in the political zoo we used to call the "United" states.

meg| 4.8.10 @ 6:16PM

Oh good, glad to see that you managed to slip some Antisemitism into the conversation. We were overdue for that.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:11PM

What a bigot! I thought they all died with Archie Bunker .... poor children taught by this one.

Petronius| 4.9.10 @ 12:37AM

Oh thank you both for playing. Two years ago I got kicked out out church for refusing to kow tow to liberation theology. When I told this to a Jewish colleague at my Gun club, he asked me to join his Temple. And you'd hate his guts too. He owns an oil company, and a commercial real estate firm. It just might come up again over drinks at the Browning Collectors Banquet.
le chaim

meg| 4.9.10 @ 10:05AM

Translation: All my Jewish friends think my Antisemitism is okay.

meg| 4.9.10 @ 10:05AM

Translation: All my Jewish friends think my Antisemitism is okay.

Nick| 4.9.10 @ 1:38PM

Meg,

I missed Petronius' alleged anti-Semitism.

Could you point it out to me?

Derek Leaberry| 4.8.10 @ 12:23PM

Winston Churchill wrote in his HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES that the Army of Northern Virginia had fought a "struggle unsurpassed in history." Churchill was correct. The valorous men in gray are Southern heroes and, in the spirit of sectional reconciliation, American heroes. They are certainly my particular heroes. It is disturbing that some who call themselves "conservative"(eg David Frum) are so deracinated that they can only pile on along side the Left in condeming the Southern soldier. However, the Left and their fellow travellers to their right are not even fit to clean the boots of the lowest Southern private. Damn them to Hell!

Purpleguy | 4.8.10 @ 11:16PM

No one is condemning the Southern soldier, or any soldier who fights for his country. But - just as the British Flag does not fly over any of our Original States Capitols, in favor of the American Flag, even though many colonists were loyalists to the Crown, the Confederate Flag should fade into history for the same reason. Not to deny the South's history, but to remember the whole history, slavery and all.

JimP| 4.8.10 @ 12:30PM

Sadly, Jim Webb went over to the side of tyranny since his 1990 speech. He is now a Dem and has been voting a straight party line, to his everlasting shame, IMHO.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:19PM

What tyranny? Republicans have been in charge of the White House in 28 of the last 41 years. Democrats are for the people, Republicans are for the people who control the people with their wealth.

Northern Observer| 4.8.10 @ 1:04PM

The best commentary on the Civil War ever!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/F.....0Aa03.html
Basically 200 000 southern adventurers needed to be exterminated before the war could end.
Personally I think desouthernification along with trials and forced resettlement of southern whites to the interior followed by resettlement of the old south with virgin European stock would have hurt the US short term but provided for a more stable and perfect Union.
Instead large chunks of the valuable euro immigrants of the 1870-1913 period went to make New Zeeland, Australia and Canada stronger nations, while the bitter minded traitors of the South's decedents remained to poison America's political system, as they do today.
America will only rise to greatness again when this aggrieved southern minority is overcome and cleansed from the American body politic. Forcing the South into one political party is the first step in the process.

Patrick| 4.8.10 @ 1:07PM

About twenty years ago I visited the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia. My interpretation of the exhibition material on view at that time was that secession and the resulting war were not the expression of the popular will, but rather the result of actions taken by a small social and military elite. The cult of the Confederacy came about in no small part as a reaction to the ignominy of defeat and the deprivations of Reconstruction. That is continues shows the power of a highly romanticized narrative of a past age.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:20PM

Just like the Reagan era is dead, but the romantics cling on for dear life....

Seek| 4.8.10 @ 1:24PM

Only in the minds of contemporary "civil rights" leaders is studying the Confederacy tantamount to reviving it. I've studied the Civil War since age 10, and to no ill effect. Former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder can go to hell.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:24PM

Studying it is one thing - promoting it is another. And that is the political maneuver that McDonnell is doing - trying to manipulate white southerners to his side. He couldn't care less about the Southern soldiers and the Confederacy - he's worried about his own political life, because his campaign was a basket of lies and deceit, and he knows he won't win re-election without dividing the whites from the blacks in Virginia.

Nick| 4.9.10 @ 1:39AM

PurpleJackass,

Governors are only elected to ONE term in the State of Virginia, Einstein.

No wonder you agree with Jon B.
You are just as ignorant as he is.

Leave the political talk to the grown-ups, okay?

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 10:20PM

Since you seem to like name-calling, okay, LIMPNICK - Great, one term is enough, but dildoe, did you not know he was chosen to rebut the State of the Union Address because he is predicted to be a possible candidate for higher office (elected). You're so full of yourself, but you aren't holding all the keys to knowledge. Only an assbag would think so.

Nick| 4.10.10 @ 1:34AM

PurpleJackass,

It must hurt deeply to be exposed as an ignorant fool on the world wide web, huh?

I wouldn't know, it's never happened to me.

But, it's not my fault you type out posts without knowing what you're talking about.

Nick| 4.10.10 @ 1:42AM

Plus, you, of all people, are complaining about being called names. Ha-ha! What a joke!

This is just like when you admonished JimE, above, about his spelling. You are a grade A HYPOCRITE!

If you don't like being called names, try not doing it to others, twit.

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 7:53PM

Nick,

He can't be hurt; he's ignorant and presumptuous, like the one who said there were 57 states in the union, and the American Army liberated Auschwitz, etc., etc.

Jon B is an Idiot| 4.8.10 @ 1:29PM

Jon B ---in another post you said you didn't support Obama as he was just another Corporate whatever----now you're saying he is a superior intellect (with absolutely no supporting evidence of course).

Which Jon are you today?

Oh I know--- a freakin Libtard Troll who can't keep his story straight from one post to the other.

Plus anyone who goes by "jon" is usually a mommy's boy who wasn't breast fed long enough.

Or you're a hysterical chick---with apologies to hysterical chicks.

So go get me my double-frappacino-mocha-latte with vanilla sprinkles and it's your turn to clean the ladies room. You seem like you'd be good with tampons.

Jon B| 4.8.10 @ 8:06PM

Compared to Bush, Obama is. I recognize that Obama is the best compromise between corporations owning Government and policies for the people that we're likely to see unless we take corporate cash out of political campaigns. So it's a double edged sword for me: Yes Obama's a sell out. Yes he's 1,000 times better than Bush. By nature of comparison an opinion may seem to change when it's still the same.

Nick| 4.8.10 @ 9:02PM

Wheres that source, Jon B?

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:28PM

Jon is right, but I would argue that Obama is practical and pragmatic and has and is using the tools he has to save this country, since a good chunk of the population cannot seem to rise above petty politics.

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 7:58PM

"[s]ince a good chunk of the population cannot seem to rise above petty politics." Is that a classic the pot calling the kettle black moment, or what?

Ps: Please, don't misconstrue "black" as anything more than an adjective, OK?

Louis Jenkins| 4.8.10 @ 1:33PM

The greatest disservice on this count has been the attempt by these revisionist politicians and academics to defame the entire Confederate Army in a move that can only be termed the Nazification of the Confederacy [emphasis added].

I have visited just about all the battlefields, the museums, and other sites in the east. To call the Confederacy Nazis is the bottom rung of a ladder, and does not gain any leverage. Nor can we allow ourselves to be won over by any positive term. It happened, and it is over. What is important is that we move forward with the belief in equality, the knowledge that we cannot be changed, and that we are tired of being duped by Obama. That's what is important.

Eric Damon| 4.8.10 @ 1:43PM

This happens every time anything about the Civil War or slavery is mentioned; we get these long debates about the causes of the War and the role of slavery and who owned slaves and blah, blah, blah.

What has been lost sight of is the premise of the article that the South in general, and Gov. McDonnell in particular have no need to apologize for honoring those who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. That war was a painful part of our history, but it is complete folly to pretend that the men in the gray uniforms are not deserving of our respect, if not our admiration.

As for me, being from North Carolina, I take some pride in the role our state played in the War. We were almost forced into the War by being surrounded on all sides by the Confederacy (Tennessee to the west, South Carolina to the south, and Virginia to the north) and despite strong pro-Union sentiment we kicked in like supermen. We supplied more men and supplies to the effort than any other state in the Confederacy, despite the fact that North Carolina had no great stake in the slave system. I am proud of the men who sacrificed their family lives, their livlihoods, and their lives to protect against an overreaching federal government (in their eyes, at least). And I say this as a Black man, so you can see that the Southern pride cuts across racial lines.

But since everyone else wants to play historian here, I have a question. If we honestly believe that the words in the Declaration of Independence are true, that we truly believe that people have the God-given right to throw off the chains of a tyrannical government, then why are the Confederates so reviled? Were they not simply doing what the Declaration of Independence (penned by Southerner Thomas Jefferson of the Commonwealth of Virginia) says they had both a right, and a duty to do?

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:40PM

No, the founders of our nation gave us the way to make change in this country - elections. We can also change the Constitution. The Revolutionary War was against the tyranny of a King who gave no representation to the governed. That is not the case for us, nor for the Southern states in 1860. The fact that they were in a minority is not just cause to revolt. Regardless of the right's yelling and screaming, you are NOT deprived of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, except by the rule of law of the majority. The South was the same, but resorted to violence to have their way. It was a stupid war, a huge waste of lives, and created a division that still stands today as we can all clearly read.

Petronius| 4.9.10 @ 1:16AM

We are deprived of liberty and happiness when our earnings are confiscated to subsidize the character deficiencies of the ignorant, indolent, incompetents who then invade our lives just to make us miserable.
I HAVE the Right to live by and for myself without
hindrance from the likes of you! Keep your claws to yourself and mind your own business!! Nobody is "owed" anything.
The South was an olligarchy, but the regime in D.C. is a composition of grafters, thieves, charlatans, weasels, perverts, and lastly, traitors to our founding principles, even unto our common defense. And it was elected by 3 lost generations of infantile snots who refuse to face reality in their vain attempt to cash in their emotional investment by transforming our erstwhile republic into Never-neverland. Either grow up and compete heads up with all others or take your economic illiteracy and social sabotage elsewhere. I look forward to November in anticipation of scraping the liberal barnacles off our ship of state.

Purpleguy| 4.9.10 @ 10:24PM

Good Christian I suppose you think you are, eh, Bubba? "We are deprived of liberty and happiness when our earnings are confiscated to subsidize the character deficiencies of the ignorant, indolent, incompetents who then invade our lives just to make us miserable." Ever hear of helping your neighbor, helping the poor, your brother's keeper, and a host of other Christian ethics? What a selfish attitude. You can't take it with you ... remember "a camel will fit through the eye of needle before a rich man will enter heaven" - get off your high horse and humble yourself to your fellow man, but you probably have no shame, do ya?

JmsA| 4.10.10 @ 9:06PM

Shortly after the Constitution had been written, someone asked Benjamin Franklin: What sort of government have you given us? He replied, a Republic, if you can keep it. A Republic, which through the Bill of Rights, and checks and balances, assures the rule of Constitutional Law, not "majority rule of Law," as you posited. Thereby protection of the individual citizen and his/her rights under the Bill of Rights guaranteed, it follows the term Republic originateed in Roman Law, as per Res Publica or public affair, not a government affair or a political affair. We're talking a higher order of things here, get it? In a Democracy, the majority rules according to their whims (see the latest shenanigans by the democrat-controlled congress in the face of overwhelming opposition to Obamacare by the American public). Case in point, Congressman Stupak voting against a considerable, if not majority of his pro-life constituents, opposed to public or tax-payer funded abortion. Don't get me wrong, republicans have also misbehaved, but never to the extent of what has just transpired, and is reasonably expected to transpire under the present administration and congress. On the other hand, in a Republic, the government rules according to the law, guareenting the rights of the individuals, like those of the African-American former slaves, and consistent with the founding abolitionist principles Republican party, to whom Abraham Lincoln belonged, as everyone well knows, but not Stephen Douglas, his democrat 1860 presidential oponent, and author of the pro-slavery Kansas-Nebraska Act. Ouch! I know that one hurt.

You further posited: "No, the founders of our nation gave us the way to make change in this country - elections. No, the founders gave us the constitution with its checks and balances to govern with the consent of the governed, not to have our rights and lives trampled by a hyper ideological elected officials. It is therefore that changing the constitution requires it be amended, which in turns requires ratification by three-fourths of Congress and three-fourths of the States. That is why every time unelected, politically appointed judges, answerable to one, legislate from the bench by fiat against the common will of the people--you folks begin to spout off about the living and changing constitution. Welcome your timely response. Keep the peace, and see you on 11/02/2010.

Ken (Old Texican)| 4.8.10 @ 1:44PM

Heh, heh.

The VAST majority of our US combat soldiers and Marines, today are, wait for it.....................from the South....heh...and the rest of "fly-over country".
Hmmmmm.

Over at american thinker today is an article about a LT. Colonel, (M.D.) who refused orders until Obama gives us a birth certificate.

Personally, I could care less where the twerp was born. I know what he was taught growing up. ANY excuse to "retire him" is good in my book.

...I DON'T LIKE OUR PRESIDENT'S COMPLEXION!
He is red all over. (pardon the shorthand).

I love the term "problematical". The communists, (pardon the shorthand), have a "problematic".....problem, heh. That is why they want a "civilian national police" equal to our present military.

You 8 million men out of work, join us...not "them".
They want to enslave us all.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:42PM

I'm sure I've seen you ranting and raving about "Repent, Repent" with an "End of the World" sign standing on the street corner downtown... Was that you? Wingnut...

Derek Leaberry| 4.8.10 @ 2:31PM

If not for the South, the USA would be as left-wing as France. Conservatives who shower the South with contempt, especially neo-conservatives like Mark Levin, should consider this fact when they run down the South. Without the South, conservatism would be relegated to being a permanent minority.

YOU ARE INSANE| 4.8.10 @ 2:56PM

What world do you live in? Instead of pointing out the obvious racism of this situation, I will just highlight how completely insane you sound.

"It was about resisting Yankee aggression, and defending their liberty, their honor and their homeland." ...and defending the right to own other human beings.

"The Confederate soldiers, moreover, were quite courageous and valiant in battle. And it is their courage and valor, and their implacable commitment to family and community, that we honor and celebrate"...With this line of reasoning, we should honor the Japanese who fought in WWII and anyone else who has ever fought on any side of any war. Do you see why this is completely ridiculous?

YOU ARE INSANE| 4.8.10 @ 4:05PM

@Pingback
I'm sure you could find plenty of German soldiers from WWII who were not "personally motivated" by Hitler's master plan. Just like the Conservative soldiers who were not "personally motivated by slavery". Does that make it OK to celebrate what they did? Do you see how this is the same insane line of reasoning you are using? Will your head ever be removed from your ass?
BTW, a lot of southerners didn't own slaves because they couldn't afford to. If they could, I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they would (but hey I'm no historian and niether are any of the completely insane revisionists on this website)

oops| 4.8.10 @ 4:07PM

did not mean to make the last one @pingback but @theinsanepeopleonthiswebsite instead

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 3:02PM

More On “Treason in Defense of Slavery” Month « Lean Left links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…nbsp;Month April 8, 2010 tgirsch Leave a comment Go to comments Tacking on to what Kevin wrote yesterday, Scott Lemieux at LGM lays down the smack: In attempting to defend the indefensible, John Guardino says that picking on Bob McDonnell’s celebration of pro-slavery treason is unfair because many Confederate soldiers were not personally motivated by slavery. Actually, even more pathetically he says that…

Death to Traitors| 4.8.10 @ 3:24PM

Confederate sympathizers refuse to see the contradiction in honoring the confederacy while proclaiming their allegiance to the United States. In the best case scenario, they lack the education to realize the falsehoods they spread. In the worst case scenario, they think they are superior to all of us and thus are immune to the constraints of logic and common sense. At the end of the day, confederate sympathizers are hypocrites of the highest magnitude.

Petronius| 4.8.10 @ 3:55PM

One last thing: this article is misconstrued because the original concept of "federalism" is now lost. After the Treaty of Paris the governments of the "individual" states viewed their State Governments as Sovereign Entities of an amalgamation that would act in concert for international affairs, trade, and communication. The United States Government we now exist under, in a literal sense, behaves like a macrophage amoeba engulfing and smothering all that is not of itself.

Ace | 4.9.10 @ 10:13AM

Why do you assume that all Confederate sympathizers are loyal to the bloated, centralized, statist federocracy that the United States has become?

GKH| 4.8.10 @ 3:26PM

I love the people in this website. I love you guys. You are the best! Where else can I go and get crazy, wacky revisionist view of the world. I am so blessed to be here.

Also, since Obama was elected it is so cute to see you people with your heads spinning round and round and making like The Exorcist. And spewing your poison. Love it, Love it.

RG| 4.8.10 @ 3:56PM

Yes, because Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens never stated the following in his "Cornerstone Speech":

http://teachingamericanhistory.....ntprint=76

GHE| 4.8.10 @ 5:02PM

The War of Northern Aggression was about the inherent rightsof the individual States to secede from the Union. That issue most clearly manifested itself in the issue of slavery. Or, put another way, the issue was just another pit-stop in the long-running war between the power of the Federal government and the power of the states. A war that is being waged today.
Southerners who died in that war deserve our respect and admiration because they had the courage and willingness to believe in something, and to defend their beliefs with their lives. And they are even more deserving of our respect and admiration because they embodied the very virtues and principles that founded the Republic.
Were those men perfect? Absolutely not. Like all great men and women, they cast both a light and a shadow in our history. Those who would demonize their sacrifices do so, not only at their own peril, but at the peril of the entire Republic.

Purpleguy| 4.8.10 @ 11:51PM

there is no "inherent right of the state to secede from the union" ... just like there is no right for a state to divide itself. Just because you don't like the current political situation is tough.

S.L. Toddard| 4.8.10 @ 5:18PM

THANK YOU Mr. Guardiano. A magnificent piece. Utterly majestic.

Nick| 4.8.10 @ 7:11PM

Pay no attention to Jon B, folks.

He peddles lies and marxist propaganda. Oops! Redundant.

Like the lie that President Reagan gave the Soviets $425 billion.

After 3 days of trying to belittle those of us who called him out on his lie, he finally admitted his fabrication.

Although, he then claimed it was a mistake That it was actually $425 million, but he offered no source. Just his deeply flawed memories.

Intervenor| 4.8.10 @ 7:18PM

Most voters preferred Jim Webb to George Allen because Allen's overt racism turned them off. That doesn't mean moderates and liberals are enamored with the sexist and racist views Webb has expressed in past decades. In fact, Webb would have paid a higher price for his despicable support of the neo-Confederate movement if more had been known about it during his campaign. Still, he had better sense than to wear racism on his sleeve as Allen did.

One also has to wonder why a descendant of Confederate generals who needs to attract crossover votes from conservatives in Virginia is being cited as the go-to guy on Democrats and Confederate history. Webb is an outlier. Very few Democrats embrace the inherently racist defense of the Confederacy. Absent the South's obstinate determination to continue and expand slavery there would have been no Civil War. All the apologia in the world will not change that fact.

Furthermore, support for the neo-Confederates may well cost both Bob McDonnell and Jim Webb any chance of higher political office.

Petronius| 4.9.10 @ 1:24AM

Lengthen thy memory and view the commentary of one WV Senator Robert (sheets) Byrd expounding against the Civil Rights Act of '65 as a segregationist.
He was allowed to change his spots, but not George Wallace.

Nick| 4.8.10 @ 7:40PM

Intervenor,

"Very few Democrats embrace the inherently racist defense of the Confederacy."

This is a ridiculous statement. There is nothing "inherently racist" in defending the Confederacy.

The War Between the States is very complex subject, requiring much study. I'm still reading and learning about it. But, I know enough to know that it is not as simple as "the Civil War was all about slavery."

I'm not a defender of secession, by the way. I believe the first sentence of the Articles of Confederacy, which stated that the several States entered into a "perpetual Union."

Jim| 4.8.10 @ 7:43PM

Guardiano's opinion is nuts. The Civil War was all about slavery. There would have been no Civil War if southerners weren't so intent on owning other people. I think in this case, Guardiano is the one rewriting history. I hope this ends McDonnell's career.

Mary Louise| 4.8.10 @ 8:50PM

I wanted to leave this (because of some quotes) on Mr. Scruton’s Grace and Gratitude post. But this thread seems better suited, mainly because it’s not yet a dead thread.

It’s hard not to like General Lee. He had wonderful face.

It’s my understanding that when Christian soldiers came back from War during the middle ages they were required to do penance. War was understood as necessary, at times, and violence even understood as virtuous in certain circumstances, but the destruction of life and property was not looked upon as "hey you’ve got to scramble some eggs to make an omelet."

When we went into Iraq and the WMD weren’t found, I may have talked like a jingoist but it was only because I couldn’t see how to defend our soldiers while thinking their charge might be a rather large mistake.

I wonder what Mr. Sowell thinks of the Governor’s pronouncement and addendum? He said the other day that race is nothing to play with, and he’s so right.

Everyone should buy this month’s edition of WWII Quarterly. It has a piece titled My War on Two Fronts, and it’s written by Joseph Conklin Lanier, II. Sub title are the words: An African American Seabee recalls his battle with the Japanese-and Jim Crow.

He writes of the Jim Crow era:

“There was no “mixing” of the races, except when blacks were hired to perform menial labor for whites. Although we silently resented the situation, there was no arguing about it. That’s just the way it was. Tradition. The status quo. The Jim Crow laws. Apartheid.”

Senator McCain’s concession speech was the highlight of his campaign. Good riddance to the bad old days, he said. Though I raved and raged against him, I’m glad I voted for him. He was the better choice and the better man. No question about it.

Here Mr. Lanier speaks of WWII with words that establish a moral ascendancy that should be taught to all children:

"Uppermost in my mind was winning the war so we could continue to live in a land where the rule of law keeps us free to keep working on making a more perfect union."

I wonder what Jack Kemp would think of the Governor’s words and his addendum? He probably wouldn’t join the fray. Kemp understood some things not because he ‘showered with black,’ but because he and his teammates had to have swapped tales of growing up, and he had to have made the comparison between what he had faced and what they had faced.

Recently a co-worker told me he really tried to find a fondness for the 4th of July, but he just couldn’t.

Boy, Hamilton saw the unspeakable at Nevis.

This is a must read.

And so is this.

It’s so good to be intellectually attuned to another person. And it’s marvelous to find yourself unexpectedly with a teacher.

Derek Leaberry| 4.9.10 @ 9:26AM

The Buffalo Bills of the 1960s were a very white team. Jack Kemp showered with very few black men. I showered with more black youngsters as a football player at DuVal High in Prince George's County, MD in the 1970s than Jack Kemp ever did with the Buffalo Bills.

Mary Louise| 4.8.10 @ 9:00PM

From Liverpool.

Manu| 4.8.10 @ 9:24PM

Very few Democrats embrace the inherently racist defense of the Confederacy. Absent the South's obstinate determination to continue and expand slavery there would have been no Civil War. reebok easy tone Reebok easy tone

Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 9:31PM

Governor McDonnell and Anti-Southern Bigotry | Conservative Heritage Times links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…of self-righteous and self-professed anti-racist crusaders flamboyantly demonstrating their sincerity by unleashing torrents of vicious bigotry. Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell’s decision to honor the Old Dominion’s Confederate ancestors has enraged the neoconservative and progressive left, who have used the occasion to indulge their ethnic hatred of the Southern people, while…

JmsA| 4.8.10 @ 9:31PM

"Tolerance in peacetime is as grand as heroism in war. The victors should not resent the tributes that are paid to the memory of the defeated side's virtues. Any brave and brilliant act carried out by one of a nation's sons is the patrimony of the whole nation, there for it to treasure and glory in." -- J. Marti

wert| 4.8.10 @ 11:47PM

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Yosemeti Sam| 4.9.10 @ 2:09AM

" ... The Left's unconscionable and shameful
race baiting continues, and for rankly partisan
political purposes...."

No - it's a particular bolero music that frightens them Leftoids.

Because, they also hear that bolero music Americans are 'progressively' listening to of CONSTITUTIONALISM FIRST PRINCIPLES - beckoning for a revitalization through the voting booths in November and beyond!

A bolero music that beats out the rap gangster crappoganda from the Leftoids permeating Hollowwood, campi, LBSM PEN1 and in general the all-around Leftoid nudnick political groupies.

Guitar strummers as well!

Not to worry - if intimidators show up at voting sites in November with bats - show up with tree trunks!

Let the toreador music then begin for the Democrat party bull!

Olé!

LOL.

Young and Educated| 4.9.10 @ 3:51PM

As for the aforementioned Alexander Stephens, who was the Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who was so highly spoken of in the above article: Need I remind you of what HE believed in?
Cornerstone Speech, Savannah Ga.
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition."
So... the Confederacy is good in what way again? How was I, as a young black person, supposed to gain an education and use every right given to me as a citizen of the United States if the Confederates had won the Civil War? I think the film C.S.A.: the Confederate States of America has a great deal of truth in it, and it's not an America I would have wanted any part of.

Brian| 4.10.10 @ 12:41AM

In 50 years these same self rightous toads will be compared to Hitler for their slaughter of 50million aborted babies. The Dem party has always been a curse on America thru their support of both slavery and abortion. Honor the confederate soldior if you will but always curse the Democrat party in the same breath.

Nick| 4.10.10 @ 1:49AM

Pay no attention to PurpleJackass folks.

He doesn't even know that Virginia governors don't run for re-election because they can only serve one term, then have to wait 4 years to run again.

He also likes to berate others for spelling "hypocrisy" wrong, and in the same post he wrote "hypocrit", like a moron.

He is not worthy of debate with grown-ups.

Bob Johnson| 4.10.10 @ 8:50AM

I completely agree that is the perception amongst most southerners who want to celebrate their history and I can empathize with that. The problem here is that we as African-Americans have a very tricky feeling with the whole situation. On one hand I feel a person should be allowed to celebrate their culture and history, but then on the other, it is like seeing the descendants of the person who raped and killed my mother, my grandmother AND my daughter come up to me and say 'sorry that happened but he was a good person so we are going to commemorate his life ... of course we'll make a token reference about that little misdeed'. I am sure some will say this is a terrible analogy and will say I am overreacting, but most of those people are not African-American and do not have the background to understand the view of what many of the things linked to the confederacy means. In addition, the stars & bars, whilst it MAY have represented 'states rights' etc, many a Klansman in the 50s and 60s were known to be in possession of it as they carried out their 'wonderful' activities. Again I am not saying all supporters of that flag are racists or anything to that point, all I am saying is the meaning of that flag to one person will differ from another. Its fine if you want to celebrate your ancestors memory, but allow us our right to complain VOCALLY about the black forebears of this country, who were enslaved. We may not agree but I believe discourse should always be based on calm, rational discussions and respect of everyone's views. I hope I have not offended anyone in the process.

Rich Rostrom| 4.11.10 @ 3:58PM

"for most Confederate soldiers, the Civil War (or War Between the States) was absolutely not about slavery."

The War of the Rebellion was a war in defense of slavery, which the paranoid white southern ruling class feared would be subverted by the Federal government if controlled by "abolition fiends" like Lincoln.

There were many illiterate simpletons who took up arms just to fight " Yankee invaders"; but illiterate simpletons don't establish governments or organize armies. The political leaders of the CSA, and the officers of its army, were all drawn from the slaveholding class, and they fought for slavery. They said so, over and over and again.

The romantic legend of the "Lost Cause" was invented postwar, to help Southern whites swallow the bitter pill of defeat. McConnell's proclamation is "Lost Cause" boilerplate, almost certainly recycled from an earlier era. It was colossally tone-deaf of him to issue it unchanged today.

While I'm debunking falsehoods, let me point out that secessionism was not a partisan Democratic project. Many Confederate leaders were former Whigs - e.g. Alec Stephens, mentioned above, a Congressional colleague of Lincoln in the 1840s.

And Northern Democrats were nearly all vehement Unionists - none more so than Lincoln's great adversary Stephen Douglas. During the 1860 campaign, Douglas said he was for "hanging any man who takes up arms against [the Constitutution]", and in 1861 he told Lincoln to call for 200,000 volunteers, not just 75,000. Lincoln himself remarked that if he dismissed all the generals who were Democrats, he would have no army left.

albert constantine, jr| 4.12.10 @ 1:48PM

I have been a proud supporter of the Union cause throughout my whole life (more than 100 years past when it that support would have mattered, however). It nonetheless seems quite ironic to me that those who condemn the treachery of those who chose secession wish to suggest that they did so only for the promotion of slavery and white supremacy, yet, when asked about Islamist extremism and terrorism, suggest that we should try to understand why they hate us, and look at the hospitals Osama bin Laden (or Hamas, or Hezbollah) builds for those who support them. Whatever happened to the nuanced worldview?

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