Keep them on private property and you can have all the Confederate statues you want. Seriously, have a million on your own land. Public property, the entire public gets a say, and city councils and state legislatures are removing statues and/or moving them to less prominent places.
Except for those statues and monuments that were erected decades after the conflict and for the express purpose of proclaiming white superiority as part of a political program to put the Blacks back in their тАЬplaceтАЭ. For the most part, these statues represent an attempt (still not completely quashed) to - pardon the expression - whitewash the reasons for the failed secession, reasons that are prominently and unashamedly expressed in each stateтАЩs declaration and so shouldnтАЩt just be wished away. History does matter.
IтАЩm not going to get into an argument with you over this, except to suggest that you read at least some of the Confederate states statements on their reasons for secession. You may also want to think on why these statues and monuments started being erected for the most part decades after the war and why Lee himself thought such things were a bad idea.
The concept of the chivalrous тАЬLost CauseтАЭ was a romanticized way of making the unpalatable truth acceptable through disingenuous reframing. For the most part, the common soldiers on either side were rarely fighting for grand principles - were the case otherwise, conscription would have been unnecessary.
There is nothing тАЬwokeтАЭ in a realistic examination of the facts. Facing and accepting what our nationтАЩs forbears did is neither a sign of weakness or acceptance of guilt. It should, instead, be seen as a sign of strength and self-confidence as we all move forward to better a better future for all.
Please get your head into the present. It is a sign of mental weakness to profess a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence. Those that do it either are ignorant of history, or else are pushing a modern agenda void of interest to really understand.
There are many, many, many historical atrocities of collective human behavior that resulted and perpetuated war against another collection of humans based on some identity. Do I need to list them all? Years from now we will likely look back on your political ilk as having done terrible things as justified by their feeling of moral superiority. Do we then prosecute your ancestors and wipe out all historical reference because some find it upsetting in their nor moral superior posturing?
History is history. You don't solve anything by attempting to cancel it. But we can solve things by canceling the cancelers.
What precisely in my comments do you think you are responding to? I am not overlaying a 21st century conception on those who justified secession or those who erected the various monuments to commemorate Confederate figures. I am relying on what they said at the time and, in the case of the тАЬLost CauseтАЭ crowd, comparing the evidence to their narrative.
I said nothing about canceling anyone or anything, let alone procuring our ancestors, whatever you may have meant by that. Instead, these should all be teachable moments. Understanding doesnтАЩt imply passing judgment (though each person is free to do whatever they wish with information), and I remember when the sin of тАЬpresentismтАЭ was - quite properly in my view - denounced; now, we seem to live in a world where тАЬpresentismтАЭ has become a virtue. We will see when that wheel turns once again.
A bit closer to home, by way of example, I think the American Museum of Natural History made a huge mistake when it caved in and removed the equestrian statue of TR from the front entrance. I find nothing wrong in explaining that what people saw as normal in their time is seen differently in a later period and how few (and often marginalized) were those whose dissenting views became over time the norm.
How else to teach those alive today the very lesson you suggest: we are part of a chain and have not reached a state of moral (or any other) perfection, that we have is a delusion we share with all those who came before and very likely all those who come after.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful comment. I think I missed your point previously. We seem to agree. I am in favor of keeping the monuments for the reasons you mention. It provides the teaching moment. And the agenda of the woke mob demanding the removal of these monuments is absolutely not for the reasons of virtue that they claim. It is a well-known move the Marxists rules for radicals... or for any collectivist project "progress"... to eliminate the signs and memories of history for the purpose of re-framing a new reality of relativism. If we forget what we did, then we cannot effectively argue against repeating the same mistakes.
It turns out we are in agreement. I try, with varying degrees of success, to approach all comment sections with a view toward the exchange of ideas and testing the arguments of others. Maybe we commenters should agree to an informal rule of self-editing: would your grandmother approve of the manner in which you expressed yourself (but not the contents, obviously). That would at least avoid any temptation to personalize arguments that should be a bit more dispassionate. Anyway, thatтАЩs the standard it set for myself. Whether I meet it is another question.
I agree with both of you guys, too. I just think its clown world having large statues of generals that lost a war. If Texas had a mountain sized monument glorifying General Santa Ana, I would feel the exact same way.
Humans will probably never agree on who is worthy and unworthy of admiration because we all see things differently. You see a loser they see a rebel. It's stupid to you but it's worth fighting for to them. I've never been to a country across 5 continents that I agree with everything they believe in or stand for or decide to build monuments to. Least we forget that there are places in this world including the US that build statues to non existent gods.
My head, often to my chagrin, is firmly in the present so I'll make a slight effort to help you extract yours from your ass:
Do you ever read your comments before hitting the little "post" button?
"...It is a sign of mental weakness to profess a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence."
Pray tell, how does one go about professing a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence? One can no more profess a modern moral overlay of events then one can go dancing with a modern moral overlay of events.
And while we're on the subject, precisely just what the hell, anyway, is a "modern moral overlay of events." Is there any meaning here crying out to be rescued from this grammatically crippled sentence? I see none so we'll move on.
Next!
"....There are many, many, many historical atrocities of collective human behavior that resulted and perpetuated war against another collection of humans based on some identity."
I just read this for the fourth or fifth time and remembered that I have a long day tomorrow and that I'm a grammarian not a lumberjack and the threat that followed it--"Do I need to list them all?"--got my attention, so I'll leave this one for some other commenter's chainsaw, should they dare.
Next!
"...Years from now we will likely look back on your political ilk as having done terrible things as justified by their feeling of moral superiority."
Here you nicely insert a gratuitous insult that is apparently birthed by an assumption of the commenter's political affiliation, not-so-coyly deploying the cowardly (sign of mental weakness!) second person "we."
"Terrible things."
Such as purchasing season tickets for the 2022 Reds? I manifested no moral superiority when making this decision. And I justified the decision easily: reasonably good seats. But now it appears attending a Reds home game will be the equivalent of being coerced into attending your brother-in-law's beer league slow-pitch softball game. This is just the sort of situation that suggests that there is NO morality in the world, let along moral superiority. Do you understand this?
Next!
"...Do we then prosecute your ancestors and wipe out all historical reference because some find it upsetting in their nor moral superior posturing?
Here I have a mental image of you, a Peter Lorre-like figure, hovering in a darkened corner of a seedy hotel lobby, cigarette pinched between thumb, index finger, middle finger, cigarette held out and straight up, delivering this line to someone sitting in a chair who you've mistaken for a chap who rubbed you the wrong way at last week's Mason's Society meeting. The stranger quickly gets up and leaves.
Yes, history is indeed history. And not only do you not solve anything by attempting to "cancel" it, you certainly don't contribute to the conversation by being ignorant of it.
"you certainly don't contribute to the conversation by being ignorant of it."
True. But it takes a bit more than just reading what another person wrote about it. Almost every war ever fought was about money. The south had even pushed for lower house representation based on state wealth. Slaves at the time were valuable assets. The southern plantation owners would be financially decimated without slave labor. The people of the south would suffer direct and indirect damage. Sure there were racists in the south. There are still are today. But the southern states did not send so many young men to die for racism. The people of the south saw that their economic security was at risk. And there were plenty of people from the north supporting the war for their own economic reasons.
That is why laying some deep moral meaning based on modern considerations is a practice of fools and charlatans.
Generally it is about money and power... but generally power to keep or get more money. Unfortunately there was no offered remedy for the economic damage that would result from abolition of slavery.
From the Cornerstone Speech, by Alexander Stephens, VP of the confederacy, meant to address the Confederate nation, and typical of the CSA leadership's statements:
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. 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. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
Sorry Mr Lee, my comment was not for you, but for Mr Charles Knapp, who demonstrates that he doesn't know anything about the War for Southern Independence outside what b.s. that the State and its media organs have told him is acceptable belief. Not sure how you got the idea I'm an antifa fanboy.
You might wish to review your confident, if fact-free, assertion cum insult against the well known principle that тАЬIt ainтАЩt what you donтАЩt know that gets you into trouble. ItтАЩs what you know for sure that just ainтАЩt so.тАЭ
You can start on your road to knowledge by reading the secession declarations of the Confederate states or, if you canтАЩt spare the time, what the Confederate Constitution had to say about slavery. Those are their words and, given the stakes, the authors presumably meant what they told the world.
Once youтАЩve done that, you will be in a better position to identify the post-Civil War spin that emerged to obfuscate that reality (as well as the causes ascribed to explain defeat), underpinned Jim Crow for so many decades (while being lionized along the way in popular entertainment such as тАЬBirth of a NationтАЭ and тАЬGone with the WindтАЭ) and that still lurks in some corners of the Southern imagination.
There was no single cause that unleashed the Civil War, life is too complicated for such monocausal explanations, but maintaining chattel slavery - the basis of much of the SouthтАЩs agrarian economy - was a clear and fundamental priority. Why thatтАЩs a controversial statement says more about those who deny it than those who assert it.
Should you respond, try keeping it civil this time. Name calling only undermines any argument you may otherwise advance.
"There was no single cause that unleashed the Civil War, life is too complicated for such monocausal explanations"
You could have stopped there. The primary cause was related to what we see now between liberals and conservatives. We are still primitive tribal people and we align with our tribe and fight those that attack our tribal way of life. Righteousness and morality are just background noise... we moralize our position at the time because we don't want our tribe to lose. The majority of those that fought for the confederate states fought for the south to not lose and not to keep blacks enslaved.
As is usually the case in war, the primary source is economic.
in 1860 there were nearly four million slaves and their average market value was around $800... or about $50k in real dollars today and about the average cost for a house at the time. However, their economic output over their lifetime was many times that... from $3.5 million to $14 million in today's dollars. This alone was a significant economic factor for southerners as owning slaves was seen as the primary way to move up economically and socially. The wealth tied up in slaves was a large proportion of the total wealth of the nation. Slave owners as a group had considerable economic power. When the north demanded abolition it was an attack on the economics of the south and that is what drove succession and the urge to fight back.
Anybody with an ounce of understanding of human behavior can blow past this false meme that the south should be continually denigrated and attacked for the Civil War. Millions of young men died fighting for their territory, their economic life, their tribe. That is how they saw it then... not through the modern half-wit brain of the campus-indoctrinated postmodernist neoracist Marxist that infest our dialog today.
Ironically, you are merely underscoring here the fact that the keystone of the whole conflict was slavery as an institution. As you noted, the North's demand for abolition certainly was inded an attack on the economics of the South...because the Southern economy was entirely dependent on the enslavement of human beings.
Now, should the people of the modern South be denigrated for its dependence and forthright support of the enslavement of human beings during this time period? No, of course not--but it makes perfect sense to denigrate anyone trying to either whitewash or glorify the South's actions during this period. And many of these statues--and those who commissioned them-- do just that.
Why should they be so denigrated, you ask?
The answer is simple: because the enslavement of human beings as an institution contravenes the very ethical principles of freedom and self-determination that underpin the right to things like the 'freedom of speech' which you so spiritedly defend. Those that whitewash or glorify ought to be criticized as harshly as can be, or at least as harshly as the political leaders who openly proclaimed,
"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics."
The higher estimate for all deaths in the Civil War is around 750,000 not millions. But as you say, the Southern economy was based in large part on extracting labor from slaves and it is true that the overwhelming number of Southerners did not own slaves. However, those in positions of power by and large were slaveholders and it seems to follow from this logic that it was primarily their desire to preserve their narrow economic interests that led to the Civil War. Of course, the butcherтАЩs bill, as is so often the case, paid by others who went off to war under, not precisely false pretenses, but certainly issues contrived to appeal to their sense of identity and security.
There is nothing particularly original in this. Just compare what is happening in Ukraine versus what the Russian people are being told about the causes of that war.
At any rate, as there is no one cause to any conflict, everyone is free to pick the one that makes the most sense to them.
I've read the secession documents. Have you read anything besides the secession documents? Or have you read them at all? I'd be willing to bet a paycheck I've read more than you about the period, most of it original documents, including the thirty-odd volumes of Slave Narratives collected during the 1930s. And my deepest apologies, my good man, but whenever someone asserts, as you did, that the monuments were erected for the sole purpose of puttin' the skeer into black folks, I know that said interlocutor doesn't have any knowledge of the war outside what is gained from a few tweets and SPLC fundraising scams. As though Southern widows and orphans who spent decades raising money through penny drives and bake sales (as did my own grandma) did it not to remember the men who had fallen on distant battlefields, but to pick on blacks with whom they lived and worked quite closely - certainly more so than was the case in the enlightened north.
Slavery was certainly an issue (and nowhere did I suggest that), but it wasn't why King Linkum went to war and it certainly wasn't why the 95% of the Confederate soldiers who were not slaveowners fought so furiously against the northern armies. Linkum It was collect the "imposts and revenues," that is, ensure tariffs from Southern ports keep feeding the Federal maw (and then to favored industries like railroads) and to maintain the South as a captive market for (second rate) northern manufacturers. In this he was somewhat similar to other nationalist consolidators, eg Bismarck. Outside a few deranged abolitionists, absolutely no one in the North cared about the slaves, proof of which can be seen in their vicious treatment by the "armies of liberation" and various legal efforts to keep them out of the north after the South was "restored" to "the eternal union."
I'm sure you have read Robert Penn Warren's piece on the "treasury of virtue," that is, now the Yankee victory in the war, and its subsequent tarting up as a noble crusade for muh freedom has the inspiration for the US entry into WW1 and all subsequent crusades, including the 70-odd that the US has been involved with since the end of WW2.
"The population of the Confederate States in 1860 (according to the 1860 census) stood at 9,103,332. Of that number, 3,521,110 were enslaved African-Americans.
Enslaved African-Americans constituted 38.67% of the total population of the Confederate states."
The percentage of Southern families that possessed slaves was 30% in 1860."
Now, assuming that the average white male non-slave owner in the south was low and mean as well as impoverished and ignorant, struggling daily to scratch out a living in a desolate region that had little employment opportunities, the last thing this cohort would want, let alone tolerate, is an influx of a million or two former slaves into an already sclerotic job market.
So, no, the white trash rebs did not own slaves but you can bet your last three fingers of Cocke County moonshine that they were fighting for slavery.
Outside of the first sentence and part of the second one, I agree 110% with everything that you've written here. The racial b.s., which includes the obsession about Confederate monuments, is just a way to divide the peasants from uniting against our putative masters.
Jolly do you have an example outside the US where the losing side erected monuments inside of the nation they lost a war in? Are there Romanov statues in Russia? Japanese monuments in the Philippines? French monuments in Waterloo?
Yes, there are Japanese memorials in the Philippines as well as other places in Asia. I was stationed in the Philippines and Okinawa, where there are monuments and memorials all over the island.
Careful. On most social media sites, even asking that question will get you deplatformed. Let's hope Substack survives the Disinformation Governance Board.
Well, the Russians keeping The Winter Palace /Hermitage in tact and all the Romanov treasures on full display is not a memorial but certainly a reminder of why people revolted.
Most countries in the world in the very least honor those lost in loosing battles. The British and most European countries have memorials to battles lost or whatever. Even the hunter gatherer tribes I visited in South America have this sort of thing. In the Marine Corps we are taught to Revere those who fought to the death in loosing battles and it's a badge of honor for us. Like Sam I was also stationed in east Asia and have visited monuments all over the place. I was even apart of a joint ceremony between the Japanese and the US for the 63rd anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima on Iwo Jima Infront of a memorial that commemorated both the Japanese and the American lives lost. Both the US and Japan come together to remember.
Yes, there are palaces and statues and memorials throughout what was once the USSR commemorating the Czars. I was particularly impressed with Cathrine's Palace that Peter built in answer to Versailles. Of course, many Soviet era heroes still have statues and monuments celebrating their reigns of blood and terror - e.g., Lenin's Tomb.
If you travel through India, you'll find monuments to Queen Victoria and the British Empire, including named train stations, cities and statues. When you get to Hong Kong, you'll see all kinds of tributes to the United Kingdom as you will throughout the United States.
Travel - it can be your friend and provide a magnificent education while expanding world views and diminishing intolerance.
No, but I also don't have an example of another nation with freedom of speech.
Civil Wars don't tend to have, as an end goal, an attempt to bring the nation together at the end. They are usually held to destroy another set of politics, ethnic group, or religion. We know that Lincon and the North didn't fight the war over slavery, as Lincon had the Compromise of 1860, and slavery wasn't outlawed until 1862, with the 13th amendment. No, it was fought to preserve the union, and it is rather hard to preserve that if you don't allow the other side it's freedoms, although Reconstruction put a huge burden on that.
Russia didn't memorialize the Romanovs, as they wanted to destroy every last trace of them in the quest for Communism. You could compare the US civil war to the Russian Civil War that followed the Revolution, but freedom of speech isn't he communists strong point. The Philippines weren't Japan, and it wasn't a civil war. Waterloo is in Belgium, a country that has someone else kick out an invader. The point being, with all of the examples you give, not one is a war of unification. And, again, not good examples of freedom of speech, nor of private property.
....slavery wasn't outlawed until 1862, with the 13th amendment" Jolly Swagman.
No, it was not.
The 13th amendment was ratified in 1865, after the end of the U.S. Civil War. You appear to be confusing Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation with a Constitutional Amendment. Not the same. Get your facts straight. This is enough misinformation going around these days without you adding to the pile.
Again, an outside force came to destroy an ideology. Remember, it isn't the US that outlaws any references to Nazism, it is Germany. And, further, that outlawing hasn't irradicated anything. There are still underground Nazi groups, former Nazi's as leaders, and so on.
As I said initially, not many examples of freedom of speech out there.
I am just trying to grasp your point here. You mentioned тАЬhealing a nationтАЭ and тАЬfree speechтАЭ but how does that lead to the commissioning of a marble statue of a political/military leader in the middle of town. Clearly this is not a free speech thing.
How isn't it a free speech thing? The whole point of free speech is to protect speech you or I dislike. Southerners are US citizens, with all that entails. They don't just lose rights because someone thinks they should, just like black people don't lose rights because others think they should.
As far as healing the nation, others in this thread have mentioned Lincon's speech "With malice toward none; with charity for all..." and while that sentiment was put on hold during reconstruction, in the '20s when many of these statues were erected the Civil War was part of living memory, much like WWII is for us.
It's not free speech when it's institutionalized into a marble relief in the middle of town center. In the same way that George Floyd does not represent me, but is memorialized into a public offering that suggests I do because I operate in the same society that commissioned the artwork.
The woke left typically demonizes Mt. Rushmore along the same lines, but I don't think that those pictured there were the poster children for social injustice in their time. They were "great political leaders." That seems ok.
I never suggested that anyone lose rights, that anything get canceled in any of the notes on this thread - for the record. I think it's fine to have a public statues and I will fight for your right to have them there, even if I disagree with the school of thought that delivered them to your town square.
That said, as I have said before, I find it odd that some chose leaders from the losing side of the Civil War to venerate. I have no skin in this game, my family emigrated to this wonderful country in the 30s and we have our own stories of loss and war. Who we idolize and promote tells the story of who we are and Robert E. Lee is an odd protagonist for the story of America.
Pure speculation.. but my suspicion is that statues honoring Confederate war heros feels like more of a "here's who is in charge around here" statement than "honoring the dead" as others have professed. So I side with the dissenting group on this one.
I do see your point, but I don't think many in the south would agree with you regarding who to venerate. In the south REL, is every bit as important as FDR is to certain groups here in America. He seems to be a symbol of defense against tyranny, and southern pride.
Romanov statues in Russia? Putin erected a giant Orthodox cathedral on the site of the execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family in Ekaterinburg.
Also, on a more local note, there is Confederate monument in Middletown, Ohio-kind of obscure-I never heard of it until a couple years ago despite living in the area most of my life-but it was there-not sure if it was removed or not-it wasnтАЩt very big.
I wasnтАЩt surprised that it existed. Back in the 1850s Lebanon and Springboro were both stops on the Underground RR, but Franklin supported the slave catchers!
My wife's grandmother's grandfather was the care taker of the Rankin house for the Underground RR. I've only been to the historical stuff on the Kentucky side. I'm just a transplant to the area so I'm still learning all the historical significance of the area. I was under the impression that most of Ohio was considered safe for escaping slaves.
No, there were definite pockets of racist/Southern support in southern Ohio in the pre-Civil War era, but they were highly localized by town/neighborhood. In Columbus, Westerville/Worthington/northern Columbus was Republican/pro-union, but South Columbus was anti-war/D/southern sympathies. Ohio was founded by the NW Ordinance, so slavery was always illegal by statute, but it shares a border with Kentucky, so cultural overlap was present.
That's really interesting and makes a lot of sense. I feel like there are still remanence of the overlap out where I live. I appreciate you taken the time to type that out. I love history.
Had to look it up. YouтАЩre right but think about it. ThereтАЩs a statue of a captured, imprisoned and tortured American soldier. Not exactly glamorizing him. That would be akin to all monuments depicting Lee signing his official surrender to the North.
Apparently you are unaware of what Lincoln said at the end of the Civil War...With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish as just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Here is your word of the day...equivocation. The point was that Lincoln knew that to bring the country back together the North had to be charitable toward the South. Of course, he was assassinated, that didn't happen and we suffered through decades of strife.
But hold on a second here... did Lincoln direct local and state governments to erect monuments of Civil War military and political leaders? Saying something with your first amendment rights is one thing, memorializing it in stone in the public square as part of the fabric of society is another.
The monuments were paid for by the relatives & community donations to honor & remember the dead. ThatтАЩs why a number of years passed before any were erected тАФ the people were impoverished after the war. Think of it in this way тАФ the soldiers in Iraq fought for the United States & the way of life they considered valuable (no matter if others believe this to be misguided) and the Confederate soldiers did the same. They had no stock in oil companies. The majority of Confederate soldiers did the same as most did not own slaves. ItтАЩs not 1860 or 1950 itтАЩs 2022. Enough.
Godwin's Law is when someone likens someone else (e.g., Donald Trump, Saddam Hussein) to Hitler. So, in a tribute to your use of a sports' adage: You fumbled.
At other times when you're at a loss on how to respond, do you pull, "You're a Putin Puppet" from your notebook of saved replies?
Generally speaking, when you lose a war, you don't get statues and monuments. Right? This is so weird.
Specifically speaking, to heal a nation you let the losers of a war have statues and monuments. It only seems weird now, 150 years later on.
Also, freedom of speech and private property cover a lot of ground.
Keep them on private property and you can have all the Confederate statues you want. Seriously, have a million on your own land. Public property, the entire public gets a say, and city councils and state legislatures are removing statues and/or moving them to less prominent places.
Amen to that.
Except for those statues and monuments that were erected decades after the conflict and for the express purpose of proclaiming white superiority as part of a political program to put the Blacks back in their тАЬplaceтАЭ. For the most part, these statues represent an attempt (still not completely quashed) to - pardon the expression - whitewash the reasons for the failed secession, reasons that are prominently and unashamedly expressed in each stateтАЩs declaration and so shouldnтАЩt just be wished away. History does matter.
BS. What is the statute of limitations for modern woke moralization of history? I would say 20 minutes.
IтАЩm not going to get into an argument with you over this, except to suggest that you read at least some of the Confederate states statements on their reasons for secession. You may also want to think on why these statues and monuments started being erected for the most part decades after the war and why Lee himself thought such things were a bad idea.
The concept of the chivalrous тАЬLost CauseтАЭ was a romanticized way of making the unpalatable truth acceptable through disingenuous reframing. For the most part, the common soldiers on either side were rarely fighting for grand principles - were the case otherwise, conscription would have been unnecessary.
There is nothing тАЬwokeтАЭ in a realistic examination of the facts. Facing and accepting what our nationтАЩs forbears did is neither a sign of weakness or acceptance of guilt. It should, instead, be seen as a sign of strength and self-confidence as we all move forward to better a better future for all.
Please get your head into the present. It is a sign of mental weakness to profess a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence. Those that do it either are ignorant of history, or else are pushing a modern agenda void of interest to really understand.
There are many, many, many historical atrocities of collective human behavior that resulted and perpetuated war against another collection of humans based on some identity. Do I need to list them all? Years from now we will likely look back on your political ilk as having done terrible things as justified by their feeling of moral superiority. Do we then prosecute your ancestors and wipe out all historical reference because some find it upsetting in their nor moral superior posturing?
History is history. You don't solve anything by attempting to cancel it. But we can solve things by canceling the cancelers.
What precisely in my comments do you think you are responding to? I am not overlaying a 21st century conception on those who justified secession or those who erected the various monuments to commemorate Confederate figures. I am relying on what they said at the time and, in the case of the тАЬLost CauseтАЭ crowd, comparing the evidence to their narrative.
I said nothing about canceling anyone or anything, let alone procuring our ancestors, whatever you may have meant by that. Instead, these should all be teachable moments. Understanding doesnтАЩt imply passing judgment (though each person is free to do whatever they wish with information), and I remember when the sin of тАЬpresentismтАЭ was - quite properly in my view - denounced; now, we seem to live in a world where тАЬpresentismтАЭ has become a virtue. We will see when that wheel turns once again.
A bit closer to home, by way of example, I think the American Museum of Natural History made a huge mistake when it caved in and removed the equestrian statue of TR from the front entrance. I find nothing wrong in explaining that what people saw as normal in their time is seen differently in a later period and how few (and often marginalized) were those whose dissenting views became over time the norm.
How else to teach those alive today the very lesson you suggest: we are part of a chain and have not reached a state of moral (or any other) perfection, that we have is a delusion we share with all those who came before and very likely all those who come after.
Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful comment. I think I missed your point previously. We seem to agree. I am in favor of keeping the monuments for the reasons you mention. It provides the teaching moment. And the agenda of the woke mob demanding the removal of these monuments is absolutely not for the reasons of virtue that they claim. It is a well-known move the Marxists rules for radicals... or for any collectivist project "progress"... to eliminate the signs and memories of history for the purpose of re-framing a new reality of relativism. If we forget what we did, then we cannot effectively argue against repeating the same mistakes.
It turns out we are in agreement. I try, with varying degrees of success, to approach all comment sections with a view toward the exchange of ideas and testing the arguments of others. Maybe we commenters should agree to an informal rule of self-editing: would your grandmother approve of the manner in which you expressed yourself (but not the contents, obviously). That would at least avoid any temptation to personalize arguments that should be a bit more dispassionate. Anyway, thatтАЩs the standard it set for myself. Whether I meet it is another question.
I agree with both of you guys, too. I just think its clown world having large statues of generals that lost a war. If Texas had a mountain sized monument glorifying General Santa Ana, I would feel the exact same way.
Humans will probably never agree on who is worthy and unworthy of admiration because we all see things differently. You see a loser they see a rebel. It's stupid to you but it's worth fighting for to them. I've never been to a country across 5 continents that I agree with everything they believe in or stand for or decide to build monuments to. Least we forget that there are places in this world including the US that build statues to non existent gods.
Ok point taken, Richard. They see them as heros. I stick to my original point, it's weird.
My head, often to my chagrin, is firmly in the present so I'll make a slight effort to help you extract yours from your ass:
Do you ever read your comments before hitting the little "post" button?
"...It is a sign of mental weakness to profess a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence."
Pray tell, how does one go about professing a modern moral overlay of historical events and existence? One can no more profess a modern moral overlay of events then one can go dancing with a modern moral overlay of events.
And while we're on the subject, precisely just what the hell, anyway, is a "modern moral overlay of events." Is there any meaning here crying out to be rescued from this grammatically crippled sentence? I see none so we'll move on.
Next!
"....There are many, many, many historical atrocities of collective human behavior that resulted and perpetuated war against another collection of humans based on some identity."
I just read this for the fourth or fifth time and remembered that I have a long day tomorrow and that I'm a grammarian not a lumberjack and the threat that followed it--"Do I need to list them all?"--got my attention, so I'll leave this one for some other commenter's chainsaw, should they dare.
Next!
"...Years from now we will likely look back on your political ilk as having done terrible things as justified by their feeling of moral superiority."
Here you nicely insert a gratuitous insult that is apparently birthed by an assumption of the commenter's political affiliation, not-so-coyly deploying the cowardly (sign of mental weakness!) second person "we."
"Terrible things."
Such as purchasing season tickets for the 2022 Reds? I manifested no moral superiority when making this decision. And I justified the decision easily: reasonably good seats. But now it appears attending a Reds home game will be the equivalent of being coerced into attending your brother-in-law's beer league slow-pitch softball game. This is just the sort of situation that suggests that there is NO morality in the world, let along moral superiority. Do you understand this?
Next!
"...Do we then prosecute your ancestors and wipe out all historical reference because some find it upsetting in their nor moral superior posturing?
Here I have a mental image of you, a Peter Lorre-like figure, hovering in a darkened corner of a seedy hotel lobby, cigarette pinched between thumb, index finger, middle finger, cigarette held out and straight up, delivering this line to someone sitting in a chair who you've mistaken for a chap who rubbed you the wrong way at last week's Mason's Society meeting. The stranger quickly gets up and leaves.
Yes, history is indeed history. And not only do you not solve anything by attempting to "cancel" it, you certainly don't contribute to the conversation by being ignorant of it.
https://www.historyonthenet.com/reasons-for-secession
Oberlin?
Now that's funny!
"you certainly don't contribute to the conversation by being ignorant of it."
True. But it takes a bit more than just reading what another person wrote about it. Almost every war ever fought was about money. The south had even pushed for lower house representation based on state wealth. Slaves at the time were valuable assets. The southern plantation owners would be financially decimated without slave labor. The people of the south would suffer direct and indirect damage. Sure there were racists in the south. There are still are today. But the southern states did not send so many young men to die for racism. The people of the south saw that their economic security was at risk. And there were plenty of people from the north supporting the war for their own economic reasons.
That is why laying some deep moral meaning based on modern considerations is a practice of fools and charlatans.
Generally it is about money and power... but generally power to keep or get more money. Unfortunately there was no offered remedy for the economic damage that would result from abolition of slavery.
From the Cornerstone Speech, by Alexander Stephens, VP of the confederacy, meant to address the Confederate nation, and typical of the CSA leadership's statements:
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. 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. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
You have learned your lessons well, clown.
Put your Antifa mask back on and get back to your game console in mom's basement.
Sorry Mr Lee, my comment was not for you, but for Mr Charles Knapp, who demonstrates that he doesn't know anything about the War for Southern Independence outside what b.s. that the State and its media organs have told him is acceptable belief. Not sure how you got the idea I'm an antifa fanboy.
You might wish to review your confident, if fact-free, assertion cum insult against the well known principle that тАЬIt ainтАЩt what you donтАЩt know that gets you into trouble. ItтАЩs what you know for sure that just ainтАЩt so.тАЭ
You can start on your road to knowledge by reading the secession declarations of the Confederate states or, if you canтАЩt spare the time, what the Confederate Constitution had to say about slavery. Those are their words and, given the stakes, the authors presumably meant what they told the world.
Once youтАЩve done that, you will be in a better position to identify the post-Civil War spin that emerged to obfuscate that reality (as well as the causes ascribed to explain defeat), underpinned Jim Crow for so many decades (while being lionized along the way in popular entertainment such as тАЬBirth of a NationтАЭ and тАЬGone with the WindтАЭ) and that still lurks in some corners of the Southern imagination.
There was no single cause that unleashed the Civil War, life is too complicated for such monocausal explanations, but maintaining chattel slavery - the basis of much of the SouthтАЩs agrarian economy - was a clear and fundamental priority. Why thatтАЩs a controversial statement says more about those who deny it than those who assert it.
Should you respond, try keeping it civil this time. Name calling only undermines any argument you may otherwise advance.
"There was no single cause that unleashed the Civil War, life is too complicated for such monocausal explanations"
You could have stopped there. The primary cause was related to what we see now between liberals and conservatives. We are still primitive tribal people and we align with our tribe and fight those that attack our tribal way of life. Righteousness and morality are just background noise... we moralize our position at the time because we don't want our tribe to lose. The majority of those that fought for the confederate states fought for the south to not lose and not to keep blacks enslaved.
As is usually the case in war, the primary source is economic.
in 1860 there were nearly four million slaves and their average market value was around $800... or about $50k in real dollars today and about the average cost for a house at the time. However, their economic output over their lifetime was many times that... from $3.5 million to $14 million in today's dollars. This alone was a significant economic factor for southerners as owning slaves was seen as the primary way to move up economically and socially. The wealth tied up in slaves was a large proportion of the total wealth of the nation. Slave owners as a group had considerable economic power. When the north demanded abolition it was an attack on the economics of the south and that is what drove succession and the urge to fight back.
Anybody with an ounce of understanding of human behavior can blow past this false meme that the south should be continually denigrated and attacked for the Civil War. Millions of young men died fighting for their territory, their economic life, their tribe. That is how they saw it then... not through the modern half-wit brain of the campus-indoctrinated postmodernist neoracist Marxist that infest our dialog today.
Ironically, you are merely underscoring here the fact that the keystone of the whole conflict was slavery as an institution. As you noted, the North's demand for abolition certainly was inded an attack on the economics of the South...because the Southern economy was entirely dependent on the enslavement of human beings.
Now, should the people of the modern South be denigrated for its dependence and forthright support of the enslavement of human beings during this time period? No, of course not--but it makes perfect sense to denigrate anyone trying to either whitewash or glorify the South's actions during this period. And many of these statues--and those who commissioned them-- do just that.
Why should they be so denigrated, you ask?
The answer is simple: because the enslavement of human beings as an institution contravenes the very ethical principles of freedom and self-determination that underpin the right to things like the 'freedom of speech' which you so spiritedly defend. Those that whitewash or glorify ought to be criticized as harshly as can be, or at least as harshly as the political leaders who openly proclaimed,
"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics."
The higher estimate for all deaths in the Civil War is around 750,000 not millions. But as you say, the Southern economy was based in large part on extracting labor from slaves and it is true that the overwhelming number of Southerners did not own slaves. However, those in positions of power by and large were slaveholders and it seems to follow from this logic that it was primarily their desire to preserve their narrow economic interests that led to the Civil War. Of course, the butcherтАЩs bill, as is so often the case, paid by others who went off to war under, not precisely false pretenses, but certainly issues contrived to appeal to their sense of identity and security.
There is nothing particularly original in this. Just compare what is happening in Ukraine versus what the Russian people are being told about the causes of that war.
At any rate, as there is no one cause to any conflict, everyone is free to pick the one that makes the most sense to them.
I've read the secession documents. Have you read anything besides the secession documents? Or have you read them at all? I'd be willing to bet a paycheck I've read more than you about the period, most of it original documents, including the thirty-odd volumes of Slave Narratives collected during the 1930s. And my deepest apologies, my good man, but whenever someone asserts, as you did, that the monuments were erected for the sole purpose of puttin' the skeer into black folks, I know that said interlocutor doesn't have any knowledge of the war outside what is gained from a few tweets and SPLC fundraising scams. As though Southern widows and orphans who spent decades raising money through penny drives and bake sales (as did my own grandma) did it not to remember the men who had fallen on distant battlefields, but to pick on blacks with whom they lived and worked quite closely - certainly more so than was the case in the enlightened north.
Slavery was certainly an issue (and nowhere did I suggest that), but it wasn't why King Linkum went to war and it certainly wasn't why the 95% of the Confederate soldiers who were not slaveowners fought so furiously against the northern armies. Linkum It was collect the "imposts and revenues," that is, ensure tariffs from Southern ports keep feeding the Federal maw (and then to favored industries like railroads) and to maintain the South as a captive market for (second rate) northern manufacturers. In this he was somewhat similar to other nationalist consolidators, eg Bismarck. Outside a few deranged abolitionists, absolutely no one in the North cared about the slaves, proof of which can be seen in their vicious treatment by the "armies of liberation" and various legal efforts to keep them out of the north after the South was "restored" to "the eternal union."
I'm sure you have read Robert Penn Warren's piece on the "treasury of virtue," that is, now the Yankee victory in the war, and its subsequent tarting up as a noble crusade for muh freedom has the inspiration for the US entry into WW1 and all subsequent crusades, including the 70-odd that the US has been involved with since the end of WW2.
"The population of the Confederate States in 1860 (according to the 1860 census) stood at 9,103,332. Of that number, 3,521,110 were enslaved African-Americans.
Enslaved African-Americans constituted 38.67% of the total population of the Confederate states."
The percentage of Southern families that possessed slaves was 30% in 1860."
Now, assuming that the average white male non-slave owner in the south was low and mean as well as impoverished and ignorant, struggling daily to scratch out a living in a desolate region that had little employment opportunities, the last thing this cohort would want, let alone tolerate, is an influx of a million or two former slaves into an already sclerotic job market.
So, no, the white trash rebs did not own slaves but you can bet your last three fingers of Cocke County moonshine that they were fighting for slavery.
https://www.historyguy.com/civilwar/statistics_slave_population.html
Apparently this issue is so emotional for you that I see no point in discussing anything further.
My bad. Hard to keep track of the direction and intent of comments.
I agree that statues and monuments are a political message.
Bullshit. They were erected when the generation who fought the war was dying off. Yankee memorials were erected around the same time.
Monuments are generally erected a generation or two after the events.
Yes, and not as some part of some nefarious plan to oppress Southern blacks. That idea emerged around 2015, from the boiler room of the SPLC.
Statues oppressed blacks? Interesting phenomenon.
Don't tell obama, booker, oprah, joy reid, sharpton, et.al that...they have a soft spot in their hearts for blacksploitation
Outside of the first sentence and part of the second one, I agree 110% with everything that you've written here. The racial b.s., which includes the obsession about Confederate monuments, is just a way to divide the peasants from uniting against our putative masters.
Exactly.
Jolly do you have an example outside the US where the losing side erected monuments inside of the nation they lost a war in? Are there Romanov statues in Russia? Japanese monuments in the Philippines? French monuments in Waterloo?
Yes, there are Japanese memorials in the Philippines as well as other places in Asia. I was stationed in the Philippines and Okinawa, where there are monuments and memorials all over the island.
Sam isnтАЩt that weird? The Imperial Japanese committed massive atrocities in the Philippines.
Let me clarify that I am specifically referencing memorials that glorify a specific human being.. not memorials to commemorate the dead.
Were you a Marine? I was stationed in Oki and traveled east Asia as a Marine. I got to go to Iwo for the anniversary of the battle.
No, I was Air Force, stationed at Naha Air Base.
That was a few decades before my time in Oki. Lol My first year in Oki was 2010. Naha had already been returned to the Japanese Self Defense Force.
How about the glorification of Stephan Bandera in Ukraine?
Careful. On most social media sites, even asking that question will get you deplatformed. Let's hope Substack survives the Disinformation Governance Board.
The UPA fought everyone! Red Army, Nazis, every Polish organization under the sunтАж
Well, the Russians keeping The Winter Palace /Hermitage in tact and all the Romanov treasures on full display is not a memorial but certainly a reminder of why people revolted.
Lenin was a monster , but even he knew when to back off , is why he succeeded
Most countries in the world in the very least honor those lost in loosing battles. The British and most European countries have memorials to battles lost or whatever. Even the hunter gatherer tribes I visited in South America have this sort of thing. In the Marine Corps we are taught to Revere those who fought to the death in loosing battles and it's a badge of honor for us. Like Sam I was also stationed in east Asia and have visited monuments all over the place. I was even apart of a joint ceremony between the Japanese and the US for the 63rd anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima on Iwo Jima Infront of a memorial that commemorated both the Japanese and the American lives lost. Both the US and Japan come together to remember.
Yes, there are palaces and statues and memorials throughout what was once the USSR commemorating the Czars. I was particularly impressed with Cathrine's Palace that Peter built in answer to Versailles. Of course, many Soviet era heroes still have statues and monuments celebrating their reigns of blood and terror - e.g., Lenin's Tomb.
If you travel through India, you'll find monuments to Queen Victoria and the British Empire, including named train stations, cities and statues. When you get to Hong Kong, you'll see all kinds of tributes to the United Kingdom as you will throughout the United States.
Travel - it can be your friend and provide a magnificent education while expanding world views and diminishing intolerance.
Well, yes. There are a lot of Romanov statues in Russia. Most erected inside the last 20 years.
No, but I also don't have an example of another nation with freedom of speech.
Civil Wars don't tend to have, as an end goal, an attempt to bring the nation together at the end. They are usually held to destroy another set of politics, ethnic group, or religion. We know that Lincon and the North didn't fight the war over slavery, as Lincon had the Compromise of 1860, and slavery wasn't outlawed until 1862, with the 13th amendment. No, it was fought to preserve the union, and it is rather hard to preserve that if you don't allow the other side it's freedoms, although Reconstruction put a huge burden on that.
Russia didn't memorialize the Romanovs, as they wanted to destroy every last trace of them in the quest for Communism. You could compare the US civil war to the Russian Civil War that followed the Revolution, but freedom of speech isn't he communists strong point. The Philippines weren't Japan, and it wasn't a civil war. Waterloo is in Belgium, a country that has someone else kick out an invader. The point being, with all of the examples you give, not one is a war of unification. And, again, not good examples of freedom of speech, nor of private property.
....slavery wasn't outlawed until 1862, with the 13th amendment" Jolly Swagman.
No, it was not.
The 13th amendment was ratified in 1865, after the end of the U.S. Civil War. You appear to be confusing Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation with a Constitutional Amendment. Not the same. Get your facts straight. This is enough misinformation going around these days without you adding to the pile.
Lighten up, Francis.
Totally. Don't make it personal.
You write: "No, but I also don't have an example of another nation with freedom of speech."
Help me out here. I'm not coming up with the name of a country with freedom of speech.
Ok what about post WWII Germany then.
Again, an outside force came to destroy an ideology. Remember, it isn't the US that outlaws any references to Nazism, it is Germany. And, further, that outlawing hasn't irradicated anything. There are still underground Nazi groups, former Nazi's as leaders, and so on.
As I said initially, not many examples of freedom of speech out there.
I am just trying to grasp your point here. You mentioned тАЬhealing a nationтАЭ and тАЬfree speechтАЭ but how does that lead to the commissioning of a marble statue of a political/military leader in the middle of town. Clearly this is not a free speech thing.
How isn't it a free speech thing? The whole point of free speech is to protect speech you or I dislike. Southerners are US citizens, with all that entails. They don't just lose rights because someone thinks they should, just like black people don't lose rights because others think they should.
As far as healing the nation, others in this thread have mentioned Lincon's speech "With malice toward none; with charity for all..." and while that sentiment was put on hold during reconstruction, in the '20s when many of these statues were erected the Civil War was part of living memory, much like WWII is for us.
It's not free speech when it's institutionalized into a marble relief in the middle of town center. In the same way that George Floyd does not represent me, but is memorialized into a public offering that suggests I do because I operate in the same society that commissioned the artwork.
The woke left typically demonizes Mt. Rushmore along the same lines, but I don't think that those pictured there were the poster children for social injustice in their time. They were "great political leaders." That seems ok.
I never suggested that anyone lose rights, that anything get canceled in any of the notes on this thread - for the record. I think it's fine to have a public statues and I will fight for your right to have them there, even if I disagree with the school of thought that delivered them to your town square.
That said, as I have said before, I find it odd that some chose leaders from the losing side of the Civil War to venerate. I have no skin in this game, my family emigrated to this wonderful country in the 30s and we have our own stories of loss and war. Who we idolize and promote tells the story of who we are and Robert E. Lee is an odd protagonist for the story of America.
Pure speculation.. but my suspicion is that statues honoring Confederate war heros feels like more of a "here's who is in charge around here" statement than "honoring the dead" as others have professed. So I side with the dissenting group on this one.
Thanks for listening.
I do see your point, but I don't think many in the south would agree with you regarding who to venerate. In the south REL, is every bit as important as FDR is to certain groups here in America. He seems to be a symbol of defense against tyranny, and southern pride.
Romanov statues in Russia? Putin erected a giant Orthodox cathedral on the site of the execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family in Ekaterinburg.
Also, on a more local note, there is Confederate monument in Middletown, Ohio-kind of obscure-I never heard of it until a couple years ago despite living in the area most of my life-but it was there-not sure if it was removed or not-it wasnтАЩt very big.
Russia has restored many Romanov palaces and houses....
Where is it? I'm not far from there and now I want to see if it's still there. Lol
I think it is on Cincinnati-Dayton Road, in Blueball, but IтАЩm not completely sure. I only saw it on Channel 5 news.
That sounds familiar. I believe I saw something about a protest now that you mention it. I guess I could just Google it. Lol
I wasnтАЩt surprised that it existed. Back in the 1850s Lebanon and Springboro were both stops on the Underground RR, but Franklin supported the slave catchers!
My wife's grandmother's grandfather was the care taker of the Rankin house for the Underground RR. I've only been to the historical stuff on the Kentucky side. I'm just a transplant to the area so I'm still learning all the historical significance of the area. I was under the impression that most of Ohio was considered safe for escaping slaves.
No, there were definite pockets of racist/Southern support in southern Ohio in the pre-Civil War era, but they were highly localized by town/neighborhood. In Columbus, Westerville/Worthington/northern Columbus was Republican/pro-union, but South Columbus was anti-war/D/southern sympathies. Ohio was founded by the NW Ordinance, so slavery was always illegal by statute, but it shares a border with Kentucky, so cultural overlap was present.
That's really interesting and makes a lot of sense. I feel like there are still remanence of the overlap out where I live. I appreciate you taken the time to type that out. I love history.
I'll wager there are French monuments in Waterloo
So remove the Vietnam war memorials?
Yeah Frank. If there are American memorials in Vietnam, that's weird too. Troll.
There are groomer.
actually I believe there are including the Hanoi Hilton
Had to look it up. YouтАЩre right but think about it. ThereтАЩs a statue of a captured, imprisoned and tortured American soldier. Not exactly glamorizing him. That would be akin to all monuments depicting Lee signing his official surrender to the North.
Apparently you are unaware of what Lincoln said at the end of the Civil War...With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish as just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
"with malice toward none, and charity for all." So, is that how your BLM and Antifa friends behave?
It is fucking amazing how some people are so blind to their one-sided moralization while claiming to be the better person.
Here is your word of the day...equivocation. The point was that Lincoln knew that to bring the country back together the North had to be charitable toward the South. Of course, he was assassinated, that didn't happen and we suffered through decades of strife.
But hold on a second here... did Lincoln direct local and state governments to erect monuments of Civil War military and political leaders? Saying something with your first amendment rights is one thing, memorializing it in stone in the public square as part of the fabric of society is another.
The monuments were paid for by the relatives & community donations to honor & remember the dead. ThatтАЩs why a number of years passed before any were erected тАФ the people were impoverished after the war. Think of it in this way тАФ the soldiers in Iraq fought for the United States & the way of life they considered valuable (no matter if others believe this to be misguided) and the Confederate soldiers did the same. They had no stock in oil companies. The majority of Confederate soldiers did the same as most did not own slaves. ItтАЩs not 1860 or 1950 itтАЩs 2022. Enough.
Look SW, Don is making the point that Lincoln somehow commissioned these statues, which seems disingenuous. Stay on topic.
I made no such point. You don't seem to even know what the topic is.
Lincoln was a moderate and looking to reincorporate the south. His death and mlks were catastrophic.
Blame Lincoln and his "with malice towards none, with charity for all" riff
The antifa of today were the Radical Republicans of Lincoln's.
Um, no. https://ngo.locals.com/post/2106530/ngo-interview-antifas-lust-for-violence-criminality-and-making-people-suffer
Apparently people don't study the Civil War much - look up the Wade-Davis bill, that Lincoln vetoed.
The bill has nothing to do with beating up journalists covering stories.
Or defending child molestation for that matter: https://ngo.locals.com/upost/2109742/transgender-pedophiles-who-trafficked-child-for-sex-abuse-video-sentenced-to-prison
If you want something more contemporaneously comparable with regard to antifa look up the Ku Klux Klan Act which Grant signed.
The Klan and antifa are terrorist organizations led by evil people. Neither care squat about civil liberty.
LOL. Sure.
Generally speaking Rick you might consider boning up on real American History.
Educate me, Mac. Rather than trolling the thread, why don't you try to say something intelligent.
Not my job.
Yeah, I don't think they'd allow Hitler statues in Germany.
Non sequitur
Sequitur
A swing and miss while proving Godwin's law.
Godwin's Law is when someone likens someone else (e.g., Donald Trump, Saddam Hussein) to Hitler. So, in a tribute to your use of a sports' adage: You fumbled.
At other times when you're at a loss on how to respond, do you pull, "You're a Putin Puppet" from your notebook of saved replies?
Hitler statues are explicitly illegal in Germany.
Right
What jolly said