Confederate statues

[hrothgar]

Lee was offered command of the Union Army before war broke out.

He was a widely respected military officer from his service in the War with Mexico.

 

Yes.

 

Today, no one gives a rat's ass about Winnifield Scott.

They should need to be reminded about Robert E Lee

 

Only a small percentage of the men in Picketts charge at Gettysburg owned slaves

If slavery were the reason, there would have not been any advance that day.

 

You can still hate blacks even if you can't personally own one...

 

Statues put up in the 1920s were to tell women that they still could not vote.

 

No, you worthless neo Confederate piece of *****

[PrecisionL]

Lee spent the rest of his life after the war working for reconciliation.

[RedSpawn]

The American Constitution was written and signed by traitors to their English king.

 

 

Lee was pardoned after the Civil War so he is not legally a traitor as you claim.

 

Slavery has existed for thousands of years and in many nations/empires.

 

 

The great black empires in Africa held large numbers of slaves.

 

 

Greece and Rome held huge numbers of slaves.

Your assertion seems to include the logical fallacy known as bandwagon.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/logicalfallacies-140820092403-phpapp01/95/logical-fallacies-for-english-12-638.jpg

[RedSpawn]

What is the point of your comment? Is it that if slavery is so popular it must be good?

 

Yuppers. Watch your step, those logical fallacies are a doozy!

[Winstonm]

.

 

 

Lee was pardoned after the Civil War so he is not legally a traitor as you claim.

 

 

 

The acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt. Burdick v. United States

[RedSpawn]

But the statues weren't put up to honor Lee or Jackson or whomever.

That's the excuse

 

The reasons that the statues were erect during the 1920s was a celebration of the end of reconstruction.

They are political message directed at blacks saying "We won. You are, once again, disenfranchised."

 

Also, the founder are celebrated for variety of accomplishments not because they were traitors.

Lee - Lost Cause mythology not withstanding - would be forgotten today had he not killed hundreds of thousands of his own men defending the right of whites to enslave blacks.

We talked about 1865-1965 was the era of Jim Crow segregation and racism so 'Negro' suffrage was a very HOT TOPIC. Jim Crow was the South's institutional response to the losses it incurred from the Civil War. It was a feeble attempt to restore THE OLD SOCIALLY POPULAR ORDER and disenfranchise the Negro who, per federal law, was allowed to vote in state elections.

 

We all know what old social order the South wanted to reestablish and it had naught to do with the notion that all men are created equal. Jim Crow and its symbolic vestiges reminded everyone who the South's heroes and leaders were and which race was the ordained underclass.

 

Jim Crow was a sanctioned form of political rebellion to the new order and ensured disenfranchisement of the Negro. It was a bold statement Old Dixie declared to demonstrate she was far from relinquishing her control and subjugation of "The Negro" in the Reconstructed South.

 

When we see a statue of Lee -- exactly who are we honoring? Are we honoring a Virginian man who is not a traitor? Are we honoring a great, courageous military leader? Are we acknowledging that the Civil War was not just about protecting state's rights, the Southern heritage and way of life from meddling federal bureaucrats, but was also a war about how to deal with the peculiar institution of slavery which became a political weapon for greater representation and power in Congress (as with the 3/5 Compromise)?

 

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-problem-of-the-twentieth-century-is-the-problem-of-the-color-line-the-relation-of-the-darker-w-e-b-du-bois-305214.jpg

 

http://api.ning.com/files/*67Uoec4vv1o2lB4cIIo6AYgqoy25yPfZeVAcrMsr71*6KKo9LSCengCWqjt7lF5gpIO4d6wMayVIEdnHqC7CFHdLtfz5Oi-/3fifthsimage.jpg

http://sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The-Dred-Scott-Decision-1857-synopsis.jpg

[Winstonm]

We talked about 1865-1965 was the era of Jim Crow segregation and racism so 'Negro' suffrage was a very HOT TOPIC. Jim Crow was the South's institutional response to the losses it incurred from the Civil War. It was a feeble attempt to restore THE OLD SOCIALLY POPULAR ORDER and disenfranchise the Negro who per federal law was allowed to vote in state elections.

 

We all know what old order the South was trying to reestablish and it had naught to do with the notion that all men are created equal. Jim Crow and its symbolic vestiges reminded everyone who the South's heroes and leaders were. It also ensured disenfranchisement of the Negro and to make it known that Old Dixie was far from relinquishing its control and subjugation of "The Negro".

 

When we see a statue of Lee -- what are we honoring? Are we honoring a man who is not a traitor? Are we honoring a great military leader? Are we acknowledging that the Civil War was not just about protecting state's rights, the Southern heritage and way of life from meddling federal bureaucrats, but was also a war about how to deal with the peculiar institution of slavery as a political weapon for greater representation and power in Congress (as with the 3/5 Compromise).

 

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-problem-of-the-twentieth-century-is-the-problem-of-the-color-line-the-relation-of-the-darker-w-e-b-du-bois-305214.jpg

 

http://api.ning.com/files/*67Uoec4vv1o2lB4cIIo6AYgqoy25yPfZeVAcrMsr71*6KKo9LSCengCWqjt7lF5gpIO4d6wMayVIEdnHqC7CFHdLtfz5Oi-/3fifthsimage.jpg

 

The states' rights the south cared about was slavery.

[kenberg]

I know this is about statues but I want to mention Charlottesville. Nazis, racists, white supremacists were honoring Lee in about the same way as the terrorists in Barcelona were honoring Allah. In both cases it is an honor that the honoree would unequivocally renounce. I expect a lot of those nuts could not tell you which decade the Civil War was fought and could not tell you what Lee did before, during or after the war. They came to wave swastikas, they did not come to honor anyone.

 

Now to the statues. Statues are always a problem. They always involve a lot of symbolism. Richard mentioned the Statue of Liberty:

"Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

We don't actually mean this and we never did. At the least we have always had reservations and qualifications to it.

We put those words there to praise ourselves, but woe to anyone who thinks we really mean it. Many Americans, including my father and my maternal grandfather, were immigrants. We have accepted many immigrants, that is true. Still, caution is advised about the quoted words.

 

And statues of Lee? I expect many African-Americans view such a statue as a statement that the South is still the South, Appomattox be damned, and I think they are reading the message as it was intended.

American history is complicated and there are some pretty ugly spots. All in all, I regard myself as very lucky to live here. That is very different from claiming perfection or anything near it. The best way to honor our history is to acknowledge our history. The good, the bad, the ugly. And then try to do better. Slavery is part of our history, Lee is part of our history, I expect he thought he was doing right. It wasn't right, it was wrong. Almost all Americans now say it was wrong, and I think most Americans do actually believe that it was wrong. It is long past time to make that clear.

 

Most if not all statues are symbolic statements. In the case of statues honoring the leaders of the Confederacy, anyone can see what the symbolic message is. If we do not want to convey that message, we should stop sending it.

[barmar]

There's a reason why this movement is happening now. For most of the decades since the Civil Rights Act was passed, it seemed like things were moving in the right direction. Yes, it's been slow progress, but progress nonetheless. We even managed to elect our first black President (and almost managed to elect our first female).

 

But in the past few years, it feels like things have been moving backwards. Maybe it's just stagnating, but it feels backwards because we expect better. Or we're just becoming more aware of how bad things still are. Most overt racism is gone (there are no "whites only" signs anywhere), but there's still lots of implicit and unconscious racism. With all these problems becoming more and more visible, the existence of these monuments feels like a continued slap in the face to African-Amerians and progressives. They announce "The North may have won the military war, but they didn't defeat us in the culture war -- whites are still in charge."

 

Sometimes I like to compare us to South Africa. They also had institutionalized racism in their Apartheid policy. It ended in 1991, 3 years later they elected Nelson Mandela as their President, despite (or perhaps because of) his history as a political prisoner, and they have had only black Presidents since then. Yet here we are, 150 years since ending slavery, and 50 years since passing major civil rights legislation, and we're still hopelessly mired in racial tension.

 

We can't even agree that it's time to stop honoring the men who led the fight against ending slavery.

[barmar]

Only a small percentage of the men in Picketts charge at Gettysburg owned slaves.

 

If slavery were the reason, there would have not been any advance that day.

They may not have owned slaves themselves, but they were fighting to defend the rights of those who did. And they benefited from the economy that depended on slavery.

 

This is one of the problems with trying to have a discussion about the Civil War, there are still too many people promoting these fallacies that slavery was not the primary issue it was fought over. Revisionist history is how people try to assuage their guilt from celebrating their southern heritage.

[RedSpawn]

I know this is about statues but I want to mention Charlottesville. Nazis, racists, white supremacists were honoring Lee in about the same way as the terrorists in Barcelona were honoring Allah. In both cases it is an honor that the honoree would unequivocally renounce. I expect a lot of those nuts could not tell you which decade the Civil War was fought and could not tell you what Lee did before, during or after the war. They came to wave swastikas, they did not come to honor anyone.

 

Now to the statues. Statues are always a problem. They always involve a lot of symbolism. Richard mentioned the Statue of Liberty:

"Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

We don't actually mean this and we never did. At the least we have always had reservations and qualifications to it.

We put those words there to praise ourselves, but woe to anyone who thinks we really mean it. Many Americans, including my father and my maternal grandfather, were immigrants. We have accepted many immigrants, that is true. Still, caution is advised about the quoted words.

 

And statues of Lee? I expect many African-Americans view such a statue as a statement that the South is still the South, Appomattox be damned, and I think they are reading the message as it was intended.

American history is complicated and there are some pretty ugly spots. All in all, I regard myself as very lucky to live here. That is very different from claiming perfection or anything near it. The best way to honor our history is to acknowledge our history. The good, the bad, the ugly. And then try to do better. Slavery is part of our history, Lee is part of our history, I expect he thought he was doing right. It wasn't right, it was wrong. Almost all Americans now say it was wrong, and I think most Americans do actually believe that it was wrong. It is long past time to make that clear.

 

Most if not all statues are symbolic statements. In the case of statues honoring the leaders of the Confederacy, anyone can see what the symbolic message is. If we do not want to convey that message, we should stop sending it.

BARMAR--- can you create a SUPER-LIKE button please?????

 

By the way, barmar, love the military war versus culture war reference. Language and semantics matter in politics and rhetoric and you are spot-on.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1865/06/07/news/negro-suffrage.html . June 1865 Letter from the New York Times after the Civil War is over

[steve2005]

Do you fail to understand that the legality I mentioned was the act of treason? If you think treasonous behavior should be memorialized, you have that right. Perhaps we should add Robert Hannsen and Aldrich Ames to your list, as well.

Yes, but US is a land of free speech. US is very reticent to pass laws against such things. There have been laws passed against people profiting from their crimes. I don't believe their is a law that says people can't do things to memorialize criminals even traitors. I don't know US law so maybe there is. But in general US law usually allows such things.

I didn't say it was right to memorialize criminals.

 

 

[blackshoe]

Lee did not commit treason. He resigned his commission in the US Army, where he had served honorably for more than a quarter of a century, and retired to his home state.

 

In a letter to his sister, written the same day he resigned his commission, Lee said:

 

Now we are in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn; and though I recognise no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State.

With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword. I know you will blame me; but you must think as kindly of me as you can, and believe that I have endeavoured to do what I thought right.

 

There was and is no provision in the US Constitution prohibiting States from seceding from the Union. To the contrary, the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence state outright that

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Under the Constitution, these United States are a federation of sovereign states. We should not lose sight of that.

[Winstonm]

Lee did not commit treason. He resigned his commission in the US Army, where he had served honorably for more than a quarter of a century, and retired to his home state.

 

In a letter to his sister, written the same day he resigned his commission, Lee said:

 

 

 

There was and is no provision in the US Constitution prohibiting States from seceding from the Union. To the contrary, the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence state outright that

Under the Constitution, these United States are a federation of sovereign states. We should not lose sight of that.

 

The Civil War ended the idea that secession was or is legal. There still is in the constitution a prohibition called treason for "making war against the United States". At the time of the Civil War, Lee was still an American citizen. Hence, treasonous. He lost his citizenship for making war against the U.S. and was never fully pardoned until Gerald Ford reinstated his citizenship.

[nige1]

No, you worthless neo Confederate piece of *****

Hrothgar argues against hurting minority feelings :)

[barmar]

Yes, but US is a land of free speech. US is very reticent to pass laws against such things. There have been laws passed against people profiting from their crimes. I don't believe their is a law that says people can't do things to memorialize criminals even traitors. I don't know US law so maybe there is. But in general US law usually allows such things.

I didn't say it was right to memorialize criminals.

Wintonm was not claiming that it's illegal to memorialize Lee. When he said "legal argument" and "moral argument", he was referring to the fact that Lee did things that were both legally wrong (commit treason) and morally wrong (the reason he committed treason was to promote slavery), and these are reasons why we shouldn't celebrate him with memorials.

[RedSpawn]

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/15/confederate-statues-washington-241663

 

The statue situation @ the Capitol. . .

[RedSpawn]

They may not have owned slaves themselves, but they were fighting to defend the rights of those who did. And they benefited from the economy that depended on slavery.

 

This is one of the problems with trying to have a discussion about the Civil War, there are still too many people promoting these fallacies that slavery was not the primary issue it was fought over. Revisionist history is how people try to assuage their guilt from celebrating their southern heritage.

[RedSpawn]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/08/19/duke_university_removes_robert_e_lee_statue_days_after_it_was_vandalized.html

 

The Duke University statue situation. . . .

[RedSpawn]

On "Meet the Press" Andrew Young got too real. . .

 

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/08/20/andrew-young-dont-blame-the-klan-or-uneducated-white-people/

 

This morning, civil rights icon, former Atlanta mayor and former UN ambassador Andrew Young joined “Meet the Press,” telling moderator Chuck Todd that President Trump is “still politicking and thinking nationally, as a nationalist” and that he “made a mistake in thinking that living was easy and it just is not.”

 

Young also spoke to the controversy of removing Confederate monuments and the associated costs, especially in Georgia.

CHUCK TODD: And joining me now is one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement: former UN ambassador, former mayor of Atlanta, former member of Congress Andy Young. Ambassador Young, welcome back to Meet the Press, sir.

 

ANDREW YOUNG: Thank you very much.

 

CHUCK TODD: Put this week in context.

 

ANDREW YOUNG: Well, it’s a week of misunderstandings. We originally sought to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of race, war and poverty. Most of the issues that we’re dealing with now are related to poverty. But we still want to put everything in a racial context. The problem with the – and the reason I feel uncomfortable condemning the Klan types is – they are almost the poorest of the poor. They are the forgotten Americans. And, um, they have been used and abused and neglected. Instead of giving them affordable health care, they give them black lung jobs, and they’re happy. And that just doesn’t make sense in today’s world. And they see progress in the black community and on television and everywhere and they don’t share it. Now it’s not our fault. We’ve had a struggle from slavery. But black – while they call themselves militants, but they’re not militants, they’re chicken – we never tried to take advantage of anybody else. Our job was not to put down white people. Our job was to lift everybody up together. To come – so that we would learn to live together as brothers and sisters rather than perish together as fools. And that’s been the way I have done it. And everything – as Congress, at the UN, as mayor for eight years. But all the way back in the early sixties, when we were marching with no support and no vote protection and, actually in St. Augustine in ’64, the Klan was deputized by the sheriff and given license to beat us up. And – people still insisted on marching down there every night. And then the Saturday when the Klan wanted to march in the black community, I was a little nervous. But when they marched down spontaneously, the same people that had been beaten, sang “I love everybody, I love everybody in my heart.” And I think the juxtaposition of the violence and the hostility of the Klan and the spirituality and forgiveness of the black community, was the thing that probably broke the filibuster in 1964 and, and gave us the Civil Rights Bill, which offered us a significant number of protections – not everything; we didn’t make everything right – but the answer is to continue to make everything better for everybody.

 

 

CHUCK TODD: It feels like we’re in a moment where we’re stuck and we’re stuck for a lot of reasons. And the, and the president – you have, some have even said, there’s a growing cabal of folks who believe he has already lost his moral authority to be a healer in all of this, to help with reconciliation in all of this because of what he did on Tuesday. You have a relationship with him, with the president, off and on.

 

ANDREW YOUNG: Not really.

 

CHUCK TODD: Fair enough. But you take his calls. If he calls, you take his calls. If he called you this week, what would you tell him. How would you tell him to fix this?

 

ANDREW YOUNG: I don’t know what I would say because I think he’s caught in a trap. I don’t think there are any easy answers.

 

 

CHUCK TODD: What’s the trap?

 

ANDREW YOUNG: The trap is that he’s still politicking and thinking nationally, as a nationalist, and so is almost everybody else, including those who are trying to think back and blame it on the Civil War, which was hundreds of years ago. But the problem we have is that we’re not living in a nationalist environment. And that’s also his problem, personally, that he’s– his business is all global. His business is in a global economy and he’s trying to the run the country from a national economy. Now Atlanta hasn’t done that. You know, I mean, yea, Ronald Reagan, when he announced his presidency in 1980, went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three Civil Rights workers were killed, two white and one black. And so we knew we couldn’t depend on him for any moral authority. But what we did in Atlanta was – ironically, Washington has 20 trillion dollars or 22 trillion dollars or so in debt. Wall Street has seemingly unlimited money. So Atlanta forgot Washington, and we went to Wall Street. And so our airport — we’ve probably gotten 30 billion dollars out of Wall Street over the last 40 years, but that airport is making over 40 billion dollars every year and it’s creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. We didn’t have an expansion and growth in American business, so I went to Germany. And Germany was building things, German and Japan were building things faster than they could sell them. And I said you all have to be in the U.S. market to survive in the 21st century. We now have 2,500 German companies in and around the city of Atlanta and they’re creating jobs; they’re not taking jobs, taking jobs from Germany. But they’re hiring Americans, black and white and Hispanic and Asian. And that’s a long way because I grew up in New Orleans in 1936. I was — the German American Bund and headquarters of the Nazi party was 50 yards from where I was born. So I’ve been dealing with Nazism and white supremacy since I was four years old. And my father said, “Look, that’s a sickness. You don’t ever let them get you upset and don’t ever get angry at sick people. You don’t get mad. You get smart. You don’t want – they cannot help you. But if you can help them, you ought to try.”

 

CHUCK TODD: Let me go back to the president, though, because you said something interesting in May. You said, you don’t know yet how to help him because you don’t want to be used and, in January when you talked to him, you said you still had hope. Where are you now? You just said, you don’t know what, quite–you don’t know how he can get out of his trap. So what would you say to him now if he’s asking you for help?

 

ANDREW YOUNG: I don’t know. But for instance, I think that he made a mistake in thinking that living was easy and it just is not. I mean, it’s hell to pass a bill. It’s hell to change an attitude. It’s hell. And almost any changes and — I tell you what — I admire his family. And I think that the thing that the president has to do is think of the American people, all of us, as his family. And I try to think of him as a potential leader, not only of the United States of America, but a leader of the free world and of the enslaved world. And I know it’s crazy, but I saw Bannon carrying a book going to Tehran some months ago at one of the press conferences and I’d read that book and it’s a very accurate history of America’s relationship with Iran and I was just thrilled that he was reading that because I don’t think the president has had time to study foreign affairs. But there was also–somebody said from the White House said that there is no military solution to North Korea. And whoever said that was wise and true, but there’s almost no military solution to any problem we face. But there are socio-economic solutions to every problem we face and there’s spiritual solutions. The last time I really spent any time with President Trump was at Maya Angelou’s 80th birthday party and he was at a gospel breakfast and everybody was singing and shouting and Maya Angelou probably knew that this was one of her last occasions so it was one of the most intense spiritual experiences that I have been in and I have been in a lot. And I would just hope that he could remember that moment and remember the spiritual power that was in the room. And that’s the spiritual power that he needs to guide him, if he’s going to guide this nation and the world.

 

 

CHUCK TODD:

I want to ask you a couple of other sort of thorny topics that have come out of Charlottesville. One is this rise of a violent opposition to white supremacy, this so called Antifa movement we going to have a debate about it later in the show between somebody who advocates it, somebody who doesn’t. You come from the non-violence movement. That was successful. What do you say to those activists, two generations later who thinks violence is the right way to go?

 

ANDREW YOUNG:

No it’s more like five generations later and there were those who thought violence the was that right way then. And they aren’t around and they weren’t killed by white people. They were killed by their own anger and frustration and their inability to turn down their emotions and turn on their mind. And, from 4-years-old I was always taught–my father use to tap me in the face to try to get me upset and if I swung back at him he would slap me upside my head. He said see, if you start getting emotional in a fight, you’re going to lose the fight. Don‘t get mad, get smart. And that’s been serving–that served me well. And it served me walking in the midst of the Klan alone at night without a gun, without police protection, and the only reason I did it was because the only ones that were courageous enough to go there with me and who insisted that I go were women and children. The men, you know, hide behind militant solutions, but we have to keep our eyes on the prize – and the prize is not vengeance, not getting even, but the prize is redemption. And you cannot forgive -I mean the, the people we should look up to are the members of Mother Emanuel AME Church, who looked at this young man who shot 9 of their members with forgiveness. And what they thought, you know, it didn’t mean bringing the flag down. It meant giving that boy affordable health care – that the mental section– the mental evaluations that should go with an affordable health care would do more to help these angry people, black and white, because the world is in a tremendous strain. It’s not the United States, it’s not racial. This is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant revolution. It was started by the printing press. We had wars from almost 1500, and we didn’t finally get the world together until 1954, I mean 1944, with Franklin Roosevelt, and the United Nations and the World Bank and we made sense of the world, and we created an economy that grew at about 6 percent annually. From the 40s’ right into the 70s when for some reason they broke it up.

 

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you finally on the issues of Confederate symbols on this debate. You’ve had to deal with it in Atlanta, Atlanta is going to deal with it. It may become a lightning rod issue in the Democratic primaries in the state of Georgia – Stone Mountain is already a target there. You’re not someone who says take them all down. How would you try to resolve this dispute?

 

ANDREW YOUNG:

I remind people what it costs us to take down the Confederate flag. It cost us an election and that election cost us 14.9 billion dollars and 70,000 healthcare jobs that we would have had in Georgia if we had not gotten to foolin’ with that flag. It costs us the perimeter. We had an outer perimeter where we have been collecting land and designing it and it was ready for construction. And the first thing the next governor did was sell all that land to his friends, and every time any Atlantians are caught in traffic or anyone tries to come through there, they need to remember that the flag put them there. They got a Confederate flag, wave the Confederate flag and be happy, while you’re sitting in traffic. We have run this city since the business community in 1960 took out ads saying we are a city too busy to hate and that’s been what brought us far. We were less than half a million people, we’re now 6 and a half million people. We’re growing, prosperous; we got an education environment where anybody who can get a B average can go to college-free. And anything you want you can fight for it in Georgia, but you can’t fight to keep somebody else down or if you want to make somebody else you’re going to lose and you’re going to be abused and you’re going to undo some of the gains we have made and none of these–a lot of these people are as old as me that are now militant. I don’t know where they were back in the 50s’ and 60s’. And now they when it’s safe, when it’s cheap, they want to get over and get loud. They ought to quiet down and get to work. Register some voters, teach some children, treat their wives a little better, and, and learn what it means to be man in the 21st century.

 

CHUCK TODD:

And finally –

 

ANDREW YOUNG:

It doesn’t matter what color you are. That lesson goes for everybody and any color.

 

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you my final question. Mitt Romney wants the president to apologize for his remarks on Tuesday. Do you think the president needs to do that?

 

ANDREW YOUNG:

I think the president needs to apologize for McConnell, for giving people black-lung jobs instead of affordable healthcare. I don’t want to pick on the uneducated white people and blame them. We got a lot of educated powerful white people who abuse themselves, their own people and us more than any violence then the Klan has, can inflict on us.

(bold and italics mine)

 

CHUCK TODD:

I will leave it there. Sir, thank you for coming on and sharing your views.

[RedSpawn]

They may not have owned slaves themselves, but they were fighting to defend the rights of those who did. And they benefited from the economy that depended on slavery.

 

This is one of the problems with trying to have a discussion about the Civil War, there are still too many people promoting these fallacies that slavery was not the primary issue it was fought over. Revisionist history is how people try to assuage their guilt from celebrating their southern heritage.

This right here shuts ALL of that down:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

Cornerstone Speech

 

The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.

 

Delivered extemporaneously a few weeks before the Confederacy would start the American Civil War by firing on the U.S. Army at Fort Sumter, Stephens' speech applauded white supremacy, defended the enslavement of Africans and African Americans, explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederacy and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between U.S. and Confederate ideologies and beliefs, and laid out the Confederacy's causes for declaring secession.

 

The Cornerstone Speech became so known for Stephens's declaration that the perpetuation of slavery was the principal goal and purpose of the secession and the Confederacy:

 

Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] 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. [1]

The speech was given weeks after the secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and then Texas and less than three weeks after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th United States president. The war itself would not begin until Fort Sumter was attacked in mid-April, so open large-scale hostilities between the two sides had not yet begun. (There had been isolated incidents such as the attack on the Star of the West steamship.) White inhabitants of the seceding states treated Federal officials peacefully, encouraging personnel such as postmasters to switch loyalties or leave for the North without insult. Referring to the general lack of violence, Stephens stated that the seceding states' declarations of secession had been accomplished without "the loss of a single drop of blood".

 

The 'Cornerstone'

Stephens' speech declared that disagreements over the enslavement of Africans was the "immediate cause" of secession, and that the Confederate Constitution had resolved such issues:

 

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among 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... 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 idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."

Stephens contended that advances and progress in the sciences proved that the eighteenth-century view that "all men are created equal" was erroneous, and that all men were not created equal.[2] He stated that advances in science proved that enslavement of African Americans by white men was justified, and that it coincided with the Bible's teachings.[2] He also stated that the Confederacy was the first country in the world founded on the principle of racial supremacy:

 

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; 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. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

 

Stephens stated that the Confederacy's belief in human inequality was adhering to the "laws of nature":

 

. . . look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgement of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws.

The phrases "laws of nature" and "all men are created equal", from the United States Declaration of Independence, had formed part of the basis of Abraham Lincoln's assertion that he was defending the principles of the Founders of the United States (albeit many of whom owned slaves themselves).[3] Democrats such as John C. Calhoun and Stephen A. Douglas had differing views on what the phrase meant. Calhoun had contended that the idea was peculiar to Thomas Jefferson, and not a universal principle,[3] whereas Douglas maintained that it referred to white men only.[4] Stephens' assertion, in this context, has been read as validating Lincoln's reading of the Founders' principles and countering with an assertion of "racial inequality".[3]

 

After the Confederacy's defeat at the hands of the Union in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, Stephens attempted to retract the opinions made in his speech. Denying his earlier statements that slavery was the Confederacy's cause for leaving the Union, he contended, to the contrary, that he thought that the war was rooted in constitutional differences.[5]

 

The speech also outlined how the Confederate constitution eliminated the tariff and prohibited the central government from spending on internal improvements. The reasoning was on a States Rights argument with the Georgia Railroad as a first example:

 

The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron — no small item in the aggregate cost — was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere?

 

...

 

If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden.

Stephens believed that the new country would have a clear delineation between federal and state responsibilities, and took the position similar to that of South Carolina during the nullification crisis: that the federal government should not pay for internal improvements.

 

Stephens, in effect, accuses the North of slavemongering in its attempt to retain the border states for their tax revenues derived from slavery.

 

The first change was apparently very important to Stephens and he would have made the constitution even closer to the British system, but he felt it was still an improvement over the old constitution. That

cabinet ministers and heads of departments may have the privilege of seats upon the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives and may have the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon the various subjects of administration

 

As an example, in the U.S. Constitution, the Secretary of the Treasury had no chance to explain his budget or to be held accountable except by the press.

 

Also, the president was to serve a single six-year term in the hope that it would "remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition."

 

The seven states then seceded, Stephens thought, were sufficient to form a successful republic, with a population of five million (including blacks) and a land area larger than that of France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom combined. The seven states contained taxable property of $2,200,000,000 and debts of only $18,000,000 (where the remaining United States had a debt of $174,000,000).

 

The Confederate constitution allowed new states to join easily. Stephens said that surely North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas would be members in the near future, and that Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri would eventually join.

 

Stephens expected the swift evacuation of Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold in South Carolina, but what "course will be pursued toward Fort Pickens, and the other forts on the gulf, is not so well understood." Since the new republic had been born bloodless, he wanted that to continue and to make peace "not only with the North, but with the world." Even so, he expected the North would not follow a peaceful course:

 

The principles and position of the present Administration of the United States--the Republican Party--present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed principle with them, never to allow the increase of a foot of Slave Territory, they seem to be equally determined not to part with an inch “of the accursed soil.” Notwithstanding their clamor against the institution, they seemed to be equally opposed to getting more, or letting go what they have got. They were ready to fight on the accession of Texas, and are equally ready to fight now on her secession. Why is this? How can this strange paradox be accounted for? There seems to be but one rational solution--and that is, notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after--though they come from the labor of the slave.

Finally, Stephens predicted that the new nation would succeed or fail based on the character of its constituent body politic.

 

During the war, when the Confederacy refused to release black U.S. soldiers in exchange for captured Confederates, Benjamin F. Butler referred to the speech, telling the Confederates that "your fabric of opposition to the Government of the United States has the right of property in man as its corner-stone."[6]

 

Historian Harry V. Jaffa discusses the speech at length in his book, A New Birth of Freedom. He concludes that "this remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy."[7] Jaffa equated the racism of Stephens' and the Confederacy to that of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, stating the two were not that different in principle:

 

Stephens's prophecy of the Confederacy's future resembles nothing so much as Hitler's prophecies of the Thousand-Year Reich. Nor are their theories very different.

 

Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-8476-9952-0. Archived from the original on March 30, 2016. This remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy. From the end of Reconstruction until after World War II, the idea of racial inequality gripped the territory of the former Confederacy, and not only of the former Confederacy, more profoundly than it had done under slavery. Nor is its influence by any means at an end. Stephens's prophecy of the Confederacy's future resembles nothing so much as Hitler's prophecies of the Thousand-Year Reich. Nor are their theories very different. Stephens, unlike Hitler, spoke only of one particular race as inferior.

[Chas_P]

My wife (of 57 years) grew up in Crawfordville, Georgia...the home of Alexander H. Stephens. His homeplace, Liberty Hall, is preserved there as a museum; there is also a Confederate museum next door; I have been through both many times; there is a state park there named for him...A. H. Stephens state park. At the end of the war between the states Stephens came back to Georgia and was elected Governor. He died in office shortly after his inauguration and was buried in Oakland cemetery in Atlanta. His remains were later exhumed and re-buried in the front yard of Liberty Hall and a statue erected there. Should this statue be taken down and the museum shuttered, would my wife's life be diminished? I doubt it. She will always have happy memories of growing up in a small town in middle Georgia where black folks worked for (and were well-paid) by her folks and were actually considered a part of the family. Should the statue be taken down and the museum shuttered, would the kooks who are fomenting all this hysteria lives be enriched? I doubt it unless there is some vicarious delight in knowing that you have stirred up a bunch of crap. If Antifa, BLM, Democratic Socialists of America, etc. etc. are actually concerned about the average American...either black or white...they need to offer solutions for better health insurance, lower taxes, more jobs, etc...things that actually matter to the average American. Re-fighting a war that ended over 152 years ago is both futile and foolish.

[RedSpawn]

My wife (of 57 years) grew up in Crawfordville, Georgia...the home of Alexander H. Stephens. His homeplace, Liberty Hall, is preserved there as a museum; there is also a Confederate museum next door; I have been through both many times; there is a state park there named for him...A. H. Stephens state park. At the end of the war between the states Stephens came back to Georgia and was elected Governor. He died in office shortly after his inauguration and was buried in Oakland cemetery in Atlanta. His remains were later exhumed and re-buried in the front yard of Liberty Hall and a statue erected there. Should this statue be taken down and the museum shuttered, would my wife's life be diminished? I doubt it. She will always have happy memories of growing up in a small town in middle Georgia where black folks worked for (and were well-paid) by her folks and were actually considered a part of the family. Should the statue be taken down and the museum shuttered, would the kooks who are fomenting all this hysteria lives be enriched? I doubt it unless there is some vicarious delight in knowing that you have stirred up a bunch of crap. If Antifa, BLM, Democratic Socialists of America, etc. etc. are actually concerned about the average American...either black or white...they need to offer solutions for better health insurance, lower taxes, more jobs, etc...things that actually matter to the average American. Re-fighting a war that ended over 152 years ago is both futile and foolish.

Honestly, I don't think the statues need to come down but one can not suggest that raising a Confederate flag at a government or corporate office is not an explicit, if not implicit endorsement of the slavery or the subordination or subjugation of a group of people solely based on skin color; it also symbolizes the principles upon which the Confederacy was formed which is the notion of racial superiority in the Antebellum South.

 

Flags are symbols and symbols have overt and hidden meaning; therefore we must be intellectually honest about what thoughts, words, and character these flags are displaying to the general public. Same analysis applies to these statues. These statues were erected post Reconstruction; after federal troops left the 5 military zones in the South; and during the happy years of sanctioned Jim Crow segregation which was the Reconstructed South's way of restoring the old order of placing the Negro to his rightful place at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder.

 

Again, what are the statues paying tribute to and exactly who are they honoring and in what historical context? I bet if you ask the average American citizen these questions, he will feel attacked and uncomfortable trying to address these valid concerns. He may even call you misguided and foolish for asking such questions and for attempting to obtain clarification of the underlying values and belief systems attached to these "harmless" flags and statues.

 

American society prefers African-Americans to take the higher moral road; forget about that destructive peculiar institution and its social conditioning of the masses for centuries; and not challenge the physical and political display of flags and statues that sow seeds of division and subliminally honor the old order/establishment.

 

Intriguing. . .

[awm]

It may be relevant that very few of these confederate monuments were erected by people who fought in (or even remembered) the Civil War. Instead, most were put up in the 1950s and 1960s as a way of opposing the civil rights movement.

 

Much as the racists claim that these people were heroes who happened to be on the wrong side of a war and that remembering them is part of our history... it really is all about bigotry and oppression.

[Al_U_Card]

The ignorance (bigotry) of the oppression by whom? What ever happened to the Occupy Wall Street movement? When attention is getting too close for comfort, diversion and subterfuge is required. Or perhaps the 1% (and especially the 0.01%) are not really oppressing anyone, they are just trying to get along......sure they are...

 

WARNING: The following video is by a Charlottesville protester, already outed on social media, and will likely push a lot of buttons. Heart meds at the ready...set...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn8BITsk0fE