SCLoS Historian

Thornwell on politics in church

2008-05-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. John C. Hagee, and Father Michael Pfleger share at least one assumption: that politics has a place in the pulpit. Presbyterian pastor, educator, and theologian James Henley Thornwell (1812-1862) had something to say about that error.

A South Carolinian, Thornwell was instrumental in founding the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. Southern Presbyterians set up their own denomination only after their Northern brethren, in the 1861 General Assembly, voted to make loyalty to the United States a religious obligation.

The Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina met in Abbeville in November of that year. While these ministers and elders were assembled, they unanimously declared their personal loyalty to their country. The Confederacy was struggling for its survival in an “ unjust, cruel, and tyrannical” war, its success “ the only hope of constitutional liberty, on this continent.” They went on to endorse President Davis’ call for a day of fasting and prayer. But the Abbeville resolution was passed by men acting, they were careful to emphasize, “ not in their ecclesiastical capacity as a court of Jesus Christ, but in their private capacity.” Despite the passions of war, they understood that the church must be above politics or even patriotism. Thornwell had taught them well.

The following quotations (taken from The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, published in 4 volumes) speak to the sorry situation that exists in America today, as churchmen of the right and left, black and white, confuse their own opinions with the Gospel.

During the twenty-five years in which I have fulfilled my course as a preacher– all of which have been spent in my native State, and nearly all in this city [Columbia, South Carolina]– I have never introduced secular politics into the instructions of the pulpit. It has been a point of conscience with me to know no party in the State. Questions of law and public administration I have left to the tribunals appointed to settle them, and have confined my exhortations to those great matters that pertain immediately to the kingdom of God. I have left it to Cæ sar to take care of his own rights, and have insisted only upon the supreme rights of the Almighty. The angry disputes of the forum I have excluded from the house of the Lord. And while all classes have been exhorted to the discharge of their common duties, as men, as citizens, as members of the family, while the sanctions of religion have, without scruple, been applied to all the relations of life, whether public or private, civil or domestic, the grounds of dissension which divide the community into parties, and range its members under different banners, have not been permitted to intrude into the sanctuary. The business of a preacher, as such, is to expound the Word of God. He has no commission to go beyond the teaching of the Scriptures. He has no authority to expound to senators the Constitution of the State, nor to interpret for judges the law of the land. In the civil and political sphere the dead must bury their dead. [“ Sermon on National Sins,” CW4, 511]

The Church, it is true, is to declare and enforce revealed Truth, and, among other duties, she is to enjoin obedience to the powers that be. But when the question arises, who and what those powers are, and how far obedience must be carried, the Church must remit the answer to the civil tribunals of the land, and to the dictates of the individual conscience. She has no commission from her Lord to declare what form of government any people shall adopt, how long they shall continue to maintain it, or under what circumstances they shall change it. Her members, as citizens, may and should take an active part in all discussions of the kind, but her courts, as authoritative tribunals of Christ, must be as silent as their Master. General principles she may and must announce— the eternal principles of the moral law; but their concrete application to political constitutions and political changes does not fall within the limits of her power. [“ Reasons for Separate Organization,” CW4, 440]

If she [the church] undertakes to meddle with the things of Cæ sar, she must expect to be crushed by the sword of Cæ sar. If she condescends to put herself upon the level with the countless institutes which philanthropy or folly has contrived for the earthly good of the race, she must expect to share the fate of human devices and expedients. She is of God, and if she forgets that it is her Divine prerogative to speak in the name and by the authority of God– if she relinquishes the dialect of Canaan, and stoops to babble in the dialects of earth– she must expect to be treated as a babbler .... We have seen the experiment tried in certain quarters of reducing the Church to the condition of a voluntary society, aiming at the promotion of universal good. We have seen her treated as a contrivance for every species of reform— individual, social, political. We have seen her foremost, under the plea of philanthropy, in every species of moral knight-errantry, from the harmless project of a pin-cushion club, to the formation of conspiracies for convulsing governments to their very centre. The result has been precisely what might have been expected. Christ has been expelled from these pulpits, and almost the only Gospel which is left them is the gospel of the Age of Reason. [“ Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church,” CW2, 45– 47]

Jesus Christ is the only king in Zion— the Bible, the only statute-book He has given to His people, and whatever is beside, or contrary to it, is no part of the faith or duty of the Church. [“ The Revised Book of Discipline,” CW4, 312]

[T]he Church is not at liberty to speculate. She has a creed, but no opinions. When she speaks, it must be in the name of the Lord, and her only argument is Thus it is written. [“ The Relation of the Church to Slavery,” CW4, 384]

NOTHING EVER CHANGES

2008-04-11T16:07:00.000-07:00

Demonstrators demanding freedom for Tibet, and protesting China's abysmal human rights record, created a furor around the world as the Olympic torch made its way from Greece to the site of the summer games in Beijing. The flame was actually extinguished on several occasions. Lost in the news coverage was the origin of the Olympic torch-bearing tradition.

It's not that old, and certainly doesn't go back to ancient Greece. As Chinese dictators hope to burnish the image of their regime in hosting the 2008 games, the XI Olympiad held in Berlin in 1936 was a grand opportunity for the Third Reich to put on a public relations spectacle. What better way to symbolize the supposed continuity of classical civilization with their own "New World Order" than to light a flame at Mt. Olympus and bear it to the capital of the Reich? A mirror made in Germany by the Zeiss corporation focused the sun to light a torch, fabricated of steel-clad magnesium by Krupp, which was then run by relay to Berlin, the event lovingly covered by Josef Goebbels. The route taken was through southeastern and central Europe, countries that would soon be overrun by the armed forces of National Socialism.

Hitler's Germany permitted capitalism but allowed no political freedom. It's only fitting that the People's Republic of China, today's largest fascist state, continue to carry the torch.

Is Racism Only a White Problem?

2008-03-15T04:53:00.000-07:00

Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the 8,000 member congregation where Barack Obama is a member, has finally garnered some of the scrutiny he so richly deserved. Sen. Obama, now that he is about to clinch the Democratic nomination for president, has at last distanced himself from his longtime friend.

"Hillary ain't never been called a nigger," observed the reverend on one occasion as he denounced the privileged Clinton and boosted Barack. Will the preacher's promotion of politics from the pulpit cause his church to lose its tax exempt status? You know the answer to that.

Will Rev. Wright's retirement quiet the controversy? Probably. But the problem is not just Wright, but the blatantly racist church he led. According to their own website, Obama's church promulgates a "Black Value System," and proclaims itself "a congregation which is Unashamedly Black." [Capitalized in the original.] "We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization ... We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community."

If a white candidate belonged to some cult that promised to minister only to whites, held up something called a "white value system," and promoted Eurocentrism, would not that “church” be denounced— and rightly so? Aren’t all Christians to uphold their Creator’s value system?

The Bible clearly teaches that God is concerned about individuals and their relationship with Himself. He sent Jesus to die for the sins of mankind, and He calls all to repentance and salvation. If God is colorblind, can His church be anything less?

The problem here is double-mindedness on the part of those calling themselves Christian. Rev. Wright’s rhetorical indiscretions got him in trouble, but his church continues to promote racialist nonsense. When will this congregation—and its most prominent member—be called to account for the sin of racism?

Our "Civil Religion"

2008-01-24T10:43:00.000-08:00

From The Myth of a Christian Nation, by Gregory A. Boyd:

"No version of the kingdom of the world is closer to the kingdom of God than others because it does its job relatively well. For God's kingdom looks like Jesus, and no amount of sword-wielding, however just it may be, can ever get a person, government, nation, or world closer to that. The kingdom of God is not an ideal version of the kingdom of the world; it's not something that any version of the kingdom of the world can aspire toward or be measured against. The kingdom of God is a completely distinct, alternative way of doing life."

"If you peal back the facade of the civil religion, you find that America is about as pagan as any country we could ever send missionaries to .... The fact that we have a quasi-Christian civil religion doesn't help; if anything, it hurts precisely because it creates the illusion in the minds of kingdom people that we are closer to the example of Jesus than we actually are."

Here they go again

2008-01-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

Liberals claim to be outraged over supposedly “racist” and “inflammatory” statements made in a Ron Paul publication fifteen or twenty years ago, by a staff writer unknown to the congressman. We’re still waiting for the media to mention another presidential candidate’s church. To refresh your memory we repeat our comments first posted here, on the SCLoS Historian blog, on August 26 of last year:

Picture the headlines: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ADMITS MEMBERSHIP IN RACIST CHURCH.

The church in question, it was discovered, openly promulgates a “White Value System,” and proclaims itself “a congregation which is Unashamedly White.” “We are a European people, and remain ‘true to our native land,’ the mother continent, the cradle of civilization … We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a White worship service and ministries which address the White Community.”

Don’t get excited. This is all made up. But can’t you imagine the “breaking news,” the denunciations by civil rights leaders, the candidate stuttering to explain, and then withdrawing in disgrace?

Well, it’s not entirely made up. The statements quoted above are taken from the website of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the 8,000-member congregation where Dr. Jeremiah Wright is senior pastor. And where Sen. Barack Obama is a member. All we’ve done is insert the words “White” in place of “Black,” and “European” in place of “African.”

No need to dwell on the liberal double-standard when it comes to the “R-word.” We all know how that works. What seems most striking though, is this church’s double-mindedness. Shouldn’t Christians seek to uphold their Creator’s value system, not one based on race (whatever that means)? Those in Rev. Wright’s flock may prefer the company of those who look like themselves, but the Savior’s church cannot be built on bigotry.

Lincoln's Unnecessary War

2008-01-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

Liberal sensitivities were shocked one more time when presidential candidate Ron Paul suggested that the American “ Civil War” didn't have to happen. AOL went on to conduct a poll, asking people if they too believe that Lincoln was wrong to wage the most costly war in American history. As of this writing over 90,000 have responded, with the YES vote in 31 states prevailing. Granted, it's not a scientific survey, but we can only conclude that thinking people are beginning to question Lincoln and his war.

The real Lincoln is very different from the demigod generations of Americans have been taught to worship. Some admirers claim that Lincoln was a “benevolent dictator.” Judge Andrew Napolitano responded to this in his recent book, The Constitution in Exile. “The numerous civilians who were injured by Lincoln’s troops, the citizens whose homes were burned and destroyed, and the parents and wives who lost their loved ones in the … War would certainly not have called him a ‘benevolent dictator.’” Judge Napolitano concluded that “The bloodiest war in American history could have been avoided. But, with very little regard for honesty, Lincoln increased federal power and assaulted the Constitution.”

Thomas DiLorenzo, in his groundbreaking book The Real Lincoln, made it very clear what “saving the Union” meant: “[Lincoln] wanted to use military force to destroy once and for all the doctrines of federalism and states’ rights that had, since the founding of the republic, frustrated ambitious politicians like himself who wanted a highly centralized and greatly enlarged state.” Lincoln destroyed the voluntary Union of the states, replacing it with a consolidated, coercive government the Founding Fathers would not have recognized.

Prof. DiLorenzo likened Lincoln's “saving the Union” to a man who was abusing his wife, causing her to leave him. The man goes out and grabs her, beats her up, drags her back into the house, and says, “If you leave again I'll kill you!” Can that man be applauded for having “saved the marriage” ?

"Total war had made its lethal debut"

2007-12-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

"By the end of the [Civil War] the process of radicalization made possible by identifying war aims with a humanitarian cause had turned the conflict into a merciless and bloody war of attrition in which the Confederacy did not figure as a real state with any legitimate humanitarian claim to existence. Southerners had become in the eyes of their opponents subhuman demons defending a reactionary order, a dark power dedicated to block the forward march of emancipatory progress. One need only read the newspaper accounts of the day to understand that this is no exaggeration. Confederate efforts to reach a settlement were thus rebuffed and 'total' war had made its lethal debut.
***********
"The history of the modern age is written largely in celebration of this disastrous shift in ethical authority. Those who oppose it are depicted as history’s villains when they lose. The million young Southern men who tolerated four years of merciless deprivation and war, convinced as they fell that they were defending their homes and families, now figure in our national story as bigoted racists who devoted their efforts to the utterly unjust defense of a repressive and anti-humanitarian status quo. Their very battle flag has become a symbol of evil."

Dr. T. H. Pickett, "War, Power, and Supremacy:
A Conservative Interpretation," Modern Age, Summer 2006, pages 200 and 204.

James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) Confederate Hero

2007-11-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

As Confederates marched off to defend their independence in 1861, they were stirred by such songs as “We Conquer or Die.”

The war drum is beating, prepare for the fight!
The stern, bigot Northman exults in his might.

The composer, James Pierpont, knew the enemy firsthand. Southerners would have been surprised to learn that he was a Bostonian, the son of a fanatical abolitionist! In 1863 Pierpont published another great Confederate war song, “Strike for the South.”

Strike for the South! It must never be said
that her banner was furled to the foe.
Let those stars ever shine in bright glory above,
and the pathway to victory show!

When the war came Pierpont was in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked as music director at the Unitarian church, and he joined the First Georgia Cavalry Regiment. He would share the bitterness of defeat with his adopted Southland, never returning to the North. After the war he taught in Quitman, Florida, and was organist at the Presbyterian church there. He died in Winter Haven, Florida in 1893, and at his request was buried in Savannah—far from his frigid Massachusetts birthplace.

Before the war young Pierpont had written a number of sentimental songs. In 1850 he composed a winter ballad for a Boston Sunday school entertainment. He published the sheet music in 1857. It was a bright, happy song of young people reveling in the snow-filled New England countryside. Not until the twentieth century did his tune become a Christmas favorite. Over the years its popularity grew. A Bing Crosby/Andrews Sisters recording in 1943 sold over a million discs.

This Christmas season when you hear children singing “Jingle Bells” remember the composer, James Pierpont. Here was a man who let go family and his native land that he might serve a truly noble cause—that he might “Strike for the South.”

Missouri Wildfires

2007-10-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

The exodus of Californians fleeing recent wildfires has been characterized by TV media as, "the largest peacetime evacuation of Americans since the Civil War."

We're a little confused by their terminology, but the statement may at least be an acknowledgment that such things happened during Lincoln's War.

Non-combatants fled Charleston when that city was shelled by Federal terrorists, and Atlanta was forcibly depopulated after its capture by Billy ("War is Hell") Sherman. Women and children slept in parks and cemeteries when the boys in blue burned Columbia, and wherever the Union-savers appeared, multitudes were left homeless.

But the most horrendous of forced evacuations occurred in occupied Missouri, where Yankees were having a difficult time pacifying the population. On August 25, 1863 Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing issued his infamous Order No. 11. Everyone–more than 20,000 civilians–living in his 3,000 square mile district had fifteen days to get out. Refugees were robbed and murdered as they departed, and their homes were torched. The devastation was so compete, fires often spreading to fields and forests, that the four counties became known as "The Burnt District."

"The order settled the border war," Ewing proudly told the Washington Post. "It was approved by Major General [John] Schofield and by President Lincoln."

Y'all, this was one war the Nazis won.

"Maybe it was hell for some of them Yankees ..."

2007-10-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

Former slave Henry D. Jenkins of Fairfield County, South Carolina, interviewed in 1936:

"When the Yankees come, what they do? They did things they ought not to have done and left undone the things they ought to have done. Yes, that ’bout tells it. One thing you might like to hear. Mistress [Sara Howell, wife of plantation owner Joseph Howell] got all the money, the silver, the gold and the jewels, and got the well digger to hide them in the bottom of the well. Them Yankees smart. When they got there, they asked for the very things at the bottom of the well. Mistress wouldn’t tell. They held a “court of enquiry” in the yard; called slaves up, one by one, good many. Must have been a Judas ’mongst us. Soon a Yankee was let down in the well, and all that money, silver, gold, jewelry, watches, rings, brooches, knives and forks, butter-dishes, waiters, goblets, and cups was took and carried ’ way by an army that seemed more concerned ’bout stealin’, than they was ’bout the Holy War for the liberation of the poor African slave people. They took off all the horses, sheep, cows, chickens, and geese; took the seine and the fishes they caught, corn in crib, meat in smoke-house, and everything. Marse General Sherman said war was hell. It sho’ was. Maybe it was hell for some of them Yankees when they come to die and give account of the deeds they done in Sumter and Richland Counties.”

From SC Slave Narratives, vol. 14, pt. 3, pp. 23, 26; quoted in Walter Brian Cisco, War Crimes Against Southern Civilians (Gretna, LA: Pelican, 2007), pp. 185-6.

Another book we recommend: DOWNSIZING THE U.S.A.

2007-10-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

"We believe the time has come to reconsider secession as a viable option for dealing with our own problems of big government, big military, big business, big labor, and big cities. America has become an unworkable meganation which defies central management and control ... Our states should be allowed to secede from the Union; megastates such as California, Texas, and New York should be permitted to break up; and megalopolises such as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York should be encouraged to downsize and possibly even split with their respective states. Decentralization and devolution are pretend solutions to problems which require radical surgery, not just more political rhetoric."

Thomas H. Naylor and William H. Willimon, Downsizing the U.S.A. (page 241).

"How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him ..." I Kings 18:21

2007-10-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Dr. Gregory A. Boyd told of attending a Fourth of July worship service held at one American mega church. At center stage stood a cross and a huge American flag. After singing praise choruses and patriotic songs, a video was shown.

"The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American flag waving in the back-ground. Majestic, patriotic music now thundered. Suddenly, four fighter jets appeared on the horizon, flew over the crosses, and then split apart. As they roared over the camera, the words "God Bless America" appeared on the screen in front of the crosses.

"The congregation responded with roaring applause, cat-calls, and a standing ovation. I saw several people wiping tears from their eyes. Indeed, as I remained frozen in my seat, I grew teary-eyed as well—but for entirely different reasons. I was struck with horrified grief.

"Thoughts raced through my mind: How could the cross and the sword have been so thoroughly fused without anyone seeming to notice? How could Jesus’ self-sacrificial death be linked with flying killing machines? How could Jesus’ people applaud tragic violence, regardless of why it happened and regardless of how they might benefit from its outcome? How could the kingdom of God be reduced to this sort of violent, nationalistic tribalism?" [From The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2005, page 88.]

A foreign-exchange student from Finland, attending one South Carolina congregation's patriotic service, could only be confused about the true meaning of the Gospel. Amid militaristic flag-waving, the unintended message she received was that Christianity is the exclusive religion of America.

A musician at an Upcountry, SC church respectfully requested that he not be required to sing a hymn that glorified war and military conquest. That brother was asked to go.

At another self-proclaimed "Bible-believing" church in the SC Midlands, a family was told to leave when they declined to pledge allegiance to the US flag.

Has America become our god? What must the Creator of the universe think of such idolatry?

In their promotion of "civil religion," too many American Christians seem to assume that the Prince of Peace waves the Star Spangled Banner, as they confuse God with Uncle Sam. What can this be called except blasphemy!

"You shall have no other Gods before Me," proclaims the First Commandment (Exodus 20:3). Have we forgotten that, as Christians, our true citizenship is in heaven? (Philippians 3:20). Jesus said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations," (Mark 11:17) not just our own.

Individual Christians will always hold a variety of views. What we may not do is use the Savior's church to promote that which is secondary and secular. The cause of Christ is superior to all allegiances—even of loyalty to country—and we dare not erect barriers based on our own prejudices. All—regardless of nationality or political opinion—must be welcome in God's house and invited to enter His Kingdom.

The Church of Jesus Christ has a creed that has nothing to do with opinions or patriotism, and a commission to be about her Master's business, not Caesar's. Just as politics has no place in the pulpit, patriotic songs and symbols too must be left at the door.

The flag of the United States, like the banner of every other country, symbolizes that which is passing and perishable, and has no legitimate place in a Christian sanctuary.

DeRosa's new book is now available!

2007-10-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

The framers of the Confederate Constitution were, from long experience, well aware of Washington's appetite for power, and convinced that centralized government inevitably leads to tyranny. When Southerners set up their own federal system after secession, their supreme objective was political decentralization and the rule of law (in contrast to rule by law) as protection against abuse of power. Dr. DeRosa is absolutely correct when he says, "the original and ongoing campaign against CSA principles is a ruse to augment the scope and reach of a coercive centralized government, at the expense of individual and community self determination."

Professor of political science and expert in constitutional law, DeRosa is author of the classic study The Confederate Constitution of 1861. In his new book, he goes on to make the compelling argument that truly democratic principles are to be found in the Southern model of government. If Americans are ever to regain their liberties lost at Appomattox, it will be in a return to the fundamental principles embodied in the Confederate Constitution. Bold and insightful, Redeeming American Democracy is a must read!

Henry Timrod's World Tour

2007-10-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

One hundred and forty years ago, on October 7, 1867, Henry Timrod died in Columbia, South Carolina. He was not yet 39 years old, living in abject poverty, and his death from tuberculosis was hastened by seldom having enough to eat in post-Sherman Columbia. Two years earlier, he had lost his home and business to Sherman's arsonists. Two of his sisters, and his own 10 month old son Willie, died in a single month—additional victims of Lincoln's War. Yet when Henry Timrod died, he was arguably the finest poet in America.

Born December 8, 1828 in Charleston, educated there and at the University of Georgia, Timrod spent a decade tutoring children of plantation families. He began writing verse as a teenager, his subjects usually nature or romance. The coming of Southern independence stirred him deeply. He became widely known in February 1861 with the publication of his poem "Ethnogenesis." Others, such as "The Cotton Boll," "Charleston," "Christmas," "Carolina," and "Spring" secured his fame as "laureate of the Confederacy."

This writer first encountered Timrod's "Ode" (in honor of the Confederate dead) when a high school student in the 1960s, in California. Studying American literature in college we read many of his other poems. Yet over the years, as the blight of political correctness settled across the land, Timrod was increasingly neglected and his work began to disappear from anthologies.

In late August of last year, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan released a CD of his newest work called "Modern Times," and it soon rose to number one on the charts. Within days, out in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a disc jockey named Scott Warmuth decided to do a Google search of Dylan's lyrics. What he found was astonishing. In one song, "When the Deal Goes Down," Dylan used poetic phrases from no fewer than four Timrod poems. Warmuth discovered many more examples of Dylan "borrowing" from the Southern poet. "I told my neighbor Chris about what I had turned up regarding Bob and Timrod," remembered Warmuth, "while our kids were riding bikes in the street between our houses one Sunday afternoon. It got his dander up, and he went and wrote the New York Times a letter ..."

Reporter Motoko Rich of the Times did some research, and her article appeared on September 14, 2006; asking tongue-in-cheek, "Who's This Guy Dylan Who's Borrowing Lines From Henry Timrod?" The word was out! Quickly other papers reprinted the story, or ran their own. From London to Atlanta; Sydney, Australia to Osaka, Japan—the story of the Timrod/Dylan connection appeared in at least 42 newspapers in 18 countries. It was discussed on-line on countless thousands of websites, blogs, and forums. National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" interviewed discoverer Scott Warmuth.

Some denounced Dylan's "plagiarism" while others defended his borrowings. Someone pointed out, for what it's worth, that the word Timrod can be spelled from the letters in "Modern Times."

Sales of Timrod's poetry spiked on Amazon. One on-line reviewer said, "After all the noise about Dylan's supposed borrowing from Timrod, I thought I'd give him a look. What one discovers is thoughtful and colorful poetry of a 19th century man ... [Except for] the Dylan furor, I never would have discovered him." He gave Timrod five stars.

The real story here, and cause for rejoicing? That Henry Timrod, neglected for so long, was discovered by legions of new readers. Truly, God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform!

Secession: America's oldest tradition

2007-10-03T07:26:00.000-07:00

What do South Carolina, Alaska, Vermont, Hawaii, and Texas have in common? Among other things, citizens in each state are working for independence. It seems that there are secessionist movements active now in no fewer than 25 American states! Most are concerned about liberties lost to the federal leviathan, and senseless wars waged by the empire. (Of course the SPLC pretends to see racism afoot, but that's how they make a living). For more, check out today's Associated Press article: Secessionists Meeting in Tennessee

The sincerest form of flattery ...

2007-10-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Navy is terribly embarrassed over a San Diego barracks built in the shape of a huge swastika, and is scrambling to obscure the symbol with $600,000 worth of landscaping. It's difficult to see how its design could have been a mistake, though we hope it was no more than that and, after all, it was a government project. But it doesn't take a Google satellite image to note the striking similarities between the architecture of Hitler's Reich and Roosevelt's New Deal. As an example, above are images of the Federal Reserve Board Building, Washington, D.C.; and of the Reich Chancellery, Berlin. Now that's embarrassing!

"We must seize the torch from their hands"

2007-09-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

We are upholding the great principles which our fathers bequeathed to us; and if we should succeed, and become, as we shall, the dominant nation of this continent, we shall perpetuate and diffuse the very liberty for which Washington bled, and which the heroes of the Revolution achieved. We are not revolutionists; we are resisting revolution. We are upholding the true doctrines of the Federal Constitution. We are conservative. Our success is the triumph of all that has been considered established in the past. We can never become aggressive; we may absorb, but we can never invade for conquest any neighboring State. The peace of the world is secured if our arms prevail. We shall have a Government that acknowledges God, that reverences right, and that makes law supreme. We are therefore fighting, not for ourselves alone, but, when the struggle is rightly understood, for the salvation of this whole continent. It is a noble cause in which we are engaged ... The glorious inheritance which our fathers left us we must never betray. The hopes with which they died, and which buoyed their spirits in the last conflict, of making their country a blessing to the world, we must not permit to be unrealized. We must seize the torch from their hands, and transmit it with increasing brightness to distant generations.

From "Our Danger and Our Duty," a tract written in 1862 by Rev. James Henley Thornwell and distributed to the people and the armed forces of the Confederate States.

Soldiers' Monument, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2007-09-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

How could the capital of a state be named "Holy Faith"? Surely some sensitive soul in multicultural America is offended, right? We'll save that subject for another time.

Our topic today is the monument that stands in the center of the historic Square in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Erected shortly after the War for Southern Independence, the obelisk recognizes the service of U.S. troops at the battles of Valverde and Glorieta Pass, where they "fought with rebels." It is said that the word "rebels," used here to describe Southern soldiers, is the only place where that word appears on a monument. At least that was the story told in 1880.

The monument goes on to hail those blue-clad warriors who fell "in battles with savage Indians." In 1973 a young man wearing a ponytail took it upon himself to chisel off the offending word, "savage."

His assumption was, of course, that in less enlightened times all Indians were labeled "savage," and such bigotry must be eradicated. It has since been pointed out that in the 1860s Southwest, the term "savage Indians" applied specifically to tribes such as the Apache and Navajo, not to the settled Pueblo Indians, who were often at war with the nomadic "savages" themselves.

But wait a minute! Should they be calling Southern patriots a bunch of "rebels"? Now that's offensive!

2007-09-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

As strange as it may seem to us today, opposition to slavery in antebellum America was based largely on racism.

Most of those marching in the anti-slavery crusade wanted that institution kept out of the western territories for the simple reason they wanted no blacks living there. Rhode Island senator James Burrill asked rhetorically if the West should be settled by “free white men,” or “by slaves, and blackened with their continually increasing progeny?” David Wilmot, congressman from Pennsylvania famous for his proviso banning slavery from territory acquired in the Mexican War, expressed the same view. “The negro race,” complained the abolitionist, “already occupy enough of this fair continent.” “All the unoccupied territory,” said Republican Horace Greeley, “shall be preserved for the benefit of the white Caucasian race—a thing which cannot be except by the exclusion of slavery.” Abraham Lincoln shared that widespread prejudice. “The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories,” he said in 1854, speaking of America’s western lands. “We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted with them.”

Years earlier, Alexis de Tocqueville encountered this attitude during his travels in America. “Race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists,” the Frenchman wrote, “and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states where slavery was never known.”

True to his observation, the Illinois Constitution of 1848 required that laws be enacted to “prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state.” “When we say that all men are created equal,” proclaimed Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, “we do not mean that every man in organized society has the same rights. We don’t tolerate that in Illinois.”

The final solution to the nation’s race problem, according to Lincoln? The peaceful deportation of every black from American soil, a dream he said would be “a glorious consummation.”

Sound familiar, compatriots?

2007-09-01T04:21:00.000-07:00

Lincoln and Slavery too!

2007-08-31T04:52:00.001-07:00

Clint Johnson, in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South (pp. 143-4) has this to say about The Great Emancipator’s willingness to leave slavery alone:

“The Corwin Amendment (introduced by Congressman Thomas Corwin of Ohio and endorsed by Senator William Seward of New York in the Senate) passed the House 133 to 65 in February 1861 and the Senate 24 to 12 on March 2, 1861. It stated: ‘No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the Power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institution thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.’

“In other words, Northern legislators (most Southerners had already left Washington) affirmed that they had no intention of abolishing slavery. President-elect Abraham Lincoln told Congress in his inaugural address that he would support efforts to ratify the Corwin Amendment as the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. He said, ‘I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution … has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.’

"So Lincoln agreed that it was already ‘implied constitutional law’ that slavery could not be abolished by federal law and had ‘no objection’ to this ‘being made express and irrevocable.’”

Lincoln was obsessed with consolidating federal power—in destroying once and for all the Constitutional restrictions that stood in the way of politicians like himself—not with ending slavery. Lincoln denied Southerners their right to self-government, not their right to own slaves.

United States War Criminals

2007-08-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

Images courtesy of:

http://GenocideInSC.wordpress.com/

2007-08-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Picture the headlines: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ADMITS MEMBERSHIP IN RACIST CHURCH.

Well, it’s not entirely made up. The statements quoted above are taken from the website of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the 8,000-member congregation where Dr. Jeremiah Wright is senior pastor. And where Sen. Barack Obama is a member. All we’ve done is insert the words “White” in place of “Black,” and “European” in place of “African.”

"And guide our coward feet"

2007-08-24T04:36:00.000-07:00

The Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, first such vessel to destroy an enemy warship, will go on display at its own museum in North Charleston, South Carolina in 2012. Built in Mobile, Alabama and shipped by rail to Charleston, the Hunley used a spar torpedo to sink the U.S.S. Housatonic on the night of February 17, 1864. After signaling with a blue light that its mission was accomplished, the submarine and her crew were mysteriously lost.

The Hunley lay on the bottom, a virtual time capsule, until raised on August 8, 2000. She was commanded by Lt. George E. Dixon, and just as many predicted, the gold piece given him by his girlfriend as a good luck charm was found aboard. The coin had stopped a bullet at Shiloh, saving his life. The vessel and related artifacts continue to undergo study and preservation at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center at the former Charleston Naval Base. Her eight gallant crew members were interred at Magnolia Cemetery in April 2004. At least 50,000 attended the funeral, including 10,000 re-enactors.

On July 1, 2000 the Confederate flag was brought down from the dome of the South Carolina State House, victim of a ferocious campaign of hate and ignorance unprecedented in our history. Providentially, the Hunley broke the surface exactly 38 days later.

James E. Kibler wrote a poem called “For George Dixon, Commander of the C.S.S. Hunley” (included in his fine collection, Poems From Scorched Earth, Charleston Press, 2001). Dr. Kibler concludes with these lines:

The last, you sank the Housatonic,
Showed out your gleaming signal light of silver blue
And headed into light of history,
Exploded golden charm still at your side,
To bring the light as lamp to this dark selfish age
And guide our coward feet.

The Unionist from Greensboro

2007-08-23T04:18:00.000-07:00

During the “Secession Winter” of 1860-1861, Congressman John Adams Gilmer (1805-1868) of Greensboro did all he could to keep North Carolina in the Union. “Ultra men,” particularly those down in South Carolina, had for decades been “conspiring for disunion,” said Gilmer. He made an impassioned speech on the floor of the House, calling for moderation and peace. The Congressman countered secessionist sentiment in his state by mailing, at his own expense, 100,000 pieces of unionist literature to fellow North Carolinians.

Gilmer’s devotion to the Union was such that President-elect Abraham Lincoln offered him a cabinet post! After careful consideration, troubled over Lincoln’s ultimate intentions, Gilmer finally felt he must decline.

On April 15, 1861 Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to crush the seven-state Confederacy. John Adams Gilmer, a delegate to North Carolina’s Convention, now cast his ballot for secession. The vote, taken five months to the day after South Carolina’s, was unanimous. North Carolina spoke as one: There must be no coercion of fellow Americans!

Gilmer was elected to the Second Congress of the Confederate States. His only son and his younger brother joined the Southern army. North Carolina—a state solidly for the Union until the tyrant Lincoln declared war—put 120,000 troops in the field to battle for their liberty.

Paladins of Liberty's Cause

2007-08-22T04:44:00.000-07:00

“If our ancestors could awaken from their graves, they could not but look with approbation upon their descendants … confident that the cause of liberty for which they fought could not be left in better hands than those which maintained it on the bloody fields of Manassas, of Shiloh, and of Sharpsburg. A hundred years hence, and we, too … will assume the proportions of Paladins, and with ghostly hands thrust from our unforgotten graves, challenge future generations to prove themselves men by measuring their strength, their virtue and their heroism with out own.”

Henry Timrod, February 1864

WE SHALL ACHIEVE A NAME, WHETHER WE SUCCEED OR FAIL

2007-08-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

"Finally, let us pray that our courage may be equal to every emergency. Even though our cause be just, and our course approved by heaven, our path to victory may be through a baptism of blood. Liberty has its martyrs and confessors, as well as religion. The oak is rooted amid wintry storms. Great truths come to us at great cost, and the most impressive teachers of mankind are those who have sealed their lessons with their blood. Our State may suffer; she may suffer grievously; she may suffer long. Be it so: we shall love her the more tenderly and the more intensely, the more bitterly she suffers. It will not follow, even if she should be destined to fall, that her course was wrong, or her sufferings in vain ... Let it be our great concern to know God’s will. Let right and duty be our watchword, liberty, regulated by law, our goal; and, leaning upon the arm of everlasting strength, we shall achieve a name, whether we succeed or fail, that posterity will not willingly let die."

Rev. James Henley Thornwell
November 21, 1860— twenty-nine days before South Carolina seceded from the United States.

South Carolina League of the South

2007-08-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

Millions of American children are returning to school, where they will begin each day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag. The ritual began in 1892, at the instigation of “Christian Socialist” Francis Bellamy (1855-1931).

A harmless recitation, or nationalistic indoctrination? How can an empire as diverse as the USA be “one nation”? If the people of Vermont or Alaska or South Carolina should want out, what becomes of that very permanent word, “indivisible”? And if people are denied their right to choose, can there truly be “liberty and justice for all”? That the Federal Flag Code requires the US flag be flown in a superior position to any other, including the Christian flag, makes meaningless the phrase “under God.”

The original pledge required the fascist salute pictured above. Don’t know why that was ever changed.

South Carolina League of the South

"Yet all must be endured ..."

2007-08-19T03:38:00.000-07:00

This letter was written by Robert E. Lee to his daughter, on Christmas Day 1861, from his military headquarters south of Charleston, South Carolina.

“My Dear Daughter:

“Having distributed such poor Christmas gifts as I had to those around me, I have been looking for something for you … I have sent you what I thought most useful in your separation from me and hope it will be of some service. Yet how little it will purchase! … I send you some sweet violets that I gathered for you this morning while covered with dense white frost, whose crystals glittered in the bright sun like diamonds, and formed a brooch of rare beauty and sweetness which could not be fabricated by the expenditure of a world of money.

“May God guard and preserve you for me, my dear daughter! Among the calamities of war, the hardest to bear, perhaps, is the separation of families and friends. Yet all must be endured to accomplish our independence and maintain self-government. Your old home, if not destroyed by our enemies, has been so desecrated that I cannot bear to think of it.

“I pray for a better spirit and that the hearts of our enemies may be changed. In your homeless condition I hope you make yourself contented and useful. Occupy yourself in aiding those more helpless than yourself. Think always of your father.

R.E. Lee”

Strom Thurmond Haunts Connecticut

2007-08-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

A young man from Connecticut, John R. Downey, chose to attend the University of South Carolina over three decades ago, where he earned his master’s in 1975 and a law degree two years later. Downey met Strom Thurmond while in the Palmetto State, and came to admire the senator. Returning to Connecticut, Downey did well in his profession, and in 2001 was named a judge of the Superior Court.

On June 26, 2003 Thurmond died at age 100. His public life was long and extraordinary. Elected to the State Senate in 1932, he went on to serve as circuit court judge until America entered World War II. The returning war hero was elected governor of South Carolina in 1946, and ran for president as a third-party candidate in 1948, carrying four states. In 1954 the people sent him to the U.S. Senate on a write-in vote. Thurmond was elected to eight terms, served as chairman of the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, became President Pro Tempore, and for half a century was one of the most influential leaders in American political life.

According to court records, the morning after Thurmond’s death, Judge Downey, opening court for the day, praised Thurmond as “a great American,” one who “was able to see life and reality and grow” as he evolved from segregationist and who bettered race relations and helped appoint blacks to federal judgeships.

Now Downey, 56, is being considered for promotion to the Appellate Court, and his words of eulogy are coming under scrutiny. Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, claims that the judge’s praise of the “longtime segregationist” was “very inappropriate” and promises to make trouble for Downey.

Downey lauded the South Carolinian for changing his racial views. Legions of liberals, led by Senator Joe Biden at Thurmond’s funeral, have done the same thing. Lawlor’s critical attitude is bizarre, even for a New Englander.

"Remembering the days ..."

2007-08-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

The above photo was scanned from pages 484-5 of the 1968 Garnet and Black, then the yearbook of the University of South Carolina. Do you notice anything extraordinary (other than the fact that 40 years ago even students dressed up for football games)? Flying above the student section of Carolina (now Williams-Brice) Stadium is a huge Confederate battle flag! And it was not placed there by some rebellious undergraduate, but by those in charge of Coach Paul Dietzel’s football program. In 1967, Confederate flags were often seen at pep rallies and games, and every time the Gamecock Marching Band played “Dixie” (yes, that happened often!), the students went wild.

South Carolina’s current coach, Steve Spurrier, spends much of his time trying to keep his players out of the Richland County Detention Center. But what really makes him mad is, in his own words, “that damn flag.” Last season a fan displayed one before a game, and the coach was terribly embarrassed.

For those embarrassed by the ol’ ball coach, call 1-800-327-8606 to order your “PUNT SPURRIER” bumper sticker.

2007-08-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

For your edification and amusement, reproduced here are two contemporary political cartoons featuring the Sainted Abraham.

The one on top, from Harper's Weekly (January 3, 1863) has Columbia confronting Lincoln and asking, "Where are my 15,000 sons-murdered at Fredericksburg?" Lincoln says, "This reminds me of a little joke -" Columbia responds, "Go tell your joke at Springfield!!"

"Extremes Meet" is the title of a cartoon from the British Punch (October 24, 1863), comparing Lincoln with the Czar of Russia. The caption reads:

"Abe: Imperial son of Nicholas the Great,

We sir in the same fix, I calculate,

You with your Poles, with Southern rebels I,

Who spurn my rule and my revenge defy.

"Alex: Vengeance is mine, old man; see where it falls,

Behold yon hearth laid waste, and ruined walls,

Yon gibbets, where the struggling patriot hangs,

Whilst my brave myrmidons enjoy his pangs."

2007-08-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

Stephen Dill Lee was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1833, and educated at a military school for boys. He graduated from West Point in 1854. After serving in the U.S. Army for nearly seven years, he resigned in February 1861, returning to his native state to accept a commission as captain of artillery in the Regular Army of South Carolina. A member of Beauregard’s staff during the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he later commanded the Washington Light Artillery of the Hampton Legion. Lee rose steadily in rank—fighting in Virginia, defending Vicksburg, commanding a corps in the Army of Tennessee—becoming before war’s end the Confederacy’s youngest lieutenant general.

Lee married Regina Harrison of Mississippi and settled in the Magnolia State. He was elected to the state Senate, served as the first president of Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Mississippi State University), and helped establish Vicksburg National Military Park. Elected commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans in 1904, Lee had delivered his now famous charge to the Sons of Confederate Veterans six years earlier. Though the sectional conflict over slavery was one issue leading to secession, Lee wanted it understood “that we did not fight to maintain slavery, but for constitutional rights.”

In May 1908 the seventy-five year old general took ill and died while attending a reunion of Union veterans at Vicksburg. Lee’s remains were returned to his hometown of Columbus where thousands of mourners gathered and flags flew at half-staff by order of president Roosevelt. Rev. W.A. Hewitt of First Baptist Church, Lee’s pastor, spoke of his friend’s faith. “He had bravely met the enemy on many a hard fought field, but the greatest enemy he met was death. He met that enemy with the same courage, and won the greatest victory of his life. Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”

“O death, where is they sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:55

2007-08-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

“Forcibly to destroy slavery was to destroy the political power and the economic and social foundations of a whole people. Whether or not slavery was essential to the South, it was essential to the South to have the power to maintain slavery. If the North could control one, she could control all. This was the issue, the tragedy, that slavery had become the proving ground of the South’s fight to maintain her rights as a minority within the Union.”

Margaret L. Coit, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning John C. Calhoun, American Portrait

His religion was America

2007-08-10T03:58:00.000-07:00

“Thank you, sir, for your service and moral courage.”
“You are a great inspiration.”
“I am sure there was a special place in Heaven for you.”
“May you sit tonight at the right hand of God.”

From notes left at the findagrave.com website.

Who is the recipient of these bouquets, left by his worshipping admirers? None other than William Tecumseh (“War is Hell”) Sherman.

We can only assume that Uncle Billy’s fascist fans know who it is they’re talking about. After all, it’s not as though his career and character were a secret.

Biographer Michael Fellman acknowledges “what Sherman sometimes referred to as the ’final solution of the Indian problem,’ which he defined as killing hostile Indians and segregating their pauperized survivors in remote places where they would not threaten white settlers.” General Sherman told President Grant, “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”

But he didn’t only hate Native Americans. Just a few years earlier, Sherman was waging a “hard war” of extermination against Southern-Americans. Confederates, said Sherman, could expect to be “involved in the destruction that awaits armed rebellion against the nation’s will.” His army burned homes, churches, farms, and businesses; plundered towns and entire districts; forced into exile unoffending civilians; arrested and imprisoned women and children; shelled cities with the stated goal of terrorizing non-combatants; and committed murder. (And to think, Southerners wanted to leave a great country like that!)

In Columbia, South Carolina, the general’s men gang-raped black women on the streets as the city burned. “I like niggers well enough as niggers,” Sherman confided to a friend, though only “fools & idiots promoted their advancement.” There were no black soldiers in his army of course, for “I won’t trust niggers to fight yet.” Still, said Sherman, “I profess to be the best kind of a friend to Sambo.”

In July 1862, Sherman stopped all cotton trading carried on in Memphis by, in the general’s words, “Jews and speculators.” When Orangeburg burned during his march through South Carolina, Sherman promoted the tale that the town was not torched by his troops, but that “some Jew did it.”

Did we mention that Hitler thought highly of the Union cause?

Sherman’s crimes are of course excused by the History Channel, academic historians, the establishment elite, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and flag-waving American patriots everywhere. After all, he helped the sainted Abraham “save the Union.”

Tom DiLorenzo pointed out that “saving the Union” may be compared to a man who is abusing his wife, causing her to leave. The man finds her, beats her up, drags her back into the house, and says— ”If you leave again, I’ll kill you!” The man is then praised for “saving the marriage.” But this analogy can only speak to those who believe that political unions, like marriages, must be voluntary— that coercing others is wrong.

Dr. Harry Stout of Yale University Divinity School recently said, “Sherman’s religion was America, and America’s God was a jealous God of law and order, such that all those who resisted were reprobates who deserved death.”

Sherman’s religion was America. That explains a great deal, then and now.

South Carolina League of the South

"The Angel of Marye's Heights"

2007-08-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

Nineteen year old Richard Rowland Kirkland of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment must have stared in disbelief to se the enemy advancing. The young sergeant knew how strong the Confederate position was. This December 13, 1862, Longstreet’s Corps was firmly entrenched on Marye’s Heights, overlooking Fredericksburg, Virginia. Holding the high ground on Lee’s left, the Southerners were sheltered in a sunken road, protected by a stone wall, supported by strong artillery. It seemed incredible that the Yankee invaders would dare attack. But Ambrose Burnside was doing just that, hurling five divisions against the impregnable line. Wave after blue wave went forward, to be cut down before even reaching the wall.

At the end of the day, thousands of dead and wounded Union soldiers lay sprawled across the ground. All through that bitterly cold night, Sergeant Kirkland was tormented by the pitiful cries of the wounded. Moved with compassion, at daylight he loaded himself with canteens and slipped over the wall. Would a sniper’s bullet claim him? Kirkland went to the nearest sufferer and gave him a drink. Another he covered with his own coat. A cheer went up from the Federal lines. For an hour and a half not a shot was fired as “the Angel of Marye’s Heights” carried water to his fallen foes.

Less than a year later, Kirkland himself died defending his country at the battle of Chickamauga.

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you …” - Jesus, in Matthew 5:44

2007-08-08T03:09:00.000-07:00

“The state’s rights interpretation of the Constitution was not, as its enemies have alleged, a mere theoretical rationalization made up for the defense of slavery. It is, rather, a living heritage of great power, absolutely central to the understanding of American history. It was the fundamental issue of the most bloody war in which Americans have been involved.”

Dr. Clyde N. Wilson, editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun

The Man Who Put the Flag on the Dome

2007-08-07T05:07:00.001-07:00

John Amasa May was born in Graniteville, near Aiken, South Carolina, in 1908. He graduated from Wofford College, attended Harvard Law School, and completed his legal education at the University of South Carolina in 1934. The very next year the young attorney was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. His career was interrupted by World War II. May spent five years in the army, rising to the rank of major, and in 1946 found himself on the team of prosecuting attorneys at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Returning home, May was re-elected to the S.C. House in 1948. He would represent Aiken for nearly two decades.

John May was fascinated by the history and personalities of the War for Southern Independence. He cherished his Confederate heritage, something that “grows brighter with each passing day to guide and inspire us.” May was the author or co-author of four books, including the classic South Carolina Secedes. A long-time member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Compatriot May served as division commander in 1960, and in 1964 was elected commander-in-chief of the SCV. In the legislature he headed up the Confederate War Centennial Commission.

Under John May’s leadership, the Confederate battle flag was hoisted to its place of honor atop the capitol dome in 1962. It remained there until a campaign of bigotry and ignorance, unprecedented in scope and intensity, brought it down thirty-eight years later.

On October 5, 1966 May spoke to Columbia’s Wade Hampton Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy:

“Today, more than ever before, we need the virtues of Robert E. Lee, the courage of Stonewall Jackson, the daring of Wade Hampton, the loyalty of our noble women, and the unselfish sacrifice of the men who wore the gray. Let us, as guardians of this noble trust, devote ourselves to the needs of America of our day— and strive for unity, for peace, and for brotherly love.”

Stonewall Jackson's Way

2007-08-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

Victory! Telegraphic reports spoke of Yankee invaders in full flight! Eager for details, a crowd gathered at the Lexington, Virginia post office. There, on this hot July day in 1861, they breathlessly awaited the arrival of further news of the glorious triumph near Manassas.

They would have been thrilled had they known that Thomas J. Jackson, V.M.I. Professor and deacon at the local Presbyterian church, behaved brilliantly in the war’s first great battle. At a critical moment, Jackson’s brigade withstood a furious assault. “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall!” shouted Bernard Bee to his own wavering men. Beauregard himself characterized Jackson as “an able, fearless soldier and sagacious commander.” Deacon Jackson would privately confide to his wife that “we fought a great battle, & gained a great victory,” quickly adding that “all the glory is due to God alone.” Though “God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in repulsing the main attack,” he cautioned her that “this is for your information only. Say nothing about it.”

The mail was in! “Now we will have the news!” announced Rev. William S. White. “Here is a letter from General Jackson himself!” Everyone congregated around the preacher as he opened the envelope and began to read aloud.

“My dear pastor,” began Jackson, “in my tent last night, after a fatiguing day’s service, I remembered that I had failed to send you my contribution for our colored Sunday School. Enclosed you will find a check for that object …”

Not a line about the battle. Not a word that would bring glory to himself. There was only a clear and abiding concern for his Master’s work. That was Stonewall Jackson’s way.

South Carolina League of the South

The Faith of Wade Hampton

2007-08-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

Wade Hampton’s world was crumbling around him. The army had just been forced back at Bentonville. In this final Confederate spring of 1865 the Southern cause was all but lost. No less bleak was Hampton’s own future. In February his home near Columbia had been torched by Federals, forcing his wife and their small children to flee. His sisters joined the throngs of homeless refugees after flames consumed their home, Millwood. Only a few months earlier Hampton had watched in horror as sons Preston and Wade were struck by bullets at Burgess’ Mill. Preston died there. Hampton’s brother Frank had been cut down at Brandy Station in 1863. The general himself had three times suffered terrible combat injuries. Yet through all the carnage and heartache and loss, Wade Hampton’s Christian faith remained unshaken.

He had just received a tearful letter from his youngest sister, Mary Fisher Hampton. She was distraught—nearly overcome with anxiety that her brother was about to be killed. Hampton responded in a patient and gentle letter dated March 30, taking time from his duties to encourage his sister’s faith and calm her fears.

“You must not worry & fret about me, for it grieves me greatly to think of you doing so. Your faith should be strong enough to make you know that God orders all things for the best. I am in His keeping & you should be quite content to trust me there. I hope & believe that He will keep me for those who are so dear to me & whose prayers go up so constantly for me. But I am sure that whatever happens, is wisely ordered. Let this hope sustain you: place your confidence in God, & having asked Him to answer your prayers, leave the issue to Him.”

South Carolina League of the South

What he really meant was ...

2007-08-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

A reader sent this:

The only thing worse than Lincoln is a flip-flop Lincoln!

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." Congressman Abraham Lincoln, 1848

It should have read...

"Any politician anywhere, being inclined and having the power, has the right to rise up, and shake off an existing opinion, and form a new one that suits him better."

"It was a sad day ..."

2007-08-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

Maj. Gen. Matthew C. Butler (1836-1909)

“It was a sad day when this great light of constitutional government was put out [the Southern Confederacy], by superior force and overwhelming numbers. Its record will survive through the ages among the grandest and greatest efforts of mankind to establish and perpetuate a form of government best suited to the happiness and welfare of its inhabitants. Its civic history is no less brilliant than its military, and the two combined make a record unsurpassed in human effort.”
Speaking at a reunion in Chester, SC, 1899

“If in less than half a century after the event [Southern secession], the trend of political power towards centralization in the Federal government, and in like proportion has minimized the powers and influence of the States and people, it requires no great stretch of prophetic opinion to say what the next half century will bring forth, and how wise and far-seeing the statesman and publicist were who struggled against such a tendency.”

Speaking at the unveiling of the Wade Hampton monument, Columbia, SC, 1906

Caribbean Choices

2007-08-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

Puerto Rico has, since 1508, been under the control of foreigners. After nearly four centuries of rule, the Spanish ceded the island to the United States in 1898. Since 1952, when a new constitution was adopted, Puerto Rico has been “Estado Libre Asociado,” the “Commonwealth.”

The Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2007, introduced in the U.S. Congress in February, would allow the people of Puerto Rico to choose their political future in a plebiscite to be held before the end of 2011. Three times in recent decades (the last in 1998) Puerto Ricans have voted in non-binding referendums on which they prefer: 1) retaining their current Commonwealth status, 2) choosing statehood, or 3) opting for independence.

There hasn’t been much support for changing things. Puerto Rico, as the only U.S. Commonwealth, enjoys a certain autonomy, and though her people pay the usual array of local taxes, they are not subject to the federal income tax. Should they ever choose statehood, Puerto Ricans would be able to elect five congressmen and two senators, but would be required to send their tax dollars to Washington as well.

Why can’t all Americans, not just Puerto Ricans, be given such a choice? When will Sen. Lindsey Graham introduce “The South Carolina Democracy Act of 2007”? What voter wouldn’t jump at the chance to trade him and his seven colleagues for no more IRS!

South Carolina League of the South

Still true!

2007-08-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss), at a party celebrating Thurmond’s 100th birthday

South Carolina League of the South

Points to Ponder

2007-08-01T04:03:00.000-07:00

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Voltaire

“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”
John Stuart Mill

“For the average American freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.”
Gore Vidal

“The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial.”
Ayn Rand

“Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.”
Salman Rushdie

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
William F. Buckley, Jr.

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984

South Carolina League of the South

What's next?

2007-07-31T04:56:00.000-07:00

Steve Spurrier, the NAACP, and sensitive souls everywhere claim to be horrified by that 48-inch square piece of nylon at the Confederate soldier monument on South Carolina’s State House grounds. If only it disappeared, all would be right with the world.

Granted, they’re still mad at Mississippi. But what about some of our other neighbors? The flags of Alabama (adopted in 1895) and Florida (1885) are clearly patterned on the Confederate battle banner. Arkansas’ (1924) seems inspired by the battle flag, and that of North Carolina (1885) had its origins in a design used during the War for Southern Independence. Georgia’s new flag is the very image of the Confederacy’s First National.

Why aren’t the anti-flag zealots offended? Are they truly that ignorant? More likely, these flags and other symbols and reminders of Confederate heritage will be targeted should the one in Columbia fall. The NAACP (“the Klan with a tan”) and their liberal white allies are never satisfied.

We’re reminded of what Charlie Condon, then attorney general, said back in 1999 when these bigots were demanding the Confederate flag come down from South Carolina's State House dome:

“In my judgment, moving the flag would be a victory for the extremist groups. They would immediately start planning their next crisis, their next outrage, their next demand. That’s what they do. Controversy is their business. It is not possible to appease the merchants of hate. It is a mistake even to try.”

South Carolina League of the South

"Secession filled me with hope"

2007-07-30T04:18:00.000-07:00

Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1834-1902), British historian and philosopher of liberty, is best remembered for his epigram, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” What is perhaps less well known, though it should not be surprising, was his sympathy for the Confederate cause. After the war, in November 1866, Lord Acton expressed his views in a letter to Robert E. Lee.

“Without presuming to decide the purely legal question, on which it seems evident to me from Madison’s and Hamilton’s papers that the Fathers of the Constitution were not agreed, I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I believed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.”

South Carolina League of the South

Sally Louisa Tompkins

2007-07-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Tompkins, a wealthy twenty-eight year old widow, was living in Richmond when the first battles of the war began filling the streets with wounded soldiers. She organized a hospital in a home donated for that purpose and poured her own financial resources into it. Robertson Hospital quickly gained a reputation for providing the best care available, prompting military authorities to send to her their most seriously injured.

By late 1861, War Department regulations requiring that all hospitals treating soldiers be operated by the military forced the closing of private facilities. The wounded would now be admitted to the sprawling, 3,000-bed Chimborazo Hospital. Mrs. Tompkins appealed to the Confederate president. Recognizing the quality and extraordinary success rate of her little hospital, Jefferson Davis determined to keep it open by outflanking his bureaucrats. Davis commissioned Sally Tompkins a captain of cavalry (unassigned) in the army of the Confederate States! Her hospital would continue saving lives for the duration of the war, under the direction of the Confederacy’s only female army officer.

After the war she continued to do all she could to help former soldiers of the Confederacy. Her final years were spent in Richmond’s Women’s Home. Having dedicated her life and exhausted her resources in the service of her country and its veterans, “Captain Sally” died in 1916. She was given a funeral with full military honors, as befitted a soldier of the South.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven …” Matthew 6-19-20a

South Carolina League of the South

John C. Pemberton

2007-07-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Pemberton, born in Philadelphia of a Quaker family, graduated from West Point and became a career soldier. He served with distinction in the war with Mexico, wounded twice and lauded for bravery. Friendship with Southerners and marriage to a woman from Virginia combined with a firm belief in states' rights to confirm him as a Confederate. Rejecting pleas and promises from Winfield Scott, Pemberton resigned from the U.S. Army in April 1861, even as two brothers remained in Federal service.

Made a brigadier in the Confederate army, the Pennsylvanian soon found himself defending the southeastern coast and, in early 1862, raised to major general. Promotion to lieutenant general was followed by command at Vicksburg, where Pemberton would be forced to surrender his besieged and starving troops on July 4, 1863. Criticized across the South for the defeat, some grumbled about the general's northern birth and a few questioned his loyalty.

In disgrace, Pemberton resigned his commission as lieutenant general. A lesser man might have been tempted to retreat into bitterness or engage in finger-pointing. Pemberton chose instead to continue to give his all for the Confederate cause. Cheerfully accepting a commission as lieutenant colonel of artillery, a full four steps down in rank, Pemberton served ably in that capacity for the duration of the war.

"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself." Philippians 2:3

South Carolina League of the South

Sam Davis

2007-07-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

Sam was born on a farm in Rutherford County in central Tennessee. He enlisted as a private in the 1st Tennessee Infantry Regiment soon after Lincoln declared war, but before the Volunteer State had officially declared independence. The teenager served first in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia before his regiment was ordered back to Tennessee. After recovering from a wound received at Shiloh, Sam transferred to Cpt. H. B. Shaw's Company of Scouts.

The young scout was carrying intelligence on enemy troop strength and dispositions when captured by Kansas cavalrymen near Pulaski in November 1863. His interrogators, including Brig. Gen. Grenville Dodge (one of the nastiest bullies ever to wear a Federal uniform), could get nothing out of him. Repeatedly threatened with death, Sam refused to name his sources of information. "I would sooner die a thousand deaths than betray a friend or be false to duty," said Sam. He went to the gallows with head held high, another martyr to liberty.

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." John 15:13

South Carolina League of the South

Deo vindice

2007-07-25T03:49:00.000-07:00

“In my heart, I believe that no resistance on principle, where freedom is the principle involved, is ever meaningless, or ever quite hopeless, even though history has fated it to fail. For it speaks, not to the present reality, but to the generations and the future.”

Whittaker Chambers

South Carolina League of the South

Democrats and The Citadel

2007-07-23T23:06:00.000-07:00

In his book Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture (available from Amazon, $24.95), Clyde Wilson tells the hilarious story of the panic that ensued in 2004 just before the debate among Democratic presidential candidates at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. It seems that their chosen venue, Longstreet Theatre, had been named after former college president, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. “And horrors!” writes Dr. Wilson, “Mr. Longstreet in the period before the War for Southern Independence defended slavery and advocated secession! Of course, the august aspirants for World Emperor could not be expected to meet on such unhallowed ground.” So they moved the debate to nearby Drayton Hall. But it turns out the hall is named for one of the largest slave owning families in South Carolina, and the building is surrounded by streets honoring yet more planters and slave holders.

Which brings to mind yesterday's Democratic debate at The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina in Charleston. Why were the alarms not sounded this time? After all, Citadel cadets fired the “first shot of the war,” and the Star of the West monument on the parade ground commemorates the event. Cadets fought as a unit during the War for Southern Independence, earning with their blood the Confederate battle streamers that fly today from the Citadel flag. Magnificent murals of battle scenes–paintings that feature Confederate flags–dominate the walls of the college library. The Citadel gave to the Southern army 4 brigadier generals, 17 colonels, 10 lieutenant colonels, 22 majors, 58 captains, and 62 lieutenants. The football stadium memorializes Johnson Hagood, Confederate brigadier. We could go on and on.

Could it be that Democrats–embarrassed four years ago by their zeal for PC–have decided to leave well enough alone? Or would that be giving them too much credit?

South Carolina League of the South

Spurrier and the flag

2007-07-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

When University of South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier damned the Confederate flag in front of a liberal group a few months back, he received the accolades of the media elite even as he alienated countless longsuffering Gamecock fans. Spurrier, our highest paid state employee (with a reported annual salary of $1,300,000), refuses even to answer mail from those who questioned his outburst.

After much wrangling, the flag was lowered from the dome of the South Carolina capitol in 2000, and placed by the Confederate soldier monument on the State House grounds. Compromisers said that the banner should be displayed in a historical context, not in a position of “sovereignty.” Did doing so satisfy the bigots of the NAACP and their allies? You know the answer to that. Compromising with them is like trying to make peace with Hitler. The Sensitivity Police are never satisfied. Continued demands for boycott by the NAACP—and the cowardice of the NCAA in taking these hate-mongers seriously—should have made the coach angry. Instead, Spurrier lashed out at South Carolina’s Confederate heritage.

That heritage is intertwined with USC’s. When war came, the University (then South Carolina College) closed its doors as the entire student body went into Confederate service. Twenty former students rose to the rank of general officer in the Southern army, and buildings on the campus became a hospital. The War for Southern Independence is the defining event in our history as a people. Seventy-one thousand from the Palmetto State alone took up arms in defense of their liberty and their homes, and fourteen thousand died. In remembrance, is it too much to ask that a single flag fly on the State House grounds?

South Carolina League of the South

Review of "The Last Confederate"

2007-07-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

South Carolinian Weston Adams—Columbia attorney, former state legislator, and United States ambassador—has always been proud to share his family’s experiences during the War for Southern Independence. Now one of those stories has been made into a motion picture!

An Adams’ family project, the independent film was shot in the Carolinas and shown at a number of film festivals under the title “Strike the Tent,” winning nine awards. There was a limited theatrical release, and it’s now available on DVD as “The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams.”

The movie relates the romance between Captain Adams of the Charleston Light Dragoons (portrayed by his great-great-grandson Julian Adams) and Pennsylvania-born Evangeline McCord (played by a stunning Gwendolyn Edwards). There are cameo appearances by screen legends Mickey Rooney and Tippi Hedren. The cinematography and soundtrack are excellent.

Did we mention that this movie was not made in Hollywood? “Confederates are portrayed as shining heroes while Union soldiers are seen as soulless, pillaging murderers,” whines the Los Angeles Times. “In this universe, benevolent Southerners love and care for black people; it's invading Northerners who beat the slaves.” And they say Californians can’t learn!

Thoughts for the Twentieth of July

2007-07-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

"Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course. Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil. He is like a rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air."

Fourth Leaflet of The White Rose, summer 1942

Arnold Murray, 1846-1952

2007-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

On November 25, 1952 the Orangeburg Times & Democrat announced the death of one of South Carolina’s oldest citizens. He was just a retired farmer, a simple man, living in rural seclusion. Yet his passing was front-page news, his funeral a state occasion. Arnold Murray, age 106, was the state’s last Confederate veteran.

On his birthday, June 10 of that year, he was described by a local reporter as “cheerful and spry despite a [recent] heart attack.” Ladies of the United Daughters of the Confederacy sent greetings and several called in person. It had become common for him to receive visitors from the UDC, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, as well as the press. He lived in a three-room cabin in the White House section, cared for by his son. Two daughters also stayed in the area. His wife Laura had died in 1930. The recipient of a modest $60 per-month Confederate pension from the state, electricity had been installed in his little home as a gift of the Edisto Electric Cooperative. He enjoyed sitting on the porch, listening to his radio (with the help of a new hearing aid). The old gentleman had been deeply grieved when grandson Arnold L. Murray was killed in the Korean War. “I would rather go back,” the elder Murray was quoted as saying, “to the old times, if I could choose.”

Murray joined the Confederate army late in the war, as a teenager. “I volunteered and joined up when I was a youngster,” he remembered, “because my pa and brother was way up yonder somewhere in Virginia fighting.” He saw none of the action they did. Young Murray was in training on Sullivan’s Island when Charleston had to be evacuated. In weeks the war was over and he was headed home.

Private Murray saw no combat, but suffered the hardships common to Southern soldiers and civilians. In old age he came to represent those tens of thousands of South Carolinians who donned Confederate uniforms to defend their rights and their homes. When it became known to then-Governor Strom Thurmond that Murray was the last of the state’s Confederate veterans, a committee was formed. Discreetly, in consultation with the family but without the old soldier’s knowledge, plans were made to honor Murray at his passing. In memorializing him their aim was to remember all of the Palmetto State’s Confederate heroes.

The funeral was held at White House Methodist Church on Sunday afternoon, November 30. A procession followed the hearse to the church, ten miles outside of Orangeburg. The Highway Patrol estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 crowded the grounds of the little house of worship, where loudspeakers had been set up for them to hear the service inside. Cars were parked ½ mile in both directions, overflowing into nearby fields. Two companies of local National Guard troops stood at attention as Citadel cadets fired a volley in salute. A Confederate flag flew at half-staff.

The casket was draped with a battle flag, the banner later presented to the family. Displayed also was the flag of the legendary Edisto Rifles, a local unit that marched to war in 1861. Governor James F. Byrnes led the mourners. Strom Thurmond was there, along with a host of other dignitaries. S. J. Latimer, editor of the State newspaper, was the main speaker. Arnold Murray, last of some 71,000 South Carolinians in Confederate service, was laid to rest just behind the church. He was, in Latimer’s words, “a good soldier, a respected citizen, an honorable man.”

The Women of the Confederacy

2007-07-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

WHEN REVERSES FOLLOWED VICTORIES,
WHEN WANT DISPLACED PLENTY,
WHEN MOURNING FOR THE FLOWER OF
SOUTHERN MANHOOD DARKENED
COUNTLESS HOMES,
WHEN GOVERNMENT TOTTERED AND
CHAOS THREATENED,
THE WOMEN WERE STEADFAST AND
UNAFRAID.
THEY WERE UNCHANGED IN THEIR
DEVOTION,
UNSHAKEN IN THEIR PATRIOTISM,
UNWEARIED IN MINISTRATIONS,
UNCOMPLAINING IN SACRIFICES.
SPLENDID IN FORTITUDE,
THEY STROVE WHILE THEY WEPT.
IN THE REBUILDING AFTER DESOLATION
THEIR VIRTUES STOOD AS THE SUPREME
CITADEL
WITH STRONG TOWERS OF FAITH AND HOPE
AROUND WHICH
CIVILIZATION RALLIED AND TRIUMPHED.

From the inscription, written by William Elliott Gonzales,
on the monument to the Women of the Confederacy,
South Carolina State House grounds.

Who burned Columbia?

2007-07-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

"It is true our men have burned Columbia, but it was your fault."

General William T. Sherman to Mayor Thomas Jefferson Goodwyn, blaming Columbians for making his soldiers drunk.

"I know that the general judgement of the country is that no matter how it began, it was all right."

Sherman in a letter to his brother.

"[W]ithout hesitation I charge General Wade Hampton with having burned his own city of Columbia."

Sherman in his official report.

"In my official report of this conflagration, I distinctly charged it to General Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly, to shake the faith of his people in him, for he was in my opinion boastful, and professed to be the special champion of South Carolina."

Sherman in his memoirs.

General Hampton - "General Howard, who burned Columbia?"

General Oliver O. Howard - "Why, General, of course we did."

"The real difference between Savannah and Columbia was that Sherman needed the Georgia port as a base. Columbia was merely a stopover in a general swath of destruction. Sherman had no more use for Columbia than he had for Atlanta, a city he had burned in 1864 to cover his rear .... Sherman may have issued no order [to burn Columbia] but his failure to control his men constituted probable tacit consent."

Allan D. Charles, Ph.D.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that Union soldiers were to blame for what happened, some with intent, others by default in their drunken stupor."

John Hammond Moore, Ph.D.

THE SLAVES OF MANHATTAN

2007-07-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

Construction workers in 1991 were digging the foundation for a new office building just west of New York’s city hall when they discovered human bones. What they found were the skeletal remains of some 400 African slaves that had been buried in the city two centuries earlier.
Again we were reminded that slavery once existed in all of America, not just in the South. Most shocking was the evidence of an astonishing brutality by Northern slave masters.
The bones were in nearly pristine condition. Scientists from Howard University who studied the remains revealed their findings in 1998. Their conclusion? That those who died were young, malnourished, and literally worked to death. “You have so many individuals who have trauma or injury to the bone, broken neck bones because they were forced to do that kind of labor,” said one researcher. Enslaved as children, half of the slaves died in New York City before they entered their teens.
Author Clint Johnson (Politically Incorrect Guide to the South, pp. 124-5) describes a slave uprising in the Big Apple, the city he identifies as “the capital of the slave trade.”

“On at least two occasions slaves in New York City rebelled. In 1712 a slave revolt on Manhattan Island resulted in the deaths of six whites. In retaliation New York City residents sentenced at least eighteen blacks to death. Records show most were hanged, some were broken into pieces, and some were slow-roasted over an open fire for eight hours.
“Twenty-nine years later, in 1741, an even larger group of slaves was accused of trying to revolt. This time thirteen slaves were burned at the stake and seventeen were hanged.”

HUMOR IN UNIFORM

2007-07-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Soon after the War an elderly lady, an unreconstructed Confederate, was trying in vain to cross a crowded street in Union occupied Richmond. A blue-clad officer offered to help. Surprised at his gallantry, she accepted. Once safely on the other side she turned to him and said, "Thank you, young man," adding, with all the benevolence she could muster, "If there's a cool spot in hell, I hope you get it."

After the Yankees occupied New Orleans, Gen. Benjamin "Beast" Butler was informed that Father Abram Ryan refused to hold funeral services for deceased Union soldiers. Father Ryan was called before Butler to explain himself. "General, you have been mis-informed," smiled the priest. "I would be pleased to conduct funeral services for all the Yankee officers and men in New Orleans."

Zebulon Vance, North Carolina's governor, was imprisoned for a time after the War. He quizzed his guards with a riddle.

"How were Lazarus and the C.S.A. alike?"
The Yankee troops could not guess the answer.
"Both were liked by a pack of dogs."

A Confederate veteran was walking down the street of a Northern city, accompanied by his young son, when they came upon a former Union soldier begging. The old Federal had lost one arm, an eye, and both legs. The Southerner stopped, took a $5 gold piece from his pocket, and dropped it into the beggar's cup.

"Daddy," said the son, "I thought you didn't like Union soldiers."
"I don't, son," was the reply.
"Then why did you give him a $5 gold piece?"

"Because," said the ex-Confederate, "that's the first Yankee I ever saw that was shot-up to my specifications."

"The reward is in the struggle"

2007-07-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

"You must not suppose, that in contending against corruption & interest, that I am impelled by the hope of success. Had that been the case, I would long since have retired from the conflict. Far higher motives impel me; a sense of duty; to do our best for our country, & leave the rest to Providence. I hold, the duties of life, to be greater than life itself, and that in performing them manfully, even against hope, our labour is not lost, but will be productive of good in after times. Indeed, I regard this life very much as a struggle against evil, & that to him, who acts on proper principle, the reward is in the struggle, more than in victory itself ..."

John C. Calhoun

(To Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson, 7 March 1848, in The Essential Calhoun, edited by Clyde N. Wilson, p.429.)

Secession Now!

2007-06-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

In the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, frustrated liberals talked secession back to within hailing distance of the margins of national debate—a place it had not occupied since 1861. With their praise of self-rule and the devolution of power, they sounded not unlike many conservatives had in the days before Bush & Cheney & Limbaugh wedded the American Right to the American Empire. While certain proponents of the renascent secessionism were motivated by spite or pixilated by whimsy or driven by the simple-minded belief that the United States can be divided into blue and red—as though our lovely land can be painted in only two hues!—others argued with cogency and passion for a disunionist position that bordered on the, well, seditious. Emphasizing both culture ("Now that slavery is taken care of, I’m for letting the South form its own nation,” said Democratic operative Bob Beckel) and economics (Democratic pundit Lawrence O’Donnell noted that “ninety percent of the red states are welfare clients of the federal government"), writing in forums of neoliberalism (Slate) and paleoliberalism (The Nation), liberals helped to disinter a body of thought that had been buried at Appomattox. And—surprise!—three years later, the corpse has legs.

Secession is the next radical idea poised to enter mainstream discourse—or at least the realm of the conceivable. You can’t bloat a modest republic into a crapulent empire without sparking one hell of a centrifugal reaction. And the prospect of breaking away from a union once consecrated to liberty and justice but now degenerating into imperial putrefaction will only grow in appeal as we go marching with our Patriot Acts and National Security Strategies through Iraq, Iran, and all the frightful signposts on our road to nowhere.

Was Lee a Traitor?

2007-06-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

In declaring independence and establishing their own country, Southerners exercised their right to self-determination—and spent the next four years struggling to defend themselves against Lincoln's tyranny and terrorism. Yet more than a few "star-spangled patriots" have begun to repeat the old slur that Confederates, in so doing, were nothing but "traitors."

Writing in 1869, one year before his death, Robert E. Lee responded to this very charge:

"Every brave people who considered their rights attacked & their Constitutional liberties invaded, would have done as we did. Our conduct was not caused by any insurrectionary spirit nor can it be termed rebellion, for our construction of the Constitution under which we lived & acted was the same from its adoption, & for 80 years we had been taught & educated by the founders of the Republic & their written declarations which controlled our consciences & actions. The epithets that have been heaped upon us of "rebels" & "traitors" have no just meaning, nor are they believed in by those who understand the subject, even by the North."

Confederate Southerners sought to perpetuate, at least in their own country, the constitutional republic handed down to them by America's Founding Fathers. As Patrick Henry said under similar circumstances, "If this be treason, make the most of it!"

Confederates View Independence Day

2007-06-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

Confederates were quick to note parallels between 1776 and 1861. Secession, said Jefferson Davis, “illustrates the American idea that government rests on the consent of the governed.” The Charleston Daily Courier pointed out that, “We are fighting as our fathers fought, not for a form of government or for territory, but for the cardinal and essential elements of self-government and independence.” Former unionist Benjamin F. Perry rebuked the Lincoln regime for “trying to reverse the principles announced in the American Declaration of Independence.”

Henry Timrod’s poetry earned him the sobriquet “Laureate of the Confederacy,” but he also proved himself a gifted writer of prose as assistant editor of the Columbia Daily South Carolinian. In a July 1864 editorial, Timrod regretted that Independence Day was no longer observed in the South.

“When the time and our means permit, we shall be glad to see renewed, with every return of the occasion, the bonfires and rejoicings with which it used to be celebrated, and we shall read, with hardly less pleasure than in the season of our boyhood, the familiar but ever fresh truths appropriate to the day written by the art of the pyrotechnist in letters of emerald and crimson against the dusk evening sky …. Yet while we advocate the celebrate of the Fourth by ourselves, we don’t know what right the Yankees have to regard it with like respect …. It is one of the most remarkable proofs of their effrontery as a nation, that they will dare to take the name of that day in vain. The impudence of the thing almost surpasses belief, but it is a piece with the bold hypocrisy of a people who represent themselves as the philanthropists of the world, while they are engaged in a crusade of extermination against another.”

America's Tenth President

2007-06-14T12:22:00.002-07:00

Too many historians measure the “greatness” of American presidents by how far they expanded their power, or if they led the country into war. One who did neither was the Virginian, John Tyler.

“Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” was the victorious Whig party’s campaign slogan in 1840, but William Henry Harrison died soon after his inauguration and Tyler became first to succeed to the presidency. A lifelong champion of liberty secured by states’ rights, Tyler had broken with Democrats over Andrew Jackson’s threatened invasion of South Carolina, after that state nullified the “Tariff of Abominations.” Once in office, Tyler so infuriated Whigs by his opposition to the national bank that they expelled him from their party. Still, President Tyler peacefully settled a border dispute with Canada, and he and Secretary of State John C. Calhoun prepared the way for admission of the Republic of Texas.

In retirement, Tyler strove to be a peacemaker as the sectional dispute deepened. He served as chairman of the Washington Peace Conference in February 1861—one last, forlorn effort at compromise. When he led a delegation from that body in a courtesy call on President-elect Abraham Lincoln, Tyler came away appalled. Lincoln seemed determined on war, and Tyler returned home an advocate of secession.

Tyler represented Virginia in the Provisional Confederate Congress, and went on to win a seat in the Confederate House of Representatives set to convene in February 1862. Two of the former president’s sons, and five of his grandsons, joined the Southern army. His teenaged granddaughter, Letitia Christian Tyler, had the honor of raising the first Confederate flag.

On January 18, before he could take his seat in Congress, the seventy-one year old Tyler died in Richmond. The city went into mourning as thousands came to the capitol to pay their respects. Tyler’s casket was draped with the flag of his country—the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy.

John Tyler remains the only former United States president whose passing was ignored by the government of that country.

US in thrall to southern drawl

2007-06-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

By Alex Spillius in Washington

Last Updated: 2:21am BST 11/06/2007

To British ears, an American southern accent carries connotations of cowboys and country singers, but in the US it signals something quite different: political success.


	Ronald Reagan was not southern but possessed home-baked charm

Four of the last five US presidents have been southerners, and the only exception, Ronald Reagan, possessed the demonstrably southern virtues of straight talking and home-baked charm.

But in the early stages of the competition to succeed George W Bush neither the Republican nor Democrat parties boast a bona fide southerner among their candidates.

However, that is likely to change this week as Fred Thompson, sometime lawyer, lobbyist, star of Law and Order and senator, is expected to announce his bid for the Republican nomination.

Thompson has a lot going for him. Like Reagan, he is an actor. Unlike his rivals he is a reliable social conservative on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and gun control.

But the former senator from Tennessee is also the proud owner of an impressive southern brogue.

"No accent telegraphs more information faster than a southern one," wrote Elizabeth Wilner in The Politco newspaper. "It exudes approachability, an absence of pretence and a penchant for plain talk."

Thompson's mellifluous, authoritative tones are music to the ears of Republicans. "He sounds like a man in command," said Whit Ayres, a Republican psephologist. "He communicates very effectively to ordinary people and has definitely got the potential to win."

Things were all very different in the 1960s when southerners were unelectable, and more uptight, flat-voiced north-easterners and Washingtonians dominated.

The attraction of a southern candidate reflects the growing importance of the region. Its population is expanding thanks partly to migration from the north and mid-west by people in search of warmer weather and less crime.