You have said it so wellllllllll.

There will always be extremists (both black and white) who are haters no matter how many statues are removed or built.

I believe that the hatred comes from within our soul not statues or any other thing in this world.

Remember ‘Ole Miss? University of Mississippi? The Rebel fans weren’t allowed to wave confederate flags. They want to get rid of the “Colonel” mascot.

Diversity is only for elitist approved symbols.

In other words, “Your heritage Sucks! Worship our heritage and those that we approve of”

Don’t get me started defending States’ Rights… You’ll lose.

I’m pretty sure that the statues in question are in fact pretty embarrassed to be on the TU campus anyway, so why not relocate them to some place where they would be more comfortable. Someone more like Rick Perry, a two faced lying politico who is opposed by about 60% of the state’s populus might be more reflective of the norm at TU.

It’s amazing that a school of higher learning doesn’t have a history department smart enough to set the records straight. The Civil War was NOT a war over slavery, it was over state’s rights. And that it was Republican, Abe Lincoln, who freed the slaves. If they want to be “PC” then the university had better eliminate some of its specific black organizations and any other organization that is not plain “generic”. Ultimately, if we eliminate the things we learned from facts and history then we are doomed to repeat it. Those things are symbols of our history, they happened See them, remember them, don’t forget them and finally, don’t repeat them.

This is an example of our slide into doublethink and doublespeak.

Change the past to match the present.

Winston lives! I love Big Brother!

From 1984;
“The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.” (Page 221)
“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed…” (Page 223)
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” (Page 78)
“And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became the truth.” (Page 37)

I’ll spare you my trek into my education of history.

This is another example of something that amazes me still. When the people of these uS saw this sort of things happen in Ireland and Scotland (just 2 examples) it was recognized as cultural genocide. It is not recognized when it is happening to your people.

There is a reason.

Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction was a revolution. A revolution against the uS Constitution and the compact that it had established. What was not accomplished through persuasion was achieved by the bayonet of proto-communists.

The history had to be told in a manner to justfy the victors. Hence, a new mythology had to be built and anyone in a position to show the myth had to be marginalized into obscurity; the myth of Lincoln, that the union pre-existed the States, that the Constitution established a consolidated “nation,” etc. A “history” was created and cannot be allowed to be challenged, lest what was accomplished through usurpation be exposed.

This is why schools must be controlled and why government will never release the people from the bondage to government schooling.

And all symbols that may cause someone to ask “who were they and what did they do?” and seek independent study must be eradcated. Especially if the symbols are not presented in the “appropiate” way.

The best symbols of the South are the non-existent, in the view of the victors. But the victors’ symbols must be ever present.

As the memory of my adoptive South’s cause to prevent the destruction of the compact fades so will liberty.

“I mourned what was lost at Appomattox more than I rejoiced what was gained at Waterloo.”
Lord Acton to Robert E. Lee, Gen. CSA.

to The Pine Blogger:

You say “The leaders of tomorrow will not be cut from this cloth …”

What evidence do you have of that change?

No. 6: Have you read the State of Texas’ declaration of secession? Maintaining slavery is mentioned prominently among the reasons for secession.

Wino: Maybe you can defend States’ Rights successfully. The Confederacy could not. The question of state law pre-empting federal law has been pretty well settled since Appomattox.

And, by the way, I think Gen. Lee was a great man.

We’ll be lucky if UT does not replace his statue with that of an illegal alien smuggler, a coyote.

I failed to add:

“The consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin of all that has proceeded it.”

Robert E. Lee to Lord Acton

Here is the legal Texas’ Ordinance of Secession:
http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=170#Texas

AN ORDINANCE

To dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled “the Constitution of the United States of America.”

WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and

WHEREAS, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,

WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE,

SECTION 1.– We, the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in convention assembled, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by our convention of delegates on the 4th day of July, A.D. 1845, and afterwards ratified by us, under which the Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union with other States, and became a party to the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America,” be, and is hereby, repealed and annulled; that all the powers which, by the said compact, were delegated by Texas to the Federal Government are revoked and resumed; that Texas is of right absolved from all restraints and obligations incurred by said compact, and is a separate sovereign State, and that her citizens and people are absolved from all allegiance to the United States or the government thereof.

SEC. 2. This ordinance shall be submitted to the people of Texas for their ratification or rejection, by the qualified voters, on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and unless rejected by a majority of the votes cast, shall take effect and be in force on and after the 2d day of March, A.D. 1861. PROVIDED, that in the Representative District of El Paso said election may be held on the 18th day of February, 1861.

Done by the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, at Austin, this 1st day of February, A.D. 1861.

[Ratified Feb. 23, 1861 by a vote of 46,153 for and 14,747 against]

#10 fink1

You’re right. Might makes right!

Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!

First thing we do is kill all the lawyers.

Anarchy! Anarchy!

So the War of Northern aggression still rages on.
Political correctness is for people who can’t speak for themselves.
Hey I wonder how far I would get trying to get all the Mormon statues removed from places here in Utah because of all the bad things that their founders did. It would never happen because this state is Mormon controlled. So much that Seminary is a class offered in public schools.

Some people just need to get a job, a life, or both.

Reply to No. 10:

I never said slavery was not a reason for the Civil War. It was a factor but not the main factor. And for the “PC” people to imply it is and for that reason alone is not right. We cannot change or forget history by removing it. We need to learn from it!!!! It is suppose to teach us something!!!!

Please see my synopsis of the cause of the War of Northern Aggression on my blog:

A short history lesson

UT needs to forget the last A&M game.

In order to teach us something it has to be taught properly to begin with. This is where teachers have failed us. Slavery was not taught as the primary cause of the war but it was the one point that was drilled into us. Hell my wife still argues with me about it. She firmly believes that slavery was the only issue. I just tell her to read a book and end the arguement. Very few people will actually take the time to research out anything on their own and come to their own conclusion. They just trust their teachers and professors and live their entire life with blinders on. Of course take my word for it, at Clements if you call out your teacher in class and say they are wrong you will get 3 days suspension. I actually only got 1 day but when I told the principal that me being suspended wasn’t going to make my teacher any smarter, or right, he gave me 2 more days.

#17
I’m not going to let UT fans forget.

Read my post at 10 again.

I said “Maintaining slavery is mentioned prominently among the reasons for secession.”

In shorter words: “It was a big cause but not No. 1.”

I am an old guy. I went to high school in the 1960’s before all of this “PC” stuff. I remember on a test we had the question “What was the cause of the War Between the States”? The answer of course is State’s Rights.

Actually, slavery was Texas’ primary reason for secession.

Read the entire resolution–

http://www.lsjunction.com/docs/secesson.htm

at the end of this war, the bankers approached lincoln and asked him how he was to pay them for the money he owed them that they had lent the united states government during this war. by the way this was not a civil war. it was a war of northern aggression. let us be clear on that point. ok……so lincoln asked them how much would be the interest rate. and they told him 12 percent at which time he told them to take a hike and he started printing up greenbacks which went over well with the people and saved the united states a lot of money. this direct threat to the bankers and their profits, was duely noted. so a plot was drawn up to kill lincoln and 5 of the members in his cabinent. they were only successful with the president. the guards that were supposed to be guarding the president , were told to look the other way and they did. john wilkes booth was told he was to go up to where the president was sitting and kill him….so he went up to do what he was told to do. but when he got there he realized he had been set up. the president was killed by his wife who shot him in the head. she was a opium addict and lincoln had told her that he was taking her drugs away from her and that he wanted her to clean up her act. she was also angry at him for having a mistress…realizing he had been set up, booth jumped out of the second floor box where the president and his wife had been sitting onto the stage , breaking his leg. and he somehow got away and was found 4 days later and hung. it was a plot within a plot. the real reason the president was killed was that he went against the present day power structure and refused to do what they wanted. lincoln was not a great president. he did a lot of things wrong. he played the game for them most of the time, but at this one time, he did what was right for the people. and for this, he was killed. i think overtime he grew a pair and realized that his job was bigger than himself. he changed. all of our presidents who have been killed in office were killed because they refused to play the game the way the money men wanted them to. there is something that all of us must remember. nothing in politics happens by accident…..and it could be said too, that nothing in government and in war , happens by accident either. history is made, by those who are in power and those who have the money. that is the way it has been since the dawn of human civilization…..does lincoln deserve a large memorial in washington dc? no, no he does not. our government schools teach us history that is wrong and yet we do not know it. they say that the history books are written by the winners. in this case the winners have always been the money men. until we get to a point where we have our own money, we shall always suffer.

Just had an epiff.. epiph… a thought….
These are the same bunch that thinks Che Gueverra was great. So replace Lee and Jackson with Che and Chairman Mao….. Viva la Revolucion!

Leo, did that have anything to do with a grassy knoll?

#23 Are you serious? I HAVE confronted people with Che t-shirts.

Lincoln, SHerman, Grant, Sheridian, Custer, Butler have more in common with Che and Chairman Mao.

Here s something for you to research. What these people said about Abraham Lincoln:
1) Marx
2) Bismark
3) Hitler
4) Stalin

Unfortunately my PC at home HDD crashed a few weeks ago and, again, a lot of links are in the digital Hades. I will try to compile a list, if needed.
Maybe I’ll do it and make it a blog entry.

Si alguien puede decir “Viva la Revolucion” es Lincoln. Despues de todo, el fue el lider en la revolusion que termino la destruccion del the republica constituional.

del the republica => de la republica
constituional => constitucional

Ay, caramba. Thinking in Spanish and partially typing in English.

revolusion => revolucion

If they don’t erase our history, it will be harder to conform us to the socialist STATE worship!
The revolution continues in my opinion, we are still fighting for states rights and not to have laws made by Judges.

If UT is trying to forget the past I ask that the recent past be remembered

A&M 12
UT 7

#23: You got it! the Confederacy was just a group of noble anti-Republican insurgents trying to make it in the world and the eeevil Lincoln started that war just like GW Bush. Remember: Lincoln was a Republican. Why TU wants these great insurgents removed from the campus just doesn’t make any sense. They should be glorified and perhaps gilded as the great anti-Republicans that they are. They should add a statue of Osama Bin Laden to the campus to get with the times.

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/jdmess.html

My great-grandfather was as “Confederate” as you could get…. He was a Marylander but he joined the Confederacy, serving in (in order) Second Virginia Cavalry, 1st Stuart Horse Artillery (Phelam-Beathred Battery) and ended up in the First Maryland Regiment of Cavalry, CSA. He was wounded at Carlisle Barracks, Pa, on July 2, 1863.

As Southerners we were also feed the line about the Civil War (or, more correctly from “OUR SIDE”, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression) being about “State Rights” (which is the way it was first spelled)…. But if you want to know what the Civil War was really about you can get it from the Man himself, my distant cousin, Jefferson Davis. Just read his address to the Confederate Congress at http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/jdmess.html

and you will soon see if was about the “State Right to Keep Slaves” and little else!

I may admire my great-grandfather’s courage, but his “cause” was wrong.

The war only decided who was the larger, better supplied army. The uS fielded an army (and navy) of about 2 million, engaged in a naval blockade on the eastern seaboard and the gulf, warred against the indians while building a railroad, etc.

And all that it really accomplished; the final destruction of a document that supposedly limited the powers of the entitiy that the document restrained. Since Lincoln’s War there is no limiting the Federal government and, 2nd amendment not withstanding, fascism is on the increase.

Fascism as in socialism, inc. Roosevelt’s dandy economics system he, and Churchill, admired. Too bad that Mussolini went to the other side. No doubt Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln would thought very well of Fascist economics.

The Consitution has been dead since 1865. We are living in the last days of the empire. The original covenant destroyed in 1789 and the first battle was “internal improvements.”

re: 28 actually jean, we in the confederate states are still technically under military rule and military occupation. if you check on it, there was never such a thing as a police officer until after the so-called civil war. the only law officers we had were sheriffs who are elected by the people. the police departments were started to help with the occupation of the south. the flag, old glory as its called is really a military flag. the civilian version of the American flag is much different and dissappeared somewhere in the early 1900’s ….lincoln was against state’s rights. the war was started by him and made to look like the south started it. the man who pulled the lanyard on the cannon that fired the opening shot on fort sumpter was john wilkes booth’s father……it really is a small world especially when you are dealing with criminals…….the same names keep coming up here and there….they all seem to know each other and it was the same then as it is now…..

re:30 well acutally i think the south was goaded into this war, in order to get the americans to kill each other and kill each other they did on a grand scale. and all the while, while americans were killing each other, the bankers were counting all the money they were making from it…..the war had a two fold purpose….we were getting too powerful….so we had to be broken…..and we were broken in spirit and financially….and let us not forget……..the english never unconditionally surrendered during the revolutionary war. this little fact somehow has been lost in history….when cornwallis surrendered at yorktown, washington allowed them to keep their arms and ammunition and all their goods and allowed them to leave under their colors…..and what did cornwallis tell washington……….oh he told him to beware the powerful bankers who run the world……imagine that?? on by the way, agent21, you know what king george III called the americans fighting against him….oh he called them insurgents…..doncha know……..funny how that term gets batted around isn’t it?

osama bin laden……oh he is just a convenient boogy man…..probably works for the same people who tell you that we are in danger….who knows who he really is or if he really exist…….i ask you…..would this tall thin bearded man, living in a cave in afghanistan, with his trusty brand new never fired ( and nice by the way) ak 47 by his side…….would this silly man be able to control and pull off the most devestating attack on american soil in the history of the world? i hardly think so sir……

#31 And to paraphrase Jefferson Davis in response to what Alexander Sphenson was reported as having said: That may be what he is fighting for but that is not what we are fighting for.

The non-delegated authority to secede was/is still enforce. Whatever the reasons are immaterial. The States DID NOT delgate their authority to secede, therefore, the Federal government usurped their authority and engaged in armed revolution to change the charter.

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/510682896/rare-abraham-lincoln-letter-found-in-allentown.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/346327132/item.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/335721875/item.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/298922966/item.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/294131963/item.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/294130534/item.html

http://www.xanga.com/Confederate_Coqui/294128585/item.html

#31 I am sorry for your great-grandfather. To think that a descendant of his has been so thoroughly Reconstructed by believing his ROman conquerors.

Why don’t you pick a few books detailing the “angels” of Lincoln’s armies behavior during and in the aftermath of the war? Start with Simms and South Carolina. Follow my links and begin to open your eyes. You owe it to your great-grandfather.

Don’t bother, Jaime… no one ever reads what we write. We’ll just have to be content in the knowledge that we’re correct, and they can wallow in their voluntary ignorance.

There are times that I think the same, more and more it seems.

I have gone through long periods without reading because I do not see that it really matters. I hope that it just … seems. The lessons of the past are not even a fleeting thought, much less wrestled with.

When Santayana said that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” he was alluding to the fact that “they” would not even know it. How could they?

Then there is the problem that is not that people do not know but that so much of what they know isn’t so.

Some things are sweet as the honeycomb to the mouth but bitter in the stomach.

These aren’t term papers…SHORT and to the POINT when posting…no wonder Benzion goes broke on this site…

We can argue whether the state’s had the right to succeed all day. I am one of those who think that the states that were part of the American Confederation (prior to the U.S. Constitution) may have had that right…but that the right disappeared when a new entity–the United States of America–was created with the Constitution.

That document and the NEW NATION it created from a group of independent states was approved and adopted in the name of “We the people”, not by the state’s as such…. It created a new body in which, by its very terms, the states were subordinate to the UNION…(like it or not)…

In any case, there would clearly have been no right for a state created BY THE UNION after the Constitution was adopted to leave the Union. Those “post constitution” states could not “revert” to their prior status as “independent states” as they had no prior status…All, but Texas, were organized and created by the Congress of the United States of America. This means that Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia would have been the only states with the right to leave the Union, if you admit that any of the “originators” retained that right. This would not have applied to Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky or perhaps even Texas–none of who existed when the Union was created. They did not voluntarily “create” the Union…. The Union created them.

It is interesting, of course, that the South did not start talking about their right to leave the Union until after folks started talking about doing away with Slavery.

Like it or not, as Jefferson Davis’ remarks make clear, the issue was “They may not let us keep our slaves” (including the 6 to 10 my great-grandfather’s family owned) so we want out.”

Could you please direct me to the chapter and verse in the uS Constitution whereby the States, explicitly delegated away their authority to secede?

Or are you so thoroughly reconstructed that you will argue that if it is not prohibited then the Central government can do it?

And what kind of nonsense are spewing about all those States that would have the authority to secede bacause they are not “originators.”

The compact does not explicitly grant the Central govenrment the authority to prevent a State from leaving. The compact is the same for all members in union. This is very a very novel idea on your part. Please give me chapter and verse in the uS Constitution where this is authorized.

And, Viginia, for example, seceded when Lincoln violated the Constitution by calling the militia to invade the seceded States, an Article 1 authoriy no longer applicable to seceded States.

“It is interesting, of course, that the South did not start talking about their right to leave the Union until after folks started talking about doing away with Slavery.”

You are kiddin, right?

Have you heard about the Tarriffs of Abomination, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, nullification, etc?

What you fail to realize is that the “Articles of Confederation” were a compact among independent states..>The Constitution creates A NATION made up of states and territories….The state’s INDEPENDENCE was merged into the new Unity….You also overlook the fact that the NEWLY CREATED STATES were created by an ACT of the Congress of that New NATION…they never had any independent status to revet too.

I’ve always been amazed that the South is still fighting the Civil War. I was raised in the North, and believe me, nobody gives a second thought to the civil war anymore. It’s a non-event along the lines of the Spanish-American war, or Grenada.

As a history buff, I like to study The War Between the States, but nobody else does. They’d all rather talk about Madonna.

#42 More nonsense on your part. I overlook nothing. I eat and breath this stuff, it is my sports. The compact applies equally to all members and the compact only grants certain and explicit authorities to the agent, ie the central government.

I hope that you do not apply the same twisted logic when you hire anyone to be your agent. Because according to your agent can then supercede your authority, including your authority to fire the agent.

#43 Another fine example of government schooling and the ignorance of not being informed?

How else can your statement be understood?

All, and I mean, all the issues that we are fighting today against the ever expanding Central government is a direct result of Loncoln’s War.

Jefferson Davis stated that the issue settled by violence will always arise again in another form and in another time.

Should I list a long littany of abuses by the Federal government? Well, thanks to Lincoln there is no longer a power strong enough to make the Federal government lmit itself to the compact.

The agent has become the master.

#42 You are aware of what Lincoln did in Maryland, arn’t you?

An epitaph: A descendant of honor, Vanquised.

The sad reality of all this ridiculous attempt at censorship,not to mention defaming US heritage, is that if the University gets rid of the statues of heroes of the Confederacy based solely on the issue of slavery, then we need to get rid of all statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and many other Revolutionary heroes who were also slave owners with the audacity to believe in a constitution stating “…all men are created equal.”
I’m with those of you who asked the question, “Doesn’t UT have any history professors who actually understand the Civil War era??” Do a little research on some of the Northern Union Generals, such as Grant (who later became a US President) and Sherman. Sherman, alone, killed hundres of slaves during his march on Georgia when he pulled up the portable bridges once his soldiers crossed the rivers causing the scared slaves following him drowned in the river. Folks wanted to make him the next president but he refused the run. The reality is twofold. If you didn’t live in the era of the Civil War, you can’t possibly understand what the brave men and women of the South went through; Robert E. Lee was not a slave owner and he was torn between his state and his union. Secondly, if the history department at UT is so ignorant of their subject matter, they need to be relieved of their positions, or placed on a sabbitical so they can spend more time researching the very history they are paid (and paid well) to teach. Ignorance is not a reason to remove statues of great men of their time.

Grant: The only legally held slave in “liberated” South Carolina belonged to Grant’s wife.

Sherman: Man, oh, man, Where to start and when to finish. Forget about the drowings. What about all the slaves conscripted against their will? The rapings, the plunderings? What about Sherman’s orders to, when going into a town, to randomly kill a few citizens and to destroy a few homes as an example of how all who try to oppose would be treated?

The razing of the Shenandoah Valley, of Meridian, the shelling of Vicksburg, the carrying off to the north of all the women of Roswell, Georgia, painfull after painfull etceteras.

#33
Edmund Ruffin is the person to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter. Not John Wilkes Booth’s father.
A thought on Lincoln:
In his Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln set the guidelines of just who, and in what areas slaves were to be freed:
“Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”
So…In all of the areas the Union controled people were to still be able to own their slaves. In other words: All the slaves he controled and COULD give freedom to he didn’t, but all the slaves he DIDN’T control were suddenly free. I guess Grant was relieved, because he owned 16 slaves hisself.
I guess what this all comes down to is what your definition of “is” is.

To the individual who called the Spanish American War a “non-event:”
2,446 deaths is not a non-event.
Neither is the death of 359,528 Union Soldiers killed during the Civil War. I do agree with your observations about more people caring about Madonna than our history. Therein lies our demise as a free people.

Jamie, you are “my kind of people!” All heros are flawed, but at least they fought and many died for what they believed in instead of whining about the past. Isn’t that what we’re really all about? I sure want my children to grow up with the kind of integrity that will support a free society. The loss of our freedom will be our apathy and uncaring acceptance of such horrendous acts such as the descrication of monuments. What’s next? Are we going to dig up the bones of the Confederate souls buried in the Texas State Cemetery and get that “out of our sight?” Heaven forbid people have to drive down 7th Street and look at the daily reminder of the War Between the States.

And the Filipino-American War (aka the Filipino Insurrection, as if the Filipinos’ fight for their independence is insurrection), the result of the Spanish-American War, caused over 200,000 dead. That’s Filipino dead count only. Some say as high as 250,000. The Spanish were more merciful.

I wonder what principle of liberty was being fought there?

Despotism at home, aggressiveness abroad.

Thanks Lincoln …. not.

And the Filipino-American War (aka the Filipino Insurrection, as if the Filipinos’ fight for their independence is insurrection), the result of the Spanish-American War, caused over 200,000 dead. That’s Filipino dead count only. Some say as high as 250,000. The Spanish were more merciful.

I wonder what principle of liberty was being fought there?

Despotism at home, aggressiveness abroad.

Thanks Lincoln …. not.

I’m an American of European Descent. I’m interested in my own people, our collective history, our culture and that we as a people have self-determination. My idea of diversity is blonds and brunettes and redhead, etc. If anyone does not lke that, they can put a revolver to the side of their head and pull the trigger.

#53 That’s an uncommon last name. Do you have any kinfolks in the Clear Lake area?

Tighe is a nickname giving by my father. It’s orgin is gaelic and means Tim. No kinfolk I’m aware of in the Clear Lake Area. We’re from Connecticut

OK. I good friend of mine’s last name is Tighe, from Maine. I thought Tighe was as English (anglo-saxon) as they come. Gaelic? Hmmm. I’ll ask him again about his ancestry.

My idea of diversity is blonds and brunettes and redhead, etc.

I agree with that 100%. The ONLY “diversity” I want around is that from the White race. The media pushed kind is really DIVER*****Y.

Multicultural/multiracial nations never thrive and/or survive.

America is coming apart at the seams. Corporate CEO’s and bankers are destroying the middle class. That is the White race, btw. Why do you think the Gov’t does NOTHING about the invasion from south the border? It’s been planned to happen just as the North American Union will happen.

Time for revolution?

THE 10 CAUSES OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES (Civil War)

Historians have long debated the causes of the war and the Southern
perspective differs greatly from the Northern perspective. Based upon the
study of original documents of theWar Between The States (Civil War) era and facts and information published
by Confederate Veterans, Confederate Chaplains, Southern writers and Southern Historians before, during, and after the war, I present the facts, opinions, and conclusions stated in the following article.

Technically the 10 causes listed are reasons for Southern secession. The
only cause of the war was that the South was invaded and responded to
Northern aggression.

I respectfully disagree with those who claim that the War Between the
States was fought over slavery or that the abolition of slavery in the
Revolutionary Era or early Federal period would have prevented war. It is my
opinion that war was inevitable between the North and South due to complex
political and cultural differences. The famous Englishman Winston Churchill
stated that the war between the North and South was one of the most
unpreventable wars in history. The Cause that the Confederate States of
America fought for (1861-1865) was Southern Independence from the United
States of America. Many parallels exist between the War for American
Independence ( 1775-1783 ) and the War for Southern Independence.

There were 10 political causes of the war (causes of Southern Secession) —one of which was slavery–
which was a scapegoat for all the differences that existed between the North
and South. The Northern industrialists had wanted a war since about 1830 to
get the South’s resources ( land-cotton-coal-timber-minerals ) for pennies
on the dollar. All wars are economic and are always between centralists and
decentralists.The North would have found an excuse to invade the South even
if slavery had never existed.

A war almost occurred during 1828-1832 over the tariff when South
Carolina passed nullification laws. The U.S. congress had increased the
tariff rate on imported products to 40% ( known as the tariff of
abominations in Southern States ). This crisis had nothing to do with
slavery. If slavery had never existed –period–or had been eliminated at
the time the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776 or anytime
prior to 1860 it is my opinion that there would still have been a war sooner
or later.

On a human level there were 4 causes of the war–New England Greed–New
England Fanatics–New England Zealots–and New England Hypocrites. During
“So Called Reconstruction” ( 1865-1877 ) the New England Industrialists got
what they had really wanted for 40 years–THE SOUTH’S RESOURCES FOR PENNIES
ON THE DOLLAR. It was a political coalition between the New England economic
interests and the New England fanatics and zealots that caused Southern
secession to be necessary for economic survival and safety of the
population.

1. TARIFF–Prior to the war about 75% of the money to operate the Federal
Government was derived from the Southern States via an unfair sectional
tariff on imported goods and 50% of the total 75% was from just 4 Southern
states–Virginia-North Carolina–South Carolina and Georgia. Only 10%–20%
of this tax money was being returned to the South. The Southern states were
being treated as an agricultural colony of the North and bled dry. John
Randolph of Virginia’s remarks in opposition to the tariff of 1820
demonstrates that fact. The North claimed that they fought the war to
preserve the Union but the New England Industrialists who were in control of
the North were actually supporting preservation of the Union to maintain and
increase revenue from the tariff. The industrialists wanted the South to pay
for the industrialization of America at no expense to themselves. Revenue
bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to the War
Between the States were biased, unfair and inflammatory to the South.
Abraham Lincoln had promised the Northern industrialists that he would
increase the tariff rate if he was elected president of the United States.
Lincoln increased the rate to a level that exceeded even the “Tariff of
Abominations” 40% rate that had so infuriated the South during the 1828-1832
era ( between 50 and 51% on iron goods). The election of a president that
was Anti-Southern on all issues and politically associated with the New
England industrialists, fanatics, and zealots brought about the Southern
secession movement.

2. CENTRALIZATION VERSUS STATES RIGHTS—The United States of America was
founded as a Constitutional Federal Republic in 1789 composed of a Limited
Federal Government and Sovereign States. The North wanted to and did alter
the form of Government this nation was founded upon. The Confederate States
of America fought to preserve Constitutional Limited Federal Government as
established by America’s founding fathers who were primarily Southern
Gentlemen from Virginia. Thus Confederate soldiers were fighting for rights
that had been paid for in blood by their forefathers upon the battlefields
of the American Revolution. Abraham Lincoln had a blatant disregard for The
Constitution of the United States of America. His War of aggression Against
the South changed America from a Constitutional Federal Republic to a
Democracy ( with Socialist leanings ) and broke the original Constitution.
The infamous Socialist Karl Marx sent Lincoln a letter of congratulations
after his reelection in 1864. A considerable number of European Socialists
came to America and fought for the Union (North).

3. CHRISTIANITY VERSUS SECULAR HUMANISM–The South believed in basic
Christianity as presented in the Holy Bible.The North had many Secular
Humanists ( atheists, transcendentalists and non-Christians ). Southerners
were afraid of what kind of country America might become if the North had
its way. Secular Humanism is the belief that there is no God and that
man,science and government can solve all problems. This philosophy advocates
human rather than religious values. Reference : Frank Conner’s book “The
South Under Siege 1830-2000.”

4. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES–Southerners and Northerners were of different
Genetic Lineages. Southerners were primarily of Western English (original
Britons),Scottish,and Irish linage (Celtic) whereas Northerners tended to be
of Anglo-Saxon and Danish (Viking) extraction. The two cultures had been at
war and at odds for over 1000 years before they arrived in America. Our
ancient ancestors in Western England under King Arthur humbled the Saxon
princes at the battle of Baden Hill ( circa 497 AD –516 AD ). The cultural
differences that contributed to the War Between the States (1861-1865 ) had
existed for 1500 years or more.

5. CONTROL OF WESTERN TERRITORIES–The North wanted to control Western
States and Territories such as Kansas and Nebraska. New England formed
Immigrant Aid Societies and sent settlers to these areas that were
politically attached to the North. They passed laws against slavery that
Southerners considered punitive. These political actions told Southerners
they were not welcome in the new states and territories. It was all about
control–slavery was a scapegoat.

6. NORTHERN INDUSTRIALISTS WANTED THE SOUTH’S RESOURCES. The Northern
Industrialists wanted a war to use as an excuse to get the South’s resources
for pennies on the dollar. They began a campaign about 1830 that would
influence the common people of the North and create enmity that would allow
them to go to war against the South. These Northern Industrialists brought
up a morality claim against the South alleging the evils of slavery. The
Northern Hypocrites conveniently neglected to publicize the fact that 5 New
England States ( Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
and New York ) were primarily responsible for the importation of most of the
slaves from Africa to America. These states had both private and state owned
fleets of ships.

7. SLANDER OF THE SOUTH BY NORTHERN NEWSPAPERS. This political cause ties
in to the above listed efforts by New England Industrialists. Beginning
about 1830 the Northern Newspapers began to slander the South. The
Industrialists used this tool to indoctrinate the common people of the
North. They used slavery as a scapegoat and brought the morality claim up to
a feverish pitch. Southerners became tired of reading in the Northern
Newspapers about what bad and evil people they were just because their
neighbor down the road had a few slaves. This propaganda campaign created
hostility between the ordinary citizens of the two regions and created the
animosity necessary for war. The Northern Industrialists worked poor whites
in the factories of the North under terrible conditions for 18 hours a day
( including children ). When the workers became old and infirm they were
fired. It is a historical fact that during this era there were thousands of
old people living homeless on the streets in the cities of the North. In the
South a slave was cared for from birth to death. Also the diet and living
conditions of Southern slaves was superior to that of most white Northern
factory workers. Southerners deeply resented this New England hypocrisy and
slander.

8. NEW ENGLANDERS ATTEMPTED TO INSTIGATE MASSIVE SLAVE REBELLIONS IN THE
SOUTH. Abolitionists were a small but vocal and militant group in New
England who demanded instant abolition of slavery in the South. These
fanatics and zealots were calling for massive slave uprisings that would
result in the murder of Southern men, women and children. Southerners were
aware that such an uprising had occurred in Santa Domingo in the 1790 era
and that the French (white) population had been massacred. The abolitionists
published a terrorist manifesto and tried to smuggle 100,000 copies into the
South showing slaves how to murder their masters at night. Then when John
Brown raided Harpers Ferry,Virginia in 1859 the political situation became
inflammatory. Prior to this event there had been more abolition societies in the
South than in the North. Lincoln and most of the
Republican Party ( 64 members of congress ) had adopted a political platform
in support of terrorist acts against the South. Some (allegedly including
Lincoln) had contributed monetarily as supporters of John Browns terrorist
activities.. Again slavery was used as a scapegoat for all differences that
existed between the North and South.

9.. SLAVERY. Indirectly slavery was a cause of the war. Most Southerners
did not own slaves and would not have fought for the protection of slavery.
However they believed that the North had no Constitutional right to free
slaves held by citizens of Sovereign Southern States. Prior to the war there
were five times as many abolition societies in the South as in the North.
Virtually all educated Southerners were in favor of gradual emancipation of
slaves. Gradual emancipation would have allowed the economy and labor system
of the South to gradually adjust to a free paid labor system without
economic collapse. Furthermore, since the New England States were
responsible for the development of slavery in America, Southerners saw the
morality claims by the North as blatant hypocrisy. The first state to
legalize slavery had been Massachusetts in 1641 and this law was directed
primarily at Indians. In colonial times the economic infrastructure of the
port cities of the North was dependent upon the slave trade. The first slave
ship in America, “THE DESIRE”, was fitted out in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Further proof that Southerners were not fighting to preserve slavery is
found in the diary of an officer in the Confederate Army of Northern
Virginia. He stated that “he had never met a man in the Army of Northern
Virginia that claimed he was fighting to preserve slavery”. If the war had
been over slavery, the composition of the politicians, officers, enlisted
men, and even African Americans would have been different. Confederate
General Robert E. Lee had freed his slaves (Custis estate) prior to 1863
whereas Union General Grant’s wife Julia did not free her slaves until after
the war when forced to do so by the 13th amendment to the constitution.
Grant even stated that if the abolitionists claimed he was
fighting to free slaves that he would offer his services to the South.
Mildred Lewis Rutherford ( 1852-1928 ) was for many years the historian for
the United Daughters Of The Confederacy (UDC). In her book Truths Of History
she stated that there were more slaveholders in the Union Army ( 315,000 )
than the Confederate Army ( 200,000 ). Statistics and estimates also show that about
300,000 blacks supported the Confederacy versus about 200,000 for the Union.
Clearly the war would have been fought along different lines if it had been
fought over slavery. The famous English author Charles Dickens stated ” the
Northern onslaught upon Southern slavery is a specious piece of humbug
designed to mask their desire for the economic control of the Southern
states.”

10, NORTHERN AGGRESSION AGAINST SOUTHERN STATES, Proof that Abraham
Lincoln wanted war may be found in the manner he handled the Fort Sumter
incident. Original correspondence between Lincoln and Naval Captain G.V.Fox
shows proof that Lincoln acted with deceit and willfully provoked South
Carolina into firing on the fort ( A TARIFF COLLECTION FACILITY ). It was
politically important that the South be provoked into firing the first shot
so that Lincoln could claim the Confederacy started the war. Additional
proof that Lincoln wanted war is the fact that Lincoln refused to meet with
a Confederate peace delegation. They remained in Washington for 30 days and
returned to Richmond only after it became apparent that Lincoln wanted war
and refused to meet and discuss a peace agreement. After setting up the Fort
Sumter incident for the purpose of starting a war, Lincoln called for 75,000
troops to put down what he called a rebellion. He intended to march Union
troops across Virginia and North Carolina to attack South Carolina. Virginia
and North Carolina were not going to allow such an unconstitutional and
criminal act of aggression against a sovereign sister Southern State.
Lincoln’s act of aggression caused the secession of the upper Southern
States.

On April 17th 1861, Governor Letcher of Virginia sent this message to
Washington DC: ” I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be
furnished to the powers of Washington for any such use or purpose as they
have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern states and the
requisition made upon me for such a object-an object in my judgement not
within the purview of the constitution or the act of 1795, will not be
complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war; having done so we
will meet you in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited
toward the South.”

The WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 1861-1865 occurred due to many complex causes
and factors as enumerated above. Those who make claims that “the war was
over slavery” or that if slavery had been abolished in 1776 when the
Declaration of Independence was signed or in 1789 when The Constitution of
the United States of America was signed, that war would not have occurred
between North and South are being very simplistic in their views and
opinions.

The following conversation between English ship Captain Hillyar and Capt. Raphael Semmes-Confederate Ships CSS Sumter & Alabama occurred during the war on August 5th, 1861. It is a summary from a well-educated Southerner who is stating his reasons for fighting.
Captain Hillyar expressed surprised at Captain Semme’s contention that the people of the South were “defending ourselves against robbers with knives at our throats”, and asked for further clarification as to how this was so, the exchange below occurred. I especially was impressed with Semmes’ assessment of yankee motives - the creation of “Empire”!
Semmes: “Simply that the machinery of the Federal Government, under which we have lived, and which was designed for the common benefit, has been made the means of despoiling the South, to enrich the North”, and I explained to him the workings of the iniquitous tariffs, under the operation of which the South had, in effect, been reduced to a dependent colonial condition, almost as abject as that of the Roman provinces, under their proconsuls; the only difference being, that smooth-faced hypocrisy had been added to robbery, inasmuch as we had been plundered under the forms of law”
Captain Hillyar: “All this is new to me”, replied the captain. “I thought that your war had arisen out of the slavery question”.
Semmes: “That is the common mistake of foreigners. The enemy has taken pains to impress foreign nations with this false view of the case. With the exception of a few honest zealots, the canting hypocritical Yankee cares as little for our slaves as he does for our draught animals. The war which he has been making upon slavery for the last 40 years is only an interlude, or by-play, to help on the main action of the drama, which is Empire; and it is a curious coincidence that it was commenced about the time the North began to rob the South by means of its tariffs. When a burglar designs to enter a dwelling for the purpose of robbery, he provides himself with the necessary implements. The slavery question was one of the implements employed to help on the robbery of the South. It strengthened the Northern party, and enabled them to get their tariffs through Congress; and when at length, the South, driven to the wall, turned, as even the crushed worm will turn, it was cunningly perceived by the Northern men that ‘No slavery’ would be a popular war-cry, and hence, they used it.
It is true that we are defending our slave property, but we are defending it no more than any other species of our property - it is all endangered, under a general system of robbery. We are in fact, fighting for independence.

The Union victory in 1865 destroyed the right of secession in
America,which had been so cherished by America’s founding fathers as the
principle of their revolution. British historian and political philosopher
Lord Acton, one of the most intellectual figures in Victorian England,
understood the deeper meaning of Southern defeat. In a letter to former
Confederate General Robert E. Lee dated November 4,1866, Lord Acton wrote ”
I saw in States Rights the only available check upon the absolutism of the
sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction
but as the redemption of Democracy. I deemed you were fighting the battles
of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization and I mourn for that
which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was
saved at Waterloo (defeat of Napoleon). As Illinois Governor Richard Yates
stated in a message to his state assembly on January 2,1865, the war had ”
tended, more than any other event in the history of the country, to militate
against the Jeffersonian Ideal ( Thomas Jefferson ) that the best government
is that which governs least.

Years after the war former Confederate president Jefferson Davis stated ” I
Am saddened to Hear Southerners Apologize For Fighting To Preserve Our
Inheritance”. Some years later former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt
stated ” Those Who Will Not Fight For The Graves Of Their Ancestors Are
Beyond Redemption”.

James W. King

Commander Camp 141

Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson

Sons of Confederate Veterans

PO Box 70577 Albany, Georgia 31708

229-436-0397

jkingantiquearms@bellsouth.net

The Confederate flag and other symbols including statues and monuments represent Limited Constitutional Federal Government, States Rights, Resistance to Tyranny, and Christian Values and Principles. Thus they represent the same principles as the Betsy Ross U.S.flag–the principles America was founded upon. As America experiments with Globalism, Socialism, and Secular Humanism it is important for patriotic American’s to fly the Confederate flag and to preserve and maintain Confederate statues and monuments as a reminder of these basic principles. America has 2 choices–1.Reclaim our heritage or 2.we will eventually surrender our Constitution and Sovereignty to the New World Order–a Godless Socialist United Nations. Many black Americans have been indoctrinated by Northern Liberal Marxist Socialists to view the Confederate flag, monuments, statues, and Confederate heroes as symbols of racism and bigotry. They are being used and manipulated for political purposes to assist in the conversion of America to socialism and secular humanism. The infamous Communist Karl Marx said “A people separated from their heritage are easily persuaded”. This is the real reason they want to destroy and ban Confederate heritage and symbols which are 180 degrees diametrically opposed to Socialism and Secular Humanism. The Communist Lenin coined the term “useful idiots”. Many white liberals fit this catagory as well as politicians and educators who are helping destroy Confederate principles, heritage, and symbols. Southern Christians who fly the Confederate flag and honor Confederate heroes are not the enemy of responsible black Americans or other minorities who are working to better themselves. It is true that KKK and other groups have misused, misrepresented, and abused the Confederate flag but this should not invalidate the true meaning of this honorable flag and symbols in the minds of educated knowledgeable Americans. These same groups have disparaged the U.S. flag-the Stars and Stripes in the same manner.

America was founded as a Constitutional Federal Republic composed of a Limited Federal Government and Sovereign States. Nations must evolve to survive. However the problem is they always evolve too much. All change is not for the better. World history records the death of every former empire. Nations evolve to the point that they stray from the foundations that they were built upon and decline until they cease to exist. America has evolved too far and is following the same path to destruction that the Roman empire followed 2000 years ago. The only anomaly is the South’s fight during 1861-1865 to retain Constitutional Government. The Confederate States of America fell battling under the banner of “States Rights”. Confederate principles are 1. Limited Constitutional Federal Government 2. States Rights 3. Christian values 4. Resistance to Tyranny. Excess immigration (excess numbers of slaves),corrupt government, and destruction of family values destroyed the Roman Empire and immigration (illegal and excess legal), corrupt government, and destruction of family values are destroying the American Empire. Wal-Mart’s recent decision to join and support homosexuals as part of their diversity program underscores the decline of family values. They refuse to adopt Confederate principles and values as part of that diversity program.
Southern Senators and Congressmen voted against the destructive bills that were voted into law by the other sections of the country. Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell and Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina were two of the most stalwart. Southern “common sense” has almost ceased to exist in American Government. The Northern Socialists who own Hollywood and the mass media actually control America. Through movies and TV the American public are unknowingly brainwashed. They believe they are watching harmless fictional entertainment. Research proves that young people develop and form values, opinions, and beliefs while watching such “harmless entertainment”. They are being indoctrinated for the coming “New World Order”–A Socialist Godless “One World Government” under the United Nations. Hitler and Gobbels understood the power of propaganda and the Northern Socialists that control America do also. They want Americans to eat Big Macs, watch TV programs like Seinfeld and vote in sham elections and be proud to be Americans. We should be proud to be Americans but we need to realize what is happening behind the veil of propaganda.
When the South lost the war in 1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee told his men to go home and be good Americans. Southerners did this and have fought America’s wars in larger numbers than any other section of the country. Yet we are attacked by the media and made the nations whipping boy and the butt of jokes as “gratitude” for our contributions. Why? Because the South is the most Christian Conservative part of the nation. These liberal socialists have two goals for America 1.Destroy Christianity and replace it with Secular Humanism and 2. replace what is left of Democracy with total Socialism. Once they destroy the Christian conservative South the rest of America will fall in line like sheep behind Secular humanism and Socialism. That is the real reason they want to destroy Confederate principles and values. The infamous Communist Karl Marx said “a people separated from their heritage are easily persuaded”. So under the “Moral High Ground” guise of black civil rights they have carried forth their propaganda campaign. They are using black activists to unknowingly do their “dirty work” for them. They also use what the infamous Communist Lenin called “useful idiots” to help accomplish their agenda. Those who are helping destroy Confederate heritage fit in this group– “white liberals with a guilt complex”. Liberalism is all about “feelings” as opposed to “fact”. These “useful idiots” also include Southern politicians who help remove Confederate flags which are a symbol of the principles and values America was founded upon.
The politically incorrect 752 page book “The South Under Siege 1830-2000″ explains in detail what has happened and is currently happening in America. It is available from Amazon.com or from myself jkingantiquearms@bellsouth.net
In the United States of America, there are only two directions left. Either we will reclaim our heritage, or we will eventually surrender our Constitution and Sovereignty to the chains of slavery. The most compelling question that the people of the United States have always grappled with is how to build a government strong enough to preserve order and yet leave society free enough to prevent tyranny.
James W. King
PO Box 70577
Albany, Georgia 31708

The Yankee Problem in America
Since the 2000 presidential election, much attention has been paid to a map showing the sharp geographical division between the two candidates’ support. Gore prevailed in the power- and plunder-seeking Deep North (Northeast, Upper Midwest, Pacific Coast) and Bush in the regions inhabited by productive and decent Americans. There is nothing new about this. Historically speaking, it is just one more manifestation of the Yankee problem.

Scholars are at last starting to pay some attention to one of the most important and most neglected subjects in United States history – the Yankee problem.

By Yankee I do not mean everybody from north of the Potomac and Ohio. Lots of them have always been good folks. The firemen who died in the World Trade Center on September 11 were Americans. The politicians and TV personalities who stood around telling us what we are to think about it are Yankees. I am using the term historically to designate that peculiar ethnic group descended from New Englanders, who can be easily recognized by their arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, lack of congeniality, and penchant for ordering other people around. Puritans long ago abandoned anything that might be good in their religion but have never given up the notion that they are the chosen saints whose mission is to make America, and the world, into the perfection of their own image.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, raised a Northern Methodist in Chicago, is a museum-quality specimen of the Yankee – self-righteous, ruthless, and self-aggrandizing. Northern Methodism and Chicago were both, in their formative periods, hotbeds of abolitionist, high tariff Black Republicanism. The Yankee temperament, it should be noted, makes a neat fit with the Stalinism that was brought into the Deep North by later immigrants.

The ethnic division between Yankees and other Americans goes back to earliest colonial times. Up until the War for Southern Independence, Southerners were considered to be the American mainstream and Yankees were considered to be the “peculiar” people. Because of a long campaign of cultural imperialism and the successful military imperialism engineered by the Yankees, the South, since the war, has been considered the problem, the deviation from the true American norm. Historians have made an industry of explaining why the South is different (and evil, for that which defies the “American” as now established, is by definition evil). Is the South different because of slavery? white supremacy? the climate? pellagra? illiteracy? poverty? guilt? defeat? Celtic wildness rather than Anglo-Saxon sobriety?

Unnoticed in all this literature was a hidden assumption: the North is normal, the standard of all things American and good. Anything that does not conform is a problem to be explained and a condition to be annihilated. What about that hidden assumption? Should not historians be interested in understanding how the North got to be the way it is? Indeed, is there any question in American history more important?

According to standard accounts of American history (i.e., Northern mythology), New Englanders fought the Revolution and founded glorious American freedom as had been planned by the “Puritan Fathers.” Southerners, who had always been of questionable character, because of their fanatic devotion to slavery, wickedly rebelled against government of, by, and for the people, were put down by the armies of the Lord, and should be ever grateful for not having been exterminated. (This is clearly the view of the anonymous Union Leaguer from Portland, Maine, who recently sent me a chamber pot labeled “Robert E. Lee’s soup tureen.”) And out of their benevolence and devotion to the ideal of freedom, the North struck the chains from the suffering black people. (They should be forever grateful, also. Take a look at the Boston statue with happy blacks adoring the feet of Col. Robert Gould Shaw.)

Aside from the fact that every generalization in this standard history is false, an obvious defect in it is that, for anyone familiar with American history before the War, it is clear that “Southern” was American and Yankees were the problem. America was Washington and Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase and the Battle of New Orleans, John Randolph and Henry Clay, Daniel Morgan, Daniel Boone, and Francis Marion. Southerners had made the Constitution, saved it under Jefferson from the Yankees, fought the wars, acquired the territory, and settled the West, including the Northwest. To most Americans, in Pennsylvania and Indiana as well as Virginia and Georgia, this was a basic view up until about 1850. New England had been a threat, a nuisance, and a negative force in the progress of America. Northerners, including some patriotic New Englanders, believed this as much as Southerners.

When Washington Irving, whose family were among the early Anglo-Dutch settlers of New York, wrote the story about the “Headless Horseman,” he was ridiculing Yankees. The prig Ichabod Crane had come over from Connecticut and made himself a nuisance. So a young man (New York young men were then normal young men rather than Yankees) played a trick on him and sent him fleeing back to Yankeeland where he belonged. James Fenimore Cooper, of another early New York family, felt the same way about New Englanders who appear unfavorably in his writings. Yet another New York writer, James Kirke Paulding (among many others) wrote a book defending the South and attacking abolitionists. It is not unreasonable to conclude that in Moby Dick, the New York Democrat Herman Melville modeled the fanatical Captain Ahab on the Yankee abolitionist. In fact, the term “Yankee” appears to originate in some mingling of Dutch and Indian words, to designate New Englanders. Obviously, both the Dutch New Yorkers and the Native Americans recognized them as “different.”

Young Abe Lincoln amused his neighbors in southern Indiana and Illinois, nearly all of whom, like his own family, had come from the South, with “Yankee jokes,” stories making fun of dishonest peddlers from New England. They were the most popular stories in his repertoire, except for the dirty ones.

Right into the war, Northerners opposed to the conquest of the South blamed the conflict on fanatical New Englanders out for power and plunder, not on the good Americans in the South who had been provoked beyond bearing.

Many people, and not only in the South, thought that Southerners, according to their nature, had been loyal to the Union, had served it, fought and sacrificed for it as long as they could. New Englanders, according to their nature, had always been grasping for themselves while proclaiming their righteousness and superiority.

The Yankees succeeded so well, by the long cultural war described in these volumes, and by the North’s military victory, that there was no longer a Yankee problem. Now the Yankee was America and the South was the problem. America, the Yankee version, was all that was normal and right and good. Southerners understood who had won the war (not Northerners, though they had shed a lot of blood, but the accursed Yankees.) With some justification they began to regard all Northerners as Yankees, even the hordes of foreigners who had been hired to wear the blue.

Here is something closer to a real history of the United States: American freedom was not a legacy of the “Puritan Fathers,” but of Virginians who proclaimed and spread constitutional rights. New England gets some credit for beginning the War of Independence. After the first few years, however, Yankees played little part. The war was fought and won in the South. Besides, New Englanders had good reasons for independence – they did not fit into the British Empire economically, since one of their main industries was smuggling, and the influential Puritan clergy hated the Church of England. Southerners, in fighting for independence, were actually going against their economic interests for the sake of principle.

Once Southerners had gone into the Union (which a number of wise statesmen like Patrick Henry and George Mason warned them against), the Yankees began to show how they regarded the new federal government: as an instrument to be used for their own purposes. Southerners long continued to view the Union as a vehicle for mutual cooperation, as they often naively still do.

In the first Congress, Yankees demanded that the federal government continue the British subsidies to their fishing fleets. While Virginia and the other Southern states gave up their vast western lands for future new states, New Englanders demanded a special preserve for themselves (the “Western Reserve” in Ohio).

Under John Adams, the New England quest for power grew into a frenzy. They passed the Sedition Law to punish anti-government words (as long as they controlled the government) in clear violation of the Constitution. During the election of 1800 the preachers in New England told their congregations that Thomas Jefferson was a French Jacobin who would set up the guillotine in their town squares and declare women common property. (What else could be expected from a dissolute slaveholder?) In fact, Jefferson’s well-known distaste for mixing of church and state rested largely on his dislike of the power of the New England self-appointed saints.

When Jeffersonians took power, the New Englanders fought them with all their diminishing strength. Their poet William Cullen Bryant regarded the Louisiana Purchase as nothing but a large swamp for Jefferson to pursue his atheistic penchant for science.

The War of 1812, the Second War of Independence, was decisive for the seemingly permanent discrediting of New England. The Yankee ruling class opposed the war even though it was begun by Southerners on behalf of oppressed American seamen, most of whom were New Englanders. Yankees did not care about their oppressed poorer citizens because they were making big bucks smuggling into wartime Europe. One New England congressman attacked young patriot John C. Calhoun as a backwoodsman who had never seen a sail and who was unqualified to d