Did You Know (or Care): A bit more about the South

c/o Beauvoir

Kevin Levin of Civil War Memory is an example of one who scorns the individual who is perceived to cling to an unsubstantiated illusion that legitimizes certain perspectives which may not fit well within the box of the more easily accepted mainstream.  Indeed he has rejected the following story as a neo-Confederate fantasy solely intended to challenge the public image of Southerners' universal disdain for those of African descent.  So for those who think that we blindly hate everyone, here's an interesting piece I recently caught from History.com --

"Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina fostered a slave child during the war.  On February 16, 1864, the Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote in her journal that, while visiting the Confederate executive mansion in Richmond, she saw a 'little negro Mrs. Davis rescued yesterday from his brutal negro guardian.  The child is an orphan.  He was dressed up in Little Joe's [one of the Davises' sons'] clothes and happy as a lord.'  The mulatto boy's name was Jim Limber, and he and young Billy Davis became friends.

"In her memoirs, Varina Davis said her husband 'went to the Mayor's office and had [Jim's] free papers registered to insure Jim against getting into the power of the oppressor again.'  When federal forces caught the fleeing Davises in May 1865, they gave the boy to an old family friend, Union General Rufus Saxton.  'He quietly went,' Varina Davis wrote, 'but as soon as he found he was going to leave us he fought like a little tiger and was thus engaged the last we saw of him.'"

Original source: The Seven-Day Scholar: The Civil War by Dennis Gaffney and Peter Gaffney

Sunday's Quote: Why they fought

Almost unquestionably, the Civil War is the most divisive historical topic in our nation's history.  Adding to the mix, The Washington Post recently published a piece by author and University of Vermont professor James W. Loewen that addressed five perceived myths encompassing this bygone era.

Scholarly at the outset of his assessment, Loewen concluded that White supremacy, commingled with a desire to expand slavery beyond the continental border, provided the driving motivation for the South's secession.  In fairness, perhaps, he added that "Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862."

Although I'm probably just a "neo-Confederate" hayseed simpleton locked into the mythology and lore of the romanticized Old South, I must say that I've mulled over perceptions such as Loewen's more times than I can count since the mid-90's.  And despite all that I've been commanded to believe, I keep arriving at the same questions:

Why would such a sizable uprising of mostly underprivileged, non-slave-holding Southerners -- a fledgling upstart of a nation -- form a citizen-soldiery to battle against their brethren of the North in the interest of maintaining a slavery establishment that, according to the U.S. census of 1860, was perpetuated by a mere 6% of the Southern populace?  Further, why would these Confederates who knowingly faced impossible odds even consider firing a single shot in the name of White supremacy when, according to Loewen himself, such a mindset (however debatable) was largely shared among their northern counterparts?

Here's a quick history review...

During the second session of the 36th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution on February 11, 1861 that guaranteed noninterference with slavery in any State.  Undeterred by the eight slave States that remained in the Union, representatives of the new Confederacy (comprised of only seven States at this point) established a provisional Congress and formalized a new Constitution.  They had also chosen Jefferson Davis -- a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army Colonel, Senator and Secretary of War -- as their first provisional president.

Because the resolution failed to draw the seceded States back into the Union, the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution was passed by both houses of Congress on July 25, some three months after those dastardly Southerners took Fort Sumter, stating that war was being waged to "defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union."  Any document regarding a desire to do away with slavery would not be produced until Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, some 20 months after the War began.

For nearly half my life, I have known what rich and politically influential men of the time have said.  But I also wanted to know about the common man who loaded and fired his musket on the field of battle.  I considered those who were under no delusion about the grievous hardship that awaited them all.  And from this, I was forced to consider if it was possible -- if it was even conceivable -- that these ordinary people from a century-and-a-half ago were driven to fight, suffer and die for reasons other than maintaining human servitude and racial domination.

Consider Judah Benjamin.  Prior to his service in the Confederate Cabinet as Secretary of State, Secretary of War and Attorney General, Benjamin was only the second Jewish U.S. Senator in American history and the first Jew considered for nomination to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (an offer he declined twice).

Also consider Ambrosio José Gonzales, a Confederate Colonel and native of Cuba who served as chief of artillery and figured prominently in the South's coastal defense.

And let us not forget Stand Watie (a.k.a., Standhope Oowatie).  The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, he was also a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army who led the Indian cavalry of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, CSA.

Did such men fight for the causes of slavery and White supremacy?

Some of Loewen's points are accurate.  Those who wished to keep their slaves absolutely existed and held considerable clout.  But are Loewen's conclusions comprehensive in scope, or is this merely another case of the Southland being hit with the inclusive liability of an institution that has prospered continuously throughout our planet for nearly 4,000 years while everyone else, past and present, are given a pass?

The malignancies and complications of this time in history are undeniable.  But what if I were bold enough to define anyone by only the most negative aspects of their culture?  I doubt that would be very well received.  Hence, I never tell anyone why they have to love the former Confederate nation.  I only tell them why they don't have to hate it.  There's a difference.

"The South will rise again!" is unappealing rhetoric to most, including yours truly.  Yet the act of comparing the unashamed Southerner to Hitler and the Nazis ("Godwin's Law," Reductio ad Hitlerum) invariably makes its way into the conversation, usually when the debate has nowhere else to go.  But more interesting still is how America can always depend on those kooky Confederate flag wavers to be first in line for a fight to defend Old Glory.  Define that however you like, but the unyielding commitment demonstrated time and time again by the sons of the South stems from the reasoning behind why George Washington was placed at the center of the Great Seal of the Confederacy. 

Today we mock the notions of smaller government and States Rights, and we act as if the 10th Amendment doesn't even exist.  At present, we have an uncontrollable national government which, by most accounts, becomes more intrusive with each passing year.  And this is notable because, like it or not, that behemoth was born with Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

Instead of listening to the agenda-driven demagogues of the present, it is better to witness the words spoken by those who experienced the unpleasantness of the time firsthand.  Their viewpoints are not politically correct by our current standard.  But they are indeed correct, and it does matter:

"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people.  If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so."
-- from "Democracy in America" (two volumes, published in 1835 & 1840) by Alexis de Tocqueville

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to abolish the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. ... Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."

-- Abraham Lincoln, Congressional Records; January 12, 1848

"The Union is a Union of States founded upon Compact.  How is it to be supposed that when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes either can disregard one provision of it and expect others to observe the rest?  If the Northern States willfully and deliberately refuse to carry out their part of the Constitution, the South would be no longer bound to keep the compact."
-- from Senator Daniel Webster's (D-Massachusetts) Capon Springs Speech; June 28, 1851

"Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in the regions north of the Potomac, and this in the midst of the fact that the south, in four staples alone, in cotton, tobacco, rice and indigo had exported produce since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred million dollars, and the North had exported comparatively nothing. ... Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth; but what was the fact?  In place of wealth, a universal pressure for money was felt; not enough for current expenses... and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation of their family estates. ... Under this legislation the exports of the South have been made the basis of the federal revenue. ... Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia may be said to defray three fourths of the annual expense of supporting the federal government; and of this great sum annually furnished by them, nothing, or next to nothing, is returned to them in the shape of government expenditure.

"That expenditure flows in an opposite direction; it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted and perennial stream; it takes the course of trade and of exchange; and this is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North.  Federal legislation does all this; it does it by the simple process of eternally taking away from the South, and returning nothing to it."
-- from a lengthy and perfectly stated offering by Senator Thomas Hart Benton (D-Missouri) in 1851

"A legitimate union of states depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the Sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their union is gone.  Any state forced to remain in a union by military force can never be a co-equal member of the American union and can be viewed only as a 'subject providence'."
-- from The Daily Union of Bangor, Maine; November 13, 1860

"If we of the North were called upon to endure one half as much as the Southern people and soldiers do, we would abandon the cause and let the Southern Confederacy be established. ... A nation preserved with liberty trampled underfoot is much worse than a nation in fragments but with the spirit of liberty still alive.  Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government."
-- Private John H. Haley, 17th Maine Regiment, United States Army

"With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children and my home."
-- Colonel Robert Edward Lee, United States Army.  Lee was President Lincoln's personal choice to lead the charge against the Southern uprising.

"I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union and the power of the government -- on no other issue.  To gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the Negro question.  It must be incidental and subsidiary.  The President is perfectly honest and is really sound on the [N-word] question."
-- Major General George B. McClellan, Army of the Potomac, United States Army

"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision."
-- Major General Patrick Cleburne, Army of Tennessee, Confederate States Army

"So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of the battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle.  Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North.  The love of money is the root of this as of many, many other evils ... the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
-- Charles Dickens, author of numerous all-time classics, as editor of the British periodical All the Year Round in 1862

"All these cries of having 'abolished slavery', of having 'saved the country', of having 'preserved the Union,' of establishing a 'government of consent' and of 'maintaining the national honor' are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats -- so transparent they they ought to deceive no one."
-- Lysander Spooner, philosopher and Massachusetts abolitionist

"Concerning CSA President Jefferson Davis: He was imprisoned after the war (and) was never brought to trial.  The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and the South had got a raw deal -- but he refused to ask the United States for a 'pardon', demanding that the government either offer him a pardon, give him a trial or admit that he had been unjustly dealt with.  He died, 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing."
-- from "The Civil War" (1953) by James Street 

"The American people, North and South, went into the (Civil) War as citizens of their respective states.  They came out as subjects ... and what they thus lost, they never got back."
-- H.L. Mencken, one of the more notable commentators of the 20th century, and ironically, a noted detractor of the South

Sunday's Quote: Ole Miss & The South

Because matters centering upon race have remained prevalent in large metropolitan areas such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit and Los Angeles, I have often wondered why the South is hit with the inclusive liability of all racial issues while practically all others are given a pass.

The considerable majority of arguments, when broken down to their most common denominator, harken back to the days of slavery -- something of which the South was the last in the western hemisphere to partake.  Interestingly those driven to demonize present-day Southerners who reject the weight of an institution that has existed on virtually every corner of the planet for nearly 4,000 years exhibit an unusual amount of artificiality when celebrating a heritage of their own that, to this day, is absolutely rife with all the elements they claim to despise.  But I digress.

Nobody dismisses the malignancy of the past, but it does not define who we are.  So to answer the critics, today's quote is from yet another northerner who was pleasantly surprised to discover what the South is all about:

"...Hiram Eastland, James O. Eastlands nephew said, you know, a lot of people have ideas about Mississippi based on things that happened 50 years.  And all of that stuff, as Hiram put it to me, is in our rear-view mirror.  And I was a visitor, but I was really surprised by the nature of race relations in Mississippi.

"I live just outside of Washington, D.C. and there's a mayoral race going on right now in Washington, and its all about race.  You don't see any of that in Mississippi.  People are friendly.  You see blacks and white socializing together in a way you don't here in Washington at all.  It really, really was stunning to me, actually, to see this.

"...for people who don't come from the South or don't spend any time in the South, it might come as a big surprise that people do get along as well as they do.  They are not just over - not get along over football, only, but just the way people are friendly.  The communal spirit there is just amazing."
-- from an NPR interview with writer Bill Thomas; September 13, 2010.  The full piece about his trip, "The sounds and the fury -- down home with Ole Miss, beauty queens and literary greatness in Oxford, Mississippi" was featured in The Washington Post the day before.  It's an excellent read.

When sports and ideology collide

Responding to Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, whose open letter about the departure of his franchise's biggest star drew more national attention than he likely anticipated, Jesse Jackson replied by proclaiming that Gilbert's "mean, arrogant and presumptuous" comments placed LeBron James in unnecessary danger, and that he views the 25-year-old Ohio native as a "runaway slave."

Says Jackson, "[Gilbert] speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers... His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality."  Jackson also claims that Gilbert's open letter was an attack on all NBA players and added that he should face a "challenge" from both the league and the players' association.

Gilbert was fined $100,000 on Monday for his comments, though the always fascinating Roland S. Martin -- a new school version of Jesse Jackson -- wondered if the penalty was extensive enough.  Having initially declined to touch upon the matter, NBA commissioner David Stern later criticized both sides for the debacle.

Whether Jackson was attempting to capitalize on a mini-wave of momentum that resulted from another epic snafu by Mel Gibson is debatable, but it seems the ESPN-produced LeBron-a-thon did little to lift the image of the presumed heir apparent to Michael Jordan's throne (currently occupied by Kobe Bryant).  If the round of boos he received from New York Knicks fans at Carmelo Anthony's wedding last Saturday doesn't demonstrate that, the welcome James will undoubtedly endure at each of the Miami Heat's 41 road games will.

Now take this situation in tandem with an overlooked statement made in a recent column by Kansas City Star and FoxSports.com contributor Jason Whitlock about a completely different event:

"The World Cup narrows our view and, more than any other sporting event, baits us to give in to nationalism, jingoism and racism.  It’s not the Olympics.  Not everyone is invited.  And no one pretends the month of World Cup play is a reason to celebrate and respect the world’s numerous cultures.  The World Cup owes much of its popularity to hate.  It’s the anti-Olympics.  It’s an excuse for bigots to mask their biases in sporting patriotism."

-- from "Time to put that 'miracle' on ice"; June 24, 2010

As if he senses that a certain carte blanche on all things racial is about to be lost, Whitlock went more than an extra mile to mischaracterize an international tournament that has been celebrated in practically every nation (except the United States) for 80 years.  Rowdy fanatics notwithstanding, most zealots don't require such a grand forum to express a prejudice that would exist even if the World Cup did not.  But don't tell that to Whitlock unless you care to be labeled a racist.

Keep in mind that Jason Whitlock, who has written several columns expressing a belief that his former high school teammate Jeff George (million-dollar arm, ten-cent head) is still deserving of an NFL tryout, also claims the NCAA went easy on Duke in the national basketball tournament pairings last March because "Duke (and North Carolina to a lesser degree) score higher on the old 'eyeball' test.  Fewer tattoos and more white guys.  I just made many of you uncomfortable.  Sorry.  But it’s a fact. ... Coach K[rzyzewski] and his band of Boys Next Door are the Great White Hopes of Hoops.  Three of Duke’s five starters are white.  Their top two scorers are white."

The Blue (Or is it White?) Devils, for the record, won their fourth national championship soon after Whitlock's column was published.  And it was earned in one of the best title games in recent memory -- television ratings were up 34% from the year before -- against another squad full of "Boys Next Door," the Butler University Bulldogs.

Pity those who place too much worth in how well an individual puts a leather ball through an iron hoop.  Sports are entertainment and little else.  Yet the relevance in these matters is found in a mentality that isn't necessarily mainstream, but is far-reaching nevertheless.

When Boston sports radio personality Fred "Toucher" Toettcher -- as White and seemingly unathletic as they come -- likened Tim Tebow's NFL draft party last April to "some kind of Nazi rally" because the gathering was "so lily-white," it exhibits a hypersensitive and increasingly pervasive disposition that allows the race pimp to dominate and causes the less informed to yield.

As the aforementioned Jason Whitlock wrote, I just made many of you uncomfortable.  Sorry.  But it’s a fact.

Walking small, but carrying a huge stick

Yes, the picture to the left is a caricature.  But it's appropriate and close to scale nevertheless.

Of all my favorite unjustifiably self-centered lunatics filled with their own brand of tyrannical hubris -- from Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Gaddafi, Omar al-Bashir, Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Osama bin Laden himself -- none have been as thoroughly entertaining, and disturbing, as Kim Jong-il.

The official biography of Kim Jong-il states that his birth was prophesied, and later heralded, by the appearance of a double rainbow over the Baekdu Mountain in Japanese-occupied Korea.  Although the story of his birth is clearly hogwash, the national cult of personality established by his father, "Eternal President" Kim Il-Sung (d. 1994), allows for such embellishments, which ultimately enables the Russian-born "Dear Leader" to remain both an untouchable oppressor and the unquestioned head of the world's fourth-largest military.

Kim's disastrous policies as North Korea's despot-in-chief have resulted in one of the world's deadliest famines.  Despite his well-known craving for fine dining, millions of his fellow Koreans -- at least 10% of the population -- have succumbed to starvation over the past 15 years.  Only Mao and Josef Stalin have starved more people to death.  It is also reported that Kim Jong-il, to his considerable dismay, believes he will be replaced by a triplet.  Because each of his children were born individually, Kim has ordered all triplets in North Korea to be rounded up and raised in orphanages where the Stalinist dictator can keep a close eye on them.

Nuclear threats and pesky human rights violations notwithstanding, the 5'2" god-man also plays a mean game of golf.  The government-controlled media -- which ran headlines recently that proclaimed victory in the World Cup over the top-ranked Brazilians, 29-0 -- reports that Kim Jong-il routinely shoots at least three holes-in-one per round.  The odds of achieving but a single hole-in-one are approximately 1 in 5,000.  So either the propaganda machine is lying, or KJ-i is better than Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods combined.

In an unrelated, but equally grandiose story, I am a better guitarist than Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Darrell Abbott, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May, Randy Rhoads, Kirk Hammett, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Zakk Wylde, Vernon Reid and Duane Allman combined.

Yes, Kim Jong-il is going to burn in Hell one day.  The punishment his totalitarian regime has inflicted will last, most likely, for generations.  Yet we can hope that one of those triplets for whom Kim is inexplicably afraid will, by some act of God, rise to become the benevolent replacement North Koreans so desperately need.

Sunday's Quote: Confederate History Month and, of course, race

April is Confederate History Month, and this year it has drawn more attention than usual.  A couple of days ago, President Obama rebuked Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell for leaving any mention of slavery out of his official proclamation, and earlier today the always entertaining Roland Martin labeled the Confederate soldier as a "domestic terrorist."

Martin exclaimed that the present-day defenders of the Confederacy "sound eerily similar to what we hear today from Muslim extremists who have pledged their lives to defend the honor of Allah and to defeat the infidels of the West."  He added, "If a Confederate soldier was merely doing his job in defending his homeland, honor and heritage, what are we to say about young Muslim radicals who say the exact same thing as their rationale for strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up cafes and buildings?"

Astonishing, but such comments are to be expected from an individual who once compared the challengers of Obama's citizenship to Holocaust deniers.

I was among the nearly 800 people who offered a rebuttal to the Christian Science Monitor story (via Yahoo.com) about Governor McDonnell.  In my brief offering, I pondered why such a vast gathering of mostly underprivileged and non-slave-holding Southerners would form a volunteer army to battle against their brethren of the North while knowingly outnumbered, under-resourced and altogether unprepared to face a logistically superior opponent in the name of maintaining a slavery establishment that was perpetuated by a mere 6% of the Confederate populace.

My somewhat facetious, yet completely factual piece earned 10 "thumbs up," one "thumbs down," and a couple of nice comments that were on par with the considerable majority of impassioned, Southern-friendly comments.  Evidently there are more of us than I originally thought.

In light of the unyielding racial context that appears to envelop, if not dominate, every imaginable social, political, historical, religious and philosophical issue, I believe a recent quote sums up the present state of affairs:

"How Orwellian that the most racist members of American society, who built entire careers of fabricating evidence and defaming opponents -- an Al Sharpton, for example -- have become go-to national referees of suspected bias.  How weirder that one just pledges allegiance to the new agenda, and suddenly one is both more likely to say something racist in Reid- or Biden-fashion, and yet it is not racist at all."

-- from Victor Davis Hanson's "The New Rules of Racial Tolerance," March 30, 2010; respectfully borrowed from the Never Yet Melted blog

5,000 years of Imperial history

Throughout my life I have heard more than I ever cared to hear about the evil, oppressive, conquering faction of European colonialists and the culpability they (and their descendants) should be willing to accept for the supposed degradation of anything they touched.  And from this, I have been equally taken aback upon observing the inconvenient but necessary truths the accusers flatly refuse when challenged to give an account for their own cultural imperfections.

For those interested, visit this link and take 90 seconds to watch a timeline history of the Middle East and Africa.  Consider how one empire perpetually conquers another, and note the points in which the Crusaders and European colonialists finally make their presence known.  You just might learn something.

Sunday's Quote: Slavery and race

As Black History Month draws to a close, I thought a quote from one of the all-time greats would be in order:

"I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race.  No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government. ...the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe.

This is so to such an extend that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland.  This I say, not to justify slavery... but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.  When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already led us."

-- from the opening chapter of Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery" (1901)

On This Day in History: February 8

1861 -- Delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana officially form the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.  Texas would join the next month, followed by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole tribes.  Four more States -- Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee -- would align with the new Nation by July.

Despite some of the Southern States having initially voted against seceding from the Union (including Tennessee by a 4-to-1 margin), it was on.

1865 -- Delaware's General Assembly refused to ratify the 13th Amendment, referring to it as an illegal extension of Federal powers.  Although the institution had ceased by the end of 1865, the amendment to end slavery would not be formalized by "The First State" until February 12, 1901.