Myrtle Hill Cemetery descreated Civil War soldier (courtesy northwestgeorgianews.com)
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If I was a German Jew, I wouldn’t be comfortable walking past statues honoring famous German soldiers or commanders who served the Fatherland during the Nazi era, no matter how valiant their service. So I understand why many descendants of American slaves aren’t OK with Civil War statuary immortalizing Confederate soldier or commanders. But I don’t approve of this [via northwestgeorgianews.com] . . .

The national controversy over historical monuments made its way to Rome [Georgia] at mid-week when a Confederate monument atop historic Myrtle Hill Cemetery was broken up and smashed by a person or persons who went to a great deal of difficulty to make their statement. The damage to the monument was discovered early Thursday morning.

The statue depicts a Confederate soldier with his arms in front of him holding a long rifle, upright in his hand. The hands and rifle were knocked off, the face was bashed in and the brim of the hat broken off.

“It looked like it was surgically cut,” said Rome City Manager Sammy Rich.”It’s just super disappointing that somebody would go to that much trouble to get up there, put a ladder up or whatever to reach it.

The term “super disappointing” doesn’t say much about Mr. Rich’s cultural sensitivity. Or maybe it does. Anyway, desecration is desecration, right?

Short of public defilement, do you think Civil War statues and monuments honoring Confederate military men should be removed from public view? What’s the downside of doing so?

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266 COMMENTS

  1. Problem with Robert Farago’s assumption is it’s NOT the ‘former’ slaves as their are none. Secondly the civil war was NOT fought because of slavery. Get an education of shut up on subject you have no idea about.

      • It wasn’t…
        WW1 was about the people that really controlled the British empire destroying germany to counter it’s rise in economic power due to chemical innovations. These chemicals required oil which germany had been actively trying to secure, which is why WW1 was the first war for oil in Iraq.

        WW2 was essentially a german uprising and pushback against the continual and deliberate demoralization and destruction of culture implemented after the destruction by war (look up what was going in in the weimar republic) , as well as the ongoing terrorism being waged by communist bolshevik rebels that were being funded and imported from outside of germany (Does sound familiar to current events? It should)

        Hitler didn’t wake up one day and decide “Hey lets be evil and hate the jews for no reason!”. Whether you like them or not, everything the nazi’s did was a logical and predicable reaction to the shit that was going on. They were made, not born.

        There is much more going on in any war than you will ever learn from just listening to simplistic propaganda, and it’d serve you well to understand why things happened if you don’t want a repeat of history.

        • No, Hitler developed his hate, and syphilis, over many years.

          The kindling for the Nazi party was the heavy handed way in which the Treaty of Versailles was implemented. Then the Great Depression happened, and a Nationalistic Populism throwing the blame at the Jews and mongrel races, looked good to the people.

          I love the excuses being generated on this thread about Nazi’s and Confederates, I mean its not like you can’t actually read the speeches of the founders. If they’re saying the Civil War was because of slavery, why not just let them speak for themselves. Mein Kampf was written in 1925, 8 years before Hitler was Chancellor.

        • B-Rad, I wouldn’t take everything in a speech as gospel; we all heard lots of BS in politician’s speeches. I don’t know when that started, but maybe it isn’t such new trend.

      • Binder – No WWII was NOT fought over the Holocaust, the Holocaust happened during WWII. Get out of mom’s basement, get a life, and get an educations!

        • Wow, just wow.

          OK, let me spell it out for you.

          WW2 was not fought over the holocaust, I think a little something called the The Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression had a little more to do with it. (Good thing the Allies learned their lesson about that after the war.) But the Holocaust made it unacceptable to have monuments to the Germans who fought and died. Well, slavery taints the sacrifices made by the Confederate solders who also fought and died. No matter how much some people want to separate the two.

        • Except there are memorials to some of the fallen German soldiers from WW2, as there should be. Quit spouting that holocaust shit. Not everything in WW2 was about jews, even though they like to think it is and milk it for shekels.

    • Speaking of shutting up…
      Those who assert that the Civil War was not about slavery show an understanding of history akin to those who think the Second Amendment only referred to muskets.

      States’ rights, states’ rights, yeah. The only states’ right in dispute was the right to own slaves.

      • The Confederate Constitution forbade any state in the Confederacy from imposing limits on slavery. So much for ‘states’ rights’. They certainly didn’t object to the Fugitive Slave Act either.

      • Absent Lincoln’s election their would have been no secession at that time. Lincoln’s invasion of the South which followed had NOTHING to do with Black Slavery.

        • Do you know that the Confederates attacked first, and invaded the north first.

          If this is the history that we’re erasing, I’m all for it, because its exactly 100% wrong. You should actually know the history that you’re erasing, yours is closer to Lord of the Rings than reality. Complete fantasy land.

        • Lincoln’s election precipitated the succession. The Democrats had split, and had run three candidates. that diluted their vote, and created a Republican victory. The election of Trump caused some of the same behavior as Lincoln’s election.
          The Civil War can be discribed as a “conservative revolt.” Southerners saw their influence in government fading, the lack of suitable land to expand cotton production, and industrialization replacing agriculture. (Think of the tariff issue.) Succession was to maintain, not change a way of life.
          Slavery was the abortion issue of the day. Ask for an opinion on abortion today, and you’ll find absolute positions and no wish to compromise.

        • The point was, that Lincoln invaded the south. Well yes, after the south had initiated the war, invaded the north, sacked DC, invaded all the way to Vermont. The north invading the south initially is just pure fantasy land.

          Ft. Sumter, Virginia campaign of 1861.

        • “The point was, that Lincoln invaded the south. Well yes, after the south had initiated the war, invaded the north, sacked DC, invaded all the way to Vermont. The north invading the south initially is just pure fantasy land.”

          When did the south “sack” DC?

          When did the south invade “all the way to Vermont?

          Speaking of fantasy lands….

        • How about the St. Albans Raid, October 19th, 1864, as in St. Albans Vermont. Did the Confederates start from the Canadian side, yes, it was still the Confederates, still Vermont, still war, so…

          After the Battle of Bull Run during the Manassas Campaign the Confederates began indiscriminate shelling of Washington, then on July 11th and 12th of 1864 at the Battle of Fort Stevens, the Union Army defeated the invasion force of Jubal Early, that would be in Northwest DC. The capital was under constant harassment and bombardment for much of the war, although the perimeter defenses were sufficient to deny the southern armies a complete take over of the city. Most government agencies had relocated to NYC since nearly all of the surrounding residential land was under constant threat or actual control of the Confederate Army.

      • The problem is labeling. It was not a civil war, but a war of secession. If the original 13 colonies could secede from Britain, why couln’t the South secede from the North?

        • There was no legal basis for refusal to acknowledge secession. Indeed, the question was very much in doubt prior to Fort Sumter. We tend to believe that the issue was settled via the war, but it was only tabled. There are still disagreements, and much discussion in history. One of the least opaque discussions I have read can be found at:
          https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-secession-legal/
          Part of the discussion regards our times, and is tenuously anchored in the history of the union. But overall, it is a good read.

        • Did the Confederacy allow states to secede from it?

          As with apologists for Imperial Japan, there’s a lot of hypocrisy in neo-Confederite circles.

      • Curtis in IL – You just proved the saying – Keep your mouth shut and the world may think you a fool, open it and remove all doubt!

      • Explain why the Federal government had allowed slavery since 1776.

        Explain why slavery remained legal throughout the war (1860-65) in 7 Union States and inside DC.

        The United States never tried to “end” Slavery during the war. Therefore the Confederacy wasn’t defending anything but their own territory, homes and families.

        • People can evolve and recognize something wrong, and do something about it.

          And, the south didn’t just defend their homes, blah blah blah. They left the United States, created their own nation, initiated hostilities with the United States, invaded the United States, then got smashed by the superiority of the northern industrial complex.

          The Civil War was exactly about slavery, as the alternative in the south to industrialization, they didn’t have the natural resources, capital, and technical knowledge to compete, and saw the societal change coming, slavery would end, and those in power had built their wealth and power with the economic benefits of owning people. Slavery was the proximate cause of the war, period.

        • All you need to do to know what the war was fought over, is listen to what the Confederate leadership had to say on the matter back in 1861.

          “Our new government is founded upon exactly idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

          “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. ”

          “The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere”

          “On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.”

          “In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color– a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.”

          “As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag [“Stainless Banner”] would thus be emblematical of our cause. Such a flag would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN’S FLAG”

        • Slavery existed. Modern slavery (defined as permanent control or ownership of a person based upon identifiable characteristics of that person) began with Muslim faithful who bought black Africans from other black Africans, when the Islamic terrorists of the 14th Century had run out of captured locals from captured or pirated lands. These Islamists then recognized an opportunity and began reselling black Africans to any willing to buy. Med states (Eurpoean, Levantine and African) were among the first buyers, but Northern European and Asian buyers also participated. When the American continents were discovered by Europeans, Muslim slave traders had black African slaves available to serve the new markets. The most prolific buyers in the developing market were New England merchants who resold slaves all around the North Atlantic

          So if Muslims created the business (and to this day still buy and sell slaves), New Englanders exploted the trade in humans, the entire colonial system used slaves, and the United States permitted slaves – Why do agenda driven revisionists blame the Confederate States in their entirety for a common practice that only about one percent of Southerners actually participated in?

          The North fought for two years – opposed only to the South’s “right” to remove itself from the Union – without once arguing it was slavery. Only when the very real threat of an alliance between the UK and the Confederate States forced Lincoln’s hand did the politics of slavery create a new issue in 1863. Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” freed no slaves and was not intended to do enything more than freeze England – which had just ended slavery itself. The UK did not join the CSA in the war, but notably – after Lincoln’s proclamation became public the North had to depend upon it’s draft to get people to fight.

          How is it that the war, argued by some on this forum to be exclusively about slavery, was fought almost exclusively by southern volunteers who never owned, or expected to own, a slave? How could the South put an entirely volunteer army in the field that was – for three years – the equal to the larger industrialized North which had to draft people to field an army? If the cause was “slavery” why would anyone not involved in slavery, participate? If the issue was slavery, why did Maryland and Delaware, slave states, field armies FOR THE NORTH?

          People, please use your head for something besides the race baiting, class warfare, liberal garbage long pushed by the revisionist Democrats.

        • Slavery was legal. Legal. Constitutionally Legal. Period. Full stop.

          The abolitionists were trying to deprive southern states of “rights” and powers of the states to determine the laws of their states. The issue was the legality of using legislative (as in not a constitutional amendment) measures to end slavery and prohibit future expansion (new states had all the rights of states already in the union).

          If the constitution protects behavior that you find distasteful, neither you nor any posse, has the constitutional right to remove that protected behavior without going through the amendment process, or launching a new revolution to make things be the way you like.

          The issue was powers/rights of states under the constitution. The proximate cause was slavery (property rights). It is important to understand the distinction.

    • The one that needs an education is you. Or rather you should stop reading that revisionist history. This is from the Mississippi Declaration of Secession:

      “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”

      Are you going to still claim the Civil War wasn’t about slavery? No doubt you will since you’re too far gone into the Neo-Confederate nonsense.

      • The two sides were fighting for different things. Read Lincolns own words. Keeping the Union intact was primary for him.

        Iraq has WMDs morphed into Iraqi Freedom for some odd reason /sarc

        I was there in 2003 to see this history rewrite myself.

        Those who think that the primary reason for the War for Southern Independence was slavery I will say it was a bit more complex than that.

        • The Confederate States left because they were afraid Lincoln was going to ban slavery. It’s just like when states threatened to secede when Obama and Trump came into office because they were afraid of what they MIGHT do, only the truth is that Lincoln didn’t actually want to ban slavery right away, but do away with it over time. Once the war was in full swing he banned slavery for the CSA as a kick in the teeth, but allowed Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia to keep their slaves.

        • Read Alexander Stephen’s “Cornerstone Speech.” Stephens was the confederate vice-president and in March 1861 spoke on the reasons for the war:

          “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution…Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
          http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/

        • Fake News, that’s a leftist commie liberal, spreading disinformation and lies. The Confederacy was created to allow states rights and tarriff’s, or not tarriff’s. All people were created, and stuff. Line Item Veto, bitches.

        • I think I remember some speeches (some by President no less) about the WMDs in Iraq. But no “Sorry, we didn’t find any WMDs, my bad, going home now.” speeches.

        • Do not forget that Syria recently used Iraqi chemical weapons on it’s own citizens. Turns out – there really were WMDs in Iraq before the invasion – but Hussein sent them to his buddy in Syria for safekeeping during the “international inspections” the UN fumbled. So the manic rants of anti-Bush43 socialists like Obama and his democrats, are just as dishonest today as they were in 2008. Very much like their current “Trump is racist” and “white privilege” and if it isn’t liberal socialist it’s “racist.” The “destroy all things Confederate” movement is part of that vile, divisive bigotry.

        • anonymoose, it’s not accurate to say Lincoln allowed northern states to keep their slaves, because he didn’t have the authority to change their status in the first place — only Congress had that authority. The reason he could ban slavery in the South was because those states were considered to be under military authority and he was the CiC.

        • “…he didn’t have the authority to change their status in the first place — only Congress had that authority.”

          Your thinking may have run ahead of your typing. Congress did not have the authority to abolish slavery, either. Only the states, via a constitutional amendment, could abolish slavery. Which was the entire point of secession.

    • The civil war WAS fought because of slavery.. coming from someone who has an education. and also coming from someone that’s read the succession statements that made it impossible for both sides to come to an agreement.

      Slavery is bad. The Civil War was about slavery.. period… anyone else that says otherwise is trying to cherry pick something that isn’t even there. And no one’s falling for it anymore.

      • An education is sniffing glue? I mean if slavery was the reason for the season, it is confirmed by the North totally banning slavery for themselves first and not engaging in any economic actions that might have enraged a large swath of the nation, right? Oh wait…

        Neither side was innocent. Get over it.

        • It cannot be denied that there were plenty of racists in the North–and Lincoln’s winning the nomination reflected that split, as well as Lincoln’s reluctance to ban slavery in the north because he recognized that it would lose him many votes in the midwestern states and their German American voters. Chase, by contrast, was an absolute abolitionist, and it cost him the nomination.

          Slavery was the life blood, the economic engine of the South. This element of the Southern cause cannot be overlooked or ignoo\red. The South was convinced that without slavery, its entire way of life would be crushed, and the powers were not going to allow that to happen. The Missouri compromise satisfied no one, and instead lead to major massacres in Kansas and Missouri committed by both sides.

          Yes, “states’ rights” played a part–the claimed right of the Southern states to remain slave states, and the ongoing conflict as to whether new states would be able to determine that issue for themselves rather than by federal fiat. And it is also true that many rebel soldiers were nothing but “po’ white trash” that owned little if any land and no slaves, who fought for the “glorious south” and “southern rights to self-determination” preached to them by their politicians and preachers. Were they racist? Undoubtedly–their social stats as “white men” was dependent on the continued institution of slavery.

      • “The Civil War was about slavery.. period”

        Nope. Get a refund for your education.

        The civil war was about whether one section of the country could remove, repeal, overturn, eradicate a constitutionally-protected right to property without amending the constitution, and whether, even if the constitution had survived ratification, the constitution prevented a sovereign state from voluntarily quitting the union. The reason these two legal issues resulted in a civil war was that one section wanted to preserve (and allow new states to implement) slavery that was not prohibited by the constitution.

        In April 1864 (year before the end of the war), the Senate passed the 13th. Opposition from Democrats in the House killed the bill. In November of 1864 (Lincoln’s re-election), Lincoln got eight Democrats to switch votes (likely because the re-election was “writing on the wall”). The proposed amendment went to the states, and was ratified (Georgia). After that followed Oregon, California, Florida, Iowa, New Jersey, Texas, Delaware*, Kentucky*, Missippi*. (37 states so far; the 13th was specifically rejected by Deleware in February 1865, New Jersey in March 1865, and Mississippi in December 1865)
        (*after 1900)

        The first constitutional issue was whether simple “moral” legislation could invalidate a constitutionally-protected right to property (slavery and indentured servitude of other than punishment of a crime). The second issue was secession, which was not prohibited by the constitution.

        Ultimately, there was no universal agreement in the northern states that states could not nullify their compact with the central government (the states were sovereign). Nor was there universal opposition to slavery among the northern states. Indeed, if PTG Beauregard has not fired on Fort Sumter, secession might have been accepted by the remaining federal union. Regardless of the merits (or not) of the legal arguments, the unprovoked attack on Fort Sumter settled the hash. A sovereign state attacked the sovereign (delegated) federal government of other sovereign states. It would have been no different if Beauregard had fired on Pennsylvania.

        Final note in this history lesson: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed zero slaves in the Confederacy. Indeed, he had no legal authority to expropriate property in states remaining in the union. The Proclamation rested on war powers of the President to take necessary measures to prosecute the war (recruiting “freed slaves” into the army). The Proclamation did not apply to slave states not in rebellion (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri).

        • ^^^

          Ding! Ding! Ding!

          We have a winner! And by winner, I mean someone who actually know WTF they are talking about on the subject matter.

        • The property that you don’t name, that was people, not a rake. You’re trying to defend a war for the south to ensure that the rights of the rake and the people were the same.

          I know, “You’re looking at it with modern eyes” yeah, because I don’t have a time machine and the 1st Marine Division. Dumb people 160 years ago doesn’t mean you should defend it today, you have frickin modern eyes too. You introduce me the poor sharecropper, who “didn’t know no better” and I’ll eat a turd, I’m thinking they’ve been dead for a while. I’ve even less sympathy for the tiny minority that lost their “property” the conquering army didn’t steal the rakes, they were people, and depopulating the males on a continent didn’t work out well did it.

          The north had no great love for the black people, but they at least saw that they were frickin people.

          “Deny them their property rights” STFU

        • You are taking the simple-minded approach to a complex problem. Your remarks seem to indicate that because you don’t like something, then that thing must be rectified, even if it means perverting, ignoring or twisting the law to do so.

          To defend the constitution is not to agree with its every sentence. If that were necessary, we would have no constitution at all. The “slavery” issue was punted in the effort to gain enough votes to ratify the current constitution. Without the subterfuge of permitting southern states to maintain their “property”, while corralling the power of an unending increase in “people” who were slaves, you would have a very different history.

          Just because you are offended that something you dislike was legal under the constitution, does not mean that something can be overturned simply because it is offensive. Slaves were not only property, they posed significant political power for the slave-holding states. Every slave counted as a “person” for purposes of apportioning delegates to the House of Representatives (the mere fact I must explain this to you should shame your understanding of your own history). The southern states could continue to expand their numbers in the House by merely increasing the number of slaves in their states. Seeing this, the founders insisted on the “3/5s” rule. It was not that all the white people thought of black people as only “3/5s” human, or “3/5s” of a person, but that assigning that value to slaves placed a bit of a throttle on southern power resulting from increased slavery.

          The above situation held for about fifty years. Then, two things collided: abolitionist agitation, and creation of new states to the west. The southern states noted that the political leaders of the north wanted to abolish slavery with simple legislation, rather than amending the constitution properly (because the abolitionists would lose). The southern states also saw that the northern states were also intent on stopping slavery by legislating that no new states could be brought into the union as “slave states”. This was perceived as another attempt to legislate around the constitution.

          Once the southern states recognized that the northern states would never end their abolitionist campaign, the southern states foresaw a nation that refused to recognize the constitutional right to own slaves in the southern states, a nation that would eventually be hostile to the very fabric of southern states. AS SOVEREIGN political powers, the southern states found the only way to preserve their way of life was to rescind all the powers delegated to the central government, and once done, there was no union to which the southern states would belong. The upshot is that the southern states believed the northern states were in breach of the contract constituting the union, thus the southern states were free of the association, free to go their own way. At this juncture, Lincoln AND the southern states understood that the ultimate struggle was over the nature of the compact called the Constitution. One side declared the union unbreakable, and the other rejected that argument.

          The whole point is that there was a tool available to end slavery in the US; amendment of the constitution. The way the union was supposed to work was that disputes such as that over slavery would be decided by amending the constitution. Until such time as the northern states could muster the political power to do so, slavery should have been left alone. To put this in 2A terms, the gun-grabbers want to neuter the 2A via simple legislation because they know they cannot get 2A repealed. Thus, just as the abolitionists, the gun grabbers are trying to run national legislation over the sovereign states. The abolitionists and the gun-grabbers use the same concepts, same terms. The gun-grabbers want “compromise” of our constitutionally protected RTKBA such that we have none, and the abolitionists wanted “compromise” on slavery that had only one outcome…abolishment.

          With the law and the constitution, one does not get to split hairs. If it is wrong to bypass the constitution for the purpose of gun control (and confiscation?), it was wrong to bypass the constitution for the purpose of ending slavery. No, you don’t get to claim that when the constitution protects something that is “evil”, then exceptions must be made….because I (and others) can make the case that private gun ownership is, itself, “evil”.

          Defending the rule of law is not the same as sponsoring, endorsing or approving slavery.

        • I don’t always agree with you, but you are killing on this Sam! You just saved me a long ass reply to herp derp here.

        • I was blessed with good teachers/professors, and a deep love of reading, and studying history. But without the teachers, I was just an unguided rocket, lost in make-believe world.

        • The confederacy really isn’t as complicated as your trying to make it.

          Whatabout property rights, whatabout states rights, whatabout the African’s, whatabout the Belgians, whatabout…

          What about it? is slavery right or wrong? if you’re trying to bounce around the issue, that is very illustrative.

        • Right or Wrong is irrelevant. Slavery was protected by the constitution. The means of changing the constitution was known and settled; amendment. No matter your revulsion, supporting a change to constitutional rights via mere legislation (or warfare) means you must support gun control legislation as a legitimate means to curtail or remove your RTKBA. You don’t get to throw the constitution overboard only when it suits your sensitivities.

      • You might have skipped some days getting your oh so superior education. Like the day they explained the difference between succession and secession. Is your history at similar level?

      • “The Civil War was about slavery.. period”

        I have to wonder what the black guy I knew in college who had a big Confederate battle flag on his wall — he’d inherited it from an ancestor who fought for the South because of how the Union armies were devastating the land.

        Yes, the sore issue was slavery, but there were other reasons people fought.

    • The civil war’s main cause was in fact slavery, however, lost in the argument about slavery is in fact the myriad of other causes of the war. It’s important to note this because the civil war likely still would’ve occurred had slavery never been an issue. The Nullification Crisis and Andrew Jackson’s response proves this. There were and still are, unresolved constitutional divides on many of these non slavery issues. Many of these underlying causes of the Nullification Crisis and the civil war, continue to exist to this day, and will likely play center rolls in our next civil war- which is coming.

    • The vice president of the Confederacy Alexander Stephenson stated the reason why the South went to war against the north was to keep their slaves and to spread slavery. Check out the Cornerstone speech that he gave years after the Civil War ended.

    • Yeah, the civil war was fought mainly over slavery. Read the various declarations of secession, read the Confederate Constitution; they make it pretty clear that slavery was the primary motivation.

    • The Civil War was fought over secession. Secession took place because of hostility, both real and imagined, towards slavery and the expansion of slavery into the territories. The Southern states were not shy in stating that their cause was integrally linked to slavery. It doesn’t take much reading of period sources, especially the secession declarations, to see that.

    • The Civil War was not about slavery, but was about “states rights” is an argument that would never have been made by the men behind succession. It was about the right of states to permit slavery. All one need do to prove this is look at the reason the states gave for succession, how they revised their state constitutions and the fact that the Confederate Constitution specifically permitted slavery.

      Were there many honorable men who fought for the Confederacy because they believed it was their duty? Yes. Were some of these men opposed to slavery? You bet.
      Were their small numbers of Black people who fought for the Confederacy – either by “passing” as white or serving as trusted and armed “bodyguards” for their wealth masters? Absolutely. Were there even a few Black slaveholders? Unquestionably. Was Succession an unsettled legal question? Certainly – in fact it probably was legal.

      The Confederacy was likely legally correct, but without question morally wrong. Just because something is legal, that does not make it right.

      • “Just because something is legal, that does not make it right.”

        Totally irrelevant thought and comment.

        If you are to be a nation of laws, you abide the laws until they can be changed. No matter how unpalatable the law, or the reason for the law, once you sink to deciding that a “bad law” should be done away with by popular acclamation you have lost your moral claim.

        Slavery could have been ended by the proper use of the constitution (amendment), but people found the constitution to be too inconvenient for their moral dignity; a way around the constitution had to be found. Legislation didn’t work. War worked, but only proved “might makes right”. Helluva way to run a nation of laws.

        • We have the winner. RAHOWA. We appreciate all of your support. We have been trying to communicate this for years. WPWW!!!

        • Jefferson and other Founding Fathers asserted a duty to disobey unjust laws.

          Following the law until it’s changed would be a better argument if the power of juries hadn’t been neutered. The power of a jury to declare a law unjust was part of the checks and balances intended to restrain government.

        • “Jefferson and other Founding Fathers asserted a duty to disobey unjust laws.”

          The DOI was not, and is not “law”. Note that “Jefferson and other Founding Fathers” did not include the natural, human and civil right in the body of the constitution. Indeed, overthrowing the government (author of unjust laws) was specifically identified as prohibited. And codified into federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2385 – U.S. Code – Unannotated Title 18. Crimes and Criminal Procedure § 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government).

    • “If I was a German Jew…”
      First off, it should be “If I WERE!” Secondly, if you don’t like the statues, have an educational plack posted by each.
      NOBODY is considering the “history, environment, nor general thinking of the day.”

      P.S. The first documented slave-holder was a BLACK man in Virginia.

    • A larger question is, “Why is Robert Farago posting such a divisive issue on his gun blog?”. I emailed him about it, asking if the acrimony it produces between readers of the blog is worth the “clicks”. The American Civil War continues to be a divisive issue to this day. Most of the responses are emotionally based by people who have spent little time studying history. It is fairly easy to see which side of the Mason Dixon line they are from by their biased responses and that very few try to understand the history in terms of those who lived it, who had different viewpoints, standards, and morals than modern people have. As others would term it, it’s “click bait”.

  2. I really don’t see a problem with the statues being up. Demanding they be taken down seems to be… Like trying to erase history. I don’t know. You’d be hard pressed to find any kind of historical figure or entity that was squeaky clean and the war ended over 150 years ago. If someone is offended by a statue, it seems to me that they have the problem, not the statue.

    • This I think is the biggest, most disturbing thing about this issue, and even the farthest leaning left liberal should agree with me. The monuments, battlefield and re-enactments keep the history alive and fresh. It’s painful and still very much with us as Americans. But when you start to eliminate people and events from history you eventually will lose all recognition what happened. It’s happening in Germany right now, and there’s still veterans and survivors of the war alive. No bullshit: You know who Germans blame for the Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe? The Jews. Who do they blame for the migration crisis? Jews. Who do they blame for all the Middle East problems? Israel. Who do they blame for the global financial crisis? Rich Jewish bankers. You know what happened the last time Israel bombed Palestine in retaliation for terrorist attacks? Germans protested Jewish bakeries in Germany and chanted “Juden Juden come out and pay” “juden Juden you’re going away”. It’s the same in France. This is really happening people. You know why? Because Germany has actively suppressed a huge portion of their history surrounding World War Two. I can tell you right now, not only is another large scale war in Europe coming, but there will be another holocaust of Jews in Western Europe.

  3. There are several Lenin statues standing in public across the U.S. and there are (still) many people who aren’t comfortable walking past them.

    Are we OK with those?

    • All about the “feeling?”

      Well then, those concerned about such feelings re statues shouldn’t object to gun bans due to the “feelings” of those who say they are offended, frightened, whatever by our guns.

      You can’t have it both ways.

      Personally, I don’t give a damn about any statues – regardless of what they are. My argument is with this “public property” nonsense.

    • The Lenin statue in Seattle is on private property so the city claims it can do nothing about it. Actually there is an element that thinks it is cool. However, there is another group that doesn’t agree and Comrade Lenin’s hands are always painted red, you know, to show he has blood on his hands.

      I always wonder what the city of Seattle would think if someone put up a statue of Hitler on private property in Seattle. I am sure they would find a way to get rid of it. Lenin though, is A-OK with them. A joke you know. I guess the millions of people that died because of that idiot mean nothing.

  4. Yeah, take that s*** down. The majority of thoes were put up durring the Jim Crowe era. You want to learn about the Confederacy then put them in a museum.

        • Ghetto Goblins. Suburban Orcs. Beach Trolls. Hill-country Imps… I don’t think JRR Tolkien came up with these…
          🤠

        • On a complete tangent, don’t watch Bright on Netflix, it sort of retroactively ruins the 7 races, although I only counted 3, but I assume they were trying to set up some sequels with the rest.

        • Too late. Watched it yesterday. Orks and Elfs played big roles of course, Fairies are pests to be killed with a broom. They mentioned, but never showed Dwarfs. Other than those I didn’t notice anything. I liked Will Smith. His partner was a bit wooden, but then again maybe all Orks are like that.

        • Dirty Orc scum. I think the premise has a lot of promise, but how they spent $90million on it, I’ll never know. Max Landis, the original writer, disavowed it after David Ayer’s basically rewrote it during production. He did such a great job with Suicide Squad.

  5. We better take down the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial too…they were slave owners, so of course they were evil nasty people who don’t deserve any respect, and should be erased from history too.

    • As soon as we turn that corner we will invariably head down a trail heading to the conclusion that all those Founders touched is rained and must be removed as well. Then we will be right where the Progressives ultimately wanted us. Unprotected be either the Bill of Rights or the Constitution proper.

      • They HAVE advocated that, but the thought of removing the Washington, Jefferson or Madison monuments or defacing Mt. Rushmore has died off.

    • Washington and Jefferson did not commit treason against the United States of America. You might think that “patriots” would understand the difference.

      • The winners get to decide who is guilty of treason (note: there were no trials of confederates after the war).

        If you believe people trying to deny you any aspect of the RTKBA are defying the constitution, you must declare them “traitors”. People sworn to uphold the constitution yet work hard to “infringe” on your 2A rights, are guilty of “treason”, as they are directly aiding all those who would overturn out constitutional government. Oh….such people cannot truly be termed “traitors”? Why? They are trying to destroy your nation. Oh, maybe they are just rebelling against the second amendment, but are not actually “traitors”.

        In the years between 1783, and 1868, the states were the power in the nation. The states were superior to the central government (accept for powers voluntarily delegated). The citizens of the states were citizens of the states first, and then, by extension, citizens of the new nation. The state was the prime political arena, not the federal government. The most obvious example of that allegiance to states first was the nomenclature of the military units of the northern armies. There were actual units established as part of the standing US army (only about 26,000 soldiers, coast-to-coast). State-named units made up the vast majority. These were not National Guard (which units use federal designations, not state). These were units composed of people with allegiance to states. Confederate units were likewise identified. There was a reason for all the state designations. It was indicative of people of sovereign states going to the rescue/defense of the national government, but not possessions of the national government. We cannot imagine this configuration of society today.

        Circling back, when certain states believe that other certain states are aligned to deprive those first states of their powers/rights under the constitution, the idea of “traitor” fits both sides.

  6. Depends on context. Statues put up in the 1920s by actual Confederate veterans should stay IMHO. Maybe allow some formal process for a plaque nearby that gives some context and competing viewpoints. Better yet, don’t like a statue – hold a fundraiser to build a statue of someone you approve of.

    Stuff put up by the Daughters of the Confederacy in the 1950s should probably come down.

  7. Leave them up. Just remind everyone that it was their democrat leaders in the 60’s (during the civil rights movement) that put most of them up.

    • THIS RIGHT HERE! Day in and day out, as I talk to my people, when I explain to them that the true racists who sought to enslave blacks, and when that wasn’t working, everyone else , was the Democrats I receive the craziest looks. If we allow them to whitewash their crimes and tried intentions how will anyone ever know?

        • I don’t think there’s much in common with Dixiecrats and Democrats of today. Today people talk about signalling, talking about the thing without saying it. The Dixiecrats just flat out said they were for segregation, some even for forced repatriation. The Whigs, No-Nothings aren’t The Republicans either. In fact the only first principle any political stripe has today is money, maybe followed by power, but with enough of the first, you get the second.

        • “In fact the only first principle any political stripe has today is money, maybe followed by power, but with enough of the first, you get the second.”
          And vice versa.

  8. In and around Gettysburg, PA there are hundreds of monuments, many depicting Confederate soldiers or officers. They were erected to remember history. Taking them down would be stupid.

    Sometimes, history is ugly. That’s all the more reason to preserve it.

    • Something I saw on a church marquee once:
      “Forgiveness mean giving up all hope of a better past”

      I love that line. The past cannot be changed. People who continue to hold grudges against people long dead who did wrong to other people who are also long dead need to move on. The past needs to be remembered lest it be repeated again some day. And there is nothing wrong with honoring the valor of a vanquished enemy, indeed I would consider that the epitome of graciousness.
      Seeing people getting their knickers in a twist over a tarnished and overlooked statue in a park just seems… classless… classless and shallow.
      🤠

      • Exactly, the Confederates were traitors, villains, and lost the war defending a horrid institution. We shouldn’t try to defend the legacy of evil.

        Just because some uneducated grunts weren’t bad guys, doesn’t mean they were not fighting for a vile goal. Plus they were losing losers.

        Why do I see pickups in Michigan flying 8ft confederate flags? If those were the rising sun banners of imperial Japan, would that be cool, definitely less racist.

        • Michigan flying 8ft confederate flags Because there are many elected demtard Marxist progs running gov’t bodies?

        • “Exactly, the Confederates were traitors, villains, and lost the war defending a horrid institution. ”

          “Traitor” is determined by the winner, in a civil war.

          The “union” was not a superior government, or any other kind of entity, to the individual states. An inferior institution does not “delegate” power to a superior institution. The superior institution simply exercises power over the inferior. If you insist on looking at 1850-1870 through prism of the non-federalist arrangement no in place, you cannot understand what you are talking about.

          The constitution was an entity created by sovereign, individual, separate states (not that far out of colony status). The states were suspicious and jealous of each other, and determined to not have a central government that could interfere with internal matters of the states, except as that power was delegated. “The Union !” was not even a thing. Indeed, secession was not invented by the “confederacy”. The run up to the War of 1812 saw Massachusetts threaten to secede because war with Britain would ruin profitable trade agreements. None of the states, at the founding, had any notion that they had no recourse other than revolution to protect themselves from tyranny of a powerful central government. The “confederacy” believed they were acting within the constitution in pursuingand preserving the slave trade (the constitution was not, not a moralistic document, things found “immoral”, or “evil” could not override the provisions of the constitution). There was no constitutional authority to stop slave trading. We shall never know what would have happened if the 13th Amendment had been ratified prior between 1840 and 1860. By most accounts, there were not enough abolitionist (which is not the same as integrationist) states to sustain ratification of the 13th prior to the civil war (what does that tell you?).

          If you like the idea that merely declaring something “offensive”, “immoral”, or “evil” is enough authority to ignore the provisions of the constitution, you will be doomed to disappointment.

          Read the newspapers of the founding era. Read the papers of the major cities in America prior, during and after the Revolution. Investigate the political climate of the establishment of the Articles of Confederation (that last word alone should tell you much). Understand the times as they were. Else, forfeit any opinion on the matter as mere ignorance and posturing. We have a nation of laws, or we don’t.

        • You took a thing, added another thing to it, so what is it you’re trying communicate? That those guys are democrats? or that there are democrats, because in the first case, that’s just not so, in the second, yes, there are democrats.

          But the racist dick heads flying those flags are democrats? That just doesn’t make sense, the southern dixiecrats where about as far from Marxists that you could get. Do democrats only pay lip service to the Black vote, sure, again, not the guys driving around with flags. So you’ve managed to conflate two things, and confuse me.

  9. First, this seems like the wrong blog for this. What does this have to do with guns?

    Second, statues like that should be in museums, not on public property as monuments, but certainly not destroyed.

    • ‘…a Confederate monument atop historic Myrtle Hill Cemetery was broken up and smashed… The statue depicts a Confederate soldier with his ar ms in front of him holding a long ri fle, upright in his hand.’

  10. I have only one problem with the confederate statues. Those guys lost. Losers shouldn’t get statues. That is something that should be reserved for people that actually won the war that they decided to start. Not the fuckups that had a temper tantrum, started a civil war, got half a million men killed, and then still lost.

    • Then do we take down all the gravestones that list CSA remains? Here in S Utah the local U changed its name from Dixie State and
      It’s mascot from the Rebels to the Red Storm to, now, the trailblazers, with a white buffalo mascot. The area is called Utah’s Dixie because they grew cotton in the 1850’s.

  11. I don’t have a problem with them coming down if it’s done the right way, community pententioning their local government or a local vote. Not a fan of the bullying tactics that are used by media and social media, groups that force cities to react. Honestly most ppl drove pass these statues, walked pass them and didn’t have a clue what the statue represented. Now all of a sudden these in adamant objects are the source of pain and suffering for people of color. As a man of color, those statues never stop me from doing anything. Just typical hysteria generated by twitter activist and media.

    • Agree with you sir. Let each community decide for itself what statues sit on their public properties. As for cemeteries let the owners decide and if it is city owned, then the community decides. For private property it is not the city’s or the communitie’s place to decide what kind of statue can be there. One can say something that is decent to any reasonable person is acceptable. For those where the community takes them down I would suggest to the, to place at least a good number of them into museums either public or private.

      And the statues we are referencing here certainly fit that definition. I see “modern” art in public places and some of it is “WTF” is that and some of it is even a bit less than decent, at least to me. And defacing or destroying these or any displays is never acceptable period.

      The history and hopefully lessons from the Civil War that these represent are valuable to remember. And yes there are things related from that period that even today are still in some ways unsettled. One needs to embrace the history, learn from it, and where they were weak and wrong do better and be stronger. Holding other people as slaves is wrong, immoral, and not Christian.

      It is too bad that early in this countty’s history we did not take an approach more like that of Spanish Florida. Unfortunately the country ended up completely under what one could call the British white colonial rule and with it the Brits/colonists then decided Black humans had no value compared to them and enslaved them under generally awful conditions. One can speculate endlessly what kind of different country we would be had things gone differently and the Spanish who were here first had continued to colonize this country.

      None of these people were prefect and righteous, nor are we today. Our founders created a country that said basically we were all created by God equally and had certain freedoms under God as men. Well except Black people, and oh not Native people either. etc. And we today are also not perfect, after all we had Trump and HC as the candidates for the parties and we elected despicable Trump over despicable HC. So we still do have a lot to learn both from our history and just from a point of decency overall.

  12. I don’t care anymore. The statues are infinitesimally small items in the problems this country has. We need to help Trump drain the swamp by recruiting and running true conservatives to replace the traitors, democrats and RINOs alike, in the Congress. Only then will we be able to preserve the entire bill of rights.

  13. I despise the Confederacy and every loathsome thing for which it stood.

    That having been said, like the Confederate battle flag, these statues are reminders of the crushing defeat of a corrupt and wretched regime.

    Losers’ flag, losers’ statues, it’s all the same to me.

    If the Confederacy’s supporters wish to commemorate that crushing defeat, I say have at it.

    While you’re at it, put up a statue of Hannibal and fly the flag of Carthage… if it had one.

  14. I’ve recently seen several posts calling for the removal of monuments in public
    spaces that some have deemed “racist” “glorify slavery” or “represent oppression”.
    I have to say; I’m all for this. I know the counter argument will be “ it’s not about any
    of those things, it’s about history”. Well, we can’t let history stand in the way of progress.
    But let’s not do this thing half way. Go big or go home. If we do this, let’s do it right.
    Any and all images, effigies, monuments and texts that are racist, glorify or advocate
    slavery, represent oppression, or should be offensive to a polite society. I have made a list
    of suggested items I feel should be removed from our society. It is by no means a complete
    list. Just a good starting point.

    We’ve already begun removing Confederate monuments, bravo, let’s keep it going.
    Images of several founders of this nation. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hancock to name just a few. All slave owners.
    2. The Bible, The Torah, and The Koran. Slavery. (have you read these nightmare fairy tales?) Advocates slavery several times. Get rid of the churches as well.
    3. Margaret Sanger and all Planned Parenthood clinics. She was a vocal eugenics enthusiast, advocated for the extermination of African-Americans.
    4. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Racist. Interned well over 100,000 Asian Americans during WWII.
    5. Vladimir Lenin. Oppressor. Overseer of 9,000,000 deaths during his revolution. His brand of Communism would claim the lives another 90,000,000 by the end of the last century.
    6. Martin Luther King. Homophobe. Once told a gay young man to seek psychiatric help to cure his homosexuality.
    7. Ulysses S. Grant. Genocide. Launched an illegal war against the Lakota people of South Dakota in order to secure gold to bring the United states out of a crippling depression. I would also add war criminal to this for his ordering the destruction of private property during the Civil war.
    8. Woodrow Wilson. Racist. Segregated government office workers by race, and threw the civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter out of the Oval Office.
    9. Nelson Mandela. Terrorist. Murdered political opponents. Several through the method of “necklacing”. (Look up that beautiful method of execution. Gruesome.)
    10. William J. Clinton. Misogynist. This man’s misogyny and rape allegations are well documented in recent history.
    11. Robert Byrd. Racist. Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. Need I say more?

    This list could go on for days.

    • I concur. Any and all monuments and statues that in ANY way represent a perceived disrespect for ethnic groups, races and religions should be removed. I’d prefer a stone monument to the cell phone.

  15. I could understand wanting to remove a statue of Jefferson Davis or Robert E Lee in the town square, but this was a statue of a common soldier at a historic cemetery. Desecrating either is wrong, but it’s even wronger to desecrate a cemetery.

  16. A lot of people dont know that most of these statues were put up during the jim crow era. We should take these statues down. These arent statues that were put during or just after the civil war. They were put up to glorify “the good old days” and rewrite history.

    • No, these were put up in a cemetery containing deceased Confederate soldiers. Many were passing on and the statue was placed there to honor them, not as a testament to slavery. Someday the Nam War may be judged. Racist. Would you be happy with the Wall being torn down???

      • The wall fell, you know Reagan, Bush Sr. Or were you talking about a different wall. Vietnam Wall, You mean the Vietnam Memorial? If we could retcon our history I’m pretty sure no one would have get involved after the French defeat, at least Eisenhower would have been handed Ho Chi Minh’s letter in 54 in Paris.

  17. The comparison of Confederate slavery to Nazism is fundamentally flawed. What the Nazis did was a crime in the eyes of the contemporary world, as well as a crime in the eyes of contemporary Germans. That is why the Nazis went to great expense and effort to hide their crimes as they were committing them. They knew they were criminals. The slavery in the Confederate states was an accepted institution in more than half of the world at that time. Granted, most of the “civilized” world had recently abandoned slavery as morally egregious, but America was still a very young country and the Southern states more backward, hanging between civilizations. To draw an equivalency, should the Pyramids, along with the Acropolis be bulldozed? And don’t even start on the Vatican…

    • So statues aside, since slavery has a long and storied history, you don’t object to:
      * Soviet slave labor in the Gulag.
      * Nazi slave labor in the camps.
      * Japanese use of POW and civilian forced labor in coal mines, infrastructure, etc.

      Given the sheer number of slave laborers employed by those powers, such can hardly be considered “unusual”, and in fact went on in the Soviet Union for decades AFTER the war.

      • You have apparently not read my comment carefully. As with the Nazis, who were aware of their crimes and spent considerable effort in hiding them, so did the Soviets and the Japanese. What they did were crimes in the eyes of their own societies at that time. That is why they were all hiding these crimes. Slavery was an accepted institution in almost every country in the world since at least the earliest written history until the middle of the 19th century for the civilized world and continues to be practiced in many parts of the world today. Every Greek leader, every Roman leader, almost every Middle Ages leader either had slaves or certainly benefited from slavery. Are you proposing erasing all of that? Just keep in mind, that one-day owing pets may be viewed as cruel slavery and your history will be purged as well…

        • Neither the Soviets, Germans nor Japanese hid their slavery.

          It’s utter nonsense to claim otherwise.

          Huge slave labor projects such as the White Sea Canal were lavishly praised in Soviet newsreels.

          Slave laborers were widely distributed throughout Germany and it’s conquered territories.

          Allied slave laborers were a fixture of the Japanese economy.

          Slavery is slavery.

          All of the sophistry in the world won’t change that.

    • Slavery is evil today, it was evil yesterday, it was evil 100 years ago…

      A large minority of northern Americans were against it in the 1850’s, sometimes the tyranny of the majority is just wrong, hence the fundamental design of the US Constitution. The Declaration of Independence isn’t the Constitution, so black folk being 3/5 of a person wasn’t actually part of the Constitution, and was an evil thing that should have been outlawed, going to war to defend owning people is evil, couch it any way you want, states rights, blah blah blah, defending the right to own people, evil.

      • “Slavery is evil today, it was evil yesterday, it was evil 100 years ago.”

        Says us, for 167 years.

        Slavery goes back to forever. Not just nations of Europe and European descent. Which is/was worse? Slavery, or obliterating every person in a city after conquest? Which is/was worse when? What is acceptable today is subject to, and candidate for “evil” tomorrow.
        When we choose to hate the people of history for what was common in their day, we merely underscore that we are hateful people. If you start trying to tear down all the symbols of time and events you hate, you must begin at the root, and tear down everything born of the people of those times. Horrors were committed to advance science and technology. Peoples were enslaved, murdered and swindled so that others could benefit, then and forever.

        Do we destroy the Panama Canal because only the deaths of white men were celebrated/honored by a work stoppage for mourning? Do we destroy the canal because hundreds of blacks and natives were subjected to brutal conditions to build a device that primarily and almost exclusively benefited white people?

        Do we discard the gas mask because the inventor, Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr., was born of slavery in this country? Do we throw away the benefits just because the only reason Mr. Morgan could have been been here to invent the gas mask was because his father was brutally treated as a slave, indeed, was a slave?

        If we want to rid ourselves of the evils of our history, we must be intellectually and morally consistent. If an evil act or condition provided us with benefit, we must utterly reject it; monetary compensation (reparations) will not assuage our guilt. We must destroy every vestige of whatever “evil” it is today that we choose to denounce.

        • People owning people is evil. Just because some of those people did other good things is immaterial. People can be more than one thing, starting a war to defend your right to invent a gas mask probably didn’t happen, but there was one to defend the right to own other people is evil, and at the start of the day, the end of the day, and all of the rest of the day, that is what the Civil War was about.

          The general unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles created the conditions for Nazi’ism, so we should just put up a big monument to Adolf in Arlington, or a big one next to the Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

          After Secession, the Confederates were a different nation, they initiated hostilities with the United States, and invaded. Those are just facts. Would the United States have invaded at some point, probably, but since that isn’t how it actually transpired, you have to deal with reality. The reality is most Confederate monuments were created from 50 to 100 years after the defeat of the Confederates.

        • “Evil” is not a constitutionally relevant term. Changing the constitution requires ratification of an amendment. Trying to overturn provisions of the constitution by any other means is “evil” because it ignores the rule of law for the sake of expediency. Based on the concept of “evil”, the US government should have been overthrown in WW2 for rounding up a single race of people and putting them into camps without finding them guilty of anything. If you think that is not “evil”…..

          The law is the law. The constitution is the constitution. If you wish it to be convenient for your purposes, be prepared to be the next victim and accept it without complaint.

          As noted before, if you wish to declare slavery “evil”, then everything brought out of slavery is evil at conception, and must be declared so. You do not get to equivocate about how “some good can come from some evil, but not this evil”. If slavery was/is evil, then nothing borne of it is legitimate, and must be destroyed in order to preserve “goodness”.

          In this country, people are free to be racists, to hate other races, to want to be free of contact with other races. Whether that is feasible is another question, altogether. If I want to revere Stalin, or Slobodan Milosevic, I am free to do so. I am free to put up monuments (and if my city decides to put such on public grounds, it is our right). People are also free to be idiots, sluggards, and lazy. When freedom is decided as only that of which you approve, you are long lost.

          Under the constitution at the founding, slavery was not prohibited, no matter how evil, awkward, economically inefficient, horrendous the practice. The tool to change the situation was at hand. The political will/power to change the constitution was not present (what does that say about “evil”?).

          Between 1840 and 1860, groups and individuals were free to agitate for changing the constitution so as to obliterate slavery. As were those who did not want it changed. No moral argument was sufficient to evade the constitution and become new law of the land.

          If you do not like the law/constitution, gather the political power to change it, accept your condition, or launch a revolution so as to install a government more to your liking. Those are the options; then, as now.

        • Why would evil have to be constitutionally relevant? Slavery is morally repugnant, evil, and practiced by vile humans. We go to war against evil all the time, Axis of Evil, evil beliefs. The southern militias didn’t file an injunction at Ft. Sumter, canons and bullets.

        • “Slavery is morally repugnant, evil, and practiced by vile humans.”

          Says you, now. There is no universally accepted prescription of “evil” that applies to all actions, at all times, throughout all history. If there were such a agreement, compact, ruling, declaration that was the “gold standard”, you might have an argument. There is none. Every claim that something is “evil” begins with personal sensitivity to some act or another. If I am the Grand National Super Poobah of a nation, I get to determine what is “evil” in my realm. If I decide to slaughter half my people because it is Monday, the act is neither “good” or “evil”, it is simply fact. If my Grand Related and Annointed brother slaughters half the people without my authority, I get to declare that act, and that person “evil”. Your notions are irrelevant in my kingdom.

          If the world had ceased to exist prior to the 1600s, no one would know anything about the “evil” of slavery. It was a common practice. Just as the army of Alexandar was neither good, nor evil. It was a national army, conquest was considered a proper endeavor, and the destruction wrought was just the way it was.

          I find the concept of personal property “evil”. And with enough time, and enough adherents, we will take over the government and declare anyone holding private property of any kind to be in illegal possession, subject to confiscation by force as necessary. If I and my followers can retain power long enough, everyone will come to accept that private ownership of property was “evil” from the beginning of time.

  18. Sure, just as soon as we take down all of the American hero statues and every other statue of anyone remotely controversial, as decided by the political penumbra of a century and a half later. Good grief.

    While we’re at it, let’s put pressure on Hawaii. I’m offended by their stage flag’s depiction of the Union Jack and its implicit encouragement of British historical atrocities, including slavery.

  19. As a tie in to the weapons used during the time, the Minie Ball could be discussed as well.

    Just a thought as it was the superior ammunition at the time of the war.

  20. Absolute garbage comparison! As Southron and ‘German Jew’ – my American-born father spoke German – I take offense at comparing a genocidal dictatorship to the duly-elected government carrying out the will of The People against a murderous tyrant.

    • Hitler was the duly elected Chancellor of Germany. Definitely a minority of the German citizenry were against it, your dad, probably why he spoke German but lived in America. I’m also pretty sure the black folk in the south, a minority, if they could have voted would have voted against it.

      Lincoln won in the US despite of his abolitionist beliefs, not because of it. There were a number of better ways to handle the situation, but history is set, so all of the compromises that could have been made, weren’t.

  21. Jews should be thankful for the Holocaust, the same as African Americans should be thankful for slavery.

    In both cases, the events of history allowed them to gain more power and influence then they would have been able to achieve otherwise.

    • And similarly, that girl back in the ’80s who was abducted, raped and had her hands hacked off with a hatchet should be grateful for her media exposure, I suppose…

        • OK, how about this then.

          Shit happened, lots of people died, survivors then did other things, some good, some bad.

          Evil breeds evil, then your kill it with fire, maybe some of the survivors are good people, maybe not. If not, burn with fire, repeat.

          Bad people can do good things, Capone loved his kids, Ted Bundy loved dogs, therefore everyone that loves dogs….is a serial killer? Err….um….all gangsters are fathers….or something.

  22. Can we get rid of all crucifixes in this country? They are reminders of both terrible people that tortured and killed a worshipped leader. Additionally, the leader on the cross rose a religion which holds one of the bloodiest histories in recorded history.

    /Sarcasm off

  23. Vandalizing statues commemorating causes or people one might disagree with creates a precedent. If one side feels free to desecrate the other side’s monuments they should not be surprised when their own monuments get vandalized in return!

  24. Erasing people was what the Nazis were all about.

    Slave owners removed people, and their history.

    Removing history is what “Big Brother” is all about.

    Pretending something did not happen, hiding the mementos, deleting the monuments, erasing a history is the same as erasing a people. The outcome is the same: no one’s life is enhanced, nothing changes, the haters gonna hate.

    P.S. There were two constitutional principles* at the root of the Civil War (which was not settled until 1865 [13th Amendment]). Until that time, there were states remaining in the union that legally held slaves. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court did not tell Lincoln that a court case involving secession would be decided in Lincoln’s favor. The issue of secession was still active as a legal question, until 1865 (Appomattox).

    *The Nazis (or Stalin’s Communists) could not declare a constitutional principle as excuse for their atrocities (in the tens of millions, each)

  25. Taking down the Confederate statues is the camel’s nose under the tent. All of American history is being rewritten by the ultra-left professors who dominate academia, the BLM savages who dominates the streets, and the anti-American crew that dominates the Democrat party.

    Sure, tear down the statues — right after we tear down Harvard and DC brick by brick.

    • Jesus, the slippery slope argument is just lazy, its like whataboutism.

      Vandalism is a crime, taking down monuments is a different question. Where is it, what’s it for, who paid for it.

      There is a place in Ohio that has a monument that was put up in the 20’s where the Morgan Raiders fought the local militia, yes its a Robert E Lee monument, paid for by the local KKK almost 100 years ago, 50 years after the Civil War, at a battle sight where the confederates killed Americans. So yeah, tear it down, melt it, build one for the Marietta militia.

      • That’s the trouble. Confederate soldiers were Americans too. They tried to cease to be (yes, to be able to keep their slaves, among other things) and there was a war to keep them in Union.

        When they lost the war, they lost their slaves. Unlike other Union states that didn’t try to secede. (Not succeed) That shows that the Confederacy may have fight to keep slavery, but the Union definitely did NOT fight in order to end it.

  26. “*The Nazis (or Stalin’s Communists) could not declare a constitutional principle as excuse for their atrocities (in the tens of millions, each)”

    WHOSE “constitutional principle”?

    The Soviets certainly could declare one.

    The purges, slave labor and mass executions were all perfectly legal under the Soviet system.

    Stalin was big on “confessions”… even to “crimes” which were scientifically impossible.

    You can’t excuse Southern slavery without excusing Soviet, Nazi and Japanese slavery. A lot of neo-Confederates are more than willing to do so.

    • “You can’t excuse Southern slavery without excusing Soviet, Nazi and Japanese slavery. A lot of neo-Confederates are more than willing to do so.”

      To acknowledge a thing represents neither approval, nor disapproval.

      To pass judgement is to presume absolute moral superiority for all time. Societies determine their moral standards. The only way to impose a different standard is to conquer the society you oppose. If the US had not been involved in WW2, do you believe the other nations would have abandoned any of their “evil” practices because we were sitting on the sidelines, moralizing?

      NOTE: Prior to the end of WW2, there were no such things as “crimes against humanity”, there were no international tribunals implementing punishment for actions the victors found “evil”. Wars had been lost and won throughout history. The fates of the vanquished were settled by the victors because the victors had power to do so. There was no pretense of “moral” crimes. The Nazis and Japanese lost. The victors had the authority and power (because the victors were the conquerors) to impose any penalty they chose, for which ever reason that satisfied them. The claim of punishing “crimes against humanity” only smeared a “moral” coat of paint on a war of simple conquest. (Rome offered no “moral” justification for the annihilation and obliteration of Carthage; Carthage has just become to much of an aggravation)

      But the real question is why has this moral vomit begun only now? How long has slavery been “evil”?

      • “How long has slavery been “evil”?”
        For as long as and by whomever it was practiced.

        When did rape bcome evil?

        When did pedophilia become evil?

        Strangely, those claiming not to defend or excuse slavery always seem to be defending or excusing it.

        • “For as long as and by whomever it was practiced.”

          Citation, please.

          You completely ignore the eons of slavery as the just, deserved spoils of war. Slavery wasn’t evil, it was just a result of losing a war, and territory. The major societies of antiquity did not find enslavement of enemy or lesser nations to be “evil”.

          Please show us definitive international declarations that slavery was evil in, oh, let’s say, the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, ancient Greece and Rome, China, Japan, Europe.

          If you check the holy scriptures of the Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan religions, you do not find blanket revulsion at, or rejection of slavery.

          Society decides what is “evil”. When your dominant society determines that robbing people of their earned wealth in order to permit non-productive people to remain non-productive, “evil” seems to disappear. Somehow the “evil” of taking rightful earnings from one group and giving to another seems “morally superior”, doesn’t it?

          But, as I said, to be consistent (and moralists must be consistent, or laughed at), you must abhor anything that grew out of slavery. There can be nothing good in, or from “evil”. If you think so, then you are posing a morality of convenience. If one development resulted from slavery that profited a single individual, that profit must be forfeit. No advancements, no enlightenment, no technology, no medicine, no science that was based on, or in, the institution of slavery can be permitted to prosper. Every descendant of every individual of slave states should be denied citizenship, or legal standing; they are evil, as were their ancestors. Every benefit received by people descending from people of the slavery south should be recovered, and denied in the future. All financial prosperity of people descended from citizens of the slave states should be confiscated; evil cannot be allowed to profit. Every advancement of every endeavor, every achievement benefiting humankind must be discarded because it was borne of “evil”, and will always be tainted with “evil”. Every person in the south during slavery benefited from the efforts of slaves. Benefiting from “evil” cannot be allowed. Everything touched by people benefiting from slavery must be removed, destroyed as progeny of “evil”.

          Logic is a terrible taskmaster, isn’t it?

  27. The Confederate Flag is the original flag of American gun control.

    Our modern gun rights come from the Abolitionists, Abraham Lincoln, and the Radical Republicans.

    • I live in KY, and the number of rednecks with truck nutz and giant confederate flags is very high. Also the boy pissing on the other truck brand, and the dude’s name on the drivers side, and his wife stenciled on the other door.

      Every time I’m actually in a social situation to inquire about the reasoning, its either “states rights”, or straight up F all the N******. One of those is more honest.

    • The history of gun control in North America is the history of violent White supremacists and their efforts to create for themselves a “safe working environment”.

      Needless to say, the Democrat Party, the party of slavery, secession, Jim Crow, lynching and racial concentration camps has always been in the forefront of invidiously racist gun controls.

    • “The Confederate flag is the flag of American gun control”
      I like that. But the liberal white media will not. Saying that would force them to look at gun control in a different light. And they don’t want to do that.

      I would say white liberals agree with the confederate policy of disarming slaves and free blacks living in the southern states.

  28. No, and the fact that we’re even discussing this a a bit strange. The monuments are to the bravery and sacrifice of Americans who fought and died in battle, period.

    As a nation we don’t win every battle, or every war, and we also don’t dishonor the memory our fighting men and women because they fought for a cause that turned out to be unjust in the larger perspective of history.

    We didn’t win every battle WW2, or really in Korea, and we certainly didn’t win in Vietnam, but we don’t go around tearing down monuments to veterans of those wars, and dishonoring them, their families, and their descendants because they lost a battle or a war, or because we believe the cause was unjust.

    The confederates who fought, died in, and lost the civil war were descendants of the same men who left their farms and families, took up arms against the British Crown, and won this Nation’s freedom and Independence.

    Descendants of those confederate soldiers are the same patriots who willingly joined the US military en mass in the Second World War, and fought and died to end National Socialist tyrrany and Fascism in Europe.

    Descendants of those confederate troops are deployed around the world today, bravely defending our homeland, and your right to freedom of speech, and yes – even your right to dismiss, and disparage their ancestors as, hayseeds, hillbillies, trailer trash, and losers – because that is the way anti-southern bigots (and pretty much every other type of bigotry) operates.

    So when you’re done tearing down the statues of Lee, and Davis, and the brave troops who fought and died under their command – you might as well start burning images and tearing down statues of Washington, and Jefferson, and the rest of the founding fathers, before you finally work your way down through history, and over to the Lincoln memorial, and monuments to the fallen in Vietnam.

    • Um, they fought for another country, they killed citizens of the United States of American, they were part of Not United States, like the Confederate States, you know, another country. So they could put black folk in an oven, or whatever else they wanted to do with their property, get rapey with them, whatever.

      So yeah, fans of the Confederacy can burn in hell, right next to the fans of Nazi’s.

        • Obviously he was trolling, but the Confederate States were in fact another country, according to them and other countries that recognized them as such. So he’s technically correct, but still a troll.

      • “they were part of Not United States,”

        Can’t have it both ways. The union is indissoluble, or it is not. Lincoln rather thought it was not. The civil war began for the southern states as a defense of their property rights under the constitution. The civil war began for the northern states as a defense of an unbreakable union (although that stance had no judicial history). How was it that the northern states so confused the issue that prior to mid-1862, the reason for the war was “to preserve the union”? If the war was fought by northern states to eradicate slavery, it took them a year and a half to get around to understanding that. How was it that there was serious support in the north to let the confederacy “go their own way”? Why didn’t the northern states declare uniformly that slavery was an evil to be eradicated from the boundaries of an indivisible union? How did it happen that four slave states not in revolt were allowed to retain their slaves until 1865?

        The confederacy wanted to be another country. The officials of the federal union saw the confederacy as rebellious US states, not a separate country. The confederacy was never recognized by the US government as a separate country. To follow your logic, if the confederacy was a separate, “another” country, then there was no rebellion, but simply open warfare between two sovereign nations. That would mean the soldiers and leaders of the confederacy were not traitors.

        • The north didn’t accept it, but the Confederates, who were the aggressors in the actual war, asserted it, believed it, and preemptively attacked federal troops. And the mentality of these monuments is supposed to be from the mindset of the proud southerner, so they thought they were a different country, declared they were another country, formed a government, wrote a constitution, ratified it, attacked their former country, kind of says they’re another country.

        • The confederacy considered itself/themselves a new and separate nation (much less federalist than the US). However, that “nation” was not recognized internationally; close, but no cigar. Lincoln, on the other hand needed the union to be indissoluble, else he needed a declaration of war from the US Congress.

          As president, Lincoln could use his constitutional “war powers” to put down rebellion, but he could not wage war on a separate nation without Congressional declaration of war. Even the appeal to Congress for a war declaration would have been de facto admission by both that the Confederacy was, indeed, a sovereign, foreign nation. Without the recognition by the international community of the Confederate States, the only way “the South” could establish itself as a nation was to win the war of secession, no matter that the confederacy “considered” themselves sovereign from the beginning.

        • ‘Preciate your acknowledgement, but you can rest assured I probably will not earn another for quite sometime. Stopped clock, and all that.

  29. Being from the South, having members of both sides fight in the war…have to say…yeah they should come down. In fact, they should have never gone up in the first place, unless it was in a museum that used donations of private money to do so. It was an awful war that needed to be fought, while not primarily over slavery, but state powers. The ending result was the end of slavery, which should have ended in 1791 with the ratification of the US Constitution. But the forcible taking them down I do not support, we have courts, let them decide the legal outcome of this issue.

    • “….we have courts, let them decide the legal outcome of this issue.”

      We also have “the vote”. When a majority of the voters of whichever locale wish to dismantle a government-supported display, the voters can signal that desire with a majority vote. It is what our nation is all about. No one has the right to tear down a government-supported monument absent the proper vote being taken, and the motion passed. No one has the right to tear down a privately-supported monument on private property. Again, “the vote” to re-zone (or buy) the property is the only acceptable process. Even devotees of Stalin and Hitler (or Atilla The Hun) have the right to erect monuments to their “heroes”.

      No one has the natural, human, civil or constitutionally protected right to not be offended by what they see, or hear.

  30. There is no slavery in the US today.

    So lets go down the rabbit hole since some are intent on holding on to their most holy crusade narrative.

    Would the Southern States, or western ones for that matter, be allowed to secede today, right now, this minute?

    Say no for any reason and that big moral horse you’re riding just broke it’s leg and is laying in the mud.

  31. I find this article and answers kind of ironic, I made 2 posts earlier that were mildly critical of this QOTD and the site and now they have been totally deleted. Odd.

  32. The abysmally poor understanding of history displayed in these comments and in the author’s question demonstrate what happens to brains under socialized educational systems and provide proof of the fact that we are indeed getting dumber as human beings.
    First, there is no comparison between the Holocaust and slavery as practiced in 18th and 19th Century America. The Holocaust was an effort to exterminate an entire race based upon a bastardized version of history and upon pseudo-scientific assertions about eugenics. American slavery was an economic system that initially crossed racial lines and, in its final iteration, reflected a rather humanitarian form of that disgraceful mistreatment of fellow human beings – – slavery has existed in every culture in human history – – the American form was among the least inhumane. That doesn’t make it right, and it had to be expunged from the American culture, but let’s not start calling Southern slave-owners “NAZIS” – – lest you appear even more ignorant that you really are.
    Second, the monuments to the Confederate war-dead and war-heroes that dot the Southern landscape were raised up by the children and grandchildren of those men to memorialize their deeds in battle – -they were not raised up to memorialize slavery. Those monuments were paid for by individuals and communities that were still in post-Reconstruction poverty decades after the end of the War. They were raised up out of cultural pride and in testimony that the indomitable spirit of those men would be remembered. The effort to destroy those monuments now and associate them with the sin of slavery is really an effort to destroy American history itself and to brand the traditional American culture with that sin. This is an effort to destroy America, and judging from the foregoing comments, it has already been successful.
    Third, for all of you who so eagerly condemn the Confederacy and the South, who paint with such a broad brush to tar all Southern patriots as slavers, all Confederates as traitors and all of their descendants as “basement dwelling buffoons,” you should look to your own history, your own ancestors and their deeds before you start the name calling and shaming. The total war that Grant and Sherman applied to the South was carried on by their acolytes against the American Indians. The “Reconstruction” of the South by the Republican carpetbaggers was nothing more than an imperialistic occupation via which the resources and people of an entire region were raped and restrained for a generation. That “benevolent democratization” would become a hallmark of US foreign policy for many generations to come. It is why so much of the world knows us as “Yankee Imperialists.”
    Finally, defacing, removing and condemning Confederate memorials is an attack upon my ancestors and a thieving of my children’s patrimony. My forebears arrived on these shores in the mid-1600s. They fought Indians – – they fought Frenchmen – – they fought the British – – they fought the Yankees. In short, they fought every hell-bound shit-ass that crossed them. Since then we have fought in every major war that this country has been involved in – – we fought as patriots – – we died like men. Those men lie buried next to one another – – the Pacific Marine next to his granddaddy who bled at Chickamauga – – the WWII aviator who went down over Berlin next to his great-uncle who died of disease in a Yankee prison camp – – the WWI doughboy not far from his Great-Great Grandfather who served in the unit that killed Tecumseh in the War of 1812. I could go on, but the point is this: over the graves of all these men fly two flags, the American flag….because they loved it, and the Confederate Battle Flag…because we love them. The hell-bound shit-asses that would destroy one flag will just as assuredly come after the other. And, if you condemn one because you fail at history and find it easy to cover yourself in the easy virtue earned by other men in other times, then you make common cause with those who would destroy everything that you think you believe in.

    • That was very well said. I would add the irony that many of these commenters seem to be in quite a hurry to condemn the rebels as “traitors” and claim they were fighting against their own country. And yet, how many here would say the same about a group of Americans rising up and fighting in response to an attempted mass confiscation of guns? Either way, it would be an armed group fighting against the wishes of the elected government, so how is one betrayal and the other noble?

      (This is not to say people should always agree with their government, and I would have no problem with another Revolution; we’re getting pretty close to that point. I was simply pointing out the double standards)

    • You poor dear; all the inbreeding, lack of education, gallons of Mt. Dew, meth, it just started you out behind the eight ball. The fact that you took the time to put those thoughts down, and you think those are good things is just sad for the rest of us. Its disquieting when you see an adult that has to wear a helmet just to get the mail, you poor poor dear.

      • I still haven’t made up my mind on this subject.

        It’s interesting to me that I have yet to see you offer an actual reasoned opinion here. All you’ve done thus far is insult those with whom you disagree. Is that all you have to offer?

        • So we should actually take serious all of the idiotic claptrap defending slavery? There’s no polishing that turd, and the only answer to that is complete derision and mocking. The fact that some of these monuments were put up during the civil rights movement, a hundred years after the war, in some places as far north as Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, where actual citizens fought and died against the south, is supposed to make us think that they’re “for the soldiers” Please.

          No, screw them, screw the losers that think defending its cool. Look, its a free country, you can join the KKK if you want. Having an intelligent conversation with an actual moron, is self defeating. “My great grand daddy owned slaves and fought the war of northern aggression and I’m proud” Well, eat a turd.

    • Another FTW.

      It is exasperating when people ostensibly of “my side” of the political divide display no better education, thinking or writing that the dolts on the other side we hold in abject contempt.

      • I’d just like to say that I’d much rather be talking about why Ruger is replacing the 9E with the Security-9.

        I’d just really like the racists to go back into the closet, stop wearing kakis and golf shirts, and get their Casper costumes back out, so all of these monuments and the arguments about them would not happen.

        I was watching the Cincinnati news over Christmas at my mom’s house, there was a monument put up in the 40’s, that was overgrown, and even people on the actual street, didn’t know it was there, someone brought it up, then the fighting began, the city didn’t want it, the township didn’t want it, finally the local F.O.E. let them move it to their property.

        But good lord, the people who came out to oppose moving it, the little village hall had about 30 seats and 12 teeth, tank tops, sleeveless shirts, generally unkempt. Guys, you’re speaking in front of the mayor and TV cameras, at least take a shower and find your Skynyrd shirt with actual sleaves. One of the guys who spoke, about it being his heritage, was my mom’s cousin, who had 2 grandfathers killed in the Battle of Nashville, as union soldiers. Yeah, Robert E Lee monument. My mom saw him, one word, dumbass, from the 77 year old retired school teacher.

        • “I’d just like to say that I’d much rather be talking about why Ruger is replacing the 9E with the Security-9.”

          Indeed.

          Indeed.

        • I am 100% anti dumbassery, also 100% pro absolute 2A. I will stipulate that I think felons should be excluded, but my belief is that once out of jail, off parole/probation, no longer felon, but if you’re a violent felon, repeat offender, or judged by a court as incompetent, you never leave supervision, i.e. permanent parole. You’re absolutely either a citizen or not a citizen, with the duties that requires. Other than being an adult, why is this even an issue.

          And this entire thread has the dumbest of the dumbassery, STATES RIGHTS, for the Confederates, but California has voted consistently and overwhelmingly to regulate the crap out of firearms, I think its unconstitutional, the supreme court disagrees, so STATES RIGHTS.

          The thing that pisses me off to no end is the stupid whataboutism and conspiracy BS; well, the south didn’t fight for slavery, 911 was an inside job, Vegas shooter was a liberal al queda plant for antifa and met with Putin and the Sandy Hook actors a week before he died. Dumbassery deserves no pass. The good people marching with the klan and Nazi’s in Charlottesville, people on TTAG were all over that stupid one. You know what you have when 1 good guy marches with 10 Nazi’s, 11 Nazi’s. My grandpappy had slaves fought the yankees and I’m proud, STFU, why would you want to tell people that if you weren’t specifically supporting their cause in the context of a post on this topic on the internet, dumbassery.

          I’m a shitty Christian, hate the act, but love the sinner, no thank you, in today’s society, its easy to be informed in at least a tiny way, and if you can’t bother using Google or Wikipedia for 5 seconds before you put stupid on blast, you should be shunned, shame, shame, shame.

          Yeah, I forgot Google is just a big left wing jew fake news site. Yup, seen that one quite a bit over the last few months on TTAG.

          Intentional stupidity is the worst possible offense, I think Robert posts these specifically to get this response, because if you look at the comment count, these kinds of posts run 10X of AR15 lego machine is the new hotness, or its a new plastic 9.

  33. Calling people’s ancestors “slaves” could be interpreted as being demeaning. Better by far to say that they are, “descendants of immigrants who enjoyed lifetime job security”, instead.

  34. RF, and a whole raft of other people may feel “uncomfortable” when “offensive” material and things cross their eyes, but it is the price they pay for freedom.

    The whole notion of “hate speech/crime” and being “offended” by ideas and words should be shocking to a nation where free speech is constitutionally protected. The determination of what thoughts, ideas, writings, viewings, photos, etc is a fragile construct, subject to the next majority wind.

    In this country, I have a natural, civil, human and constitutionally protected right to be offensive, to hate whomever I wish, to erect whichever monument I like (on my property, or property belonging to like-minded individuals), carry any sign, proclaim any political or religious affiliation I desire. Not even the majority vote of the community has the moral or constitutional authority to stop me.

  35. Comparisons of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis to Hitler and Stalin and so historically inaccurate as to be absurd. My great, great great-grandfather, his brother and cousins, all fought in the Confederate States Army. My late father fought the Nazis in WWII. General George Patton’s grandfather, Col. George Smith Patton Sr., his great uncle, William Tazewell Patton was killed at Gettysburg.

    One point it does make however is that the losing leader, even if perceived to be a tyrant, are not always despised in their own land.
    Napoleon Bonaparte caused millions of deaths (some estimates are 7 million throughout Europe, both military and civilian.
    However, he also enacted many reforms that survived today. At the time, his name in England was as bad as Hitler’s.

    President Eisenhower had a portrait of General Lee in his office when he was president. He also called Lee one of the 5 finest Americans of all time.

    Yet, today one can find statues of The Emperor all over France and time has turned him into one of the heroes of France.
    That will never happen with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.

    BTW, does anyone really know what happened to the newly freed slaves?
    Between 10% and 20% died in the three years after the War ended. Death came from contagious diseases and starvation. That’s between 400,000 and 800,00 people. These numbers are not included in deaths during the War which is estimated to have been 750,000. This shows how much the Northern Liberators cared about the slaves.

    • Hey, your great, great great-grandfather, his brother and cousins were scumbags, and then there were some that fought in a different war. Probably still scumbags, you sound like a scumbag, so the fact that your great great…relative that didn’t die and managed to breed just hurts the rest of us in America. Sad!!!

        • Leroy Jenkins,

          You sir, are grievously lacking in courtesy, wit and character. You demonstrate your small minded bigotry and hatred in several posts here. Perhaps you should seek professional mental health care.

          To demean anyone who honorably served the Confederate States, is to attack an American veteran. That is clearly asserted in US Code. My ancestors have served this land under arms for almost 250 years. In every generation, my family has had members in uniform. In the War between the States, most of my serving ancestors fought for the Confederate States. And just 30 years later, the next generation was in blue when the Nation called. Not just men have served. My mother was in the WAC, while Dad served in the 11th AAC. One brother was Army, another AF, while I served in the USN. My son is a Marine.

          Your uncivil disrespect for those who served, and the cause they served, is vile. Be warned, I and others like me, are very present in this nation. Should you foolishly spout your ugly bigotry in the hearing of people of honor and respect, you might find yourself physically corrected by a rightfully angry old man with some fight left in him.

        • Confederate veterans who fought the United States are not United States veterans, they’re Confederate veterans, of the Confederates States of America, this wasn’t a frat party at Georgia Tech. It was a war, you know like the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, i.e. Ft. Sumter, invasion of the Pacific islands, i.e. Virginia Campaign.

          If you secede, and start your own country, you’re not also part of another country, and when you attack that country, that isn’t a 5 year old boy pulling the girls pig tails, 360,000 actual American soldiers died.

        • Comparing Ft. Sumter to Pearl Harbor?
          Was Pearl Harbor in Japan? Ft. Sumter sure was in South Carolina. Did Japanese ask US government to leave it and get out of their teritorry? Confederation sure did, for months.
          Did US instead of leaving try to reinforce and resupply the Pearl Harbor in middle of foreign country? Union sure did try just that at Charleston.
          Apples and round rocks.

          Nobody ever recognized Confederation as a different country. Lincoln included.

  36. Hell NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    My culture and heritage is just as important.
    Screw libitards racists and political correctness.

  37. Not everyone in the south was a slaveholder. My understanding is the percentage of people owning slaves wasn’t large. To say the civil war had nothing to do with states rights is as foolish as saying it was all about slavery. It was about both. My feeling about tearing down the statues is they shouldn’t be. We live in a democracy where people are supposed to have free expression. Free expression means one will see and hear things they don’t like or agree with. Someone posted about tearing down crucifix’s. I don’t agree and believe it would be wrong but I support that persons right to express themself.

    • The people in charge, i.e. slaveholders, held unassailable political control, and wanted to maintain that control, slavery was a means of economic power. The poor sharecroppers; white, immigrant, were just the ones who were voluntold to fight.

      This isn’t really a new thing, look at our armed forces now, in a completely volunteer army, how many children of the rich and powerful are enlisting? Yes there are a few, mostly officers, but its a tiny fraction on a per capita basis, the draft era was even worse. Its just a reality that exists.

  38. The statues are less offensive (by 1000%) than the communist ANTIFA MFrs trying to tear them down.

    They’ve already gone after staues of the founders and people like Lincoln, not Truman or Rosevelt.

    I say FU and push back 300%.

  39. Equating the orchestrated extermination of a people, not just the Jews mind you, with Confederate statues is the most broad leap and disingenuous correlation I’ve ever seen. Secondly, what does this have to do with firearms? I like(d) coming here for updates, insight, discussions, reviews and such on firearms and firearms related equipment, not for some feeble attempt to associate systematic genocide with Confederate statues and social justice warrior psychobabble…

    • We should instead be comparing apples and apples, namely Confederate slavery on the one hand, and Soviet, Nazi and Japanese slavery on the other.

      • Why would we be comparing different countries slavery, as if slavery is different if done by people that speak English, Russian, Japanese, or Orcish.

        But whatabout the slaves in Rome, Virginia….. Yeah, its SLAVERY, bad. Who gives two shits what was the nationality of the vile humans that practiced it.

        • I have to admit my envy of mind so simple that it sees everything black and white, drawn on straight lines. It must be very easy life, not having to think.

          Slavery isn’t viable economic system in most of the today’s world. Renting workers is cheaper than buying and keeping them, so we can afford the luxury of scorning slavery as immoral. For whole length of human history, save last couple hundred years, it was not so. Slavery was perfectly normal and accepted as moral for hundreds of thousands of years in all cultures around the globe. People owned slaves of their own race, defeated foreign enemies, imported savages on stone age level – you name it. They could have got enslaved for defaulting on loans.
          If our socio-economic environment collapsed by zombie apocalypse, the survivors would return to slavery as to system naturally adequate to more primitive conditions.

          We shouldn’t judge different times by today’s standards. Who knows, maybe one day our robotic overlords will view us as despicable for owning computers and smart phones. 😁

      • Or we could be comparing firearms and firearms related material since it’s supposedly a firearms page. If I wanted ridiculous comparisons that take a gold medal Olympic gymnast to contort, I’d go to Salon, Vox, HuffPo, or Slate..

      • ” Nazi and Japanese slavery on the other”

        Or perhaps white European slaves in Moorish Africa,
        which predated African slaves in the new world.

  40. Remembering history and learning from it requires a museum, of which there are many (despite being a yankee I have been to the first Confederate White House and Jackson’s winter house in Biloxi, MS) and they are quite good, but celebrating history requires monuments and unless they are monuments to Confederate soldiers who died located at the battlefields they died at I don’t see anything to celebrate about people who fought for the right to own other people, whatever their motivations (I’m looking at you Robert E Lee).

    • To paraphrase R. A. Heinlein, if there is better reason for him to write anything, I don’t know it. He has to sell views to make a living.
      Do you guys remember quarterly reports on growth of ttag’s growth? You got to get traffic even when there is not much to report.

    • This one little story was really about vandalizing a cemetery, 95% of the time its bored teenage boys, probably bored white suburban teenage boys. It most likely wasn’t a horde of Antifa zombies running amok through the town.

      I’ll take the dumb teenager over almost any involved plot every day of the week, I have 2 smart teenage boys, they’re real dumb, especially when bored.

  41. I have very ambivalent feelings about this.

    On one hand, I don’t think that people who took up arms to defend slavery should be honored. Especially statues of the founders of the KKK.

    On the other, tearing down monuments of historical figures has a very 1984 ‘memory hole’ vibe to it, and it creeps me out.

    IMO, the communities the monuments are in should decide for themselves who they wish to honor. The rest of us will visit those communities (or not) as we see fit.

  42. If at some undefined point in the past slavery was the “just spoils of war”, did the same apply to rape and child molestation?

    I’m just trying to get the slavery defenders to quantify a general principal as to when these things go from ok to not ok.

    And expanding on this, (if) slavery, rape and child molestation were ok and became not ok, can there be a time in future when they’re ok again. In say 25 years, could Gottlob Dirlewanger be seen as a mythic hero?

    • There are very few absolutes in human morality. Society decides what works for it and calls it moral.
      “Only criminal and insidious coward would carry a concealed pistol, honest man carries his six shooter openly on his belt.” Not anymore.
      Polygamy (and polyandry) was okay at some places and times and today it’s not. Unwed couples living together were unthinkable not so long ago.

      Hey, this is fun!
      Uncovered female breasts, legs, hair, face.
      Homosexuality, incest, abortion. Killing of deformed newborns.
      Public torture and mutilation of convicted criminals.
      Use of torture in investigation of crimes and to force confession. Worshipping of one god or another – or bunch of gods.
      Not worshiping any god.
      Cutting off parts of female or male genitals.
      Private ownership of firearms.
      Private ownership of means of production.
      Private ownership of slaves. Speculation.
      Use of tobacco, alcohol and various other drugs.
      Defending oneself with force against violent crime.
      Stoning of unfaithful wifes.
      All these things were normal and even “moral” at some point in time and space – and evil, despicable and usually illegal at another. I bet you can come up with many more examples.

      Killing of all citizens of sacked towns including women and children (and even domestic animals) by Joshua’s army is described in Old Testament. Yahweh not only tolerated, but ordered it. No mention of moral upheaval amongst the chosen people.
      Burning heretics at stake for disagreements with religious dogma (like Kopernicus), or witches for dealing with devil was considered defending of holy Christian Faith.

      Age of suitable brides moved wildly up and down throughout the history, oftentimes into pre-teens.
      Raping and pillaging was normal part of soldier’s life until couple hundred years ago. Today our military’s ROE are stricter than LEO’s.

      Different times, different customs. I am not proud enough to claim that my day’s and my comunity’s values and mores are superior to every other.

        • Alright then, one more time for the hard on thinking, this time short and blunt:
          Yes, there were times and places when slavery, rape and what we today call child molestation were considered normal, natural and even moral. Or OK as you call it. Such times and places are in vast majority throughout human history.
          Yes, such time might come again, god forbid, if socio-economic environment calls for it.

    • Why are slavery, rape , child molestation, and the spoils of war not “OK”?

      There are exactly zero “moral” imperatives to which humanity as a whole agree.

      The “prime directive” of any organism is to survive, at all costs. If the organism fails to survive, all other considerations are of little interest to the dead organism. One can only hold forth on philosophy, if one is equipped with a living being.

      My people value strength, wealth and property above all else, period. Every other aspect of life falls after those. In pursuing our highest goals, we take from those who have wealth, yet cannot protect or defend it. My strength and wealth are increased. If you and your people possess (live on) land that I want for my tribe, I will take it, by any means necessary. My tribe prospers, yours fails (or disappears). Some of the “prizes” I acquire through conquest and force are slaves and wenches, and their brat children (some of whom become slaves, some become future warriors, some are discarded as being a drain on the strength of the tribe. In all this, nothing I do is “moral” or “immoral”. It is simply what is necessary to survive and prosper. Until a stronger tribe comes along, I determine what is or is not “good”, and only in light of what prospers me and my tribe. So long as I rule over my domain, “moral” has no meaning. Everyday, every minute I am at risk of being overthrown by those I rule. If they succeed, I die and lose everything. If I win, the challengers lose everything, including their lives. This is the way it always has been, and the way it will always be; there can be no other so long as I rule.

      So, yes, it is possible that one day slavery, rape, child molestation and the spoils of war could become “OK”. That day will be the day I and my tribe annihilate your tribe, and erase the memory of your people from the Earth. At which time, no none will care anything about your idea of “morals”.

        • Proving only that the SS tribe was not strong enough to sustain their power and existence.

          There are exactly zero universally accepted “moral” imperatives. All “morals” are societal.

          The whole idea of “crimes against humanity” was conjured up to put a civilized paint job on the age old concept of “revenge”. Honest men (people) would have been upfront about the intent of the victors. So, because the Germans and Japanese lost the war, the victors determined what is “moral”. As it always has been, and shall be.

  43. Only Yankees ask these questions…
    Pray for America.
    This nonsense didn’t start until 8 years of a racist Muslim president.

  44. The statues should be moved to museums, where they can be displayed in a suitable context. Leaving them up as monuments only serves to glorify the “noble and just cause” of the Confederacy.

  45. FWIW, I have several relatives that were murdered in the Holocaust.

    I don’t have any problem with statues or memorials or tributes to German soldiers.

    Ask yourself this question: Why are statues of Confederate generals and politicians a problem now, when the Civil War has been over for 150 years?

  46. Regardless of what one believes was the cause of the Cival War, the Confederates were treasonists- PERIOD. I think it’s antipatriotic and even an act of treason in its self to have EVER allowed Confedreate statutes to be errected on American soil. Same goes for flying the Confederate flag.

    • Never heard of Christian forgiveness or reconciliation among enemies?
      Unaware that Lincoln was in favor of pardoning the Southerners who fought and bringing them back as full citizens into the Union as quickly as possible, and Grant’s effort to follow through on Lincoln’s plans?
      By definition, yes it was treason, but that’s a simplistic, overly harsh criminalistic approach in a civil war which, also by definition, involves your own countrymen.
      Your opinion was held by many in the North after the war, but the vast majority eventually supported forgiveness and reconciliation. Both former Northern and Southern soldiers started meeting at reunions and honoring each other, just like we now do with Vietnam. It was in that latter period, when the veterans were getting older and many passing away, that most of the statues and memorials started appearing.

      • “Christian” forgiveness means nothing. However, I am all about forgiveness and reconciliation. Nevertheless, treason is worth a death sentence. I don’t care who or why, an act to break the Union is treason. Even in today’s political climate, with all the talk of session from Texas and Northern California talking of sessession- it’s treason. I think we, as Americans should have no interest in celebrating it. When visiting family that lives in New Orleans, we took a tour of the Garden district. There was a house that had a plaque that read something along the lines of, ” blah, blah, blah… General Robert E. Lee was a great American… blah, blah, blah”. At one point, I’m sure he was. By his death, he surely was not. One of the worst, if I dare say. The leader of anti-America. Pathetic.

    • You totally misunderstand the political realities of the times. The states considered themselves near to be sovereign nations, combined in a pact to do better as a group than as complete independents. The states never imagined that there would be a “nation” of states as we know it today. The people of the states owed allegiance to the state first, and foremost. Allegiance to a national government was secondary, and conditional (else there would have been no need of the ninth and tenth amendments. The states retained the right to rescind membership in the compact called “The United States”. That phrase was not a declaration of nationhood, but an acknowledgment of cooperation. “The United States” as a political unit superior to the states was as irrational to the founders as would be the notion that a coordinating agency called “The United Nations” established a sovereign world government. If states has the independent and sovereign power to enter an agreement, they certainly retained the sovereign power to remove themselves from it. So…..

      By means of secession, the southern states removed themselves from the coordinating compact called the Constitution. Thence removed, they could not, as a matter of law and logic, commit treason against the compact of states called “The United States”. The much-ignored descriptor “The War Between The States” is actually the most accurate as it was truly a war between sovereign states, not a civil war as generally describes war between a superior and absolute state, and the people of that state’s political subdivisions/provinces. Once the southern states seceded, any oath to a dependent entity (the US government) was moot. Seceded states were no longer part of “The United States”, and could not be held accountable to oaths and allegiances of those “United States”.

      It would do you good to actually read the writings of the “thinkers” of the times (1840-1860) regarding states, central government, compacts, union.

        • The study of the history of the founding, and the status of states in 1789 takes a serious effort. In addition, one is required to have the time and interest to not only read, but reflect, compare and contrast.

          Begin with an American History book written prior to 1950 (and not updated since). These books exist. The reason for the limit is that 1945 marked the end of “the greatest generation” (subject for a different discussion). An even better starting point would be a history book last issued in 1900.

          After you read the history up through 1860, you have a better ability to separate your understanding of the state of the nation prior to 1960. The books should have rather robust bibliographies (yeah, one of those). In the biblios, you should find numerous references to private papers of the founders, which you can look up online.

          The next step would be to read “The Federalist Papers” (yes, there were Anti-Federalists in opposition). The language is something only a historian and English Lit student would love. However, Glenn Beck (forget all the associated drama) released a book with both the original text, and a “translation” into modern wording. Without an understanding of the environment (from reading the histories mentioned above), “The Federalist Papers” will be difficult. You must have and understand the context.

          Once you have these basics, search the writings of Lincoln and Douglas (these will lead you to other serious thinkers of the time). All the while, keep in mind that you cannot apply the filter of what you believe and think today. You must, must be able to enter history itself, to see the events and writings in the context of the times…times which did not ponder or perceive the nation as it is today. If you find you cannot let go of your contemporary lenses, the entire adventure will be lost to you.

          There might be a “short-cut”, but you lose the richness of transporting to “back then”, in enrolling in the free online constitution course provided by Hillsdale College:
          https://online.hillsdale.edu/course/con101/schedule
          While I think the course is quite good, I also approach it as someone experienced in reading documents contemporary with the founding. YMMV.

          But before you go, keep in mind that the founders were not of one mind about the idea of central government. I don’t want to taint your inquiry, but it is possible to compartmentalize the political currents as Hamiltonian, and Jeffersonian. Hamilton was one to believe common people could not properly conduct their own lives without a ruling class. Jefferson had the opposite view of people. You might say the division remains today.

          Howze dat?

    • It can only be “treason” if you assert that all states agreed in 1860 that no state could withdraw from the Union. That was not true then, is not true today. The people of the states that formed the CSA, a number of their best legal minds, along with a significant number of people in the north, believed it WAS possible to withdraw from the Constitutional Republic formed of separate states joined as these United States.

      • Either way, those states chose to leave the UNITED STATES… Why should that decision be celebrated?? I agree with those who are saying those monuments should be placed in a museum. It IS part of OUR history- every American’s history. It should not be forgotten, but surely, it shouldn’t be celebrated.

        • “…but surely, it shouldn’t be celebrated.”

          What you are saying is that things/ideas you hold in contempt should not be permitted to be celebrated. This is a strike against the freedom of “man” that is protected in our constitution. As posted much earlier, in this country, I am free to love and hate that which I choose. I am free to be offensive, or congenial. I am free to be a libertine, or pious. I am free to hurt your feelings, or assuage your pain. I am free to believe that the Earth is flat, or that the Moon is made of green cheese. I am free to admire and celebrate that which I find heroic, impressive, well-stated, or grossly expressed. I am free to celebrate and memorialize people I think were more in tune with the principles of the constitution, than were those who tried to circumvent the “law of the land” in an effort to obtain what they otherwise could not legally accomplish. I am also free to recognize the fundamental error that defense of a principle entailed.

          You are free to not like me, my ideas, my writing, my bumbling and stupid wit.

          When you try to make my thoughts conform to yours, you are violating the vision of the founders.

        • Sam I am:

          You are absolutely correct, except it’s CREAM cheese, not green. Nevertheless. I do agree you can believe all of those things! The diversity of our Great Nation is what I love so much about it. I have NO problems with any person or group celebrating the south… I think it’s no place for our government- federal or otherwise, to celebrate the south. If Joe Bob wants to erect a statue of Gen. Longstreet hiding out at Blackburn’s Ford in his wife’s garden, by all means, that’s his waste of money; but it shouldn’t come from public funds, and it shouldn’t be on public grounds.

        • “…but it shouldn’t come from public funds, and it shouldn’t be on public grounds.”

          I can understand your position, but….I have a question: how did those statues come to be placed on public grounds, installed and maintained with taxpayer dollars? Since I was not there to see it, I could be mistaken, but those monuments did not simply materialize in place. Somehow, those monuments were commissioned and placed by the taxpayers.

          One can argue that perhaps there was a loud outcry from people who didn’t want those statues viewable, didn’t want those items prominently displayed anywhere, and loudly objected to the expenditure. Then what?

          Given our political structures, if a voting majority of a community decides to do something, do the objectors get to simply destroy what they don’t like? Monuments only? Monuments to Confederates only? Any others? What about situations where the voting majority decided to remove all the objectionable tokens? Are later voting majorities prohibited (by some cosmic law) from installing those same tokens at a later date? Do you really want the courts to decide what object a majority vote may place on public grounds?

          There are uncountable things, items, ideas, speeches, writings I believe should be received with a good dose of capital punishment. Things I “feel” strongly (loudly) about. Do I want my standards (and corrective action) to be the norm? Not on your life.

          The voters in a community determine how the public treasure will be spent (except where government is prohibited). Where do we get off saying that they do not have that right? Saying that if the public majority wishes to offend the rest of the nation, somehow that public is prohibited by our notion of “offensive”?

          It is all to easy to say, private – OK; pubic -no. But when you try to restrict public displays to that which does not offend anyone, you march down the greased path. Never fall for the claim that since “good people” will always be in positions of authority, those people would not misuse and abuse their positions for personal agendas.

  47. People are still conflating succession vs the war:
    Succession and the formation of the Confederacy was based on slavery.
    Read the new state constitutions the Southern States wrote.
    The civil war was waged to preserve the Union.
    Read Lincoln’s own words both before and during the war.
    Slavery was made an issue by the North when it looked like they might loose the war.
    The start of the war, the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, was due to manipulation by Lincoln, against the recommendation of his own War Department. He knew the hot heads on both side would react as they did and the South would get the bulk of the blame. He was a shred politician.
    But most people are unaware of the details, are not interested in reading them, or just don’t have time to do so.
    And an even bigger “But”…but the victors write the history books…it’s always slanted…can’t be helped, for it is written by people.
    Plus we are looking at it through our eyes, with our biases, standards, morals, etc, – not those of the people of that time.

  48. If I saw someone defacing a Confederate statue I’d beat the hell out of them. The civil war wasn’t about slavery. Besides we have to honor every black cop killer that BLM deems is a martyr.

  49. Take them out of public enshrinement and put them in a museum.

    But don’t trash them, they’re an important element of our history – for better or for worse.

      • Leave the monuments alone!

        People in this country have the right to their method of proclamation. There is a discussion to be had about Confederate monuments on public land, but not on private land.

        No one, absolutely no one, has a natural, civil, human or constitutionally-protected right to not be offended by sight or sound. To argue otherwise is to bed down with tyranny.

  50. The Truth about Guns.
    Now takes up BLM, democrat ideals and forgets Guns and the truth.
    Perpetually offended hits TTAG.
    Clowns, wait till they tear down your Northern Monuments and go for all the other symbols of racist slavery American history.
    You guys know Mount Rushmore’s carvings are on Lakota Sioux Holy land of the Black hills doncha?
    The American flag flew over condoned slavery longer than the Stars and Bars?
    The National Anthem was written sung and created during slavery as well?
    Go ahead, start tearing down symbols that trigger your offended selves.
    Or grow up and grow a pair.

  51. By 1850 the Industrial Revolution was in full swing — in New England, and almost exclusively in New England. Senators, Congressmen, Lobbyists and emerging corporate leaders from the northeastern states, along with democrat party members across the rest of the north, were working very hard to keep all the benefits for themselves. Restrictive trade laws, growing tarrifs on exported cotton, rice, and tobacco, coupled with extra taxes on goods manufactured everywhere EXCEPT the northeast, created extreme tensions between the northern and southern states. Add the majority (democrats) voting repeatedly to exclude southern states from economic development, while granting favored status to New England business, and the issue of states rights was a very sore point by 1858.

    In an earlier senate campaign, the losing Republican candidate, Lincoln, was portrayed by the eventual winner, Sen. Douglas, as an abolitionist. (Though Lincoln actually insisted he was not.) When Lincoln became the nominee from the new, upstart, Republican Party, democrats assumed he was no threat and turned upon themselves in an internal battle for control of their party. Lincoln promised to work with democrats. Democrats claimed Lincoln would end slavery in an effort to get southern votes, but the democrats couldn’t agree on a candidate. All the south could see was oppression, taxes, and the threat that Lincoln with cooperation from New England democrats would destroy the southern states and force them into perpetual poverty. Slavery was NOT the cause of the War Between the States, it was the “last straw.” It is mentioned so much in southern speeches and in the new southern constitutions because it was the last thing left that the northern stateshad not yet stolen from them.

    Even the leaders in the north knew this. Even after the war, as the leaders of the winning northern states tried to figure out what they had won, the New England power brokers tried to reestablish the old balance and their control. Only someone wanting to push an agenda, or someone totally brainwashed by such an agenda, would argue the war was about slavery. The war was about power, control, federalism, lobbyists and money.

    • You get some parts of your overall statement right. Industrialization was a key in creating wealth and power in the Northeast, but no one was voting to prevent the Southern states from industrializing. They were already entrenched in plantation agriculture. The Democratic Party, split into two regional wings, did indeed dominate politics in the 1850s. Southern Democrats firmly defended slavery and the expansion of slavery into the territories. Southern Democrats wanted it to be settled on the national level (AKA not states’ rights). Popular sovereignty was pushed by Northern Democrats who insisted each new state would decide whether or not to allow slavery to exist in their state. The rise of the pro-industrial Republican Party which was against the expansion of slavery (some member outright abolitionists) was a clear threat to the Southern economy and way of life and prompted the Southern states to begin seceding to protect their economy and thus slavery which was an integral part of it.

      • Det. Valentine,

        You missed a whole battalion of Democrat passed trade restrictions, tariffs, and economic restrictions passed by US congress between 1845 and 1859. There WAS someone preventing the southern states from building factories and industry – many someones in fact. The new class of industrial millionaires, their lobbyists, the New England states, most of the Democrat Party (though not all, that split amongst Democrats in the 1860 election was how Lincoln got elected) and a very powerful group of government insiders who pushed to maintain their power, all were opposed to industrialization of the south.

  52. I firmly believe that each of these cases must be taken individually:

    1) General memorials to confederate soldiers who answered the call of their state governments and fought for them should not be torn down. What should happen is memorials to the hundreds of thousands of Black troops who fought and died should be erected.

    2) Memorials to Confederate leadership should be evaluated on an individual basis:

    Stonewall Jackson is an example of someone who should be memorialized. Before the war, he was known as some a slave who was going to be “sold south” to be worked to death could appeal to. If he could, he would purchase you to prevent that from happening. Furthermore, he was involved in organizing and supporting an illegal Sunday School that taught black slaves how to read and write. He continued to support the Sunday School while serving in the Confederate Army. (See: http://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/Stonewall-Jackson-window-memorialized-at-black-church-in-Virginia-443572693.html )

    Then there is Robert E. Lee, who never purchased a slave, freed those he inherited in 1863 (an amazing thing for him to do given the political statement it made), constantly advocated for the enlistment of slaves who would serve in fully integrated units and be granted freedom and land after the war. This same Robert E. Lee swore renewed allegiance almost immediately after the war – said oath specifically included a promise to defend the freedom of former slaves. His action inspired thousands of his soldiers to do the same. Additionally, when dismissing his troops he told them to, “Go home and be good citizens of the United States”. There are also fairly credible reports that when no one else would take communion with a Black parishioner, he walked down the isle of the church and knelt next to him. On the other had he was the most prominent Confederate General of the war. Personally – I think that a memorial listing all of the above would be appropriate – and impossible for racists to use as a rallying point.

    Then there are Confederates who should not ever be memorialized. Nathan Bedford Forest is one of them. A slave trader before the war, he was involved in war crimes during the war, and after the war he was involved in the formation of the KKK. No way should memorials to him remain!

    • There should no more be monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest on public land than there should be of Nidal Hassan or the Tsarnaev brothers.

  53. People want it two ways. They yell, “I didn’t have slaves.” Then they say the Civil War wasn’t about Slavery.
    Wow.
    What would it hurt you to say, “A terrible thing happened here?” Seems like every living American benefits today from Slavery. (What would the US’s real wealth be if we’d paid real wages for that labor?) So get over yourself. See the benefits. See the horror of depriving human beings of the freedoms written in the our great Papers. If you think they weren’t human beings then you bought the story. While the rich did it for profit they needed your ancestors to agree with it. Especially those of you who were dirt poor too.
    What would it hurt? You won’t lose a thing. Your bosses, not Blacks, sold your jobs off to other countries without considering your family and children. Look around you.

  54. I was born and raised in upstate New York. Most of my father’s ancestors lived in Ohio and Indiana and fought for the Union, although I have found a few in my genealogy who lived further south and fought for the Confederacy. My mother’s family were early 20th Century European immigrants and had no part in that era of US history.

    But it was US history. They were all Americans who believed in their rights and the Civil War was not about slavery. It was about states rights. They were all Americans and they died in the most tragic war in our history. I am glad the Union won. Slavery was an abomination that needed to be abolished and should have never happened in the first place. But those brave men who fought and died on both sides deserve to be remembered. This revisionist outlook on history is dangerous and is the same thing that has been carried on in other countries when people want to change the history books. Jackson, Lee, Armistad, and all the others were no less Americans than Grant and all the other Union commanders.

    And before anyone starts the Nazi-Holocaust comparison, my wife is a fist generation immigrant from Austria whose grandmother still bears the tattoo of the number branded on her skin in a Nazi concentration camp. She isn’t even Jewish; her family was condemned for not supporting Hitler. But history needs to be respected and we need to do our best to understand the people who lived it. Otherwise we are destined to repeat it. I live in Virginia now and I respect the men who fought and died for their beliefs on both sides of the Civil War.

    • Yeah, they thought it wasn’t about slavery, but they were wrong. They were definitely less Americans given they decided to secede from and then fight the United States.

  55. It depends. The ones put up during the Jim Crow era should all come down; for the metal ones, turn them into guns and give them away to the descendants of slaves for self-defense.

    But in cemeteries, leave them alone; also in museums and perhaps at military schools/academies. After all, Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest deserve to be remembered as great generals regardless of their morals.

  56. Just a quick history lesson. “If I have to free every negro in the union or enslave every negro to save this union, I’ll do it in an instant.” If the union was for freedom for the “negro”, why didn’t Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Delaware free their slaves with the emancipation proclamation? Speaking of the emancipation proclamation, it freed not a single slave, Lincoln may as well passed a law saying Canada can no longer produce maple syrup. General Lee did inherent some slaves which he promptly freed, this was illegal at the time. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson sent a monthly stipend to an all young black school. He wrote a letter once apologising because the check was late. I don’t know about you but I’m not going to fight for another man’s right to own slaves. I would fight for my right to many other things though. I know every Yankee thinks every southern man is issued his mandatory KKK card and slave but no. My grandparents and great grandparents picked cotton, this wasn’t 1865, this was 1940’s era NEA Arkansas. 1% of the white population owned 95% of the slaves. I’m Irish but rather than lynching the British, I’ve got better stuff to do.

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