[StBernard] The New Intolerance

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Tue Apr 13 08:30:01 EDT 2010


THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW - April 13, 2010

The New Intolerance
by Pat Buchanan

"This was a recognition of American terrorists."

That is CNN's Roland Martin's summary judgment of the
258,000 men and boys who fell fighting for the Confederacy
in a war that cost as many American lives as World Wars I
and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined.

Martin reflects the hysteria that seized Obamaville on
hearing that Gov. Bob McDonnell had declared Confederate
History Month in the Old Dominion. Virginia leads the
nation in Civil War battlefields.

So loud was the howling that in 24 hours McDonnell had
backpedaled and issued an apology that he had not mentioned
slavery.

Unfortunately, the governor missed a teaching moment -- at
the outset of the 150th anniversary of America's bloodiest
war.

Slavery was indeed evil, but it existed in the Americas a
century before the oldest of our founding fathers was even
born. Five of our first seven presidents were slaveholders.

But Virginia did not secede in defense of slavery. Indeed,
when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, March 4, 1861,
Virginia was still in the Union. Only South Carolina,
Georgia and the five Gulf states had seceded and created
the Confederate States of America.

At the firing on Fort Sumter, April 12-13, 1861, the first
shots of the Civil War, Virginia was still inside the
Union. Indeed, there were more slave states in the Union
than in the Confederacy. But, on April 15, Lincoln issued
a call for 75,000 volunteers from the state militias to
march south and crush the new Confederacy.

Two days later, April 17, Virginia seceded rather than
provide soldiers or militia to participate in a war on
their brethren. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas
followed Virginia out over the same issue. They would not
be a party to a war on their kinfolk.

Slavery was not the cause of this war. Secession was --
that and Lincoln's determination to drown the nation in
blood if necessary to make the Union whole again.

Nor did Lincoln ever deny it.

In his first inaugural, Lincoln sought to appease the
states that had seceded by endorsing a constitutional
amendment to make slavery permanent in the 15 states where
it then existed. He even offered to help the Southern
states run down fugitive slaves.

In 1862, Lincoln wrote Horace Greeley that if he could
restore the Union without freeing one slave he would do
it. The Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, freed
only those slaves Lincoln had no power to free -- those
still under Confederate rule. As for slaves in the Union
states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, they
remained the property of their owners.

As for "terrorists," no army fought more honorably than
Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Few deny that.

The great terrorist in that war was William Tecumseh
Sherman, who violated all the known rules of war by
looting, burning and pillaging on his infamous March to
the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. Sherman would later be
given command of the war against the Plains Indians and
advocate extermination of the Sioux.

"The only good Indian is a dead Indian" is attributed
both to Sherman and Gen. Phil Sheridan, who burned the
Shenandoah and carried out Sherman's ruthless policy
against the Indians. Both have statues and circles named
for them in Washington, D.C.

If Martin thinks Sherman a hero, he might study what
happened to the slave women of Columbia, S.C., when
"Uncle Billy's" boys in blue arrived to burn the city.

What of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, at whose request
McDonnell issued his proclamation? What racist deeds have
they perpetrated of late?

They tend the graves of Confederate dead and place flags
on Memorial Day. They contributed to the restoration of
the home of Jefferson Davis, damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
They publish the Confederate Veteran, a magazine that
relates stories of the ancestors they love to remember.
They join environmentalists in fighting to preserve Civil
War battlefields. They do re-enactments of Civil War
battles with men and boys whose ancestors fought for the
Union. And they defend the monuments to their ancestors
and the flag under which they fought.

Why are they vilified?

Because they are Southern white Christian men -- none of
whom defends slavery, but all of whom are defiantly proud
of the South, its ancient faith and their forefathers who
fell in the Lost Cause.

Undeniably, the Civil War ended in the abolition of slavery
and restoration of the Union. But the Southern states
believed they had the same right to rid themselves of a
government to which they no longer felt allegiance as did
Washington, Jefferson and Madison, all slave-owners, who
could no longer give loyalty to the king of England.

Consider closely this latest skirmish in a culture war that
may yet make an end to any idea of nationhood, and you will
see whence the real hate is coming. It is not from Gov.
McDonnell or the Sons of Confederate Veterans.






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