Originally published at LewRockwell.com
In the past few decades, the federal government has been engaged in a concerted effort to destroy the heritage of the South, and this effort has intensified under so-called “President” Joe Biden and his gang of neo-con controllers. We can be sure that if Kamala Harris takes office as his successor, these efforts will continue.
After Reconstruction officially ended with the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877 following the disputed election of Rutherford B. Hayes, the dominant theme in official propaganda was national unity. We were all “one nation indivisible,” and soldiers from the South played a major part in America’s wars. Robert E. Lee was recognized by both North and South as an American hero. As Pat Buchanan notes, “When the Spanish-American War broke out, President McKinley, who as a teenage soldier had fought against ‘Stonewall’ Jackson in the Shenandoah and been at Antietam, bloodiest single-day battle of the Civil War, removed his hat and stood for the singing of ‘Dixie,’ as Southern volunteers and former Confederate soldiers paraded through Atlanta to fight for their united country. My grandfather was in that army.”
But now things are different. The major figures of the Confederacy are regarded as rebels and traitors. The worst excesses of the notorious Radical Republican leader Thaddeus Stephens are being revived. Stephens argued that by rebelling against the Union, the Confederate States had committed “state suicide” and could be treated as conquered territory. He adopted the Roman policy of “vae victis” (woe to the losers). As an example, Stephens and his cohorts refused to recognize Southern state governments that would not ratify the 14th Amendment, holding that the state legislatures must do what was demanded of them.
Of course, Stephens was wrong. When the Constitution was ratified by the states, several of them included provisions in their acceptance reserving the right to withdraw from the Union, if their rights were violated by the federal government. Even if the federal government didn’t accept that it had violated the rights of a seceding state, the original understanding was that it could do nothing about it. As the great Walter Williams says, “At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the ‘Father of the Constitution,’ rejected it. The minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: ‘A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.’”
Despite the legitimacy of secession, Confederate monuments have been torn down on a massive scale—hundreds of them. Congress passed a law that required all Confederate symbols on U.S. military property to be removed by January 1, 2024. According to CBS Evening News, “The federal commission identified 800 Confederate symbols on U.S. military property to be removed by the deadline. These symbols include items such as the names of roads on military bases, flags, busts and insignia. Our nation renamed 10 military bases bearing the names of Confederates.”
It’s more than statues of Confederate war heroes being knocked down. Now people are digging up the actual bodies of Confederate veterans. According to Valerie Protopapas “Of course, the contretemps about the effort by the vandals of WOKE to remove any and all Confederate along with other ‘American’ cultural monuments is nothing new. Perhaps the newest thing about this one – though there had been earlier intimations on the matter – is the possibility of the removal of the bodies of those relatively few Confederate soldiers also buried in Arlington! After all, these low-lifes have already disinterred Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife and General A.P. Hill whose body was, according to reports, desecrated by the thugs involved.”
There is an even more significant issue involved in the persecution of the South than knocking down monuments, terrible though that is. The government can prosecute people who hold the wrong opinions! You must believe the “official” narrative about the evils of the secessionists, or you can be put in jail! Protopapas is on the mark about this nefarious plot: “But the crucial matter is often lost in consideration of the issues involved. What is that matter? Simply this: that people can be prosecuted under the law for their opinions because those opinions are contrary to the acceptable narrative pushed by the establishment at all levels! Using laws that are supposed to protect our rights to freedom of speech and thought in order to force people to do the will of the government limits the people’s response to this tyranny. And when our response to this government tactic is focused on the issues involved, such as the danger of the ‘vaccines,’ rather than the use of the legal system to stifle dissent, our efforts waste what little time remains to us before we are in Orwell’s 1984! The point that should be made constantly is that people are being persecuted for holding opinions contrary to the government’s established position. It doesn’t matter whether it is the hockey player who refuses to wear a rainbow LTGB+ badge on his uniform or a baker who won’t participate in a ‘celebration’ that is against his Christian beliefs or a person who refuses to bow down to the concept that all whites are evil, using the law to force people to believe and do what they do not WISH to believe and do — for whatever reason — is tyranny and totally contrary to the precepts of Western Civilization!”
Some people might object, “Say all you want about the constitutionality of secession. Wasn’t the War between the Sates fought to end slavery? Wouldn’t slavery have continued indefinitely without the War? The answer to these questions is “no” and “no.”
High tariffs, not slavery, was the dominant theme in the conflicts that led to the War between the States. Revenue from tariffs was by far the main source of the federal budget, and as most international trade was conducted using Southern ports, the Southern states were in the unenviable position of bearing the principal cost of the federal government, while increasingly losing power to the North, owing to the North’s advantages in population and industrial power. In essence, the North did not want to assume a fair share of the tax burden but preferred to exploit the South. Certainly, Abraham Lincoln held this position, as may be seen from a significant passage of his First Inaugural Address. Lincoln said that the ‘duties and imposts’ would be collected from the seceding states, meaning that he would use force, if necessary, to collect the tariffs. By contrast, Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment, which would have guaranteed the indefinite maintenance of slavery in the states where it existed.
But what about ending slavery? The dominant opinion in the pre-war South was that slavery was an evil system, and that through peaceful evolution, blacks could be educated so that they could assume their place as free residents. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, as well as many other Southern luminaries, held this view. Progress toward ending slavery came to an end because of Northern incitement of bloody slave rebellions and abolitionist propaganda depicting Southerners as evil. Contrary to propaganda myths, there were many instances in which whites and blacks got along well, to the extent that during the War, blacks often remained loyal to their masters and were willing to die for them.
Let’s do everything we can to end the perversion of history by today’s witch hunters. Hurrah for the South!
Yes! Hoorah for the South (except for those Republican wolves in republican clothing). The Democrats? At least they’re honest about their dishonesty.
I have never doubted and will always stand for Dixie. I’ve had the local news at my front door because someone suddenly was offended by my 3rd National flag. For 20 years, it has been flying over my property. With cameras rolling, they were schooled on the history of Confederate Flags and saw my collection. Then, the HOA decides to react by dealing with the same person. So, that meeting was another lesson in Southern History, there were a couple of teary-eyed board members before I was finished. I assured them it won’t come down…I can’t take it down… so what now? After their lesson, it seems they concluded that it can fly and she is still flying. When backing down isn’t an option and their bullying doesn’t work, they are forced to think instead of intimidate.
I hear the Rebel yell!!