Tea party float on 4th of July
 
From: kcomri@tds.net
To: mayor@las-cruces.org
 
http://columbiacountyobserver.com/master_files/Lake_City_2012/12_0703_lc-fl-the-stars-and-bars-a%20heritage-that-won’t-go-away.html
 
Dear Mayor:
 
I think you need to learn a little bit about true history since you obviously know very little about it. The Tea Party float which had a Confederate Battle flag on it was well within the parade rules and your classless pandering to your left wing friends is highly despicable. You have insulted hundreds of thousands of descendants of the Confederate South which of course you probably believe are all slave loving racists. You typify the political correct class of mindless individuals who have led this country down a path of self-destruction by pandering to a base which knows as little about history as you do.                                                                          
 
Herein below is a good place to start learning some actual history based on your beloved hero’s own quotation.
 
“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable and most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so many of the territory as they inhabit."  Abraham Lincoln; January 12, 1848.
 
“…..I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”  Abraham Lincoln, Debate with Stephen Douglas, Sept. 18, 1858, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858 (New York: Library of America, 1989), pp. 636-637.
 
“Killing Southerners is doing them a kindness. There is a class of people (Southerners) men, women and children, who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order.” General William T. Sherman, in a letter to a friend in 1864.
 
I suppose you are a big supporter of our leadership in the National Government and thoughts a few quotes from our founding fathers regarding their concerns would be appropriate to wrap up todays lesson.
 
“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”  Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821
 
“The idea of a National government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizen, but an indefinite superiority over all persons and things.” James Madison
 
“The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.”  Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, Aug 18, 1821
 
The war between the States was not fought simply over the concept of slavery. Hundreds of thousands of Northern soldiers would not have bothered to fight on that basis. They fought to preserve the Union whereas Southern soldiers fought to protect their families, farms and independence from what believed to be an armed invasion from another country which in fact it was. Denigrating the Confederate battle flag (or any type of Confederate flag) reflects upon the individual such,  as yourself, the political talking points of justification for the actions of Lincoln. Perhaps as a homework assignment you may read up on the proposed Corwin amendment which Lincoln’s party offered up to the Southern states as a carrot for not seceding. It allowed for the perpetual ownership of slavery to be the law of the land, naturally the Southern States rejected that as it was not the focal point of their secession. As Jefferson Davis said many years later, “slavery fired the musket which  already had been capped and loaded”.
 
Hopefully you took the time to read this letter and begin to reflect on the fact that you are a Mayor of all  the people in your City and not just the Mayor of your political constituency which appears to be the case.
 
Respectfully,
 
Kevin  Carroll