Dixie Heritage News – Fri, Apr 13, 2018
The week in review
Heon “Hank” Jong Yoo, a 24-year-old Texan, has been arrested on a federal warrant by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Yoo was arrested on “suspicion of making false statements” while purchasing a firearm.
He was booked into the Smith County Jail by ATF on a federal detainer and appeared in court on Monday, April 9. No bond had been set following his court appearance.
The reason for Yoo’s trumped up arrest is in response to his online presence and appearances at protests. He is best known for his YouTube videos, in which he sings the Confederate anthem “Dixie” while dressed as a Confederate cavalry member. In one video, You can be seen singing “Dixie” in front of a placard reading “Death to Islam” before describing the Black Lives Matter protest group as a “terrorist organization who threatens the safety of our troops and our cops” and a “bunch of hood rat scum.”
But good luck finding that video since YouTube has just deleted his account. Remember, he is a “criminal” now.
In 2016, he appeared on campus at the University of North Texas waving a Confederate Flag in order to rile up “as many liberals as possible.”
Yoo, who described himself as a “Confederate,” told the court that by dressing in Confederate uniform and attending protests and posting videos, etc. that he was exercising his First Amendment rights – by purchasing a gun he was exercising his Second Amendment right. “I’m proud to be prejudiced. I was made in America,” he said.
“I have the guts to go to all the rallies and protest! I will bring America back to its righteous glory and stand up for Aryans and Orientals against their genocides.” At least that was his plan before the FEDS showed up.
MISSISSIPPI FLAG SUIT REBOOT
The Jackson Clarion Ledger reports that a lawsuit was filed against the City of Ocean Springs, Mississippi by a group called the Mississippi Rising Coalition. They are demanding the removal of the Confederate emblem from the State’s Flag and a ban prohibiting the Ocean Springs officials from flying the banner, calling it “racially demeaning and hostile.”
Others plaintiffs are the coalition’s president, Lea Campbell; Ocean Springs resident Ronald Vincent, and Curley Clark, who is the president of the Jackson County NAACP.
Ocean Springs, a coastal city with a population of about 18,000, is about 7.5 percent black. The City government didn’t fly the Flag for several years under a previous Democratic mayor. After a new Republican mayor, Shea Dobson, took office last July, the Flag went back up.
A 2016 federal lawsuit sought to have the Mississippi flag declared an unconstitutional relic of slavery. A federal district judge rejected that argument, and higher courts refused to overturn that decision. So the new strategy is to sue in local and State courts.
NAACP TAKES AIM @ STONE MOUNTAIN
The NAACP is requesting changes be made to Stone Mountain Park following a press release on Friday morning.
The civil rights organization released a list of recommendations for the park, however, it does not include changing the monument of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Confederate president Jefferson Davis on the face of the mountain.
According to the press release, “… due to the enormous cost of removing the Confederate-related carving from the north face of the mountain, theNAACP …does not presently advocate for the carving to be removed.”
Instead, the organization has released a list of changes they would like to be seen done including:
* Ceasing all reference to the Park as a memorial to the Confederacy
* Modifying the Historic Square so it does not refer to a plantation
* Removing all antebellum references and symbols in the park
* Changing the names of all streets named for Confederates
Any changes to the park would require a vote by the Georgia General Assembly to change the current law that prohibits the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces.
The end of the Georgia General Assembly 2018 legislative session occurred back on March 29, meaning that any vote or action on Stone Mountain will have to wait until Jan 2019 when state legislature reconvenes.
In addition, The Stone Mountain Memorial Association, which manages park operations, would have to also approve the removal.
SOUTH CAROLINA SECESSION BILL
Republican legislators in South Carolina have introduced a bill that opens up secession talks, should the federal government confiscate legally purchased guns.
The bill, referred to the state House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, states that “the general assembly shall convene to consider whether to secede from the United States based upon the federal government’s unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution if the federal government confiscates legally purchased firearms in this state.”
TENNESSEE POLITICIAN POSTS FLAG
Kent Harris, the former Unicoi County Sheriff, is now running for a Washington County, Tennessee Board of Commissioners seat. He said he will not be removing a post to his campaign Facebook page which shows support for two women holding a Confederate Flag.
“I want to thank Wanda and Flossie White my cousins for this photo and their support of me throughout the years. Fine people. Proud of their heritage,” the post read.
Harris defended the post to a reporter from WCYB, saying he is proud of his heritage. “There’s not a racist bone in my body,” Harris said. “I would be the first to step in if I see anyone mistreating anyone of any race.”
Harris says he does not intend to remove the post, claiming the majority of the people who commented words of criticism were from outside of Tennessee.
At last check, the post does not appear on his Facebook page. Kent said that’s because Facebook removed the post. He says that he plans to repost it again.
Early voting in Washington County began on Wednesday.
LAST SCHOOL STANDING
The lone Confederate-named school in Virginia’s capital, J.E.B. Stuart Elementary, may soon be renamed for civil rights attorney Oliver Hill. Hill’s name was also suggested in 2003, during a failed attempt to rename the school.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that the Richmond School Board voted 8-1 on Monday night to declare its intent to change the name. The vote formally starts the renaming process, which includes at least a month-long public comment period and two public hearings within the school’s community.
PROCLAMATION REVERSED
Last week we showed the video of the City Council of Griffin, Georgia’s proclamation to declare April “Confederate History Month.”
This week, on Tuesday, the proposal was rescinded at a special council meeting.
VIRGINIA PROFESSOR PROPOSES CONDEMNATION
University of Virginia professor Frank Dukes is asking Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to publicly condemn displays of the Confederate Flag.
In an emailed statement, the Virginia Flaggers called the resolution, “ludicrous, a waste of time and community resources, and another attempt by Charlottesville extremists to further divide the community and incite violence.”
Charlottesville City Council Clerk Paige Rice says the city council may take up the resolution at the meeting on April 16 under “other matters” or the first meeting in May.
NON-HERITAGE NEWS EFFECTING THE SOUTHLAND:
About one in six people support financially hurting the rich, even if it means hurting the poor, a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study show. The reason: envy.
An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled, “Support for redistribution is shaped by compassion, envy, and self-interest, but not a taste for fairness,” explains that participants from the United States, India, and the United Kingdom were asked to choose between two options:
“The wealthy pay an additional 10% in taxes, and the poor receive an additional sum of money,” or “The wealthy pay an additional 50% in taxes (i.e., a tax increment five times greater than in the first scenario), and the poor receive (only) one-half the additional amount that they receive in the first scenario. “That is, higher taxes paid by the wealthy yielded relatively less money for the poor, and vice versa,” the paper says.
Approximately, one in six respondents said they’d prefer the second option, hiking taxes on the wealthy by 50% and giving less to the poor, the study found:
“Fourteen percent to 18% of the American, Indian, and British participants indicated a preference for the scenario featuring a higher tax rate for the wealthy even though it produced less money to help the poor.”
“Dispositional envy was the only reliable predictor,” the study found, noting:
“Envy, but not compassion, predicts a desire to tax the wealthy even when that costs the poor.”
CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE?
Just four days after Easter, George Washington University held a diversity workshop for students and faculty because Christians – especially white ones – “receive unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country.”
The April 5 diversity workshop was titled “Christian Privilege: But Our Founding Fathers Were All Christian, Right?!”
Hosted by the university’s Multicultural Student Services Center, the event taught that Christians enjoy a privileged, easier life than their non-Christian counterparts, and that Christians possess “built-in advantages” today, according to its online description.
The workshop also discussed how Christians receive “unmerited perks from institutions and systems all across our country.”
The “Christian Privilege” workshop was one of 15 “free training opportunities” offered through the center to “equip students and staff with the necessary skills to promote diversity and inclusion in the different environments,” according to its website.
Other workshops offered were “heteroesexual privilege,” “cisgender privilege,” “abled-bodied privilege,” “socio-economic privilege,” “unconscious bias,” and more.
Efforts to reach a campus spokesperson, the multicultural center and the host of the Christian privilege workshop were to no avail.
ITS TIME FOR A NEW ATTORNEY GENERAL
Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General’s office, and the United States Justice Department are not going to appoint a special counsel to investigate anything as it relates to what went on with the Obama FBI, Hillary Clinton, the Uranium One deal, Pay to Play, missing emails, James Comey and the FBI’s leftwing partisans who set in motion the phony Trump/Russia collusion. This according to a letter that General Sessions has sent to the Chairmen of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Sessions had asked United States attorney John Huber of Utah, an Obama apointee, to investigate the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page and connections between the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One. And Sessions also had an internal review by the Inspector General, also an Obama appointee. So basically, General Sessions has hired two of their own employees to investigate themselves? What a joke!
Huber, a career US Attorney from outside of DC was selected to alleviate the appearance of being swamp connected, someone from Utah with connections to Mitch McConnell’s boy Sen. Mike Lee (who strongly endorsed Huber). Lee has hated Trump from the beginning and still does but has an underserved reputation for integrity. So the unknown John Huber was their choice.
Senator Lee is no conservative, one need only check his voting record and where he stands on many issues. He has promoted virtually unlimited Muslim immigration and lifted caps on several categories of visas. His stances are anathema to those of President Trump. H is another establishment elitist. His support of Huber is not surprising.
Also remember that Sessions fired all 46 Obama era prosecutors. What didn’t get reported was that Huber and others were then REHIRED and reconfirmed under President Trump.
The unconscionable betrayal by Sessions of Donald Trump with his recusal has cost our President. Not just Sessions, but Mueller, Rosenstein, Wray and all of them have each other’s backs, and care nothing about the “Rule of Law.” The rule of law is the principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by decisions of individual government officials such as the cronies in the FBI.
Sessions has lost all credibility with putting a Utah leftist in charge. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said in a tweet: “So the Obama DOJ can open a legally questionable investigation into the Trump campaign-allegedly based on a campaign volunteer mouthing off at a London bar-but this DOJ can’t appoint a second special counsel after all the troubling documents we’ve seen? Disappointing.”
Disappointing isn’t the only word I’d use.
“If he’s not going to appoint a second special counsel then he should step down,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
So two Obama holdovers, Horowitz and Huber are investigating corruption within the Obama administration. Right, and we should expect results?
Sessions has not taken charge of his department and he’s failing his boss big time.
Sessions is not viewed as trustworthy by a large portion of the American people, particularly the informed Trump base. Its time for a new Attorney General.
YOU DIDN’T SEE THIS ONE ON CNN
A high school in Connecticut was on lockdown Wednesday after a school employee who wanted to “execute every white man” threatened to go on a killing rampage, police said.
A suspect identified as Carl Lemon, 63, an in-school suspension coordinator at Harding High School in Bridgeport, was charged with second-degree threat and breach of peace. He was released on $5,000 bond.
Police claim Lemon said he hates white people and couldn’t wait “for the panthers to give the OK and a revolution begins because he will execute every white man he gets his hands on.”
The school staff member also allegedly stomped on an American flag and told students in the classroom that “This is what I think about it.”
ANOTHER ONE YOU DIDN’T SEE ON CNN
A group of students from Rockledge High School in Brevard County briefly walked out of class Friday to show their support for the Second Amendment.
About 75 students, according to a head count by school administrators, walked onto the school’s track carrying the American flag and signs that said “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” and “I support the right to bear arms.” The event lasted about 20 minutes and then students returned to class.
The demonstration was organized by Chloe Deaton, a sophomore, and Anna Delaney, a junior, who are part of Rockledge High’s Criminal Justice and Legal Studies Academy.
Deaton was wearing a T-shirt that read, “my rights don’t end where your feelings begin.”
After the playing of the national anthem and “God Bless America” over the loudspeakers, she told the group of students, “We were built on certain rights and that was one of the original rights, that we should have the right to bear arms.”
Delaney read a quote from former President Ronald Reagan, who at a 1983 banquet for the National Rifle Association said, “The Constitution does not say that government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says ‘… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'”
Some students who participated in Friday’s Second Amendment walkout wore camouflage clothing and President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats. They carried “don’t tread on me” flags and black-and-blue-striped American flags that are often used to show support for law enforcement.
“It’s all over the news right now that all students hate guns. I wanted to show that not all students feel that way,” said Zachary Schneider, a junior at Rockledge.
Vickie Hickey, principal of Rockledge High School, said the walkout was completely student-driven.
FACEBOOK CENSORS EASTER CROSS
An image of the San Damiano Cross, showing Jesus in glory, “reigning from his cruciform throne,” has been rejected by Facebook because of its “shocking content.”
“This is what the monitors at Facebook consider excessively violent, sensational, and shocking,” said a statement from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.
The university said it had posted a series of ads to Facebook. Explained Facebook, “Your image, video thumbnail or video can’t contain shocking, sensational, or excessively violent content.”
The university replied in a statement: “And indeed, the Crucifixion of Christ was all of these things. It was the most sensational action in history: man executed his God. It was shocking, yes: God deigned to take on flesh and was ‘obedient unto death, even death of a cross.’ And it was certainly excessively violent: a man scourged to within an inch of his life, nailed naked to a cross and left to die, all the hate of all the sin in the world poured out its wrath upon his humanity.”
The Franciscan statement about the dispute noted “it was not the nails that held Jesus to the cross: he was God, he could have descended from the Cross at any moment. No, it was love that kept him there.”
The image shows a fair-skinned Jesus nailed to a cross but virtually no gore.
The slogan with the image is “We teach those who teach the faith.”
Facebook did not respond to request for comment.
ISRAELI NEWS REPORTS THAT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently spoke with US President Donald Trump. According to the report, the call addressed “recent developments in the Middle East” and President Trump “reiterated the commitment of the United States to Israel’s security.”
The two leaders also “agreed to continue their close coordination on countering Iran’s malign influence and destabilizing activities.”
President Donald Trump, who has called the 2015 Iran deal “the worst deal ever negotiated,” recently extended a waiver on nuclear sanctions that were imposed on Iran. However, he emphasized, that it would be the last time he would do so and ordered European allies and Congress to work with him to fix the deal’s “disastrous flaws.” If the European signatories do not fix the deal by May 12, Washington will withdraw. In response, the three European signatories – France, Britain and Germany – have proposed new EU sanctions targeting Iranians who support Syria’s government in that country’s civil war and Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
Iran denies it is in violation of any UN resolutions and categorically rules out any negotiations on its missile program.
Okinawa Confederate Flag
By Philip Leigh
Philip Leigh contributed twenty-four articles to The New York Times Civil War Sesquicentennial. He has lectured at numerous Civil War forums and roundtables. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Florida Institute of Technology and an MBA from Northwestern University.
Eugene Sledge, in, With the Old Breed, states that the first American flag to fly over the conquered Japanese fortress at Shuri Castle during the World War II battle of Okinawa was the Confederate battle flag. Sledge, who was present, wrote:
Earlier in the morning [of May 29, 1945] . . . Marines had attacked eastward into the rains of Shuri Castle and had raised the Confederate flag. When we learned that the flag of the Confederacy had been hoisted over the very heart and soul of Japanese resistance, all of us Southerners cheered loudly. The Yankees among us grumbled . . .
Since Sledge was an Alabaman, I additionally noted that Professor Greg Grandin of New York University wrote in an article about Confederate symbols: “In World War II . . . the first flag Marines raised upon taking the [Okinawa] headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army was the Confederate one. It had been carried into battle in the helmet of a captain from South Carolina.”
The battle of Okinawa began seventy-three years ago today, which was also an Easter Sunday. Several sources such as The Marine Corps Association & Foundation report that South Carolina Marine Captain Julius Dusenberg raised the flag. But the captain’s grandson, Stuart Moore, reveals a more complete and interesting story.
First, the captain’s correct name was Julian Dusenbury. He was the Executive Officer of cadets at Clemson University in December 1941. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he led a group of students in a patriotic demonstration on the lawn of the University President’s house to proclaim that they would leave school to enlist. Southerners have long been among the most willing to serve in the American army. Dusenbury’s grandson, Stuart, was among them. Even today forty percent of our troops come from the South as compared to fifteen percent from the Northeast.
Second, the captain led the assault that captured Shuri Castle, the last major Japanese stronghold on the island. “The night prior to the assault . . . Julian crawled through mud, over bodies, and sneaked past Japanese sentries nine times to drag back boxes of ammunition through enemy lines to his men.” During the wiping up process a sniper shot him, putting him in a wheelchair for his remaining thirty years. After he was evacuated, his men found the Confederate flag in his helmet. Since “they had no formal US colors to fly they flew my grandfather’s, in part to show their victory but also to show their love and respect for their ‘skipper.'” Journalist Ernie Pyle commented upon this affection for Dusenbury in one of his books.
Third, according to his grandson Stuart, the captain “was put up for the Medal of Honor. . . but even in 1945 political correctness” about the Confederate flag blocked it. Instead, he received the Navy Cross but never bemoaned or regretted his failure to get the Medal of Honor.
Fourth, Dusenbury “returned to South Carolina where he was elected to the state legislature . . . and died in 1976. Although he was [incorrectly] attributed with the controversial flag raising. . . he went to his grave saying he preferred being known [even erroneously] for flying the Confederate banner, over winning our nation’s highest honor.”
As Carlos Eire put it in Waiting for Snow in Havana, “Show me history untouched by memories and you show me lies. Show me lies not based on memories and you show me the worst lies of all.”
Florida UDC President Ginger Rudiger Must Go
by H. K. Edgerton
H. K. Edgerton is an activist for Southern heritage and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A former president of the NAACP, he is on the board of the Southern Legal Resource Center.
It was a high honor for me to be a presenter of the prestigious H.L. Hunley Award on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to a young King High School Junior ROTC Cadet in an Awards and Inspection Ceremony held on the grounds of King High School In Tampa, Florida on Thursday morning, March 29, 2018.
Later that evening, once again the high honor would be bestowed upon me by Captain Phil Walters to present the Hunley Award to a Cadet at Alonso High School in Tampa.
But the reason for my writing is that the harmful statements made by UDC President Ginger Rudiger in the State of Florida to Fox News sanctioning the movements of Cenotaphs of the Confederate soldier continues to gain momentum as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Ft. Myers has seized the opportunity to make its agenda of sacrilege justifiable by not only playing back those statements, but also by having the audacity to reach out to the United Daughters of the Confederacy for help to carry out this carnage.
After being made privy that Ms. Rudiger has made a statement of apology to the UDC ; I can only concur wholeheartedly with the Florida Sons of Confederate Veterans Heritage Defense Chair (see forwarded message below), and the UDC members I have spoken with that an apology for her actions do not go far enough. That apology should be accompanied by a letter of resignation from her office, and possibly from the organization.
Her resignation will reputiate her statement and be the Florida Division’s only hope in ending the snowballing.
David R. McCallister
Chief of Heritage Defense
Florida Division
Sons of Confederate Veterans
President Bryson
UDC President General
Richmond, Virginia
Please review the following media items:
https://www.fox4now.com/news/local-news/naacp-seeks-partnership-to-relocate-confederate-statue
This broadcast and article, and others like them, would not be a problem, but for the action of the President of the Florida Division of the UDC, Ginger Rudiger.
The UDC President of Florida has again been used as a pawn to reopen an attack on a UDC monument in Florida. The fact that it is a monument to General Lee himself, in Lee County, is even more egregious and hurtful. The NAACP is again claiming, in very public media, television and newspapers, that the UDC is willing to countenance removal of hitherto public monuments to secluded locations – the virtual “skeleton closet” of the civic landscape: museums and cemeteries. The tactic of “seeking cooperation” of the UDC, is clearly posturing cant; but it is there nonetheless, and needs to be addressed.
Not only was President Rudiger’s poorly thought out interview used as an argument by public officials to remove the Hillsborough County Monument, “Memoria in Aeterna”, last year, but her remarks as President of the Florida Division of the UDC, notwithstanding her claim that they were personal, are obviously still being used (and will be used over and over again in the future), against the efforts of the Southern community to preserve our heritage in its public manifestation of cenotaphs, statues, monuments and memorial markers in prominent locations in courthouse squares, and parks.
The attack on Gen. Lee’s bust Ft. Myers and portrait in the Lee County Commission chambers is only the latest outrage of a perennial problem there.
The UDC President of Florida needs to immediately respond and repudiate the implication that the UDC will cooperate in the removal or relocation of such Confederate imagery, and there should be a call from the UDC National President, as well as the other national officers, as there has been in Florida, for her resignation from office. Her recent letter of apology to the members of the UDC in Florida is insufficient to prevent the continued public attacks which use the impression she has given of capitulation and cooperation, personal and statewide, with the bitter enemies of our Southern heritage. Her public silence betokens consent.
In the wake of events in Florida specifically, as well as around the nation, The Sons of Confederate Veterans passed a resolution at the 2017 Memphis Reunion last summer calling upon all of us in the Southern Heritage Community, including the UDC, to refuse to agree to removal and relocation of monuments.
As the SCV Florida Division Heritage Operations Chief, I ask you on the UDC National level, to help correct this unfortunate situation with the perception of the UDC in the State of Florida. Ginger Rudiger needs to respond, repudiate, and then resign.
It is the honorable thing to do.
Deo Vindice,
David R. McCallister,
Chief of Heritage Operations,
SCV Florida Division
Reconstruction: How Federal Tyranny Led to the Klan
by Mike Scruggs
Mike Scruggs is a retired combat pilot and a Vietnam War veteran. He is also a retired stock broker. Currently he writes as a columnist for the Tribune newspapers.
In an address to the Bar Associations of Texas and Arkansas at Texarkana on July 10, 1906, Thomas W. Gregory of Austin, one of the most respected attorneys in the U.S. and later Attorney General of the United States (1914-1919) under President Woodrow Wilson, gave a history of the Ku Klux Klan and the conditions which fostered its growth.
Gregory began by detailing the nature and consequences of a “Civil Rights” bill in 1866 and three Reconstruction bills in 1867, all passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The “Freedman’s Bureau Bill,” first introduced in February 1866 and finally passed in July 1866, created the Freedman’s Bureau and made it an arm of the War Department. Under this bill, every county in the South was placed under the rule of Army officers and appointed Freedman’s Bureau agents exercising the authority of military judges. This was done to assure the rights of former slaves, especially their registration as voters, but in so doing, it abolished the ordinary rules of procedure by law and denied the right of trial by jury and appeal to the vast majority of white Southerners. Thus Federal agents ruled the South with tyrannical and unconstitutional powers.
Because ten Southern states had effectively blocked passage of the proposed 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which they considered a revolutionary assault on the Constitution, honest legislative procedure, and Southern leadership, three Reconstruction bills in 1867 placed those ten Southern states in five military districts each ruled over by a Union officer with the rank of at least brigadier general and having dictatorial powers. These states were to remain under military rule until they passed the 14th Amendment.
The first Reconstruction bill passed in February 1867 denied Confederate veterans and former Confederate public officials the right to vote or hold office. Radical Republican Governor Brownlow of Tennessee had already denied Confederate veterans the right to vote and hold office in 1865. Thus the great majority of eligible native white Southerners were denied the right to vote or hold office until Federal Legislation changed this in 1872, although there had been some gradual relaxation of the 1867 restriction in some states. (Women did not have voting rights until the 19th Amendment in 1920.)
Hence the Radical Republicans hoped to maintain control over Southern states with the votes of Northern carpet-baggers, Southern scalawags, Federal soldiers and government agents, and the black vote, which they fiercely endeavored to manipulate. From 1867 to 1872, the vast majority of white Southerners had neither political nor judicial recourse to justice, the protection of their property, or the safety of their families.
During his address, Gregory cataloged many of the colossal economic injustices and follies of the carpet-bagger governments. South Carolina’s state debt increased from $1.0 million in 1867 to $30.0 million in 1872. Property taxes rose, while property values fell, increasing the effective tax rate 15-fold from 1860 to 1871. Twenty percent of the acreage in Mississippi was forfeited for taxes.
Near the close of his address, the future Attorney General of the United States said that he did not approve of the crimes and excesses incident to the Ku Klux Klan but stated that the movement’s largely spontaneous birth and growth were completely understandable given the conditions that existed in the South from 1866 to 1872 due to Reconstruction era policies and corruption.
In 1870, a Congressional Committee was formed to investigate the Ku Klux Klan, which it claimed was operating in 11 Southern states. The Committee of 21 members was dominated by the Radical Republicans, including former Union general and Radical leader, Ben Butler. They interviewed hundreds of witnesses, gathering testimonies that included hearsay, rumors, and allegations that some members of the Committee strongly suspected were fabricated for political purposes. Thirteen of them condemned the Klan and passed harsh “Force Laws” that substantially reduced the civil rights of anyone opposed to the policies or actions of the Military Occupation Government, its appointed state governments, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and its Union League militias.
A minority report filed by eight conservative members, including Senator Thomas F. Bayard Sr, who later served as U.S. Secretary of State (1885-1889) under President Grover Cleveland, however, took issue with the majority’s conclusions and recommendations:
“Had there been no wanton oppression in the South, there would have been no Ku Kluxism. Had there been no rule of the tyrannical, corrupt, carpetbagger or scallywag, there would have been no secret organizations. From the oppression and corruption of the one sprang the vice and outrage of the other…when the testimony before us was analyzed…the carpetbaggers, the Freedmen’s Bureau agents, and Loyal Leaguers [Union Leaguers] who went into these states, took as the theme of their harangues, the wrongs the blacks had suffered and the right they had to take whatever they pleased of the property they had labored to acquire for their masters; when, in secret sworn organizations, [the Union Leagues] hatred of the white race was instilled into the minds of these ignorant people by every art and wile that bad men could devise; when the blacks were formed into military organizations and the white people of these states were denied the use of arms; when arson, rape, robbery, and murder were things of daily occurrence; when the great masses of the most intelligent whites were disenfranchised and the ballot was put in the hands of blacks by the government at Washington; when every promise made and every law enacted was broken and disregarded by the Federal Government whenever it suited their purpose to do so; when the courts were closed and the Federal officers, who were by Congress absolute rulers and dispensers of what they called justice, ignored, insulted, and trampled upon the rights of the ostracized and disenfranchised white men while the officials pandered to the enfranchised blacks on whose vote they relied; in short, when the people saw they had no rights which were respected, no protection from insults, no security even for their wives and little children, and that what little they had saved from the ravages of the war was being confiscated by taxation and rendered valueless by the debts for which men who owned nothing had pledged it, and saw that all their complaints and remonstrances, however honestly and humbly presented to Congress, were either wholly disregarded as evidence of a rebellious and unsubdued spirit, many of them took the law into their own hands and did deeds of violence which we neither justify nor excuse. But all history shows that bad government will make bad citizens; and when the corruption, extortion, and villainy of the governments which Congress has set up and maintained over the Southern states are thoroughly understood and made known, as we trust they will someday, the world will be amazed at the long suffering and endurance of that people.”
Governor Dewitt Clinton Senter of Tennessee (February 1869 to October 1871) was initially a backer of the notoriously harsh Radical Republican Governor William G. Brownlow, but when he succeeded to the office of Governor on Brownlow’s resignation and was elected a few months later, his more reasonable conservative Republican principles became evident. He reversed most of Brownlow’s radical policies, disbanded the unpopular “State Guard” and was instrumental in returning the voting franchise to Confederate Veterans. Although he pledged to get rid of the Klan, he pointed out why there were so many false allegations of Klan outrages:
“The powers of the government were almost entirely subsidized to the interest of individuals, and large fortunes made by a few at the expense of the public treasury… All the agencies and resources of the state government were used to the advantage of the few and to the injury of the many…Hence the clamor in order to evade or prevent an investigation of their official acts, and to excite sympathy of those abroad who do not know of their misdoings and malversion in office. They wish to make good men in other states believe that they are martyrs to their political faith, and thus excite the sympathy of all lovers of the Union, and cause places of profit to be assigned to them by the President or Congress, after they have lost the confidence and good opinion of the people whom they have outraged and embarrassed by their maladministration.”
FROM THE EDITOR
Dr. Ed is a pastor, author, public speaker, radio personality, lobbyist, re-enactor, and the Director of Dixie Heritage.
If you read Monday’s issue of the American Free Press you saw my two-page article detailing a California town’s effort to remove its statue of President William McKinley, showing that the leftist bent for erasing politically incorrect figures from the public square is no longer reserved for slave owners, Confederate generals and segregationists.
The City of Arcata, California voted to take down a statue of the 25th President, despite McKinley’s sterling record on civil rights.
Then, on Tuesday, I read the following in Chicago’s Windy City Times:
April 22, Smash White Supremacy will come together to stand against the annual white supremacist gathering held by the Sons of the Confederacy. This will be from 11-1 at the confederate mound in the cemetery.
So a small handful of old men going to the cemetery for their annual vigil to read the names of veterans who died as prisoners of war is being reported by news outlets as an “annual white supremacist gathering” that requires a “full on” response with counter protests. But that, friends and neighbors, is simply the way the “mainstream” media views us!
And then on Wednesday I read about the arrest of Hank Yoo. His arrest shows just how easily any voice can be silenced. In absence of a real reason, one is simply manufactured.
In Thursday’s news, I read that Charles Frazier, author of that abomination, Cold Mountain, has just released a new novel, Varina, where, you guessed it, he desecrates the memory of the 1st Lady of the Confederacy. His fictional version of the wife of President Jefferson Davis depicts a woman who believes she and her husband are picking the “wrong side of history.”
And these are the reasons why, every morning, I wake up, pray, and re-enlist in the never-ending FIGHT!
Until Next Week,
Deo Vindice!
Chaplain Ed
Dixie Heritage
P.O. Box 618
Lowell, FL 32663
