Dixie Heritage News – Friday, October 5, 2018
Battlefront moving to Statuary Hall?
TENNESSEE LAWSUIT TO DETERMINE WHERE – NOT IF
The future of Franklin’s public square has been a disputed topic the past couple months among city leaders and the county court system.
While Franklin aldermen voted unanimously Tuesday to support placing markers about black history on public property in downtown, a judge has yet to determine who owns the public square.
Both the city and the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter claim ownership.
In 1899 a resolution was passed empowering the County Judge to execute – in the name of Williamson County – a deed to a square, of such dimension as may be needed to the Franklin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for the purpose of an erection of a monument on the Public Square to the memory of the Confederate soldiers.” But the deed did not include dimensions for the piece of land.
After the monument went up, the United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a small fence around the monument along with a Flag.
Photographs from 1913 show an elevated patch of land with four Union cannons surrounding the monument. Tennessean archives show that the Union cannons were added in 1909. The cannons were placed by the Daughters with the help of the now defunct Interurban Railroad Company, which ran a trolley line from Nashville to Franklin until 1941.
In 2010, city officials reached an agreement with the Daughters for the monument’s upkeep. In 2014, a local group spearheaded efforts to remount the cannons.
In August, black pastors and leaders from the Battle of Franklin Trust brought forward a plan to place four markers depicting black history on the steps beside the Confederate monument. The Daughters threatened to sue over the plan, because the signs would alter their property and the monument. So the city filed a lawsuit to determine who owns what on the public square.
On Tuesday, the city voted to approve the use of “public land” for the project “in and around the city square.” The exact location of the markers will be determined once the ownership and what is and is not “public” has been determined.
OUR FLORIDA SUBSCRIBERS MAINTAINING PRESSURE
Last year’s removal of Manatee County’s confederate statue is still fresh on the minds of many of our subscribers. Now, two of them have discovered a document that they say is red-handed proof of county officials going back on their word.
The Board of County Commissioners voted 4-3 in August 2017 to remove the monument dedicated to key figures in the Confederate States of America including Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. During that vote, commissioners said the statue would be relocated to an “equally prominent and respectful place” that would be decided at a later public hearing.
The newly formed Bring It Home Coalition doesn’t believe that has been done. The group made a public records request of the local government, which revealed a letter from county spokesperson Nick Azzara to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
“The county has concealed their actions by not asking for public comment and not putting the matter on the commission’s agenda,” said Barbara Hemingway, leader of America First-Team Manatee. “We view the county’s action as supportive of Antifa, the anti-American and anti-veteran radicals that are targeting memorials like ours around Florida and the nation.”
The letter, which Hemingway called “a smoking gun,” was sent Sept. 10, the day after the group made a public call to bring the monument back to the courthouse. She also accused Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, of being complicit in the collusion to move the statue without public comment.
David McCallister, a representative from Save Southern Heritage, said he’s found tangible evidence of violent threats against monuments. About three weeks ago, he discovered a Twitter account called Destroy This Statue, which automatically posts pictures of confederate monuments across the globe along with directions on how to get there.
The account has been active since August 2017, the same time that the national movement to remove Confederate monuments began gaining momentum after Charlottesville, Virginia. It has called for the removal of various Florida monuments in Jacksonville, Lakeland and St. Augustine. The account has been reported to Twitter, as well as Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, McCallister said.
The Bring It Home Coalition also accused Galvano of colluding with Manatee County and asked that he and other Florida lawmakers elevate the monuments to cenotaphs so that they remain as permanent historical memorials.
Activists also decried Manatee’s handling of the removal that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars of damage after the 93-year-old monument was broken in two pieces. It may cost about $41,500 to repair.
Now commissioners say a public hearing will be held and once the relocation spot is chosen, the monument will be “repaired and erected anew.”
TEXAS ISSUE RE-FLARES
Texas House Speaker Joe Straus took aim once more at a Confederate plaque in the Capitol in remarks Monday to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. The speech was part of a luncheon honoring the outgoing speaker’s public service.
We reported last year when Straus called for the State Preservation Board to remove the plaque from Capitol grounds. The board, which Governor Abbott heads, is responsible for maintaining and preserving the Capitol, including its Confederate symbols.
During a gubernatorial debate Friday, Abbott said the plaque should be removed, but that it’s up to the Legislature to decide to remove it.
So what we thought was a battle won is now a battle we’re gonna have to fight all over again.
ATLANTA’S BLACK POLITICIANS FLIP BIRD TO VOTERS
Rejecting overwhelming opposition to the change from residents, and with a clear disregard of the rules for making such name changes, the Atlanta City Council voted unanimously Monday to change the name of Confederate Avenue to United Avenue. Another nearby street, Confederate Court, will be renamed Trestletree Court.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms quickly signed the measure before effected residents could issue a challenge. The name change will become effective on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
RULES AND LAWS BE DAMNED
Tuesday night in Wisconsin the Madison City Council voted yet again to remove the Confederate monument in Forest Hill Cemetery, a direct rebellion to last month’s decision by the Landmarks Commission which had denied the City’s application to remove the monument the first time they voted to remove it.
Newly appointed District 13 Alderman Allen Arntsen requested that the Council reconsider the removal, disregarding the decision of the Landmark Commission. He said removing the monument, which includes the names of 140 Confederate soldiers there buried, would be a step toward inclusiveness and improving racial equity in the city of Madison.
“The monument that was put up, the cenotaph, is not a monument to the Confederacy,” the Landmark’s Commission determined. “It doesn’t extol the virtues of slavery, or racism or the Confederate cause.”
In April, the City Council approved removing the large stone that is located in an area of the cemetery called Confederate Rest. The monument also recognizes Alice Whiting Waterman, who cared for the graves and was later buried in Confederate Rest in 1897. But the City cannot lawfully remove the monument without the approval of the Landmarks Commission because Forest Hill Cemetery is a designated city landmark. But in voting yet again to remove the monument, the City Council is signaling that it will now remove the monument even without the lawful approval to do so.
NON-HERITAGE NEWS EFFECTING THE SOUTHLAND:
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that there is “no way” his nation will ever disarm its nuclear weapons first if it can’t trust Washington. “Without any trust in the U.S. there will be no confidence in our national security and, under such circumstances, there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first,” Ri said.
His comments come after President Trump, at the U.N. for four days, lauded the progress of the talks between the two nations. Mr. Trump said that he was in no “hurry,” adding that another summit will take place between the two leaders soon, at a location other than Singapore. Ri implored the U.S. to follow up on the promise made at the U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore between Mr. Trump and Kim Jong Un, and continued to call for an end to the Korean War and for a peace treaty between Washington and Pyongyang that would involve the removal or reduction of U.S. military forces in South Korea.
Ri stated the fact that “the ‘UN Command’ in South Korea even showed alarming signs of hindering the implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration between the north and south.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with North Korea’s envoy at the sidelines of the U.N. gathering and announced that he will travel to the North in October to prepare for the next Trump-Kim summit.
“The perception that sanctions can bring us on our knees is a pipe dream of the people who are ignorant about us,” Ri said. “The problem is that the continued sanctions are deepening our mistrust.”
NAFTA 2.0
President Trump on Monday hailed the major revisions he was able to extract from Canada and Mexico to the 25-year-old North American trade agreement, as business executives, labor leaders, and lawmakers began poring over details.
Speaking at a Rose Garden news conference, Trump called the pact that would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement “the most important trade deal we’ve ever made by far.”
“We have succesfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new U.S.-Canada-Mexico agreement,” Trump said, pledging that “it will transform North America back into a manufacturing powerhouse.”
KENTUCKY SENATOR’S WIFE PUTS DEMS ON NOTICE
The wife of Republican Sen. Rand Paul penned an open letter to Democratic Sen. Cory Booker Wednesday night, calling on him to “condemn violence” in the wake of “intimidation and threats that are being hurled” at GOP families, including hers.
Kelley Paul, in an op-ed published by CNN, said her family lives in a state of fear due to an escalation of violent threats after their home address was posted online. “I now keep a loaded gun by my bed. Our security systems have had to be expanded. I have never felt this way in my life,” she wrote.
Mrs. Paul said she was relieved and grateful after her husband narrowly escaped a mass-assassination attempt by a leftist gunman on the Republican congressional baseball team in 2017. She said her husband wasn’t so lucky five months later when he was viciously attacked and left with six broken ribs, lung damage and multiple bouts of pneumonia. Mrs. Paul slammed the liberals who made light of the attack, including Cher, Bette Midler, MSNBC commentator Kasie Hunt and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who joked about it at an August event.
Mrs. Paul also called out Mr. Booker, who recently encouraged supporters to “get up in the face of some congresspeople” and voice their disapproval.
KAVANAUGH UPDATE
A pair of key Republican senators expressed satisfaction Thursday with a new FBI report, increasing the odds of Senate confirmation this weekend of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.
Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of three Republicans who had not indicated how they plan to vote, said Thursday that “it appears to be a very thorough investigation, but I’m going back later to personally read the interviews.”
Shortly afterward, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who requested the investigation, told reporters that “we’ve seen no additional corroborating information.”
Collins, Flake and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are the critical votes that could ensure Kavanaugh’s ascension to the nation’s highest court.
That Which Has Been Is That Which Shall Be
by Al Benson, Jr.
Al Benson, Jr., is the Editor of the Copperhead Chronicle. In addition to writing for Southern Patriot and other publications, he is a member of the Confederate Society of America and the League of the South.
The title of this article has one more line in it that would have made it too long for a title. That line is “And there is nothing new under the sun.” This is taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. It’s sort of a paraphrase of the 9th verse of chapter one-not an exact rendering, but close enough so you get the idea.
Nowhere is this more applicable than in Washington, D.C. the District of Corruption.
Recently, I started working my way through a book by Helen Jones Campbell, which I found at a local library. The book is Confederate Courier and deals with the life of John Surratt Jr., the son of Mary Surratt, who was hung as one of the “co-conspirators” in the Lincoln assassination. I’ve done articles on Mrs. Surratt for this blog but its been a few years ago, and I contended that she was innocent of complicity in Lincoln’s assassination. She may have been complicit in a plan to kidnap Lincoln, but I don’t feel she was part of a scheme to kill him. But Washington being Washington, needed another sacrificial victim-guilty or innocent made no difference as long as someone’s agenda was moved along, in this case probably Edwin Stanton’s.
Campbell makes some interesting observations. She noted, on page 2 that “The war had been over for two years, and the Union preserved after a fashion, but nothing had gone back to being as it had been…” It never would either. The country had gone from being some semblance of a representative republic and was now in its first stages of socialist democracy-a course it has persevered in unto this day. If you think that’s far out, just look at the politicians today who blithely refer to the country as “our democracy.”
In regard to the trial of Surratt and the others Campbell observed: “In spite of protests by many government officials, legal authorities, and newspapers over the world, these civilians were ordered to face a military commission. ‘Unconstitutional’ said the public; civilians could not be tried by the military when established courts were open and available. But they had been….and by the rules of the court dened the right to speak a word in their own defense, such an outburst had shaken the city and nation that Stanton had wavered.” But not much!
However, the fun was only beginning. Campbell stated that “Witnesses had told horrifying tales of Jefferson Davis as instigator of the crime, of a plan to assassinate all the cabinet members, too, to burn New York City, poison its wells, pack explosives in coal cars, infect the North with smallpox….Each day’s testimony had rocked the town anew…No story was too lurid to repeat, no embellishment too wild.”
Campbell noted of Louis Weichman that “Stanton had questioned him, frightened him silly, and then committed him to Old Capitol Prison to think his story over. His testimony had hanged Mrs. Surratt, but after her death he suffered such great remorse that he had confessed to various friends. ‘I didn’t want to hang’ he had said. ‘If they’d let me say what I wanted to, she wouldn’t have hanged’.” When Stanton heard of this he called Weichman on the carpet about it. According to Campbell “Lou denied it and hurried out of town to a job the secretary found for him in Philadelphia….No sooner had this quieted down when a news story broke that a school for perjury had been conducted in the New National Hotel. A New York newsman, paid by Stanton, had written testimony and coached witnesses in its delivery. Eight such witnesses had testified and not one of them, including their tutor, had testified under his own name. This was testimony that linked the Confederate officials and John Surratt to the murder. Without this testimony there could have been no charge against him.”
All this proves one thing. The Deep State. whether 150 years ago or today, has an agenda that is destructive to the truth and they will push that agenda no matter who it hurts or how many lives it destroys. They couldn’t care less about any of that. Anyone thinking you can appeal to their “better nature” is naive in the extreme. These people prostitute themselves and others without hesitation to gain their desired goals. If they thought it would further their agenda they’d call God a liar-something they’ve done indirectly for decades already.
Washington, in the District of Corruption, is a city built on lies, deception, deceit, and hurt. When lives are destroyed its denizens laugh! To them that means they’ve done a good job. Today’s fascist Democrats are no different than yesterday’s radical Republican Yankee/Marxists. They all originated in the same slime.
What’s going on today in Washington is what has gone on before in Washington and even though the names may be different, it’s the same old socialist/Illuminist game that has been going on for a long, long time.
Those that pray imprecatory Psalms regarding many of Washington’s Swamp denizens are not all that much off track, in fact they may have figured out what the game is more than most have.
A COUNTRY OF OUR OWN
by The Kennedy Twins
Ron and Donnie are best known for their bestselling book The South Was Right! They advocate for limited government in regular interviews such as Col. Oliver North’s radio show, Alan Comes radio show, Bill Maher’s show Politically Incorrect, BBC, and French National TV. They are frequent speakers at civic groups, churches, patriotic groups, and conferences.
According to a recent news report U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was recently specifically excluded from a meeting at the White House held to discuss immigration and resettlement policies. Haley is well known for the key role she played in initiating the recent round of slanderous, anti-South cultural genocide. A role that “we the people of Dixie” must keep before the public as the establishment continues to groom her as a potential candidate for president.
Haley is loved by the Washington, D.C. establishment and according to sources has close ties to the Never Trump movement. For example: Jon Lerner is her chief of staff. Who is Jon Lerner? Jon worked for the pro-immigration Koch brothers running a Never Trump organization for the billionaire brothers. Lerner was instrumental in developing FWD.us which is Mark Zuckerberg’s organization lobbying to destroy U.S.borders and open immigration to all comers.
Nikki evidentially believes it is OK for her to celebrate her heritage but she eagerly denies the same right to those whose ancestors wore the gray in the War for Southern Independence. In a trip to her “homeland”of India she (incorrectly) proclaimed, “America is a country of immigrants. It’s the fabric of America to havemultiple cultures. Multiple populations. Multiple heritages that do come into America that make it what it is.” If we do not establish Shadow Governments across the South-we will end up with people like Nikki Haley as “our” president.
ON THE LEFT COAST
The political science professor who attacked pro-Trump demonstrators with a bike lock was charged with four counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon resulting in significant bodily harm. The assault occurred in April of 2017 at Berkeley during an attack by ANTIFA types against peaceful conservatives. According to the police report up to three individuals were attacked by a man wearing a black mask and
wielding a black iron bike lock. This was not the political science professor’s first run-in with the law. He was also involved with a Black Lives Matter protest involving the police-the professor is white.
What should be the punishment for a masked individual who uses potentially deadly force against peaceful citizens exercising their First Amendment right of peaceful assembly? What can you expect from a sanctuary state like California? After much online uproar and public pressure, the local police located and arrested the professor-who immediately invoked his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney. [Rights for me but not for thee!] California justice-left-wing justice for a fellow-traveler-resulted in theprofessor pleading “no contest” to one misdemeanor battery charge. All felony charges were dropped plusthe claim that he had “caused serious bodily injury” was removed from his record. California has a law thatadds punishment when a crime is committed while wearing a mask-that charge was also dismissed.I think we need a country of our own!
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Do you at times find yourself turning off the news andwondering “What has happened to this country?”Have you ever wondered if the men who faced German or Japanese gun-fire during World War II would have braved such horrible dangers if they had been told that one day their federal government would make it legal for male sexual perverts to follow their granddaughters into a public restroom?
Do you think the men who faced death on Pork Chop Hill in Korea would have been happy to know that one day in the very near future the federal government would declare the very mention of God and prayer in publicspaces “unconstitutional” while vigorously protectingand promoting the anti-Christian religion of Islam in the United States?
What do you think the men who braved death during the Siege of Khe Sanh fighting to protect the borders of South Vietnam from Northern encroachment would have thought about their federal government advocating virtual open borders for the United States? At some point in time”we the people” of the once sovereign states must decide if it is time for us to either reclaim “our”country or establish one of our own.
The South’s Right to Be Free!
THE NIGHT MY MOTHER LOST HER FAITH
by Tim Murray
Tim Murray is writing for The Council of European Canadians.
Aged hospitals, atrocious wait times, fewer cutting edge treatments, fewer new drugs, a shortage of doctors, a paucity of acute care hospital beds, unfunded liabilities that constitute 46% of the national economy, a middling performance about among countries with universal medical access-yes, the truth is out about Canada’s acclaimed health care system.
You know, the one that American progressives love so much from afar. The one that Canadians ardently loved too-until the 1990s. Then two things happened.
One was a dramatic shift in immigration policy taken by the then Brian Mulroney government at the end of the 1991, when it was announced that annual immigration intakes would virtually double. The second thing to happen was that wait times for necessary surgical procedures grew longer. And longer-until today, the median wait time today of over 21 weeks is twice as long as it was then.
Coincidence? It would stretch credulity to the extreme to deny a connection. The greater the number of patients, the greater demand that is placed on the system, and immigration-driven population growth has added more than 7 million medical consumers to the queue since the departure of “Lyin’ Brian”.
Last year, Canadian taxpayers spent roughly $250 billion on health care, an expenditure equivalent to ll.5% of Canada’s GDP. That works out to over $6,600 per person. Now, one would think that that would be enough to provide us with the comprehensive care we crave. But it’s not. Ours is not an integrated system. Unlike the British National Health Service for example, physiotherapy, dental care and vision care are not covered. Neither are ambulance rides, plus a host of other out-of-pocket expenditures, including, for most of us, the crippling cost of drugs. If the Trudeau government delivers on the promise of a national pharmacare program, you can add another thousand bucks to the $6,600. A figure that’s been growing 4% a year of late.
That $6,600, however, is just an average. What of elderly parents sponsored by adult children under the rubric of “family reunification”? What of the unskilled migrants from “non-traditional” sources who don’t earn enough income to offset the cost of the social services provided to them? Migrants who impose a net fiscal burden of approximately $35 billion a year on Canadian taxpayers? And what about the many tens of thousands of refugee claimants whose settlement costs anywhere from $12,000 to $20,000 a pop? It would be reasonable to assume migrants from Less Developed Countries come with a backlog of unattended medical problems.
Already the big ticket item in every Provincial budget-accounting almost half of all program expenditures-health care spending in this country is on an unsustainable trajectory. The reasons are many. Rising drug costs, the price of new medical technology, over-centralization, the lack of community health clinics, a failure to shift toward preventive and holistic medicine, a failure to implement economies, the under-funding of home care and the refusal of many Canadians to take responsibility for their own health-all factor into the conversation. But the elephant in the hospital room, immigration policy, is a no go zone.
This is not just an issue of financial impositions. There is a human cost as well. The cost born by Canadians who must endure acute pain while waiting in a long line up to get a CT scan or see a specialist, only to join another long line up to have the actual operation. If you want to gauge their suffering think not in terms of faceless millions, but of individuals you may know who suffer in silence or turn to pain killers to get them through the night, and the many months ahead. When I do that, I think of my late mother and the hardship she endured in her final years. I think of the evening when, at age 86, had a medical event in a Vancouver suburb.
Hallway medicine is a reality in many Canadian hospitals
Mom was rushed to hospital only to have to spend the night lying in a gurney in the hallway. All beds were taken. According to protocol, the paramedics who carried her in from the ambulance had to stand around until she was admitted to the emergency ward. They had a long evening. So did I. When morning broke we all knew each other’s life stories.
There was a lot of talking done that night, and at least half of it was in languages other than English. The signs posted near the waiting room and receptions were multilingual. English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and another from the Indian subcontinent. Our other official language-French-was not on the menu. Quite telling that. At times the scene was chaotic because staff were running around trying to make themselves understood.
That’s a common problem in Lower Mainland hospitals. Hallway medicine, stressed out nurses, and very long surgery waits-that’s the reality of our much vaunted health care system, a system that was not designed to cope with the crushing demands now made upon it, never mind the demands which the immigration and refugee lobby would further add. It is confounding that many of the people who grumble about having to wait 6 months to see a specialist or 8 months to get a hip replacement are the same people who favour open borders policies. They don’t connect the dots.
Thankfully, my mother survived the night, but her lifelong socialist convictions did not.
My parents were among the founding members of Canada’s democratic socialist party in 1933, the CCF, re-branded as the NDP in 1961. They fought for the establishment of a welfare state-a 40 hour week, unemployment insurance, government auto insurance…and of course socialized medicine. When the NDP finally formed the government in British Columbia in 1972, they were elated, like most working class people of their generation. Having met the brutal challenges of the Depression and the War, it seemed then that their sacrifices would be rewarded with a worry free future. They would never have to worry about getting the kind of care they would require in their golden years.
But like the loyal working class supporters of labour and social democratic parties in Britain, Europe and Australia, they were betrayed by the politicians who claimed to be their advocates. They worked hard and paid their taxes, only to see people who had never put a nickel into the system bumped to the head of the queue. It was sad to see their bodies fail, but it was heartbreaking to witness their disillusionment. Their God had failed them.
Mom and Dad never left the NDP. The NDP left them.
Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once said that you can have mass immigration or you can have the welfare state. But you can’t have both. The NDP chose mass immigration.
Obliterate the Ludicrous Assertion that Confederates Were Traitors
by Gene Kizer, Jr.
Gene Kizer, Jr. is author of Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States, the Irrefutable Argument, and other Southern history books.
The following is a letter-to-the-editor of the Charleston, South Carolina Post and Courier of September 15, 2018 defending the crew of the CSS Hunley. It applies to all Confederates soldiers:
Dear Editor of The Post and Courier,
A letter writer on September 12, 2018 is adamant that the proposed museum for the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley should not be incorporated into Patriot’s Point because Patriot’s Point honors the U.S. Navy and those “who defended the U.S. and its Constitution” whereas the CSS Hunley crew were traitors.
He is correct that the Hunley’s sinking of the USS Housatonic to become the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in combat was an historic event, but he errs grievously when he says the Hunley should also be remembered “for their pardons for treason.” That is fake history.
The Hunley crew gave their lives for their country. They were not charged with treason and nobody associated with the Hunley sought a pardon.
The writer is confused about our country’s founding because nowhere in the U. S. Constitution in 1861 did it say the Federal Government had a right or obligation to wage war against any state in the Union for any reason.
The country was not centralized in those days and each state was sovereign and independent and had been since the Colonists won the Revolutionary War. King George III agreed to the Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783, which stated: “Article 1st. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent states . . . “.
No state ever rescinded its sovereignty or gave up its independence.
In fact, three states were so protective of their independence that they insisted, before they would join the new Union, that they could secede from it if it became tyrannical in their eyes. Those states were New York, Rhode Island and Virginia. Because all the states were admitted to the Union as equals, the acceptance of the right of secession demanded by New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, gave that right to all the other states.
The right of secession was not questioned during the antebellum era. It was taught in places like the United States Military Academy at West Point in famous texts such as William Rawle’s “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America.” The New England states with their Hartford Convention almost seceded over the War of 1812, but the Southern boys under Andrew Jackson defeated the British in New Orleans and ended the war. New England threatened secession again with the admission of Texas in 1845. Even Horace Greeley believed in the right of secession (“let the erring sisters go”) until he realized the loss of his Southern manufacturing market and cotton threatened to destroy the Northern economy, and along with it, his wealth and power. Then he wanted war.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Founding Fathers called for the Constitution to be ratified by each state through a special convention of the people to decide that one issue, rather than through their legislatures. If they ratified it through their legislatures, a later legislature might rescind the ratification of an earlier legislature, therefore a convention of the people was a more sound basis for a state to approve the Constitution.
When the Southern States seceded, they followed the exact precedent set by the Founding Fathers in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Each Southern state called a convention of the people (commonly called a secession convention), elected delegates as Unionists or Secessionists, debated the single issue of whether to stay in the Union or leave, then seven states voted to secede. Four rejected secession for the time being.
When the guns of Fort Sumter sounded, there were more slave states in the Union (eight, soon to be nine) than the Confederacy (seven). Of course, the four that had rejected secession, immediately seceded when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South because they did not believe the Federal Government had a right to invade a sovereign state or coerce it to do anything.
Secession was their legal right and they did it properly. So, the idea that the crew of the CSS Hunley were traitors, is ludicrous.
I might remind the letter writer that the Hunley crew’s ancestors, like all Confederate ancestors, gave our country independence because the Revolutionary War was won in the South.
And the Hunley crew’s descendants, being from the South a region that reveres military service helped mightily to win every other American war.
Patriot’s Point represents the highest ideals of American valor and patriotism, and there is none greater than that exhibited by the crew of the CSS Hunley.
The Hunley museum should not only be at Patriot’s Point, it should be the star of Patriot’s Point. The Hunley is only part of the story of the Siege of Charleston, which was one of the longest sieges in history. Anyone who has seen some of the hundreds of pictures of Charleston destroyed from the Battery to Calhoun Street by Union shelling from ships such as the USS Housatonic, knows there is a tremendous story here. The Confederate semi-submersible cigar-shaped vessels (Davids) that harassed the Union blockade as well as the ironclads, Palmetto State and Chicora, and blockade runners, are not as well known as the Hunley but just as fascinating. All of this should be told at Patriot’s Point.
Patriot’s Point could become one of the greatest historical assets on the planet. With Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and the new International African-American Museum coming soon, Charleston could dominate history tourism like nowhere on earth and take us to a level we can’t even imagine right now.
Gene Kizer, Jr.
FROM THE EDITOR
Dr. Ed is a pastor, author, public speaker, radio personality, lobbyist, re-enactor, and the Director of Dixie Heritage.
As you know, the movement to remove Confederate statues from public property continues to claim victories.
But one very public place where more than a dozen of our statues have remained with little debate, until now, is the U.S. Capitol.
But two things have happened that are changing that. The first was when Florida’s legislature voted to replace its statue of General Smith with a statue of a woman who looks exactly like boxing promoter Don King. The second, more recently, were conversations in the wake of the passing of John McCain when a few members of Congress proposed renaming the Russell Senate Office Building after the Arizona politician. Richard Russell, for whom the building is named, was a former pro-Confederate senator from Georgia.
So far it appears that the name change is not gaining traction. But having our ears to the ground in DC we are being told that the conversation has been privately expanded by Democrats in the House of Representatives from Southern states who are planning, if they win the House in the midterms, to propose the removal of all Confederate statues from the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. After all, if Florida can do it voluntarily, the rest can do it by Federal order.
Those statues from Southern states which would be removed from Statuary Hall include:
*Wade Hampton III, South Carolina,
*James Zachariah George, Mississippi,
*Jefferson Davis, Mississippi,
*Edmund Kirby Smith, Florida, (Being replaced by Mary McCloud Bethune)
*Joseph Wheeler, Alabama,
*Alexander Hamilton Stephens, Georgia,
*Edward D. White, Louisiana,
*Robert E. Lee, Virginia,
*Zebulon Vance, North Carolina,
*John Kenna, West Virginia,
I’ve asked why they don’t just do it now? Why not make it a campaign issue? And the reason they are not is because there is still a healthy fear of “southerners” as a “voting block.” So lets use that fear against them in November and, as General Forrest used to say, “keep up the scare!”
Until Next Week
Deo Vindice!
Chaplain Ed
Dixie Heritage
P.O. Box 618
Lowell, FL 32663
