August 20, 2018 ~ Language is the tool we use to communicate ideas to others, but to some there are words and phrases that garner a negative emotional reaction when spoken by others. Racial slurs and excessive use of profanity are among the category of language that illicit a negative emotional response from those hearing them. Yet there are two words, when spoken by themselves are innocent enough, but when combined illicit a predominantly negative response from those hearing them; those words being civil and war. Put those words together, as in Civil War, and the minds of most Americans immediately think of racism and slavery, when the truth is that the actual conflict was not about those things at all. Continue reading →

June 11, 2017 ~ Monuments honoring heroes of the Confederate States of America, American heroes in fact, are being removed from the public square, due to a successful presentation of oversimplified arguments and lies by the same progressive Leftist Democratic apparatus that seeks to fundamentally transform America. These assaults on the Southern heritage by politically correct propagandists and arrogant activist ideologues are assaults on our American culture and heritage, or “AmeriKKKa” as the Left calls America; and, it is nothing short of a cultural cleansing campaign, a purging of the truth and history and a national disgrace. (Source)

In 2015, the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP called for the destruction of the Stone Mountain Confederate Monument, that honors Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee and General Stonewall Jackson. They wanted the nearly 2000 square feet and 12 feet deep carving “sandblasted away”. Continue reading →

I am the Confederate Battle Flag. My design is based upon the Saint Andrew’s Cross of Scotland. Some prefer to call me the “Rebel Flag”. Either name I will wear with honor. There is certainly no shame in being called Confederate, as the people who bore that same honorable title are remembered for their bravery on the field of battle, a Southern culture built upon hard work, and faith in God. As for the name “Rebel”, it was the Revolutionary War soldier and outstanding pamphleteer, Thomas Paine, in his series “The American Crisis“, said: “Let them call me Rebel and welcome — I feel no concern from it“. Because you see, it was George Washington and his Colonial Army who were the original Rebels. My boys in gray were the second to wear the name. Continue reading →

Thomas Sowell has published numerous books, as well as numerous articles and essays, covering a wide range of topics.

Sowell has taught Economics at Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman. He retired in January of 2017.

February 26, 2012 ~ April 12, 2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. This launched our Civil War, which would kill more than 600,000 on the two sides. More than half the deaths resulted from disease. The death rate was higher in the Confederate States due to more primitive medical care. The war devastated the economy of the South for decades. Political and emotional wounds from the conflict continue to fester.

As this grim anniversary approaches, some commemorations have been launched that portray the Civil War as solely about states’ rights. Last year, secession balls were held in some Southern states to celebrate the splitting of the union. The Civil War was about slavery, the greatest moral blot on our nation’s history. Continue reading →

The martial banner first used by Brig. General Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805) and the 1st South Carolina Regiment during the First War for Independence, 1775-1783.

Gadsden was a successful and influential Charleston, South Carolina businessman and Statesman. He was an early advocate of Independence and engaged in the creation of the South Carolina Constitution. Elected Governor in 1782 he refused to serve on ground of ill health but remained actively involved in State affairs opposing States consolidation. Continue reading →

The African Slave Trade ~ Profits and Prosperity

The Evening Post, the New York Tribune, and other anti-slavery journals in this city are discharging themselves of such a mass of special and minute information about the movements of slavers, and the activity of the slave trade in New York, New London, New Bedford and Boston, that it seems highly probable they are stockholders or secret agents in the business.

These ports, in which the slavers are fitted out belong to the most rabid anti-slavery States, and there can be no doubt that the vessels are the property of the Republicans in those several places. The profits of the trade are so great that they can well afford to contribute a hundred thousand dollars or more towards the election of an anti-slavery President [Lincoln]. From lists published a short time ago In the Post and Tribune, it appeared that eighty-six* slavers had Sailed from this port and the other ports we have mentioned, and from other cases since reported, the number cannot be now far short of one hundred sail. The net proceeds on a cargo of five hundred slaves are at the lowest estimate $100,000, which is only an average profit of $200 per head. The sum of the profits of the “blackbird fleet” at one hundred vessels would therefore amount to ten millions of dollars, and this estimate makes an allowance of five million for expenses and losses.

From facts and figures it is evident that it is a most profitable, prosperous business, and accordingly we are informed by the Post that steamships are about to give new activity to the traffic, and that they will be packed with some 3,000 negroes, whose aggregate prices would sum up about a million of dollars. One instance is mentioned by both our anti-slavery contemporaries, of 450 negroes being landed on the 30th of June from an American bark, and sold publicly in the streets of Trinidad at an average of $650 each. The gross proceeds of this cargo would be $292,500, which, for one hundred “blackbirds.” Would amount to upwards of twenty-nine millions of dollars, leaving a clear profit of from twenty to twenty-five million. It is added, in the Post, that the Governor of Trinidad received in this transaction $30,000 hush money.

Now, it may be fairly asked, how those who are not implicated or interested in the trade themselves can be so well posted in this matter of bribery, or make up the lists of slavers which have appeared in their journals? How can they be so minutely informed of the names of the vessels, their captains, the ports from which they have sailed, the number of slaves they land, the prices received for them, and the “hush money” to corrupt Governors, unless they are secret partners in the trade? If they are possessed of all this information, they must have known of the fitting out of every vessel before she sailed. Why did they not give information to the authorities before the bird had flown, unless they had an interest in concealing her flight till it was too late. Once these ships bare made their voyages and landed their cargoes, and the owners have realized fortunes, they or their agents may then inform the public that such operations were made, the legal evidence against those concerned being no longer in existence.

They can thus afford to be severe in their denunciations of the slave traffic, and call it “infernal,” having the prices of the Africans in their pockets, or snugly deposited to their credit in banks, and they can also afford to bleed copiously for the purchase of campaign documents to secure the election of Old Abe Lincoln. Like sleek Joseph Surface, in the “School for Scandal,” who zealously preached up sentiments of morality to his wild brother Charles at the very moment that he had Sir Peter Teazle’s wife concealed for a criminal purpose in his room, the anti-slavery loaders are most enthusiastic against the slave traffic at the very time that they are enjoying its profits and doing a thriving business In human flesh.

The New York Herald, August 10, 1860, Page 4
Transcribed by Bobby Edwards, September 19, 2018

Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1882. Courtesy Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

If Frederick Douglass walked today’s ghettos, he would witness a new-age style of slavery, plantations without the lash and chains. He would soon be outraged that government overseers are perpetuating generations of dependency through policies designed to capture the votes of the ignorant. Of the people he would ask, “What have you done with your freedom? Where is your dignity and self-respect?”

Frederick Douglass was born about 1818 on a Maryland plantation. Following common practice, he was taken from his mother to be raised with a brood of other children until he was old enough to work. He did not know his father. At the age of eight or nine, his master sent him to work for the Auld family in the city of Baltimore. Hugh Auld was a shipbuilder. Continue reading →