“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States.” ~ Charles Dickens
After the Sale: Slaves Going South from Richmond ~ 1853, Eyre Crowe (1824-1910), Oil on canvas; 27 x 36 in.; Chicago History Museum
Artist and painter, Eyre Crowe was struck in Richmond, Virginia, by the scenes after the slave sales, when slaves were ‘marched under escort of their new owners across the town to the railway station, where they took places, and “went South”. They held scanty bundles of clothing, their only possession. These were the scenes, which in a very short number of years made one realize the sources of the fiercest of civil wars’.
This painting was exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery in London in 1854, and was described by the critic in the Art Journal in June 1864 (‘British Artists: their Style and Character – No. LXXIII – Eyre Crowe’, as ‘full of life and bustle, but not of the kind that is pleasant to look upon.’ ~ Ed.
~ Foreword ~
“I’m not crying for him. I see something else up there – something more terrible than one man…” – Olivia de Havilland as fictional character, “Kit Carson Halliday,” Santa Fe Trail, Warner Bros. Pictures, 1940
Was de Havilland’s character speaking of the film’s version of John Brown (portrayed by Raymond Massey), or of Adolph Hitler as America watched the rise of Nazi Socialism during the late 1930’s; or was her character speaking of America and its leadership during the current period in our history?
In the earlier chapters of this project, we began America’s story with the signing of the Magna Charta in the year 1215, and concluded nearly a quarter century after the signing of the ultimate Freedom document, the Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. We now pick up where the first volume left off…
Throughout this experiment, which we call ‘America,’ we continue to witness an intertwining of the stories, which have molded us, both as a people and a country, and through my continued studies, my determination is, that this project will do much the same thing,. The previous chapter of WORDS… began to open up the recognition of the issue of slavery in 1788 from William Pinkney, therefore this chapter will move forward and address this issue from numerous angles – but one must understand that, while “slavery” has been blamed by the “victors” of the Federal Aggression – it was not the prime cause of what became incorrectly known as the ‘Civil War.’
In 2013 as I worked feverishly to expand this project (which I had begun nearly 20 years before), I found myself in a somber mood. When this happens, I find the need to turn to movies for a respite from the daily toil. That night no different, however…
I awoke that morning to the news that the last member of the John Ford stock company of actors had passed away, Harry Carey, Jr.. ‘Dobe‘ as he was known to his friends; continued to work with John Wayne, and continued on for many years after the Duke was gone. And so now the young red-head went on to reunite with the likes of the Duke, Ben Johnson and Pappy Ford himself, and maybe even his folks, Harry Sr. and mother Olive. Maybe the U.S. Calvary of Hollywood does meet up again in the hereafter. Have a good journey Dobe.
But knowing that didn’t tell me where I wanted to go, as far as a film to watch. Three Godfathers (a Biblical western if there ever was one), The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon? No – a western was not what I needed today. Lawrence of Arabia? No – I was not interested in British Imperialism today, not did I wish to watch, which for me, is one of the most amazing films of our time, Kingdom of Heaven.
Fredericksburg, Virginia
What is this chapter of America’s story about? That’s it – Gods and Generals, the 2003 film from Warner Bros.! The bloodiest day of the battle of Fredericksburg has just finished – as it had 150 years before, and what moves me the most each time I watch this film, are two scenes; the Irish Brigades of both the North and the South battling for their own versions of freedom; and Billy Yank and Johnny Reb meeting each other in the midst of the river and sharing a smoke and a cup of coffee. No words are spoken – just a moment of Christmas peace in the middle of a horrible war, – but then all wars are horrible.
As in all wars, each side is right and both are wrong. And yet, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (as portrayed by Jeff Daniels) states, “This war didn’t start for the purpose of freeing the slaves, but that is what it has become.” Tell that to the historians of today, and they will disagree with you until the next war begins.
Yes, much of this volume covers the issue of slavery – an issue, which we are still discussing in the twenty-first century – not in some distant land – but right here in America.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans and is cited in more litigation than any other amendment to this day – but what of the right to “life, liberty or property?” Through the lies and deceit of mortgage bankers and criminal prosecutors, in addition to the elected officialdom in Washington, DC and around the nation – our peoples are fast approaching a form of slavery, from which we may never recover. Once again, the lessons of the past are our roadmap to the future. Take heed.
In addition to the issue of slavery, which America tolerated in its early years, we’ll look at the letters, speeches and papers (some of which are rarely seen or read – and certainly no longer taught in the nations Government controlled “education system”), but we’ll share a time in history, where this nation was experiencing its second birth, or as film director, D.W. Griffith called it, “The Birth of a Nation.” If during the War of Independence eighty-five years earlier, we were a “nation conceived in liberty,” then the second time around, we were conceived in…
What does our future hold? Look around the world; Egypt, Greece, Spain, Israel and Palestine, and America’s continued involvement in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other “theater’s” around the world. The winds of revolution are blowing, and I fear that we cannot escape this global epidemic.
What we share with you in this chapter of Mr. Adair’s Classroom will expand on the good, the bad and the ugly of our ever evolving experiment.
I’ll see you at Sundown!
Jeffrey Bennett
During the winter of our discontent
December 27, 2012
The Dred Scott Decision ~ March 6, 1857
“A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a Territory shall decide this question [of slavery] for themselves.”
Abraham Lincoln ~ House Divided (June 16, 1858)
“I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.”
Stephen A. Douglas ~ The Debate (August 27, 1858)
“Leave the people free to do as they please.”
William H. Seward ~ The irrepressible conflict (October 25, 1858)
“Such is the Democratic Party. It has no policy, state or federal, for finance, or trade, or manufacture, or commerce, or education, or internal improvements, or for the protection or even the security of civil or religious liberty.”
I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land (April 4, 1859)
Loved by many, despised by others, “Dixie” is still among the most recognizable of all American songs. Ironically, it was written by a Northerner, Daniel Decatur Emmett…
The Raid on Harper’s Ferry (October 1859) ~ The Spark That Lit a Bonfire
News of the insurrection, relayed by the conductor of an express train heading to Baltimore, reached President Buchanan. Marines and soldiers went dispatched, under the leadership of then Colonel Robert E. Lee
Thoreau: A Plea for Captain John Brown ~ October 30, 1859
“I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union.”
John Brown of Kansas ~ November 2, 1859
“I feel no consciousness of guilt.”
Victor Hugo on John Brown
“…When we reflect on what Brown, the liberator, the champion of Christ, has striven to effect, and when we remember that he is about to die, slaughtered by the American Republic, that crime assumes an importance co-extensive with that of the nation which commits it”
~ Truths Of History ~
The ignorance of the average “American” about American history is staggering, stunning and sickening. The worst ignorance is from self-proclaimed historians and new “Americans” whose family did not get to the country till after WWII.
Case in point is any discussion on the causes of Lincoln’s war. While Sons and Daughters of Confederate veterans and Sons and Daughters of Union veterans may disagree on the legality and/or merits of secession, not one of them will say the war was over slavery. There may be a very few ignorant among us, but our enemies are not the Sons or Daughters of Union veterans. Our enemies are the “allslavery-allthetime” mantra crowd; the ignorant, and the intellectually lazy who, by and large, are newcomers and outsiders with no past, no family, no history and no ties to the country before WWII. Their family wasn’t even here during the war.
We’d like to give you a couple of facts that you may not be aware of.
There is a difference between the official Secession Declarations turned into the US government and the published Causes or reasons why the states left the voluntary union of their Revolutionary War grandfathers. Most people confuse the two and think they are the same thing. They’re not.
The Declarations were official notification that the state was leaving. The published Causes were the reasons why. Reasons? Plural – not reason-singular.
The Causes were not turned into the US government but were public and displayed for the world to know. They did this to follow the same logic of the Declaration of Independence signed by their grandfathers that governments long established should not be thrown away for “light and transient causes”. Hence, “Causes” – plural.
Interestingly, only one state mentions domestic institutions in her notification turned into the US government. But only 4 states mention it in their published Causes.
The very ignorant will pull statements out of one of these 4 states that did mention domestic institutions in their Causes and copy and past all over the internet, and in comment sections on social media totally and completely ignoring the other reasons.
Reasons? Plural. Which proves several things including the fact that they did not actually READ the documents, they are intellectually lazy, willingly ignorant and only wish to incite other ignorant people.
Self-righteous control-freaks are something else, aren’t they? They were so many years ago too.
Some things just never change. ~ Author unknown
Yanks Hustling Slave Trade: The African Slave Trade ~ Profits and Prosperity – 1860
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
Secession: If at first you don’t Secede… ~ Part I
“The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.”
The Issue WAS States’ Rights
“I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union.”
Jefferson Davis ~ Farewell to the Senate (January 2, 1861)
“If you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers. Mr. President, and Senators, having made the announcement, which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains to me to bid you a final adieu.”
President Jefferson Davis ~ Inaugural Address (February 18, 1861)
“It is joyous, in the midst of perilous times, to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole – where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality.”
Lincoln’s Tariff War ~ March 2, 1861
“We are going to make tax slaves out of you and if you resist, there will be an invasion.”
The Morrill Tariff of 1861: The True Cause of Secession and the War of Northern Aggression
“The two most important issues of the Presidential campaign, preventing the expansion of slavery into new states and passing the Morrill Tariff, the new tariff was the most important. The tariff would bring great prosperity to the Northeast, and would impoverish the South, along with the western states. It was… essential to the advancement of national greatness and to bringing prosperity to the industrial workers of the North. If Southern leaders objected to the tariff, that they would be rounded up and hanged.”
True causes of the Uncivil War: Understanding the Morrill Tariff
“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States.”
The Last-Minute Attempt to Save the Union ~ The Corwin Amendment (March 4, 1861)
“The last attempt to stop the Civil War, an attempt which had been in the works since shortly after the presidential election, went before the U.S. Senate on this Inauguration Day, 1861…”
Lincoln and the Corwin Amendment
“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”
President Abraham Lincoln ~ First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Dispelling The Myths About Abraham Lincoln
“Can you imagine any public figure saying that today and not being crucified by the press or the public? Yet it would seem that not only was Lincoln willing to see that the black man be kept in a perpetual state of bondage, he also felt that they were inferior to him.”
Lincoln and The War of Northern Aggression
“Lincoln started an illegal war under false pretenses, leading to the deaths of nearly three-quarters of a million of his countrymen, Blue and Gray, military and civilian. He destroyed the United States that was; the United States as it was meant to be.”
Constitution of the Confederate States of America ~ March 11, 1861
“We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.”
The Defining Differences Between the United States and Confederate Constitutions
“Their revolution (the South in 1861) … was in fact an act of restoration, for the constitution drawn up in Montgomery in 1861 for the Confederate States of America was a virtual duplicate of the United States Constitution.” This is a common misperception. The CSA Constitution is not “a virtual duplicate” of the 1787 Constitution. It is a document of greater clarity and stricter understanding.
Lincoln and the Bankers ~ April 12, 1861
“The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution.”
A Second Look ~ Lincoln: Civil War, Greenbacks and Assassination
“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.”
Robert Hunter, Secretary of State for the Confederacy
“I am thoroughly convinced that independent of the negro question, we have not left the north any too soon”
Jefferson Davis: Confederate States of America – Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution)
MONTGOMERY, Alabama: The declaration of war made against this Confederacy by Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, in his proclamation issued on the 15th day of the present month, rendered it necessary, in my judgment, that you should convene at the earliest practicable moment to devise the measures necessary for the defense of the country.
The Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the President’s Message (May 1, 1861)
“Wait, but doesn’t the righteous cause myth say the war was somehow “about slavery!” Doesn’t the righteous cause myth say the tariff had nothing to do with secession and war??? Doesn’t the righteous cause myth state that all this talk about tariff concerns were just a post war embellishment to cover up slavery as the cause of secession???”
Jefferson Davis’ Proclamation of Thanksgiving ~ 1861
“…with grateful thanks we recognize His hand and acknowledge that not unto us, but unto Him, belongeth the victory, and in humble dependence upon His almighty strength, and trusting in the justness of our purpose, we appeal to Him that He may set at naught the efforts of our enemies…”
Thaddeus Stevens on the ‘Legal Tender’ Bill ~ February 6, 1862
“We believe that the credit of the country will be sustained by it, that under it all classes will be paid in money which all classes can use, and that will confer no advantage on the capitalist over the poor laboring man.”
Pvt. Samuel W. Cole; Co. C, 95th Illinois Infantry
“…enlisted August 13, 1862 for service in the Civil War and was assigned to duty as a private of Company C, 95th Infantry…”
Jack Hinson: A Civil War Sniper Hell Bent on Revenge
John W. “Jack” Hinson, better known as “Old Jack” to his family, was a prosperous farmer in Stewart County, Tennessee. A non-political man, he opposed secession from the Union even though he owned slaves. Friends and neighbors described him as a peaceable man, yet despite all this, he would end up going on a one-man killing spree
Fredericksburg
“‘t was such a night two weary summers fled; The stars, as now, were waning overhead…”
Lincoln: The Hangman (December 26, 1862)
“The Tyrant Lincoln had struck again! He wasn’t just a Racist, he hated everyone that stood in his way of a Complete and Tyrannical Regime!”
The Emancipation Proclamation ~ January 1, 1863
Despite Lincoln’s wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.
Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Colonization
Lincoln was relatively devoid of personal prejudice, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t incorporate prejudice into his thinking.
Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain ~ July 2, 1863
“I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our country from desolation, and defend the national existence against treachery.”
President Abraham Lincoln (Nov. 19, 1863) – Gettysburg Address
Restored and Vindicated: The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1864 (March 14, 1864)
“The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1864, called by the loyal Restored government meeting in Alexandria during the American Civil War (1861–1865), adopted the Constitution of 1864, which finally accomplished a number of changes that reformers had agitated for since at least the 1820s. It abolished slavery, provided a way of funding primary and free schools, and required voting by paper ballot for state officers and members of the General Assembly”
President Jefferson Davis (May 2, 1864) – Speaking to Congress of the Confederate States of America
The Blue and the Gray, Francis Miles Finch
The “Civil Rights” Races ~ March 3, 1865
“…and so we were, officially, off to the Civil Rights Races – which even up to our own day, have had no ending!”
President Abraham Lincoln (Mar. 4, 1865) – Second Inaugural Address
“With malice toward none, with charity for all…
Swallowing the Dog
“I think the exaction of this oath cannot be justified on any grounds whatever whether as of admonition and warning for the future or as punishment for the past. It is simply an arbitrary and tyrannical exercise of power.”
The Confederate Cause (April 9, 1865) – Surrender
Lincoln’s Final Public Address: On Reconstruction
Reconstruction of the South (1865 – 1877)
“After the Civil War, attempts were made to solve the political, social, and economic problems arising from the readmission to the Union of the eleven Confederate states that had seceded at or before the outbreak of war. President Abraham Lincoln planned to readmit states in which at least 10% of the voters had pledged loyalty to the Union.”
AMENDMENT XIV to the Constitution
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
Walt Whitman ~ Oh Captain! My Captain!
“My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.”
Lincoln the Dwarf: Lyon Gardiner Tyler’s War on the Mythical Lincoln
Year after year more printer’s ink was spilled upon Lincoln than any other figure in history except Jesus Christ.
A Symbol of Hate? or an Ensign of the Christian Faith? The truth about the Confederate Battle Flag
“I grew up believing that Abe Lincoln was a great president and Jefferson Davis was a traitor. I also grew up believing that Ulysses S. Grant was a hero and Robert E. Lee was not, but then…”
Reflections on Robert E. Lee ~ 1878
“Did General Lee Violate his Oath in Siding with the Confederacy? It will be the duty of the historian and the sage in all ages to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and until time shall be no more will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.”
J.D. Longstreet ~ The Next American Civil War (2012)
“Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action…”
The Cost of Southern Cultural Genocide
“The destruction of Confederate monuments and the slandering of all things Confederate is in vogue in contemporary mainline media, academia, and the political establishment. What passes as standard American history is really Yankee history written by New Englanders or their puppets to glorify Yankee heroes and ideals.”