Posted on 01/31/2008 9:47:17 AM PST by Rebeleye
The thought of having to dignify the legacy of the Confederacy’s only president by driving my car over his highway rather than his decrepit corpse is enough to make me want to vomit...If there is to be a Jefferson Davis Highway it should begin at the African Civil War Memorial and end at his grave, where onlookers can pull over and spit.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycolonial.com ...
Need I remind anyone that the American Civil War killed 620,000 soldiers and an untold number of civilians – the equivalent of six million dead today. Factoring in population, that’s the same as 33 September 11ths a month, or over one a day. It should be no more controversial to fault the Confederacy for this than it is to fault Al Q’aeda for 9/11. Not only did South Carolina secede from the federal government, it actually attacked it at Fort Sumter. If that’s not a casus beli, nothing is.
And why the insurrection? To preserve the barbaric, pre-feudal institution of human chattel. And who led this shameless rebellion? None other than a man who, upon hearing news of the secession, immediately resigned his seat in the Senate and returned to Mississippi to support a civil war. The difference between Jefferson Davis and the likes of Muqtada al-Sadr and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is one of culture, not morality. As the ignorant bigots who fly the Confederate battle flag are prone to say, this is a matter of heritage and history. Indeed it is, and it should be despised as such.
The Constitution has but one crime it mentions specifically: Treason. Article III, section 3, defines it as: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” By definition, Davis did just that. We have hanged far better men than him.
That anything commemorates this man’s odious legacy as anything other than moral bankruptcy is a grave affront to these United States. Even if one is exceedingly generous in retrospect and acquits him the treasonous cause to which he loaned the greatest of aid (that of political leadership), Davis was still responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. At any point he could have stopped the murderous bloodshed that turned his fellow countrymen on one another by surrendering on behalf of the Confederacy. He did not. Instead he chose to needlessly prolong the conflict. He did this when it became apparent even among the Confederacy’s most daft that his cause was lost. That he was on the wrong side of this conflagration seems almost an afterthought.
If there is to be a Jefferson Davis Highway it should begin at the African Civil War Memorial and end at his grave, where onlookers can pull over and spit. There can be no greater offense to African Americans – and indeed, to all Americans of good conscience – than honoring the commander in chief of a breakaway nation that fought tooth and nail to keep our compatriot human beings enslaved. It is a history that leaves me ashamed to call myself American.
The Jefferson Davis Highway should be renamed immediately not by the federal government, which already has renamed it US 1, but by the State of Virginia and the District of Columbia, both of whom preserve the original name on street signs. Until then I’ll refer to it only as Treason Highway. I hope you do too, lest we really forget the ugliness of Jefferson Davis and the brutality, racism and sedition that compose his legacy.
Ping
LOL, and Lincoln was a tyrant, too....
Drive elsewhere, then.
This is a common historical error of believing that a single issue is acutally the embodiment of the entire zeitgeist. Slavery was a pinprick in the hindquarters of a far larger animal - namely the rights of states versus the rights of the federal government, and their right to secede from the greater union. The first strike of the Civil War was not a gunshot, it was a piece of legislation passed on an unwillining populace. To define the Civil War as a war about slavery is the work of a historical novice, precisely what this guy is (even if I agree with him about the highway).
When non-slave owning Confederates were captured by Union troops, they were asked why they fought, since they had no slaves. Their reply: “Because you’re here.”
Jefferson Davis was not only the Confederacy’s first and only President, but he was also a United States Senator and former Secretary of War. These historically dyfunctional idiots need to back off!
Just another moronic student editorial in a moronic student newspaper. Waste of bandwidth.
Moron.
Jeff Davis Highway runs two ways, let it take your ignorant @$$ back home.
I can't say a highway name has ever made me as angry as this guy is. Although in my home away from home, Durban, South Africa, I'm rather consternated that they are about to rename Point Road as Yasser Arafat Boulevard.
Danny should drive elsewhere, then.
I suggest that Danny boy here not drive on the Jefferson Davis Highway, and instead drive on the Lee Highway “up” the Shenandoah Valley (U.S. Route 11). That’ll really get his goat!
I’m glad we are all one nation. Most of the time. I also think people need to lay off dumping on the southerners. Its part of history. And I dont need a study to tell me where the majority of our ground forces come from. If you dont like it, go back to Martha’s Vineyard.
Still waving the bloody shirt 150 years later.
“...... African Civil War Memorial.............”
Sorry liberal dumba$$.
No Africans fought in the Civil War. It was BY FAR white Christian male AMERICANS of European ancestry who paid the heaviest toll.
And while you're staying off roads in this fair Commonwealth, stay off of Lee Highway.
This person needs some serious hate intervention. Vomit? spit? I would think that if he even drove on it, he should be equally vilified.
Until then I’ll refer to it only as Treason Highway.
No biggie, I'll refer to 'Mein' Kampf only as Angry Ugly Smelly Hippie D**chebag Ignorant Hateful Liberal Scumbag.
If there is to be a Jefferson Davis Highway it should begin at the African Civil War Memorial and end at his grave, where onlookers can pull over and spit. ..............I can think of another Highway from the Vietnam Memorial to Mass..
MLK did nothing for me ( or country as a whole IMO ) why do I have to drive on his street in every town in America? As_hat.
I'm just not going to do it.
Don’t tell NS that. He’s huge on the school of “big, simple explanations to complex historical events”.
George Washington—namesake of the college who pays this nerd—was also a “traitor” under British law.
The author, Danny Kampf, is race baiting!
Many people who practice race baiting often believe in racism, or have an interest in making the group believe that racism is what motivates the actions of others.
That freak needs to get a haircut.
Obviously the next Tom Brokaw...
Gender (and everything else) Confusion.
1. How can 620,000 people be equivalent to 6,000,000? People aren't dollars. A human life in 1865 is the same as a human life in 2008. What an idiot.
2. The War of Northern Aggression was fought by the North and the South, not only by the South. Is this moron trying to blame the South for all of the casualties?
3. History tends to get rewritten by the victors.
Jefferson Davis Highway, gateway to the South Arlington sewage plant. So it’s probably appropriate.
Does Alabama still have the “George C. Wallace Whiteway”?
I remember traveling on that highway on the way to New Orleans back in 1978.
Or US 340 up the other side of Massanutten Mountain from US 11, the Stonewall Jackson Highway.
Stay the hell on your side of the Potomac, Danny, and leave Virginia alone.
}:-)4
“Afrikan-Americans” a term that offends me. Do we include white south Africans in that moniker? I bet not. I am from German/Irish ancestry but I am not called German-American since I am removed from the old world via about 10 generations just like 99% of blacks here in America. American blacks today are no more African than I am. There’s a new name/classification: “American-Black”.
Until we can all be called Americans, if you are a legal citizen, then there will always be a dividing cultural line.
I’m not Confederate or neo-Confederate (in fact, my ancestors were Southern Unionists), but I cannot help but remark how inconsistent is some people’s attitude towards treason.
Oh, and the Jeff Davis Highway doesn’t actually run all *that* far from Davis’ grave, in Richmond. It’s just a few miles away near downtown. Spit on that grave, however, and I expect he’d have to deal with some of the fine folks from the local chapter of the SCV...if he didn’t get mugged when he got lost in the neighborhood around Hollywood Cemetery!
}:-)4
Color me a proud graduate of Jefferson Davis Jr. High...
Is that nincompoop even AWARE that many BLACKS fought on the side of the SOUTH in the US Civil War?
Hey! As a genuine Civil War Republican, I resent being compared to this twerp who probably supports treason in all other cases!
Yes I agree with you, self-indulgent drivel by a university twit is a waste of time and bandwidth.
But the "Crescent of Embrace" is a perfectly appropriate memorial for the site of the Flt 93 crash, isn't it?
“Because you are in Pennsylvania?”
Hope you've got your asbestos underwear on!
His father and uncles fought against the British in the Rev. War. Three older brothers served during the War of 1812. Two of them served with Andrew Jackson. He graduated from West Point, seeing action during the Blackhawk War, and later during the Mexican War. He was an early supporter of States’ Rights and as you said served honorably in Congress as both Representative and Senator, and then as Secretary of War.
Mascot “the Generals”.
Virginia is equally proud of its sons who founded this Republic as it is proud of those who fought to break it apart!
Each state gets to send 2 statues to the Capitol to put on display. Virginia sent a statue of George Washington and Jefferson Davis! His statue is on display at the Capitol Building.
Another interesting note about the Capitol Building. The door has a cast iron bass relief with images that depict (among other things) a conquistador with a woman thrown over the whithers of his horse! I want to know when it was made! Too funny! The artist obviously had few illusions about what it takes to found a nation! Wanna omelet? Better be willing to break a few eggs!
Danny's long, flowing locks make him look like a girl in the photo accompanying the article.
Hey, no war is won on the defensive. Again, we’re not talking actual physical intrusion, but legislative intrusion on their perceived freedom. The IRS is not physically in your house, but when you take a look at your paycheck, brother, they are there.
I didn’t mean you; it was aimed at the twerp that wrote the column. Isn’t it amazing how much animosity still arises from the conflict, though?
I am a Civil War Republican too, although I know Southerners went through a bunch of crap during Reconstruction. The wound has never healed completely.
Second, I would like the author to follow his logic concerning the start of the Civil War. If the south did start the war, specifically South Carolinia, what was their political party affiliation? What was the party affiliation of Jeff Davis? What was the party affiliation of those who wanted to continue slavery? What was the party affiliation of those who instituted Jim Crow and segregation?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.