Ken Burns' "Congress" Is Pure Blather

The most powerful accomplishment of tonight's segment of the PBS program, Ken Burns' "Congress," is that Mr. Burns managed to describe the period of official racism in America from just prior to the Civil War to the post-Reconstruction era, without once identifying a pro-slavery congressman or senator as a Democrat.

When the Republicans outlawed slavery (which is exactly what actually happened), guess who walked out of the House and the Senate. Their party begins with the letter "D." Guess who after the Civil War worked to disembowel the black franchise. You have it. The same bunch.

Not once did Mr. Burns use the terms antislavery congressman or senator, then follow it with the word Republican. To listen to this program, the two terms (antislavery and Republican) didn't go together. The one Republican identified in this whole section of the show was described first as a radical, and then as being antislavery. This, of course, left the impression that the fellow was odd for a Republican. Everybody knows that radicals, regardless of party affiliation, are few in number. Taken in this context, it implied that it was unusual for Republicans to be antislavery. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Nor did Mr. Burns identify the political affiliation of the first black American to be elected to either house of congress. A former slave who attained office during Reconstruction, before Democrats managed to change the rules so blacks couldn't win, Mr. White was a Republican. During my research, I didn't run across a single black Democrat who was elected to federal office during Reconstruction. All I located were Republicans.

The only Democrat Burns identified as such was Lincoln's Vice President, Andrew Johnson, who assumed the residency after the assassination. He was the architect of the first version of Reconstruction. Here's some American history which will shock every black Democrat who reads it.

Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.

The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto--the first time that Congress had overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

A few months later (led by "Radical" Republicans) Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the amendment. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.

In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the ("Radical" Republicans in the) House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.

. This was the Democrat the program said supported the Union side in the war. Historians like the one who wrote the text above frequently describe him as a "decent, honorable man." His acts defy that description At his best, he was a bad executive who lacked the guts to stand firm for the principles attributed to him.

This inability to give credit to the good guys or discredit to the bad guys if the good guys are Republicans and the bad guys Democrats is common practice by liberals in television. (And all other forms of communication, as well.) If they are subtle, people like you don't realize what has happened. A bad guy can be presented as being on the correct side. They can leave behind the presumption of Democrat innocence without actually saying it. If you are ignorant of the facts about the events described, and aren't aware that liberal program producers use these deceptive methods -- hell, if you're just not paying very close attention at the time -- they get away with it.

Summing it up, this program said that congress ended slavery. While describing some of the great personalities involved in the debate, it did not even mention their political affiliations. That way, the audience was not informed that Republicans were against slavery and Democrats for it.

A famous socialist once said that the public will believe any lie if it's a big enough lie. The lie of omission in Ken Burn's Congress is a big one. It is perhaps the biggest coverup in the history of history.

If the situation had been reversed -- if Republicans had supported slavery and Democrats voted to end it -- you may be sure that the program would have been quite different. I am reminded of the time PBS, in a nature program, credited the extinction of the original species of American horse, which lived here before the Spanish arrived, as being due to "climate change and human activity." We know which race of people wiped out the big buffalo herds. PBS identifies that bunch with ten foot neon lights and trumpets. (The evil European white race.) But when the noble original inhabitants of America wipe out an entire species? It is politically incorrect to mention them by name. So it is with those who supported slavery and those who ended it.

If you watched the segment of the PBS series about Jim Crow that ran after Charlie Rose's program on May 28, you saw the lynching of blacks, you heard about the beating deaths of blacks who merely wanted to vote and you cheered when southern blacks finally managed to get enough people registered to take a congressional seat from a white male "conservative," and give it to a white female "moderate." (The "conservative" racist that blacks finally defeated in that election, by the way, was a Democrat. When you hear the term "conservative," you automatically assume the individual is a Republican. The people who make programs for, and work at, PBS know that.)

No mention was made that all of those people who lynched blacks, all of those people who beat blacks to death for trying to register to vote and all of those people who committed all the other atrocities all the way down to forcing blacks to sit in the back of the bus were Democrats. Direct descendants of the Democrats who tried to block all Republican attempts to end slavery in congress, who started the Civil War to defend slavery, who with Andrew Johnson tried to disenfranchise blacks during Reconstruction, who opposed the Republican Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Republican 14th Amendment -- and who created Jim Crow when they managed to retake congress in the decades that followed the Civil War.

As far as this program was concerned, none of the above happened. Civil rights began in Democrat congresses in the Sixties. And, as far as that goes, no mention of the Democrat resistance to the Sixties civil rights legislation was made, either. Republican votes are the only reason that legislation wasn't defeated, in a Democrat congress with a Democrat Speaker of the House, a Democrat Senate Majority Leader and Democrats chairing all the important committees!!!.. During this section of the program, one brief mention was made of congressional Reconstruction civil rights action -- but, of course, didn't identify which party had initiated it, and which party had fought it.

The congress of Ken Burns' history is a fraud. The Democrat-protecting bias by way of omission here is titanic. The statements made by black historian Barbara Fields, implying that with present-day Republican congresses Democracy no longer exists, were outrageous. The Republicans identified in the later portions of the program were portrayed as bigots, blueblood boobs and bloated business barons. And as felons and warmongers, of course. This is all standard practice at PBS -- the network that tells us they explain the meaning of things.

Do America, Oregon and history a favor. If you usually give these people money, stop it. If your political representatives support public broadcasting, fire them.

Prior to the requirement for a ballot, most states had "voice" votes recorded in person. As you noted, later each political party would distribute ballots - most in a distinct color/size to better identify at a glance their "faithful". In the South, there were few if any "ballots" distributed for Lincoln's party - his party was a truly sectional with it's Whig tendicies/tariffs/internal improvement platform. As you yourself have observed, there were numerous "union" supporters in the South, and abolitionists as well. Given that he did have his supporters in the South, it stands to reason that if he received no votes, it was either no "ballots" with his name were available, or that the financial platform he espoused would be harmful to the Southern states.

I can now add 'The War of Northern Aggression' to those phrases.

Good. Here's a phrase to help to identify dictators and despots:

'What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet! Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire? Understand, I raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war, I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy. Nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South.'
Abraham Lincoln, "Reply to Emancipation Memorial Presented by Chicago Christians of All Denominations", 13 Sep 1862, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler. Ed, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953-55, Vol. 5, p. 421

Lincoln wanted the blacks to rise up in revolt and massacre the innocent women and children of the South. They didn't.

Thanks! You are actually agreeing with me. My point was that the unpopularity of the Republican Party in the South until the 1960s was not because of Reconstruction, but because it never had any support in the South even prior to the Civil War, as evinced by the Republican ticket getting ZERO votes in ten of the eleven states which would secede.

My point was that the unpopularity of the Republican Party in the South until the 1960s was not because of Reconstruction, but because it never had any support in the South even prior to the Civil War, as evinced by the Republican ticket getting ZERO votes in ten of the eleven states which would secede.

Just as I stated that there were abolitionists and union supporters in the South. The lack of votes for Lincoln had to be because his economic policies hurt Southerners - not a lack of support for abolistion/union.

The war waged against innocent civilians and Reconstruction plunder of the South is what devasted the South, and hardened their hearts toward the "Republican" Party.

Thomas Jefferson led the Democratic-Republican Party, which is closer to today's Republican platform of limited government than the Lincolnian platform of Whiggery.

You're missing the point -- not just mine but yours too. You posted to me on this thread because you were insisting that Lincoln received ZERO vites in the ten southern states because he was not "on the ballot" instead of the real reason, about which you now agree with me, that the Republican Party's lack of support dates from before the Civil War, not from Reconstruction.

So again, you are agreeing with me now.

By attacking the conservative vote, you do the GOP no good.

Oh, so it's his politics you hate, not his self-promoting ways. You have so damaged your own credibility,

You cooked up a nice strawman, friend - O'Rielly has nothing on you. Now let's get back to the discussion. Why do fellow conservatives slam Southerners when they are the cornerstone of the GOP vote? One look at the blue/red chart will show where the conservative stronghold lies.

I see nothing to be gained by attacking fellow conservatives. Neo, Paleo, Regular, and Decaff, we are conservatives and need to vote together. The constant riffs are brought on by outsiders with other agendas (selling books, maybe).

Writing a book is admirable and I respect that. Waving it in everybody's face is not. I have stated above I will reserve judgement on the piece until I read it.

My organized thoughts are in IT whitepapers and technical hash - not about politics.

Yet another article discussing defunding PBS:

Perils of state-owned news outlets

Will anything ever be done? Paging Mr. Powell? Attention Mr. Powell? Anybody?

SB, you are one of my favorite adversaries on Free Republic since -- the book biz aside -- you do not get personal and stay on topic. Thanks!

Conservatives are indeed the cornerstone of the GOP vote, but you vastly overestimate the number of neo-Conservatives in the conservative movement. In fact, you vastly overestimate the conservativeness of neo-Confederates, who vernerate American insurgents who killed 360,000 U. S. troops and defenders of slavery -- there's nothing conservative (or venerable) about insurgents in this country killing U. S. troops in defense of a "right" to own other human beings. For every neo-Confederate it caters to, the Grand Old Party loses four or five potential Republican voters of true conservative principles.

OOPS

SB, you are one of my favorite adversaries on Free Republic since -- the book biz aside -- you do not get personal and stay on topic. Thanks!

Conservatives are indeed the cornerstone of the GOP vote, but you vastly overestimate the number of neo-CONFEDERATES in the conservative movement. In fact, you vastly overestimate the conservativeness of neo-Confederates, who vernerate American insurgents who killed 360,000 U. S. troops and defenders of slavery -- there's nothing conservative (or venerable) about insurgents in this country killing U. S. troops in defense of a "right" to own other human beings. For every neo-Confederate it caters to, the Grand Old Party loses four or five potential Republican voters of true conservative principles.

ONE MORE TIME

SB, you are one of my favorite adversaries on Free Republic since -- the book biz aside -- you do not get personal and stay on topic. Thanks!

Conservatives are indeed the cornerstone of the GOP vote, but you vastly overestimate the number of neo-CONFEDERATES in the conservative movement. In fact, you vastly overestimate the conservativeness of neo-Confederates, who venerate American insurgents in their defense of slavery killed 360,000 U. S. troops -- there's nothing conservative (or venerable) about insurgents in this country killing U. S. troops in defense of a "right" to own other human beings. For every neo-Confederate it caters to, the Grand Old Party loses four or five potential Republican voters of true conservative principles.

you vastly overestimate the number of neo-CONFEDERATES in the conservative movement.

Do I? The Paleo vs. Neo-Cons threads indicate otherwise, as do many of the WBTS threads on FR. I'll toss this one out to our fellow FReepers.....

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.