Ken Burns' "Congress" Is Pure Blather

Oregon Magazine ^ | 26 May 2003 | "LL"

[centurion]

Sorry, but he has also done 2 other very good works, History of baseball and Jazz

[Redleg Duke]

The sore-losers of the new South love to throw around the phrase "boy", don't they?

If they must know, I was in the Wisconsin Army National Guard, 57th FA Brigade..."The Iron Brigade".

For you Neo-Confederates, the Iron Brigade (Black Hat Brigade) didn't break against the vaunted Army of Northern Virgina...it kicked their collective butt.

Now, the War is Over...Get Over It..."boys"!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

I went to Amazon to view the status of your book and it says it's "out of stock." Is it still in print?

[ShapeShifter]

VCR=with a VCR

[stainlessbanner]

Any valid points you raise are diminished by your constant hawking of your wares on FR.

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

[TheWillardHotel]

The Civil War: A Narrative: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg to Meridian, Red River to Appomattox by Shelby Foote is far superior to the DVD.

Their are too many goofy historians, with an axe to grind in the Burn's film.

Also, to enjoy the books you must be literate, something that is not required from a video.

[wardaddy]

Ouch!

[San Jacinto]

Thanks for posting this. It is a fine article, more so for highlighting an important aspect of post-civil war history than for just exposing the hypocrisy of Burns.

Reconstruction was a period that was much hated by the majority of Southerners. It was Reconstruction that cemented the Southern States as the Democrats' "Solid South." For example, when the "Carpetbaggers" were removed from power in Texas in 1876, practically no Republicans were elected to statewide office for 100 YEARS! The "Solid South" enabled the elections of Presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman. Today, the "Yellow Dog" Democrats (whose name comes from the saying, "I'd sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican") have mostly passed from the scene, but there are enough left to effect a really close election in a few Southern states.

The current challenge for the Republican Party is to chip away at the current knee jerk Democrat voters, who must become convinced it is Republican policies that are the best for all Americans, regardless of race or color. I guess Ken Burns is afraid of just that.

[Tribune7]

The Civil War series was fantastic. But like somebody said, Burns is a one-trick pony.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Thank you very much! I did not know that a search on Amazon gets a reply that it is out of stock. No wonder sales have dropped lately. The book is indeed in stock, as you will see if you click on the Amazon link on my website. You can also search for it by the ISBN 0970006322. Barnes & Noble just starting stocking the third edition.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

Abolitionists were not true Republicans. Most were Marxist (the first socialist revolutionary cells were formed during the Civil War in the North by the way, including many in the Army) and anything but republican in terms of their ideals. Republicans had a single issue coalition with the Abolitionists -- elimination of slavery. Beyond that, there was no agreement -- not even what to do with the freed slaves.

[Grand Old Partisan]

By spreading the Democrat view of Republican Party heritage, neo-Confederates do the GOP no good.

[Grand Old Partisan]

It is a Democrat myth that Reconstruction cemented the southern states as soldily Democrat. The South was soldily Democrat since before the Civil War -- the 1860 Republican ticket got ZERO votes in ten of the eleven states which were to secede. Reconstruction was but a brief interregnum in the Democratic Party's domination of the South which began when the southern Whigs shifted into the Democrat Party in the 1850s over slavery.

[stainlessbanner]

It Takes a Village, and Other Lessons Children Teach Us = Amazon.com Sales Rank: 74,793

Back to Basics for the Republican Party = Amazon.com Sales Rank: 2,443,297

[CyberCowboy777]

Bump for later

[Bullish]

Well, c'mon now, Ken Burns can't make something that makes democrats look bad, can he? If he has to fudge a little history that's OK.

After all, he is a good little democrat, ya' know?

[Grand Old Partisan]

Abolitionist were the very heart of the early Republican Party. The first Republican presidential nominee, John Fremont, was an abolitionist, and Georgia-born too. The man who gave the keynote address at the 1860 Republican National Convention, David Wilmot, was an abolitionist. Abolitionists, such as Representative Thaddeus Stevens, held most of the congressional committee chairmanships during the Civil War. President Lincoln appointed an abolitionist, former Republican Governor and Senator Salmon Chase, to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The marxist biz is not worth refuting.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Good point, because there is no publicity for the book (and for some reason has not been searchable on Amazon by title recently). Nonetheless, over 6000 copies of the first two editions have been sold, mostly at my speaking engagements around the country. Republicans who have praised it include Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald ("one of the best books I ever read") and Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele ("outstanding" "phenomenal" and his "favorite book"), and Justice Clarence Thomas cited it in a Supreme Court opinion.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

"War of Northern Aggression"

You mean the "War to Free One Third of the South From Unpaid Labor, Forced Familiar Separation And Forcible Rape"?

Geez.

[stainlessbanner]

I'm not a hillary fan, but at least she ain't hawking her book on FR.