Jefferson Davis: beyond a statue-tory matter

The Courier-Journal ^ | July 27, 2003 | Bill Cunningham

[thatdewd]

The writer is a circuit judge who lives in Kuttawa, Ky.

KUTTAWA, Ky. - The Courier Journal, at the behest of its columnist John David Dyche, has called for the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. Such a supposedly politically correct viewpoint reflects a shallow, selective and even hypocritical understanding of history.

[thatdewd]

PC nazis attempt yet another erasure of historical perspective.

[Old Sarge]

Good article - even though it WAS from the Gannett-owned Communist-Urinal. ;)

[nothingnew]

May the South Rise Again.

I'm glad over half my life is gone. I recoil in horror when I realize where this nation is going.

Dear Father, make it swift and painless, but I will take it any way it comes.

FMCDH

[Arkinsaw]

PC nazis attempt yet another erasure of historical perspective.

When future historians look back on this time, they will have a good view of who the traitors were. I suspect they will view this era of "political cleansing" with disdain and struggle mightily to replace lost historical markers, statues, and monuments and to otherwise undo the damage to our American heritage done in this graceless age.

[freekitty]

These PC people are very sick.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

So, what is wrong with honoring the man who was Secretary of War, and introduced the Camel to the us troops for use in the western deserts? They scared the Hell out of the Indians!

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Great read, thanks for posting.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Bubba_Leroy]

Show me a quote by Lincoln before, during or after the Civil War in which he says that the war was fought over slavery. I've never seen one.

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."
Abraham Lincoln, 1858.

Those are not the words of a man who a few short years later would fight a civil war to end slavery.

The Civil War was fought over economics like most other wars before or since. The Northern states wanted protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, wanted free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Shortly after Lincoln’s election, Congress passed highly protectionist tariffs (the Morrill tariffs). In response to those tariffs, the South seceded.

The emancipation proclamation was entirely consistent with the position taken by Lincoln in the letter to Horace Greeley (an abolitionist). He did it to help end the war. If ending the war had required that he reaffirm slavery he would have done that instead.

"The Sunday before Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, Judge Edwards Pierrepont visits the president. Upon arriving, he finds "Lincoln lying on a sofa, in a sort of yellow linen dressing-gown and embroidered slippers. After some conversation, [the President] suddenly inquire[s] of [the] Judge . . .what he th[inks] of the Emancipation scheme, and then jump[s] up, gesticulating vehemently, . . . exclaim[ing], 'It is my last card, and I will play it and may win the trick.'"
http://www.americanpresident.org/kotrain/courses/AL/AL_Presidential_Moments.htm

[Non-Sequitur]

Late in the war, Confederate President Jefferson Davis sent Duncan Kenner on a secret mission to England and France proposing to emancipate all slaves in the South in exchange for recognition of the Confederate government by those two countries. For Davis and the Confederates, the war was about the sovereignty and supremacy of the states.

But not, apparently, about the law. Davis lacked the power under the confederate constitution to emancipate any slaves. If this scenario is true then he was, in effect, promising something that he couldn't deliver on. He was, in effect, lying. Or else, equally likely, he believed he was above the constitution. I wonder which it was?

[Non-Sequitur]

Those are not the words of a man who a few short years later would fight a civil war to end slavery.

"We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Law in nature tells us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude. Freedom only injures the slave. The innate stamp of inferiority is beyond the reach of change. You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables him to be." -- Jefferson Davis, March 1861

And those are the words of a man who a few short years later would promise to end slavery?

[Bubba_Leroy]

Some more Lincoln quotes:

"I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all." Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858

"I have never sought to apply these principles to the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery in those States. It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing." Abraham Lincoln, Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas, Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858

"I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so." Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio, September 17, 1859

"My paramount object in this struggle, is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, August 22, 1862

[x]

Same old same old. Understanding Davis in light of his own times, doesn't mean permanently surrendering our own standards to his. And if state's rights meant neutrality on something as significant as slavery it's an indication of the problems with that idea. But the conflict goes further than Cunningham suggests. Some very powerful and influential Southerners believed that slavery was a necessary institution, a positive good, and a valuable support of true freedom, that needed to be protected and deserved to be spread. In this, they differed from the Founding Fathers, who generally assumed that slavery should and would be abolished. Keeping that in the mix produces a different picture than Cunningham's.

[nonliberal]

The best book on Davis is Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour by William C. Davis.

Worth reading if you can find it.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Show me a quote by Lincoln before, during or after the Civil War in which he says that the war was fought over slavery. I've never seen one.

Second inaugural:

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."

-- A. Lincoln, 3/4/65

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

Also good is "Jefferson Davis, American" by William Cooper.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Bump

[billbears]

All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war.

So Walt, who is this all of his time? I need a strong majority of all the people. Not just some of his cracked Cabinet. Surely not abe, considering that he did not even introduce the Proclamation until two years into the war and also said he would fully support the new Amendment in his first address.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The Confederates, from Jefferson Davis down to the lowliest rebel sniper, were traitors; and those who venerate them today are venerators of traitors.