Posted on 12/22/2002 7:56:45 AM PST by GeneD
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - The U.S. National Park Service has embarked on an effort to change its interpretive materials at major Civil War battlefields to get rid of a Southern bias and emphasize the horrors of slavery.
Nowhere is the project more striking than at Gettysburg, site of the largest battle ever fought on American soil, where plans are going ahead to build a new visitors center and museum at a cost of $95 million that will completely change the way the conflict is presented to visitors.
"For the past 100 years, we've been presenting this battlefield as the high watermark of the Confederacy and focusing on the personal valor of the soldiers who fought here," said Gettysburg Park Superintendent John Latschar.
"We want to change the perception so that Gettysburg becomes known internationally as the place of a 'new rebirth of freedom,"' he said, quoting President Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" made on Nov. 19, 1863, five months after the battle.
"We want to get away from the traditional descriptions of who shot whom, where and into discussions of why they were shooting one another," Latschar said.
The project seems particularly relevant following the furor over Republican Sen. Trent Lott's recent remarks seeming to endorse racial segregation, which forced many Americans to revisit one of the uglier chapters of the nation's history.
When it opens in 2006, the new museum will offer visitors a narrative of the entire Civil War, putting the battle into its larger historical context. Latschar said he was inspired by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., which sets out to tell a story rather than to display historical artifacts behind glass cases.
"Our current museum is absolutely abysmal. It tells no story. It's a curator's museum with no rhyme or reason," Latschar said.
It is also failing to preserve the 700,000 items in its collection, including 350,000 maps, documents and photographs, many of which were rotting away or crumbling into dust until they were put into temporary storage.
FEW BLACKS VISIT
Around 1.8 million people visit Gettysburg every year. Latschar said a disproportionate number were men and the park attracts very few black visitors.
In 1998, he invited three prominent historians to examine the site. Their conclusion: that Gettysburg's interpretive programs had a "pervasive southern sympathy."
The same was true at most if not all of the 28 Civil War sites operated by the National Parks Service. A report to Congress delivered in March 2000 found that only nine did an adequate job of addressing slavery in their exhibits.
Another six, including Gettysburg, gave it a cursory mention. The rest did not mention it at all. Most parks are now trying to correct the situation.
Park rangers and licensed guides at Gettysburg and other sites have already changed their presentations in line with the new policy. Now, park authorities are taking a look at brochures, handouts and roadside signs.
According to Dwight Pitcaithley, chief historian of the National Park Service, the South had tremendous success in promoting its "lost cause" theory.
The theory rested on three propositions: that the war was fought over "states' rights" and not over slavery; that there was no dishonor in defeat since the Confederacy lost only because it was overwhelmed by the richer north; and that slavery was a benign institution and most slaves were content with their lot and faithful to their masters.
"Much of the public conversation today about the Civil War and its meaning for contemporary society is shaped by structured forgetting and wishful thinking" he said.
the preface to the field manual states that the LofLW has been "well settled under international law & treaty for approximately 400 years & has been observed by all civilized nations."
OBVIOUSLY the federal government was not a civilized nation during the WBTS!
free dixie,sw
the resolution clearly states that the persons appointed to maintain custody of CSA prisoners were to starve, deny medical care to,deny shelter & clothing to & "to abuse rebel prisoners in our hands, by divers means".
as i'm away from home & my library, i can't give you a better reference, BUT you should also read PORTALS TO HELL & TO DIE IN CHICAGO.( neither book is suitable for bedtime reading to sensitive persons or young children.)
you might also check out the website of the Point Lookout POW Desendents Society at: http://members.tripod.com/PLPOW/plpow.htm
free dixie,sw
at least 15,000 POWs were drowned,bayoneted,bludgeoned and/or shot to death at just ONE DEATH camp, in yankee-occupied MD.
it was SIMPLE really; the damnyankees didn't want to house,medicate or feed the POWS in "their especial care", thus they frequently MURDERED them in coldblood.
no less than 5 of MY ancestors at Point Lookout DEATH Camp were murdered in 1864, just because they were "half-naked injun savages";sirena of the FR forum lost her gr-gr-gr-grandfather, CPL John Smiley of 4th SC CAV, there as well.
free dixie,sw
a serving Prussian officer, who was serving in the union army as an "observer", wrote home to Prussia in early 1864 to describe a "Konzentrationslager" that he had visited in NY (the camp was PROBABLY Elmira = HELLmira). MAJ Karl M. Achs (late of the 2d Kings Hussars) described the treatment of rebel prisioners as -----"horrific, un-civilized & inhumane, as the inmates of that unhappy place were denied medical attention, raiment,victuals and shelter from the natural elements"-----.
in another letter home in the fall of 1864, he said that he believed on reflection that, "NONE of the inmates concentrated there were likely to survive their ordeal, given their treatment at the hands of the American army".
for prison TRUTH & dixie LIBERTY,sw
i thought that when i posted MAJ Achs comments about the LYING,HATEFILLED,ARROGANT,IGNORANT,RACIST,ANTI-SEMITIC damnyankee WAR CRIMINALS treatment of CSA POWs "in their especial care", as well as the source ole' WP asked me for on the International Law of Land Warfare, that SOMEBODY would be interested enough to comment.
could it be that all the lincoln-WORSHIPERS, scalawags,damnyankee-apologists & damnfools, who believe their self-serving LIES, have DIED and/or fled the field of battle??????
free the southland NOW,sw
That is because it is the first major case dealing with that article. Do a law journal index search for the Bollman case and "suspension clause" if you doubt me.
I have questioned all along your claim that the remarks were not made in dictum and that they constitute a decision on the constitutionality of Lincoln's actions
You in part mistake my claims, which I have tried at length to clarify to you. The Bollman decision ruled that clause 2 applied to the legislature as grounds for the court's ability to issue the motions to Bollmand and Swartwout. That is not dictum.
It is not an express legal declaration, but an inescapable logical consequence of such a ruling that habeas corpus may be suspended only by the legislature. If clause X applies to the legislature, and clause X is also the only way to suspend habeas corpus, then it is an inescapable consequence of the first statement that only the legislature may suspend habeas corpus. In other words, while Bollman did not rule on a case of suspension, it did rule on the suspension clause's location in the Constitution. Therefore one could not rule today that the president had a suspension right without overturning the Bollman ruling.
Who may suspend habeas corpus has never been definitively answered. The Chief Justice is right and you are wrong.
To the contrary. The answer to the question of who may suspend habeas corpus is an inescapable logical consequence of what was ruled in Bollman. If Bollman is true, only the legislature may suspend it.
I'll post a couple of links for you. The first is the definition of Obiter Dictum since you don't seem to understand what it is.
You should consider reading your own link then, as you have arbitrarily ascribed the term "dictum" to the legal statement on which the Bollman case was ruled (remember the word "therefore"???) without any justification whatsoever. Finally, here is a great article by Eric Freedman called Just Because John Marshall Said It Doesn't Make It So .
Try reading that article a little closer yourself. It indisputably identifies Bollman as the first major case dealing with the suspension clause. It's subject matter is the applicability of the clause in state courts though.
Mr. Freedman isn't writing on the suspension of habeas corpus he does not that the Chief Justices remarks were made in dictum.
Not so. He only states that the "statements" applying to the subjects he is addressing were "dictum in the case at hand." He repeats this line while speaking of suspension, but only about a specific assertion of Marshall as to the manner in which Congress could suspend habeas corpus - not on the applicability of the suspension clause itself. Elsewhere his references to dictum are specified and even quoted, all pertaining to the ruling's dealings with judicial act sections. Try again.
But my opinon and your opinion and even Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Bollman do not constitute a definitive decision on whether Lincoln's actions were legal.
Yet Marshall's ruling does constitute a definitive decision on Article 1, Section 9, clause 2's applicability to the executive branch. Rehnquist may suggest otherwise today, but his counterparts in the 1860's agreed that the question had been answered by way of Bollman. Taney thought so in his Merryman ruling. One of his former associates, retired Justice Benjamin Curtis, specifically indicated the question to have been answered in earlier judicial decisions on this issue, undoubtedly one of them being Bollman.
"There has been much discussion concerning the question whether the power to suspend the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" is conferred by the Constitution on Congress, or on the President. The only judicial decisions which have been made upon this question have been adverse to the power of the President. Still, very able lawyers have endeavored to maintain -- perhaps to the satisfaction of others -- have maintained, that the power to deprive a particular person of the "privilege of the writ," is an executive power. For while it has been generally, and, so far as I know, universally admitted, that Congress alone can suspend a law, or render it inoperative, and consequently that Congress alone can prohibit the courts from issuing the writ, yet that the executive might, in particular cases, suspend or deny the privilege which the writ was designed to secure. I am not aware that any one has attempted to show that under this grant of power to suspend "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ," the President may annul the laws of States, create new offences unknown to the laws of the United States, erect military commissions to try and punish them, and then, by a sweeping decree, suspend the writ of habeas corpus as to all persons who shall be "arrested by any military authority." I think he would make a more bold than wise experiment on the credulity of the people, who should attempt to convince them that this power is found in the habeas corpus clause of the Constitution. No such attempt has been, and I think none such will be made. And therefore I repeat, that no other source of this power has ever been suggested save that described by the President himself, as belonging to him as commander-in-chief." - Justice Benjamin R. Curtis, retired, in Executive Power, 1862
Your search - "Karl M. Achs" "Karl Achs" "Major Achs" "Maj. Achs" - did not match any documents.
And "Achs" doesn't look like a real name. If you have a legitimate source for your remark, give it. Otherwise, don't waste people's time.
or are you just a lincoln-worshiper,who doesn't WANT to believe the TRUTH?
MAJ Achs' family will be REALLY sorry to hear that you don't approve of their surname (sarcasm button: ON).
as for www.google.com, NO SERIOUS RESEARCH of ANY KIND can be done on the "worldwidewierd", just as no serious research can be done in encyclopedias.
TRUTH resides, sadly for lazy persons like you, in DUSTY tomes in LIBRARIES.
or or you so ignorant/naive as to believe that WAR CRIMINALS, like the scum that ran the damnyankee DEATH CAMPS, would trumpet their CRIMES from the rooftops?
it has ever been the NATURE of CRIMINALS to attempt to cover-up their crimes.
free dixie,sw
NO? i thought NOT!
you do NOT want to see the TRUTH about the clayfooted-saint lincoln AND the WAR CRIMINALS who starved,assaulted,denied medical care to,tortured & MURDERED our CSA POWs, as it makes it plain what FILTH the damnyankees were.
so my suggestion is to get off FR and take your sorry self over to DU, where LIARS, FOOLS & other liberal scum dwell, as i'll continue to post the un-comfortable TRUTH about the damnyankees as long as i'm breathing.
you'll feel right at home there.
free dixie,sw
lots of fireworks!
CSMC BUMP to each of you.
you are for ONCE at least partially correct.
the Law of Land Warfare states that private property MAY be utilized for the duration of that conflict by an invading foreign force, BUT the private property MUST be returned, undamaged, to the owner at the conclusion of the war!
as usual, you do NOT know of which you speak. better stick to posting long,boring,off-point drivel;it's what you excel at.
free dixie,sw
515 posted on 01/04/2003 2:43 PM EST by stand watie"
I see some Common Ground for US to explore, my FRiends. When the DixieFReepers and the SupportersOftheNorth in the WarOfNorthernAggression can learn to give each other a {{{{{{HUG}}}}}}}...LOL!!
Then, and ONLY THEN, Shall the VileLib'ralRATspell Be Broken and the DemonRAT Minions FReed from their Debilitating Ignorance!!
Love ya, sw...love ya, WP...now, Let's WHUP Some Lib'ral ARSE!!!
FReegards...MUD
BTW...{{{{{{stand watie}}}}}}}
{{{{{{{WhiskeyPapa}}}}}}}}
wp has ADMITTED he voted for wee willie TWICE for POTUS!
free dixie,sw
That's a fabrication on your part -- remember, liars go to Hell.
I voted for Clinton in 1992, and based on what I knew then, I would vote for him ten times out ten. I didn't bother to vote in 1996; too depressing.
Walt
free dixie,sw
Hey Mudboy, why you think whiskey PP would join you in whipping liberal arse? He VOTED for clinton and gore. He's admitted it on this forum. He won't help you. He's one of THEM!
And no I'm not giving him a hug. I'd get fleas.
free dixie,sw
he ADMITS it!
free dixie,sw
Let's git to work...MUD
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