Powerful public testimony supporting the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

Powerful public testimony supporting the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery
View the video on Defend Arlington's YouTube site, show it at SCV and UDC meetings
Defend Arlington is gaining traction nationwide
We can WIN this fight for all Americans who are FED UP with Woke hatred and Iconoclasm
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - I was proud to be among the thirty-five or so speakers who joined a virtual meeting on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 to speak on behalf of the Confederate Memorial. We were given two-and-a-half minutes each by the Arlington National Cemetery Remember and Explore Subcommittee, which answers to the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery.

Speakers included many high-ranking retired military veterans and people with extensive historical knowledge, as well as average patriotic Americans disgusted with the Woke tearing at the very fabric of our county.

It was pointed out several times that the demolition of the magnificent 109 year old Confederate monument, that was supported by four presidents and veterans, North and South, would be an act so barbaric, uncivilized and immoral, it would put the American federal government on the same level with the Taliban. We can not allow that.

The Confederate Memorial is surrounded by over 500 graves in concentric circles out from the monument. It was designed in Rome, Italy, by world-class Jewish artist and VMI Confederate veteran, Sir Moses Ezekiel, who is buried inches from its base along with two other Confederate soldiers and a Confederate sailor.

A question was brought up by a member of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee after public comment had ended asking if "reconciliation" is specifically mentioned anywhere.

IT IS, and in great detail by Arlington National Cemetery itself in its 2014 application for its Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places. ANC makes it clear and in numerous places that the Confederate Memorial and the 500 Confederate graves around it symbolize our country coming back together as one nation with love, respect and patriotism.

See my white paper entitled "The Reconciliation of North and South After the War Between the States as Symbolized by the Confederate Memorial 'New South' in Arlington National Cemetery," Section 12 of Defend Arlington's 385 page white paper book (link below) entitled:

 

Arguments Against Naming Commission Recommendation, RE: Arlington National Cemetery Confederate Memorial
A collection of white papers, articles, testimony, and the Presidential Monument dedication speech

 

Testimony Wednesday was at times emotional. Sincerity and love of country was palpable. Several members of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee noted later their admiration for the dignified, heartfelt emotion involved in the public testimony.

It made me proud to be an American and Southerner fighting against the politicized fraud that the left has turned our history into since the 1960s.

People are fed up with, not just the race obsession in academia and much of the news media, but the entire Woke agenda, which is now entrenched in our military.

Wokeness in the military is the primary reason for the recruiting crisis that is far worse this year than last. See "Woke Military Ads Prove Infiltration of Woke Politics" by Graham Perdue, March 14, 2023.i There is a link in the endnote.

This is one of a plethora of articles in publications such as Military Times and Army Times, giving a dire warning about wokeness in the military, men in women's showers, etc., ad nauseam. See my blog article "Military Times reports 'trust and confidence' in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022," January 31, 2023.ii

It is not smart to destroy the Confederate Memorial, which symbolizes the reconciliation of North and South after the War Between the States, when 44% of the United States Military is recruited in the South.

Defend Arlington is gaining traction nationwide.

We have a LONG way to go but we now have the support of Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Other governors and state legislatures are sure to join the fight.

In the South Carolina legislature, a Resolution with thirty sponsors was filed calling for South Carolina Representatives in Congress to oppose the Arlington Desecration. It is expected to pass soon. Please do this in ALL Southern and receptive states!

The SCV filed a law suit last Monday in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Defend Arlington needs money for our outstanding legal team. If you are fed up with the Woke destroying our history and monuments, STAND UP AND FIGHT! Please donate all you can as often as you can. There are links below.

Make Arlington the turning point in the Marxist war against America.

Woke hate and ignorance DIE at Arlington National Cemetery.]

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington's recording of the 35 or so speakers on behalf of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery that took place Wednesday, March 15, 2023 in a virtual meeting of the Remember and Explore Subcommittee of Arlington National Cemetery.

View testimony which starts at 1:38:59.

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is on the naming commission. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

Take action TODAY!

i Graham Perdue, "Woke Military Ads Prove Infiltration of Woke Politics," March 14, 2023, https://freedompress.com/woke-military-ads-prove-infiltration-of-woke-politics/, accessed 3-17-23.

ii Gene Kizer, Jr., "Military Times reports 'trust and confidence' in our military dropped from 70% in 2018 to 48% in 2022," January 31, 2023, https://www.charlestonathenaeumpress.com/military-times-reports-trust-and-confidence-in-our-military-dropped-from-70-in-2018-to-48-in-2022-politicization-cited-as-number-one-problem/.

Dear Tucker Carlson Tonight, . . .

Dear Tucker Carlson Tonight, . . .
Scroll down for a link to Tucker Carlson's prime time interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery
TUCKER BEGINS WITH: So, if you want to control a country, obviously you have to erase its history so no one has any idea what went before, and then the future is yours, and that's why they tear down monuments to our past . . .
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Arlington National Cemetery, 109 year old Confederate Memorial to the Reconciliation and Reunification of our great nation after our bloodiest war. It was the brainchild of Union soldier and president, William McKinley, who said "every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor." The sculptor, internationally renowned Jewish artist Moses Jacob Ezekiel, was a VMI Confederate soldier. Art critic Michael Robert Patterson states that "no sculptor, as far as known, has ever, in any one memorial told as much history as has Ezekiel in his monument at Arlington; and every human figure in it, as well as every symbol, is in and of itself a work of art." In a barbaric crime against art and history, the naming commission and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin want the monument demolished.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
Aerial view of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery with over 500 graves of Confederate military personnel and some family in concentric circles around the monument. Sculptor Moses Ezekiel is buried with two other Confederate soldiers and one Confederate sailor around the base. The monument is literally their headstone but the naming commission and Secretary Austin want the monument destroyed. Respect for Southern dead is not something they care about despite 44% of today's United States military being recruited in the South.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.
View from the ground at Arlington National Cemetery of the beautiful Confederate Memorial to the reconciliation of North and South. The Woke naming commission and Secretary Austin want it demolished in the cheapest way possible. Photo courtesy Derrick Johnson.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Below is correspondence I sent to Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight about Tucker's outstanding February 28th interview with Christopher Bedford, who has a current article in The New Criterion, on the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

That magnificent 109 year old monument, surrounded by over 500 Confederate graves in concentric circles, supported by four presidents and veterans North and South, is slated for demolition by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other heinous destroyers of history and art.

Those kinds of actions by the Woke in our government are degrading not only our country but also our military.

They are the main reason for the current recruiting crisis, which is significantly worse this year than last. Military recruiting is on a downward trend because people are FED UP with the Woke military that just approved putting men in women's showers along with the constant badgering on racial issues that do not exist except in the sick Woke mind.

Would you allow your daughter to join the military and be forced to shower and bunk with "men" who obviously have issues? See "Biden Pentagon Orders Military Chaplains To Bless Putting Male Soldiers In Female Showers And Bedrooms" by Elaine Donnelly, February 24, 2023.1 (a link to the article is in the note, below)

Would you want your sons to serve with people who got in because the standards were lowered in order to deal with a worsening, self-inflicted recruiting crisis?

This disgraceful Wokeness is tearing at the fabric of our country.

So many veterans today who proudly served would discourage their own children from joining a military that, like the federal government, is committed to racist Woke ideology and iconoclasm, and not merit.

Our military and all of our warriors deserve a LOT better than this Woke garbage. Our country and especially military had better get back FAST to being the greatest colorblind meritocracy in history as we were in the not too distant past, before the rise of racist Woke mediocrity.

Scroll down for a link to a Defend Arlington update that includes Tucker Carlson's segment on the Confederate Memorial with Chris Bedford, on YouTube.

Please donate all you can to help in our lawsuit to save the Confederate Memorial because we can and WILL win this fight with your help!

To destroy that symbolic monument and leave a mangled shaft sticking up surrounded by hundreds of graves that represent the reconciliation of our country after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed, would put a black stain on Arlington National Cemetery and its administrators, the United States Army and United States Department of Defense, for all time.

We can not allow that.

This is the hill to die on.]

 

March 2, 2023

Dear Tucker Carlson Tonight,

I sent the following via your website but wanted to send to your email address too.

Love your show!

The segment with Christopher Bedford on 2-28-23 on the planned demolition of the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery was good but WAY incomplete.

A lawsuit was filed two weeks ago by Washington, DC attorney Karen Bennett on behalf of an organization - Defend Arlington - that has sprung up to STOP the demolition of that historic monument. Defendants are DOD, the U.S. Army, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and others.

I published the entire lawsuit on my blog here:

https://www.charlestonathenaeumpress.com/defend-arlington-v-austin-et-al-23-cv-441-entire-complaint-a-lawsuit-to-stop-the-destruction-of-the-109-year-old-confederate-reconciliation-memorial-in-arlington-national-cemetery/

Defend Arlington solicited scholarly white papers on the Confederate Memorial and recently published a 385 page book that includes them all and other information to help our attorneys. Here is a link: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/914200920/

A printed copy is available. If you would be so kind as to give me an address, we will send you a copy and other information on our legal efforts.

It is CLEAR that the DOD and others have violated NUMEROUS LAWS in their attempt to destroy the Confederate Memorial, and it is outrageous.

As Tucker knew when he got Chris Bedford to do a segment, this is a huge issue. The Confederate Monument is a world class work of art by Jewish artist Moses Ezekiel who was also a Confederate soldier and is buried around the base with two other Confederate soldiers and a Confederate sailor. The monument is surrounded by over 500 graves of Confederate soldiers and family arranged in concentric circles. ANC stated many times that the monument is an important part of their registration to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

The monument itself was the idea of Union veteran William McKinley when he was president. President Woodrow Wilson gave the dedication speech June 4, 1914. Before that, President William Howard Taft spoke at the ceremony the evening of the laying of the cornerstone.

It would be an abomination for that monument signifying the reconciliation of our country after a war in which 750,000 died and over a million were maimed, to be destroyed by Woke leftists.

Thank you very much.

Gene Kizer, Jr.
Charleston Athenaeum Press

Links to Important Resources

Defend Arlington update with link to February 28, 2023 Tucker Carlson interview with Christopher Bedford on the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington update, Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube

 

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

 

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

 

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

 

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

 

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is on the naming commission. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video

 

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

 

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

Click Here to follow on Facebook

Click Here to go to their website

 

Take action TODAY!

 


1 Elaine Donnelly, "Biden Pentagon Orders Military Chaplains To Bless Putting Male Soldiers In Female Showers And Bedrooms," February 24, 2023, https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/24/biden-pentagon-orders-military-chaplains-to-bless-putting-male-soldiers-in-female-showers-and-bedrooms, accessed 2-24-23.

The North’s Racist Crusade Against Black People, What the Primary Source Record Shows

Northern “antislavery” was, in the vast majority, an “antiblack” crusade with sectional political advantages attached. Being rid of blacks was a primary goal. Forcing emancipation, with the blacks kept bottled up in the South, would expedite colonization; or if not colonization, it was believed that confinement to the South, cut off from the cradle to grave welfare of the master, would lead to a Darwinian “dying out” of all the destitute blacks. Abolitionist Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed, “The abolitionist wishes to abolish slavery, but because he wishes to abolish the black man.” To which he added, “the dark man, the black man declines… It will happen by and by, that the black man will only be destined for museums like the Dodo.” Such genocide was discussed openly by Northern Senators on the floor of the Senate. New York Senator, John Dix, for whom Ft. Dix is named, made a speech supporting the “dying out” of the slaves . . .

The North's Racist Crusade Against Black People
What the Primary Source Record Shows
"What Shall Be Done With The Blacks?"
Painting by William Aiken Walker, "Boy with a Torn Jacket," 1890, oil on board.
Painting by William Aiken Walker, "Boy with a Torn Jacket," 1890, oil on board.

[Publisher's Note, by Gene Kizer, Jr. - Below is another outstanding article by historian Rod O'Barr published first in the Abbeville Institute Blog February 15, 2023 with title "What Shall Be Done With the Blacks?" That question is posed by the antebellum North, which made it clear that they were terrified of blacks living up there.

The Northern reaction to blacks in the North was probably not much different from the reaction of Martha's Vineyard when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew a handful of illegal immigrants up there last year. MV got rid of them fast, though in the antebellum days getting rid of them could mean letting them die off or shipping them off, or making sure they all stayed in the South.

Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America that race relations were better in the Old South despite slavery than in the North. He said race relations were bad in places that had abolished slavery and were the worst in places that had never known slavery.

The Old South, out of necessity, was an integrated bi-racial society as C. Vann Woodward writes in The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Blacks and whites knew each other and for the most part got along fine. Old Jim Crow began in the North and was there a long time before moving South with a Yankeefied version of racism and segregation.

If Lincoln had allowed the South to leave in peace there would have been no war and no Reconstruction with its pitting of blacks against whites for the political advantage of the Republican Party. When Republicans realized they could dominate the country with the black vote in the South, modern American racism began.

Southerners would have ended slavery in a much better way than what happened with war and nearly a million blacks dying due to disease and neglect by the North, which sure did not want blacks living up there. Several antebellum Northern states including Lincoln's Illinois had laws forbidding blacks from even visiting much less living there.

Most abolitionists hated black people and were against slavery because they were against blacks, as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens and so many others observed. That's why Northerners didn't want slavery in the West, because they didn't want blacks living next to them in the West.

Lincoln his whole life believed in sending blacks back to Africa or into a place they could survive. In the meantime, they were to remain in the South only. Not up North.

If academia was honest, people would know these facts of history, but, of course, academia has been politicized since the 1960s. They aren't looking for historical truth. They are looking for political advantage for liberals in academia, the media and Democrat Party. That's why distinguished historian Eugene Genovese said the treatment of Southern history by academia and the media is a "cultural and political atrocity."

Most people do not know that Northerners and especially New Englanders and New Yorkers were America's slave traders who brought the slaves here and made huge fortunes in the process. Esteemed historian Bernard Bailyn said that slavery, unquestionably, was the reason for New England's economic success.

New York Senator John Dix, for whom the United States Army's Fort Dix is named, is quoted in O'Barr's article below as being in favor of the slaves "dying out."

Perhaps "Native American" Elizabeth Warren and the naming commission ought to take a look at Fort Dix and other government establishments named or connected to Northern slave traders and change those names like they are changing the names of bases in the South.

Or maybe the hypocrite Warren should offer to change the name of Boston's Faneuil Hall since Peter Faneuil was a slave trader, but then honesty, honor and historical knowledge are not things Elizabeth Warren knows about. Virtue signaling is her forte.

Scroll down past the article for several links to help in the fight to STOP the demolition of the Confederate Reconciliation Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. In previous posts, I published Defend Arlington's law suit against DOD, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and others who want to destroy the magnificent 109 year old monument that is surrounded by over 500 Confederate graves in concentric circles. It is a true work of art supported by numerous presidents and veterans North and South. It is one of Arlington National Cemetery's most historic as stated several times in their registration to be on the National Register of Historic Places.

Please donate because WE CAN AND WILL win this fight.]

 

From the Abbeville Institute Blog
(AbbevilleInstitute.org)
"What Shall Be Done With The Blacks?"
By Rod O'Barr
February 15, 2023

THE PRIMARY SOURCE RECORD is clear. A main reason 19th century Southerners were forced to defend slavery as a practical matter was the absolute unwillingness of the North to allow dispersion and integration of the freed people across the Union and its territories. A chronic Northern racism was intent on keeping all blacks bottled up in the South if freed.

That meant an absolute social disaster in the South as many of the freed people, cut off from the required cradle to grave welfare of the master, would be forced into a life of mendicancy and crime to survive; not to mention the certain peril of those too old or too young to work who were entirely dependent upon the cradle to grave welfare of the master.. Slaves were already being rented out to economically accommodate their excess numbers. And with no surplus land in the South for subsistence farming, the freed people faced certain disaster. There simply was not enough available land or jobs in the South to accommodate them.

Yet the Republican Party, dead set on keeping Northern States free of new blacks, and the territories for whites only, attacked the South for its seeking the equal right to expand any of its black population into the territories; an arid land unaccommodating to plantation slavery, but where slaves could be dispersed and freed with land to survive. It was Northern racism that drove a segregation that would keep blacks out of the territories. Lincoln made this clear:

“There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas…” – Abraham Lincoln, 6/26/1857.

Senator Jefferson Davis, in an 1850 speech on the Senate floor, pointed out the hypocrisy of Northern “antislavery” opposition to taking slaves into the territories as the reason slaves were not being emancipated:

“What has been the progress of emancipation throughout the whole history of our country? It has been the pressure of free labor upon the less profitable slave labor, until the slaves were transferred to sparser regions, and their number, by such transfer, was reduced to a limit at which, without inconvenience or danger, or serious loss, emancipation of the few who remained might occur….  it is odious among us now, as it was with our ancestors. We only defend the domestic institution of slavery as it exists in the United States; the extension of which into any new Territory will not increase the number of the slaves by one single person, but which it is very probable may, in many instances, produce emancipation… It is not, then, for the purpose of emancipation or for the benefit of the slaves that it is sought to restrict it… “

Northern States had laws forbidding new blacks from entering their borders. In 1862 the Senate was firmly in the grips of the Republican Party. Members of that Party openly joked on the Senate floor about their own unwillingness to accommodate blacks in Northern States if freed. Read this excerpt from the speech of Republican J. R. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, on Emancipation and Colonization; delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 19, 1862:

“A very distinguished gentleman from Vermont was first elected to Congress, I believe, about 1843. One of the well to do farmers in his neighborhood called upon him, the evening before he was to leave for Washington, to pay his respects. He found him in his office, and told him that he came for that purpose, and to bid him goodbye.

‘And now, judge,’ said he, ‘when you get to Washington, I want to have you take hold of this Negro business and dispose of it in some way or other; have slavery abolished and be done with it.’

‘Well,’ said the judge, ‘as the people who owned the slaves, or claim to own them, have paid their money for them, and hold them as property under their state laws, would it not be just, if we abolish slavery, that some provision should be made to make them compensation?’

‘But,’ said the judge, ‘there is one other question; when the Negroes are emancipated, what shall be done with them? They are poor people; they will have nothing; there must be someplace for them to live. Do you think it would be any more than fair that we should take our share of them?’

‘Well, what would be our share in the town of Woodstock?’ He inquired.

The judge replied: ‘There are about 2500 people in Woodstock; and if you take the census and make the computation, you will find that there would be about one for every five white person; so that here in Woodstock our share would be about 500.’

‘What!’ Said he, ‘five hundred Negros in Woodstock! Judge, I called to pay my respect; I bid you good evening;’ and he started for the door and mounted his horse. As he was about to leave, he turned around and said, ‘judge, I guess you need not do anything more about that Negro business on my account.’ [Laughter.]

(Congressional globe, 37th Congress, 2nd session, vol. IV, appendix, page 84, col. 3)

Northern “antislavery” was, in the vast majority, an “antiblack” crusade with sectional political advantages attached. Being rid of blacks was a primary goal. Forcing emancipation, with the blacks kept bottled up in the South, would expedite colonization; or if not colonization, it was believed that confinement to the South, cut off from the cradle to grave welfare of the master, would lead to a Darwinian “dying out” of all the destitute blacks. Abolitionist Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed, “The abolitionist wishes to abolish slavery, but because he wishes to abolish the black man.” To which he added, “the dark man, the black man declines… It will happen by and by, that the black man will only be destined for museums like the Dodo.” Such genocide was discussed openly by Northern Senators on the floor of the Senate. New York Senator, John Dix, for whom Ft. Dix is named, made a speech supporting the “dying out” of the slaves, to which then Senator Jeff Davis responded:

“With surprise and horror, I heard this announcement of a policy which seeks, through poverty and degradation, the extinction of a race of human beings domesticated among us. We, sir, stand in such a relation to that people as creates a feeling of kindness and protection. We have attachments which have grown with us from childhood – to the old servant who nursed us in infancy, to the man who was the companion of our childhood, and the not less tender regard for those who have been reared under our protection. To hear their extinction treated as a matter of public policy or of speculative philosophy arouses our sympathy and our indignation.”

Most Southerners were adamantly against deporting the slaves they had known from childhood. And they certainly were against the slaves being forced to “die out” landless and penniless. Which is why General Lee stated:

“The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution of slavery and were quite willing to see it abolished.  But, unless some humane course, based on wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them great injustice in setting them free.”

It was Northern segregationist racism that forced the South to defend slavery, not out of a desire to perpetuate and extend the institution, but as a means of protecting the Southern economy and society, as well as the slaves themselves from the inhumane disaster that would have been had emancipation been confined within Southern borders alone.

A slave master quoted in the 1854 study, “A Southside View of Slavery” said, “‘If our friends at the north would devise ways in which we could dispose of these poor people FOR THEIR GOOD, I should then no longer be a ‘servant of servants.’” (Emphasis mine)

For Southerners and Northerners alike, the problem was “what to do with the negro.” The answer to that question differed greatly by section. Most Southerners sought a humane answer that would assimilate the freed people into American society across the Union. As Jeff Davis stated, “Slavery is for its end the preparation of that race for civil liberty and social enjoyment… When the time shall arrive at which emancipation is proper, those most interested will be most anxious to effect it.” Northerners were having none of that assimilation. What kept Davis’ “proper time” for emancipation arriving was Northern refusal to disperse and integrate blacks.  Abolitionist Dr. Nehemiah Adams in his above-mentioned study of slavery stated regretfully:

“There are, probably, few who would not abstractly prefer free labor; but what shall be done with the blacks?  There has never been a time in the history of our discussions on this subject, when, the South had expressed her willingness to part with the slaves, we at the north could have agreed in what way they should have been disposed of. Who has ever proposed a plan of relief which could in a good measure unite us? What shall be done with the blacks? On the evils of slavery all are well-informed. But as to this essential question we get no light.”

An Alabama Secession Commissioner explained why he was going to vote for secession in terms that reveals a common humane concern for the outcome to freed slaves:

“Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race?”

The Mississippi Declaration of Secession asserted the Southern concern for the slaves lamenting that the North, “seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.”

A British publication summed up the South’s dilemma:

“The South has hitherto clung to slavery – because it saw no way to abolish it, without cruelty to the unprepared negro… it does not fight for the maintenance of slavery, as the North pretends, and as some in Europe still believes, but for independence… the sentiment of the Southern people towards the negroes was so kindly that there was nothing in the world that could be done to ameliorate their condition that the South would not gladly undertake.” (“The Friend of India” Dec 29, 1864).

Here presented is just a small sampling of primary sources that reveal just how skewed the truth is in the popular narrative that the South seceded to “perpetuate and extend slavery,” Also skewed is the fabrication that the recalcitrant North held a sincere moral concern for the slaves when, in reality, it opposed dispersion and integration of those freed, and just wanted blacks gone! Had Lincoln not been assassinated, and had Republicans not realized that freed slaves were a potential voting block for Republican control of the South, one can only wonder in what godforsaken place the descendants of slaves would be living today, or if they would exist at all.


Rod O'Barr

Rod O’Barr is retired and lives in Tennessee with his wife of 45 years, Kathy. He has advanced degrees in Philosophy and Theology, and a lifelong interest in history. He is the webmaster of a WWII website and a member of both the Abbeville Institute and the SCV. When not enjoying time with his children he enjoys doing living history at local schools.

 

Links to Important Resources

Hot off the press! Here is a link to the new 385 page PDF from Defend Arlington that flips pages as you read. It contains all the great scholarly white papers gathered up by Defend Arlington to make sure that Woke ignorance DIES at Arlington National Cemetery.

Defend Arlington's 385 Page Book of White Papers

 

Here is a link to Defend Arlington's donation page that states:

CHIP IN FOR THE ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY MEMORIAL LITIGATION DEFENSE FUND

Please Donate Money -- THANK YOU!

 

Here is a link to an informative nine minute video, "The Arlington Confederate Monument," produced by the Abbeville Institute.

The Arlington Confederate Monument

 

Here is a link to the outstanding scholarly PDF white papers written for Defend Arlington. You can download them all with one click. Please share them far and wide, especially the letter from Defend Arlington's attorney, Karen C. Bennett, to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

PDF White Papers from Defend Arlington

 

Here is link to an excellent video refuting point by point a historically false Prager University video by Ty Seidule, who is on the naming commission. This one is produced by Bode Lang and entitled "The Civil War Was Not for Slavery."

Click Here for Bode Lang's excellent video,

 

Here is a link to an excellent video of a Georgia lady calling out Elizabeth Warren and her Massachusetts hypocrisy.

Click Here for Georgia Lady Teaching Elizabeth Warren a Lesson

 

Here are important Southern Legal Resource Center links. SLRC mailing address is: Southern Legal Resource Center, 90 Church St., Black Mountain, NC 28711-3365.

Click Here to donate to the Southern Legal Resource Center

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