temporal1 wrote:Esp since 2015, after Dylann Roof murdered defenseless victims in their own church building,
there has been an (obama initiated) emotional, political, violent movement to remove “all things Confederacy” from public view, public knowledge, from study, from existence.
A delayed post-war annihilation of the enemy, the enemy’s thoughts. A clean sweep.
I don't think that's true. There is a strong move to stop celebrating racism and slavery. That means not having statues that celebrate this cause, towering over public spaces, standing on the way into the court of Justice, in the place of honor in public buildings. These statues were erected in the early 1900s as a way to rewrite history, they were not present at the end of the Civil War. They are part of the same "Lost Cause" narrative as The Birth of a Nation.
After all, that's what the Confederates clearly said the Confederacy stands for. For instance, here is the Vice President of the Confederacy in The Cornerstone Address:
Stephens wrote:The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. [...] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Stephens wrote:Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.
That is not a cause we need to celebrate and promote. And we do not need to glorify the symbols that are loved most by white supremacists who threaten violence.
Happy to supply quote after quote from the Confederacy, as many as you need, to make this point clear.
By all means, let us never forget this history. But let us not celebrate the heroes of slavery today. I would much rather remember Lee in his later years, as he sought reconciliation and fought for education. Not on a horse with a sword, but in his library.
Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
Arthur Paronyan (Armenia) wrote to Karin Leslie:
Beware when Ignorance comes callng. Regrets follow.
