Sam Davis: Boy Hero Of The Confederacy

From Confederate Digest:

Nov 29, 2010 (18 hours ago)

Sam Davis - Boy Hero of the Confederacy

from Confederate Digest by J. Stephen Conn

 

This statue of Tennessee native Sam Davis, stands proudly in the shadow of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville. Davis is memorialized for his heroic sacrifice his life in defense of his beloved Southland during the War Between the States - an act which earned him the title, Boy Hero of the Confederacy. A plaque at the base of the statue reads:











SAM DAVIS OF TENNESSEE





Born October 6, 1842, near Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Educated at the Western Military Institute at Nashville

Early in the Civil War he joined the Confederate Army

Company 1, First Tennessee Regiment.

In 1863 he was assigned to Shaw's Scouts, Cheatham's Division.





In November, 1863, when on duty,


Uniformed in Confederate butternut and grey,

Davis was captured in his native state, then within the Federal lines.

Important papers, descriptive of the Federal fortifications and forces,

Were found upon his person.

These papers had been given Davis by Captain Shaw

Who had also been captured and was confined to the same prison.





Davis was tried by court martial,

condemned to death and executed at Pulaski, November 27.





The Federal Commander offered Davis his life, if he would tell

who gave him the papers. To this offer, under the very shadow of

the gallows, Davis made his immortal reply:





"I would die a thousand deaths

Before I would betray a friend."

---

"Greater love hath no man than this,

That a man lay down his life for his friends."






 
Another plaque at the base of the statue offers this poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:






SAM DAVIS





When the Lord calls up earth's heroes,

To stand before His face,

O, many a name, unknown to fame

Shall ring from that high place;

Then out of a grave in the Southland

At the just God's call and beck,

Shall one man rise with fearless eyes

With a rope about his neck;

O Southland: bring your laurels,

And add your wreath, O North!

Let glory claim the hero's name

And tell the world his worth.

 

 

Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Procalamation: The Most Cynical And Hypocritical Speech Ever Delivered

From Lew Rockwell.com:

The Most Cynical and Hypocritical Speech Ever Delivered


by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Recently by Thomas DiLorenzo: The Real Jefferson











Over the Thanksgiving holiday (decreed by Lincoln in 1863) one neocon Tabloid, National Review, reprinted Lincoln’s October 3, 1863 proclamation, highlighting Abe’s cynical reference to "the Most High God . . ." Another neocon Tabloid, The American Spectator, published the typical sappy, a-historical, fact-free, rhetorical mumbo jumbo about "Father Abraham" that Harry Jaffa and his fellow Lincoln cultists are known for.



The references to God in Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation, like all other such references in his political speeches, are breathtakingly cynical because of the fact that Lincoln never became a Christian (according to his wife and his closest friend and law partner, William Herndon); he never joined a church; rarely ever stepped foot into one; as a young man wrote an entire book that disputed Scripture; and was famous for his vulgar stories and language. But he studied the Bible as a political tool, just as today’s politicians study opinion polls.



Prior to 1863 Lincoln’s references to God and the Bible in his political speeches were mostly catch phrases and buzz words ("a house divided cannot stand"). But as more and more fellow American citizens were murdered by the thousands by his army, and as the war crimes mounted, Abe stepped up his Biblical lingo. By the time of his second inaugural he wrote a speech in which he absolved himself of all blame for the war ("the war [just] came," he said), blaming the whole bloody mess on God. Presuming to know what was in the mind of God, he theorized that the Lord was punishing all Americans, North and South, for the sin of slavery. He did not theorize on why God would not also punish the British, French, Spanish, and others who were responsible for bringing 95% of all the slaves to the Western Hemisphere. In other words, his Biblical language was always a diversion and a cover-up for the war crimes against American civilians (among other atrocities) that he was micromanaging.





The first sentence of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation is a real howler. The year 1863, he said, "has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies." What? Healthful skies?! As of the fall of 1863 there had been several hundred thousand battlefield casualties, including thousands of men in both armies who died of yellow fever and other dreaded diseases. There were more than 50,000 casualties in the Battle of Gettysburg alone, just three months earlier.





In the second sentence, Lincoln the non-Christian claimed that "we" are "prone to forget" that all of those "healthful skies" come from "the ever watchful providence of Almighty God." Speak for yourself, Abe!



This is followed by another howler, claiming that "peace has been preserved with all nations." He apparently forgot about the Confederate States of America that he was waging total war against.



It gets worse (and funnier). The next thing he says is that "order has been maintained." Stalin said the same thing about the Soviet Union. By that time Lincoln had imprisoned thousands of Northern political dissenters without due process since he illegally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus. He had shut down hundreds of "unorderly" opposition newspapers, and deported poor old Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Dayton, Ohio, his most outspoken critic in Congress.



As Dean Sprague wrote in Freedom Under Lincoln (p. 299), under Lincoln’s "policy of oppression," the "entire judicial system was set aside" as "the laws were silent, indictments were not found, testimony was not taken, judges did not sit, juries were not impaneled, convictions were not obtained and sentences were not pronounced. The Anglo-Saxon concept of due process, perhaps the greatest political triumph of the ages and the best guardian of freedom, was abandoned."



Three months earlier there had been draft riots in New York City that one could hardly describe as "orderly." An eye witness to the riots was Colonel Arthur Fremantle of the British Army, who wrote the following about the New York City draft riots in his book, Three Months in the Southern States (p. 302):



The reports of outrages, hangings, and murder, were now most alarming, the terror and anxiety were universal. All shops were shut; all carriages and omnibuses had ceased running. No colored man or woman was visible or safe in the streets or even in his own dwelling. Telegraphs were cut, and railroad tracks torn up.





Lincolnian "order" was restored when Abe sent 15,000 troops to New York from the just-concluded Battle of Gettysburg. The troops fired indiscriminately into the draft protesters, killing hundreds, more likely thousands, of them according to Iver Bernstein, author of The New York City Draft Riots. (This scene was portrayed in the movie Gangs of New York, where Bernstein worked as an historical consultant to director Martin Scorcese).



But let’s not let historical facts get in our way. Let’s follow the neocon lead and swoon and weep and get chills up our legs over Abe’s Big Lie that "harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict."





The notion that there was "harmony" and "unity" in the Northern states during the war is one of the most outrageous lies in American history. Historian Ella Lonn described how Lincoln created "harmony" within the U.S. Army in the face of massive desertions by literally hundreds of thousands of Northern men in her book, Desertion During the Civil War. Draftees "were held like veritable prisoners" and Lincoln’s government "had no compunctions about shooting or hanging deserters," wrote Lonn. The murder of deserters achieved Nazi-like efficiency: "A gallows and shooting ground were provided in each corps and scarcely a Friday passed during the winter of 1863–64 that some wretched deserter did not suffer the death penalty in the Army of the Potomac. . . . The death penalty was so unsparingly used that executions were almost daily occurrences. . ." The "method of execution" was "generally shooting but hanging seems to have been used occasionally."



The Thanksgiving speech gets even worse. The very next uttering of Abe’s is that "the laws have been respected and obeyed." Well, not by Abraham Lincoln, certainly. Even his own attorney general, Robert Bates, stated that his suspension of Habeas Corpus was illegal and unconstitutional, as was the suppression of free speech throughout the North. West Virginia was illegally carved out of Virginia to form a new slave state as part of the union. And where in the Constitution is the president permitted to order soldiers to imprison and deport an opposition member of Congress without any due process? Or rig national elections and imprison duly-elected members of the Maryland state assembly without due process? Doesn’t the Constitution require presidents to see to it that the states have republican forms of government?



Indeed, Lincoln’s invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of treason under the U.S. Constitution. Article 3, Section 3 proclaims that: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" (emphasis added). Treason under the U.S. Constitution consists "only" in waging war against "them," namely, the free, independent and sovereign states, plural. Lincoln redefined treason to mean any criticism by anyone of him or his administration. In fact, he even said that a man who stands by and says nothing while the war was being discussed was guilty of "treason."



Lincoln also violated international law and his own military code by intentionally waging war on American civilians for four years, killing more than 50,000 of them according to historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel. Even pro-Sherman biographer Lee Kennett wrote in his book, Marching Through Georgia (p. 286), that "had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified (as victors generally do) in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants."





All the "great things" that had happened since he became president, said Abe, were "the gracious gifts of the Most High God . . ." Therefore, he said, "we" should celebrate as "the whole American People" to give thanks to God with a national holiday. This was another very large contradiction: Lincoln never admitted that secession was legal, therefore, he always considered Southerners to be a part of "the whole American people" for political purposes. It is doubtful that a single Southerner, in 1863, would have heeded Abe’s advice and given thanks for all that he had done for them.



Lincoln concluded his Thanksgiving propaganda speech with more religious lingo, thanking the Lord for "the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility," and, get this – Union. The Union – always spelled with a capital "U" – was not just a practical political arrangement created by the founding generation mostly for foreign policy purposes, as Thomas Jefferson said it was. It was supposedly divine, the work of God. Lincoln the non-Christian knew this for sure. It’s what created The Divine Right of Lincoln, similar to The Divine Right of Kings during the Middle Ages.



This deification of the state echoed the words of the fanatical New England Unitarian preacher Henry W. Bellows, who worked in the Lincoln administration as its Sanitary Commissioner and whose son, Russell, was Robert Todd Lincoln’s Harvard classmate and best friend. (Lincoln’s son Robert spent the war years "fighting" for good grades at Harvard). Bellows authored a creepy, totalitarian-sounding book in 1863 entitled Unconditional Loyalty which declared that "the state is indeed divine, as being the great incarnation of a nation’s rights, privileges, honor and life" itself." Moreover, "the first and most sacred duty of loyal citizens" was "to rally round the president – without question or dispute."



In his new book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and Slavery (p. 265), Lincoln cultist Eric Foner informs us that "it is not surprising that Lincoln seemed to share this outlook." This "outlook" would have caused George Washington to reach for his sword and lead another Revolution against another despotic and dictatorial regime.





November 30, 2010



Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.



Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Today In History: Missouri Secedes

From Rebellion:

5:45 PM (5 hours ago)This day in historyfrom feed/http://lsrebellion.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default by Old Rebel



From Stone Mountain, for the blog on Nov. 28, if you would be so kind. Thanks for all you do and Happy Thanksgiving, Mike.



Know hope. Dutchy

Secession And Southern Symbols

From Free North Carolina and Secession and Nullification--News and Information:

Thursday, November 25, 2010Treason?


The Confederate Battle Flag



From: vaproto@optonline.net

To: ralphlesliesmith@gmail.com



Dear Sir:



You are incorrect if you believe that the Confederate States of America

and/or any of her symbols is/was treasonous. Secession was permitted

under the Constitution. Indeed, during the War of 1812 (political

uprisings during wars tend to be viewed much more harshly than during

times of peace), the New England states met in convention to declare

their succession from the Union; this was known as the Hartford

Convention. In the end, they failed to secede for the most part owing to

the end of the war which was interrupting their trade. However, though

the states involved voted against secession, the fact is they voted and

they did so without armed federal troops making their appearance to stop

the “treason” involved. Why? Because there was no treason involved; it’s

as simple as that. Years after the War of Secession (it wasn’t a “civil

war”) Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Gen. Robert E. Lee asked why the

Constitution did not make secession openly unlawful if, as the Union

maintained, it was in fact unlawful under that document. The answer that

he received from those familiar with the history of the time was this:

had the Founding Fathers made secession unlawful in the Constitution,

the Constitution never would have been ratified! So your point that

secession was treason is refuted by history and therefore nonsense.



Furthermore, if secession actually was treason, two questions then

arise: first, why was it necessary for Congress to act after the War to

make secession unlawful? If it was already illegal, why the need to make

further legislation on the matter? And secondly, where were the treason

trials? One can claim that the terms granted by Grant and Sherman to the

Confederate military required that Southern soldiers – even at the

highest levels - be spared prosecution for this crime, but no such

excuse can be made for the Confederacy’s civilian government. Indeed,

Jefferson Davis was kept in close confinement under horrible

circumstances for two years while several groups of federal attorneys

attempted to devise a treason trial only to discover that to proceed

with same would lose the war in court that had been won on the

battlefield; Davis was released and no charge of treason was ever

brought against him or any other Southerner. Secession was not

unconstitutional or treasonous.



You may not agree with the actions taken by South Carolina and those

Southern states that followed her out of the Union (however, that is

probably because you are ignorant of the situation extant), but those

states had every right to make that choice, a choice denied them by

unconstitutional, illegal, immoral and wicked war waged against them not

by “the Union”, but by the federal government. Now that was “treasonous”

and we have been paying the price of that treason ever since. According

to Maine Professor Jay Hoar, “The worst fears of those Boys in Gray are

now a fact of American life – a Federal government completely out of

control.”



I really would suggest, sir, that you foreswear the “history” being

bruited about today. It is totally Marxist-revisionist and has no more

to do with American history than Burton’s “Tales of the Arabian Nights”

has to do with the history of the Middle East. The facts are available

to you should you care to abandon the ignorant regurgitation of

mendacity and discover why the States of the South determined that their

only hope of freedom from tyranny lay in abandoning the old Union.

Interestingly enough, you will find that not every state seceded for the

same reason. Indeed, Virginia and North Carolina only seceded after

Lincoln demanded that they furnish troops to make unlawful war on their

Southern brethren. It was then and only then that these two “founding

states” determined that they could no longer remain in what had become a

criminal and tyrannous nation.



Valerie Protopapas

Long Island, New York

Posted by Brock Townsend at 10:35 AM

Resolution From The Third Southern National Congress

From Confederate Digest:

Saturday, November 27, 2010


Resolution from the Third Southern National Congress



Third Southern National Congress in Session - Dickson, Tennessee





It was my privilege and honor to be a Tennessee delegate to the Third Southern National Congress which was held November 12-14, 2010, at the Montgomery Bell State Park near Dickson, Tennessee. The following resolution was debated, refined, and presented by the Congress, with 150 Southern men and women delegates representing the 14 Southern states.





We, the Delegates of the Southern States

IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, MAKE THE FOLLOWING FINDINGS:



In the year of our Lord 1789, the newly independent and united States of America formed a federated Republic by agreeing to create the Federal government for the mutual benefit of the sovereign States and their Peoples. The original Constitution of the united States was meant to embody the will of the several States and their Peoples, uniting them in a common political and social contract amongst and between themselves, and also between the States and the central government, which was the fiduciary agent and servant of the several States which created it.



After independence, and in full possession of the sovereign powers afforded them as free and independent States by the Law of Nations, which rests on the Laws of Nature and Almighty God, the original Thirteen States delegated to the central government specifically enumerated powers. They also limited those powers by Amendments IX and X of the Bill of Rights, an inseparable part of the political and social contract uniting the States. They explicitly reserved to themselves or their Peoples all sovereign powers not specifically granted to the central government they had created.



Therefore, the Federal Union was a voluntary, delimited association of the free and sovereign States and their Peoples for the sole purpose of protecting life, liberty, and property. However, many Founders, especially the Anti-Federalists who were mostly Southerners, warned that the United States Constitution contained the seeds of despotism by creating a strong central government. Their warnings have come true. Embarking on a systematic transformation of the original federated Republic, the central government began to usurp the rights and powers of the several States. This transformation began soon after adoption of the Constitution, was consolidated by the Northern victory over the South and the violent suppression of her right to self government in 1865, and has accelerated unto the present day. This process has changed the original federated Republic into a centralized, unitary state ruled by a consolidated central government which claims for itself virtually unlimited powers, just as leading Southern statesmen predicted.



With both national Parties in collusion, today’s Washington-based regime has destroyed all pretense of constitutionally limited government and replaced it with an oligarchy ruled by crony capitalists, the big money cartel based on Wall Street, banks and corporations, the major news and opinion media, and misanthropic globalists bent on radical dreams of a New World Order.



The central government of the United States consistently violates the Constitution, including the protections of the Bill of Rights. Its despotism has grown to gargantuan proportions since the terror attacks of September 2001, a convenient pretext for undeclared, perpetual, impotently pursued wars. It has exploited the so-called War on Terror to create a surveillance-and-police state ruled by fear and by criminalizing of dissidents and patriots, especially Southerners who dare to defend their tradition of limited government and ordered Christian liberty.



Under the mask of promising financial security and prosperity to all, the fiscal and economic policies of the central government instead foster dependency and debt-slavery. The central government has granted to a private banking cartel, the Federal Reserve, an outrageous monopoly to create public money. The Federal Reserve’s fiat money violates the moral requirement of an honest unit of exchange, undermining the irreducible standard of morality necessary to civil society. This dishonest money threatens us with hyper-inflation and the future collapse of the currency, reducing to penury all Americans whose life savings and assets are denominated in U.S. dollars.





The central government is allied with and controlled by the financial cartel and powerful corporations. It rewards them for exporting America’s true wealth-producing enterprises and employment offshore, and empowers the banks to rob us through money creation and bail-outs, the greatest acts of mass plunder in history. Its confiscatory income tax and the hidden tax of inflation rob us of what little wealth remains. The government’s wealth transfers to its politically-favored clients foster a soul-crushing dependency. Today more than half the people of the Southern States derive their income from the central government, directly or indirectly, even though Federal money de-capitalizes and eventually impoverishes those who receive it. Profligate Federal spending indentures our children to foreign financial interests, only to support the continued immorality of the welfare-warfare state; and places all us at risk of economic ruin and political servitude.



This pattern of repeated abuses and usurpations evinces a clear design to reduce the American People generally, and Southerners in particular, under absolute despotism, accompanied by poverty, dependency, and servitude.









THEREFORE, WE THE DELEGATES TO THE THIRD NATIONAL CONGRESS,

do hereby resolve and declare:



that the central government of the United States, by defaulting on its obligations to protect the inalienable rights of the People to life, liberty, and property, is in breach of the Constitution the basis of our fundamental social contract that once bound the People and the several States to the Federal Union;



that the central government no longer serves the States and their People as their agent for ensuring justice, but instead has become the purveyor of mass injustice, tyranny, oppression, and violence; and is the manifest enemy of dignity, freedom, prosperity, and a decent moral order;





that the central government pursues the destruction of a distinctly Southern culture and identity, traducing our heritage, distorting our history, and attempting to coerce us into becoming supine subjects of an Empire that is alien to our hallowed traditions and well-being;



that the central government is not worthy of the respect, much less the obedience, of any People who claim the title of free men and women.



TRUSTING IN ALMIGHTY GOD AND IN THE JUSTICE OF OUR CAUSE, we further resolve and declare that all free Southerners should consider their States and the People of their States absolved of any moral obligation of obedience to the unlawful acts of the central government of the United States. In such circumstances, we encourage all Southerners to devote their primary efforts to their States and local communities in order to reconstitute a free, just, and prosperous civil society.



Adopted 13 November 2010 by the Third National Congress at Dickson, Tennessee



To learn more about the Southern National Congress (SNC) you may go to their website: www.southernnationalcongress.org

Posted by J. Stephen Conn at 11:28 AM

Lincoln's thanksgiving Day Proclamation (1863)

Nauseating, disgusting and absolutely cynical when considering to what he was doing to the South...

From The Heritage Foundation:

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation




We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving Holiday yesterday and continue to enjoy spending time with friends and family today. The Heritage Foundation will be posting on The Foundry throughout this Friday so please check back frequently. Till then, do enjoy President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation below.



The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.



In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.



Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.



No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.



It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.



And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

this Day In History (16 November 1864): Sherman's "March To the Sea" Begins

And may he and his soldiers burn in the everlasting fires of Hell.

From Rebellion:

Nov 16, 2010 9:33 AM

This day in history

from feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old Rebel

In 1864, General Sherman and his troops began their "March to the Sea" during the Civil War

Happy Thanksgiving

Army of the Trans'Mississippi Sunday Message

From arkansasscv.org:

ATM Sunday Message


November 24, 2010

Web Master

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Limitations



Many of us are concerned about the effectiveness of our confederation. For all of our conferences, campaigns, movements, events and activities we are seemingly stuck in a rut. As someone once said, “The mountain labors and brings forth a mouse.” What is it that makes the effectiveness of our efforts mediocre when they could be miraculous? Could our limitations be a result of our own “Hindering Spirits?”



Now, hindering spirits are not floating in the air above us like Humming Birds inspecting a bright red flower. They are within us. And, I venture to name three such spirits which may be found among us today.



First, there is the “fighting spirit.” Of course, there is a fighting spirit that is good and proper. We are to endure hardness and fight the good fight. We need an aroused indignation against those who oppose us and all their evil works. Some of our members are peaceful because they do not believe anything enough, or they are too indifferent toward our cause to fight for it. I heard of a soldier who was asked how many of the enemy did he kill. “None,” was his reply. “But, I got as many of them as they got of me.” Unfortunately many of our members are just about as effective. We need a fighting spirit. However, too often we are fighting each other instead of our common enemy. The greatest danger to our cause is not from without, but from this hindering spirit within.



Then there is the “frivolous spirit.” We all like having a good time, and certainly our meetings should be enjoyable. But there is an inherent seriousness in our cause which requires that our manner and conduct match our purpose. The member who thinks of the SCV only as a hobby at which to “play” and have “fun,” should be shown photographs of our heroic Confederate forefathers lying dead and bloated on a battlefield. Then they need to be reminded that the very evil forces that killed them are even now attempting to discredit their cause, and erase their memory. How can we think of playing and having fun when the blood of our brave Confederate ancestors cry out from a hundred hillsides, “Where is my honor!”



Finally, there is the “fed-up spirit.” There is perhaps nothing more discouraging to our membership than to see someone who has worked long and hard for our Cause leave the SCV in disgust. We all get tired “in” the fight. But, we must never get tired “of” the fight. We will win some, we may lose some, but we must never quit. Our Confederate forefathers fought to defend our country. Now, they are depending on us to defend their honor and preserve their memory. To do this we must repel the hindering spirits that beset us and prevent us from fully accomplishing our mission. Remember……….



“To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we submit the vindication of the cause for which we fought…”



This is the responsibility of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, it was not given to any one else, therefore the Charge is, and must be, our defining characteristic. For the sake of our Confederate fathers and our proud Southern heritage, we must go forth into battle believing that God is our Champion and Vindicator. We must believe that, as we trust Him and follow Him, He will strengthen and guide us to victory over the enemies of truth. Psalm 18:2&3 states, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from my enemies.” Then verse 47 goes on to tell us, “It is God that avengeth me…”



It is my prayer and sincere desire that our Lord bless each of you in His service, and in service to our just and most worthy Cause. Heb. 10:30…..







Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D



Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi

President James Buchanan's Proclamation For A Day Of Humiliation, Fasting And Prayer (1860)

From Wallbuilders:

Proclamation - Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer - 1860


James Buchanan - 12/14/1860

By His Excellency



James Buchanan, President of the United States of America.



A Proclamation for a Day of Humiliation, Fasting, & Prayer.



To the People of the United States. A Recommendation.









Numerous appeals have been made to me by pious and patriotic associations and citizens, in view of the present distracted and dangerous condition of our country, to recommend that a day be set apart for Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer throughout the Union.





In compliance with their request and my own sense of duty, I designate Friday, the 4th of January 1861, for this purpose, and recommend that the People assemble on that day, according to their several forms of worship, to keep it as a solemn Fast.









The Union of the States is at the present moment threatened with alarming and immediate danger; panic and distress of a fearful character prevails throughout the land; our laboring population are without employment, and consequently deprived of the mans of earning their bread. Indeed, hope seems to have deserted the minds of men. All classes are in a state of confusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are wholly disregarded.









In this the hour of our calamity and peril, to whom shall we resort for relief but to the God of our fathers? His omnipotent arm only can save us from the awful effects of our own crimes and follies -- our own ingratitude and guilt towards our Heavenly Father.









Let us, then, with deep contrition and penitent sorrow, unite in humbling ourselves before the Most High, in confessing our individual and national sins, and in acknowledging the injustice of our punishment. Let us implore Him to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency, rather than yield a just submission to the unforeseen exigencies by which we are now surrounded. Let us with deep reverence beseech him to restore the friendship and good will which prevailed in former days among the people of the several States; and, above all, to save us from the horrors of civil war and "blood-guiltiness." Let our fervent prayers ascend to His Throne that He would not desert us in this hour of extreme peril, but remember us as he did our fathers in the darkest days of the revolution; and preserve our Constitution and our Union, the work of their hands, for ages yet to come.









An Omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good. He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath he can restrain. -- Let me invoke every individual, in whatever sphere of like he may be placed, to feel a personal responsibility to God and his country for keeping this day holy, and for contributing all in his power to remove our actual and impending calamities.









James Buchanan.





Washington, Dec. 14, 1860.

Today In History: The Gettysburg Address

From Rebellion:

Nov 19, 2010 (5 days ago)This day in historyfrom feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old RebelIn 1863, Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the national cemetery on the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa.




We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't include H.L. Mencken's famous rejoinder:



The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.

Happy Thanksgiving From The SCV

From Civil War Memory, The Arkansas Toothpick and the SCV:

Happy Thanksgiving From the SCV


By admin
November 23, 2010



23 November 2010

Beaufort, South Carolina



Thanksgiving Day

Compatriots,



Thanksgiving Day is soon upon us. This day has become marked as a time for families and friends to come together and give thanks for the many blessings that the Lord has bestowed upon us. Let us recount our blessings with all the grace that is the definition of a true Southron.



Unfortunately, on Thanksgiving Day we may hear of some credit given to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln for proclaiming the first Thanksgiving Day. Or, even more prominently, we see the first Thanksgiving Day associated with the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Rock, in what is now Massachusetts.



So much of what we hear about American history, and the genesis of our American holidays, is often simply wrong.



The first Thanksgiving in this country was, in fact, celebrated at Jamestown, Virginia in December 1607. The Berkley Plantation’s charter required that the day of the colonist’s safe arrival, “…shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving….” The Pilgrims were still thirteen years into the future. (See: “The Real First Thanksgiving”)



Of course, the politically correct love to point to the happy scene of the Pilgrims in their black garb, white collars and stiff hats, sitting at a grand banquet with the ruddy savages, all in all a scene of peace and ethnic tranquility. This joint celebration took place because the Pilgrims’ socialistic economic practices (i.e., a common storehouse) had driven them to the brink of starvation, before the Indians took pity and rescued them.



It should be noted that there was an even earlier Thanksgiving. History records that the Spanish settlement at Saint Augustine celebrated a feast with the indigenous peoples in 1565: “After the Mass, Menendez de Aviles invited the Timucuans to join him for the first communal meal of Europeans and natives together,” This was apparently the first communal act of thanksgiving in the first permanent European settlement of what is now the United States. (See: “In U.S. History, Florida beats New England professor says”)



But, despite all the credit incorrectly given to the Pilgrims of New England, it is President Lincoln who is oft credited with the first Thanksgiving proclamation because it began an unbroken string of such acts occurring in late November.



But Lincoln was not even the first president to do so since George Washington had issued such a proclamation in 1789. More to the point for us, Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared Friday, November 15, 1861 as, “…a day of national humiliation and prayer…,” - a full two years before Lincoln’s more famous declaration.



Since that time, Thanksgiving Day has become a federal holiday and has lost almost all of its original meaning. Now, Thanksgiving is little more than the opening day of shopping season, followed by a day, christened with the most befitting nickname, “Black Friday.” In 1861, however, it was a different story.



At the time he issued his proclamation, Pres. Davis understood the enormity of the danger the South was facing and his decision to call upon the, “…reverend clergy and the people of these Confederate States to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of Almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity” was more than just a platitude.



Now, in 2010 our country also faces many crises: economic crises, crises of faith; crises of the moral and political decay of society; our troops are at war in foreign fields; and our precious Southern heritage is under attack on many fronts.



During these hard times when all God’s people are suffering, let us be thankful of the blessing that we have. We have the love of our brothers and sisters and we have our rich Southern heritage. But of all our blessings, nothing is sweeter than the promise of God’s love and redemption.



During this Thanksgiving season, we should all remember the sacrifice of our noble Confederate forebears. We can learn much from their example made during their time of trial.



So, on this Thanksgiving Day, when we are giving thanks and enjoying the company of our family and friends, let’s stand tall with the knowledge that together we are perpetuating the wishes of President, Jefferson Davis and sharing in a ritual that proclaims the superiority of God and keeps us mindful of our need for his mercies.



Confederately yours,

Michael Givens

Today In History: Kentucky Secedes

From Rebellion:

Nov 20, 2010 (3 days ago)This day in historyfrom feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old RebelIn 1861, the Kentucky Ordinance of Secession was passed.




The central star on the Confederate Battleflag represents Kentucky.



Thanks to The Bonnie Blue Blog for the heads up!

Today In History: Alexander Stephens' Speaks In Support Of Union

From The Ohio Republic:

Sunday, November 14, 2010Today in history


150 years ago today, Alexander H. Stephens, who would later become Vice President of the Confederate States, delivered this address in support of the Union, to the Georgia legislature. It is a beautiful speech, which interestingly reflects my opinions stated Oct. 1. Here are a couple of passages:



In the first, Mr. Stephens is calling institutions those public and private organizations that maintained the culture and economy of the nation:





It was only under our Institutions as they are, that they were developed. Their development is the result of the enterprise of our people under operations of the government and institutions under which we have lived. Even our people, without these, never would have done it. The organization of society has much to do with the development of the natural resources of any country or any land. The Institutions of a people, political and moral, are the matrix in which the germ of their organic structure quickens into life, takes root, and develops in form, nature, and character. Our institutions constitute the basis, the matrix from which spring all our characteristics of development and greatness. Look at Greece: There is the same fertile soil, the same blue sky, the same inlets and harbors, the same Aegean, the same Olympus-- there is the same land where Homer sung, where Pericles spoke -- it is, in nature, the same old Greece; but it is "living Greece no more." (Applause.)



Descendants of the same people inhabit the country; yet what is the reason of this mighty difference? In the midst of present degradation we see the glorious fragments of ancient works of art-- temples with ornaments and inscriptions that excite wonder and admiration, the remains of a once high order of civilization, which have outlived the language they spoke. Upon them all, Ichabod is written -- their glory has departed. Why is this so? I answer this, their institutions have been destroyed. These were the fruits of their form of government, the matrix from which their grand development sprung; and when once the institutions of our people shall have been destroyed, there is no earthly power that can bring back the Promethean spark to kindle them here again, any more than in that ancient land of eloquence, poetry and song. (Applause.) The same may be said of Italy. Where is Rome, once the mistress of the world? There are the same seven hills now, the same soil, the same natural resources; nature is the same; but what a ruin of greatness meets the eye of the traveller throughout the length and breadth of that most down-trodden land. Why have not the people of that heaven-favored clime the spirit that animated their fathers? Why this sad difference? It is the destruction of her institutions that has caused it. And my countrymen, if we shall, in an evil hour, rashly pull down and destroy those institutions which the patriotic hand of our fathers labored so long and so hard to build up, and which have done so much for us, and for the world; who can venture the prediction that similar results will not ensue? Let us avoid them if we can. I trust the spirit is amongst us that will enable us to do it. Let us not rashly try the experiment of change, of pulling down and destroying; for, as in Greece and Italy, and the South American Republics, and in every other place, whenever our Liberty is once lost, it may never be restored to us again. (Applause.) [Emphasis added]...





This paragraph echoes what I wrote Oct. 1, when I said, "I anticipate that several nullification bills will be introduced and passed. If these and all else fail, I have little doubt that the liberty movement in Ohio can be persuaded to support secession – but such talk is clearly premature at this time."





I am for exhausting all that patriotism demands, before taking the last step. I would invite, therefore, South Carolina to a conference. I would ask the same of all the other Southern States, so that if the evil has got beyond our control, which God in his mercy grant may not be the case, we may not be divided among ourselves; (cheers) but if possible, secure the united cooperation of all the Southern States, and then in the face of the civilized world, we may justify our action, and, with the wrong all on the other side, we can appeal to the God of Battles, if it comes to that, to aid us in our cause. (Loud applause.) But do nothing, in which any portion of our people, may charge you with rash or hasty action. It is certainly a matter of great importance to tear this government asunder. You were not sent here for that purpose. I would wish the whole South to be united, if this is to be done; and I believe if we pursue the policy which I have indicated, this can be effected.



In this way, our sister Southern States can be induced to act with us; and I have but little doubt, that the States of New York, and Pennsylvania, and Ohio[!], and the other Western States, will compel their Legislatures to recede from their hostile attitude, if the others do not.

ATM Sunday Message--Missing In Action (Sympathetic, Potential Members)

From arkansasscv.org:

ATM Sunday Message


November 13, 2010

Web Master

Missing in Action!



Recently my wife used my truck to pick up a purchase that was too big for her car. The men who loaded the box noticed the SCV logo on the back window, and the sign below it that says, ” I’m the proud descendant of a brave Confederate soldier.” They thought it was “great.” Especially as my wife explained that her husband was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.



This has happened to her before, and to me all the time. The responses and reactions have all been positive. They may not display an image of the Battle Flag or other Confederate symbols, and they may never join the SCV, but they do have inner sympathy for the Confederacy. Often, they will proudly state that they too have Confederate ancestors. These “Sons of the South” may be thought of as “Missing in Action.”



As a Christian, I have often been met with sarcasm and ridicule when I proudly state that I’m a saved Saint in Christ and love the Lord. Perhaps that is why so few Christians will speak for God outside the walls of the church. We might call them M.I.A. Christians. In writing to the Church at Rome, the Apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:” (Rom. 1:16a) The result of Paul’s boldness was the founding of numerous churches and the salvation of thousands of souls. He knew where he stood, and what he stood for. The Apostle Paul was always on duty. He was never “Missing in Action.”



I must admit I spend more time talking to people about the Sons of Confederate Veterans than I do about Jesus Christ. The reason is a matter of opportunity. I never run in to anyone who has not heard of Jesus, but I am constantly meeting men who have never heard of the SCV.



I believe there are hundreds of thousands, and probably millions, of M.I.A. Confederates who would like to hear about the SCV. They’d like to know who we are, what we do, and what we stand for. They may join our ranks, but even if they don’t, they will be glad to know that we are defending the Southern Cause and the honor of our (and their) Confederate forefathers. They also need to know that if they do decide to join our ranks and proclaim pride in their Southern heritage, they will not be alone.



For almost a hundred an fifteen years, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have known where they stand and what they stand for. We have upheld the honor of the South and boldly proclaimed pride in our heritage. We are not ashamed of our Confederate fathers. To the contrary, we are honored to be their descendants. Indeed, we are privileged to be the Sons of Confederate Veterans.



It is my prayer that every Christian would boldly proclaim his love for Jesus Christ our Lord, who died that we might have life. It is also my prayer that every member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans would proudly stand up for his Southern heritage and honorable Confederate forefathers. We should always be “on duty,” and never “Missing in Action.”



Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D.



Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi

Debate Is Taboo On The Great Cenratlizer, Lincoln

From Lew Rockwell.com:

Debate Is Taboo on the Great Centralizer, Lincoln


by John Avery Emison











Lies and name-calling are preferred tactics of the Lincoln "scholars" (cultists)



I found out the hard way that Lincoln scholars (read, apologists for ever-increasing political and economic centralization) have no interest in debating any point of law, Constitution, or even history when it comes to the deeds of America’s original and greatest of presidential centralizers, the incomparable Abraham Lincoln. They prefer lies, name-calling, and the hyperbole of smear against anyone who challenges the Lincoln myth.



No less than Harold Holzer, the high priest of Lincoln cultists has taken a swipe at my book Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America (Pelican, 2009) in a review in the current issue of North and South magazine (Nov. 2010).



I said in my book, Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America:



Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the Leviathan central state that mandates, manipulates, and regulates virtually every aspect of life in America and seeks unilateral hegemony around the globe.



For this statement Holzer labeled (should I say libeled?) me as "paranoid," "hysterical" and a "wacko."



The mere mention in my book that I disagree with the view of Lincoln espoused by former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (one of Holzer’s many sponsors in the leftist political Establishment) drew the charge of being "especially mean-spirited."





I suppose it has never occurred to Mr. Holzer to apply the word "mean" to a man like Cuomo who used the police power of the state to pile tax upon tax on the citizens of New York while blowing that money in a thousand frivolous ways that did little more than enrich his cronies. But you don’t see the world this way when your job is to provide political cover so the plunder of taxpayers for the benefit of the privileged, ruling elite (do the names Holzer and Cuomo come to mind?) can continue unabated. Now it’s Cuomo’s son’s turn.



Actually, Holzer’s intolerance to even a word of disagreement about the book he co-wrote with Cuomo in 2004, Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever is quite understandable. That particular book is boring political drivel that makes a Walter Mondale speech seem passionate and inspiring by comparison. Holzer claims it is a "keenly observed book." The only thing keen about it is its magic ability to cure insomnia. They open the book with a hand-wringing chapter on what to do about "three-tiered democracy" in America – the few rich at the top, the large middle class barely getting by, and the large, impoverished underclass. It makes you wonder how bright these guys are when they see the results of 15 decades of ever-increasing centralization of political and economic power and they don’t seem to notice that Lincoln was the president who started it all. The Cuomo/Holzer book compiles a long list beloved government programs starting with the WPA and ending with the Jimmy Carter-era bailout of Chrysler. (That one really helped in the long haul, huh?). Along the way Holzer and Cuomo fall in love with AIDS research, the Marshall Plan, the space program, EPA, Social Security, Medicare/Medicade, Hillary Clinton’s doomed health care monstrosity, the United Nations, and even the 1980s savings & loan Resolution Trust Corporation (which someone noted wasn’t really a corporation, nor did it resolve anything, and you couldn’t trust it) – all of which Holzer suggests would be on Lincoln’s approval list were he alive today.



Holzer’s review contains two quite predictable lies about my book. His first lie is about race (which is intended to intimidate into silence anyone he doesn’t like), and the second one is about states’ rights (which is also intended to silence debate if the lie about race fails to do so).



Holzer’s review falsely states, "the author actually argues that socially-restricted life for free blacks in the North was far crueler than that facing enslaved blacks in the South." I made no such argument in my book and Holzer’s assertion that I did is a lie. I said there were no clean hands – North, South, East, or West – in regards to pre-war racial justice in America. Much has been published about "Jim Crow" laws in the South, generally along the lines that Jim Crow was an exclusively southern phenomenon that is a patently false idea. I compiled a long list of Jim Crow laws in the pre-war North (of which little has been written), not as an attempt to justify racial injustice elsewhere, rather to demonstrate there was no racial justice anywhere. Having made this point, the Civil War could not have been about the establishment of racial justice in the South if such justice was nowhere to be found.





If Mr. Holzer wants to take the position it is irrelevant that New York voters rejected a statewide black suffrage referendum (for a second time) the same year Lincoln was elected president, so be it. All twenty-five statewide referenda to give blacks the vote in the pre-war northern states failed. If Holzer would like to defend the racial exclusion amendment to the Illinois constitution enacted by voters in 1862 while, as he claims, their farm boys were off fighting for racial justice in the South let him. When Lincoln signed the bill admitting Kansas to the Union as a "free" state in 1861, it prohibited blacks from voting just as its territorial legislature had done. The same is true for Nevada whose admission was signed by Lincoln in 1864. Are all these things some twisted notions of racial justice in Mr. Holzer’s mind? I’d like to hear what he has to say on the topic. I might even read that book, but he will never write it.



If Holzer believes there already was racial justice in the North in 1860 I suggest he find a single jurisdiction where free blacks were actually citizens, much less welcomed. Well, he can’t, so I’ll even give Mr. Holzer a hint that he won’t like it because it doesn’t fit his fictitious story line. Under North Carolina common law, at least for a time in the decades before the Civil War, slavery was merely a disability to citizenship. Thus once freed, (and there were various paths to freedom as the growing number of freedmen in the Census shows) a former slave who was born in North Carolina automatically became a citizen once his disability to citizenship was removed. No other state worked this way in any section of the nation. The big mistake the U.S. Supreme Court made in the Dred Scott decision was it rejected North Carolina Supreme Court precedent and adopted instead a ruling by the Connecticut Supreme Court that barred blacks from becoming a citizen under any circumstances.



There are other problems with Holzer’s view of the Civil War was a war of racial justice. I point out in my book the Lincoln administration committed itself to a war of racial genocide in the West in order to get the Indians out of the way of the railroad robber barons who backed Lincoln. After all, Lincoln was a railroad lawyer as Tom DiLorenzo has pointed out. Apparently Holzer thinks Lincoln – an admitted white supremacist who openly advocated the forced-deportation of free blacks back to Africa – was carrying out a war of racial justice in the South while his military commanders were simultaneously perpetrating a war of racial genocide on the Plains Indians. Come on Mr. Holzer; tell us how you resolve this. But what if Holzer is correct in his assertion that Lincoln was a man for equality and justice? If this is so, why didn’t the Great Emancipator end slavery in the "loyal" slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and the newly created state of West Virginia?





It appears Holzer’s first lie is meant to smear me falsely as a racist in order to avoid debating an important analysis contained in the book.



The fact is my book critically analyses a body of information that has been overlooked in the debate about whether secession is a lawful and legitimate power of the States. Lincoln Über Alles analyses thirty precedent-setting cases before the U.S. Supreme Court from 1793 to 2001. The principles adopted by the Court in these cases support the argument that secession is an attribute of state sovereignty, and no Court has ever attempted to draw the boundary where one attribute ends and another begins, or to determine where one attribute trumps another (including Chief Justice Chase’s discredited and irrelevant Texas v. White opinion in 1869). And this is where Holzer tells his second lie, that this body of newly analyzed information is nothing more than a rehash. It exists nowhere else in print, yet he says it is "flailing argumentation" and a rehash of "breast-beating about states rights."



I establish in the book that the U.S. Supreme Court has long held unconstitutional the principle known as "legislative entrenchment." Legislative entrenchment sounds complex but it is the simple principle that any act a prior legislature (or congress) had the authority to pass, a future legislature has the same authority to modify or repeal. The power to enact, modify, or repeal law cannot be separated one from another. This principle goes all the way back to the Roman Republic. It is one of the foundational principles that make representative government in western civilization different from the rest of the world. The U.S. Supreme Court has never deviated from striking down any law that attempts to take away from future legislatures the authority to modify or repeal any act of a previous legislature.



The U.S. Supreme Court’s long tradition against legislative entrenchment is important in the debate whether the states have, or have ever had the authority to secede. The Constitution was ratified individually by conventions in each of the original 13 states in 1787–90. If the legislatures in the four Southern states (that would secede in 1860–61) were competent to call a convention to ratify the Constitution in 1787–90, they were equally competent to call a convention in 1860–61 and enrobe it with the same authority as the original convention. This is precisely what South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina did; they called a second convention with the same authority of the first, and repealed the ratification of the first. Holzer’s review did not even mention this, much less attack it. If he found fault in this idea, why didn’t he dispute it?



It is obvious Mr. Holzer has never read or considered any principles of constitutional law in the thirty Court cases I cited in my book – unless he somehow discovered them but dared not discuss them. Since he failed to dispute even a single point I cited regarding these cases, it is equally obvious by silence he acknowledges my analysis is correct. Smears, name-calling, intimidation, and dismissing new material as old won’t do – even if you make the immodest claim of being "one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era," as Holzer does on his website. Holzer, like other Lincoln cultists, is generous with self-praise.



Holzer’s non-review review is all bark and no bite.



This soi-disant Lincoln expert concludes I have been reading too much Tom DiLorenzo, a charge to which I would happily plead guilty, except for the fact it is impossible to read too much DiLorenzo.





November 12, 2010



John Avery Emison [send him mail] is a former science reporter and environmental consultant. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee and is very proud of his three grown children. You can find him on Facebook.



Copyright © 2010 LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Georgia Division, SCV Launsches Radio And Television Campaign

From Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans:

Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans Press Release










PRESS RELEASE









GEORGIA SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS LAUNCH STATEWIDE RADIO & TELEVISION CAMPAIGN



(ATLANTA - 1 November 2010) As part of the effort to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the War for Southern Independence, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans announced today the officialy launch of a statewide radio and television campaign. A total of twelve different radio and television commercials have already begun broadcasting around the state, and another twelve are in production. The commercials presently airing around the state commemorate the causes of the War Between the States and give the Southern view of events leading up to the secession of South Carolina in 1860. The television commercials have already broadcast on the History Channel throughout the Atlanta region to more than a million homes in September; and the radio spots have blanketed south Georgia from the "fall line" of Columbus-Macon-Augusta southward on various radio stations. Plans are currently being made to extend both the radio and television campaign after the first of the year.



This ambitious radio and television campaign is historic in nature, not only because it commemorates the 150th anniversary of the War, but also because it marks the first time that the Sons of Confederate Veterans have embarked upon such a large-scale campaign to educate the public about the actual reasons for which the Confederate soldiers contended. The history of the War that has been written in many textbooks since the latter half of the twentieth century depict a very different view of the South than was previously understood by each preceding generation; and, in keeping with their "charge" from the original Confederate Veterans at the time of their founding, the Sons of Confederate Veterans is now boldly proclaiming the proud Southern heritage that was once taught and accepted throughout the South.



The radio and television campaign is merely one part in a very extensive educational commemoration for the War planned by the SCV in Georgia over the next four years. An entire curriculum for teaching the War from the Southern view is available free of charge from the Georgia Division, as well as other educational resources.



Interviews and more information about the radio and television campaign of the Sons of Confederate Veterans can be arranged by calling calling 1-866-SCV-in-GA or by emailing Announcements@RayMcBerryEnterprises.com.





END RELEASE

Today In History: Jefferson Davis Elected First President Of The Confederate States Of America

from Rebellion:


8:45 AM (14 hours ago)This day in historyfrom feed/http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/atom.xml by Old Rebel

In 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederate States of America.

It Started With A Lie

From Southern Heritage And Liberty Articles:

11/06/2010


“It Started With a Lie”



“Everyone should do all in his power to collect and disseminate the truth, in the hope that it may find a place in history and descend to posterity. History is not the relation of campaigns and battles and generals or other individuals, but that which shows the principles for which the South contended and which justified her struggle for those principles.” ~ Gen. Robert E. Lee

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.” ~ President Jefferson Davis, C.S.A.



Most people are familiar with that terrible and bloody conflict wherein a great deal more died than men and women, as “the Civil War”, but is that name accurate or even appropriate? The definition of a “civil war” is as follows:



~ a war between opposing groups within a nation for the control of that nation. ~



Some recent definitions omit the second phrase referring simply to a “war between opposing groups within a nation”, but that is misleading, even mendacious. The recognized meaning of a civil war has always been one in which differing factions strive for control of a single nation in order to rule. The war between King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell was truly a “civil war” in that both sides strove by war to rule England. The war between the Stuart kings and the line of Hanover was also a “civil war” for the same reason. On the other hand, the wars between the British and the Irish, Scots and Welsh were not “civil wars” because though the British sought to rule Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the peoples of those nations had no designs upon the British throne – they simply wished to be left alone in peace and freedom.



The war which took place on the North American continent between 1861 and 1865 (although that only encompasses four years of what was in fact a much longer struggle) was akin to the latter rather than the former situation. The States of the South did not wish to rule the Union, they merely wished to leave it and hence, the war cannot be truthfully designated a “civil war”. Yet, from the beginning, that was the term used and remains in use (at least in the North) to this day. How and why did that happen? Well, it would seem that President Abraham Lincoln defined it as such even before the actual war had begun. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln stated:



In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.



The entire address is a carefully contrived effort to justify whatever steps the new President considered necessary to, in his words, “preserve, protect and defend the Union” and he carefully notes that he bears no blame for what is to come though he initiates the actions leading to war. On the other hand, Lincoln does not claim that the states of the South desire to do anything but to secede and makes no reference to a threat by those states to forcibly wrest control of the Union from the remaining members for the purposes of ruling them. Lincoln expresses or implies nothing but that a group of states wishes to leave the old compact and form another more to their liking, an action already counted as a “divine right” of the People in the Declaration of Independence:



“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”



Indeed, Mr. Lincoln himself acknowledged that right when, on January 12th, 1848 on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, he stated plainly:



“Any people any where, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, sacred right -- a right which, we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements. Such minority was precisely the case of the Tories of our own Revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.”



It seems that somewhere between January of 1848 and January of 1861, Mr. Lincoln determined that this “sacred right” did not extend to or exist for the People of the South. Furthermore, while leaving the old Union and forming a new nation would obviously change the old Union, it would no more destroy either the Union or the federal government than had the addition of new states and territories done in the past. Yet, the newly elected President chose to make it known that he would not countenance secession despite the rights immortalized in the Declaration and the Constitution - and that the response of the Federal Government would be not “war”, but “civil war” though Lincoln was careful to make no claim that the States of the South desired to contest with the rest of the Union for hegemony or had threatened to wage war upon their sister states!



The question then must be this: did Lincoln not understand the difference between a “civil war” and the war he intended to wage if the States of the South continued on the path of separation? Given Mr. Lincoln’s obvious intelligence, that seems clearly an impossibility. Much more likely was the term was used deliberately in order to foist the appearance of legitimacy upon a conflict that otherwise would reek of unjust and unconstitutional aggression. After all, it is a “given” that both sides in a “civil war” initiate conflict since both must make war upon the other in order to rule. By purposefully mischaracterizing the war as a “civil war”, it can be reasonably argued that Lincoln sought to cast equal blame upon a people who wished only their constitutional right to peacefully leave the Union. Indeed, since a union by its very nature is voluntary, to maintain it at the point of a gun is not “union” but “conquest” and forcing men to accept the rule of an unwanted government is simply tyranny. This is not a matter of “politics” but of “history”. Unfortunately, while much of politics is a consequence of history, much of “history” – especially regarding the War of Secession - is a consequence of politics.



SWR's Lady Val



posted by rebshadow @ 6:54 PM

The Southern Side

From Rebel With A Clue:

Monday, November 1, 2010The Southern Side


The argument has been made in the past that Southerners should "Put away the Confederate flags and the pictures of Jefferson Davis" because "The heritage that Southerners so desperately cling to is one of racism, ignorance, and religious fanaticism" and that we are trying to create a "backward looking, close minded nation"



I was born, raised and educated in the South. I am looking toward the future, not trying to re create the past, but I know the past is an important part of our lives because without it we wouldn't be here. I am proud of the fact that my forefathers stood up for what they believed in, and passed that trait down to me. Racism is something I don't agree with and will not tolerate, Ignorance I feel I am trying to address and correct by teaching and learning the Truth that I was taught by my elders in spite of the version of history taught in our public schools, if I am a fanatic because I am from the South and believe in God, so be it.



I will continue to teach the truth of my ancestors, and remember where I came from while looking to the future. If this makes me backward looking and close-minded, I'm sorry you feel that way but that’s just me. You have to know where you came from to know where you are going. You have to believe in and Love God because without him we would not be here.



There is always more than one side to any story and wars are no different, in any war the history of it is the one written by the winning side and in the War Between the States the Union side of the story is taught in our schools, I have heard from students writing papers on the Civil War that Abraham Lincoln had to declare war on the Southern states to Free the Slaves, and how Southerners fought so hard to keep them, and that after the war the South had nothing left but wounded pride and that Lincoln had to force The South to treat the slaves with respect. OK this is one side but what about the Southern side, Are we not allowed to teach this side? The Confederate states are part of the USA today, “occupied states” so to say in my opinion, but still we are living by the laws of the land and celebrating the history of the states but what if part of your heritage is also from the Confederacy? This is the truth I speak of in my articles the lessons learned from my elders is where I see this truth. Slavery was a big part of life during this time but as I see it was an issue of the time but not the cause of the Civil War, slavery would have ended with or without this war, Lincoln himself stated, "The war is being fought for the Union, not slavery".



We allow our schools to teach their versions of history but we are supposed to keep the Southern side to ourselves. Our children being called down in school for showing pride in their heritage, a while back a boy in Ohio and one in Tennessee were made to feel wrong because they were proud, One for wearing a lapel pin of the Confederate Battle Flag, and one for wearing a t-shirt displaying the Confederate Flag with the statement "If this Flag offends you, You need a History lesson", he had wore it on Veterans Day, he explained that he has Confederate ancestors. So as I see it he has a right to be proud, and it was wrong to make him feel otherwise.



Why do we teach our kids to stand up for what they believe in and at the same time allow others to make them feel ashamed for doing so? Why can't people from the South be proud of where they are from without being accused of racism? Why is our history distorted to the point that our children are not learning the Truth of our forefathers at school? And why are we the ones that are "out of line" when we stand up for our kids by teaching them the truth? We should be able to do this without fear of being accused of something we are not



Our Children are the Leaders of the future. If we don't teach them the truth and the proper way to lead now in a Godly manner, then how can we expect them to lead and teach the truth to their Children without fear of confrontation from people trying to teach them otherwise?