This was too funny/sad not to post. The Huffington Post has a video summing up the right's response to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's proclamation of Confederate History Month -- a proclamation that made no mention of slavery. In the video, various and sundry nutjobs twist themselves in logical knots trying to justify the move. Not surprisingly, they come off pretty badly.
I think I can sum all these clips up for you:
"Meanwhile, why not have a Union Appreciation Day," asks HuffPo's Jason Linkins, "where people wear T-Shirts with Abraham Lincoln's visage that read, 'Tell us how our taint tastes, treasonholes?'"
There's actually a damned good question buried within that snark. The Confederate apologists say it's about history; if this is the case, why not "Civil War History Month," not "Confederate History Month?" Is it only about part of history?
Of course, it's not about history at all, it's about not being over a cause that was lost 145 years ago.
Let it go...
I think I can sum all these clips up for you:
Crazy Person: The Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states' rights!
Non-Crazy Person: States' rights to do what?
Crazy Person: To continue slavery! Ummm... wait...
"Meanwhile, why not have a Union Appreciation Day," asks HuffPo's Jason Linkins, "where people wear T-Shirts with Abraham Lincoln's visage that read, 'Tell us how our taint tastes, treasonholes?'"
There's actually a damned good question buried within that snark. The Confederate apologists say it's about history; if this is the case, why not "Civil War History Month," not "Confederate History Month?" Is it only about part of history?
Of course, it's not about history at all, it's about not being over a cause that was lost 145 years ago.
Let it go...
4 comments:
In some ways it is about the far right learning identity politics from segments of the left.
Poor Mark, whose comment above shows nothing but the mincing vitriol of one whose mind can hardly a concept more complex than tit-for-tat.
these are from http://civilwarcauses.org/quotes.htm
There is plenty more information to debunk War Of Petulance apologists at http://civilwarcauses.org/
* Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: "African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism." Later in the same speech he said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." Taken from a photocopy of the Congressional Globe supplied by Steve Miller.
* Keitt again, this time as delegate to the South Carolina secession convention, during the debates on the state's declaration of causes: "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." Taken from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, dated Dec. 22, 1860. See the Furman documents site for more transcription from these debates. Keitt became a colonel in the Confederate army and was killed at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864.
* Senator Louis Trezevant Wigfall; December 11, 1860, on the floor of the Senate; "I said that one of the causes, and the one that has created more excitement and dissatisfaction than any other, is, that the Government will not hereafter, and when it is necessary, interpose to protect slaves as property in the Territories; and I asked the Senator if he would abandon his squatter-sovereignty notions and agree to protect slaves as all other property?" [Quote taken from The Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 58.]
* Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina: "The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery." [The Glory of God, the Defence of the South (1861), cited in Eugene Genovese's Consuming Fire (1998).]
* G. T. Yelverton, of Coffee County, Alabama, speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention on January 25, 1861: "The question of Slavery is the rock upon which the Old Government split: it is the cause of secession."
Emir Fassad
from http://civilwarcauses.org/
A Little history for apologists.
• Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: "African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism." Later in the same speech he said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." Taken from a photocopy of the Congressional Globe supplied by Steve Miller.
• Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina: "The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery." [The Glory of God, the Defence of the South (1861), cited in Eugene Genovese's Consuming Fire (1998).]
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• G. T. Yelverton, of Coffee County, Alabama, speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention on January 25, 1861: "The question of Slavery is the rock upon which the Old Government split: it is the cause of secession."
Emir Fassad
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