[Vision2020] Moles and mole hills

Fri Jul 13 06:01:36 PDT 2012

Hi Donovan,

Actually my knowledge base of the Civil War goes a bit beyond what I learned at St. Marys,  Moscow High School, or even (gasp) Wikipedia.  Consequently, I don’t think Abraham Lincoln was a saint, although he certainly was a martyr to the Union cause.  That said, while I enjoyed reading your critique on the motivations and intentions of confederate leaders and your brief but sweeping indictment of the moral failures of many folks who lived north of the Mason Dixon line your argument is not historically persuasive nor does it address the issue I raised regarding the “immediate cause” of the Civil War.

Since my academic area of research and training is primarily in American West and Holocaust Studies I was surprised to read that until 1920 there was a $20.00 bounty paid for the heads of Native People.  Are you implying that folks were still collecting that reward in 1919?  What is your source for that claim?  Believe me, I am not being argumentative I am just gobsmacked that I could somehow of overlooked something so repulsive after spending six years of my University of Idaho life going steady with the History Department.

Rose

From: Donovan Arnold [mailto:donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 10:40 PM
To: Rosemary Huskey; 'Moscow Vision 2020'
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Moles and mole hills

Rose,

I know many people, and maybe you too, were taught in grade school that Abraham Lincoln and the United States went to war solely over freeing Black men from the injustices of slavery and to become equal citizens as Whites. If only our nation was that noble. But history tells us something different;

The South wanted to keep certain rights within the states, chief among them slavery. But if it was only slavery they wanted, Lincoln and the north would have, and did several times, concede that right to them, even on a silver platter enshrined in the US Constitution. 

The Union didn't oppose slavery, and kept it legal until 1865. Only releasing slaves as a military tactic, not for justice to Black men and women. Abraham Lincoln replaced any General that tried that free slaves in captured territories, including John C. Freemont, the founder of the Republican Party. Lincoln spearheaded the Corwin Amendment which would have amended the US Constitution to keep slavery legal. Lincoln stated,

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

If the Civil War was solely about slavery, why didn't the Southern States come back into the Union when the United States Congress passed the Corwin Amendment? They would have averted a war, and got to keep slavery legal, forever? Obviously, something else was bothering them.

How come several states with slavery stayed in the Union, and several states that didn't have slavery join the South? That doesn't make sense either. Why join the side of the war that is against your political position? If they wanted slavery, why would Missouri, a slave state, join the Union? If opposed to slavery, like Texas, why join the South to keep it legal? Further 66% of people in the South didn't even own a slave. Why fight, suffer, die, and leave your family to starve for something you don't have and will never obtain? 

I do not contend, as your counter argument suggests, that the Constitution of the Confederacy was a moral and ethical document. I only contend that the Unionists, at that time, weren't saints either. It had, was, and continued to subjugate, minorities, women, and others to unspeakable crimes. The Union gave no rights to Blacks, or women. It murdered, raped, harassed, hung, tortured, and beat many men, women, and children for decades during the military occupation of the South until the end of the period of Southern Reconstruction. It offered $20 in gold for each head of the Indian until 1920. And it remained legal for a man to rape his wife until the 1980s. 

I do amid it though. I like the fairy tale of The Noble Northerners fighting for truth, justice, and the American way! But I am realist, and go with what the facts, historians and reason tell me.

If you think the people in Charleston, NC are any worse or better than the people of New York City, NY, I suggest you look a little harder, and reader a longer in the history books. If you judge the content of man's character by the color of his Civil War uniform, you will be wrong often. 

Donovan J. Arnold 

From: Rosemary Huskey <donaldrose at cpcinternet.com>
To: 'Donovan Arnold' <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>; 'Moscow Vision 2020' <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 8:59 PM
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Moles and mole hills

Hi Donovan,

If you believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of States Rights you are wrong.  But you are right that the Confederate supporters had a different view of the future of America.  You may not wish to plow through all the constitutions of the confederacy to read exactly what was on their corrupt and evil minds but you could check out this brief description published by the National Park Service.  http://www.nps.gov/chch/upload/FINAL-SLAVERY-BROCHURE-FINAL.pdf

And while 2020 readers might be reluctant to believe me, perhaps, Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy will be a more credible source.  His Cornerstone Speech is infamous.  

“The Cornerstone Speech was delivered extemporaneously by Confederate Vice President <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President>  Alexander Stephens <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stephens>  in Savannah, Georgia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah,_Georgia>  on March 21, 1861. The speech explained what the differences were between the constitution of the Confederate Republic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_Constitution>  and that of the United States <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution> , laid out the Confederate causes for the American Civil War <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War> , and defended slavery <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery> . . . . 

Stephens' March 1861 speech declared that African slavery was the "immediate cause" of secession <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession> , and that the Confederate Constitution <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Constitution>  had put to rest the "agitating questions" as to the "proper status of the negro in our form of civilization".

“The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—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.  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 moral condition. “

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech *bolding mine

Rose

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Donovan Arnold
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 7:02 PM
To: Lynn McCollough; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Moles and mole hills

I don't think you can call the people that fought in the Civil War Anti-Americans. Most US wars up until that time would have been lost without the help of many of the Confederate officers. People just had a different vision of what America was about. Many US Presidents and Vice Presidents sided on either side of that war. It is simply that most of the people in power in the South believed that the power resided in the states, and most of the people in the North thought thought the power should reside in the federal government. 

People in the United State back then didn't think of themselves as US citizens, they thought of themselves a Virginians and Georgians (which had been around a lot longer then the US) and they didn't recall giving any outside government the right to force their will on their state (probably because they actually never did). 

If the United Nations forced its political will on the US today, don't you think we might be divided on that issue and still be able to call ourselves Americans? 

Donovan J. Arnold

From: Lynn McCollough <lmccollough at gmail.com>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 7:30 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Moles and mole hills

When I made the original post, I was very aware that the flag in
question was part of a historical display.
I was questioning, and upset by the fact that it appeared to me to be
the most prominently displayed flag in the lobby of my courthouse.
Tom's pictures were taken either with a flash or the light was very
different from when I was in the lobby. When I was there, the flags on
poles, of the US and Idaho and been pushed to a very shaded corner,
and they were not well lit at all.
BTW, the flag that bothered me is not THE confederate flag. It is the
stars and bars, the historic battle flag used in armed conflict with
the USA.
This flag only represents anti-US sentiment. It was not the official
flag of the confederacy. Look it up.
Thank you for the analogy of what single flag would best represent the
European theater of WW2. I do not want that flag displayed either.
Yes, my father was a WW2 vet.

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