The Reason Does Not Change the Treason
This session the Georgia Legislature passed Senate Bill 77, which expands protection of confederate monuments in Georgia. The bill now gives private groups the right to sue any government or person for removing a monument that “recounts the military service of any past or present military personnel of this state; the United States of America or the several states thereof; or the Confederate States of America or the several states thereof.”
First note, those who voted for this legislation are treasonous by association. It does not matter if it was your great great grandfather who participated in the civil war. The Confederate States of America attempted to be a sovereign nation. Doesn’t matter why because the reason does not change the treason. (That should be the title of a country song.)
trea·son
/ˈtrēzən/
noun
The crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.
Second note, let’s just think about the fact that in 2019 our state legislators spent valuable time not compensating teachers, not fixing our crumbling infrastructure, not fixing the fact that some rural counties do not have good medical care, but instead focused on re-protecting oversized monuments to the past and creating additional reasons for people to sue other people using the tax dollars that are invested into our courts.
We know why Senators Mullins of Chickamunga, Gooch from Dahlonega, Butch Miller from Gainesville and others felt it necessary to strengthen the already iron proof confederate monument statute. They did it because they are scared, intimidated, and were raised during an era when American history of the south was still white washed and romanticized. Time we welcome them to 2019.
Georgians, I know you are frustrated that we are continuing this race to the bottom. But fret not. The south won’t rise again as long as they are too busy playing pretend. At some point Georgia will catch up to the rest of America. When it does the men that led this charge will be on the side of history that most of us scorn, laugh at, and try to forget.
We may give a pass to those who did it in 1905. It was a way of life. Some of can look past those who did it in 1965 when they were caught up in the changes of the Civil Rights Movement. But those of you who signed on in 2002 during the flag debate and again in 2019 – start creating your apology tour now because the numbers of people still believing in the “Lost Cause” are filling up those cemeteries you are protecting. As your children and grand-children get older, they are going to wonder why “pop pop” did not just Google the truth before they voted for this legislation.
But fret not. This pretty hollow attempt to rewrite history like the daughters of the confederacy did decades ago shows one thing – they are scared. Back in the day those monuments struck fear in the hearts of blacks in the south. Now the tables have turned. They were once intended to remind minorities of the way of life that existed in the south. They were an attempt to show control. But the scramble to super-double protect these bronzed extensions to the rural Georgia GOP ego, is tipping their hand. Their innermost fears are being put on display.
But fret not. This pretty hollow attempt to rewrite history like the daughters of the confederacy did decades ago shows one thing – they are scared.
This legislation shows they are concerned about the consistent drum beat of the Georgia NAACP, the progress of the other southern states, and the annoying social media post of a few current and former African American elected officials. The fact that the senators felt a need to strengthen a statute which was already pretty iron clad; shows they know their time in power is coming to an end. We got Trump because confederate monuments no longer cause fear in southerners.
Fear has been replaced by embarrassment. Us southerners whisper loudly to our family from the north, “please just ignore uncle joe in the corner and the confederate flag on his pickup.” The northerner transplants don’t even notice these huge wastes of space and taxpayer dollars that were protected by SB77. These same confederate symbols may as well be a bronzed statute of Wayne Williams or Tyler Perry to all the folks moving here.
Frankly my friends who hate these monuments, just laugh. This legislation is a sign that they know they are losing. Luckily, this legislation as passed does not at all prohibit adding additional monikers, monuments, plaques near these bronzed fairytales.
Rather than take them down we should raise money to put placards near each one that memorializes researched facts of those being “honored” through the assistance of the Georgia General Assembly. I for one would be interested in learning the number of Americans each confederate soldier killed, the number of slaves they owned, or the number of half slave children they fathered.
When we remove the fictional romanticism and add truth let’s see how appealing the confederacy may be. The law doesn’t say we can’t add true to their lies.
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LaDawn LBJ Jones
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Let’s hope legislation like this hastens the end of the GOP confederacy.
Lies and Treason
I have heard all this before if fact I’ve been accused of treason simply due to the fact my great, great, great grandfather was drafted into the confederate army. In the south it wasn’t like the north where you could payoff people to get out of serving. Did he own slaves well no he didn’t just like a great many confederate soldiers but you knew this already and it didn’t fit your invented narrative. Be careful ascribing to the sins of the father rule because there is always something with everyone’s past ancestors that will come back to haunt you.
If you drill down far enough and not stop where you want it to stop due to embracing false premises the root cause analysis for the Civil War always leads to, money. Where did all this money go after the Civil War? Spent, paid to the bondsman and gone with the wind. However this is another good subject to argue at another time.
Being upset by a few monuments or anyone was associated with the Civil War or anyone who may have own slaves in the past doesn’t mean you should erase all traces from public view. What does that change except another false premise this somehow makes everything right. Or is this nothing more than a directed attempt to rewrite history just like the accepted lie the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves. No it didn’t. The Emancipation Proclamation exempted Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee plus what would become West Virginia and part of Louisiana. The proclamation was aimed at States that were in rebellion which didn’t recognize the authority of the US government at the time so it freed no one. It was only the ratification of the 13th amendment that truly once and for all freed all slaves in the US. Incidentally Georgia was the state that sealed the ratification by becoming the last state needed to make the 3/4th majority for ratification on December 6, 1865. A bit of Irony there.
While the Confederate States of America only existed from 1861 to 1865 the continued effort to erase all things confederate is being done for the reason that they were treasonous. Only 4 score and 7 years before there was other treason at work in the Americas and their flag didn’t fly over slavery for only 4 years did it? It flew over slavery 87 years so are you wanting to eliminate it as well? Many would call that treason.
Let’s get to the bottom line. Slavery is a sin. A sin the United Sates and the Confederate States paid for over 160 years ago. While I hear your outrage and call on different forms of reparations I’m curious why it is only directed at the southern states. Slavery is still going on in the same places it was back then yet you seem to ignore it. In Africa and the Middle East people are still sold into bondage the same way it was when African slaves were sold and sent to the US before the Civil War. It’s still going on but no outrage, why? Why do you ignore modern slavery and concentrate on what happened 160 years ago. Is that really the object? No the object is of course political power and money and those things lead to a treasonous course as it always has.
I think what she is saying is that regardless of whatever compelled your great-great grandfather to fight, doesn’t mean you have to continue to support that cause. That was then, this is now.
Taking down monuments that serve to honor Confederates is not erasing history. I don’t think anyone is talking about banning books or avoiding the subject in curricula. It’s about presenting a fuller picture of the history, warts and all.
And just give it up about the present-day slave trade please? Just because every single person doesn’t publicly express “outrage” over every single social ill on the planet doesn’t mean that THIS subject isn’t worthy of discussion.
Benevolus, she meant it exactly as she wrote it. I don’t support Slavery in any form and I fully believe slavery is a sin. As I believe Lincoln came to understand as stated in his 2nd inaugural speech. Now if anyone is going to claim outrage about something that happened over 160 years ago with people who are long dead and not have more outrage about what is happening today, they are a hypocrite. Period.
I’m not saying she isn’t outraged but I’ve never seen or read anything from her on the modern slavery subject.
I never seen you post anything about the plight of Monarch butterflies, so this must mean….
I got several in the grill of my oversized SUV, want some?
Georgia was the state that sealed the ratification by becoming the last state needed to make the 3/4th majority for ratification on December 6, 1865. A bit of Irony there.
Congress required former Confederate states to ratify the 13th Amendment as a condition to regaining federal representation. Georgia didn’t ratify the 13th or 14th Amendments because they agreed with them. In fact, Georgia spent the next 100+ years actively undermining these Amendments. So there isn’t any irony.
I’ve got ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. I’ve got ancestors who took Yankee bullets in the name of the Confederacy. I’ve got ancestors who owned slaves and ones who didn’t. I’ve got ancestors who volunteered and ones who were conscripted. I’m sure they were all “good, Christian men” but the notion of taking up arms against your own country to defend the institution of slavery is morally abhorrent and, if I had the chance, I’d tell every single one of my ancestors how much they disgust me.
Because here’s the thing. The Civil War was very clearly about slavery. Look back at the secession conventions, they all heavily reference slavery. Alexander Stephens’ “Cornerstone Speech” makes it very clear that the whole point of war was to preserve the institution of slavery. Where there soldiers who didn’t own slaves? Yes. Does that make their cause more noble? No. The social structure of the Antebellum South relied on poor Southern whites believing they were “better” than Blacks and that slavery was the only thing protecting these poor white folks from being the bottom rung on the social ladder. Your ancestor and my ancestor may not have owned slaves, but they sure as heck had a vested interest in making sure slavery persevered, lest they face increased competition for skilled and unskilled labor.
A sin the United Sates and the Confederate States paid for over 160 years ago.
That sin hasn’t been fully atoned for. The war ended over 160 years ago, but Black Codes and Jim Crow laws made sure that the vestiges of slavery extended well into the 20th century. Even after the Civil Rights Act, discrimination in housing, in loan programs, in hiring have created massive wealth disparities between whites and blacks. We’ve said “sorry,” sure, but we haven’t actually done anything to rectify the very real hurt and deprivation our sin caused.
What party was responsible for those? The special on PBS on reconstruction is very enlightening.
Should we tear down all the Desoto, Columbus monuments because they don’t fit our standards today? Next thing you know it will be like ISIS in the middle east destroying all kinds of monuments that don’t fit their religion.
“Next thing you know…” This discussion is about Confederate monuments. You want to change the subject?
But anyway, I think people are, in some places, replacing Columbus memorials with others.
http://time.com/4968067/indigenous-peoples-day-columbus-day-cities/
What did Columbus do? He didn’t discover ‘America’. He wasn’t even the first European here. He brought disease and slaughter and slavery. He was lost. He tortured people. He will remain in the history books, but any reverence of him needs to be tempered with the rest of the story.
As someone of Scandinavian heritage, I’m totally down with the removal of monuments to Columbus.
The civil war was about money period. After the war the economy of the south was totally destroyed. How many of those large plantations existed after the civil war and of the few that did exist after the war who owned those?
Texas and Mississippi didn’t ratify the 13th until after its adoption and Mississippi didn’t fully until 2013 and that must have been when Mississippians were allowed to vote again… New Jersey also reject it and ratified after adoption. Georgia was also kicked back out of the union then readmitted in 1870 along with Texas and Mississippi The story of re-admittance is a little more complicated that you described.
I think Lincoln disagreed with you about the debt of slavery.
Benevolus I’ve read both inaugural addresses many times and there was a marked difference between the first and second. Now you have stated not once but twice that I’m wrong about Lincolns 2nd Inaugural address but you have not offered even once what you think it means. Ok let’s hear your thoughts, It is easy to stand on the sidelines and throw rocks, the floor is yours………
Lincoln wasn’t Jesus… we agree on that one. Lincoln was a tyrant. Heck he wasn’t even a Republican. He was a Whig just like his good friend Henry Clay. When the Whig party fractured and collapsed many ran to the Republican Party as Lincoln did. And BTW quoting Lincoln is not hypocritical in fact it would be wrong to not talk about Lincoln since he was the central figure of those times. If Lincoln had lived he would have been popular enough to have greatly reduced the impact the Radical Republicans had on reconstruction. Above all else the Radical Republicans were the cause of southern animosity.
I have offered what I think. Here is what I wrote on April 5 or 6:
I don’t think that means what you think it means.
The “bondsman” phrase is saying that it may be God’s will that every drop of blood spilled due to 250 years of slavery be repaid in blood of war. He wasn’t saying it was already paid, and he wasn’t talking about money.
And the idea that he wanted both the North and the South to bear responsibility for the war in no way indicates a debt paid in full.
Also:
“Yet, if God wills that it (the war) continue until all the wealth piled by…” How do you read any of this to mean that by that time Lincoln considered all debts paid? It’s pretty ludicrous on it’s face as the war wasn’t even actually over yet and reconstruction hadn’t even begun. There were many costs yet to come.
So, I don’t think that means Lincoln thought it was all about money, and I don’t think any of that indicates he thought some debt was already paid in full.
“Yet, if God wills that it (the war) continue until all the wealth piled by…” How do you read any of this to mean that by that time Lincoln considered all debts paid?
Why do you think Lincoln put the ““Yet, if God wills……” statement in there at all. The Bondsman and lash were how lincoln described paying for the sin of slavery.. That was the whole point of that speech.
I never said Lincoln thought is was all about money, I said that. That said tax revenue was on his mind or he would not have offered the consessions in his first Inagural. It was only the stupidity of southern politicians at the time not to take him up on it but then the course was likley predertimined anyway. The sin had to be paid.
Anyway the time has come to end this discussion. I’m sure we will have an opertunity to continue it in the future… Have a Great Day!
“Treason:
The crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.”
Confederate Governments were guilty of neither definitions of the noun “Treason” cited by the author above.
Our Southern Ancestors sought neither to impeach or kill President Lincoln, nor did we seek to overthrow the Federal Republic. They lawfully and Constitutionally sought to sunder the bonds of Union with other Sovereign States whose intractable ignorance of the conditions of Union and whose understanding of comity and harmony as purposed by the Founding Fathers had been corrupted by the terrorism of irrational abolitionists.
You should be aware that the rights granted to one Sovereign State by the Federal Government would necessarily attend to all the States. Not only was their no proscription in Federal Law against a Sovereign State’s secession from the Union, there also existed a Statutory Right specifically granted to The Republic of Texas to exercise such an action after it was granted Statehood by Consent and Agreement of the Congress of the United States.
It is interesting that the President Elect Lincoln never sought legal redress, in the Supreme Court, to remedy the Secession Movement, and that he failed to seriously negotiate or even discuss such acts as by the Southern States. Rather, he embarked on a provocative and bellicose course of actions, including failing to surrender military assets in South Carolina and even attempted to re-supply them absent any desire to find a peaceful remedy to both the political intransigence of certain Northern States, and the desire of Southern States to lawfully remove themselves from the Union.
Yes, Slavery was a critical issue in precipitating the War between the States, but you should be and most certainly are aware that Slavery was Legal and Constitutional during the previous 245 years of governance of the English Colonies and the United States. Period. At no time did the radical abolitionists offer to purchase the Freedom of Persons held in Slavery, not one penny offered to buy even one Negro’s freedom then, and not one promise of Forty Acres and a Mule ever fulfilled thereafter.
We will never know when the States of the Confederacy would have implemented programs to educate slaves, to free them from the yoke of slavery, to admit them as full citizens providing them with responsibilities and rights and social and cultural opportunities inherent in the stirring words of Thomas Jefferson and sincerely believed by a majority of Southerners, then and now.
But I can tell you this, the only thing the Union gave Slaves was the pathetic efforts of the Freeman’s Bureau, and 100 years of discrimination, of unequal educational and economic programs, of denied equality and segregation. From Dred Scott v. to Plessy v. until Brown v.,, Negroes Citizens of the Union were denied the opportunity and protection the Federal Government promised them. In fact, it took the prayers of the people, and the courage of Negro and Caucasian Progressives, over the last seventy years to begin to remedy the dark forces of oppression, discrimination and impoverishment which characterize the conditions of all disadvantaged Americans.
Not a single soldier, of any rank, who fought for secession had anything to do with political policy decisions made by every US President, every US Congress and every US Court from Lincoln through Obama. Slavery was, in historical perspective, a necessary moral evil, for without the contributions of such labor, neither the Southern States nor the United States of America would exist at all. Your ancestors would have remained in Africa, mine might well have abandoned Virginia and returned to England. Because of the economic value Slave Labor provided, Mr. Jefferson could find time to read the great books of the Enlightenment, as could Madison and Monroe, and conceive of a Country devoid of tyrants and monarchs. Mr. Washington could pursue the Martial education that allowed him to lead the Colonies and overcome the Greatest Military Power on Earth. And without Southern Cotton Tariffs, the United States would have failed, the Union dissolved, within the first Fifty Years of its existence. The World would now likely be populated by Nations whose contempt for freedom would be strident and whose love of material wealth would be existential.
The question I put to you, is who are you, 157 years after The Emancipation Proclamation, to question the Will of God? For God’s Will rules all our lives. Without the bondage of your ancestors, we would not be free today to have this conversation. Some philosophers and physicists describe a phenomena called “The Butterfly Effect.” Simply put, it is posited your life and your personal actions today can and will have effect on each and every living organism on Earth. So the simple act of someone turning a shovel in rich colonial soil brought you and me to this point in time. You can seek to disguise your heritage, or you can seek to embrace it. You can tear down the past, topple statues, splash paint on monuments, ridicule others different from you, but those actions will serve no positive purpose. They will certainly affect the behavior of others, but truthfully, wouldn’t that seem less in harmony with God’s Plan, and even Dr. King’s teaching? I marched for Civil Rights, not African American Rights, or Chicano Rights, or Appalachian Cracker Rights, I marched to fulfill the Will of my Creator, My Father and to promulgate the teachings of my Master, Jesus Christ.
What should upset you today is not my Confederate Heritage, nor your ancestor’s Slavery, but the need for justice and equality and temperance in our culture today, right now, right here in Georgia. It is well said, you cannot serve two masters, not the past and present; languish in one, you’ll lose faith in the other. You are in the Promised Land, start building anew the road to that glorious City on the Hill, I hope we’ll meet there! +++
Our Southern Ancestors sought neither to impeach or kill President Lincoln
See Booth, John Wilkes.
If you can’t even get the most basic facts right, how are we supposed to buy any of the other nonsense you’re peddling. Go back to the Daily Stormer with your revisionist b.s. about how slavery is actually a good thing and Lincoln was really to blame for the Civil War. Seriously, this is the dumbest, most backward thing I’ve ever read on this site and it’s an insult to those of us that are capable of rational thought.
“We will never know when the States of the Confederacy would have implemented programs to educate slaves, to free them from the yoke of slavery, to admit them as full citizens providing them with responsibilities and rights…”
Exactly, This is why counterfactual arguments (hypothetical history) don’t hold any substantive water. Because you’ll never know, and you shouldn’t just presume the best would have happened, or did or didn’t happen.
But if I pair Bull’s argument about how the sacrifice of the slaves was critical to the present World Order, with Raleigh’s argument about how the debt of slavery was paid for, what you get is that slavery was a “necessary” asset that was paid for by forceful removal of the asset from the owner. You can just consider all the benefits we now reap as residual interest (unearned/uncompensated).
You know, if the Jews had never been enslaved in Egypt, we wouldn’t be able to celebrate Passover today. Maybe the Jews would never had even become wandering desert refugees, or returned to historical Canaan/Israel. Maybe they would have. But success in spite of circumstance does not make the circumstance right. The question is whether or how we can judge historical decisions and people when they were acting in their historical contexts.
Obviously, we can.
But neither should we punish the presently living based upon the sins of the past. But there is no argument to presently punish (or enslave) anyone. The argument Is to merely move forward with modern understanding and updated morality, and stop vestiges of past punishment from revisiting the presently living. That’s something which should be unobjectionable.
“We will never know when the States of the Confederacy would have implemented programs to educate slaves, to free them from the yoke of slavery, to admit them as full citizens providing them with responsibilities and rights…”
I don’t know, I feel like nearly 100 years of “separate but equal” is a pretty glaring indication Southern states were in no particular rush to recognize Blacks as full citizens. Apartheid didn’t end until 1994, so let’s not pretend the South was going to have some magical great awakening regarding slavery and racism without the Federal government whipping their tail and putting a boot on their neck. Shoot, we’re still locking up African-Americans at a higher rate and charging them more severely than whites for the exact same crime. Then, once we’ve labeled them felons for something a white kid would only get a misdemeanor for, we deny them their full citizenship by taking away their right to vote.
“Maybe the South would have freed the slaves” isn’t the dumbest thing you said, but it’s pretty darn close. Let’s stretch that hypothetical a little. Does a country explicitly founded on the “cornerstone” belief in white supremacy side with the Allies in WWII? If you go back and read the speeches of Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, Howell Cobb, etc., the Confederacy seems like it would have been really down with Hitler’s whole “eradicate the Jews because they’re inferior to white people” line of thinking.
Should we call for the tearing down the pyramids as they are the greatest monument to slaves?
Pretty well-settled that the Jews (or slaves) didn’t build the pyramids. Just the first link on the results:
https://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/01/12/egypt-new-find-shows-slaves-didnt-build-pyramids
But that only shows the complexity of history. And the benefits of research, even if just a Google.
But with the Civil War and American slavery clearly being much more recent and still alive in all its reincarnations within modern America, the history is actually not ancient history. It’s living history.
But for argument’s sake, let’s assume that it was slave labor that built the pyramids. The decision to leave or demolish the pyramids would be I the hands of the modern Egyptians. And if there was a segment of Egyptian citizens who were descendants of former slaves that advocated for the demolition, I wouldn’t begrudge them.
Of course, it would be much easier just to remove, say, a 7-foot statue. Local control. Modern morals.
Pyramid. I mean period.
I am sure you meant Senator Mullis not Mullins.
This bill also gives more protections to other monuments as well.