Apologizing for Slavery: Is it Enough?

An article appeared in The Record, a New Jersey paper’s online edition, on January 13 discussing New Jersey’s apology for slavery.  The author discusses the vote and the fact that N.J. contained major ports for incoming slaves that were then sold to plantations in the south.  He then mentions that it would not be until 1866 that N.J. would free her slaves and become the last state to ratify the 13th Amendment.  Following this comment, the author has this to say about the apology

“Assemblyman William Payne, D-Newark, sponsored the apology bill. But an apology is not enough. Whispered expressions of regret might inspire a few feel-good moments; the more pervasive destruction is not as easy to address.”

and…

“The apology for slavery should by no means close the door on the discussion of reparations, a concept that deserves a full debate not just in Congress, where political interests cloud reason, but also in academia and business.”

Now, I do not believe that an apology for slavery should close the door on reparations either, I also do believe that if we are going to talk reparations (which is really like talking $$$$) then we need to really have our facts of history correct and be able to define those who would receive reparations in an acceptable and historically accurate way.  To paraphrase Lincoln, Therein lies the rub!

I think that it will be near impossible to determine who will pay for the reparations and who will recieve them. Shall I be taxed?  My ancestors fought for the Union during the War of the Rebellion and helped bring about emancipation, reluctanly or willingly.  The first President Bush signed a bill of reparations in 1988 for those Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned during WWII, but most of them were still living or at least their children were around to collect.  But what about slaves, there has not been a slave in America since 1865.  What will then, be the process of determining the geneology of those who might apply for these reparations?

I think the larger question here is not who will get the money, but will the money change any thing!  Currently the Congress and President are discussing the passage of an economic stimulus package of $150 billion to get the economy going and move it out of what some say is the start of a recession.  Would $150 billion put the country on a path of grappling with the unresolved issues of emancipation and civil rights?

Billy

Obmana Wins In South Carolina

I can see the headlines in the papers in South Carolina tomorrow…

Obama Wins Big in S.C., While Wade Hampton Spins in His Grave!!

$25,000 Expression of Regret!

 

The article found here, states that the a descendent of the founder of the University of Missouri has donated $25,000 to the schools Black Studies program.  This is in turn sort of an acknowledgement that slavery was wrong and the man’s family was fully involved in the institution.

 I can only imagine what other groups could have done with $25,000.  The SCV could have used it to help with the clean up of the Confederate statue in Montgomery turned Black Confederates.  Or, they could have used it to do research into more Black Confederates and decorate their graves.  Who knows what that amount of money could really do to uncover that which is not covered.

David Strother’s El Paso Homes

Here are pictures of the two homes in which David Strother owned in El Paso, Illinois.  Click on each of the pictures to see a then and now photo of each home.

David Strother: Embodiment of the Emancipation

El Paso, Illinois is the home of David Strother who was the first black man to vote in Illinois under the 15th Amendment in 1870 and the second to vote under the amendment in the entire U. S. 

Here is an article in the Pantagraph that explains the importance of Mr. Strother to the community of El Paso, IL.

The Importance of Memory & A Lesson Learned.

There are times in ones life in which he or she realizes that they had be wrong or are allowed to see the light.  Now if your a neo-confederate reading this you may be thinking that old Billy Yank has seen “your light”…meaning I have been swayed to your way of thinking.  Nope!

You see, there was a time when I was doing family history in my area and I passed by a place of business and thought to myself that I would not like to work in a place like that only to find myself employed in that place of business only a few years later.  Recently, I had another experience similar to the one above.  While presenting some of the Ken Burns Civil War series to my U. S. History classes I remembered my early reactions to comments made by both Shelby Foote and Barbara Fields.  I was, at the time, just becoming interested in the war and reenacting and I thought Barbara Fields’ comments were not as interesting as all the other things being presented in the documentary.  Now, 18 years latter, her words are some of the most important and relvant words spoken in the entire film in regards to how we as Americans remember the war.  Here is what she said..

“For me, the picture of the Civil War as a historic phenomenon is not on the battlefield. It’s not about weapons; it’s not about soldiers, except to the extent that weapons and soldiers, at that crucial moment, joined in the discussion about something higher-about humanity, about human dignity, about human freedom.”

The more I read the likes of David Blight and Kevin Levine’s blog on Civil War Memory the more those words ring true.

So Thank You…Barbara Fields…I have learned a valuable lesson about jumping to conclusion and not listening in the first place.

Illinois’ Capture Confederate Flags

To this day, Illinois still retains a number of confederate flags that her soldiers won fairly on the field of battle.

Check them out here

From the site…”The State of Illinois has in its collection captured Confederate flags where were not returned to the former Confederate states. During the Civil War, there was no specific directive concerning the disposition of Confederate flags captured by the Union troops. In some cases the flags were passed up through the ranks to army command while at other times the flags were retained by the men in the company or regiment who had captured them. By the end of the War there were at least 500 Confederate flags in the possession of the U. S. Government. In 1887 President Grover Cleveland ordered the return of the captured flags in possession of the U. S. Government but the order was rescinded following political pressures from Union veteran organizations. However, in 1905 the government returned the captured Confederate flags to the Governor of each of the former Confederate states and to the appropriate border states. Those flags which were not associated with a specific State or where the State of origin was unknown were deposited at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.Many of the Confederate flags in possession of the Northern States were also return, but Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin along with the Chicago Historical Society retained possession of some of the captured flags.”

Now this is a Hate Crime!

Here is an article in the Chicago Sun-Times that is truely a Hate Crime, not some white kids painting the faces and hands of soldiers on a confederate monument and mentioning Nat Turner.

Dilorenzo: Following Ron Paul’s Bad History Lesson

Recently Tommy Dilorenzo has been bashing Lincoln with his normal use of poor history.  One would think that after studying Lincoln as much as he should have to write two books on the man, he would have a better understanding of Lincoln’s actions and words.  But, it appears his agenda and neo-confederatism seem to constantly get in his way.

 Some of the things Dilorenzo, quoting Judge Naplotano’s book “The Constitution in Exile”, contends is “In order to increase his federalist vision of centralized power, ‘Honest’ Abe misled the nation into an unnecessary war. He claimed that the war was about emancipating slaves, but he could have simply paid slave owners to free their slaves . . . . The bloodiest war in American history could have been avoided.”

Had Dilorenzo really studied Lincoln or the causes of the war, he would really understand that Lincoln and the Republicans were wanting to restrain slavery…keep it from spreading into the common territories…not to abolish it were it was already well established.  Lincoln’s promotion of Colonization was prompted by a desire to solve the “black” question.  Lincoln knew very well that it would be hard for blacks and whites to live together on equal footing here, so colonization seemed a good idea at the time.  Lincoln even invited some black leaders to the White House to disucss voluntary colonization…and they refused the idea…in essence demanding thier freedom and equality here in America.  Had Lincoln been the tyrant the neo-confederates claim he was, would he have given them a chance to share their thought or to have a say in colonization?

I once emailed Mr. Dilorenzo and asked him about the role of the south in the secession crisis and what effect it may have had on Lincoln’s action.  His reply was telling of his agenda…he said in effect that he had not dealt much with the southern actions in the coming of the war since his book was on Lincoln’s actions.  I thought this odd… It would seem that the two may be linked in some way.

 Towards the end of his peice on Lincoln he says…

“Unlike all those hopelessly miseducated neocon pundits who sneered at Ron Paul’s statements regarding how Lincoln did tremendous damage to the principles of the American founders, Judge Napolitano is well schooled in constitutional history. He writes of Lincoln’s complete trashing of the Constitution by “murdering civilians, declaring martial law, suspending habeas corpus, seizing . . . private property without compensation (including railroads and telegraphs), conducting a war without the consent of Congress, imprisoning nearly thirty thousand Northern citizens without trial, shutting down . . . newspapers, and even deporting a congressman (Clement L. Vallandigham from Ohio) because he objected to the imposition of an income tax.”

My question to Dilorenzo or any other of his ilk is, would this have happened if the south had not seceded in 1860-1861?  Instead of blaming Lincoln for a war that cost 620,000 lives maybe we should blame the south for it mean and self-centered act of Secession.  Secession against the Constitutional election of a man to the Office of the President, who through his election, stated clearly and plainly to the people of the country his position on the issues of slavery and its expansion. 

Dilorenzo asks us to think of the civil liberties lost each time we look a five dollar bill…but neither he nor Napolitano ever seem to find time to enumerate or discuss these lost liberties.  I wish I knew what I was really missing in this country thanks to President Lincoln.  Surely it must be more than that little old thing called slavery!

Billy

Ron Paul’s Racist Past?

Here is an artilce that has just been published at The New Republic about Ron Paul’s questionable past.

 Read it here

Also note that the article is not very old, 1-8-08, and there are already 1200+ responses…impressive, I guess!

 Here are the samples of his “newsletter”