Pentagon Is Reinstalling Portrait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee with a slave at West Point Library

There are at least three news articles about this subject! However, none of these article show an image of this portrait.

Ain't this peculiar!

"The Pentagon is restoring a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, which includes a slave guiding the Confederate general’s horse in the background, to the West Point library three years after a congressionally mandated commission ordered it removed, officials said. ..."

Pentagon Is Reinstalling Portrait of Confederate General at West Point Library - The New York Times

Portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee with Slave Rehung at West Point

Pentagon to restore Confederate general portrait at West Point library

Gen. Maxwell Taylor and other dignitaries and guests at the unveiling of the portrait of Robert E. Lee at West Point on January 19, 1952.  (Source)

President Calvin Coolidge: The United Nation (He gave two speeches on Memorial Day 5/24/1924)

In my opinion, the American Civil War was totally unnecessary and preventable! Most likely it was one of the earliest major events in American history that ushered in the age of big government. The war was not about ending slavery, but preventing a perfectly legal secession. The American Civil War was also contrary to the belief of the Founding Fathers and Mothers in a gradual and eventual elimination of slavery. From this perspective, e.g. Abraham Lincoln was no great president!

"What’s the meaning of Memorial Day?

Back in Calvin Coolidge’s era, the holiday remained close to its origins: honoring the soldiers who died in the Civil War. Soldiers on both sides.

That’s why, a hundred years ago, President Coolidge delivered not one but two Memorial Day speeches…

…one at Arlington National Cemetery’s Confederate Memorial and the other at the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. ...

Coolidge acknowledges the issues that divided North and South but emphasizes that both sides have much in common.  

And Coolidge calls on us to rededicate ourselves to union and peace. America’s flag, he says, floats over all of us, no matter our differences. America has emerged from conflict as a “united nation.”

Coolidge offers another bracing reminder:

“American citizenship is a high estate. He who holds it is the peer of kings.”"

Calvin Coolidge: News from the Notch

The United Nation

William T Sherman: The First Modern General

Recommendable!

"Nonsense on Stilts": The Rhetorical Cornerstone of the American Welfare/Warfare State expressed in the Gettysburg Address

Food for thought! I am not a fan of President Lincoln! The southern states had every right to secede. The American Civil War was not fought over slavery! The Gettysburg Address is a much overrated speech. Slavery would have been abolished without the American Civil War like it happened all over the world in the course of time!

The American Civil War probably destroyed much of what the Founding Fathers and Mothers originally created!

"... “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” ...

It is easy to come to the conclusion after reading Graham’s book that it is hard to imagine a larger collection of falsehoods ever packed into a single political speech anywhere at any time than the Gettysburg Address. In essence, the Address was a radically false rendition of the American founding designed to fool the public into believing that the founding fathers did after all create a highly centralized, monopolistic superstate with virtually unlimited powers. ...

Following Mencken’s example, Graham picks apart the Address by the old railroad industry trial lawyer/lobbyist, slick phrase by slick phrase. First of all, no “new nation” was brought forth “four score and seven years ago” as Lincoln absurdly asserted.  ...
Lincoln’s claim that America is a “nation” dedicated to the “proposition” that all men are created equal is a non-sequitur for several reasons, including the fact that it was never established as a “nation” but as a collection of sovereign states (with sovereign rights to raise taxes and wage war, as all sovereign states do, according to the Declaration). Besides, as Graham points out, a “proposition” is something that can be either true or false. This means that these words of the slick railroad trial lawyer from Illinois were, well, a meaningless jumble. Moreover, the founders would have been amused to learn that they created a “nation” predicated on a “proposition” that could be either true or false. ..."

"Nonsense on Stilts": The Rhetorical Cornerstone of the American Welfare/Warfare State | Mises Wire

President James Buchanan: A Legacy of Failure

Very recommendable! However, the title and content of this video are extreme views! The American Civil War was about secession not slavery!

Yale scholar helps U.S. military rename Confederate memorials. Really!

Rewriting history is almost always a dangerous proposition especially when it serves the predominant ideology of the day!

Erasing the names of individuals who are now considered to be politically incorrect is terrible propaganda!

How far will the senile and demented 46th President and his largely incompetent administration go in these efforts!

Some of the views of this Yale scholar, i.e. Mr. Connor Williams, are quite dubious if not schocking (see e.g. my highlighted excerpt below)!

By 1861, it was already very obvious that slavery was going to be phased out by many Western countries in particular by Great Britain! E.g. the British Empire abolished the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1807. See also e.g. the  history of Abolitionism. Thus, a war over ending slavery was highly unnecessary!

The American Civil War was not about slavery, but about preventing secession and dominance of the industrial northern/eastern states over the more agrarian southern states!

"... His job as lead historian was to ensure that the commissioners got their history right. He advised them as they considered renaming or altering the hundreds of U.S. Department of Defense assets — bases, roads, buildings, monuments, and military insignias — that celebrate those who betrayed the United States in defense of slavery. He also helped write the historical sections of their reports to Congress and recommended new names for some bases.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III approved the commission’s recommendations, including the renaming of the nine bases, and ordered that the changes be implemented by Jan. 1, 2024. ...
"The case began with this fact: Whatever one wants to think about the Confederates — whatever they believed about states’ rights or the right to secede from the Union — they were insurrectionists who unquestionably killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. Army soldiers. [?????] This is where history really helps because many people sincerely believe that during the war, the United States had split into the Union and the Confederacy — separate, equal nations each with its own government." ..."

Yale scholar helps U.S. military rename Confederate memorials | YaleNews Graduate student Connor Williams discusses his work as lead historian for a commission charged with renaming U.S. military assets commemorating the Confederacy.

Fort Polk, a U.S. Army installation in Louisiana named after Confederate General Leonidas Polk, soon will be renamed after Sergeant Henry Johnson, a Black American soldier who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2015 for valor during World War I.

Yale scholar:

The “Lieber Code” – the First Modern Codification of the Laws of War in 1863

Another reason, why President Lincoln was not such a great president!

As I have stated here several times before (e.g. here), the American Civil War was a very bloody, unnecessary, and unconstitutional war! And President Lincoln is responsible for it!

"... However, some of the rules are no longer permissible under modern humanitarian law. Article 17 for example provides that it is lawful to starve civilians:

"War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy. ..."

The “Lieber Code” – the First Modern Codification of the Laws of War | In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress

Lieber Code

Credits: A report on food as a weapon of war by India's WION news channel. See my blog post here

Abraham Lincoln in 1861: "I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it"

I believe, President Abraham Lincoln is a highly overrated U.S. president. The American Civil War was unnecessary, unconstitutional and not about slavery, but about secession (read more about it here)!

Perhaps, in those days, the phrase he used ("I would rather be assassinated") was innocent or frequently employed, but he may have also hinted at his obsession.

Lincoln was probably very narrow minded and maniac about secession. Simply, he would not allow it to happen over his dead body! His obsession that slavery would be expanded into the new territories is also peculiar!

"... But, if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle---I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the Government. ..."

"... In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed -

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South. ..."

Address at Independence Hall - Lincoln Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

House Divided Speech

John Brown: The Man Who Ignited the American Civil War

Very recommendable!

The story of slavery in Canadian history

This article by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is highly dubious and questionable!

Did you know that Slavery was abolished in state of Vermont, USA in 1777?

Or that slaves from Canada ran away across border to Vermont, USA?

Samples of dubious and questionable excerpts:

1. "... Slavery in what is now Canada predates the arrival of Europeans, with some Indigenous peoples enslaving prisoners taken in war. Europeans brought a different kind of slavery to North America, however. Unlike Indigenous people, Europeans saw enslaved people less as human beings and more as property that could be bought and sold. ..."
   Of course, when indigenous peoples take slaves that is so different from slavery by Europeans! Sounds like the Noble Savage? What a nonsense!
2. "... Europeans viewed slavery in racial terms, with Indigenous and African people serving and white people ruling as masters ..."
   What a rubbish and nonsense! And indigenous peoples or African peoples?
   
3. "The transatlantic slave trade helped shape the presence and role of slavery in Canadian history. ... European merchants ... In Africa, they would exchange their goods for enslaved people and then transport them to the Americas, often in cramped and inhumane conditions ... Slavers saw their trade from a purely economic standpoint and viewed enslaved people as just another set of “goods” they could transport and sell. With this mentality, slavers denied the fundamental human rights ..."
   What about all the Africans who were involved selling other Africans as slaves? What about the involvement of Muslims/Arabs? What a baloney! Somebody was trying hard to make some artificial distinctions about slavery and to demonize the Europeans!

"... The practice of slavery among Indigenous groups in Canada varied from one group to another. ...
... the Code noir (Black Code), a slavery rulebook from 1743 brought from France to Canada. Although there is no evidence the Code Noir was formally proclaimed in New France, it appears to have been used as customary law. ...
The colony of New France, founded in the early 1600s, was the first major settlement in what is now Canada. Slavery was a common practice in the territory. When New France was conquered by the British in 1759, records revealed that approximately 3,600 enslaved people had lived in the settlement since its beginnings. The vast majority of them were Indigenous (often called Panis), but Black enslaved people were also present because of the transatlantic slave trade. ...
Slavery continued after the British conquest of New France in 1763. The territory was eventually renamed British North America, and Black enslaved people came to replace Indigenous enslaved people. Compared to the United States, enslaved people made up a much smaller proportion of the population in British North America. This means that some of the worst traits of slavery in America, such as the employment of overseers and the horrible practice of forcing enslaved people to reproduce, did not happen in what is now Canada. [Was the author trying to say there were no plantations in Canada?] ...
Most wills [in Canada] from the time treated enslaved people as nothing more than property, passing on ownership of human beings the same as they would furniture, cattle or land. Defiant or troublesome enslaved people were often severely punished. Physical and sexual abuse was always a very real threat. [Ah, in the U.S. they were forced to reproduce, but in Canada there was only a threat of sexual abuse.] ...
Enslaved people often resisted the institution of slavery. They fought back in many different ways: by asserting their humanity in the face of a system that wished to deny it to them, by running away from masters or by assisting other runaways. In fact, in 1777, a number of enslaved people escaped from British North America into the state of Vermont, which had abolished slavery in that same year. ...
In British North America, if Black enslaved people were freed, they often still had to work as indentured servants for several years. ...
By the late 1700s, attitudes to slavery among the free population of British North America were beginning to change. On March 25, 1807, the slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire – of which British North America was a part – making it illegal to buy or sell human beings and ending much of the transatlantic trade. Slavery itself was abolished everywhere in the British Empire in 1834. ...
Some Canadian jurisdictions had already taken measures to restrict or end slavery by that time. In 1793 Upper Canada (now Ontario) passed the Anti‐slavery Act. The law freed enslaved people aged 25 and over and made it illegal to bring enslaved people into Upper Canada. On Prince Edward Island, the complete abolition of slavery was pronounced by the legislature on 1825 ..."

The story of slavery in Canadian history | CMHR It happened here, too. When Canadians talk about slavery, we often point with pride to the role our country played in the mid‐1800s as a safe haven for Americans escaping captivity via the Underground Railroad. This, however, is only half the story.

Notes regarding John C. Calhoun

As they say, the victor gets to write the history! Anybody, who believes that the American Civil War was about slavery, is a fool!

"... In the late 1820s, his views changed radically, and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification, and opposition to high tariffs. He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861. ..."

John C. Calhoun - Wikipedia

Compensated Emancipation Of Slaves

Posted: 6/22/2019

An Unnecessary War

I have long and repeatedly argued here that the American Civil War was totally unnecessary and unconstitutional! Secession of states was legal, but the preservation of the union by any means including war was blatantly illegal!

The negative ramifications of the American Civil War have been many and they still affect today. Big Government is one of the consequences of this civil war!

Compensated Emancipation

I have to thank Larry Elder to direct my attention to this subject in one of his recent Facebook posts. However, Larry Elder quoted the Independent article (S1) in support of defeating those ridiculous compensation claims by the left!

Whether you like it or not, compensated emancipation (S2) was certainly one way to end slavery without blood shed! In their great wisdom, Great Britain and other countries chose this route to end slavery! “The British Empire enacted a policy of compensated Emancipation for its colonies in 1833, followed by Denmark, France in 1848, and the Netherlands in 1863.” (S2; emphasis added)

So the U.S. Congress as well as the northern states egregiously failed to pass legislation to compensate slave owners despite the obvious lessons of these European countries! So failed the abolitionists to come together and offer to buy slaves in large numbers or to compensate individual slave owners to give up slavery!

“Only in the District of Columbia, which fell under direct Federal auspices, was compensated emancipation enacted. On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law prohibited slavery in the District, forcing its 900-odd slaveholders to free their slaves, with the government paying owners an average of about $300 for each.” (S2; emphasis added)

Sources (S):

1. Britain's colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition
2. Compensated emancipation

Some Inconvenient Truths About The American Civil War

Posted: 5/27/2017

Trigger

Just read this excellent, but old and very long article https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/was-the-south-poor-before-the-war/

This dated article describes at length why the ante bellum southern states were very rich; had a significant, broad, affluent middle class; and enjoyed economic prosperity very comparable or even better than the northern states.

Purpose

Victors of war rewrite history to suit their purpose. This was no different with the American Civil War!

Anyone familiar with my blog posts, realizes that I am very critical of the necessity of this total American Civil War (slavery was a pretense, secession was the cause) and how very much overrated President Lincoln is, who failed to stop or quickly end this enormous, senseless bloodshed. Slavery would have disappeared anyway without this terrible war. Slavery was already doomed in most western countries at the time, even in Russia.

Even buying all slaves and grant them freedom would have been so much cheaper and more civilized!

Some Salient Quotes

Quotes & Comments (emphasis added):

1. “... Numerous books on Southern history speak of such terms as “the slaveholding dynasty,” the “proud Southern ‘barons,'” and others.[34]  Cairnes titled his polemic The Slave Power. Northerners resented the perceived Southern political domi­nance of the country.[35] Southern wealth undoubtedly produced jealously and resentment on the part of many Northern people. Coupled with the political power of the South and the arguments of the Republican Party, there was ample incentive for Northerners to want to clip the wings of the slaveholders, to reduce their power and even their affluence. ...”
2. “Cairnes quotes Lord Sterling in Letters from the Slave States as saying “for all practical purposes we may still regard Southern society as consisting of aristocratic planters and ‘white trash’””
   [If you ever wondered where the expression “white trash” comes from and how far it dates back and that is was e.g. a British nobleman who used it. John E. Cairnes was a widely respected British economist of the classical kind.]
3. “On the other “hand, Southern wealth and prosperity helps explain-why the Southern states were so bold as to secede and so confident that they could successfully establish an Independent nation. The depth of that wealth, its extension throughout society on a close par with the North, helps explain why the masses of Southerners supported secession and the Confederacy.”
4. “Per capita wealth in Southern States ranged from over $2,000 in Mississippi and South Carolina to under $600 in only one.  The per capita wealth of only Connecticut and New Jersey in the North and Oregon on the Pacific rose above $700 and one state, Kansas, fell below $300. Twelve Southern states had per capita wealth above $800 while there were no Northern states so wealthy.
   Even should all the slaves be counted as potential wealth-holders, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina would remain as the nation’s wealthiest states. Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas would join them as more affluent than any Northern state except Connecticut. Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware would be wealthier than New York, and North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri would be richer than New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.”

Cotton Was King

During the ongoing industrial revolution, most of British cotton imports came from the southern states. This was big business in its time. To prevent it, Lincoln quickly imposed the naval blockade on southern ports etc.

That the UK and other countries quickly declared the Confederates as belligerent. “Great Britain declared belligerent status on May 13, 1861, followed by Spain on June 17 and Brazil on August 1. This was the first glimpse of failure for the Confederate South” (source)

Previous, Related Blog Posts

American Civil War

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Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln - A Destroyer From Within

Posted: 8/21/2016

Introduction

Anyone, who followed my blog posts, realizes that I am not a big fan of this highly overrated president in particular. I think, he is grossly overrated not least because he became a martyr!

Trigger

I recently learnt of the misattributed, but popular quote “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

What he really said that comes close to the quote above is:

“I answer, if  [an approach of danger] ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” (From the Lyceum address of 1838; emphasis added).

Where Lincoln Terribly Erred

I have only recently discovered excerpts from other speeches of Lincoln, which suggest he was gravely mistaken about the union and the sovereignty of states as well as the right to secede by any state (emphasis added, commentary added):

1. “The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully , withdraw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State. … This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State - to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. … The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. ” (Source 1)
2. “Therein [Declaration of Independence] the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States;" but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show.” (Source 1)
3. “The Union is older than any of the [confederate] States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union.” (Source 1)
   [Incredible, Lincoln said this nonsense!]
4. “The nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of these States were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off without consent or without making any return?” (Source 1)
5. “The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status.”
6. “The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.”
7. “Again: If one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall have seceded none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to creditors?” (Source 1)
   [This nonsensical argument does not justify a total civil war! This is a matter for negotiation of which Lincoln was apparently not very capable of.]
8. “Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled—the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains—its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.” (Source 1)
9. “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.” (Source 2)
10. “Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.” (Source 3)
    [This comparison is simply nonsense!]

At the moment, I do not have the time to do more research or address all the points Lincoln argued in the above excerpted quotes. However, one thing is perfectly clear his reasoning is fundamentally flawed.

Each of the 13 original states had a distinct history of its own and they came together as sovereign entities to form a union for common defense etc. For Lincoln to claim that the southern states came into being only by grace of the union is absurd.

That Lincoln’s arguments (especially states are only adjuncts to the union) are awfully flawed is also found in the U.S. Constitution Article V, i.e. a convention of states has the power to alter the constitution.

Sources:

1. Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)
2. Letter to Horace Greeley (1862)
3. First Inaugural Address (1861)

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