User:Grayghost01/WBTS Revisionism

For those caring to have read this far, the topic of this special page is to discuss rampant Historical revisionism (negationism) pertaining to the War Between The States and its obvious, expected and predictable appearance in Wiki. I will be constantly adding to this page, but perhaps some of the material already here is worth sitting down, with a cup of coffee, and contemplating what is happening here on Wiki which is this: Like an island run by the Lord of the Flies, rampant tribalism naturally happens when folks hide behind the Kabuki masks. The American Civil War topic, one of these islands, has many articles which reflect a tone of the majority editors who have the time, and perhaps lack of a life or job, to constantly edit in their points of view. Ordinarily thats fine, as long as the island society is civil, and comprised of enlightened gentlemen, pursuing the capture of bona fide history. But from left stage enter the various Fly Lords, whose intent is only to find and edit in views from a certain angle. Cleverly they seek out sources to support their view. And all that is still fine, but the scale is tipped when they actively edit OUT any opposing documented materials, or edit in their views across dozens of articles under the guise of some over arching figure or issue. On this island, those guises are most often Lincoln and Slavery, the two mantras of the Primordial ACW Fly Lord: A Neo Yank.

First Things First

Before proceeding, however, we must get a few things clear. Over-riding emotion is often the mindset of many Neo-Yankees who have come to this page, convinced they are going to give this southern boy a "lesson" on why their tactic of citing a small group of Northern historians and revisionists is the absolute end of all debate. Debate must follow rules and principles of cordiality. Most well-bred southerners are properly educated, and so to tangle with me, logic will prevail in the elimination of falsehoods while on the journey to truth. While we cannot prove the truth, we can test it, and we can eliminate that which is not truth. Therefore, armed with education of the classic liberal arts, you must first follow these rules:

• The Law of Identity (LID)
• The Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC)
• The Law of Excluded Middle (LEM)
• The Principle of Root Cause

Let me give a brief example. One may say the war was caused by slavery, and another may say the war was not caused by slavery. One of these is false and one is true, and there is no other possibility. So please "ejukate yerself" before bringing either sterotypes or emotion to the table.

Fine Southern traditions

Thanksgiving

The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated on May 23, 1541 by 1500 Spanish explorers under Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in Palo Duro Canyon, in what is now Texas.

The second American Thanksgiving was celebrated on June 30, 1564 by French Hugeunot colonists in what is now Jacksonville, Florida.

The third American Thanksgiving was celebrated on Sept 8, 1565 in Florida by the Spanish settlers in St. Augustine, Florida.

The fourth American Thanksgiving was celebrated on April 30, 1598 at El Paso, Texas, again by Spaniards.

The fifth American Thanksgiving was celebrated on December 4, 1619 on the James River at Berkeley Hundred, in Virginia, and one of the early post-Jamestown settlements.

Finally ... after a long tradition of Southern holidays, and the usual Southern ability to always be very internationally minded (half the world rooted for and aided the CSA) ... a very strange thing happened. Sir Edwin Sandys, treasurer of the Virginia Company, persuaded King James to allow some Leiden Separatists to go settle a plantation on the northern boundary of Virginia, at 41-degrees north, around the Hudson River. Remember that Virginia ... and the south ... was much bigger back then. These Leider Separatists did not have the usual cunning navigational and frontier skills that your typical Southerners have. Needless to say they got lost, and their Mayflower boat landed at 41.95 degrees north latitude, aka Plymouth Colony. Being just a few miles beyond Northern Virginia, they eventually had to apply for a reorganized and separate charter, making these lost colonists even more separatist than they already were. Still not being separate enough, they also didn't have the usual Southern knack for good ole' fashioned hunting, and separated themselves from the potential of eating. The Indians, feeling very sorry for these First Yankees, and not realizing the future would bring millions of them to exterminate every last Indian in the land, mistakenly gave them food to eat, sometime in the fall of 1621. They lived. No one knows if they gave any Thanksgiving or not. But that was all Abraham Lincoln needed to know, when similarly surviving by the skin of his teeth as of November 1863, he declared the last Thursday of November to be the official Northern holiday of celebration of surviving (so far) a good butt-whooping from torque'd off Southerners. So, they just made up the day, it was good enough. Later, another Yankee New Yorker, Franklin Roosevelt, officially made it the third Thursday of November. But in the spirit of not being able to secede from anything, the last fourth Thursday stuck.

So, as you meet together in Thanksgiving, you may recall both the provision of the Lord ... and the kind of holiday that people make when they've messed with Southerners to a point that they are thankful to get out of the mess.

The General Mood

Deep South

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained.

Gen Robert E. Lee

The general mood in the south varied widely between the states and regions. Often the first fault of revisionist writers is treating the South as a whole entity in its cause. Generally all the southern states felt there was a constitutional argument for secession. For the original seven Deep South states, the argument was centered on the fact that slavery was constitutional, and since the North was violating the constitution in that regard, a nullification was in effect, and secession in order. Often revisionists paint a picture that the southern states simply liked or enjoyed slavery and wanted to perpetuate it. In reality I don't really think that was the case, but since slavery, good or bad, was constitutional, they made it an argument and wrote about in in their secession statements for the purpose of highlighting the Northern violation of obeying the constitution. In principle, then, they saw the North as reneging on the constitution. Many southerners pointed out that formal procedures to amend the constitution would have resolved this issue. Since the North didn't bother to amend the constitution on this issue until much later, it cannot be logically used in defence of the North for a cause of war, and the excuse cannot be that the U.S. Congress was "too busy" to suggest an amendment proposal, or that the Northern States were too busy to propose amendments. So the bottom line is that slavery, at that point, was legal, allowed and constitutional ... and if the North wanted it another way, but could not get enough interest to amend the constitution, then too bad. The "rules" were the "rules", and culturally the southern people were more of a "rule-obeying" type.

THE POINT: Slavery was a cause often cited for secession. It was one of the few true parts of the constitution being violated by the North, who generally agreed with the principle of secession. Since the Southern states needed correct legal justification to secede, Slavery was cited. Actual opinions on slavery varied widely both in the North and South. Few in the South actually owned slaves. And generally the Northern Anglo cultures are much more racist in nature (ironically). Therefore, in WIKI, the South is typically depicted as having seceded with no constitutional cause, and as a radically racist society. The first view is false, and the second view is mostly incorrect, as racism was extant throughout the North more than the South.

Border South

For the remaining states, the argument for secession was still a constitutional one, but the focus was shifted. The attempt by Lincoln to raise an army and invade other southern states was seen as a violation and nullification, and so secession was in order. From day one in our country, both as a confederation prior to the federation, and then under the federation, there has never been an understanding that the military can be used to do anything other than provide for the common defense. That common defense is against foreign threats, not internal ones. Internal issues must be handled by the rule of law. Since the southern states followed the rule of law by using lawfully elected congresses and conventions to declare independence, the first precedence of doing this was simply being upheld. So the core issue was the same: constitutional nullification by actions of the Northern states. And here a Virginian shows how that same core issue ellicited the same sentiment:

The moment it appeared beyond question that the people of the North, without distinction of party, were clamorous for a war of invasion and subjugation against us, our people accepted disunion as a fixed and irrevocable fact, and we stand this day a united people, ready with one mind and one voice, with one heart and one arm to make good the eternal separation which we have declared.

The issue of peace or war is in the hands of the North. We only ask to be let alone, and to be allowed to consult our interest and our safety in peace. If this is denied to us, mark the prediction, we will give you a fight which will stand out upon the page of history an example for all time of the determination with which a people can make war when they are conscious of having exhausted all honorable means of pacification.

— John B. Baldwin

And so the Southern states banded together and braced themselves. On principle, many argued against attacking the North, and so they did not. The South took the notionally honorable strategy of defense on the principle that they were not provoking a war, but in so doing, ironically fated themselves to a predictable outcome, since defense never wins a conflict. In today's world we call this principle "pre-emptive attack", in which one must always be on the offensive in anticipation of conflict. Thus, the South should have attacked if they were serious about winning, but their honor did not allow such a choice. This conundrum is a unique attribute of the Southern culture, which was predominantly Norman and "Cavalier" in character. So in the Southern mind, the secession was amply justified, and in the Southern mind, no war was provoked by them. The fact that the North nullified the constitution, and then attacked became a "double" fault.

Did Lincoln and Davis conduct invasions?

One truly bizarre topic of revisionism which I've come across in the Wiki ACW articles is on the subject of invasion. Several Wiki-contributors make it their pastime to religiously edit all articles which mention that the Lincoln administration and Federal forces invaded the southern states. Their theory seems to be that invasion connotes a negative and hostile intent coupled with immoral purposes. Professionally trained military officers know in an instant that this accusation against the word invasion is untrue. The "good" side with high moral purposes can excute the purely military maneuver of invading, and thus we, the United States, noble in purpose, have done so in instances such as the Normandy Invasion.

So let's review what the historians conclude:

On Lincoln

• In April, Lee declined a promotion to general and an army command of 75,000 men to invade the South. "Though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern states," Lee told an emissary for President Lincoln who had authorized the offer of command.

• And yet with an army of 75,000 volunteers, and without the least preparation, the Federal Government was about to attempt an enterprise of even greater magnitude. The Northern States were not bent merely on invasion, but on re-conquest; not merely on defeating the hostile armies, on occupying their capital, and exacting contributions, but bent on forcing a proud people to surrender their most cherished principles, to give up their own government, and to submit themselves, for good and all, to what was practically a foreign yoke.

• [WIKI]-In April 1861, after Union troops at Fort Sumter were fired upon and forced to surrender, Lincoln called on the governors of every state to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and "preserve the Union," which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. Virginia, which had repeatedly warned Lincoln that it would not allow an invasion of its territory or join an attack on another state, responded by seceding, along with North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

• Lincoln's call for troops to invade and coerce the newborn Confederacy, and Letcher's reply to that call, wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia, from the mountains to the sea.

• Lincoln did not launch a military invasion of the South to free the slaves. No serious student of history could deny this fact.

• There was a great deal of sympathy in the North for peaceful secession; even some of the most ardent abolitionists favored secession ... [and] there was a great deal of opposition in the North to using military force to compel the Southern states to remain in the Union, and the Federal army's defeat in the Battle of First Manassas intensified that opposition. Lincoln turned the firing upon Fort Sumter to his advantage in rallying Northern support for an invasion of the South, but more was needed: He apparantly decided that a severe crackdown on his political opposition was necessary, so he issued a declaration that he was suspending the writ of habeas corpus. This allowed him to order the military to arrest and imprison virtually anyone to voiced disagreement with his war policies ...

• ... the railroads at Winchester, Alexandria and Aquia Creek, leading as they did straight into enemy territory, were practically useless for defense and might at any time become avenues of Northern invasion.

• [WIKI]-It contained two alternatives, both with a prominent role for himself as commander. The first called for 80,000 men to invade Virginia through the Kanawha Valley toward Richmond.

• [WIKI]-As he quickly implemented plans to invade the region, he triggered his first serious political controversy by proclaiming to the citizens there that his forces had no intentions of interfering with personal property—including slaves.

• [WIKI]-The campaign started with a tactical defeat at Kernstown on March 23, 1862, when faulty intelligence led him to believe he was attacking a much smaller force than was actually present, but it was a strategic victory for the Confederacy, forcing President Abraham Lincoln to keep Banks' forces in the Valley and McDowell's 30,000-man corps near Fredericksburg, subtracting about 50,000 soldiers from McClellan's invasion force.

• [WIKI]-His [General Grant's] invasion campaign eventually bottled Lee up in the Siege of Petersburg, so that Grant could take Richmond, and bring the war to a close in the spring of 1865.

On Davis

• [WIKI]-At his inauguration on March 4, 1861, the German American Turners formed Lincoln's bodyguard; and a sizable garrison of federal troops was also present, ready to protect the capital from Confederate invasion and local insurrection.

• [WIKI]-Panicked by Lee's invasion of Maryland, Lincoln restored McClellan to command of all forces around Washington in time for the Battle of Antietam...

• Far more serious was General Lee's second invasion of Maryland and the North.

• [WIKI]-The Confederate forces held their position, but the battle was extremely bloody for both sides, and Lee withdrew the Army of Northern Virginia back across the Potomac River, ending the invasion.

• Lee's second invasion of the North had failed. The proud general withdrew toward the Potomac fords ...

• [WIKI]-His performance at the bloody Battle of Antietam blunted Lee's invasion of Maryland, but allowed Lee to eke out a precarious tactical draw and avoid destruction, despite being outnumbered.

• [WIKI]-Despite being a tactical draw, Antietam is considered a turning point of the war and a victory for the Union because it ended Lee's strategic campaign (his first invasion of the North) and it allowed President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation ...

• General Jubal Early's Confederate army had cleared the nearby Shenandoah Valley of Federal defenders and began the third invasion of the North in three years of war.

Mexican-American War

• [WIKI]-He witnessed Scott's success in balancing political with military affairs, and his good relations with the civil population as he invaded, enforcing strict discipline on his soldiers to minimize damage to their property.

Thus, it is readily and clearly apparant, using even just a few sources and some other existing Wiki articles, that the terms invading or invasion are commonly used. I see them in Civil War books constantly. In fact I've never even heard of anyone making an issue of this ... until I began contributing to Wiki. In reference to the movement of Lincoln's army into Alexandria, Virginia, I had used the word invade. By the time the Neo-Yank dust had settled, any article that I had ever contributed to, which happened to have that word, was emasculated, whether I had put it there or not. By virtue of putting this essay here, it is likely just a matter of time before all remaining uses of these words are taken out. This is called censorship, a value not endorsed in our culture, but which exists nonetheless. Perhaps the Normandy Invasion will eventually become the Normandy Liberation?

All things Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a truly amazing individual. Having been elected to the office of President of the United States with merely 39% of the popular vote, he was fantastic at pulling the wool over people's eyes. Sit back and enjoy the Real Lincoln:

1838

Lincoln eerily predicts his own future actions of death and destruction upon our homeland in this macabre address before a group of young men in Springfield, Illinois:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it 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.

— Abraham Lincoln in a speech at the lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

1858

Lincoln on the moral and intellectual capacity of other dark-skinned Americans:

I agree with Judge Douglas he [Negroes] is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment.

— Abraham Lincoln in the first debate with Stephen A. Douglas on August 21, 1858 in Ottawa, Illinois

During a speech in Charleston, Illinois in 1858, the extremely racist Lincoln expresses his white supremacist views:

I am not now nor have ever been in favor of bringing about any way the social or the political equality of a White and Black races. I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. This is a physical difference between the white and black races, which will forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.

— Abraham Lincoln, in the fourth debate with Stephen A. Douglas on September 18, 1858 in Charleston, Illinois

1861

Lincoln, from his good-ship-lollipop perhaps, caused folks to really scratch their heads with this war-baiting comment:

If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.

— Abraham Lincoln in a speech in Clevland, Ohio on February 15, 1861

I love this one:

The Government will not assail you.

— Abraham Lincoln to the Southern people in his first inaugural address, March 4, 1861

It has been argued that Lincoln waged a war to "preserve" the Union as an objective devoid of any desire to free slaves. Certainly much evidence exists to prove that point, but many Neo-Yankees delude themselves into thinking their cause was somehow virtuous when it was not. Here is the text of the ONLY proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution ever signed by a U.S. President, a candidate 13th amendment, offered in March of 1861. This proposed amendment would have allowed the Southern states to keep slavery if only they would stay in the Union. Because slavery was not the core issue, this amendment was rejected, and Lincoln, highly upset by that rejection, set his mind to wage war on the Southern states. Here is what Lincoln signed in that proposal:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person's held to labor or service by laws of said State.

— Text of Abraham Lincoln's proposed 13th Amendment

Lincoln's justification on why it was okay to break one major Constitutional concept to save another, while, oh-by-the-way, using it to conveniently toss 12,000 of his political opponents throughout the North into prison:

To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken, if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law, would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that 'The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it,' is equivalent to a provision---is a provision---that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion, or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made.

— Abraham Lincoln in a message to a special session of the U.S. Congress, July 4, 1861.

Soon thereafter, given the obvious rejection of the North and its inane proposals, the U.S. Congress passed this resolution on July 23, 1861. It clearly states the purpose of the war was to "defend" the Union and not to free slaves. Of course the "defense" of the Union happened to involve killing a million people all because the Southern states merely wanted out of what had become an experiment gone bad. Since when is killing Americans in the name of defending the "Union" a moral virtue? Here is the resolution:

The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.

— Resolution of the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861.

1862

Here is an incredible racist statement from the man who wanted to take every so-called "black" slave and free men and remove them to the Caribbean. The date: August 14, 1862. Abraham Lincoln invites a number of leading Americans (who happen to have dark skin, and who are descended from Africans) and gives them this whopper:

Why should people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is perhaps the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss. But this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours sufferes from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. You are free men here I suppose. Perhaps you have been long free, all of your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people, but even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with a white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.

— Abraham Lincoln, August 14, 1862 in the White House

Just to make sure people understood him clearly, Abraham reiterates his point later in the month:

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. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

— Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862

Still not sure Lincoln had some cock-eyed colonization scheme?

I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization [of Negroes to anywhere but here].

— Abraham Lincoln's second annual message to the U.S. Congress, December 1, 1862

Others

Other whoppers by the warmongering racist:

I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.

— Abraham Lincoln

Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a Republican administration would directly or indirectly interfere with their slaves or with them about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you that once as a friend, and still I hope not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.

— Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Alexander Stevens (later the Vice President of the CSA)

Post War View

Lee attended a meeting of ex-Confederates in 1870, during which he expressed regrets about his surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, given the effects of Republican Reconstruction policy on the South. Speaking to former Confederate Governor of Texas Fletcher Stockdale, he said:

Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.

— Robert E. Lee

Southern Salute to Revisionism

This sign, hanging on the historic old train depot in Strasburg, Virginia, is the greatest finger to Neo-Yankee revisionism that I think I've ever seen posted anywhere in all the South, ever, in all my touring of WBTS sites. Those folks in Strasburg sure know how to send a message! Way to go, Strasburg.

Perhaps one of the better rewards about Wiki is that when all things are out in the open, eventually baloney becomes exposed. Perhaps no greater baloney has been exposed than the denial that good ole Captain Thomas Sharp and Colonel Thomas Jackson pulled off one of the most fantastic, needs-to-be-a-movie feats of all time: the Great Train Raid of 1861. In the utter chaos of the opening moments of the Great Unpleasantness, while the goofball Yanks were busy jumping on their "prize", Alexandria, Virginia, the Lost Cause fanatics were trading that worthless military target for a much more lucrative take down: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. And despite the fact that the President of the railroad, John W. Garrett, reported that his entire operation was shut down for about 10 months, there are those who simply cannot accept the obvious. John Garrett was not that kind of man, though. And much to his credit he looked up ole Captain Sharp after the war and, by golly, hired him to run that railroad. Anyone who could pull off what Captain Sharp did, Garrett figured, was the kinda man he needed. And the rest ... is history.

References

• Adams, Charles. "The High Ground", When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.
• Augusta County: John B. Baldwin to George M. Cochran, May 12, 1861. News Clipping, John Hartwell Cocke. Papers, Accession #640, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Virginia.
• Basler, Roy P., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.
• DiLorenzo, Thomas J., The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. New York, Three Rivers Press, 2003.
• Evans, Clemant A., Confederate Military History; Volume III - Virginia by Maj. Jedidiah Hotchkiss. The National Historical Society, 2008, facsimile reprint, originally printed in Atlanta, by Confederate Publishing Company, 1899
• Henderson, G.F.R., Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War. New York, Van Rees Press; Longmans, Green and Co., Reprinted 1955.
• Johnson, Clint, The Politically Incorrect Guide to The South. Washington, D.C., Regenery Publishing, Inc., 2006. ISBN 1-59698-500-1
• Johnston II, Angus James, Virginia Railroads in the Civil War, University of North Carolina Press for the Virginia Historical Society, 1961.
• Phillips, David, Maps of the Civil War: The Roads They Took, Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-7607-6878-1
• Stover, John F., History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Purdue University Press, 1987, ISBN 1-55753-066-1