Take a Deep Breath About Confederate Nostalgia

 

shutterstock_149387531In the Washington Post, James L. Loewen makes an interesting point about Civil War monuments:

Take Kentucky, where the legislature voted not to secede. Early in the war, Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston ventured through the western part of the state and found “no enthusiasm, as we imagined and hoped, but hostility.” Eventually, 90,000 Kentuckians would fight for the United States, while 35,000 fought for the Confederate States. Nevertheless, according to historian Thomas Clark, the state now has 72 Confederate monuments and only two Union ones…

Neo-Confederates also won parts of Maryland. In 1913, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) put a soldier on a pedestal at the Rockville courthouse. Maryland, which did not secede, sent 24,000 men to the Confederate armed forces, but it also sent 63,000 to the U.S. Army and Navy. Still, the UDC’s monument tells visitors to take the other side: “To our heroes of Montgomery Co. Maryland: That we through life may not forget to love the thin gray line.”

Why did this happen? The answer, he posits, is that the Confederacy and its 20th century apologists had a better, more active, and more persistent propaganda machine than did the Union. The effects of those efforts persist to this day, he argues, pointing out not only the glowing monuments and namesakes, but how many textbooks continue to present the Confederate cause as being more about states’ rights than slavery.

Honoring the Confederacy today is probably largely harmless: the case of Dylann Roof is interesting primarily because of how much of an aberration he represented. Ironically, however, it’s probably that way in no small part because of the ahistorical whitewashing its apologists accomplished. David French likely speaks for many when he writes that, during his childhood, he saw the Confederate flag as an essential part of honoring his family’s long (and continuing) martial history.

Figuring out how to navigate all of this is hard in a country as fundamentally decent and liberal as the United States. We know how crippling dealing with the truth of its past turned out to be for Germany (which, on the whole, may not be such a bad thing). In our case, however, we’re dealing with a controversy that is both more historically distant and less likely to have serious implications in the present day. That’s worth remembering every time the media gets a little too breathless about Confederate nostalgia.

 

Published in General, History
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  1. Mr. Dart Inactive
    Mr. Dart
    @MrDart

    Seems like a good place to post that today is the day that debate has begun in the South Carolina General Assembly that will lead to a vote to decide the fate of the Battle Flag currently flying next to the monument to South Carolina’s Confederate Army War Dead.

    Debate has been lively as you might well imagine.  One amendment has been proposed and voted down 36-3.  That amendment would have turned the decision over to the people of South Carolina in a special referendum.  They then turned to an amendment allowing the flag to be flown at the memorial one day a year, May 10th.

    Once debate is over in the Senate the bill will be moved to the House for a vote– likely on Wednesday.  The only amendment in the House so far is one to replace the current flag with the Bonnie Blue flag.

    • #1
  2. user_44643 Inactive
    user_44643
    @MikeLaRoche

    Nikki Haley is a disgrace.

    • #2
  3. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    I’m also a bit surprised by Conservatives (like Peter Robinson in a recent podcast) expressing dismay at the decision to do away with Confederate monuments, as a violation of history.

    The old saw about “History is written by the victors” appears not to be the case, as you note.

    Confederates not only lost, but represent much that was anathema to the Republican party of its day, and to modern Conservatives.

    If the people of the former Confederate states decide they should tear down the monuments to oppressors, I don’t think that’s any more of an affront to “History” than was the removal of monuments to Lenin after the wall fell.

    It’s long overdue, if you ask me.

    But just remember, the line must be: “Democrats put these memorials up, Republicans are taking them down.”

    • #3
  4. tom Inactive
    tom
    @TomGarrett

    As I’ve said, I’m fine with a flag that is not an official flag being taken down from a sanctioned position at a government building.

    But that’s where this should stop.  If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the Left will take revisionism and purging in an endless direction.

    Even before the flag has been voted upon in South Carolina, we’ve already seen call for the removal of monuments, statues, and names, to say nothing of extending the argument beyond the Civil-War-era questions.

    We’re only a few weeks down this road, and a form of this argument is already being used to take souvenirs out of battlefield gift shops, apps from the Apple Store, merchandise from online retailers, and old shows off of television.

    I’m not worried about the flag coming down at a state capitol, but I am worried about what happens if people are too scared by public sentiment (really, media and activist sentiment) to say “this ends there.”

    • #4
  5. user_44643 Inactive
    user_44643
    @MikeLaRoche

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    David French likely speaks for many when he writes that, during his childhood, he saw the Confederate flag as an essential part of honoring his family’s long (and continuing) martial history.

    Indeed, David French speaks for me.  Tearing down Confederate memorials and banning the Confederate battle flag is akin to demanding that I spit on my ancestors’ graves.  To hell with that.

    • #5
  6. Mr. Dart Inactive
    Mr. Dart
    @MrDart

    Tom Garrett:As I’ve said, I’m fine with a flag that is not an official flag being taken down from a sanctioned position at a government building.

    But that’s where this should stop. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that the Left will take revisionism and purging in an endless direction.

    Even before the flag has been voted upon in South Carolina, we’ve already seen call for the removal of monuments, statues, and names, to say nothing of extending the argument beyond the Civil-War-era questions.

    We’re only a few weeks down this road, and a form of this argument is already being used to take souvenirs out of battlefield gift shops, apps from the Apple Store, merchandise from online retailers, and old shows off of television.

    I’m not worried about the flag coming down at a state capitol, but I am worried about what happens if people are too scared by public sentiment (really, media and activist sentiment) to say “this ends there.”

    Along those lines, the National Park Service has told their employees to remove all CSA flags and insignia from Fort Sumter.

    John Jarvis, director of the NPS has a degree in biology, not history.

    • #6
  7. Quinn the Eskimo Member
    Quinn the Eskimo
    @

    This is why these things should be put into private hands.  Once you have public land, the public has an interest in what’s on it.

    I know that there are some who feel that public land and public monuments help build a civic culture.  Well, a civic culture is being built right now and I get less and less enthusiastic about it all the time.

    • #7
  8. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: Why did this happen? The answer, he posits, is that the Confederacy and its 20th century apologists had a better, more active, and more persistent propaganda machine than did the Union. The effects of those efforts persist to this day, he argues, pointing out not only the glowing monuments and namesakes, but how many textbooks continue to present the Confederate cause as being more about states’ rights than slavery.

    Interesting point.

    A part of our national character that many Americans have always been proud of is that we did not gloat or punish in victory. So much so that I feel very uncomfortable right now with the “bury the Confederacy” movement. When I was growing up, I was often told that we were better than all of the other nations in the world in that we helped the countries that we had defeated in war. Mercy and respect for your vanquished foe have been with us for a long time.

    That would have created an emotional opening for the Confederacy apologists, and northerners would have allowed it and not argued.

    In the preface (I think, or on the back cover?) of Battle Cry of Freedom, it is noted that more books have been published about the Civil War than about any other American history event, including the world wars.

    I guess we put down the guns and picked up the pens. :)

    • #8
  9. Look Away Inactive
    Look Away
    @LookAway

    Tuck:

    What a condescending statement. Sure, the Confederates lost the war and if that is all of that the monuments meant and said, I would be all for tearing them down. But that is not what happened is it? The losers, for the most part, at the urging of their Generals such as Robert E. Lee, told the the defeated to put their differences aside and rejoin their country and look to the future. My ancestors did just that. They started from scratch, at the very roots of poverty and built and built and built until they reached a point at which they started before the war. Read the plaques on the monuments, You can buy a book about them if you don’t want to inspect them for real, and you will see the tributes to these Soldiers was about the sacrifices to their communities, friends and families.  This reunification of the South is a wonderful story about coming together in such a short period of time and is not that oft repeated in the annals of History. All of this of course is one of many factors that led the US to become the country it was to become in the 20th century, the strongest, most envied, most wealthy in the world. The monuments represent th entire experience: The differences, the break, the reconciliation. To forget that, or to try to reduce this to a republican democrat thing, almost like a footbal gmae, would be a true tragedy. 

    • #9
  10. Mr. Dart Inactive
    Mr. Dart
    @MrDart

    For those interested… I reported above about an amendment defeated in the SC Senate today that proposed a referendum vote of the people of SC on the issue at hand.

    A second proposed amendment to fly the current flag at the war memorial on May 10th every year was narrowly voted down this afternoon.

    A 3rd amendment to replace the battle flag with another flag has been voted down overwhelmingly.

    I don’t see any other amendments to be voted on.

    These are amendments to the bill being debated that would remove the current flag from the monument to South Carolina’s Civil War dead.

    • #10
  11. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @OldBathos

    As a kid, I toured Manassas/Bull Run battlefield with my great uncle whose grandfather was a Georgia Civil War vet. A gentile man, dignified and scholarly he politely interrupted the ranger giving us a tour with comments about how that couldn’t be right because General so and so’s brigade was over there until such a such a time and the Union troops did not still have that hill that late in the day.  He pointed at hills and remarked they would not have had those trees and how there would have been a fence over there.  Some of the other people on the tour were staring to wonder how old this fellow was because it was like he had been at the battle.

    But my Uncle Ebbie was of the generation when every educated Southern man was a Civil War historian and a Constitutional expert (in a peculiar Southern way).

    Modern historical ignorance can’t fathom subtleties about how a sizeable portion of Confederate troops opposed slavery and more than a few Union troops thought it was just fine. The whole idea of home-state loyalty, right-or-wrong is completely foreign. That post-war Union soldiers had more respect for the Confederate flag than moderns do now is more a testament to historical illiteracy than tolerance and sensitivity.

    • #11
  12. Mr. Dart Inactive
    Mr. Dart
    @MrDart

    Look Away, supporting your excellent comment, below is one inscription on the monument on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds.  The monument, btw, was erected in 1879 by “The Women of South Carolina”.

    Let the stranger,
    who may in the future times
    read this inscription,
    recognize that these were men
    whom power could not corrupt,
    whom death could not terrify,
    whom defeat could not dishonor
    and let their virtues plead
    for just judgment
    of the cause in which they perished.

    Let the South Carolinian
    of another generation
    remember
    that the State taught them
    how to live and how to die.
    And that from her broken fortunes
    she has preserved for her children
    the priceless treasure of their memories,
    teaching all who may claim
    the same birthright
    that truth, courage and patriotism
    endure forever.

    • #12
  13. user_184884 Inactive
    user_184884
    @BrianWolf

    It is not about propaganda.  The Union doesn’t have special days and special monuments with special gatherings of sons and daughters of the Union because the Union one.  You want to go to the big Union celebration?  You just had it on the 4th of July!  Veterans day another big “Union” holiday, Presidents Day, Memorial Day.  Every patriotic aspect of America is a celebration of the Union.

    The Confederates were allowed their memorials and monuments precisely because they lost the war!  By allowing them to celebrate their military valor the people of the South rejoined the North in a true Union and now their patriotism and valor is directed toward the success of the United States and not the Confederacy.  We benefit it from it today.

    Imagine that reconciliation never happened.  When we study history we are taught to hate our former enemies and despise the military traditions of the South.  Instead of feeling the great tragedy of the Civil War and understanding the greatness and villainy of the South we must have only disgust for a man like Robert Lee or Stonewall Jackson.  Instead of good nature arguments over the Civil War we have recruits from the Northern States and the Southern states fighting over Grant and Lee, Jackson and Sherman.  Instead of having a shared culture of military valor it is antagonistic.  Do you think we would be better off for that?

    We are better off for knowing that good men like Lee and Jackson could end up fighting for a terrible and unworthy cause.  The lesson only works if we understand that Lee and Jackson were good men in so many ways if we just thought of them as vile racist scum then one of the great lessons of the Civil War has to teach us just disappears.  That is a terrible, terrible thing.  For instance the very fact that General Lee’s name can be used on a US Military base and be a source of patriotism for American soldiers of all regions both honors the man Lee was, in whole, and honors the Union that fought and won for a righteous cause.  The fact that the Democrats of all people want to throw that away just makes me angry.

    Can no liberal in the country understand that reconciling the country was important and that having a truly United States very important for us and the whole free world?

    • #13
  14. user_989419 Inactive
    user_989419
    @ProbableCause

    MarciN:Part of the national character many Americans have always been proud of is that we did not gloat or punish in victory.

    Quoth Lincoln:

    With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

    • #14
  15. Asquared Inactive
    Asquared
    @ASquared

    Old Bathos: Modern historical ignorance can’t fathom subtleties about how a sizeable portion of Confederate troops opposed slavery and more than a few Union troops thought it was just fine.

    This.

    I’m a yankee for the most part, but as far as I’m concerned, the yankees like Tom that continue to argue that the Civil War was ONLY about slavery are the ones trying to whitewash history to make themselves feel better.

    There is a fair amount of irony in Tom complaining about the “persistent propaganda machine” without realizing that what he thinks about the civil war is the simply the result of what he was taught by a different propaganda machine.  It’s even more ironic to hear small government conservatives praise the federal government for invading the south with a very large army to impose their view of the federal government on people with a different view of the government.

    The truth is almost always more complicated than most people think.

    • #15
  16. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Mike LaRoche:

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    David French likely speaks for many when he writes that, during his childhood, he saw the Confederate flag as an essential part of honoring his family’s long (and continuing) martial history.

    Indeed, David French speaks for me. Tearing down Confederate memorials and banning the Confederate battle flag is akin to demanding that I spit on my ancestors’ graves. To hell with that.

    Well, someone has to do it! If you cannot let go of those things, then I hope everyone like you is finally overrun in public life by similarly-minded descendants of people who fought for the Union–or anyone who believes in the Union. Remind everyone of the terrible, bloody shame they bear, if they are proud descendants of slavers or officers in any offices of the treacherous Confederacy or apologists for that treason.

    Everyone who remembers he is a descendant of the Confederacy & thinks himself honorable should be reminded of the traitors.

    The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    How have Americans forgot that it was decades after the Civil War that truly despicable men created Jim Crow? That it took arms & laws in the 50s & 60s to guarantee to blacks the rights for which men had to die in the Civil War? Lincoln was assassinated for fighting that war–his successors forgot his death & allowed an ugly racism to return to public Southern life!

    • #16
  17. user_989419 Inactive
    user_989419
    @ProbableCause

    Titus Techera:The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    Who is arguing this, exactly?

    • #17
  18. user_44643 Inactive
    user_44643
    @MikeLaRoche

    Titus Techera:

    Mike LaRoche:

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    David French likely speaks for many when he writes that, during his childhood, he saw the Confederate flag as an essential part of honoring his family’s long (and continuing) martial history.

    Indeed, David French speaks for me. Tearing down Confederate memorials and banning the Confederate battle flag is akin to demanding that I spit on my ancestors’ graves. To hell with that.

    Well, someone has to do it! If you cannot let go of those things, then I hope everyone like you is finally overrun in public life by similarly-minded descendants of people who fought for the Union–or anyone who believes in the Union. Remind everyone of the terrible, bloody shame they bear, if they are proud descendants of slavers or officers in any offices of the treacherous Confederacy or apologists for that treason.

    Everyone who remembers he is a descendant of the Confederacy & thinks himself honorable should be reminded of the traitors.

    The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    How have Americans forgot that it was decades after the Civil War that truly despicable men created Jim Crow? That it took arms & laws in the 50s & 60s to guarantee to blacks the rights for which men had to die in the Civil War? Lincoln was assassinated for fighting that war–his successors forgot his death & allowed an ugly racism to return to public Southern life!

    [Redacted to conform with CoC, which prohibits ad hominem attacks.]

    • #18
  19. Douglas Inactive
    Douglas
    @Douglas

    Take James Loewen with a grain of salt. He and and Ed Sebesta hates the South with a bile that could burn through steel. And the feeling is mutual. Only James McPherson may be worse. Everything in American history pre-1960’s is evidence of a racist conspiracy to Loewen. You may as well quote Noam Chomsky.

    • #19
  20. lesserson Member
    lesserson
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Titus Techera:

    Well, someone has to do it! If you cannot let go of those things, then I hope everyone like you is finally overrun in public life by similarly-minded descendants of people who fought for the Union–or anyone who believes in the Union. Remind everyone of the terrible, bloody shame they bear, if they are proud descendants of slavers or officers in any offices of the treacherous Confederacy or apologists for that treason.

    Everyone who remembers he is a descendant of the Confederacy & thinks himself honorable should be reminded of the traitors.

    The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    How have Americans forgot that it was decades after the Civil War that truly despicable men created Jim Crow? That it took arms & laws in the 50s & 60s to guarantee to blacks the rights for which men had to die in the Civil War? Lincoln was assassinated for fighting that war–his successors forgot his death & allowed an ugly racism to return to public Southern life!

    Wow, thanks Titus. With friends like these…  geez.

    • #20
  21. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Look Away:

    Tuck:

    I give up, what’s the “condescending statement”?

    “…My ancestors did just that. They started from scratch, at the very roots of poverty and built and built and built until they reached a point at which they started before the war….”

    They were impoverished by a war they started and lost, and they instituted Jim Crow just as soon as they could, to try to put blacks back into their antebellum status as best could be done.  Let’s be honest.

    I’m not partial to an Orwellian Leftist purge of Confederate history, to clarify.  But if the current residents of the South decide that maybe some of its history isn’t so admirable, and decides to change what they’re honoring, well, that’s life.  And I think they’re right.

    As I noted in another thread, Nicki Haley, the elected governor of SC, is a “colored” and would be guilty of a crime for marrying her white husband—under Jim Crow.  It’s hardly surprising that folks like her don’t look so reverently on the Confederate history.

    And I recognize that Southern culture had much that was admirable.

    • #21
  22. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    Who is arguing this, exactly?

    I am. I was recalled of this by the comment about the monuments. I have recently heard all sorts of people on Ricochet & elsewhere on the right show any variety of positions either excusing the South or praising at least some things about the South, but not one person saying, it was treason, & losing the war was not enough for the loser politicians to give up on slavery. It took a generation, but back came all the honor of the Southern ruling class in all its ugliness.

    You can read this piece by Prof. Mack Owens about how the war was remembered & historical arguments that reconciliation was bought at the price of a terrible injustice to blacks.

    • #22
  23. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Tuck:

    Look Away:

    Tuck:

    I give up, what’s the “condescending statement”?

    “…My ancestors did just that. They started from scratch, at the very roots of poverty and built and built and built until they reached a point at which they started before the war….”

    They were impoverished by a war they started and lost, and they instituted Jim Crow just as soon as they could, to try to put blacks back into their antebellum status as best could be done. Let’s be honest.

    I’m not partial to an Orwellian Leftist purge of Confederate history, to clarify. But if the current residents of the South decide that maybe some of its history isn’t so admirable, and decides to change what they’re honoring, well, that’s life. And I think they’re right.

    As I noted in another thread, Nicki Haley, the elected governor of SC, is a “colored” and would be guilty of a crime for marrying her white husband—under Jim Crow. It’s hardly surprising that folks like her don’t look so reverently on the Confederate history.

    And I recognize that Southern culture had much that was admirable.

    Yes, don’t let’s pretend in 1865, it was over, all forgotten. In a generation, a hell again was prepared for blacks. An hundred years after the way, rulers in the South did not want to give it up & their electorate did not require them to give it up–this is not antiquity!

    • #23
  24. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Mike LaRoche:

    Titus Techera:

    Everyone who remembers he is a descendant of the Confederacy & thinks himself honorable should be reminded of the traitors.

    The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    How have Americans forgot that it was decades after the Civil War that truly despicable men created Jim Crow? That it took arms & laws in the 50s & 60s to guarantee to blacks the rights for which men had to die in the Civil War? Lincoln was assassinated for fighting that war–his successors forgot his death & allowed an ugly racism to return to public Southern life!

    You are a foreigner and have no idea what you are talking about. Again, mind your tongue.

    Haven’t you said that before? I have no idea? What is this idea I do not have? That there was no terrible injustice in slavery, no terrible treason in Confederacy, no ban on all those traitors again serving in A14? That when the South regain self-rule, Jim Crow happened? Do you dare remember the truth? A rotten ruling class–traitors who were not chastened by the horror they brought on the country.

    How any conservative can have come to turn his face away from Lincoln to prefer instead the slavers, whether for blood or ideology or whatever, I do not understand. That I certainly have no idea of. Is Lincoln as much a foreigner to you as I am?

    • #24
  25. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    My vote goes to the first GOP candidate who proposes banning all reminders of the Confederacy…starting with the Democrat party.

    • #25
  26. lesserson Member
    lesserson
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Titus Techera:

    Yes, don’t let’s pretend in 1865, it was over, all forgotten. In a generation, a hell again was prepared for blacks. An hundred years after the way, rulers in the South did not want to give it up & their electorate did not require them to give it up–this is not antiquity!

    And it should be pointed out, constantly it seems, that We. Are. Not. Them. Not anymore. Apparently it’s not enough for us to change our politics (which was a good thing) and become a bastion of conservative voters. No, we must hang our heads in shame for what part of our history we deemed to keep, even while shedding the very racism the democrats held on to for that time after the Civil War just to keep those who don’t even live here happy. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that what little we retained actually means anything to us. No, it must be racism or propaganda.

    • #26
  27. user_989419 Inactive
    user_989419
    @ProbableCause

    Titus Techera:

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    Who is arguing this, exactly?

    I am.

    You’re arguing that black slaves and Union soldiers have no claim to be remembered?  I must disagree with you, sir.  They have every right to be remembered.

    • #27
  28. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    lesserson:And it should be pointed out, constantly it seems, that We. Are. Not. Them. Not anymore. Apparently it’s not enough for us to change our politics (which was a good thing) and become a bastion of conservative voters. No, we must hang our heads in shame for what part of our history we deemed to keep, even while shedding the very racism the democrats held on to for that time after the Civil War just to keep those who don’t even live here happy. It doesn’t seem to matter to them that what little we retained actually means anything to us. No, it must be racism or propaganda.

    How can you keep the good part without acknowledging the bad part?

    We’re not talking about the crimes over in 1865. We’re talking about 1965.

    We’re also talking about so much history written by Confederates & so much neo-Confederate stuff that either excuses or downright praises the Confederacy. Treason is being white-washed by these authors. You can find people who say Lincoln was the tyrant, not the people tyrannizing over slaves right here on Ricochet. You can find people who seem to believe the South was right, with or without slaves. That’s why it’s not over.

    You are not them. The guy next to you objecting in the comments seems to be them or taking up their argument again! It’s not you I’m arguing with-

    • #28
  29. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    Who is arguing this, exactly?

    I am.

    You’re arguing that black slaves and Union soldiers have no claim to be remembered? I must disagree with you, sir. They have every right to be remembered.

    I’m not sure if you’ve misread or just have a quirky sense of humor. I am arguing that blacks & Union veterans have no comparable claim to be remembered–not that they should not–it is a description of the facts, or an attempt at one-

    • #29
  30. user_989419 Inactive
    user_989419
    @ProbableCause

    Titus Techera:

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:

    Probable Cause:

    Titus Techera:The blacks enslaved by the Confederacy & the Union soldiers somehow have no similar claim to be remembered in any part of the country.

    Who is arguing this, exactly?

    I am.

    You’re arguing that black slaves and Union soldiers have no claim to be remembered? I must disagree with you, sir. They have every right to be remembered.

    I’m not sure if you’ve misread or just have a quirky sense of humor. I am arguing that blacks & Union veterans have no comparable claim to be remembered–not that they should not–it is a description of the facts, or an attempt at one-

    Define “claim.”

    • #30
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