ON TARGET

9-4-17    By Dave Gunn

Pull Them All Down

      For over 150 years the history of the Confederate States of America has been misrepresented.  Students in government schools were taught that the War of Southern Independence was fought primarily over slavery, in spite of the fact that Abraham Lincoln had promised the Southern states that he would take no action to free slaves.  Actually tariffs had more to do with Southern discontent than slavery.

      In recent decades there has been a concerted effort to go beyond the misrepresentation of history and erase the history and memory of the Confederate States of America from the consciousness of our nation.  The latest manifestation of this effort – one reminiscent of communist and Islamic jihadist method - has been the demand and accomplishment of removing statues and monuments to the Confederacy and Confederate generals and soldiers.  These are portrayed as symbols of racism and oppression, unfit to be displayed in public.

      So what was the Confederacy?  And what do these monuments and statues represent?

      The Confederate States of America was a nation that existed for four years.  The Southern states, discontented with the course of the nation decided to leave the United States in the same manner that their forefathers had left Great Britain.  It was not their purpose to wage war on the United States, but to peaceably go their own way.  They felt that the Union was a union of sovereign states, that the states had created the Union and not the other way around, and as they had voluntarily joined the Union they could also voluntarily leave.

      However, Abraham Lincoln had a different concept – that the Union created the states, and therefore no state could leave.  He lead the United States pf America to invade the Confederate States of America and after four years of great bloodshed conquered them.  The Southern armies fought valiantly, but were drastically outmanned and out gunned.  These brave soldiers fought, not to preserve slavery, for few of them owned slaves.  They fought to protect their states and homes from Northern invaders.

      So the monuments and statues are not erected in honor of slavery, but as memorials of a nation of which some of my ancestors were citizens - two of whom were soldiers in the Confederate Army of Louisiana.  They are memorials of heroes who were men of honor, who sacrificed much for their belief in liberty. By the way, the Congress of the United States declared in 1900, 1906, 1929 and 1958 that Confederate War veterans were officially American veterans.  Therefore, any attack on their memorials is an attack on all American veterans.

      The flag they fought under was the flag of hate, but of their nation, a nation that lived for only a brief time, and then was crushed under the heel of a tyrant.  Was he really a tyrant?  Consider that, in Maryland, Abraham Lincoln by his own orders suspended freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right of habeas corpus, brought in federal troops to establish marital law and jailed his political opponents.  This was all done to keep the people of Maryland from leaving the Union.

      Of course, if we are going to start tearing down statues and memorials because of the perception that they support slavery and are therefore racist, we will also have to tear down those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and General Grant (whose wife owned slaves).  By the way, there are some who are seriously suggesting this.

      But let’s not stop there.  In Washington, D.C., there is a memorial to a man who made as racist a statement as I have ever read.  I quote it here:

I will say that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.  I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes.  Nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and the black races which I believe will forever forbid the two from living together on the basis of social and political equality.  And insomuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

      The above statement was uttered by none other than Abraham Lincoln.  So until

historical revisionist liberals who want to eliminate statues of Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are willing to also pull apart the Lincoln Memorial, we cannot take seriously their complaints.  Pull them all down, or leave them all up.

[Dave Gunn is the nom de plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of the church or its membership.]