PRO-SOUTH BOOKS

The following is a list of pro-South books that I recommend for understanding the Confederacy and its righteous cause for political independence.  Click on the links to go to the Amazon page where you can order the books.

1.  The South Was Right, by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy

2.  When In The Course of Human Events:  Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams

3.  Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States:  the Irrefutable Argument, by Gene Kizer, Jr.

4.  Abraham Lincoln, the Southern View, by Lochlainn Seabrook

My Best Lincoln Meme

A few years back an article appeared on FaceBook praising Abraham Lincoln.  Several of my friends and family made favorable comments about Lincoln, which angered me.  So in response, I created a meme with Photoshop expressing the Southern view of the great tyrant. I live in California and feared a negative backlash by potential employers, so I did not sign the meme.  After first posting it on FaceBook, I posted it on my blog on June 30, 2015 at this link:  http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-myth-of-abraham-lincoln-photoshop.html.

After a year or two the meme began showing up on social media sites by Southern patriots. I am pleased that my meme is useful to other Confederates.  Feel free to use it.

 

Basic Facts About the War for Southern Independence

I often encounter neo-Yankees on Twitter or this  site or elsewhere who want to argue about the causes of the so-called Civil War, the legality of secession, who was responsible for slavery, who started the war, ad infinitum.  Instead of having to argue the same defenses over and over again, I have decided to summarize the Southern arguments here, where I can point to a link and invite the Southern-adverse to read it.

Here is a list of subjects that I will cover, subject to change:

1.  The meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag.
2.  Fort Sumter:  How Lincoln deliberately started the Civil War.
3.  Lincoln's reasons for starting the war.
4.  The war was not about ending slavery.
5.  The North was equally responsible for slavery in America.
6.  The North never put forth any plan for peacefully ending slavery.
6.  The North cared nothing for the slaves, before or after emancipation.
7.  Secession was and is legal and Constitutional.
8.  The North was wrong and the South was right.
9.  Northern atrocities against Southern civilians.
10.  POWs and Andersonville Prison; how a Confederate officer was framed and murdered by a Northern kangaroo court.

More on this later.

Jefferson Davis's Response to the Emancipation Proclamation, Full Text

President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, to become effective on January 1, 1863.  Northern newspapers carried the news in January 1863, and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, responded to the proclamation on January 14, 1863.

Unfortunately, someone unknown wrote and disseminated a forgery that was supposed to be Davis's address.  It was vile and put Jefferson Davis in a bad light, much to the glee of followers of the Northern Myth.  The forgery is reprinted in this blog at this link.  Some readers have argued that this document is not a forgery, as Davis's speech had been reprinted in Richmond newspapers.  However, they are assuming that the forgery is the speech that was reprinted.

To end this confusion, I searched for the actual text of Jefferson Davis's actual speech and response to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the actual speech is nothing like the forgery.  I found the actual speech online, as recorded in the Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, January 14, 1863.  I had to refer to scanned copies of the original minutes, but I have transcribed the speech into Word, and now I copy and paste it here.

Jefferson Davis's Response to the Emancipation Proclamation, Full Text

An address to the Confederate Congress, January 14, 1863

The public journals of the North have been received, containing a proclamation dated on the first day of the present a month, signed by the President of the United States, in which he orders and declares all slaves within ten of the States of the Confederacy to be free, except such as are found within certain districts now occupied in part by the forces of the enemy.

We may leave it to the instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and contented laborers in their spheres, are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation “to refrain from violence unless in necessary self-defense.”  Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measure recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses.  So far as regards the action of this Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to informing you that I shall, unless in your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient, deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrection.  The enlisted soldiers I shall continue to treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, and shall direct their discharge and return to their homes on the proper and usual parole.

In its political aspect this measure possesses great significance, and to it in this light I invite your attention.  It affords our people the complete and crowning proof of the true nature of the designs of the party which elevated to power the present occupant of the Presidential chair at Washington, and by the perfidious use of the most solemn and repeated pledges on every possible occasion.  I extract, in this connection, as a single example, the following declaration made by President Lincoln, under the solemnity of his oath as Chief Magistrate of the United States, on the 4^th of March, 1861: “Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.  There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehensions.  Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection.  It is found in nearly all the speeches of him who now addresses you.  I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 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.  Those who nominated and elected me did so with the full knowledge that I made this and many similar declarations, and have never recanted them.  And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: “’Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest crimes.’”

Nor was this declaration of the want of power of disposition to interfere with our social system confined to a state of peace.  Both before and after the actual commencement of hostilities the President of the United States repeated in formal official communication to the cabinets of Great Britain and France that he was utterly without constitutional power to do the act which he has just committed, and that in no possible event, whether the secession of these States resulted in the establishment of a separate Confederacy or in restoration of the Union, was there any authority by virtue of which he could either restore a disaffected State to the Union by force of arms or make any change in any of its institutions.  I refer especially for verification of this assertion to the dispatches addressed to the Secretary of State of the United States under direction of the President to the ministers of the United States at London and Paris, under date of 10^th and 22d April, 1861.

The people of the Confederacy, then, can not fail to receive this proclamation as the fullest vindication of their own sagacity in foreseeing the uses to which the dominant party in the United States intended from the beginning to apply their power, nor can they cease to remember, with devout thankfulness, that it is to their own vigilance in resisting the first stealthy progress of approaching despotism that they owe their escape from the consequences now apparent to the most skeptical.  This proclamation will have another salutary effect in calming the fears of those who have constantly evinced the apprehension that this war might end by some reconstruction of the old Union or some renewal of close political relations with the United States.  These fears have never been shared by me, nor have I ever been able to perceive on what basis they could rest.   But the proclamation affords the fullest guarantee of the impossibility of such a result; it has established a state of things which can lead to but one of three possible consequences—the extermination of the slaves, the exile of the whole white population from the Confederacy, or absolute and total separation of these States from the United States.

This proclamation is also an authentic statement by the Government of the United States of its inability to subjugate the South by force of arms, and as such must be accepted by neutral nations, which can no longer find any justification in withholding our just claims to formal recognition.  It is also in effect an intimation to the people of the North that they must prepare to submit to a separation, now become inevitable, for that people are too acute not to understand that a restoration of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which, from its very nature, neither admits of retraction nor can coexist with union.

From the Secretary of Jefferson Davis, N.B. Harrison

As recorded in the Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, January 14, 1863

https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwcc.html

See Volume 3            

What Modern Confederates Believe

I don't speak for every person who identifies with the Southern Confederacy, or who reveres it as his or her heritage.  However, I am active enough in various pro-South organizations to have a fairly good sense of what the mass of us believe.  Here it is:

1.  We acknowledge that slavery was a great evil.  However, in 1860 the Southern generation at that time had inherited an entrenched system that was very difficult to get rid of.  Immediate, uncompensated emancipation would have resulted in economic ruin for the South (and probably the North as well), and starvation for the former slaves.

The North never, at any time, proposed a practical plan for peacefully ending slavery.  Further, slavery was an American evil, not merely a Southern one.  The North was equally responsible for its presence in America, as Lincoln admitted candidly in his first speech of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

2.  We do not believe that the North invaded the South to free the slaves, or had any altruistic motivations in that regard.  We believe they invaded the South to preserve the Northern economy, that would have been severely damaged had the South been permitted to leave the Union.

3.  We believe the South had a Constitutional and moral right to secede from the American Union and form a new union of Southern states, i.e., the Confederate States of America.  Secession was not, and is not, treason; it is the natural right of any people to govern themselves.

4.  We do not honor or display the Confederate flags in order to offend anyone.  We don't want to offend anyone, we aren't trying to offend anyone.  However, if you are offended by flags and monuments, we don't really care that much.  We see your feelings of offense to be borne of ignorance of history and Southern culture, and that's your problem, not ours.  We see attempts to repress Southern flags, songs and statues as a grave insult to our ancestors.  Such repression assigns dishonor to them, and strongly (and wrongly) implies that they were evil.

5.  Not everyone who flies the Confederate flag or plays Dixie is a "racist" or a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  We resent it when anti-Southern bigots conflate Southern pride with racial prejudice.  We resent it when outsiders assign to us positions, feelings and beliefs that we do not possess.

6.  We resent the violent invasion of the South in 1861 and the numerous crimes against Southern civilians.  The injustice of Lincoln's War causes feelings of resentment and bitterness to this day.

7.  We insist on the Confederacy being given an honorable place in American history, and that its flags, monuments and other icons be preserved.  To the extent these things are dishonored and disrespected, the greater we feel removed, ostracized and marginalized from the American family.   This does not cement our loyalty to the United States, but instead revives a yearning for a new secession.  It underscores, in our minds, how right our ancestors were to seek separation and self-government.

8.  You don't have to agree with every point in this list, but hopefully, you will better understand our position.  We just want to be left alone, to LIVE AND LET LIVE.  Give us the benefit of the doubt and we may return the favor.

The United States of America: an Illegitimate Nation?

One of the core principles of our founding was the "Consent of the Governed."  Lincoln's War of 1861 - 1862 ended that principle.  We are today a nation composed of conquered territories, most especially the Southern states and the State of Hawaii.

Lincoln, by brute force, ended the voluntary Union of free and independent states, and replaced it with an involuntary union of coerced states.

So is the USA a legitimate nation today?  I think not.  This is not to say that it could not be restored to what the Founders intended.  The Kennedy brothers have a new book out called "Rules for Rebels," in which they advocate non-violent but non-traditional ways to fight politically for that restoration.  I am reading it now.

Lincoln on Southern Slavery

Use this meme as you see fit, no restrictions.

Flying Your Flag on July 4th

I have a flag holder attached to the front of my house.  However, it has been a long time since it has held any flag.  I have resolved to purchase various Confederate flags -- the First National, the Second and Third Nationals, the battleflag, the Bonnie Blue Flag, and fly one of them on national holidays.

I will start off with the First National flag.  However, I have to purchase one first.  Searavenpress.com sells Confederate flags for $15 each with free shipping.  I will order all of the flags today.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Exposed (Video) (#SPLC)

The despicable Southern Poverty Law Center is now targeting Confederate monuments, flags and symbols.  They are a far-left, money-making scheme that seeks to marginalize all Conservative groups and personalities.  They have no credibility.

Defending the Confederacy Today: Lochlainn Seabrook

I haven't posted here for seven months.  I didn't stop writing, I just transferred much of my heritage defense to my other, better-read blog, Saberpoint.  Now I am back to this one for dealing with Confederate heritage and history.

It is not easy to defend the Confederacy nowadays, as the anti-South hatred has been stoked to a degree greater than anytime since reconstruction.  It's as if a form of madness has spread across the nation like a plague.  The mere display of a Confederate flag results in sharp cries of outrage and anguish, with much posing and posturing by those who would defend us from it.

Most Americans don't remotely know or understand what happened in America between 1860 and 1877, the time period that includes Lincoln's war and the reconstruction that came afterwards.  However, the Northern version of the history of that time period is largely a lie, a self-serving, massive distortion of what actually happened and why.

I have discovered a Southern writer who explains what happened and why, one Lochlainn Seabrook of Sea Raven Press.  I just finished his book Abraham Lincoln:  the Southern View.  Next on my reading list is Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner. Both of these books are weighty tomes, 654 pages for the former, 1020 pages for the latter.

The book on Lincoln inflamed my feelings against the North, Lincoln and Yankeedom.  If I suddenly attained supernatural powers, I would restore the Confederate States of America immediately, then resurrect and hang Lincoln, Sherman, Grant and Sheridan for crimes against humanity.  Since I can't do that, I can continue to learn, and to propagate the truth, in the hopes that future generations may go looking for it and someday find it.

You should do the same.  Check out Sea Raven Press at their website, here.

Support the Confederate Flag: DON'T BACK DOWN

Note to those who support the Confederate flag: DON'T BACK DOWN.

Don't be tepid or tentative in your support of the flag. Our opposition to Northern cultural bigotry and historical (and hysterical) ignorance must be firm and unflinching. We are right, and they are wrong. View the issue with the moral clarity it deserves.

Anti-Southern bigotry is possibly one of my biggest triggers.  I wrote about that some time ago, in a previous post from 2010.  In that post I noted that the Civil War was then, and this is now.  I said that I wanted to work with Northerner conservatives in our modern political struggles, and not refight a war of 150 years ago.  However, I noted that the Civil War (better described as The War for Southern Independence) tapped deep emotions in me, and had the power to make me hate.  I stated that I don't like to hate and seek to avoid that emotion whenever possible, because happiness and hate cannot coexist.  This week, however, I feel the negative emotion returning.  

Why?  Because Yankees, liberals and Southerners ignorant of their own history keep re-invading the South.  They buy into the Northern Myth.  Intellectually lazy, they go along with the popular mythology that casts the Confederates into the role of villain.  They dishonor our Confederate ancestors and grossly misrepresent their cause.  Now they want to finish the wishes of General Sherman to exterminate all Southerners completely, by insisting that the Confederate flag be relegated to museums, viewed only as a dishonorable artifact.

"We must show manners to those who find the flag objectionable," they write.  Why is it that we must show manners but they do not?  Why do their feelings count but not ours?  

Arm yourselves with knowledge of Southern history.  I suggest you can do that by reading a previously posted article by Professor Donald Livingston of Emory University, "Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery."

The Confederate Flag Will Not Come Down: Deal With It

As a Confederate descendant who is well read on the history of the War for Southern Independence, I revere the Confederate flag.  It is the flag of my country and my ancestors.  In light of the Charleston murders, we are now seeing a lot of liberals and mainstream Republicans calling for the removal of the flag from public display.

Mitt Romeny tweeted that the flag should come down.  He tweets

Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.

I answered him with this:

Saber Point ‏@Stogie2  20m20 minutes ago

@MittRomney I regret voting for you Mitt. The flag stays. Take down the flag of Utah, it's a symbol of a false prophet and polygamy.

And of course, there's "Old Gorey" that many associate with invasion of the South, war on women and children, the genocide of the American Indian, the theft of Hawaii from its Queen and its people, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Oh yes, and it flew over Northern slave ships who brought the slaves to America in the first place.

The point is, a flag means different things to different people. We Confederate descendants do not accept Mitt Romney's definition or our flag, nor that of the Daily Kos, Karl Rove, Jeb Bush or any other cultural bigot who wishes to bully us into accepting their skewed view of history.

Here are the motivations of the flag haters:

1. Moral vanity. Nothing pleases a liberal more than asserting his alleged moral superiority over someone else. What is an easier way than by attacking the South?

2. To legitimize the Northern Myth, the huge lie that the North invaded the South to free the slaves because they were just so morally righteous and broad minded and enlightened. The truth is that the North hated blacks, wanted them kept out of the new territories, made laws prohibiting their presence, and planned to deport them all back to Africa or elsewhere. They went to war to force the Southern states back into the Union for economic reasons; slavery had nothing or very little to do with it. An independent South would have free trade, open ports, thus ending the Northern tariff on imported goods. A massive relocation of jobs and revenues would quickly flow from the North to the South. This would have created an economic boom in the South, but would have impoverished the North, who depended on the South continuing to pay 80% of the taxes collected by the federal government, and whose dock workers, shipping companies, railroads, textile mills and warehouses would soon find themselves out of work. Yes, this is all well documented in the newspapers of the time. When asked why he would not simply let the South go, Lincoln exclaimed "Let the South go? Who will pay my tariff?"

3. To legitimize the consolidation of the once sovereign states into subordinate entities inferior to and controlled by the federal government. Today this is effectively being accomplished through federal courts, who overturn state laws and legislate from the bench.

4. To legitimize the federal government's "right" to invade the individual states and make war on their citizens, using force to impose its will. We are continually moving in that direction today.  A nationalized police force is in the works.  Once accomplished, all American states will be effectively occupied by the federal government.

Here's why we will never agree:

Taking down the flag would mean acquiescing to bullies who wish to force their viewpoint on us, a viewpoint that is erroneous, insulting, self-serving and false. It would mean replacing our superior knowledge of history with the superficial myths the flag-haters learned from popular media, Hollywood and Northern-biased textbooks. We will not allow knowledge to be replaced with ignorance, or truth with falsehood.

History, or what is alleged to be history, is a major political weapon. The fight over history will largely influence how current and future generations see the Republic: as a collection of sovereign states with the right to self-govern and even secede, or as consolidation of those states into an increasingly oppressive federal tyranny from which there is no refuge, remedy or escape.

Leave our flag alone.