Tag: military districts

Organizations Can Take on a Life of Their Own: Ku Klux Klan Version 1.0

As I have stated many times before, there is a bit of misinformation out in our world that can lead people to believe things that are not actually true. This happened well before the Internet’s “fake news” and “fact-check” phenomenon as Mark Train points out here:

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

So take all your history books (especially if they have anything to do with the South and the North and were published after 1865) with a grain of salt when you read them. Source material is out there but mining that is more and more difficult as search engines have been compromised.

While I never expect any politician except perhaps Ron Paul to get history > 90% correct, this latest article laments how Ted Cruz has latched on so some fake history in the last few days:

It is also appalling to me when a conservative such as Glenn Beck or Ted Cruz—who would never allow the politically correct to deceive them on contemporary issues—routinely allow themselves to be hoodwinked on historical topics. Nathan Bedford Forrest is a prime example.

So hang on now and consider these thoughts without accepting them as truth until you do your own homework. Context, as always, is imperative in making wise judgements:

  • The year 1865 was pivotal in American history. It was the year the Civil War ended, the Confederacy died, the Ku Klux Klan was born, and the Democratic Party transitioned from the party of slavery to the party of white supremacy.

It must be known that the GOP/Republican party was originally a Free Soil party that believed in white land ownership exclusively. Lincoln himself is on record saying many times that the black race was subpar to the white race:

“…I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”

Let’s look at the initial focus of this organization instead of focusing on what it became, especially in the 1900s when members were waving the stars and stripes and intimidating the general public into a race war like you see below:

1925 KKK March on Washington DC

Today’s focus if on the first version (1.0) of the Ku Klux Klan that ran from 1866-1869:

  • It (KKK) was born in the law offices of Judge Thomas Jones in Pulaski, Tennessee. Half its original members were attorneys. Its initial standards were high. One had to be in the Confederate Army at the time of the surrender or in a Union prisoner-of-war camp to be eligible for membership. Its original mission statement called for it to be “an instrument of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy and patriotism” which was to “relieve and assist the injured, oppressed, suffering, and unfortunate, especially widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.”

You have to know how much the North, especially the government, hated everything about the South after Lincoln was assassinated. In fact, there is some contention that the assassination might have been orchestrated much like our current FBI and CIA helps unstable individuals to carry out these kind of things when a large public figure might go a direction they are not willing to travel. It was well known that Lincoln wanted a peaceful transition back to the Union for these eleven states. Not everyone in government was ready for that, in fact, they rather loved the way Lincoln shifted the republic towards a centralized, tyrannical state. “States rights” were violently dismissed by 1865. Eventually, military districts were established as these states were raped and pillaged one more time for the North’s benefit.

[US government] have a 47% tax on cotton, which they used to subsidize Northern railroads and other large corporations. On the other hand, they did provide pensions to Northern widows and orphans at the expense of Southern widows and orphans.

As 1866 dawned, here was the real ‘state of the South’ under Union occupation:

  • The loss of the war and the death of the Confederacy were not isolated events. They also signaled the breakdown of the Southern economy and the collapse of law and order in many localities. Gangs of criminals and individual thugs had a field day throughout the South. Union deserters, Southern outlaws, recently freed slaves who did not know how to handle their freedom, and professional criminals ran amuck. Arson, robbery, rape, and murder were the order of the day. At the same time, Carpetbaggers and collaborators pillaged the public treasuries, increased taxes 300% to 400%, ran up huge public debts, pocketed the proceeds, stole land and farms, and enriched themselves at the expense of a helpless and impoverished people.
  • African Americans suffered most of all. Much of the South’s land was ruined during the conflict, and 1867 was a year of famine. The new Northern rulers had no interest in the Southern people, black or white. Tens of thousands of Negroes literally starved to death. No effort was made on the part of the new rulers to even keep records of how many died.
  • Public health was almost completely ignored. Smallpox epidemics periodically raged throughout the South in the 1862 through 1868 period. The weakened and malnourished black folks were especially susceptible, often dying at rates of three or four times higher than Southern whites, who were themselves not well nourished. Black children were particularly hard hit. In one six-month period in 1865, 30,000 African Americans died in North Carolina and South Carolina alone. The epidemic lasted six years.

Much like the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2003 when the USA really did not have a game-plan except to overthrow their old partner Saddam Hussein, the North did not really want the blacks migrating north and so the GOP used the government offices of the south to entice them to stay. In the end the GOP “used” the blacks to maintain their control in these southern states. Not until the corrupt Grant administration was there the trade-off to allow the people once again to vote in even honorable ex-Confederate officers and enlisted men to public office and allow these states re-entry into the Union in the late 1870s.

It was in this context that Northern politicians actually entertained the thought of a 2nd Civil War:

Not content with theft and neglect, a significant minority of Northern politicians openly advocated a second Civil War. They included Thaddeus Stevens, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives; General Benjamin F. “Spoons” Butler; Governor Richard Yates of Illinois; carpetbagger Governor Andrew J. Hamilton of Texas; and Senator Jim Lane of Kansas, among others. U.S. Congressman William Anderson Pile advocated “death to all supporters of the South, past or present.” General William T. Sherman wanted Southerners demoted to “demizens”: people who were given certain rights (such as the right to pay taxes) but not others (such as the right to vote). Governor William G. “Parson” Brownlow of Tennessee. A former Methodist preacher, slave owner, and newspaper editor, he believed slavery was “ordained by God.” He nevertheless supported the Union and a second Civil War. “I am one of those who believed that the war ended too soon,” he declared, and “the loyal masses” should not “leave one Rebel fence rail, outhouse, one dwelling, in the seceded states. As for the Rebel population, let them be exterminated.”

About this time in correspondence between Robert E. Lee and Lord Acton in England, Robert E. Lee responded:

.. while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

At this point in time, in the middle of a despotic domestic scene, great men will arise and protect their families and their land. The character of Nathan Bedford Forrest can be seen in his quotes:

“I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue”

“I went into the army worth a million and a half dollars, and came out a beggar”

So here is Nathan’s entry into this foray and the real source of the term “wizard”:

The government were it was functioning at all was often in the hands of criminals, and they felt compelled to take the law into their own hands. There is a point between civilization and anarchy in which vigilantism is an acceptable, temporary measure, until law and order can be restored. Into that breach stepped Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was receiving a hundred letters a day from his former soldiers, relating eye-witness accounts of outrage and lawlessness .. Forrest applied for membership … In the spring of 1866, the leaders of the KKK met in the Maxwell House in Nashville, Tennessee, and created the position of “Grand Wizard,” a tribute to Forrest’s wartime nickname, “Wizard of the Saddle,” and gave it to the general .. Under Forrest, it [KKK] became, as he said, “a protective political military organization,” i.e., a paramilitary force, a counterbalance to [Governor] Brownlow’s Loyal Legion.

All government would react, but it is interesting how Tennessee’s governor reacts:

Governor Brownlow sought to pass a law making it legal for anyone to shoot a former Confederate on sight.

Now there is a data point to think about. What was it that really made the Union and the GOP so hateful? The treatment of blacks? I highly doubt it, it was more like when a spouse seeks to leave a marriage due to abuse and the other spouse ramps up the abuse to keep them in the “union”. What the South was to the North before the war was tariff income. After the war it became conquered territory to be used and abused.

Forrest knew the support he had from his former soldiers:

If that law passed, Forrest declared, there would be a second war, although he did not want it, but he would look upon the activation of Brownlow’s militia as a declaration of war. He also declared that he could raise 40,000 Klansmen in Tennessee and 550,000 throughout the South in five days. No one wanted to fight a half a million man cavalry army under Nathan Bedford Forrest ..

The Tennessee governor relented.

Just a few years later:

In February 1869, Brownlow resigned as governor. His successor sought to work with the Democrats, was conciliatory to his former enemies, and restored voting rights to Southern veterans and Confederate sympathizers. Forrest, meanwhile, became concerned that white trash elements were taking over large parts of the organization and were using it for their own nefarious and hateful purposes. As a result, Nathan Bedford Forrest issued General Order Number One, disbanding the Ku Klux Klan. “There was no further need for it,” Forrest commented later, “. . . the country was safe.”

So was Nathan Bedford Forrest this horrible guy? No. He had a heart for the people oppressed by the likes of Brownlow and other Northern politicians that had a hate streak for all things of the South. Obviously, if the South was that bad, why didn’t Northern politicians just let her go?

Money. Just follow the money.

-SF1

1861: What Triggered Secession and What Triggered War?

I have been reading about the so-called American Civil War  all my life. The more I research this period of the federated republic’s life, the more I see the secession action as filing for divorce and the war as the abusive spouse that refuses to let go.  Over the past few years on social media I have encountered some people who point to the secession documents and scream “told you it was about slavery” even when I know it wasn’t. If it was the Union would have freed ALL the slaves they had control over in 1861, and not in December 1865 well after Abe Lincoln had died.

The writings of Paul Craig Roberts are getting better. I guess that comes with age and wisdom, one tends to let the truth fly. So today I was hit with this article from his website that had me say, “why didn’t I think of that?” Well, it is probably because I was never a lawyer.

I am going to liberally quote the former official from the Ronald Reagan administration below, hang on for some learnin’

In response to my short essay on November 9 ( https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/11/09/the-prevalence-of-myth-over-history/ ), a reader sent me a link to secession documents that implicated slavery, not the tariff, as the reason for Southern secession. It is typical for the uneducated to come across a document of which they have no understanding and to send it off with a rude “got you” note to one who does understand the document.

Bingo. Been there done that. But instead of fighting the good fight a few years ago, I just ignored the pest (now I know they we an uneducated pest, but everyone is “in process”, bless their heart).

Paul goes on to explain the crux of that matter, from a legal position, because just like in a divorce, there was first a contract, and so one has to maneuver into filing for divorce on the proper grounds:

When the Southern states seceded, they were concerned to do so legally or constitutionally under the Constitution so that the North could not legally claim that it was an act of rebellion and invade the Southern states. To make this case, the South needed to make a case that the North had broken the Consltitutional contract and that the South was seceding because the North had not kept to the Constitution.

This presented a legal challenge for the South, because the reason for which the Southern states were seceding was the tariff, but the Constitution gave the federal government the right to levy a tariff. Therefore, the Southern states could not cite the tariff as a breach of the Constitutional fabric.

Slavery was the only issue that the South could use to make a legal case that it was not in rebellion.

Exactly. So out of context, many will think the seven states that initially seceded were not concerned about the tariff (even though that was the primary motivation to file for “divorce” and seek a peaceful separation), but were concerned about treatment of runaway slaves.

Article 4 of the US Constitution reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” In defiance of Article 4, some Northern states had passed laws that nullified the Fugitive Slave Act and other laws that upheld this article of the Constitution. The South used these nullification laws to make its case that Northern states had broken the Constitutional contract, thus justifying the Southern states secession.

Legal maneuvering was to be primary in order to exit peacefully and not be considered “in rebellion”. Lincoln, the proverbial lawyer, knew exactly what he was up against:

Lincoln understood that he had no authority under the Constitution to abolish slavery. In his inaugural address he said: “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.” The North had no intention of going to war over slavery. The same day that the Republican Congress passed the tariff, Congress passed the Corwin Amendment that added more constitutional protection to slavery.

Lincoln said that the South could have all the slavery that it wanted as long as the Southern states paid the tariff. The North would not go to war over slavery, but it would to collect the tariff. Lincoln said that “there needs to be no bloodshed or violence” over collecting the tariff, but that he will use the government’s power “to collect the duties and imposts.” The tariff was important to the North, because it financed Northern industrialization at the economic expense of the South.

Money. Finances were at the heart of why the majority of states north and west (called Midwest today) just could not let the seven states leave in peace. Their economic future looked bleak with a possible “free-trade” country next to the remnants of the Union. “She” could not go, because the lifestyle that was in effect for the previous 40 years simply could not be maintained!

The South’s effort to exit the union legally and constitutionally was to no avail. Secession was declared a rebellion, and the South was invaded.

Get that? Even though the southern seven (and eventually eleven) states had painfully followed the legal route, per the contract (Constitution), the abuse escalated and horror was brought upon these states who attempted to leave, especially during the war itself with innocent women, children and older men never spared, but total war (Sherman style, like we used in Iraq) was waged followed by occupation of the south for 12 more years followed by impoverishment of a whole region for a century. Even today, the South is treated as second class citizens unless they keep the “Union” as their god and master.

Occupation of the South – Military Districts

What about Lincoln himself, the so-called “Great Emancipator”?

The misportrayal of the War of Northern Aggression as Lincoln’s war to free slaves is also impossible to reconcile with Lincoln’s view of blacks. Here is “the Great Emancipator” in his own words:

“I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation [of the white and black races] . . . Such separation . . . must be affected by colonization” [sending blacks to Liberia or Central America]. (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol. II, p. 409).

“Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and . . . favorable to . . . our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime.” (Collected Works, vol. II, p. 409).

“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 qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people” (Collected Works, vol. III, pp. 145-146).

How was Lincoln turned into “the Great Emancipator”?

Great question Paul. It is the great myth, the deification of a racist president towards solidifying the concept that the Union always was (before the states/colonies) and that this republic is “indivisible”. Epic lies from a politician, who would have thought that?

Finally, in a line that promises much more in the months to come from this writer:

Just as Civil War history is mistaught in order to support the Identity Politics agenda of fomenting hatred of whites, the histories of the two world wars were fabricated in order to blame Germany, more about which later.

Bingo.

When you start to research for yourself all you have been taught, you come up against information that undermines the narrative you might have held as gospel for decades. Only then can you entertain a thought, without accepting it .. and go from there .. in your own time!

Like the old Royal Caribbean tag line goes .. “get out there!” .. research stuff!

-SF1