PC Gone Too Far

I respectfully disagree. I'll provide a couple more quotes from our discussion; Hmm, so it looks like I got the time element right, but not the place? What might Percy mean here regarding place? Emphasis added here by me: Yeah, that's right. The correct context for judging Davis is not non-slave owners and white supremacists. And according to you the Southern Justification for slavery is greater than Northern rebuttal based on not getting shouted down in some debate. Of course the South had justifications, but even you believe that the justifications were formed after the fact. In short, they were pretextual, and to some degree consisted of complaining about a lumpy bed after making the bed yourself.If in fact, the South created an economy on which slavery was a required element for their way of life, of course they would demand that it would continue, but the blame for their situation is their own. They created the entire situation and even entangled the Northerners in it to a large degree. It is certainly the case that the North was economically dependent on slave produced goods. Yet the North (for the most part) managed eventually to do the right thing anyway.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

If there is some important distance between these two statements, I doubt you could slide a paying card into the gap. What is clear is that there are various contemporary opinions about slavery in the South, and little objective reason to latch onto the South's own conclusions.

I completely agree. I don't think Percy and I ever got into debating the justifications, but I certainly agreed that the South gave reasons that they felt strongly about.I think Percy goes beyond that point. It is certainly possible that I've misread some of his statements. He has certainly made that claim. I am completely comfortable with what you have expressed here. I'll wait to see if Percy confirms your understanding.

It is demonstrable that the early UDC were supremacists, segregationists and racists. They were also often supporters of the Klan. The same could be said for the early SCV but that group was not relevant to this discussion. Current versions of the UDC are very vocal about perserving Southern Heritage. That was also a goal of the early UDC, but the early groups went about their goal by promoting a distorted version of history in which negroes were content as slaves, and in which defense of slavery had nothing to do with the civil war."United Daughters of the Confederacy"United Daughters of the Confederacy - New Georgia Encyclopedia

quote:

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1915 Caroline Helen Jemison Plane, the president of the UDC Atlanta chapter, began the project that would culminate in the Confederate memorial carving on Stone Mountain. As leader of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association (incorporated in 1916 as the Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association), she solicited the support of the sculptor Gutzon Borglum and convinced the owners of the mountain to give the UDC access to the property. In addition to the carving of Confederate heroes, Plane wanted Ku Klux Klan members to appear in the design.

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Link to book praising the clan endorsed by both the early UDC and SCV, the book written by an early UDC historian.THE KU KLUX KLAN OR INVISIBLE EMPIRE BY Mrs. S. E. F. RoseThe Ku Klux Klan: Or Invisible Empire - Laura Martin Rose - Google Books"Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A."Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. - Google BooksPrincipally about the DAR, but including a discussion of the relationship between the Klan and UDC during the early work on the Stone Mountain carving. Again confirms that Plane wanted to add Reconstruction-era Klansmen to the original design.I'm sure there was some separation between the UDC and the Klan at times, but I think the idea that the early UDC were not supremacists isn't correct, and is demonstrated in these references. In fact, given the prevalance of the supremacists beliefs in the deep South, it would be very surprising if those organizations did not mirror their surroundings.

Davis, Lee, and Jackson are viewed as heroes by some portion of Southerners, but that is not the last word on whether or not those folk are heroic. Davis, in particular, has little to recommend himself as hero other than as a reminder of the most reprehensible portions of antebellum history.That is my point, and examples of exactly which folk actually did revere this fellow are legitimate issues to point out in making that point.

So was Nathan Bedford Forrest. Again, the view of some southerners is not the last word on whether those folks were heroic or on whether their statutes might be better moved to a museum rather than in a central place on a college campus, or whether what these folks are celebrated for is reprehensible. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

You are correct. My post was not a rebuttal But simply re-tellling me that the folks who carved Stone Mountain considered the folks to be heroes really is not much of a point to begin with. I might add, that calling posters PC is also not much of a rebuttal either, but that does not prevent you from doing that either.Beyond that, I'm not rebutting your point so much as saying so what? I have expressed the opinion that I don't adopt or value the opinions of the folks who fought a war rather than give up slavery. Perhaps it is time to discuss Davis in particular and to discuss just why he is heroic. Your own opinion seems to be the Davis was merely an ineffective leader. Museums are fine places for such preservation. We can even add context explaining what bastards some of these folks actually were. I accept that many things cannot be moved, and I don't advocate moving such stuff. The Jefferson Davis monument in Kentucky is a fine example of something I would consider it to ridiculous to try to move or to house. On the other hand, I don't think very highly of Gerogia's decision in the 1950s to incorporating confederate symbols into the state flag, or to complete the carving on Stone mountain. With respect to Stone Mountain, it is impossible to get balancing displays added to the park (and by balancing displays, I don't mean another huge carving into the mountain).In my opinion, the objective opinions of folks later on is much more likely to be accurate than was the Lost Cause versions the UDC and SCV pushed and continue to push to this day.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Not in general, no. I can agree with that. But with respect to looking back in slavery in the south, I think the jury went home long ago.

I suppose I've missed a joke, but this point is something on which we can agree without either of us changing our positions in this thread.I was kinda hoping we could end on a high note. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Percy, I think after a long debate, full of trading of blows, you've found a bit more in my post that I intended. I understand of course, that your position never was about your own view of slavery, but about how to view the South in light of their culture. I've acknowledged that explicitly at least once that I can recall.I'll except the blame for the phrasing. Defending it would require repeating arguments that are not going to change either of our opinions. I know that. But I still don't see much point in continuing. If I provided a list of reasons why I think Davis or Forrest were justifiably to be considered 'bastards' would that change your mind about them or would it just drawn more comments about my 'lack of objectivity'? It isn't even correct that I've only demonstrated that Davis was a racist, white supremacists, slave owner. For Davis himself, I've also mentioned a few reasons in passing (not just his generic white supremacy) including his proclamations with regard to the handling of black POWs, his published post war memoirs defending slavery in the South and promulgating a false history for the war. I could list more if it was worthwhile to do so, but it really isn't. For Forrest, I've already provided some details even though I left you to link them to Forrest. Those two examples ought to be enough to support my claim that some of these folks were bastards.For Forrest, Jackson, and Lee, at least some folks might point to their legendary war success as reasons to respect them. I've even bought into that narrative to some extent, although some of it is again inflated by lost Cause folks who blame Lee's failures all on any scapegoat they can find. Heck, we might even consider Rommel a war hero despite his cozy relationship with Hitler. But according to you Davis was just an ineffectual nothing. He does not get that cover and you haven't given him any other.Maybe that suggests why I think the record is okay as it stands. I'm sure there are plenty of misunderstandings, and mis-statements of positions throughout the debate, but they are surely not all by just one of us. I assume that the record, as it sits, accurately reflects the discussion, and more discussion is not going to change anyone's mind.If you can find some way to advance the debate, I'll consider rejoining it, but for now there seems little point.

I mentioned the proclamation during the discussion. It may not have been in a post to you. I did mention directly to you Davis role in defending slavery in justifying the war and session and I am pretty sure I mentioned his writings on the causes of the civil war.It appears that continuing this discussion continues to generates a poor result and at least some of that is on you. It is not just me. If you can find a way around that, I'll rejoin.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Your statement is accurate. However the context is that I was comparing Davis to Washington. It is correct that I did not provide a pointer to the data, but on the other hand, I am referring to well documented history that folks somewhat familiar with Civil war history mostly already know. That's fine, but to what end would be such a discussion?I don't believe a documentation that Davis did a bunch of things I judge to be bad gets to the point of our disagreement. No matter how I document what I consider Davis bad behavior, those details seem close to orthogonal to your position that 1) post war Southerners consider him to be a hero, that the Lost Cause version of history should to be celebrated/displayed regardless of just about anything even if it does amount to state supported offense to some folk. Well, yeah, I agree that they were Southern heroes and nothing bad that they did to slaves, or POWs or anyone else will change that. In fact, some people love him for those things. In fact, it seems to me that any negative judgment I make on any basis will just result in your saying 'that isn't the time and place' in which Davis lived.Seriously. I enjoy discussing civil war, and reconstruction era history. But this does not seem to be discussion in which those kinds of facts are of value. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

And yet, saying that their cause was unjust appears to me to be incredibly accurate. That's reason enough for me to say that now.I certainly understand the politics of the time, and the pragmatism of pursuing reconciliation between the two halves of the country. But all of those folks from that era are dead now, and the folks who current live in the South bear no responsibility for any of the ills of the past. So yeah, we ought to be able to tell the truth now without being called insensitive. As you say, nobody has any right to not be offended. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Just to be clear, I am not in favor of dynamiting any of the monuments we've discussed. I would be against building the thing in the first place. On the other hand preserving some of smaller stuff in a musueum rather than on a college campus totally unrelated to Davis sounds like a reasonable idea to me, particularly if folks on campus don't want it there.

I'm trying to understand your point here, so please be patient with my question. What is it that you are thinking that both union and non-union folks would have come together on that is related to the monument we are discussing? What is the tie to Davis? True and shameful. I'm not sure how these facts would change my mind about anything. I am already suspicious about the rationale for maintaining Jefferson Davis, in particular, as a hero. Davis was born in Kentucky, and served as president in Richmond, which might give these two places some apparently innocent tie to Davis. But a statue in Texas and the enormous carving in Georgia don't get the same kind of cover, to my mind. Your explanation only reinforces my opinion that some of these things do not commemorate a battle over states rights, but instead intended to be a celebration of the racist antebellum period.Also, according to Wikipedia, Jefferson Seminary closed in 1829. The article notes that the Seminary is the direct ancestor to the University of Louisville. Not sure what the connection is, but given that the monument does not feature Davis, I'm not sure what the connection is to the current folk on campus.