Correcting History

It has been said that those of us who disagree with, and challenge, the accepted narrative of “The Civil War” and Abraham Lincoln are “rewriting history.” The truth is, we are trying to correct history by presenting the side never told. As the saying goes, “there are two sides to every story,” but why is it that the Yankee rewritten version of “history” is all we ever see or hear? When trying to present the truths missing from the history books, we often hear, “You lost the war. Get over it.” That is quite a shallow and narrow-minded attitude to take. What are the ones who support the accepted narrative trying to hide? Why do they want to shut us up? Liars fear truth. The truth can stand on its own merits. Lies fall apart. Let us examine some of these “accepted narratives” we have had pummeled into our heads for over 160 years.

The Civil War was fought to “free the slaves”

That has a humanitarian theme, and sounds like a good thing, but it is entirely false. No Union soldier fired one shot to “free the slaves,” and no Confederate soldier fired one shot “to protect slavery.” There were slave states in the Union after the South seceded, and they held over 429,000 slaves (1860 Census). During the war, West Virginia (which was unconstitutionally formed) was admitted into the Union as a slave state. Lincoln countermanded General Fremont’s orders and had emancipated slaves returned to their masters in Missouri. After reading these facts, the “fought to free the slaves” argument just doesn’t pass the smell test. Also, Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment which would have forever made it illegal to abolish slavery, if the seceded states would return to the Union and ratify it. Lincoln, himself, said the war was not being waged over slavery. There were Union officers (Grant, Sherman, and others) who owned slaves, but they were “fighting to free the slaves”? Let’s look at a couple of quotes. There are many more, but for the sake of time and space we will look at only these two.

“We didn’t go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back; and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith…”

Abraham Lincoln

“Sir”, said Grant, “I have no doubt in the world that the sole object is the restoration of the Union.  I will say further, though, that I am a Democrat — every man in my regiment is a Democrat — and whenever I shall be convinced that this war has for its object anything else than what I have mentioned, or that the Government designs using its soldiers to execute the purposes of the abolitionists, I pledge you my honor as a man and a soldier that I will not only resign my commission, but will carry my sword to the other side, and cast my lot with that people.” 

Democratic Speaker’s Handbook, p. 33 (1868)

The South wanted to protect and perpetuate slavery to the western territories

Well, that myth is beyond absurd. Common sense refutes this myth. By the very act of seceding from the Union and establishing its own country, the South locked itself OUT of any rights to territories belonging to the U.S. The Confederate Constitution outlawed the importation of slaves, so if it wanted to “protect and perpetuate” slavery, why did it outlaw the importation of slaves? Slavery was dying out in the South and there were five times as many abolition groups in the South as there were in the North. The South wanted to be done with slavery and many had already freed their slaves. If the South wanted to “protect slavery,” it had only to stay in the Union where it was already protected. The South was working towards gradual emancipation so that the blacks could gradually be prepared to enter society as free people. The ending of slavery in the South was a byproduct of the war, not the cause for it.

Secession was treason

Secession being legal was taught at West Point from William Rawle’s “Views on the Constitution” published in 1825. It was used as a textbook for one year and remains in the library today. Americans who oppose secession for the Southern states find themselves bed partners with the communist generals of Yugoslavia and communist hard-liners of the former Soviet Union. What was condemned in 1861 was sanctioned by the Republican Party in 1991 when Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia withdrew his country from the Soviet Union’s orbit, but Jefferson Davis and his fellow Southerners are called traitors for doing the same thing.

The 10^th Amendment protects a states’ right to withdraw from the Union. If a state voluntarily joined, it can voluntarily withdraw.

New England threatened to secede over the War of 1812, yet no force was threatened against them to remain in the Union. Our Founding Fathers knew secession was a right held by the states.

Among the Founding Fathers there was no doubt. The United States had just seceded from the British Empire, exercising the right of the people to “alter or abolish” – by force, if necessary – a despotic government. The Declaration of Independence is the most famous act of secession in our history, though modern rhetoric makes “secession” sound somehow different from, and more sinister than, claiming independence.

The original 13 states formed a “Confederation,” under which each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” The Constitution didn’t change this; each sovereign state was free to reject the Constitution. The new powers of the federal government were “granted” and “delegated” by the states, which implies that the states were prior and superior to the federal government.”

After Lincoln’s illegal War of Northern Aggression, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was arrested and placed in prison prior to a trial. The trial was never held, because the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Salmon Portland Chase, informed President Andrew Johnson that if Davis were placed on trial for treason the United States would lose the case because nothing in the Constitution forbids secession. That is why no trial of Jefferson Davis was held, despite the fact that he wanted one!

Because of our progressive-liberal public education system, many Americans now believe the myth that secession is treasonable. The Declaration of Independence was, in fact, a declaration of secession. Its final paragraph declares inarguably the ultimate sovereignty of each state:

That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

Following the Declaration of Independence, each colony established by law the legitimacy of its own sovereignty as a state. Each one drew up, voted upon, and then ratified its own state constitution, which declared and defined its sovereignty as a state. Realizing that they could not survive upon the world stage as thirteen individual sovereign nations, the states then joined together formally into a confederation of states, but only for the purposes of negotiating treaties, waging war, and regulating foreign commerce.

If secession was not legal, why did Northern Congressional Representatives Florence (PA), Sickles (NY), and Ferry (CT) propose constitutional amendments to prohibit secession?

The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves

You say, “His Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves! That proves he was against slavery.” Lincoln’s words: “I view the matter (Emancipation Proclamation) as a practical war measure, to be decided upon according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.” He also wrote: “I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition.” At the time Lincoln wrote the proclamation, war was going badly for the Union. London and Paris were considering recognizing the Confederacy and considering assisting it in its war effort.

All one has to do to debunk this myth is to actually read the Proclamation. It “freed” slaves in areas NOT under federal control, but expressly left them in bondage where it actually could have freed them.

At least 200,000 Union soldiers deserted after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came out, 120,000 evaded conscription, and over 90,000 Northern men fled to Canada to avoid conscription, and thousands more hid in the Pennsylvania mountains to hide from enrollment officers. That seems to have been left out of the history books.

We have not even discussed the fact that Lincoln invaded over Southern tariffs, not slavery. The South was paying 85% of the federal revenues, which was unconstitutional. Also, it was the New England Yankees working the slave trade, on ships built by slaves, flying Old Glory, that transported the slaves into the U.S., Caribbean, and South America. But it is the South that gets all the blame for slavery.

This only scratches the surface of the truth. Several other issues look different when you hear “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say. There are countless accounts of the Yankee atrocities visited upon Southern civilians, black and white. Lincoln’s army murdered, raped, looted, and burned its way across the South, and when Sherman would tell Lincoln of the atrocities committed by the army, Lincoln would laugh and tell him to repeat it over again. What has been taught in our public school system about Lincoln is nothing but fabricated myths.

Over 160 years of rewritten “history” has brainwashed generations of Americans, just as it was intended to do. But the truth cannot be buried forever, and many of us know the truth and are putting it out there. We do not have the communist media, Hollywood, and politicians to back us with the truth like they back the fabricated rewritten version of history. In this age of information being literally at our fingertips, there is no excuse for anyone to not know the truth. Since we cannot depend on academia, the media, or Hollywood to tell us the truth, it is up to each one to learn it on their own. I will close with a short list of very good books that will help anyone seeking the truth.

• The Real Lincoln, by Charles L.C. Minor
• The South Was Right, by James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy
• Red Republicans and Lincoln’s Marxists, by Walter D. Kennedy and Al Benson, Jr.
• The Un-Civil War, by Leonard M. Scruggs
• Truths of History, by Mildred Lewis Rutherford (1920)
• Complicity, by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank
• Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865, by George Edmunds
• Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States: The Irrefutable Argument, by Gene Kizer, Jr.
• Causes Of The Civil War, by Philip Leigh
• Southern Reconstruction, by Philip Leigh
• The South Under Siege 1830 – 2000, by Frank Conner

God Bless Dixie!

Jeff Paulk
Oklahoma Division Commander
Sons of Confederate Veterans