Same Game, Different Players

by Al Benson Jr.

Have you ever gotten the feeling that when some event occurs that you’ve “seen this before someplace, that this isn’t the first time for this?” You can’t recall when or where this all happened before, but it’s somehow very familiar. Some might refer to this as deja vu , but it’s more than that. It’s really a repeated pattern, or maybe a repeated agenda might be a more appropriate term.

Recently, someone forwarded an article to me written in 2011 and posted on http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org  on September 26th of that year. The headline for the article read: “Immigrants Want Cross Removed from Swiss Flag.” Note that the headline did not specify who the “immigrants” were, but the article was forced to.

It began: “An immigrant group based in Bern has called for the emblematic white cross to be removed from the Swiss national flag because as a Christian symbol it ‘no longer corresponds to today’s multicultural Switzerland. Ivica Petrusic, the vice president of Second@s Plus a lobbying group that represents mostly Muslim second generation foreigners in Switzerland…says the group will launch a nationwide campaign in October to ask Swiss citizens to consider adopting a flag that is less offensive to Muslim immigrants.” Talk about gall, this is it! Move to someone else’s country and then chide them because they don’t do things your way and change their national culture to suit you. Has anyone given a thought to the not-so-remote possibility that this might be construed as Cultural Genocide?

In an interview at that time with a Swiss newspaper Aarguer Zeitung Petrusic noted that the cross had a Christian background and while the Christian roots of Switzerlalnd ought to be “:respected” it is also “…necessary to separate church and state because present day Switzerland “…has a great religious and cultural diversity.One has to ask if the State wants to continue building up a symbol in which many people no longer believe.” Does any of this sound familiar–separation of church and state, the use of symbols that many don’t believe in any longer? Are you beginning to connect some of the dots here? How many have heard almost identical rhetoric recently in regard to Confederate symbols and flags? The rhetoric could, literally, have been transported from one country to the other and, with minor changes, that may be the case. Which, for me, would occasion the question–how much real difference is there between the Muslim mindset and that of the NAACP?

Both are practitioners of Cultural Genocide, and work to see it practiced not only on the present generation but on future generations yet to come. If there were an ounce of genuine diversity in either of these groups they would not have that much of a problem with the flags and symbols of other cultures because that would represent true diversity, whether you agreed with all of them or not. The best you can say for these groups is that they give lip service to a pretended diversity while they really practice Cultural Genocide on any who dare to disagree with their agendas. The fact is that, in both cases, they seek to eradicate flags and symbols they don’t agree with and an astute person should be able to recognize that they are not about diversity–they are about changing the historical makeup of any country or group they do not agree with. They are, in effect, trying to culturally murder those they disagree with, most especially if they are Christians. We are not supposed to be smart enough to figure this out and we are supposed to be conned by their “diversity” chatter until we have sold out our faith, history, and heritage and accepted theirs in its place. A good description of Cultural Genocide–destroy your faith, enshrine theirs!

We have got to be discerning enough to recognize this and resist it, whether it be in Switzerland, the rest of Europe, or this country. We dare not remove Christian symbols just because other cultures don’t “like” them or are “offended” by them. If we do, we make ourselves like those Jesus described in Mark 4:17.

I have said this before and I still believe it holds true–that all this talk about “racism” being the result of Confederate symbols and because of that wanting to do away with those symbols, is promoted by those who want to remove any and all Christian symbols and the idea that the Christian faith had any effect on the South. If they are able to lay this major guilt trip on the South to the point where its folks won’t stand up and defend their flags and symbols, you can imagine where they will go from there. Christian crosses beware!

You have to understand that those people, whether Muslims, the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or whoever, have, as part of their agenda the total destruction of your Christian faith, your history, culture, heritage, and ultimately–YOU! If they can rob you of your faith, heritage and culture, then they will have stolen all these from your children and grandchildren as well, and your descendants will eventually belong to them, because “He who controls the past controls the future.”

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Ken Burns’ Impressively Shallow “Civil War” series–conclusion

by Al Benson Jr.

I have been informed that Mr. Burns’ update for his “Civil War” series has been on public television this week (probably for the first rebroadcast of many) so I wanted to conclude my comments about it during this week. As readers can probably deduce from my comments in the first article, I have significant disagreements with Mr. Burns’ worldview.

One thing that bothered me was the way in which he dealt with some of the personalities, notably Stonewall Jackson.  In my original Christian News article back in October of 1990 I stated: “Other things in this series bothered me. Stonewall Jackson, one of the South’s ablest generals and a devoted Christian gentleman, was labeled  as a ‘cold-eyed killer, unloved by his men and fond of slaughter. I’m no expert on Jackson (though I have read two or three books about him) but I’ve read enough to know that such a description is utter hogwash!  Jackson’s Christianity was couched in terms that made him appear to be a religious fanatic. Robert E. Lee was dealt with somewhat more charitably, but probably because his own devotion as a Christian is so well-known that, like George Washington, he cannot be vilified with impunity.” (At least that was the situation when I wrote the original article. In the fanatical political correctness now afoot in the land I’m not so sure that norm holds anymore.)

“The series was very will done, artistically, with skillful use of old photos of the period, along with background music and sound effects of that time. All this was blended together in such a way as to make it all very watchable, particularly if you happen to be a history buff. All you had to watch out for were the conclusions drawn from the series.”

“The part of the series that dealt with the battles was well done and probably mostly accurate. The horrible bloodiness of the conflict was noted and not glamorized, and that was good.  Having visied several of the battlefields noted in the series, I would have to say that, historically, that was the best part of the series.” (Although now I understand that the National Park Service has gone around and changed all the plaques to state the the reason the war was fought was only over slavery, and that’s not good because it is totally erroneous. Slavery was one reason for the War, among many, and not the main reason no matter what these politically correct “historians” try to shove down your throats.)

“The program hinted at the fact that, after two years of ‘Civil War” Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, not out of a concern for slaves, but mainly as a political move, a ‘noble’ reason for the conflict to continue. Other historians have said it with more authority, though.”

“The final episode  dealt with the collapse of the Confederacy, Lincoln’s assassination, and the remainder of the lives of some well-known ‘Civil War’ figures. The birth of the Ku Klux Klan was mentioned, but NOT ONE WORD was said about the “reconstruction” period specifically, one of the most shameful periods in our history. That part of the picture was totally ignored. Down the memory hole if you will!”

“One thing admitted in this series was that the War Between the States changed the course of our history. One narrator in the series said we were never the same country after the war.  He seemed to feel that the change was for the better.” (Looking at what we have to deal with in our day, I’m not so sure of that. I think, in many ways, it’s worse.) “Another speaker summed it up by saying that, before the war, when the United States were spoken of, it was in the plural form ‘The United States are’ after the war the singular term  ‘The United States is’ came into usage. So much for the rights of and our recognition of individual states. These were swallowed up by a strong national government. Due to apostasy in this country (and most  of our troubles can be traced back to that cause) the War Between the States was truly the American Revolution (and our French Revolution) a revolution that most God-fearing Americans, both North and South lost!  Most have not realized that even unto this day.  Slaves were not freed in the truest sense of the word.  Care and ownership was just transferred from plantation owners to politicians who had big plans to use ex-slaves as a gigantic voting block  to keep them (the politicians) in power.  Many even said as much, though naturally, with less offensive terminology.”

“One of the concluding narrations was given by a lady “historian” who went so far as to say that as long as we have the downtrodden and the homeless on the streets the Civil War is never really over. One might translate that to mean “until the federal government is willing to provide cradle to the grave security for all citizens (socialism) the Civil War goes on!” And don’t we hear echoes of this same mantra today?

I have to agree with Mr. Burns on one point–the War never really has ended, but I don’t agree with his reasons. It has not ended because the Yankee/Marxist regimes that inhabit Washington have determined that the South and its Christian heritage and culture must be destroyed and they will not discontinue their war on us until they have accomplished that. We need to wake up and realize that. This latest planned and orchestrated attack on all things Confederate should be a wake-up call to Southern folks and all honorable folks everywhere as to the fact that the Ruling Elite expects you to surrender your history, faith, and culture to their minions and they will fight you until you do. Lets make sure they have a long, long fight!

The Governor And the Mayor Will Fight Over Confederate Monuments–Is It Real?

by Al Benson Jr.

By now most folks that have not been asleep for the last 20 years realize that Mary Landrieu’s brother, Mitch, the mayor of New Orleans has decided that his fair city will partake of the ethnic cleansing going on all over the South in regard to anything Confederate. Mitch feels this will get him the socialist vote in New Orleans and if he can get that, he doesn’t much care about the rest.

Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana is also running for president and he seems to have taken the position, at least at this point, that he doesn’t want the socialist vote because he seems to be trying to find some way to force the Mayor of New Orleans to leave the Confederate monuments alone. Jindal has said he has told his staff to check into the Heritage Act to determine whether he has the legal authority to block removing the Confederate monuments. It sounds good, only problem is that, at this point, no one seems  to know what the Heritage Act is and whether Jindal has the authority to use it if, in fact, such an act exists. Frankly, I hope it does, but there seems to be some doubt about it. No doubt there will be some that will look at what Jindal is doing as a way to get the “redneck” vote in Louisiana if he does end up getting the Republican nod. It wouldn’t be the first time a politician did something like this. I hope he is sincere, but after watching the political class for over 40 years now, if it turned out to be more rhetoric than substance it wouldn’t surprise me.

So far, though, Jindal has been relatively consistent. He did refuse to take the Confederate flag off the SCV specialty tags in Louisiana, although there are some that are saying that the Legislature will take another look at that in the next session. They are, after all, being prodded by the NAACP, one of the ultra-leftist organizations out there so much will depend on the tenacity of the Southern heritage folks in Louisiana before the next legislative session because you can bet the farm that the NAACP will camp out at the capital and besiege the legislators long before the legislature actually convenes with their woeful tales of how the SCV license tags are “offensive” and make black people feel “uncomfortable” and all the rest of the usual bovine fertilizer. Confederate license tags don’t seem to have hindered the progress of blacks in Louisiana to any noticeable extent over the years, but watch the NAACP work that issue until, suddenly, SCV license tags will become the source of all the ills of man or beast in Louisiana since 1865.

I would hope the legislature would have the common sense to leave this issue alone, but politicians being what they are–panderers after the politically correct vote–you just can’t depend on them doing what’s right.

As you observe what the political and religious left is doing in regard to Confederate flags and monuments it would seem to be contradictory. They claim that vandalizing Confederate monuments and burning Confederate flags, or just outright stealing them, is what they are doing to promote “unity” and “national healing.” They couldn’t be that stupid if you paid them! If you really want to promote “national healing” then the last thing you do is to tear down the symbols of your opposition’s race and culture. If you really want to promote healing you just leave those symbols alone.

The fact that the left is vehemently trashing anything Southern shows that they have no interest in reconciliation or healing. The left has never been about that. They have always been about destruction–the destruction of anyone or thing that they don’t agree with or that stands in their way. Their real agenda is hatred and division and what they really hate is resistance to their agenda. They are all about class struggle–and what that really means is  their class overcoming your class–their ideology overcoming yours, their faith overcoming yours, particularly if you are a Christian.

I pray that Southern folks, particularly Southern Christians, are beginning to get that message. “Those people”  call good evil and evil good and, even in spite of some weak-kneed Christians who just want to “be nice” to everyone, the left needs to be resisted.

The Left Is A Weapon Of Cultural Destruction For the Internationalists

by Al Benson Jr.

Regardless of all the blather out there that emanates from the so-called “news” media about the political and religious left being full of concern and compassion for the plight of mankind it is all a “cunningly devised fable.”

The left is nothing more than an engine of cultural destruction to be used against those who do not bow the knee to the ruling Establishment–those who promote the New World Order and its agenda. When resistance surfaces against this One World Government worldview then the Powers That Be will call the leftists out from under whatever collectivist rocks they may be hiding under and turn them loose of the resistance and from thereon the leftists destroy as much as they can–culturally, physically, emotionally. In doing what its master directs  it to do the left not only attacks  the Truth (the Christian faith) but it attacks ordinary people who do not even realize they are under assault or why.

This recent and ongoing attempted purge against Confederate  flags and symbols is a prime example. Many on the far left are now roaming around tearing down Confederate flags, burning them, defacing Confederate statues and monuments, committing mayhem against ordinary citizens and some of them are actually convinced they are doing the great work of “destroying racism”. These are the leftists’ “useful idiots.” They destroy good, thinking they are destroying evil. Actually all they are doing is displaying to the world that they are every bit as “racist” as they accuse others of being. But then, accusing others of what you yourself are guilty of is a standard Marxist tactic, so that should surprise no one that has done the homework.

In the past few weeks I have been inundated with pictures and emails showing what the political and religious left are currently engaged in. Someone sent me a photo of how they had defaced a Confederate soldiers’s statue in Reidsville, North Carolina. The statue had all manner of graffiti painted or sprayed on it, some of which you could actually read. The Reidsville statue had painted on its base “Black Lives Matter.” Although they would  at least some of them, deny it, what they are doing is telling you that the rest of your lives and your culture don’t matter if you are not black.

One thing I have noticed, so far, is that those who deface these Confederate monuments usually seem to do it with red and black paint. Why no other colors? Why no blue? No yellow? They are telling you something if you think about it. They are telling you who is doing it and where it comes from. All the Confederate statues I have seen pictures of that have been defaced have all been done with these two colors. You’d think some leftist from somewhere in the South would be original enough to use a different color–but no, it’s always red and black. How “spontaneous!”

A lot of these black leftists howl about wanting “equality” with everyone else. Don’t believe it! They don’t want equality–they want preference!  It’s all about getting power and rubbing everyone else’s nose in the dirt when you do. And in this they share the “vision” of their Internationalist masters.

Someone sent me a photo of a cemetery in Georgia where the headstones of several of the Confederate soldiers buried there had been knocked over. These people are so dastardly they can’t even let the dead rest in peace. Look at what’s going on in Memphis with Bedford Forrest’s grave. How low do you have to be to dig up someone who has been buried 110 years?

Someone else sent me a picture of a house in Bessemer, Alabama that had been flying  a Confederate flag–at least they had until someone drove by the house and fired shots into it.

Folks, these kinds of actions are terror tactics. This is the kind of things that terrorists do to scare people so they will just cave into the terrorists’ agenda–or the agenda of whoever is financing and motivating the terrorists. If you want to find out about the kind of people that are doing that you can get on the Internet and look up Gary Allen’s book None Dare Call It Conspiracy.  Or look up his other book The Rockefeller File. That will give you some idea of who pulls the leftists’ strings.

These kinds of terrorist acts are the sum total of what the left has to contribute to any debate about anything, be it Confederate flags or whatever. They are great at destroying private property because they have no use for that anyway, except where they can control it. And if they can control it, then it’s alright, because, after all, they are using it for the benefit of “the people.” Just don’t ever ask what “people.”

For all their prating about “diversity” and “multi-culturalism” this is the best the leftists can do–defacing a Confederate statue by painting “Black Lives Matter” on its base. This time their tactics don’t seem to be working real well overall. I have seen more Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks in this area in the last week or two than ever I did previously.

So let’s keep those flags flying and those flag rallies going and lets “keep the skeer” on those gutless politicians  who would sell out our heritage and culture for what they think is a chance to win the next election.. Let’s let them know that if they persist in embracing this Cultural Marxism, the only way they will win the next election is if it is rigged!

More Admissions to Early Socialism In America

By Al Benson Jr.

Those who have finally been forced to admit that there was socialism and Marxism prevalent in this country before the advent of FDR have done so quite reluctantly. Before Donnie Kennedy and I wrote our book Lincoln’s Marxists several years ago this was a subject that was generally ignored. There was information out there before we wrote the book, but it was pretty generally submerged and the professional “historians” who wrote books dedicated to the Lincoln Cult preferred it that way. Our book, by God’s grace, helped to bring some of it to the surface and you can find more out there now than you could before we wrote the book.

I just ran across an article on www.u-s-history.com entitled “Socialism in America.” It gives a brief history of socialism in this country and, interestingly enough, it starts off with: “The roots of socialism in America can be traced to the arrival of German immigrants in the 1850s when Marxian socialist unions began, such as the National Typographic Union in 1852, United Hatters in 1856, and Iron Moulders’ Union of North America in 1859.” Have any of you ever read history books that mentioned any  “Marxian socialist unions” at any point in our history, let alone that early? Over the years I’ve heard some say that the labor unions in this country were all communist. Can you begin to see why some folks thought that way? Who knew that you had such groups in this country even before the start of the War of Northern Aggression? And how many of those Forty-Eighters who fought for Lincoln’s “holy cause” may have belonged to those unions? Joseph Weydemeyer,  who was a personal friend of Karl Marx, and who had been a Union officer during  the War has hailed in a Communist newspaper as a “trade union organizer” among his many other dubious talents, so you do have to wonder.

Recently, I read comments by John Nichols, who writes for The Nation magazine, which is hardly a publication that has the endorsement of those on the right. Someone was interviewing Mr. Nichols and he made a couple revelatory comments. He said: “To give you an example, Eugene Victor Debs frequently referenced Paine and Lincoln as folks who had inspired him toward socialism. So it’s not that this is something that we have just discovered, but it is something that has been sort of lost in recent decades.” Interesting comment. I don’t doubt for a minute that this sort of information has “been lost” in recent decades because it is a very inconvenient truth that, for the political left in this country, in both major political parties,  is better off forgotten or ignored.

And Nichols emphasizes this again when he says: “So again this is not hidden history—it’s there, it’s findable, but it’s not a history that has been emphasized. More significantly you bring up Lincoln, and the history of Lincoln is absolutely fascinating, because when you go back to the founding of the Republican Party, there is simply no question that the party was founded by a broad array of folks from many different ideological perspectives and backgrounds,  but some of the founders of the Republican Party, in fact key founders, people who called the initial meetings, were socialists and communists. A friend of Karl Marx was one of the key players in the founding of the Republican Party. That is not a debatable point—the history is there—but it is something that has not been emphasized, it’s almost been pushed aside.” Mr. Nichols’ comments here are quite accurate. This is truth that has been purposely ignored, swept under the historical rug, de-emphasized—however you want to say it. How do you think it would look in young folks’ history books if the fact were admitted that socialists and communists played a large part in the founding of the Republican Party? With truth like that floating around, how could Republican candidates go to the public during elections claiming to be the “party of small government?” With truth like that available, they would, if they were honest, have a admit that they were the party of total government and that, in that capacity, the Democrats were only laboring to catch up to them  in that quest.

Judging by what I have read of Mr. Nichols’ comments here and there, I don’t believe I would be comfortable with his political ideology. However, I have to admit that, in this case, he has done us a real service by noting these facts. I wish we had had this quote when we wrote Lincoln’s Marxists because it’s a real gem. His comments were published in www.thecoli.com  in November, 2013, over two years after Donnie Kennedy and I had the second edition of Lincoln’s Marxists published.

Those who still, ignorantly or otherwise, claim the Republican Party is the party of conservatives, patriots, and “small government” should start doing the homework to discern just how accurate their assertions really are. Some of them would be shocked, but they might be shocked into starting to do some real digging to determine if all they have been told is truth or farce. At that point they could begin to inform others and begin to position the Republican Establishment where it really belongs—in the total government column!

Was the War of Northern Aggression a Marxist Revolution?

by Al Benson Jr.

The title of this article is asked as a rhetorical question, as Donnie Kennedy and I have already dealt in depth with this subject in our book Lincoln’s Marxists. But it does not hurt to ask it again, as many folks have not only not read our book, but they have never been confronted with some of the information that is now out there dealing with this subject. The leftist radicals in the early Republican Party were not bashful in giving away their socialist tendencies when they commented on the South and their plans for it and its people after the War.

James M. McPherson, who is by no means my favorite “historian” has dealt with some of this in an Internet article–Some Thoughts on the Civil War as the Second Revolution. McPherson seems to enjoy dealing with the subject of the War as if it were, indeed, a revolution, only he quotes the people that portray the Southerners as the revolutionaries. Needless to say, it was really the other way around. But then, a standard Marxist tactic is “condemn others and elevate yourself.”

McPherson noted the comments of future president James Garfield while he was in Congress, and he noted that: “During the first three of his seventeen years in Congress, Garfield was one of the most radical of the radical Republicans. He continued to view the Civil War and Reconstruction as a revolution that must wipe out all traces of the ancient regime in the South. In his maiden speech in the House of Representatives on January 28, 1864, he called for the confiscation of the land of Confederate planters and the redistribution of this land among the freed slaves and white Unionists in the South.” It hardly needs to be stated that such a concept is in total agreement with what Karl Marx advocated in the Communist Manifesto. This position was in total agreement with the first and fourth planks of the Communist Manifesto. Marx–sorry, I meant Garfield–then sought to excuse such Marxist confiscation on the premise that this had been done during our War for Independence with land that had belonged to the Tories. Of course a lot of the Tories had left the country, many going to Canada, and so much of their land was vacant anyway. And Garfield went on: “The leaders of this rebellion must be executed or banished from the republic…” So, was Garfield advocating mass executions of Southern leaders? Or at least their banishment so the federal government could then control the land that had been theirs? This was the same attitude as that displayed by General Sherman regarding Southerners–and it was still consistent with Marx.

Land confiscation was a cardinal tenet of Marxism and it was also a favorite among the Northern elite. In his book Citizen Sherman, Michael Fellman observed: “Land confiscation as one means of displacing the Confederate leadership had been discussed widely during the war. As early as August 24, 1862, John Sherman had written his brother, ‘If we can’t depend on the loyalty of the white men of the South, I would give the land to the blacks or colonize a new set (of northern whites).’ The general too had, since 1862, threatened Southerners with dispossession, their land to be redistributed to Northern white colonists…When the inhabitants persist too long in hostility it may be both politic and right that we should banish them and appropriate their lands to a more loyal and useful population…If they want eternal war, well and good; we will dispossess them and put our friends in their place…Many people with less pertinacity have been wiped out of national existence.” Almost makes you wonder if such is a veiled threat.

And Sherman made it quite plain that he would not hesitate to practice what we today call psychological warfare on the Southern people. According to Fellman, “His army would not inflict military defeat on a Confederate army, but intentionally humiliating destruction on a peaceful, cultivated Southern landscape and her people.” Lots easier to fight mostly unarmed Southern civilians than it is Confederate soldiers that can shoot back. But this is the way Marxists fight a war. Almost makes you wonder if Lenin took lessons from Sherman.

Radical abolitionist (and Unitarian) Wendell Phillips was among the most outspoken. In his mind he insisted that the War “is primarily a social revolution. The war can only be ended by annihilating that Oligarchy which formed and rules the South and makes the war-by annihilating a state of society. The whole social system of the Gulf States must be taken to pieces.” And dear old Thaddeus Stevens, that “gentle giant” of the radical abolitionists said they had to “treat this war as a radical revolution” and “reconstruction” then needed to “revolutionize Southern institutions, habits and manners…The foundations of their institutions…must be broken up and relaid, or all our blood and treasure have been spent in vain.” So, as you can see by the statements made, the real revolutionaries in this war were not the Southern people or their leaders, but were, instead, those among the Northern elite who had imbibed the doctrines of socialism that became so clearly apparent when they spoke. What they have been describing here is nothing less than what the Communists in Russia and China did when they took over those countries–cultural genocide. Change the culture and make it totally unrecognizable to those who had lived under the old Christian culture. For “those people” the war and “reconstruction” were nothing more than exercises in Cultural Marxism–the 19th century variety.

Back in 2012, Andre M. Fleche wrote a book called The Revolution of 1861: The American Civil War in the Age of Nationalist Conflict. I haven’t yet read it so I can’t comment all that much on it, but Fleche does deal with the Forty-eighters that Donnie Kennedy and I deal with in Lincoln’s Marxists. A review by Jarret Ruminski (University of Calgary) noted that: “Fleche supports his argument for the importance of 1848 by highlighting the significant roles European revolutionaries played in shaping American nationalist debates in the years leading up to the Civil War, and showing their continued influence after its outbreak.” So Mr. Fleche also recognizes how influential the Forty-eighters in this country were before the War and how their revolutionary influence affected what went on.

More and more, the general public, and especially Southerners, need to be much more aware of just how (from a socialist perspective) the North was influenced by the Forty-eighters and how that influence affected not only the War and “reconstruction” but how it has affected everything that has gone on since then.

This demonstrates that “reconstruction” never truly ended in the South, or anywhere else in the country, but is, in fact, in operation today. Obama’s plan to “fundamentally transform the United States” is all part and parcel of it. The old (Christian) culture has to be gotten rid of and a new one instituted. If you can say anything about Obama, you can truthfully say that he is a “change agent” for the New World Order, and he has taken many of his lessons in that area from Abraham Lincoln and from “Lincoln’s Marxists.”

A Trip To Northfield

By Al Benson Jr.

I recently returned from a trip to Minnesota, not the warmest place in the country this time of year. I visited with folks I’ve not seen in several years and it was a good reunion, even if the temperature hardly ever got up to freezing.

While there I got to go over to the town of Northfield, which should be a familiar name to many who study history, and particularly to those who have studied some of the personalities on both sides during the War of Northern Aggression. Northfield is a nice little town of about 20,000 and much of the architecture in the center of town is still of the type you saw in many parts of the country, particularly the Midwest, South and West during the late 19th century. Much of it looks very little changed since that time. Over the years we’ve been in many towns across the country that have sought to retain their original flavor and we enjoy them very much. Modern I am not. I like the older, traditional things, which, I suppose, makes me somewhat of an anachronism to the modern or post-modern (or whatever they call them nowadays) crowd.

Anyway, one of Northfield’s claims to fame is that Jesse James and his gang tried to rob the First National Bank there on September 7, 1876. That might seem a long way out of traditional Jesse James territory, but there were reasons for this particular expedition.

To understand that Jesse James was more than just your ordinary bandit out to steal whatever he could, you have to understand the conditions that prevailed in Missouri before, during and after the War of Northern Aggression. Missouri was a state in which slavery existed before the War, but, as an aside, it also existed in Minnesota before the War. I recently read an article on the Internet entitled Slavery at Fort Snelling (1820s-1850s). The article noted: “The officers and civilians in and near Fort Snelling (Minnesota) who used slave labor were in violation of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which stated that slavery was forbidden in the territory gained through the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 degree-30 degree latitude line (except within the boundaries of the state of Missouri). Slavery had existed in this region prior to the Compromise, however, and it continued in spite of it.” History books ever bother to mention that? Slavery in Minnesota—what a surprise!

At any rate, the state of Missouri, because slavery existed there, had had, from about 1854, problems with the state of Kansas, which was fast turning into an Abolitionist’s paradise, which it still is today. You can still feel the “we love John Brown” atmosphere in Eastern Kansas as you pass through it even today. But, as the number of abolitionists increased in Eastern Kansas, most of them being from the Northeast or Upper Midwest, so did their desire to “free” the slaves in Missouri, right across the border. Unfortunately for the folks in Western Missouri, the Kansas abolitionists had a decidedly socialist “redistribution of the wealth” attitude in which they felt it their bounden duty to redistribute everything and anything they could purloin in Missouri over into Kansas. Once the War commenced Kansas brigandage was given the cloak of federal legality and yesterdays thieves became today’s Yankee/Marxist brigadier generals.

Although Missouri was considered a “Union” state, though I believe their governor did sign a secession ordinance, the federal armies invaded Missouri, and treated the state’s citizens as prisoners of an occupied state. Lots of good Missouri folks sent their sons off to fight for the Confederacy, but some stayed on at home to try to protect their families and property from the “benefits” of Yankee occupation, and those “benefits” were substantial, especially if you owned anything the Yankees wanted. Missouri resisted—and its resistance forces were called “guerillas, bushwackers,” etc. Families who had sons in the Confederate service were special targets of Yankee beneficence. Jesse James was once, when he was fifteen years old, beaten by Yankee soldiers because he would not reveal the whereabouts of his brother, Frank, who had been fighting for the South, and his stepfather had also been hanged by Yankee soldiers for the same thing. He did survive the hanging but it was no great benefit to his health, being an elderly man.

When the War finally ended and Yankee/Marxist charity was fully able to reign, those who had fought against it in Missouri were promised amnesty if they would come in and surrender. Jesse James and some others rode in to surrender and the generous Yankee soldiers shot him. It was almost the identical situation portrayed in the “Outlaw Josie Wales” movie where “General” Jim Lane, the infamous Kansas Redleg, said of the Southern boys that surrendered “They were decently fed and decently shot.” I guess a bit of that sort of amnesty went on in Missouri that the “history” books forgot to mention.

And, after the War, the Yankee bankers took over in Missouri. Marley Brant, in her book Jesse James—The Man and the Myth observed that: “The Eastern power elite decided to expand its domination of the area after they had gained control of the majority of the Midwestern banking institutions.” Does that little fact give you any inkling as to why the James Gang and others went after the banks? The Yankee/Marxists had made their lives miserable, even those who were allowed to surrender without being shot. This was the only way they could fight back—in effect, steal from the thieves that had stolen from them.

Which brings us to Northfield in Minnesota. Ms. Brant stated, on page 176 of her book that: “Bill Chadwell (one of the James Gang) was in immediate agreement. He was familiar with Northfield and gave his associates some very interesting information. Chadwell informed them that Adelbert Ames and Benjamin Butler were prominent citizens of the town. These two men were no doubt recognized by Frank and Cole as two of the foremost carpetbaggers who took advantage of the people of the South after the war. Ames had been elected governor of Mississippi (a “reconstruction” governor) several years before but had been impeached by that state’s legislature earlier in the year…He eventually showed up in Northfield to join his father and brother. Ames bought a major interest in the Northfield mill operations with money said by those sympathetic to the South to have been obtained from his carpetbagging activities. Ben Butler also had carpetbagging interests in Mississippi and relocated to Northfield…The Southerners had nicknamed him Spoons as a reflection of their opinion that he would steal even his grandmother’s silverware. Chadwell told Jesse and the others that both of these men kept their money in the First National Bank of Northfield. The thought of robbing two representatives of the carpetbagging community must have delighted the members of the gang.” Not mentioned was the fact that Butler was also the infamous “Beast” Butler of New Orleans infamy and that Adelbert Ames was his son-in-law. The carpetbag fraternity that had stolen the South blind was well represented in Northfield.

Ultimately the robbery attempt failed and Bill Chadwell, who was to guide the gang safely back out of Minnesota, was killed, which fact left the gang to try to find its way to safety on its own. In the end, only Jesse and Frank James escaped. The Younger brothers and the others were either killed or captured.

Many over the years have wondered why the James Gang picked a bank so far north to attempt to rob. Most of their robberies had taken place in Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas, and even one in West Virginia, so one in Minnesota seems out of character for them until you understand just a bit about the miserable carpetbaggers and their “reconstruction” governments in the South after the War. The James Gang was, in effect, trying to steal from the thieves. The War did a lot of damage to the South and to the country as a whole. The “reconstruction” instituted by the Yankee/Marxist government in Washington never really ended—it just expanded quietly and without fanfare until we now have it nationwide—via the Patriot Act, Obamacare and a host of other federal programs, all for our “benefit” so we are told, yet they never seem to benefit us as much as they seem to benefit those who institute them, and that ain’t by accident, boys, it’s by design. Connect the dots, folks, and learn to “follow the money.” In 1876, Northfield was one of the dots.

“Father Abraham” Thought Secession Was Great For the Forty-Eighters

by Al Benson Jr.

In 1860, according to Abraham Lincoln, the Southern states did not possess the right to secede from the Union. Lincoln’s view of the Union was that it had actually predated the Constitution, and that, once in the Union, a state basically had no right not granted to it by Big Brother in Washington. Although he would not have couched it in exactly those terms, that was where he was really coming from. Donnie Kennedy and I have dealt with this in our book Lincoln’s Marxists.

However, in light of his own remarks, Mr. Lincoln’s anti-secession sentiments were very selectively applied, just like the edicts of the present Regime are today. Lincoln was opposed to Southern states seceding from the Union to preserve their Christian heritage and the rights of the individual states according to the Constitution and he was also opposed to their secession because they paid the major portion of the country’s tariffs and to have them gone would cost the Northern states big tariff bucks that the South had heretofore paid. In Lincoln’s mind, these were not good enough reasons for secession, but he did view secession as a viable option if the reasons for it were chaos and revolution.

On January 12, 1848, Lincoln, while in Congress, made a speech in which he stated the following: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right–a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. Supposedly, Lincoln was applying this to Texas in 1848, after their late unpleasantness with Mexico. Even were such the case, Lincoln should have been honor-bound to recognize, for other states, what he seems to have recognized for Texas.

However, with my suspicious mind, my personal contention is that, while Lincoln may have referred these remarks to Texas in a secondary way, his prime target for these sentiments was the socialist revolutionary movement that was soon to erupt in several countries in Europe in early 1848. That was the year the socialist and communist revolutionaries plunged Europe into chaos with bloody revolts in several countries. This activity began shortly after Lincoln gave his secession speech in Congress.

The carefully crafted persona of “Honest Abe the railsplitter,” the hayseed from the Illinois prairies, is one that has been carefully nurtured by our politically correct, Cultural Marxist, historic spin doctors. They definitely can’t afford to let us know what “Father Abraham” really was, a sharp, politically astute lawyer and lobbyist for the big railroads, as well as a thoroughly pragmatic politician with his own leftward-leaning agenda.

Lincoln was hardly the country bumpkin that biographers and “historians” have made him out to be. He was conscious of world events and had his own ideas and opinions regarding them. He was acquainted with what went on in Europe. By the same token, many in Europe kept tabs on what was happening over here. Lincoln’s 1848 speech in favor of secession (although the historians won’t admit that’s what it was) was well-timed to give European socialists the kind of American support for their endeavors that many of them could only have dreamed about. It let them know that there were American politicians that supported their socialist agenda.

In his book Lincoln And The Emperors A. R. Tyrner-Trynauer stated on page 32: The sympathy of the United States in general and Lincoln’s Republicans in particular for the revolutionaries of Europe was a long-established fact. That was written in 1962. More recently, in 1991, historian James McPherson, revealing a bit more about Lincoln, told us that: Lincoln championed the leaders of the European revolutiion of 1848; in turn, a man who knew something about those revolutions–Karl Marx–praised Lincoln in 1865 as ‘a single-minded son of the working class’ who had led his ‘country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world’. Look at and analyze what McPherson is telling you there. The “reconstruction of a social world” is supposed to be the death knell for the old Christian South, for private property, and of real Christian culture. That’s what it was really all about. Why else do you suppose that, when the Northern radicals (socialists) in Congress sought to destroy the culture of the South they called that program “Reconstruction?” That was Marx’s terminology.

Worth noting again, as Donnie Kennedy and I stress in our book, is the fact that socialist revolutionaries from the 1848 European debacle flocked to join the Union armies as the War of Northern Aggression got under way. Lincoln had the verbal support of Marx and Engels, as well as that of the Russian revolutionary Bakunin. Socialist and communist personalities ended up with high-ranking positions in Lincoln’s armies and also ended up in positions of influence in journalism, education, politics, and the list goes on. The fact that European socialists so lopsidedly supported the Union cause should give people pause to consider the true nature of the Union cause. Was Karl Marx really concerned about Lincoln freeing an “enchained race” of blacks? Hardly! Marx’s own personal comments show that he was prejudiced against blacks, and so was Lincoln for that matter. If you don’t think so, scrounge through the Lincoln Douglas Debates and see what you find. For both Marx and Lincoln the blacks were nothing more than cannon fodder for the socialist world revolution–and nothing has changed since then.

In the final analysis you have to ask, were Lincoln and Marx really that far apart? Such a question today will, no doubt, shock some tender souls who have been taught that Lincoln was, in effect, a secular messiah–the apotheosis of a mere man into a “god.” But, then, today, some feel that way about Obama. A noted television journalist, awhile back, said of her and her colleagues regarding Obama, “We thought he was the messiah.” I can only assume, at this point, that she has had her rude awakening. That same rude awakening needs to take place in regard to “Father Abraham” and his socialist and communist friends in the early Republican Party (and in the same party today along with the Democrats).

Secession Wasn’t Treason. It Still Isn’t

by Al Benson Jr.

Secession and the knee-jerk reactions to it have been of interest to me ever since I started doing historical research. Yankee/Marxist politicians, in 1861, sought to portray secession by the Southern states as the most monstrous of crimes ever perpetrated on the human race. The fact that some Northern states had threatened secession and actually sent delegates to Hartford, Connecticut in 1814 to consider the issue was a historical fact that was lost on them, and they hoped on everyone else too. Somehow, when the Northern states considered it, it was not treason. That was only the case when Southern states did it.

Between 1814 and 1860, secession went from being a favored possibility to a horrendous crime, most notably if the South did it. Even, and especially, in our day, many of our crop of “historians” absolutely howl about how secession was treason and how the Confederate States were seeking to overthrow the United States government–all of which is complete bovine fertilizer–and don’t think they don’t know it. All the Southern states wanted were to be able to go in peace. They had no interest whatever in overthrowing the federal government in Washington; they just wanted to depart and set up their own government. However, Mr. Lincoln and his erstwhile collectivist friends couldn’t allow that, as the Southern states paid the lion’s share of the tariff for the whole country and if they were allowed to depart, why the Northern states might have to start ponying up their share of the tariff because the South would no longer be there to pay over 80% of it.

When the shooting part of the War of Northern Aggression was over and the Confederate States, which never officially surrendered, by the way, were in ruins, the benevolent Yankee/Marxist government took Jeff Davis, who, with his cabinet, had fled rather than surrender, and they tossed him into prison at Fortress Monroe in Virginia for two years, planning at the outset to bring him to trial for treason and secession, which they claimed were one in the same. After two years of prisoner abuse and political horseplay, the Union government finally decided, rather reluctantly, that it could not afford to bring Davis to trial because, should that event transpire, it might well be proven in court that Davis and the South had been right–secession was not at all illegal, nor was it unconstitutional. After all, what did they think the Declaration of Independence was other than a secession document?

Several years back now, 1995 I think it was, I wrote a short 26 page booklet on secession. It has since become one of the booklets I offer in my home school mini-history course. In that booklet I quoted an author, James Street, who had written a book entitled simply “The Civil War.” Mr. Street had a few comments about what happened to Jeff Davis at the end of the War. He said: “The North didn’t dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no ‘rebellion’ and that the South had got a raw deal.” You can’t say it much plainer than that.

Later, I picked up another book, written by Burke Davis (no relative to Jeff that I know of), entitled “The Long Surrender.” It dealt with much of what happened with the people involved during the final days of the Confederacy, when Richmond fell, and Jeff Davis and the Confederate government fled the city and tried to set up somewhere else in order that they might carry on the struggle.

After Jeff Davis was captured, the vindictive and radical Yankee/Marxist Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, (who many feel may have known more about the Lincoln assassination than is admitted) wanted to implicate Davis both as a co-conspirator in Lincoln’s assassination and as a traitor for being the head of the secessionist government in Richmond, even though secession had not been original with Davis. Try as they might, the radical leftist Republicans in Washington couldn’t quite bring it off. Burke Davis noted, on page 204 of his book, a quote by Chief Justice Salmon P Chase, telling Stanton “If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion…His (Jeff Davis’) capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled.” Only it wasn’t–and isn’t. Burke Davis continued on page 214 of his book, noting that a congressional committee proposed a special court for Davis’ trial, headed by Franz Lieber. Again, Davis noted: “After studying more than 270,000 Confederate documents seeking evidence against Davis, this court discouraged the War Department: ‘Davis will be found not guilty,’ Lieber reported, ‘and we shall stand there completely beaten’.”

What the radical, Yankee/Marxist politicians were admitting among themselves (they’d never say it anywhere else) was that they had just fought a “civil war” that had taken or maimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans, both North and South, and that they had no constitutional justification whatever for having done so, nor had they any constitutional right to have impeded the Southern states when they chose to withdraw from the constitutional compact. They had fought solely for the right to keep an empire together. Call is “Manifest Destiny” or whatever noble-sounding euphemism you want to tack onto it, either way, they had been wrong. Now they could ill afford to let Jeff Davis go to trial, else their grievous crime would become public knowledge and beget them even more problems in the future, and that would have given them problems as they sought to redistribute among their friends whatever wealth remained in the South.

Needless to say, you probably have not read about any of this in what passes for “history” books in the last 150 years. As the narrator at the beginning of the movie “Braveheart” so correctly stated: “History is written by those who’ve hanged heroes.”

Real human rights in both North and South had been trampled on, and have continued to be up until and including today. What the Lincoln administration and early Marxist Republicans started and kept up during “reconstruction” has finally come to full fruition in our day, with such legislation as the “Patriot Act” and Obamacare, which effectively cancel out much of the Bill of Rights–as was intended and still is.

The War of Northern Aggression started the trend in this country in which leftist politicians have ever sought to usurp the rights of individual Americans, and to rule over us rather than to represent us as they were originally delegated to do. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. And now, with secessionist sentiment running rampant all over the world, the politicians are getting a bit nervous.

If you want some of the real history of that period in this country I would recommend James and Walter Kennedy’s book “The South Was Right,” Frank Conner’s book “The South Under Siege–1830-2000,” and Walter Kennedy’s and my book “Lincoln’s Marxists.”