The Great Unanswered Question

by Al Benson Jr.

I and others have asked this question for years now and have yet to even have that acknowledged. Many of us will continued to ask it until we get some sort of answer from the politically correct minions of the viewpoint that the War of Northern Aggression was fought to end slavery. If the War was fought to end slavery then why did the North not start by abolishing slavery in those states that ended up remaining in the Union, some through no fault of their own.

There were four slave states that ended up in the Union–Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware–and when West Virginia seceded from Virginia and ended up back in the Union it did so as a slave state. So that would have been five states in the Union where slavery could have been abolished if that had been the real reason for the War. Yet that didn’t happen. So we have to conclude that because it didn’t happen the real reason for the war was not freeing the slaves but something else.

The tariff question naturally comes to mind, due to the fact that the South paid over 80% of the tariffs for the entire country while the North got most of the benefit from that. The North would have been in pretty sad financial shape without the South to foot most of the bill for all the internal improvements made up north. But the politically correct don’t even want to discuss this. The tariff issue is a “dead letter” to them, meaning they can’t get any traction from that issue to promote their racist agenda to blame the South for slavery. So tariffs are ignored and the slavery issue played up to inflame the passions of black folks who are much better off in this country than they would be had their ancestors remained in Africa. It’s a classic “divide and conquer strategy” to separate the races and prevent them having an honest dialogue with one another. Were they to get together and talk, they would soon discover that the Deep State is screwing everybody in this country and the Establishment can’t have that.

Gene Kizer Jr. in his authoritative book Slavery Was Not the Cause of the War Between the States has observed that: “Clearly the North did not instigate a war to end slavery. The focus on slavery as the primary cause of the War Between the States–even indirectly–is a fraud of biblical proportions and it prevents real understanding of American history. Pulitzer Prize winning historian and Lincoln scholar David H. Donald, back in the 1960s, was concerned about the overemphasis of slavery asthe cause of the war. He said the Civil Rights Movement seems to have been the reason for stressing slavery as the cause of the war.”

Given the origins of the Civil Rights Movement that would not be surprising. Years ago now, journalist Alan Stang wrote a book called It’s Very Simple–The True Story of Civil Rights. In that book Mr. Stang delved into the leftist credentials of many in the Civil Rights Movement. Some have concluded that Lincoln didn’t have the authority to free any slaves in the Union states which is probably true. Well if he had no authority to free slaves in the Union, where in heaven’s name did he get the “authority” to free them in the Confederate States??? Lots of questions that need to be answered here and yet the politically correct and minions of Wokeism continue to ignore them because they realize they have no answers that make any kind of sense. So they continue to rant and rail about the War being fought to “end slavery” when they know all that is so much bovine fertilizer. Their fondest hope is that you don’t realize the fertilizer content of their absurdities.

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The Left Continues To Peddle A Guilt Trip About Slavery

by Al Benson Jr.

Those on the political and theological left continue to try to decimate Southern culture with the slavery issue. They insist the War of Northern Aggression was fought to free the slaves (a specious lie, but they don’t care. They blame the South for slavery in this country, forgetting that there were slaves in all the 13 original colonies–a fact they hope you never check out.

But now there has been a new chip thrown into the pot, one the left didn’t figure on–blacks admitting that their ancestors were part and parcel of the African slave trade. I recently came across a site that was most informative, https://historynewsnetwork.org which observed: “Incomplete depictions of the Atlantic slave trade are, in fact, quite common. My 2003 study of 49 state U.S. history standards revealed that not one of these guides to classroom content even mentioned the key role of Africans in supplying the Atlantic slave trade. In Africa itself, however, the slave trade is remembered quite differently. Nigerians, for example, explicitly teach about their own role in the trade…In Ghana, politician and educator Samuel Sulemana Fuscini has acknowledged that his Asanti ancestors accumulated their great wealth by abducting, capturing, and kidnapping Africans and selling them as slaves.” Wonder how that statement would go over in classrooms run by leftist teachers.

The article continued: “Ghanian diplomat Kofi Anoonor has written: ‘I believe there is a great psychic shadow over Africa, and it has much to do with our guilt and denial of our role in the slave trade. We too are blameworthy in what was essentially one of the most heinous crimes in human history…All the tribes were involved–no exemptions.” Another African American stated: ‘So we really can’t blame the Europeans, we sold our own. It takes two.” The article also observed: “The white man did not introduce slavery to Africa…And by the fifteenth century men with dark skins had become quite comfortable with the concept of man as property…”

Yet another article, this one on https://www.khaynacademy.org noted this: “African societies practiced human bondage long before the Atlantic slave trade began…Furthermore, prisoners of war between different African societies oftentimes became enslaved.” That was where the Europeans got many of the slaves they brought to America, from African tribes who sold off some of their POW’s.

And an interesting article was on http://www.bbc.com that observed comments written by another African who said: “My great grandfather, Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku, was what I prefer to call a businessman, from the Igbo ethnic group of Southern Nigeria. He dealt in a number of goods including tobacco and palm produce. He also sold human beings.” And this lady lived in relatively modern times. She also added: “He had agents who captured slaves from different places and brought them to him” my father told me.”

Sandra E. Greene noted on https://research.cornell.edu that “Slavery in the U.S. ended in 1865, but in West Africa it was not legally ended until 1875, and then it stretched on unofficially until almost World War 1.”

So most of this politically correct baloney that blames all whites, and particularly Southern whites for slavery is just that–leftist baloney–for want of a better term. It is nothing but anti-white propaganda! The Africans would have continued to engage in slavery had they never sold a single slave to white American slave traders who were all from the North anyway, and many were Jews as well as Christians and agnostics.

Whites have purposely been taken on ahuge guilt trip over something that has been a practice of every race on earth! It is long past time to quit feeling guilty and to take a long look at the slavery practiced by other races every bit as much as white folks did.

4/9/65

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Well, today is the 153rd anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

This event, so we are told, ended the “Civil War.” As far as the professional “historians” and their appendages in the Fake News Media are concerned, that was it, the end. The South fought to preserve her right to keep slaves and lost–end of story. Unfortunately for them, it isn’t.

Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia did not end the War. There were still two armies in the field, Joe Johnston’s army in North Carolina, and Kirby Smith’s army of the Trans-Mississippi in Louisiana. Though these would eventually surrender, they hadn’t yet, and the lawful government of the Confederate States of America would never surrender. To this day they have never surrendered. The surrender of Lee’s army was interpreted as being the surrender of the Confederate States of America. It wasn’t!

Jeff Davis had no intention of surrendering the Confederate government. He put it all, records, and cabinet members, on the train to Danville, Virginia and sought to operate the Confederate government as the train moved South. Davis and many in the government were finally caught–and the Yankee/Marxists even lied about the events surrounding that. Be that as it may, the Confederate government never officially surrendered. Clifford Dowdey wrote about that in his book The History of the Confederacy–1832-1865, pages 411, 414.

The Yankee/Marxists, due to having more men, money, and material, overwhelmed us on the battle field–but they never forced a surrender out of us in the end!

So I guess, to satisfy the historians (hysterians) it has been promulgated abroad that the “Civil War” ended at Appomattox on April 9th. That way no one will ever be tempted to ask to see the documents showing the surrender of the Confederate States, with official signatures.

Of course, most astute followers of our history realize that the War really solved nothing and that even though the shooting part of the War has abated for now, the cultural phase of the War has been cranking up since the advent of “reconstruction” and has now reached almost fever pitch, as the Yankee/Marxists now feel they have us down for the count along with most of our monuments and flags. It will be up to us, with God’s help and our grit, as to how far down they have us, but I have the sneaky feeling it ain’t as far down and they think it should be or would like it to be. So it will be up to us, and those we educate for the future, as to how far down we are. Kind of like the picture of the heron trying to swallow the frog–except the frog has got a grip on his throat so he can’t swallow anything and the caption at the top of the picture says “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” That’s where we are right now–so happy Appomattox Day!

Those Plundering Abolitionist Preachers (do unto others before they do unto you)

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Should you have chanced to read any history at all dealing with our “Civil War” really the War of Northern Aggression, you must surely have read something about “bleeding Kansas.” I can remember reading about that in my pre-teen “history” books.

Most of what you have probably read goes into some detail (fake history?) about how the greasy, slave-owning, bushwhacking denizens of Missouri spent all their spare time (when they weren’t beating their slaves to death) raiding across the border into that pristine abolitionist wilderness called Kansas, which as we have all been taught, was the home of all loyal, virtuous, pure-as-the-driven-snow abolitionist types whose only aim in life was a holy crusade to free all slaves everywhere from bondage.

If you are like the rest of us, you were probably spoon-fed the historical hogwash that this was the only type of behavior you could ever expect from the dregs of humanity that inhabited Missouri, while those wonderful folks living across the line in Kansas would never dream of engaging in such horrible deeds.

To say that the “historians” got this backwards would probably be an undeserved act of naive charity. Most of them, then as now, got it backwards on purpose because the actual truth was revolting enough that they just knew you didn’t need to be aware of it–lest you should begin to question the veracity of Mr. Lincoln’s “holy cause.”

For all the lofty pretensions of the cause of abolitionism, Kansas was populated by some who felt it was their “holy calling” in life to raid across the border into Missouri for whatever they could get out of it for themselves. It was what some might call “abolitionism for fun and profit.” The fun was burning the homes of Missouri farmers, the profit was hauling off all the loot they could carry away from those homes before they torched them.

In his book Bloody Dawn, author Thomas Goodrich noted the character of such sterling individuals as Kansan Charles Jennison. He noted: “Actually the outbreak of civil war simply lent an aura of legitimacy  to a program Jennison had been pursuing all along.  Jennison has been characterized as cruel, heartless, cowardly, and a moral vagabond.” A charitable description!

Goodrich continued: “Whatever the opinion, Jennison and his regiment became in fact the scourge and salt of western Missouri during the first summer and winter of the war. One by one the towns along the border fell victim to their forays. Stores were looted, safes emptied, elegant homes gutted. Nor was the countryside spared. Night after night the skies over the border were aglow as barns, cabins, and crops were set ablaze. Those hapless farmers lucky enough to escape the torch watched powerlessly while the fruits of their labor were hauled off in their own wagons. Herds of cattle, horses, and sheep were likewise driven west.” And it was all for the “glorious” cause of “preserving the Union.”

Even for all of that, Jennison might have created less furor had he been a bit more selective in whom he burned out, but he was not. He was an equal opportunity plunderer. He ventured out after anyone who had loot he could steal (for the preservation of the Union). Goodrich noted that, because of Jennison’s behavior, many in Missouri who might have remained Unionists, or at least fence-straddlers, became violent enemies of Lincoln’s war effort once Jennison had ministered unto them of the healing balm of abolitionist mercy.

And then, to give holy unction to Jennison’s activties, along came the abolitiionist preachers. Chief among them was one James Montgomery. This worthy has been described as a Bible-toting evangelist, but in his book Quantrill of Missouri author Paul R. Petersen has painted a somewhat different picture of Montgomery’s evangelistic methods. In discussing the depredations of some of the Kansans, Petersen noted: “The people who attacked him were not Missourians;  they were Jayhawkers. These people stole from friend and foe alike, and the group that attacked Quantrill’s camp (this was even before the war commenced)  supposedly belonged to James Montgomery’s band of thieves. Montgomery was a preacher from Linn County, Kansas Territory, and a captain in James Lane’s militia. In the late  1850s he was arguably the most feared of the border marauders,  and even before the war, he led forays for plunder into Missouri.”

Petersen also noted in his book another “interesting” Kansas character, one John Ingalls, who wrote to his father back in Massachusetts telling him of conditions in Kansas. He said: “One remarkable feature of the social conditions here is a total disregard of the Sabbath…” You might wonder, with all those fiery abolitionist preachers running around there why such a situation existed. It would seem that these Kansas “preachers” were so occupied with plundering across the border in Missouri that they just had no time for services on the Lord’s Day–which says a little about the depth of their Christian commitment.

Another really virtuous Kansas character was John E. Stewart. He has been described as an “abolitionist extremist.” He enjoyed association with that saintly old murderer and terrorist, John Brown. Petersen has informed us that: “Even before the war Stewart had gotten a reputation of being associated with John Brown and James Montgomery in their deprecatory raids across the border…Before coming to Kansas he had been a Methodist minister in New Hampshire… His frequent forays across the border resulted in the Missouri  legislature placing a price on his head, and he was suspected in Kansas of ‘entertaining loose notions with regard to property in horses as well as negroes.’ As in the case of all Jayhawkers, his professed zeal for abolition caused a large proportion of the settlers to overlook these activities.”

In other words, as long as you were an abolitionist  it was perfectly alright to steal, kill, and burn. After all, didn’t the noble end of “freeing the slaves” justify the means? These people were the proto-Marxists of their day. Some sources have even reported that once some abolitionists “freed” some slaves in Missouri they brought them back to Kansas, took them south and resold them in New Orleans. But, hey, what the heck.  They were in need of some hard cash so they could buy more of John Brown’s “Beecher Bibles” to kill more Missourians  so they could “free” more Missouri slaves, so that made it all somehow legitimate in the twisted abolitionist mindset.

With men of this moral stripe, often led by preachers of the same moral stripe plundering their state, is it any wonder that so many in Missouri  decided to throw their lot in with the Confederacy?

However, don’t bother hunting for this type of history in your “history” books. Since the winners get to write the “history” books it is much more convenient for their agenda if you are taught to focus on “bleeding Kansas” rather than on plundered Missouri.

Why I Couldn’t Agree With Bruce Catton

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Over the years I have read a bit of “Civil War” history from a lot of authors with divergent opinions on many things. Somehow, though, Bruce Catton’s view of the War was just not one I could get comfortable with. It was sort of like James M. McPherson’s view of the War, and you all know who he was. If you ever read anything I wrote about the War you will recall I couldn’t get comfortable with McPherson’s worldview regarding the War and the reasons for it either. And while McPherson’s books have often been cited on the World Socialist Website in the past, I couldn’t find anything in that regard about Bruce Catton.

However, McPherson’s and Catton’s views appear quite similar when it comes to the notorious Forty-Eighters that Donnie Kennedy and I wrote about in Lincoln’s Marxists.

A friend in New Jersey recently sent me a paragraph out of Catton’s The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road, from page 172 of the book. This is one I had not read, and it probably explains why I am glad I did not make the effort. Even when you research history,  there are times when you can only stand so much propaganda and, though he probably did not intend to do it, that’s exactly what Mr. Catton gave us in this instance. I will comment here on some of what he said in this paragraph.

He started out with: The nation inherited something rich and strange when the German revolutionary movement broke up in blood and proscription lists,  with the best men of a dozen German states hastening to America.   The 1848 revolts in Germany and several other European countries were socialist revolts. That being the case, it would seem that Catton is trying to tell us that the “best men” from a dozen German states were all socialists or communists, because that’s what took part in this revolution. Catton may not be aware of this–in which case you might do well to ask just what else he is unaware of. Either that or his worldview has no problem with socialists. I can’t say definitively either way.

He continues: These Germans were deadly serious about words which Americans took blithely for granted, words like liberty and like freedom and democracy.  It seems as if Catton is totally unaware of the fact that these words do not mean the same things to socialists and communists that they mean to us. When they use such terms they are not saying  what we say when we use them. Lots of ignorant people who eulogize the Forty-Eighters make this grave error. They do not understand how the Leftists use language to confuse their adversaries–and if we are not Leftists, then we are all their adversaries.

Catton says: They (the Forty-Eighters) made up a substantial part of the ground which the free-soil men had cultivated in the 1850s and when the war came they had seen the Union cause as their own cause, with freedom for the black man as one of its sure ultimate goals. This is yet another confirmation that the socialists/communists  saw the Union cause as their own. As for “freeing the slaves” their motives were hardly humanitarian no matter what they said. They were every bit as “racist” as those Southern folks they accused of “racism.” They felt that “freeing” the slaves would uproot the South and cause major problems for the Confederacy and so they endorsed it. The South was the part of the country that was the most Christian and conservative and the most opposed to the socialist designs of both the Establishment in Washington, New York and London.

As Catton wound down in this paragraph he stated:  Their leaders were men who had lost their fortunes and risked their necks, taking up arms for liberty in a land of kings who resisted change, and these leaders called the Germans to the colors as soon as Fort Sumter was bombarded.  Almost sounds as if Sumter was their signal to be up and moving!

What Catton seemed unable to grasp here is that the socialists/communists in Germany, as well as in the rest of Europe, did not fight for liberty for the common man, as we know it. They fought to centralize all the German states into one collectivist entity–with their friends in control of it! The same held true for what they sought to do all over Europe. They fought for collectivization–not liberty. And that’s what they fought for here also. They knew, at least at the leadership levels, where Lincoln was coming from and they knew they had a shot at doing here what they had failed to do in Europe, because they had a leader in Washington that agreed with them!

Until we learn to get this history straight we will continue to make the same stupid errors that we have seen, purposely or otherwise, for the last 150 years. Unfortunately, authors like Mr. Catton who end up glorifying socialists and communists don’t help us much!

Did Lincoln’s Theological Views Reflect His Political Actions?

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

The title of this article is a legitimate question–not only for Lincoln, but for the rest of us as well. Do our political actions reflect our theology? If you look today at some of these Democrats and RINO’s that hate Trump and will do or say anything to hurt his agenda, true or not, (and most of the time it isn’t) you have to ask if what they are doing reflects their theology–and if it does–then what does it say about the god they serve?

Similar questions were not always asked about Abraham Lincoln because back then most people didn’t equate a man’s theological perspective with what he did politically. Then, as today, they should have. There is more connection there than most people realize.

I’ve dealt with Mr. Lincoln’s religious views in the past, but not for awhile, so it might not hurt to go back and refresh our memories about them. Ward H. Lamon wrote a book, published in 1872–The Life of Abraham Lincoln: from his birth to his inauguation as president. Lamon probably knew Lincoln as well as anyone. And Mr. Lamon quoted, in his book, another man who knew Lincoln as well as anyone, his law partner for years, William H. Herndon. Herndon said of Lincoln: “As to Mr. Lincoln’s religious views, he was, in short, an infidel-atheist. He did not believe that Jesus was God, nor the Son of God–was a fatalist, denied the freedom of the will. Mr. Lincoln told me a thousand times, that he did not believe the Bible was the revelation of God, as the Christian world contends.”

With a world view like that, how do you think he would deal with his political adversaries? Does the word “treacherously” come to mind?

Lew Rockwell wrote an article back in May of 2000 called The Genesis of the Civil War in which he made some interesting observations. Mr. Rockwell took pains to note that the War of Northern Aggression in the 1860s was not really a “civil war” as a civil war is one where two opposing groups are fighting for control of the same country–and that was never the South’s objective. The North wanted total control if it all–the South just wanted to separate and go its own way. Mr. Rockwell deals with that by saying: “But why would the South want to secede? If the original American ideal of federalism and constitutionalism had survived to 1860, the South would not have needed to. But one issue loomed larger than any other in that year as in the previous three decades: the Northern tariff. It was imposed to benefit Northern industrial interests by subsidizing  their production through high prices and public works. But it had the effect of forcing the South to pay more for manufactured goods and disproportionately taxing it to support the central government. It also injured the South’s trading relations with other parts of the world.  In effect, the South was being looted to pay for the North’s early version of industrial policy. The battle over the tariff began in 1828, with the ‘tariff of abominations.’  Thirty years later, with the South paying for 87% of federal tarff revenue while having their livelihoods being threatened by protectionist legislation, it became impossible for the two regions to be governed under the same regime. The South as a region was being reduced to slave status, with the federal government as its master.”  Do you think no one in the North realized this? The average man may not have, but the Northern politicians and political thinkers did. What do you suppose their theological world view was? Three guesses!

And obviously Mr. Lincoln understood this. He was no dummy and, as a lobbyist for Northern railroads he would have known how this system worked. When someone asked him at one point why he did not just let the South go, his reply was “What then will become of my tariff?” So Lincoln realized the South was getting shafted–and that was okay with him, but if they seceded then he wouldn’t be getting their tariff money anymore and the North couldn’t continue to stiff them anymore and so Lincoln had to prevent that. In other words, legalized theft of Southern resources had to continue so Northern industrial interests could benefit. Whose theological persuasion do you suppose that benefited?

Lincoln made it clear his main intent was to get that Southern tariff money–no matter what. He said “My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern states under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861…I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists…” There was no proof Lincoln ever declared war to abolish slavery, it was always to “preserve the Union.” One might well ask,  For who?

Of course if Lincoln did not believe in the Bible and the truth about Jesus Christ, that means that he served another god who had an opposing theology to that found in the Scriptures. Do you think Lincoln realized all this. Commentary from his era would lead us to believe that, to some extent, he did.

Unfortunately for the North, the concept of legalized theft via the tariff, was reflected in their culture, whether they realized it or not, and some did. The rise of Unitarianism in the North and after that, the spread of socialism there, reflected a Northern theology that was justifiably repugnant to orthodox Christians in the South. Over the years, I have mentioned the theological implications of the War of Northern Aggression. Most don’t want to hear it. I have gotten reactions ranging from a stopping of the ears to outright laughter–and some of this from Christians.

But, the theological implications of that War will have to be dealt with, one way or another because, in the final analysis, the theological implications of that War will prove to be more important than the supposed slavery issue. And Lincoln’s theological world view is part and parcel of it all.

Belated Birthday Comments on Lincoln the Empire Builder

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

Well, we are now into February–the beginning of Black History Month, which should end sometime around the latter part of Spring. Yesterday was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, with all the attendant legends and myths posing as history that always accompany that. As always we will be fed all the historical bovine fertilizer that goes along with that notable event.

This brief commentary would normally have been posted on the “Great Emancipator’s” birthday. I roughed it out the previous evening, only to discover that, when I went to print it off, the printer attached to my computer had suddenly developed a case of IDS (ink deficiency syndrome). Having been able to obtain another print cartridge late on the day of his birth I am now posting this, but the date on it will be tomorrow, the 13th. In this case a day doesn’t make that much difference, seeing that we all have already been treated to 150 plus years of historic swill.

We have been informed that Lincoln inaugurated and fought a war “to free other men” and that this was the noble task of the Army of the Potomac. This romantic psychobabble was presented to us years ago in the movie Gettysburg. Actually. Lincoln inaugurated  and promoted this war to preserve the Union (under Republican control) and he really didn’t give a flip about freeing the slaves. If that happened, even partially, that was alright, but if it didn’t that was alright with him too. He said as much. And just exactly why did he want to preserve the Union? Well, because there was big tariff money to be made off the Southern states, thus forcing them to pay for the lion’s share of running the federal government so internal improvements could be made–in the North!

Although Lincoln was not a big fan of slavery, he didn’t really climb on the Emancipation Gravy Train until it was politically advantageous for him to do so. When the emancipation gig could be used to promote his (and his backer’s) agenda then Lincoln assumed the mantle of “the Great Emancipator” and the Lincoln Cult historians have made sure it was draped over his shoulders for the last 150 years. He was buried in it. I’ve seen all manner of articles over the years about how Lincoln ‘matured” in his view of blacks. It’s all rubbish! Lincoln was a flaming racist when he started out and he remained one up to and including the day Booth pulled the trigger.

Gregg Loren Durand, in his informative book America’s Caesar–Abraham Lincoln and the Birth of a Modern Empire,  originally published in 2000, noted, on page 95 that: “Lincoln’s former political opponent, Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, had also warned the American people a month earlier that the Republican leaders who put Lincoln into office ‘are striving to break up the Union under the pretense of preserving it’  and that ‘they are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while professing undying attachment to it…and are trying to plunge the country into a cruel war as the surest means of destroying the Union upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting public property’.” A typically cultural Marxist approach–claim you are doing the exact opposite of what you are really doing, and if you can convince enough “useful idiots” to go along with you, then you can claim a mandate to destroy the country and create “Post-America.” While you claim to preserve, you instead destroy.

Mr. Durand noted, on page 87, that: “When at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in February of 1865,  President Davis offered to have the Southern states return to the Union on the condition that they be allowed to exercise their rightful domestic powers, Lincoln refused saying, ‘No. Submit to me or the war goes on.’ Thus he revealed his rightful masters to be, not the American people, but the private financial interests and political aristocrats which controlled him from behind the cover of the slavery agitation. Clearly, the true purpose of the war was, as Luther Martin had warned over seventy years before, ‘the total abolition and destruction of all state governments’.” The Deep State in action in 1865! And this was to be done so that state’s rights could be replaced by one, consolidated “democracy” which “historians” have seen fit not to tell us about. But if you will observe today, the term ‘democracy” gets tossed around out there lots more than the term “republic” does. Most folks think there is no difference. So did I once. I learned I was wrong.

In other words, “Father Abraham” the “saviour of the Union” was a political fraud! Not so unlike so many of today’s politicians!  And a consolidated democracy  would fit very well into the plans  of the New World Order crowd of Lincoln’s day–and don’t think they didn’t exist, because they did. And having some of those “Forty-Eighter” generals in Lincoln’s armies fit right in with the general scheme of things. The headquarters of the NWO at the time might have been London, rather than Washington or New York, but they existed–as they still do, and their agenda for us has not changed.

I don’t know about you all, but I made no plans to celebrate Mr. Lincoln’s birth. And should there be any plans to commemorate it later this month, then let this article by my contribution to that–and if, for some reason, it is not appreciated, well, I won’t be a bit surprised.

Education Is “Reconstruction”–Even Today!

by Al Benson Jr.

Member, Board of Directors, Confederate Society of America

In his informative book Segregation–Federal Policy or Racism (Shotwell Publishing Co., Columbia, South Carolina) author John Chodes has some interesting information in chapter 6, which he entitles The Freedmen’s Bureau:  Segregation for Black Education. In this chapter he notes that the whole concept of segregation was promoted so that blacks could be “educated” (radicalized) separately from whites. This was a kind of master  plan to promote class hatred between the races. Look at it this way–one of the reasons for the War of Northern Aggression was not to free the slaves, but rather to transfer ownership from private hands to federal hands. From private hands to the Freedmen’s Bureau!

Chodes notes how the federal government was, even in the 1860s, messing around with federal control of and aid for education. The foolish idea of public, or government, schools being “ours” or somehow belonging to the people, is and has been the prevalent myth, propagated on the public at large so they will not realize that this leviathan institution was made and directed from Washington from day one. This is something we have got to get through our heads! These really were and are Government Schools!

Chodes observes, on page 34 that: “The Union League, for all its destructiveness for race relations,  was only a division of a larger organization–the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was an agency of the War Department. Its role in the post-war South was enormous and its educational projects that were put in place in the 1860s, became national models for the 20th century. Its political directives for the special treatment of blacks and the hunting down of racists is still expanding in the contemporary United States and continues to impact current national policy.”

The Union League separated the blacks from the whites and then the Freedman’s Bureau educated them differently, which laid the basic foundation for “eternal segregation.” And Chodes accurately observed that  “The primary function of the Freedmen’s Bureau was educating blacks to vote Republican and to forever hate Southern whites. Integration was unthinkable, except in some rare, showcase schools, where it was used to torment whites with radical principles of social equality.” They could teach the blacks how to vote Republican and not bother to teach the whites much about anything regarding voting because the vast majority of the whites had been disenfranchised due to “reconstruction” and could no longer vote.

Then came the Yankee/Marxist “school teachers.” These “missionaries” and they were missionaries, felt that they were “…the advance guard of a new army of invasion against the terrible South.” And here your “history” books have told you that “reconstruction” ended when all those Yankee troops departed. Well, not really. The South was still in the process of being invaded–only now it was with school teachers instead of soldiers–but the results, if more insidious, were still the same. It was never about “freeing the slaves” but it was always about changing the culture, particularly the Christian culture, of the Old South. After 150 years of this, we still haven’t figured that out yet. I begin to wonder if we ever will!

These invading “missionaries” of Yankee/Marxist “education” came down here to show us the error of our ways, and while they were assaying to do that they “…taught the negro the wildest of social, political, and religious doctrines…In teaching him not to be servile, they taught him to be insolent…” Anyone notice any of that going around today?

Chodes said that “In his autobiography, General O. O. Howard described his plan to permanently consolidate all Southern schools. This would be the prelude to nationalizing them.” Howard wanted all education, both private and public, to “become absorbed in a great free system.” Guess who would control that “great free system?”  Subtle hint: it wouldn’t be the parents! In retrospect, you have to wonder how much different this was than Karl Marx’s tenth point in the Communist Manifesto  “Free education for all children in public schools.” I don’t see much difference.

And in regard to educating white kids “…education would be the instrument for reforming the Southern mind to be sympathetic to the principles of union and liberty, and for training Southerners to be obedient to Republican Party rule. In a sense, the school was the common denominator,  the agency for nationalization of the sectionally minded South.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where all this was going–and remember, this was 1866, not 1966!

I have, over the years, often maintained that public (government) education was an integral part of “reconstruction.” Unfortunately, most Southern folks I have talked to either totally don’t get it, or they don’t even want to think about it. To that degree, “reconstruction” in the South has been a smashing success. The “missionaries” have done what the Yankee troops couldn’t.

But, whether you want to think about it or not, government schools ARE a major part of the ongoing “reconstruction” of the South, and of the rest of the country as well. If you look at the history of government schools, you will find that kids (and parents) in the North were being “reconstructed” for about a generation before they started on us. So, whatever else you want to think, government schools as we now have them, were part and parcel of “reconstruction” in the South, and that is a problem we have yet to deal with down here.

Fake News and Fake History

 

by Al Benson Jr.

We hear much about “fake news” today and, in all honesty, most of what we get from the Mainstream Media is fake news. They may get the weather report and the ball scores right because there usually isn’t a political agenda apparent in those two items, but their accuracy doesn’t go much beyond that. But, then, they are in the propaganda business, not the accuracy business.

Though it might come as a shock to many today, this is nothing new. They have been in the propaganda business since before the War of Northern Aggression. All you need to do is to see some of the “news” accounts in Northern papers of what terrorist John Brown did in the 1850s and you will begin to get the picture. Not only is what is presented, in many cases, rank propaganda, but there are significant things left out that reporters and “historians” really would rather we didn’t know about. We can’t ask the questions that need to be asked if we have no information.

The Kennedy Brothers, in their recent book Punished with Poverty published by Shotwell Publishing  www.ShotwellPublishing.com   have noted some “omissions” from the historical record. For instance: “A Mississippi Unionist stated during Reconstruction that 50% of the blacks in Mississippi died during the war. Taken at face value the prior estimate would seem unreasonable. But when viewed in  light of the events in  the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl’ at Natchez, Mississippi, it becomes believable. The ‘Devil’s Punchbowl’  was the name given to a contraband, actually concentration, camp established by the Union army after it occurpied Natchez. Over 20,000 ‘freed’ slaves died in the Union army’s concentration camp in the year following the Union army’s occupation of Natchez. The camp was walled off by the Union army to prevent escape.” Remember, these were “freed” slaves and they were now tasting their first gulp of Yankee/Marxist “freedom.” Somehow, I don’t think it was quite what they expected from “Father Abraham.” Funny, but I don’t recall reading about this in any of my “history” books. It would appear that Fake History includes not only Yankee/Marxist propaganda that is false, but also, much accurate information is simply just omitted, because, after all, students don’t really need to know all this. It might color their perception of what the “change agent” who is supposed to be a teacher is passing along to them. For those wanting to, you can check the “Devil’s Punchbowl” out on the Internet, and you will find that the Kennedys have it right.

And the Kennedys note how this is done: “National historians who act as propagandists advancing or defending the Federal Empire’s narrative about the ‘Civil War’ are quick to dismiss examples of the Federal Empire’s military using extreme measures against Southern civilians. They do this primarily by ignoring the Empire’s atrocities; if they do mention civilian deaths they dismiss it as a natural part of war– with the implicit assumption that the ‘Civil War’ was a just war made necessary by an evil South that attacked the North at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Occasionally the Empire’s propagandists (also known as national historians)  will acknowledge a ‘few’ atrocities but insist that they were only isolated events not worthy of scholarly notice” (unless Southerners did them). Some of this information is in Punished with Poverty on pages 70-75.

Also noted and naturally left out of our “history” books, was the propensity of Yankee/Marxist generals toward a policy of extermination for Southern folks. That caring and compassionate legislator from Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Stevens, said at one point “(Treat the South) as conquered provinces and settle them with new men and exterminate or drive out the present rebels as exiles.” So where were the “present rebels” supposed to go when you had driven them off their land and out of their homes? Being a truly magnanimous Yankee, Stephens doesn’t worry about that. And another merciful Marxist type, Brig. General James H. Lane, said of the War “We believe in a war of extermination.” Some of you all should remember General Lane. I have written about him and his particular breed of vermin from abolitionist Kansas before.

In speaking of Lincoln and the Leftist radicals in Congress, the Kennedy Brothers observed: “Their goal was to exterminate enough of the native Southern population to allow the Southern part of the United States to be ‘repopulated’ with Northerners who would then support the expanding Federal empire.” Almost sounds like what modern Washington politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, have been doing to the South with the illegal immigrant situation. Of course you all understand that any similarities between the two situations are purely coincidental.

Folks really need to read Punished with Poverty to begin to get a grasp of the plan that Yankee/Marxist politicians had and still have for the South. Those people really hanker for the death of your culture, faith, and history and they are far from bashful about promoting those ends. We have got to start learning not to be bashful about resisting them.

Ol’ Newt Finally Fesses Up About The War

by Al Benson Jr.

Over the past several decades I have heard professors from those “little ivy-covered North Koreas” we still charitably refer to as colleges and universities as well as other professional hysterians all loudly shouting that the War of Northern Aggression was fought only to free the slaves in the South. The only cause of that war was slavery, and the professional hysterians have loudly proclaimed that secession was treason and that all Southerners who fought for the Confederacy  should have been hanged as war criminals, and at the least, all of their descendants should be shot–but only after they have repented of the gross sin of slavery–but, maybe on the other hand, they should leave at least a few of them alive to they can continue to repent of and apologize for the sin of slavery. I can remember one excuse for a journalist once writing that “The Civil War was all about slavery, slavery slavery!”

Thankfully, those people’s definition of “sin” is not quite the norm, although they have been working on that problem for the past 150 years now, one of their notable vehicles for promoting that world view being the public schools in Amerika. I’d like to know where in the Holy Scriptures they find slavery condemned as the greatest sin in the world. In the Epistle to Philemon maybe?

Many of those people have made a fat living promoting the fallacy that the South fought the war only to preserve slavery and for no other reason. Now comes along ol’ Newt Gingrich and he up and bursts their bubble with the real story. Newt is supposed to be somewhat of a hysterian (historian) himself. Years ago he produced a set of videos for some educational project he was working on and in one of the videos he reproduced the scene from the movie Gettysburg in which it had Joshua Chamberlain stating that the Union Army was fighting to set other men free and that this was one of the few times in history such had ever happened. Some of you all, if you saw the movie, may remember that. It was hogwash, but you might remember it.

But that was then and this is now. In our present age of “realism” Mr. Gingrich has somewhat changed his tune. Gingrich was recently interviewed by Bill O’Reilly  and the subject of Rahm Emanuel not letting a Trump administration deport illegal aliens who had committed felonies in Chicago came up. Rahm Emanuel is a rather slippery character who is presently the mayor in that fair city and who used to be some sort of advisor to King Barack the First. At that point Gingrich piped up and said: “We fought a civil war to establish one sovereignty, the U.S. government.” You don’t say. So that’s what the War of Northern Aggression was really all about–not freeing the slaves but rather establishing  one centralized, collectivist regime in Washington!  All those folks that have written big books and given long lectures about slavery being the total cause of the war must be hating Gingrich’s guts about now. He has, albeit inadvertently, come out and admitted the real truth. And all their big books can now be shredded up for birdcage liner.

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, who has some knowledge in this area, caught Gingrich’s comment and duly noted: “So the ‘Civil War’ was fought to abolish the Tenth Amendment after all, and to consolidate all political power in Washington, D.C. Well, Newt, as any Catholic priest would say, it’s never too late to confess.”

Given his mindset, one has to wonder why Newt Gingrich has attached himself to Donald Trump’s campaign when Trump has campaigned as being anti-establishment. Pastor Chuck Baldwin of Montana recently had an article on http://www.lewrockwell.com in which he stated: “Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon… If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about ‘draining the swamp.’ You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that’s exactly what Trump will be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.” Sadly, I have to agree. Of late Trump has been talking with Mitt Romney and Henry Kissinger–and this fact does not bode well for his anti-establishment credentials. Everyone who has a genuine concern about where this country is headed needs to keep an eye on this situation.