The South Was Right

by James Ronald Kennedy

  John Adams of Massachusetts, while attending the Continental Congress, wrote home to his wife describing the stark dissimilarity between the two peoples of the Northern and Southern colonies. He confided to his wife his impression that these two peoples were so different that the political union could not be held together “without the utmost caution on both sides.”34

  The cultural differences between the colonial peoples were also described by George Mason of Virginia while warning of the inherent dangers in the proposed Constitution. He noted that this was an extensive country, “containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits, and customs.”

  Thus we have the evaluation of the cultural differences between the North and the South made in colonial times by one of the Founding Fathers, a Virginia Anti-Federalist, an evaluation made at the time of the war by a foreign observer and two contemporaneous scholars, one from the North and one from the South. Notice that regardless of the time frame or their origins, all four described the North and South as culturally different and as distinct peoples.

  McWhiney warns his readers that, in order to understand why Northerners and Southerners are so different, we will have to “put aside some myths.”35 He warns us that what we will be reading will be in contrast to both common knowledge and scholars. He goes on to inform us that “both common wisdom and scholars are wrong.”36 Again we see Southerners willing to place their reputations as academicians on the line in order to correct the inaccuracies in the official and accepted Northern history of our people.

  Another book appeared in 1988. Its title left no question in the mind of the reader about its author’s feelings. The book is Southern by the Grace of God by Michael A. Grissom. In the preface to his book, Grissom laments the fact that the South has been treated so unfairly in the official recordings of history:

  It has been a continuing source of disappointment to see traditional heroes, values, and examples of valor culled every year from southern history texts. Today, virtually every school system in the South is equipped with American history books produced in the North by Northern authors. We definitely have a problem when children in the South are raised on the fables of “Honest Abe” while they’re taught that their own forebears were the villains of our country’s history.37

  We have now heard evidence, beginning with the words of President Jefferson Davis and continuing with the voices of generation after generation of Southerners, lamenting the falsehoods, slander, and perversion of our history. We have seen that the myth of Yankee moral superiority has been used to demoralize each new generation of Southerners. We have seen how the myth, once put in place, continues to perform its function of justifying Northern aggression, exploitation, domination, and in a word, tyranny. Most of those who accept the myth do so in complete honesty. We are not alleging a secret conspiracy among politicians and word-smiths. The myth, once accepted by society, is the perfect propaganda weapon. It needs no defense. Indeed those who dare to challenge the myth will meet with a fate almost as final as those accused of religious heresy during the Middle Ages, or, more accurately, the fate of Galileo during the Scientific Revolution.

  This section would not be complete without a few words dedicated to some of the most important aspects of the Yankee myth of history. Therefore we will discuss several of the more common and onerous Yankee myths.

  YANKEE MYTH

  Lincoln the Emancipator, Humanitarian, and Protector of Liberty

  If you want proof of just how successful the Yankee myth has been, just go into a Southern classroom. On the wall you will very likely find a picture of Abraham Lincoln. Inquire of the history teacher and you will find out that somewhere in their education Southern students are required to study if not to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Now ask the teacher, “Where is your picture of President Jefferson Davis?” Now ask when these Southern children will read or study President Davis’ farewell address to the U.S. Senate or his inaugural address as president of the Confederate States of America. Let’s face it—you don’t have to go through this exercise—you already know the answers!

  The truth is that most of the teachers who teach our children about the “Great Emancipator” have never read the proclamation! If they did, they would find out that it was a self-styled war measure. Its purpose was to drape the invasion of the Southern nation in the robes of morality. It was an effective propaganda ploy to influence England and France not to recognize the Southern nation and was also an attempt to encourage slave insurrection in the South. The truth is that Lincoln’s so-called Emancipation Proclamation was not designed to free slaves. A reading of the proclamation will show that Lincoln declared free those slaves who were held “within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States.”38 In other words, he declared free those slaves over whom he had no control. But what about those slaves within states or portions thereof in which Lincoln had control and supposedly could have declared free? Not a word is said about these slaves. Indeed the six parishes of Louisiana that were at that time under Yankee control were specifically excluded from this great document of freedom, as were the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia! The proclamation states that these excepted areas are “left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”39 For the Lincoln-lovers and other skeptics, we remind you that the Yankee general Ulysses S. Grant’s wife held personal slaves at the beginning of the war. The Gray Book reveals that Grant’s slaves were freed, not by Lincoln’s proclamation, but by the Thirteenth Amendment passed after the end of the war.40 According to The Gray Book, Grant’s excuse for not freeing his slaves was that, “good help is so hard to come by these days.” Be that as it may, a reading of the proclamation will demonstrate that Lincoln declared free those slaves he had no power to free, and he left in bondage those that he could have set free! So much for the myth of Lincoln as the great emancipator.

  Yankee myth tells us about Honest Abe, the great humanitarian. Yet, when we look at the record, we find that instead of a humanitarian we find someone guilty of the two unforgivable sins of modern times—a belief in white supremacy and a belief in a system of apartheid!

  Lincoln’s white supremacist ideas are a well-kept secret. (Let it be known at this point that these views are Lincoln’s and not the opinions of the authors.) In an 1858 debate Lincoln made the following statements:

  I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races. … I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.41

  We all know that the surest way to prevent a Southerner from holding a federal court position is for the candidate to be accused of having held white supremacist convictions. Even though the candidate may protest that these were views commonly held at that time and that he or she has since changed viewpoints, it will make little difference to the mob of liberals circling for a Haynes-worth or a Bork feeding frenzy. Yet, when the reality of Lincoln the white supremacist is presented, we can expect the myth-makers to declare that it was not uncommon at the time. So Honest Abe joins the ranks of the Skin-Heads!

  Another sin for which the liberal press has no tolerance is support for apartheid. How shocking it is to learn that Lincoln was planning a system of geographical separation similar to that which has been practiced in South Africa. Again, in a debate with Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln made the following comments:

  Such separation if effected at all, must be effected by colonization: … what colonization most needs is a hearty will. … Let us be brought to believe that it is morally right, and at the same time favorable to, or at least not against, our interests to transfer
the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.42

  Again allow the authors to explain that we have quoted Lincoln’s personal view on white supremacy and geographical separation not in an effort to encourage said views but to demonstrate the difference between Yankee myth and reality.

  Now let us look at the Yankee myth of Lincoln the protector of liberty. The dictatorial power of Lincoln is evidenced when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and then moved to silence his critics in the North not in the South. (At that time Southerners were governed by one who was governing with the consent of the governed—what a novel idea! Perhaps we should try it again.) Some writers place the number of Lincoln’s political prisoners as high as forty thousand. They were held indefinitely, without knowing what, if any, charges were brought against them and without receiving bail or the services of an attorney. Indeed, many of their families did not even know where they were. More than three hundred newspapers and journals were shut down by executive order. A member of Lincoln’s Cabinet had a bell on his desk about which the secretary would brag that he could send any American to prison just by ringing that bell! It was with no small amount of contempt that the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer wrote some time after the war that, even though the Confederate government was new at the time and faced with invasion, “It is to the honor of the Confederate government that no Confederate secretary ever could touch a bell and send a citizen to prison.”43

  Now let us examine how the dictator Lincoln used his powers to illegally imprison people he hated. A short summary is offered of the fate of Capt. Robert Tansill, U.S. Marine Corps. Captain Tansill served aboard the USS Congress when he read Lincoln’s inaugural address in 1861. It convinced him that it was time to resign his commission. He presented his letter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles who refused to accept his resignation and dismissed him on the spot (you can’t quit—I fire you). That same evening, Captain Tansill was arrested and sent to jail at Fort Lafayette. Captain Tansill wrote letters to Lincoln desiring to know the charges for which he was being held, but to no avail. At last Captain Tansill’s wife asked for an interview with the Northern leader. After great effort she finally got an audience with the president. The following is a small portion of her own account:

  He spoke, still looking me full in the face, “I did receive that letter and it has got all the answer it will have.” Mr. President, I said, you are aware of the circumstances under which my husband was arrested—of his having just returned from sea after an absence of two years from his family and of his being hurried off like a common felon to prison, without giving him any reason for it. Was it, I asked Sir, for any other reason than his having resigned? His face then turned perfecdy livid. He jumped up from the table at which he was sitting, and brought his clenched hand down hard upon it with an oath. … He began to walk the room in violent excitement, stamping his feet, and averting his head from me. … Mr. Lincoln, you understand, I hope that the only object of my call upon you was to ask if my husband’s letter had reached you, and I have received my answer! “You have most positively!” was his reply, with head turned from me. I took my little son by the hand, and closed the door, and thus shut away from my sight, I trust for evermore, the greatest despot and tyrant that ever ruled a nation.44

  Let us now review an example of how Lincoln used his office to reward men who were conducting a campaign of terrorism against the Southern civilian population. The Southern people were forced to endure innumerable acts of rape, robbery, pillage, and plundering, all at the hands of United States military personnel. These acts were well known in Washington, yet the crimes continued throughout Lincoln’s presidency. More detail regarding the terrorist acts of Lincoln’s army of invasion are dealt with in Chapter 4, “Yankee Atrocities,” and Chapter 13, “The Yankee Campaign of Cultural Genocide.”

  If Lincoln had been a truly compassionate human being, then he would have tried to prevent this needless human suffering, even the suffering of those who opposed his government’s policy of armed aggression. We are speaking of “needless” suffering; we are not speaking of accidental civilian casualties as a result of war. We are speaking of intentional crimes committed by United States forces against civilians held to be enemies of the Federal Union. Such acts were committed by Colonel John B. Turchin.

  Colonel Turchin commanded the Eight Brigade, Third Division, of the Army of the Ohio. His command included the Nineteenth Illinois, Twenty-Fourth Illinois, Thirty-Seventh Indiana, and Eighteenth Ohio.45

  Colonel’s Turchin’s activities came under question early on in the war. On July 16, 1861, Brig. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut, commanding Headquarters Brigade, Illinois Militia, Quincy, Illinois, notified Colonel Turchin of the Nineteenth Illinois that some of his troops “violated private rights of property and of persons. …”46

  The next year, on June 30, 1862, Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel informed Gen. Don Carlos Buell, commander of the Army of the Ohio, that “The pillage of the town of Athens [Alabama] by the troops under the command of colonel Turchin is a matter of general notoriety.”47 General Buell issued orders to have Colonel Turchin court-martialed.

  On August 6, 1862, General Buell published the findings of the court-martial against Turchin:

  “[He] allowed his command to disperse and in his presence or with his knowledge and that of his officers to plunder and pillage the inhabitants. … they attempted an indecent outrage on a servant girl … destroyed a stock of … fine Bibles and Testaments. … Defaced, and kicked about the floor and trampled under foot. … A part of the brigade went to the plantation … and quartered in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females. … Mrs. Hollingsworth’s house was entered and plundered. … The alarm and excitement occasioned miscarriage and subsequently her death. … Several soldiers … committed rape on the person of a colored girl. … The court finds the accused [guilty as charged] … and does therefore sentence… Colonel J.B. Turchin … to be dismissed from the service of the United States. … It is a fact of sufficient notoriety that similar disorders … have marked the course of Colonel Turchin’s command wherever it has gone.48

  The court-martial of a ranking officer was not done overnight or in secret. As we will demonstrate in a later chapter, the officials in Washington were aware of the crimes being committed by their military personnel in the name of the United States. Yet even though Colonel Turchin was under court-martial for horrible crimes against innocent civilians and subsequently found guilty, President Lincoln promoted Colonel Turchin to the rank of Brigadier General of the United States Volunteers on August 5, 1862!49 Turchin accepted his gift from Lincoln on September 1, 1862, and continued his service to the United States in its war of aggression against the Southern nation until October 4, 1864.

  Yankee mythology portrays Lincoln as a compassionate fighter for human rights and liberty. It tells us that he was a man full of love and emotions of tender mercies directed toward the downtrodden, the enslaved, the weak and defenseless masses of mankind. Yet Lincoln, the Northern president, has the dubious distinction of being the only American president who personally ordered the mass execution of Americans whose guilt could not be positively determined! Not only did Lincoln order their execution but he personally participated in the selection of the victims!50

  In 1862 several tribes of Native Americans revolted against the cruel policies of the United States government. General John Pope was sent to Minnesota to put down the uprising. After the end of hostilities, Pope sent a message to Lincoln that, after a trial, he had ordered more than three hundred warriors executed by hanging. The whites of Minnesota were clamoring for the execution of the Indians. Lincoln knew that the “trial” had been a sham, but he also knew that he needed the white votes from Minnesota. His “political” comprise was to make a blood offering to the whites in Minnesota. As a token to appease the whites, Lincoln selected thirty-nine Indian prisoners to be executed. Lincoln carried Minnesota in the next election, but th
e price was paid by Native Americans. Lincoln is America’s only president to order a mass execution!

  A man of compassion would not release a monster to prey upon innocent women and children; a humanitarian would not allow a convicted criminal to control military forces in an occupied country; a man who believed in charity for all and malice toward none would not release a convicted terrorist and compound the release by re-hiring the terrorist to make war against his enemies; a man of tender mercies would not select victims for mass execution. These facts prove that Lincoln was not a man of compassion.

  Remember that this is the same Lincoln whose picture hangs in almost every Southern classroom, the same Lincoln our children are taught to worship, and the same Lincoln who has been deified by Yankee mythology.

  The important point to remember is not whether Southern children learn the Gettysburg Address, but that the myth of Yankee history does not allow us to question its gods. If we begin to inquire on one point, who knows what points we may ask about tomorrow! These facts about Lincoln have been presented in an effort to demonstrate just how strong and universally accepted the Yankee myth of history is and how shocking the truth about that myth can be.