Comments on Confederate Digest: The Gettysburg Address - A Masterpiece of Falsehoo...

I see Mr C Meyer has commented in his usual style ...

2011-12-12T22:57:38.223-05:00

I see Mr C Meyer has commented in his usual style a few years ago. I keep wondering if he was drunk, or something, because I can make little, if any, sense of it. I must say that I have never, before this moment, heard, or read that anyone claimed that any Northern soldier fought for " the right of self government ". I have been told, by various means that Northern men fought to " Save the Union ", fought against slavery, fought for glory,plunder, adventure, hope of material gain ( some immigrants were promised already cleared land, with buildings on them ), and because they were forced to serve. I, until now, have never had anyone claim that they were interested in " Self Determination ", shoot they were obviously trying to stop the Southern States from doing just that. The idea that the Southern States were hypocritical because of slavery is preposterous. In the North as, in the South, black African slaves, even to one eighth black African blood, was considered as livestock, not quite human,etc. As repulsive as that is, it is also true. How many horses,cows/oxen etc were held in bondage in the North or South, and not one peep in protest from those that were allowed to bring their slaves for sale in Southern markets before they were forced to free them. The idea of slavery is an absolute abomination, but only black soldiers, and abolitionists ( What? 2% ) could claim that they fought to free the slaves. Perhaps Mr Meyer would be interested in doing some searches about what Charles Dickens had to say about his fantasy crusade to save a union by force of arms, or to free slaves by not freeing them. All these Republicans have to support their arguments seem to be the lies that they themselves have concocted. What did Grant have to say about emancipation and the war? If memory serves, he said that if he had known he was fighting to free slaves, he would have fought for the other side.

BTW, I also enjoyed your article "Naming the...

2009-11-19T15:19:49.205-05:00

BTW, I also enjoyed your article
"Naming the War of 1861 - 1865".

In my family, at least my mother's half, the war was called, "The war of Northern Agression".

Thanks for commenting on my site. The focus of my ...

2009-11-19T14:28:28.424-05:00

Thanks for commenting on my site. The focus of my site may be different than yours, but we stand for the same thing.

What I didn't add to my piece was that my great-grandfather was only speaking to the masterful way in which Lincoln wrote, not to the "righteousness" of what he said and stood for.

As a large landowner, farmer, surgeon he also was a fervent state's rights man who joined the fight early even though he was in his thirties.

Unable to further fight because of wounds, he used his doctoring skills on to assist the soldiers, but by 1863, after Gettysburg, he knew that the South could no longer win militarily. No matter, he continued to give his skill and fortune to the cause he believed in.

By 1867, broken financially and with a large family, he moved to Ohio onto a small portion of his sister's farm he had bought her in 1859.

It is my lot, I hope, in life to finally buy the family place back and take pride in what he did. Four generations are buried there and it is home.

Ah yes the old dodge that the North was not really...

2009-11-19T13:04:21.641-05:00

Ah yes the old dodge that the North was not really fighting for the right of self-government. And I would expect you in your lost causer mindset. But when you consider the confederate point-of-view...the holding nearly 4 million people in slavery, denying the free blacks of the south basic civil rights (I know, neither did the North prior to or during the war, but the North did pass the 13-14-15 amendments to provide the basic rights to the former slaves), waging a war against the Constitutionally election of a man to the presidency, seizing national property in states before passing ordinances of secession.

I am surprised you used Mencken...but then again his quote you used on the Gettysburg address is very famous in Lost Causer circles. I was wondering about the London Times quote. Is this one of the articles Karl Marx is refering to in his letter to Lincoln?