Kevin Levin over at CW Memory blog recently posted an article entitled : “Let the Documents Speak for Themselves” it is really nothing more than a shout out to a recent Daily Show episode ( a fake news show with fake news anchors) that featured “correspondent” Larry Wilmer discussing South Carolina’s upcoming Secession Ball , an event that is kicking of one of many Civil War Sequicentinniel celebrations throughout the country.
In it Wilmer mocks the Sons of Confederate Veterans commercials , which have been banned censored by the History Channel. One of the commercials details the fact that many historians only cite the “Politically Correct” reasons for the war such as slavery, to which Wilmer cites South Carolina’s Secession Documents which mention slavery stating that they are not “Politically Correct they are Correct Correct”
Levin makes the case to let the documents speak for themselves, yet they don’t want you to see ALL of the documents , especially letters from Confederate soldiers detailing just why the fought to begin with.
Across our Confederation recently shared a letter that was published in Virginia’s “The Daily Progressive” newspaper which states:
“I am 82 years of age. My grandfather served the Confederacy under North Carolina Gen. J. Johnston Pettigrew. He died at the Battle of Gettysburg. I will allow his thoughts, written to my grandmother just a couple of weeks prior to that battle, to speak for themselves.”
My lovely wife. I do so miss you, and the life we have there on the small plot of land God has given us. More and more, it seems that my thoughts are drifting back there to reside with you. Yet, as badly as I desire to be back home, it is for home for which I deem it best for my presence here with these other men. The proclamation by the Lincoln administration six months prior may appear noble. Were I here in these conditions, simply to keep another man in bondage, I would most certainly walk away into the night and return unto you. God knows my heart, and the hearts of others here amongst me. We know what is at stake here, and the true reason for this contest that requires the spilling of the blood of fellow citizens. Our collective fear is nearly universal. This war, if it is lost, will see ripples carry forward for five, six, seven or more generations. I scruple not to believe, as do the others, that the very nature of this country will be forever disspirited. That one day, our great great grandchildren will be bridled with a federal bit, that will deem how and if they may apply the gospel of Christ to themselves, their families and their communities. Whether or not the land of their forefathers may be deceitfully taken from them through taxation and coercion. A day where only the interests of the northern wealthy will be shouldered by the broken and destitute bodies of the southern poor. This my darling wife, is what keeps me here in this arena of destruction and death.”
“Believing as we did that the war was a war of subjugation, and that it meant, if successful, the destruction of our liberties, the issue in our minds was clearly drawn as I have stated it,–The Union without Liberty, or Liberty without the Union”
Randolph Harrison McKim, 1st Lieutenant, Army of Northern Virginia, CSA
A Soldier’s Recollections: Leaves From The Diary of a Young Confederate,
with an Oration on the Motives and Aims of the Soldiers of the South.
Call number 973.78 M15s 1910 (Davis Library, UNC-CH
“I was never a Secessionist, for I quietly adopted father’s views on political subjects without meddling with them. But even father went over with his State, and when so many outrages were committed by the fanatical leaders of the North, though he regretted the Union, said, “Fight to the death for our liberty.” I say so, too. I want to fight until we win the cause so many have died for. I don’t believe in Secession, but I do in Liberty. I want the South to conquer, dictate its own terms, and go back to the Union, for I believe that, apart, inevitable ruin awaits both. It is a rope of sand, this Confederacy, founded on the doctrine of Secession, and will not last many years – not five. The North Cannot subdue us. We are too determined to be free. They have no right to confiscate our property to pay debts they themselves have incurred. Death as a nation, rather than Union on such terms. We will have our rights secured on so firm a basis that it can never be shaken. If by power of overwhelming numbers they conquer us, it will be a barren victory over a desolate land. “
Sarah Morgan Dawson
Confederate Girl’s Diary, p32.
Call number 973.78 D27c 1913 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)
Ah but more than one President has weighed in on this subject, in addition to Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson had foreseen the oncoming struggle between North and South 61 YEARS before the War of Northern aggression and there is not one mention of slavery being the reason! From Jefferson, written in 1800:
[Monticello] 13 August 1800
Dear Sir, – I received with great pleasure your favor of June 4, and am much comforted by the appearance of a change of opinion in your State; for tho’ we may obtain, & I believe shall obtain, a majority in the legislature of the United States, attached to the preservation of the federal Constitution according to its obvious principles, & those on which it was known to be received; attached equally to the preservation to the States of those rights unquestionably remaining with them; friends to the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury & to economical government; opposed to standing armies, paper systems, war, & all connection, other than commerce, with any foreign nation; in short, a majority firm in all those principles which we have espoused and the federalists have opposed uniformly; still, should the whole body of New England continue in opposition to these principles of government, either knowingly or through delusion, our government will be a very uneasy one. It can never be harmonious & solid, while so respectable a portion of its citizens support principles which go directly to a change of the federal Constitution, to sink State governments, consolidate them into one, and to monarchize that. Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, & from under the eye of their constituents , must, from circumstance of distance, be unable to administer & overlook all details necessary for the good government of the citizens, and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder & waste. And I do verily believe, that if the principle where to prevail, of a common law being in force in the U.S., (which principle possesses the general government at once of all the powers of the State governments, and reduces us to a single consolidated government,) it would become the most corrupt government on the earth. You have seen the practises by which the public servants have been able to cover their conduct, or, where that could not be done, delusions by which they have varnished it for the eye of their constituents. What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building & office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the States powers into the hands of the general government. The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest & best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, & united as to everything respecting foreign nations.
The hypocrisy of men like Levin knows no bounds. In another post he criticizes two authors of twisting the words of another author, yet men like Levin have no problem twisting the words and the meaning of South Carolina’s secession documents or ignoring the words of the soldiers and citizens themselves.
Jefferson detailed the reasons for the war, the North was not content to let the South live free and govern themselves, just as Levin {a New Jersey born Yankee} isn’t content to let the South celebrate their history they way they prefer.
Levin states: “Here is what I would do to protest this event. Station both black and white residents of Charleston in different sections of the city and at a scheduled time, during the Secession Ball, have them read the actual document that was approved by South Carolina’s secession convention. You could organize literally hundreds of people for this. I think it would be quite powerful to see South Carolinians take ownership of what South Carolinians in 1860”
In Mr. Levin’s eyes you have to seek his approval before you can celebrate your heritage, and it will only be granted upon promise that you will feel guilty and apologize for your ancestors. The real problem Mr.Levin has is that the Secession Ball is a private function, just out of reach of the controlled environment of national parks, schools and carefully picked Sequicentinial Committees in which the deck has been stacked.
Go ahead Mr. Levin, round your folks up and try and disrupt the celebration as you may, but it will not be effective, besides; what’s to stop a group of like minded folks from bussing women’s rights groups into your town protesting the fact that a a local school teacher likes to harass women.?- Webmaster
Across Our Confederation 