Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Roy Masters Ignorance Regarding the War for Southern Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation

I listen to talk radio often and on weekends around the Prattville/Montgomery area, on FM 107.9 Roy Masters has a program.  Roy espouses some rather strange principles such as refusing to recognize his wife's birthday or their anniversary as it would condone her placing importance on such trivial things and would empower her in their relationship.  He regularly cautions callers that they hate everyone including themselves and that is the root cause of this problem or that in their lives.  Strange stuff it is.  But I felt obligated to write Roy when he stated as clear fact on his show falsehoods regarding the Confederate States cause and the folly of the Emancipation Proclamation.  The following is my letter "To Roy":
Listened to your radio show this past weekend as I do on occasion. I would beseech you to do some more studying on the facts regarding the War for Southern Independence, more commonly but mistakenly known as the Civil War. To believe that the War was fought to free the slaves ignores the truths of that history. Lincoln himself even said (and it is inscribed on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC) that he would not attempt to free a single slave if it would preserve the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a single slave, the 13th Amendment did after the War was over. The Emancipation Proclamation attempted to free slaves in the Confederate States of America over which Lincoln had no authority in 1863.  Gen. Grant actually owned a slave til the end of the War.  Gen. Lee, none.  The opprossive tariffs imposed on imported goods which burdened the Southern populace and resulted in restrictions on Southern exports (Morrill Tarriff for example) and unfair taxation to unproportionally fund infrastructure projects in the Northern states provoked the Southern states to secede.  The act of secession was lawful, specifically taught at the time at West Point for instance, and endorsed by the Declaration of Independence but Lincoln used it as an excuse to brand the Confederacy as a rebel insurrection and indeed, to instigate a war against fellow Americans suspending habeus corpus, threatening imprisonment even for state legislators in states which remained in the Union (Maryland) and other violations of the Constitution which would have been punishable as war crimes had the South prevailed. But, the victors write the history books and thus has been perpetuated the myth that the Northern states, the Union, commenced on a noble crusade to free the slaves as the cause of the War. My ancestors on my mothers side fought for their homelands and states rights as part of the Confederacy - they did not own any slaves.  My ancestors on my fathers side on the other hand gained wealth as slave traders in the 1600s out of Connecticut (Cornelius Waldo). Nuf said? If you are attempting to present yourself as an astute learned man capable of advising people in important life matters, don't expose your ignorance and lack of qualifications in speaking of historical truths.

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