Conservative activists and thinktanks claim to support truth in history but it is a selective presentation. “One of the last things outgoing-President Trump did was to sign an executive order on the 1776 Commission. It's geared toward teaching American school children about America's true source of greatness. Yet one of the first things incoming-President Biden did was to sign an executive order nullifying Trump's 1776 initiative. The 1776 Commission responded with a joint statement from its chairman, Dr. Larry P. Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College; prominent conservative African-American scholar Dr. Carol Swain, retired professor of Vanderbilt Law School; and Dr. Matthew Spalding, the vice president and dean of the graduate school of government of Hillsdale's D.C. campus. They wrote, ''The 1776 Report calls for a return to the unifying ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence. It quotes the greatest Americans, black and white, men and women, in devotion to these ideals. The Commission may be abolished, but these principles and our history cannot be. We will all continue to work together to teach and to defend them.'' In effect, our Founders declared their independence from England and their dependence upon God. As JFK put it, our founders declared, ''The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.'' I am of the persuasion that God did something unique in politics and world governance in the creation of the United States. Yes, slavery and mistreatment of the Native Americans were there almost from the beginning. But these were in violation of the promise of America. They happened despite the promise of America, not because of it. And it was that promise that leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to in abolishing those injustices.” (https://www.newsmax.com/jerrynewcombe/commission-project-slavery/2021/01/27/id/1007511/)
No
mention that of Lincoln’s racist views as demonstrated by his own personal
statements such as during the debates with Stephen Douglas just two years
before his election as US President, “I have no purpose to introduce political
and social equality between the white and the black races. There is physical
difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid
their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.” Previously, in an 1847 lawsuit, Lincoln
defended a slaveholder’s rights to his property when relocating from Kentucky
to Illinois. He defended and reenforced
his past positions and statements in his inaugural address in March of 1861,
“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by
the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and
personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable
cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary
has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in
nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote
from one of those speeches when I declare that-- I have no purpose, directly or
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to
do so. Those who nominated and elected
me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar
declarations and had never recanted them.”
He further reiterated his position that he would enforce the laws
Constitutionally guaranteeing the return of fugitive slaves to their
owners. Then still referencing the
Constitution, Lincoln in this address states that the Union exists in
“perpetuity” although no such basis could be found in our nation’s founding
documents. Lincoln of course went on, per
his own assertion that the “Union (was) unbroken” to unconstitutionally use the
federal army to invade the Southern states and violate the Constitution (and
his inaugural promises) further by attempting to free the slaves in the South
with his Emancipation Proclamation (when in fact it was little more than a war
measure and resolution to garner international support. Further, his unconstitutional suspension of
the writ of habeas corpus in the first month of the War and suppression of the
press critical of his militant actions in violation of the 1st Amendment. The use of martial law extensively throughout
the Northern states. Military trials and
evictions of private citizens such as in Union held Missouri. The champion of emancipation sought throughout
his presidency to facilitate the resettling and colonization of freed blacks to
Africa and central America even allocating federal funds for colonies in
Liberia. Not to mention the fallacies
of neo-con infatuation with and mischaracterization of the plagiarist
philandering MLK.
But
the 1776 Commission did seek to “enable a rising generation to understand the
history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776 and to
strive to form a more perfect Union.' This requires a restoration of American
education, which can only be grounded on a history of those principles that is
'accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.''' This in contrast to the 1619 Project espoused
by liberal activists and school boards from New York to Chicago to California.
“The 1619 Project of The New York Times postulates that America's real birth date
was 1619 when the first African slaves came to these shores. Sadly, the 1619
Project is now being disseminated in many of our schools, thus, leading more
young Americans to disparage our nation's history.” As Newsmax correctly highlights, slavery was
not unique to the founding of America (although the author again erroneously infers
that the War for Southern Independence was fought to abolish slavery). Slavery existed and fueled the worldwide
trade and economy throughout the 16th into the mid-19th centuries in Dutch,
Spanish, French and of course, British colonies. Slavery has existed since the Old Testament times. But peculiar that only in America was slavery
supposedly eliminated thru the expenditure of 600,000 fatalities or these
neo-con historians would have you believe.
To come to grips with the truth of our American history, we will need to
revise the textbooks so long perpetuating the false narrative decried by
Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, “That the history of this heroic struggle
(for Southern Independence) will be written by the enemy, that our youth will
be trained by Northern school teachers; learn from Northern school books THEIR
version of the war, and taught to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our
maimed veterans as fit subjects of derision." Jarrett Stepman of the Heritage Foundation,
cited in the Newsmax article stated, “''We're not a perfect country, as human
beings are certainly not perfect. But
this country has done a lot of great things. ... a lot of people in academia
and higher education, want to change that, want to make Americans feel like
their country is built on something terrible.''
Unfortunately, telling the truth (especially in regards to the true
impetus for the War Between the States as Lincoln’s quest for tariff monies to
fund his industrialist complex and imperialist ambitions) may tarnish that
image of the heroic faultless US federal government. But it may go a long way to explain why the
federal government is today so oppressive and that we find ourselves in a
critical juncture today with our Republic in the face of progressive socialists
as Lee warned, “The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to
be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of
ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”
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