Tag: Civil War

The Forgotten History of Memorial Day

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Memorial Day History Headliner

by Richard Gardiner   In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country. The holiday was Memorial Day, and this year’s commemoration on May 27 marks the 151st anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead. Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the largest Union veterans’ fraternity at that time, the Grand Army of the Republic, is usually credited as being the originator of the holiday. Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, “It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.” I’m a scholar who has written – with co-author Daniel Bellware – a history of Memorial Day. Cities and towns across America have for more than a century claimed to be the holiday’s birthplace, but we have sifted through the myths and half-truths and uncovered the authentic story of how this holiday…

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Don Barnett Commentary: Things That Are Taken Down After Dark

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by Don Barnett   There is little argument that the Memphis City Council pulled a fast one in its decision to circumvent state law by selling two of its city parks to a nonprofit, which then immediately removed statues of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, President Jefferson Davis and the uncontroversial Capt. J. Harvey Mathes on December 20, 2017. The removal had been a point of contention for years and much of the political class applauded the novel approach to the problem. It is worth remembering, however, that removal booster Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen voted against the removal of the Forrest statue in 1984 when he was on the Memphis city council. Direct descendants of Nathan Bedford Forrest filed a lawsuit on Dec 17, 2018 against the city of Memphis over the removal of the statue from the gravesite of the Confederate general, his wife and, likely, others who were interred on the grounds earlier. It may be the first time that living descendants of a national historical figure have filed such a suit to protect their ancestor’s grave site. The chances of open discussion of the matter are looking pretty dim based on media handling of the issue so…

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Commentary: Decisive Political Victory is the Only Way to End This Cold Civil War

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Tennessee Star

by Ryan Williams   As even NeverTrump Republicans are coming around – grudgingly, and with caveats, of course – to recognizing the stakes in our ongoing domestic political fights, it is perhaps impolite to note: Some of us drew these conclusions quite a long time ago. The last two weeks of psychodrama in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight should count as strong – if not ironclad – evidence of the soundness of my colleague Michael Anton’s prediction in September 2016 about the trajectory and style of Democratic Party rule in the coming years. He wrote that such rule, should it come, “will be coupled with a level of vindictive persecution against resistance and dissent. We see this already in the censorship practiced by the Davoisie’s social media enablers; in the shameless propaganda tidal wave of the mainstream media; and in the personal destruction campaigns—operated through the former and aided by the latter—of the Social Justice Warriors…” Plenty has been written about the absurdity of running a republic by way of whisper campaigns, uncorroborated smears, and malicious innuendo. There is no need to rehash the mistreatment—some of it irrevocably damaging—of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. What’s important to remember is that this will now be the new norm of nomination battles. It…

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Tennessee and The U.S. Constitution’s 15th Amendment

Gregory Watson
Celebrating the 15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted freed former male slaves and any adult male citizen the right to vote,  was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of all states and added to the Constitution in 1870.  At the time there were 37 states, and when the 28th state ratified the amendment in February, 1870, the three-fourths standard was met. Tennessee was not among those 28 states. In fact, Tennessee did not get around to ratifying the 15th Amendment until more than 100 years later, in 1997. Here is that story: During the Reconstruction period in the American South, in the aftermath of the Civil War, three individual amendments were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution – each separated in succession by only a few years – pursuant to that document’s Article V. This trifecta ended a dry spell of more than 60 years of no amendments at all finding their way into the federal Constitution. The 13th Amendment, ending slavery, was adopted in 1865.  The 14th Amendment, defining citizenship status, came along in 1868 (although there is some question as to whether its ratification process was 100 percent strictly by-the-book).  And the 15th Amendment, granting to former male slaves –…

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Richmond’s Jefferson Davis Statue Might Be Next On The Chopping Block

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Jefferson Davis statue, Richmond, Virginia

by Rob Shimshock   A commission recommended Monday that Richmond, Va., remove its statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The Davis statue is one of five Confederate monuments lining Monument Avenue in the city, reported The Guardian. The commission, appointed by Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, said that the Davis monument “is the most unabashedly Lost Cause in its design and sentiment.” The Lost Cause emphasizes the values and traditions of the South over slavery when conceptualizing the Civil War. The commission notes that the statue terms Davis the “Defender of the Rights of States.” “In the course of [our] work, it became abundantly clear the majority of the public acknowledges Monument Avenue cannot and should not remain exactly as it is,” the commission, comprised partly of historians and local officials, said. “Change is needed and desired.” Richmond erected its Gen. Robert E. Lee Monument Avenue statue in 1890. May and June 1907 saw the installation of statues dedicated to cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart and Davis, respectively. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s statue debuted in October 1919 and naval commander Matthew Fontaine Maury’s monument was the last Confederate memorial to populate the street on November 1929. “Richmond has a long, complex and conflicted history and the…

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The Forgotten History of Memorial Day

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Memorial Day History Headliner

by Richard Gardiner   In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country. The holiday was Memorial Day, and this year’s commemoration on May 28 marks the 150th anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead. Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the largest Union veterans’ fraternity at that time, the Grand Army of the Republic, is usually credited as being the originator of the holiday. Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, “It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.” I’m a scholar who has written – with co-author Daniel Bellware – a history of Memorial Day. Cities and towns across America have for more than a century claimed to be the holiday’s birthplace, but we have sifted through the myths and half-truths and uncovered the authentic story of how this holiday…

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Joe Carr Commentary: It Is Time To Stand Firm in Support of Our History

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There is an old adage that “what is done in darkness will come to light.” City officials in Memphis who concocted a secret scheme to “sell” a couple of public parks for $1000 each in order to evade state law prohibiting removal of statues and monuments without proper approval may soon learn the truth of that saying. As soon as they “sold” the parks, two monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis were quickly removed by the “new private owners” in the dark of night. More facts are coming to light, and it is increasingly clear that the scam was carefully orchestrated by the Mayor and local political activists to skirt the clear intent of the law. If it was such a good idea, why was it done secretly and without public input and debate? Sadly, this is not the first (nor likely the last) time that Memphis has sought to avoid the rule of law in order to “do whatever they want to do.” From creating a sanctuary city in violation of state law to removing statues and monuments in violation of state law, Memphis is following a consistent pattern of creating some sort of “laws we don’t…

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Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner is the Director of ‘Memphis Greenspace,’ Which Took Down Civil War Monuments

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The hasty removal of two Confederate monuments Wednesday overnight has sparked a number of questions into the specifics of the transaction between Memphis city officials and the virtually unknown non-profit corporation that bought the properties, called “Memphis Greenspace.” Shelby County Commission member Van Turner held a press conference Thursday to begin to answer those questions, beginning with the fact that he is the director of “Memphis Greenspace.” WREG News Channel 3 was in Memphis to cover the presser: Memphis Greenspace, the nonprofit group that purchased two controversial city parks Wednesday, announced plans for recently purchased public parks after the removal of two Confederate statues during a press conference Thursday morning. Memphis Greenspace plans to renovate the parks so they can be a safe place for children and more accessible to the public. Van Turner, the director of the non-profit organization and a Shelby County commissioner, led the press conference. He addressed critics of the purchase during the press conference. “This is not a shady deal. It’s a legal deal,” he said. “I presented this solution to Bruce McMullen, the city attorney for the city of Memphis, and he has consistently been an advocate for the removal of these statues legally.”…

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A School Named After Jefferson Davis Will Be Renamed After President Obama

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A dominantly black public school in Mississippi named after Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States in the 1860s, will be renamed after former President Barrack Obama, according to a report released Wednesday. Stakeholders in the school voted earlier this month at the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees meeting to change the elementary school’s name…

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Bill Hennessy Commentary: ‘Common Knowledge’ Masks the Islamist Element Underpinning ‘Statue Wars’

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Tennessee Star

  You probably believe the narrative. Because that narrative is strong right now. It has become common knowledge. Common knowledge in the formal, game theory sense of the word. In game theory, common knowledge is something everyone knows everyone knows. And everyone know everyone knows. And everyone knows how everyone else will behave because of that knowledge. Common knowledge doesn’t have to be true. In a common knowledge game, truth doesn’t matter. All that matters is conformity. Behaving or speaking in opposition to common knowledge does no good. Because the culture will punish you for speaking the truth if the truth counters common knowledge. People who point out the truth during a common knowledge game get punished. For example, people who ate whole eggs during the cholesterol common knowledge game were punished. People who ate high fat, low carbohydrate diets during the fat-is-bad common knowledge game were punished. Punished by family. Punished by friends. Punished by doctors. Punished by strangers in hotel restaurants. People who go along with common knowledge games usually suffer in the end. Like people who ate high carbohydrate diets and got fatter and fatter. But those who behaved according to the common knowledge weren’t punished. They…

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Historian: Give Trump Credit for Dispelling Myth of ‘Inevitable’ Civil War and Suggesting Andrew Jackson May Have Been Able to Stop It

Tennessee Star Staff

President Trump sparked outrage on Monday after making comments regarding President Andrew Jackson and the Civil War during an interview broadcast on satellite radio. Trump’s remarks, while not exactly polished, suggested Jackson may have been able to stop the Civil War and that the seventh President foresaw the nation’s imminent sundering. He also implied the great…

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