The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered!
By Chuck Baldwin
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see
happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the
Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before
our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over
the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over
the freedom of conscience.
In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned
his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose
their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost,
“It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy.
That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from
Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the
influences of History and Education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and
our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever
spoken.
History revisionists flooded America’s public schools
with Northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the
United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals,
hatemongers, traitors, etc. You know, the same way that people in our federal
government and news media attempt to characterize Christians, patriots, war
veterans, constitutionalists, et al. today.
Folks, please understand that the only people in 1861
who believed that states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln
and his radical Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right
to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not
have the right to secede from Great Britain. One cannot be right and the other
wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can we celebrate our Declaration of
Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of
Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Talk about hypocrisy!
In fact, southern states were not the only states that
talked about secession. After the southern states seceded, the State of Maryland
fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops
to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent
them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested
Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was
granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession.
Judges who tried to inquire into the phony elections were arrested and thrown
into military prisons.
There is your great “emancipator,” folks.
And before the South seceded, several northern states
had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had
threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition,
the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening
secession during the first half of the nineteenth century--long before the
southern states even considered such a thing.
People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union.
Lincoln didn’t save the Union; he subjugated the Union. There is a huge
difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a
right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him?
In the eyes of God, a union of husband and wife is far superior to a union of
states. If God recognizes the right of husbands and wives to separate (and He
does), to try and suggest that states do not have the right to lawfully (under
Natural and divine right) separate is the most preposterous proposition
imaginable.
People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did
NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called
Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the southern states, as they had
separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation
to free folks in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of
Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and
he knew it.
Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s
proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in
which he DID have authority? That’s right. The Emancipation Proclamation
deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln
signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting
in the Union army? Check it out. One of those northern slaveholders was
General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained
possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall
that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE
hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to
free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”
The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th
Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Speaking of the 13th Amendment, did you know that
Lincoln authored his own 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the
Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President. Here is Lincoln’s
proposed amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will
authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state
with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person's held to labor
or service by laws of said State.” You read it right. Lincoln proposed an
amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery. This
proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were
fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed
at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully
called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina.
Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828
and 1832 were “unauthorized by the constitution of the United States.”
Think, folks: why would the southern states secede
from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had offered an
amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That
makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to
do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have
permanently preserved slavery among the southern (and northern) states. Does
that sound like a body of people who were willing to lose hundreds of thousands
of men on the battlefield over saving slavery? What nonsense!
The problem was Lincoln wanted the southern states to
pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports. The South considered this
outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the
South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before
the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. And Washington, D.C.,
kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them. You know, the way Washington, D.C.,
keeps raising the taxes on prosperous American citizens today.
This is much the same story of the way the colonies
refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown--albeit the tariffs of
the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed
13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by
being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the
Constitution. AND THE SOUTH SAID NO!
In addition, the Congressional Record of the United
States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the
States over slavery. Read it for yourself. This resolution was passed
unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861, “The War is waged by the
government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation,
nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or
institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.”
What could be clearer? The U.S. Congress declared that
the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the
“institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The
“institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery.
Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the
South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery--so said the U.S. Congress by
unanimous resolution in 1861. Abraham Lincoln, himself, said it was NEVER
his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander
Stevens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote
this, “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican
administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or
with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a
friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.
The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of
Washington.”
Again, what could be clearer? Lincoln, himself, said
the southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing
slavery.
Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without
freeing any slave I would do it.” He also said, “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.”
The idea that the Confederate flag (actually there
were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so
much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in
1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln. On August 14, 1862, Abraham
Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to
them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa. Listen to
what he told these folks: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and
where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question
for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a
broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is
right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great
disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of
them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we
suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we
should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long
free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest
wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet
far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration
of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent
not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.”
Did you hear what Lincoln said? He said that black
people would NEVER be equal with white people--even if they all obtained their
freedom from slavery. If that isn’t a racist statement, I’ve never heard one.
Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In
Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have
ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political
equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of
making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor
to intermarry with white people; I will say in addition to this that there is a
physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will
forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political
equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together
there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other
man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white.”
Ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, Abraham
Lincoln declared himself to be a white supremacist. Why don’t our history books
and news media tell the American people the truth about Lincoln and about the
War Between the States?
It’s simple: if people would study the meanings and
history of the flag, symbols, and statues of the Confederacy and Confederate
leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington,
D.C., that precluded southern independence--policies that have only escalated
since the defeat of the Confederacy--and they might have a notion to again
resist.
By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation
Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In
fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and
out-equipped, the genius of the southern generals and fighting acumen of the
southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the
North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of
them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called
“Copperheads” by people in the South.
I urge you to watch Ron Maxwell’s accurate depiction
of those people in the North who favored the southern cause as depicted in his
motion picture, “Copperhead.” For that matter, I consider his movie, “Gods And
Generals” to be the greatest “Civil War” movie ever made. It is the most
accurate and fairest depiction of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan
“Stonewall” Jackson ever produced. In my opinion, actor Stephen Lang should have
received an Oscar for his performance as General Jackson. But, can you imagine?
That’s another thing: the war fought from 1861 to 1865
was NOT a “civil war.” Civil war suggests two sides fighting for control of the
same capital and country. The South didn’t want to take over Washington, D.C.,
no more than their forebears wanted to take over London. They wanted to separate
from Washington, D.C., just as America’s Founding Fathers wanted to separate
from Great Britain. The proper names for that war are either, “The War Between
the States” or, “The War of Southern Independence,” or, more fittingly, “The War
of Northern Aggression.”
Had the South wanted to take over Washington, D.C.,
they could have done so with the very first battle of the “Civil War.” When
Lincoln ordered federal troops to invade Virginia in the First Battle of
Manassas (called the “First Battle of Bull Run” by the North), Confederate
troops sent the Yankees running for their lives all the way back to Washington.
Had the Confederates pursued them, they could have easily taken the city of
Washington, D.C., seized Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps ended the war before it
really began. But General Beauregard and the others had no intention of fighting
an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South
against the aggression of the North.
In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed
a moral crusade. That’s what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. This
explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of
fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his
war against the South if they thought it was some kind of “holy” war. Plus,
Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to
insurrect against southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage
war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the southern armies would
have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER
HAPPENED.
Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the
south, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and
neighbors in the Confederate army. Unlike the blacks in the North, who were
conscripted by Lincoln and forced to fight in segregated units, thousands of
blacks in the South fought of their own free will in a fully-integrated southern
army. I bet your history book never told you about that.
If one wants to ban a racist flag, one would have to
ban the British flag. Ships bearing the Union Jack shipped over 5 million
African slaves to countries all over the world, including the British colonies
in North America. Other slave ships flew the Dutch flag and the Portuguese flag
and the Spanish flag, and, yes, the U.S. flag. But not one single slave ship
flew the Confederate flag. NOT ONE!
By the time Lincoln launched his war against the
southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country,
including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end.
Only a small fraction of southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had
ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was
quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural
machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully--just like it had in England. It
didn’t take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end
slavery in Great Britain. America’s so-called “Civil War” was absolutely
unnecessary. The greed of Lincoln’s radical Republicans in the North, combined
with the cold, calloused heart of Lincoln himself is responsible for the tragedy
of the “Civil War.”
And look at what is happening now: in one
instant--after one deranged young man killed nine black people and who
ostensibly photo-shopped a picture of himself with a Confederate flag--the
entire political and media establishments in the country go on an all-out
crusade to remove all semblances of the Confederacy. The speed in which all of
this has happened suggests that this was a planned, orchestrated event by the
Powers That Be (PTB). And is it a mere coincidence that this took place at the
exact same time that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize same-sex
marriage? I think not.
The Confederate Battle Flag flies the Saint Andrews
cross. Of course, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus Christ, brother of
Simon Peter, and Christian martyr who was crucified on an X-shaped cross at
around the age of 90. Andrew is the patron saint of both Russia and Scotland.
In the 1800s, up to 75% of people in the South were
either Scotch or Scotch-Irish. The Confederate Battle Flag is predicated on the
national flag of Scotland. It is a symbol of the Christian faith and heritage of
the Celtic race.
Pastor John Weaver rightly observed, “Even the
Confederate States motto, ‘Deovendickia,’ (The Lord is our Vindicator),
illustrates the sovereignty and the righteousness of God. The Saint Andrews
cross is also known as the Greek letter CHIA (KEE) and has historically been
used to represent Jesus Christ. Why do you think people write Merry X-mas, just
to give you an illustration? The ‘X’ is the Greek letter CHIA and it has been
historically used for Christ. Moreover, its importance was understood by
educated and uneducated people alike. When an uneducated man, one that could not
write, needed to sign his name please tell me what letter he made? An ‘X,’ why?
Because he was saying I am taking an oath under God. I am recognizing the
sovereignty of God, the providence of God and I am pledging my faith. May I tell
you the Confederate Flag is indeed a Christian flag because it has the cross of
Saint Andrew, who was a Christian martyr, and the letter ‘X’ has always been
used to represent Christ, and to attack the flag is to deny the sovereignty, the
majesty, and the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his divine role in our
history, culture, and life.”
Many of the facts that I reference in this column were
included in a message delivered several years ago by Pastor John Weaver. I want
to thank John for preaching such a powerful and needed message. Read or watch
Pastor Weaver’s sermon “The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag” here:
The Truth
About The Confederate Battle Flag
Combine the current attacks against Biblical and
traditional marriage, the attacks against all things Confederate, the attacks
against all things Christian, and the attacks against all things constitutional
and what we are witnessing is a heightened example of why the Confederate Battle
Flag was created to begin with. Virtually every act of federal usurpation of
liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the
twentieth century, is the result of Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we
are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America.
Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Instead of lowering the Confederate flag, we should be
raising it.
© Chuck Baldwin
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