In defense of Lee and Jackson

By Chuck Baldwin

Ever since the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, took place, memorials and statues of the great men of the Confederacy – along with the flags of the Confederacy – are being vandalized or taken down by municipal governments.

In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow Southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He said if the South lost, "It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects 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, and traitors.

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. If one is wrong, both are wrong. How can we celebrate the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861?

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.

In fact, before the South seceded, several Northern states had 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 more sacred than 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 separate (under Natural and divine right) is the most preposterous proposition possible.

People also 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. Lincoln had no more authority to issue a proclamation in the CSA than the British Crown has authority to issue a proclamation in the states of the USA today.

Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln's proclamation didn't 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? (Source: Mildred Lewis Rutherford, "Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States, and Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States," 1861-1865, p. 35)

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, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln actually SUPPORTED an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which would have been the 13th Amendment) proposed by Ohio Congressman Thomas Corwin that said: "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 of persons held to labor or service by laws of said State."

You read it right. Lincoln supported 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 – especially considering that the vast majority of Southerners did not own a single slave? 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 as 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 suffer 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 ours."

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, that 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; and 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 living together on terms of social and 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 race."

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 the Confederate leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington, D.C., that triggered 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.

Here'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., any 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 name for that war is 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 in all likelihood ended the war before it really began. But General Beauregard and the other leaders of the Confederacy had no intention of fighting an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South against Lincoln's aggression.

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, but 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 that.

The slave trade had ended in 1808 per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying too. It would have died a peaceful death in a few short years, just as it had in Great Britain. It didn't take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in England. 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 are responsible for the tragedy of the "Civil War."

By the time Lincoln launched his war against the Southern states, the entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a very small fraction of Southerners even owned slaves, and the vast majority of Southern leaders, including Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson, openly supported abolishing slavery.

Speaking of Lee and Jackson, without question, these two were two of the greatest military leaders of all time. Even more, many military historians regard the Lee and Jackson tandem as perhaps the greatest battlefield duo in the history of warfare. If Jackson had survived the battle of Chancellorsville, it is very possible that the South would have prevailed at Gettysburg and perhaps would have even won the War Between the States.

In fact, it was Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British armies in the early twentieth century, who said, "In my opinion, Stonewall Jackson was one of the greatest natural military geniuses the world ever saw. I will go even further than that – as a campaigner in the field, he never had a superior. In some respects, I doubt whether he ever had an equal."

Furthermore, Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson were two of the finest Christian gentlemen and two of the most noble and honorable men – Christian or otherwise – this country has ever produced. Both their character and their conduct were beyond reproach.

It is well established that Jackson regularly conducted a Sunday School class for black children. This was a ministry he took very seriously. As a result, he was dearly loved and appreciated by these children and their parents.

In addition, both Jackson and Lee emphatically supported the abolition of slavery. In fact, Lee called slavery "a moral and political evil." He also said "the best men in the South" opposed it and welcomed its demise. Jackson said he wished to see "the shackles struck from every slave."

To think that Lee and Jackson (and the vast majority of Confederate soldiers) would fight and die to preserve an institution they considered evil and abhorrent – and that they were already working to dismantle – is the height of absurdity. It is equally repugnant to impugn and denigrate the memory of these remarkable Christian gentlemen.

In fact, after refusing Abraham Lincoln's offer to command the Union Army in 1861, Robert E. Lee wrote to his sister on April 20 of that year to explain his decision. In the letter he wrote, "With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the army and save in defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed . . . ."

Lee's decision to resign his commission with the Union Army must have been the most difficult decision of his life. Remember that Lee's direct ancestors had fought in America's War For Independence. His father, "Light Horse Harry" Henry Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero, Governor of Virginia, and member of Congress. In addition, members of his family were signatories to the Declaration of Independence.

Remember, too, that not only did Robert E. Lee graduate from West Point "at the head of his class" (according to Benjamin Hallowell), he is yet today one of only two cadets to graduate from that prestigious academy without a single demerit.

However, Lee knew that Lincoln's decision to invade the South in order to prevent its secession was both immoral and unconstitutional. As a man of honor and integrity, the only thing Lee could do was that which his father had done: fight for freedom and independence. And that is exactly what he did.

Instead of allowing a politically correct culture to sully the memory of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson, all Americans should hold them in a place of highest honor and respect. Anything less is a disservice to history and a disgrace to the principles of truth and integrity.

Accordingly, it was more than appropriate that the late President Gerald Ford, on August 5, 1975, signed Senate Joint Resolution 23 "restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee." According to President Ford, "This legislation corrects a 110-year oversight of American history." He further said, "General Lee's character has been an example to succeeding generations . . . ."

In addition, most people will be surprised to learn that Confederate soldiers are officially American Veterans by four separate acts of Congress (1900, 1906, 1929, and 1958). Therefore, the desecration and/or removal of the statues and memorials of Confederate veterans is an assault, insult, and attack against ALL of America's veterans.

See this report:

Confederate Soldiers – American Veterans By Act Of Congress

All of the hysteria over the Confederate monuments and statues is just so much propaganda – and race baiting.

Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today – and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth (and now twenty-first) century – is the result of Lincoln's war against the South. Washington and Jefferson's vision of liberty and limited government under a constitutional republic died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

And speaking of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, you can mark my words: after the Lincoln-worshipping socialists have finished removing the statues and memorials that honor the brave men of the American Confederacy, they will turn their attention to removing the statues and memorials of the brave men of the American colonies. That's what tyrants do: they try to remove all semblances of resistance from any city or country that they control. That is exactly what globalist-sponsored terror groups, such as ISIS, are attempting to do among the communities they control – and that's exactly what globalist-sponsored hate groups such as Antifa are attempting to do in our country right now.

You can mark this down: many of the so-called white supremacists and neo-Nazis that we saw in Charlottesville were in reality professional government provocateurs and agitators who were being paid to stir up hate and violence with the intention of creating anti-America groups like Antifa. The CIA does stuff like this all of the time in nations all over the world. There is no doubt in my mind that dark forces within our own federal government are behind most of this civil unrest. In truth, THEY are the real fascists!

And, pathetically, many – if not most – of our churches and Christian colleges and universities are following in lockstep with this attack against our heritage. One large Christian college in Florida recently expelled a student for standing in front of a statue of General Lee with a small Confederate flag in his hand. This same college (along with the elementary and high school that it owns and operates) constantly promotes Abraham Lincoln as America's great savior. I dare say this would be true for the vast majority of Christian schools and churches across the country. No wonder today's Christians can't seem to recognize, much less stand up against, unconstitutional government: our churches and Christian schools have turned most of them into sheepish slaves of the state.

Today it is Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson; tomorrow it will be George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. And, folks, don't look now, but tomorrow is already here.

P.S. For people to truly understand Abraham Lincoln and his war against the South, I believe it is absolutely essential to read Thomas DiLorenzo's phenomenal book "The Real Lincoln: A New Look At Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, And An Unnecessary War."

Instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln was in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in American history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's.

Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the sixteenth president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized – as the Founding Fathers intended – to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade. To accomplish his goals, Lincoln subverted the Constitution, trampled states' rights, and launched a devastating Civil War, whose wounds haunt us still. According to this provocative book, 600,000 American soldiers did not die for the honorable cause of ending slavery but for the dubious agenda of sacrificing the independence of the states to the supremacy of the federal government, which has been tightening its vise grip on our Republic to this very day.

You will discover a side of Lincoln that you were doubtless never taught in school – a side that calls into question the very myths that surround him and helps explain the true origins of a bloody and unnecessary war.

GET THIS BOOK: "The Real Lincoln," by Thomas DiLorenzo. Find it here:

The Real Lincoln

© Chuck Baldwin