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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Confederate West Virginia Confederate West Virginia has always been an enigma. A bright fellow riding through Monroe County was intrigued by the Confederate monument in a field near Union. This biker-hiker-writer Michael Abraham wondered why. For clues, he went straight to local historians Bud Robertson and Stuart McGeehee. In his thoughtful book, The Spine of the Virginias (2010, Pocahontas Press; Blacksburg, Virginia) he lets these experts tell a harrowing tale of why West Virginia will probably always fly Confederate flags. Our schools told us that we seceded from Virginia. Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio tell us the same thing in Boston accents as they brag about telling West Virginias story. Mr. Abrahams experts tell it more as a story of colonization. A colonizing power usually cites some slick but fake argument for extending its rule over a minority: enlightened government the United States declared as it wrested Puerto Rico from Spain, for example. When Lincoln called up 75,000 volunteers to invade South Carolina he was simply collecting taxes in his First Inaugural, then at Gettysburg he was simply saving the Union, then in his Second Inaugural he was fighting slaveryat least in the Confederacy. The slavery argument has been the real clincher. Were still stuck with it. Really? Shakespeare devoted his play Hamlet to the old problem of lying to cover up killing and stealing. Lusting after his brother Hamlets kingdom (and his wife), Claudius (claws) killed his brother Hamlet by pouring poison into his ear. As his new kingdom grew more and more rotten (like him), he had to pour a lot of poison into a lot of ears (his media) to hide his crimes. He didnt count on young Hamlet, whose father returned from the grave to tell the truth. In the end, Claudius was forced to drink his own poison. His flag was removed. So, the Confederate soldier on the monument returns from his grave to warn us about the truth. Its still hard to convince others who grew up pledging allegiance to another flag every morning. Political strategist Machiavelli warns that a crooked ruler needs only to use his schools and his media to spread fake facts and false history. The ruler must never allow honest historians to be interviewed on the national news. Then he and his cronies can rob the crowds as they please. So, the media and the schools have it that western Virginians were good Americans, opposed to slavery and secession and really wanted to be part of the Union. This is an obvious crowd-pleaser. It is simplistic enough to be easily remembered. It suits the moral lesson that, as usual, the good Northerners defeat the evil Southerners, pitilessly relegated to the ash-heap of history, just like TV and the movies (more media). Case closed, no studies of economy, finance, law or geography needed (or desired). This version fits well with multiple choice tests. And it has gained sway in the national discourse, if not outside the US. The actual story, as usual, is messier and more complex. It is also thornier to recall for the longer-to-grade essay exam. And the teachers cannot legally teach it, were told. But were not in school, so here we go. In 1860 the mountainous counties of northwestern Virginia cared little about slavery. Even in the southern counties McDowell had 10% slaves, Mercer 150 of a total population of 4500. So much for the slavery argument. To both the USA and the CSA, however, these counties were strategic. They had immense wealth, principally in timber, oil and coal. Running to within 100 miles of the Canadian border, they nearly cut the Union in two. The B & O Railroad, running across northwestern Virginia, provided a vital link between the Yankee states and the West. (This explains why the first battle of the War took place at Philippi West Virginia.) So, without slavery, why were these counties secessionist? Like North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee, Virginia had seceded not over slavery or high tariffs but over the right of the federal government to coerce a state and its people. This was an argument the independent people of the western counties could agree with, and they supported the Southern independence movement as a result. Then, too, the Confederate states were paying 90% of the federal taxes and wanted out. Furthermore, like the rest of the new Confederates, western Virginians were horrified by the hijacking of the federal government by Northern industrialists and bankers in 1860. Money had totally bought out the law. A railroad corporate lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, president, swore to defeat the Democratic states even in the North, i.e., New York State, Ohio and the so-called Copperhead states in the West. To the so-called Radical Republicans this was a real civil war. They had to subjugate the Democratic Party representing the workers interests. The world was shocked. Even the pope called Lincoln a tyrant and a usurper and sent President Jefferson Davis a crown of thorns. The South wanted no part of this takeover, especially as a helpless minority. Patrick Henrys dire warning about rule by a corrupt majority to the north was coming true, even worse. The border between the CSA and the USA was to become a hotbed of war. Like Hamlet, Southerners serving in the Union Army would be pitted against their own kith and kin. General Lee (today called a traitor in the national media) had to resign his commission in the US Army so as not to help subject his native Virginia to the rule of Northern bankers. In the Sound of Music, Captain von Trapp was similarly forced to flee the Nazis. At first, Confederate commanders in northwestern Virginia disrupted Union traffic running over Confederate territory, confiscating 1500 horses, loads of oil, etc. Soon, however, with the help of Republican businessmen in Wheeling (in the northern panhandle), the Union army moved to set up a military screen just south of the B & O Railroad. North of this line the locals worked with the US Congress to create a small pro-Union territory. In order to create a viable Union state the US House Ways and Means Committee gleefully added more counties to the south (coal, oil and natural gas territory) and east (agricultural land). The Wheelingites were horrified: They would be overwhelmed by the Confederate counties. And in case they lost the War, they might be subject to confiscation and retribution in the new state they had helped to create. Despite the free hand granted him by his ultra-liberal Lieber military code (which encouraged war crimes in the name of victory), Lincoln worried about how the crowd would view the constitutionality and logic of carving a new state from Virginia. The Constitution that he had sworn to uphold requires the consent of the mother state, now located in a foreign country kept beyond his reach by hostile armies. The situation was dire. In 1861, and even more so in 1862, it appeared as though the Confederate States would possibly win their independence. If something werent done quickly, all the wealth and strategic location of western Virginia would be lost to a foreign and increasingly hostile nation. So the deed had to be done hastily. No worries. If nothing else, Lincolns government was inventive: Just create a Restored Government of Virginia in federally controlled areas near Washington. Appoint a governor, Francis Pierpont, and of course an ad hoc legislature. Propose one bill, devoted to the question of secession of the northwestern counties. Vote for it, get paid and go home. Democracy was somewhat crushed, of course. Twenty-two counties did not vote. One county sent one representative, some guy who elected himself, etc. But the whole thing worked like a charm, at least in the Union media. The cover-up was well under way...... Poster Comment: This is per the League of the South's fantastic Abbeville Institute site. Dig on in! https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/ You don't have to be Southern born- and/or -bred to appreciate these views. I spent from age 1 to 39 in greater jew york, and it only made me surer of the Southern cause. Note that the above writer doesn't gloss over anything unfavorable to his side of the story. Oh, and I write as the Grand Gryphon of the Benevolent Order of League of the South Expellees. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top Page Up Full Thread Page Down Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: NeoconsNailed (#0)
"The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination of the world. Otto Von Bismark, Chancellor of Germany at the time of the US Civil War the american revolutionary war was never truly won, because it hasn't truly ended... http://splitbabyniblet.blogspot.com/2008/01/american-revolutionary-war-has- never.html
#2. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#1)
Thanks for that extremely useful, damning quote. He does everything but name the jew!
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