Politically Correct Plaque Attack
Excerpt:
“As one might expect in today’s virulently aggressive politically correct culture, a movement is afoot to rewrite history, which includes “amending the plaques, statues, and memorials of historical figures to reflect their racist sentiments.”
One movement afoot is to footnote a bust of Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney as a racist because he wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case which, to simplify for today’s Attention Deficit devotees, was a ruling that a slave entering a non-slave state could not become a non-slave since that would deprive his master of his property.
For another example, some South Carolinians want to tack a plaque on the base of the big bronze likeness of Reconstruction-era Governor and US Senator Ben Tillman who, according to the Charleston City Paper, had a hand in rewriting the state constitution that “disenfranchised blacks and established the segregation laws which stood for 70 years” and, incidentally, advocated lynching Negroes.
And folks in Lee County, Florida, want to rename their county because its namesake is General Robert E. Lee, even though Lee himself once penned, “…slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.”
Unfortunately, as some sane observers warn, rewriting bronze statuary markers “threatens to turn historical interpretation into a politically driven free-for-all.” So, to prevent a lefty-righty rewriting culture war, the anti-South history-twisters should consider putting on a show of “diversity” by whacking a plaque on a Northern racist.
That, according to many, would be our nation’s sixteenth president. In spite of his copyrighted catchphrase “The Great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln’s famous wartime Emancipation Proclamation failed to free a single slave and didn’t even apply to the slaves held by Yankees in Yankee-held holdings. Then there was that business of Lincoln voting to keep all Negroes out of Illinois because, well, they were Negroes….
Lincoln not only supported the Fugitive Slave Act (a law that required escaped slaves to be forcibly repatriated to their masters) but even took the case of one Robert Matson, whose slaves had run away. Fighting for their forcible return in court was Matson’s mouthpiece, Abraham Lincoln, Esq….
The whole point being that history-rewriters eager to excoriate Southerners like Taney and Tillman and Lee as racists need to look northward as well if they wish to avoid this plaque flack of their own: “Hypocrite.”
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don’t forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
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Posted by JonJayRay on June 5, 2008 9:08 am
» Filed Under History, News, Revisionism, Stupidity
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One Response to “Politically Correct Plaque Attack”
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I guess people don’t understand the politics of that day. It wasn’t about “racism” like it would be today. Slavery was part of life. That’s just the way it was. It wasn’t right but that doesn’t change the historical facts. Even Lincoln was for slavery until the politics game began to change and he needed a new platform.