JAMES W. KING: Remembering Confederate heritage

In 1874, the Georgia Legislature created a public holiday denoting April 26 as Confederate Memorial Day and in 2009 it passed Senate Bill 27, which permanently designates April as Confederate History and Heritage month. Gov. Nathan Deal in 2015 ignorantly joined the Marxist Socialist revisionist movement, which is attacking everything Southern and Confederate along with America’s founding fathers. He removed the names of two state holidays — Robert E. Lee’s Birthday and Confederate Memorial Day. They are now state holidays without names. Karl Marx is quoted: “People separated from their heritage are easily persuaded.”

After a long series of abuses by England, the 13 American colonies declared independence on July 4, 1776 and seceded from England and were successful in achieving independence in 1783. Likewise in 1860-61, after years of political and criminal abuse by the Northern states, primarily New England, 11 Southern states constitutionally, legally and honorably seceded from the United States of America and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America (CSA). These Southern states sought Independence and peaceful separation from the increasing usurpation of unconstitutional federal power. The federal government of America had been taken over by radicals, fanatics, and criminals.

In 1848, the Socialist revolution in Europe led by Karl Marx had failed. In 1849-50 about 2,000 German Socialists were sent to New York City. They joined with American Socialists led by Horace Greeley, owner of the New York Tribune newspaper. Prior to Southern secession, 487 of Marx’s articles were printed, including the Communist Manifesto. The radical, fanatical, criminal, Socialist atheist Republican Party was formed in 1854 and, up until 1877, was similar to the modern Democratic Party. Abraham Lincoln was a member and 68 of 117 signed a resolution advocating terrorism against the South. The Southern states refused to be ruled by the Republican Party and seceded. After a four-year war against overwhelming numbers and resources, the Confederate Armed forces were forced to yield.

Lincoln’s unnecessary war had claimed the lives of over 600,000 American soldiers, North and South, and 50,000 Southern civilians. It had been a culture war fought for the purpose of converting the American Republic established by America’s founding fathers, who were primarily Southern gentleman from Virginia, to a Socialist Democracy. Northern soldiers were deceived by the clever “Save the Union” war cry. Socialism in America has developed in three stages: political in 1865 following Southern surrender, economic in 1913-17 — federal income tax, Federal Reserve, and cultural 1960 to 2017 — welfare nanny state. Today, many Northern citizens are connecting the dots back to 1848 and 1865 and are wishing their ancestors had worn gray instead of blue.

Recently, the modern Republican globalist and big government advocate Newt Gingrich blurted out the truth: “The war wasn’t fought to free slaves. It was fought to centralize and concentrate all power in Washington, D.C.” Slavery was already a dying institution and would have soon ended peacefully without a war, as it did elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The New England colonies/states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New York were responsible for the development of slavery. They grew to prosperity on the nefarious slave trade and when it became unprofitable, they hypocritically accused the Southern planters who had purchased slaves from them of “grave moral sin.”

The Confederate flag and the Confederate States of America represent the same principles and values as the Betsy Ross flag and the American Republic: Limited constitutional federal government, States Rights, resistance to tyranny, and Christianity. The Confederate battle flag is an international symbol of resistance to tyranny and was chosen by the Polish Solidarity Movement in 1980 as their symbol of resistance to Russian Communism, and it was flying over the Berlin Wall in 1989 as it was being torn down.

Lincoln and the federal government had no constitutional authority to coerce or invade a state for any reason. The states had formed the federal government and granted specific limited powers. The rest were reserved to the states and the people. Lincoln, Sherman, Sheridan, Butler, Grant, Jennison and thousands of other Yankees were war criminals. Crimes committed against Southerners included murder, torture, rape, arson, plunder, pillage, theft, vandalism, burning churches, destruction of graves, and turning women and children out in the cold.

Southerners have every right to be proud of and to remember and honor the brave men in gray who fought against the Yankee barbarians.

James W. King is commander of Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 141 Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson Nelson’s Rangers Albany. He may be contacted at [email protected].