The CourierNewsletter Newsletter Newsletter Newsletter of of of of the the the the Sam Sam Sam Sam Davis Davis Davis Davis Camp Camp Camp Camp No. No. No. No. 1293 1293 1293 1293 SCVSCVSCVSCV

*Sons *Sons *Sons *Sons of of of of Confederate Confederate Confederate Confederate Veterans*March, Veterans*March, Veterans*March, Veterans*March, 2017*2017*2017*2017*

The Truth is Never Out of Date mischievous. Its certain resultwill be the re-enslavement ofwomen, not under theScriptural bonds of marriage,but under the yoke of literalcorporeal force … This world isa hard and selfish scene wherethe weaker goes to the wall.Under all other civilizations andall other religions than ourswoman has experienced thisfate to the full … In Christianand European society alone hasshe ever attained the place ofman’s social equal, andreceived the homage and honordue from magnanimity to hersex and her feebleness. And herenviable lot among us hasresulted from two causes: theChristian religion and thelegislation founded upon it byfeudal chivalry …”

On godless democracy:

“God gave the people of thisland great and magnificentblessing and opportunities andresponsibilities. They mightand should have made it theglory of all the lands. But theyhave betrayed their trust: theyhave abused every gift: aboveall have they insulted him byflaunting in his face animpudent, atheistic, God-defying theory of pretendedhuman rights and humanperfectibility which attempts toden man’s subordination, hisdependence, his fall and nativedepravity, his need of divinegrace. It invites mankind toadopt material civilization andsensual advantage as theirdivinity … Must not God beavenged on such a nation asthis? His vengeance will be togive them the fruit of their ownhands, and let them be filled

Many of the destructiveideas and “isms” of our centuryin America had their roots inthe 18th and 19th centuries,and a number of Southernwriters and clergymenrecognized their nature andwarned against them. Amongthese men was Robert LewisDabney (1820-1898) ofVirginia, one of the South’sgreat Presbyterian thinkers.He was the author of a numberof works including A Defense of

Virginia, The Life and Cam-

paigns of Lieutenant General

Thomas J. “Stonewall”

Jackson, and Practical

Philosophy.

“Truth is never out ofdate,” Dabney wrote, as thefollowing excerpts from some ofhis writings will attest.

On politics:

“American conservatism ismerely the shadow that followsRadicalism as it moves forwardtowards perdition. It remainsbehind it, but never retards it,and always advances near itsleader. The pretended salt hathutterly lost its savor: wherewithshall it be salted? Its impotencyis not hard, indeed, to explain.It is worthless because it is theconservatism of expediencyonly, and not of sturdyprinciple. It intends to risknothing for the sake of truth,and has no idea of being guiltyof the folly of martyrdom. Italways—when about to enter aprotest—very blandly informsthe wild beast whose path itessays to stop, that its ‘bark isworse than its bite,’ and that itonly means to save its mannersby enacting its decent role ofresistance.”

“In this day innovations

march with rapid strides. Thefantastic suggestions of yesterday,entertained only by a few fanatics,and then only mentioned by thesober to be ridiculed, is today theaudacious reform, and will betomorrow the recognized usage.Novelties are so numerous and sowild and rash, that even inconservative minds the sensibilityof wonder is exhausted and theinstinct of righteous resistancefatigued.”

On government schools:

“Imperial Donatives to theRoman populance became verypopular; true, but they poisonedthe last good element of Romancharacter, and helped to completethe putrescence of the empire. Ifear it is only too true, that thiscunning cheat of Yankee state-craft is alluring the poor, harassedSouthern parent; and that he isyielding to the bait whichpromises deceitfully to relieve himof his parental responsibility … Abribe, alas, may become easilypopular in decadent times.”

“Your ‘free schools’ like not afew of the other pretensions ofradicalism are in fact exactlyopposite to the name falselyassumed. The great bulk of thosewho pay the money for them do it,not freely, but by compulsion.They are virtually thrust down ourthroats by the bayonet, and theexemplars you most boast andimitate, not only make thepayment compulsory, but theattendance also … The onlyfreedom of your system is yourfreedom to compel other people’smoney.”

On feminism:

“It would not be hard to show,did space permit, that thismovement on the part of thesewomen is as suicidal as it is ... continued next page...

March 17th - 18th ~~ Army ofTennessee Meeting at Henry HortonState Park in Chapel Hill. 6:00 pm.Friday, and 9:00 a.m. Saturday.$25.00 registration fee coversFriday supper and Saturday lunch.

March 23rd ~~ Sam Davis Campmeets at 7:00 p.m., OglesbyCommunity Center. The Center isadjacent to the Woodson ChapelChurch of Christ on EdmondsonPike, 1/2 block South of theintersection of Edmondson Pikeand Old Hickory Blvd.

April 7th & 8th ~~ TennesseeDivision Reunion in Tracy City. Seelatest edition of the Forrest Escort

for details and a registration form.

April 28th ~~ Sam Davis Campmeets at 7:00 p.m., OglesbyCommunity Center.

remain under union occupationun…

City leaders would do better tocreate exhibits around each statuein its present location, putting intocontext the men and their recordsand how they and the monumentshave shaped the contours of thecity. That would not glorify norendorse a particular legacy, butsimply educate. Perhaps only theDavis statue, at the intersection ofthe eponymous Parkway and CanalStreet, merits moving to theshadows. He was connected to NewOrleans only by his brieflyappearing and dying at a location inthe Garden District alreadymemorialized, followed by a shortposthumous stay in MetairieCemetery.

But at worst, this impulse torevise the civic landscape displaysboth hypocrisy and intolerance ofthe city’s heritage. Despitenumerous public requests to thecontrary, Landrieu and the CityCouncil, all Democrats, haverefused to mete out the sametreatment to Andrew Jackson’sstatue in the square named afterhim. State Democrats annuallyhost a Jefferson Jackson Dinner —a fundraiser named in part afterthe nation's seventh president.

In response to the charge thatbanishing the monuments eraseshistory, supporters insist that sucha past is irreconcilable with acommunity that wants to embraceprogress. New Orleans lapsed intosuch short-sightedness in the1960s, when self-anointed do-gooders backed scarring a wideswath of the Vieux Carre for anexpressway, tossing out the old inthe name of a vision defined asprogressive. Almost a half-centurylater, we should resist the IslamicState model of blighting a culturalheritage to advance a politicalagenda..

Removing these statues willwound New Orleans, not help to

... continued from page one...

with their own devices. He will setapart this fait land by a sort ofdread consecration to the purposeof giving a lesson concerning thisgodless philosophy, so impressiveas to instruct and warn all futuregenerations. As the dull andpestilential waves of the Dead Seahave been to every subsequent agethe memento of the sin of Sodom,so the dreary tides of anarchy andbarbarism which will overwhelmthe boastful devices of infideldemocracy will be the caution of allfuture legislators.”

On republican government:

“While the Bible does notprohibit stronger forms of govern-ment per se, it indicates God’spreference for the representativerepublic as distinguished from theleveling democracy; and to thistheory of human rights all its moralteachings correspond.” ~~ compiledby Karen Stokes

New Orleans appears poised toremove three monuments that havedefined the city’s profile after afederal appellate court panel sweptaway legal objections to movingthem. In late 2015, City Councilmembers declared the monumentsto be public nuisances, andlawsuits to keep them in place havegained no traction in the courts.

Mayor Mitch Landrieupromised that after they’re removedfrom the prominent perches, thestatues of Confederate leadersRobert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard,and Jefferson Davis will be movedelsewhere. He and supporters of themove claim the statues glorify theracist regime of the Confederacy,and that the individuals memorial-ized by the statues, with theexception of Beauregard, have littledirect connection to the city’shistory.

At best, that’s a shortsightedargument. Each of the generals’statutes, after more than a centuryof residence, have become part ofthe local landscape, in addition togaining listings in the NationalRegister of Historical Places.Important period sculptor Alex-ander Doyle, who has several otherworks scattered around the city,executed each monument. Twofigures played a positive role in arearace relations after the war.Beauregard, who served as a stateand local official, advocated duringReconstruction for voting rights forblacks. Lee, by his battlefieldsurrender and counseling in favorof peace and against continuedmilitary activity, helped spare theSouth from complete ruin andspeeded the end of slavery.

The Civil War was only a yearold when New Orleans fell, to

building, America and its legacycannot be both Washington’s andLincoln’s. It may seem that bothmen had much in common, butthey, and the symbolic Americathey represent, are in fact incom-patible.

Washington represented thecavalier elite of early Americansociety. He was reared as agentleman. He was refined, anexcellent conversationalist whoknew how to dance and flirtproperly with women. His fatherand grandfathers had acquiredlarge Virginia estates, and thoughthey were considered to be middlingplantation owners, Washingtoneventually befriended members ofthe Fairfax family, the wealthiestlandowners in Virginia.

Lincoln was born to a shiftlessfarmer who lost most of hislandholdings due to poor claimsand who preferred to pull up stakesrather than plant roots in one area.Lincoln grew up in the wildernessaround rough men and women. Henever had any social graces andclumsily interacted with theopposite sex. Lincoln was neverreputed to be a fine dancer.

Both men were physicallyimposing and stood near 6’4”.Reportedly, Lincoln wrestled andsplit logs but he never learned howto defend himself in individualcombat. Albert Taylor Bledsoe hadto teach him how to use a broad-sword when Lincoln was challengedto a dual, and his career as asoldier lasted only a few monthsduring the Black Hawk War.Lincoln did not see any combat.

Washington hunted andsoldiered. He was the best athletein Virginia, a master horseman,and a real war hero who saved hismen from annihilation in 1755 atthe Battle of Monongahela, led theAmerican States to their indepen-dence in 1783, and was called outof retirement in 1798 to leadAmerican forces against the Frenchin a war that never materialized.

Washington avoided politicallife by resigning from every politicalpost after the American War forIndependence. He could have beenpresident for life, an elected king,but instead chose to retire to MountVernon to be a planter and spend

heal it. Elected officials shouldthink again before they call in themoving cranes.

time with his family. Washingtonnever campaigned for an office.Washington was important becauseof who he was as a man, because ofhis character. He was the greatestman in America before he becamepresident.

Lincoln became a lawyer,represented big business againstthe little man, consistently soughtoffice, and molded his politicalstatements to gain maximumpolitical effect. Lincoln wasimportant because he was electedto office. He would be forgotten tohistory if not for the generalgovernment in Washington D.C.

Lincoln faced an open crisis aspresident and march hundreds ofthousands of troops into theSouthern States to put down a“rebellion” when other options wereavailable. He could have chosenpeace but chose war and nevernegotiated or sought compromisewith those who opposed hisadministration. He rounded updissenters, shut down newspapers,and barred free elections.

Washington faced a “rebellion”on the frontier, and while heeventually agreed to send troopsinto Western Pennsylvania (at theinsistence of Alexander Hamilton),he spent nearly two years exhaust-ing all other means to reach asettlement on the issue. Washing-ton tolerated dissent. He looked theother way when John Jay wasburned in effigy and the pressexcoriated him for supported theawful Jay’s Treaty with GreatBritain in 1794. Even the WhiskeyRebels were treated with kid gloves.The press and elections bothremained free.

Washington’s Union tolerateddifferences between the Northernand Southern States, and evenWashington himself appealed totheir common interests in main-taining a common bond. Lincoln’sUnion forced the will of one sectionon the other, and his RepublicanParty openly admitted theirs was acrusade to “forge a new Union” andremake America.

Washington held the Uniontogether through his statesman-ship. Lincoln held it together by thebayonet. Washington accepted self-determination. Lincoln waged a waragainst it.

While people say that Washing-ton is the father of the country &that may be true for the original,Lincoln is the father of the modern.Lincoln through his war and otheractions pretty much ended theoriginal concept of the country.Lincoln should not be mentioned inthe same breath with Washington. -Ed.]

Abraham Lincoln and GeorgeWashington stare silently at oneanother across the reflecting poolon the National Mall in WashingtonD.C., their paths inextricably linkedby the historians who consider bothto be the greatest presidents inAmerican history.

One is a monument, atestament to the man and hisinfluence on American history, theother a memorial to the Lincolnlegacy, a persistent reminder of thenew United States.

Washington was at one timethe symbol of America. Even twentyyears after his death, Americanspainted their mantles black inmourning for the indispensableman, and many American familieshung portraits of both George andMartha Washington in their homes.

Lincoln became a messianicfigure, the martyr in a cause toforge a new nation based on theproposition that all men are createdequal in an indissoluble union.

Honest Abe supplanted HonestGeorge as the quintessentialAmerican, and thus two Americansymbols had been born. Onerepresented the original Americanorder, the other a new America.One conservative and rational, theother revolutionary. One built onthe refined ancient constitutionsand customs of Western Civiliza-tion, the other in a rough-hewnworld of log cabins, dirty jokes, foullanguage, and shifting politicalsands.

While the monuments of eachman may serve as pseudo sentinelsguarding the United States Capitol

Published by The Sam Davis Camp #1293, Sonsof Confederate Veterans, P. O. Box 3448,Brentwood, Tenn. 37024

Commander ~ Monte McDearis

Lt. Commander ~ Gene Andrews

Adjutant ~ Allen Sullivant 971-7454

Treasurer ~ James Turner 335-6944

Chaplain ~ Tony Rocchietti 399-1606

Newsletter Editor ~ Allen Sullivant 971-7454

Web Address ~ http://www.samdaviscamp.org

Lincoln was described as a “gorilla,” “a first ratesecond rate man,” “an ordinary Western man,” a “fool,”“weak,” and a man of inferior character.

Washington was “First in war, first in peace, andfirst in the hearts of his countrymen,” the “Father ofHis Country.”

Lincoln inherited a federal republic and created amyth of national supremacy. Washington neverpretended to be anything but the president of a federalrepublic.

The chasm between Washington and Lincoln islarger than the reflecting pool or one spot in a historicalpresidential ranking.

Lincoln has become America and America is worsefor it. ~~ Brian McClanahan

We have all been flogged with Alexander Stephens'Cornerstone Speech. However, history is not alwayswhat we think it is. Consider:

"Wise and humane provisions should be made for [ex-slaves]…so that they may stand equal before the law, inthe possession and enjoyment of all rights of person,liberty and property. Many considerations claim this atyour hands. Among these may be stated their fidelity intimes past. They cultivated your fields, ministered toyour personal wants and comforts, nursed and rearedyour children; and even in the hour of danger and perilthey were, in the main, true to you and yours. To themwe owe a debt of gratitude, as well as acts of kindness."

Alexander Stephens addressing the Georgia legislaturein 1866.