Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Many posts have discussed the background of Thanksgiving and other holidays.

Transcript for President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation from October 3, 1863

 The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. Theyare the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

 

Abraham Lincoln

By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State

Juneteenth and General Order 3

 From the National Archives:

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s historic Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas, and his troops had arrived in Galveston the previous day.

This day has come to be known as Juneteenth, a combination of June and 19th. It is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

The official handwritten record of General Order No. 3, is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

“The National Archives safeguards many of the nation's most important records related to African American history and civil rights, and General Order Number 3 is one of those records,” said Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. "We know from history that certain events took place, and it's always a delight when we can help make history come alive by sharing the actual documentation of those events.”

General Order No. 3 states:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

While the order was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people, the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue. Visit our exhibit The Enduring Chronicle: Civil Rights Documents at the National Archives at Atlanta to review the “Early Gains and Losses” in the ongoing fight for Civil Rights.

Fort Liberty

Andrea Salcedo at WP:

Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the United States, has officially been renamed Fort Liberty, following a ceremony Friday. The North Carolina post’s new name is part of a congressionally mandated plan to rename military bases, ships and streets that previously honored Confederate leaders.

The plan is the culmination of a years-long effort that intensified in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd and the reckoning it brought over the nation’s history of racism. A panel established by Congress recommended the Army rename nine installations that honored Confederate military officers.

“Welcome to Fort Liberty, the center of the universe,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and the newly christened Fort Liberty, said during the ceremony Friday. “We were given a mission to re-designate our installation, no small task with its history. We seized this opportunity to make ourselves better and to seek excellence. That is what we always have done and always will do.”

The other eight Army bases selected to be renamed are Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Polk in Louisiana; Fort Rucker in Alabama; and Fort Hood in Texas.

The nine Army posts were all built during the first half of the 20th century in former Confederate states. Fort Bragg had been named in honor of Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who was relieved of command after losing the battle for Chattanooga in 1863, though he remained active in the rebel cause, serving as an adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

The Last Day of the Lost Cause

The Confederacy was dedicated to slavery.

Everyone who fought for the Confederacy was committing treason.

Ned Oliver at Axios:

Workers in Richmond, Virginia removed the last city-owned Confederate statue from its pedestal on Monday morning.

Why it matters: The moment marks the close of a two-year effort to remove memorials to the Confederacy in its former capital. City and state leaders had long resisted calls to take down Confederate iconography.

What’s happening: A crane lifted a statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill from the center of a busy intersection just before 10am.

Context: While most city-owned Confederate memorials came down in the summer of 2020 amid widespread protests against police misconduct, Hill’s removal was delayed because his body is buried beneath the statue.

What they’re saying: “This is, I would say, the last day of the Lost Cause,” Mayor Levar Stoney said as workers loaded the statue onto a flatbed trailer.

Lincoln 1864

In her statement Thursday night, Liz Cheney mentioned that, before 2020, presidents had always been willing to accept electoral defeat.  She cited the example of Lincoln.

 Abraham Lincoln, Memorandum on Probable Failure of Re-Election1, August 23, 1864

1 A summer of costly military stalemate and widespread disaffection among War Democrats and conservative Republicans with the administration's policies toward slavery persuaded Lincoln that he would probably be defeated in the 1864 presidential election. Perhaps to bear witness to his determination to save the Union even if defeated, he wrote out this memorandum, indicating his fear that General McClellan, if elected, would be forced by members of his party to seek an armistice with the Confederacy. Such an armistice could be tantamount to recognition of Confederate independence. Lincoln's memorandum, which he asked the members of his cabinet to sign as witnesses without reading, amounts to a pledge to work in concert with McClellan before the latter's inauguration.

Executive Mansion

Washington, Aug 23, 1864.

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.

A. Lincoln

[Endorsed on Reverse:]

• William H Seward
• W. P. Fessenden
• Edwin M Stanton
• Gideon Welles
• Edwd. Bates
• M Blair
• J. P. Usher

August 23. 1864.2

2 The date is in Lincoln's hand.

Database of Slaveholders in Congress

Julie Zauzmer Weil, Adrian Blanco and Leo Dominguez at WP:

From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War, hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation’s laws were current or former slaveowners.

More than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.

The country is still grappling with the legacy of their embrace of slavery. The link between race and political power in early America echoes in complicated ways, from the racial inequities that persist to this day to the polarizing fights over voting rights and the way history is taught in schools.

The Washington Post created a database that shows enslavers in Congress represented 37 states, including not just the South but every state in New England, much of the Midwest, and many Western states.

See database here. 

Monuments

 Gillian Brockell at WP:

Hundreds of public monuments have come down amid the racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd last year. Some were toppled by protesters armed with rope; others have been disassembled and carted away by professionals hired by local governments.

These removals may seem, well, monumental. But according to a study of U.S. public monuments, they’re a drop in the bucket, representing a mere 0.6 percent of the country’s nearly 50,000 monuments — monuments to historical figures who skew overwhelmingly White and male, including people who enslaved others, fought for the Confederacy, or never even set foot on American soil.

So who has been commemorated most often in stone, metal or wood? Unsurprisingly, Abraham Lincoln tops the list of historical figures most frequently honored with a public monument (193), edging out George Washington (171), according to the “National Monument Audit” by the nonprofit Monument Lab.

Christopher Columbus — who never visited mainland North America — comes in third, followed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. At No. 5 is Saint Francis of Assisi, who also never contributed directly to American history, given that he died in Italy in 1226.

Of the 50 historical figures most frequently honored with a monument, only three were women: Joan of Arc, Sacagawea and Harriet Tubman. Tubman, the only one of the three who would have called herself American, was born enslaved and was not considered a citizen until she was in her 40s.

Of the men on the top 50 list, more than half were enslavers. Twelve were generals, 11 presidents and four Catholic saints or missionaries. Four were leaders of the Confederacy. Three men in the top 50 are men of color: King, Tecumseh and Frederick Douglass.

Juneteenth

 From POTUS:

On June 19, 1865 — nearly nine decades after our Nation’s founding, and more than 2 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally received word that they were free from bondage. As those who were formerly enslaved were recognized for the first time as citizens, Black Americans came to commemorate Juneteenth with celebrations across the country, building new lives and a new tradition that we honor today. In its celebration of freedom, Juneteenth is a day that should be recognized by all Americans. And that is why I am proud to have consecrated Juneteenth as our newest national holiday.

Juneteenth is a day of profound weight and power.

A day in which we remember the moral stain and terrible toll of slavery on our country –- what I’ve long called America’s original sin. A long legacy of systemic racism, inequality, and inhumanity.

But it is a day that also reminds us of our incredible capacity to heal, hope, and emerge from our darkest moments with purpose and resolve.

As I said on the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, great nations don’t ignore the most painful chapters of their past. Great nations confront them. We come to terms with them.

On Juneteenth, we recommit ourselves to the work of equity, equality, and justice. And, we celebrate the centuries of struggle, courage, and hope that have brought us to this time of progress and possibility. That work has been led throughout our history by abolitionists and educators, civil rights advocates and lawyers, courageous activists and trade unionists, public officials, and everyday Americans who have helped make real the ideals of our founding documents for all.

There is still more work to do. As we emerge from the long, dark winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, racial equity remains at the heart of our efforts to vaccinate the Nation and beat the virus. We must recognize that Black Americans, among other people of color, have shouldered a disproportionate burden of loss — while also carrying us through disproportionately as essential workers and health care providers on the front lines of the crisis.

Psalm 30 proclaims that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and discrimination, and the promise of a brighter morning to come. My Administration is committed to building an economy — and a Nation — that brings everyone along, and finally delivers our Nation’s founding promise to Black Americans. Together, we will lay the roots of real and lasting justice, so that we can become the extraordinary country that was promised to all Americans.

Juneteenth not only commemorates the past. It calls us to action today.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 19, 2021, as Juneteenth Day of Observance. I call upon the people of the United States to acknowledge and celebrate the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of Black Americans, and commit together to eradicate systemic racism that still undermines our founding ideals and collective prosperity.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

Frederick Douglass, 1871: "Victory to the Rebellion Meant Death to the Republic"

Frederick Douglass, "The Unknown Loyal Dead,"
Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, on Decoration Day, May 30, 1871

Friends and Fellow Citizens:

Tarry here for a moment. My words shall be few and simple. The solemn rites of this hour and place call for no lengthened speech. There is, in the very air of this resting-ground of the unknown dead a silent, subtle and all-pervading eloquence, far more touching, impressive, and thrilling than living lips have ever uttered. Into the measureless depths of every loyal soul it is now whispering lessons of all that is precious, priceless, holiest, and most enduring in human existence.

Dark and sad will be the hour to this nation when it forgets to pay grateful homage to its greatest benefactors. The offering we bring to-day is due alike to the patriot soldiers dead and their noble comrades who still live; for, whether living or dead, whether in time or eternity, the loyal soldiers who imperiled all for country and freedom are one and inseparable.

Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached, in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.

No loftier tribute can be paid to the most illustrious of all the benefactors of mankind than we pay to these unrecognized soldiers when we write above their graves this shining epitaph.

When the dark and vengeful spirit of slavery, always ambitious, preferring to rule in hell than to serve in heaven, fired the Southern heart and stirred all the malign elements of discord, when our great Republic, the hope of freedom and self-government throughout the world, had reached the point of supreme peril, when the Union of these states was torn and rent asunder at the center, and the armies of a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and bloody hands to destroy the very foundations of American society, the unknown braves who flung themselves into the yawning chasm, where cannon roared and bullets whistled, fought and fell. They died for their country.

We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation's life and those who struck to save it, those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and justice.

I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would not repel the repentant; but may my "right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth," if I forget the difference between the parties to hat terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict.

If we ought to forget a war which has filled our land with widows and orphans; which has made stumps of men of the very flower of our youth; which has sent them on the journey of life armless, legless, maimed and mutilated; which has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of gold, swept uncounted thousands of men into bloody graves and planted agony at a million hearthstones -- I say, if this war is to be forgotten, I ask, in the name of all things sacred, what shall men remember?

The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle. If we met simply to show our sense of bravery, we should find enough on both sides to kindle admiration. In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.

Stone Mountain

 Theresa Waldrop and Jamiel Lynch, at CNN:

A new exhibit that seeks to explain "the whole story" of the nation's largest Confederate monument, including the history of the Ku Klux Klan there, is coming to Georgia's Stone Mountain Park, the park's board said Monday.

The exhibit will be developed together with "credible and well-established historians," the board said in a news release, "to tell the warts and all history of the Stone Mountain carving," including the 1915 rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan on the mountain "and the 50-years of Klan rallies which followed," until the state bought the mountain and land around it in 1958.

The carving depicts three Confederate leaders of the Civil War on horseback: Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The figures are 90 feet by 190 feet on a carved oval background that is three acres -- larger than a football field, according to the association.

The monument has long been a flashpoint of debate between those who see it as part of the South's heritage and those for whom it represents White supremacy. It cannot be removed under Georgia law. 

 Timothy Pratt and Rick Rojas at NYT:

The idea for the sculpture — one of the largest bas-relief carvings in the world — emerged in 1914, portrayed as a massive memorial to the Lost Cause, or the notion that the South was defending more than just slavery in the Civil War.

The effort took decades to complete. It stalled during the Great Depression but picked up new momentum in 1954 as Marvin Griffin, a candidate for governor riding the outcry following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, promised to uphold segregation and finish the monument. (The park is owned by the state.)

Critics and historians said that racist anger, more than heartache over Confederate bloodshed, fueled the monument’s creation. “They have the wrong people on the mountain,” Mr. Hale said, suggesting that it might have been more accurate to depict segregationist politicians instead of Confederate leaders. “This mountain is about massive resistance to desegregation. It’s not about the Civil War.”

 

Goodbye to a Confederate Song

 Scott Neuman at NPR:

A song alluding to Abraham Lincoln as a "tyrant" and a "despot" and to the Union as "Northern scum!" is no longer Maryland's official anthem after Gov. Larry Hogan this week approved its repeal — a move that some Republicans say is another example of "cancel culture."

Hogan gave the measure his OK months after the state's legislature voted to eliminate the long-controversial Civil War-era song, Maryland, My Maryland.

"We're repealing the state song. It is a relic of the Confederacy, which is clearly outdated and out of touch," Hogan, a Republican, said when he signed the measure on Tuesday.

Maryland, My Maryland, sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum, is based on a poem written in 1861 inspired by the Pratt Street Riot on April 19 of that year. The riot saw Southern sympathizers attack the 6th Massachusetts Infantry as they marched through Baltimore on their way to Washington, D.C., days after the South Carolina militia fired the opening shots of the Civil War upon Fort Sumter.

Nathan Bedford Forrest Was a Racist and a Traitor

 Matt Shuham at TPM:

In 1978, a bust of the slave trader, Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest was installed in the Tennessee capitol building, immediately prompting protests.

Forty-three years later, the effort to remove the bust has some state Republicans grinding every bureaucratic lever at their disposal to a halt, the latest in a long line of fights on the general’s behalf. This week, several Republicans backed a bill to sack members of a historical commission that voted to remove the bust.

Larry McCluney, commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, thinks the solution is simple: those offended by the Forrest’s likeness should simply look away.

“We’re dealing with a time period now where everybody is offended by something,” McCluney told TPM. “They talk about the issues of slavery, racism, white supremacy — well, you know, our nation has a history of that, and it’s been around a lot longer than people realize.”

Nowadays, it’s a bit more difficult for elected Republican politicians to stick up for Forrest, whose presence in the capitol is at the center of the fight over the legislation to replace the historical commission.

“I don’t know that it’s specifically related to the three statues that are up on the second floor, but that could be the motivation behind it,” Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R) told reporters Thursday when asked about the bill.

“But overall, not looking at the motivation, I think it’s a good thing,” he added.

McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) have written to the state’s attorney general, raising concerns that the commission didn’t follow the legal requirements for issuing its decision.

Justin Jones, a young activist who has pushed for years for the statue’s removal, said the vote to move the bust out of the Capitol felt like a victory. To Jones, the bust has a clear purpose.

“It’s meant to remind us that, even though they did remove those ‘colored’ and ‘white’ signs in the 1960s and 70s, they never replaced it with a ‘you’re welcome’ sign,” he said. “This symbol is a reminder that we’re not welcome there.”

Flag of Treason in the US Capitol

Maria Cramer at NYT:

Amid the images and videos that emerged from Wednesday’s rampage, the sight of a man casually carrying the Confederate battle flag outside the Senate floor was a piercing reminder of the persistence of white supremacism more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War.

Months after statues of Confederate leaders and racist figures were removed or torn down around the world, an unidentified man in bluejeans and a black sweatshirt carried the emblem of racism through the Ohio Clock corridor, past a portrait of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist.

The emblem has appeared in the Capitol before.

The Mississippi flag, which once featured the Confederate symbol prominently, hung in the Capitol until June 2020, when it was replaced after a vote by the State Legislature to remove the emblem.

But Wednesday was the first time that someone had managed to bring the flag into the building as an act of insurrection, according to historians.

Secession, Rebellion, and the Disqualification Clause

 Section 3 of the  14th Amendment:

No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

 Drew Knight at KHOU-TV:

On Tuesday, Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R-Fredericksburg) said that he is committed to authoring legislation in the 2021 legislative session that will give Texans a vote to allow the state to secede from the U.S.

"The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans," he wrote on Facebook. "That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation."

Oyez describes Texas v. White:

In a 5-to-3 decision, the Court held that Texas did indeed have the right to bring suit. The Court held that Texas had remained a state, despite joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision. The Court further held that individual states could not unilaterally secede from the Union and that the acts of the insurgent Texas legislature--even if ratified by a majority of Texans--were "absolutely null." Even during the period of rebellion, however, the Court found that Texas continued to be a state.

 

Retired Military Officers on Mail Ballots

Retired Admiral Bill Owens and retired General James Cartwright are both former vice chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of the bipartisan National Council on Election Integrity.  They write at USA Today:

As commissioned officers, we both swore an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. And today, given the circumstances surrounding this election, our continued sense of duty compels us to speak. We urge every American — regardless of their political affiliation — to trust the final results of this election: Democrat Joe Biden will be the next commander-in-chief.

... 

We wish to underscore our steadfast conviction that the vast majority of election officials are honest, hardworking public servants with the best interests of our nation at heart. And though no human endeavor is flawless, there are safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the process.

Every state maintains concrete steps to authenticate absentee ballots, and each has a deadline by which it will verify its results. The process this year has been carried out with the integrity we expect as Americans. To claim otherwise, without evidence, compromises the sanctity of our democracy.

Much has been made about the significant number of absentee ballots cast by mail because of COVID-19. The reality is that members of the armed forces have successfully voted by mail since the Civil War. During our time in the military, we cast ballots from nearly every corner of the world. Indeed, members of the U.S. military vote from every clime and place, including aboard the International Space Station and onboard submarines deployed worldwide. On every occasion, we and our fellow service members have complete confidence that our ballots will be received and counted.

To put it simply: If voting by mail is acceptable for the members of the military, then it should be acceptable for the rest of our population.

A Terrorist Plot in Michigan

Tresa Baldas and  Paul Egan report at Detroit Free Press

The Wolverine Watchmen militia group didn't just plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, but they were on a mission to attack the state Capitol and target police officers at their homes as part of a broader mission to instigate a civil war, authorities said Thursday in announcing felony charges against 13 militia members accused in a sensational case of domestic terrorism.

Attorney General Dana Nessel referred to the accused as "extremists" who are hoping to recruit new members "by seizing on a moment of civil unrest" to wreak havoc on the country. She identified the militia group as the Wolverine Watchmen, whose members are accused of, among other things, conducting surveillance outside Whitmer's vacation residence, using code language and encrypted messages to throw off police and planting a bomb under a bridge to divert law enforcement.

“There has been a disturbing increase in anti-government rhetoric and the re-emergence of groups that embrace extremist ideologies,” Nessel said at a press conference Thursday. "This is more than just political disagreement or passionate advocacy, some of these groups’ mission is simply to create chaos and inflict harm upon others.”

Nessel's comments follow the filing of an FBI affidavit in U.S. District Court that alleges six militia members plotted a revolt on the government that included kidnapping Whitmer.

According to the FBI affidavit, the accused purchased items including a Taser and night goggles, conducted surveillance at Whitmer's cottage, and discussed blowing up a bridge to divert police, kidnapping Whitmer, and taking her to Wisconsin to face a "trial" for treason.

A few weeks ago, Bridge Michigan reported:

Michigan militia members say they are trying to take their movement mainstream, fashioning themselves as a private security force willing to defend against protests over racial injustice and police brutality that have turned violent in some parts of the state and country.

Dozens of armed members from various militias, most of them white, descended on the Michigan Capitol Thursday, mingling with other fringe groups like Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys at an annual Second Amendment rally. Their public show of force would have been rare two decades ago, when militias largely operated in secrecy after two men with ties to the early Michigan movement bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City.

"Militias are finally starting to realize that we have an important role in the public eye," said Phil Robinson, a Barry County resident and co-founder of the Michigan Liberty Militia. "The time is not to hide in the shadows. The time is to get out and be vocal, be visible."

Robinson — sporting black fatigues, an AR-15 pistol modified to mimic a rifle, wooden shield and braided beard — as become the unlikely face of the Michigan militia movement.

In May, his group acted as an armed "security detail" at a rally in Lansing, where thousands gathered to protest Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order for COVID-19. They reprised the role at a similar protest in Grand Rapids, and Robinson spoke at an "American Patriot Rally" at the Capitol in July.

 

Juneteenth

From Juneteenth.com:

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All of which, or none of these versions could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln's authority over the rebellious states was in question. Whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

General Order Number 3

One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

U.S. Grant on the Confederacy

As he was dying in a house near Saratoga Springs, NY (my hometown), U.S. Grant wrote the final pages of his memoirs.

He recalled Appomattox and the cause of the Civil War:

What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.

...
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.

The Statue of Freedom

From this morning's @cspanwj: The Statue of Freedom was cast in bronze by an enslaved laborer, named Phillip Reid. Also, Jefferson Davis disapproved of the liberty cap...concluded that American freedom should not be represented by the badge of a freed slave. pic.twitter.com/AeGAKz2zV1

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 12, 2020

Confederate Symbols and Monuments

The Confederacy was dedicated to slavery.

Confederate symbols and monuments are coming down. Zachary Small at NPR: 

But more than bronze statues are being discarded. The University of Kentucky announced Friday that it would remove a controversial mural of enslaved Africans and Native Americans from its walls. In Louisiana, Nicholls State University officials have also scrapped the names of two college buildings dedicated to Confederate generals. And an hour's drive away in New Orleans, city lawmakers are preparing to rename Jefferson Davis Parkway after Norman C. Francis, a civil rights pioneer who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.

"Our streets and shared rights of way are littered with vestiges of a racist past," said New Orleans Council member Jason Williams in a statement to NPR. "We cannot allow honors given to war criminals to remain when the people who bestowed those honors don't represent our values."

The renewed sense of urgency has been fueled by George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer now charged with murder. Motivated by civil unrest, politicians are now scrambling to make good on years-old promises to remove statues and other subtle homages to the Confederacy from their streets. 

... 

Earlier this week, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said he would rather violate state law and pay a $25,000 fine than face more civil unrest, choosing to remove a Confederate monument from city grounds after demonstrators graffitied the 52-foot-tall granite obelisk with Black Lives Matter slogans.And in the cradle of the Confederacy, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced on Thursday that the state would begin clearing Confederate structures from the Richmond capital after protesters targeted its many symbols of slavery, including a 130-year-old statue of Robert E. Lee on horseback.

The last push to remove Confederate symbols came in 2017 after a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent. Several cities embarked on processes to remove the offending statuary, only to run aground of faltering budgets, community backlash, and political apprehension. 

  From the US Marine Corps: