Effort to rename Johnson Hagood Stadium

[Mr. Taggart]

Just a little bit...

[Furmanoid]

There is no slippery slope because Mr. Taggart imagines that the movement looks to him for guidance and will heed his sage advice as to which historical figures achieved acceptable levels of ideological purity. Apparently Washington, U. S. Grant, TR and Lincoln didn’t cut the mustard with Mr. Taggart, but we can hope that he will grant a reprieve to marble Jesuses.

It's fine if you disagree with me, but you really look foolish when you accuse me of things I have never said. Shockingly, comrade, I am not a Communist. And I didn't advocate removal of statues of Washington, Grant, Roosevelt or Lincoln ... in fact, advocating the opposite on this thread. To the extent you question the sincerity of my faith... I am going to assume that is not what you meant, and turn the other cheek on that one. I don't know you, and you don't know me. I'll avoid assumptions if you do.

I am acquainted with FUBear, and I like him. I am fine with his jokes, at my expense or otherwise. It is part of the site. As I said to him, it is clear that every statute removed or remaining has been done on my personal authority. As to Social Entropy, I am no sociologist, but it seems a valid theory. The election of 2016 is proof of it -- we do not need a Peruvian study.

You really haven't challenged my history, because it isn't wrong. In addition to being a good defender, Dr. O'Neill is a heckuva teacher.

Your contention that public display of monuments to the Lost Cause is some sort of necessity to understand history is simply not credible. How does the name of a football stadium teach us history? The monuments are, plainly stated, fiction -- the do not accurately reflect what happened, and they were put up in part to show black people under Jim Crow that they were subjugated. They were put up in the 1890s and 1900s, as Jim Crow laws were established to repress black people. In the same time, Thomas Dixon wrote a novel and play, which was adapted to The Birth of a Nation. The monuments and the movie serve the same purpose -- to create a new fictional history. To anyone who wanted to see it, it has long been obvious -- C. Vann Woodward wrote about it in 1955. The Lost Cause honors people like Hampton as "freedom fighters." The freedom they sought was the "freedom" not to be treated equally under law with black citizens, in blatant violation of the 14th Amendment. I don't think that should be honored, and I think we learn the truth better from reading it than from looking at statues.

Tell the truth about Wade Hampton. He was one of the largest slaveholders in the South, and he bought his rank. He coordinated with the Red Shirts in 1876, meeting with them in a brothel in Charleston. He pushed the Lost Cause myth. He is no hero, and the hagiography is misplaced, but Hagood was worse -- he executed prisoners of war who were black, considering them to be engaged in servile insurrection. And yet, he has a public building named for him.

As to Hampton, the park next to the Citadel is named for him. The park that was earlier named the Washington Race Course, in honor of the Father of Our Country. The park where the Confederates allowed more than 250 Union POWs to die of exposure during captivity. The park that freedmen repaired after the war, properly burying the dead, and building an archway saying "Martyrs of the Race Course." On May 1, 1865, 10,000 freedmen marched in the Park, including veterans of the 54th Massachusetts, to celebrate Decoration Day. This is an early inspiration for Memorial Day. Charleston allowed the cemetery to fall into disrepair, and the bodies had to be moved.

That park, that sacred ground, was named after Wade Hampton in the 1900s, because of the myth of the Lost Cause. He didn't do anything there. So, how are we making sure people know history? It appears we do so by avoiding mention of the actual events and naming the park, the final resting place for actual heroes, after someone who repressed voters and allowed his supporters to kill citizens to win an election by 1100 votes. That park should be Grant Park, or Lincoln Park, or Union Park, or even Denmark Vesey Park. At least then it would honor people who fought for freedom.

Comrade, if I lived in Russia, I would advocate taking down the statues honoring Lenin and Stalin. Because neither are worthy of public reverence.

If you are against those particular acts of vandalism (which are happening) then how can you say there is no slippery slope sliding going on? That was my point.

As to historical stuff my description of Hampton as moderate (while you compare him to Saddam) is based on an FU course taught by Albert Sanders, Walter Edgar’s history of SC and other stuff I’ve read over the decades. The virulent racism came with the defeat of the old civil war guys by Tillmanites. They were in turn out racismed by the Bleasites and Cotton Ed Smith. I think at some point I objected to what I perceived as your lumping Tillman and Hampton together. I think most historians would agree with me. Also I don’t think there is much evidence that Tillman was a Red Shirt leader. He made it up.

I know we are supposed to believe that the little old ladies of the UDC were actually radicals mobilized by Tillman et al to spread white supremacy by hiding racist language in inscriptions carved onto monuments they pretended were memorials to fallen soldiers. I think it is more plausible that they were little old ladies who wanted to put up cool looking memorials to their dead relatives. And like everybody everywhere who put up such memorials they included language about noble causes and such. The one with my people on it (built during Reconstruction) just says Faithful in life, Glorious in death, and then it has a list of names. Where is the objectionable fiction? Yankees were putting up similar monuments. Monument vendors sold the same guy to both sides. But our little old ladies were sneaky propagandists and theirs weren’t?

If I were in Russia I wouldn’t take down the statues. I’m a historical preservationist at heart so I would regard those statues as valuable artifacts of the Soviet era.

[Mr. Taggart]

You conflate mob violenece with legal process. The City of Charleston took down a statue with legal means -- that is their power. The Museum of Natural History took down a statue on their own volition -- that is their prerogative. (I don't have a beef with removing the TR statue, not because of TR, because of the statue itself, in which the artist makes a pretty offensive depiction of a black man and a native man. That isn't attributable to TR, but to the sculptor. Roosevelt family members agree.) A mob tore down Grant and Lincoln statues. They shouldn't have, and it is not legal. There is a pretty huge difference between the two.

Edgar said Hampton was more moderate than Tillman, but he didn't say he was moderate. His campaign had a paramilitary arm that killed at least 150 black South Carolinians in 1876. The Lt. Gov. candidate on his slate, William Dunlap Simpson, led a lynch mob that started a deadly riot in Laurens County on election day. The whole point of the campaign in 1876, and the use of the term "Redeemer" was the reassertion of white power over black South Carolinians. Tillman was a violent thug, and, at best, Hampton was someone who happily let violent thugs do his dirty work to achieve his goals.

Memorials to the dead are fine on battle fields -- memorials to dead who engaged in violent illegality should not be placed in front of our courthouses...

[Paladonian]

Kinda makes you wonder what they are going to rename the Jefferson Memorial...

[fufanatic]

A statue (don't have a wide angle pic to remember what exactly it depicts) sitting square in front of the state capital in Austin, Texas reads:

"DIED for state rights guaranteed under the constitution. The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1861. The North resorted to coercion, the South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted. During the war, there were twenty two hundred and fifty seven engagements; in eighteen hundred and eight two of these, at least one regiment took part. Number of men enlisted: Confederate armies, 600,000; Federal armies: 2,859,132. Losses from all causes: Confederate, 437,000; Federal, 485,216."

This statue is the epitome of the Lost Cause BS that is on monuments around the country with zero context. No mention of the awful institution of slavery. Comparing themselves to the Patriots of 1776. Claiming the North was in the wrong and that the only reason the South lost was because oh woah as me we didn't have enough soldiers and resources to defend our land. It's pathetic and embarrassing. Why should this statue remain up on the state capital grounds of a U.S. state? So people of color can be reminded of this awful period in our history? So we can honor a bunch of traitors? So people visiting from other countries can be told our nation's embarrassing story? So the next generation of young people can be misled as to what actually happened in our nation's history? The historian in me doesn't like seeing protesters tearing statues down. I think they should all be moved to museums where context can be added. But I can understand why they are tired of waiting on change to happen from our leaders and are taking measures into their own hands.

[youwouldno]

One of the NY Times leading columnists calls for George Washington to be cancelled also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opin ... e=Homepage

I guess this viewpoint continues to only exist in the imagination, huh.

[Roundball]

One of the NY Times leading columnists calls for George Washington to be cancelled also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opin ... e=Homepage

I guess this viewpoint continues to only exist in the imagination, huh.

There is always going to be a viewpoint on everything. This is not going to happen. No way.

[youwouldno]

This statue is the epitome of the Lost Cause BS that is on monuments around the country with zero context. No mention of the awful institution of slavery. Comparing themselves to the Patriots of 1776.

Well in 1776 the rebels weren't "patriots" as the US didn't previously exist. The historical case in favor of the that rebellion is far from being air-tight. By the standards of that era, the American colonists were treated reasonably well, and it's not as if there was no alternative - Canada, for instance, achieved independence in a more gradual and less violent fashion (though there were some small armed rebellions, complicated by the rivalry between British and French colonists).

Reducing to the Civil War to being about slavery alone is to likewise remove all context. Slavery was intricately linked to political and economic factors - the balance of power in Congress, trade policy, etc. The northern states pushed through policies harmful to the South's export economy and gave the southern states legitimate reason to suspect that the anti-slavery movement was more about further harming the south economically than it was about rectifying a moral evil.

Due to the invention of the cotton gin, by 1860 slavery was quickly becoming economically dubious, and was certain to ultimately end for that reason alone. However, in the short-term, the use of slaves allowed for southern planters to expand into the western territories in a way that would have been slower and less politically advantageous than the use free labor. This was one of the key political issues that gave rise to the Republican Party - Lincoln's philosophy was that the territories should be used to provide opportunity to the white working class (Lincoln was extremely clear and adamant about the racial aspect of his policy) rather than for wealthy landowners to dominate agriculture through slave labor.

There's no question that the south's use of slavery utterly compromised its legitimate grievances. The reality nonetheless is that the northern states *could* have chosen a different path, treating the south fairly and creating a political situation where slavery could end without the loss of 5% of the country's population, an infinitesimal number of whom owned any slaves.

[FUBeAR]

One of the NY Times leading columnists calls for George Washington to be cancelled also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opin ... e=Homepage

I guess this viewpoint continues to only exist in the imagination, huh.

There is always going to be a viewpoint on everything. This is not going to happen. No way.

Hold on there Roundball. You’re oversteppin’ here. The TSSS4RR is the final arbiter on such matters. Now you may own your version of this algorithm, or perhaps, have in your possession some type of mechanical cipherin’ device,



...but Mr. Taggert will need to interpret & confirm your findings before a final decision is rendered.

Personally, FUBeAR doesn’t see how it can’t happen. If our society is cancelling Lincoln, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, et al, I just don’t see how President / General / Mr. Washington & ALL that is titled or has been erected in his honor can escape the blinding glare of the laser of modern values on his 18th century candlelit decisions & activities. But, I’ll wait for Taggert to adjudicate the matter.

[Mr. Taggart]

Interesting how I said directly that none of those people should be cancelled, and you need the slide rule. You can handle that calculation on your fingers and toes.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

From the above-stated concern, it appears that Charles Blow's column is the final arbiter of what stays and goes. Because the country always follows Charles Blow's recommendations verbatim.

[youwouldno]

Interesting how I said directly that none of those people should be cancelled, and you need the slide rule. You can handle that calculation on your fingers and toes.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

From the above-stated concern, it appears that Charles Blow's column is the final arbiter of what stays and goes. Because the country always follows Charles Blow's recommendations verbatim.

This is quite a piece of goalpost shifting on your part. The slippery slope is obviously not a "logical fallacy" when there is significant (albeit minority) opinion in favor of continuing down the slope. Unless you have a crystal ball proving that said opinions will remain in the minority, what you said before was complete nonsense.

And I have my doubts regarding your possession of a crystal ball, due to your track record when it comes to predictions.

[fufanatic]

This statue is the epitome of the Lost Cause BS that is on monuments around the country with zero context. No mention of the awful institution of slavery. Comparing themselves to the Patriots of 1776.

Well in 1776 the rebels weren't "patriots" as the US didn't previously exist. The historical case in favor of the that rebellion is far from being air-tight. By the standards of that era, the American colonists were treated reasonably well, and it's not as if there was no alternative - Canada, for instance, achieved independence in a more gradual and less violent fashion (though there were some small armed rebellions, complicated by the rivalry between British and French colonists).

Reducing to the Civil War to being about slavery alone is to likewise remove all context. Slavery was intricately linked to political and economic factors - the balance of power in Congress, trade policy, etc. The northern states pushed through policies harmful to the South's export economy and gave the southern states legitimate reason to suspect that the anti-slavery movement was more about further harming the south economically than it was about rectifying a moral evil.

Due to the invention of the cotton gin, by 1860 slavery was quickly becoming economically dubious, and was certain to ultimately end for that reason alone. However, in the short-term, the use of slaves allowed for southern planters to expand into the western territories in a way that would have been slower and less politically advantageous than the use free labor. This was one of the key political issues that gave rise to the Republican Party - Lincoln's philosophy was that the territories should be used to provide opportunity to the white working class (Lincoln was extremely clear and adamant about the racial aspect of his policy) rather than for wealthy landowners to dominate agriculture through slave labor.

There's no question that the south's use of slavery utterly compromised its legitimate grievances. The reality nonetheless is that the northern states *could* have chosen a different path, treating the south fairly and creating a political situation where slavery could end without the loss of 5% of the country's population, an infinitesimal number of whom owned any slaves.

To your first point, that's an interesting argument you bring up. My senior seminar at Furman was on the Revolutionary War and was taught by a British gentleman. He argued for something similar saying that the colonies would have gotten independence eventually anyway, and would have actually led to the end of slavery much earlier as England outlawed slavery several decades before the U.S. did.

To your second point, slavery is the tie the binds almost all of those issues together. It is not wrong to say that the South seceded from the Union almost exclusively because of issues around slavery. It's written in many of the states secession documents. However, I will agree that the North didn't start the war to free the slaves. It was primarily about preserving the Union and slavery only entered the picture later on.

[Davemeister]

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

[FUBeAR]

Kinda makes you wonder what they are going to rename the Jefferson Memorial...

Welp, Thom’s ancestors want it renamed, actually, razed/reconstructed as The Harriet Tubman Memorial.

https://news.yahoo.com/thomas-jefferso ... 13153.html

From Thomas Jefferson's own family, a call to take down his memorial

A direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson has called for the memorial to the third president to be removed from Washington, D.C.

Writing in the New York Times Monday morning, Lucian K. Truscott IV says his ancestor’s former estate at Monticello is enough of a tribute and that the Jefferson Memorial, located next to the Tidal Basin in the nation’s capital, should be replaced with a statue honoring the abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman.

“In Jefferson’s place, there should be another statue. It should be of Harriet Tubman,” Truscott said. “To see a 19-foot-tall bronze statue of a Black woman, who was a slave and also a patriot, in place of a white man who enslaved hundreds of men and women is not erasing history. It’s telling the real history of America.”

...must not be familiar with the TSSS4RR guidelines.

[Davemeister]

Johnson Hagood Stadium should be renamed in honor of Citadel graduate and author Pat Conroy.