Two great Americans were born on January 19th, was there a purpose to God's plan? by Mark Vogl
(conservative)
Thursday, April 7, 2011
April is Confederate History month in the South, and each year when this comes round, the news media, looking for ratings, invents another story in order to generate audience. This year it is occurring in Palestine, Texas where a band of men in the local camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans approached their county elected officials to ask to fly the first Confederate flag at the Court House. The Court approved, and the controversy started only moments after the ceremony raising the flag.
Texas was the seventh state to secede. And Texas, unlike other states, actually had a referendum where the qualified voters of the state went to the ballot box to vote on the question of secession. In Texas more than seventy percent voted to leave union. A series of ten major fires in cities and towns all across the state, reportedly caused by abolitionists connected with John Brown, had something to do with the vote.
Six more states, (North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri ) and two territories (Oklahoma and Arizona) would leave the Union and join the Confederacy after President Lincoln called for seventy five thousand volunteers to invade the South. For four years the war would rage. More than 623,000 Americans would die in the contest. Brother would fight brother, father against son.
Blacks would fight for both sides, though that isn't mentioned much.
Slavery was certainly an issue, as was terrorism, states rights, or rather the sovereignty of the state over the federal government. Secession had long been recognized as a right of the state. Secession was taught as a right of the states at West Point, the leading college in the whole nation at the time. The tenth amendment in giving all unstated powers to the states and the people respectively, was the legal basis for secession.
So a war happened, and the South lost. America was re-united.
But, is it re-united?
From 1865 to about 1960 the politically correct telling of the war in the South revolved around the heroes of the war, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, et. al. Confederate Heroes Day was a state holiday. In many states, January 19th, Lee's birthday was the holiday.
Then, with the civil rights movement, the black voice rose in the chorus that is America. And after a time a holiday was set to recognize one great American, a black American, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His birthday, January 19th. And so, Lee was pushed aside for King.
And that seems to be the way it is in America today. It's either King, or Lee. But America says it's for diversity. America says it's for the right of all.
If that's true, shouldn't January 19th be a King - Lee holiday?
Both men were great Americans. Both men lived by a Christian's God's words. Both men sacrificed much for their people. Both men were national leaders in their own times.
One thing is for sure. Neither man is going away, nor are their descendants. And, in my view, neither should.
America is in tough times. The federal system of government as created by the winners of the Civil War is crumbling. Socialism seems to be creeping in, and there seems to be no real alternative. And yet, there once was an alternative American government; a much more fiscally conservative central government, where domestic issues were in the hands of the states. People could choose how they wanted to live, by where they chose to live.
America is now three hundred million. Many issues like abortion offer no compromise. Fifty million infant Americans have been slaughtered as a result of an activist Court decision. Most of those who died through abortion were black.
I would submit that if America is not big enough to appreciate both Lee and King, it will not survive. Lee and King provide a poignant example of the difference in America, but certainly not the only one.
America has the potential to be the city on the hill, but if it be God's will that we be that city, leaders from all communities will have to work towards a Lee - King holiday!
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