#the new confederacy

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

THE KOBAYASHI MARU TEST

TCINLA FEB 1, 2024 “Kobayashi Maru” is a Star Trek term that people who are not Star Trek fans know the meaning of. The phrase "Kobayashi Maru" has entered the popular lexicon as a reference to a no-win scenario. The term is also sometimes used to invoke Kirk's decision to "change the conditions of the test."

In Star Trek stories, “Kobayashi Maru” is a test designed to test the character of Starfleet Academy cadets, by placing them in a no-win scenario. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the 1982 film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”

In the stories, the “goal” of the exercise is to rescue the civilian ship “Kobayashi Maru,” which has been damaged and is now stranded in disputed territory between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The cadet being evaluated must decide whether to attempt to rescue the Kobayashi Maru - which means putting their ship and crew in danger - or to leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt a rescue, an insurmountable enemy force attacks their ship, and they must deal with that.

Metaphorically, that test certainly applies to where we are today.

The term has been applied to real-world scenarios with no perceived positive outcome or that requires outside-the-box thinking, such as constitutional law, where the scenario is an event that may only be dealt with successfully by extra-constitutional, or unconstitutional, methods with the goal of protecting the constitution.

Commentators have used Kirk's unorthodox answer ("I don't believe in the no-win scenario”) to the test as an example of the need to redefine the premises upon which an organization operates - changing the rules rather than playing within them, that by stepping outside the rules of the game one can redefine the game.

While current indications show a shift in the national tide as we have hoped would happen, and with it the increasing likelihood that the enemies of out constitutional republic will fail in their assault, one possible outcome of the election of 2024 is that we may face the Kobayashi Maru Test.

Right now we face a “Crisis of Democracy” in the case of removing Donald Trump from the ballot under the rule in Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that an individual who has taken part in an insurrection against the United States, or has given support to those who have, cannot occupy a political office under the United States and must not appear on the ballot.

“Democracy,” is on both sides of this case.

There are those who see excluding an immensely popular political figure from the ballot as being profoundly undemocratic.

Others see clearly that what is truly undemocratic is to empower a uniquely dangerous demagogue who has already disobeyed his solemn Oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and is thus a genuine threat who would end the constitutional republic that now exists, were he returned to office.

The tension between these two clashing visions can be resolved only by attending to the Constitution’s own specific implementation of “democracy,” which was the product of a great democratic process after a series of insurrectionary and democracy-imperiling events 160 years ago in the aftermath of the Civil War

Following President Andrew Johnson’s actions allowing the former Confederate traitors who had waged war against the United States to reorganize their states and rejoin the Union with a simple oath of allegiance easily taken with their fingers crossed behind their back while so doing, men who had played leading roles in the rebellion and war against the United States were elected by political means that involved suppressing the votes of those opposed to the former Confederate traitors retaking office - black and white.

Under President Johnson’s new rules, former Vice President of the Confederate States of America Alexander Stevens was elected a Senator from South Carolina, the state that had led the rebellion. When asked what he intended to do as a Senator, Stevens said openly he planned to prevent the government taking action to protect the freed slaves, and that he expected to act with the other Southern Senators and congressional representatives to rebuild the power the South had held in Congress before the war, in which they were able to prevent the enactment of any law or adoption of any policy to which they were opposed.

Had that happened, much more than the treatment of the former slaves would have been at stake. While the Southern reactionaries were out of the government during the war, many progressive acts, such as the Homestead Act opening the West to small farmers, or the Morrill Act, establishing publicly-funded institutions of higher learning in each state - both of which had been opposed by the Southern representatives before the war - would be in danger of repeal by the coming Southern majority. With the South effectively a one-party state, in which anyone elected to office could hold that office for so long as they wished, the South would retake control of the congressional committees, which were based on seniority.

It was decided that those who were proven by their actions to be dedicated to the destruction of the democratic constitutional republic, would be allowed no place, no power, in the government of that republic.

And thus Article 3 of the 14th Amendment was written and became law when the Amendment passed and became part of the Constitution.

Alexander Stevens and the other traitors were “immensely popular political figures” among their fellow insurrectionary traitors who were retaking political control of the newly reorganized states that were being returned to the Union under the policies of Andrew Johnson. Those who say today that excluding such “immensely popular political figures” from the ballot - regardless of their known political beliefs and actions - is “anti-democratic” would have been among the Copperheads (a term for northern Democrats who supported the South) who argued against the adoption not only of Article 3 but the entire 14th Amendment.

Today, Donald Trump and his supporters expressly state their intention to demolish the provisions of that amendment as regards the definition of who is a citizen, among their other planned attacks on the Constitutional rule of law, should they return to office. They are no different from the former Confederate traitors who also wished to continue waging war on the United States.

It has been “interesting” to watch the progression of authoritarianism in the United States over the past 60 years since the “Goldwater Revolution” failed.

We’ve always been told “it can’t happen here,” that there are rules and traditions preventing such a change, that authoritarianism was not even possible in the United States, without some wider cataclysm.

However, the past eight years have shown that if the would-be authoritarian takes on those traditions and guardrails one at a time, his partisans will say that this particular guardrail, this rule, this tradition, must be ignored, because it would be too inconvenient, too “divisive” to enforce it. But of course we need not worry, since the next guardrail can already be seen, and that will stop him.

Don’t worry about his nomination in the primary; he’ll lose the general election.

Don’t worry about his successful election; the party will keep him in check when he takes office.

Don’t worry about the party falling to his dominance; he can always be impeached.

Don’t worry about impeaching him; he can always be beaten in the next election.

Don’t worry about his coup attempt; he can be impeached again.

Don’t worry about the second impeachment; the criminal courts can bring him to justice.

Don’t worry about the criminal cases; there’s always the 14th Amendment.

Don’t worry about him winning; he’ll be blocked from staying in office past this term by the 22nd Amendment.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Trump’s genius was realizing this truth before the rest of us. His lifelong legal strategy of delay and bamboozle is perfect for gumming up the operation of all the defenses the system has built in to constrain him.

The Italians could say of Mussolini, “No one could have really known what he’d do, not for sure.” The Germans could say of Hitler, “No one could have really known what he’d do, not for sure.”

We in the United States cannot say that. Because we know what he’ll do. For sure.

We know what he has done in his first time in office. We have experienced it. When he tells us what he will do now, how he will destroy the Constitution, and the rule of law and destroy the democratic republic that is founded on that Constitution and the rule of law; we know he will do it because we know he has already tried to do it. His supporters promise they will do it.

Maya Angelou once said if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

What we are looking at in this year of 2024 here in the United States is the struggle between the idea of democracy and the rule of law, against authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

That struggle is also going on elsewhere. But if it is lost here, it will be lost everywhere.

We’re supposed to let him run on a platform of destroying what we have? We’re supposed to hand over power to him to do that, if he pulls off another Electoral College scam? We’re supposed to just give him the power he needs to do what he has told us he will do? What we know he will do?

We’re supposed to nod our heads and say “Here, you win, we lost, have a good day”?

We’re supposed to just let the fucking New Confederacy walk in and take over????!!

Democracy isn’t a suicide pact.

It’s been said many times, by conservative legal scholars, that “The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact.”

It’s a well-known rule of law that you cannot use the law to destroy the law.

Democracy matters. Freedom of expression matters. The rule of law matters. Values matter. That’s what’s at stake.

Our ancestors already made the decision for us. The rule is NOT that we surrender all because a “rule” says so. That rule has been superseded in this case. The rules of the game have already been changed. We can save the Kobayashi Maru, and damn any six traitors on a compromised, discredited, corrupt court who say otherwise.

For me, I can take Senator Angus King’s words, spoken on January 31, 2024 in debate over supporting the Ukrainian battle for survival, as a lodestar, a guide for action:

“I want to stand on the side of resisting authoritarianism, on the side of democracy, on the side of the values that the country has stood for and that people have been fighting for, for 250 years.”

WE are the ultimate defenders of the Republic.

Donald Trump cannot be allowed back into power, regardless. Ever.

TCinLA

[wachinyeya]

Tribes of the Colville Confederacy in Washington State are restoring the lands and species of their traditional ecological community.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A cross-border tribe is seeking funding and recognition from the Canadian government one month after opening an office in British Columbia.

In late October, the Sinixt Confederacy — part of the Washington-headquartered Colville Confederated Tribes — established itself on the second floor of a small building in Nelson, B.C.

Sinixt considers itself a transboundary tribe with rights in both the U.S. and Canada but until recently, didn’t formally exist in Canada. The Sinixt were deemed “extinct” by the government in 1956 but two years ago, that changed when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the Sinixt Confederacy an “Aboriginal people of Canada.”

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Mohawk ironworkers who built the Chrysler Building, ca. 1930. For more on the Mohawks who built Manhattan's skyscrapers, see here.

Photo: Smithsonian Institution via the Daily Mail

[rebelyells]

November 19, 1863 the Gettysburg address was given. Exactly 160 years from today. We Remember our Fallen. Pictures from the memorial at Remembrance Day. We love our American history!

[contemplatingoutlander]

Paul Krugman writes about the dystopia the U.S. could become under one-party Republican rule. He thinks a GOP autocracy would be far worse than Orban’s Hungary.

Indeed, these days it’s almost conventional wisdom that the G.O.P. will, if it can, turn America into something like Viktor Orban’s Hungary: a democracy on paper, but an ethnonationalist, authoritarian one-party state in practice. [...] But what strikes me, reading about Orban’s rule, is that while his regime is deeply repressive....it is... “soft fascism,” which makes dissidents powerless via its control of the economy and the news media without beating them up or putting them in jail.

Do you think a MAGA regime, with or without Donald Trump, would be equally subtle? Listen to the speeches at any Trump rally. They’re full of vindictiveness, of promises to imprison and punish anyone — including technocrats like Anthony Fauci — the movement dislikes.

How the remnants of the Confederacy morphed over time to (ironically) take over the Party of Lincoln

Krugman’s article is well worth reading. But I reblogged it to give a context for one of the reader’s comments, which provides a succinct history lesson about how the spirit of the Confederacy (kept alive in part through the Southern Baptists) has finally found a home in today’s GOP.

Interesting how the term 'Culture War' has been missed here, when it is actually central to the problem.

The Right, (the Neo-Confederacy within the Republican party) is fighting the Culture War, and has been since the end of the Civil War, in 1865.

This dovetailed with the formation of the Southern Baptists in a schism with the Baptist Convention in 1845, 20 years earlier, over the Southern demand that slavery should be protected from the abolitionists in the North, and the parallel demand that they should help spread slavery to the new states of the American West.

When they lost the war, the Confederacy concealed it's political beliefs within the Evangelical Fundamentalists Alternative Facts of Creationism vs Evolution, the Lost Cause versus the Yankee victory.

It was easy for Trump to gather the faithful Neo-Confederates with the Obama Birther Myth, and easier still to believe in QAnon and the stolen election.

Evangelicals are not Christians.

They are a political party representing the Confederacy, pretending to be a religion. The religion they want is a Confederate Theocracy, even if it destroys the United States, as they failed to do in the Civil War. They may have succeeded this time.

--UTBG, Denver

[todaysdocument]

Ratified Indian Treaty 19A (first and last pages), April 11, 1793. 

This treaty with the Six Nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora) included this wax Great Seal of the State of New York. 

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government

Series: Indian Treaties

Image description: A circular seal, just over three inches in diameter, made of wax covered with paper. Depicted in the center is a sun with a face, rising over hills. Below the hills is “EXCELSIOR”. Around the border of the seal is “THE GREAT SEAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK”. There is a hole through the seal at the top. 

Image description: Reverse of the circular seal. In the center are spiky rocks jutting out of the water. There are letters at the top of the border, but it’s difficult to see what they say. At the bottom of the seal is an ink “X”. There is a hole through the seal at the top. 

Transcription: 

1)

The People of the State of New York, by the Grace of God, Free and Independent: To all to

whom these presents shall come, Greeting  Know ye that We having inspected the Records remaining in

our Secretary's Office do find there certain Indian Deeds recorded in Book of Indian Deeds commencing

in the year 1748 in the Words Characters and figures following, to wit, "To all to whom these presents

"shall come or may concern: Know ye that We Peter Ojistarare, Johan Jesry Towahangaraghkou, Rawhistoni,

"Paul Tewasgwadeghkow, John Skanondonagh of the wolf tribe, Peter Oneyanha, Joseph Kanaghsaterhon, Cornilius Okonyota, John Onontiyo, Nicholas Sagoyatokare of

"the Turtle Tribe; Lodowick Kaghsaweta, Paul Kanyatashayea and Peter Agwirontongwas of the Bear Tribe,

"Sachems and chief Warriors of the Oneyda and Tuscarara Nations, by and with the advice and consent and in

"the presence of the said Nations at a public Treaty held at Fort Herkimer in the county of the Montgomery with

"his Excellency George Clinton Esquire Governor of the State of New York and the other Commissioners of In-

"dian Affairs of the said State for the consideration of the sum of Eleven Thousand five hundred Dollars

"in Goods & Money to us in hand paid at and before [illegible] ensealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof

"We do hereby acknowledge  Have Given, Granted, Bargained and Sold, and by these presents  Do fully freely and

"Absolutely Grant Bargain and Sell unto the People of the State of New York all that certain Tract of Land situate

"in the said State and on the West Side of the Line commonly called the Line of Property established at a

"Treaty held at Fort Stanwix in 1768, and on the North Side of the Pensylvania Line, Beginning at the

"Mouth of the Unadilla or Tianaderha River where the same empties into the Surquchanna River, thence up

"the said Unadilla or Tianaderha River ten Miles measured on a straight line, thence due West to the Chenen-

"go River, thence Southerly down the said Chenengo River to where it empties into the said Sasquchanna River

"& to the said Line called the Line of Property, thence along the said Line to the place of Beginning so as to comprehend

"all the Lands belonging to us the said Oneyda and Tuscarora Nations lying South of the said Line to be run from

"the said Unadilla or Teanaderha River to the Chenengo River and North of the Division Line between this State

"and the State of Pensylvania, Together with all Ways, Waters, Water courses, Rivers, Riverlets, Creeks and Streams

(of)

[page 2]

16.)                     

"Onaakaronton his x mark LS Tehoghweakaronto his x mark LS Kaghnunrayen his x mark LS Agwirontong-

"waghs his x mark LS Anonghsighraghtha his x mark LS Oniatariyoo his x mark LS Kaneyaggh his x mark

"LS Geo: Clinton LS Pierre Van Cortlandt LS Ezra L Hommedieu LS Abm Ten Broeck LS Peter Gansevoort-

"Junr. LS Richd. Varick LS Witnesses Present Sam Kirkland Missry. Interpreter John Lansing Junr. Jos.

"Brant, David Hill, John Tayler, Malachi Treat, Abm Hardenbergh, Peter Otsiequette, Aghwistonisk his x mark,

"Oneyanka his x mark, Coll. Honyery his [mark] mark, Oneida Chiefs. Onangaiekhon his x mark, Fhoghnawayen

"x Senekas. - Be it Remembered that on the Twenty fifth day of November in the year one thousand seven hundred and

"ninety one before me John Sloss Hobart one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the State of New York came Samuel Kirkland,

"Clerk, Missionary and Interpreter to the Six Nations of Indians, who made oath that he was present and did see the Twenty

"-Eight Sachems, Chiefs and Warriors of the Onondaga Nation of Indians whose names are written opposite to their respec-

"tive Seals severally seal and deliver the within written Ratification as their Voluntary act and deed for the purposes and uses therein mentioned,

"he having previously thereto faithfully and truly interpreted the Contents of the same from the English into the Indian Language unto the said

"Sachems, Chiefs and Warriors in such a manner that it was fully understood by them and that he also saw the Commissioners on the part of the

"State of New York in the said Ratification Mentioned severally seal and deliver the same as their Voluntary act and deed for the purposes and

"uses therein mentioned, and that John Lansing Junr. and the Eleven other persons whose names are signed as Witnesses were present and did see

"the said parties Seal and deliver the said Ratification; and I having Examined the same and found no material alteration therein do al-

"low it to be recorded Jno. Sloss Hobart. The preceding Instrument refers to the Treaty recorded in pages 150 & which is dated the 12th.

"of September 1788, and is a true copy of the Original, Examined and compared therewith this 5th. day of April 1793 (the words "alias Land Car-

"rier" in page 170 being interlined) By me Robert Harpur D Secry."

                                                                     ~~~~~~~~

    All which WE have caused to be Exemplified by these Presents: In Testimony whereof

We have caused these our Letters to be made patent and the Great Seal of our said State to be hereunto affixed Witness

our Trusty and well beloved George Clinton Esquire Governor of our said State General and Commander in chief

of all the Militia and Admiral of the Navy of the same, at our City of New York; this Eleventh day of April in the year of

our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Ninety-Three, and in the Seventeenth year of our Independence.~

[nando161mando]

WORTH THE WATCH!

Maybe America does need a White History month!

Amber Ruffin explains how slave patrols evolved into Militias, the Revolutionary Army, the Confederate Army, the KKK and the Police.

[cleoselene]

https://wapo.st/3NIuiWW

as always a free gift link, and it's GOOD NEWS guys!

No need to memorialize racist traitors in a national cemetery because racist traitors can get fuckin wreckt!

[2bpoliticallycurious]

This is an excellent commentary by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The link above is a gift link, so anyone can read the entire column, even if they don’t subscribe to The New York Times. 

Gates argues convincingly that what far right politicians like Ron DeSantis are doing in trying to control the history that is taught in schools is very similar to what was done by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in their promotion of schools teaching the “Lost Cause” and a rewritten whitewashed history. 

Gates also argues that there has always been rigorous debate within the Black community about many “ideological and theoretical framework[s]” regarding the Black experience in America. He believes these differences are discussed in African American Studies courses and raise important debates for the students who take those classes.

The one important thing Gates left out of this essay was that in the 1920s the KKK also promoted only teaching a history that praised the founders, much like the “patriotic” civics/history DeSantis and other GOP politicians are also pushing. 

Below are some highlights from the column [all emphasis added]:

Lurking behind the concerns of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, over the content of a proposed high school course in African American studies, is a long and complex series of debates about the role of slavery and race in American classrooms.

“We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them,” Governor DeSantis said. He also decried what he called “indoctrination.” [...] Even if we give the governor the benefit of the doubt about the motivations behind his recent statements about the content of the original version of the College Board’s A.P. curriculum in African American studies, his intervention falls squarely in line with a long tradition of bitter, politically suspect battles over the interpretation of three seminal periods in the history of American racial relations: the Civil War; the 12 years following the war, known as Reconstruction; and Reconstruction’s brutal rollback, characterized by its adherents as the former Confederacy’s “Redemption,” which saw the imposition of Jim Crow segregation, the reimposition of white supremacy and their justification through a masterfully executed propaganda effort.

Undertaken by apologists for the former Confederacy with an energy and alacrity that was astonishing in its vehemence and reach, in an era defined by print culture, politicians and amateur historians joined forces to police the historical profession. The so-called Lost Cause movement was, in effect, a take-no-prisoners social media war. And no single group or person was more pivotal to “the dissemination of the truths of Confederate history, earnestly and fully and officially,” than the historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Mildred Lewis Rutherford, of Athens, Ga. Rutherford was a descendant of a long line of slave owners.... Rutherford served as the principal of the Lucy Cobb Institute (a school for girls in Athens) and vice president of the Stone Mountain Memorial project, the former Confederacy’s version of Mount Rushmore.

As the historian David Blight notes, “Rutherford gave new meaning to the term ‘die-hard.’” Indeed, she “considered the Confederacy ‘acquitted as blameless’ at the bar of history, and sought its vindication with a political fervor that would rival the ministry of propaganda in any twentieth-century dictatorship.” And she felt that the crimes of Reconstruction “made the Ku Klux Klan a necessity.” As I pointed out in a PBS documentary on the rise and fall of Reconstruction, Rutherford intuitively understood the direct connection between history lessons taught in the classroom and the Lost Cause racial order being imposed outside it, and she sought to cement that relationship with zeal and efficacy. She understood that what is inscribed on the blackboard translates directly to social practices unfolding on the street. 

[See more under the cut.]

“Realizing that the textbooks in history and literature which the children of the South are now studying, and even the ones from which many of their parents studied before them,” she wrote in “A Measuring Rod to Test Text Books, and Reference Books in Schools, Colleges and Libraries,” “are in many respects unjust to the South and her institutions, and that a far greater injustice and danger is threatening the South today from the late histories which are being published, guilty not only of misrepresentations but of gross omissions, refusing to give the South credit for what she has accomplished, … I have prepared, as it were, a testing or measuring rod.” And Rutherford used that measuring rod to wage a systematic campaign to redefine the Civil War not as our nation’s war to end the evils of slavery, but as “the War Between the States,” since as she wrote elsewhere, “the negroes of the South were never called slaves.” And they were “well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed.”

Of the more than 25 books and pamphlets that Rutherford published, none was more important than “A Measuring Rod.” Published in 1920, her user-friendly pamphlet was meant to be the index “by which every textbook on history and literature in Southern schools should be tested by those desiring the truth.” The pamphlet was designed to make it easy for “all authorities charged with the selection of textbooks for colleges, schools and all scholastic institutions to measure all books offered for adoption by this ‘Measuring Rod,’ and adopt none which do not accord full justice to the South.” What’s more, her campaign was retroactive. As the historian Donald Yacovone tells us in his recent book, “Teaching White Supremacy,” Rutherford insisted that librarians “should scrawl ‘unjust to the South’ on the title pages” of any “unacceptable” books “already in their collections.”

On a page headed ominously by the word “Warning,” Rutherford provides a handy list of what a teacher or a librarian should “reject” or “not reject.”

“Reject a book that speaks of the Constitution other than a compact between Sovereign States.”

“Reject a textbook that does not give the principles for which the South fought in 1861, and does not clearly outline the interferences with the rights guaranteed to the South by the Constitution, and which caused secession.”

“Reject a book that calls the Confederate soldier a traitor or rebel, and the war a rebellion.”

“Reject a book that says the South fought to hold her slaves.”

“Reject a book that speaks of the slaveholder of the South as cruel and unjust to his slaves.”

And my absolute favorite, “Reject a textbook that glorified Abraham Lincoln and vilifies Jefferson Davis, unless,” she adds graciously, “a truthful cause can be found for such glorification and vilification before 1865.”

And what of slavery? “This was an education that taught the negro self-control, obedience and perseverance — yes, taught him to realize his weaknesses and how to grow stronger for the battle of life,” Rutherford writes in 1923 in “The South Must Have Her Rightful Place.” “The institution of slavery as it was in the South, far from degrading the negro, was fast elevating him above his nature and race.” For Rutherford, who lectured wearing antebellum hoop gowns, the war over the interpretation of the meaning of the recent past was all about establishing the racial order of the present: “The truth must be told, and you must read it, and be ready to answer it.” Unless this is done, “in a few years there will be no South about which to write history.”

In other words, Rutherford’s common core was the Lost Cause. And it will come as no surprise that this vigorous propaganda effort was accompanied by the construction of many of the Confederate monuments that have dotted the Southern landscape since.

While it’s safe to assume that most contemporary historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction are of similar minds about Rutherford and the Lost Cause, it’s also true that one of the most fascinating aspects of African American studies is the rich history of debate over issues like this, and especially over what it has meant — and continues to mean — to be “Black” in a nation with such a long and troubled history of human slavery at the core of its economic system for two-and-a-half centuries.

Heated debates within the Black community, beginning as early as the first decades of the 19th century, have ranged from what names “the race” should publicly call itself (William Whipper vs. James McCune Smith) and whether or not enslaved men and women should rise in arms against their masters (Henry Highland Garnet vs. Frederick Douglass). Economic development vs. political rights? (Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should Black people return to Africa? (Marcus Garvey vs. W.E.B. Du Bois). Should we admit publicly the pivotal role of African elites in enslaving our ancestors? (Ali Mazrui vs. Wole Soyinka).

Add to these repeated arguments over sexism, socialism and capitalism, reparations, antisemitism and homophobia. It is often surprising to students to learn that there has never been one way to “be Black” among Black Americans, nor have Black politicians, activists and scholars ever spoken with one voice or embraced one ideological or theoretical framework. Black America, that “nation in a nation,” as the Black abolitionist Martin R. Delany put it, has always been as varied and diverse as the complexions of the people who have identified, or been identified, as its members. [...] As a consultant to the College Board as it developed its A.P. course in African American studies, I suggested the inclusion of a “pro and con” debate unit at the end of its curriculum because of the inherent scholarly importance of many of the contemporary hot-button issues that conservative politicians have been seeking to censor, but also as a way to help students understand the relation between the information they find in their textbooks and efforts by politicians to say what should and what should not be taught in the classroom.

Why shouldn’t students be introduced to these debates? Any good class in Black studies seeks to explore the widest range of thought voiced by Black and white thinkers on race and racism over the long course of our ancestors’ fight for their rights in this country. In fact, in my experience, teaching our field through these debates is a rich and nuanced pedagogical strategy, affording our students ways to create empathy across differences of opinion, to understand “diversity within difference,” and to reflect on complex topics from more than one angle. It forces them to critique stereotypes and canards about who “we are” as a people and what it means to be “authentically Black.” I am not sure which of these ideas has landed one of my own essays on the list of pieces the state of Florida found objectionable, but there it is.

[emphasis added]

There is much more in this essay that is worth reading. As I said before, the gift link above will allow you to read the entire essay. I encourage you to do so.

[edited]

[blueiskewl]

Foundry Workers Melt Down Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee Statue

Eventually, an artist will be chosen to transform the bronze bars into a public art installation

The controversial bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that stood for nearly a century in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been melted down so that it may someday be transformed into a public art installation.

On Saturday, at a foundry in an undisclosed location in the American South, workers cut the infamous figure into small pieces, then fed those pieces into a 2,250-degree furnace. They poured the metal into molds for ingots, or rectangular bars, imprinted with the words “Swords Into Plowshares.” That’s the name of the project that will transform the divisive monument into a new piece of public art.

Only a small group of people, including a handful of journalists, was allowed to watch the melting. They were invited on the condition that they didn’t disclose the name or location of the foundry—or the identities of its workers—over fears of retaliation.

“The risk is being targeted by people of hate, having my business damaged, having threats to family and friends,” says the foundry’s owner, a Black man, to the Washington Post’s Teo Armus and Hadley Green.

Even so, the man added, “When you are approached with such an honor, especially to destroy hate, you have to do it.”

One particularly poignant moment occurred when foundry workers removed the statue’s face from the rest of the head.

“A man in heat-resistant attire pulled down his gold-plated visor, turned on his plasma torch and sliced into the face of Robert E. Lee,” writes Erin Thompson, an art historian at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments, in a guest essay for the New York Times. “The hollow bronze head glowed green and purple as the flame burned through layers of patina and wax. Drops of molten red metal cascaded to the ground.”

The 21-foot-tall statue’s journey to this point was a long and complicated one. Commissioned in 1917 and installed in 1924, it loomed over a downtown Charlottesville park for decades.

In 2017, amid a broader national debate over Confederate monuments, white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to protest the statue’s removal. During the “Unite the Right” rally, a man drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring many others.

After years of legal battles, the statue finally came down in July 2021. The city donated it to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which has been responsible for it ever since and leads the Swords Into Plowshares project.

Organizers had wanted to melt down the statue sooner, but they waited until a judge dismissed a lawsuit against the plan.

Because of the statue’s size, the melting process will take weeks. Once that work is finished, project organizers will move on to the next phase of their plan: choosing an artist who will transform the metal into something new.

“Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together again,” said Reverend Isaac Collins, a Methodist minister in Charlottesville who spoke at the melting ceremony, per NPR’s Debbie Elliott. “We still have a lot of work to do, but this statue that has cost us so much, so much violence, so much hurt, so much bloodshed—it’s gone. And it’s never going to be put back together the way it was.”

By Sarah Kuta.

[defleftist]

Seeing so many confederate flags in rural New York high key destroys the whole heritage logic because it’s not our heritage, you’re just racist.

[13eyond13]

.

[canuckianhawkbi]

at this point I’ll probably be doing SW polls forever, so let’s branch out a bit

[silvercompassjournal]

“You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.” - John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces.

New Orleans, La.

Fujifilm X-E3. 23mm f2. Acros.

Coming in this week’s newsletter: Silver Compass Journal’s Favorite New Orleans Bookstores.

[cmanateesto]

Dissecting the Civil War: Part 1

Public schools will oversimplify a complicated issue in American history. Is it to simplify the information for younger students? Or is there something malevolent in the reduction? My thesis is that the Civil War was not a war of abolition. What does this mean?

Slavery has been an issue within the United States since its foundation. The Southern States does everything they can to preserve the institution of slavery. The Southern States would exploit their slave populations in a delegated method. The Electoral College is an institution designed to "correct" the popular vote, I.E: Bush vs. Gore in 2000. This institution counts the representation of states via population. Only liberated men counted as a vote, in other words: white men. 

In the 3/5ths Compromise, the Southern States advocated for slave representation. They did so to garner more votes in the Electoral College. They advocated for this despite a majority of their population's inability to vote. In essence, get representation without actually representing the population. Many saw through the absurdity, but reactionary voices are like toddlers. When told no, they just screech louder until somebody concedes.

 The Founders and Slavery: Little Ventured, Little Gained, p. 427, [ of representation."

The 3/5ths Compromise was a concession to stop the incessant screeching. Getting votes without representing the constituents seems to be prevalent throughout American history. What would stoke abolitionist sentiment? First, abolition is the idea of abolishing slavery. Some believed in gradual abolition as they transition from one system to another. Some believed in immediate abolition and this one struck fear. These immediate abolitionists would be the source of a Southern Planter's fear. Popular Abolitionist sentiment wouldn’t rise until the 1830s. The sentiment only went as far as saying they hated slavery, but there was no real plan. What's today's equivalent? Internet Marxists say they despise Capitalism without a plan to transition.

This untreated sentiment wouldn't last forever. In 1853, Anthony Burns was a slave that ran from his slavers in Virginia. He was in Boston for one month before US Marshals captured him. The Marshals were Federal Law Enforcement whose jurisdiction was the entire country. So yes, Federal Law Enforcement worked in favor of slavery despite the grandstanding. The Marshals arrested Burns thanks to the Slave Fugitive Act of 1850. The problem of runaway slaves was so prevalent that Congress passed a law for it. Or we could prohibit slavery, that's an option. Or you know, keep wasting tax dollars on preserving slavery. 

They were preparing Burns for deportation back to Virginia. Many Bostonians took an exception to this. Many saw it as a Southern aristocrat enforcing their archaic ways on Northerners. As far as they're concerned, Burns was a part of their community. The Committee of Vigilance was a group founded to counter the Slave Fugitive Act. Their purpose was to make life hard for those attempting to enforce the Slave Fugitive Act. This committee consisted of intellectuals, white allies, and working-class people. It was a union to stick a middle finger against slavery. But hey, counterculture was only a thing of the 60s and 70s. Nixon and Reagan would be proud of these patriots...

The Committee debated between two courses of action. 

A: break into the courthouse and remove Burns in a daring rescue. Without Burns, the trial couldn't go through. 

B: create a barrier of people so that authorities couldn't get through. 

But remember, disturbing law enforcement is only a thing troublemakers and hippies do. This isn't a pastime that's prevalent throughout American history. No, not at all...

 Now, most of the committee vied for option B because it was a safer option. Safer for both the committee and Burns. They didn't want to risk Burns' life in an adventurist rescue. That didn't stop everyone though.

Half of the committee vied for the peaceful option while the other half got to work. At night they would march to the courthouse armed with revolvers and axes. They would use these axes to chop at the doors of the courthouse, but these were thick ass doors. So what could be an answer for thick ass doors? Grab a wooden construction beam and use it as a battering ram. Yes, a group of Bostonians grabbed a wooden construction beam and larped as crusaders. 

The committee broke in, prompting a fight between them and Court Security. During this Medieval Larp, a member of Court Security died. You know what you gotta do when somebody dies? Yes, they called the police. It's debated whether these abolitionists would have been successful in their escape attempt. Even if they made it to Anthony's cell, it was reinforced with iron. Because you know…Slavers don’t like losing their property. 

 It got so bad that the United States sent the Marines to keep Boston in order while the trial proceeded. Boston got so wild that the Marines had to get involved.

Semper Fi, don't make the slavers cry. 

The mayor was responsible for keeping order in the city while the trials proceeded. The crowds attempted to convince the Mayor to pardon Anthony and not allow the trial to go through. The mayor was almost convinced. Even in the 1850s, the police were dicks. The Mayor said that a company of Marines should be enough to keep Boston in order. The Marshals disagreed. They were right, it would take the entire U.S. Department of Defense to keep Boston in line. Even then, I look at the U.S. Military's track record of peacekeeping. Anyway, they sent a Brigade of Marines instead of a Company, a much larger number. 

Some friends of Burns then played the economic game. So if the problem was that the Planter lost a slave, they could compensate the slaver. They have attempted to gather money to buy Burns' freedom. But no matter the offer, the Planter turned it down. Something tells me it wasn't an economic issue as much as it was a social issue. And if you're expecting nuance toward slavers, you won't find it here. Slavery is a bastard profession and all slavers are bastards. All Pro-Slavery advocates are bastards. Their parents are failures and if their kids endorse slavery, they're little Cuntsylvanians. The nuance ends with slavery. Go fuck yourself. 

If that didn't turn you away, we can continue. Because the old prick wouldn't accept financial compensation the deal was final. Burns is to be deported. Although, many Bostonians would say not without a fight. As the Marshals and Marines escorted Burns, crowds met them in the streets. They held up signs and coffins. They burned the coffins as a funeral for Burns' freedom. 

Just imagine being Burns for a moment. All you wanted to do was live life like a normal human being. To live life without being under somebody's thumb. But because you decided to assert your humanity, Boston riles in your defense. The city of Boston is in civil strife with the United States because you exercised your human rights.

 The convoy escorting Burns would run into an unexpected barrier of civilians. The civilians weren’t allowing them to cross, so the Marines would charge at the crowd with Bayonets. That’s right. The Federal Government charged civilians with bayonets. The United States was willing to gut civilians to preserve slavery in 1853. Ultimately Burns was deported back to Virginia. In retaliation, Massachusetts passed a law barring any enforcement of slavery. No law enforcement, including Marshals, could come into Massachusetts to collect fugitive slaves. If a slave entered Massachusetts, they were free. No amount of Southern screeching could change that. Fuck your feelings. 

 The other fucked part…Burns’ trial was not held by a jury. As a result of that fuckery, Massachusetts placed another concession. Any trial of a slave held is to be judged by a jury of their peers. You know, that right that American citizens are supposed to have in the first place. Something, something 6th Amendment. 

 Tremain, Mary (1892). Slavery in the District of Columbia; the policy of Congress and the struggle for abolition. University of Nebraska Department of History and Economics Papers. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns. Fetridge and Company. 1854. p. 5. Retrieved April 26, 2013.

Stevens, Charles (1856). Anthony Burns: A History. Boston, Massachusetts: John P. Jewett and Company. Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "The (Fugitive Slave) Trials of Anthony Burns: An Account". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "Orders of President Franklin Pierce in the Anthony Burns Affair (1854)". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22. 

Abolitionists weren’t the only ones inflicting violence. Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an abolitionist editor of a newspaper in Illinois. A wild band of inbreds murdered Lovejoy. So reactionaries are murdering abolitionists to preserve the institution of slavery. Why would you need to murder? Why not just debate the virtues of slavery in the free market of ideas? Why would you need to use violence to advance your position? 

Oh and on top of that, the abolitionists had to hide Lovejoy's grave. Because the Pro-Slaver mobs can't be burdened with decency. They have to defile the graves of those they murdered. They have to show society how shitty they are about their ideas. If you oppose their ideas, they murder and desecrate your grave. These are the rules. Which is odd considering some people's positions on certain monuments. 

 But desecrating a man's grave they murdered wasn't enough. They also had to go to a warehouse to destroy this man's editing equipment. Yes, because Lovejoy held the one press to print them all. They must destroy the press before he inflicts his abolitionist magic upon the lands. Destroy the press, Frodo!

But some people had decency. A group gathered at the warehouse to defy the inbred coalition. A fight broke out between the two groups. The local sheriffs would charge the mob with "unlawful defense." Hmmm...let me check my notes...

Second Amendment: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

First Amendment: the freedom of religion, press, and assembly. I believe those are covered grounds. And they're trying to say unlawful defense? 

Upon trial, the judge declared that neither party was guilty. Even though the Pro-Slavery mob attempted arson and successfully committed murder. So why was the mob forgiven for its crimes? The judge of the case was a member of the Pro-Slavery mob. He did a poor attempt at hiding it as he was wounded from the incident. So a judge was able to conduct a trial of a crime he was a part of? This is an example of next-level fuckery and many people grew tired of it. 

Enter John Brown. A man who had described his fight against slavery as a mission sent by God himself. He described himself as an instrument of God.

Bleeding Kansas is an example of how far John Brown goes. When he moved there, he knew what he was getting into. When states were going westward, they had a choice either to become free or slave states. Many Pro-Slavery mobs used intimidation and violence to drive out Abolitionists. However, they don't fare too well against those that fight back. After burning down Brown's estate, once was enough for him to gather a militia.

Kansas was a stronghold against Confederate sentiment thanks to John Brown's efforts. Any Confederate attempt of occupation faced Abolitionist Guerilla warfare. Bleeding Kansas was a Wild West epic for the ages that involved two groups of posse in shootouts. The open assassination of politicians. While the Civil War may have officially begun in South Carolina. The war's real beginning was Bleeding Kansas. Pro-Slavers would assassinate abolitionist politicians out in the open. Abolitionists would assassinate Pro-Slaver politicians out in the open. None of the Pro-Slaver murders were in self-defense. It was cases like Lovejoy where they would simply kill a man for disagreeing. So for those that want me to say John Brown was a terrorist, the Slavers instigated the fight. They're just mad because Brown finished it. Just like they were mad about Santa Anna slaughtering Pro-Slavers at the Alamo. Freedom my ass, y'all just wanted to keep your slaves. Freedom for me, but none for thee.

Biblical tales motivated Brown's convictions. He had a vision of freeing the slaves from Southern plantations as Moses had for Hebrews in Egypt. When he planned for Harper's Ferry, he hoped the liberation would inspire others to revolt. 

 "A few men in the right, and knowing that they are right, can overturn a mighty king. Fifty men, twenty men, in the Alleghenies would break slavery to pieces in two years" - John Brown

He would try to convince Frederick Douglass, but Douglass thought it to be a suicidal mission. Douglass's assessment wasn't wrong. Some wealthier abolitionists provided funding for Brown's activities. He used this funding to enact the help of a British mercenary. The mercenary wrote a tactical book. Brown's militias studied this book in anticipation of Harper's Ferry, including Brown's sons.  The raid started smoothly. They captured the armory in Harper's ferry. They cut off the telegram, so no instant communication. There was only one watchman versus Brown’s militia. He had captured some hostages who were owners of the plantation. Brown had ordered the slaves to be informed of their liberation. A train went by the town. Brown held up the train but later released them. 

This proved to be the beginning of the end of Brown's raid. The passengers of the train, frightened reported Brown's militia. The next town over had telegram access to nearby sheriffs. This is when things would go South, pun intended.

A wave of deputies and militia came at Brown's militia, pinning them inside a firehouse. Two of his sons died during the firefight. Brown had sent one of his sons to approach the militia with a white flag of surrender... Reactionaries are beyond reason. They gunned him down despite being unarmed and waving a white flag. Two of his other sons did escape, but the militia captured and hanged them. Then the US Army gets involved, allowing Brown to surrender. Your sons are dead, the slaves are still in chains and now the Army was descending on you and the men you led. He wanted to die during the battle, but during the Army's intervention, they captured him alive. 

While in jail, a friend of his got arrested on purpose for drunken brawling. He offered to break John Brown out of jail, but Brown was determined not to do so. He declined the opportunity and wrote a letter to his wife and remaining children. He vouched to be a martyr for the Abolitionist cause. The U.S. would hang Brown and some of his militia cohorts for their violent actions.

 Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Lovejoy, Elijah Parish" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. pp. 34–35. "Dimmock Funeral To-day". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. November 20, 1909. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2021.

St. Louis Marriage Index, 1804-76. St. Louis, Missouri: St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1999 Van Ravenswaay, Charles (1991). St. Louis: An Informal History of the City and Its People, 1764-1865. Missouri History Museum. pp. 276–277, 279–280. 

Finkelman, Paul (Spring 2011). "A Look Back at John Brown". Prologue Magazine. Vol. 43, no. 1. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2021.

Hinton, Richard J. (1894). John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. Boston: Funk & Wagnalls. Archived from the original on May 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021. "John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid". West Virginia Archives and History. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2008., wvculture.org; accessed August 29, 2015.

Brown, John (December 10, 1859) [November 8, 1859]. "Brown's letter to his wife". United States Police Gazette. Vol. 2, no. 82. p. 2.

War was a fickle thing in the 19th Century. Today, many Western nations vie for a Professional Army. Back in that day, the war would mean the conscription of every able-bodied man. This is when Black men were considered people on paper, but not enough to be treated as such. No need to fear, in the United States there was a way out of being conscripted.

Either A. you find a replacement. 

or B. $300 to support the war effort. Doesn't sound too bad until you apply inflation. $300 in the 1860s would be $10,000 today. Yeah, because we all have $10k lying around, right? 

Despite this blatant attempt to kill off the poor, the Union didn't have the numbers to continue the war. That is until they noticed a bunch of Irish immigrants trying to escape Britain. So that was another group of immigrants they could pull from. The recruiters go as far as to recruit Irish immigrants fresh off the boat. Cartoonish I know.

The Union would use the Irish brigades of recruits as cannon fodder, taking a bulk of the casualties. Irish families would hear of this back in their respective Northern states. The families were becoming aware of the cannon fodder mentality that Union had for the Irish. Either Britain was trying to starve them out or the U.S. sent them into a meat grinder. When the U.S. had the nerve to conscript more Irish, many riots broke out across the North. Unfortunately, the U.S. was able to deflect this riot. 

Many newspapers published articles blaming Black Americans for the Civil War. The Civil War started over the Southern issue of preserving slavery. However, the newspapers wouldn't stop publishing defamatory articles about Black Americans. They also wouldn't stop publishing how Blacks are stealing jobs from the Irish. That if the Civil War were to end, many Black Americans would move North to steal jobs from them. This isn't like today where you could verify or research the subject matter. The only sort of media you were able to consume was within your local area. So if your news press was printing out racist garbage, that's all you consumed. And for those that only consume vitriolic garbage, I'll present you with this example. 

So if you're consuming nothing but articles that instigate hatred that will happen. The media was free to publish articles condemning interracial marriage. Like media is free to label LGBTQ+ functions as pedophilic today. Despite the atrocious nature of these incidents today, those were all isolated incidents.

 The Irish riots on a larger scale. Many businesses were burned to the ground. Some people were lynched or beaten to the ground with clubs and bricks. When you published nothing but vitriol against a group of people, are you surprised? Some people feign surprise, but these people know the power of the media. This is why they continue falsely branding the LGBTQ+ as pedophile-friendly. This is despite politicians like a Matt Gaetz investigation involving human trafficking. Or despite figures like Matt Walsh who emphasizes a girl's fertility at 16. Expressing frustration at the current age of consent. These are the kind of people that instigate violence against minority groups. 

The Irish Draft Riots are the kind of violence that these bastards are aiming for. It worked in favor of the Union because they were able to continue the Civil War for another two years. Because of this riot, Landlords evicted their black tenants fearing violence. So Landlords had sent black people to be brutalized by a mob to cover their asses... This riot was also used as a justification to keep white and black populations separate. Again, the media had perpetrated this violence, but it was used as a justification.

Li, D. K. (2022, September 14). Michigan man who killed his wife went down a 'rabbit hole' of conspiracy theories after Trump's 2020 loss, daughter says. NBCNews.com. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michigan-man-killed-wife-went-rabbit-hole-conspiracy-theories-trumps-2-rcna47701 

Hasanabi. (2022, October 5). Shocked that Matt Walsh is interested in impregnating 16 year olds. pic.twitter.com/q8s66ebyvq. Twitter. Retrieved December 7, 2022, from https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1577716649116852224 

 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/the-irish-brigade 

Harris, Leslie M. (2003). In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press. pp. 279–88. ISBN 0226317757.

At the end of the Civil War, the United States had no choice but to capitulate, right? The war was over slavery, so slavery would finally be abolished, right? As per usual, Congress had somehow sidestepped the real problem. By side-stepping the real problem, it paved a way for more problems. Here's what the death of 1 Million Americans and 2 Million Traitors brought us.

15th Amendment: Passed by Congress on February 26, 1869, and ratified on February 3, 1870. The 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote. 

14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

13th Amendment: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

So in the end…the Union didn’t fight to abolish slavery. It fought to monopolize it. I wish this was a joke... It would be nice if we were just on a long-running episode of Punk'd.

The Founders and Slavery: Little Ventured, Little Gained, p. 427, [ of representation."

Tremain, Mary (1892). Slavery in the District of Columbia; the policy of Congress and the struggle for abolition.

University of Nebraska Department of History and Economics Papers. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Boston slave riot, and trial of Anthony Burns.

Fetridge and Company. 1854. p. 5. Retrieved April 26, 2013. Stevens, Charles (1856). Anthony Burns: A History. Boston, Massachusetts: John P. Jewett and Company.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "The (Fugitive Slave) Trials of Anthony Burns: An Account". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22.

Linder, Douglas O. (2019). "Orders of President Franklin Pierce in the Anthony Burns Affair (1854)". www.famous-trials.com. Retrieved 2020-11-22. 

Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Lovejoy, Elijah Parish" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. pp. 34–35. "Dimmock Funeral To-day". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. November 20, 1909. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2021. St. Louis Marriage Index, 1804-76. St. Louis, Missouri: St. Louis Genealogical Society, 1999

Van Ravenswaay, Charles (1991). St. Louis: An Informal History of the City and Its People, 1764-1865. Missouri History Museum. pp. 276–277, 279–280. 

Finkelman, Paul (Spring 2011). "A Look Back at John Brown". Prologue Magazine. Vol. 43, no. 1. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved September 11, 2021.

Hinton, Richard J. (1894). John Brown and his men; with some account of the roads they traveled to reach Harper's Ferry. Boston: Funk & Wagnalls. Archived from the original on May 25, 2021. Retrieved January 25, 2021. 

"John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid". West Virginia Archives and History. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2008., wvculture.org; accessed August 29, 2015.

Brown, John (December 10, 1859) [November 8, 1859]. "Brown's letter to his wife". United States Police Gazette. Vol. 2, no. 82. p. 2. 

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/the-irish-brigade 

Harris, Leslie M. (2003). In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863. University of Chicago Press. pp. 279–88. ISBN 0226317757.