Dixie Watchman
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“Shall a whole people be fed, for near half a century upon tiger’s meat, seasoned with viper’s venom, nor raven like the one, nor sting fatally like the other!” -William Gilmore Simms Ever since the fateful events of September 10, 2025, the political right has been searching for the answer to the questions: “where do we go from here”, and a few more far-sighted asking “is there anywhere to go from here?” The heart-rending assassination of the popular conservative speaker Charlie Kirk, in the presence of his wife and children no less, has provoked righteous outrage even among those who were less than cheerleaders for Kirk and Turning Point, U.S.A. As heartbreaking as the whole event was, none of us should have been surprised by the Kirk assassination. In a world where the assassination attempts on Steve Scalise and Donald Trump, the George Floyd riots and numerous transgender Christian school shootings were quickly memory-holed by the mainstream media who deems the victims of these tragedies “deplorables”, it was sadly predictable that a prominent figure on the right would eventually die as a victim of left-wing violence. In fact, Charlie Kirk himself saw it coming a year ago, posting on his X account: “Assassination culture is spreading on the left…this is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb”. But had the Kirk shooting occurred by itself, it would not have shaken the foundations of American politics the way it has. It was not just the act; it was the REACTION by our “fellow Americans” to the cruel taking of a man’s life in the presence of his family. Conservatives who consistently want to “reach across the aisle” and just get along awoke on September 11th to a social media celebration of political violence against the right. Not just from the AOCs and Matthew Dowds, the political nerds; but from the teachers who teach their children, the nurses who care for their elderly parents, the parishioners who pray next to them in Church. And herein lies the issue: Charlie Kirk, whether one loved him or not, was one of the last prominent voices in the country for open, civil debate. His assassination is a stark symptom of a deep disease within the American Union-civil debate is not only no longer possible, it’s not even a concept. The modern-day left has declared that the modern-day right are vicious, subhuman animals worthy of death. You don’t debate a vicious animal; you don’t reason with it. There’s only one thing left to do. Americans have been down this road before, but it’s been a while; and the results still haunt the “glorious Union” today.  On October 16th, 1859, John Brown and his band of proto-antifa held their final planning meeting at the Kennedy Farmhouse near Samples Manor, Maryland. At 8:00p.m. the “soldiers” broke from the Farmhouse down Chestnut Grove Road and began moving “down the still road, dim white in the moonlight, amid the chill October night.” Their destination: the United States Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), some 7 miles south of the Kennedy Farm. It was here that Brown hoped to acquire over 200,000 Army Rifles with which to carry out the Southern genocide he had dreamed of. The names of his marauders were familiar to Brown. John Kagi, John Edwin Cooke and Aaron Stevens had been part of Brown’s company that had butchered innocent men and children on the Kansas-Missouri frontier years before. Albert Hazlet and Charles Tidd had been with the Abolitionist party that had fired on Federal troops at Fort Scott, Kansas. Finding only a lone night watchman at the Arsenal, Brown, his sons and Kagi easily overran the Arsenal. Hazlett and Edwin Coppoc quickly secured the Armory. Cooke and Tidd had been sent ahead by Brown to cut the telegraph wires along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to prevent the peaceful town from alerting Baltimore and Washington, D.C. of their dreadful fate. Brown’s men quickly took hostage one of Harper’s Ferry’s most prominent citizens-Lewis W. Washington, the great grand-nephew of George Washington. They demanded and received General Washington’s sword, so that Brown might use it to lead the genocide of Washington’s Virginia. Up to this point, Brown’s raid had worked as planned-but fate was about to intervene. At about 1:00a.m. on October 17th, a passenger train on the Baltimore & Ohio pulled into the Wager House Station at Harper’s Ferry to exchange passengers. Learning the road ahead was blocked, the train’s Conductor and Engineer went ahead to investigate, and were shot at by Brown’s men. Station baggage master Hayward Shepherd, a free black man, was not so lucky. Going out to investigate, Shepherd was hit by a fatal shot from Brown’s “army”. The people of Harper’s Ferry, having heard the gunfire pouring over the valley, had been awakened from their slumber and began surrounding Arsenal. At about dawn on the morning of October 17th, a stray shot from Brown’s men killed Harper’s Ferry resident Thomas Boerly. By now Dr. John Starry, who had treated the dying Heyward Shephard, had mounted his horse and in Paul Revere fashion, warned neighboring communities of the raid. In nearby Charleston, Virginia, the Jefferson Guard militia had been activated and was enroute. Regular militia and volunteers were forming in nearby Frederick, Maryland. With the situation quickly spiraling out of John Brown’s control, he had little choice but to let the passenger train proceed on the B&O Railroad. At Monocacy, Virginia the Conductor found working telegraph wires and sent urgent message to Baltimore. B&O President John W. Garret quickly wired President Buchanan, Virginia Governor John Letcher and the commander of the Maryland militia. The rest of the story is well-known. President Buchanan and Secretary of War John Floyd dispatched Col. Robert E. Lee and Lt. J.E.B. Stuart to the arsenal, and by dawn the next day they had overtaken Brown’s men holed up in the Arsenal’s Engine House (though sadly resulting in the death of Marine Pvt. Israel Green.) John Brown was hanged for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia on December 2, 1859. Leaving with one cryptic statement, Brown stated before his execution: “I, John Brown am now convinced that the crimes of this guilty land will never purged away but with blood.”  Nobody should have been surprised by Brown’s Harper’s Ferry revolt. For years “fire-eating” secessionists like Rhett, Ruffin, Yancey and Benning had warned that such insurrections were the logical consequence of Republican/Abolitionist doctrines. But they were often dismissed by “normie” Southern whites as demagogues who made mountains out of molehills, malcontents who threatened revolution and change in a time of prosperity for Dixie. The cotton crop was one of the best on record, the tariff was low and there were still a handful of Northern conservatives. True, there had been trouble on the faraway Kansas frontier, but with the South-friendly Pierce and Buchanan administrations holding court in Washington, D.C. what was there to fear? But like the Kirk shooting, the Brown raid did something valuable: it shocked the opposition into reality. Not at first. Initially, a general sense of relief washed over Dixie. Yes, Yankees had finally made their genocidal move toward Southern whites, but it had been a spectacular failure. Not a single Virginia slave had joined Brown’s revolt. Indeed, Brown’s first murder at Harper’s Ferry was of a free black man. While Governor Letcher was less than pleased with the performance of the Virginia militia, the U.S. Marines had made quick work of Brown’s would-be army, and the few of Brown’s henchmen not killed were in flight as fugitives. But in 1859-1860, as it is now, it was not just the horrendous act that got the attention of Southrons-it was the reaction of their “fellow Americans” to Brown’s failed attempt at Southern genocide that caught the attention of his intended victims. Shortly after the failed raid, Alabama Fire-eater William Lowndes Yancey began asking his fellow Southerners how things would play out the next time especially if a Yankee Republican should win the White House next year: Suppose… that the frontiers of this country will be lighted up with the flames of midnight arson….that towns are burned; that the peace of our families is disturbed; that poison is found secreted throughout the whole country in immense quantities; that men are found prowling about our land in order that it may be placed in our springs and wells; with arms and ammunition placed in the hands of a semi-barbarous people, what will be our fate? Where will be the United States marshals to interfere? Where will be the dread of this General Government that exists under the present administration? Where will be the fear of the United States army to intimidate or prevent such movements? As the months rolled by, the sage of Wetumpka and his fellow Southrons got their answer. The November 1859 elections in the North saw “Black Republicans” win more governorships, more legislatures, and more seats in Congress. In a startingly tone-deaf move, the new Republicans in Congress almost immediately moved to elect as the new Speaker of the House Congressman John Sherman-one of 68 Republican Congressmen who had endorsed Hinton R. Helper’s book “The Impending Crisis”-which had suggested just the solution to the problem of Southern whites that Brown had tried to carry out. Republican Governors Kirkwood in Iowa and Dennison in Ohio resisted Virginia’s extradition requests for Brown’s co-conspirators, allowing three of them to escape to Canada to avoid prosecution. A Senate Committee investigating the raid found evidence suggesting that Republican U.S. Senators William H. Seward of New York and Henry Wilson of Massachusetts had advanced knowledge of the attack on the Federal arsenal yet remained silent. Moreover, the financiers of Brown’s failed genocide is to call a list of Northern elites-Stearns, Forbes, Sanborn, Howard and Parker. The reactions of the Republican/Abolitionist movement to Brown’s raid were largely covered in a previous entry of the Watchman (those-lovable-abolitionists-onpart-1.html) and as such, won’t be recounted here. But even among the so-called “moderates” of the new sectional party, the reactions were hardly reassuring. While stating that Brown must be dealt with accordingly for his crimes, Abraham Lincoln, of recent Lincoln-Douglas debate fame, stated that if Southerners attempted secession to escape the fate assigned to them, then “it will be our duty to deal with you as Old John Brown has been dealt with.” Presumptive Republican front-runner William H. Seward publicly denounced Brown’s crime while privately praising his courage and morality “rising above that of his captors.” Picking up on Yancey’s theme, Congressman Roger Pryor of Virginia declared that even if a Republican administration desired to enforce the laws for the safety of Southerners, they would be beholden to the fanatics in the party. “If William H. Seward should be elected to the Presidency…. he will discover that he has evoked a spirit which he cannot allay; that he has roused a storm which he cannot control.” While noting that Republican Federal Officials might not directly engage in crimes, the Virginia Enquirer speculated that “the coming John Browns will pursue their iniquitous labors in full confidence that, if brought to trial, it will be by marshals, prosecuting attorneys, juries and judges that sympathize with them”. The summer of 1860 did nothing to silence the Fire-eaters or reassure their opponents. The 1860 Republican Convention threw Seward overboard and nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. Following the banishment of an Abolitionist preacher from the State, a series of wildfires racked Texas from Dallas to Austin, followed by the discovery of strychnine in the possession of several slaves. As the shadow of Lincoln’s election loomed larger over Dixie in the Fall of 1860, Southerners began hearing reports of military organizations called “Wide-Awakes”-named for John Brown’s murderous company in Kansas- drilling in Northern cities and determined to install Lincoln as President. With the election of Abraham Lincoln in November, the conservative anti-secessionists were left scrambling. The so-called “overt act men”- cooperationists who wanted to wait for an overt act of Northern aggression before seceding- were disappearing throughout the South. Chiding such men as “submissionists”, the Charleston Mercury declared: Although you see your enemy load his rifle with the declared purpose of taking your life, you are to wait…until he commits an “overt act”-shoots you..... Must the rattlesnake ACTUALLY strike us before we raise a hand against it? The rest of the story is well-known. While Brown's raid did not immediately provoke secession, it snapped peaceful men into violent reality. The militia in most Southern States were reorganized and strengthened, providing a would-be army for a potential Confederacy. When Southern legislatures came into session the following year, all eyes were on how to proceed in the event a Republican won the White House in 1860. Laws ranging from expelling outside salesmen to expelling free blacks from the State were discussed. No longer deaf and dumb to the crisis, Dixie stood ready to meet it. It remains to be see whether the Kirk assassination will haunt the mind of establishment conservatives the way the Brown raid did 166 years ago. But to the "deplorables" of 2025 the ghosts of 1859 are just as clear to today's as they were to Southrons on that chill October night all those years ago-if the left believes they "rise morally above you", your life is theirs for the taking. 
 Spring had already begun over much of the country, but it was still a bone-chilling 32 degrees in Queens Borough, New York. Buttoning her coat to brave the weather, 28-year-old Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese headed for home at two-thirty in the morning after an exhausting shift at Ev’s Eleventh-Hour Bar at Jamaica Avenue and 193rd Street. A Brooklyn native, Kitty was no stranger to streets that could be dangerous. After a murder occurred in their neighborhood ten years earlier, Kitty’s family relocated to Connecticut to be in a safer environment. But Kitty, ever independent stayed behind, intent on saving enough money to open a restaurant specializing in the Italian food she had grown up with and wanted to share with the world. But work in Brooklyn was hard to come by for a young woman in 1964. After working a series of odd jobs, Kitty found a job bartending. An outgoing personality voted “Class Cut Up” at Prospect Heights High School, her customers naturally warmed up to her- a little too much for Kitty’s own good. In the summer of 1961, Kitty and another waitress at the bar were arrested on bookmaking charges. It seems that her eager-to-please attitude went as far as placing bets on horse-racing for bar patrons. But even the NYPD was a bit smitten with the charming young Italian lady. Kitty Genovese and her partner walked away from the charges. But as a result, both bartenders lost their jobs. It was this incident that led Kitty to her job at Ev’s. Becoming essentially manager in the frequent absence of the owner, it was a grueling pace. But the double shifts often required were finally making the money Kitty needed to save up to achieve her dream and open her own restaurant. To this end, she relocated to an apartment building not far from Ev’s Eleventh Hour. The small apartment was located at 82-70 Austin Street in the Kew Gardens section of Queens-generally considered a safe place for New York City in 1964. There she roomed with her friend and apparent lover Mary Ann from 1963-64. When Kitty parked her red Fiat at the Kew Gardens Long Island Railroad Station, just one hundred feet from her apartment, she likely thought nothing of the Chevy Corvair that had followed her to Austin Street. Walking through an alley way to the front of the apartment building, Kitty’s instincts told her something was off. That’s when she saw the man rapidly approaching her, armed with a hunting knife. Kitty ran for the apartment door with all the strength her tired body could muster, but 29-year-old Winston Mosley was too fast, and quicky overpowered her. The first two stab wounds were to Kitty’s back, prompting her to scream to anyone who could hear: “OH MY GOD, HE STABBED ME! HELP ME!” Yet, according to police reports only one of several neighbors who heard Kitty’s anguished screams for help even reacted, leaning out of her apartment window and yelling “Leave that girl alone!” This frightened Mosley and caused him to flee-but only briefly. Returning ten minutes after the first attack, only to fetch from his car a wide-brimmed hat to cover his face, Mosley found a bleeding and barely conscious Kitty having crawled into a hallway at the back of the building-only to find the door locked for the night and unable to get inside. It was here that Kitty met her fate at the hand of Winston Mosley. In an attack that lasted about 30 minutes, Mosely raped and repeatedly stabbed Kitty in front of several eyewitnesses. He also helped himself to the $49 in Kitty’s purse-what was to have helped open her restaurant. But over the course of the hour from the time of the first attack, not one of the witnesses who saw the attack or heard Kitty’s terrified screams attempted to help her. The one neighbor who did call the police was reportedly told that the police already had been called-but no one knows by who. Only after Mosley made his final retreat did anyone come out for Kitty- 70-year-old Sophia Farrar, who cradled the barely conscious Kitty in her arms until the ambulance arrived, repeating over and over “Help is on the way”. But help was over an hour late. Kitty Genovese, 28 years old, died in the ambulance enroute to Queens General Hospital. She is buried in New Canaan, Connecticut-where her family moved to get away from the violence that would claim their “Kitty”. Many reports exist about just how many people witnessed the murder of Kitty Genovese on that frigid New York night long ago. The New York Times claimed that no less than 38 people either witnessed the attack or heard the last cries for help as Kitty violently departed this world. No one can be sure of how many people were witnesses, but one thing was clear-nobody came to help. Few even thought to call the police. But when the police arrived, they asked the witnesses why no one had intervened. One unidentified neighbor, quoted in the papers of the time, witnessed the attack, waited for a while, then finally asked another neighbor to call the police. Asked why he didn’t try to help Kitty, and why he waited so long to decide someone should call, the neighbor answered honestly. His response summed up the murder of Kitty Genovese, shook the conscience of the nation and still haunts us today: “I DIDN’T WANT TO GET INVOLVED”  From the 1960s on, people across the United States wondered what they would’ve done that icy night in Queens. Like many, my ego says that I would’ve come to Kitty’s aid during the attack-at least tried to get her to safety while the beast went to his car to prepare for his second attack. But I, too, was raised to question whether to get involved. What if the police showed up while I was assisting and mistook me for the attacker? What if she couldn’t identify her attacker in such poor lighting and thought it might be me? What if the attacker returned to find me an unarmed now-witness to his crime and killed me as well? What if the attacker got away, knew who called the cops and came back for me? These were questions that surely ran through the minds of the residents of Kew Gardens in March of 1964. Sadly, 61 years later, there has been no answer.  On August 22, 2025, the Blue Line Subway made its usual stop at Scaleybark Station outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Among the late-night travelers boarding at Scaleybark was 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, still wearing her uniform from Zepedie’s Pizzeria, where she had just gotten off the late shift. Having made her escape from war-torn Ukraine, the land of her birth, the blonde beauty had settled in Charlotte, hoping to build a new life in America she had always heard about. We know all too well the rest of the story. Iryna barely noticed when 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown entered the Blue Line Car and sat down directly behind her. She had no idea about his history of violence, jail and release by an impotent “justice” system. But at some point during the late-night Blue Line ride, DeCarlos Brown repeatedly stabbed Iryna, her beautiful face a tortured mix of shock and mortal terror as she bled to death in the middle of the night in a foreign land while strangers simply watched. Iryna could survive a war between two powerful countries and the refugee trip to America. But what she could not survive was mass transit in a major American city run by leftists. As of this writing, DeCarlos Brown may get off easily yet again. Yesterday a Superior Court Judge ordered this vicious animal to “psychiatric evaluation”- potentially and perhaps intentionally providing him a way out of standing trial for the brutal murder he committed. What prompted DeCarlos Brown, a man who didn’t know Iryna Zarutska, had never seen her before, and had no altercation whatsoever with her to so callously and violently end her life? We don’t know for sure, but we do know one thing-not long after Brown was arrested for murder, a GoFundMe account was set up to raise money for the obvious murderer so that racial justice could be served. Fortunately, it has since been pulled. But it begs the questions: is it just barely possible that DeCarlos Brown saw a white girl alone late at night and saw it as a hunting opportunity? Is it possible DeCarlos Brown was fed and nurtured with the same anti-white propaganda we have been battered with for decades? That in our reparations, DEI world that he viewed Iryna as a “privileged” white girl whom he could execute at his pleasure as racial “justice”? And what are we to think of Iryna’s fellow BlueLine riders on the night of August 22nd? No one rushed to help her during the attack. No one tried to render assistance until DeCarlos Brown had long since exited the train. Video surveillance shows many car riders standing idly, a few even looking straight forward, refusing to even acknowledge what was happening. It's very possible that Iryna’s fellow passengers were fed on the same tiger’s meat, seasoned with viper’s venom, that all white Americans have been subjected to over that last 60 years. Given the racial and political make up of Mecklenburg County (the County voted almost 2-1 for Kamala Harris last November), it’s possible the riders have absorbed the sickening message of DEI more than your average American. But a fateful summer night in Dixie in August of 2025 has something in common with that frigid night in Queens 60 years ago-nobody wanted to get involved. Moreover, it reminded Southerners of the price of Union. Iryna Zarutska didn't die forgotten in a gutter in New York City. She died forgotten in Dixie, where chivalry and Good Samaritanism took their final bow. Here in the "Queen City" of Carolina, Iryna gasped her last breath in terror and helplessness surrounded by people who were indifferent to her-just as Kitty Genovese did in 1964. The diseased politics and the crass "don't get involved" mentality that it spawned have draped their tentacles well South of the Mason-Dixon Line to our once great cities. We may never know for sure what all of us would've done for Kitty Genovese in 1964. All of us may not know for a fact what we would have done for Iryna Zarutska last month. But if the current trend continues to rot our beautiful Southern cities, spread like a cancer to our peaceful suburbs and finally reach the Bible Belt itself, our children may one day ask questions like: "Why can't I take the bus to the city? Why do you tell me at restaurants to sit so nobody is behind me? Why won't you let me go to the State Capitol to play by trumpet with the rest of the School Band?" In that moment, these days in which we now live will flash through our minds and recall those frightful words from 1964: I didn't want to get involved.
 “I grew up around adults…while they sat on the front porch rocking and shelling peas and telling tales, I picked beggar lice off my pants leg and listened closely to what was probably the best education I ever received. And as I look back on it now from the perspective of middle age, I realize there was more wisdom on that porch than I ever imagined” -Lewis Grizzard, Jr. When Dixie Traveller was just a young Confederate, my parents worked overnight shifts, making it necessary that I have a sitter at night, presumably to keep me from leading my subdivision to secede from the County (or keep me from writing on my little sister in crayon, but I prefer to think the first one). It was here that fate smiled on my sister and I when we were entrusted to the care of Mee-maw and Pee-paw. So far as I know, Mee-maw and Pee-paw were not blood relatives. They actually came from what they jokingly referred to as “L.A.” (Lower Alabama), in the area around Millbrook in Elmore County. Mee-maw used to tell me stories of when Pee-paw frequented the honky-tonks in nearby Montgomery getting in his fair share of scrapes and soaking up the musical scene. (More than once they both were privileged to be in the audience when a little-known local boy named Hank Williams was the evening’s entertainment). They also had the misfortune of living in Montgomery during the bus boycotts, but that’s another story for another time. Mee-maw and Pee-paw were only baby-sitters in the most academic sense. In truth, they were surrogate grandparents to a generation of us kids whose parents worked all night (or day). Being “sat” by them was a master class in Southern hospitality. When bedtime came, we were tucked in by Mee-maw, given a glass of water to keep by the bed, the heat or air adjusted to our liking. Many nights Dixie Traveller laid there in bed with the glow of the nightlight, the grandfather clock in the kitchen chiming on the half hour, and the trains from the nearby Norfolk Southern Railroad echoing their whistle across the little suburban valley as my companions. This too, was home. Breakfast before school came with fresh pineapple, bacon, sausage and first-rate biscuits. Pee-paw’s early morning viewing of the Three Stooges was foregone so I could watch Looney Toons. I admit they spoiled me rotten, like good grandparents should. After prying me out of bed the first time to eat breakfast, Mee-maw, bless her soul, permitted me to return to bed until she once again called me from the kitchen to be in time for the school bus. During summer vacation we stayed later in the day and got lessons in economics via The Price is Right beaming out of the old wood-panel picture tube T.V. it would have taken a small army to steal. Lord only knows how many cups of coffee Dixie Traveller, Sr. sat and drank at the dining room table talking the hours away about everything from politics to country music to Jesus to how to grow a good tomato at home. It was Christmas tradition in our home that we each got to open one present on Christmas Eve. Here again, my sister and I were spoiled by ALSO getting to go Mee-maw and Pee-paw’s house when we were allowed to open another gift on Christmas Eve. Their two children had moved away a long time ago, but for those of us fortunate enough to be raised by them, the humble lights in the bay window and the tiny artificial Christmas tree beckoned to the warmth of family-not to mention an extra Christmas Eve present! As years went by, my parents’ night shifts turned into day shifts, and staying with Mee-maw and Pee-paw became a thing of the past. Pee-paw passed away not long after I stopped my nightly stays, but for years thereafter Mee-maw was a fixture in our lives and in our neighborhood. Heaven only knows how many children in our area and nearby were raised in part by the gentlefolks from Millbrook. Every Mother’s Day amid our hustle and bustle, Mee-maw received a visit from her numerous “young ‘uns” that she helped raise. Even among the older adults in the neighborhood, their real names were seldom used. Mee-maw and Pee-paw wasn’t what they were called-it was who they were, an honored status in our little community. I had moved away by the time Mee-maw passed away several years ago, and at the time work wouldn’t permit the trip to Alabama for the funeral. Now 200 miles and thousands of memories later, I knew something significant had passed from my life. All I could do is smile wistfully at the memory of Pee-paw making funny faces for me and nicknaming me George Jones (perhaps sensing I would have good taste in music) and Mee-maw in her sweet South Alabama accent calling me” shugah” and singing “Jesus Loves Me”. Even now, sleep sometimes comes easier thinking of the sound of train whistles and grandfather clock chimes.  Mee-maw, Pee-paw, and all of their young ‘uns were something more than babysitters and charges, more than even neighbors and friends. They were “our people”, something unique to us as a group, but one of Dixie’s most sacred and time-tested relationships. When you’re a child, it rarely occurs to you that the world exists outside of your bubble. Only as an adult will many realize how special the time and place they grew up in was-usually once it’s too late to go back. Still fewer of us reach maturity with the realization that those cherished times and places that made us who we are as individuals made us a small part of a people’s story-the “our people’s"-history, their culture and social behavior. I was nearly forty when I first read David Hackett Fischer’s magnificent book Albion’s Seed. While not the final word, I would recommend it as mandatory reading for anyone interested in how their roots in the South came to be. In the second Chapter, “Distressed Cavaliers and Crackers”, Fischer details the “family ways” of the first generation of Southerners in the New World. Reading about Virginians in 1675 was almost like taking a walk through my Southern world over three centuries later. Fischer noted that amongst the Virginia Cavaliers, family had a different meaning than it did in Puritan New England. The immediate family, while important, was almost matched in importance and affection by the extended family. It was common in early Virginia to address relatives as “coz” (cuz), regardless of the actual family relationship. Nor did one necessarily have to be a blood relative. “Brother” was a term of friendship and affection that could be applied to friends, neighbors, political supporters or even business partners. (Years later, Augusta, Georgia born-Hulk Hogan would address his “Hulkamaniacs” with “Let me tell ya something, brother!”) Also included in the Cavalier’s definition of family could be servants, visitors or those weary travelers simply staying a night or two with the gracious host. The fact that Virginia colonies were so small and isolated, and that entire families might make up a single community added to the bond between the nuclear and extended family even more important. Even in death, the nuclear and extended family (like their kin in the south of England) were buried together in the “family plot”- a Virginia practice that would not take hold in New England for centuries to come. In a time and place when malaria, fever, wild animals and Indian raids seemed to thoughtlessly and cruelly destroy families, the extended Southern family brought comfort, stability and nourishment to those who otherwise have none. One bout of malaria or one Indian raid could suddenly create new orphans and 18-year-old widows. In the 17th Century more than 75% of children in Virginia Colony lost one parent before the age of 18. Historians of the period noted that “in just about any household would be orphans, half-brothers, stepbrothers and sisters, and wards running a gamut of ages”. The mother and father figure in the house were just as likely to be an elder sibling, Aunt, Uncle or cousin. Even servants and slaves often shared an intimacy with their masters that Northerners could never comprehend. One man of English gentry noted in his diary “I called up my man, who lay in my room with me” for his help. This close quarters relationship with the servants was duplicated by their kinsmen on the other side of the Atlantic. Centuries later, in Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel “Gone with the Wind”, a Reconstruction era carpetbagger refers to the kindly former slave “Uncle Peter” as a n****r and says he shouldn’t be trusted with the children. Seeing the tears welling in Uncle Peter’s eyes, an infuriated Scarlett curtly replies that “Uncle Peter is part of the family”. Later, on the ride back from Atlanta, Scarlett still seethes over the Yankee woman’s cruelty: "Those women had hurt Uncle Peter—Peter who had been through the Mexican War with old Colonel Hamilton, Peter who had held his master in his arms when he died, who had raised Melly and Charles and looked after the feckless, foolish Pittypat, “pertecked” her when she refugeed, and “’quired” a horse to bring her back from Macon through a war-torn country after the surrender. And they said they wouldn’t trust n*****s! Nor did war and emancipation necessarily destroy this bond. Reflecting on the results of Sherman’s terrorism in South Carolina, former slave Rosa Starke says of her old Master’s family “Some of them is the poorest white folks in this State today. I weeps when I sees them so poor, but they is respectable yet, thank God.” To the modern eye, the Southerner’s generosity might seem easy to take advantage of, and it did happen. The Northerner Phillip Fithian noted on a stay with the Carter family of Virginia that one resident “stays only about eight or ten weeks of the year at his own house” relying on the hospitality of the Carters for the remaining time. Yet, to a Virginia gentleman, to have been inhospitable even to this stranger would have been almost unthinkable. No less than the great Virginian General George Washington at Valley Forge referred to Martha, his aides, staff, servants and even visitors to camp as his “family”. Those under your care, entrusting you with their protection, were your people. In Dixie Traveller’s own family history, the Southern extended family played a crucial role. In 1850, my 3rd great grandparents, William and Elizabeth, were still in mourning from the sudden loss of their six-year-old son, Blacky. Hearing of new western lands opening up and perhaps hoping to leave the bad memory behind, they and five children uprooted from Elbert County, Georgia to Monroe County, Mississippi. But tragedy would follow them to the Magnolia State as well. On December 17th, 1851, William was driving an oxcart when the reins slipped from his hand. Eager to not bring the wagon to a full halt, he stepped out on the icy tongue of the wagon and slipped-falling under the moving wagon wheel, crushing his skull and killing him instantly. A devastated Elizabeth, barely a year from the loss of her son and now a 37-year-old widowed mother of five, gathered her shattered family together and made the long wagon journey back to Elbert County, Georgia- where “her people” would provide love, support and guidance that raised five healthy children to adulthood. Like untold thousands of Southern families, the Yankee War to Prevent Southern Independence shattered my father’s family. My 3rd great-grandfather, Noah, was held for ten months as a POW at Point Lookout, Maryland-one of the worst Yankee prisons of the war. By most accounts, he was lucky-he survived the icy, disease-ridden prison and was paroled not long before Washington closed the prisoner exchange in 1864. But he returned home scarred, physically and mentally, from the hell he endured during the war, and the wreckage he found his State in upon his return. He died in 1870 at just thirty-two years old, leaving his wife, Temperance, a thirty-six-year-old widow with five children. Just four years later his widow, made an old woman before her time by War and Reconstruction, followed him in death. But where fate had cruelly created five orphans, the Southern family did what they do best-pick up the pieces. My 2nd great-grandfather was raised by his sister Margaret, eight years older than he, and her husband, Harris. I remember my Grandmother telling me my Great-Grandpa said he “had people” in Alabama. Years later I discovered that after the War some of the family relocated to Alabama, to the Sand Mountain area in the northeast corner of the State. Though over a hundred miles away by now and out of contact, these Uncles, Aunts and Cousins were the only stable family his Daddy ever knew, which made them still “his people”. The 21st Century dying off of small towns, forcing many to move away from the “old home place” in search of job opportunities has presented new challenges to the Southern extended family. Mercifully, Southerners have been up to the task, for their families are still being cruelly shattered by outside forces. Drug company executives may laugh over martinis about the “pillbillies” overdosing in Appalachia, and politicians of both parties may babble about the benefit of the “diversity” that the fentanyl traffickers pouring over the border will bring to “Our Democracy” all they like. Every day, families across Dixie wake up to new widows, new orphans and lives unfulfilled. My own family awoke one gray January morning years ago to the news that drugs had taken one of our own-and created an orphan in the process. Thank God the Southern extended family still exists to do what we’ve always done-pick up the pieces and support. Barely a year old when her Daddy passed into eternity, she was raised by her grandmother and uncle. Today the beautiful young lady is testimony to the power of love passed down through generations.  Southern patriots are confronted with many issues, chief among them defeatism among many of our people. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the lethargy and cynicism of those who simply wish to be “good citizens” of the empire-to work, drink beer, have occasional intercourse and die with as little as possible in between. It’s frustrating to see so many of our people once again looking to Babylon on the Potomac for the answers believing that this time, we really can fix it. It’s bothersome that so many descendants of Confederates are perfectly content to let the White South die with them, so long as they are not bothered or called “racist”.
But take heart my brothers and sisters; it is not in our blood as Southrons to quit, to proclaim the situation too overwhelming and abandon our people in their hour of need. Remember, through our veins runs the blood of centuries of Southrons who life’s greatest tragedies-from disease to military defeat to drug culture- could test but could never break. Let us as an extended Southern family give each other support, encouragement and heart. If we have disagreements between us let’s deal with them in private, as a family does, rather than airing our dirty laundry in public for friend and enemy alike to hear. The Second Reconstruction still ongoing has left our people fractured, decimated and demoralized. But as long as one drop of that noble blood of old runs through one Southron’s veins, we shall answer the call of the Ages and do what we do best- dry the tears, and where tragedy and sorrow hoped to take root, be an extended branch that gives them new strength and hope. If you’re lucky enough, you might just find a Mee-Maw and Pee-Paw along the way.  When Confederate President Jefferson Davis passed into Eternity on December 6th, 1889 he lie in State at New Orleans City Hall. Above the coffin a simple marquee spelled out the sentiments of millions of Southrons “He Suffered for Us”.
Yes, Jefferson Davis, a man who gave his all to a United States that betrayed himself and his people, and then gave his life, his honor and fortune to those same people, did not walk away quickly with a parole, nor was he included of any of the subsequent “pardons” offered other leaders of Dixie for the “crime” of having defended his people. Instead, for two agonizing years, Davis was held without trial as a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. There, the frail, worn leader of his people, nearly blind in one eye from the neuralgia that became only more inflamed with the cold night air of the harbor, was a source of both torture and ridicule to his Yankee captors. Yet he bore it all with a grace and dignity that won the admiration and sympathies of the South-even among those who had not been friendly to his administration of the late Southern nation. Thankfully before death struck him, the Statesman was released on bond by a Government that had become nationally embarrassed by his treatment at their hands-and was increasingly uncertain that they could convict him of treason. Jefferson Davis never held public office again. While he urged young Southrons to be Americans, he fiercely defended the Southern course of actions in the 1860s, and stressed that it’s principles were timeless, likely to be revived again though “it may be in another time, in another form.” Appalled at the groveling and apologies offered up by the scalawags of his day, Davis stated: "Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again." Today, on the anniversary of the great man’s birth, we as Southern Nationalists should ask the question: What are we, the posterity that the Confederate President spoke of, doing to make the suffering of our chieftain and the multitudes of Southerners like him worth doing all over again? Happy Birthday Mr. President. We won’t let you down. Dixie Traveller  “Why is it now that the North hates slavery? For the reason that they are, to some extent, responsible for the institution because of the Union, and for the reason that by hating slavery they get office.…. Separate us from the North, and the North will be no attraction to the black man-no attraction to the slaves. It is not from a love for the black man that they receive him now; but it is from a hatred to slavery and from a hatred to the owners of slaves.”
- Judge Henry L. Benning of Georgia to the Virginia Secession Convention, February 18, 1861 “It (the party of the North) seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.” -A Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi From the Federal Union In judging the anti-slavery movement that was so prominent in the mid-19th Century and understanding the actions of Abolitionists and reactions of Southerners, context is appropriate. In the 19th Century, no less than 11 countries worldwide abolished slavery, from the British West Indies to Cuba to Brazil. This emancipation generally followed a platform that included- 1)Compensation to the slave owner for their investment in slavery to minimize the economic damage from the loss of the institution 2) A gradual emancipation or “phasing out” of slavery as had been done in the Northern States prior to the War Between the States. Usually this stated that no one would be a slave born after a specific date. This would give the nation time to develop new means of labor and integrate the freedmen to be into the country’s society, although to what extent varied by country. Even with compensated, peaceful and gradual emancipation, abolition did not guarantee success. When Britain abolished slavery in its territories, the once prosperous colonies of Barabados and Jamaica sharply declined in wealth and gave rise to a large, impoverished class. Worse still was the only other country to abolish slavery by violence-Haiti. After genocide of the island whites at Santo Domingo, the new freedman’s nation was the sight of constant poverty, famine, coups and corrupt government unable to deal with frequent natural disasters such as hurricanes. In our previous blog on the Abolitionist movement, we see that the first approach was not favored by New England Abolitionists-they demanded immediate, uncompensated emancipation- while the second approach, another “Santo Domingo” seems to have been a fetish of Yankee Abolitionists. In judging the following statements, it may be remembered that he Abolition spirit in New England was not borne out of Enlightenment Philosophy or philanthropy. It was borne out of fanaticism. The ideological and biological descendants of the Salem Witch Hunters, when Unitarianism began to undermine their religion, needed a new outlet for their fanatical, persecuting nature. They explored Know-Nothingism(reviving the ancient Puritan hatred of the Catholic) then busied themselves for a time with the drinker through prohibition “liquor laws”, before finally settling on the Southern slaveholder as the most lucrative political target. Despite these minor flaws like continually advocating genocide and promoting Puritanism(defined as: that sinking, sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you suspect that someone-somewhere- may actually be enjoying themselves), it’s possible the New England Abolitionists of the mid-19th Century still had a a shred of human decency about them, right? After all, almost every waking moment of their lives was devoted to promoting the well-being of the noble African race, as is clearly evinced in their statements before, during and after the War for Southern Independence: 'I do not wish to have the slave emancipated because I love him,' the governor responded, 'but because I hate his master.' -Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chase, later Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court “…free blacks would continue to be an inferior caste and simply die out"- U.S. Senator John Dix, New Jersey, for whom Ft. Dix is named “The abolitionist wishes to abolish slavery, but because he wishes to abolish the black man…. The dark man, the black man, declines… it will happen by and by that the black man will be destined for museums like the Dodo” -Ralph Waldo Emerson “Henry Ward Beecher’s favourite money-maker was a mock slave auction that he staged over and over again. On every occasion the “slave” was a young, attractive female and almost white; there is no recorded instance of an “auction” of a male, child or ugly female “slave”. -Dr. Clyde N. Wilson, The Yankee Problem “an inferior fellow…. a thing of ugliness, disease, and death... [and] a most hateable thing”-Hinton R. Helper “The negro race already occupy enough of this fair continent. Let us keep what remains for ourselves, and our children — for the emigrant that seeks our shores — for the poor man, that wealth shall oppress — for the free white laborer” -David Wilmot, Author of the Wilmot Proviso “The African race, bond and free, and the aborigines, savage and civilised, being incapable of such assimilation and absorption, remain distinct, and, owing to their peculiar condition, constitute inferior masses, and may be regarded as accidental if not disturbing political forces.” – Senator William H. Seward of New York My worst preconception of their appearance and their ignorance did not fall as low as their actual stupidity.... They appear to be nothing more than moving masses of flesh unendowed with anything of intelligence above the brutes.” - Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts (Washington D.C.) “is a mean Godforsaken n---er-ridden place….food was cooked by n----rs until I can smell and taste the n---er”- Senator Benjamin F. Wade, Ohio I have vindictiveness enough to wish to keep in the South the burden which they themselves created” – Congressman Jacob Brinkerhoff, Ohio “By God, sir, men born and nursed of white women are not going to be ruled by men who were brought up on the milk of some damned Negro wench!- Congressman David Wilmot, Pennsylvania, author of the Wilmot Proviso “As a class the Blacks are indolent, improvident, servile, and licentious.” - Horace Greeley, Abolitionist editor of the New York Tribune “But the great mass, as they are seen at work, under overseers, in the fields, appear very dull, idiotic, and brute-like; and it requires an effort to appreciate that they are, very much more than the beasts they drive, our brethren—a part of ourselves. They are very ragged, and the women especially, who work in the field with the men, with no apparent distinction in their labor, disgustingly dirty. They seem to move very awkwardly, slowly, and undecidedly, and almost invariably stop their work while the train is passing.” - Frederick Law Olmstead “Let him starve and EXTERMINATE himself if he will, and so remove the Negro question”. -Edward Atkinson, Boston Abolitionist “The free colored people (of New England) were looked upon as an inferior caste to whom their liberty was a curse, and their lot worse than that of the slaves.” -William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist editor of The Liberator No free negro or mulatto not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbor them” -Oregon Constitution of 1857, approved by voters by a vote of 8,640 to 1,081) “No Negro or Mulatto shall come into or settle in the State after the adoption of this Constitution” All contracts made with any negro or mulatto, coming into this State contrary to the provision of the foregoing section shall be void” - “Topeka” Abolitionist Kansas Constitution of 1855 Approved by “Free-State” voters 1,287-453 -"Three-fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a free white State, and the heaviest voting against the free Negro was in Lawrence and Topeka”. -Author and journalist Henry Villard, quoted by Julius E. Haldeman in John Brown-His Life and Martyrdom In the State where I live, we do not like Negroes. We do not disguise our dislike. As my friend from Indiana (Mr. Wright) said yesterday, “The whole people of the Northwestern States, are, for reasons, whether correct or not, opposed to having many Negroes among them, and that principle or prejudice has been engraved in the legislation of nearly all the Northwestern States.” - Senator John Sherman of Ohio (brother of General William T. Sherman) “I do not concur in any way, or to any degree in the plan proposed” [and that you will be deprived] “of the strength of hundreds of stout arms, which would be nerved with the desperation of men fighting for liberty….Contemplating, however, the possibility of such removal, permit me to say that the Northern States are of all places the worst possible to select for an asylum . . . I would take the liberty of suggesting some Union foothold in the South.” - John J. Andrew, war Governor of Massachusetts, in response to General John Dix’s proposal to settle freed slaves in Massachusetts (this did not stop Governor Andrew from requesting that the Government count freed South Carolina slaves toward Massachusetts' quota of troops for the war on the South) Now that we Southerners have visited the noble North, seen her righteous band of freedom fighters and their attitudes toward not only their victims-our ancestors- but toward the lucky beneficiaries of their genocidal revolution-the black man-we have to ask ourselves: Had tariffs, Constitutional, State's Rights and the entire big government agenda NOT been an issue at all in 1860-61(they were); had our ancestors exercised their Sovereign Right leave the Union of their Fathers solely to avoid being ruled by such darling and charming people as the Abolitionists we have visited in the past two blogs, can we really find any fault with them? Bear with me, good reader, for we may visit them another time..... “Suppose the people of the South would today voluntarily surrender $3 billion in slave property and send their slaves at their expense to the free states, would you accept them as freemen and citizens of your States? You dare not answer me that you would. You would fight us with all your energy and power for twenty years…” - Congressman John H. Reagan of Texas Dixie Traveller  They say, it is true the Constitution dictates this, the Bible inculcates that, but there is a higher law than those; and they call upon you to obey that higher law of which they are the inspired givers. Men who are traitors to the compact of their fathers--men who have perjured the oaths they have themselves taken--they who wish to steep their hands in the blood of their brothers; these are the moral law-givers who proclaim a higher law than the Bible or the Constitution, and the laws of the land ... What security have you for your own safety if every man of vile temper, of low instincts, of base purpose, can find in his own heart a law higher than that which is the rule of society, the Constitution and the Bible?" - Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis In the 1999 movie “Ride With the Devil” the Evans family, Missouri homesteaders living on the Kansas border entertain a Confederate guerilla fighter who has sought refuge with them for the evening. After dinner the Missouri guerilla discusses a wide range of topics with the Evans family, but ultimately everyone’s mind turns to the then raging War Between the States. Mr. Evans, hearing the Missouri guerilla say he’ll “always want to fight them”(Yankees) asks if he has ever seen Lawrence, Kansas. (the frontier headquarters of Abolitionism). When the guerilla answers no, Mr. Evans tells of his days in the Kansas Territory watching New Englanders build Lawrence: “As I watched those Northerners building that town, I witnessed the seeds of our own destruction being sown. I’m not speaking of abolitionist trouble-making, or even the number of Northerners. It was the school. Before they built the church, they built that schoolhouse. Then they brought in every farmer’s son and every farmer’s daughter and made sure they would think and live the same free-thinking way they do, without regard to station, or stature, or custom, or propriety. That’s when I realized that the Yankees will surely win, because they believe everyone must live and think just like them. We don’t want to make everyone be like us. We shall surely lose because we don’t care how other people live-we just take care of ourselves.” And so it was. Through the New England created public school systems, millions of American children are indoctrinated every year to think the “correct” Northern way on all matters. This includes such figures as the Abolitionists of the 1840s and 50s. Yes, the Abolitionists- those noble, righteous reasonable men who loved the black man and “peacefully protested” slavery until violent slavocrats forced them to fight. To this end, the modern day left, fighting for drag queen story hour, freeing criminals or reparations from you, often refer to themselves as “modern day Abolitionists”. A prominent Antifa Militia with Chapters across the U.S. even proudly refers to itself as the “John Brown Gun Club”-named for the Abolitionist whose deadly terrorist attacks on Southern families in Kansas culminated in his failed attempted genocide of white Southerners at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in 1859.(Ironically this man Northern troops idolized in the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” while putting down the “rebellion” was hanged for treason). As a Southerner, you probably wonder what issue your ancestors could possibly have taken with such a heroic band of missionaries of truth, justice and the American way. Since social media has taught us that operating the cut-and-paste functions on quotes online is the same thing as having a Doctorate in History, I compiled just a handful of quotes from our lovable band of Freedom Fighters on a range of topics. The Abolitionists on Genocide of your Ancestors: “you would be instrumental in bringing upon your wives, and your children, a fate too horrible to contemplate, one that would surpass the massacre of St. Bartholemew." -Hinton R. Helper , The Impending Crisis (John Brown) is the JOHN THE BAPTIST of the New Dispensation of Freedom”-Edward D. Holton of Milwaukee “if it were necessary, we could clear off thousand million square miles so that not a city or cultivated filed would remain; WE COULD EXTERMINATE NINE MILLIONS OF WHITE PEOPLE(SOUTHERNERS) and re-settle-re-people the lands.” -Newburyport, Massachusetts Daily Herald, May 24th , 1861 “I look for the day when I shall see a negro insurrection in the South, when the negroes will be supplied with British bayonets and commanded by British officers, and shall wage a WAR OF EXTERMINATION AGAINST THE WHITES, WHEN EVERY WHITE MAN SHALL SEE HIS DWELLING IN FLAMES and his hearth polluted”-Congressman Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio “Resolved, that it is the right and duty of Northern men to incite and aid negroes in the South to rise in insurrection”-Resolution of Senator Henry Wilson at Natick, Massachusetts, 1859 “When I am on the trail of the enemy against whom I have a deadly hate, I will follow him with cat-like tread will not strike until I can strike him dead. I do not wish to give the South notice of our intentions. When the time comes to strike I want the South to have the first notice of the blow in the blow itself”-Governor Andrew Reeder of Kansas “The logic of bayonets and rifles and pikes will be henceforth used against the South.”-John Andrews, War Governor of Massachusetts, December, 1859 “The Saint(John Brown) whose fate yet hangs in suspense, but whose martyrdom, if it shall be perfected, shall make the gallows glorious, like the Cross.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson “Old Brown is supposed to have been strangled today, for obeying the Golden Rule.”-Wood County, Wisconsin Reporter December 2nd, 1859 “John Brown, dead, will live in millions of hearts….let none doubt that history will accord an honorable niche to John Brown”-Horace Greeley “(Brown) was the impersonation of God’s order and God’s law.”-Wendell Phillips “You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider what you are about to do Him who offered Himself to be the Savior of Four Millions of men” -Henry David Thoreau On the second day of December he(Brown) is to be strangled in a Southern prison, for obeying the Sermon on the Mount. But to be hanged in Virginia, is like being crucified in Jerusalem — it is the last tribute which he pays to Virtue!” -E.D. Wheelock, Vermont “and when the time arrives for the streets and cities of this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ to run with blood to the horses’ bridles, if the writer of this be living, there will be one heart to rejoice at the retributive justice of heaven”- William O. Duvall, New York “To-day John Brown was hanged by a semibarbarous Commonwealth, as a traitor, murderer, and robber, and fifteen despotic States are rejoicing at his death; while, in the free North, every noble heart is sighing at his fate, or admiring his devotion... or cursing the executioners of their warrior-saint.”-James Redpath “Brown was the sword in the hand of a high power, the finger of God writing upon the walls of Belshazzar’s palace the doom of tyrants” -Rev. J.M. Manning, Boston “I would like to live long enough to see every white man in South Carolina in Hell, and the negroes inheriting their territory” -Senator James Lane of Kansas “Not to be an abolitionist is to be a willful and diabolical instrument of the devil.”- The Impending Crisis by Hinton R. Helper “It may be that the slaves thus armed will commit some atrocities. We shall regret it. But we repeat, this war has been forced upon us.... We hesitate not to say, that it will be better, immeasurably better, that the rebellion should be crushed, even with the incidental consequences attendant on a servile insurrection, than that the hopes of the world in the capacity of mankind to maintain free institutions should expire with American liberty. - American Review of Boston, Massachusetts “the negroes(should) be let loose on the whites, men, women and children indiscriminately....”- The New York Courier and Enquirer “I say, better a boundless waste of territory, filled with owls and bats, than that the Southern States should be occupied with such men”-Richard Busted, Carpetbag Alabama Judge If I had the power, I would arm…every Negro of the South….and EXTERMINATE every man woman and CHILD south of Mason’s and Dixon’s line” – William” Parson” Brownlow, Reconstruction Scallywag Governor of Tennessee “Illinois raised 250,000 troops to fight the South, and now we are ready to raise 500,000 more to FINISH THE GOOD WORK” – Illinois Governor Yates (Republicans) will win the election “even if we have to kill every last white man, woman and child in the entire State!”-1875 aide to Mississippi Reconstruction Governor Adlebert Ames. To illustrate the conditions that Abolitionists like Hinton Helper, John Brown and Wendell Phillips wished to bring on Southern Whites, a sketch of the Haitian Slave Revolt is helpful: In an instant twelve hundred coffee and two hundred sugar plantations were in flames: the buildings, the machinery, the farm offices, reduced to ashes; the unfortunate proprietors hunted down, murdered or thrown into the flames by infuriated negroes. The horrors of a servile war universally appeared. The unchained African signalized his ingenuity by the discovering of new and unheard-of modes of torture. An unhappy planter was sawed asunder between two boards; the horrors inflicted on the women exceeded anything known even in the annals of Christian ferocity. Upon the indulgent master young and old, rich and poor, the wrongs of an oppressed race were indiscriminately wreaked. Crowds of slaves traversed the country with the heads of white children affixed on their pikes; they served as the standards of these furious assemblages. In a few instances only, the humanity of the negro character resisted the savage contagion of the time; and some faithful slaves, at the hazard of their own lives, fed in caves their masters or their children, whom they had rescued from destruction. And do our modern-day Abolitionists realize that had their forefathers succeeded in their mission that you, Southerner, and everyone you love would not exist today? Well of course they do, silly. That’s the point-always has been.    Sam Early "The lordly Littlefield, amiably accessible, keeps his carriage at the hotel door to facilitate responses to eager calls from members of the Legislature. Night finds bright lights and abundant whiskey in hotels rooms where members, won by money, stagger joyously. Having sold a United States Senatorship, these importunate statesmen are now blackmailing the purchasers with threats of exposure, and money is forthcoming." Description of Tallahassee under Reconstruction Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era, The Revolution After Lincoln When THEY say "a danger to our democracy" they are not talking about your democracy or my democracy. Your democracy and my democracy died nearly 200 years ago. They are talking about THEIR democracy, the democracy of the rich and powerful that serves their interests, not the interests of us and our families. America changed markedly after 1848 when thousands of communist refugees ended up in the US following their failure to take a single country during Karl Marx's revolution of that year. Communists soon figured out how to work the system and gain power, wealth and influence in the U.S., until they controlled just about every way we get information. They control not just which events they want us to know about but the perspective from which they are told. A lot of people don't think for themselves and those people vote. They are easily manipulated.
Soon after communists came to America, they began overturning election results. If you don't believe me, just ask the people of Los Angeles, Colorado or Samuel Tilden, the Democratic presidential candidate for 1876. In 1859 the people of Southern California voted overwhelmingly to secede from the rest of California and form the territory of Colorado. Denver's hinterland had not yet claimed the name; Idaho also considered calling itself Colorado early on but went with Idaho. Southern California included the counties of Los Angeles (including today's Orange County), Santa Barbara (which included today's Ventura), San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Tulare (which included today's Kern County) and San Bernardino. The California Legislature approved the measure and the Governor signed the bill. But the people's vote was overruled behind the scenes by people in Washington who did not want two more senators from outside the Northeast which would happen anyway when Colorado Territory took the next step which was to apply for statehood. The votes were: For Separation from California Against Separation from California Los Angeles Co. 1,407 441 San Bernardino Co. 441 29 San Luis Obispo Co. 10 283* San Diego Co. 207 24 Santa Barbara Co. 395 51 Tulare 17 0 Total 2,477 828 *This is the way the county clerk recorded it but most historians think San Luis Obispo County's results were accidentally transposed. Samuel Tilden was elected president of the US by a majority of popular votes in a seceded Southern California. He had 184 of the 185 electoral votes needed to win in the Electoral College. Rutherford B. Hayes had only 165 committed to him. It was obvious that Tilden had won the election of 1876 but, although exactly how it happened is only speculative, deals were made in back rooms to give Hayes the presidency. In return for the South's acceptance of Hayes as president, US troops were removed from its state capital buildings, court houses and streets. Eventually the Federal government would build military bases outside of major Southern cities in case Southerners got any ideas about trying for independence again. The bases were named for Southerners to give the Southern public a feeling of ease – like today's Department of Homeland Security or the Patriot Act. Fortunately, they have lost that camouflage and can now be seen for what they are: A foreign invader needing to prop up its collapsing empire by intimidating its increasingly awakening people. The biggest threat to OUR DEMOCRACY™ were the elections of 1860 to 1876. The rich and powerful feared the results, or potential results, of democratically held elections at this time. The people of the Southern states demanded elections in 1860 to give them a voice in governing themselves rather than being governed by a hostile North. They elected delegates to their state's Constitutional Conventions from a slate of Secessionists vs Unionists in Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. No one ran as a Unionist in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. South Carolina elected no Unionists; all 169 delegates to South Carolina's Secession Convention were Secessionists. In addition, all five Indian tribes of Oklahoma voted to support the Confederacy. The people of Arizona territory, where slavery was illegal, also voted to become independent from the US and "join their fellow Southerners" as they said in their declaration. The US threatened Kentucky with military invasion if the governor allowed a democratic vote; the governor backed off, not wanting his state invaded. The people organized their own election and Kentuckians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the US. The US invaded. All these states and territories voted 66% or more for the super majority needed to pass legislation in a constitutional convention. So much for your democracy and my democracy. The Federals threatened to invade Delaware if that state allowed its people the chance to vote. The legislature backed down and forbade the people the right to vote. Maryland was invaded by Federal troops and eventually became an immense prison camp. Many legally elected state and local governments would be overturned and their officials imprisoned. The Federal Government thought it could do a better job of selecting governments than the citizens of those states had done. Now we face world war because Russians who had been separated from Russia by the communist to become part of Ukraine voted to secede from Ukraine and unite with their fellow nationals. For some reason the US Government thinks it has the right and duty to override the perfectly expressed wishes of people halfway around the world. The US Government hates secession. Secession is the people firing its government when it is no longer best for them. Time to fire the US Government. It no longer works for us. It doesn't work for my democracy or your democracy. It only works for OUR DEMOCRACY™. Dixie TravellerSouth Carolina politics is often hard to understand, but never boring. In the Palmetto State’s storied history, she had given us such unique and talented statesmen as Charles C. Pinkney, John C. Calhoun, James H. Hammond, Robert Barnwell Rhett and Wade Hampton. In the 20th Century she didn’t disappoint, giving us such larger than life personalities as “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, “Cotton” Ed Smith and Strom Thurmond.
Calhoun’s “gallant little State” has also given us some entertaining moments in political history. Whether it’s Congressman Preston Brooks caning the repulsive Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Governor Mark Sanford releasing pigs onto the floor of the Statehouse to protest “pork” in the budget, or Congressman Joe Wilson shouting “YOU LIE!” at President Obama during the 2009 State of the Union Address.(Time would vindicate the Charleston-area Congressman when it was revealed that Obama DID lie when telling Congress that illegals would not be eligible for ObamaCare). This Saturday, voters in the Palmetto State will go to the polls to vote in the Republican Presidential Primary. Barring a massive shift in opinion, former President Donald Trump will easily defeat former South Carolina Governor Nimrata “Nikki” Haley. Despite this embarrassing loss in her home State, which would end the Presidential hopes of most candidates, it is not a foregone conclusion that Nikki Haley will drop out after her loss in the State she governed for six years. After all, she’s been soundly beaten in every Caucus and Primary so far, hasn’t she? Where does one go once they lose their home State Primary, on the heels of getting trounced by “None of the Above” in Nevada? Haley may well suspend her campaign after Trump trounces her on Saturday. But why she’s stayed in the race long after it was obvious she had no chance may say a lot about Haley-and the people still backing her. The year was 2010, and South Carolina’s race for Governor was wide open. Outgoing Governor Mark Sanford, whose administration was ending in a sex scandal, was term limited and unable to run again.(Though this scandal would not stop Sanford, two years later, from being elected to Congress). Despite this embarrassment for the South Carolina G.O.P., they stood heavily favored to hold on to the Governor’s Mansion. South Carolina had leaned Republican for decades, and the unpopularity of President Obama in the State as midterms approached was palpable. Initially, the favored candidate to win the Republican nomination for Governor was Gresham Barrett, a former Congressman from the Upcountry. Indeed, when back-bench legislator Nikki Haley of Lexington County(near Columbia) told a former South Carolina Republican party chairman that she intended to run for Governor, the man told her to instead run for State Treasurer; with time, he could make her State Republican Party chair. However, the stars were already in her eyes and Haley pointedly told him “I’m going to be Governor.” The former Party Chair then promised all the support he could, but time was short. Most of the Palmetto State’s donors had lined up behind Barrett or South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. But Haley had two important allies-disgraced outgoing Governor Mark Sanford and his now-estranged wife, Jenny. Nikki Haley leaned heavily on Sanford, despite the ongoing investigation into his activities, to push ReformSC, a PAC used by Sanford, to fund her race. Though Sanford later apologized to Henry McMaster for the ads, ReformSC poured over $400,000 into Nikki Haley for Governor ads touting her-somewhat disingenuously-as a Tea Party favorite. With this image created and Haley gaining traction in GOP Primary polls, it was time to bring out the Big Guns. The Haley for Governor campaign had courted failed Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin earlier, but not until Haley’s numbers began to rise did the Palin people agree to endorse her. On May 14, 2010 Sarah Palin stood on the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse and declared “She is a fighter and a winner.” All of a sudden, the media was giving Nikki Haley the attention she knew she always deserved. Nikki Haley was the new rock star of the South Carolina Republican Party, covered by all manner of news media. But of course, with fame, skeletons started coming out of the closet. In a sworn affidavit, Larry Marchant, an aide to Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, swore that he had an affair with Haley while she was a member of the South Carolina Legislature. The next day, almost as if on cue, State Senator Jake Knotts referred to a “raghead”, presumably Haley, on a local radio show. The timing couldn’t have been better for Haley. Taking a play out of the left-wing playbook, she denied the affair and denounced anyone as “sexist” for spreading the rumor about a female candidate. (Never mind that the outgoing male Governor was ruined by the revelation of his extramarital affair). With Palin’s rockstar power and the sympathy vote behind her, Nikki Haley barely needed a runoff to secure victory in the GOP Primary. That Fall, she defeated Democrat Vincent Sheheen 51-47%. On January 12, 2011, Nikki Haley was sworn in as the first non-White Governor of South Carolina. Under most circumstances, Nikki Haley would’ve probably passed into history rather quietly. Her first term was devoted to rather garden variety Southern G.O.P. policies-taking credit for South Carolina’s economic growth, aggressively opposing unions, and laws targeting anti-Israel boycotts. On the strength of this and another anti-Obama midterm wave, Haley easily won a rematch with 2010 opponent Sheheen in 2014. But on June 17, 2015, an event occurred in South Carolina that would catapult Nikki Haley into a national rockstar. That’s the evening that 21-year old Dylan Roof walked into the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston and gunned down 10 parishioners (nine died) in a crime that reverberated throughout the State and the nation. As an aside, I remember talking with a good friend a day after the shooting. After stating our astonishment that anyone would be capable of such and act, I recall saying that “two things will take the blame for this: guns and white Southerners.” At the time, I fully believed the gun-grabbing Obama administration would latch onto the horrific shooting as another justification for gun control. But when images of shooter Dylan Roof in front of a Confederate flag started flooding CNN and MSNBC, it was obvious they were after bigger game. Initially, like most Southern Republicans, Nikki Haley was indifferent to the Confederate flag on the South Carolina grounds, merely responding to an economic boycott over the flag by saying that not a single CEO had reached out to her concerned about its presence on Capitol grounds. However, by June 19, two days after the shooting, she was doing what most Southern Republicans do-sounding wish-washy, saying “we’ll see where the conversation goes.” But where a true leader might have welcomed discussion on the massacre, provided context and explained that all of South Carolina(including those who loved their Confederate ancestry)mourned with the parishioners in Charleston, stars once again got in Nikki Haley’s eyes. In her eyes, this was her chance to be a southern John McCain, a Republican even liberals liked, the chance to rise above being an accidental Governor of a backwater Southern State and become a national figure. By June 22nd Haley was siding with those who blamed the flag and those who loved it for the massacre: “These grounds are a place that everyone should feel a part of . What I realized now more than ever is people were driving by and felt hurt and pain. No one should feel pain…”There is a place for that flag, but it’s not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina”. Withing two weeks, at Haley’s urging, the South Carolina Legislature voted to haul down the Confederate Battle flag from the State’s Confederate monument, where it had stood since the “compromise” that brought it down from the Capitol dome fifteen years earlier. Despite the promises that the flag would be retired with dignity, the furling was attended by a group of left-wingers jeering, cursing, and chanting “na-na-na, na-na-na. Hey,hey,hey, goodbye!” The flag was gone, and the symbolism of its demise was felt throughout Dixie. In Alabama, Governor Robert Bentley(soon to be chased from office by a sex scandal of his own) ordered the Flag at the Alabama Capitol lowered as well. Across the South schools banned the Battle flag from being displayed on shirts and belt buckles, and Amazon eBay, Etsy and Wal-Mart banned sales of the flag and items with its likeness. Not to be outdone, all streaming services banned shows like the Dukes of Hazzard which favorably feature the Confederate Battle flag from being shown. But the most prominent result of Haley’s actions during the summer of 2015 are still with us: the destruction and melting down of monuments of to the Confederate dead, the calls to dynamite the carving on Stone Mountain and the renaming of everything from streets to military bases are part of the culture the South Carolina Governor greenlighted. And what was Haley’s reward for these actions? Being named to the highly coveted spot as the Republican responding to President Obama’s State of the Union Address the following January. The “Party of Lincoln” who had no better friend than the Southern white male, was impressed by Nikki Haley’s bashing of their core voters- and the fact that as a non-white, she played against Republican stereotypes. Among other garden variety Republican topics in the response, Haley proudly touted her anti-Southern credentials: “we removed a symbol that was being used to divide us , as we found a strength that united us against a domestic terrorist and the hate that filled him” Presumably “we” meant South Carolina, except the South Carolinians who did not blame the flag for the massacre and still revered it as a sacred hereditary symbol, but hey, they voted Republican anyway, so they didn't count. The Republican Party was generally impressed with Haley’s January 2016 Response to Obama’s State of the Union. She was even on a list of potential 2016 Vice-Presidential candidate in the eyes of many. But she was about to bet on the wrong horse. Haley frequently criticized then-Candidate Trump during the primaries and thereafter. She vehemently opposed Trump’s proposal to build a Border wall stating that “Republicans need to remember that the fabric of America came from these legal immigrants.” Ahead of South Carolina’s early Republican Presidential Primary, Haley stated that Trump was “everything a Governor doesn’t want in a President” and endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio.(In spite of Haley, Trump easily won the Palmetto State’s Primary) When Rubio dropped out, Haley endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz as an alternative to Trump. By Fall, Haley reluctantly admitted she intended to vote for Trump, though she was “not a fan”. Within weeks of his surprise election victory, Haley was contacting Trump’s transition team about a Cabinet appointment. By December Nikki Haley was named U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. In typical Nikki Haley fashion, she was a loyal Cabinet member to President Trump-until she wasn’t. While supporting most of his policy positions, Haley gave credence to the Russia hoax, stating that “when a country can come interfere in another country’s elections, that is warfare”. Haley also at least expressed a willingness to believe the endless train of women accusing Donald Trump of sexual harassment, none of which have been substantiated. Haley resigned her position with little comment in 2018, but stated during her book tour the next year that “In every instance I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened and he was great to work with”. Two years later would be a different story. On a cold, cloudy January day in 2021, thousands of Americans crowded into Washington D.C. to protest irregularities in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Without going into gory detail, the official narrative is that several stormed into the U.S. Capitol and briefly occupied it. In the ensuing chaos that followed, Capitol police killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, one of the Americans who had entered the Capitol. Despite the fact that outgoing President Trump had urged the crowd to proceed “peacefully” to the U.S. Capitol, establishment Republicans rushed to blame him for the attack. The political winds were shifting, and nobody knew how to shift better than Nikki Haley. “I think he’s lost any sort of political viability he was going to have….he’s fallen so far….We need to acknowledge he let us down”. By late 2021, Haley had reconsidered stating that she would support her former boss if he ran for President in 2024. But by 2023, no candidate had emerged in the G.O.P. as an “anti-Trump” alternative and Nikki Haley again had stars in her eyes. By September, she was announcing her candidacy for President of the United States. Haley started out poorly, barely polling in single digits in early States like Iowa and New Hampshire. But in December 2023, the billionaire community started rallying around Haley as the “never Trumper” candidate. Left-wing LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman chipped in $250,000. JPMorgan and Chase CEO Jamie Dimon followed suit and urged business leaders who were “liberal Democrats” to support the Haley campaign. Finally, Republican Megadonor Charles Koch’s SuperPAC endorsed Haley, bringing on board other billionaires such as Home Depot founder Ken Langone. With this bankroll behind her, Nikki Haley got out of the basement in the GOP Primaries and managed a close third in the Iowa Caucuses (despite Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ constant presence in the Hawkeye State, he only narrowly edged out Nimrata) Yet, all the money in the world can’t save Nikki Haley from the occasional gaffe. Questioned a couple of months ago about the cause of the “Civil War”, Haley, realizing she had to win at least a few of the “rednecks” she bashed on her way to fame in order to win the South Carolina Primary, stumbled and said something about “how government was supposed to run-the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do”. Immediately the media pounced, especially “conservative” media who worship Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. She further erred when asked about Texas secession, stating that “it can if the citizens decide to do so”, quickly adding that Texas “isn’t going to”. Neoconservative media loved her if she was bashing Southern whites, but quickly turned on her when she said things, well, like a South Carolina Governor would. Sensing danger, Nikki Haley quickly did what a liberal does: she played the race card. On the eve of the New Hampshire Republican Primary, Haley told NBC Sunday about being "the only Indian family in our small Southern town. I was teased every day for being brown" and "how hard it was to grow up in the Deep South as a brown girl". In Nikki Haley's eyes, she might lose some of the friends and neighbors she had growing up in Bamberg, South Carolina, but New Hampshire Yankees might eat this garbage up.(luckily, they didn't) Thus stands the case of Nimrata Randhawa a.k.a Nikki Haley in February 2024. After February 24th, there will be only one rationale for a Nikki Haley candidacy-the hope that Donald Trump will either die or be convicted of a felony before the Republican National Convention in July. I doubt the first will happen, but look closely for the second. When and if Donald Trump is convicted on felony charges(fraudulent as they might be), the RNC, seeing that Trump’s convicted felon status bars him from the ballot in numerous States, may be able to deny him the nomination even with a majority of delegates. According to the Associated Press "longstanding party rules allow the RNC to free a State" from delegate-binding rules "if compliance is impossible". Being barred from numerous State ballots for being a convicted felon would seem to fit the bill. This would be a test of how much power RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel(niece of Mitt Romney) has. This could throw the RNC to an open convention, where the edge will go to the candidate who by far had the next highest amount of delegates-none other than ex-Gov. Nikki Haley. And if you believe that the Republican Party would never do such a thing, afraid a demoralized Party will re-elect Biden in the Fall, remember that there is a small, but powerful minority of them who would do just that rather than allow a second Trump term. All things considered, I’m entering this weekend with a pretty positive attitude, convinced that South Carolina will redeem herself and correct a terrible, if understandable mistake. Like most in the Southern heritage world, I will continue to enjoy Nimrata’s State-by-State humiliation. But I will never underestimate the ability of Nikki Haley to slither her way into positions of power. It’s what she does. |
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