Loyal Southern Blacks Weapon of Choice "The Southern White Man"
May 11, 2020
Loyal Southern Blacks Weapon of Choice: "The Southern White Man"
Dear Miss Lunelle,
When one is a Southern black or white man in the 21st century, he is supposed to have little knowledge of the place of juxtaposition that the Almighty God put them as brothers. Called by different names; "one master, one slave”.
Who, but they, could have accomplished 'together' what they did in building, and moving the earth's civilization forward as in His plan. And, no better stand to this Charge, than the one they made together in the War for Southern Independence against tyranny, and for the "Rule of Law” as established in the Constitution; so says they.
80 The Confederate Veteran Fifty Cents a Year S. A. Cunningham, Editor
Office at The American Corner Church and Cherry Sts.
Give The Old Slave A Home
It is consistent with the spirit of the Confederate Veteran to introduce and advocate a measure which will surprise, but I trust please, our best people . It is to give homes to the old Negroes who were slaves for twenty years. This project has had earnest consideration. It has been submitted to friends who have frowned and smiled alternately, the frown coming first.
Its scope widens upon reflection. and the good that would come of it , while being much more beneficial to the South than the North, would hardly bring a tithe of benefits, in a sectional sense, to what has been enjoyed on the other side . The Pensions annually are now about $190,000,000, and distributed in large proportion at the North. This act of benevolence toward a people, whose bondage existed for twenty years or more, would be a tax upon the Government of say $60,000,000, but it would be once for all. The plan contemplates an appropriation of $200 to be expended for land and $100 with which to build a residence for every male and female who served as a slave for twenty years previous to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, Feb. 22, 1865, provided he or she has never been pensioned and has never held any position under the pay of the Government.
The suggested conditions of this benefaction are that the $200 be expended for land so cheap that it will buy not less than ten acres. It may be as low as they can find it. The right to sell said land should be denied them for ten years. These sums should be invested through white commissioners not interested in the lands, and should be selected by the county courts, or similar authorities, to serve without compensation, the presumption being that good men would cheerfully and faithfully render these services gratuitously.
The beneficiary should, of course, in all cases, have the option as to details of investment. Where these ex- slaves own homes, if they reside upon the land they should be allowed to invest the residence appropriation of $100 in additional land. The foregoing is in brief the plan commended. Mediation will show, in an amazing degree, the benefits of such benevolence on the part of the Government. True the benefits would inure specifically to Southern white as well as black. On many a country place interests are largely identical. The white folks having maintained these old black people, and would do so anyhow. It would enable many whites to provide more liberally for them that they have ever done. It would induce many darkies to remove from dingy suburbs of cities and towns to the open and healthier atmosphere of the country. It would tend to increase respect of the younger Negroes for their ancestry, thereby strengthening one of the Commandments.
A plea for our old black people is deservedly pathetic. Who among us does not feel genuinely kind to the old darky on whose lips "Massa and "Mists" are still heard with musical euphony. Who among us, passing that period of their lives when many of them had hard task-masters, does not recall with an everlasting gratitude that, during the four years of war, thousands of them were loyal to the last degree, to the dependent members of the family whose protectors were in the war? Why, if the great Government to which we all bear allegiance should refuse them the benevolence herein suggested, it would be fitting for the Southern people, themselves, robbed by the Government of billions of money in holding then as lawful property, to undertake a provision of this kind.
Republicans, on the other side, cannot afford to oppose this measure. Their partisan representatives years ago, before the Southern people had recovered from the great disaster to their estates, promised "forty acres and a mule" to these identical persons.
The principles of Democracy are not observed in this plea, but the peculiar exigencies of the case should excuse the digression. It is a broad charity to a class whose, simple, unfailing faithfulness, though not strict as chicken roosts, merits the unstinted liberality of the American people. A Distinguished Tennessean and Democratic official, who limps from the effect of a Federal bullet, said, “If not Democratic it is Confederate.”
God bless you!
Your brother,
HK
Chairman of the Board of Advisors Emeritus of the Southern Legal Resource Center
Member of Save Southern Heritage Florida
Honorary Life Member Bradford Rose Camp 1638 Sons of Confederate Veterans
Honorary Life Member Forest Orphans Camp 1638 Sons of Confederate Veterans
Member of the Historic March Across Dixie Twenty Mile Club
Honorary Associate Member of the Abner Baker Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
Honorary Life Member of the North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia Orders of the Confederate Rose
President of Southern Heritage 411