Posted by: John Vandivier | June 20, 2013

This Juneteenth, Let’s Discuss the Real History of Rascism

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States that commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. state of Texas in 1865.

This is a Texan thing and we Texans better know our own history. Furthermore this story highlights principals and historical trends which are important in the larger American context and around the world. Juneteenth is now celebrated in 42 of the states and even in some foreign countries! Yet we still don’t understand the story.

In 1865 Texas was controlled by racists. Just a little while earlier, though, it hadn’t been.

Not that acceptable kind of awareness of the correlation of certain statistics to race inside of a particular causal situation, rather, I mean the out-and-out, “Niggers ain’t really people” kind of senseless and bigoted racism that haunts the history of America. How did Texas get this way?

Let’s remember how Sam Houston helped Texas gain independence in 1836. Sam Houston embodied everything that was Texas from its founding. First he signed the Texas Declaration of Independance, then he became Commander-in-Chief of Texas, then he whipped Santa Anna by the grace of God when all odds were against him in San Jacinto, then he became the President of Texas. Later, after the Annexation of Texas, Houston became the first Texan Senator in the US Senate, then was elected as Governor of Texas.

Here is the part where everything that is usually taught gets turned upside down – Houston was not racist. Selected excerpts from, “Sam Houston” by Thomas H. Krenek, reads:

“As senator, Houston emerged as an ardent Unionist…He stridently opposed the rising sectionalism of the antebellum period and delivered eloquent speeches on the issue. A supporter of the 1820 Missouri Compromise…Houston voted in 1848 for the Oregon Bill prohibiting the “peculiar institution” in that territory, a vote proslavery Southerners later held against him…Houston again clashed with his old nemesis who led the proslavery forces when he opposed John C. Calhoun’s Southern Address in 1849…He incurred the permanent wrath of proslavery elements by supporting the Compromise of 1850, a series of measures designed to ensure sectional harmony. In 1854, Houston alienated Democrats in Texas and the South even further by opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill because it allowed the status of slavery to be determined by popular sovereignty, a concept he saw as potentially destabilizing to the nation…As a lame-duck senator, Houston ran for governor of Texas in 1857. He was defeated in a rigorous campaign by the state Democratic party’s official nominee, Hardin R. Runnels…Houston ran a second time for governor in 1859. Because of his name recognition, a temporary lull in the sectional conflict, and other factors, he defeated the incumbent, Runnels…When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, the clamor of discontent in Texas prompted Houston to call a special session of the state legislature. Adamantly opposed to secession, Houston warned Texans that civil war would result in a Northern victory and destruction of the South…when he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the newly formed Confederate States of America, the Texas convention removed him from office on March 16 and replaced him with Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark two days later.”

Did you see when things changed? Did you see the big event? The racist Democratic party kicked Houston out. Houston was in the American Party not the Republican Party, but Texas didn’t have a Republican Party at that time. There were a number of what we would consider conservative or classically liberal parties around the US at that time including the American, Union, Republican and Whig Parties. Houston was anti-slavery and pro-union just like Lincoln. Houston didn’t want Texas engaged in the Civil War on the part of the confederacy. Lincoln, the Unionist, was a Republican! That’s right! The Republicans were the pro-union, anti-slavery party. Don’t believe people on the lie that the times have changed either. President Lyndon Johnson was a Texas Democrat as late as the 1960s who saw fit to honor the very same Texas Democrat Governor Edward Clark that kicked Sam Houston out by awarding his grandson, also named Edward Clark, an ambassadorship in 1965 to Australia. On an interesting side-note, the younger Ed Clark has been accused of playing a hand in the assassination of JFK.

The Democratic Party took over Texas in 1859 and, although the state is now red, things haven’t been pretty around here or the larger US since.

The Democratic Party is the racist party of America. They even founded the Ku Klux Klan! That’s right, the Klan was first founded in 1865 by Democrats. Their terrorist klansman attacked many white Republican abolition supporters, just as it did black freedmen. “The Prescript,” the first official document of KKK beliefs, was written by Confederate Army Veteran and Democratic Congressman George Gordon. The Klan acted as the terrorist wing of the Democratic party for years, intimidating the South into a racism it otherwise wouldn’t have had. See the two videos below for an overview of a comparison of the Democratic Party vs the Republican party on issues of race:

According to the videos, Democrats:
-Opposed black rights in their party platform by opposing the Dred Scott decision
-Founded the KKK
-Fought against the 13th-15th amendments
-Instituted Jim Crow Laws
-Fought against the civil rights act
-Continue to promote cultural racism and division in the modern day not only around whites and blacks but also Hispanics and others.
Bob Byrd served as a Democratic Senator for many years, until he died in 2010. He had been not only a member, but a leader in the KKK.
-Are mutually cooperating with the media in their perpetuation of racism

Rather than saying the cause is the Democratic Party, however, we need to realize that the Democratic Party is made up of people. These people are ideologically unified and are therefore strongly motivated to band together and form a political party. While it may be true in our modern time that being raised in a Democratic culture leads to racism, originally, when there was no such party, that was not the case. Ideology comes first. It is the ideology that we should be tracing as the root evil, rather than the political party per se, although the two are exceptionally correlated.

The reason I bring up the ideology point is multifaceted:
1) We know that liberals constitute the democratic party and therefore have evidence that (modern, not classical) liberalism is the real problem
2) We know that there are some ideological liberals which have infected the Republican party and pretend to be conservative. They are called neoconservatives and arguably include Marco Rubio, the Bush family, Boehner, McCain and others.
3) Ideology pervades more than politics and may be identified as an enemy in business, academic thinking, religion, personal behavior, and other locations, structures or manifestations.
4) In case we defeat the Democratic Party entirely, don’t pretend that the fight is over.

As I come near closing this article I would mention that liberals and the Democratic party are making their strongest racist actions yet in abortion. More than 55% of abortions are on minorities. According to the article just linked:

In the history of America, immigrants, minorities and the poor have often been treated as social outcasts and blamed for all sorts of social ills. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, argued that “all our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class.”

Today Planned Parenthood, America’s leading abortion promoter and provider, identifies its “core clients” as “young women, ‘low-income women, and women of color.”

In conclusion, remember this Juneteenth that the real racists are the Democrats, the liberals, and, more than any others, the abortionists…Who are usually also liberal democrats.


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