PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE CIVIL WAR!

Monday, February 17^th, 2025

Baton Rouge Louisiana

PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE CIVIL WAR!

A number of former Presidents are being honored this week, as several new books have been released detailing actions of President Lincoln during the Civil War. President Donald Trump continues to express his opinion on virtually every subject involving America, both past and present. He recently has questioned why the conflict between north and south was even necessary. In a recent interview, Trump asked: “Why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have worked out?”

Could Lincoln have done more to stop the fighting? Was there a middle ground to buy time for ongoing discussions? It was not like the South’s eventual leaders, from Jefferson Davis to Robert E. Lee were from a foreign land. Davis was a U.S. Senator, and Lincoln asked Lee to take over command of the entire U.S. Military. They were colleagues in government. Couldn’t Lincoln have been more persuasive?

Imagine the public reaction today if either Joe Biden or George Bush stood by and let some six million Americans kill one another in battle. That’s the number of deaths based on today’s comparative population. There would be open revolt and an immediate cry for new leadership. Did Lincoln fail the test then? Oh, he did take action. Lincoln suspended parts of the constitution including habeas corpus, arrested numerous political opponents, and shut down several hundred newspapers.

Was Lincoln obsessed with freeing the slaves? Here are his words in a letter written to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley on August 22, 1862: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

So was it a total commitment to keep the Union intact? Not if you believe Lincoln’s words a few years before the Civil War began. “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. 

Professor David Goldfield has written a recent book called “America Aflame, How the Civil War Created a Nation.”  He’s a past guest on my syndicated radio show. Goldfield computes the total monetary cost of the war to around $6.7 billion in 1860s currency. He asserts that if “the government had purchased the freedom of four million slaves and granted a 40 acre farm to each slave family, the total cost would have been $3.1 billion, leaving $3.6 billion for reparations to make up for a century of lost wages. And not a single life would have been lost.”

What about the morality of a President declaring unbridled warfare on his own citizens? One can well argue that saving human lives would have been far more important than keeping the Union together. How can a President responsible for so much bloodshed be thought of as the greatest President in US history? I understand that Lincoln wanted to avoid the Civil War. However, was preserving the Union worth the cost of spilling so much blood on both ends of the battlefield?

Lincoln went on to lead the country in reconstruction and offered exemplary leadership as the nation healed its all too deep wounds. Maybe it was because he was brand new at the job as the war began. But it seems clear that when real leadership was called for in an effort to save hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens, Abraham Lincoln blinked. Whether you agree with many of his decisions or not, our current President wouldn’t  back down in trying to find some kind of a workable solution.

 The country is, after these 150 years, still reeling from this national tragedy. President Trump was right on in asking why the war was necessary in the first place.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. 

 

 

 

TRUMP, “OLD HICKORY” AND LOUISIANA!

Thursday, February 13^th, 2025

Bato Rouge, Louisiana

TRUMP, “OLD HICKORY” AND LOUISIANA!

If you ever have a chance to walk into President Trump’s new oval office, the first thing you will see is a portrait of former President Andrew Jackson. A different painting of Jackson hung in the same location during the four years of Trump’s first presidency. Simply put, Trump is a big admirer of the America’s 7^th president.  And so should every Louisianian. For good reason. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson was the key critical component in keeping Louisiana as a vital part of America. In fact, without Jackson, all of us here in the Bayou State might be speaking French as our native language and might be living under a different culture in a different country.

Andrew Jackson was not  a native of the Bayou state. He was America’s seventh president, and was the only president to have been a prisoner of war, having been captured by the British at 17 while serving in the Revolutionary War. He later was Nicknamed “Old Hickory” for his legendary toughness on the battlefield. During his presidential campaign in 1828, his opponents called him a jackass. Jackson was amused and used the image to win the presidency. He founded the Democratic Party and used the jackass as its symbol.

But what Andrew Jackson did for Louisiana was incredible. In the war of 1812, New Orleans was under siege by the British. Major General Andrew Jackson rushed to New Orleans and gathered a rag tag army made up of a motley group of local citizens, frontiersmen, slaves, Indians and even pirates.  He was eager to fight the British, telling his wife: “I owe to Britain a debt of retaliatory vengeance, and should our forces meet I trust I shall pay the debt.”

Louisiana should regularly thank its lucky stars for Jackson’s tenacity to get his revenge. He soundly beat the British at the Battle for New Orleans, became an American hero, and saved Louisiana from becoming a permanent British protectorate.

If ever there were any two individuals who should be regularly honored and commemorated in Louisiana history, there should be doubt that the two should be Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. And for many years, the Louisiana Democratic Party did honor both American heroes by hosting an annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner as a yearly fundraiser. Democrats held similar events across the country.

But no more in Louisiana. Party officials have decided it is no longer “politically correct” to honor these two American icons. You see, they were slave owners. It made no difference that the first seven American presidents also owned slaves, as did most of the nation’s founding fathers. The democratic leadership apparently wants to judge these past heroes based on present-day values, and continue a warped effort to re write Louisiana and American history.

The new Louisiana fundraising dinner is now called the “True Blue Gala.” I suppose we will see a resolution at the dinner calling for the re-naming of Jefferson and Jackson parishes, Thomas Jefferson High School in Gretna, the town of Jackson, La., Jefferson Island in Iberia Parish; the list goes on and on.

The Louisiana Democratic Party has become more and more irrelevant in the Bayou State. And Jackson’s symbol for the Democrat Party would seem to have a different connotation today. The real jackasses are those democratic ingrates who try to rewrite history and belittle past leaders who served and saved our nation, particularly in Louisiana. Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson deserve a lot better.

President Jackson l once said: “I was born for the storm for the calm did not suit me.” When it comes to being a controversial leader, both Jackson and Trump have a lot in common. That’s why our new President honors Jackson as being his most admired leader.  So thank you “Old Hickory.” Louisiana owes you a great debt of gratitude.

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE RETURN OF DUCK DYNASTY!

Thursday February 6^th, 2025

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

THE RETURN OF DUCK DYNASTY!

 

Have you heard the news? This is big. Really big. In just a matter of weeks, Duck Dynasty will return to TV on the A&E network. It doesn’t seem too long ago that America was consumed with the saga of head Duck Phil Robertson and the pros and cons of his right to rants and raves about homophobia and his experiences with neighboring African Americans, who, according to Phil, were happy as a lark in Red Neck country when he was growing up.

Now don’t take this as a knock on being a red neck. I point to mine with pride. I’m from Ferriday, Louisiana, home of Jerry Lee Lewis, country music star Mickey Gilley and Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, among other notables. Ferriday is a stone’s throw, metaphorically speaking, from West Monroe in Northeast Louisiana where Phil and all the Dynasty family hang out.

I bought my first duck call, a Duck Commander, from Phil back in 1975 when I really took to duck hunting. I had a good-sized slough in the front forty of an old plantation site I had restored on Lake Concordia just across the Mississippi River from Natchez. In winter, ducks coming down the Mississippi River flyway flocked to that slough, and they were there for the taking. That is, if you knew how to bring them in with a duck call.

Ole’ Phil had opened up his shop in a dilapidated shed, where he spent 25 years making duck calls from Louisiana cedar trees. And make no mistake — his duck calls were the best. If you knew how to twill your tongue as you blew into the cigar shaped wood instrument, all the while saying “hut”, “quit” or “ut,” you could guide a variety of ducks head right towards your decoys. Phil’s duck calls were a significant factor in making me a pretty darn good duck hunter.

And don’t be misled. Phil ain’t no dummy. He turned down a chance to play professional football for the Washington Redskins, and holds a master’s degree in education. And look at him today. With or without the A&E Network, his Duck Commander Company has been turning big profits. Have you checked out the Duck Dynasty products under patriarch Phil’s label at a Walmart, Target, Kmart or any number of other stores nationwide?

As you would expect, there’s a large variety of hats and T-shirts carrying the Duck Dynasty label. But don’t forget the Duck Dynasty body pillows, watches, fleece throws, fleece jackets, camo jackets, pants and shirts — the list goes on and on. When Phil and the Dynasty where at its peak a few years back, Bloomberg News reported that the Duck Dynasty empire amounted to some $500 million and is growing.

Duck dynasty went off the air a few years back when patriarch Phil got too rowdy with his language on the TV show. But as profits took at dip at A&E, they have now decided to give the Duck team a second shot. This is not their first rodeo and they know what they are doing. They echoed the Godfather’s tactics saying it’s strictly business. “We have our standards,” they lamented, “and if Phil ‘crossed the line’ in the past,” well everyone deserves a second chance.

Louisiana state officials were stunned when Duck Dynasty was taken off the air. “How could they?” demanded then Governor Bobby Jindal, who accused A&E of violating Robertson’s freedom of speech and his religious liberty. 

The new show’s producers will certainly ask for tax breaks from the Louisiana state film and television incentive program. So do we need more tax dollars flowing to the Dynasty gang? 

And will Phil’s past transgressions hurt the new series?  Heck no?  In fact, look for A&E to publicly keep a lid on Phil. They no doubt will hope that the past controversy will create a huge windfall of publicity for A&E and the Dynasty. Millions who never heard of Duck Dynasty could tune in to see what the fuss was all about.

 If a new culture war will be part of the show, it should not surprise us. After all, isn’t that what Duck Dynasty is all about? Make some loud quacks and get a variety of ducks (viewers) to glide right to where you want them – then laugh all the way to the bank.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.