Questions for H.K. Edgerton. Hopefully he will answer them if he comes to Richmond UPDATED.

H.K. Edgerton is an African American member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) who goes about defending the Confederacy. I have for him the following question which I hope to present to him in Richmond. UPDATE: See the two questions added at the end.

QUESTIONS FOR H.K. EDGERTON

1.       Jefferson Davis, a Confederate hero to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in his history “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” published in 1881 by D. Appleton & Co., New York, in Vol. 2 pp. 600, in his condemnation of the Emancipation Proclamation, Jefferson Davis in his book reprints his proclamation of January 1863:

“A proclamation, dated on January 1, 1863, signed and issued by the President of the United States, orders and declares all slaves within ten of the States of the Confederacy to be free, except as are found in certain districts now occupied in part by the armed forces of the enemy. We may well leave it to the instinct of that common humanity, which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts of our fellow-men of all countries, to pass judgment on a measure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior race -- peaceful, contented laborers in their sphere -- are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation "to abstain from violence, unless in necessary self-defense."

QUESTION: Do you think African Americans are an inferior race or would be contented with slavery?

2.      Jefferson Davis, in his history, “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” published in 1881 by D. Appleton & Co., New York, in Vol. 2 pp. 161, in anger at Abraham Lincoln's joy at the enlistment of African Americans into the U.S. Army Davis states:

Let the reader pause for a moment and look calmly at the facts presented in this statement. The forefathers of these negro soldiers were gathered from the torrid plains and malarial swamps of inhospitable Africa. Generally they were born the slaves of barbarian masters, untaught in all the useful arts and occupations, reared in heathen darkness, they were transferred to shores enlightened by the rays of Christianity. There, put to servitude, they were trained in the gentle arts of peace and order and civilization; they increased from a few unprofitable savages to millions of efficient Christian laborers. Their servile instincts rendered them contented with their lot, and their patient toil blessed the land of their abode with unmeasured riches.

QUESTION: Do you think African Americans have servile instincts?

3.      Robert E. Lee, a Confederate hero to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, in a letter to Andrew Hunter in Jan. 11, 1865 writes the following.

DEAR SIR: I have received your letter of the 7th inst., and, without confining myself to the order of your interrogatories, will endeavor to answer them by a statement of my views on the subject. I shall be most happy if I can contribute to the solution of a question in which I feel an interest commensurate with my desire for the happiness of our people. Considering the relation of master and slavery, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy which experience has shown to be safe. But in view of the preparations of our enemies it is our duty to provide for continued war, and not for a battle or campaign, and I fear that we cannot accomplish this without overtaxing the capacity of our white population. Should the war continue under existing circumstances, the enemy may in course of time penetrate our country and get access to a large part of our negro population. It is his avowed policy to convert the able-bodied men among them into soldiers, and to emancipate all. [ The letter is from “Memoranda on the Civil War,” pages 600-601, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. 36 No. 4, August 1888. Also, “The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), series 4, vol. 3, 1012–1013.]

QUESTION: Do you think that any form of slavery could be the best relation that can exist between whites and African Americans?

4.      Robert E. Lee, in testimony before the Reconstruction Committee of Congress testified that he thought Virginia would be better off if Virginia could get rid of all the African Americans in the state?  [“Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction,” of congress, pages 135-136, testimony of Robert E. Lee before the Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction in response to questions by Mr. Blow, on February 17, 1866.]

QUESTION: Do you think Virginia would be better off without African Americans?

5. In the Sept./Oct. 2003 Southern Mercury, a publication of an educational PAC of the Sons of Confederate Veterans,  Frank Conner has an white supremacist article “Where We Stand Now: And How We Got Here.” In it, African Americans are asserted to have low IQs, a fact which Conner asserts has been covered up by a liberal conspiracy. In a section of his article titled, “Liberals Create a False Public Image of the Blacks,” Conner writes:

Previously, anthropologists had routinely recorded the notable differences in IQ among the races; but at Columbia, a liberal cultural anthropologist named Franz Boas now changed all of that. He decreed that there were no differences in IQ among the races, and the only biological differences between the blacks and white were of superficial nature. The liberals swiftly made it academically suicidal to challenge Boas’ flat assertion. Meanwhile, the liberals in the media heaped special praise upon black athletes, musicians, singers, and writers – and treated them as typical of the black race. The liberals were creating a false image of the blacks in America as a highly competent people who were being held back by the prejudiced white southerners. [Conner, Frank, “Where We Stand Now: And How We Got Here,” Southern Mercury, Vol. 1 No. 2, pages 10-14, quote on page 12.]

QUESTIONS: Do you think African Americans have lower intelligence that whites? Why was Frank Conner allowed to write this for Southern Mercury rather than being expelled from the Sons of Confederate Veterans?

6. QUESTION: Is Robert E. Lee your hero?

7. QUESTION: Is Jefferson Davis your hero?