It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy’s prisoners in our possession. It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and received the treatment due to a prisoner of war. Abraham Lincoln

"We never imprison a poor man who does not pay his taxes," Sen. John Ten Eyck said of his native New Jersey, "but if a man rolling in wealth and bloated with stocks, at this period of time, refuses to pay taxation for the support of the Government, and to save the nation from the consequences of this rebellion, he ought to go to prison." ⁴⁸

The Klan itself played a large role in this first effort to create the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain. Inspired by <em>The Birth of a Nation</em>, Alabama native William J. Simmons held a ceremony atop Stone Mountain in 1915 to announce the re-founding of the Ku Klux Klan.

That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be, always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican Government,

, That the Government owes to all men employed in its armies, without regard to distinction of color, the full protection of the laws of war—and that any violation of these laws, or of the usages of civilized nations in time of war, by the Rebels now in arms, should be made the subject of prompt and full redress.

hat we approve the position taken by the Government that the people of the United States can never regard with indifference the attempt of any European Power to overthrow by force or to supplant by fraud the institutions of any Republican Government on the Western Continent

Words have meaning

One recent work, Claudio Saunt’s Bancroft Prize winning <em>Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory </em>c

Tracking the historiography of the term, Saunt writes that “Indian Removal” is “unfitting for a story about the state-sponsored expulsion of eighty thousand people,” preferring to use other terms such as “expulsion” or “deportation,” explaining that they better reflect the bureaucracy and violence during the process

specific tribal affiliations

“plantations” as “slave labor camps

“Slave” tends to function as a noun; it is a term for the person. “Enslaved” functions more often as an adjective; rather than being the defining feature of the person, it is a descriptor of the state they were forced into by those who held them in bondage. The use “enslaver” or “person who held others in bondage” rather than “owner,” “slaveholder,” or “master” serves a similar purpose.

“Using the terms enslaved and enslaver are subtle but powerful ways of affirming that slavery was forced upon that person, rather than an inherent condition.”

Often, the use of other “soft words” can serve to obfuscate the truth – that soldiers serving the Confederacy, a political and social alliance in rebellion against the nation, fought against and killed United States soldiers.

“New York belongs almost as much to the South as to the North,” observed the editor of the <i>New York Evening Post</i>. The city’s businessmen marketed the South’s cotton crop and manufactured everything from cheap clothing for outfitting slaves to fancy carriages for their masters. Wood himself called the South “our best customer. She pays the best prices, and pays promptly.”

Although the state of New York had voted in 1827 to abolish slavery, New York City traders continued to provide slaves––first to the South, then to Brazil and Cuba––right up to and during the Civil War. Whether as investors, ship owners or captains and crews, New Yorkers promoted, enabled and carried on the traffic in humans. Of all the cities in America, New York was the most invested in the transatlantic slave trade.