If Gov. Kaine chooses to flip flop on his promise NOT to do a Confederate History Proclamation, here is some grist for his speech writers.

The quotes below come from my current read, “History of the English-Speaking Peoples” by Sir Winston Churchill – one of the greatest men of the recently past century.

The North, it was said, was enriching itself at the expense of the South. The Yankees were jealous of a style and distinction to which vulgar commercialism could never attain. They had no right to use the Federal Constitution which the great Virginians Washington and Madison had largely founded, in order to bind the most famous states to their dictates. They maligned and insulted a civilization more elevated in manners, if not worldly wealth, than their own. They sought to impose the tyranny of their ideas upon states which had freely joined the Union for common purposes, and might as freely depart when those purposes had been fulfilled.

Upon Lincoln’s call to arms to coerce the seceding states Virginia made without hesitation the choice which she was so heroically to sustain. She would not fight on the issue of slavery, but stood firm on the constitutional ground that every state in the Union enjoyed sovereign rights. On this principle Virginians denied the claim of the Federal Government to exercise coercion.

This decided the conduct of one of the noblest Americans who ever lived, and one of the greatest captains known to the annals of war. Robert E. Lee

Most of slaves, who might have been expected to prove an embarrassment to the South, on the contrary provided a solid help, tending the plantations in the absence of their masters, raising the crops which fed the armies, working on roads, building fortifications, thus releasing a large number of whites for service in the field.

The Army of Northern Virginia “carried the Confederacy on its bayonets” and made a struggle unsurpassed in history.

On the death of Virginian Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson: His loss was a mortal blow to Lee and the cause of the South.

On the charge of Pickett’s Virginians at Gettysburg: General L.A. Armistead with a few hundred men actually entered the Union centre, and the spot where he died with his hand on captured cannon is today revered by the manhood of the United States.

Lincoln had entered Richmond with Grant, and on his return to Washington learned of Lee’s surrender. Conqueror and master, he towered above all others, and four years of assured power seemed to lie before him. By his consistency under many varied strains and amid problems to which his training gave him no key he had saved the Union with steel and flame. His thoughts were bent on healing his country’s wounds. For this he possessed all the qualities of spirit and wisdom, and wielded besides incomparable authority. To those who spoke of hanging Jefferson Davis he replied, “Judge not that ye be not judged.” On April 11 he proclaimed the need of a broad and generous temper and urged the conciliation of the vanquished.