The true purpose of the Sons of Confederate Veterans ...

From: johnyreb43@yahoo.com

The Sons of Confederate Veterans was NOT created to be a Civil War Round Table that leaned towards the Southern perspective of history.  It was created by the Veterans of the War to carry on the fight, to vindicate the Cause.

Each and every meeting of the S.C.V. includes "the Charge."  The words spoken here are an oath to defend the Cause.  These are solemn words.  They were written by the living veterans of the war.  They were not calling on generations to make sure that the grass was cut at the local cemetery.

Robert E. Lee was not known as a man of passion, or one without judgment and depth of intellect.  And even this great American saw what was coming:

"Privately, Lee was an angry man who was very unhappy about how things had turned out. Writing his cousin Annette Carter in 1868 he had this to say about the current government. He wrote of "this grand scheme of centralization of power in the hands of one branch of the Govt. to the ruin of all others and the annihilation of the constitution, the liberty of the people and of the country."4 Continuing, Lee said: "I grieve for posterity, for American principles and American liberty. Our boasted self-government is fast becoming the jeer and laughing stock of the world." In 1870, he spoke to William Preston Johnston (Albert Sidney Johnston's son and a colonel in the Confederate army who had been captured with Jefferson Davis in 1865) of the "vindictiveness and malignity of the Yankees, of which he had no conception before the war." 5
"Governor, If I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse: no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand."
Gen. Robert E. Lee to Gov. Stockdale of Texas.

We are in today's America because of what happened in 1861 - 1865.  We are here because of the true reasons behind Northern aggression.  In part, that aggression was about destroying the Christian fabric of America.  This American nation was constructed by God for a purpose.  His Purpose.  I am not wise enough to know that purpose.  But I have enough common sense to know that the Founders saw Christianity as the lynchpin for this nation.  And they saw States Rights and the republic as the best form of government to facilitate the Providence of God.

We are headed in the wrong direction today.  And in part, the S.C.V. is responsible because it refuses to do its job - vindicate the Cause.

I know that many who belong to the S.C.V. don't see it this way.  They see their duty as one of education of history, of telling the story of the Southern soldier, or keeping the Colors flying.  And these are good ...and should be done.  But not to the exclusion of the heavy work ...the vindication of the Cause.

We are losing America, in small part, because America's patriots are distracted, or ...simply don't see it as their duty to participate in American politics and bring the Cause to its truest battleground...to its modern battleground.

There are so many good people spread across the camps of the South.  I only wish you could see what I see.  I see the South as the Guardian of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.  I see it as the Guardian of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  I see the Bible as the foundation of all that is supposed to be America.

Many have warned that bad things happen when good men do nothing.

For me, that's real purpose of the Sons of Confederate Veterans - an alliance of good men, Christians, to vindicate the Cause and stand vigil over what God created.

Mark Vogl
Rebel Mountain, Texas