Blacks Did Fight for the Confederacy
On Feb. 22 (on the Opinion * Commentary page), a self-styled history buff, Margie Ashe, wrote that, "As for black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy, it just didn't happen."
A foreign observer with Lee's army during the Gettysburg campaign, British Col. Arthur J. L. Fremantle, of the elite Coldstream Guards, questioned a black man in Confederate uniform using a rope to pull a Union prisoner down a street in Chambersburg, Pa., near the invading column.
The black Confederate explained that he had just captured the Yankee himself, and was taking him "to the captain." The black seemed to be a teamster.
Captured in Pennsylvania, Jeb Stuart's famous black servant, Bob, soon escaped and eventually made his way back to Stuart's headquarters in Virginia.
When Marylander Col. Henry Kyd Douglas was severely wounded and captured in Gettysburg, his former black servant sought him out in a Northern prison and proffered help.
The Civil War Times has reported about a black man who served throughout the war -- and for 30 years afterward -- as a drummer for a South Carolina infantry company.
There is a photo showing him beating his drum at a reunion and another of a memorial to him (in Darlington, I think) erected by his white comrades who had buried him with full military honors.
A book about the last reunions of Confederate veterans shows that, although patronized, these black veterans who attended were made welcome -- unlike black Union veterans at Grand Army of the Republic conventions.
True, Southern newspapers featured accounts of how black cooks stole chickens and such to feed their companies, but it was all very good natured . . .
Ms. Ashe adds that "the claim that black Americans profited from the slave trade was not at all substantiated by my research." As late as the 1930s, according to my encyclopedia, the League of Nations formally accused Liberia, founded and run by the descendants of freed American slaves, of still engaging in the slave trade -- as they notoriously had done from the time of their return to Africa.
Of course, it had always been black tribes that initially enslaved other blacks, selling them to Islamic slavers (mostly mulatto Arabs) who often resold them to Europeans (including European Jews).
As for issues of humanity, white slave-owners at least protected black girls from the routine sexual mutilations practiced in black Africa to this very day. As a "history buff" Ms. Ashe might research this.
At any rate, Ms. Ashe asserts that "the South did not allow black men to bear arms." In fact, long before the Civil War there had been in Southern cities militia companies of free blacks (or mulattoes, actually), and one of these had served under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.
This precedent was well known to Judah Benjamin, the former Louisiana slave-owner, U.S. senator and Confederate secretary of state when he prevailed on the Confederate Congress to authorize enlistment of slave-volunteer units (under white officers) as combat soldiers in 1865.
Willis Case Rowe
Catonsville
Buried Wisdom
Don't bury wisdom amid the jumps of business stories.
When James Rouse celebrates the move of a large national foundation to Baltimore (The Sun, March 2) and says it is more important than a National Football League team, let's listen.
The official preoccupation with sports is insane. Our city needs industry, service and otherwise, to provide jobs.
Three cheers for James Rouse. Perhaps he has more ideas to give the city and state fathers.
Jane Spencer
Baltimore
Source of Lead
The General Assembly is considering SB 674 and HB 970, the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act.
This legislation deals wholly with lead paint and dust in older homes and places the blame for lead poisoning on the shoulders of landlords.
There is another source of lead in homes -- more important and more deadly than lead paint -- and that is lead from drinking water.
That is solely the fault of the city, state and federal governments for condoning and encouraging the addition of hydrofluorosilicic acid, fluorosilicic acid or silicofluoride to drinking water.
These chemicals are added to the drinking water of most of Maryland under the guise of helping prevent tooth decay in young children.
But they are among the most corrosive chemicals known and leach lead and copper from pipes all the way from the filtration plant to the home project.
The General Assembly is blaming the landlords for lead paint and lead dust when the biggest blame should go to the city, state and federal governments.
M. Virginia Rosenbaum
Frostburg
The writer is president, Pure Water Committee of Cumberland.
Group Rights
Shirley R. Vauls' letter (Feb. 27), "Are Blacks' Rights Merely Whites' Favors?" was somewhat disturbing. In it Ms. Vauls takes Michael Olesker to task for his piece on Louis Farrakhan. Mr. Olesker can defend himself. However, I believe that Ms. Vauls confused individual rights with group rights.
Individual rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. These rights cannot normally be taken away or legally denied. But group rights are another thing altogether.
A group's rights are only based on the rights of the individuals of the group. For example, Democrats and Republicans run for Congress. Democrats become the majority of both houses. The majority group then sets the rules, heads the committees, controls spending, confirms appointments and the like. As individuals, the members have the same rights, but not as a group.
We generally believe in majority rule, while protecting the individual rights of those of the minority. This is the danger, I believe, with political, economic or social separatism. In the end the decisions will be made by the majority.
So the choice that African-Americans, Asians, men, women, the elderly, the handicapped and others have is to become part of a group.
If they choose to become followers of a Farrakhan they will probably remain a minority. Their best chance of being in the political majority is to be part of the Republican or Democratic parties.
How much clout do the followers of Ross Perot have? They were a sizable minority, but have no representation in Congress and have elected no governors or mayors.
The Perot followers have lost no individual rights, but their group has won little political power and is at the "mercy" of the majority. To put it in Ms. Vauls terms, they "are still comparatively powerless but not passive."
A. L. Peterson
Bel Air
Try New Ideas
With respect to the article in The Sun March 4, "Parents ask to open school of their own", I'm writing to applaud Mayor Kurt Schmoke's support of the suggested program. As in his pioneering stance on the legalization of drugs, he has again demonstrated his courage and vision.
Those who have a financial stake in the preservation of the status quo will fight hard to forestall any change.
The good of our children has to be our first priority. The future of our nation is inevitably linked to our ability to educate our children.
We cannot expect to extricate ourselves from the present demonstrable inadequacies unless we are willing to try new ideas.
The concepts voiced by Jay Gillen offer genuine hope for a better system. Let's give him a chance to prove himself.
Robert M. Goldman
Baltimore
Nursing Tax
I am a registered nurse, and through the Maryland Nurses Association I learned of three bills before the legislature that should concern all registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and the general public.
One of the primary goals of last year's health care reform legislation was a much-needed data collection and analysis program funded by an assessment paid two-thirds by insurers and one-third by practitioners who generate data (those who bill independently).
MNA strongly supported the data collection and the inclusion of nurses who bill themselves -- psychiatric nurse clinical specialists, nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, and nurse anesthetists -- among those to be assessed. These account for 1 percent of Maryland's 55,000 nurses. The assessment would be about $35 per practitioner.
In the guise of "uniformity", H.B. 330 in the 1994 legislature seeks to assess all nurses, presumably reducing the assessment to about $10. This is a general tax on nursing, pure and simple.
Even though nursing will by far be the largest financial contributor, nursing (for its $550,000 payment) is not considered significant enough to warrant a nurse on the Health Care Access and Cost Commission. This a stealth tax -- without representation or reason.
MNA submitted an amendment to HB 330 to keep the assessment just as everyone agreed last year, and this bill is pending in the House Economic Matters Committee.
After years of Board of Nursing license fees being skimmed from the board's budget for other state programs, MNA was able in 1991 to secure a law dedicating nurse licensure money to the Board of Nursing only, even though the price was a kickback of 20 percent to the general fund of the state to support other non-self-sustaining health regulatory boards.
In 1992, all of these other boards and commissions also became special fund entities, and their fees, by law, must cover their expenses. The reason for the 20 percent nursing kickback is gone.
All nursing licensure fees should be used for the regulation of nursing and the protection of the public. Most nurses don't even realize that this 20 percent of their license fees is nothing more than a tax.
Nurses are the only health care professionals that are taxed by the state for the privilege of practicing in Maryland. This 20 percent generates in excess of $400,000 per year, which goes into the state's general fund and disappears.
Aside from hampering the Board of Nursing's efforts to perform its duties, not having this 20 percent will accelerate the need to increase licensure fees as board expenses increase, and 20 percent of any increase in fees will go to the general fund.
This is another stealth tax on nursing, again without reason.
Sen. Paula Hollinger, D-Baltimore County, and Del. Henry R. Hergenroeder, D-Baltimore, have filed SB 584 and HB 1187 respectively to get all license fees spent where they should be -- for the Board of Nursing. . .
Most nurses and the general public are unaware of the bite being taken out of their wallets and the diversions of money from where they naturally assume it is to be spent.
Such hidden taxes do nursing and ultimately all Maryland citizens an injustice.
Ruth Hans
Baltimore