EDWARDS TO HOST POLITICAL MEETING AT HOUSE OF CONFEDERATE HERO
**Exclusive**
Presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards [D-NC] is preparing to throw caution to the wind in confederate flag-sensitive South Carolina this weekend when he celebrates his White House ambition with a political gathering at the house of a Confederate hero, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal!
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Edwards has quietly set a Saturday afternoon meet 'n greet at the William Aiken House in Charleston, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The controversial meeting at the Aiken House, sponsored by the South Carolina Democratic Leadership Council, comes as the NAACP continues its call for an economic boycott of South Carolina to protest the flying of the Confederate battle flag on the State House grounds.
Aiken, once the South's largest slaveholder [he owned a rice plantation on Jehossee Island worked by more than 700 slaves], supported the Confederate cause by donating supplies and large bond subscriptions. Aiken turned his house over to Confederate Brigadier General Beauregard for use as a temporary headquarters during the Union shelling of lower Charleston.
When Aiken declined to attend the ceremony raising the U.S. flag over Fort Sumter after it was retaken by Union forces, the Confederate DieHard was arrested by the order of U.S. Secretary of War and was taken to Washington, D.C..
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