Thank You..
by Manwhore
TO ALL RETARDED LIBERALS/CLOSET CONDESCENDING RACISTS. The Civil War was not about slavery. Can you stupid fucks get that simple concept through your ‘holier than thou’ misinformed heads? Please allow a person from the south to elaborate. A person who’s grandfather was a member of the ‘Rebel’ Army. Was even buried, wrapped in a confederate flag.
As a person from the swamps of Florida, i’ll be the first person to testify that big city liberals (like the ones found here in Los angeles) are the most pathetic, unapologetic racists there are. At least people from the south share a general economic class that binds. Take a peak:
KISSIMMEE—Nelson Winbush rotates a miniature flag holder he keeps on his mantel, imagining how the banners would appear in a Civil War battle.
The Stars and Bars, he explains, looked too much like the Union flag to prevent friendly fire. The Confederacy responded by fashioning the distinctive Southern Cross—better known as the rebel flag.
Winbush, 78, is a retired assistant principal with a master’s degree, a thoughtful man whose world view developed from listening to his grandfather’s stories about serving the South in the “War Between the States.”
His grandfather’s casket was draped with a Confederate flag. His mother pounded out her Confederate heritage on a typewriter. He wears a rebel flag pinned to the collar of his polo shirt.
Winbush is also black.
“You’ve never seen nothing like me, have you?”
I have, but the average intellectual/liberal blowhard probably hasn’t. Read a little further:
house near Kissimmee’s quaint downtown is cluttered with the mess of a life spent hoarding history.
Under the glass of his coffee table lie family photos, all of smiling black people. On top sits Ebony magazine.
Winbush is retired and a widower who keeps a strict schedule of household chores, family visits and Confederate events. He often eats at Fat Boy’s Barbecue, where his Sons of Confederate Veterans camp meets.
Winbush’s words could come from the mouth of any white son of a Confederate veteran. They subscribe to a sort of religion about the war, a different version than mainstream America.
The tenets, repeated endlessly by loyalists:
The war was not about slavery. The South had the constitutional right to secede. Confederate soldiers were battling for their homes and their families. President Lincoln was a despot. Most importantly, the victors write the history.
But Winbush has a conceptual canyon to bridge: How can a black man defend a movement that sought to keep his people enslaved?
* * *
Winbush is one of at most a handful of black members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in the country. He knows skeptics question his story and his sanity.
To win them over, he pulls out his grandfather’s pension papers, reunion photos and obituary. He also gives speeches, mostly before white audiences.
Winbush believes the South seceded because the federal government taxed it disproportionately. It was a matter of states’ rights, not slavery, which was going extinct as the United States became more industrialized, he says. He denies that President Lincoln freed the slaves, explaining that the Emancipation Proclamation affected only the Confederate states, which were no longer under his authority.
“It was an exercise in rhetoric, that’s all,” Winbush says.
Amen brotha. To all of you stupid LA big city fucks that have ever accused my family or upbringing of being racist, I present to you Rodney King, South Central, and any company in the Los Angeles area as a specimin of not hiring racially equal. I’d also like to shed some light on a region of the country that has a mis-informed reputation for being the people who eat black children, and it’s undeserved. Simply put, people from the South are some of the most kind, humble, and accepting people I have ever had the privilege of growing up with.
Comments
"It was a matter of states’ rights, not slavery, which was going extinct as the United States became more industrialized, he says.”
States’ Rights to do ... what, exactly? Oh, yeah: to own slaves. Any argument I’ve ever heard about the South’s motivation boils down to the South’s desire to control their own economic freedom, and since the Southern economy depended on slave labor, it all comes back to ... slavery. The North didn’t want slavery to continue. The South saw no-new-slavery in newly admitted states as a threat to their economy and their way of life. The whole bit of the Emancipation Proclomation is a total red-herring: even if it had never been issued, because the South started the war to defend its economy—again, slavery dependent—the war was waged over—say it with me!—slavery.
“people from the South are some of the most kind, humble, and accepting people I have ever had the privilege of growing up with.”
Um. If we’re talking about the War To Keep The United States United (hey, if you can give it your own misleading title—who fired the first shot? Oh, yeah, THAT Southern Aggression), aren’t we talking about Southerners who are all, um, dead? I guess I’m just missing the point of your post. If you want to talk about the attitude of current southerns, do that—instead, we’re talking about a war that’s been over for, what?, a century and a half? Seriously, it’s time to get over it.
A few years ago a friend related a story to me: he was driving home from Florida and stopped for gas in Georgia. As he was paying, one of the guys in the convenience store started talking about how “The South Would Rise Again!” My friend commented to this individual that he thought this would be very sad—he’d just come through Atlanta, after all, and he’d hate to see it burned to the ground again.
Then he got the hell out of there as fast as he could.
A few years ago a friend related a story to me: he was driving home from Florida and stopped for gas in Georgia. As he was paying, one of the guys in the convenience store started talking about how “The South Would Rise Again!” My friend commented to this individual that he thought this would be very sad—he’d just come through Atlanta, after all, and he’d hate to see it burned to the ground again.
That’s kinda funny because stories like this riddle Los Angeles as well, but it seems only to be the South that is highlighted for this behavior.
Any argument I’ve ever heard about the South’s motivation boils down to the South’s desire to control their own economic freedom, and since the Southern economy depended on slave labor, it all comes back to ... slavery.
Interesting story. I’d say it flies in the face of what I was taught which was a south rich in products and resources not wanting to deliver that revenue to the beleagured northern states. Pretty funny too, how the south was defeated and the welfare system was implemented that has only served to imprison poor people for the aformentioned time you claim should be forgotten about now.
"That’s kinda funny because stories like this riddle Los Angeles as well, but it seems only to be the South that is highlighted for this behavior.”
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to highlight a story about Confederate-supporters in a post about the War of Southern Aggression. How silly of me!
“Interesting story. I’d say it flies in the face of what I was taught which was a south rich in products and resources not wanting to deliver that revenue to the beleagured northern states.”
Rich in products and resources? You mean like, cotton, and stuff made from cotton? Oh, right, and tobacco. The South had an agricultural economy, but the North was industrialized. And the big difference between the economies is that the North’s didn’t rely heavily on slave labor. (What’s the advantage of slave labor? Oh, yeah: you don’t have to pay them).
“Pretty funny too, how the south was defeated and the welfare system was implemented that has only served to imprison poor people for the aformentioned time you claim should be forgotten about now.”
Yeah, I was talking about how you’re not making a connection between the WoSA and then your assertion that Southerners are great and polite and whatever.
If you really get into the history of the founding of the country, it is quite obvious that the civil war was, in many respects, completely unavoidable from the very beginning.
There were a few spots over the years where it could have been possibly avoided, maybe, when pigs fly, but generally all they ever could have done is delayed it a bit, or brought in on even sooner.
The fight over states rights vs federal government goes back to the very beginning. When people way “the wrong side won”, they aren’t talking about slavery at all. Slavery was doomed to end with the industrial revolution sooner or later, and everybody knew it. The issue was the supremacy of the federal government over the rights of the states, and the lack of willingness to compromise on both sides.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to highlight a story about Confederate-supporters in a post about the War of Southern Aggression. How silly of me!
It would be hard to know less about the Civil War than that statement implies. You think that preventing the South from seceding was Southern aggression? Show me where in the US Constitution where it says that continued statehood could be enforced by the mouth of a cannon.
Read a book.
not to pis on anyone parade here but while the south did have a right to succeed, the Confederacy was no friend of states rights, look at their constitution....
Neither side was “the good guys”
Slavery, for the most part, was already doomed by industrialization, the hold outs in the south tried to ignore it.
"You think that preventing the South from seceding was Southern aggression?”
No, I think that preventing the South from seceding was a neccessary act to preserve the United States of America.
I think that firing the first shots was Southern aggression, InsipiD. Maybe you’re the one who should read a book ... ? (Generally, the people who start wars are the aggressive ones ...)
Saying that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery is like saying the Iraq and Afghanistan wars aren’t about Muslim people. Certainly there are other factors, but the root cause is obvious. CinaJ is right that the economic arguments ultimately boil down to the slave economy the South was too backward to let go of. Regardless of whether or not there is a right to secede in the constitution, the south had absolutely no legitimate claim with regard to “States’ Rights” or any kind of rights for that matter for one simple reason: The institution of slavery represents the most fundamental abrogation of political rights possible by a government and as such, negates such a government from any claim of rights against another nation.
A man who beats his children until they are crippled and retarded cannot claim that such methods represent his “culture” and the rules of his house. No one who violates the rights of others can legitimately claim the same rights for themselves. What the southern states practiced was the most archaic form of dictatorship in all human history, and dictatorship is a form of war, only its distinction is that it is practiced by a government against it’s own citizens, as opposed to being between two nations. Slavery is non-aggressive warfare; it is the unprovoked use of force against innocent sentient adults who are entitled to rights, and any government that practices it, whether it be Cambodia, Sudan, or Alabama, deserves to be overthrown and destroyed by whatever free nation chooses to.
A century and a half later, we can all debate until we’re blue in the face over the economic causes, and black soldiers who fought for the confederacy, and what an evil despot Lincoln was. But the fundamental point to me is simple: The Southern states practiced slavery, the most barbaric, primitive, and fundamentally anti-liberty anti-rights unAmerican economic system conceivable. I’m part of the minority of blacks opposed to the welfare state, opposed to affirmative action, and acutely aware of the urban decay in cities like L.A. having grown up in NYC with family all over the west coast. Nevertheless, I just don’t get how Southerners can overlook the unspeakably evil social system their forbears perpetuated in order to take some kind of folksy pride in the fact that Robert E. Lee was such a gentleman, or Lincoln just didn’t respect Southerners, or some other such hokum. They seem to be missing the point.
Yeah, I was talking about how you’re not making a connection between the WoSA and then your assertion that Southerners are great and polite and whatever.
I fail to see how a legitimate bid for secession is labelled a war of aggression.
Rich in products and resources? You mean like, cotton, and stuff made from cotton? Oh, right, and tobacco. The South had an agricultural economy, but the North was industrialized. And the big difference between the economies is that the North’s didn’t rely heavily on slave labor.
With no minimum wage on labor you wouldn’t need it. Slave labor is NOT FREE, BTW. I thought that was a particularly funny statement.
Cotton and tobacco had greater yeilds for profit than any stell mill ever would. The process or refining steel is pretty labor intensive, whereas a tobacco plant needs only to be picked, dried and pressed. Tobacco being a highly addictive drug makes for a hell of a demand I’m sure the North wouldn’t want to lose revenue on.
I’d also stop just short of you pretty much blanketing the entire south as biggots summed up ‘eloquently’ with a quip from a friend in a gas station in Georgia.
My great grandfather left a Tobacco Plantation in the early part of the last century for the prosperity of middle management in a hardware store. It’s not hard to put 2 and 2 together and see that profitability on said farm wasn’t much affected by how many field hands his family was or wasn’t paying for.
In addition, if the North was such a liberating force for black america, whay would they have left them there, and burned almost every book south of the Mason-Dixon line on the way out? Is there something noteworthy and special about liberating a people form slavery to deliver them into abject poverty?
I have an answer for that as well. you hook them on welfare and ignorance as eternal slaves to a system you set up to keep them there.
If the Southern states thought they had such a good case to be allowed to secede peacefully, why didn’t they bring a court case to, say, the Supreme Court first?
As for it not being about slavery---if slavery was soooo unimportant, why did Patrick Claiborne’s rise in the CS Army come to a screeching stop when he wrote a memorandum urging that the slaves be freed and armed to fight for the CSA? And why was support for the Confederate cause directly proportional to how important slavery was---IOW, in the mountains where there were few-to-no slaves, the whole “Confederate” thing was never as popular as it was in the plantation areas. (West Virginia counter-seceded; East Tennessee and Winston County, Alabama tried to, and “Unionist” activity in the mountains was a constant worry to the CS authorities).
I will grant that many individual CS soldiers weren’t “fighting for slavery,” but take slavery out of the equation and there wouldn’t have been any war.
When the straw breaks the camel’s back, is the straw primarily at fault? Or do we just blame the straw because that was the last thing we saw before the back broke?
If the Southern states thought they had such a good case to be allowed to secede peacefully, why didn’t they bring a court case to, say, the Supreme Court first?
To an overwhelming majority where the answer is inevitable?
Saying that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery is like saying the Iraq and Afghanistan wars aren’t about Muslim people. Certainly there are other factors, but the root cause is obvious. CinaJ is right that the economic arguments ultimately boil down to the slave economy the South was too backward to let go of. Regardless of whether or not there is a right to secede in the constitution, the south had absolutely no legitimate claim with regard to “States’ Rights” or any kind of rights for that matter for one simple reason: The institution of slavery represents the most fundamental abrogation of political rights possible by a government and as such, negates such a government from any claim of rights against another nation.
How is that right? There wasn’t much to be gained from either party by freeing slaves, if that were to be the case. In both instances you would almost certainly be bringing economic woes compounded by the long lasting effects of waging a war to accomplish the task.
It’s pretty asinine to suggest that one’s economic shortcomings would be justified to place the other in the very same situation. The cause to free slaves was (if you’re going to touch the Iraq/Afghanistan debate) is the ‘WMD’ scenario of the war. It simply gave one party a moral upper hand. It wasn’t the intention of either party to demand the rights of an enslaved people. If that were the case Jack Johnson’s biography could have been shortened by a hundred pages.
If the Civil War was not about slavery, can anyone here provide evidence that the Civil War would have still happened even if there was no slavery?
If the Civil War was not about slavery, can anyone here provide evidence that the Civil War would have still happened even if there was no slavery?
I don’t have the books in front of me, and I’m not going to type in some 200 pages of text, but the answer is yes, it would have happened anyway. Slavery was a straw man for the real issues in most cases.
it would have happened anyway
I totally agree. The cause of the Civil War was that the South decided to secede from the Union and the Lincoln Administration chose to stop them by using armed force. It’s worth noting that President Jackson threatened to do the exact same thing to South Carolina when they threatened to secede over a new tariff-not slavery-in 1833.
As for the slavery issue, this is probably the most articulate argument I’ve ever read for why slavery was not the true cause.
From “For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization”:
At the eleventh hour before the Civil War began, the Southern slave owners had no need to go to war. They had already won all the battles without firing a shot. With the Supreme Court in their back pocket, with Lincoln and the Congress approving a constitutional amendment protecting slavery forever, they were undoubtedly the victors in their struggle to preserve the slave system in America.
During Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address he said: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Lincoln continued in his inaugural address to assure Southern slave holders that fugitive slaves would be returned. To provide even further assurance, the Congress, offered the South a variety of new constitutional amendments, which declared, in one form or another, that the federal government could never interfere with slavery in any state. Even the Supreme Court gave its blessing to slavery in the famous Dred Scott case (1857). All three branches of the federal government had bent over backwards to appease the South over slavery. They could hardly have done much more.
"At the eleventh hour before the Civil War began, the Southern slave owners had no need to go to war. They had already won all the battles without firing a shot.”
And yet, they chose to start the war, by firing on Fort Sumter.
“I have an answer for that as well. you hook them on welfare and ignorance as eternal slaves to a system you set up to keep them there.”
Excuse me, I’ve done what now? I’m not claiming the north is perfect—far from it!—but I do wonder how different race relations would’ve been if a certain Southern sympathizer hadn’t killed a president more willing to HEAL a nation, then one wanting to PUNISH the South.
“I’d also stop just short of you pretty much blanketing the entire south as biggots summed up ‘eloquently’ with a quip from a friend in a gas station in Georgia.”
I’m not “blanketing the entire South as bigots.” I’m blanketing that select group of folks who go around mouthing off about how “The South Will Rise Again!” (to which an approprite response is, indeed, “In that case, you better hope Atlanta will, too") and “The War of Northern Aggression!” and who delude themselves into thinking that the Confederacy was ever going to be successful as a nation (or, frankly, that slavery wasn’t at the root of the issue). Unfortunatly, that group of Southern individuals—and there are many here in Maryland, and even north of the line in Pennsylvannia—is the loudest noise coming from the South on the subject.
There comes a time when, no matter how hard it might be, you’ve just gotta say “Okay, the South lost, so let’s be gracious losers, and heal.” It’s been A CENTURY AND A HALF. **GET OVER IT.** Heck, even the Confederate war dead—men who died trying to kill United States troops—are given the same honors as U.S. dead. But is that enough for the Confederate-loving element of the South? No.
Look at the history of the South from the end of reconstruction until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As soon as the Federal troops were withdrawn following reconstruction, all of the steps that were being taken to right the misjustices of the past in terms of racial integration were undone—blacks had been elected to public office in the South during reconstruction! But the mindset of the South wasn’t on healing, it wasn’t on changing, it was on doing what it could to assert a system where whites were 1st class citizens and blacks were 2nd class. While I’m certainly not saying the North had a much better record on this behalf (certainly, it takes TIME for attitudes to change), I think you’ll admit that if Lincoln had been alive during reconstruction, and that if Federal troops had stayed in the South longer, and racial differences had begun to be done away with following the defeat of the South, that we’d be living in a much different country today.
Instead, after the Civil War, it still wasn’t a hundred years until the wounds could start to heal: Federal troops had to go back into the South to insure that black students could attend formerly white schools. It’s only been FORTY years since the South started to rehabilitate its image, and while I am CERTAINLY not saying that the North was perfect, there were a lot more lynchings in the South. Face it: the South has a reputation for a certain ugly side. And forty years isn’t enough to undo that.
And, frankly, when you write a post about racist northern liberals, and your main supporting evidence is that the South was some haven where blacks and whites comingled in the Civil War, people are not going to take you seriously.
Lastly, as an “ignent Yankee scum” (even one who has lived his life south of the Mason-Dixon line), I may not know the difference between the various battles flags of the C.S.A., but I do know that when I see the Confederate flag, or the Stars and Bars, or whatever you call it, I see something that represented what the C.S.A. stood for: and slavery in this country was an institution premised on racism. The Confederate States of America is dead, and as long as a majority of Southerners—be they an actual majority, or a really loud vocal minority—believes that it did not stand for slavery, the South’s image will remain frozen in the past, and fair game for quips and demeaning stories about a group of people who cannot seem to move on into the present day. I cringe when people tell me that flag is about “heritage”, but it, again, reinforces the negative image of the South—WHY IN GOD’S NAME WOULD YOU WANT TO HONOR A HERITAGE OF SLAVERY? A heritage of racism? A heritage of lynchings? WHY? Until the South can come to grips with its past, it is not going to shake the ghosts of that past. That’s the unfortunate truth that you don’t want to acknowledge.
And yet, they chose to start the war, by firing on Fort Sumter.
The South Carolinians had seceded from the Union nearly five months before the bombardment at Fort Sumter. The Confederates had ordered the removal of all federal troops from its territory and the local commander in Charleston had repeatedly warned the Union to evacuate Fort Sumter too. All you have to do is look at a map of Charleston harbor to see why this was such a big deal.
The Southerners repeatedly tried to negotiate the removal of the federal troops but Lincoln-knowing full well that Charleston was the flash-point for secession and that it would be a provocative act-decided to resupply Ft Sumter. Only at that point did the Confederates start firing. They regarded the presence of federal troops on Fort Sumter to be a foreign occupation and used those grounds to expel the troops only when it became obvious that the Lincoln Administration wasn’t going to give up Fort Sumter.
I think you’ll admit that if Lincoln had been alive during reconstruction, and that if Federal troops had stayed in the South longer, and racial differences had begun to be done away with following the defeat of the South, that we’d be living in a much different country today
You mean the guy who said this:
I will say then, that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races (applause); I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
Or this:
On August 14, 1862, Lincoln “summoned a delegation of African-American leaders to the White House in order to discuss future relations between blacks and whites. ‘You and we are different races,’ he reminded them. ‘We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races.’ Nowhere in America were blacks treated as equals of whites. ‘It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated,’ he concluded, and he urged these blacks to take the lead by accepting government aid and forming a colony in Central America.”
You really should try reading more histories of the Civil War than your 9th grade American History book. You learn some surprising things.
Thrill:
Only at that point did the Confederates start firing.
And in doing so initiated a war with the United States. Your argument is like saying that the U.S. started the war with Japan by cutting off oil to them. Nope: Japan started the war when they bombed Pearl Harbor. The South started the war when they fired on Fort Sumter. I don’t understand why this is such a hard concept to understand.
You mean the guy who said this:/ Or this:
Abraham Lincoln’s speeches from 1858 and 1862 are certainly interesting to show the reality of his beliefs despite the Southern rhetoric of him depicting him as a man who wanted nothing more than to end slavery. However, it’s interesting to note his changes in attitude as the war continued (interesting, also, that both of your examples predate the Emanicipation Proclamation).
What do you know of Reconstruction? Of Lincoln’s views towards it, and most telling, his views towards voting-rights for blacks? You’re aware that after his assassination, Andrew Jackson, the most worthless president in history, vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866? Sure, that was overriden, but if Lincoln had been in office, how do you think things might’ve turned out different? Jackson didn’t have the will power to use Federal troops to enforce the CRA—would Lincoln? I think the answer is, probably, “yes.”
And so now, the question I ask you, the question you refuse to answer, is, with Lincoln in office for a full second term, how would race relations be different today? Me? I believe that if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated, Martin Luther King jr. never would’ve had a reason to give his “I have a dream” speech, and this country could’ve started to heal a lot sooner than it did.
You really should try reading more histories of the Civil War than your 9th grade American History book. You learn some surprising things.
Frankly, I have to say that the above is more true of your apparently myopic view of history.
Japan started the war when they bombed Pearl Harbor. The South started the war when they fired on Fort Sumter. I don’t understand why this is such a hard concept to understand.
Had the United States been in possession of Okinawa-which the Japanese regarded as their territory-in 1941, refused to withdraw and even attempted to resupply and reinforce the garrison after repeated warnings your point would be valid. As it is, it’s irrelevant.
both of your examples predate the Emanicipation Proclamation
Which was done out of military necessity. It did not apply to slave-holding areas already within Union control.
What do you know of Reconstruction? Of Lincoln’s views towards it, and most telling, his views towards voting-rights for blacks? You’re aware that after his assassination, Andrew Jackson, the most worthless president in history, vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866?
What do I know of Reconstruction? Well, I know that Andrew JOHNSON was Lincoln’s successor. It’s worth pointing out that Reconstruction was ended not by Andrew Johnson but by that well-known Southern sympathizer President (formerly General) Ulysses S Grant. You know, the guy appointed by Lincoln to command all Union armies and end the war.
I believe that if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated, Martin Luther King jr. never would’ve had a reason to give his “I have a dream” speech, and this country could’ve started to heal a lot sooner than it did.
And I’m saying that the reason any healing at all was needed because of the Lincoln’s invasion of the South and the many military atrocities that were committed by federal troops with his blessing.
Had the United States been in possession of Okinawa-which the Japanese regarded as their territory-in 1941, refused to withdraw and even attempted to resupply and reinforce the garrison after repeated warnings your point would be valid. As it is, it’s irrelevant.
You’re incorrect. My point was that he who fires the first shot starts the war. Japan fired first, they started the war with America. The CSA fired first, they started the war with America.
Which was done out of military necessity. It did not apply to slave-holding areas already within Union control.
I don’t remember claiming it did. The South started a war in an attempt to keep their beloved slavery, and in an ironic twist, wound up ending the institution.
Well, I know that Andrew JOHNSON was Lincoln’s successor.
Oh! My bad. Been looking at too many twenties today.
It’s worth pointing out that Reconstruction was ended not by Andrew Johnson but by that well-known Southern sympathizer President (formerly General) Ulysses S Grant. You know, the guy appointed by Lincoln to command all Union armies and end the war.
And my point is that it was Andrew Jackson’s Johnson’s worthless leadership during the bulk of reconstruction that resulted in it being a complete failure. My point was also: how would reconstruction have been different with Lincoln alive and in charge?
(And Grant’s election just proves that leadership on the battlefield doesn’t make one qualified for leadership in government).
And I’m saying that the reason any healing at all was needed because of the Lincoln’s invasion of the South and the many military atrocities that were committed by federal troops with his blessing.
War and war atrocities go hand in hand. The United States of America can rarely be accused of being light-handed against its enemies during war. It’s when the war is over—not while it is being waged—that the U.S. is magnaminous. It’s too bad the South had to be torched. It’s never a good thing when civilians bear the brunt for the conduct of the politicians, who, elected to represent the best interests of the people, choose a course of action which ultimately causes those same people great harm. But the only war without atrocities I know of is a board game called RISK. And the South is hardly the innocent victim you portray it to be.
WHY IN GOD’S NAME WOULD YOU WANT TO HONOR A HERITAGE OF SLAVERY? A heritage of racism? A heritage of lynchings? WHY? Until the South can come to grips with its past, it is not going to shake the ghosts of that past. That’s the unfortunate truth that you don’t want to acknowledge.
To simply write off an unpopular opinion of this historicla event would be on the same level (as an American) as a blanketed approval of the English account of the War of Independence. I can’t believe that a dissenting opinion about this would be met with such vitriol.
I can certainly understand why, it’s easy to point to an ignornace that you don’t have in your upbringing, but people are people. And intelligence simply is not not measured by a politically correct version of what it takes to be intelligent. To imply so would be to imply the same closeted racism reserved for blacks, black music, black poeple, southern people etc.
I like how conveniently you’ve glossed over the fact that the south is occupied by more than white people. If you reread your post, you have become the racist you so seem to despise.
My point was that he who fires the first shot starts the war.
The Lincoln Administration engaged in a provocative act by maintaining and attempting to reinforce occupation forces on South Carolina’s territory. The Confederates were only trying to expel them. What the Confederates did NOT do was try to invade and subjugate the North.
When Lincoln decided to call up volunteers to invade the South after Fort Sumter, he actually made the situation worse by provoking other states to secede from the Union rather than participate; notably Virginia.
It doesn’t always matter who fired the first shot. It’s the one who seeks to impose on others who starts the war. Who fired the first shot of the American Revolution? Nobody knows for sure but the war was fought because the colonists no longer wanted to be British subjects but the British chose to use armed force to prevent them from becoming independent. Thus, the British started the war by trying to forcibly disarm local militias.
The North started the war by maintaining armed forces in a state which had declared its soveriegnty and did not want those armed forces on its soil. If you accept the Continental’s case for war, you have to admit that the South’s was valid as well. Indeed, many of the Southern states used the same style and phrases of the US Declaration of Independence in their secession ordinances.
It’s when the war is over—not while it is being waged—that the U.S. is magnaminous.
Most Southerners at the time didn’t feel that the federal government was all that “magnanimous”. They were economically exploited, poverty-stricken, occupied, and largely shut out of high national office for most of the next century.
But the only war without atrocities I know of is a board game called RISK
Until one frustrated player grabs the game board and smacks another player in the head with it.
And the South is hardly the innocent victim you portray it to be.
I never portrayed them as such. My original point was that the cause of the Civil War is that the Southern states voted to secede from the Union and the federal government used the armed forces to invade, starve, plunder, and burn the South for the goal of preventing them.
Secessionist movements have always existed and still do in this country. The Civil War settled that issue for a time. Nevertheless, an all-powerful federal government that continues to ignore states’ rights may make secession a popular topic again. Let’s hope that if that happens, it’s dealt with in a more sensible manner than it was in 1861.
Secessionist movements have always existed and still do in this country. The Civil War settled that issue for a time. Nevertheless, an all-powerful federal government that continues to ignore states’ rights may make secession a popular topic again. Let’s hope that if that happens, it’s dealt with in a more sensible manner than it was in 1861.
oh no, it will be worse this time, and there wont be a final settling of accounts.....
question: didnt southern land owners owe a LOT of money to banks in the north for their slave purchases?
Wasnt there was a fear that after sucession they would not make good on the loans?
I can’t believe that a dissenting opinion about this would be met with such vitriol.
I have strong feelings on the topic of the Civil War. I have strong feelings when I hear people talking about how “the flag is heritage” or “the South will rise again.” Generally, I try not to say anything, but when there’s a blog post, I feel more than happy to jump in and kick in my two-cents, because that’s what blogs are for.
I like how conveniently you’ve glossed over the fact that the south is occupied by more than white people. If you reread your post, you have become the racist you so seem to despise.
Wow, I must really be kicking your ass on this “debate” if you’ve resorted to calling me a racist. Then again, since you started this post by blanketly labeling people “racists”, maybe you’re incapable of debating anything.
I have made it repeatedly clear, over and over again, that I was talking about a group—whether they be an actual majority, or a simple vocal minority—who insists on some assinine belief that “the South will rise again” (and while there may be one or two black guys doing it, I think its probably mostly white people, don’t you?). As for my descriptions of the South, I made it clear that it was a description of perception as long as this actual majority (or vocal minority) continues to harbor fond feelings for a time of Southern history marked by slavery, racism, lynchings, etcetra, a period of time which lasted up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Federal troops sent in to finish what reconstruction should have. Rather than choose to discuss any of this, you decide to call me a racist. Wow. Way to prove you’re intellectually worthy of anything except disgust and contempt.
Here’s some advice as you continue to blog, if you choose to continue to blog. If you can’t write posts and discuss in their comments without calling people names instead of responding to their points in a polite and considerate manner, stop blogging. This isn’t a pastime for the thin skinned, and you need to put on a couple of more layers. You wanted a discussion on the Civil War and northern attitudes regarding the South? You got it. Now put up a conversation, or get the fuck out of the comments. I may not agree with what Thrill’s saying, but at least he’s doing me the respect of countering my points without calling me a fucking racist.
Good discussion CinaJ, Thrill, et al, well thought out arguments. Regarding the first bone of contention, whether the war would have occurred without slavery. I think it is naive to say that slavery was not in play and was not the catalyst. It was slavery that caused the distrust and animous between north and south starting at the founding. It was slavery that brought us the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dredd Scott descision, and the Preston Brooks aggravated assault on Charles Sumner in the Senate. It was slavery that created the chasm, the distrust, and the rancor that fomented the need for separation. Yes, Lincoln was accommodating to slavery and the slave states, but the south had had enough of the assault on their peculiar institution, and thats why the south announced before the election that if Lincoln won, this would be the straw that broke the camels back.
Thanks, richtaylor.
Slavery was certainly a driving force-a catalyst even. All you have to do is read South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession to see that (though other states listed other reasons as well; Texas’ is actually pretty interesting). Yet Lincoln did not launch the Civil War to end slavery. He did it to prevent the secession of the Confederate States.
Threats of secession had occured before. New England threatened to do so during the War of 1812 and South Carolina had first tried during the Jackson administration for reasons that didn’t involve slavery. The difference is that each time before the 1861, there was a compromise instead of a war.
It’s true that the South has both the shame of slavery and the honor of having fought gallantly for their homes and states’ rights against an over-powerful federal government.
It’s also true that the North has both the honor of having fought to end slavery (after Antietam) and preserve the Union along with the shame of waging an aggressive, destructive war against their own countrymen.
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The Civil War was essentially about economics and political power. The industrializing North was gaining financial prominence over a fading South. The Emancipation Proclamation was a way to undermine the remaining strength of the Southern economy in order to shorten the war. AL did not like slavery however he was not about to split the United States over it.