Posted on 11/08/2015 9:36:32 AM PST by yoe
LOUISVILLE, Miss. — In single strokes after the massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June, Confederate battle flags were taken from statehouse grounds in South Carolina and Alabama, pulled from shelves at major retailers like Walmart and declared unwelcome, if to (limited effect), at Nascar races.
What happened so swiftly elsewhere is not so simple in Mississippi. The Confederate battle flag is not simply flying in one hotly disputed spot at the State Capitol but occupying the upper left corner of the state flag, which has been flying since 1894. (And as recently as 2001), Mississippians voted by a nearly two-to-one ratio to keep it. Recent ( polling) suggests the majority have not changed their minds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Adios dude. Hey, some reading you might want to check out, Alexander H. Stephen’s “Corner Stone’’ speech. Very illuminating.
“And how did he ‘send them?’
Started a war. Extended their enlistments for the duration of it. Drafted a lot of them.”
1. Samuel Clemens didn’t seem to have any problem deserting. Most confederates were loyal; were it otherwise, confederate armies would have melted away.
2. The first draft wasn’t needed for a year, which tells us there was significant volunteerism.
“Yes, I am (unaware of the ongoing manumission of slaves). Want to enlighten us?”
This isn’t a great article, but it’s a place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission
Better would be to have a friend with family traditions that stretch back that far.
“How so?”
Intensive agriculture was ruining the land. Planters had to keep moving west. Further, the improvement of the steam engine and the cotton gin was reducing the need for labor. Mechanization and low-cost free labor would have been the only path for Southern agriculture. The adoption of crop rotation and other agricultural advances would also have been required.
“And replace (slavery) with what?”
For two things, mechanization and low-cost free labor. Above and beyond that, who can say? So much of the South’s human capital was squandered in fighting Lincoln’s war; who knows what genius died at Antietam or in the Wilderness? How could we even guess what didn’t happen, what wasn’t invented, as a result?
Including America, pre-1776.
If your position is that not having someone on the ballot makes the election illegitimate in the state then how do you explain South Carolina? People in South Carolina never voted for a single president until after Reconstruction. Up until then the state legislature decided who got the state's electoral vote. By your definition then none of the presidents were legitimate.
Lincoln's election was legitimate. It complied with the Constitution in every respect. He would have won if he'd been on the ballot in every state. For the Southern states to use that as an excuse for rebellion shows how little respect they had for the Constitution.
Besides, the problems began back before 1832 and 1833, it was not slavery at that time.
An administration opposed to slavery had not just been elected.
You have it backwards. Lincoln wasn’t on the ballot in those states because those states deliberately omitted him from the ballots. Lincoln had nothing to do with it.
If the people in those states “felt they had no choice in the matter” they should have taken it up with their state governments.
It’s interesting how Jackson - a southern president - dealt with the nullification crisis.
1. Samuel Clemens didn't seem to have any problem deserting. Most confederates were loyal; were it otherwise, confederate armies would have melted away.
Actually, desertion was rampant in the confederate army. Armies have had "File Closers" but the confederates put them to use to make certain that troops didn't desert during maneuvers.
2. The first draft wasn't needed for a year, which tells us there was significant volunteerism.
True enough. It was the United States that first instituted the draft. And it was the US draft that sparked the disastrous draft riots in New York. But it was the confederates that reneged on their enlistment promises - acts that inspired massive desertions.
This isn't a great article, but it's a place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission
Thanks for the link. Did you happen to read this portion:
After invention of the cotton gin in 1793, which enabled the development of extensive new areas for new types of cotton cultivation, manumissions decreased due to increased demand for slave labor. In the nineteenth century, slave revolts such as the Haitian Revolution and especially the 1831 rebellion led by Nat Turner increased slaveholder fears, and most southern states passed laws making manumission nearly impossible until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, after the American Civil War in 1865.
Intensive agriculture was ruining the land. Planters had to keep moving west. Further, the improvement of the steam engine and the cotton gin was reducing the need for labor. Mechanization and low-cost free labor would have been the only path for Southern agriculture. The adoption of crop rotation and other agricultural advances would also have been required.
As my quote from Wackypedia shows, introduction of the cotton gin actually increased demand for slave labor, not decreased it. And as demand rose, so did the dollar value of slaves. With the increased demand slavers would have moved west if they could, but the climate wasn't conducive to plantation-style growth. Instead the confederacy had aspirations of conquering South American nations and exporting some of their labor forces there.
Manumission was at best an oddity in the south - before it became extinct altogether.
Problem identified. You, like most northerners, want to view the history of human bondage and racialism as a Southern problem, and not a global problem - certainly never as problem in the northern states.
The whole truth is usually in the details. In your posts I don't often see references to the northern colonies writing the preservation of human bondage into the Declaration of Independence, or of the northern states writing the peculiar institution into the Constitution.
I see no mention in your posts of northern approval of southern de jure segregation of the races, or the equally brutal northern de facto segregation of the races.
But hey, you are in emotional synchronization with Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln, it is said, “freed the slaves.”
In other words, cheap grace.
Actually I short-changed you on one reply. As to Sam Clemens, the setting for his “desertion” was emblematic of the chaos and confusion of the time. I found a fascinating article on the background of events leading up to his involvement, “desertion”, and subsequent public service for the union:
http://www.twainweb.net/filelist/1861.html
I’m not a “northerner”. If anything I am an American.
Beyond any scintilla of a shadow of doubt. To say even that they might not requires malice of an appalling depth.
Would it be possible for you to please provide any scintilla of evidence that would indicate that anyone who held any power in the South had any intention of ending Slavery if they won the War?
I’m not a “northernerâ€.
Sir: I should not have called you a northerner without knowing the facts. That was a terrible thing for me to do. Please accept my sincere apology.
We can chalk it up to an honest mistake, right?
Well, Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne in January 1864 called for freeing from the peculiar institution men who would join the Confederate army. This was a small step toward ending slavery - not in a general way, but still a first step.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest earlier freed male slaves (and their families) who agreed to serve as teamsters.
Then there were General Lee and President Davis that advocated the freeing slaves that would agree to take a soldiers’ risk for the South. The Confederate Congress on March 13, 1865 agreed to arm slaves to fight in the army with something of a vague, but recognizable, promise of freedom.
The act of the Confederate Congress was too little, too late but it was nearly a year prior to the northern states being required by the federal congress to end slavery.
In three years of war, the idea in the South of freeing slaves went from “never” to “ok, with conditions.” Had the South won, it is not unreasonable to think this process would have continued. If someone wanted to justify total warfare against an agrarian people, and the deaths of 600,000, they would of course, argue the opposite.
Yes it was too little and too late. It represented the desperate acts of men who realized that they could not win - but were doggedly determined to wage war anyway.
Oh, and you forget the part about the confederate constitution. You remember - that part where they enshrined slavery for all time?
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
Article IV, Section 2 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:
“The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
But probably the best part was Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy:
“The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
Regardless of whether or not any southern state toyed with the notion to emancipate, the confed federal gov still forced them to recognize and enforce slavery.
“We can chalk it up to an honest mistake, right?”
Again, my apology for calling you a northerner without knowing the facts. You didn’t deserve that.
“I should not have called you a northerner without knowing the facts. That was a terrible thing for me to do.”
I’m a Northerner and damned glad I am one.
You are an idiot.
.
I can tell you’re trying desperately to make a point. Is this a bad time to clue you in that you are failing - miserably?
It’s a game of regional bigotry that some of them play. It’s somehow supposed to resolve to the value of your opinion is directly proportional to where you were born. It’s a silly ad-hom but then people like him are silly people.
There’s nothing wrong with being a northerner - there’s nothing wrong with being a southerner. It’s sad and more than a little pathetic that some people can’t see beyond that.
I don't know if I ever mentioned it to you, but like most people from up north, you want to view the history of human bondage and racialism as a Southern problem, and not a global problem - certainly never as problem in the northern states.
The whole truth is usually in the details. In your posts I don't often see references to the northern colonies writing the preservation of human bondage into the Declaration of Independence, or of the northern states writing the peculiar institution into the Constitution.
I see no mention in your posts of northern approval of southern de jure segregation of the races, or the equally brutal northern de facto segregation of the races.
But hey, you are in emotional synchronization with Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln, it is said, freed the slaves. In other words, cheap grace.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.