Posted on 06/09/2009 8:47:35 AM PDT by Davy Buck
My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Then where is it? It's been a couple of months since you claim you requested it from the library. Is delivery done by mule train in your area?
And about 260,000 died in gray to protect an institution y'all love to claim was dying out anyway. Talk about real lost causes. Maybe you'll have better luck next time. Be sure and let me know how it works out.
The Lincoln memorial, you know the DC site that "aroused" you when you visited it, remember?
Accuracy has never been your strong point, has it? You make up history, make up causes, make up countries, make up offenses, make up quotes I'm supposed to have said.
You are like a child, always have to have the last post. Very immature. Ok, waiting for your idiotic reply.
Learned articles have been written on how the propaganda of the Abolitionists attacked and dissolved the bonds of fellow-citizenship. It is an area of study all its own. There are certain things that, when they have been said, cannot be unsaid. It's true in politics, too: "Rum, ruin, and Romanism." "Read my lips." And so on.
It does not only affect the states of the Confederacy, but it affects every state and every resident of the United States.
I have argued myself that the Plains States lost the Civil War just as finally as the South. That their regiments fought on the wrong side, in a triumph of propaganda and perversity, over the innocent and honest intentions of their own farmer-soldiers and farmer-citizens. Their political leadership should have kept them out of it, but the freesoil interest held them, the fear of economic competition from black slaves spurred them to make war on their own freedom and dignity and to record an immense, dark victory for the excrudescent forces of oligarchy, inequality, plutocracy, and the politics of backstairs private influence, indirection, mass propaganda, and cynical dissimulation.
We no longer have a federal constitution but a national constitution. We have today what the Founders of this nation blatantly opposed.
All but one. Hamilton and his business-class adherents were all for it -- an empire without a king, a republic of the Interests, Venice reimagined and grown great on the sweat of its peasants and coolies. Their vision is now complicated and darkened further by the presence of a vast and murderous neo-Marxist, neo-Stalinist cabal whose zombie cadres feed on the successes of the oligarchs. The People struggle with both factions, but it appears so far to be an unequal fight, the moreso because their mortal enemies control their sources of information and the education of their children. Mass media hebetate the citizen-host with vapid entertainments (Seinfeld e.g., a show explicitly constructed on nullities both abstract and animate ..... "not that there's anything wrong with that") and ply them with fire-hose streams of factional and interest-group propaganda and commercial messages.
A citizen of Jacksonian America once upbraided Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett for spending public money on a private charity. Today that citizen is "Kramer". Need I say more?
Which argument was that, pal?
Not really. The question is, "not recognized .... by whom?"
Non-Sequitur, as a statist, thinks that things have to be ratified, sanctified, reified by the State -- by which he means his favorite construct of a sovereign, fascist imperium overmastering every form of life within its reach -- or else they don't exist.
Our friend aruanan, on the other hand, points out that slave marriages meant a great deal and were quite real to the participants, and that their reality was conceded by the masters.
As a great conservative poster put the question in another forum, in battle with the homosexual bigots and fascists of that domain, "Who do you have to be, to say 'should'?"
Like I said. Now, is that what people actually did -- as a rule?
As you told someone else on the thread, "statistics, please." Go get your homework (you remember homework, don't you? -- such as you demanded so starchily from stand_watie?), and come show it to us. Show us how the vast, overwhelming majority of slave marriages ended in tears and forced separation at the hands of ruthless, snaggletoothed, pellagra-ridden, sweat-stained Hitchcockian crackerhead masters.
Sarcastic "y'all" aside (come on, N-S, let it flow .... release your hate! </Darth>), I have dissented, and I've cited and posted revisionist historians who've argued that slavery was not in retreat before the Civil War and that it was not failing and would not necessarily have died from economic causes.
Pellagra-ridden? You do so love your thesaurus, don't you?
I doubt that I can come up with statistics indicating that the majority of slave marriages ended in forced separation, any more than you can come up with statistics saying that they were not. But your usual overblown cracks about statism aside, marriage is seen as a legal contract, a joining of two individuals in the eyes of the law. And if defining marriage as such is 'statism', then given the current uproar over homosexual marriage there are a whole lot of statists out there.
If two people are married then the state cannot force them to end it. It cannot say later that their marriage is non-existent. Such protections were not afforded to slaves. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that slaves who considered themselves 'married' were separated by sale. Only a fool would say otherwise. Was that the fate of the majority of slave 'marriages'? I have no idea, and looking back I never said that it was. It's you who said that, putting words in people's mouths yet again. Was there marriage for slaves as it was defined for white people? No. And you know it.
The issue of “recognition in state law” of slave marriages is a large Red-Herring.
Slave marriages were recorded three ways: First, in the Church. Second, in the records of the slave owner. Third, in the US Census.
All parties accepted the marriages as valid.
from lentulusgracchus: "The implication here is that, from the beginning, the Republican Party was a political crusade undertaken on a platform that included a secret war plank."
From its founding, the Republican Party was the party of anti-slavery. After all, Republicans had replaced the old Whig party, which they considered too wishy-washy and compromising. Even back then, true Republicans didn't like "moderates"!
Also, much has been made about Lincoln's supposedly "unconstitutional" actions, but you need to re-read the Constitution -- especially Article 1, Sections 8 & 9 and Article 4 Section 4. These provide for extreme actions to be taken in cases of invasion, insurrection, rebellion and domestic violence. So our Founders never intended to let everyone just "do their own thing."
Finally, I'm looking for a source, which I think is McCullough's book on John Adams, but don't have it handy here to confirm. You may remember that John Adams was George Washington's strong supporter, got Washington appointed Commander in Chief of the Army in 1775, later became Washington's Vice President, and then President Adams -- we could call him Adams 2.
Well, Adams 2's son, John Quincy Adams, became President Adams #6, then later served in the House of Representatives, where he knew Congressman Abraham Lincoln. Thus JQ Adams 6 was the only President who knew both Washington and Lincoln.
Adams 6, like his father Adams 2, was strongly anti-slavery. And I think it was Adams 6 who first formed the Constitutional opinion that the only legal way (short of an impossible Constitutional Amendment) to completely abolish slavery was a War of Rebellion, during which the Federal Government's authority could be exerted over the rebellious territories.
Thus we can say, the IDEA which eventually became the Civil War was first formed by the son of our anti-slavery Founding Father, John Adams, at the time when he and Lincoln both served in Congress. I think that's McCullough's argument...
Without slavery there would have been no United States, no Constitution and no Federal Government. Allowing slavery was a price the country paid to achieve success in the Revolutionary War and Founding.
It was recognized at the time as a major problem, and the best minds of that brilliant age wrestled with it. For example, Thomas Jefferson figured out how much it would cost the Federal Government to purchase freedom for every slave -- far less in blood and treasure than the Civil War cost. And the son of Founder John Adams, John Quincy Adams, first figured that Constitutionally the only way short of Amendment to abolish slavery was a War of Southern Rebellion.
And those were the only real choices: 1) Amendment (impossible), 2) Purchase all slaves (too expensive, and how is that even Constitutional?), 3) A War of Southern Rebellion (painful but doable).
Nearly 200,000 black volunteers did serve in the Northern Army, of whom about 20% died.
And of course, numerous black slaves accompanied their masters into the Southern Army. But how many actually volunteered and fought? A minuscule number. For one thing, it was not allowed until the war's very end.
Here is the best report I could google-up on the subject. Sorry, but I don't know enough to say for certain how much of this report is God's Own Truth, and how much just partisan spin. To me it looks reasonable.
Black soldiers with the Confederate Army
Here is a quote from the article:
"The 1860 census counted 240,747 "free Negroes" in the slave states, 15,000 more than lived in the free states to the north.
"Almost half a century earlier, free black Southerners had fought under Andrew Jackson to help defeat British invaders at the Battle of New Orleans. Not surprisingly, many also volunteered to defend their homes against the new threat from the North.
"No accurate record has been kept of black units that served the South, since most of them were state militia and never mustered into the Confederate Army. However, contemporary newspapers mention black units as being present at Charleston, Mobile, Nashville, New Orleans, Bowling Green, Ky., and Lynchburg, Va.
"Not one of these militia units appears to have been actively engaged in combat, though many did perform service on the front lines. Quite often this was as laborers in the construction of fortifications, a task also performed by slaves."
Any time you bring Dresden into a discussion, it's important to remember that the first city fire bombings were done by the Germans over British cities during the FIRST World War, and that Germans bombing cities continued in the Spanish Civil War (i.e., Guernica), their 1939 invasion of Poland, 1940 invasions of Holland, France & Air Battle of Britain and 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.
So, there were always at least two elements to allied motivations for bombing German cities: 1) destroy German war production, and 2) revenge -- or, if you prefer: "to teach the Germans a lesson they won't soon forget."
In that respect, allied bombing of Dresden and other axis cities DOES tell us quite a bit about the strength of allied motivations and feelings.
"Proto-Nazis"?? Not even close.
By that standard, President George Washington was a "proto-Nazi" for sending troops to to defeat Indians in Ohio. H*ll, anyone who lived before 1933 could be called a "proto-Nazi," and that's just ridiculous.
From the beginning of the American Republic, Indian wars all had the same purpose: to get Indians moving onto treaty-enforced reservations allowing more room for white settlers. There was never an exterminationist ideology behind these wars, except in the sense of making life very difficult for Indians off their reservations.
So, I would argue that overall, American treatment of Indians was no worse than, and in many cases much better than, other European countries in similar circumstances treated other native populations.
Certainly no comparison with Hitler's treatment of Jews and Slavs who fell under his control.
I think it's a ridiculous distinction to say that the 4,000 Cherokees who died on the "trail of tears" was NOT genocide, but Sherman's actions killing Buffalos WERE genocide.
By today's moral standards, of course, none of these actions would be acceptable. But neither do they correspond to the millions and tens of millions who died under Nazi and Communist tyrannies.
As someone who collects old history books and lives in the part of the country founded first and foremost, I have read a LOT on the Indian wars
It wasn’t us who tried to do the extincting, it was the Indians, and they started doing it when the outnumbered us 1000 to one. Thank God for the Flintlock.
The Indians used to capture white settlers and sell them to the French as slaves during the 1600’s and 1700’s.
Is that why Confederates feel such sympathy for them and blame Yankees? Maybe so...
the UN-comfortable (for DYs) TRUTH is that the slave-OWNERS in the north had NO interest whatever in EVER freeing THEIR slaves. until well after the war, they planned to PRESERVE slavery "where it now exists". (further, a plan of operation addressed to Secretary Stanton by MG Benjamin Butler after the war said that Blacks were suitable ONLY for " eternal servitude under the lash" & that they must be forced to perform "voluntary manual labor, under the strictest of military discipline". = sounds like SLAVERY to me.)
the northern slave-OWNERS could have freed their slaves at ANY time. instead, after the WBTS (when slavery was no longer lawful in the USA), they SOLD their slaves to places in the Americas where slavery was still lawful. (there was NO MORE CRUEL servitude anywhere than in "the sugar islands". MOST slaves there lived less than two years.)
the TRUTH also is that you've "been sold a bill of goods" by "your betters" & REVISIONIST historians of the most extreme fringe of LEFTIST academia.
that particular LIE was dreamed up LONG after Richmond fell. (most reputable historians will admit, if pressed for an answer, that "The Grand Crusade Against Slavery" is a SELF-serving MYTH propounded by the ELITES of the Northeast, well after the war ended & it is nothing more than a LIE, which was designed to "wash the hands of northern elitists.)
free dixie,sw
the vast majority of those volunteers were NOT members of the PACSA (i.e., THE REGULAR ARMY of the CSA, which was a military force of LESS than THREE THOUSAND persons!)- instead the Black volunteers served in state, militia,partisan ranger, home guards & "privately raised" formations.
fwiw, many REVISIONIST LEFTIST "historians" out of the north say that "a few slaves" fought in the southern forces. (this is called a LIE by MISDIRECTION/OMMISSION, as those same "historians" KNOW full well that slaves COULD NOT serve in the forces, as they were NOT free to take the CSA's Oath of Enlistment. - btw, MANY slaves were FREED so that they COULD take The Oath.)
btw, Frederick Douglas in 1861 said that THOUSANDS of Blacks were serving in the CSA army, "with real rifles on their shoulders". Douglas further said that "they are defending their country".
free dixie,sw
may i also remind you of a favorite saying of one of my grad school profs, "things in history are simple only to simpletons".
TWBTS was MAINLY a REBELLION of the citizens of the southland for FREEDOM from the ELITISTS of the northeast. 90+% of southerners owned NO slaves and were singularly UNWILLING to fight/bleed/die for "some rich guy's right to keep his slaves". (in the case of MY family, EVERY male of "military age" fought for the south; about HALF of them died for THE TRUE CAUSE. further our family was "dirt poor" AmerIndians & could NOT have afforded a single slave, had any of them wanted to buy one!!!)
the VAST majority of southern soldiers/sailors/marines fought for HOME defense,their STATE,for FREEDOM for the south & FOR EACH OTHER. (the reasons that southerners fought were NO different than the reasons that motivated their grandfathers, who fought against the tyranny of George III.)
free dixie,sw
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