Of Guilt and the Late Confederacy

Townhall.com ^ | August 14, 2018 | Bill Murchison

[BroJoeK]

John S Mosby: "Touchy touchy... nerve nerve.
Over the target.
Buh bye.
Meant exactly what I said.
Hence your broadside."

Right, like all Lost Causers, you intended to lie about it and I called you out, no surprise, you're not the least ashamed.
That's what being a Democrat at heart does to your soul, pal.

John S Mosby: "There are others- here longer who have your number, and keep track.
It’s a big tent.... like our erstwhile GOPe fringe members."

I know nothing about such things, but can tell you from my own experience here that the real numbers of Republicans outweigh you old Dixiecrats by many-to-one.

Buh-bye.

[DoodleDawg]

They called those who were making this claim “demagogues.” Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted “the Confederates were not battling for slavery” and that “slavery had never been the key issue” (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).

On other occasions, other leaders, including Davis, said it was.

As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation.

Who?

Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a “moral and political evil” years before the war (Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232).

Yet as late as January 1865 Lee was calling "the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country..." Lee's opposition to slavery - before, after, and during the rebellion - was mild at best.

By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal.

And what clause of the Confederate constitution gave Davis or the congress power to end slavery? I'll save you the trouble - none. So in effect Davis was sending Kenner to Europe to lie to them.

“I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination.” - President Jefferson Davis The Atlantic Monthly Volume 14, Number 83

Oh barf.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Republicans/Whigs took advantage of political patronage, the spoils system, the same as Democrats.
Patronage finally lost some of its power with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, named for a Democratic Senator from Ohio."

Thanks for an interesting history lesson, no disagreements with such facts.
Might note the removal of patronage was also the beginnings of the Deep State, but that's for another time.

Now I'm out of time again... hi ho, hi ho, off to work... ;-)

[rockrr]

“parochial strut of egalitarian fantasy seekers”

I bet he slipped his choppers mouthing that one LoL.

[jmacusa]

Brilliant response Joe. The more I listen to these Johnny Reb wannabes the more I’m convinced none, certainly the majority of them never had an ancestor that was anywhere near having held a musket and worn a Confederate cloth. And those that might have, I’m hoping, probably have the regret , the decency and the good sense to keep their mouths shut.

[Pelham]

“No argument at all that the Whigs (who came later) completely copied the DemoKKKrats in their organization, partisan press, and GOTV efforts”

Well partisan press existed long before Van Buren assembled the Democrats- Jefferson and his Federalist adversaries both had highly partisan pamphleteers and newspapers flacking for them. Good old James Callander was one of them, hired by Jefferson, whom he then turned on, being the source of the original Sally Hemmings rumor.

GOTV was pretty much invented by Tammany Hall, beginning 1790...Van Buren was 8 yrs old...Tammany supported the Democratic-Republican Party... Jefferson.. Aaron Burr.. again this long predates the Van Buren Democrats.

Whig Party isn’t that much younger than the Democrats...Van Buren in 1828 to Clay in 1834. Whigs, like the Democrats, picked up pieces of the old Democratic-Republican Party.. John Quincy Adams was elected as a D-R...in fact all four candidates running in 1824 were Democratic-Republicans, including Jackson... John Q Adams ended his career being a Whig.

[Ohioan]

You continue to play word games, dependent upon your ex cathedra usages being sacrosanct. Nowhere--apart from the baldest of assertions--do you actually paint a dynamic picture of the actual interaction between the parties. Moreover, you conmtinually elevate form over substance.

The pejorative terminology, which you prefer in an historic debate, where it is inappropriate, says far more about you than it does about those whom you denounce. In some places it is particularly ridiculous.

For example, you refer to me as a "lost causer." Please point to some place where I lament General Grant's victory. As a patriotic Ohioan, I certainly do not; although I do believe that the South had the better legal argument in the war, for reasons you will find discussed in this thread.

But where you really go overboard is with your Nazi argument. The implied suggestion that we can not make judgments against a foreign political party that attacked us, for the reasons that it was very inappropriate to make moral judgments against a sister State in our Federal alliance, demonstrates your total obliviousness to the actual dynamics of the relationship.

It is not about your childish word games; there are clear and obvious markers, which have clear & obvious meaning in the context of interaction.

For example Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gave each State effective total control of the suffrage--including Federal suffrage--within that State. Who would be allowed to vote gets deeply into a species of political/social values, ethics--moral questions.

For other examples of the importance of respecting the acceptance of an interaction based upon mutual respect, note Article I, Sec. 9; Article IV, etc. Or consider the solemn pledge, at the end of the Declaration Of Independence! (Incidentally, you quote the Declaration out of context, in a dishonest way. [Declaration Of Independence--With Study Guide])

You cannot reasonably postulate a continuing Union between the parties without assuming the mutual respect, which was the foundation. Securing the "Blessing of Liberty" to the Founders' posterity absolutely required same.

As to the terrible effect of Reconstruction on the new Freedmen in the South, you might want to get a hold of a copy of the study by the--I believe--chief actuary of Prudential Insurance, Frederick L. Hoffman, in the 1890s, which documents the point. Or since you claim to be defending Abraham Lincoln, explain how the Thad Stevens Radical Republicans carried out his pledge of "with malice towards none," etc., to bind up the wounds. (There is an ocean of malice in the 14th Amendment, if you are not too busy to look.)

[DiogenesLamp]

Brilliant response Joe.

I usually don't bother reading the stuff BroJoeK writes, but because of your praise I went back and looked at it.

Ohioan's point was that BroJoeK used pejoratives. BroJoeK says they were accurate for the time period. Flaw in BroJoe's thinking is that we are not currently in that time period. Today those terms are considered pejorative, so, not such a brilliant response in my opinion.

The more I listen to these Johnny Reb wannabes the more I’m convinced none, certainly the majority of them never had an ancestor that was anywhere near having held a musket and worn a Confederate cloth.

Absolutely true of me. My family didn't arrive here until the 1900s, and they didn't settle in any confederate state. Don't have anyone I have to defend on either side. That's why I can see the conflict more objectively.

The South had the right to leave, (As asserted in the Declaration of Independence, and as Lincoln himself described in two different written statements) and the North did not attack them to stop slavery.

The North attacked them to keep control of Southern money and European trade.

So yeah, this non confederate descended American sees what happened, and it isn't what people have been led to believe by the biased history that has been taught in schools ever since the conflict.

The Civil War created the "Establishment/Crony Capitalist system", loosely centered on New York and Washington, and which we are still fighting to this day.

[John S Mosby]

You “dixiecrats”. What a laugh. From a hyena. You have no clue.

[jmacusa]

“My family didn't arrive until the 1900s.’’ Then shut up. Mine served in The Army of The Potomac. When it comes to pejoratives I can't think of any pejorative more to the point than "Confederate''.

[jmacusa]

I’d like to hear him say that three times fast.

[DiogenesLamp]

“My family didn't arrive until the 1900s.’’ Then shut up.

I don't have to. We've got this thing in America called "freedom of speech", and I can speak as much as I like.

Mine served in The Army of The Potomac.

After everything i've learned about that in recent years, it wouldn't be something I would be bragging about. An army of conquest and subjugation invading and killing people who had done them no wrong?

And to protect European Shipping to New York? To establish the Crony Capitalist "Deep State" establishment we are still fighting?

You don't dare see the evil of it because your family was part of it.

[rockrr]

His choppers would fall right out of his head.

[jmacusa]

You are one pathetic prick, you know that? You get your head handed to you all the time, time and again the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of you arguments is pointed and yet you never learn. You keep coming back for more. Like the dog who returns to it’s vomit.

[DiogenesLamp]

You get your head handed to you all the time, time and again the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of you arguments is pointed and yet you never learn.

All I see is blather. You must of course be referring to BroJoeK, and I stopped reading his opinion on this subject a long time ago, and yes, it's all opinion.

What I have are facts. I can show where the money went. You guys can't. You're still stuck on the old propaganda used to cover up what was really going on. (The illusion that anyone in the power structure really gave a sh*t about black people during the war.)

This Country is ruled by New York and Washington DC mostly, and every day people bitch about the Media (New York) and the "Establishment" (Washington DC) and not a one of you can see when this all started, and why it has kept going.

The enemies of this nation today, are what used to be the enemies of the Southern people who just wanted independence.

We have all become enslaved to the power blocks of New York and Washington's Crony Capitalism. This is why the debt is so far out of control.

Who benefits from all that excessive money being spent?

Cui bono?

[jmacusa]

Idioto!

[wardaddy]

All you need do is turn on the TV today and sees who this little cabal Bro alluded to earlier is allied with in Chapel Hill

Same folks attacking the founders and even old Abe as well

It begs why have they been tolerated these 20 years

I don’t see any of their names pop up in freepathons

We tried to tell folks

Look how many have been busted or exposed as libs....especially on social issues

I think many..not all....see this as a way to rub a conservative forum

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Tammany supported the Democratic-Republican Party... Jefferson.. Aaron Burr.. again this long predates the Van Buren Democrats."

I've long thought the alliance between Southern planters and Northern big-city immigrant bosses was there from the beginning -- Democrats by whatever name.
Put it this way: there was no time when big-city block votes went solidly to Federalists or Whigs or Republicans.
Those big-city voters were always solid Democrat, though occasionally not-quite-so-solid.

LS & D'Souza (among others) have identified Martin Van Buren's role in cementing those big-city votes for Jacksonian Democrats, but the question is whether they were ever going for any other party, and I think the answer is: not really.

Yes, some here (iirc, i.e., DiogenesLamp) suggest Federalist Alexander Hamilton attempted to secure big-city voters for Federalists, but I've never seen actual history of where that happened.

Pelham: "Whig Party isn’t that much younger than the Democrats...Van Buren in 1828 to Clay in 1834."

We simply must keep the actual geneology of our parties firmly in mind.
For Democrats, it's the following:

1. Anti-Federalists -- 1788, voted "no" on ratification
2. Anti-Administration -- 1788 to ~1792 Jefferson's opposition to Washington's Federalist administration.
3. Democratic Republicans -- 1792 to ~1828 Jefferson's original alliance of Southern planters & Northern big-city immigrants.
4. Jacksonian Democrats -- ~1828 to LBJ, with Van Buren solidifying Northern big-city support for Southern planters.

5. today's Democrats -- beginning with FDR, culminating in LBJ's "Great Society" flipped African-Americans from Republicans to Democrats, pushed Southern whites into Republican party.

Likewise the Republicans:

1. Federalists -- voted "yes" on ratification, formed Washington & Adams administrations, dissolved at 1814 Hartford Convention and defection of John Quincy Adams to Jefferson's party.
2. National Republicans -- 1824 to 1834, Anti-Jackson party formed by John Quincy Adams & Henry Clay.
3. Whigs -- from 1834 to ~1854, Northern, Western & Southern farmers opposed to Democrat alliance of big-city immigrants & Southern planters.
4. Republicans -- rural former Northern anti-slavery Whigs & Free Soil Democrats.

5. today's Republicans -- still mostly rural & small-town, smaller business, traditional values, with, since LBJ, the increasing addition of Southern whites.
   Must also note the roles of Reagan in adding large numbers of blue-collar workers and Trump's revival of the old "Americans" wing of Whig party.

2016 Presidential election, red=Republican:

[Pelham]

“We simply must keep the actual geneology of our parties firmly in mind.
For Democrats, it’s the following:”

People moved back and forth between parties. They created new parties. There were divisions inside the parties. A party’s position would change when a different faction gained control.

Pigeonholing of the parties creates a comic book version of American history... which is what Dinesh is doing, ergo his popularity... of course he’s also playing a me-too game of vilifying American history, as in his recent attack on Andrew Jackson. But it all scratches the itching ears of conservatives today who like their history to be a simple morality tale that puts them on God’s side, which in this telling is the angelic GOP. Nothing new in that idea either.

[Ohioan]

You understand American politics. An immigrant cherry picking incidents to call attention to himself by "proving" a fantasy interpretation, is only a distraction--albeit a very unfortunate distraction, when we are at a pass where an American future is the real issue.

War On An American Future.

Those who choose to deliberately misconstrue the American past, are not likely to define a future worth enduring.