The Quiet Sesquicentennial of the War between the States

American Thinker ^ | 5/20/2014 | James Longstreet

[Sioux-san]

Not much media coverage, not much fanfare, not much reflection. A war that carved over 600,000 lives from the nation when the nation’s population was just 31 million. To compare, that would equate to a loss of life in today’s population statistics, not to mention limb and injury, of circa 6 million.

We are in the month of May, when 150 years ago Grant crossed the Rapidan to engage Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee stood atop Clark’s Mountain and watched this unknown (to the eastern theatre) entity lead a massive army into Lee’s home state. Soon there would be the Wilderness, where forest and brushfires would consume the wounded and dying. Days later, the battle of Spotsylvania ensued, in which hand-to-hand combat would last nearly 12 hours. Trading casualties one for one and rejecting previous prisoner exchange and parole procedures, Grant pushed on, to the left flank. The Battle of the North Anna, then the crossing of the James, and thus into the siege of Petersburg. This was 1864 in the eastern theatre.

Today there is hardly a whisper of the anniversary of these deeds, sacrifices, and destruction. Why?

One can suppose that the weak treatment of history at the alleged higher levels of education in this country contributes to the lack of attention. “It was about slavery; now on to WWI.” The War between the States was so much more complicated than the ABC treatment that academia presents. And as the old saying goes, the more complicated the situation, the more the bloodshed...

[Sioux-san]

The Tyranny has been going on for a long time in our fair Nation. From now on, I will refer to this time in our country's history as the 'War of Northern Aggression.'

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I remember reading a Sunday comic about the Civil War during the centenary when I was in grade school. The events in the comic depicted events occurring exactly one hundred years before.

[tgusa]

James Longstreet? Really?

[2ndDivisionVet]

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of 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 forever 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. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

~Abraham Lincoln, Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858

[txrefugee]

When a wife wants to leave her husband and he bludgeons her into staying, the result is not freedom or love but resignation. The scars remain.

[Don Corleone]

'War of Northern Aggression.'

If you reside below the Mason-Dixon like that is the correct appellation.

[Don Corleone]

like=line

[Sioux-san]

While I lived most my adult life in the South, I am a Yankee by birth and current residence - it doesn’t mean I have to continue to be an ignorant Yankee, however. The Southerners are right on this one, and we will live to see that history repeated in this country.

[jospehm20]

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,— most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848, Speech on War with Mexico, US Capitol

[upcountryhorseman]

It’s clear that the victors write the history: thus, the history books used in public schools distort what happened.
As I see it, there are two basic truths: The North invaded the South and We all agree that slavery is morally and economically wrong, but beyond that, southerners were fighting to defend their homes.

[ifinnegan]

This is a good question.

I think it is ignorance on the part of those who somehow chose what to commemorate. Civil War is forgotten.

But more importantly, the black vote as a bulk whole is more important.

Raising awareness of a war in which so many Americans died to free blacks might open the eyes and minds of a few too many black voters.

The leftists need the near unanimous vote and even a small percentage change throws elections back in the R column.

[ifinnegan]

Yeah, but what you’re saying is a bit revisionist and self contradictory. Incoherent.

[Sioux-san]

wonder if he is any relation

[IronJack]

I won’t refer to the Civil War as “The War of Northern Aggression” — there was plenty of provocation on both sides. But I agree that the wrong side won, and that things will be different when the next one comes.

[tgusa]

I wonder .....

[achilles2000]

Freeing the blacks was a consequence of the war, but it wasn’t its purpose. The Union Army soldiers would have deserted en masse if they thought that the reason they were taken from their homes to suffer all of the vicissitudes of war was to free slaves.

[Rebelbase]

"The North invaded the South and We all agree that slavery is morally and economically wrong, but beyond that, southerners were fighting to defend their homes."

I've come to the conclusion that this war, like all others was precipitated and manipulated by the ruling class.

The typical southerner outside slave strongholds didn't have a dog in the fight. The wealthy slave holders owned the southern politicians in the same way special interests own our politicians today.

The entire slave economy which benefited only a relative few monetarily was threatened and the ruling class using their politicians, press, etc. responded with the proper rhetoric to rile up the masses to fight for a "cause". That "cause" was deception to promote the preservation of a more sinister agenda. Consider Confederate money art. Money art often enshrines ideals of cherished institutions. The most near and dear institution to those who printed the money was slavery.

[Myrddin]

I can't take side since I have ancestors from each side. The southern side arrived with my mom's family via Jamestown. The northern side arrived via the Mayflower. The last arrival was my paternal great grandfather. He emigrated from Wales in 1863 and served in the Union Army from 1863-1865...much of that time in a southern POW camp.

[CodeToad]

Anyone attempting to rationalize the war or attempting to lay blame on people of today are succumbing to the same illogical reasoning that racists use to say whites owe blacks “reparations”.

[ifinnegan]

It’s interesting.

Initially I only heard this revisionist history from Communists. That was where I first heard the “Civil War was not about slavery” revision.

Communists had a vested interest in pushing the view that Americans, Capitalist racists, would never fight to free people in slavery because it was a moral right.

It was only later that I heard it from non-Communists and learned it came from Southern Revisionists.

It is still in the Democrat’s interest to deny and hide that Americans did this out out devotion to morality and God.

That’s why they don’t want the Civil War taught because it would contradict their worldview of white privilege, evil racist conservatives and America is only about greed and racism.