This is not about defending the Confederacy.
Its existence
Rebellion works for me.
slaves
If all those young northern boys who marched off to war had known that this country would turnout the way it has, most of them would have stayed home.
Just as the first casualty in War is Truth, the victors write the history books. The South lost, attempts to reconcile peacefully were destroyed. Even to the impeachment of President Anderson. The South got what every defeated nation gets. Destroyed. After decades some pretense of apology was made for what the South endured in Reconstruction by allowing monuments. Now they and their families are dead and so the monuments are being destroyed. Like the Aussie said, “If you didnt’ want to be called a Yank you should have fought a little harder.”
The Confederacy hasn’t existed in more than 150 years. It takes a special kind of pathetic loser to think a Confederate flag or a statue of Robert E. Lee is a threat — or even just a bothersome nuisance — of any kind.
Nice the old way if you were John C. Calhoun or Jefferson Davis and had a "sovereign and separate" state government to play around with.
Not so nice if you were a slave. And there were a lot of slaves.
What really changed for most people in the 19th century was the frontier filled up and it got harder move away from one's problems and make a new start.
What changed was subsistence farming didn't satisfy people's needs or wants and they had to start working in an economy that was increasingly dominated by far-away corporations.
Those were the big changes to America in the 19th century.
Look at some of the comments, defenses, even aggressive threats here on FR, look at the video posted overnight here on FR by the White Supremacist group, which should be removed from FR. These are modern day racists, idiots, and they cause anyone defending the Confederacy and its flag, its monuments, etc. to be tarred with the same evil they represent and promote.
Being willing to go to war over not seeing the handwriting on the wall. All the other western countries that had slavery managed to get rid of it without a war, some people were mad, but they saw the direction of the wind.
Um, let’s go with Slavery!
“and those that caused President Lincoln to send Federal troops to the harbors in Charleston and Pensacola to initiate war.”
Nonsense. They were sent to relieve a siege. A siege is an act of war. Their orders were to do so peacefully, but respond with force if they were opposed. In any case the South intitiated hostilities before they got there. The south started the war, and gleefully so.
As for the cause, the speeches of the politicans who voted for succession make it clear it was about keeping slavery. No matter how you neo-Confederates try to twist history you can’t change it.
Cornerstone Speech:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. “
Stuff like this is plenty blameworthy.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all..."
and those that caused President Lincoln to send Federal troops to the harbors in Charleston
uhh, the Confederates bombarded Sumter, regardless of the fact that it was obvious that Anderson’s position was untenable due to lack of supplies...the glory seeker Beauregard was only too willing to initiate the bombardment, which was a one sided affair...
perhaps the bombardment was rather banal, producing no fatalities, but how stupid of the Confederates in SC to allow Lincoln the justification for mobilization of troops and the prosecution of war, when all they had to do was starve the minimal garrison at the fort into submission...
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.
The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.
The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
Excerpt
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi
With the Civil War there are several layers, and people typically pick the layer they like.
Its important to recognize that the South’s political leadership and its soldiers fought for two separate things.
The political leadership was very open and unashamed in its defense of slavery. Read the articles of secession for the various seceding states. The key issue isn’t tariffs, it isn’t exactly slavery per se, it is the right to extend slavery into the western states. This they state clearly again and again.
Lincoln was an avowed abolitionist, as can be easily seen by reading his speeches and letters. The south knew who he was, and it was for this reason that his election triggered secession.
He did try to keep them in the union. To save the union he was willing to let slavery die a natural death in the states where it already existed. He stated that openly after his election. He was not willing to let it spread to any more territory, however. That was his sticking point.
The slave states state very clearly that, if it is not allowed to spread west, it will die a natural death, and they could not allow that. So the right to spread slavery west was their non-negotiable sticking point.
Had the Civil War not been fought then, it would have been fought later, over the western states. Because that was the prize they both fought for.
As for the individual Confederate soldier and front line officers, they fought for loyalty to their state. They didn’t fight for slavery. The Union soldiers fought to keep the country united. It is the south’s political leadership that made slavery their issue, and they weren’t shy about stating it aloud.
The GOP was born specifically to end slavery. Christians, particularly, were disgusted that the Whigs wouldn’t take a stand, and established their own party. In practical terms, they had no chance, they were a tiny minority party. But from the moment they were founded, in 9 years we had the Emancipation Proclamation, and within a couple of years after that slavery was outlawed for good. Once GOP became a majority party (and reabsorbed the Whigs) they took on other issues. But their founding issue was slavery and they were very clear about that from day one.
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.”
Excerpt
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi
They are trashing something that no longer exists. For them, it is a symbol of the whole USA being racist. When they have destroyed all Confederate symbols, they move on to the USA. The goal is to destroy the USA. This is their moment. They are orgasmic over it.
It doesn’t stop at Charlottesburg. Their next step is to provoke a violent riot, with firebombs and people killed. It will be in a democrat-run town, such as Baltimore. The media will make it about Trump within about 3 seconds. They will do the same thing to him that they are doing now, but worse.
I hate these people.
Excerpt From: Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”
(Excerpt) https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi