Confederate States Of America (2005)

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

Once again, yet another incredible one liner from the imaginary Neo-Confed-Land crowd.

Actually, it's largely true. During the earlier days of Reconstruction, there was political violence whenever crowds of freedman, scalawags, and carpetbaggers attending Unionist rallies collided with Democrat rallies full of ex-Confederates; blows were exchanged, then bottles thrown, knives drawn, and finally pocket-pistols fired back and forth between the contending crowds. That was bad enough. But the really Jim Crow, institutionalized racism began as a reaction to an infamously unfortunate editorial by a black North Carolina freedman that made bold to recite the advances made by the ex-slaves, and to sneer at and scorn the poor whites they were passing by economically. The whole white community went into shock, and then it was enraged, and out of that rage and shame came the coldly malevolent resolution that came to be known as White Supremacy, which was basically a dog-in-the-manger, scorched-earth policy raised to the nth degree.

White supremacy postdated the Civil War by several years.

I do not doubt for one second the situations in the post-Civil War defeated South which you have outlined.

If you were a slave, recently liberated, and you spotted the schmuck that whipped & chained you, strolling down the lane, what would you do?

The same situation existed when the Nazi death camps were liberated. I friend of mine, who has passed away, told me in depth after his GI company actually witnessed the indescribable horror of one particular Nazi death camp his company liberated in southern Germany, once these battle hardened vets had finished throwing up, anyone sighted wearing an SS insignia paid dearly for their crimes, either our men, or by the tortured death camp survivors.

Slavery is still practiced by America's worst enemies, the terrorist jihadists. We do not wait to defeat them, our nation simply takes the required action....now.

There was far too much leniency with pro-slaver susccesonists, which dragged this nation into a bloody The Civil War.

The same situation existed when the Nazi death camps were liberated.

No it didn't! Damn, boy, haven't you been paying attention at all?

You're clinging to stereotypes in the face of better information. NO, Harriet Beecher Stowe was NOT accurate in her portrayal of slavery -- it was propaganda, get it?!

If you were a slave, recently liberated, and you spotted the schmuck that whipped & chained you, strolling down the lane, what would you do?

You really don't understand the South at all. LOTS of ex-slaves saw LOTS of ex-masters every damned day for 50 years. But YOU still don't get it!

You saw me post up, up above, that the slave quarters in some of the Texas sugar-cane plantations remained occupied for up to 30 years after the end of the war. You've heard of sharecropping and other arrangements whereby slaves continued to farm the same old acreage, some of them. You know, because I and others on the board have told you, that ex-slaves and their former masters continued to coexist in the same communities they'd always known -- and there wasn't anything like what you're talking about, nothing like the Jewish raiders' mass poisoning of former SS men in one of the Allied-run POW/de-Nazification camps, no mass reprisals, retribution, mass murder, mass mayhem. You're thinking like a schmuck yourself and projecting it mindlessly onto a social situation and culture you obviously don't know enough about to project much of anything onto!

Twentieth-century extremism just doesn't project backward onto the 19th century, don't you get it?

Just damnnnn!

Now knock it off with the snarky crap, okay?

I'm done here.

Damnnn!

Any method to rid the world of SS death camps butchers was too good for them.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was NOT accurate in her portrayal of slavery -- it was propaganda, get it?!

Propaganda? You know that is totally false. I would expect that line from the ones which state slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. You know far better.

Backgrounder:

'Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14th, 1811 at Litchfield, Connecticut (nice area). The first twelve years of her life were spent in the intellectual atmosphere of Litchfield, which was a famous resort of ministers, judges, lawyers and professional men of superior attainments.

When about twelve, she went to Hartford, where her sister Catherine had opened a school. While there she was known as an absent-minded and moody young lady, odd in her manner and habits, but a fine scholar, excelling especially in the writing of compositions.'

'In 1832, her father assumed the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, she followed her family. On the fifth of January, 1836, she married Professor Calvin E. Stowe, a man of learning and distinction. In Cincinnati, she came into contact with fugitive slaves.'

'Stowe was catapulted to international fame with the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851. . Following publication of the book, she became a celebrity, speaking against slavery both in America and Europe. She wrote A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) extensively documenting the realities on which the book was based, to refute critics who tried to argue that it was inauthentic; and published a second anti-slavery novel, Dred in 1856.'

'The following excerpt is taken from the last chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which very much resembles a sermon. She urges white Northerners to welcome escaped slaves and treat them with respect:'

'On the shores of our free states are emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families,--men and women, escaped, by miraculous providences, from the surges of slavery,--feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases, infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality. They come to seek a refuge among you; they come to seek education, knowledge, Christianity. What do you owe to these poor, unfortunates, O Christians? Does not every American Christian owe to the African race some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses be shut down upon them? Shall states arise and shake them out?'

'Shall the Church of Christ hear in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the helpless hand that they stretch out, and shrink away from the courage the cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it will be a mournful spectacle. If it must be so, the country will have reason to tremble, when it remembers that fate of nations is in the hand of the One who is very pitiful, and of tender compassion.'

('Path to freedom: Hundreds of escaped slaves sought refuge in this Ripley, Ohio, house on their trip north.' By Renee Sauer, AP)

'The Underground Railroad refers to the effort--sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized--to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape from slavery. Historic places along the Underground Railroad are testament of African American capabilities. The network provided an opportunity for sympathetic white Americans to play a role in resisting slavery, and brought together, however uneasily at times, men and women of both races to begin to set aside assumptions about the other race and to work together on issues of mutual concern.'

'At the most dramatic level, the Underground Railroad provided stories of guided escapes from the South, rescues of arrested fugitives in the North, complex communication systems, and individual acts of bravery and suffering in the quest for freedom for all.'

Find out how you can list a property associated with the Underground Railroad in the National Register of Historic Places.

'Defiant, brave and free, the great abolitionists Thomas Garrett, William Still and Harriet Tubman, along with hundreds of lesser known and nameless opponents of slavery, formed a Corridor of Courage stretching from Maryland's eastern shore through the length of Delaware to Philadelphia and beyond -- making the Underground Railroad a real route to freedom for enslaved Americans before the Civil War.'

Some crushed lives, while others saved lives. If history were to repeat itself today, what would you do?

The only fanatics on the subject of slavery were John Brown and his apologists.

There were others. GOPcapitalist posted on another thread about the summer of 1860 when abolitionists set fires in Texas or encouraged blacks to do it. More damage was done by these arsonists than by John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry, but Texas arson attacks are not nearly as widely known.

I found from newspaper reports that Dallas, Denton, Pilot Point, Belknap, Gainesville, Black-jack Grove, Kaufman, Navarro, Waxahachie, Henderson, Jefferson, Tyler, Georgetown, Bright Star, and even Austin had burned or had suffered arson attacks that were thwarted. Many of these attacks happened on the same day. A number of the arsonists were caught and confessed.

Here are some excerpts from articles I found.

Dallas. The fire was first discovered in front of Peak’s new drug store, on the west side of the square, and continued to spread rapidly until the whole north side were consumed and one half of the east side. … [Lists a bunch of fires a few miles outside of Dallas over the next few days] All of these were so plainly the work of an incendiary, that several white men and negroes were arrested and underwent an examination. This lead to the detection of a most diabolical plan to destroy the county. The scheme was laid by a master mind, and conceived with infernal ingenuity. It was determined by certain abolition preachers who were expelled from the country last year, to devastate with fire and assassination, the whole of Northern Texas, and when the country was reduced to a helpless condition, a general revolt of the slaves aided by white men from the North, and many in our midst, was to come off on the day of election in August. [State Gazette July 28, 1860, July 16th letter from a Dallas newspaper publisher]

Denton. The fire at Denton occurred on Sunday, 8th July, being the same day as at Dallas. … The whole west side of the public square with the solitary exception of Messrs. Blount & Scruggs store on the extreme N. W. corner is in ashes. [State Gazette, July 28, 1860] <

Navarro. These fires have all occurred so near the same time as to evince concert of action by a band of fiends, and the detection at Fort Worth of an abolitionist who had just distributed 50 guns and 50 six shooters among the negroes, places it beyond all doubt that abolition emissaries are at the bottom of it. We rejoice to learn that the man at Fort Worth was hung, and also one in Parker county for a similar act. [Navarro Express, July 21, 1860]

Tyler. Incendiaries. Our town, on Monday night last, was thrown into a fever of excitement, by the detection of an individual, a stranger in our place, in the act of attempting to fire the town. He was shot at two or three times by the patrol, but succeeded in making his escape, not, it is to be hoped, without carrying with him some evidence of the skill of our marksmen. Our people are on the alert, and woe to the scoundrel who, arrested in the act, falls into their hands. [Tyler Reporter, July 18, 1860]

Jefferson. … on that same ominous Sunday the 8th, an attempt was made to fire the buildings in Jefferson, Cass County; one of the buildings was the drug store of Messrs. Campbell & Co., and the other was the Jefferson Hotel. {Herald and Gazette, July 14, 1860]

Henderson. Dear Sir: I write to apprise you that the work of desolating the country is yet going on. Henderson was burned to ashes on Sunday night, while the guard were at supper. It was fired in eight places. Many wells have been poisoned and the slaves are running away. Be wide awake. These things are perfectly reliable. Respectfully yours, W. J. Sparks. [Arkansas True Democrat, August 25, 1860]

Georgetown. Last week the stable and kitchen of L. Gaus, of Georgetown, in Williamson county, were destroyed by fire. Suspicion attached to a negro boy, who had been a short time before near the consumed premises. This negro, on being arrested, at first equivocated, and then without whipping, admitted he had set fire to the stable. He stated that he had been instigated to do so by three white men; that he did not know the names of all of them, but knew their faces; that one of them told him he would take him safely to Mexico if he would fire the town, and other mischief. A music teacher, hailing from higher latitudes, finding himself implicated, made it convenient to decamp. He is said to be a Black Republican, and perhaps not the only one in the limits of the rich and fertile county of Williamson.

On Monday last, the citizens of Williamson county assembled en masse, and instead of waiting for the session of the District Court, which sits in September, they organized the court of Judge Lynch, and in their way tried the negro, and hung him about a mile from town. He may have been, and no doubt was, guilty, and richly merited the extreme penalty of the law; yet, would it not have been better to have waited four weeks and tried him according to law. [Galveston News, August 14, 1860, letter from August 5th]

Bright Star. On yesterday, (Sunday,) about 4 o’clock, there was fire discovered in the kitchen of Dr. Reeves. It appears there had been no fire in the kitchen for some time. The fire was discovered on the opposite side of the house to that of the fire-place. The bed was set on fire first; no damage to any amount. The negroes arrested in Paris confessed that it was their intention, on the day of the election, while the men were at the polls voting, to kill the females at every house, and as the men returned from the polls, they were to be attacked. [Jefferson Herald of August 11, 1860, reporting a story dated July 30, 1860 from Bright Star]

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