Posted on 05/12/2015 3:00:03 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
We Sons of Confederate Veterans are charged with preserving the good name of the Confederate soldier. The world, for the most part, has acknowledged what Gen. R. E. Lee described in his farewell address as the “valour and devotion” and “unsurpassed courage and fortitude” of the Confederate soldier. The Stephen D. Lee Institute program is dedicated to that part of our duty that charges us not only to honour the Confederate soldier but “to vindicate the cause for which he fought.” We are here to make the case not only for the Confederate soldier but for his cause. It is useless to proclaim the courage, skill, and sacrifice of the Confederate soldier while permitting him to be guilty of a bad cause.
Although their cause was lost it was a good cause and still has a lot to teach the world today.
In this age of Political Correctness there has never been a greater need and greater opportunity to refresh our understanding of what happened in America in the years 1861–1865 and start defending our Southern forebears as strongly as they ought to be defended. There is plenty of true history available to us. It is our job to make it known.
All the institutions of American society, including nearly all Southern institutions and leaders, are now doing their best to separate the Confederacy off from the rest of American history and push it into one dark little corner labeled “ Slavery and Treason.” Being taught at every level of the educational system is the official party line that everything good that we or anyone believe about our Confederate ancestors is a myth, and by myth they mean a pack of lies that Southerners thought up to excuse their evil deeds and defeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
In the South those individuals were considered property and not people. They had no rights and therefore no need for congressional representation. As a result the white population was over-represented in the House.
I won’t defend Lincoln’s position on slavery and race. He did a fine job of that himself. While he was a racist by today’s standards, by those of his time he was considered a dangerous radical by many. JW Booth made his final decision to murder him after hearing Lincoln hint at giving at least some freed slaves citizenship and the vote.
The Emancipation Proclamation immediately freed somewhere between 50k and 100k, in areas, mostly in the Mississippi Valley and along the coast, that were occupied by Union forces but not excluded in the EP. So you are factually in error there.
As Union forces advanced, slaves were freed. In the final analysis, something over 3M slaves were freed by the EP in slightly over two years. It’s more than a little silly to claim that the EP freed no slaves because it couldn’t immediately be put into effect everywhere.
As for slavery being on its last legs, that’s possibly what you think. But it quite simply is not what southerners of the day believed. Many, many speeches in Congress, newspaper editorials, books and other documents show this extremely clearly.
It is demonstrated even more clearly by their investment decisions. They bid slave prices to their highest point ever in 1860.
You are aware of course that people investing their own money always choose to put it into investments that everyone can see are on their last legs. This is why newspapers and book publisher stocks recently reached their highest price ever.
Anywho, your inept attack on Lincoln does zero to refute my point that you quoted. Lets assume Lincoln was exactly as evil as you claim. It still doesn’t change the fact that the first seven southern states seceded not to protect their own human rights, but to protect their power to deny those rights to others.
Slaves were not considered merely property, not people, in the South, though things were headed in that direction when the war broke out.
After all, as I believe Lincoln pointed out, nobody makes laws punishing cows or dogs for misbehavior.
The only logical way to maintain a claimed belief in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and in the positive rightness of slavery, of course, is to decide that slaves, or possibly all blacks, aren’t really human. Which is the tack the Dred Scott decision pointed to.
Once one starts down this road there is no logical stopping point. If people of African ancestry can be considered sub-human, why not of Asian or Italian or Jewish ancestry?
Or one can simply decide that Jefferson et al were in error, and that all men are NOT created equal. This is the approach Calhoun, Stephens and other chose.
Maryland was not invaded. MA and other state militias were simply trying to transit MD to get to DC, as requested by the President, which is entirely constitutional.
With VA seceded, do you have suggestions on how troops from other states were supposed to reach and protect the greatly threatened national capital without crossing MD?
What are you talking about? - I always mean what I say!
Thanks for the clarification - the compromise occurred pre ratification. I wanted to provide a broader context to rebut the insinuation that it was somehow a one-sided imposition. And I wanted to point out the hypocrisy of the pre-war south’s position that, when it came to assessing slaves as property they didn’t want to place any value on them, but when it came to representation (commonly regarded as the vote) they wanted full representation - just not including allowing them any say in their own destiny.
As I recall the Maryland governor said something to the effect of “Go around, idiot! Go around!”
How disappointing - I thought Mencken had more sense than that.
Although their cause was lost it was a good cause and still has a lot to teach the world today.
...
The cause of Big Cotton and Slavery.
If it weren’t for the Dred Scott decision, the Fugitive Slave Act, and all the other concessions being offered to the South to avoid war, I could have some sympathy for them. But I don’t.
I’m sure he did.
BTW, these weren’t state troops any more. They were milita called into national service and thus federal troops, in full compliance with the Constitution. Units of militia from other states had moved into or transited other states many times before, as in the Whiskey Rebellion and War of 1812.
The Marylanders in the relevant area were secesh, so objected on principle to any troops intending to defend the USA. The people of Baltimore attacked federal troops, not the other way around.
Go down the river instead of overland through the streets of the State's most populous port city.
Mencken did have a lot of sense. Unfortunately, he also had a yen to stick a finger in the eye of conventional wisdom. One that I have to control myself. The problem being that sometimes the convention wisdom is right.
As in the popular bumper sticker. “Question Authority.” Entirely right and proper. But sometimes the answer is that the authority is legitimate and should be obeyed.
You mean that thing Lincoln brought up 3 years into the war when they were getting their butts handed to them and needed to find a new rally cry?
...
The dividing issue that ignited the war was the issue of the expansion of slavery, not slavery itself.
Can you imagine how galling it must have been for northerners to have hostile and belligerent bands of mercenaries tramping through their communities, seizing what they generally regarded as citizens off the street, and effectively kidnapping them? That was the “fugitive slave act” in action.
By 1800 every northern state had either outlawed slavery or had defined a path to eventual emancipation. They increasingly regarded the practice as barbaric and wanted nothing to do with it. Lincoln came on the scene proclaiming that it was not his intention to interfere with the south’s Particular Institution except to prevent its westward expansion. In that he was little different than any of the previous northern presidents.
The southern democrats, being democrats, overreacted and overreached as is typical of their nature. And they paid a terrible price for their poor choices.
What river would that be? Baltimore is a port city. The railroads junctioned there. They were only marching through the streets because there was no direct rail connection.
I’m curious if you’d respond similarly to the citizens of Baltimore today attacking and murdering federal troops simply trying to transit to the other side of the city.
Many of the prewar presidents were all for the expansion of slavery, notably Polk, who arguably started the Mexican War primarily to get territory to expand slavery into. Which didn’t work out too well. Buchanan of course did everything he could to sneak Kansas in as a slave state. (With a constitution specifying capital punishment for expressing abolition sentiments.)
When one demonstrates their mental agility and acumen and then utters such inanity I can't help but have a "Total Faceplant" moment. He should have thought it through.
Washington is on the Potomac. It is accessible from the ocean. Troops from Massachusetts, or from Pennsylvania could have been brought in by ship. The reason to parade them through Baltimore was as a show of force which was NOT well received.
They didn’t like it, but most of the people and politicians of the North were willing to put up with it in order to avoid war. Were there any concessionary gestures made by the South in order to avoid war?
The reason why they paraded them through Baltimore was to get from one train station to another in order to continue their trip to Washington.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.