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 ...
These threads seem to have commonality.
The southern apologist side accuses the other of saying the conflict was ONLY about slavery, when I have seen very few actually saying such an idiotic thing. In the history of the world, I doubt there has ever been a war that was ONLY about one thing.
Then some of them take it a step farther. Since the war was about more than slavery, that particular issue wasn’t really that important.
Did most southerners fight primarily to protect slavery? No, they fought because their homes were being invaded.
But their homes were being invaded because their leaders made a bunch of bad choices, and the common people of the South were paying the price for them.
Should southern symbols and southerners today be forever tarred with guilt? Of course not. But neither should they defensively claim the roots of the cause for which their ancestors fought were righteous.
The Declaration of Independence gets tossed around a lot on these threads to justify secession. The problem is that the DoI is a moral document. The Founders knew perfectly well they’d succeed or fail by the test of war. The DoI simply tried to show why they deserved to be independent, why their secession was right.
Not because they wanted to break off, but in response to a long train of injuries. Even then, revolution is only justified, per the DoI, in defense of or the expansion of human freedom.
Which means that a revolution to protect slavery is the direct opposite of the type of revolution the DoI attempted to justify.
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us”
Perhaps if they were white men who were not their owners, yes.
And I am not saying that many even occurred with intent to kill, but rather punishment that unintentionally resulted in the accidental death of a slave. (Either way, little consolation to the one killed.)
The very fact they could be killed/murdered for trying to escape, or fighting back against a white owner, or if taken prisoner by the South, killed instead of kept as a prisoner of war, I am not portraying it inaccurately. To say that a plantation owner could not make an example out of a rebellious slave by executing them without fear of being prosecuted for murder is accurate.
And also to be clear I am not saying there was an epidemic of killings either. I am not saying it was a normal occurrence. It would be stupid to do so for a number of reasons. I am just saying it happened and there was not any fear of being tried for murder. Not with the other standing laws specifically targeting runaway slaves, slaves that fought back against slave owners themselves, and blacks fighting for the union.
bkmk
Marylanders had left for Virginia to fight, too, by then.
Thank you for providing that link, and I would hope anyone reading this would read the article there.
When enough of the Convention members had been arrested it could no longer muster a quorum, then a significant number of people of means had been either captured or fled the State.
The situation there provides a glimpse of what martial law would be like (a less high tech and perhaps slightly more civilized version that it would be today)
I’m not saying that you are not in general practice correct, simply that in legal theory and occasionally in fact a white man could be executed for the murder of a slave.
Wiki: In 1811, Arthur William Hodge was the first slaveholder executed for the murder of a slave in the British West Indies.[41] However, he was not (as some have claimed) the first white person to have been executed for killing a slave.[42] Records indicate at least two earlier incidents. On November 23, 1739, in Williamsburg, Virginia, two white men (Charles Quin and David White) were hanged for the murder of another white man’s slave. On April 21, 1775, the Virginia Gazette in Fredericksburg reported that a white man (William Pitman) was hanged for the murder of his own slave.[43]
Here’s a link to the SC slave code of SC from 1740. Fines an owner 700 pounds for murder of his slave. Lot of money then. Wasn’t capital, but wasn’t legal either.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/South+Carolina+Slave+Code
I’m certainly not claiming there was any equality under the law, simply that random murder was not legal, at least in theory.
The winners write the history...
The losers just whine and say, “What if...”
And then, kiddies, we invented the US Income TAx; and now EVERYONE is a slave!
GMTA!
Agree. Never meant to imply the races were treated equally.
However, the situation is quite different from, for instance, Roman times, when an owner was under zero legal restraint in how he treated his slaves.
Augustus, for instance, was particularly disgusted by one master who threw a slave into the lamprey tank to be eaten alive for the crime of breaking a valuable vase. But it was perfectly legal for him to do so.
Under Roman law, also, if a master was murdered, all of his slaves were executed for not preventing the murder. In one famous case in the later republic, this meant some hundreds of men, women and children, including babies. The army had to be called in to prevent the people rioting to stop the executions, which were duly and legally carried out.
The point is that slavery has a long and appalling history, essentially as long as human history itself. That we focus on colonial and US slavery as if it were the only or the worst example of the institution is ridiculous.
Did you know that only about 5% of all the slaves carried across the Atlantic were brought to what is now USA?
How about the fact that the colonial and early American South is apparently the only slave society ever known in which the slaves not only kept their numbers up by natural reproduction but actually had a population explosion similar in magnitude to that of their masters? This implies a condition not nearly as harsh as other slave societies.
You understand...
None - that came later. From what I can find in my explorations the sentiments were pretty evenly divided with sympathizers representing both the north and the south. One thing that appears to have been a calming influence was that the sitting governor wasn't a Republican or a Democrat - he was a member of the Know Nothing (American Party) party.
And no - I didn't think that Maryland would be allowed to secede, given its strategic position. The ironic thing is that, if not for the insistence by the south that the nations capitol be moved from Philadelphia to Washington DC it would have been a moot point.
Sherman Logan - I have enjoyed reading your posts on this thread. I have learned something - sometimes a Yank says something that actually makes sense :)
Breckinridge solidly carried Maryland, just like the other states that comprised the Confederacy. Lincoln got a whopping 4 votes in the county I grew up in—all four were asked to leave. I think you underestimate the strength of Southern Sentiment in what was (south of the Mason-Dixon Line) a Southern State prior to the occupation.
The Confederate Constitution took care of the slavery thing. It was a war over taxes. The North taxed the hell out of the south. Southern commodities were shipped North, where they were taxed, and then taxed again when sold back to the South as finished products.
The Civil War was about busting the 9th and 10th Amendments.
I can't begin to imagine what tortured logic you employed to extrapolate that conclusion from what I posted. The simple truth is Sine Qua Non - without which not. If not for the fact that the south deliberately chose to take an aggressive and provocative stance no conflict would have happened. If the south had chosen to simply maintain the status quo no conflict would have transpired. If the south had made a sincere overture toward the idea of graduated emancipation there would have been no matchstrike for the flames that followed. If the south had taken their grievances to Congress or the Supreme Court the entire nation would have looked far more favorably upon their cause.
There were a myriad of ways that the south could have proceeded that would have honestly and honorably maintained and defended their interests. But the slavers who were the power brokers in the south would have none of it. They were spoiling for a fight and nothing short of that was going to satiate them.
“If not for the fact the south deliberately chose . . .”
In other words, it was the South’s fault. Somehow, I knew that was what you would say.
Did you ever consider that if the northern states had not agreed to write a constitution that permitted slavery, there would not have been a war?
Yes - it was the south’s fault (you’re finally catching on!)
And no - there is no reasonable basis for believing that placing the burden on the north for not doing something that could result in the consequence of someone else commensurately not doing something. The notion is beyond absurd and irrational.
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.