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 ...
Say what?
Really? So Andy Jackson wasn’t a Democrat? Pal, I’ll tell you, that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The false narrative goes like this:They became Republicans after The Civil War.
Besides read history books, most correct ones agree that slavery as an institution in the US would have played itself out, without a shot being fired, within a few years. Unlike slavery still occurring in the mid and far east but that is okay to allow those practitioners to immigrate here and set up their mosques because the federal government says I have to.
Just got your back, that’s all.
” Who is going to be the slaves?”
The taxpayers.
I read somewhere the Seward advised Lincoln to start a war with Britain and conquer Canada instead of fighting a war with the South over slavery.
Can you point me to some of those history books that say that please?
I believe it was Gale Norton who said the South fought the good fight for State’s Rights but picked a bad reason - Slavery - to do it for.
That’s a reasonable viewpoint. Clearly the Union was not formed by the State representatives to make themselves all submissives to a Great Central Government which had not previously existed except in the form of the British Crown.
But like she said...they picked a bad issue to make the argument.
And you, like me, were schooled with the “secession is illegal!” absurdity. If it was, what was the Revolution? An illegal secession of the Colonies from its rightful owner, the English psychopath?
Maybe Lincoln was serious about keeping the Union together to preserve the concept of popular sovereignty. But at what cost?
There is no excuse for the vicious war that killed 700,000 men just “four score and seven years...” after the founding of the country.
None at all. Could have been solved with some honest dealing and a bit of cash. A Trillion dollars equivalent would have been worth it to save the lives and preserve the Republic.
Oh hell man, been down so long on that it looks like up too me.
True enough but the war started before 1861 (1850-1860 give or take) with northern strong-arming, voter gerrymandering, and tariffs. The shooting started in 1861.
By inseparably "packaging" the Slavery Concept with the States' Rights Concept, the Southrons forever foxtrotted the issue of state sovereignty.
Thanks, O Noble Sons of the Olde South. Sure the 90% of outstandingly brave Confederate fighting men who did not own slaves were defending their homes against invasion. Bravo! Best young fellows in the country!
All the rest of your points about Northern Exploitation of the agrarian South, rampant federalism, etc. ad nauseam, are quite accurate, but so what? It was a Rich Man's War and a Poor Man's Fight. The planter boys who ran the Southern show would not even take innumerable reasonable deals offered to sell their slaves for shipment back to Africa, or gradual emancipation with compensation. They were stuck on slavery as the key to their way of life. BTW, the Abolitionists were absolutely stupid bastards about the whole thing, too. But not even Robert E. Lee of Holy Memory believed in slavery.
Wuh???
Different people are in a war for different reasons. Start with Reagan’s favorite movie: Friendly Persuasion.
There were massive numbers of abolitionists (my ancestors) who were non-violent Amish, Mennonite, Quaker. Even many of the Wesleyan and Free Methodist and other abolitionists were mostly non-violent.
But they saw slavery as so evil that war was necessary and they tried to push the Feds into war. They wanted to turn state militias (National Guard) into John Brown on a massive scale.
So these abolitionists eagerly joined the “good war”. Unfortunately, they knew nothing about guns, nothing about violence, nothing about hunting and living off the land.
In contrast, the southern men came from a culture of violence with fellow humans and shooting animals and living off the land. When the two sides met, the Northern idealists died rapidly. The North was left short-handed and resorted to drafting immigrants.
That part of the war is seldom told.
Here is a nice except from a PBS story where Lincoln acknowledged not initially ending slavery and when he did only did it in the south and not the north. Kind of hypocritical is it not?
On November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States — an event that outraged southern states. The Republican party had run on an anti-slavery platform, and many southerners felt that there was no longer a place for them in the Union. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded. By February 1, 1861, six more states — Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas — had split from the Union. The seceded states created the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi Senator, as their provisional president.
In his inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed that it was his duty to maintain the Union. He also declared that he had no intention of ending slavery where it existed, or of repealing the Fugitive Slave Law — a position that horrified African Americans and their white allies. Lincoln’s statement, however, did not satisfy the Confederacy, and on April 12 they attacked Fort Sumter, a federal stronghold in Charleston, South Carolina. Federal troops returned the fire. The Civil War had begun.
Immediately following the attack, four more states — Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee — severed their ties with the Union. To retain the loyalty of the remaining border states — Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri — President Lincoln insisted that the war was not about slavery or black rights; it was a war to preserve the Union. His words were not simply aimed at the loyal southern states, however — most white northerners were not interested in fighting to free slaves or in giving rights to black people. For this reason, the government turned away African American voluteers who rushed to enlist. Lincoln upheld the laws barring blacks from the army, proving to northern whites that their race privilege would not be threatened.
There was an exception, however. African Americans had been working aboard naval vessels for years, and there was no reason that they should continue. Black sailors were therefore accepted into the U.S. Navy from the beginning of the war. Still, many African Americans wanted to join the fighting and continued to put pressure on federal authorities. Even if Lincoln was not ready to admit it, blacks knew that this was a war against slavery. Some, however, rejected the idea of fighting to preserve a Union that had rejected them and which did not give them the rights of citizens.
The federal government had a harder time deciding what to do about escaping slaves. Because there was no consistent federal policy regarding fugitives, individual commanders made their own decisions. Some put them to work for the Union forces; others wanted to return them to their owners. Finally, on August 6, 1861, fugitive slaves were declared to be “contraband of war” if their labor had been used to aid the Confederacy in any way. And if found to be contraband, they were declared free.
As the northern army pushed southward, thousands of fugitives fled across Union lines. Neither the federal authorities nor the army were prepared for the flood of people, and many of the refugees suffered as a result. Though the government attempted to provide them with confiscated land, there was not enough to go around. Many fugitives were put into crowded camps, where starvation and disease led to a high death rate. Northern citizens, black and white alike, stepped in to fill the gap. They organized relief societies and provided aid. They also organized schools to teach the freedmen, women, and children to read and write, thus giving an education to thousands of African Americans throughout the war.
Though “contraband” slaves had been declared free, Lincoln continued to insist that this was a war to save the Union, not to free slaves. But by 1862, Lincoln was considering emancipation as a necessary step toward winning the war. The South was using enslaved people to aid the war effort. Black men and women were forced to build fortifications, work as blacksmiths, nurses, boatmen, and laundresses, and to work in factories, hospitals, and armories. In the meantime, the North was refusing to accept the services of black volunteers and freed slaves, the very people who most wanted to defeat the slaveholders. In addition, several governments in Europe were considering recognizing the Confederacy and intervening against the Union. If Lincoln declared this a war to free the slaves, European public opinion would overwhelmingly back the North.
On July 22, 1862, Lincoln showed a draft of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. It proposed to emancipate the slaves in all rebel areas on January 1, 1863. Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed with the proposal, but cautioned Lincoln to wait until the Union had a major victory before formally issuing the proclamation. Lincoln’s chance came after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862. He issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22. The proclamation warned the Confederate states to surrender by January 1, 1863, or their slaves would be freed.
Some people were critical of the proclamation for only freeing some of the slaves. Others, including Frederick Douglass, were jubilant. Douglass felt that it was the beginning of the end of slavery, and that it would act as a “moral bombshell” to the Confederacy. Yet he and others feared that Lincoln would give in to pressure from northern conservatives, and would fail to keep his promise. Despite the opposition, however, the president remained firm. On January 1, 1863, he issued the final Emancipation Proclamation. With it he officially freed all slaves within the states or parts of states that were in rebellion and not in Union hands. This left one million slaves in Union territory still in bondage.
Both sides of my family came out of the Jamestown colony in the mid 1600s. None ever owned slaves. All were farmers, traders and watermen. Some owned trading vessels and plied their trade between Baltimore and Cuba. They were to a man landowners and proud Americans. They comprised a brigade of militia soldiers commissioned by George Washington for the protection of the Capital.
They were all committed to the southern cause as free men unwilling to live under the heel of federalism and northern commercial interests.
The issue of slavery was a non starter for my ancestors. They lived side by side with people of color throughout the eastern shore of MD. They worked together, owner property together and worshiped together. These were true country people who valued family, freedom and hard work.
Dude, you need to read your posting history. It’s really acrid and boring. Maybe you could contribute ideas to the discussion, instead of snarky remarks.
Yawn.
ping
Not really. The Confiscation Acts gave Lincoln the authority to end slavery in areas still in rebellion while the Constitution prevented him from doing so in areas that were not. Ending slavery there required the 13th Amendment, which Lincoln strongly supported and helped push through the House.
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