Posted on 01/20/2016 5:03:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.
During the "Civil War," ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels" (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861).
"For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." (Horace Greeley, in his book, "The American Conflict").
"Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number (of Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde" (report by Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission).
In April 1861, a Petersburg, Virginia, newspaper proposed "three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg" after 70 blacks offered "to act in whatever capacity" had been "assigned to them" in defense of Virginia.
Those are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served as soldiers, freemen and slaves on the side of the Confederacy. The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite so simple as the nation's race "experts" make it. They want us to believe the flag is a symbol of racism. Yes, racists have used the Confederate flag as their symbol, but racists have also marched behind the U.S. flag and have used the Bible. Would anyone suggest banning the U.S. flag from state buildings and references to the Bible?
Black civil rights activists, their white liberal supporters and historically ignorant Americans who attack the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic Southern black ancestors who marched, fought and died not to protect slavery but to protect their homeland from Northern aggression. They don't deserve the dishonor. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a black professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."
In 1860, a majority of Americans had lived their entire lives within 100 miles of their birthplace.
The “Union” was simply a concept, and very few people, North or South, had personal experience with both cultures and their geography.
I can see that economic concerns about use of the Mississippi River would be very important to the North. And I can see that national security concerns about the redrawn borders of the USA would be very important, to both sides.
But those were issues that could be negotiated and, quite possibly, agreed on by both sides.
But I find it impossible to believe that, without the non-negotiable issue of slavery, the Civil War would have ever been fought.
The regiment was never accepted for service in the Confederate army. It was a unit of the Louisiana militia until disbanded in early 1862
Have relatives in Az. Flagstaff area. My aunt owned a chalet near the canyon I wished I’d gone see to when she was still alive.Her husband invented the Watts anti flowback valve for plumbing. He hung out with the Hopi until he died then. He told me he was drinking poodapai and seeking the Great spirit. Whatever poodapai is. I’m still stuck in a dying city in east central Ms. but I am getting a station wagon ready for the route 66 trip I plan on making if the world doesn’t fall down 1st.
A typical response from a typical statist who believes that the federal government is the almighty power and controller of all things, which was precisely Lincoln's position.
The hotheads were the abolitionist and radical republicans. The conservatives of the day were the Southern democrats who, following Jefferson's timeless words in the Declaration of Independence, (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.) separated from the radical republicans. Lincoln ordered an invasion, which was a criminal act regardless of how you look at it, and proceeded to oversee the slaughter of 600,000+ human beings and the wanton destruction of an entire section of the country.
Timelines do count in history...
So does truth...
Lincoln said the war was not about slavery. So believe it.
Exactly which unalienable rights had the Buchanan Administration so egregiously violated that secession from the Union was the only answer?
Someone probably called someone else a “statist” LOL
DiogenesLamp: "It occurs to me that they have precious little to work with in the article from which this thread emanates.
It gives little support for their position..."
You guys are waaaay toooo funny!
You should go into stand-up comedy together, a lot of people would pay good money to hear you crack your jokes.
This thread is a perfect example.
;-)
Let us say for the sake of argument that you are correct. Given that Slavery was legal and recognized by the Union as legal at the time, how does this justify an invasion into the land of people who want to rule themselves?
Just as the Colonists seized the military equipment stored at the Armory in Concord.
Wasn't that stuff claimed by the King, but actually belonged to the Colonists?
Lemme try it again, "A prominent "Black" conservative flatly stating that the war was not started to free the slaves........" Yup, still funny. "not started to free the slaves" That is rich!
One of the most sacred: property rights.
I have long thought that the New York and North Eastern elite social circles (the prime movers in the USA) are still fighting the Civil War. It's as if they keep trying to convince themselves that their ancestors invading other people and forcing them under their rule was the right thing to do.
It's like a liar that keeps lying to himself in the hopes that he will eventually believe what he wishes to believe.
From a song called “Johnny Rebel”, which I heard years ago but can not find anywhere on the net:
He was the symbol of those before the gun
Who died for what they thought was right in 1861...
The Confederate States of America committed an act of War against the United States, when they fired on Fort Sumter.
That act and Davis’s authorization of letters of Marque and Reprisal against U.S. shipping were all that the Lincoln administration needed to justify the use of armed force to put down the “rebellion”. Jeff Davis gave Abe Lincoln all the ammunition he needed to make war on the Confederate States.
The real joke here is how the hell the South ever thought it could win.
How was the Buchanan administration interfering with the property rights in say SC, ALA, or Miss.
You overlook the fact that not only was the South paying between 50% and 80% of the entire Federal Budget, (Yes, the Federal Government was primarily funded by slavery) but by forming a separate country, the south horribly undercut Northern Monopolies in Shipping and Tarriff's, resulting in potentially billions of dollars in losses for Northern Interests, specifically New York and Boston. (Where most of the Wealthy and influential people lived.)
Pea Ridge has posted numerous period letters from Northern Interests wailing about their losses of revenue. (The one about New England Businessmen demanding Lincoln DO SOMETHING about their secession related financial catastrophes would be appropriate right about now.)
Of course no one wants to go down in history saying they killed 600,000 people to restore their lucrative businesses and monopolies, so they insisted that it was for a "moral" cause, though if that were their prime motivation, they could have outlawed slavery in the five Union states that still had it. They could have removed the "beam" in their own eye first.
The South was tolerant of the Buchanan administration. It was the election of Lincoln that convinced them there could be no compatibility.
Lincoln was the Barack Obama of his day. 
Extreme Liberal from Illinois, obsessed with Racial issues, and intending to use every executive order at his disposal to undermine what was then existing law. Willing to misuse and abuse the Federal government to advance his own agenda, and to whom no one would stand up and tell him he was exceeding his authority.
His position was "If you want your slavery, you can keep your slavery." But nobody in the South believed him. They thought he was an opportunistic liar who exploited increasingly popular Liberal ideas from places like Massachusetts.
Southerners realized he couldn't be trusted to respect their rights; that he would undermine them in any way he could, and so they decided to preemptively solve the problem by exercising their voluntary right to leave the Union which was formed by their previous consent.
(Just as the Declaration of Independence said any people have a right to do.)
What is there in this article that you can work with to advance your argument?
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