The War Is Over - So Why The Bitterness?

Old Virginia Blog ^ | 10 April 2011 | Richard G. Williams, Jr.

[Davy Buck]

"The fact that it is acceptable to put a Confederate flag on a car *bumper and to portray Confederates as brave and gallant defenders of states’ rights rather than as traitors and defenders of slavery is a testament to 150 years of history written by the losers." - Ohio State Professer Steven Conn in a recent piece at History News Network (No, I'll not difnigy his bitterness by providing a link)

This sounds like sour grapes to me. Were it not for the "losers" . . .

[K-Stater]

Yup, that's the one. Congrats on mastering pictures, but unfortunately A.C. isn't a flip book.

It isn't a lot of things.

You've mentioned the author's "lack of context" twice now, but where do you get all your insight on his book without actually reading it?

What makes you think I haven't read it?

[K-Stater]

So was it a war or a rebellion? Would you care to define "original" or "most accurate" in some context, or as is popular around here..."Quote?"

Well there's no real quote for you, just documentation. When the War Department created its official history it was titled "The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies". Much earlier than that, the Supreme Court referred to it as a civil war in their Prize Cases decision. They also referred to the South as the "so-called Confederate States" which makes it clear that the U.S. was not fighting another sovereign nation. The definition of 'rebellion' as an open, armed and usually unsuccessful defiance of or opposition to an established government seems to fit the Southern cause to a tee. But that's just me.

But regardless of whether or not you call it rebellion or civil war, there was nothing for the U.S. to declare war against. So your prattling about a lack of a formal declaration is misguided.

Thank you for the compliment. Nicest thing anyone's said to me today :)

And I am sure you two are alike as peas in a pod.

[phi11yguy19]

so the “most accurate” and “official” in your view is:

- a war department document written by the executive branch after the war and all the changes created therein

- the prize cases - a 5-4 decision with THREE lincoln-appointed justices that cites an ex post facto act of congress which legitimized previous unconstitutional blockades and military actions as is basis for ruling. That’s pointed out right in the dissenting opinion that included the chief justice (who lincoln previously tried to have arrested).

You’re correct, there’s no reason to dispute such solid evidence.

[K-Stater]

You’re correct, there’s no reason to dispute such solid evidence.

So what have you and Durand got? Other than complaints?

[x]

The bitterness is more recent. There wasn’t nearly as much bitterness in the immediate aftermath of the War.

???????????

There was great bitterness at the end of the war -- an ocean of anger, hatred, resentment, enmity -- and it lasted for years. "Senator Claghorn" was a fictional character and a comical exaggeration ("When I'm in New York I'll never go the Yankee Stadium!" "I won't even go to see the Giants unless a Southpaw's pitchin'!" "I refuse to watch the Dodgers unless Dixie Walker's playin!" "I won't go into a room unless it's got Southern Exposure!") but the caricature touched on something real. Likewise for the song, "I'm a Good Ole Rebel." It was tongue in cheek, but touched on real animosity.

You've probably heard the stories about kindness or generosity or helpfulness or charity extended between Northerners and Southerners. I can't say there not true, but one reason we remember them is because they stood out so much at the time.

Also, hatred doesn't have to be personal. If you were a veteran, you might respect the fellow you fought against, but hate the North or the South as an abstraction. You might respect your honorable counterpart, but hate the "bummers" or stragglers who burned your barn or the "carpetbaggers" and do-gooders who tried to change things. Your wife or mother might be goodness personified but still spit on the ground whenever Sherman or Lincoln or Grant was mentioned (Hell hath no fury like a noncombatant).

And bitterness isn't necessarily hatred. You might be free of personal or group hatreds -- if you weren't you wouldn't be alone -- but still be exceptionally bitter and resentful about what had happened and what you had lost. Veterans could go off camping for a few days at Gettysburg, but that didn't mean that sectional animosities didn't run deep.

In time the resentments died down, but to pretend that everyone go along well after the war is just wrong. Look back at the battles of the Reconstruction years, and tell me that there was no bitterness. A century of the solidly Democratic South and there was no bitterness? Even Northerners weren't immune from bitterness. Remember "Waving the bloody shirt"?

I’m too young to remember segregated schools (my Virginia county was one of the last to desegregate in 1967-68). But I’m not too young to remember the race-based busing riots in Northern cities in the 1970s. Funny how they’re not the racists and we are.

Funny how Selma and Little Rock are ancient history but everybody talks about South Boston, like it was yesterday. You haven't come off so bad, you know.

It’s a supreme irony that the South lost the War but, in a way, has won the peace. We are now the place where people want to live. We’re where the growth is.

Sure, the Northern states, like Northern Britain, Northern Germany, Northern France, Southern Belgium, were the first to industrialize and the first to suffer the maladies of de-industrialization. It's not pretty. But don't think you're permanently immune to that disease.

[rockrr]

I had read that buchanan had some sort of unspecified "agreement" with SC Governor Pickett, but I've never heard any specifics, and certainly never heard of any agreement with the Lincoln administration.

The fact that it went on throughout reconstruction and has allowed the Executive to grow in power ever since (vs the other 2 arms of gov’t and the states) is exactly the point.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here since no one can point with authority to the Lincoln administration as being the specific identifiable position at which a disparity in the particular powers was definitively and irretrievably upset.

[x]

ANY other president would have immediately declared all the Southerners to be traitors (they were) and pardoned them afterward. Can you name me one other rebellion where the rebel forces were not labeled traitors? ...

Good post.

How many people did ol' Jeff Davis slam in jail? How many civil rights did that tyrant abuse? Oh, we get to forget about him because he was "doin' it for ol' Dixie."

It's all supposed to be excused and swept under the rug because it was all us "good ol' boys" who don't really mean any harm.

And everything was going to turn out all right if only Lincoln had caved in completely to what we Southerners wanted, because we were the good guys -- just a bunch of guys who sat around in the garage talking about guns until Lincoln sent the army down to break things up.

If it hadn't been for evil Abe history would have stopped and we'd be living in some 19th century libertarian paradise, except that the pesky slavery thing would have disappeared on its own.

Or so the story goes. It's not really history. It doesn't have the irony and tragedy of history. It's just group self-esteem in action.

[fnord]

My opinion of the Democrats and Republicans of yore is the same as my opinion of the current crop.

[frog in a pot]

Thank you very much for that link!

[Pollster1]

My guess: CW2 will be bloodless if we have to take that route. The productive states will secede. The parasites will not want to try to stop us. Most real Americans will follow to the free states. No civil war because the parasites lack the combat training to win, and they don’t understand that their 150 million welfare deadbeats and SEIU workers are nowhere near as productive as our 150 million Americans. By the time they realize that they can’t survive without us, the split will be an accepted fact.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

In reality, of course, by far the most important issue was states rights.

But overwhelmingly the particular state right that the political leaders of secession cited was slavery.

[phi11yguy19]

the point is executive overreach and consolidation. yes, you can trace back usurpation of power to a point when it went unchecked from radicalism in congress, packing the courts and subsequent abuse of executive decree...aka, Lincoln.

of course he’s not the only president to abuse power, and surely wasn’t the first, but they were always checked by the states and other branches until the precedents set by lincoln. once he declared in his omnipotence that “the union created the states”, that was the end of republican gov’t as we learned it.

i can’t do justice by summarizing everything in short posts or quoting sources i’ve already provided, so i defer again to Durand’s books and the historical texts included and referenced within as a start. i added over 200 other books to my library and wishlist after reading it myself!

[phi11yguy19]

overwhelmingly the particular state right that the political leaders of secession cited was slavery.

1. That's simply inaccurate.

2. The rights cited by EVERY state are in Durand's book (Chapter 8, supporting document 2). They're long and economic in nature. Some don't ever refer to slavery. The last four states to secede (over 1/3 of the secession) AGREED with abolitionists on the issue of slavery yet seceded when Lincoln shot on SC.

3. The peaceful way to abolish slavery was always available through amendment. Nowhere did the Constitution say that if you disagree with anyone 70 years from now, then the president can just declare them evil.

4. Slavery was an institution forced on the southern colonies by the northern ones. The King's repeated dismissals of Virginia's requests to stop imposing slavery on them was in Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration (see the Jefferson Papers), and was removed at northern colonial requests.

5. The North was NEVER trying to free blacks. The free soil laws were to stop blacks from entering the new states AT ALL by outlawing slavery and reserve the land for whites (Lincoln's words). To say the war was over slavery is bunk.

6. Slavery died a slow suicidal death everywhere else in the world without 600,000 dead. Explain why a war was necessary in our case.

[K-Stater]

6. Slavery died a slow suicidal death everywhere else in the world without 600,000 dead. Explain why a war was necessary in our case.

Slavery in every case was ended through government intervention, and over the objections of the vast majority of the slave owners themselves. Now you and Durand prattle on about how the government over-reached in powers, how long would it take before the Southern states didn't feel the need to rebel to defend their peculiar institution in the face of a law to end it?

[K-Stater]

4. Slavery was an institution forced on the southern colonies by the northern ones.

Then why didn't the Southern states just end it, as the Northern states did? What was stopping them?

[K-Stater]

3. The peaceful way to abolish slavery was always available through amendment. Nowhere did the Constitution say that if you disagree with anyone 70 years from now, then the president can just declare them evil.

In 1861 there were 15 slave states. Amending the Constitution to do away with it would have taken 46 states voting to ratify. Do the math.

[rockrr]

Can you provide a link to Lincoln proclaiming that “the union created the states”? I haven’t been able to locate that statement.

[rockrr]

5. The North was NEVER trying to free blacks. The free soil laws were to stop blacks from entering the new states AT ALL by outlawing slavery and reserve the land for whites (Lincoln's words). To say the war was over slavery is bunk.

Then why did the southern fire-eaters claim it over and over again in their Ordinances of Secession?

[x]

The last four states to secede (over 1/3 of the secession) AGREED with abolitionists on the issue of slavery yet seceded when Lincoln shot on SC.

Absurd.

Neither the abolitionists nor the governments of those states nor a majority of the people there would make such a claim.

Some of those states had laws against publicly advocating abolition: "In Virginia, anyone who 'by speaking or writing maintains that owners have no right of property in slaves' could be sentenced to a year in prison."

Slavery was an institution forced on the southern colonies by the northern ones. The King's repeated dismissals of Virginia's requests to stop imposing slavery on them was in Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration (see the Jefferson Papers), and was removed at northern colonial requests.

So far as I can tell, it was dropped because South Carolina and Georgia objected.

You may be thinking of something in -- or not in -- the Constitution, because it doesn't look like you're right about the Declaration.

South Carolina's first constitution blamed the king because he "excited domestic insurrections; proclaimed freedom to servants and slaves, enticed or stolen them from, and armed them against their masters."

[southernsunshine]

phi11yguy19 said: Slavery died a slow suicidal death everywhere else in the world without 600,000 dead. Explain why a war was necessary in our case.

Then K-Stater said: Slavery in every case was ended through government intervention, and over the objections of the vast majority of the slave owners themselves. Now you and Durand prattle on about how the government over-reached in powers, how long would it take before the Southern states didn't feel the need to rebel to defend their peculiar institution in the face of a law to end it?

K-Stater, you didn't answer philly's question. You know the war wasn't about ending slavery. NS, you sly old joker, slipped back in again. You behave yourself, ok, Tater?