Posted on 04/12/2010 12:12:09 PM PDT by wolfcreek
Based on the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and Tweets I've read in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland.
In criticizing me for saying that celebrating the Confederates was akin to honoring Nazi soldiers for killing of Jews during the Holocaust, Rob Wagner said, "I am simply defending the honor and dignity of men who were given no choice other than to fight, some as young as thirteen."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
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Oh,Lord.
"High protective tariffs were always the policy of the old Whig Party and had become the policy of the new Republican Party that replaced it. A recession beginning around 1857 gave the cause of protectionism an additional political boost in the Northern industrial state. Lincoln had been elected on a pledge to increase the economic prosperity of the country and his proposal involved tariffs. Soon after he took office, the Morrill Tariff was passed. The original Morrill Tariff law passed and was signed into law by lame duck President Buchanan the Pennsylvania protectionist, on 2 March 1861, just before the Sumter incident, and was cheered in parts of the Northeast, and particularly in Pennsylvania for economic protection. Half of the iron of the country was made in Pennsylvania. United States federal tariff revenues had fell disproportionately on the South, which paid for 87% of the total collected. While the tariff protected Northern industrial interests, it raised the cost of living and commerce in the South substantially. It also reduced the trade value of their agricultural exports to Europe. These combined to place a severe economic hardship on many Southern states. Even more galling was that 80% or more of these tax revenues were expended on Northern public works and industrial subsidies, thus further enriching the North at the expense of the South. While attempting to protect domestic industry from foreign imports, the unanticipated effect was to reduce the nation's exports and thereby help increase unemployment to the devastating figure of 25%. Lincoln had indicated that he would sign the Morrill Tariff bill should it not be passed before his inauguration on 4 March 1861. (Basler - Collected Works of Lincoln vol. 4, pg. 213).
Henry Morley:
"If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union … So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils.… [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
Nobody won that war. It’s a scar on our nation that will never heal. Especially with asshats in the WH.
Well, what was stopping the South from building their own stuff, developing their own industry, and reducing their own dependance on imported manufactured goods? Couldn’t the cotton be milled and iron be smelted south of Mason Dixon? Seems a lot of their trade balance woes were because of an over-dependence on a mono-crop economy.
Between the 1831 nullification crisis and 1860, the Southern Dems were in control of Congress more than occasionally. Any tariffs were there with their consent.
But, because most tariffs were paid by Northerners, for every dollar that was collected in Charleston, $120 were collected in New York.
And there's nothing in the Constitution that says that the money expended by the government has to be evenly distributed.
And absolutely no evidence that money wasn't expended equally in all areas of the country, either.
That's the division that I was thinking about.
The protests and riots of the 60's and 70's were mostly confined to the larger metropolitan areas and the limited TV coverage (compared to today's 24/7) focused in those areas.
But now the divide is deep, wide and, in my opinion, permanent.
but most people are far from the extremes and are pretty quiet
It's my further opinion that we're sitting on a powder keg. We've reached a level where 50% of the populace truly believe that the other 50% owe them a living and the 50% carrying the load are going to finally snap.
That's not extremism.
Isn't our nation worth fighting for?
Bull. Cotton growers got the same price for their goods whether it was going to the mills of England or the mills of New England. If US buyers had purchased every bale of cotton, the southern planters would have earned no more and no less. And the south, far from being impoverished, was raking in money hand over fist. What they weren't doing was investing any of that money in anything other than land and slaves. The south never developed shipping, or industry, or banking, or any of the other institutions that were the backbones of a sound economy. Or, as Louis Wigfall put it:
"We are an agricultural people, we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no cities -- we don't want them. We have no literature -- we don't need any yet. We have no press -- we are glad of it. We do not require a press because we go out and discuss all public questions from the stump with our people. We have no commercial marine -- no navy -- we don't want them. Your ships carry our produce, and you can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures: we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from the nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."
It's my further opinion that we're sitting on a powder keg. We've reached a level where 50% of the populace truly believe that the other 50% owe them a living and the 50% carrying the load are going to finally snap
It's worse than 1860, IMO. If I am wrong than I am totally out of touch. We're on the edge. The MSM will not allow any steam to leak out. Therefore we are going to explode.....
The lower-right, middle-upper part maybe. The rest can GTH.
Then you are a fool.
Then you are a fascist.
“The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American!” — Patrick Henry, 1774
The War of Northern Aggression had much more to do with state’s rights than slavery.
To claim the Civil War was about slavery is akin to arguing black inner city gangs are formed today because all other races are bigoted against blacks and they are acting in self defense. It’s a racist ploy which promotes racism.
What on earth is this thread about?
Rewriting history for a touchy feely moment?
The past is BEHIND you, it cannot be changed.
It cannot be colorized with current political factions.
I’ll post just one comment, Confederate soldiers are not and cannot be called terrorists by any sane reasoning.
This is a stupid thread that is just a haven for trolls and wrong wing morons jacking around for controversy and to show off their egos, I’m not feeding their closed looped idiocy and I recommend the real people don’t either, more important things to do in the next day or so.
State's right to do what?
Now we're getting to the heart of it lol.
You are out of touch and, if you truly believe that America isn't worth fighting for, out of your mind.
Unlike you, I believe in America, all of it, warts & all. Unlike you, I think that we can save this nation from ruin. Unlike you, I have confidence in our moral, spiritual, and ideological superiority to the left and that we will turn back the tide.
And unlike you, I know that running and hiding won't save anyone from anything. You appear ready and willing to cut & run, to cast off the troublesome (to you) bits in order to save your own scrawny ass. You seem incapable of recognizing that this is no realistic solution to anything and will only lead to further divisions and destructions.
The lefties have a pithy saying, "In diversity lies our strength". Like so much else about them, this is upside down and wrong. The truth is, "In our unity lies our strength". When we act in concert, as a group, we accomplish far greater than we do as individuals.
It's time for conservatives to put aside the petty ancestral grudges and pull together for our mutual defense. I intend to do that, with or without the likes of you.
I'm sure these same sentiments are expressed by the wife-beater while plying his trade.
Many units from West Virginia fought for the south. In the Victorian district in Wheeling, there is still a fraternal org that honors one of them. West Virginia's secession from Virginia was rife with fraud, as Lincoln did not want a Confederate state north of DC (which was understandable).
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