Posted on 07/26/2021 4:33:01 PM PDT by ammodotcom
The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.
The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.
The sentiment of actual Civil War veterans is far removed from the attitude of the far left in America today. Modern day “woke-Americans” clamor for the removal of Confederate statues in the South, the lion’s share of which were erected while Civil War veterans were still alive. There was little objection to these statues at the time because it was considered an important part of the national reconciliation to allow the defeated South to honor its wartime dead and because there is a longstanding tradition of memorializing defeated foes in honor cultures.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammo.com ...
And what do you think the Constitution represents? A mere set of words on a piece of paper?
Lee WAS a traitor. He took up arms against his own country and it’s duly elected government.
The South simply wished to be left to do as they wished.
Yes. To preserve a system of industry based on the use of slave labor.
And it chose a path of violent secession in order to do this.
“War of Northern Aggression’’. What a crock.
The South opened the ball when it fired on Ft. Sumter.
Like what?
Fort Sumter was fired upon, because its main purpose was enforcement of tariff collection on ships entering Charleston harbor.
Fort Sumter was fired on because it was federal property manned by federal troops who refused to allow the Confederacy to just seize it. It was not a there to enforce tariff collections. That was done at the Customs House on Bay Street.
Then starting a war was a strange way to go about it.
Not true. Davis was certainly charged but never tried, saved by the 14th Amendment and Andrew Johnson's various clemency proclamations.
I hate these threads. War is never so simple as everyone wants to state. The people fighting and dying didn’t do it over slavery or power or economics. The politicians maybe but not the solders. I think the solders did it for (depending on the uniform) country, state, honor, family, God, ...
Politicians make up reasons but the solders have their own. I am impressed with the raw power and bravery both sides put Up. The south on paper should have lost quickly but they had the chance to have won quickly and did not seize it. To the average solders at the time, I say god bless them. To the politicians, bankers and elite I say FU.
I have lived North, South, East and West. I do love the south.
So all the Southern haters go piss up a rope. We are all squandering their (North and south) sacrifice with CRT, BLM, cronyism, corruption ,..
That’s because any other complain was small potatoes. Slavery was the cause belli for the war. Anything else is post war revisionism. You think the ones at the time might have known better than Confederate apologists a century and a half after the fact?
Ft, Sumpter was in South Carolina, a southern state. Lincoln ignored the request to remove Union troops from the fort, hoping to provoke the Confederacy into reacting so he would have an excuse to invade.Besides Gettysburg where else did the Confederacy invade the North? IIRC, 95% of the battles were fought in the South.
The Confederate forces invaded Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, all states of the Union.
The states that gave public reasons for leaving made it clear slavery WAS a central cause. Texas:
“In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color— a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States....
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.”
Why should the President of the United States remove U.S. Troops from a U.S. Fort, based solely on a request by the state government.
I suppose you think it fitting that we should give up Guantanamo Bay because the current Cuban Government does not want us there.
I am not grasping the point you are trying to make with these references.
The states' rights to LEAVE. And this is why some people think you are deliberately obtuse and intent on remaining that way.
I suspect you were fishing for the answer "keep slavery", but that is just misdirection. The states already had the right to keep slaves, and they would continue to keep having the right to keep slaves indefinitely so long as they were part of the Union of the States.
The agreement of other states is no more required than the agreement of the other kingdoms of the British Union. We didn't need approval from Wales, Scotland, Ireland or England to exercise the right of self determination.
The Supreme Court ruled that in 1869.
The Supreme Court made that crap up because they were kowtowing to the political winds of the time. If you don't grasp how that works, I will point out Roberts, Kavanaugh and Coney Barret as examples of how that works in our current era.
The vast majority of actual real evidence demonstrates that a Union joined voluntarily could be left voluntarily.
To my knowledge, all you have to the contrary are two letters from Madison, and one of those written 40 years after the fact, and directly contradicted by the actual ratification statement of Virginia, and of which he was part of the group who wrote it.
It was the property of the federal government. Why should they leave?
...hoping to provoke the Confederacy into reacting so he would have an excuse to invade
So your excuse was that you fell right into Lincoln's trap? Not very smart of you.
Besides Gettysburg where else did the Confederacy invade the North?
Maryland in 1862. Ohio in 1863. Kansas in 1863 and 1864.
IIRC, 95% of the battles were fought in the South.
If you start a war then you can't blame anyone but yourself if it comes home to haunt you.
Made up crap only carries the weight of guns behind it. You can make up false claims, and then you can force people to accept those lies, but you cannot make people believe a lie that is contrary to the truth.
Hardly. It was the reason for their rebellion. Just ask Alexander Stephens, among others.
And what "interests" were those states needing to defend? Their ability to control the economic activity of other states through the power of Washington DC laws that funneled other people's money through their pockets?
They don't have a right to defend their interests if those interests constitute thievery against other people.
You are free to defy the rulings of the Supreme Court any time you like.
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