1976 Election: blue=republican.
(Later the Dems wised up and decided they didn't like red, eh?)
Posted on 10/26/2004 4:28:59 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
The recent flurry of letters from neo-Confederates asserting that slavery had no role in the Civil War is troubling, as they seem doggedly determined to force counterfactual information on the public. The trend towards "true Southern history," minimizing the slavery issue by insisting that all of America was racist, and that slaves fought for the Confederacy is a spurious and disingenuous argument. Using half-truths and outright misinformation, they try to avoid what any serious historian of the Civil War recognizes as a major issue of the war.
Having studied the Civil War since my early teens and teaching it on a college level here in Hagerstown and at George Mason University, I feel qualified to point out a few holes in their argument. First of all, yes, much of America was racist, at least by today's standards, but that does not mean that slavery was not an issue in the war.
The controversy was not on a humanitarian basis, but was political and economic. Many states outlawed slavery soon after the Revolutionary War, and slave-state representatives were determined to "force" slavery into the newly acquired western territories. There was no political effort to eradicate in existing states, but a strong attempt to halt the spread of it to the new territories in the West.
The much-cited proposed 13th amendment in 1861 was intended as a compromise to reassure the southern states that their property rights were not in jeopardy due to Lincoln's election, and it did pass in Congress. Because of their insistence of spreading slavery, southern states chose to leave the Union and fire upon Fort Sumter rather than take that assurance. The actual 13th amendment did indeed outlaw slavery and end the institution, but the claim that three southern states ratified it before Lee surrendered is disingenuous.
The three state legislatures cited by the author of a recent letter were not the same ones that had decided to secede. They were Union-occupational legislatures dominated by Unionists that had little connection to Confederate states. Surely the author does not suggest that the Richmond legislature was approving United States Constitution amendments while still maintaining their Confederate independence!
Another writer cites a large number of blacks who aided the Confederate cause, some in combat. This too is stretching a point. Prof. Smith's estimate of 90,000 blacks who served the Confederacy in one way or another is just that, an estimate. Since the author who cites this number then states that there were 250,000 free blacks in the South, these numbers present a problem. Either there was an unusually high rate of volunteerism, 90,000 men out of 250,000 men, women and children, or many of these 90,000 blacks serving the Confederacy were slaves. If most of them were slaves, which most historians think is the case, then they are not exactly willing participants. Even if a couple of thousand free blacks did volunteer and did participate in armed conflicts, it is still a miniscule proportion of the roughly 1 million men who served the Confederacy. Most references to blacks in the Confederate army cite them as servants, cooks, teamsters, etc. Many of them were, and remained, slaves and unless someone can find testimony from them stating their willingness to do so, we must consider the possibility of them being forced labor.
As for Robert E. Lee being "an abolitionist," as Michelle Hamlin stated, the notion is ludicrous. The term abolitionist was a highly pejorative and emotionally charged word, and Lee would have been very insulted to have it applied to him. He did indeed free the slaves inherited from his father-in-law, as required by his father-in-law's will. It is not a true indicator of Lee's personal feelings, although we know he stated he disliked the institution.
This manumission does not make him an abolitionist because he never advocated freeing anyone else's slaves, and is unclear whether he would have freed these particular slaves if it were not required.
If Lee and the South were not fighting for slavery, why in the world did Lee's army hunt down hundreds of free blacks in Pennsylvania and drag them southward in chains? This is an established and accepted fact of the Gettysburg campaign, and taken with Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens' famous speech where he described slavery as the "cornerstone" of southern society, makes any logical person wonder how the South could not be fighting for slavery while fighting to preserve that society. If nothing else, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was designed to make slavery an issue of the war, not on humanitarian terms, but on political, military and economic terms. If the South was not fighting for slavery before January 1, 1863, at which time the proclamation went into effect, they certainly were doing so after that date.
Latter day denials of the facts will not change them. Slavery was part of the war, deeply intertwined in Southern economy and society, and the focal point of much of the debate that led to the war. While it is incorrect to attribute the entire cause of the war to slavery, it is equally incorrect to deny its influence.
bump
bump
Come join the fun.
Attention to detail.....
I stand corrected.
I agree. Let's don't rehash this stuff again right now.
Therefore, I am not replying to this thread.
1976 Election: blue=republican.
(Later the Dems wised up and decided they didn't like red, eh?)
You hit on the key point, profitable. The southern rebellion was in response to what they saw as a threat to their institution of slavery.
Also the south is constantly portrayed as evil for fighting this war for slavery but hardly a word is mentioned of the rape of the southern economy by the north during reconstruction. A travesty from which the south has just begun to recover from in the last 20 years.
Melodrama aside, southern losses were a result of southern actions. When you start a war you cannot decide in advance how it will turn out.
Certainly. The 'Rats executed a successful strategy of nominating someone who could peel off some Republican-leaning Southern States from the Upper Midwest and Mountain States. They lost California, but got enough of the South to go with the big Middle Atlantic States to guarantee victory.
In due course, the Southerners eventually realized, to their rue, that pride in having "one o' ouah own" in office was no guarantee that he wouldn't turn out to be a McGovernite nitwit politically.
Rock on.
And since then y'all have, usually, come on over to the Party of Lincoln. Welcome aboard.
The southern rebellion was in response to what they saw as a threat to their institution of slavery right of self-determination, their state sovereignty, and the relationship of federal to state government, as well as their property rights, and their right to emigrate to the Territories and take their property with them.
After all, a policy of freesoil Territories was de facto an exclusion of Southern planters and whatever other Southern citizens might actually own slaves. That policy made them second-class citizens in their fathers' house, and intended to exclude them from the national patrimony.
Are you kidding me? Carter swept the south? My how times have changed.
The most intelligent and factual post on FR that I have seen regarding this subject in quite some time.
No, I was right the first time.
Walt got banned some time ago. But I agree with you're description of the article.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.