Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
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Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion.
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Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made.
It's also a lie.
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Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content with their status.
Furthermore, it puts forth an image of Reconstruction as one in which freed blacks, the occupying Union army, Southern "scalawags" and Northern "carpetbaggers" inflict great harm on the defeated South, which is saved - along with the honor of Southern womanhood - by the bravery of KKK-like vigilantes.
To his credit, Selznick did eliminate some of the most egregious racism in Mitchell's novel, including the frequent use of the N-word, and downplayed the role of the KKK, compared with "Birth of a Nation," by showing no hooded vigilantes.
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One can say that "GWTW" was a product of its times, when racial segregation was still the law of the South and a common practice in the North, and shouldn't be judged by today's political and moral standards. And it's true that most historical scholarship prior to the 1950s, like the movie, also portrayed slavery as a relatively benign institution and Reconstruction as unequivocally evil.
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Or as William L. Patterson of the Chicago Defender succinctly wrote: "('Gone With the Wind' is a) weapon of terror against black America."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacticket.com ...
you are at least wrong for the RIGHT reasons,i.e. you have obviously read too much REVISIONIST pap & bilge;some here are just HATERS, who would be some other sort of HATER if they didn't hate dixie & her people.
free dixie,sw
Because he wasn't on the ballot. Just like today, candidates had to collect signatures to win ballot placement. Anyone in the deep south trying to collect signatures for a "Black" Republican in 1861 would have had the life expectancy of a possum crossing I-95.
BTW. The State of South Carolina back then did not even have presidential elections -- the state legislature picked all the presidential electors.
Actually a cynical political calculation. The radical in the South understood that they would never get popular support for secession unless a "Black" Republican should win. They intentionally split the Democrats to assure a Republican win and therefore attain their goal -- splitting the Union.
They had propagandized the southern people with stories that would make Michael Moore blush about how the Republicans would have the slaves become the masters and black men raping their wives and daughters. Crude, but it worked --- for a time.
You're turning this into the filioque controversy all over again. The difference is that these issues were a prime motive in Southern politics in the antebellum period, but they were not the primary motivator of secession. The primary motivator of secession was not getting waxed across the board, on all issues, and becoming a colonial economy under the heel of manifestly hostile economic and political interests in other states. The evidence of this shift of motive from the time of the Lecompton controversy to the eve of secession has been propounded to you, it has been documented to you. You insist, however, on retailing for polemical effect discredited Marxist arguments about economic determinism and "it was all about slavery", because you see the slavery issue as a good moral issue for beating the South over the head.
I've told you why the Marxists peddle their line -- and yet, utterly oblivious, blinded by your regionalist opprobrium, you embrace their argument out of animus. You deny the animus, but your vitriol uncovers you.
You have repeatedly shown that you care less what the issues were, than in pushing your beef. We exist. Get over it. Southerners aren't going to eat rat poison because you don't like our old flag, don't like the way we talk, and don't like the fact that people drive around with (full) gun racks in their pickup trucks.
On this thread, other active threads, and many long inactive threads, I have provided quotations from the southern leadership which show conclusively the link between slavery and secession.
Showing a link and then leaping to the conclusion that the Marxists are correct are two different propositions.
Jefferson Davis didn't open fire on Fort Sumter because it was full of Abolitionists, or because there were slaves there, or runaway slaves. His motive was power politics -- the establishment of the Confederacy. It was not about slavery, it was about self-determination. Lincoln's motive was complementary, antagonistic -- and largely unacknowledged by a historiographical college of priests who leap on every recension of Lincoln's policy agenda, to defend him and the moral capital that has been sunk in his glorification.
I deny your spin. And I rebuke your animosity.
And that statement is untrue.
The comparison was between those who deny obvious truth - and to go to great lengths to do so.
No it wan't -- it was a moral equation between Southerners who don't accept the triumphalist Rushmore canon and skinheaded Holocaust-deniers who wave old Imperial German Navy ensigns and keep Nazi flags in their closets.
It was not a comparison between southerners and nazis. That is your perverted interpretation.
If you wanted to talk about wrongheadedness, you'd have spoken of schismatic Montanists, Donatists, and Gnostics. You'd have talked about Manichaean oversimplification, or factional polemicists feeding on subtle distinctions, like the Arians and the Hesychasmists. You'd have talked about the factiousness of legitimist movements like the Jacobites and the Yellow Turbans. You'd have talked about wrongheadedness and the Dunsmen, or Dunses -- modern "dunces" -- who persisted for generations in following Duns Scotus.
But you talked about Holocaust deniers. Neo-Nazis. It wasn't an accident.
Quite true. But it is also what an honest person does when confronted by the kind of thing you do.
The best antidote is to continually post the truth of the matter and to put as much sunshine on the issue as possible.
Laudable sentiment. Now when are you going to quit posting McPherson's Marxian "vanguard liberation" slurs?
For every misrepresentation you make, I will shine the big bright light of truth on it.
Oh, yeah? Then why is your spotlight bright red?
Dan Rather understands the concept, now.
He a friend of yours?
It is one thing to differ on policy or interpretation, and debate the relative merits. It is another thing to engage in character assassination. You are getting to be as bad as some of the droolers.
I'm calling foul on your technique and I will bag you on it every time, just as I promised. You want to make the Civil War about one issue, a moral issue, and wash everything that Lincoln and his party did on that basis. It is you who are oversimplifying, you who are working a factious agenda.
Uncle Tom's Cabin brought home nothing but a pantsload of cheap, emotive propaganda. Stowe was committing propaganda, she wasn't trying to write a reasoned description of slavery.
If she relied on Frederick Douglass, by the way, for her descriptions of slave life, she'd have done herself and her readers a disservice, inasmuch as Douglass admitted, later in his life, to having amped up his earlier descriptions of the injustices of slave life.
The real problem with slavery as an institution was that its intimate identification with property rights made it very difficult to take up as a policy matter without exciting the reasonable fear that an attack on all property rights was on offer, as well as a sectional political attack.
This was a reasonable apprehension, given the Whigs' and Federalists' demonstrated enthusiasm for the politics of "tax tax, spend spend"; and it was the Republican Party that introduced the first income tax. This was in addition to the punitive property taxes they enacted specifically for the purpose of expropriating Confederates' homes and farms.
And I've got some swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you.
I looked it up. It's not a polite term, used as you used it. Context is determinative. Bite me.
The South laid claim to "New Mexico Territory" and had expansionist views to Colorado, Nevada, and California. the 1862 Sibley campaign is proof of their intent. It only "resigned interest" on territories when it could no longer take them by force.
New Mexico had recently been part of Texas and had been ceded by Texas to the United States. With the Union now null and void, Texians may have thought that the territory should revert to them. I'd take a legal scholar's advice on who really owned New Mexico under the circumstances. Certainly there was a difference of opinion.
However, I insist that you notice and stipulate to it, that no Confederate State asserted claims in Nebraska, Kansas, or any of the other territories.
California was a State by 1860 and can't have been seen as Confederate territory. Moreso the Pacific Northwest. If you think so, though, by all means produce your document.
Such as? I'm not familiar with the term.
"You want to make the Civil War about one issue, a moral issue, and wash everything that Lincoln and his party did on that basis. It is you who are oversimplifying, you who are working a factious agenda."
You, again, mischaracterize my position. I have little or nothing with regard to Lincoln on this thread. I have commented on the obvious southern motivation for attempting secession. It was insurrectionist, unilateral secession that led to war. It was protecting and expanding slavery that led to secession.
I notice you have not commented on the Rhett's editorial yet (#234)? It goes directly to the point. Is the truth too much for you to swallow?
Only in your opinion. I demonstrated the similarities.
"No it wan't -- it was a moral equation between Southerners who don't accept the triumphalist Rushmore canon and skinheaded Holocaust-deniers who wave old Imperial German Navy ensigns and keep Nazi flags in their closets."
I drew no such equation. It should suffice to say, however, we both know there are those who have no qualms flying a swastika with the CBF. Anti-Americans. Not a nice crowd to run with.
"If you wanted to talk about wrongheadedness, you'd have spoken of schismatic Montanists, Donatists, and Gnostics. You'd have talked about Manichaean oversimplification, or factional polemicists feeding on subtle distinctions, like the Arians and the Hesychasmists. You'd have talked about the factiousness of legitimist movements like the Jacobites and the Yellow Turbans. You'd have talked about wrongheadedness and the Dunsmen, or Dunses -- modern "dunces" -- who persisted for generations in following Duns Scotus."
What a mouthful - no wonder you haven't posted to the thread ina couple of days. I haven't had such a good laugh ... well ... since the last time you posted.
Let's get back to basics.
Slavery was important to the southern elite. So important they were willing to break up the Union and risk war to protect it. They chose poorly.
I will admit that you are well-schooled in blending revisionist history (from the James Garfield Randall school) with more modern marxist polemics. But your argument falls flat when the words of those who led secession are reviewed. And I don't mean their post-war apologies. I mean the very words they used at the time to justify to the southerners why they were taking the actions they took. Your "it was all about slavery" strawman fails, because you constantly link it to northern motivation as well.
"You have repeatedly shown that you care less what the issues were, than in pushing your beef. We exist. Get over it. Southerners aren't going to eat rat poison because you don't like our old flag, don't like the way we talk, and don't like the fact that people drive around with (full) gun racks in their pickup trucks."
You need to sniff some vapors, dearie, you're getting hysterical. I have ZERO animus toward southerners. I am married to a southerner. I have lived and worked in the south (if you want to consider Texas a part of the south). I am descended, in part, from southerners. I couldn't care less about the old flags - they are part of a heritage. And I couldn't care less about your vehicles and how you are armed. (In fact, the more arms the better!)
You would be hard-pressed to find a post by me that denigrates southern culture. Or find a post where I denigrate the confederate soldier or sailor who served honorably. You will find plenty of posts where I take exception to those who glorify the treasonable actions of those who led the southern rebellion. And you will find plenty of posts by me where I slam those who were unfaithful to the founding principles of the nation.
Perhaps that is too fine a distinction for you to understand.
Demonstrating the link between the expansion and protection of the institution of slavery, with the motivation for secession is all I need to do. I have drawn no conclusions concerning the correctness of the "marxists." Those are your windmills to battle. I don't reside in your fantasyland.
I'll let the southerners speak for themselves on the issue. Consider this from the New Orleans Bee, December 14, 1860:
"[The chief obstacle to reconciliation] is the absolute impossibility of revolutionizing Northern opinion in relation to slavery. Without a change of heart, radical and thorough, all guarantees which might be offered are not worth the paper on which they would be inscribed. As long as slavery is looked upon by the North with abhorrence; as long as the South is regarded as a mere slave-breeding and slave-driving community; as long as false and pernicious theories are cherished respecting the inherent equality and rights of every human being, there can be no satisfactory political union between the two sections."
"[F]alse and pernicious theories [about] the inherent equality ... of every human being"??? Sounds like the editors of the Bee don't believe Jefferson when he stated that "All men are created equal."
And of course, the gist of the editorial is that the Northerners must come around to the southern point of view on slavery or there can be no Union.
Slavery - Secession - Linkage.
What did the ardent fire-eater Robert Barnwell Rhett have to say about the issue, just before the Presidential election, on October 11, 1860?
"With the control of the Government of the United States, and an organized and triumphant North to sustain them, the Abolitionists will renew their operations upon the south with increased courage. The thousands in every country, who look up to power, and make gain out of the future, will come out in support of the Abolition government.... They will have an Abolition Party in the South, of Southern men. The contest for slavery will no longer be one between the North and the South. It will be in the South, between the people of the South.
"If, in our present position of power and unitedness, we have the raid of John Brown ... what will be the measures of insurrection and incendiarism, which must follow our notorious and abject prostration to Abolition rule at Washington, with all the patronage of the Federal Government, and a Union organization in the South to support it?...
"Already there is uneasiness throughout the South, as to the stability of its institution of slavery. But with submission to the rule of Abolitionists at Washington, thousands of slaveholders will despair of the institution. While the condition of things in the Frontier States will forces their slaves on the markets of the Cotton States, the timid in the Cotton States, will also sell their slaves. The general distrust, must affect purchasers. The consequence must be, slave property must be greatly depreciated....
"The ruin of the South, by the emancipation of her slaves, is not like the ruin of any other people. it is not a mere loss of liberty, like the Italians under the Bourbons. It is not heavy taxation, which must still leave the means of living, or otherwise taxation defeats itself. But it is the loss of liberty, property, home, country - everything that makes life worth having. And this loss will probably take place under circumstances of suffering and horror, unsurpassed in the history of nations. We must preserve our liberties and institutions, under penalties greater than those which impend over any people in the world."
Rhett's admonition - Slavery must be protected! For without their slaves, the South would face economic ruin, loss of liberty and property, infiltration by northern abolitionists, collaboration by southern abolitionists, and they would be worse off than the Italians!
I thought watie said "slavery was dying" and "only 5-6% of the southern population even cared about slavery"? This Lincoln feller must have scared Rhett silly. Or was Rhett just laying the last of his 30-year foundation for secession?
It was about slavery.
You provide an interesting point of view regarding boundaries. Is there a "legal scholar" to which you refer?
My reference to "New Mexico Territory" included the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico. Your statement that New Mexico had recently been part of Texas is somewhat off the mark. It is true that the lands ceded by Mexico, in 1848, by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the territorial claims of Texas overlapped. The area that overlapped was that part of New Mexico that was east of the Rio Grande (and incidentally, extended up into present-day Colorado, southwestern Kansas, a small section of Wyoming, and the Oklahoma panhandle).
In any case, the southern Civil War claims in the New Mexico Territory do not coincide with Texas's historic claim to the lands east of the Rio Grande.
The land to the north was already occupied by Mormon settlers in 1848, who had nothing to do with Mexico, and whose expansive land claims were unrecognized. (Alta) California had briefly established an independent republic (led by John C. Fremont), when the war with Mexico led to American military rule.
The various land claims and boundaries were settled in 1850. Texas assumed its current boundaries and sold it northwestern claims to the United States (which assumed Texas's war debt). At that time, California was admitted to the Union as a State and the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory were established. In 1853, New Mexico Territory was enhanced by the Gadsden Purchase. In 1854 the Kansas and Nebraska Territories were organized.
"However, I insist that you notice and stipulate to it, that no Confederate State asserted claims in Nebraska, Kansas, or any of the other territories."
It seems to me, that if Texas made claim (in 1861 to lands they sold in 1850), to former territory, which would have included parts of New Mexico Territory, Kansas Territory, Utah Territory, and Nebraska Territory, than they would have indeed done what you insist they did not.
It seems, then, you will need to be a little more specific on what you mean by "Texians may have thought that the territory should revert to them."
Disingenuous. There is no denial of a link -- what there is, is your continually pounding the mendacious line that "it was all about slavery -- slavery was the issue", and this in the face of documentation.
[You, quoting me] "You don't give any notice to the numerous statements that these same men made about the South's ability to control its own political agenda and to insist that Southerners' rights be respected."
[You, replying] Do you remember the post I made of the Charleston Mercury editorial written by Rhett, in 1860, about the reasons for secession? ....Virtually every point he made was slavery-related. I do not deny that other factors were involved in confederate decision-making. I state affirmatively that slavery was foremost among those considerations. [Emphasis added.]
Slavery-related, yes. Slavery-determinative, slavery-bound, no. The slavery issue was the instant issue, but the underlying issues were the killers: civil comity (its lack) and the ability of the Southerners to conduct their own affairs in the face of a successful factional victory that threatened to overthrow the Constitution and impose a despotism in the name of a "higher law" (ours!).
You don't quote or elucidate Rhett's statements for any reason except your aforementioned polemical purpose of morally inculpating the South -- as a form of ultimate ad hominem -- which is your only end in view. Actual understanding? Forget it. We're on a journey to contempt.
And yes, I remember it! Some of the points were political, some were economic, and several went to the implications of the uncompensated taking of millions of slaves through abolition -- which comes back to economics.
Slavery was about economics to many of the secessionist leaders. You just want to stop at slavery and say falsely, "it was all about slavery" -- because that is where, for polemical purposes, you wish it to rest, to make a moral argument that washes all wickedness on your side, and stains all valor and honor on the other. Your intention is base and your argument treacherous.
As to the causes of secession -- which, to make another useful distinction, are different from the causes of the Civil War -- Robert Rhett and Louis Wigfall (one of the first U.S. Senators from the South seriously to advocate secession) both looked at an attack on slavery as an attack on the economics of the South, which had become a hypertrophied monocrop colonial economy. Striking at the South's real source of income, abolition threatened general economic ruin, and there is still a great deal of suspicion in the South that that is precisely why Northerners embraced abolition -- out of sectional animosity.
But we have discussed all this before, here:
"Causes of the Civil War" Revisited
So why is any of this news to you?
And I would like to add that Southerners had no more rights to be respected than anyone else.
How about just a little? John Brown's raid, and Northern editorial and popular support for it even after the facts became public, convinced people in the South that Northerners were unwilling to concede them even the right to live.
[You, quoting me] "You have never once admitted that Southerners had a property right in their slaves."
[You, dissembling and patronizing] Call me old-fashioned, but I do not believe that any man has a right to own any other man. Period. I suppose we differ on this point.
Yes. Well, there it is. I asked you whether Southerners had [past tense] a property right. You answered dishonestly, by shifting the tense to the present, allowing you to strike a moral pose ("Call me old-fashioned......").
But it's obvious that your answer then and now is, NO.
Southerners didn't have a Fourth Amendment right, or any other right, that you are obligated to respect. And if you think I'm deliberately echoing Dred Scott, I am -- to point out that you are dehumanizing Southerners precisely the way slavery dehumnanized black slaves, and for the same reason. You want Southerners for your Negroes, to be your workhorses, your whipping boys, and your all-purpose bottle-washers in your imperial society. You deny they had rights. You assert a "moral imperative" of a "higher law" precisely as Lincoln did -- to serve yourself.
So who's the slaver now?
When you accuse me of not knowing anything, you might at least try to ascertain whether that's true or not, before you make an ass of yourself.
The first black slaves in America were indentured servants. It was one of those original arrivals from 1619 who, having worked off his indenture, began doing the same thing to build his own farm, and it was he, a free black man from Africa, who made the first recorded case before the Virginia colony's authorities that he did in fact own a lifetime indenture on his own black servants -- which was what made them slaves
Indentured or chattels, the work was the same, by the way.
I didn't know that. But you support my point that Southern chattel slavery was not somehow uniquely evil, which is a charge often made by Northerners in exculpation of their destruction and subjugation of the South.
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