Confederate States Of America (2005)

What's wrong about this photo? Or if you're a true-born Southerner, what's right?

While scanning through some of the up and coming movies in 2005, I ran across this intriguing title; "CSA: Confederate States of America (2005)". It's an "alternate universe" take on what would the country be like had the South won the civil war.

Suffice to say anything from Hollywood on this topic is sure to to bring about all sorts of controversial ideas and discussions. I was surprised that they are approaching such subject matter, and I'm more than a little interested.

For myself, I was more than pleased with the homage paid to General "Stonewall" Jackson in Turner's "Gods and Generals". Like him, I should have like to believe that the South would have been compelled to end slavery out of Christian dignity rather than continue to enslave their brothers of the freedom that belong equally to all men. Obviously it didn't happen that way.

Would I fight for a South that believed in Slavery today? I have to ask first, would I know any better back then? I don't know. I honestly don't know. My pride for my South and my heritage would have most likely doomed me as it did so many others. I won't skirt the issue, in all likelyhood, slavery may have been an afterthought. Had they been the staple of what I considered property, I possibly would have already been past the point of moral struggle on the point and preparing to kill Northern invaders.

So what do I feel about this? The photo above nearly brings me to tears, as I highly respect Abraham Lincoln. I don't care if they kick me out of the South. Imagine if GW was in prayer over what to do about a seperatist leftist California. That's how I imagine Lincoln. A great man. I wonder sometimes what my family would have been like today. How many more of us would there be? Would we have held onto the property and prosperity that sustained them before the war? Would I have double the amount of family in the area? How many would I have had to cook for last week for Christmas? Would I have needed to make more "Pate De Fois Gras"?

Well, dunno about that either. Depending on what the previous for this movie are like, I may or may not see it. If they portray it as the United Confederacy of the KKK I won't be attending.

This generation of our clan speaks some 5 languages in addition to English, those being of recent immigrants to this nation. All of them are good Americans. I believe the south would have succombed to the same forces that affected the North. Immigration, war, economics and other huma forces that have changed the map of the world since history began.

Whatever. At least in this alternate universe, it's safe for me to believe that we would have grown to be the benevolent and humane South that I know it is in my heart. I can believe that slavery would have died shortly before or after that lost victory. I can believe that Southern gentlemen would have served the world as the model for behavior. In my alternate universe, it's ok that Spock has a beard. It's my alternate universe after all, it can be what I want.

At any rate, I lived up North for many years. Wonderful people and difficult people. I will always sing their praises as a land full of beautiful Italian girls, maple syrup and Birch beer. My uncle ribbed us once before we left on how we were going up North to live "with all the Yankees". Afterwards I always refered to him as royalty. He is, really. He's "King of the Rednecks". I suppose I'm his court jester.

Additionally, the Corwin amendment passed 2 March 1861 - an amendment which remains pending to this day:

Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution, viz:
“Article Thirteen.
“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”

During Senate debates, a proposed amendendment to the Resolution [now pending Amendment] stating that 'no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States' was defeated 28-18.

Another, stating that all 'attempts to dissolve the present Union, or overthrow or abandon the present Constitution, with the hope or expectation of constructing a new one, are dangerous, illusory, and destructive' was defeated 24-13.

Imagine that, a federal congress full of yankees, and they refuse to illegalize secession.

Maybe you were provoked, but you do defend slavery.

No, I do not, and if you've been paying attention you would know that. Oh, wait -- you do know that, you're just smearing me. What, run out of argument so quickly? Or are you just feeling lazy today?

You certainly have excused segregation as a way of protecting the White population.

The Southern one, or the Northern one, hypocrite?

We're talking about people who lived 140 years ago, not today. This is another example of your trying to crib a cheap arguing point and play "Blemish"/ad hominem by accusing people who lived in the past of failing to measure up to modern moral predilections -- which include, by the way, popularizing lesbianism and pederasty in the public schools, easy divorce, and endorsement by public figures of the use of recreational pharmacy that would have fried the brains of anyone living in 1870. The things we put up with in the way of bad deportment, moral slovenliness, and personal ethical cheesiness (think Bill Clinton), Victorians would have found beyond shocking -- they'd just stop talking to you, forever, if they thought you indulged that kind of thing.

I've told you guys before about playing this game. I'm not going to let this go. Stop it now -- it's morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest. You know as well as I do that you cannot lay your own moral compass on people separated from you by so large a distance in time, customs, laws, and manners. You know better than this.

Over time the cost of caring, feeding, housing etc for the slave whether there was work or not probably exceeded the cash value, especially as the slave got sick or aged.

How much overhead was there to a slave? Food was raised on the plantation, not much overhead there. Clothing was simple, housing was rudimentary and not something that had to be replaced on a regular basis. Medical care was no doubt simple, people white or black just didn't go to doctors much back then since there wasn't a lot doctors could do to treat the diseases of the time. And as for aged slaves, from what I've read slaves continued working as long as they were able and were asigned tasks that suited their ability.

The value of the immigrant (as the North discovered) was the lack of the above costs, and in his disposability.

But again the slave was a real asset. It had a value which contributed to the plantation owner's net worth. Jefferson Davis at one point had 114 slaves. The total value of those slaves exceeded the value of the land his plantation stood on, the house he occupied and the property it contained. Immigrant labor would contribute nothing to his personal worth. And slaves were, in their own way, disposable as well. Plantation owners like Davis kept an eye on the value of their chattel and usually sold them once they passed their peak. An indication of this is that Davis owned few if any slaves past their 50th birthday. In 1860 half his slaves were between 20 and 39, but only 6% were over 50.

During slow work periods, the immigrants lived in convienently located shanty towns , just far enough away from "polite" society but close enough to mine for labor when the need arose.

You're speculating, of course, since there were comparatively few immigrants in the south. But even if there were such shantytowns, what kept them populated? Plantation agriculture was seasonal, just like any other agriculture. What would keep those shantytowns populated during slow periods with no work for them? Why should the plantation owner want to compete for their labor with his neighbors during periods when everyone needed workers? Slave labor was dependable. It was there when you needed it and could be hired out others during slow periods, with all proceeds going into your pocket. Immigrants, if available, could not.

The more virulently racist North did not have a problem with "white immigrants" doing menial jobs, why would the South? After all the immigrants were a sub class any way, the Irish and Italians had similar racism meted out to them as well.

Sure the did. The Irish and the Italians tended to become associated with certain kinds of work. You seldom found native borns digging canals or laying railroad track. Such work was beneath them. Why do you believe that the south would be different? Racism ran deep in the south too, your protests to the contrary notwithstanding. The poor white farmer may not have had much more to eat than the slave, but he had a white skin which socially placed him far above the slave. And taking work usually done by slaves was admitting he was no better than them.

Granted the issue was much larger due to the higher numbers, but Brazil was still buying slaves...

So you visualize a lilly-white south, do you? And you have the gall to criticize Lincoln for his support of voluntary emigration - a system, by the way, also supported by Robert Lee. In that you are not much different than Jefferson Davis who, when some time before the rebellion was asked about what might happen when slavery ended, offered a vague plan to ship them all to Central and South America. But selling them was not possible. U.S. law and international treaties banned the slave trade, and an independent confederacy that tried it would have been an international pariah. No, you would have been stuck with all those millions of emancipated former slaves, wanting to vote and move and educate themselves and such. What else was there to do but keep them in bondage?

Clinton could not have said it better.

Read the Emancipation Proclamation. Where does it say that slavery was illegal? Where does it say that Lincoln, as President, ended it? Nowhere. The Confiscation Acts passed in 1861 and 1862 allowed the Government to seize property of private individuals when that property was being used to support the rebellion. It was a way to deny these resources to the south. Why should slavery be any different? By declaring the slaves free then the southern slave owner had no legal claim to him. The Fugitive Slave Laws ceased to apply. Slaves could leave plantations and nobody could force them to return, and their owners didn't have to be compensated for their loss. At a stroke it potentially removed billions of dollars in assets from the confederate economy and the confederate war effort. It was a war measure, nothing more, and as such could not be applied against those not supporting the rebellion.

That speaks volumes, as the intent of the NGOs you serve, is to wipe out the fact that the CSA ever existed, how mighty Stalin of you! That puts you in some great company, King George, Stalin, Pol Pot, Linkum, et al.

Actually it puts me in the company of the governments of Great Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Russia, Sweden, Japan, and every other country in the World who did not accept the legitimacy of the southern rebellion and did not recognize the sovereignty of the confederacy. Stalin and Pol Pot, needless to say, weren't even born then. And I won't even ask what they had to do with the question, except perhaps as a lame attempt on your part to be insulting.

Regarding our defending 'slaveowning and slavery' I must disagree. Speaking only for myself, I defend the LEGALITY of such at that time in our history, EVERY state admitted to the union prior to the war agreed that it was legal.

That's nonsense. Some states had never had legalized slavery. Others had abolished it years before. In those states slavery was illegal. Did people respect the "right" of states to have slavery? The overwhelming majority did. The corollary of that was the recognition that slavery would be illegal in some states, and that was one thing Northerners felt was under attack in the 1850s.

You take a very armchair view of things that amounts to backing up all the claims of the slave states. If you were alive at the time, you'd have to come to terms with the provocative nature of things like the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision, and you might find that your comfortable middle ground of not supporting slavery but defending the legality of slavery crumbling away under your feet.

It's like abortion now. You can be "pro-choice" or "in favor of abortion rights" and claim not to "believe" in abortion, but at some point you'll have to ask yourself whether you're really "pro-abortion." The demands and provocations of your own side get to be so great that you either accept them and swallow their principle whole, or you step back and question what your friends are selling. If someone enthusiastically supports every proposal of NARAL, sooner or later we have to ask if they aren't in fact "pro-abortion" and if someone doesn't choke on any propagandistic claim of the pro-slavery faction in 19th century America, one is certainly justified in asking if they aren't in some sense "pro-slavery."

The South started the war, and in time it was recognized as a war against slavery. Quibbling about the state of opinions or positions at any particular point in time doesn't change that. I can understand people taking different sides at the time, and I don't get on a moral high horse about being on one side or another in the 1860s. I can understand and sympathize with someone who felt their world was falling apart in 1861 and that only one choice was possible. If I'd been living in the South in 1861, I would probably have fought on the same side as my neighbors. I wouldn't know any better. How could I?

But we do know at least a little better or differently today. Ignoring the realities of that day now and propagandizing for the Confederacy looks to me to be highly questionable to say the least. I have to put in a good word for those who opposed slavery and its expansion over those who supported that cause. To say that in their own minds that the secessionists had a case for what they did is one thing, but to argue that that case is morally or legally unassailable or that the rebels' cause is our cause is foolish, perverse, and blind.

You guys argue that those who disagree with you are moralistically condemning the Old South or talking of "mystical calls." I don't see that at all. Most people who disagree with you probably recognize the war as a great tragedy. It's you all who want to put all the good on your side and all the evil on the other.

We aren't having this debate in 1860 but in 2005. I can certainly understand the positions people took a century and a half ago, and I've got more important things to do than to stigmatize on either side or reproach the people of that day for not believing in the same things we do now.

The kind of radical historicism that you espouse can be dangerous though, as it may lead some to deny that there are lasting moral values.

But beyond that, it looks pretty cheesy to try to make the moral landscape of the 1860s permanent and to argue that we can't come to our own judgments about how historical events and movements look to us today in light of how we understand those moral values. For it is also "morally bankrupt" to argue that some era or cause is beyond question or judgment. If eternal moral values justify condemnation of our era for some reasons, it's hard to see how antebellum America could be permanently excepted from similar censure for its own faults.

And beyond that, it's tiresome to hear people argue that we must withhold judgment on slavery but morally condemn protective tariffs as the devil's work. Or to hear them pound away at the idea that Northern racism always makes Southern slavery or racism more excusable or pardonable without considering that sometimes perhaps the reverse is true, that the North may sometimes have the advantage in such things. Or that late 19th century expansionism or Indian wars (conducted by Republican Presidents) are wrong, while the expansionism and Indian wars conducted by Jeferson, Jackson, Polk (and other Southern Democrats) earlier in the 19th century were justifiable and excusable. In other words, most people don't share your kind of extreme relativism. They use it to excuse what they've already come to disapprove of, and discard it to condemn what they approve of -- and that is clearly a double standard.

If you keep arguing that one institution is forever to be removed from the possibility of condemnation, are you not in some way supporting or promoting or protecting it? My question to you still stands unanswered: how would your view of 19th century American history be different if you were avowedly "pro-slavery" than it is with you being whatever it is that you think you are?

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.