Posted on 04/24/2005 6:08:20 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Southern heritage buffs vow to use the Virginia gubernatorial election as a platform for designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.
The four candidates have differing views on the Confederacy, an issue that has been debated for years in the commonwealth.
"We're not just a few people making a lot of noise," said Brag Bowling, a spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the oldest hereditary organization for male descendents of Confederate soldiers. "This is not a racial thing; it is good for Virginia. We're going to keep pushing this until we get it."
Each candidate recently shared his thoughts on what Mr. Bowling called a "litmus test for all politicians." Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine would not support a Confederate History and Heritage Month. Former state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore would support something that recognizes everyone who lived during the Civil War.
Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. and Warrenton Mayor George B. Fitch would support a Confederate History and Heritage Month. Many past Virginia governors honored the Civil War or the Confederacy.
In 1990, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first black governor, a Democrat and a grandson of slaves, issued a proclamation praising both sides of the war and remembering "those who sacrificed in this great struggle."
Former Govs. George Allen and James S. Gilmore III, both Republicans, issued Confederate History Month proclamations. In 2000, Mr. Gilmore replaced that proclamation with one commemorating both sides of the Civil War -- a move that enraged the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, has refused to issue a gubernatorial decree on either side of the Civil War.
Mr. Kaine, another Democrat, would decline to issue a Confederate History and Heritage Month proclamation if he is elected governor, said his campaign spokeswoman, Delacey Skinner.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.washingtontimes.com ...
Read what you just wrote.
It doesn't always mean they were treated badly.
Who said that every slave was treated badly?
Enough slaves were treated badly to make it an abomination.
No, it is isn't logical (or biblical).
The curse fell on Canaan not Ham.
Ham had 3 other sons that were not cursed.
What I want is a legimate constitutional reason for the South to secede.
If the abuse was so great, you must be able to point to at least one issue.
Where did you read that?
The Anti-Slavery Campaign in Britain Marjie Bloy, Ph. D.
Although slavery had been a feature of human life since at least as early as 2,600 B.C.E. in Egypt, it became an extremely lucrative European trade in the late fifteenth century. It did not take Britain long to cash in on the trade in human beings. Ships left British west coast ports like Liverpool and Bristol laden which firearms, gunpowder, metals, alcohol, cotton goods, beads, knives, mirrors -- the sort of things which African chiefs did not have, and which were often of very poor quality. Many of the cheaper goods were made in Birmingham and were known as "Brummagem ware". These goods were exchanged for slaves -- people who had been captured in local tribal wars perhaps, or who had been taken prisoner especially for this trade.
The slaves were then packed tightly into the slave ships, so that they could hardly move. Often they were chained down; they were allowed little exercise and they were kept in horrendous conditions in the hold of the ship. By the middle of the eighteenth century British ships were carrying about 50,000 slaves a year. Royal Navy sailors said that they could smell the stench of a ship carrying slaves anything up to 10 miles downwind.(emphasis added) The slavers sailed from Africa across the Atlantic. Any slaves who had managed to survive the journey were taken to shore and were sold to plantation owners in the West Indies, the southern colonies of America (Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia) where they spent the rest of their lives working to produce goods like cotton, tobacco, sugar cane and coffee.
The slave-produced goods were shipped back to Britain -- the "Mother Country" -- where they were manufactured or refined (if necessary) and then either sold domestically or re-exported at a vast profit. The slave trade brought in huge amounts of money to Britain, and few people even knew what was going on in the plantations, let alone cared. Men who owned plantations in the West Indies, including Sir John Gladstone, formed an important political group which opposed the abolition of the slave trade.
One of the earliest voluntary organisations in Britain which was devoted to a single cause was the anti-slavery movement. In 1787 a committee of twelve was appointed, including six members of the Society of Friends (Quakers). The Quakers had set up a committee of their own in 1783 in order to obtain and publish "such information as may tend to the abolition of the slave trade." Two other members of the committee were Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp. These men in particular went to great lengths to collect evidence, finding out precisely how little space was allotted to slaves on the ships and similar details. They began to publish pamphlets to stir public opinion against the trade. In her New York Times review of two books on the anti-slavery movement, Marilynne Robinson describes Sharp as
a minor government clerk who educated himself in the law in the course of defending the rights of Africans brought into England as slaves. He devoted himself and his slender resources to this work over decades with the object of finally putting an end to slavery itself. The trial, which is said to have abolished slavery within England by legal precedent, was centered on the question of Steuart's right to sell Somerset into the West Indies. Lord Mansfield ruled in favor of Somerset on the grounds that slavery "is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law." There being no such law in England, "the black must be discharged." This decision freed an estimated 15,000 Africans then held as slaves in England.
In parliament, both Charles James Fox and William Pitt the Younger agreed with the aims of the committee in which Sharp layed an importrant role, but some of the most powerful economic interests of the day opposed them. Consequently the committee had to concern itself with direct political action. Since Quakers were barred from becoming MPs until after 1828, their spokesman in parliament became the Evangelical William Wilberforce, author of Practical Christianity, one of the century's most widely read devotional works.
In 1793 Britain went to war against the French following the French Revolution and the cause of the slave-traders appeared to be a patriotic cause: the trade was seen as the "nursery of seamen." Abolition of the trade was postponed although Wilberforce regularly continued to propose legislation for abolition. His moral case was very strong and the evils of the trade were generally admitted. In 1807 the slave trade in the British colonies was abolished and it became illegal to carry slaves in British ships. This was only the beginning: the ultimate aim was the abolition of slavery itself.
In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, European statesmen condemned slavery but nothing was done to improve the conditions of slaves. The campaign to abolish slavery continued in Britain. Wilberforce and his co-workers held meetings all over the country to try to persuade people that abolition should be supported. They discovered that many people were unaware of the horrors of slavery and that others were not interested in something which happened thousands of miles away. They also met opposition from the West India lobby.
After 1830 when the mood of the nation changed in favour of a variety of types of reform, the antislavery campaign gathered momentum. In 1833 Wilberforce's efforts were finally rewarded when the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed. Wilberforce, on his death-bed, was informed of the passing of the Act in the nick of time. The main terms of the Act were:
all slaves under the age of six were to be freed immediately slaves over the age of six were to remain as part slave and part free for a further four years. In that time they would have to be paid a wage for the work they did in the quarter of the week when they were "free" the government was to provide £20 million in compensation to the slave-owners who had lost their "property." In the West Indies the economic results of the Act were disastrous. The islands depended on the sugar trade which in turn depended on slave labour. Ultimately, the planters were unable to make the West Indies the thriving centres of trade which they had been in the eighteenth century. However, a moral victory had been won and the 1833 Act marked the beginning of the end of slavery in the New World
Because the South chose to rebel, thats why.
Even though you have not given me a reason for secession, I will give you a reason for the North's putting down the insurrection.
Article one,Section 10, Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State
Section 8 Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
The Confederate Constitution has the same clause,
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Confederate States, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.
Nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/csa.constitution.html
Don't think too hard now.....you might burn yourself out.....
Depends on how you define 'first shot'. Confederate batteries fired on the Rhoda Shannon a week or two before the Harriet Lane fired on the Nashville. Why wouldn't that be the first shot? Why wouldn't southern batteries firing on the Star of the West in Charleston on January 10, or firing on the O. A. Tyler outside of Vicksburg on January 11? What made the Harriet Lane the first shot?
No...that is an assumption. There is a very logical reason why most slaves weren't mistreated. If you paid 5000.00 for a horse, would you beat & starve that horse? NO, you wouldn't. A male slave in good health cost that and MORE in 1860.
I have read one of my ancestors diary who was in the 11th Georgia Inf. He owned 50 slaves, but freed all of them before he left for the war. His Mammy, and his body servant and several others refused to leave, and were kept on with wages. His servant went off to war with him, and took a bullet for him at the Devil's Den at Gettysburg. Sounds like he treated his slaves badly.....
Secede, not rebel.
The bottom line here is simple. If Lincoln had simply recognized the Confederacy, there would have been no war. Period. Instead, he chose to ignore the peace commissioners, and attempt to re-supply Ft. Sumter, which he knew to be a blatant provocation. He started the war.
"Article one,Section 10, Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State"
2 things here:
One, you offered your evidence in the same manner I provided mine. This means you still have not done so (by your logic)
and
Two, the States in question having LEFT the Union prior to joining a Confederation (and NOT vice versa) makes this arguement null.
"Section 8 Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; "
When did the South invade? And how does being in a different country, and/or leaving a country, constitute "insurrection"?
I could renounce my US citizenship right now. Would that mean the US would then have every right to chase me down with guns?
The right to rebel is guaranteed.
It is part of securing a "free state" as the 2nd amendment states.
The "right to invade a dissenting opinion" is NOT.
"What I want is a legimate constitutional reason for the South to secede. "
The legit constitutional reasons were already pointed out.
What you are asking for is a list of grievances where the South states things along the lines of "improper tariffs" and taxes.
You miss the bigger picture (and therefore the REAL reasons) for looking for a hard article.
"You don't consider attacking Lincoln as racist while remaining silent on southern leaders views that were as bad or worse isn't hypocritical?"
I have openly stated previously that I do not intend to defend slavery. My only focus is to expose the North for being fraudulant in it's claims of moral superiority.
Attack Davis. I really don't care. But don't expect me to involve that as a legitimate part of this debate.
Shall I now post slave accounts?
Slaves were so well treated that the owners were always afraid of revolts and escape.
Slavery is indefensible, so stop attempting to do so.
There is no right to secede, so you rebeled.
I disagree...It is defensible that it wasn't the horrible crime, abolitionist and Northerners tried to make it. And it was LEGAL.
No, because it is very clear what the South had violated by making a compact with another state.
You have yet to give me a constitutional reason for secession.
and Two, the States in question having LEFT the Union prior to joining a Confederation (and NOT vice versa) makes this arguement null.
No it does not since they do not a right to leave the Union.
"Section 8 Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; " When did the South invade? And how does being in a different country, and/or leaving a country, constitute "insurrection"? I could renounce my US citizenship right now. Would that mean the US would then have every right to chase me down with guns?
If you fire on a U.S. Fort you would be in rebellion now wouldn't you?
So the South thought it could just take armories and forts that were Federal, as if they owned them.
Nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, "... Go ahead, finish the quote. Read the part where it states "unless actually invaded"
And the rest of that quote states that is due to an emergency situation.
There was no emergency situation for the formation of the Confederacy, which was in violation of the Constitution they had agreed to.
That is a matter of conjecture on your part. Read the 10th Amendment.
Quit trying to defend Yankee Tyranny like it was a Holy Crusade. It was greed. Pure & Simple.
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