Confederacy of the determined - (Southern heritage buffs vow "Confederate History Month")

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.

Moral equivalency was the argument used by sympathizers with Germany and Russia to justify the acts of those powers. Were we wrong to object to what they did because we had colonies abroad and segregation at home? Are we wrong in objecting to slavery or genocide or polygamy or oppression of women in other countries if at some point we had such things at home? Ideas of moral equivalency get in the way of deciding what we should do about something. They sidetrack the debate. They do the same thing when we try to understand what happened in history.

However: the South was not morally inferior to the North. And I have been arguing THAT for 500+ threads now.

You've determined that conclusion in advance and decided that's what the discussion should be about. So anything that you think throws the North into a bad light you throw up on the screen -- that Irish immigrants might have had a hard time in New York, or that there might have been slaves in 1820 in New York, or that slaves in Delaware weren't freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. And you leave out the corresponding facts about the South that put your posts in context, because those facts would make the South look quite bad indeed. The result is a distortion of history -- everything bad you can think of to say about the North and nothing more.

Understanding that something like half the population of SC or MS was composed of slaves, and Whites there opposed, feared, and suppressed any talk of an end to slavery, helps us to understand why Lincoln's election led to secession. Focusing on the 3 slaves who may have lived in NH in 1830 doesn't bring us any closer to understanding what happened thirty years later and why. Seeing how slavery, so entrenched in 1859, was abolished by 1866 helps us to understand the significance of the war. Griping that slaves in DE weren't freed by the Emancipation Proclamation is a fringe activity that obscures the larger picture.

You're promoting an idea of moral equivalency to the point where it gets in the way of understanding the real differences between the North and South and why they led to secession and war. The result is a skewed, and distorted version of history that tells us nothing about what happened in 1860-1 and why. And though you claim to be even-handed, it looks to others like all you're doing is trying to make the South look better than it was at the time. In the end, Northerners are made to look like hypocrites while the real failings of the South are obscured, which may be the idea. To get around slavery and make the South look better in our eyes than it was, you have to seize on every opportunity to make the North look worse than it was.

The South did as it saw was right, and the North did as it saw was right.

I suppose so, though plenty of people in each region disagreed with the regional consensus. The problem is that plenty of people want to translate that into "The South Was Right," and they leave out a lot of inconvenient facts and circumstances in their rush to reach that conclusion. If you're not one of them, you're certainly doing your best to help them.

We can still respect Confederates for their dedication even if we think they were on the wrong side of an important issue. We don't have to hate or villify them, but can respect them for their sacrifices, even in a bad cause. But I can't help noticing that those who want to vindicate the secessionists feel they have to malign the North and insult Northerners. If your concern is just to win some respect for those who died in a cause they thought was right, it might be better simply to focus on those positive qualities in Southern soldiers, rather than to refight the war. If you're out to prove the Confederacy was right it would be better not to hide behind claims of even-handedness.

"The problem is that plenty of people want to translate that into 'The South Was Right,'"

That is there problem. That is not my arguement.

"But I can't help noticing that those who want to vindicate the secessionists feel they have to malign the North and insult Northerners."

The North attacked the South. That is the general consensus down here. "Making the North look bad" is a natural response to Northern claims that "the South had it coming"

"If your concern is just to win some respect for those who died in a cause they thought was right, it might be better simply to focus on those positive qualities in Southern soldiers, rather than to refight the war."

Whenever that happend on this thread, someone or another took to deriding the sacrifices made as either being a: treason, b: slave-happy, or c: a stupid call.

I appreciate your posts for the most part, as you generally convey that you wish to be respectful. I must say, however, this is not how your side has been working in the discussion. You are the exception.

The North was losing out on a cheap source of cotton.

The North bought it's cotton from the south, and I'm unaware of any source that would indicate that the Northern industries were starved for supply.

They raised tariffs on the cotton so much that the South could not sell it easily. That was one of the main reasons for the animosity that the South felt toward the North.

I would direct you to Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 oc the Constitution which reads, "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." How could there be a tariff on cotton exports when the Constitution clearly forbids it? Do you have anything which supports this claim and which might state what the duty was on these cotton exports?

I had a lot more patience when I discovered these Civil War arguments. They've done a lot to wear down my tolerance and forebearance and that may be true of other people's as well. The thing about these arguments is that they never end. A lot of the time people are speaking from emotion rather than from reason, and nothing is going to convince them. That's true on both sides, but for some Southerners -- very few, but it seems like they're all on these threads -- their honor is threatened by the suggestion that the secessionists might have been wrong in 1861.

I have to wonder whether you're really on the fence on this, though. One thing it comes down to for you is "The North attacked the South." You might consider what the North's alternatives were and how the situation looked to Northerners. Unilateral secession was not constitutional, at least in the opinion of most experts. The proper response was unclear, but eventually the secessionists' actions -- seizing and destroying property, repudiating debts, forming a league and an army, dispatching emissaries to incite further secessions, and attacking bases -- convinced unionists that a military response was justified, desireable and necessary. Southern militants might have behaved differently and avoided war, but after Sumter war was inevitable.

We can understand why South Carolinians might feel that the institutions of their state were threatened by Lincoln's election. But one also should take into account that the "Southern institution" or most "threatened" was slavery and the "Southern right" most feared for was the "right" to own slaves. It's also not hard to see why Virginians might take up arms when they felt other Southern states were threatened by the government. But it's a mistake to assume that secession was understood to be legal or justified or that the "abuses" claimed by Virginians or Tennesseans were present when the South Carolina or Mississippi conventions made their decisions. If you want to argue that calling out the army to defend the union was an abuse justifying secession, you can't say that that abuse existed before the union's survival was called into question.

I was wrong. I am not ashamed or afraid to admit mistakes that I make. I remembered this from High School over 42 years ago. I was wrong about the tariffs being on exports. Tariffs on imports were one of the major causes of the War Between the States.

European Countries were selling textiles at a lower price than the North could. The tariffs put a tax on imports. This protected the Northern Textile Mills. The North did not import nearly as much as the South so the taxes actually benefited the North.

The South relied heavily on imports. The taxes raised the cost of living in the South and they got very little from it. People in the South had to pay more for products. They had to buy products from the North at a higher price than before.

The European countries would retaliate by not buying cotton from the South.

Cotton was the America's largest merchandise export. After 1820, Cotton exports accounted for from almost half to two- thirds of the value of all exports. Cotton was grown in the South. The North was destroying it's economy.

Only an idiot or a disrupter would argue when they know they are wrong. Ignorance is bliss isn't it.

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