Posted on 08/31/2006 9:07:31 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
On Sunday afternoon at Old Union Cemetery in southern White County, over 180 people gathered to pay a debt owed nearly 80 years. The group included members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, family and friends, all there to memorialize the service of Pvt. Henry Henderson, a black Confederate soldier.
Henderson was born in 1849 in Davidson County, NC. He was 11 years old when he entered service with the Confederate States of America as a cook and servant to Colonel William F. Henderson, a medical doctor. Records show Henry was wounded during his service, but he continued to serve until the war's end in 1865. He was discharged in Salem, NC, age 16.
After the war, Henry married Miranda Shockley, of White County, TN. The couple raised five children.
"We're here to honor him," said his great-grandson, Oscar Fingers, of Evansville, IN. "I think he would be proud his family has come this far and to know all we have done." Several other family members made the trip with Fingers from Indiana for Sunday's ceremony.
Sons Dalton and Lee received Henderson's first and last Tennessee Colored Confederate pension check upon their father's death in September 1926. The check provided enough funds to bury their father, but not enough to buy a headstone for his grave.
The 60,000-90,000 black Confederate soldiers are often called "the forgotten Confederates," but through the concerted efforts of the Capt. Sally Tompkins Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy along with the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, several graves have been found in the Upper Cumberland and have been or will be marked.
Pvt. Henry Henderson's service was finally recognized and his grave officially marked on Sunday, all to the snap of salutes from the grandsons of fellow Confederates, volleys of gunfire and cannons shot toward the distant hillsides of his final resting place.
Official U.S. government grave markers are available to all Confederate veterans. For additional information, contact Barbara Parsons, 484-5501.
As a supporter of much of what the South stood for, I freely admit that slavery was wrong and needed to be ended. But supporters of the North continue to believe that they contributed nothing to the continued need for slaves in the South and that they in fact profited as well from both the slave trade and slave's labor.
Sorry, but that is a high horse that just doesn't ride.
Then why were they growing it? Why was cotton spreading out across the entire deep south in years after the invention of the cotton gin? Because it wasn't profitable half the time? Even if that's true, it must mean that the other half of the time it was very profitable indeed. Otherwise common sense dictates that they'd stop growing it. Here's what a southern senator had to say about cotton:
"Without the firing of a gun, without drawing a sword, should they [Northerners] make war upon us [Southerners], we could bring the whole world to our feet. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? . . England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her. No, you dare not make war on cotton! No power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is King."
Doesn't sound like a very tenuous crop to me.
It is common practice for ag. based economies, even today, to receive "seed" money to get by.
Yes. Is it a banking conspiracy to loan them money?
bttt
Or do you just enjoy asking these questions w/o investigating and seeking to improve your knowledge on the subject?
Much of what you are asking is explained in detail both in Johnson's book and in the link provided above. Spend the ten dollars, read Johnson's chapter on the lead up to the war, it will improve your understanding of the pre war economics specifically.
What I fail to find is any rational economic justification for why these decisions and policies were so onerous to the south that they just HAD to secede (especially since they barely mentioned them themselves). I also can find no rational reason why the south failed to create its own financial, manufacturing and shipping interests instead of complaining how the northern ones were exploiting them. You cite the Morrill Tariff, but the fact is that the south had been dictating tariff policy for years. Look up the Walker Tariff of 1846, or the 1857 tariff. Those benefitted southern cotton and hurt northern industry, but God forbid the pendulum should swing back the other way.
Earlier in the thread, you cited the failure of northern industry to open plants in the south, while they were opening them in the west. There are a couple of basic reasons for it: population and transportation. The population of the west was booming while the population of the south was not. And the north and west had built a transportation system of rails and canals while the south had not. Why?
Or do you just enjoy asking these questions w/o investigating and seeking to improve your knowledge on the subject?
I have stated why I did not do so on several occasions. But just to finally attempt to silence your vicious and unwarranted attacks I did so in:
Post 251,
Post 252,
Post 253.
All of which you now ignore.
You also offer no counter evidence that:
The north profited from running slaves to the south
the North increased their profits by helping to keep prices down
The banks in the North loaned money to southern plantation owners to continue slavery.
That northern shipyards modified existing ships for the slave trade despite the fact that slave trading was illegal.
You have no proof that the above statements are not true. I challenge you to prove those statements wrong.
No further proof is required that you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about:
The book is:
US National Best seller
Standared US History text book at Major Universities in USA and England
Highly acclaimed by numerous well respected people and organizations.
You might as well say that the south benefits from drug smuggling into Florida today.
the North increased their profits by helping to keep prices down
And normal good business practice is to pay as much as you can for raw materials? Blame capitalism.
The banks in the North loaned money to southern plantation owners to continue slavery.
Banks in the north loaned money to the south to make more money. You keep bringing up these northern banks, but I have yet to see how they forced the south to borrow money from them.
That northern shipyards modified existing ships for the slave trade despite the fact that slave trading was illegal
And some southern boatyards no doubt modify speedboats to smuggle drugs despite the fact that drug smuggling is illegal.
I challenge you to prove those statements wrong.
And I challenge you to show how any of these justify unilateral secession, or the firing on US troops.
And a book whose first edition claimed Thomas Edison invented the telephone (according to the link you provide).
Here's what he really said.
"The economic policies of the North (1810-1860) were in no small part designed to take financial advantage of the South. It was these policies that ultimately led to the Southern states desire to secede"
"The North had passed high tariff laws primarily because of their adverse affect on the southern states."
"Northern factories refused to open up in the south, due in part for the desire to keep the south from improving its over all lot."
"Also the North was clearly exploiting the South, and thus they did have legitimate gripes."
Try defending the comments you made originally rather than the ones you wish you had made.
{snicker}
In Britain, Johnson's guileless name-dropping, his rages about the ''Church of Sodomy,'' as he calls the Church of England, and a penchant for self-contradiction have made him a running joke in the press. In the satirical magazine Private Eye, he is referred to as ''Loonybins.'' Everyone in London seems to have a Johnson horror story, many of them relating to what one of the English papers refers to as his ''long and barely secret struggle not to succumb to the bottle.'' On one occasion, a memorial service for his friend Kingsley Amis, Johnson became so apoplectic at a eulogy given by the leftish journalist Christopher Hitchens that he had to be escorted out. Johnson is said by some to have his temper and his drinking under control these days. His wife, Marigold, recently referred to him as ''far less barmy than he used to be.''Part of the reason Johnson's writing is not taken seriously in Britain is that there is so much of it. In the country that invented the term ''hack,'' Johnson's prolificacy is simply astounding. While turning out 1,000-page books every couple of years, he produces a weekly column for The Spectator and regular commentaries for The Daily Mail. On a good day he writes 6,000 words. ''I don't know how many books I've published,'' he says. ''I think it's 34. It may be 35.''
In the United States, and particularly in Washington, where he will appear later this month at the Smithsonian with Gingrich, Johnson has a far statelier reputation. American conservatives know him only as a high-toned historian and intimate of Thatcher's, not as a gassy columnist horrified by the Spice Girls.
No friend, the ignorance is all yours.
You were asked a couple of probing questions much earlier in this debate. Post 217 "Why didn't Southern capital open their own factories?" and Post 219 "Why didn't the South build their own fleet of trading ships rather than rely on the North for their shipping needs?"
These questions were direct rebuttals to the tariff issue which comprises your eventual Post 251. The source you reluctantly provided doesn't answer these questions any better than the poorly drawn analogies of your posts 230 & 234.
Quoting Charles Dickens as a source on 19th century US economics (your Post 252) is..meaningless. It's like asking Gore Vidal to comment on the European Union. Who cares? You seem to be grasping at straws or maybe you're just unwilling to think through the questions you've been asked.
Post 253 essentially rehashes the Tariff issue again, focusing on the late 1850's. It doesn't address the underlying causes, it simply chronicles events. Nothing new there.
The truth is that US tariff laws and navigation acts were DESIGNED and enacted by the FOUNDERS to protect this country from foreign economic and military power. They applied EQUALLY to every American state. NOTHING prevented the South from competing for shipping, trade, and manufacturing EXCEPT ingenuity and hard work and money.
So despite all your huffing and puffing about intentional Northern exploitation, and laws designed to take financial advantage of the South, one essential question remains unanswered,
" Why couldn't the South compete more effectively with the North for manufacturing, trade and shipping?"
So where did you get it?
Answer: You saved it from an earlier post which was since deleated.
Why?
Probable Answer:
You knew it was going to be deleted and you choose to save it. Now because I was not able to go back and see my exact wording, you attack me as a liar.
Have you really reduced yourself to such childish tactics?
My subsequent posts (#158 and #250) clearly stated that their are a multitude of causes for the civil war. The Finacial aspects being but one of them.
The fact that the post that you saved and then probably asked to have deleted, states a singular cause. That was a simple error on my part, long since corrected.
The comments made regarding the financial aspects of the war have been supported, you and others simply cannot accept any source that I point to.
???
The comments that you made and that I referred to are still available. They are contained in posts #174 and #209.
Have you really reduced yourself to such childish tactics?
No son, you've just reached another ridiculous conclusion based on a false premise. That seems to be a common theme here with you.
My subsequent posts (#158 and #250) clearly stated that their are a multitude of causes for the civil war. The Financial aspects being but one of them.
Are you sure? Post #250 wasn't even made by you, although it expresses MY sentiments fairly accurately.
The fact that the post that you saved and then probably asked to have deleted, states a singular cause. That was a simple error on my part, long since corrected.
Wrong. The comments you made (and that I referred to) are still available. There is no conspiracy to delete your posts.
The comments made regarding the financial aspects of the war have been supported, you and others simply cannot accept any source that I point to.
I haven't questioned your comments about the "financial aspects of the war" whatever that means. I have questioned three specific comments you made (see my 273 & 277). So far you haven't supported those comments, nor have you responded credibly to the rebuttal questions posed to you earlier.
If you'd like to withdraw the three comments, then do so. But let's stop this charade about deleted posts ok?
-btw Here is another upthread rebuttal question (from the colonel) that you failed to respond to.
"How did the North exploit all these subsistence farmers any more than they would have exploited the similar farmers in the Midwest? What's the difference between a yeoman in Michigan and one in Georgia?"
I withdraw nothing regarding the fact that the South was tired of their treatment by the North in particular in regards to financial policy.
I do not withdraw my comments that the financial dealings of the North was a contributing factor regarding the causes for secession.
I did respond to Kangaroo, you missed it. Go back and find it, you seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
I do withdraw from this thread though, as you have become increasingly boring, unyielding, unwilling to look at other possibilities, Insulting in your total mannerism, childish in your frequent attacks and condescending in your general attitude.
I find you to be a person in this forum deserving more of pity, then my time. As you once said: " Now run along"
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