Posted on 12/27/2010 10:31:54 AM PST by trumandogz
The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart.
The coming year will mark the 150th anniversary of the onset of the conflict, which is usually dated to April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on federal troops occupying Fort Sumter. Union forces surrendered the next day, after 34 hours of shelling.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Slavery was simply on “occasion?”
And “States rights” was the cause?
If that is the case, why is it that the Declarations of Secession by Georgia, South Carolina, Texas and Mississippi mention slavery 82 times and do not mention “States Rights” or “10th Amendment?”
And you maintain that slavery was simply and “occasion?”
Slavery was not an Occasion, but instead it was an Obsession.
To break it down so that even persons of a more pokie nature can follow along, the singular 'states right' that they claimed offended pertained to the practice and perpetuation of slavery. Everything else in that embarrassing document (Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union) is pretentious and artificial window-dressing.
Specifically their claim was that the federal government wasn't doing enough to officially enforce claims against the fugitive-slave movement (as if there was some sort of eminent responsibility there, which there was not). The truth was that the abolitionist movement was gaining speed and favor among the American people and the democrat south was scared sh!tless. The writing was on the wall but they were social illiterates.
So they decided "to hell with the consequences" they'll take their ball and go home. Buchanan, a feckless southerner himself pretended that he didn't see anything so that (in his eyes at least) and could salve his conscience that consequently there was nothing wrong.
The troubling thing about Lincoln was that he was too much of an accommodationist. You can see it in his First Inaugural address where he says (in essence) We know these rascals are doing the dirty, but if we just play nice maybe they'll stop misbehaving. He did the best with the crappy hand he was dealt.
So, yea - for the Lost Cause Losers it's either dodge, self-delusion, or outright lie. It's all that they have.
Oops, I was right about Buchanan being feckless, but wrong about him being a southerner; he was from Pennsylvania. I guess it was his cowardice that confused me ;-)
Such drama. Judy Garland posts from beyond the grave.
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Nice get and link. Excellent essay. Thanks for posting. I do have a couple of issues with the writer, though.
For one thing, he does correctly identify the new historiography as Marxist. What is needed here is a separate study by historiographers and, frankly, street detectives outlining the growth of the Marxist cabal in opinion leadership and historiography. This will be a major work and will necessarily involve battlefield interrogations of the KSM types running the nodes of the cabal. Unlike historians and scholars, these people are spies and criminals and need to be treated as such. An article a few years ago described one such opinion criminal running his game in the entertainment industry out in California -- the guy was nodal, but not a Hollywood Name. Instead, he was a low-profile yardmaster in the marshalling yard of Hollywood opinionmaking (cf Oliver Stone's agitprop films, W. e.g.), and he was very much a ringmaster of the BDS circus out there.
The second point your essayist misses is that it wasn't the National Park Service that was responsible for changing the Park Service's historical reference material distributed at the nation's military parks -- it was William Jefferson Clinton, hisself, doing politics through the Park Service, with Eric Foner and James McPherson as his Red scriptwriters.
The whole point of vilifying the South is to break resistance, which is buttressed by the South, to the Marxist takedown of America. And the South-baiters on this thread are working that grift for all they're worth.
Why they are still here is what I wonder at. They're doing Bill Clinton's politics on Jim Robinson's website.
Wow, that sounds series. Thank God none of that is happening here.
Only to Yankee Confederate Haters like yourself.
Most Texans are proud of the memory of the 60,000 men who served...at least those of us who were NATIVE BORN....tell me, are you a NATIVE TEXAN.....inquiring minds want to know.
By the way, you need to know more about Sam Houston than what you will find on wikipedia..
1. He was a slave owner.
2. He was not as opposed to the idea of secession, as he was to joining the Confederacy.
3. His son was a proud soldier in the 7th Texas Infantry, and Sam reviewed the troops on more than one occasion.
All of you Unionist spouters LOVE to throw Big Sam into the mix, without knowing the facts.
Dude....you are knocking on his door, BUT...Nobody’s HOME! LOL!
Aren’t you and Tex blood brothers?
I have always been very open about my youth. The fact that it was nearly 30 years ago isn’t of much consequence, eh.
It is what we experience in life that leads us to what we become. I chose, at that time, to listen to both sides. The arguments of Reagan and the legacies of such men as Goldwater and Eisenhower plus personal discussions with local conservatives helped me realize the fundamental flaws in much of what I’d been taught and indoctrinated on.
You may make the most of what I was involved in from 1979 to 1982, it truly matters only to my mentors and my Creator.
Such a waste of bandwidth.
Most sane Americans despise presidential assassins.
You are not, of course, included in the “sane (or) American” category.
Lincoln wasn’t my President, nitwit....Texas was in the Confederacy.....
Or is “powderpuff” and the “Pink Brigade” getting irritated...LOL!
You ain't a cowboy. You are a Bull **** boy.
You know damn well if you answer the question of what state right was in jeopardy, you will blow the rest of you BS Lost Cause Myths right out of the water.
Do you have the guts to answer the question BSboy? I doubt it.
Oh, by the way, I don’t have to prove my “Americanism”
My Honorable Discharge says it all.....CAN YOU SAY THE SAME?
Oh, that’s right, you were a fifth columnist in the “Karl Marx Division”!!! LOL!
Allow me please: The right to own, sell, or transfer private property.
As good a reason as any to fight a war.
Allow me please: The right to own, sell, or transfer private property.
As good a reason as any to fight a war.
Allow me please: The right to own, sell, or transfer private property.
As good a reason as any to fight a war.
Yes you are.
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