Posted on 03/21/2009 6:26:13 AM PDT by cowboyway
ATLANTA — In a cultural war that has pitted Old South against new, defenders of the Confederate legacy have opened a fresh front in their campaign to polish an image tarnished, they said, by people who do not respect Southern values.
With the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States in 2011, efforts are under way in statehouses, small towns and counties across the South to push for proclamations or legislation promoting Confederate history.
(Excerpt) Read more at courant.com ...
The issue is half-moot. I certainly will not disagree that in their own way the North was almost as bad as the South where racism was concerned. But to say that slavery was moot is incorrect, since defense of it was by far the single most important reason for the Southern rebellion.
...the North's action towards the South become nothing but a brutal invasion by a Federal Army to "preserve the Union", hardly justifiable...
I think it's entirely justifiable. The South's actions were illegal. They launched an armed rebellion to further those aims. The North fought for one single reason, the preservation of the country that our founders had bequeathed to us. I can't think of many reasons more worthwhile than that.
I think if you actually could see that it was more than "all about slavery", you would go insane.
If you could show me where it wasn't about slavery then I'd probably faint from the shock, but I wouldn't go insane.
It's also clear from the contemporaries of the time, that even they were confused...
How so? Examples please.
It's not often I run across anyone so rigid in their thinking; it's altogether scary, arrogant and bullying (i.e. The Yankee syndrome).
I run across half a dozen people like you on every Southern rebellion thread that gets started up. Believing every Southron myth, pretending that slavery didn't exist, promoting the post-rebellion Southron revisionism to its fullest, (i.e. The Lost Causer syndrome).
Thanks for the living "history" lesson...
You didn't need me to live in your Southron fantasy world. You were already there long before this thread started.
FRiend.
You and Rustabout. You do like to assume things, don't you?
The old running over your Lord of human equality routine with a bulldozer!
Y'all asked for quotes which got provided and as usaull in Norther hypocrisy you cry foul
“Lincoln's position was worse that Lee's beliefs”
Lee never was elected President nor did he cause that bloody war..He unlike Lincoln didn't do or say anything to get elected {typical politician}
“With
all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of
an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise
my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore
resigned my commission in the army and save in defense of my native
state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be
needed . . .”
Lee
Lincoln could have easily avoided the War..He was “warned” But like a power hungry politician he called for troops..which caused a snow flack to turn into an avalanch4
APRIL 1861
Colonel Baldwin of Virginia Warns Lincoln
On 4 April 1861 Colonel Baldwin of Virginia was selected by the Virginia convention, a convention of Pro- Union men, to represent them in the presence of President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had requested that a Virginia Union man visit his office and speak the sentiments of the Virginia convention.
Baldwin urged President Lincoln to appeal to the American people to settle the questions disturbing the Union in the spirit in which the Constitution was made. He also urged him to withdraw the forces from Sumter and Pickens and declare that he was doing so for the sake of peace.
Baldwin said, “ If you take that position, there is national feeling enough in the seceded States themselves and all over the country to rally to your support, and you would gather more friends than any man in the country ever has.”
Lincoln replied, “ That is not what I am thinking about. If I could be satisfied that I am right, and that I do what is right, I do not care whether people stand by me or not.”
Colonel Baldwin continued to plead for a peaceful settlement, but Lincoln's main concern was for revenue:
“What about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?” queried Lincoln.
Baldwin asked him how much he expected to collect.
“Fifty or sixty millions, “ answered Lincoln.
Baldwin commented, “ Why, sir, four times sixty is two hundred and forty. Say $250,000,000 would be the revenue of your term of the presidency; what is that but a drop in the bucket compared with the cost of such a war as we are threatened with? Let it all go, if necessary, but I do not believe it will be necessary, because I believe you can settle it on the basis I suggest.”
Lincoln expressed concern about feeding the troops at Ft Sumter and Baldwin told him. “You know perfectly well that the people of Charleston have been feeding them already.”
Baldwin ended his plea with,
“Sir, I tell you, before God and man, that if there is a gun fired at Ft Sumter this thing is gone. And I wish to say to you, Mr. President, with all the solemnity I can possibly summon, that if you intend to do anything to settle this matter you must do it promptly. I think another fortnight will be too late. You have the power now to settle it. You have the choice to make, and you have got to make it very soon. You have, I believe, the power to place yourself up by the side of Washington himself, as the savior of your country, or, by taking a different course of policy, to send down your name on the page of history notorious forever as a man so odious to the American people that, rather than submit to his domination, they would overthrow the best government that God ever allowed to exist.”
To his urgings for a peaceful settlement Abraham Lincoln made no pledge or reply. Colonel Baldwin went back to Virginia with no assurance for a step in the direction of a peaceful settlement.
So you're saying that anyone who believed slavery was right and proper had a flaw in their character?
How about based on his words? What about then?
But I can say for sure that he was very pro-death...............for yankees. :~)
It's interesting that you would say that. Grant and Lee commanded army-sized units for almost the same period of time - Grant actually commanded them for 3 or 4 months longer. Yet if you look at the total number of dead and wounded from their armies for the entire war, Lee suffered more casualties than Grant did. Yet Grant is proclaimed the butcher. Looks like from that Lee was pro-death......for his own troops.
See post 1047 for clarification.
So you would obviously rather die than be a slave. Yet you and your buddies insist that for others - not for you, of course, but some other people - slavery would be the better future for them. You all are nothing if not hypocritical.
This should be fixed~ emancipation & DEPORTATION
All better
“Two words: 13th Amendment”
Which one? The first?
“If the South had only wanted to protect slavery, all they had to do was go along with the ORIGINAL 13th Amendment, offered in early 1861 after several states had seceded, which would have protected slavery for all time in the states where it then existed. This was not inducement enough
to bring South Carolina or any others back into the fold.
The States of the Confederacy, even today, could block the passage of the 13th Amendment, and certainly could have then. This is exactly why the Slaveholders wanted to stay in the Union.. Their “property”
was protected by the Constitution.” Charlie Lott
Pathetic..............
Yet you and your buddies insist that for others - not for you, of course, but some other people - slavery would be the better future for them. You all are nothing if not hypocritical.
Typical yankee. Distortion, misinformation and lies.
You are the biggest liar on Free Republic.
You ought to get the ban hammer for being such an obvious troll.
If we add this below too Lincoln's protection of White labor..The picture is all too clear
From “An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War,” Second Edition, by Charles P. Roland (Chapter 1, page 9): “Many antislavery advocates opposed the institution not out of principle or compassion for the slaves, but out of concern over its perceived ill effects on the white population. Congressman David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, a leading advocate of halting the spread of slavery, explained that he felt “no squeamishness upon the subject of slavery, no morbid sympathy for the slave.” “I plead the cause of free white men,” he said. “I would preserve to white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil, of my own race and my own color can live without the disgrace which association with Negro slavery brings upon free labor.”
“Finally and paradoxically, a racial factor contributed to the northern attitude. Antipathy against slavery often went hand in hand with a racism that was similar in essence, if not in pervasiveness or intensity, to the southern racial feeling. Many northerners objected to the presence of slavery in their midst, in part, because they objected to the presence of blacks there.”
Because you're already there...............
NS is a self-righteous liberal troll.
He would admire men like Lee and Jackson but, like Lincoln and Obama, he's too busy admiring himself.
(If I'm not mistaken, he was outed as a DU'er one time and I believe that his DU screen name was posted.............but I could be wrong.)
You and Rustabout. You do like to assume things, don't you?
NS puts himself up on a moral pedestal of his own creation but the truth is he's a rabid, foaming at the mouth (can you imagine what his keyboard and screen must look like?) hater of all things Southern.
Good. I'm glad we have NS and others like him because, if the day were to ever come that battle lines would form again, it would make it easy to line them up in the sights and trip the hammer.
Absolute nonsense.
Which one? The first?
No, the second. The one that Lincoln pushed for in Congress and the ratification of he had added to the 1864 Republican platform.
This was not inducement enough to bring South Carolina or any others back into the fold.
Because it protected slavery only where it existed and did not guarantee the expansion of slavery that the Southern leaders demanded. That amendment was also not passed until after the Southern states had seceded and after the confederates had adopted a constitution that ensured slavery would continue and would expand into whatever territories that the confederate states acquired as well as guaranteeing slave imports. Since they had already written themselves the whole loaf in their constitution, why would they settle for the half a loaf offered by that amendment?
But true.
Typical yankee. Distortion, misinformation and lies.
Reply 1087, you said you bet there were people in Africa who would choose slavery. So answer the question I posed in 1092. Would you choose slavery? Would anyone you know choose slavery? If not, then how can you say Lee was right when he said slavery was the best position for blacks in the U.S.?
You are the biggest liar on Free Republic.
Being called 'liar' by you is like being called 'ugly' by an orangutan.
You ought to get the ban hammer for being such an obvious troll.
Give it your best shot. Contact the Admins and see what you can do. Can't beat me with logic. Can't out-think me. Can't beat me any other way so get me banned. Well go for it.
Poor baby. All upset.
(If I'm not mistaken, he was outed as a DU'er one time and I believe that his DU screen name was posted.............but I could be wrong.)
You mean you could be lying, don't you? Back up your claim or retract it.
NS puts himself up on a moral pedestal of his own creation but the truth is he's a rabid, foaming at the mouth (can you imagine what his keyboard and screen must look like?) hater of all things Southern.
Not all things Southern. Just over-blown, self-important, thick-headed Southron kool-aid guzzlers who know less about history than the average 5 year old.
Actually I had asked for quotes showing how Lincoln was more racist that the Southern leaders or where he called for the extermination of the Indians, as you claimed. Instead you offer this.
Lincoln could have easily avoided the War..He was “warned” But like a power hungry politician he called for troops..which caused a snow flack to turn into an avalanch
The interesting thing about that Baldwin quote. Baldwin never related that story until February 1866. Now far be it from me to point out that by then rebel revisionism was in full bloom, or to ever suggest that Baldwin...embellished his conversation with Lincoln, but it is convenient you have to admit.
“Sir, I tell you, before God and man, that if there is a gun fired at Ft Sumter this thing is gone...
A lot of warnings going around.
“The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen…you will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountains to ocean. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.” - Robert Toombs.
But Baldwin was right. The first firing of a gun at Sumter did end all chances for a peaceful resolution of the dispute. What you ignore was that first firing was done by the confederacy.
“Should the Northern States continue willfully and deliberately to circumvent federal law, the South would no longer be bound to observe the {constitutional] compact.
A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
- Daniel Webster, Senator from Massachusetts
“If the Constitution and the Union established by our
forefathers” were “restored” then there will be no
truer supporters of that union and that Constitution
than the Southern people. Every brave people who
considered their rights attacked and their
Constitutional liberties invaded,
would have done as we did.
Our conduct was not caused by any
insurrectionary spirit nor can it be termed rebellion,
for our construction of the Constitution under
which we lived and acted was the same from its
adoption and for eighty years we have been taught
and educated by the founders of the Republic and
their written declaration which controlled our
consciences and actions.”
Robert E. Lee
“A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know
where it is today.”
Robert E. Lee
How true General Lee.. SIR!
Non-Sequitur..Why don't y'all learn some Southern history?
Clint Johnson:The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South
Charles Reagan Wilson & William Ferris:Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
Frank Conner:The South Under Siege 1830 - 2000
Richard Weaver:The Southern Tradition at Bay
Michael Andrew Grissom:Southern by the Grace of God
Walter Brian Cisco:War Crimes Against Southern Civilians
John C. Perry:Myths and Realities of American Slavery
Charles Adams:When in the Course of Human Events
H.W. Crocker III :Robert E. Lee on Leadership, Executive Lessons in Character, Courage and Vision
Christine Leigh Heyrman:Southern Cross, The Beginnings of the Bible Belt
Do I need to drag out the Texas Aggie jokes?
A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
"The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains." -- James Madison
"Our conduct was not caused by any insurrectionary spirit nor can it be termed rebellion..." -- Robert Lee
"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled." -- Robert Lee
Non-Sequitur..Why don't y'all learn some Southern history?
I might ask the same of you.
Jest attack Patton since he was one of them evil Southerner!I'd also pay to place him and you in a room together..Then let y'all bash the South! His grandfather, COL George S Patton, CSA, VMI 1852 and grand uncle, COL Waller Tazewell Patton, CSA, VMI 1855, had died during the War for Southern Independence.
“I might ask the same of you”
L.O.L!! What do y'all know? Larry the cable guy? He's a Northerner BUT not a Yankee....You take that prize..
Country music channel? Y'all should leave your shack and come on down to OUR Bible Belt
He was actually born and raised in California, though his family came from Virgnia.
I have read a lot about Patton over the years and did not recall any quotes such as that. .
Even this web site devoted totally to Patton that contains and extensive collection of his quotes does not list anything like that. It would be kind of surprising for a West Pointer (albeit with his freshman year at VMI) to say such a thing.
I'm curious. What is your source for that quote?
Some Aggie probably.
“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather
leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.’’
“The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”Jefferson Davis
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dear Dr. Scott:
Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War Between the States the issue of Secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.
General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his belief in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.
From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee's calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the nation's wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained .
Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
That's news to me.
Since y'all don't live in Dixie this may be hard to understand...
Yeah, why not enlighten us?
“The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”Jefferson Davis
"We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Law in nature tells us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude. Freedom only injures the slave. The innate stamp of inferiority is beyond the reach of change. You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables him to be."-- Jefferson Davis, March 1861
"Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee..."
"I think Ulysses S. Grant is vastly underrated as a man and as a general. I know people think this and that about his drinking habits, which I think have been exaggerated way out of line. The fact is, he never demanded more men or material from the war department, he took over an army that had a long history of retreating and losing. That army had no confidence in their fighting ability and Grant came in as a real outsider. He had so many disadvantages going into the 1864 campaign, now 100 years ago. But he met every test and rose to the occasion unlike I’ve ever seen in American history. He was a very tough yet very fair man and a great soldier. He’s not been given his due. Grant devised a strategy to end the war. He alone had the determination, foresight, and wisdom to do it. It was lucky that President Lincoln didn’t interfere or attempt to control Grant’s strategic line of thinking. Lincoln wisely left the war to Grant, at least in the concluding moves after he came east. Grant is very undervalued today, which is a shame, because he was one of the greatest American generals, if not the greatest." -- Dwight Eisenhower, July 1964
When Richard Nixon told Eisenhower in 1956 that it was common knowledge Stonewall Jackson was the greatest Civil War general, followed by Lee, Eisenhower interrupted him: "I wouldn’t say that, Dick. In fact I think it’s not a very reasoned opinion. You forget that Grant captured three armies intact, moved and coordinated his forces in a way that baffles military logic yet succeeded and he concluded the war one year after being entrusted with that aim. I’d say that was one hell of a piece of soldiering extending over a period of four years, the same time we were in the last war.”
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