History, indeed, is [re]written by the "winners".
Posted on 06/02/2009 4:45:48 AM PDT by Davy Buck
No one can deny the importance of slavery to the feud that split the United States, or that the CSA states made protection of slavery one of their central purposes. But the Southern confederacy -- that is, the national government of the CSA -- was no more built on slavery than was the Northern Union . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
In addition to the slaves they had cotton and arrogance.
Marked to watch this thread implode, LOL!
I am going to book mark this one. Davy, you are about to find out how passionate some Folks are about their Southern Heritage.
Secession was like a really bad divorce.
In any divorce, there are the reasons given by the spouses, and the true underlying causes. There is seldom much correspondence between the two. In fact, the spouses are quite often not fully aware of the true underlying causes.
The main (not only) underlying cause of secession and therefore of war was slavery. Without it all the others could have been settled amicably. With slavery in the picture all other factors were immensely aggravated.
And the war came.
The author, Douglas Harper, interestingly enough, is from Pennsylvania. He’s a great writer and historian and has researched the subject extensively.
For those of us who chose to read the article, the slavery issue was intelligently handled and explained. Thos of us who live in the South know that the Civil War (and, incxreasingly, I’m warming to the Southern name “War of Northern Aggression”) was not about slavery, it was about the economic survival of the South.
“Chief, see the harbor pilot to his vessel and signal that the Threadnaught is rounding the Point. All ahead full.”
I’m originally from Virginia and my relatives still call northeners “Yankees”
Submission is slavery, and the bitterest taunt in the vocabulary of those who advocated secession was “submissionist.” Interesting article - the source documents give us a glimpse of what was really going on.
“The War of Northern Assclowns Being Hateful Warmongers Who Destroyed our Culture and Killed Our Women And Children”
>>I’m warming to the Southern name “War of Northern Aggression”) was not about slavery, it was about the economic survival of the South.<<
The Kennedy brothers book “The South Was Right” rightly calls it “The War for Southern Independence”.
BTW, in my research on Tenth Amendment, I found that:
1. New Hampshire still has in its state Constitution, the right to revolt.
2. Delaware is the ONLY state that does not recognize that all power comes from the people.
3. SD, NV and WV - new states during the War - ARE agents of the federal government.
Some in the neo-confederate today try to say that slavery was not that bad and in some ways good. So if slavery was so good, I do not see why the rebs of the day were so adamant against "submission and slavery".
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."
The secessionists' own words condemn themselves - it was all about slavery in the minds of the Confederate elite.
While there's no pleasure in harm coming to women and children, the Deep South culture based on slavery needed and deserved the humiliation and destruction that it received.
History, indeed, is [re]written by the "winners".
The way I see it: If the Southern states wanted to leave the Union because they wanted to keep slavery and the rest of the Union abhorred slavery (this is not me defending slavery)...then the Union should have been HAPPY to let the Southerners go their way and watch the country implode. As it was though, the Union came barreling down with their troops and their self-righteousness to prevent the Southern states from exercising their Constitutional rights. So, then...who needed slavery? The Unionists wanted it both ways, if we’re going to argue that the War of Northern Aggression was all about stopping slavery.
It may well have been that there were some in the South who were willing to fight the War of Northern Aggression to protect their slave assets. There might be some hedge fund managers today that would go to war to protect their financial interests. Many of the monied Northern interests likewise may have urged on the war to try to capitalize on potential profits.
However, it cannot be gainsaid that the great majority of Southerners fought the Northern aggression for completely different reasons.
"Not that bad" and "so good" aren't quite equivalent. There have been lots of human conditions that are much worse than that of the Southern slaves; that of my great-grandparents for example. Aristotle wasn't such a bad guy. Read what he had to say in The Politics. But you see, if Aristotle would be seen to be even partially right, then Lincoln's War would be seen for what it really was.
ML/NJ
I think there's merit to your statement above, but there would have been no "northern aggression" nor war had there been no secession and the secession itself was motivated by the issue of slavery.
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