Posted on 03/15/2010 10:08:18 AM PDT by bubbacluck
The South is rising again. Before I go any further, let me clarify. Sadly, too many in our country possess the superficial and ignorant perception that the only impetus behind southern secession was to perpetuate the abhorrent practice of slavery. Therefore, when they hear such a phrase, their kneejerk reaction tells them this must be about race. I assure you, it’s not.
When the North invaded the South during the 1860s, it was to deny the southern states the ultimate expression of their sovereignty – the ability to withdraw from a union they had voluntarily joined.
(Excerpt) Read more at onenewsnow.com ...
You can talk about states' rights all you want and sound reasonably coherent. I recommend you avoid bringing individual liberty into the mix. There's a huge elephant in the Confederacy's living room in this regard.
Vermont abolished slavery before it was a state. Other states came into the union without having legalized slavery.
... and virtually all of the slave ships were owned by Yankees.
A lot of them -- most of the ships that brought slaves here -- were owned by foreigners. Most of the wagons that brought slaves from the ports weren't owned by "Yankees" either.
Southerners tried to break up the Union. It was New England which invented the idea of secession; first in objection to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubling the nation’s land area, and then in 1814 when New England wanted to trade with enemy England during the War of 1812.
You may see what's going on here. Two feeble attempts at secession that didn't really get anywhere are used to deny the fact that Southerners went further and actually did try to break up the union. That isn't history. It's just tit for tat.
Thanks for posting the excerpt from the Cornerstone Speech.
It’s obvious the CSA was in the process of developing a full-blown “master race” ideology. And we all know where that tends to end up.
If we were fifty sovereign states (plus territories and protectorates) there would be no need for a federal government and the individual states would simply administer everything.
Actually, I switched the northern latitudes for MD and DE.
But does it bring Lincoln up to Jefferson's level in your eyes on that whole voluntary emigration thing? Or does it lower Jefferson to Lincoln's. Inquiring minds want to know.
That does not change the fact that Lincoln held little regard for the people he emancipated, nor does it change the reasons for the EP.
But again, if your belief that Lincoln held little regard for blacks lowers him in your eyes, then how does the fact that Lee, Davis, Jackson, et. al. held blacks in even lower esteem than Lincoln did?
He held little regard for a great many things, including the sovereignty of our several states and the rights of states to dissolve the compact into which they had entered voluntarily, namely the Union. Lincoln overlooked the fact that the federal government derives authority from the states and from the people thereof.
Making a rapid return to BS land I see.
Dragging Jefferson out for discussion does not deflect us from the fact that the South was goaded into a war as an excuse for the Union to invade the CSA to reclaim what the North regarded as “theirs.”
The ever popular "Lincoln made us do it!!!!" defense.
Northern states were easily brought onboard the war drive by citing (erroneously) that all Southerners were slave owners whose industry undercut prices in the North, thereby affecting the economies of those states.
No, they were easily brought on board by the South firing on the flag and initiating a war. Defense of one's country in the face of armed rebellion was all the motivation necessary.
Historically speaking, Northerners didn’t much care for free blacks, either, and they certainly did not want an influx of former slaves taking jobs from white Northerners.
Historically blacks fared even worse in the South and were tolerated only when they were someone's property. So please don't try and claim the moral high-ground in that regard.
Let’s talk about current events.
Let's remain on topic.
Slavery is bad. We get it. I believe there’s even a Constitutional amendment to that effect now. Most Southerners were not slave owners. Southerners don’t own slaves anymore. We get it. That issue has been resolved. Move on.
With quite rare exceptions, all whites at the time were white supremacists by today's standards.
The "science" of the time and too often its religion reinforced this delusion. It took an extraordinarily independent-minded man to take a different stance and stick with it.
Was slavery the sole cause? Did all northern soldiers enlist voluntarily to free black slaves? Were all northerners pure of heart and all southerners evil?
Nope to all of the above. But it still doesn't change the fact that slavery was the root cause of the war. No slavery, no war.
Respectfully, I have to disagree. I have nothing in common with libs/progs on either coast. Keep in mind, many empires have divided and been the better for it. The list of dissolved empires and former countries, is too long to list. The time for divorce from libs and progs grows daily closer, imho.
I am a Southerner although I have lived most of my life in the Midwest. I know that whenever the term, South, is used in discussing the Civil War, it conjures up all sorts of baggage. Maybe it is better to discuss the principles rather than the fight for southern independence. I make no defense of slavery. It was wrong even though it had been practiced throughout human history, even by the Founding Fathers. The issue deals with the authority of a central government over against a state’s authority. It is plain from the Constitution that the federal government was to be a limited government and that individual states were tasked with providing for the needs of the people in those states. The Civil War created a situation in which the Union’s interest superseded the interests of an individual state. It marked a dramatic turn in which America was no longer a nation composed of sovereign states, but a unified central government. Washington became America. As we have seen, the expansion and intrusion of the federal government into the lives of everyone living in the nation’s borders has all but destroyed state’s rights. We have an imperial hegemony sitting in Washington. More and more power is distributed amongst fewer and fewer people. It is truly closer to a dictatorship than a republic.””
Excellent post and dead on target.
“Depends on your color, of course.
How many slaves would you own?”
You realize the North had slavery at the time, too, right? The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves of the southern states the north had control over.
The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves of the southern states the north had control over.
~~~
It only freed the slaves that the Union Army didn’t need
to carry on the war effort,,,
During the Siege of Vicksburg “freed slaves” were forced
to build “Grant’s Road” through the swamps on the
Louisiana side of the Mississippi River,,,
It cost many their lives,,,
Really nasty place,,,
I learned to drive my Dad’s jeep there when I was 12yo,,,
Doubtfully you will find info about this in the history
books,,,
Maps/history show Grants Road east of Vicksburg...
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| Secession Timeline various sources |
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| Platform of the Alabama Democracy -- the first Dixiecrats wanted to be able to expand slavery into the territories. It was precisely the issue of slavery that drove secession -- and talk about "sovereignty" pertained to restrictions on slavery's expansion into the territories. | January 1860 |
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| Abraham Lincoln nominated by Republican Party | May 18, 1860 |
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| Abraham Lincoln elected | November 6, 1860 |
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| Robert Toombs, Speech to the Georgia Legislature -- "...In 1790 we had less than eight hundred thousand slaves. Under our mild and humane administration of the system they have increased above four millions. The country has expanded to meet this growing want, and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, have received this increasing tide of African labor; before the end of this century, at precisely the same rate of increase, the Africans among us in a subordinate condition will amount to eleven millions of persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. We are constrained by an inexorable necessity to accept expansion or extermination. Those who tell you that the territorial question is an abstraction, that you can never colonize another territory without the African slavetrade, are both deaf and blind to the history of the last sixty years. All just reasoning, all past history, condemn the fallacy. The North understand it better - they have told us for twenty years that their object was to pen up slavery within its present limits - surround it with a border of free States, and like the scorpion surrounded with fire, they will make it sting itself to death." | November 13, 1860 |
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| Alexander H. Stephens -- "...The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause to justify any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because any man has been elected, would put us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution." | November 14, 1860 |
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| South Carolina | December 20, 1860 |
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| Mississippi | January 9, 1861 |
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| Florida | January 10, 1861 |
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| Alabama | January 11, 1861 |
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| Georgia | January 19, 1861 |
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| Louisiana | January 26, 1861 |
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| Texas | February 23, 1861 |
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| Abraham Lincoln sworn in as President of the United States |
March 4, 1861 |
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| Arizona territory | March 16, 1861 |
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| CSA Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone speech -- "...last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact." | March 21, 1861 |
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| Virginia | adopted April 17,1861 ratified by voters May 23, 1861 |
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| Arkansas | May 6, 1861 |
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| North Carolina | May 20, 1861 |
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| Tennessee | adopted May 6, 1861 ratified June 8, 1861 |
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| West Virginia declares for the Union | June 19, 1861 |
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| Missouri | October 31, 1861 |
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| "Convention of the People of Kentucky" | November 20, 1861 |
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I’m an American first, a Pennsylvanian second. North, South, I don’t care. The past is past.
Have you seen Michigan?
If not for the South, the US would fall apart. The major auto manufacturing is now in Texas, Kentucky, and Alabama. Texas has a large financial sector in Dallas and Austin. The south and west are producing our software. There is easily accessible oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Fruits and vegetables are grown in large quantities due to the climate.
You might need the south more than they need you.
7, good prime number :)
What an ignorant comment.
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