Posted on 05/12/2010 11:50:16 AM PDT by Davy Buck
"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. . ."
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Most people have no idea the origin of the word “Yankee”.
I was taught, as my ancestors fought in the French and Indian war (against the Brits), that the word derives from the Huron Indians attempting to pronounce the French word for the English “ l’anglais” (meaning the English) which when spoken by the Hurons sounded as “Y’an-gees”. Linguists don’t really have a clue— I believe my family sources, as the common language for much of the non-colonials of that day was French. In any case it means “British” which means a failed system of taxing bastards. Still does in modern context.
I’m pretty sure that secession was the irreconcialiable difference. The question that a state could nullify Federal laws, and that they could secede is not a question that can be tolerated by a Federal government intent on imposing it’s central authority.
Say what you want about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves that were not in Lincoln’s jurisdiction. That did not change until the 13th amendment to the constitution, passed after Lincoln’s assassination, in December of 1865. They weren’t given voting rights until 1868, the following election year.
LOL...”little girl’s gun”
Good points...
That is a great piece of information. I was always under the impression that the word came from Asia somewhere in the 18th or early 19th century and it had a meaning like “White Devil” or something like that. Funny, never gave it much thought.
But when I got in the USN, and began to associate with guys from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, I found out that the Civil War was far from being a dead subject.
Wrong. There are many scholarly (that is, written by other than elitist Yankee oligarch university professors) works, which document the history of increasing selective tariffs on export products of the South. The major one being cotton, exported to England’s factories vs. northern textile mills. Slavery was a capital issue in the production of cotton. In the absence of the tariffs imposed to force cheap cotton coming to the north, as opposed to the premium prices England was paying, the issue of slavery would have been compromised upon, and this was in the works. The condition of freed slaves demonstrates the lack of concern the north had for them. This war was a power grab, both of land and property of the Southern states and for control of the coming expansion to the West by the railroads, where slavery took on other ethnic suasions (Chinese coolies). Slavery was a subject of ambivalence to northern industrialists -they wished they could have such cheap labor. Disparity in population of South vs. North allowed this political power bloc to have their way. Through tariffs they were strangling the producers, and the Southern producing class had the means to secede, and did so to get away from these oligarchs.
And, the subject of secession was not resolved... only in the sense of the “winner” of the war by act of force. Legally, it is still there for us.
Rather than having you speak for me (something I didn't request of you), I will simply explain my view myself...
I agree with the reasons for the South's secession. Whether that was their only (or best) solution is something historians will continue to argue. However, the legitimacy of the action is a fact of Constitutional Law and Founding Father sympathy. The former was the understanding that the ratifying states had the power to dissolve what they had created and the latter is enshrined in the very words of the Declaration which pronounced it the duty of a free people when faced with despotic government.
However, the result of the war was this newfound Federal Supremacy that is morphing our country into the likeness of every other failed nation with a centralized power structure.
In short, the South had a legitimate beef but our country would not have long withstood the world as two opposed states.
BTW, I have a BA in History.
BTW, I couldn't give a rat's ass about your BA. You've demonstrated your ineptitude here beyond the salvage of that magic piece of paper.
So from the point of view of Education, I have a much better grasp of the facts on this topic then you.
Pretentious prick.
Southern producing class
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LOL. You, of course, by the term Southern producing class, mean African slaves.
It would have been a lot better for the South if Lincoln had not been killed. More radical members of the Republican party did not like Lincolns amnesty for the South. As I’ve commented elsewhere, the radicals were in the pay of the oligarchs (swathed in puritan anti-slavery cleanliness) intent on seizure of Southern property and engineering of political control of Southern politics. There are several great works on the Lincoln conspiracy and Stanton’s hand in it. There was much money to be made by carpetbagging and Lincoln stood in the way. Dirty man that Stanton.
Very true and very well put. The assassination of Lincoln was the greatest tragedy to befall the South.
a traitor to the memory of Lee, Jackson and Davis....and one who would rather live in New Jersey....Suh!
and you can take that to the bank from this New Yorker, who values the Constitution and States rights.
No, I mean the families that owned the means of production, farms, processing, factories etc. Producing class vs. producing class was this war. Ample evidence of northern industrialist intentions are found in the Library of Congress and the Congressional record of pre war times. And, not all slaves were African. You may or may not know about the English debtor system in place and which was continued in post revolutionary war America. There were also many slaves in the north (for example busy in tobacco production in CT) who were not let out of their slavery until the war was over. This is fact- the Emancipation Proclamation was not directed at slaves in northern states.
My screen name is a composite of my first and middle names. Lee is an ancestral and Robert E is in the family tree.
No, I mean the families that owned the means of production, farms, processing, factories
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The means of production included those slaves, John. The profits that “southern producing class” generated utilized that particular means of production in large measure. I know you are smart enough to understand that.
BINGO!
I salute you Mr. K
AND notice how big/intrusive the Federal Gov has become since that tyrant Lincoln was in office.
The feds are the model for organized crime! Like the Mafia, as long as you do their biding, you're OK but if you rebel, you're a target.
You’re just being silly. Slaves for the time are equivalent to computers today. They were a tool for multiplying effort. That they were actually human beings doesn’t change their economic benefit.
The producing class then, as now, is those who own and control the means of production.
Although I sympathize with the position of the South, I would never go so far as to call Lincoln a “tyrant.” He was a great man at a time that our country needed him and he did the difficult job of reuniting (yes, by force) strong opposites. Had he survived, the South would have been welcomed back to the fold and been treated as a prodigal son. His death brought the real tyrants to the drivers seat.
Lee did own slaves. That is evident by the will he executed before going to the Mexican War. When they were freed is unknown.
Grant’s welcome to his opinion...
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