Posted on 01/13/2011 6:50:56 AM PST by Michael.SF.
A recurring feature in the Washington Post's weekly Outlook section is a column devoted to "Five myths about" a particular topic.
The feature for January 9 -- "5 myths about why the South seceded" -- happened to address a timely historical topic considering this year marks the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the U.S. Civil War. Yet the author, sociologist James W. Loewen, couldn't resist the opportunity to lump modern-day Republicans and conservatives with non-slaveholding whites in the antebellum South who may have aspired to slaveholding. Addressing the myth that "Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, so they wouldn't secede for slavery," Loewen argued that:
...Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
WaPo cannot be linked to so I found this at a Blog.
Poor southerners who backed slavery...I believe the proper term for that is Democrats.
And I compare rich people who are against the tax cuts to every anti-economic-growth nobleman who ever lived in every aristocracy throughout history across the face of the globe.
It’s as old as slavery, really, the desire of the Upper Haves to keep the middle class down so that they “know their place”.
Maybe the war wasn’t really about slavery? Certainly, Lincoln didn’t think so.
WaPo cannot be linked...Wow. Is that true? Can't even link? Filthy socialist anti-freespeech commie propagandists.
Slavery was a system of labor which brought profit to the slaveowners, but it was also a system of racial control—”white supremacy”—which most whites believed in. Lincoln abhorred slavery, but at least in his public comments supported the idea of the white people being on top in society. Even Northern whites who rarely saw a black person worried about what would happen if the slaves were all freed and came North to compete for jobs—and most Northern states did not let free black men vote.
The constant attacks on American voters who wish for less debt piled onto our grandchildren, less intrusion into our daily lives, and a more open and transparent government serves only to further alienate people from the dem party.
Weird they don’t report on the Billions Americans are now forced to pay for Reparations of Slavery in pigford and Pigford II, eh?
While this optimism might account for some small part of lower income opposition to unreasonably high taxes on the rich, I don't believe it is the main reason and is certainly not the only one.
Many lower income people oppose unreasonable taxes on the rich because:
a) They believe it is morally wrong to, unjustifiably, take what someone has lawfully earned to give it to others that have not earned it.
b) They understand that high taxes on the rich can severely damage the economy and that the middle class and the poor will be suffer more in a bad economy than the rich do.
c) They understand the the “progressive” definition of “rich” is always being applied to people of lower and lower incomes. As Rep. Thaddeus McCotter put it in his famous “How to speak Democrat” talk on the House floor, “’The rich’ means...YOU.”
Most white Southerners migrated to America well after the Civil War. They settled the South and bug infested ares like Florida because the land was cheap.
The biggest racists I ever met were from the North! Did you hear me Yankee boy Jimmy?
Anybody who still buys the WaPo should instead buy a cheap bolt-on bidet; for $35 you can eliminate the need for WaPo forever.
"But in so doing, Loewen cheapened his argument and undermined his own credibility by lumping conservatives of any socioeconomic level with supporters of slavery, an immoral and unjust system antithetical to the core beliefs of economic conservatives."
Do you have a problem with that punk?
I have a problem trying to create an argument by using the slavery issue of the 19th century compared with tax issues of the 21st century. The whole articles premise is stupid.
I don’t think you’re correct about this. My understanding is that the South always received the fewest number of immigrants. Before the War because few immigrants wanted to compete with slave labor, and after the War because it was the poorest region.
Massive numbers of people didn’t migrate to the South until, I believe, starting in the 70s. Florida, of couse, is an outlier. Migration to FL started much sooner, the 20s, but interrupted by Depression and WWII, then resuming after the War.
I believe the South still has a much higher percentage of “non-ethnics” (silly term), often described as people of primarily English and Scots-Irish ancestry, than any other part of the country. Particularly in rural areas.
Course if I'd have had the money I would have done the same thing and named all the streets, byways and highways after me too ;D!
His thinking on the matter of racial equality evolved over time. Toward the end of his life he became much less of the white supremacist. IMHO, it was likely because the valor of black soldiers during the war impressed him.
Even Northern whites who rarely saw a black person worried about what would happen if the slaves were all freed and came North to compete for jobs—and most Northern states did not let free black men vote.
That changed with the ratification of the 15th Amendement.
That's why the 15th amendment was needed--Congress had already forced the former Confederate states to extend the franchise to black men, but some of the Northern states still restricted the vote to whites. After the 1868 election the Republicans realized that the small number of potential black voters in various Northern states could make the difference in a close election determining who won the electoral votes (and they could figure on all or nearly all of those votes being cast for the Republican candidate).
There were German immigrants in the Hill Country of Texas in the mid-19th century (as in Luckenbach, Texas), also some in Arkansas (there is a Wiederkehr winery in western Arkansas). There were various other immigrant groups in Texas before the Civil War including Czechs and Wends (or Sorbs—Slavs from eastern Germany). There were some Croats in Louisiana. There were Irish in various places—there is a town called Erin in Tennessee reflecting that Irish presence.
To be honest I stopped reading it at that point and did my impression of the “Not this S*** again” guy.
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