Posted on 01/19/2011 11:35:34 AM PST by kosciusko51
One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?
As the nation begins to commemorate the anniversaries of the war's various battles -- from Fort Sumter to Appomattox -- let's first dispense with some of the more prevalent myths about why it all began.
1. The South seceded over states' rights.
Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states' rights -- that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Oh man not this sh*t again...okay, if the war wasn’t about slavery...why didn’t they get rid of it? Why did they maintain an aparthied system based on race? Everytime someone said something about freeing the slaves why did the South always freaked out?
Why did they then maintain an aparthied system for another 100 years?
People giving their lives (not so a few) could own slaves but that their State could be sovereign..
Also not all the southern soldiers agreed with slavery..
The Civil War was not about slavery.. but something more practical..
Progressive history re-writers have made the Civil War about slavery.. it wasn't..
Americans(YOU) have probably been brain washed..
Along with those that think America is a democracy..
Any democracy is a myth, it is a lie..
No democracy has ever been democratic..
Democracy is Mob Rule by mobsters.. always in every iteration..
Democracy is a lie.. that's why America is a Republic..
Democracy is a political disease that results in socialism.. as a symptom..
The democrat party is a diseased cabal.. a junta.. NOW..
Always has been from the beginning..
"White Northerners' fear of freed slaves moving north then caused Republicans to lose the Midwest in the congressional elections of November 1862."
He must be a Republican.
“In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery”
You’re confusing the ramp up to secession with the cause of secession. Yes, Southerners supported the Dred Scott decision and wished for Washington to enforce human bondage across the land. They saw themselves as defending individual rights (not slaves’ rights, of course, but the rights of their owners) against states’ prerogatives.
However, nothing’s to say they dropped out because nationwide slavery was at stake. More likely, they figured those dirty, n****r-loving, radical Republicans would abolish the peculiar institution at home, in the South. That’s ultimately why they left.
Once the South had its own government, obviously, it could expand slavery westward. No doubt that was on their mind. But that doesn’t mean opposition to states’ rights caused secession. Fear that Washington would violate Dred Scott did.
The writer forgets to mention a few things that could have skewed his data.
1. Free blacks in the south
2. Free blacks who owned slaves in the south
3. Nearly all businesses hired immigrant labor (like the irish) instead of owning slaves for anything except agriculture. Why? - if it was cheaper to own slaves as the author suggests (ps - it wasn’t).
4. I seriously doubt the south had 75% of all American exports. The south was already in decline and the north was already largely industrialized by 1860.
That is interesting being the main political party in the South at the time and pro-slvery party was Democrats.
So Mississippi didn't actually say this?
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."
The author might be confused. But his words are not my words.
“Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy”
Not that it matters anymore, but I’m gonna go ahead and repeat that Bush’s (Congress under Bush’s, actually) tax cuts were utterly progressive. So happens that basically any tax cut is for rich people, to some degree. But only because they’re the ones who pay taxes, which if you’ll recall was the entire point of progressive taxation in the first place.
Number five is partly true and partly false. Slavery was very profitable for those plantations that were large enough to employ the gang system. Technology would have changed that though and would have done so a lot sooner if the war had not destroyed Southern investment capital and broken up the large plantations. European pressure was also building and would have push the South towards abolition. The British in particular were becoming increasingly fanatical about it. But the biggest reason the South could not have survived as a slave society has to do with the cost of dealing with fugitive slaves. With the north no longer constitutionally obliged to return runaway slaves the South could not have afforded to maintain a slave economy. There have only been five examples in history of societies that built their entire economies on slave labor: the Greeks, the Romans, the Caribbean Islands, Brazil, and Dixie. The one thing they all had in common was the ability to socialize the cost of runaway slave management. In every case except Dixie the slave economy ended when this advantage disappeared. In the case of Brazil this was particularly dramatic. One province abolished slavery, runaway slaves began flocking there, and the economies of all the other provinces collapsed. The large slave owners then began calling for abolition as a means of encouraging workers to stay and work.
Got their a$$es handed to them??????
The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:
Battle deaths: 110,070 Disease, etc.: 250,152 Total 360,222
The Confederate strength, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:
Battle deaths: 94,000 Disease, etc.: 164,000 Total 258,000
So the SMALLER Confederate Army (1.25mm) caused more deaths on the LARGER Union army (2.75 mm men)and they were handed WHAT????????????????????????? You think like obama.
“The whole thing with Lincoln going to war was to preserve the Union. The slavery issue was not a factor at the time.”
This isn’t rocket science. Just take one little backward steps. Lincoln went to war to preserve the Union why? Because the South seceded. Why did it secede? Because of slavery.
This fact is about to be observed, first hand, in the Zer0care fight. This fact has already been observed in Arizona, with the federal monster taking on Arizona in the illegal immigration fight. There are countless other examples of the federal monster fighting against states' rights. The piece, by the author, does nothing but antagonize feelings to come to the surface, to ignore the facts of the day....imho
Not sure about the 75%, but The South produced three quarters of the World Cotton prior to the war and that is a fact. And Cotton was king. It was the oil of the time.
“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US.”
I have always absolutely HATED that bastardization of Oliver Hazard Perry’s famous saying.
I think it is a classic liberal smear - The south was bad because secession was only about slavery, the north was bad because the war didn’t have anything to do with slavery, so ultimately whether you are from the north or south, you are bad, responsible for slavery, so send out some reparation checks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.