Is this the region of America you choose to attack? And you're doing so from Iowa?
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 ...
Great, but I don't remember you stating that the author HAD a bias. You (and to be fair, several other) focused on one throwaway sentence without addressing the issue as a whole. That is what I meant by my comment.
Jeeze, what a weirdo you are.
Thanks for the compliment.
Gee, if only they'd actually mentioned the Morrill Tariff in their Declarations of Causes instead of constantly going on about slavery and the threat to it presented by the election of Lincoln, you might have a point.
One of my yankee liberal friends posted this article on FB http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703583404576079823067585318.html?mod=googlenews_wsjso I posted:
“Why they want to glorify a war they lost is beyond me.”
“They”? They is “us”, and includes you and me, and everyone in every state in the union. Every casualty was an American casualty. Every confederate soldier and every union soldier was an American.
It was OUR war - Our meaning all of America. I look at it this way, when the south was defeated, we ALL lost - because it marked the beginning of Federal usurpation of the 10th Amendment - which has continued unabated since that time.
You mean life insurance for slaves? Yes they did have it, sold to them by northern insurance companies. How else could you borrow money against a slave?
Amen.
Your non-apology is non-accepted. Please do not waste my time or yours in responding to further comments by me, as you obviously think yours is the only relevant valid opinion. It isn’t, any more than accurately labeling you as strange is a compliment, in this instance. Goodbye.
We know that the southern states seceded due to slavery due to slavery. We know that to be fact as that is what those states told us in their Declarations of Secession.
It is all right there in that documentation for the entire world to read.
And if it were about states’ rights, they would have mentioned states’ rights in those declarations, but instead they only mention slavery.
The facts are the facts and no matter how hard the Confederate Apologists try, they cannot erase the facts of the reason the south left the Union.
“See my post to gman992”
I’m familiar with that argument. I’ve read the quote.* None of it addresses my point. Namely, why Lincoln had to save the Union in the first place. Because the South seceded over fear for the future of slavery, that’s why. Because they believed the accession of the Republicans to the White House put abolitionism in power. That in addition to blocking slavery’s westward expansion and ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act, they would outright abolish slavery (as they eventually did, incidentally).
*”If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”
“In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights”
By the way, I’d like to make clear that the South absolutely did oppose states’ rights on various issues, most importantly on the enforcement of Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave Act. It’s just that this article is out of order by placing the claim under the heading “The South seceded over states’ rights.” It has no place there.
Well that didn’t take long....only a rebel would believe in states’ rights.
Lerone Bennett has been trashing Lincoln for many years.
Good point. And two other reasons: the Union had a succession of truly awful commanders during the first year and a half of the war, especially in the various Virginia campaigns in 1862. Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, et al, weren’t perfect by a long shot, they each made mistakes, but compared to who they were up against, they looked like they could do no wrong.
The other reason was Grant, a commander who knew what to do with a large numeric advantage in 1860s warfare—use it to grind down the enemy. There was a tendency to view Grant as a butcher, but he wasn’t. He was a skilled general who had the spine to stick with a strategy that was causing high casualties because he knew it was going to work. And it did.
}:-)4
Is this the region of America you choose to attack? And you're doing so from Iowa?
“The cotton gin and other mechanical implements would have taken slavery down fast.”
What do you mean by slavery would have been taken down fast?
By fast do you mean the next day, the next month, the next year, next decade or next century?
And if were you and your family held in slavery, how has would you want to be emancipated?
The next day, the next month, the next year, next decade or next century?
What you say is true...I pray we never return to anything like what has not been forgotten...while I look away.
However, I am sorry you are so thin-skinned and uptight that you must resort to ad hominem attacks when responding to my first post to you, and that you lack any sense of sarcasm with my second response.
Furthermore, I think you are projecting with your "you obviously think yours is the only relevant valid opinion". Otherwise, you would have addressed the point I made instead of having the internet equivalent of a tantrum.
So, goodbye, pogo!
Actually it was the Democratic Party that started it all.And they still wanna keep all them poor folk on their plantation so’s the only ones gettin rich is the rich white Democrats and their house n——.
“what too many people COMPLETELY overlook is that the South didn’t go to war over anything... it declared independence from the North, for whatever reasons people wish to argue, and only FOUGHT BACK when occupied or otherwise made war upon by the North!”
Depends on where you pinpoint the start of the war. Is it at Bull Run—as I assume you place it—or Fort Sumter? Surely, Washington didn’t have use it as casus belli, and perhaps some twist of argument can be employed to justify South Carolina’s aggression. Nevertheless, they fired first. They absolutely did not only fight back.
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