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The Author of the Civil War
New York Times ^ | JULY 6, 2012 | CYNTHIA WACHTELL

Posted on 07/07/2012 11:51:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway

At the height of the holiday shopping season of 1860, a bookseller in Richmond, Va., placed a telling advertisement in The Daily Dispatch promoting a selection of "Elegant Books for Christmas and New Year's Presents." Notably, the list of two dozen "choice books, suitable for Holiday Gifts" included five works by the late Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott in "various beautiful bindings."

Sir Walter Scott not only dominated gift book lists on the eve of the Civil War but also dominated Southern literary taste throughout the conflict. His highly idealized depiction of the age of chivalry allowed Southern readers and writers to find positive meaning in war's horrors, hardships and innumerable deaths. And his works inspired countless wartime imitators, who drew upon his romantic conception of combat.

In 1814 Scott had begun his ascension to the heights of literary stardom with the publication of the historical romance "Waverley," which was soon followed by other novels in the so-called Waverley series. The works were an immediate and immense success in Great Britain and America. Over the course of many volumes, Scott glamorized the Middle Ages, at once shaping and popularizing what we now consider the classic tale of chivalry. As one enamored 19th-century reader explained, each of Scott's romances focused upon the "manners and habits of the most interesting and chivalrous periods of Scottish [and] British history."

Among Scott's most famous works was "Ivanhoe," published in 1820. The romance, set in the 12th century, presents a tale of intrigue, love and valor. The plot traces the fortunes of young Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he strives, despite his father's opposition, to gain the hand of the beautiful Lady Rowena. In the course of Ivanhoe's adventures, Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood appear, and Ivanhoe performs many a remarkable feat.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History; Hobbies
KEYWORDS: dixie
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To: BatGuano

I think I need toa take a trip to B&N for some Sir Walter. It has been too long.


21 posted on 07/07/2012 3:26:10 PM PDT by buffaloguy
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To: PeaRidge

You must be arguing with yourself since i never claimed there were no colonial attempts to eradicate slavery and it has no bearing on what I actually HAD discussed even so.

Though not technically a “Founding Father” Jefferson made gestures in Congress to limit slavery but that ended after he was sent to France. The only slaves he freed were the Hemmings. Hamilton formed the New York Manumission Society and defended escaped slaves in court which was one of the reasons he was despised in the South.

Franklin tried to have Congress deal with it before it was constitutionally eligible to do so.

What was originally a movement with adherents on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line became limited to the North side of it. What was originally legal in all states was outlawed by state authority in the North and enthusiastically defended in the South.

My “hostility” is entirely directed at the Slaverocracy and those attempting to justify its actions. I have none towards Southerners particularly since I was born and raised in the South and my family is all still there.

Most screwed by slavery was the South. It brought immense riches to a few and misery, destruction and horror to almost everyone else. And that misery was just begun by the war. The North was not utterly ruined by slavery, the South was. Yet, we still have people who try and pretend there was some state “right” at issue. The only right involved is not a right at all merely tyranny.


22 posted on 07/07/2012 9:18:14 PM PDT by arrogantsob (Obama must Go.)
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To: arrogantsob
I wanted it to be very clear to which group you were directing your hostility, and you have met that goal by stating your awareness of the fact that the issue was on the shores of the continent well prior to the time of the Founding, a continuing problem for decades, and then centering blame on the South as if it stood alone in the creation of the issue. Not only a stretch in logic, but a willing effort at factual concealment.

In your mind, you have contrived a concept of the “land of the whip and lash” in the South while conveniently sweeping from your consciousness that slavery arrived on these shores in 1620, first legalized in New England, and a fundamental underpinning of Northeastern industry for over 200 years.

Focusing negative comments on the South shows your hostility, which is obvious in its contrived nature. You just get a kick out of being a self-righteous boor. Surely you don't just sit there and smile at your misrepresentations, or do you?

23 posted on 07/08/2012 5:36:59 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: arrogantsob
The issue of slavery does not explain the reasons for my ancestors fighting for the south, as none of them owned slaves(at least that is what my research tell me). You wouldn't understand. Of course slavery was evil and wrong. EVERYONE in the south knew that blacks just weren't ready for freedom and self sustenance in 1860. History has shown that to be true. THe thought of turning out people with no education or survival skills would be like turning 8 year olds out and telling them to survive. Most former slaves STAYED RIGHT WHERE THEY WERE UPON emancipation, nothing really changed except they became share croppers instead of slaves. If the owners were SOOOOOOOOOO evil do you think they would stay on the plantation post-bellum? YOU ARE JUST AN IGNORANT jerkface and should really STHU. I don't know why I even bother.

Take your reconstructed history and shove it up your tail pipe.

24 posted on 07/08/2012 5:50:29 AM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: PeaRidge

He was probably referring to the failed insurrection of the southron slavocracy.


25 posted on 07/08/2012 8:47:59 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: central_va

Hey, that’s the same rant you used over on the ‘Nuge thread. Good to see that you recycle ;-)


26 posted on 07/08/2012 8:59:58 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: PeaRidge

None of your conclusions are valid. The Land of the Whip and the Lash was never a totally free agent and often the plantation owners were running their operations primarily to service the debts to Northern and British bankers.

As mentioned slavery was banned in the North despite the economic effects so my consciousness is working fine wrt this issue. Nor did anything I wrote indicate any ignorance of the fact that pro-secession feelings were not limited to the South but were widespread throughout the North especially New York City.

There is not one “misrepresentation” I have made. I suspect that many facts would be a “misrepresentation” deadly to your defense of the RAT Rebellion.


27 posted on 07/08/2012 12:41:41 PM PDT by arrogantsob (Obama must Go.)
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To: rockrr

It has been slightly tweaked.


28 posted on 07/08/2012 4:54:04 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: rockrr; central_va
Hello again rockrr. I see you are repeating your usual, tired comments.

There was no insurrection, since the authority of the Union government had been removed by the people of the seceding states, and replaced with their own.

They were carrying on with their lives until Lincoln sent warships to Charleston and infantry into Virginia.

29 posted on 07/09/2012 11:16:38 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: arrogantsob

Your misrepresentations began with these.....

“There was nothing chivalrous about the Land of the Whip and Lash nor the RAT Rebellion. Fantasies aside, slavery was based on an inhumane, anti-American kind of thought and the insurrection was justified with outrageous lies.”....

...and continues on with an occasional attempt at facts. You are not interested in facts but flaming and blaming...who it is not clear.


30 posted on 07/09/2012 11:21:05 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: PeaRidge

....nor does it matter.


31 posted on 07/09/2012 11:22:33 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: central_va

I was going back over some recent threads and saw that “non-sequitur” had taken some new names and was trying to re-post after his banishment. Had you seen any of that?


32 posted on 07/09/2012 11:24:35 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: PeaRidge

“It seems you are not aware of the fact that slavery was brought to the colonies by the British Crown”

Maybe AFTER slavery was institutionalized as a legal practice by a black man that enslaved another black man; Anothony Johnson enslaved for life John Casor. Prior to that, indentured servants were held but only for five to seven years to pay off their debt for being brought to the colonies.


33 posted on 07/09/2012 11:25:51 AM PDT by CodeToad (uired to vote for a treaty.)
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To: PeaRidge

Hello again pearidge. I see you are repeating your usual, tired retorts.

There most certainly was an insurrection, complete with fighting and everything. The south tried to muscle their way in order to thwart an election they didn’t like under the pretext of a secession.

It didn’t work out too well, did it?


34 posted on 07/09/2012 11:28:21 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: PeaRidge

NS is back under several names. He’s just an angry idiot that hates the southern States and hasn’t a clue as to why. He claimed to have been station in Charleston, SC in the Navy and was treated badly, or so he claims. I think he’s just a yankee liberal that believes all things Southern are ignorant and stupid. In other words, he’s one of those yankee liberals that’s always in a bad mood and can’t stand happy southern hospitality.


35 posted on 07/09/2012 11:33:47 AM PDT by CodeToad (uired to vote for a treaty.)
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To: PeaRidge

i haven’t seen him under another name for awhile now. I feel he lurks however.


36 posted on 07/09/2012 11:47:07 AM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va
Reading Booker T. Washington's “Up From Slavery”.

Sure, you keep a people ignorant - pass laws against them becoming educated - keep them working from before sunrise to after sunset at back breaking labor - THEN claim that they simply are not ready for freedom!

Slavery was a blight upon not just those held in slavery - but the slave holding society itself.

After emancipation many of Washington's relations did indeed stay on the farm - where they continued to do the work and tend to the children and wash the puke from the the face of the drunkard who inherited the farm, undress him and put him to bed when he stumbled in.

“The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, mastered a single trade or special line of productive industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or even to take care of the house.”

37 posted on 07/09/2012 11:47:55 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: allmendream

If you want me to defend slavery I won’t. My only comment is that the former slave, now share cropper, worked 3 hour days and lounged around until supper. Every day, including harvest time reading Harpers Magazine.


38 posted on 07/09/2012 12:13:29 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

Sure sure. Farmers have always had SUCH an easy life. It was no doubt easy to earn a living getting a share of the crop production after three hours of labor a day; while people who owned their farms were living a life of total ease getting ALL of the profit and produce from their own leisurely work schedule./s

Do you think the former slaves would have been MORE ready for freedom after another hundred years of slavery - or less?


39 posted on 07/09/2012 12:21:40 PM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: CodeToad

Thanks for the detail. Good facts.


40 posted on 07/09/2012 1:19:32 PM PDT by PeaRidge
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