(oh, sorry.. I thought this was a new firearms thread)
It is! It is!
Posted on 07/14/2005 10:35:41 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Living with a couple of native speaking Russian/Ukranian girls for a couple of semesters cured me of any panic when exposed to non-latin character languages, though I'm still illiterate in Russian and Gurung. My limited German was picked up during a tour in Bavaria during the late 1960s, and wasn't helped any by exposure to Czech/Slovak acquired during a couple of 5km zone border tours along the landesgrenze. Nor, I suspect, by the time I spent in South Africa in the following decade.
It's not in Afrikaans, but you might give this little tune a listen. It's not a surefire winner on karoake night at the pub, but it does tend to get a chuckle or two....
Piracy BTTT!
(oh, sorry.. I thought this was a new firearms thread)
It is! It is!
LOL! Thanks Archy.
Any aggies in the house?
Gig 'Em!
Trajan88; Law Hall (may it R.I.P.) Ramp 9 Mule; f.u.p.!
Some historians thought that way about a century ago. Charles Beard was a prime example. But they were projecting their own feelings about rampant, post-war industry back on an earlier era when industry was less powerful, and slavery was a major issue.
Plantation agriculture was a real force in antebellum America, and the planters had plans for expansion. Industry took a a backseat in the Old South, but there were factories, including some which used slave labor. Manufacturers were wealthier and more powerful in the North, but didn't yet have the great power that they acquired later.
In retrospect it's easy to view the Confederacy as a victim of the industrial juggernaut, but the Confederate leaders were real players in the political games of the day. Had things gone differently it might be more common to think of them as the aggressive, expansionist force and the Northerners as the resistance.
In Beard's day it was possible to associate industrialism with power and freedom with resistance to it. Before and after, though, it's harder to make that link. Slaveowners and Southern nationalists weren't simply resisting Northern power. They had their own power agenda which can't simply be identified with freedom or liberty, libertarianism or agrarianism.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's book dropped into that undetermined condition like a depth charge. Add the Industrial Revolution on top of that by 1860, and the chaotic Democrat National convention where the Southern Democrats were not seated, and the Civil War that followed, and that was near the beginning of the most chaotic period in American history--1869 to 1896. The dust has still not settled, as witness FR itself.
for later read
I have read the first two and they are great. I will now have to look for the third.
For some South Carolinians and others, slavery wasn't a problem. It was a solution to the problems of plantation agriculture, racial differences, and class conflict. Here's a little more on that.
Add the Industrial Revolution on top of that by 1860, and the chaotic Democrat National convention where the Southern Democrats were not seated, and the Civil War that followed, and that was near the beginning of the most chaotic period in American history--1869 to 1896.
I don't think it was that the Southerners weren't seated, but that they walked out. More here.
In the 1860s, most Northern voters and soldiers were still farmers. By 1880 or 1900 industry would be a lot more powerful, but a lot of people project this backwards to make manufacturing look more important than it was.
One of the most important industries was textiles, and textile manufacturers weren't particularly anti-Southern. They got their cotton from the South and had to think twice about anything that would disrupt their supplies.
One could argue that at a deep level, the conflict between the "industrial" North and the "agricultural" South was bound to lead to war. But the problem is why the Union had such great appeal to Northern farmers. Why did Middle Western agriculturalists throw in with the Northeasterners? Slavery was a big reason for the way the sections divided.
The population was in the north and middle states at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, so they viewed the Federal system as something they could control. Not a problem there. Georgia and other low population states were concerned that their voices would not be heard so the Senate was to be selected by state legislatures rather than popular vote and two per state regardless of population, and slaves were to be counted in a proportion for representation in the House although they did not have the vote. No doubt some of that feeling of the FedGov being 'theirs' was still present in the north by 1860.
As I've told a t-sip or two, "I'm not an aggie, but I married one as fast as could".
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