The Forget Hell! crowd

Townhall.com ^ | February 27, 2006 | W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

[SuzyQ2]

I love history. I’m proud of my Southern heritage. But for me to be angry to the point of protesting a moment in Southern history that happened nearly a century-and-a-half ago would be just, well, nonsensical. And would in some ways tarnish that heritage.

[Donald Meaker]

Guess the South should have surrendered sooner. So long as they persisted in rebellion, would you have the legimate federal government conduct its war with eiderdown pillows?

The South began with lies, continued with theft and murder. Justice would have executed every single rebel. A merciful victor let them live.

[Donald Meaker]

You mean to say that you are proud that your generation could have shut down S'gruber before he arranged for the killing of 50 million, and didn't?

FDR was the second worst president, sadly proud that he screwed up the economy to prolong the depression. Sadly proud that he supported the Munich sellout of Czechoslovakia. Sadly proud that he let the Japanese take the Phillipines. Sadly proud that he invaded neutral north Africa rather than go after our enemies.

Buchanan was worst.

[AnAmericanMother]

I have very seldom seen so many crackpot theories posted so fast, about so many different topics, on one thread.

Like I said, I don't think I have anything to say to you. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

[reagandemocrat]

Doh! (Sound of palm slapping forehead)

My point was that the red state/blue state comparison between 1861 and 2004 is somewhat misleading since the mountain counties of Virginia seceded from the state of Virginia after Virginia voted to secede from the Union--thereby creating the state of West Virginia...

[af_vet_rr]

when I was a boy in the 60s and 70s, there was no talk like this

it all pretty much got a foothold in the 80s

I didn't see your post until after I posted, but my feeling is the same way - I read dozens of books during that time frame, including many that were by Civil War veterans as well as civilians who were alive during that time and who witnessed many of the major events, talked to lots of sons and daughters of Civil War Soldiers, and I don't ever remember this animosity that people have.

Somewhere in the 1980s, things changed. I don't know what - I've heard theories that it was a rejection of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party by Democrats in the South (which on the one hand doesn't make a lot of sense, since Reagan pulled in a lot of votes from Democrats). I've heard theories that it coincided with breakdowns in society, family, etc., (i.e. people were looking for something or someone to hate and the Civil War provided a good excuse).

The best theory I've heard - you have a lot of people whose only image of the Civil War came from Gone With the Wind, along with a decline in the teaching of American History in public schools. They didn't talk to direct descendants of veterans and civilians, they didn't read the accounts and diaries of people who were there. Their take on the Civil War was from a movie and a few paragraphs in a history book.

The way I look at Sherman, and this tends to really piss off some people, is that Sherman's Confederate contemporaries did not look down upon him the way that many people do today, nor did the citizens of Atlanta and the Carolinas of his era.

I'm talking men like Joseph E. Johnston, who was in a much better position to judge Sherman than anybody alive today. Johnston felt that Sherman was such a good and honorable man that he honored him as his pallbearer, and did not wear a hat, and died as a result of the cold and wet conditions, even after being asked to put his hat on.

Of course many of the people who think Sherman was some kind of evil psychopath don't know who Joseph Johnston is.

[caryatid]

1963? 1963? 1963?

Sorry, wrong century!

President Lincoln was debating the legality and wisdom of West Virginia statehood with members of his cabinet. The six cabinet members were evenly divided, three in favor of statehood three against. Finally, President Lincoln gave his approval. He [Lincoln] signed the West Virginia statehood bill on December 31, 1862. On April 20, 1863 he issued a proclamation stating that West Virginia had fulfilled all the conditions required for statehood. He said it would become a separate state in sixty days. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia began its official existence as a state. Arthur H. Boreman of Parkersburg became our first governor.

[Rabble]

The U.S. Constitution states the following:

Article IV, Section III, New States and Territories

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

I wonder where and how Lincoln obtained the consent of Virginia's legislature? As I recall Lincoln did not consider the states in rebellion to be out of the union. Where do you suppose he acquired the authority to circumvent our constitution?

[caryatid]

I found it a bit curious, as well ... but I don't think Virginia wants West Virginia back after all this time.

[Rabble]

I believe that had Virginia contested the secession the courts would have ruled the separation in violation of the constitution.

You are likely correct in your belief.

[wardaddy]

What you say about Joe Johnston is quite right...i think folks here bristle when South Bashers here applaud Sherman's tactics as though the South deserved that punitive good measure

this vilifying the South is only about a generation old phenomenon and is mostly used to reward the sanctimonious self righteous lot and to deflect cultural blame from a more accurate self induced problem

it must be said though that Johnston viewed Sherman as a military contemporary whereas the citizens (white ones mostly of course) of my hometown viewed him as less than noble after he burned most of it to the ground in the Vicksburg campaign and left the citizenry white and black homeless and destitute

[smug]

See, Lincoln approved of secession as long as it was done his way.

[Rabble]

"Rather a pity that the North caved, and treated Southern prisoners with a courtesy that was never reciprocated.

Have you ever heard of the Confederate POW camp located at Elmira, NY? Here's a link to highlight the "courtesy" bestowed upon Southern soldiers: http://www.rootsweb.com/~albarbou/CSA/elmira_prison.htm

[rustbucket]

The South began with lies, continued with theft and murder.

Posts that insult rather than inform contribute little to the thread. Such posts go on twit filter from here on out.

[lentulusgracchus]

Lincoln would most likely have introduced conciliatory measures, had he not been assassinated....

We have a good idea what his conciliatory measures were, because we have records of his last cabinet meeting, at which his measures were discussed, including the urgency with which he felt matters should be taken in hand as soon as possible, before Congress could reconvene in the fall and take matters into their own hands.

"Presidential reconstruction" (you can search it up on any history site) was the name given to his program, which was carried into effect by President Johnson. That program went forward for about a year or 18 months before Thaddeus Stevens, Ben Butler, and the rest of the Radicals finally took over the reconstruction program and began to carry it forward on different principles. Those were the principles which produced the Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacy as the Southern response.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

The South began with lies, continued with theft and murder. Justice would have executed every single rebel.

Oh, this is going to be fun....

[lentulusgracchus]

I think you'd need to clip Oklahoma from the 1860 map, since it wasn't admitted to the Union until 1907. In 1860, it was Indian Territory.

Very interesting comparison, though. Thanks for putting that up.

Just as a comment, the Yankees are just as cranky now about having lost in 2000 and 2004 as they would have been about losing the Civil War in 1864. Very, very sore losers. As well as bad sports, bad neighbors, and bad winners. Wish to hell they'd stayed in England, frankly.

[Smokin' Joe]

In many ways, Truman also saved countless Japanese lives as well.

Had incindiary bombing continued, Japanese death tolls would have mounted rapidly, due to the construction of many Japanese homes. Had an invasion taken place, the carnage would have included many civillians as well as the military, simply because the civillians had been primed to fight the invasion by any means possible.

Only overwhelming force, and the demonstrated willingness to create total oblitteration could have been effective in bringing about a rapid conclusion of the war with a relatively minimal civillian casualty toll.

[BigCinBigD]

That's all well and good. But if I had been alive back then I still would have happily shot him right off his horse. ;)

[lentulusgracchus]

Posts that insult rather than inform contribute little to the thread.

South-hating troll bump.

Hey, Meaker -- ever post to FR before? Like, under another handle? Your voice sounds so smoothly familiar....the spite just rolls off your tongue as if you've had lots of practice. Just wondering, you know?

Have we met?

[lentulusgracchus]

Had an invasion taken place, the carnage would have included many civillians as well as the military, simply because the civillians had been primed to fight the invasion by any means possible.

As long as we're a couple of degrees off-topic, pursuing an analogy, I might as well toss out that, if I'd been MacArthur, I'd have been anxious to spare my own troops a) the casualties and b) the onus of what would happen to the Japanese in the kind of fighting that would have taken place in the Home Islands......and I would have come up with a plan to turn Nimitz's fleet into a conveyor belt carrying as many of Chiang Kai-Shek's troops from China to the southern end of Honshu as I could manage. And then I'd have just stood back and let the meat-grinder of Sino-Japanese animosity do its work.

But then, that's me.

And I'm glad things didn't work out that way.

Short answer: Yes, Truman did the Japanese a "kindness" considering what he might have done, which would have been to repopulate Japan with ethnic Chinese, thus ensuring that Japan would never trouble the Pacific again.