Posted on 01/26/2007 6:05:29 PM PST by Dog Gone
Any attempt to judge our history by today's standards -- out of the context in which it occurred -- is at best problematic and at worst dishonest.
For example, consider the following quotations:
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished."
"[T]here is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
By today's standards, the person who made the first statement, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, would be considered enlightened. The person who made the second, President Abraham Lincoln, would be considered a white supremacist.
Many believe that the War Between the States was solely about slavery and that the Confederacy is synonymous with racism. That conclusion is faulty because the premise is inaccurate.
If slavery had been the sole or even the predominant issue in sparking the Civil War, this statement by Lincoln is puzzling: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it."
If preserving slavery was the South's sole motive for waging war, why did Lee free his slaves before the war began? In 1856, he said slavery was "a moral and political evil in any country."
Why was Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation effective in 1863 rather than when the war started in 1861? And why did it free only the slaves in the Confederacy and not in Northern or border states?
If slavery was the only reason for the Civil War, how do you explain Texas Gov. Sam Houston's support for the Union and for the institution of slavery? In light of the fact that 90 percent of Confederate soldiers owned no slaves, is it logical to assume they would have put their own lives at risk so that slave-owning aristocrats could continue their privileged status?
There are few simple and concise answers to these questions.
One answer, however, is that most Southerners' allegiance was to their sovereign states first and the Union second. They believed that states freely joined the Union without coercion and were free to leave.
You could say they really believed in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- the "powers not delegated" clause. They believed that the federal government should be responsible for the common defense, a postal service and little else. They viewed the Union Army as an invader, not an emancipator.
I am not attempting to trivialize slavery. It is a dark chapter in our history, North and South alike.
However, I am a proud Southerner and a proud descendent of Confederate soldiers. I honor their service because, to me, it represents the sacrifice of life and livelihood that Southerners made for a cause more important to them than their personal security and self-interest.
I'm aware of the genocidal war conducted by my country against the American Indian, but I'm still a proud American. And I'm also aware of the atrocities that occurred at My Lai, but I am proud of my service as a Marine in Vietnam.
If the Confederate flag represented slavery, the U.S. flag must represent slavery even more so.
Slavery existed for four years under the Stars and Bars and for almost 100 years under the Stars and Stripes.
If the few hundred members of racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan want to adopt the Confederate flag as their symbol, over the objections of millions of Southerners, should we believe it has been corrupted for all time?
Given that the KKK has adopted the cross for its burnings, should churches across the country remove this symbol of Christian faith from all places of worship?
Should we diminish the service of the Buffalo Soldiers (black U.S. cavalry troopers of the late 1800s) because they were an integral part of a war that subjugated and enslaved the Plains Indians?
No. We should not surrender the Confederate flag or the cross to the racists, and we should not tear down the monuments.
Retroactive cleansing of history is doomed to failure because it is, at heart, a lie. We should memorialize and commemorate all of our soldiers who served honorably -- those who wore blue or gray or served as Buffalo Soldiers -- whether or not we in today's enlightened world completely support their actions.
I read "Guns of the South" and am just finishing "How Few Remain" by Harry Turtledove. They are revisionist history books.
In the first, people from the future give Lee 100,000 AK47's complete with training, and the south wins. The second is not really a sequel to the story. Rather it is an exercise in assuming what would have happened 20 years later if the south had won through conventional means and now that the south (CSA) has bought northern Mexico for $3,000,000, the USA won't stand for it.
The interesting thing is that he KNOWS his history and brings up, in both books, the issues in this article, but in spades.
A fascinating twist is that France and Britton are allies to the CSA and Germany is allied with the USA. His next series (after the one I am reading) involve WWI and guess what? With the alliances made in the 1880’s there is an AMERICAN FRONT to the war. The books are great at showing how fragmented the world would have become had the US split. It is also interesting reading.
Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove as a starting point.
The stuff puts modern wars in an interesting perspective, not least by seeing, through the authors eyes, the attitude of soldiers and generals alike, and the bravery and ineptitude that surfaces on both sides and everywhere in between.
This will be of Interest to you southerners or decedents there of.
I heard an interview with the author on the radio and I was facinated. Sounds like a great book and a must-read for me having traced my families roots back to the early Scots-Irish pioneer settlements North Carolina.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to THE SOUTH (and Why it Will Rise Again)
By Clint Johnson
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-South-Again/dp/1596985003
From the Cover:
• Why the South is more important to America’s founding than the North
• The first of the thirteen colonies to legalize slavery? (Hint it’s not in the South)
• The South is the center of American culture and history
• Why faith and family come first in the South
• Why limited government and low tax rates are a Southern tradition
The claremonsters sure spend a lot of time trying to refute his work.
Total Neo-confederate myth. Three states ratified with a request (not a demand) that a Bill of Rights be amended to the Constitution -- New York, Virginia and North Carolina.
No one at the time of adoption considered these ratification resolutions to be either conditional or in any way allowing unilateral secession.
LOL. Did that include the 3 million people of the Confederate states who were held in chains.
Well, there's Ken Masugi's review and Mackubin Owen's, also some Internet blog and bulletin board postings that spawned more web junk from the lewrockheadites in response.
But it doesn't look like the people who teach American history at the university level and review recent books in scholarly journals paid any attention to DiLorenzo's grisly tracts.
Herman Belz's review in a specialized Lincoln journal is an exception. Don Fehrenbacher's article in the same journal on "the anti-Lincoln tradition" explains the rule.
Tommy's fans are convinced that he's discovered something new and shocking. In fact his book is a warmed-over rehash of all the old Confederate propaganda going back to E.A. Pollard, Mildred Rutherford, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, and others.
Essentially, they decided in advance that the South had to have been right and they dismissed evidence to the contrary.
Amen.
Please try to understand. Lincoln had a mountain of a problem when a NATION that was only about 70-years-old began to disintegrate shortly before he became president. Buchanan, the fifteenth President of the United States, did nothing and in March 1861, Lincoln did what he thought he had to do.
I have three major complaints:
(1) History has elevated Lincoln and the NORTH to Sainthood.
(2) Abraham Lincoln acted like he had the 'right' to kill Southerners (ie: 16-year-old Wilson Jenrette, CSA)who through elected legislated action, voted to change the vote on the ratification of the US compact; the Constitution; and become the legitimate independent Republic of South Carolina, with the consent of the people it governed.
(3) Slavery, became 'the issue' after January 1863 with the partial freedom of the Emancipation Proclamation. (much like the war in Iraq has 'changed' in it's justification over time.
Sir, I respect your depth of knowledge and your position. I am, and was a soldier; I stand for my God, my family, my home, my community, my neighbors, my state, my nation...in that order. I resent and will do everything to present the 'truth' of that war and of Abraham Lincoln, who was neither a Saint or a complete sinner.
I, like you, search for the small forgotten 'Truths' of that terrible time in our Nations history, and I put it all on the 'table' in my college classroom. My wife, who teaches African American history, is also determined to present the best information and history of that part of American hisory which has been 'embelished' and 'spun' by many - both North and South...
respect,
Van
http://www.jenerette.com
Your post is chock full of useful information. I especially enjoyed Don Fehrenbacher's anthological summary of Lincoln haters. Cheers.
Regardless, I find the attention paid to DiLorenzo's work intriguing. The accounts I have read which attempt to refute his work have fallen short of credible.
I remember the days when rdf and quakenbush were working overtime to counter ever point made around here.
Thanks for the links though.
Yeah, I know. The North was just as racist as the South and worse. The North thought they were the supreme race. ;)
Pancho Villa, Texas
There were 4 "Loyal Union States" that had slaves, and none of them were "Northern". All four were referred to at the time as "Border States" --- Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and as you said, tiny little Delaware.
None seceded from the Union for the simple reason that the 30 years of arguments over expansion that culminated with the election of Lincoln had little to do with the economics of those states. Slavery was simply not what the majority relied on for their livelihood in those 4 states.
It was a direct correlation between the economic importance of expansion and the economies of the states (even counties) to the fervor for secession. Virginia is a great example. In the Eastern tidewater where slave population was very high and slavery was a still money making proposition, secession was "popular." In the Western mountain counties with very few slaves and the beginnings of heavy industry along the Ohio Valley, there was so little support for secession, they ended up telling the Eastern aristocrats in Richmond to go the hell and created their own state of West Virginia. The Slave Power did not rule the Hill Billies.
BTW. I am damn sick and tired of hearing the neo-confederate bs from the historically illiterate that there were "Northern Slave States." None of those states were "Northern" so strike that bit of misinformation from you list of favorite fantasies.
BTW. If the Confederacy was not about slavery, were there any Confederate "Free States"? Can you name one?
The 4 previously mentioned states remained in the Union. The other states seceeded to form the Confederacy. Union states are commonly referred to as Northern. Simple.
Try asking it this way: If the Union was fighting to free slaves, were there any Union Slave states? You mentioned them in your previous post.
You didn't address any of my questions.
With all respect, the correct term is "alternate history." Revisionist history is an altogether different creature.
Quite possibly. Thomas Jefferson said that "the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Power corrupts us all.
Then how can a federal government power-grab be the reason for the Southern rebellion?
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