Should we diminish the service of the Buffalo Soldiers (black U.S. cavalry troopers of the late 1800s) <<
That would be the 10th CAV!!!!....(read the history)..Proud to say I served in it..67-69...
Let's ask the "South" of the Civil War era about that. Here's one of the transcripts (and look for others behind the following link). Emphasis on the real issue of the rebel states in the Civil War is made with bold font in the following. Southern/eastern states have a lot to be proud of, but dredging-up the Civil War tends to cover up the better things about them with something rotten from the distant past.
Transcript from the
The Avalon Project at Yale:
Declarations of Secession
Confederate States of America
A Declaration of the
Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union.
The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,
The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as
negro slavery-- the
servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the
white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other
slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the
non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and
property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the
possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.
The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.
When we advert to the course of individual
non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.
The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article
[the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the
slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.
In all the
non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their
beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming
the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law.
They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a
negro slave remains in these States.
For years past this
abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the
slave-holding and
non-slave-holding States.
By consolidating their strength, they have placed the
slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.
They have proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a 'higher law' than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.
They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to
steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.
They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.
They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up
servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.
They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and
distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.
They have impoverished the
slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a
slave-holding State.
And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen
non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the
slave-holding States.
In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed.
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by
the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that
the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as
an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all
white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the
servitude of the African race, as existing in these States,
is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the
two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen
slave-holding states.
By the secession of six of the
slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.
For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong, and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.
Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.
With all the problems confronting America attempting to somehow revive the principal reason for triggering the Civil War as some sort of 'noble cause' only serves to further divide this nation.
Where to start?
The Tariff of Abomination? Originally passed in 1828, just a very few months before the war? No almost two generations before. A tax that fell mostly on the South to the benefit of the north, a tax rate upwards of 45 percent.
But more importantly a tax so important to the north, that in his first inaugural address, he declared:
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
While at the same time, declaring:
"In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
(see:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html)
Or in other words, if you keep paying the Tariff, we will not have to invade.
The South opened the war by bombardment of Ft. Sumter. What is the importance of this federal facility? "Because it was a major tariff-collecting facility in the harbor at Charleston. So long as the Union controlled it, the South would still have to pay Lincoln's oppressive tariffs."
from:
http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/heritage/cw2.shtml
If anyone cares to really read the Emancipation Proclamation, they will find that Lincoln only freed slaves in territories that had seceded. You will note that specific parishes in Louisiana are listed. They were loyal to the Confederacy The other parishes where loyal to the Union.
"...I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free;..."
see:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/transcript.html
Slaves that were not in the areas so designated were not covered by it.
Of course, the winner gets to write the history of the war. And in this case the winner also runs all the schools and they are staffed by people who liked the winner's story. That does not alter the facts, or the real history of this war.
Worse, the war formed the basis to destroy the concept that the Federal Government was the agent of the states. This inverted the relationship. If no state could escape the central government, the state was the servant and the federal government the sovereign master. And ever since that day, the centralization of power has only been more finely perfected to the great destruction of our liberties and freedoms.