Serious defenders of the legacy of the south argue persuasively in my opinion that the Confederates were the true defenders of the original vision the founders had for the nation. The northern mercantilists were more than willing to toss aside the strictures of limited government in general and the Constitution in particular in order to better service their own interests. And given the Leviathan state we face today it is hard to argue that the Confederates were not correct to oppose this.
There was a tension in the Republic from the beginning between those who believed in the benefits of collective authority and those who feared most its tendancy to devolve into tyranny. The right of secession proved to be the wedge issue that those favoring the supremacy of the state over the Constitution used successfully to decide the issue in their favor for both them and their posterity.
By destroying the legacy of the south and obfiscating the true nature of the War Between the States the left has robbed future generations of Americans (north and south) of an important part of their history. It is a vile irony indeed that the War between the States should now be seen exclusively as a war about the enslavement of the blacks when in fact it was a war over the true definition of freedom for white and black alike.
Amen brother!
It's interesting how that whole 10th amendment thingy just vaporized in the aftermath of the civil war.
The wrong side won the civil war.
I think it's interesting and disturbing that the best recourse they saw was to sue.
Another generation would have insisted on being physically removed from the school.
Still another generation would have antagonized to provoke a real confrontation in defending their rights.
What is interesting to me about all this is why the left wing elites are so obsessed with destroying the noble legacy of the confederacy.
It's not slavery that bothers them it's the idea that the US Constitution means what it says and greatly limits the federal government's authority.
The Founders were convinced that slavery was on its way out. They were also committed to the union.
Secession and the expansion of slavery were radical ideas which would have changed our continent as much as anything Lincoln did.
It's because they lost that the leaders of the rebellion can be painted as conservatives.
Had they won, we'd be discussing how they killed off the "old republic."
You can't get slavery out of the way that easily. At the time of the civil war, there was absolutly movement of any kind in the Confederate states to abolish slavery. In fact, just the opposite was true and the entire Confederate cause was built around expanding slavery which the North opposed. See article IV, Section 3 of the Confederate Constitution to understand what it was all about.
(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
It was all about expansion, and if they Confederacy had suceeded, they would have expanded --- the pressures of a rapidly expanding slave population would have forced them to do so, or die.
Exactly - just finished reading "The Real Lincoln" and that lays out the historical facts for Lincoln's successful attempt to turn the United States into what Alexander Hamilton wanted all along.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Agenda-Unnecessary/dp/0761536418
Lincoln was a BAD man.
Considering that Southern politicians and Southern states exerted a disproportionate level of influence over our government in the 80-odd years leading up to the Southern rebellion, then if we were disolving into tyranny it was most likely Southerners leading us there.
The northern mercantilists were more than willing to toss aside the strictures of limited government in general and the Constitution in particular in order to better service their own interests.
And just how, pray tell, were they doing that?
...when in fact it was a war over the true definition of freedom for white and black alike.
Well, in the case of the South for about 2/3rds of the population anyway.