Posted on 02/20/2007 6:31:57 AM PST by Rebeleye
The Museum of the Confederacy will likely drop the word "Confederacy" from its name when it moves its collection to a new home.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
Take your nose out of the air and realize that the North DID NOT go to war to end slavery.
"The North, it seems, have no more objections to slavery than the South have..." John Stuart Mill, 1861.
Georgia
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property...
Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
South Carolina
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
Texas
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.
My source for these declarations is here.
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Take your head out of your ass and show me where I said that it did. The North went to war to preserve the Union. The south went to war to preserve the quaint custom of slavery.
The blistering pace of rewriting of our history continues perpetrated by liberals' attempts to be legitimized. None of us who care about our heritage and history should allow this to happen.
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed."
All these noble freepers want us to pretend that this was never carved into the very fabric of their new society but they can't run from the truth.
Hard to argue the facts since the slave-owners went to the trouble of writing it down.
On the flip side, many of the founders of our Republic were southern slave-owners.
Go figure.
It seems to me that the legitimacy of the Southern cause is irrelevent. It is in fact a museum of the Confederacy. You might think the Confederacy was good, you might think it's bad, but naming it "Museum of the Confederacy" is simply a clear and simple name of what the museum is.
Briefly, the issue has nothing to do with what the museum ought to be named. It is, as a matter of fact, a museum of the Confederacy. It makes no sense to change the name regardless of one's view of the Confederacy.
Why not ask the South why they did go to war?
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
I have no objection to the museum or its name. I do object to the attempt to cast the rebellion as one of states' rights with only the most cursory mention of slavery, especially when the specific state 'right' was, as carved into the CSA constitution, the right to own other people as chattel.
I find both sides are disengenuous. The South was concerned with states rights, but the primary right they were worried was going to be taken away was the right to own slaves.
The North like freeing the slaves, but the primary motivation in going to war was not to free the slaves but to assert Federal Control over the a group of people who weren't interested in being governed by Washington.
To follow up: The south was, as a whole, immoral in its support of slavery, but right in its belief that governments require the consent of the people, and that people have a right to choose their own government.
For the Union it was the reverse.
So I have generally mixed feelings. It would have been nice if the Federal Government tried to pay for the legal (albeit immoral) property it was trying to take away.
The primary reason for going to war was the South bombarding the crap out of Fort Sumter.
Without getting into the long and complicated debate about Fort Sumter, I think it is hard to argue that was the motivation for going to war. It was certainly the motivation to go to war at that particular time, but the underlying issues were much deeper and complex.
Then in your reply 74 wouldn't it have been more appropriate to ask what the South's motivation for going to war was since they initiated it?
Well, you obviously have very strong views, but it is quite possible that the south thought war was inevitable, and had to make sure that the Union didn't have a fort in the middle of their most (or perhaps second most) important harbor. Now, that might be the wrong interpretation, but in general it gets back to Sumter being what decided when exactly the war started, but not the ultimate cause of the war.
Now, I have problems arguing on these threads, because, like creationism/evolution, some people have very strong views they are not even open to reconsidering. If that is your view, then there is really no need to talk further.
Then why, pray tell, did each side go to war for different reasons?
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it be freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some an leaving others alone I would do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.
I agree with you which is why I would not change it, but the legitimacy of the cause is anything but irrelevant when discussing such issues. If not, why even bother to see the museum? It represents history, and history bears discussion, dissection, and analysis.
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