Posted on 07/16/2007 1:29:21 PM PDT by Kaput
Amen!
OF which the first in this Country was Black and from,,,,,New York,,Can I get a witness here..
I think a lot of the good honest soldiers of the Confederacy who had no stake in slavery believed they were fighting for states' rights. But it was different for the southern movers and shakers who actually instigated the thing as the words of the Mississippians in post #24 show. They only were obsessed with slavery.
Ah, but the South DID rise again.
Shamed and ignored by the remainder of the country for most of a century after being humbled and subjugated by the “high-minded” Yankees, a couple of generations of people filled with mouldering rage had to grow old and die off before the wounds could begin to heal. In the decade of the 1960’s while much of the rest of the population of this country went a-whoring after hedonism and “personal growth”, the fabric of the South was knitting back together, recalling a simpler time and more measured ways of living.
The South has always prided itself on the preservation of heritage, even when there was pitiful little to preserve. But that only allowed the enrichment of embellishment, as there was little to contradict their interpretation of events. Time and selective memory served to change the searing grief of the outcome of the Civil War into a determination that they would be the best damned Americans in America.
And they have proved their devotion to America over and over again through the past half century, as they shed their former allegiance to the Democrat party, not because they had fundamentally changed, but because the Democrats had.
Democrats are not, and have not been, the party of the “little man” since early in the days of the New Deal. Oh, Franklin promised a LOT of things in those days, and to some degree, he actually delivered on his promises. But all the while power was being taken from the local level, and concentrated at higher and higher levels, as the colossus of Fderal power grew. Sure, isolated rural folks got electric power, but whole valleys of farms and villages were destroyed in the construction of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the means by which people were displaced from their land was sometimes pretty brutal. Southern sheriffs, noted for their local despotism, and certain they would never be challenged, were abruptly faced with a full-scale confrontation with aroused and relentless citizenry.
Out of this white-hot forge, as fearsome and shattering as the Civil War battles of a century earlier, if perhaps not nearly so many physical casualties, was created the New South. When the smoke cleared, there was no returning to the old order. For the first time in a century, Southerners were finally free of the curse that had been laid upon them so long ago, and they could enjoy the fruits of freedom and liberty that had been denied them for so long. This was true as much for the Southern whites as it was for the Southern blacks. The South became a good place to live again.
Alas, not so much so for the rest of America. Shut up in their urban jungles and subject to “intellectuals” directing every aspect of their lives, the “rust belt” and both coastal regions were losing their next generation, through a “turn on, tune in, drop out” philosophy. Not all that generation was so totally lost, as time passed, some actually cleaned up their act and went on to become responsible citizens. But the fringe lived on, against all expectations, and exhorted the rest of the nation into some acceptance of dissolution and nihilism, pretending to be a conscience, but more accurately, they were whispering their message of hopelessness to all who would listen.
And today, they cannot seem to shut up. The New South, almost by default, has become the real conscience of the American heritage.
(1) Did Herman Melville, HP Lovecraft, John Updike, etc. not exist?
(2) Is Detroit in the South? New York City?
When Southerners tear down other sections to build themselves up, they are guilty of the same sectional prejudice they complain of.
Ain't it just the prettiest thang? If you see it in any of my post.......
Cotton farming wasn't successfully mechanized until the 1940s. Is that when slavery would have ended?
“They only were obsessed with slavery.”
Funny, because I sense that to be your sole obsession.
What a beautiful post.
Likewise, as the New York City draft riots illustrate, there was a significant segment of the northern population who walked in the Democratic way of rebellion.
Slavery would have ended because there was pressure from the only poor that existed in the South at that time, the urban working class to end it so they might have a chance to work in some of the occupations that were slave dominated, such as farm labor and millwork.
The sharecropper system would likely have arisen in some form or fashion, but without Northern abuses, it wouldn’t have been as brutal as it is alleged to have become (and I still think alot of that is overblown)
I didn’t realize cotton was the only thing they grew down there. Guess I’m lucky to be a member of a forum with so many geniuses.
Bump That!!
I don’t take much pleasure in these discussions. Slavery was ugly but I have no idea how an American born today can have the gall to get so righteous of the issues from 150 years ago.
Welcome here anytime,,,Roll Tide..!!!
“Our ancestors were racist, and if we honor them, we are racist too.”
Northern ancestors were and are pedophiles. You can look it up!
I love reading intelligent FReepers post. They speak so eloquently.
Is it not GOD , Family , State , Country...?? I could be wrong..
The carding of cotton was mechanized by the cotton gin in the early 1800’s. That was what made slavery economical.
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