Posted on 03/05/2008 6:38:02 PM PST by Rebeleye
Does the Confederate battle flag represent heritage or hatred? The answer is yes. It represents a heritage that included hatred.
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This is just another way of saying, "these people are a nullity, and their ideas, values, and hopes are all nullities; we cast these people away because they are racists" -- the old, hostile liberal ad hominem that disproves their claims to liberality, and shows them to be something rather different, and their politics likewise.
It's a little like putting on an armband and standing up and yelling "Jued suess!" as a way of ending a discussion.
There was no rebellion. But, you knew that.
Yes there was. Southern states. April 1861 to mid-1865. How could you miss it? It was in all the papers.
Not really. Southerners have been consistent in their view of what happened ever since Jefferson Davis wrote his first memorandum. Richard Henry Lee never, ever consented to the title of "rebel" and vituperated against the use of the word, which he correctly saw as Northern war propaganda.
The masterwork of revisionism has belonged to the Northern Federalist lawyers who "rewrote" the meaning of the Constitution and the Union it ordained, ascending ladders in the middle of the night like Orwell's little pig Squealer, to paint out and revise key articles of the Constitution.
The Jeffersonian view of the Constitution is the correct one -- the one the Bill of Rights guaranteed. No tenth amendment, no ratification, no Union -- that was the compromise the Antifederalists held out for and got.
In case you didn't remember, the Antifederalists numbered among them Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and James Monroe -- two future presidents and the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. Modern schoolboy history texts minimize the Antifederalists as they propound their triumphalist view of unbroken, victorious marches from Federalism to Lincolnism to Union victory in the Civil War; but the Antifederalists were the liberty party, and their eventual assent the true palladium of Union, the sine qua non of the Union's consummation being the Tenth Amendment.
The reserved powers are just that, reserved powers that can be resumed. If you like, I can link you to the Unionist antithesis, Lalor's 1899 Cyclopedia, that presents the polluted triumphalist view.
Overgeneralization. But then, you do that all the time. Quote one guy and then say he accounts for everybody.
We've been over this before. You want me to quote you the Texas secession declaration again, with its statement of causes? I analyzed it for you before -- slavery figured in the reasons for separation, but so did a number of other motives. We've discussed them all.
How about South Carolina's call? You've seen that before, too, but you continue to insist "it was all about slavery" -- the Red historians' propaganda cry. Slothful induction is what we have here, and bad faith in argument.
Your tautological table-pounding for Unionist propaganda claims won't persuade anyone who knows how to read.
And you have some bad bedfellows, in those Marxist historians, Eric Foner and James MacPherson. But you never wonder whose work you're doing for them -- for them and their patron, "Bubba" Clinton.
"Bubba" Clinton. Slick Willie hisself. For someone who doesn't like the South or Southerners, you sure don't mind sleeping with one of the worst examples, do you?
Free States don't rebel. Or if they do, tell me who was their Master. You?
The Southern states did.
No, it didn't. It fought to preserve the Union, and its own political predominance in it. And no, your assertion isn't a fact.
We love the Union because . . . it renders us now the equal of the greatest European Power, and in another half century, will make us the greatest, richest, and most powerful people on the face of the earth."
--New York Courier and Enquirer, Dec. 1, 1860
Quoted in K. Stampp, ed., The Causes of the Civil War, Prentice-Hall rev. ed. 1974, p. 55.
The British view was a little more nuanced, but compact enough:
To slavery we have ever entertained the most rooted aversion. Not all the valour, not all the success of the South, has ever blinded us to this black spot on their fair escocheon. But even tainted as they are with this foul stain they have commanded our admiration and our sympathy from the gallantry with which they have maintained their cause, and from the obvious truth that the struggle was for separation on the one part and compulsory retention on the other, the emancipation or continued slavery of the negro being only used as means to forward the ends of the North.
-- The Times of London, Jan. 15, 1863
Quoted in Mitgang, A Press Portrait of Abraham Lincoln.
They were free. Their secession was constitutionally protected, and they seceded by lawful acts of the People -- Arkansas excepted, whose legislature exceeded its powers.
I can quote a lot of guys, L. Here:
"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depoulation and barbarism." - South Carolina Congressman Lawrence Keitt, 1860
"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt "The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South... This war is the servant of slavery." - Rev John Wrightman, South Carolina, 1861.
"[Recruiting slaves into the army] is abolition doctrine ... the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." - Editorial, Jan 1865, North Carolina Standard
"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our [slave] property?" - CSA senator from Virgina, Robert Hunter, 1865
As the last and crowning act of insult and outrage upon the people of the South, the citizens of the Northern States, by overwhelming majorities, on the 6th day of November last, elected Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, President and Vice President of the United States. Whilst it may be admitted that the mere election of any man to the Presidency, is not, per se, a sufficient cause for a dissolution of the Union; yet, when the issues upon, and circumstances under which he was elected, are properly appreciated and understood, the question arises whether a due regard to the interest, honor, and safety of their citizens, in view of this and all the other antecedent wrongs and outrages, do not render it the imperative duty of the Southern States to resume the powers they have delegated to the Federal Government, and interpose their sovereignty for the protection of their citizens.
What, then are the circumstances under which, and the issues upon which he was elected? His own declarations, and the current history of the times, but too plainly indicate he was elected by a Northern sectional vote, against the most solemn warnings and protestations of the whole South. He stands forth as the representative of the fanaticism of the North, which, for the last quarter of a century, has been making war upon the South, her property, her civilization, her institutions, and her interests; as the representative of that party which overrides all Constitutional barriers, ignores the obligations of official oaths, and acknowledges allegiance to a higher law than the Constitution, striking down the sovereignty and equality of the States, and resting its claims to popular favor upon the one dogma, the Equality of the Races, white and black." -- Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession
SIR: In obedience to your instructions I repaired to the seat of government of the State of Louisiana to confer with the Governor of that State and with the legislative department on the grave and important state of our political relations with the Federal Government, and the duty of the slave-holding States in the matter of their rights and honor, so menacingly involved in matters connected with the institution of African slavery. --Report from John Winston, Alabama's Secession Commissioner to Louisiana
This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last. -- Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Convention
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. -- Texas Declaration of the causes of secession
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention
Gentlemen, I see before me men who have observed all the records of human life, and many, perhaps, who have been chief actors in many of its gravest scenes, and I ask such men if in all their lore of human society they can offer an example like this? South Carolina has 300,000 whites, and 400,000 slaves. These 300,000 whites depend for their whole system of civilization on these 400,000 slaves. Twenty millions of people, with one of the strongest Governments on the face of the earth, decree the extermination of these 400,000 slaves, and then ask, is honor, is interest, is liberty, is right, is justice, is life, worth the struggle?
Gentlemen, I have thus very rapidly endeavored to group before you the causes which have produced the action of the people of South Carolina. -- Speech of John Preston to the Virginia Convention
This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us.
If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable --- -- Address of William L. Harris of Mississippi
But I trust I may not be intrusive if I refer for a moment to the circumstances which prompted South Carolina in the act of her own immediate secession, in which some have charged a want of courtesy and respect for her Southern sister States. She had not been disturbed by discord or conflict in the recent canvass for president or vice-president of the United States. She had waited for the result in the calm apprehension that the Black Republican party would succeed. She had, within a year, invited her sister Southern States to a conference with her on our mutual impending danger. Her legislature was called in extra session to cast her vote for president and vice-president, through electors, of the United States and before they adjourned the telegraphic wires conveyed the intelligence that Lincoln was elected by a sectional vote, whose platform was that of the Black Republican party and whose policy was to be the abolition of slavery upon this continent and the elevation of our own slaves to equality with ourselves and our children, and coupled with all this was the act that, from our friends in our sister Southern States, we were urged in the most earnest terms to secede at once, and prepared as we were, with not a dissenting voice in the State, South Carolina struck the blow and we are now satisfied that none have struck too soon, for when we are now threatened with the sword and the bayonet by a Democratic administration for the exercise of this high and inalienable right, what might we meet under the dominion of such a party and such a president as Lincoln and his minions. -- Speech of John McQueen, the Secession Commissioner from South Carolina to Texas
History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention
We've been over this before. You want me to quote you the Texas secession declaration again, with its statement of causes? I analyzed it for you before -- slavery figured in the reasons for separation, but so did a number of other motives. We've discussed them all.
Go ahead, bring it up. What's the first reason they bring up? The single most mentioned reason? The institution in which Texas identifies itseflf? Slavery. An institution "...her people intended should exist in all future time." Every other cause mentioned existed before Lincon was elected, some for decades before Lincoln was elected. Those problems had existed under Democratic presidents, Southern presidents, Southern leaders in the Congress, and none of them had caused Texas to secede or threaten it. But elect a president on a platform totally against the expansion of slavery and Texas can't leave fast enough. And you want us to believe it was coincidence.
How about South Carolina's call? You've seen that before, too, but you continue to insist "it was all about slavery" -- the Red historians' propaganda cry. Slothful induction is what we have here, and bad faith in argument.
Yes, and when you have no arguement to offer and no logic to back your case up with, accuse your opposition of being commies or liberals. It is as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Your whole arguement is compromised by your asinine attempt at labeling anyone opposed to the Southern rebellion as a communist. Talk about bad faith arguement.
"Bubba" Clinton. Slick Willie hisself. For someone who doesn't like the South or Southerners, you sure don't mind sleeping with one of the worst examples, do you?
Ah yes, Bill Clinton. A solid son of the South. Clinton. LBJ. Carter. Jefferson Davis. Not a dime's worth of difference between the lot.
Yes, they did.
They were free.
Tell me, L. Why is it that there were only 7 free states in the U.S. in 1860 and all the rest of the states were subservient captives to their wishes?
I'll grant you that it was to preserve the union of states, and keep this country whole and unbroken. As our founding father's passed it on to us.
And no, your assertion isn't a fact.
Neither is your's. Especially that lame 'political predominance' part.
But even tainted as they are with this foul stain they have commanded our admiration and our sympathy from the gallantry with which they have maintained their cause, and from the obvious truth that the struggle was for separation on the one part and compulsory retention on the other, the emancipation or continued slavery of the negro being only used as means to forward the ends of the North.
But not enough admiration to grant diplomatic recognition, was there? Not enough sympathy to align themselves with that 'foul stain' of slavery? Come on, lentulusgracchus. Britain knew what the confederacy was rebelling over. Why can't you admit it too?
“You said that there wasn’t enough demand for Southern goods in the North to make it a profitable market for them. So which is it?”
Prior to the Civil War, the main product the North bought from the South was cotton (which was used in the New England textile mills, especially in Lowell, MA: Remember, Northern industries wanted to compete with European industries). But that was a fraction of the quantity the South exported to Europe. Moreover, some of the Southern plantations were owned by Northern bankers and investors, so any cotton from those operations that went to New England mills would have equated to Northerners paying themselves rather than paying Southerners or Southern interests. Also, many Southern plantations were insured by Northern insurance companies (who didn’t have to pay off when the plantations were burned or destroyed by Union troops).
A very interesting book that addresses much of this is “Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited From Slavery,” by Anne Farrow. She and a couple others began their project to research the reparations-demanding activists’ claim of insurance companies making money off of slavery, and thus those companies should pay descendants of slaves reparations (you know, the old Jesse Jackson shakedown). Anne Farrow (and sorry, but I forget the other author or authors; I remembered her name because it reminded me of the Fay Raye character’s name in “King Kong”: Ann Darrow) was very surpised at what the research uncovered; specifically, that Northern interests were VERY much involved in slavery, up to and even during the Civil War.
“Yes there was. Southern states. April 1861 to mid-1865. How could you miss it? It was in all the papers.”
Actually, in the classic sense it was NOT a rebellion, as they did not try to resist or overthrow the existing government or authority. They never tried to overthrow Lincoln’s Administration (in fact, when some Confederate officers wanted to march on Washington after the first Bull Run, and even later, they were rebuffed by their leaders, who admonished them that the goal of secession was not to conquer the North or overthrow and replace its government, but for the Confederacy to be its own independent and sovereign nation, even capable of being on good terms with the North, which the Confederacy expected would retain the name of the United States of America). What the South wanted, and what it accomplished, was a clean and simple divorce. The divorce did not get messy until April, 1861 in Charleston harbor. There never would have been a Civil War if Lincoln had ordered Anderson at Sumpter to evacuate the fort (which was also the main tariff collecting center for Charleston Harbor before the War). Other Union forces in the South either gave up their posts and returned north, or headed out west or joined the Confederates. The Confederacy, understandably, did not want foreign troops on its soil. When foreign (Union) troops refused to leave, they were fired upon. Licoln made hostilities inevitable by trying to poke the South in the eye at Sumpter. Lincoln wanted a fight, because he wanted to punish the Confederacy and wanted to force the seceding states back into the Union. Remember, there were still four states that had not seceded and joined the Confederacy by the time of Sumpter, but Lincoln’s provocation at Sumpter, and his call up of troops, made up their minds for them, and they seceded. Those states were Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas. I don’t mention either Kentucky or Missouri, because, although they voted to secede after Sumpter and the call-up, they never actually did secede.
Rebellion is defined by Merriam-Webster as "open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government." By definition the Southern action was a classic rebellion.
...in fact, when some Confederate officers wanted to march on Washington after the first Bull Run, and even later, they were rebuffed by their leaders...
Actually you have that backwards. In his book, "Jefferson Davis, American", William J. Cooper relates the details of the post-battle conference between Davis and his two generals, Johnston and Beauregard. According to Cooper, it was Davis who pressed for the army to advance on Washington and it was Johnston and Beauregard who argued that the confederate army was as disorganized in victory as the Union army was in defeat, and advance was impossible.
What the South wanted, and what it accomplished, was a clean and simple divorce.
A divorce is a mutual decision, sanctioned by a court of law, and where both sides have a chance to have their interests protected. That is not a description of the Southern action. They didn't divorce, they walked out. They walked away from responsibility for their share of the national debt and obligations the country had entered into while they were part, and with every bit of federal property that they could get their hands on. And no concern was paid for the rights and interests of the remaining states.
There never would have been a Civil War if Lincoln had ordered Anderson at Sumpter to evacuate the fort...
Why should he have? It was a U.S. fort.
...There never would have been a Civil War if Lincoln had ordered Anderson at Sumpter to evacuate the fort (which was also the main tariff collecting center for Charleston Harbor before the War).
That is complete nonsense. Sumter wasn't complete prior to the rebellion. There were no troops there. No customs agents. Nothing but civilians working on the fort and a single officer supervising them. Not one dollar of tariff revenue was ever collected at Sumter. It was a military facility not a government one. Tariffs were collected and the customs house on Bay Street. But nice to see that the Southern myth machine is still working.
Other Union forces in the South either gave up their posts and returned north, or headed out west or joined the Confederates.
Again, complete nonsense. The South either seized empty facilities or, as in the case of Texas, took the facilities away from the troops with the connivance of the commanding general.
The Confederacy, understandably, did not want foreign troops on its soil.
Understandable perhaps, except that Sumter wasn't their soil. It was the property of the federal government, built on land deeded free and clear to the federal government by the South Carolina legislature. The confederacy had absolutely no claim to the property.
Lincoln wanted a fight, because he wanted to punish the Confederacy and wanted to force the seceding states back into the Union.
So your claim is that the southern leadership was so gullible it fell for Lincoln's trap?
Remember, there were still four states that had not seceded and joined the Confederacy by the time of Sumpter...
Which kind of answers the question why Davis wanted and needed his war, doesn't it?
Agreed. Which means that 4CJs claim that the tariff revenue went up because the North had to replace all that stuff they bought from the South prior to the rebellion can't be true. They got little other than agricultural products, mainly cotton, and there was no other source that they could replace it with. Even the UK, with their alternate sources, couldn't.
...that Northern interests were VERY much involved in slavery, up to and even during the Civil War.
Again, I agree. The South produced little other than agricutural produce. They didn't establish their own financial sector or retail sector or transportation sector, they chose to rely on others for that. The Southern plantation owner borrowed money for his seed, land and slaves from Northern bankers, insured them through Northern insurance firms, sold the cotton to brokers many of whom were Northern, shipped their goods on Northern ships and on railroads built and run on rails and equipment produced in the North. They could not operate without services provided by Northerners. And Northerners, in turn, made a lot of money off an industry dependent on slavery.
It’s always nice to know that sell-outs take full advantage of free speech. Doesn’t she also know that her whining liberal rant absolutely shuts off a large audience (except for the die hard Anti Southerners)? She should also know that she has the right to remain silent, and anything she says can and will be used against her.
“Which kind of answers the question why Davis wanted and needed his war, doesn’t it?”
What possible reason would Davis have had to desire a war? The LAST thing the Confederacy wanted was a war, especially a protracted one. The Confederacy’s focus after its creation was to get some foreign governments to recognize it and engage in trade. A war would (and did) make potential partners reluctant to do anything but sit back and see which way the winds of war were blowing. No foreign country would have recognized the Confederacy if it looked like the North would prevail (and the longer the war went on, the more clear it was that the South could not win). Had there not been a war both England and France would have recognized the Confededracy as an independent and sovereign nation, just as they would have recognized a diminished United States as an independent and sovereign nation.
Davis neither wanted nor needed the war. In fact, he thought it would be disastrous to to the Confederacy, no matter which side won. But, once war was thrust on the Confederacy by Lincoln’s intemperate actions, he had no option but to fight.
And, oh, I don’t “have it backwards” about some Confederate officers wanting to march on Washington. They were, as you pointed out, rebuffed by their superiors. As for Davis, he wanted the war over and quickly, and thought that a genuine physical threat to Washington would have caused Lincoln to say “enough is enough” and call off his war, in which case the Confederate troops would have returned to Virginia and both countries would get on with the task of getting used to the new arrangement.
The argument that Lincoln fought the war to restore the Union is accurate on its face, but he didn’t want restoration because he liked the South, he wanted to restore the South to the Union because he wanted the revenues that the South had generated. Hell, he even said he’d happily welcome the Southern states back into the Union, slaves and slavery and all, if it would mean the resumption of trade with Europe, et als, but under the conditions that existed at the time of secession (i.e., a return to the status quo, which were exactly the conditions the Southern states seceded to escape) with all the economic benefits that brought. But, when the Confederacy resisted Lincoln’s militancy and ultimata, he got pissed and wanted to punish the South, and force it back into the Union. He acted just like a petulant child.
The Southern states had far more right and legitimacy to secede than the colonies did in 1776. Yet, somehow I don’t see you waxing indignant about the colonies seceding from Britain like you do about Southern states seceding from the Union. The centralized federalism desired by Lincoln ultimately rendered meaningless the 10th Amendment, and post-war amendments to the Constitution destroyed the Republic (or “benign” federalism) as envisioned and created by the Founding Fathers. The result of the North’s victory in the Civil War was that the individual states, rather than being equal partners with the federal government as was established by the Consitution, became subordinate to and subservient to an all-powerful national government. So, you see, the real tragedy of the Civil War is that in winning, the North destroyed the United states as a republic.
Population. Industry. He was president of a rump state where there were almost as many slaves as free people and which had no industrial base at all. Davis believed that if he could get the other 8 slave states to join his confederacy then he'd have the population he needed to beat the North, and at least a semblance of an industrial base. And what better way to get them off the fence than start a war and force them to choose sides? As it turns out he miscalculated. He only got half the states and he lost his war.
In fact, he thought it would be disastrous to to the Confederacy, no matter which side won.
Then why start one over Sumter? Especially when his own secretary of state pointed out the folly of his actions?
And, oh, I don’t “have it backwards” about some Confederate officers wanting to march on Washington. They were, as you pointed out, rebuffed by their superiors. As for Davis, he wanted the war over and quickly, and thought that a genuine physical threat to Washington would have caused Lincoln to say “enough is enough” and call off his war, in which case the Confederate troops would have returned to Virginia and both countries would get on with the task of getting used to the new arrangement.
Fine. I gave you my source, you give me your's.
The argument that Lincoln fought the war to restore the Union is accurate on its face, but he didn’t want restoration because he liked the South, he wanted to restore the South to the Union because he wanted the revenues that the South had generated.
Nonsense.
Yet, somehow I don’t see you waxing indignant about the colonies seceding from Britain like you do about Southern states seceding from the Union.
Indignation comes when people like you try and paint the Southern cause as something it was not. The American Revolution was not a legal act, and the Founding Father's didn't pretend it was. They knew their actions were a rebellion, that they would have to fight for their independence, and that if they failed then they would be hung as traitors. Southerners, on the other hand, incorrectly insist that their secession was not a rebellion, are indignent that the Union dared to oppose their illegal acts, complain that they lost, and seem amazed when someone points out that all their leaders could have been hung for treason. That's the difference.
The Southern states had far more right and legitimacy to secede than the colonies did in 1776.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!! The colonists had no representation in government, the South was over-represented. The colonists had no say in their destiny, the South had run the government for most of the country's history to date. The election of Lincoln was constitutional and the South threw a hissy-fit and tried to walk out. If you place that on the same level as the causes our Founding Father's rebelled over then you, sir, are insane.
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