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Posted on 04/11/2010 11:28:46 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
On the one side, you have those who claim the North was right by granting freedom to slaves and preserving the Union. Furthermore, it was republican who were against slavery but democrats who were for it.
On the other side, you have those who claim the CW was state rights issue, a matter of honor, and the freedom to dissolve the bonds of the Union. Also, they see the North was unjustly penalizing the South with tariffs and other economic burdens.
With this tactic, the left accomplishes two things: They divide us over an issue that should have been resolved long before any of us were born, and also equate the states rights movement to slavery.
At the end of the day, I think we should acknowledge that slavery is wrong, that the federal government has overstepped its bounds, and the states and the people have the right to rein in the fed. We need to stop the petty bickering about this issue and focus on the real issues.
Furthermore, if you want to fight the 1860 Civil War all over again in post after post, have at it. But both sides continue to damage conservatism in the here and now.
My $0.02 /soapbox
My gggrandfather was a captain in the Missouri Homeguard
which supported the Union cause. He was murdered by Con-
federate sympathizing neighbors. By heritage I support
the Union cause. Having stated that I don’t understand
how people can get their panties in a twist because
Confederate soldiers are honored today. Folks have the
right to honor their ancestors. The vast majority of
“Rebels” were not slave owners. They believed they were
protecting their homes and states from invaders.
True. This is from CSA Gen. John Gordon:
This is a great site, btw.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/gordoncauses.htm
I submit that this brief and incomplete summary is sufficient to satisfy those who live after us that these great leaders of conflicting thought, and their followers who continued the debate in battle and blood, while in some sense partisans, were in a far juster sense patriots.
The opinions of Lee and Grant, from each of whom I briefly quote, will illustrate in a measure the convictions of their armies. Every Confederate appreciates the magnanimity exhibited by General Grant at Appomattox; and it has been my pleasure for nearly forty years to speak in public and private of his great qualities. In his personal memoirs, General Grant has left on record his estimate of the Southern cause. This estimate represents a strong phase of Northern sentiment, but it is a sentiment which it is extremely difficult for a Southern man to comprehend. In speaking of his feelings as “sad and depressed,” as he rode to meet General Lee and receive the surrender of the Southern armies at Appomattox, General Grant says: “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and who had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” He adds: “I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us.”
The words above quoted, showing General Grant’s opinion of the Southern cause, are italicized by me and not by him. My object in emphasizing them is to invite special attention to their marked contrast with the opinions of General Robert E. Lee as to that same Southern cause. This peerless Confederate soldier and representative American, than whom no age or country ever produced a loftier spirit or more clear-sighted, conscientious Christian gentleman, in referring, two days before the surrender, to the apparent hopelessness of our cause, used these immortal words: “We had, I was satisfied, sacred principles to maintain and rights to defend for which we were in duty bound to do our best, even if we perished in the endeavor.”
There were those, a few years ago, who were especially devoted to the somewhat stereotyped phrase that in our Civil War one side (meaning the North) “was wholly and eternally right,” while the other side (meaning the South) “was wholly and eternally wrong.” I might cite those on the Southern side of the great controversy, equally sincere and fully as able, who would have been glad to persuade posterity that the North was “wholly and eternally wrong”; that her people waged war upon sister States who sought peacefully to set up a homogeneous government, and meditated no wrong or warfare upon the remaining sister States. These Southern leaders steadfastly maintained that the Southern people, in the exercise of the freedom and sovereign rights purchased by Revolutionary blood, were asserting a second independence according to the teachings and example of their fathers.
But what good is to come to the country from partisan utterances on either side? My own well-considered and long-entertained opinion, my settled and profound conviction, the correctness of which the future will vindicate, is this: that the one thing which is “wholly and eternally wrong” is the effort of so-called statesmen to inject one-sided and jaundiced sentiments into the youth of the country in either section. Such sentiments are neither consistent with the truth of history, nor conducive to the future welfare and unity of the Republic. The assumption on either side of all the righteousness and all the truth would produce a belittling arrogance, and an offensive intolerance of the opposing section; or, if either section could be persuaded that it was “wholly and eternally wrong,” it would inevitably destroy the self-respect and manhood of its people. A far broader, more truthful, and statesmanlike view was presented by the Hon. A. E. Stevenson, of Illinois, then Vice-President of the United States, in his opening remarks as presiding officer at the dedication of the National Park at Chickamauga. In perfect accord with the sentiment of the occasion and the spirit which led to the establishment of this park as a bond of national brotherhood, Mr. Stevenson said: “Here, in the dread tribunal of last resort, valor contended against valor. Here brave men struggled and died for the right as God gave them to see the right.”
Mr. Stevenson was right — “ wholly and eternally right.” Truth, justice, and patriotism unite in proclaiming that both sides fought and suffered for liberty as bequeathed by the Fathers—the one for liberty in the union of the States, the other for liberty in the independence of the States.
parsy
I thought it was a war between the states.
NO, the Confederate Soldiers simply wanted to be left alone to live their lives in freedom. The Muslim terrorists want to subject the World! (subject the World = Slavery)
Roland S. Martin like CNN is propagating the BIG LIE!
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His book>
Publisher: Third World Press
The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as Originally Reported by Roland S. Martin [With DVD]
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He also wrote another book about Spirituality.
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Obozo shill.
Good grief!
Part of black history is the selling of blacks into slavery by other blacks.
Should we ban black history month?
Roland S. Martin, ignorant race baiting collaborator.
Most Confederate soldiers were non-slave owners and peace loving, state’s rights people. Now they’re called terrorists, and Islamic radicals are not?
For political expediency, far left liberals and the MSM spew their divisive crap. Politics and government caused the Civil War, or good Americans would never have fought each other, and it could happen again.
And Lincoln proclaimed the end of slavery in the South only, and only when he knew he’d lose the war without that moral imperative. Lee had already recommended the same idea to Jefferson Davis, but it was rejected as cowtowing to the federal government.
You’re not going to believe this one...
General William T. Sherman was .
Confederates were insurrectionists, yes, but not terrorists. They did not attempt to make voters in Boston fearful for their own lives if they voted for Lincoln. They wore a uniform to distinguish themselves as soldiers, so they were not criminals. They fought under the flag of a legitimate government (Alabama, for instance, if not the CSA). Their targets were military. As disgusting, reprobate, and ahistorical as the attempts to whitewash the nature of the CSA are, those who fought for the CSA were soldiers, not terrorists; this article is not an attempt to consider the CSA, but to present the lie that “terrorist” is nothing different from “warrior.”
Mr. Martin is obviously not fighting the intellectual processing “war” with a fully-loaded weapon...and he can kiss my North Carolina a**....
Peace-loving? The confederate states STARTED the war. Lincoln had withdrawn federal troops from several federal forts (i.e., federal property), to Ft. Sumter. He had issued several assertions that he had no intent of coercing the South to free the slaves. He had even gone so far as to campaign against that during the war. BUT (here we come to Myth #2)...
States Rights? The South had no intention of permitting states to determine the issue as they saw fit. The West represented economic competition, providing a source of slave-free agriculture. So, the South had to make sure the West became slave-holders’ territory, regardless of the wishes of those who lived in the West, and remained under the political domination of slave-holders. THIS is why the South saw Lincoln’s election as such a death-blow.
Non-slave holders? Well, it’s true that most Southern soldiers didn’t own slaves. But the Southern economy was built on slave labor, which is why for a century it severely lagged the North despite a huge net influx of funds from the federal government.
I do not believe that there was a general declaration of support for slavery in the South. There was, however a declaration that the Southern States would rule themselves...
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