Posted on 05/01/2017 1:52:30 PM PDT by detective
“If anybody formed the union and the constitution it was the people of the country.”
Right, that’s why it’s called the “United Peoples of America”.
enumerated: ** “We would be wise to doubt our understanding of the two sides of the story when only one side is taught. “ **
But in reality, one is the side of historical facts, reasons & truth.
The other side is pure Lost Cause mythology, only loosely related to actual events of that time.
enumerated: ** “I’m defending the South which has been demonized for 150 years while the North has sanctified itself for all posterity with a self-serving version of the truth.” **
But nobody but nobody on Free Republic ** ever ** “demonizes”
“the South” of then or today.
All we do is correct the anti-US myths, lies & nonsense you folks frequently post.
enumerated: ** “In the industrial northern colonies, slavery was unpopular NOT due to moral superiority, but because the non-slave population needed the work and understood that slavery devalued their labor.” **
No, abolition in the North & elsewhere was first learned IN CHURCH, and accompanied great religious revivals.
Sure, many Northerners were smart enough to figure out that low cost slave labor was not in their own best economic interests — a little like today’s US workers & illegal immigrants, would not help to Make America Great Again.
But in 1860 almost 100% of Northerners understood that slavery **in the South** was a precondition for Union and so would let it be.
enumerated: ** “When slavery was abolished in the northern colonies and states, and in Europe it was often phased out in a way that did not cause loss of wealth or hardship to slave owners...
Many southern slave owners advocated and would have gladly accepted such a phase out.” **
Your first point here is true, your second utterly false.
In fact, even discussion of abolition, however slowly phased in, in most Southern states was forbidden.
Far from tolerating talk of Southern abolition, the Slave Power was constantly looking for ways to expand their Institution into new territories and occupations.
That’s what the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred-Scott decision was all about, making it legal to take slaves ** permanently ** into any US state or territory regardless of local abolition laws.
enumerated: ** “ The point being that if we had lost the revolutionary war rather than won it, history would not depict the North on its high horse laying the blame on the south for slavery and the civil war. “ **
In fact history accurately reports that in 1776 slavery was accepted & enforced in by British law in every American colony, and most Declaration of Independence signers in 1776, North and South, owned slaves.
However, even in 1776 most Founders including Southerners like Jefferson and Washington understood slavery was morally wrong and should be abolished.
Jefferson’s famous deleted paragraph in the Declaration said as much.
In time Jefferson himself was responsible for outlawing slavery in the then Northwest Territories, and proposed abolishing slavery nationwide, to be paid for by the Federal government.
So there’s no question that most (but not all) Founders opposed British imposed slavery on moral grounds.
Yes, British Lord Balfore’s declaration offered all servants, Africans or Europeans, freedom in exchange for military service.
He did that for much the same reason as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, but Balfore’s didn’t work.
Do you know why?
Because General George Washington was ten times smarter than Jefferson Davis in the 1860s. Washington matched Balfore’s offer and by the time of Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown in 1781, our Continental Army was reported to be one quarter African-Americans.
But where George Washington was a moral & mental giant among men, Jefferson Davis was not.
enumerated: ** “In war, to the victor goes the spoils, including the exclusive right to tell only their self serving version of the story.” **
From the beginning of Free Republic Lost Causers have posted their myths, lies & venom against “the North” unrestricted except for excessive abusive language.
So by now most all of it has been posted & refuted many times, but you folks keep coming back with more of it.
And nobody here hates “the South”, most of us have family & friends there, have lived in Southern states an often visit.
We have no problems with historical flags & monuments, many in Northern towns fly those same flags.
But we won’t let you post your myths, lies & venom without standing up for real history, and so it goes.
The Confederate Cabinet and Congress was just a mess of incompetents, idealogues, backbiters, drunkards, ruffians and people who were bigots even by the standards of the time. And EVERYONE seemed to hate Jefferson Davis.
The idea that they could come out of a destructive war and form a functioning government seems like the biggest pipe dream of them all.
Maybe it was on another thread, but the description of the South as nearly medieval in its politics is somewhat true. Men who were rich simply by birth and maintained their wealth through slavery - all of them thinking they should be prince of their land.
Not sure if you were quoting someone or not. But I disagree with this:
But in 1860 almost 100% of Northerners understood that slavery **in the South** was a precondition for Union and so would let it be.
I would say that Northern politcians largely understood and accepted this. Abolotionist New England probably did not accept this on its face. This was a moral issue.
No kidding
They are the ignorant ones
Trump was right
Jackson was pessimistic and said so
Who writes this crap
You piss on the south
You’re not one of us sorry
This is not true. Washington in the 1850s was controlled by pro slavery Democrats. They were trying to impose a slave based economy on the Midwest and the west.
The southern politicians created the false narrative of economic tyranny because the backward slave based southern economy was not as prosperous as the free north and Midwest which were rapidly industrializing and far surpassing the south.
“The North refused to accept the South’s secession and chose to wage war.”
Everyone in Washington, including Lincoln, wanted a compromise to avoid a costly war. In February 1860, before Lincoln was inaugurated, Jefferson Davis declared it was too late for compromise. The confederates were preparing an army to go to war. Shortly after Lincoln was inaugurated the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter beginning the Civil War.
The Democrat politicians in the south are entirely responsible for the Civil War. They caused the secession and the armed insurrection against the United States.
South Carolina Democrat Senator James Chestnut was one of the leaders of the secession. In the convention that voted for secession he bragged in a speech that he would “drink all the blood that would be spilled.”
This is typical of the stupid statements made by the men who started the Civil War. They were stupid and evil men. They started a war that resulted in about 600,000 men killed and caused enormous suffering throughout the south.
The people who ended up having to fight the Civil War developed hatred and contempt for these people who started the war. Among General Lee's many statements about them he said “They sit around eating peanuts while my army is starving.”
Jefferson Davis ordered his army to continue fighting a guerrilla war after Richmond fell. General Lee disobeyed a direct order from Jefferson Davis when he surrendered at Appomattox. General Joe Johnson also disobeyed a direct order when he surrendered.
WVMnteer: ** “But I disagree with this:
‘But in 1860 almost 100% of Northerners understood that slavery **in the South** was a precondition for Union and so would let it be.’
“I would say that Northern politcians largely understood and accepted this.
Abolotionist New England probably did not accept this on its face.
This was a moral issue. “ **
Agreed, I used “almost 100%” as opposed to hazarding a guess of, say, 95%.
Indeed, iirc, in 1861 when secession came, those New England Abolitionists said they were happy to see the South go, and take their slaves with them.
So perhaps even they understood the price of Abolition was disunion.
You’re not one of us sorry
When I study the Civil War, I try not to get partisan. I call it like I see it.
Jefferson Davis was a good senator and a good man. He simply was not up to the task. He didn't want the war or the position he found himself in, IMHO.
“Jefferson Davis was a good senator and a good man.”
No he wasn’t.
He was a bad man who helped start a war that caused 600,000 people to be killed and cause great suffering throughout the south.
He was stupid and incompetent and made one bad decision after another. By 1864 no one could stand him.
Fair nuff
I rescind
That’s alright. I didn’t expect to change anyone’s mind.
Thanks for the discussion.
You are knowledgeable about American History.
I agree with some of the things you say and disagree with other.
My great grandfather served as Captain - Fiftieth Georgia Regiment, C.S.A.
Fortunately, he wrote his memoirs and saved many, many letters describing his experiences in 13 major battles, and around 50 skirmishes, marches, etc. In the hundreds of stories and prayers there is no discussion of the politics or socioeconomic issues of the day - only the accounts of brave and honorable men fighting and to defend their homeland from attack.
Thanks detective,
Believe me, as a first-edition Trump defender surrounded by Trump haters where I live, I am used to staking out a position that everyone around me disagrees with.
I don’t think I’m generally knowledgeable about history, but I am blessed with a skeptical mind, and I do enjoy casting doubt on consensus views.
My mother was a history professor and turned me on at an early age to Kenneth Roberts’ Arundel and Northwest Passage. I was fascinated by the huge gap between his characterization of Benedict Arnold vs. the caracature of him seen in school and the cartoons as a kid.
As a young adult I watched the ‘history’ of JFK and Nixon being written in real time - and was again fascinated by the way many differing and blurry observations of complex events and people eventually seem to coalesce into a fairly single-minded, simple-minded and politically-correct ‘history’.
Part of it is data loss over time - fewer and fewer first-hand accounts, confirmation bias - self-referencing of the same articles. Part of it is the political correct police, punishing and shaming of unpopular views.
Part of it is “poisoning the well” - false association of a person or event with a bad thing like slavery or racism taints a person group or event so that nobody wants to say anything positive about it for fear of being misunderstood.
I notice the phrase “freedom of religion” has become interchangeable with the term “anti LGBT”. So, years from now, students learning the history of this period will be unable to distinguish between the two.
I assume that when we are taught civil war history we fall prey to many lost distinctions and much missing context - as well as to agenda driven subjectivity.
I don’t consider myself knowledgeable about American history - I just know the so-called history we are taught is not the objective accounting that it claims to be.
Why would it be? Just as opinion polls, which claim to report what people think, are more often tools for affecting what people think, history is never agenda-free.
The history of a war is taught differently in the schools of the victorious nation than in the schools of the defeated nation. In a civil war where the same nation is both defeated and victorious, things get complicated.
That’s really all I’m saying. And I would hope my fellow Trump supporters would understand - after a hundred and fifty years, fake news eventually turns into fake history.
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