How the South belatedly won America's civil war

BBC News UK ^ | 01/20/2006 | By David Cannadine

[Alas Babylon!]

Actually the first state to propose secession from the Union was Mass.in about 1836.

Before 1836! The New England states were very opposed to the War of 1812, as it hurt their mercantile/trading ties with Great Britain. They met it Hartford in 1814 to decide on succession, but that vote lost. The Hartford Convention

Also, this articles reeks of a deliberate attempt to portray Republicans as racists. Note how the author says white Southern Democrats became Republicans as soon as the Voting Rights Act was passed. What he fails to point out was most of the democrats were against it, and most republicans were for it. Also, the South decided long ago to abandon Jim Crow, more for any reason than it was the right, moral thing to do. Some white liberals think criticizing the black community in any fashion is racist, but pointing out bad behaviors; children born out of wedlock, relying too much on the welfare state, epidemic of drugs, etc, is a show of concern for folks. The above behaviors can be found among poor whites, too. Morally we owe it to these folks to never let such behavior be considered KO and natural.

As a native New Hampshire boy now living many years in the South (Alabama) I simply do not see Jim Crow type racism here. Relations between blacks and whites are much better here than the North, imho.

[4CJ]

By the way, the main reason modern people have migrated to the American South now is because...believe it or not...air conditioning. Which was invented in Buffalo New York.

Actually, John Carrier did not invent air conditioning (the cooling process) in 1902 - Dr. John Gorrie of Appalachicola FL invented that process in 1842 (patented in 1851).

Dr. Gorrie was attempting to quell outbreaks of yellow fever by keeping patients and rooms cooler by having fans blow across bowls of ice. With the panhandle of Florida not being blessed by a plethora of available ice, Dr. Gorrie invented a machine to freeze water, adn then proceeded to "air condition" hospital rooms.

[Final Authority]

The NASCAR reference was, what I thought, a quite apt illustration, a generalization of course, but something a southerner can relate too.

You notice I didn't refer to a redneck lowlife southerner who only gets out of his trailerhome when he runs out of Bud, Winstons, and when he has to go to general delivery to pick up his SSI check. My friend in Greenville SC who runs a construction company hires these kind for day labor but only when he knows they need a 30 pack and a carton because otherwise they have little ambition on the job.

I don't believe that when I made this observation that I was painting all southerners with the same brush, that is to say, I did not make one observation about a group and apply it to an individual. By observing a group I did not establish an unreasonable intolerance of an individual or even that group. I applied no outcome and made no statement of the fact.

Because of that, it is quite different than writing that because Mitt Romney is a member of LDS, therefore he is such and thus, without knowing the man or his history.

[Casloy]

The myth, huh? Your nic is "rebel" base and you think I am creating the myth? You can't guys can't let go of something you don't even truly understand. You've created this amazing myth of what the south was like, building on the small things and ignoring the unpleasant things. The war was over 140 years ago, the South lost, the old south no longer exists, GET OVER IT.

[Fred Hayek]

and they don't say the N-word in the North?.....have you been to Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Indiana, Ohio, rural New York State, the Pine Barrens, etc?

I have heard it from a management type in Syracuse NY, originally from NYC. Especially in his references to track and field (thought the only sport for degreed corporate professionals was golf. Track and field was for (n-word)).

[Rebelbase]

It doesn't appear to be a problem for me. And once again, the inference as to the origins of my name are ASSumed wrong.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The war was over 140 years ago, the South lost, the old south no longer exists, GET OVER IT.

To be precise, the South did not lose the war. Loyal Americans, whether they were from the North or South, won the war. The disloyal elements, whether they were Southern Confederates or Northern Copperheads, lost.

I think it is easy to get sidetracked into regional chauvinism if we look at the war as a mere conflict of regions.

[EricT.]

Yankees might get that demented view due to the contributions of some posters on this very site. :)

Perfectly snotty remark. One of the many reasons I left my native state and adopted one with better manners.

[EricT.]

Could it be that Yankee technology

Technology in northeastern states zenithed during the industrial revolution. Yankee technology these days consists of finding new ways to tax people out of their house and home.

like mine is dependent on superior education and the classical ability to speak proper English?

You call that gutteral giberish spoken in Noo Yawk, Noo Joisey, and Bassten proper English? I'm not exactly sure I would call what your inner city schools do a "superior education". They seem to excell at spending taxpayer dollars and little else.

[Rabble]

"You notice I didn't refer to a redneck lowlife southerner who only gets out of his trailerhome when he runs out of Bud, Winstons, and when he has to go to general delivery to pick up his SSI check."

This could easily apply to a Redneck Northerner living in rural Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Etc.

[Renderofveils]

Simple, and just plain wrong in points.

The author makes no mention of NC being the first state to declare independence from England. I.e., the Halifax Resolves, and goes on to state that NC was reluctant to join the Revolution? Maybe they just didn't feel bad that the Brits were killing Yankees...

[Alia]

The author makes no mention of NC being the first state to declare independence from England

Oh how, the MSM loves to play "masters of historical revisionisms" by omission or by spin.

[SamAdams76]

The south is better off for having lost the Civil War. And America is better for not having lost the south.

I agree and leave it to the BBC to try to turn a positive into a negative. It seems that England is still bummed that the United States didn't fall apart during the Civil War.

Most of my family lives in the Deep South so I have one foot there and one foot up here in New England. At some point, I'm moving down there. I much prefer cities like Charlotte, Savannah, Nashville and Huntsville (AL) to cities like Boston, New York, Baltimore and Detroit. People are friendlier, streets are cleaner, weather is more bearable (except maybe July and August) and the food is better.

Atlanta...well it can be as bad as New York City! SO they offset each other.

Anyway, my point is that the South was worth fighting to keep and I'm glad the War between the States ended as it did (though I'd rather it never had to happen at all). I cannot imagine a United States without the Deep South.

[Sam Cree]

"Look beyond the cities..."

I'm a native Virginian who has spent some time in upstate NY the last few years and found the people there to be exceptionally friendly and gracious, the countryside beautiful. OTOH, driving through the Charlotte area of North Carolina the last few years hasn't been too pleasant. It's congested and overcrowded and the roadside service stations were often dirty, while the employees in them acted like they could hardly give a damn about their customers.

My opinion is that buying land is probably a much better investment in NC than upstate NY, but I believe I'd rather live in NY. I'm slightly shocked to find myself saying this, but I can't get past what I've seen the last few years.

That being said, I wonder if there are really very many Southerners who'd truly wish the South were a seperate country. I tend to think not, in spite of the arguments back and forth.

[smug]

Confederate diehards are just about as patriotic as a UN worshipping Liberal.

Your very young, aren't you?

[M. Espinola]

"To be precise, the South did not lose the war. Loyal Americans, whether they were from the North or South, won the war. The disloyal elements, whether they were Southern Confederates or Northern Copperheads, lost."

Perfectly stated!

[x]

But not necessarily, had the south "won",that is had they vanquished the north, there might have evolved a Unified States of America, and it's certainly possible that while it would have been different to begin with, after a hundred and fifty years, it might look much as we do today.

Indeed it might. It also might not.

Southerners wouldn't agree to reunification unless it provided strong guarantees to their institutions -- very much including slavery or segregation. There'd be a demand that the federal government could never pass something like the Civil Rights acts of the 1960s. That in itself would have made any reunited country very different from today's America.

Northerners wouldn't agree to Southerners' demands, and there'd be a desire to wash their hands entirely of the region. Since the compromises of 1787 and 1820 and 1850 hadn't been enough for the South, Northerners might not go down that road again. We would have been a more inward looking country, or pair of countries, and far less of a match for the rest of the world.

It's certainly true that the parts of the US and the countries of the world have been growing closer together over the last fifty years or so. That's someting to take into account. But it's not as though history was bound to end up more or less where we are now. Had events taken a different turn in the past, the world of 2006 might have ended looking very different than it does to us.