Posted on 11/04/2010 3:13:46 AM PDT by markomalley
One tragedy of war is that its victors write its history and often do so with bias and dishonesty. That’s true about our War of 1861, erroneously called a civil war. Civil wars, by the way, are when two or more parties attempt to take over the central government. Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington, in 1776, wanted to take over London. Both wars were wars of independence.
Kevin Sieff, staff writer for The Washington Post, penned an article “Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers,” (Oct. 20, 2010). The textbook says that blacks fought on the side of the Confederacy. Sieff claims that “Scholars are nearly unanimous in calling these accounts of black Confederate soldiers a misrepresentation of history.” William & Mary historian Carol Sheriff said, “It is disconcerting that the next generation is being taught history based on an unfounded claim instead of accepted scholarship.” Let’s examine that accepted scholarship.
In April 1861, a Petersburg, Va., newspaper proposed “three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg” after 70 blacks offered “to act in whatever capacity may be assigned to them” in defense of Virginia. Ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, “There are at the present moment, many colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down ... and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government.”
Charles H. Wesley, a distinguished black historian who lived from 1891 to 1987, wrote “The Employment of Negroes as Soldiers in the Confederate Army,” in the Journal of Negro History (1919). He says, “Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies (1,600) of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia.”
Wesley cites Horace Greeley’s “American Conflict” (1866) saying, “For more than two years, Negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.”
Wesley goes on to say, “An observer in Charleston at the outbreak of the war noted the preparation for war, and called particular attention to the thousand Negroes who, so far from inclining to insurrections, were grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of shooting the Yankees.”
One would have to be stupid to think that blacks were fighting in order to preserve slavery. What’s untaught in most history classes is that it is relatively recent that we Americans think of ourselves as citizens of United States. For most of our history, we thought of ourselves as citizens of Virginia, citizens of New York and citizens of whatever state in which we resided.
Wesley says, “To the majority of the Negroes, as to all the South, the invading armies of the Union seemed to be ruthlessly attacking independent States, invading the beloved homeland and trampling upon all that these men held dear.” Blacks have fought in all of our wars both before and after slavery, in hopes of better treatment afterwards.
Denying the role, and thereby cheapening the memory, of the Confederacy’s slaves and freemen who fought in a failed war of independence is part of the agenda to cover up Abraham Lincoln’s unconstitutional acts to prevent Southern secession. Did states have a right to secede?
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, James Madison rejected a proposal that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. He said, “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
I'd appreciate any quotes you might have of his (with attribution) that says seccession would have to be mutually agreed. From my readings, that's not what be or almost any other founder would have agreed to. From my readings, had that been the expectation, there would never have been a "united States".
Did you skim right by that part? Looks like rather that forbidding slave imports is was specifically protecting them from one source.
Nice tramp stamp. Is that supposed to be a penguin or a toxic hazard warning? ;-)
"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy." -- James Madison to Daniel Webster, 1833
"The conduct of S. Carolina has called forth not only the question of nullification, but the more formidable one of secession. It is asked whether a State by resuming the sovereign form in which it entered the Union, may not of right withdraw from it at will. As this is a simple question whether a State, more than an individual, has a right to violate its engagements, it would seem that it might be safely left to answer itself. But the countenance given to the claim shows that it cannot be so lightly dismissed. The natural feelings which laudably attach the people composing a State, to its authority and importance, are at present too much excited by the unnatural feelings, with which they have been inspired against their brethren of other States, not to expose them, to the danger of being misled into erroneous views of the nature of the Union and the interest they have in it. One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned, that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution & laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtruded it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them?" -- James Madison to William Rives, 1833
"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy." -- James Madison to Daniel Webster, 1833
"The conduct of S. Carolina has called forth not only the question of nullification, but the more formidable one of secession. It is asked whether a State by resuming the sovereign form in which it entered the Union, may not of right withdraw from it at will. As this is a simple question whether a State, more than an individual, has a right to violate its engagements, it would seem that it might be safely left to answer itself. But the countenance given to the claim shows that it cannot be so lightly dismissed. The natural feelings which laudably attach the people composing a State, to its authority and importance, are at present too much excited by the unnatural feelings, with which they have been inspired against their brethren of other States, not to expose them, to the danger of being misled into erroneous views of the nature of the Union and the interest they have in it. One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned, that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution & laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtruded it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them?" -- James Madison to William Rives, 1833
Start by reading up on the history of antebellum New Orleans.
Some of the most wealthy residents of that city were slave holding blacks. Some of the most wealthy were people who were major players and partners in the slave trade, including illegal smuggling after 1808.
These people were not race traitors, motivated by ideology. They were motivated by greed and profits just like their white counterparts. Many came from areas of Africa where slave trading had been a way of life for generations.
Many of them justified the trade because (1)the alternative was being killed as an enemy and (2)it gave them a new opportunity in a new land.
You might also want to read the history of Liberia, a country founded by freed slaves from America. One of the first things they did was to go out and press enemy captives into slavery to work on their own plantations.
Long story short is that white people have enslaved each other for generations. Indeed our liberal rulers want the same things for we, the peasant class, today. Are black people so morally superior that they would do something different? If you believe that, just look at how the members of the black ruling class treat their own people in America today.
If you can supply a single shred of evidence to support that claim I would love to see it. The confeds were determined to head in an entirely opposite direction - expanding slave states and territories.
How does that possibly square with your contention that they were working toward (eventual) emancipation?
You want to buy some?
Too funny.
Do you realize how indistinguishable your “answers” are from your garden variety leftist? The only environment that approaches absolute freedom is anarchy - do you seriously advocate that?
Indeed, four states (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas) resisted joining the Confederacy until invading union armies crossed their borders. Some of those same states went for the Constitutional Union Party (Andrew Johnson being the only southern senator who remained on the Union side) in the election of 1860. And even when Tennessee joined the Union, a number of counties in the eastern third of the state remained solidly Republican until this very day.
Here we go again, refighting a long ago war. Face it, neither side will ever concede that the other side is wrong.
Leave it at that and worry about the future. There may come again a time when Americans are fighting eac other, with bullets. Until then, we need to prevent it.
One way would be to concede that there was merit in both positions and that it could have been averted by either side. To prolong the battle will most certainly guarantee a repeat.
I think they’re referring to that huge waste of taxpayer funds....the Revolutionary War. They were OK with the results but reticent about actually ponying up their portion of the bucks necessary to fight it.
...good point!...and BTW there are a number of break-away movements on-going as we speak.
Lincoln was no tyrant. Jefferson Davis was the tyrant. Praise and honor to brave Southerners like Lee and the typical reb soldier is one thing, but an attempt to bring Lincoln down to the sordid political level of the secessionists is taking Southern defensiveness and sore loser syndrome to an extreme level. Not only did Davis and his minions head a regime whose cornerstone was keeping an entire race in bondage, they also trampled on the rule of law and the rights of any white Southerners who did not sufficiently dance to the slaveowners' tune.
You said, “... other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America...
Did you skim right by that part? Looks like rather that forbidding slave imports is was specifically protecting them from one source.”
I’m not sure exactly what you are getting at here. In the United States after the Act of 1807 you couldn’t import any slaves from a foreign country. The Confederate Constitution says that a slave can’t be imported from any foreign nation other than the United States or it’s territories with the added stipulation that the Congress of the Confederate States could make a law to prohibit even that in the future.
So granted if the Confederate states had succeeded from the Union and they imported a slave from the United States they would technically still be importing a slave from a foreign country don’t you think that is just nitpicking to say it’s any different from the United States policy at the time?
Next are you going to tell me I spelled something wrong?
You say that like that would be a bad thing.
Sorry for my last snarky remark. I just get worked up when anyone rewrites history. The Union did not go to war against the Southern states to free the slaves. If they were so adverse to slavery they would have outright banned it before the war. The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t even free all the slaves. It only freed the slaves in the Confederate States. Why not all the slaves if we went to war to free the slaves and end slavery?
Because the economic sectors of those states reliant on slavery didn't have sufficient political power to lead their states into rebellion. Every state that seceded had greater than 25% of its population as slaves. None of the four slave states that remained loyal to the United States had more than 20%, and the average of the four was more like 11% slave. Even the order in which the states seceded, with a couple of exceptions, almost directly reflects their percentage of slave population.
Lincoln, the Illinois Butcher™, freed the slaves when he ran out of Irishmen to send to the slaughter. Out of necessity, he emancipated a fresh new batch of meat, a little darker but more temperate.
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