Posted on 04/25/2011 9:31:58 AM PDT by Iron Munro
I am responding to a column by Leonard Pitts Jr., a noted black columnist for The Miami Herald, entitled, "The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more" (Other Views, April 15).
I found this article to be very misleading and grossly riddled with distortions of the real causes of the War Between the States. I find it so amusing that such an educated person would not know the facts.
I am a proud native of South Carolina. I have spent my entire life in what was once the Confederate States of America. I am currently associated with Southern Heritage causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa.
It's been 150 years since brave, patriotic Southerners drove the imperialist Yankee army from Fort Sumter, S.C. It also marked the beginning of the Confederates' fight to expel this foreign army from the entire Southern homeland.
After all these years, there still exists national historical ignorance and lies about this war. The War Between the States was about states' rights — not about slavery.
Remember, the original colonies voluntarily joined the union and never gave up their individual sovereignty. These independent states always retained their right to manage their domestic affairs and to leave this voluntary association at any time.
This voluntary union was for limited reasons such as national defense from the foreign powers, one language, interstate commerce, disputes between the sovereign states and matters of foreign affairs.
When the Southern states tried to leave this union, the Northerners had to put a stop to this. The slavery issue was masterly inserted into the movement of Yankee aggression.
We are a union of independent and sovereign states free to determine our own destiny. This sovereignty is meant to be free of Yankee federal domination and control. This should still be in principle and practice today as it was before the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter.
Slavery of any people is wicked and morally wrong. Domination of one people over another is just as evil and morally wrong.
The facts are that throughout history, just about every race of people has been slaves to another people. Slavery has always been a failed institution and a dark mark in history. One-hundred years before the first slave made it to the auction blocks in Virginia, African kings were running a booming enterprise of selling their own people into slavery. It was also customary that defeated people became slaves.
Slavery as an institution worldwide was coming to an end before the War Between the States. Slavery in America would probably have come to an end within 50 years.
The great eternal lie — that the war was to "free the slaves" — is still being propagandized today by modern spin-makers, schools and even scholars. But the facts are plain and quite evident if you were to take off your Yankee sunglasses.
The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries. This army also wanted to put a final nail in the coffin of states' rights.
If, and I say this with a big if , the War Between the States was to free the slaves, please answer these simple questions:
Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves? Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation? Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states? Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?
The slaves were freed — and only in territories in rebellion against the North — because the Army of the Potomac was not winning the war and Lincoln was fearful of foreign nations recognizing the Confederacy.
The Northern states needed a war to fuel their economy and stop the pending recession. The North needed rebellion in the South to cause havoc in the Confederate states. The North wanted the hard foreign currency being generated by Southern trade.
I hope this year not only marks the celebration of the brave actions of Southerners to evict the Northern Army at Fort Sumter but leads to the truthful revision of history about the war. Future generations should know the truth.
Al Mccray is a Tampa businessman and managing editor of TampaNewsAndTalk.com
Why? If the people of Egypt can riot, die, and overthrow a government due to high food prices why would it not make sense for the South to do the same for high taxes/tariffs which were eroding their economic power and standard of living? History is full of examples of the result of crushing tax burdens.
Then they soil that nest and are unhappy again. Progressive-ism does that to people. They end up hating everything and starting wars. 120 million dead and counting.
“I could make a case that the United States of America as envisioned by the founding fathers of this country basically ceased to exist in 1790s when the Whiskey Rebellion was suppressed”
Ever read “The Probability Broach”?
“If the people of Egypt can riot, die, and overthrow a government due to high food prices why would it not make sense for the South to do the same for high taxes/tariffs which were eroding their economic power and standard of living?”
First of all, your argument was originally about Northern motivations. Secondly, they could, but that’s neither here nor there as my argument was simply that your post lacked logical consistency.
“His Secretary of State Seward and other cabinet members were in constant communication with Montgomery right from inauguration. On March 15th, Justice Campbell told Southern delegate Crawford that Sumter would be abandoned in a few days and no attempt to re-provision would happen. Campbell realized after the deadline passed that he had be lied to by Lincoln’s administration and said so publicly.”
I’m still at a loss as to how this sort of thing means the North started the war.
“Then they soil that nest and are unhappy again. Progressive-ism does that to people. They end up hating everything and starting wars. 120 million dead and counting.”
Uh, yeah, you said that.
If my state (IL) wanted to leave I’d be 100% on the ‘Federal’ side.
“She” would be a worse place to live without the protection of the US constitution.
If Vermont or Hawaii wanted to leave I’d wish them bon voyage.
“120 million dead and counting.”
By the way, where does this figure come from? Are you calling Lincoln a communist?
Yes way. It was about slavery and the sky is blue.
Thanks for the ping.
How’d I miss this one?
Guess I’ve been doing too much working and not enough freeping.
I’m going to need to read through this and get caught up!
Did anybody restart the war yet?
“Uh, yeah, you said that.”
That was the point. I thought it bore repeating. Try to MAKE people live the way YOU want them to live and you end up with dead people. You’ve heard the old joke?
Yankee: “Why are trying to make slaves outta those people?”
Yong Southern Boy: “I don’t own any slaves. Hell, I don’t know anybody that does.”
Yankee: “Then what the hell are you fighting for?”
YSB: “You’re burning down the barn and shooting all the cattle!”
“...Most freed slaves stayed on the farm/plantation as share croppers post-bellum...”
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Just like the poor white folk lived pre bellum and post bellum (all of my Georgia ancestors).
“By the way, where does this figure come from? Are you calling Lincoln a communist?”
History books.
Statists have a history of that kind of thing. They fly different banners, but it ends up the same way.
Well Mr. Petard Hoister, I guess you missed these parts:
"The people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the constitution of the United States by the federal government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the states, fully justified this state in then withdrawing from the Federal Union;"
"The constitution of the United States, in its 4th article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. "
"The guaranties of the constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the states will be lost. The slaveholding states will no longer have the power of self�government, or self�protection, and the federal government will have become their enemy. "
Like the article in the original post said, States Rights. Your deeply feeeeelt white guilt and perhaps an overly simplistic viewpoint of the issue makes you trip the trigger quickly in demanding that the politically correct response to the cause of the War of Northern Aggression was simply and solely slavery when, given ALL the facts, the only intellectually honest answer to the question of the cause of the War was, and is, States Rights. The occasion was slavery, or, constitutionally protected property rights. (If you don't get it I'll slowly try to explain it to you in future post.)
If you want to go cry about slavery feeeeel free to do so but don't pollute the debate about constitutionally protected rights with your emotionally charged hypersensitivity.
Why pick those two as examples? Why not a Charleston shop clerk and an Iowa farmer? Most southerners were farmers, but then so were most northerners, especially in the West, which was almost as agricultural as the South.
The winners and losers in the protective tariff system were not so much regions as economic groups. The South lost the most only because it had a higher percentage of the losing economic groups.
Logic? Simply put, the North appeased on slavery, taxation not so much. The South, in its mind, was facing economic ruin and living standard destruction with said taxation. Connect the historical dots to see what other peoples placed in like circumstances have done.
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