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
No, it was all about states' rights ... the right to maintain slavery.
You must be some kind of truth freak.
I'll take a whack at it.
Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves?
Because the Constitution gave him no power to do so, and because he thought southern Unionists would still prevail in the Upper South and Border states?
Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation?
Lincoln took office March 1861. He issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. Since when is 18 months "so many years?"
Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states?
Because of frantic resistance by border state slaveowners and the fact that it takes time to get such legislation through? Despite this, all "northern," actually southern Unionist, states other than KY freed their slaves by state action before the end of the war.
Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?
August, 1861: Congress frees slaves being used in the Confederate war effort.
Slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia in April 1862. The same month, at Lincoln's request, Congress pledges financial aid to any state that undertakes gradual emancipation.
June, 1862: Congress abolishes slavery in the territories.
July, 1862: Congress frees the slaves of persons engaged in rebellion. Militia Act frees slaves who join the Union forces (and their families).
December, 1863 a bill for an amendment freeing all slaves was introduced.
The south polluted and tainted the wonderful concept of states rights, by using it as a method to defend an immoral “right” to slavery. And as a result, to this day,,, if we assert states rights in VERY legitimate situations, such as health care, we are instantly cast as plantation owners.
So what. He was a man of the age - by today’s standards nearly everyone was racist.
the south’s desire to seccede (or however ya spell it) was caused by pressure from the north over slavery. the south basically wanted to be left alone, the north could not abide slavery. generally speaking, of course.
interesting quote. hadn’t heard it before...
I plead Guilty!
I like nothing better than to hoist people on their own petards. I love orginal documents that contradict bloviation by people who should know better.
If the folks voting to start the American Civil War said it was about slavery, who am I to contradict them?
The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries.
I'm not sure what "prosperity" this guy is talking about. By any objective measure, the South was predominantly agrarian and substantially poorer than the North in the years leading up to the Civil War. In fact, when Frederick Douglass escaped from the South and made his way to Massachusetts, one of the eye-opening revelations he had was that lower-class black laborers in the town of New Bedford had a higher standard of living than the owner of the Maryland plantation where Douglass had lived and worked as a slave.
Most freed slaves stayed on the farm/plantation as share croppers post-bellum. A peculiar institution, for sure.
I'm still not exactly sure how fighting over a tariff regime, for example, would somehow mitigate the Southern states' culpability for the morally atrocious institution of slavery.
South Carolina (and others, of course) were most certainly correct that federal interference in the matter of fugitive slaves was indeed an encroachment on the states' rights, and a clear overstepping of constitutional authority. But the issue of slavery is inseparable from the rights argument.
For those of us descended from Confederates or their sympathizers, there is no need to be reflexively defensive on the matter. It was what it was.
Oh goody. I’m reading Lincoln Unmasked.
Oh goody. I’m reading Lincoln Unmasked.
Thats different than whips, hounds, and the right to buy and sell people. Sharecropping sucked, and yes, Jim Crow silliness tried to basically keep something as close to slavery alive as long as they could.
But we were talking about preserving forced relationships with force.
We saved a union but lost a Constitution.
In a way it was more a revolution than a civil war.
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
(Winston’s victory over himself-1984)
Nutty.
“For those of us descended from Confederates or their sympathizers, there is no need to be reflexively defensive on the matter. It was what it was.”
Well put,,,it’s shared American history now. It’s beyond retarded to try to defend slavery, the rebellion, Shermans March to the sea, etc. It should be owned by all. The funny thing is that after US Grant, and his behavior at Appomatox, nobody has an excuse to abuse the south,, or to carry on “the cause”.
The Union and the Confederacy armies instituted the first federal military draft in American history during the Civil War. In the wake of military losses and a shortage of soldiers, the Union resorted to a federal draft in March 1863, almost a year after the Confederacy. President Lincoln signed The Enrollment Act on March 3, 1863, requiring the enrollment of every male citizen and those immigrants who had filed for citizenship between ages twenty and forty-five. Federal agents established a quota of new troops due from each congressional district.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/enrollment-act-1863-the-conscription-act#ixzz1KYRWbgLg
This is partially true.
Lincoln made the war about slavery; that is what caused the shortage, nobody was going to volunteer to free the black man.
1. The basic nature of the U.S. government and its relationship with state governments, with either a powerful central government or a loose confederation of state governments as the model.
2. The process and organization of the settlement of the West.
3. The nature and regulatory structure of commerce in the United States over long distances between multiple states and territories -- mainly the railroads across the West and shipping along the Mississippi River system.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.