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
Pleased to meet you, Tabasco. I see you’ve already met Phi1. He thinks that slaves can’t reproduce on their own, that the members of the Hartford Convention should have been psychic, that Lincoln called for troops before Sumter was shelled, and that the US attacked a fort that was already in its possession. What else he believes we’ll find out soon.
Well said.
No, I haven’t. Do you recommend it?
I think you're mssing a word there, but I'll assume that it's "sell," as in "that's where you'd sell the manufactured good." But that's not true. You'd sell the manufactured good to a consumer, and there were far more consumers in the north than in the south.
Also, I don’t know that markets were as insanely overdeveloped as they are now
The commodities futures market in the US developed in the 1840s. The Chicago Board of Trade, for example, was founded in 1848.
There was a fascinating radio interview on NPR a few weeks ago. The guest was a black historian whose great-great-grandfather served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. The guy owned slaves, too. The history books seem to have been scrubbed of any references to this kind of thing.
I love how you conveniently left out the Dred Scott decision in your constitutional "lesson"-- whereby the Supreme Court held that a black man had no rights to sue for his freedom even if he were illegally taken to a Free State. He didn't escape. In fact, how were the Free States going to be able to keep their laws prohibiting slavery in the face of an activist Supreme Court?
While we are on the text of the original constitution, can you please make a moral case for making items of "property" worth 3/5 of a free person for the purposes of apportioning congressional seats and electoral votes?
You unreconstructed excuse makers are frankly pathetic. You simply refuse to own up to the monstrousness of the "peculiar" institution and the blood stain it has.
And because I have the temerity to call out your ancestors for their sins, you then accuse me of being some politically correct hack. You don't know me sir-- or you would realize that I am anything but politically correct. And I lave many Southerners as friends (and get mistaken for one). I have tremendous respect for the gallantry and skill of the Confederate Army and Navy. But I also admire the fighting prowess of the German Wehrmacht of World War II-- good soldiers serving an bad cause. And the Germans at least have the good grace to acknowledge that they were on the wrong side of history.
No, you just want to plug your ears and ignore the blatant repetitions of the words "slave" in "slavery" throughout South Carolina's declaration--and the various ordinances and declarations of the other slave states. Tell me-- did any Free States secede? Oooops-- no they didn't, did they?
No, the talented Maj. Gen. Pat Cleburne wasn't passed over for promotion suggesting that the south arm slaves, was he? (Robert E. Lee's request was met with approval some time later.) The Confederate Government didn't order that black prisoners of war were to be sold into slavery (with no regard to their pre-war status) and that their white officers could be shot out of hand, did they? Ooops-- they did, didn't they? No, and before the war, the Missouri Border Ruffians illegally trying to vote in Bleeding Kansas were just trying to bring the joys of mint julips and grits to the Yankees there, right?
Get over yourself--and Appomattox Court House.
Everyone is someone else’s troll - even you
I read your link. Congratulations for finding the OR. What I haven't seen is this formal armistice that you're talking about.
Are you going to tell us about that US attack on its own fort?
that appears to be entirely your domain. All I asked was to see some sort of evidence for your claim of a standing peace treaty, which you repeatedly claimed the union breaching, most notably in #255. If you can't deliver I'll understand.
Thanks For The History Lesson!
Then I'm sure you'll show what the definition of an armistice is, right? Here's what the Hague Convention of 1899 said:
Article 36That doesn't seem to apply to the situation from December 1860 to April 1861 in a number of ways. Maybe you've got some antebellum definition we can discuss. Or is this going to be another of your "everybody knows" arguments with no actual support?An armistice suspends military operations by mutual agreement between the belligerent parties. If its duration is not fixed, the belligerent parties can resume operations at any time, provided always the enemy is warned within the time agreed upon, in accordance with the terms of the armistice.
Well said!
Because they didnt fight over tariffs. The southrons pretended secession was over slavery, as shown by their own secession documents. the Tariff of 1857 was low, written by representatives from the south and west.
Slavery was the putative cause of secession on the part of the south. That fact is so embarrassing that the southerners put up the straw man that the US (including 40 regiments of men from the south) didn’t go to war to end slavery, and indeed that is true, but at the end of the war US soldiers, having seen the bravery of their colored brothers, voted to continue the war so that abolition could be implemented, a just reward for their brothers’ courage.
Even many in the south agreed, seeking to give men of color their freedom in exchange for fighting. Others in the south asserted that bargain would make worthless the cause for which they fought.
So the war was settled, in the only way it could be: with treason stopped, and self government reinstated. The revanchist southrons consoled themselves with their bravery, and those of the north, being wise, did not point out that desertions in the south were so high that Lee stopped reporting his strength, and the US released tens of thousands on parole, rather than be troubled with them.
Rather “The War of the Great Rebellion” or “The War of Southern Treachery”
And so Lincoln did, after the surrender...Alas that time was too too short.
Odd that most tariffs were collected in Northern ports. Odd that southern goods, as exports, were not taxed at all, yet the southern partisans continue to fantasize about how much taxes their pretended ancestors paid.
The 1857 tariff act was passed by southern and western interests, and were low. All complaints about the tariff arise from embarrassment over slavery as the true cause.
States rights? Like the right of New York to ban slavery within its borders? That particular state right was opposed by the southerners. To their mind all was slavery and rights were good or bad based on whether they were good or bad for their pretended right to rape their slaves at convenient intervals.
I agree, it was nutty of the southerners to chase after their slaves when the slaves wanted to end the relationship. After all, noone would want to maintain a one sided relationship...
Or would they? 40 regiments of southern men fought for the US
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