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
Hey, Nazi Germany was anti-Communist! But then the USSR was anti-Nazi.
Decisions, decisions.
“Americans don’t want to believe that 100s of thousands of Americans died over tariffs.”
So if we had lowered tariffs we wouldn’t have had slavery?
Africa has a looonnngg history of tribal warfare, with the losers either enslaved or killed. Much like the Middle East and the classical world, come to think of it. Julius Caesar was perhaps the greatest slave raider of all time, with perhaps 1M slaves sold just from Gaul.
To be fair, however, the presence of a market on the African coast for slaves encouraged slave raiding and inter-tribal warfare far inland. Also chiefs and kings selling off political opponents, criminals, inconvenient relatives, unpopular people, etc.
You are right, I got the order wrong, still the same result. I just checked it out, Emancipation was January, Enrollment act was March and the riots were in July. Still nobody was going to volunteer to free the slaves, it was a deeply racist country then.
He is responsible for his vigorous pusuit of the war and for not stopping it.
He was on the high ground - he could have brokered a truce and attempted to negotiate an end to the carnage. As an earlier poster pointed out, he and the north were determined to immediately and totally eradicate slavery from the south while allowing it to legally continue in certain northern states.
That kind of governing has the same stench as the backroom deals negotiated by Pelosi, Reid and Obama to get Obama-Kare passed. Their underhandedness just hasn't led to 600,000 deaths - yet.
Hey, Nazi Germany was anti-Communist!
One group of socialists against another.
Proof of statement?
Let's take a close look at the Emancipation Proclamation. It was an Executive Order that was issued January 1863: almost 20 months after Ft Sumter was fired upon. It took place in any area except those already occupied by Union forces; If the Union had occupied your master's home you weren't “freed” by the executive order. It did NOT affect any of the slaves living the boarder states, an estimated 500,000 slaves. All total nearly a million out of four million slaves (1860 census numbers) were exempt. That's right, upon execution it excluded a quarter of the people it was supposed to free. I wonder if Obama is copying Lincoln (a universal program that has thousands of waivers).
The USA has never had tariffs on exports. Only imports.
Thus an Iowa farmer who bought a piece of machinery imported from England paid exactly the same tariff as a Mississippi planter who bought the same item.
They also both paid the higher prices for American products created by the protective tariffs. Since there were many more people in the North than the South, it seems highly likely northerners paid more tariffs than southerners.
I have never seen any documentation that tariffs were higher on products more likely to be purchased by southerners.
The pre-war balance of payments was largely balanced by southern exports, but that's a separate issue from who paid the tariffs.
Not sure how accurate this quote is, but I find it interesting:
"Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." -- Abraham Lincoln
Since tariffs were only imposed on imports, I see no reason why Southern states would have been taxed more heavily than Northern states.
I found 82 occurances of the word slave (or variations like slavery) in the document you linked to.
But it wasn’t about slavery, no sirree, definitely not.
Pragmatic Psychology teaches us that a good way to understand the causes of otherwise inexplicable behavior (including some behaviors for which a whole host of reasons are claimed), we must consider the results that are obtained. In many cases, professionals can help determine the root cause of behaviors by considering those results. As a result of the war of 1861-5, many things occurred, primarily: Physical slavery was ended, replaced with an economic equivalent (poverty, ghetto, dependency, continuing unemployment). Federalism became enshrined as the new mode of government. A large standing army and navy became perpetual. Habeas Corpus proved itself expendable in times of trouble. Bankers gained tremendous power, largely in part due to lending money to both sides and managing the forced implementation of the “Industrial Revolution” (on borrowed money) nationwide. Seeds were sown for a National Bank (Federal Reserve), nationalization of the militias and a formal military draft, income tax, and a whole host of things that the Founders eschewed. The south was probably suckered into playing the villain just as FDR arranged for Japan to strike the first blow in the Pacific. Imagine the landscape if the antebellum Republic still stood. No CIA, CFR, CPB, DEA, DHS, DOE (either one), DOJ, EPA, FAA, FCC, HHS, IRS, NPR, NSA, SEC, TSA etc. etc.
“The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more”
Well, that’s just stupid. About as stupid as “War Between the States about slavery? No way”.
This is one of those cases where the truth is somewhere in the middle. Slavery wasn’t the only issue, true, but one can’t discount that it was a major issue. It was a catalyst that triggered other events. Virginia, however, had already outlawed slavery when it seceded. One only needs to read archives of the newspapers of the time to understand how volatile this issue was on how much was wrapped around it.
The article writer also should grab a copy of the articles of confederation if he believes the original colonies retained 100% rights to leave the confederation on any whim. They actually were under treaty with each other and that was specifically outlined in the Constitution (Article VI). Albeit, that only affects a couple of the seceded States.
“’Preserving’ the Union with grapeshot and double canister is a bit of a contradiction, isn’t it?”
No. “Preserving” the integrity, beauty, morale, economy, population, etc. of the South with grapeshot and double canister wouldn’t be possible, but preserving the Union would be. That is, so long as something survived.
Lincoln was not a committed abolitionist. He adopted the Emancipation Proclamation as a wartime expediency.
As for the issue of Fort Sumter and the other federal forts, I don’t think you can justify holding on to them unless you were planning a military operation against the Confederacy. Then it makes sense.
Then why did the Confederate constitution REQUIRE every state in that union to participate in slavery? Wouldn't it have been up each state since it was their right? I wont wait for an answer because I know thar be none.
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