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
i’d say the loser of an argument about the constitutionality southern secession, lincoln’s war, etc. would be the one who starts a defense with “forget the constitution”.
i’d also say the open-mindedness that opens a constitutional debate with “forget the constitution” shows a singleness of thought that many a man who feels himself above the law shares. do you contend that der fuhrer was a man who respected his constitution over his personal will? if i say “case closed, lincoln” instead, do i still “lose the argument”?
as for pennsylvania, individual southerners and groups of southerners didn’t secede...the staaaates seceded. if PA wants to join VT, TX, MN, NY, NH, etc. who have all had open, public questions of secession (”public” as in public officials aka congressmen, not some guys standing outside your local bar), then i’d have to get involved politically. if PA had a convention in Harrisburg and voted to secde, I’d have to decide if I’m on the side of whatever cause prompted it and stay, or if I’d be better off moving to NJ. As hooorrrible as that scenario would be (freedom of choice and self-determination), I’d take it over war.
“Except that if the union was preserved, then the union is indeed perpetual...Washington was our 17th president by my count. Hancock was first, having as president of Continental Congress signed Declaration of Independence.”
That’s one way to look at it, and I’m not gonna pretend there was no connection between the three seperate systems (CC, AofC, and U.S.). They are all, along with the whole colonial experience, part of the American story. But that’s more a romantic than historical view of things. Not that history can’t be romantic.
Let’s put it this way, if a convention called today to consider adoption of a balanced budget amendment out of nowhere recommended chucking the Constitution altogether, not a few people would think it insane. If delegates to the Continental Congress had suddenly found themselves under the Constitution, their heads would’ve spun. We aren’t the French, and their cyclone of systems (Monarchy to Estates-General to Reign of Terror to Consulate to Empire) of the 90s was not our march of charters (CC to AofC to U.S.) of the 80s. That much I can say.
driftless2 - With all due respect I think you’re missing the point in the discussions with our FRiend here. It really isn’t about the north vs. south - it’s all about dissension with him. He doesn’t like our nation, but wouldn’t like a confederate alternative any better. Were Pennsylvania to secede he would be dissatisfied with that as well.
He isn’t a Lost Causer in the southron sense - he represents the ultimate expression of Lost Cause.
There’s not even a rough approximation between you and those fellows, but go ahead and flatter yourself - I’m sure you have no other choice.
I think you’re correct. I was merely trying to point out to our friend the spectacular problems that would be involved in declaring some state as a “sovereign” nation. I don’t believe he has any idea how unbelievably difficult it would be to set up a separate country inside another one. But say the separate country of Pennsylvania is established, but the majority of the citizens decide to take actions that our friend doesn’t like. Then would he want to set up another country inside the Pennsylvania boundaries? The mind boggles. The whole idea of singular secession is insanity.
Oh, come on, rockrr - everyone knows you're not Non-Sequitur. You're his loveable, but overly excitable, sidekick! ( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2635724/posts?q=1&;page=101#117 ) Or should we say, 'ex-sidekick,' since Non-Sequitur is no longer with us?
;>)
(And, as I've noted previously, you need to be more careful about including folks on the address line - you forgot phi11yguy19 again, on your Post #726. You wouldn't want to be mistaken for a weaselly little butt kisser, rather than a loveable-but-overly-excitable-ex-sidekick, now would you? Take care, my friend! ;>)
Charleston was the "mother of all tariff collecting ports in the south"? It was a DISTANT second among southern ports, with only about 15% of New Orleans collections, and the top nine tariff-collecting ports in the south together collected less than a tenth of what was collected in New York. Charleston collected less than 1% of what New York did.
;>)
‘tis a shame. his commentary was ever so helpful
He obviously took it hard when Non-Sequitur got banned - his posts became more and more emotional, and less and less rational.
Poor soul, he was just too high strung (and co-dependent)...
;>)
Like I said pal, how you gonna set it up? Your own country I mean. The country of Pennsylvania.
That the whole issue of the alleged importance of tariff collections at southern points is wildly overblown by lost causers who want to deflect the notion that southern secession was over the issue of slavery. Clear enough?
Was this post supposed to tell any of use here anything? You've effectively skipped over referenced, factual responses to every one of your lies here, but you pop your head up again to say "AHA! Charleston was #2, not #1 - gotcha!"???
I apologize if I've somehow given you the impression that I'm obliged to answer each and every one of your posts. Mea culpa. But just to be clear, by the "Mother of all" tariff collection points in the south, you really mean "a distant number two." Is that about right?
the effort at humility would be nice.
Pretty rich, coming from you.
By the way, I’m heading out to the desert for the weekend. Don’t take my absence for vindication.
Actually, the whole issue of the alleged importance of slavery is wildly overblown by union enthusiasts, who choose to ignore the simple fact that it is the constitutionality of State secession that was the critical issue (both in the 1830s and the 1860s). If secession was constitutional, then it mattered not at all whether the Southern States seceded over concern for the institution of slavery, or simply because Northerners suffered from halitosis, as well as hypocrisy.
"Clear enough?"
;>)
What'd he do?
If FedGov™ collapses then the state will be the governing body. Yes there will still be socialists and conservatives but no anarchy.
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