Ten Neo-Confederate Myths

March 9, 2013 | vanity

[0.E.O]

Shop keepers took Confederate money. The exchange rate in 1863 was 4:1.

Who set that exchange rate?

[JCBreckenridge]

“If the Democrats and other anti-Republican forces had gotten behind a single candidate and Lincoln had lost those three states but carried the rest, he would still have won the election, and there could have been a situation where a candidate with under 40% of the popular vote won the electoral college and the election.”

And that was my point. The south saw that this was the case, CA and OR notwithstanding.

[JCBreckenridge]

Yes, Lincoln broke laws. “Union never formally declared war.”

What do we call invasions conducted without a formal declaration of war?

[0.E.O]

What do we call invasions conducted without a formal declaration of war?

Declare war on who? The United States? You declare war on other countries and not rebellious parts of your own.

But since you're on the subject, if it really considered itself a sovereign nation then shouldn't the Confederacy have declared war on the U.S. before attacking Fort Sumter?

[Ditto]

The effort in TN was a last desperate and foolish effort to disrupt supply lines that were already secure, and Sherman being already more than half the way to Savannah and burning/pillaging up GA along the way. Total war in other words. By this point it was last stand time in Richmond, redoubts, delay and pray— and all logistical.

Will be interested for true facts about Hood’s personal state to come out, esp. as regards his relationships with his command staff.

Hood was bothe a zealot and of fool IMHO. If you ask me what his plan was, I'd say it was kind of like a Hail Mary pass in the closing minutes of a football game. The Confederates knew they were losing and damn well needed som 'spectaluar victory' to change the tide. That is all assuming that Hood was a sane and rational commander. There are people who could question that opinion as well after his battle wound and his reliance on 'pain killing' drugs.

At any rate, he did manage to destroy a signifincantly large percent of the Confederate army in his futile attempt to get to the Ohio which never had a chance of success. This was all after Jefferson Davis fired their best commender, Johnston and put Hood in his place.

As to Clayborn, I don't know. He may have been the smartest of all of them, but he did not survive to tell his stories and he pissed a lot of very powerful people off by advocating arming slaves.

[Ditto]

If you ask, "how real was the actual threat to slavery," well, that is a complicated question. Yes, Southern secessionist "Fire Eaters" exaggerated the immediate threat to slavery represented by the election of "Black Republican" Lincoln, in November 1860. But long term there's no doubt that slavery was in for a rough-go, no matter which course of action the Southern slave-holders chose.

100% correct. Lincoln posed absolutely no threat to slavery in the South as it existed at that time. But by promising to block further expansion of slavery to the territories, he did put a knife to the throat of the Slave Power. I don't know if Lincoln, or most anti-slave people in the North at the time fully understood that threat. It was a combination of demographics and finance. To people in the South who really understood the economics of the slave system, Lincoln's humble plan to keep slavery isolated where it existed was like a nuclear weapon pointed at them... both exonomically and socially.

Slavery, by the year 1840 had ceased being a labor system. It was a massive Ponzi scheme. That was it's biggest and only real value. It was so not much the value of the labor which they provided. That labor was considerable, but could have also been provided by free labor. The real value was the slaves themselves on an open market, and not just the current slaves, but their children, grandchildren etc.

This encouraged slave owners to treat them as cattle and the more calves born the more they could sell at some future date if the need may arise. They could and did collateral their slaves, and in the event of some economic downfall, they could sell them off.

It was a very different kind of slavery than existed in the Colonial ear. People literally were property that could be bought, sold or collateralized. The economy of the South then depended just as much on the value of slaves as it did on the price of cotton.

If the market for new slaves became geographically restricted, as Lincoln promised, the slave owners would both lose the value of their existing 'property' because of over supply. In states like South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama, they would have been soon hopelessly outnumbered by slaves and children of slaves within one or two generations.

The Civil War did not start about slavery itself. It was argument over the Expansion of Slaverythat created the war. The North basically said we have had enough of that expansion... do what you want in your own states, but we don't want it anywhere else. They, I think, did that without fully understanding the economics of slavery and why continual expansion was a necessity to keep the slave society going.

For the Southern power structure, expansion of slavery was not just some political abstract... it was a mortal necessity. Without expansion their wealth and society would implode upon them. Expansion of slavery for them was not an option, it was an absolute necessity.

[Ditto]

In actual fact, as opposed to revisionist history, the Constitution leaves it entirely up to each individual state how its electors are chosen. There are still several states that are not "winner take all." Maine is one, but I believe there are several.

There is a bill floating around in the Pennsylvania legislature right now to assign electoral votes by congressional districts with the two senate votes going to the state wide popular vote winner. If that had been the case last election, Romney would have had at lest half the electoral votes in the state. Big cities vs. suburbs vs. ex-burbs vs. rural. I do know that Obama and the Democrats are isolated at least geographically in very small enclaves.

Needless to say, the Philadelphia delegation and their numerous dead voters are very much opposed to that idea. ;~))

[BroJoeK]

AmericanExceptionalist: "I agree, in part, with what you stated, above: The "progressive" era really began--well, if not 100 years ago, then about 80 years ago, with the Depressian-era reforms instituted by FDR.
(True, Teddy Roosevelt--about 100 years ago--did style himself a "progressive"; but it was his fifth cousin, Franklin, who really set us on a path toward Big Government.)"

Normally I'd stop with your words "I agree", and let it go with that, especially since the thrust of your comment is correct -- our current "Progressive Era" really got off the ground in FDR's New Deal.

But that would not have been possible without groundwork laid during the Wilson administration, 1912 to 1920, a hundred years ago -- the three major tools being the 16th & 17th Amendments, plus the Federal Reserve.

Yes, Teddy Roosevelt's administration (1901 - 1909) also gets a "fair share" of criticism.
However, when it comes to "Progressivism" as we understand it today, TR was the opposite of "talk softly, but carry a big stick".

Bottom line: except when paying for wars, the US Federal Government consumed roughly 2.5% of GDP from the administration of George Washington until the beginning of Woodrow Wilson's.
Then, as a gusher of revenues from the 16th Amendment arrived, the government began to grow, and has never looked back since.
Last time I checked it is around 24% and still growing.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "Shop keepers took Confederate money.
The exchange rate in 1863 was 4:1."

You have to wonder if shop keepers in Pennsylvania in 1863 had ever even seen Confederate money, and knew what the exchange rate was -- or how far they would have to travel to find some bank to exchange it?

And might all that hassle make them a little grumpy?

But I keep telling you, you won't have that problem today.
We're friendly people, we like visitors and we'll take anybody's money, especially plastic.

Big doings around here in July, you know...

;-)

[BroJoeK]

x: "“If the Democrats and other anti-Republican forces had gotten behind a single candidate and Lincoln had lost those three states but carried the rest, he would still have won the election..."

JCBreckenridge: "And that was my point.
The south saw that this was the case, CA and OR notwithstanding."

I don't agree, I think a united Democrat candidate in 1860 had a fighting chance, for the same reason that they had won in 1856: many people, then as now, vote for the party they think will win.
Plus, in those days Democrats were the "fusion party", uniting Free and Slave states.
Before 1860, to vote Democrat was to vote for the Union.

But, once Democrats split, North versus South, they were obviously neither the majority nor the "party of union".

Therefore many Democrats switched to Republicans, or in the Upper South to John Bell's Constitutional Union ticket.

You can see this clearly in the Pennsylvania vote, where Democrats lost 35,000 votes, Republicans picked up those votes and carried the state.
And the vote was still close enough in other 1856 Democrat states to give a united ticked a fighting chance to win.

That's why I say, in 1860 Democrats committed political suicide, under the direction of Southern Fire Eaters, who engineered Lincoln's election for the purpose of justifying secession in the minds of average white Southerners.

[Sherman Logan]

Lincoln posed absolutely no threat to slavery in the South as it existed at that time. But by promising to block further expansion of slavery to the territories, he did put a knife to the throat of the Slave Power.

The situation for the South was a lot like that gunowners face today. Gun-grabbers claim they only want reasonable controls added now, but make no real attempt to hide their ultimate goal of grabbing all guns.

So do us gun nuts fight them now, or slide a little farther down the slippery slope first?

A Republican Congress and President could have quite easily and constitutionally put a major crimp into slavery simply by banning interstate commerce in slaves, even between slave states. Breaking up the market that way would have pretty much destroyed the value of the slaves, especially in the Upper South, where there were more than needed.

They, I think, did that without fully understanding the economics of slavery and why continual expansion was a necessity to keep the slave society going.

I think FDR did much the same with the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. The sanctions he imposed would eventually cripple the Japanese military and economy. Yet to meet the conditions required to lift the sanctions would also mean their (even quicker) crippling.

So he basically gave the Japanese leaders a choice between returning to 3rd-class power status, more or less abandoning their empire, and making a desperate attempt to preserve their empire by war.

I don't think FDR was fully aware of the choice he was forcing on them. America has never faced such a stark choice.

Except that I think the South faced a similar decision point in 1860. They had a choice between long, slow decline and eventual destruction of their way of life, and a chance for its survival by means of war.

I think both the South in 1860 and the Japs in 1941 made the wrong decision. But I believe they saw themselves as having no real choice.

[central_va]

From my research the Civil War was different in that a Confederate regiment/brigade could camp for weeks in one place and the soldiers got to know the locals pretty well. Even a Confederate Brigade in Pennsylvania. The PA militia did not harass because it was known that Confeds "were under control".

This would not hold true for Sherman's torches. The only people the knew were the GA militia.

[JCBreckenridge]

“I don’t agree, I think a united Democrat candidate in 1860 had a fighting chance.”

That’s not what the electoral numbers say. Go, look up the birth state of presidents from Grant onwards and you’ll see the point.

[John S Mosby]

That would be the current crop of the completely “flipped” politics from lincoln’s time, and appealing to the “white guilt” repubs— but it does not wash with Southern conservatives. Democrats, N and South were always on the federal money bandwagon to milk the money-even as they contained it. A continuous Progressive line from the “anti-slavery” post-Lincoln (after Stanton et al murdered him-an opinion) right through to FDR then to LBJ and Great Society. DC elites always invoke lincoln when the SHTF. But recall they also tried to paint this useful idiot obamaumao as 1.)Reagan, and 2.) FDR and even a little Teddy R! before they made him lincoln to punch all the right racialist buttons, with Spielberg/Hollywood help. Commies everyone of them. LOL!

You see, the issue was always labor capital (and who would provide it) and it was a change in plantation owners which was envisioned and intended by the Union— the growing industrial oligarchs (railroads, carpetbaggers, thieves, scalawags, liars) who were to shape the West and beyond AND they wanted to control the agricultural South. And they did- and what did the South get for their ruination? The logical conclusion to all this as these powers moved to a “globalist” frontier, would be to put everyone who remains on the gubmint plantation, in lieu of actually keeping our production in the US, and make EVERYONE dependent for a vote, and anything to maintain power in the one enslaving party— a ruling class.

For example: The entire intent of amnesty for illegals is to continue to fund the ponzi social security apparatus for a “non-working” lazy elite, by bringing in yet another labor class to milk (assumedly Mexican, but back in the 1870s it was chinese coolies and Irish). Oh, and also provide money to the bankrupted (by the same elite) social security trust fund and its IOUS— which w/out the illegals fake SS contributions would have already busted.

The mackdaddy obamaumao is the monkey to the globalist/Progressive organ grinders (and, you may recall the monkey had the tin cup for “donations”).

We must ALL resist and not rise to this sophistic “MEME” you have posted— it’s purpose is diversionary, and part of an oft-used tactic of the Comintern (the black-white schism MUST be maintained to continue the chaos of Cloward-Piven, and not keep our eye on the real events)especially through the elite ivy league “history” departments, with tenured indoctrinated useful idiots.

Want to fight this new “slavery”? Then resist— find common ground with black and white, and all who love Freedom, true conservatives (cultural, financial, social). People who refuse dependency over FREEDOM. That coalition is one the socialists fear the most. Refuse the Statists, and de-fund them.

Deo Vindice.

[John S Mosby]

As i say- will be interesting to read the new information in June, documented— for balance to Hood. Included is his detailed medication records from the CSA surgeon (said to show he was NOT a laudanum addict). These were desperate times, and communications were abysmal. The written communications will shed some light on this hopefully.

Hood was being told what to do by Davis, who also had serious altercations with Johnston (and one cannot discount the politics of Johnston’s replacement with R.E. Lee who had Hood as Division commander under Longstreet in Army of NVA, Hood having prior served as a brigadier under Johnston in the Peninsula campaign, and Johnston severely wounded at Seven Pines). Lot of interwoven parts and politics.

One of the most interesting things to realize is that the largest city in the South was New Orleans— and yet Montgomery, AL was removed as Capitol of the South. The true money power was New Orleans. But the Virginians, who were late to secede— had the proximity to Washington, as a pressure point for military strategy. And poor Hood and his wife and one child died of yellow fever in New Orleans and left 10 other orphaned children. Truly a tragic ending.

Cleburne was a native Irishman who wanted to be a doctor in Ireland, emigrated to Arkansas and became a lawyer—and a brave man whose blood was up. If he had not
stormed the abatis and survived— imagine his impact post war. His is also, quite a story and sad.

[x]

I was going to use the phrase "blood in the water" in my last post, but couldn't work it in. A strong, united Democratic party would have performed better in 1860 than the divided party did. They could have carried not just California, Oregon, and New Jersey, but also New York or Illinois and Indiana, especially if they portrayed themselves as the party of union. But that wasn't to be. Tempers and animosities had already become too inflamed.

I think it's likely that the fire-eaters did recognize that the party split would doom the Democrats chances and the resulting Republican victory would spark secession. Another thing to take into account, though, was the possibility that no candidate would win a majority of electoral votes. In that case, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives. Each state would have only one vote.

Since there were almost as many slave states as free states and the Breckenridge faction was strong in states like Oregon and California, the Southern Democrats might have seen some hope in this. If the election did go to the House and Breckenridge prevailed with a minority of the popular vote we would likely have seen a very different commotion and uproar in 1860 from what happened in our own timeline.

I'm pretty sure, that the House of Representatives scenario occurred to some of the Constitutional Unionists (the John Bell supporters). Their party was positioned where the cooler heads in Congress (if any remained) could be expected to converge. I always considered Bell's bunch a no-hope fourth party, but if you think of them as the remnant of the conservative and Southern Whigs or as the successors to the American Party (the Know-Nothings) then they were actually the third party. Fillmore had won over 20% of the vote in 1856 and Bell's prospects might have looked even brighter if things came together for him.

Faced with a situation where no candidate would get a majority of the popular vote (or even perhaps of the electoral vote, leaving the election would be decided in the Senate) the Democrats splitting their own party doesn't look quite so crazy as it otherwise might. I mean, it was crazy for them to do so, but not quite as crazy as it would appear at first. And those were crazy times, and crazy people were in politics then.

Lincoln's nomination did a lot to prevent this possibility. It was a brilliant gamble. Brilliant, because nominating a candidate from Douglas's own state meant that the Republicans would have a fighting chance in the West. They could beat Douglas in his own region and possibly lock him out of the electoral college. If Seward or another Easterner had been nominated it would have been possible for Republicans to carry the Northeast and lose the Old Northwest to Douglas, and that would have made a congressional resolution much more likely. But it was a gamble because there was no guarantee that the unknown Lincoln would win either region.

[x]

It depends on who they nominated and how the campaign went. Lincoln was an unknown quality and there was a certain quotient of luck in his victory.

Also, regional politics played an important role. Lincoln checked Douglas in his own region and handily carried the Northeast.

If Seward had been nominated, a Democrat could have picked up votes in the Old Northwest. With Southern votes such a Democrat could have won. Conversely, a New Yorker like Seymour just possibly could have beaten Lincoln.

[JCBreckenridge]

I guess my point is here.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft.

9 presidents, from 1868 to 1912, everyone of them were from NY or Ohio.

Failed candidates:

Parker (New York), Seymour (Ohio), Greeley (New York), Tilden (New York),

Bryan (Illinois), Hancock (Pennsylvania), Blaine (Pennsylvania),

[Ditto]

Lots of personal tragedies in that terrible war. I had never heard of Hood losing his wife and child during the war.

Life was truly tougher back then which we must consider when making judgments on those ancestors. Even though this all happened a century and a half ago, they were just people just was we are.

But what a fascinating time for us history buffs to explore. And I'm sure (at least I hope) that there will never be an end to our arguments since that would mean that no one even gives a **** anymore. :~))

[Ditto]

Then, as a gusher of revenues from the 16th Amendment arrived, the government began to grow, and has never looked back since.

Would have been a great time to buy real estate in Washington DC. All the government (and the number of government employees) has done since then is to grow biger and bigger.