These two facts are the reason why I display the Confederate flag on my profile page.
The South was unconstitutionally using the Federal government to impose unconstitutional fugitive slave laws on the Northern States.
Course slavery wasn't the only reason, and the majority of the Yankees didn't care about freeing slaves as much as they did about how much the southern economy would suffer from freeing slaves, but freedom of slaves was a result that occured sooner because of that war.
Without getting into the particulars of the war and its runup, can one meaningfully talk about secession being consistent with the "consent of the governed" when no one asked the slaves for their consent? One imagines that they in particular would be the least desirous of leaving the Union, although we'll never know because (I assume) they had no representation in Southern governance. (Even if they had little to any in the North, it wasn't the North that was voting to change the sovereign.)
Of all of the arguments offered in sympathy for the South (and there may be good ones for all I know), this strikes me as the strangest.
You (and many liberal blacks) can play all the games you want with the fact that Lincoln for political reasons couldn't come out and announce himself an aboloitionist, that Lee freed his slaves, or any other interesting historical nuances you might want to missuse.
The fact is that the South so viewed Lincoln (of "House Divided" fame) as anti-slavery, that it was LINCOLN'S ELECTION which was the event which precipitated the seccession of southern states. Lincoln and his party opposed the expansion of slavery and many in his party wanted it eliminated. Lincoln could not, in an effort to save the Union, announce his truest feelings. But Lincoln eventually emancipated all confederate slaves (and yes he did free them, with the Union Army). And slavery was obviously doomed along with the confederacy.
You can raise the fact that Lee was not a big advocate of slavery. That and many other details make the Civil War facinating. But whatever the confederate soldier fought for in his heart, that war was caused by, and was about, slavery. The Civil war without slavery - it would never have happened.
NOw it is true that the North was fighting to preserve the Union not end slavery but the South was definitely (unless their leaders were unmitigated liars) fighting to preserve the institution and ONLY to preserve the insitution.
So many dumb lies so little time.
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. -- Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the confederacy, March 1861
Mr. Hunt has absolutely no idea of what he is talking about.
Freedom of the slaves came about because it was an effective way to harm the Southern fighting forces, not [with most Northerners] because of any moral considerations.
Thanks for scanning and posting this one; I considered doing so myself.
If slavery was not the issue- then why does every CSA state's declaration of secession mention it as the chief reason for secession? As THE reason. Stop it. This is pathetic revionism. There is an argument to be made about the illegality of Lincoln's war- but to say that slavery was not the prime cause of the Civil War or the War of Southern Independence is utter nonsense.
These two facts are the reason why I display the Confederate flag on my profile page.
What distinguishes war from peace is that people come to think of their whole society and way of life as threatened. The way that one group sees another as a threat explains why most people fight, but it doesn't explain why there was a war or why the people of one group came to view the other as an enemy and a menace.
Southerners fought for noble causes, not slavery.
What he ignores is that for some in 1860, slavery was a noble cause. While some secessionist leaders regarded it as a necessary evil, others regarded it as a positive good, a blessing and the basis of higher civilization. That isn't the whole story either, but leaving it out distorts our view of the war and its causes.
Had everyone in the past had the same ideas of nobility, freedom, justice and civilization that we share now, wars would have been far less common. The fact that their ideas of what such words meant differed from our own goes a long way to explaining past disputes.
A lot of people assume that the rebels were basically like conservatives today. But consider, in spite of our difficulties and disagreements today, we do manage to live and work together as a nation. That this wasn't possible in 1860 indicates how deep a gulf exists between our present situation and that of Lincoln's day.
The writer should take the time to read the Secession Resolutions of the Confederate States if she thinks Jeff Davis did not raise an Army for the single purpose of defending slavery.
U.S. Grant's slave had to be freed by an act of Congress nine months after the war.
Read Grant and Slavery and you will see that the neo-Confederate propaganda, on “Grant’s Slaves’ like most other neo-Confederate ‘facts”” is overblown myth.
Grant owned one slave in his life for a period of about a year. It appears that the slave was a ‘gift’ from his father-in-law. Grant freed him in 1859. He owned no slaves during the war.
The unstable Tecumseh Sherman was arrested on several occasions for physical abuse of his slaves.
I have never seen one suggestion that Sherman ever owned a slave, ever beat a slave or was ever arrested for any offense. If you can provide any source for that, please do, but I suppose that this is simply another enduring Myth of the Confederacy.
Now as far as a Civil War General who appears to have been involved in some severe and brutal slave beating, I offer this account from the book, "Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, and Interviews, and Autobiographies," edited by John W. Blassingame. It is published by Louisiana State University Press.
"My name is Wesley Norris; I was born a slave on the plantation of George Parke Custis; after the death of Mr. Custis, Gen. Lee, who had been made executor of the estate, assumed control of the slaves, in number about seventy; it was the general impression among the slaves of Mr. Custis that on his death they should be forever free; in fact this statement had been made to them by Mr. C. years before; at his death we were informed by Gen. Lee that by the conditions of the will we must remain slaves for five years; I remained with Gen. Lee for about seventeen months, when my sister Mary, a cousin of ours, and I determined to run away, which we did in the year 1859; we had already reached Westminster, in Maryland, on our way to the North, when we were apprehended and thrown into prison, and Gen. Lee notified of our arrest; we remained in prison fifteen days, when we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away; we frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson we never would forget; he then ordered us to the barn, where, in his presence, we were tied firmly to posts by a Mr. Gwin, our overseer, who was ordered by Gen. Lee to strip us to the waist and give us fifty lashes each, excepting my sister, who received but twenty; we were accordingly stripped to the skin by the overseer, who, however, had sufficient humanity to decline whipping us; accordingly Dick Williams, a county constable, was called in, who gave us the number of lashes ordered.Lee did not free any slaves until 1862 when he was forced to under the terms of his father-in-law’s will.Gen. Lee, in the meantime, stood by, and frequently enjoined Williams to 'lay it on well,' an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. After this my cousin and myself were sent to Hanover.