Vanderbilt professor maligns UDC,Confederate Heritage in Editorial

The Tennessean ^ | 20 November 02 | Jonathan D. Farley

[Rebeleye]

Lest we forget, the Confederacy aimed to destroy the United States. Every Confederate soldier, by the mores of his age and ours, deserved not a hallowed resting place at the end of his days but a reservation at the end of the gallows. The UDC honors traitors.

[x]

The fort was built by the federal government for the defense of the nation, including South Carolina. It was bought, paid for and built by the United States government on an area sold by South Carolina. Even the ground it stood on had been created on the harbor floor out of Northern granite by the federal government.

If a husband or wife acted in a domestic dispute as South Carolina and the Confederacy did, I'd regard it as unconscionable. Defending South Carolina means holding extreme ideas of state sovereignty prevailing that go far beyond what most people would regard as reasonable, practicable or acceptable. Would Cuba be justified if it seized Guantanamo? Would a Chinese attack on Hong Kong or Taiwan be acceptable? Were India and Indonesia justified in seizing Portugese outposts by force? That libertarians defend such absolutist ideas of sovereignty is either ludicrous or appalling.

As for your fantasy, I don't think a victorious Confederacy would dwell on Chinese or Irish sufferings. If they ran true to form I suspect they'd be too busy congratulating themselves for keeping the Blacks under control. The very thought that suffrage might have been given to ex-slaves would make them shudder. If they kept pace with the modern world, they'd be too busy focusing on their own sins to stretch so far as you suggest. Free labor won out over slavery. It allows one to rises as far as one can, but everyone has to start on the ladder somewhere, usually near the bottom. I'm sure that the Irish and Chinese of the day, and their descendants now would thank God that they at least had their freedom.

[wastoute]

"free labor", I guess if you can call tenemnt living in a Northern City like New York, Boston, etc. "free labor". Or working in a coal mine where the lifespan is markedly reduced, fatalities and crippling are common. Ever wonder why the Industrialists didn't buy slaves for those jobs? Wasn't economical. If it had been there wouldn't have been a war, northerners would have had to adjust to slaves in the north. In fact, they HAD adjusted pretty well to slaves in the north. I am currently reading John Adams and was surprised to discover our 2nd President's father-in-law had slaves in BOSTON! Sure it troubled some, but not so much they killed him for it.

[GOPcapitalist]

There's a passel of 'em on FR, too.

Yourself included, Walt. The way you downplay and ignore the rampant war crimes committed by Sherman's men is apalling. You are a poor man's holocaust denier, Walt.

[WhiskeyPapa]

There's a passel of 'em on FR, too.

Yourself included, Walt. The way you downplay and ignore the rampant war crimes committed by Sherman's men is apalling. You are a poor man's holocaust denier, Walt.

As I recall, you identified @ 8 rebels who were ordered executed up in Tennessee, an area that Sherman nominally commanded. You have not been able to identify a ---single-- civilian murdered by Sherman's men who particpated in the march from Atlanta to the sea.

The record shows a small number of rapes 6-7, I believe. By any measure, Sherman's men were well behaved. This is especially true when you consider that several dozen of HIS men were murdered in cold blood by CSA forces during the march. To preclude your normal weasel quoting out of context tactics, I here mean only soldiers actually under the command of Sherman on the march from Atlanta to Savannah, Columbia and Charelston and on into North Carolina.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Industrialization was changing the face of America...

But not in the south.

"In 1840, the South had possessed 44 percent of the country's railroad mileage, but by 1850 the more rapid pace of Northern construction had droppped the South's share to 26 percent."

Industrial capacity? By 1850, "With 42 percent of the population, slave states possessed only 18 percent of the country's manufacturing capacity, a decline of twenty percent from 1840. Most alarming, nearly half this industrial capacity was located in four border states, whose commitment to southern rights was shaky."

-- "BattleCry of Freedom, James McPherson

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

Sure, where's the surprise. I should note, however, that by December 1865 every Northern state except Kentucky and Delaware had already ended slavery. So by the ratification of the 13th Amendment slavery was legal only in those states and those parts of the southern states under federal control when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

[Triple]

There are those on this thread asserting that the Union had a superior moral position regarding slavery through the course of the war for southern independence.

I'm glad you can recognize the fallacy of that position.

Since slaves were legaly owned in the Union during the war, the Union clearly had no moral superiority on the issue of slavery.

[varina davis]

But when you think of one group you think of the Declaration of Independence, and the other you think of the whip, branding iron and shackles.

Only if you're a naive idealist with no grasp of historical reality.

[Non-Sequitur]

The railraod went through Ohio and Southern agrarianism was destroyed forever.

The southern leadership of the time would have laughed at your theory. Southern society was an agrarian society and that is just the way southern leadership wanted it. They chose to invest their profits in their agrarian economy and made the conscious decision to forego industrial development. Louis Wigfall explained the southern position to William Russell of The Times shortly after the war began:

"We are an agrarian people; we are a primitive people. We have no cities - we don't want them. We have no literature - we don't need any yet. We have no press - we are glad of it…We have no commercial marine - no navy - we don't want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."

That pretty much mirrored the pre-war southern position as well. What need did they have of anything that didn't support the growing and exporting of cotton? Why did they need banks, factories, shipping lines and the like when they could get the North to do if for them? Your professor is looking back over the past hundred and forty years and looking at what had happened. The southern planter of 140 years ago looked around and wanted nothing to do with industry or the riff-raff it brought with it.

[Petronski]

Today's Confederates, who deny that the war was about slavery, are the new holocaust revisionists.

I agree with this statement as well.

Since they seem bent on renaming the Civil War, why not join in the fun and add some clarity at the same time? I like to think of it as the

The Great Slaver Rebellion of 1861

[Non-Sequitur]

But the Union never fought to end slavery. Their goal from first to last was to preserve the Union and the end of slavery was a happy outcome of that goal. I, for one, have never claimed anything different and haven't claimed any moral high ground over the south just because they launched the rebellion primarily to protect their institution of slavery. As you pointed out, slavery was legal in all southern states and four of the Northern ones.

[Ohioan]

This rant sounds like Communism, pure and simple. No one rooted in the American tradition would make some of the statements included in it.

As for the U.D.C., I refer to them specifically as one of the good and decent organizations, in contrast to the hatemongers, active in modern day America. (See How To Recognize The Bigot In The Argument.)

Men of good will can debate the question of secession. But only one with hate in his heart would so impugn the honor and motives of so many fine Americans. It is not treason to have a different understanding and belief as to the permanency of an institution, or as to where primary allegiance lies.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[usadave]

It and the Confederate flags surrounding it represent nothing less than a death threat against scores of millions of people of color.

LOL! It takes quite an imagination to come up with a line like that.

[x]

True, they did have slaves in the North in the 18th Century, but well before 1860, those states had abolished slavery, and it never caught on in most of the North (we can quibble about the Border states, but most people regarded them as Southern states, though they did not join the rebellion).

A recent book documents the use of slaves in the hard and often dangerous work of railroad building. The theory is that slaves were too valuable to be used in dangerous work. The reality is that when there wasn't money to pay free laborers, Southern railway builders could rent out slaves for less money. I don't understand the economics, but there were close to four million slaves, and they weren't all highly priced workers or particularly valued by their owners. Slaves were also employed in heavy industry. And there were dreams of using slave labor in the mines of the Southwest.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Bump!

[billbears]

"BattleCry of Freedom, James McPherson

Tell us Walt. What raw materials were being produced in the north? Does McPherson know? Does McPherson care? Or is his urge to present the slave or any downtrodden as members of the proletariat overwhelm all factual evidence of the rape of the South, its materials and its money? Got a side of Sandburg to go with that?

[wardaddy]

That was very good Varina!

[GOPcapitalist]

As I recall, you identified @ 8 rebels who were ordered executed up in Tennessee

8 civilians, Walt. One of them was my ancestor.

an area that Sherman nominally commanded.

The area was an important part of his command called his supply lines. One of his subordinate generals ordered the murders himself. There was no excuse.

You have not been able to identify a ---single-- civilian murdered by Sherman's men who particpated in the march from Atlanta to the sea.

I'll have to research it, but i'm pretty certain that several of the men who guarded the supply lines to the march had participated in stages of the march earlier in the war, and they murdered those civilians I listed previously.

The record shows a small number of rapes 6-7, I believe.

Your belief is in error, and I distinctly recall specifically naming a dozen or so rapists at least. Other posters have done the same, and as always you ignore it all.

By any measure, Sherman's men were well behaved.

History says otherwise.

This is especially true when you consider that several dozen of HIS men were murdered in cold blood by CSA forces during the march.

The shooting of a criminal looter in the act is not murder, Walt. It's home defense.

[varina davis]

Does McPherson know? Does McPherson care?

It might be added that McPherson is NOT the moral authority on the War For Southern Independence.