Sure they do.
Posted on 11/29/2002 7:57:37 AM PST by End The Hypocrisy
Three MAJOR civil war cinema epics are due in 2003. 1) Robert Duvall plays Robert E. Lee in Gods & Generals, out Feb. 21; 2) Jude Law portrays a jaded confederate in Cold Mountain, due Dec. 25, 2003; and 3) Tom Cruise plays a Civil War veteran who witnesses the end of a Japanese culture in The Last Samurai, due Dec. 12, 2003. Gods & Generals is replete with special effects, although director Maxwell still used more than 10,000 extras to re-create battle scenes.
(Excerpt) Read more at usatoday.com ...
Whites in the rebel army were overwhelmingly fighting for white supremacy.
The record is very clear on that. They made it very plain.
Walt
Witness the draft riots in New York City July 13-16 1863.In protest to conscription, and havinfg to fight in the abolitionist cause over 1000 blacks were killed in the rioting.
Maybe those yankees were soooo concerned for black emancipation, like the liberal northern historians want to make everyone think, they forgot to sing glory hallejuah and kiss abe lincoln's ass.
Obviously false.
US founded 1776-- 13th amendment passed 1865. Do the math.
Walt
Define 'never have lasted'. If you mean slavery would not exist in a free confederacy of today then you're probably right. Would slavery have gone on another 30 or 50 or 75 years? Quite possibly. The fact that the southern states went to great lengths to protect slavery in their state and the confederate constitution is an indication that they didn't expect it to die out soon.
Big deal. Just about every one of his generals believed in slavery. Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, every member of the cabinet, the congress and the state executives believed deeply in slavery. The opinions of the political leadership counted for more than one general, even if that general was Robert Lee.
The 50% percent figure,is at best,painting with a broad brush, and not historically accurate.
You're suggesting produce the machine and expect the demand to follow. That's backwards. Perhaps the industrial North would have produced a replacement for slavery if there had been any interest in it at all in the south.
BTW, even with the end of slavery the first successful mechanical cotton picker wasn't produced until the 1940's.
That's because you're looking at it from the Northern viewpoint. Turn it around and look at the secession declarations and speeches and writings in the south at the time and it's clear that defense of the institution of slavery was exactly why the south started their rebellion.
Slavery started in Virginia. Were those the 'northern settlers' you're talking about?
Let me see if I get this straight. Over 15,000 slaves were smuggled into New York. Importing slaves was illegal to begin with. So why not compound the risk by smuggling them into a port where it was illegal to own them rather than into a southern port where the demand was. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
Sure they do.
I'm offended by someone without the slightest understanding of the history of the period jumping on and spouting nonsense as if it were fact, when 10 minutes worth of investigation would have shown those claims to be pure bullsh*t. Don't you do any thinking for your self, comrade?
Well then, if it weren't so bad, why do you get all out of sorts when it is pointed out, correctly, that your Confederate Flag is the flag of slavery. Shouldn't bother you at all, right?
"In all this I can see but the doom of slavery. The North do not want, nor will they want, to interfere with the institution. But they will refuse for all time to give it protection unless the South shall return soon to their allegiance." - April 19, 1861, in a letter to his father-in-law, Frederick Dent.
"My inclination is to whip the rebellion into submission, preserving all Constitutional rights. If it cannot be whipped any other way than through a war against slavery, let it come to to that legitimately. If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go." - November 27, 1861, in a letter to his father.
"I never was an abolitionist, not even what could be called anti-slavery, but I try to judge fairly and honestly and it became patent in my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see peace established, I would not therefore be willing to see any settlement until the question is forever settled." - August 30, 1863, in a letter to Elihu Washburne.
"As soon as slavery fired upon the flag, it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle... there had to be an end to slavery." -In a conversation with Bismarck, 1878.
"The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United States will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true." - U.S. Grant, in his Memoirs, 1885.
You will have to provide some sources for your claims about the slave trade. The first states to abolish the slave trade were New Jersey and Rhode Island in 1787. By 1806 all states had abolished the slave trade except South Carolina (more here). South Carolina and Georgia had also blocked the banning of the slave trade at the constitutional convention in 1787. Twenty years later there was a last minute rush by Charlestonians to get as many slaves in as they could. After the prohibition of slave trade on January 1, 1808, there were some renegade Americans who illegally brought slaves to South America, but most of the illegal slavers weren't Americans.
Most Americans today would probably admit that slavery, the slave trade and our racial problems were a national problem and not to be blamed on one region or another. I think they'd also recognize that the Confederacy, organized in large part to protect slavery and the society organized around it, doesn't escape this reproach, and indeed, that it represented the wrong path to take for the future.
Since the Constitution doesn't mention secession, it's hard to tell what the framers would have thought of it. It's entirely possible that, had the Southern political elites conducted themselves more responsibly, the country would have split up peacefully in 1861. The firing on Fort Sumter, though, quickened Northern opposition to secession. After taking up arms against the Union, there was no way that Confederates could call for a "time out" or a "do over" and claim that they wanted to "leave in peace."
It's possible to understand and sympathize with the ordinary Confederate soldier or civilian, but the glorification of the Confederate elite as supporters of freedom against tyranny won't fly. Those who promote such views project present conflicts back on the past to portray the limited federal government of the 19th century as some kind of leviathan monster. In truth the federal government of that time was a greater friend to freedom than the slave states or the Confederacy.
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