I’m having some trouble at my new job. My boss comes from South Carolina. My coworker, I’m not sure, but the south.
Today we got into a discussion of the civil war (after work, for me). No problem. I don’t hate the South, nor do I even hate its people or leaership during the Civil War (during the run-up, is a slightly different story).
However, I started getting mad after they claimed that:
Charleston was never surrendered. (it did, Febuary 18th, 1865)
The seccession was legal. :rolleyes:
Invoking the founding father to say they’d al support the south.
Accusing Sherman of being a monster and genocidal killer. :rolleyes:
Claimed we were using Total War in Iraq. I was a little :dubious: at this, and asked if she understood what the term meant. She was quite PO’d at that. I may have been a little out of line but I was taken aback and honestly a little confused, as the assertion made no sense.
Declared that the north was all murderers.
I can only hope I don’t get fired for expressions opinions (and being able to back them up) which differ.
I was happy to talk about the Civil War, even to discuss the causes or compare leaders. But to claim the south was some innocent jewel (a bad habit I’ve seen in many southerners) except for y’know, the entire way fo life being based around slavery, or to claim that they were obviously innocently defending themselves because obviously Lincoln had no right to take Fort Sumter - that’s just beyond the pale.
The ironic part was that I said I wished Sherman had been able to start his march through South Carolina earlier in the war. This was met with shock and horror and being accused of hoping her ancestors would die. Which missed the point: I wanted the war to end sooner so fewer of ANYONE would die.
:mad:
I’m soryr. I know this doesn’t really meet pit standards of cursing or inventiveness or a cool story.
When ever I get into one of those discussion I just point out how they were all traitors and losers and all the confederates hated America.
Then I keep emphansising loser, because that is the most onerous.
The rest of it, dumb. But there’s a reason why people feel that way about Sherman down here, you know. Unfortunately I can’t find a picture of the aftermath in Columbia (there’s a series called the “Three Great Photographs” - basically they show a whole lot of nothing where there used to be a town) but I can assure you, whether you’re on the right side or not, it sucks when your city gets burned to the ground.
Legality, schmegality, on both the houses. It’s right if it’s moral, case closed. If you’re trying to secede from an immoral state, and the resultant state would be more moral, you’re right. The South wasn’t, so it was wrong, and those who defend or oppose the justification of secession based on legal arguments are irrelevant.
South Carolina evidently got the worst of it, not entirely surprising given the state’s role in precipitating the war and its large number of diehard secessionists. The genocide stuff is nutty, but there are still cranks who don’t want to accept that the Civil War is over and that the outcome was good.
Just don’t hum “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at job evaluation sessions.
That would go well with the one I saw on my way to work. It had a confederate flag in circle with a line throught it, and said: “You lost. Get over it.”
I don’t know that it’s useful to talk about legality or illegality or an action like succession.
I’m pretty sure, for example, that England considered the American colonies’ actions c. 1776 to be illegal. Yet we, by declaring our independence, essentially stated that we refused to recognize England’s claim to define the law for us in this matter.
So it is with the southern states’ succession. It was illegal in the sense that the Constitution, which all states had ratified, had no provision for a state to leave the union. Furthermore, we have the long-standing principle in international law of pacta sunt servanda - a sovereign state must keep its word, once given.
But the overwhelmingly majority of sovereign states in the history of the world were born from some act which repudiated prior claims of sovereignty in violation of implicit or explicit law, and the United States herself is no exception. And we have an equally-long standing principle of international law in rebus sic stantibus - a fundamental change in circumstances permits unilateral breach of a pre-existing agreement.
What we should conclude, I think, is that “legal” and “illegal” are not useful concepts to apply here. If a nation-state declares itself sovereign and can defend that sovereignty effectively, its actions become “legal” after the fact, and its founding fathers are heros; if it cannot defend its actions, then they become “illegal” after the fact, and its would-be founding fathers are rebellious traitors.
This is simpy not a useful place to apply the criminal law model.
How do you know what’s moral and what isn’t? Who is in charge of determining the morality of a given state? Is there a meter we can buy somewhere? A Big Book o’ Morals? What?
IIRC, they happened in Atlanta because the locals didn’t like the idea of the Yanks getting their grubby mitts all over things.
Has your boss used the, “Lincoln was the first (or only) President to use the military against his own people.” line yet? That’s always a hoot, especially when you mention Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion.
The theory that seccession was legal is belied by the fact that the South itself only did so when convenient. They saw nothing wrong with the federal govenrment so long as they could control. In fact, the State’s Righters were most willing to use federal power to force other states to do as they pleased. They only cried foul when a lawfully and freely elected government (in fact, its election was hindered by Southern violence and illegal actions) would not support them… on one issue. It would not even harm them directly; it simply would not expand slavery to the territories.
Look, many southern generals and leaders were good men. But a great many others were blatant hypocrites, tyrants in power and cowards out of it, who used democracy to get power and seccession to keep it.
The South accepted the Constitution: legal ways existed for them to secede. (Constitutional Convention or Amendments) Frankly, there was a non-trivial chance they could have got it if they asked, given the bad blood and the desire of many Northerner to leave the south behind. The South worked with the Constitution when it suited them. And of course, no one among the Founding Fathers accepted the idea of secession; it was totally ahistorical.
Whenever your boss tells you to do something, tell him “Hey, you guys LOST the War to Free the Slaves. I don’t have to listen to you, my shit is Emancipated!”
or if you prefer not to be insubordinate, simply say “Yessa Massa! I collate dem copies (or whatever typical task ) fo you directly! Laws yes!” and then do a little Minstral jig while wistling Dixie.
Southerns always seem to gloss over that aspect of the Civil War.
I’m marrying a transplanted Texan, who family is from Georgia. Both of our fathers are big history buffs, particularly about the civil war. Both know a lot about their ancestors. I naively suggested this as a topic they could talk about. I thought it would be cool if they figured out if our ancestors fought at any of the same battles.
My fiance looks at me, dead serious, and says, “They didn’t march with Sherman, did they?”
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