I do wish there were a flag which could be flown by Southerners as a symbol of regional pride without creating a presumption of racism.
There was a black-owned company in South Carolina a few years ago which had a great idea, IMHO. They used the Confederate flag on a line of clothing, but changed the colors of the flag to red, gold and green. What a great emblem that would have been to replace the Georgia state flag! By rendering St. Andrew’s cross in the colors of the black nationalist movement, you might perhaps create a symbol that all Southerners could embrace.
Or maybe it would have just pissed off all sides. Who knows?
As an alternative symbol of “Southern-ness,” I again nominate the Bonnie Blue Flag. All of the heritage with none of the hateful associations.
I think that Americans should forget their past, because America has been a pretty evil country throughout its entire history. First we kill Indians, british then mexicans, then more indians, then spaniards all only for land, hell in the civil war we killed a much bigger percentage of people and that was also over land. And if anyone waves a American flag or pays homage to such a country they must be a moron and I should insult them (in the pit;)). So if you have pride in America you must be evil.
The next time someone who wants to eliminate Confederate symbols compares you to a Nazi, try comparing them to the Taliban. The analogy is no less fitting and every bit as conducive to meaningful debate.
Did I say that the North was all that much more “moral,” in toto, than the South? Naw, as Asmodean points out in his own attempt to get folks riled up, an awful lot of American history is pretty damned embarassing. All we can hope for is a gradual improvement. The only good Indian is no longer a dead Indian, but it’s not like we are going to give the land back anytime soon.
However, this so-called “cause” that Confederate apologists keep harping on, “states’ rights,” was, purely, the right to hold slaves. The secession was intended to maintain that right—check all the references that fill this and a dozen other threads here. If Lincoln opposed secession only in the interest of “preserving the Union” then there was no constitutional basis for his actions. The good that came out of the Civil War, and it was, ultimately, a good war, was because the people of the North, common foot soldiers and their families, were morally opposed to slavery. The ruling class had nothing to gain from a war except arms sales and profiteering. They were brought along because the people wanted slavery to end.
Loyalty to one’s state, while it may make one all warm inside, is a foolishness based on a false possibility that the state could function as an independent unit. Few states, and none in the Confederacy, had the diverse economies needed to be truly independent in a modern world. The economy of most of the South was agricultural to an extent that the South could not have survived long, with or without the war. As I consider the Confederacy to be a monumental evil then, as far as I’m concerned, they could rot.
Yes, I would have been a firebrand abolitionist. I’m not some bleeding-heart vegan liberal; I was raised to believe a person needs to be willing to fight and die for what he believes in. If that makes me seem hard-nosed and unyielding in this discussion, then so be it.
With the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Julia’s four slaves
were set free. It is claimed in the footnotes of her Memoirs that they were not
freed until December, 1865, with the passage of the Thirteenth amendment, but this
doesn’t concur with other primary sources of the period and Missouri’s slaves were
freed in January, 1865. Grant himself noted that on a visit to White Haven in 1863,
Julia’s slaves had already scattered and were no longer on the plantation. On
extended visits to Petersburg, in 1864, Julia brought along a hired German girl to
tend to 6 year old Jesse.
So Julia Grant owned slaves but U.S. Grant didn’t?
Before the Civil War, Robert E. Lee freed most of his slaves and offered to pay
expenses for those who wanted to go to Liberia. In November 1853, Lee’s former
slaves William and Rosabella Burke and their four children sailed on the Banshee,
which left Baltimore with 261 emigrants. A person of superior intelligence and drive,
Burke studied Latin and Greek at a newly established seminary in Monrovia and
became a Presbyterian minister in 1857. He helped educate his own children and
other members of his community and took several native children into his home. The
Burkes’s letters describing their lives in Liberia show that they relied on the Lees to
convey messages to and from relatives still in Virginia, and the letters also reflect
affection for their former masters. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam004.html
Read a bit more will you please?
That is a gross oversimplification. While there is no doubt that the slavery issue was the primary cause of the split, it was not the only cause. There was also concern, for example, that the tax dollars of Southern citizens were unfairly being used to subsidize Northern industries. From the Georgia Declaration of Secession:
Now you might argue that the unfair taxation issue was a red herring, and that it was used by the wealthy slaveholders of the South to hoodwink poor whites into supporting secession. I might even agree with that argument. But the fact remains that the poor whites who made up the bulk of the Confederate Army had several clearly articulable reasons other than the slavery issue for supporting the Confederacy: [ul][li]My tax dollars are being unfairly taken from me and used to subsidize Northern industry.[/li][li]My state is at war, and I have a duty to fight for and defend my state.[/li][li]Oh, damn! I’ve been drafted![/ul][/li]
Now, should we despise our ancestors who fought (and fought valiantly) in the Confederate Army? Should we tear down their memorials and spit on their graves? Should we shred their pictures and burn their uniforms, or else hide them away in our attics?
We will not do that.
On the other hand, I would agree that we need to draw a clear line between honoring the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers (which is legitimate, IMHO) and exhaltation of the Confederate cause (which is not).
I would also agree that it is past time to furl the Confederate flag. It has been indelibly stained by its association with hate-mongers. While I think there are valid non-racist reasons for displaying the flag, it is an inescapable fact that display of the flag will be perceived as racist.
That’s the whole point. The flag has been stolen from us. I just want to take it back. Should those of us who wish to remember our heritage without glorifying slavery just roll over and play dead?
As for the causes of the the War for Southern Independence…as in all wars…just follow the money.
Well, yes. Under Missouri law, married women could own property in their own right, and she did own several slaves. If you read the rest of the site you linked to, though, (in fact, the very next question), you’ll find that Gen. Grant owned a slave for a short time, but, as the site says
“Grant freed William Jones on March 29, 1859, though he could have sold him for approximately $1,000. At this time Grant was in significant financial straits and heavily in debt, but was unwilling to sell another human being under the hammer.”
Also, please note (from that site) that if Julia did free her slaves at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, she did so of her own free will, as the Proclamation did not apply to Missouri.
As for Gen. Lee, I don’t deny that he did free most of his slaves in the 1850s. However, as the background to this note from Mary Custis explains,
When Geo. Washington Custis, Lee’s father-in-law died, Lee became executor of his will, and was given Arlington plantation, which was indebted at the time. Custis’ will instructed him to get the plantation out of debt, then free the plantation slaves. It was the slaves of Arlington that weren’t freed until 1862.
This is truly a hard thing to judge as an armchair observer. I’ll simply observe that other choices were available, and one wonders if certain principaled citizens in the seceding states might not have aborted the entire process – much in the way that one wonders and I believe rightfully judges the non-Nazi segements of German leadership --civil and military-- for not aborting… But I think this is a poor analogy so perhaps it should be dropped.
However:
I don’t believe I agree with that. But I get into this a bit below.
But on soiled symbols:
I’m glad there can be some agreement here.
Vilify, no. But oppose the such phrases as “heros”? Yes, I think so. Per Rommel, who when I was a young whippersnapper less interested in morality and more interested in excitement I rather liked, I reject the idea one should use the term hero. There is some weak analogy between Rommel and the Confederate officers such as Lee in re defense of state.
Without wishing to push this too far, one of the acts which redeems Rommel in the end was his rejection of the system, and his ultimately giving his life in attempting, too late, to abort it. Barring acts such as this, yes treason to the Confederate state, I don’t believe anyone fighting --in the final analysis-- can be fairly labelled hero.
No, I don’t believe that is the case. It’s wrong to do so without an adequate understanding of their historical context and the real choices which were before them. I agree. However, ultimately all history is for present consumption and one must also use one’s current moral understanding to come to a judgement --informed by the historical context.
That of course is, I think, quite a bit different than simplistically judging folks by our current standards and I want to be clear that I have no taste for uninformed ahistorical denunciations. Further, I do believe that based on contemporary standards, there are many reasons to critique and condemn to an extant – nota bene, I don’t believe that on one hand condemning the larger context means forgoing respect for the people in question. I believe its fully possible to respect Lee in his context while also condemning him for taking the wrong path.
Finally in re heritage and the like:
Again, I don’t want to imply a real identity between Nazism and this issue, but there is a weak analogy to be made here.
Celebrating history and heritage will probably only be successful --if one does not want to be taken as a racist seperatist-- if one takes the West German route of (a) firmly condemning the errors and admitting them (e.g. not try to equivocate about slavery) as well as grappling the difficulties of celebrating war (b) reaching into the historical archives for other symbols. I believe in fact in other threads --such as the Georgia flag thread-- have mentioned that there are other symbols available, if one wants to get seriously historical.
Well, I think I can not add much more to this discussion.
I’ve known Reeder a long time and he is not racist. He does, however, see a part of the causes of the Civil War that you are glossing over.
Yes, slavery was AN issue. It was not the only one, nor was it even the main one. Shoot, before the war, one of the concessions the Federals were willing to make was to let the slave holding states remain slave holding states. Does that sound like they were concerned with slaves rights? How about the fact that the slaves weren’t freed until 1865? If they were that concerned about slaves’ rights, why didn’t congress declare them free before the end of the war?
The point that reeder is making is that the south was assessed more tarriffs than the north, yet the lion’s share of government money went to the north. The money was flowing north with no end in sight. The south had had enough and decided to get out of the Federal government because they couldn’t change it.
I disagree. Please interject whenever you feel like it; your posts are well-considered, enjoyable and thought-provoking. You’ve twice in this thread prompted me to reevaluate/reaffirm my opinion. (Which is why I find your posts enjoyable.)
Debi please look at the cites from MEBuckner. It’s clear that slavery, while not the only concern of the Southern states, was THE issue which prompted the secessions of at least the states of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas. Certainly the legality of slavery in the South was not under immediate jeopardy at the beginning of the 1860’s, but the Abolotionist writing on the wall was quite clear, and the Southern states saw it as yet another means by which the North would place unfair (in their view) restraints on the Southern economies. The Southern states’ political leadership believed the preservation of slavery was vital to their economic interests; this is the moral decision which led to secession, and for which they are seen in a negative light by history.
However, as spoke effectively illustrated, once the wheels of secession began to turn, the conflict became a question of survival for the South, prompting difficult decisions for those who saw their homelands in peril. Those who decided to fight for their “country” should not be termed criminals for doing so.
I believe that it’s analysis like DebiJ’s which provokes disdain for Confederate… let me not say apologists— no I’m afraid that’s the only word. Minimization of the role of slavery is precisely part of the problem of denial.
While not pretending to be well read in the issue it strikes me there are several analytical errors in the statement “slavery was not even the most important” issue. This strikes me as terribly ahistorical relativism whose main aim seems to be a post-facto distancing the Confederacy from the issue of slavery.
Clearly as indicated in contemporary documents it was a terribly important issue. The most important issue on all levels, as even supposedly unconnected issues depend on the socio- economic system based on it. Now how do we understand the issue of slavery? If we understand the issue of slavery solely as the question of emancipation — which I believe is ahistorical from what I have read, as anti-slavery opinion in both South and North contained a spectrum from immediate abolition to a ‘contain it and let it die out naturally’ set of opinion — then there may be partial truth to this. In such a light, Northern reluctance to unilaterally abolish slavery should be understood as a compromise position. It is a red herring, I think, to use this as an argument that slavery was not fundamental to
However, as my parenthetical indicates, this strikes my uninformed self as fairly ahistorical. I believe the texts cited in this very thread help indicate the problem. Slavery lay at the very heart of the elite social and economic system in the South. Ergo, economic issues such as tariffs and the like go once more right to the heart of the slave system. What helped preclude effective southern economic development and response to the changes which the North was responding to was the slave system.
Firstly, factor immobility. Slave labor was not mobile to fully take advantage of new productive possibilities — legally speaking one could not shift production and labor to non- slave states. Further, slave state expansion was being locked out as part of the let it die naturally POV in the majority abolitionist circles, further locking out “slave-based” expansion. Again, note, this is based on slavery. This introduced fixed economic differences on a regional basis — not healthy for a unitary state.
Second, such changes within the South as might be required to become economically competitive seem to have run against elite interests, those interests being — yes — slave- holding interests. Then of course, there is this issue of tariffs: the South was not assessed higher tariffs, as to my knowledge the tariff system was federal and universal. As noted above, to the extent Southern socio-economic interests, or elite interests were locked in by the slave system and to the extent they were relatively non-responsive to economic change and that tariffs worked against their interests, then economic arguments on the tariff run once more back to the slave system. I don’t have any data nor am I well enough read to analyze the direction of flows of federal spending, although I don’t see this as a terribly valid reason to secede, but sounds rather like a post-facto excuse.
In the final analysis, “Southerners” fulminating against a war of “Northern Aggression” should in the final analysis thank their lucky stars the Confederacy failed and did not end up a little banana republic with a backward, morally reprehensible and economically stagnant socio- economic system – the necessary consequences of victory. (Without whitewashing unpleasant if often exaggerated post-War problems)
The other thing to keep in mind, when analyzing events, is that it isn’t always people’s actual beliefs that drive events, but the way that those beliefs are understood by other actors. What Debi said was correct…there wasn’t a great deal of sentiment in the North, or even in the Republican party, for immediate abolition of slavery. However, many of the Southern leaders believed there were. If you look at the portrayal of Lincoln in the 1860 election (or Freemont in the 1856 election, for that matter), you see that he is portrayed by the Democrats as a radical egalitarian, that the Republican party is seen to stand for the supremacy of the black man over the white man, that the Republicans support intermarriage, etc. The entire campaign was done to frighten northern voters into voting for Douglas, but it had the greater effect on popular opinion in the south. The demonization of Lincoln led to the sentiment in much of the south that “Lincoln will never be our president”, and some states threatened secession if he won the election. It’s possible that much of this was intended at the time as bluff…as a way to try to sway voters against Lincoln. However, when Lincoln was elected, many of the people who made secession threats became victims of their own rhetoric. They had succeeded in demonizing Lincoln so much, in painting the policies of the Republicans as so extreme (see the two political cartoons I referenced earlier), and in making secession such a viable alternative to a Lincoln presidency, that they found themselves forced to seceed.
I’m in total agreement with you. My efforts at discussion in other threads (which, IMHO, got parsed out of context more than once) attempted to express nearly the exact sentiment. I’d say that spoke- and xeno have taken this route also. We do, on occasion (and frustratingly) get a drive-by revisionist who makes those of us arguing that to remember aspects of the Confederacy is not the same as glorifying it or apologizing for it want to bang our heads. To risk repetitive phrasing, IMHO it’s beyond time to send the Battle Flag (or Southern Cross) or whatever to the dump heap of history. That it’s offensive to a great number of people, and that these same folks find attempts to “reclaim” any symbol of that era even more offensive, should be enough so that thoughtful Southerners to get the message and move on.
The United States and the world at large should also thank our collective lucky stars that the Confederacy failed. Would the “United States of the North” been able to successfully participate in WWI? WWII? Eliminating slavery (in the United States) was the immediate positive outcome of the C.W., but a strong U.S. is its abiding legacy.
“If often exaggerated…”? Collounsbury, I have to rely on brain cells now as I don’t have access to source material to support my memory (like a steel trap: closed and rusty) but Reconstruction was an absolutely horrible time for the vast majority of Southerners (white and black). Entire counties were disaster areas owing to looting and pillaging, first by the Northern Army, second by what I grew up calling “carpet baggers” (foreign profiteers) and “scalawags” (home-grown profiteers). As much of my “experience” in this area is family history, I’ll share another story with y’all. (Disclaimer: this illustrates one family’s experience, is not intended to suggest this family suffered more than others, and is especially not intended to suggest it suffered more than Americans with African and/or “First Peoples” heritage.)
As a child in 1865 or 1866, my wife’s great-great grandmother was shot by a Federal soldier whose unit was occupying the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. While it’s not clear whether the shooting was purposeful or accidental, the Unit commander’s posting sentries at her bedroom door to prevent her receiving medical assistance was a willful act of cruelty. Why keep the doctors away? Her father had, up to that point at least, refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance to the United States.
Yeah, I’ll echo what Ivorybill said. I am as annoyed as anyone by the revisionists who try to whitewash the Confederacy and minimize the importance of the slavery issue.
Unfortunately, its those revisionists who are most vocal and are most likely to grab media attention. They are the ones most likely to march down to the capitol steps when the flag issue comes up, waving flags and spouting off racist rants. It saddens me that this vocal minority is perceived by some to reflect the views of most white Southerners. It just ain’t so.
