# Confederate sympathizers **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 10, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010 "2012-01-10T02:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/61 "2012-01-10T16:29:17Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Atlantic Monthly blogger T. Coates has done a considerable amount of writing and research on this issue: > [The Civil War Isn't Tragic - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/the-civil-war-isnt-tragic/249545/) > [The Civil War Isn't Tragic - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/04/the-civil-war-isnt-tragic/237888/) > [The Civil War Isn't Tragic, Cont. - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/the-civil-war-isnt-tragic-cont/243713/) > [The Civil War Isn't Tragic, Cont. - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/the-civil-war-isnt-tragic-cont/243791/) Thanks for the links. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/62 "2012-01-10T16:36:37Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Depravity? I fail to see how a Southern plantation owner working a black kid to death in a sugar cane field is more reprehensible than a Northern mine owner working a white kid to death in a coal mine. If you see any important moral difference between the two, you have a vivid imagination. Is this a joke? You don’t see the difference between chattel slavery and voluntary paid labor under admittedly very poor working conditions? Slaves were abused and treated as property, viewed as inferior, and deprived of all basic rights. Although conditions for [coal miners](http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/adams.industry.coal.us) were bad, they were paid, had freedom of movement, and had largely unionized by the turn of the 20th century. There is plenty of moral difference, but if you really can’t see that, I’m not sure what to tell you. > [@](#): > > Organization of Antebellum Mines > > Throughout the antebellum period, coal mining firms tended to be small and labor intensive. The seams that were first worked in the anthracite fields of eastern Pennsylvania or the bituminous fields in Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and Ohio tended to lie close to the surface. A skilled miner and a handful of laborers could easily raise several tons of coal a day through the use of a “drift” or “slope” mine that intersected a vein of coal along a hillside. In the bituminous fields outside of Pittsburgh, for example, coal seams were exposed along the banks of the Monongahela and colliers could simply extract the coal with a pickax or shovel and roll it down the riverbank via a handcart into a waiting barge. Once the coal left the mouth of the mine, however, the size of the business handling it varied. Proprietary colliers usually worked on land that was leased for five to fifteen years – often from a large landowner or corporation. The coal was often shipped to market via a large railroad or canal corporation such as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, or the Delaware and Hudson Canal. Competition between mining firms and increases in production kept prices and profit margins relatively low, and many colliers slipped in and out of bankruptcy. These small mining firms were typical of the “easy entry, easy exit” nature of American business competition in the antebellum period. > Labor Relations > > Since most antebellum coal mining operations were often limited to a few skilled miners aided by lesser skilled laborers, the labor relations in American coal mining regions saw little extended conflict. Early coal miners also worked close to the surface, often in horizontal drift mines, which meant that work was not as dangerous in the era before deep shaft mining. Most mining operations were far-flung enterprises away from urban centers, which frustrated attempts to organize miners into a “critical mass” of collective power – even in the nation’s most developed anthracite fields. These factors, coupled with the mine operator’s belief that individual enterprise in the anthracite regions insured a harmonious system of independent producers, had inhibited the development of strong labor organizations in Pennsylvania’s antebellum mining industry. In less developed regions, proprietors often worked in the mines themselves, so the lines between ownership, management, and labor were often blurred. > Early Unions > > Most disputes, when they did occur, were temporary affairs that focused upon the low wages spurred by the intense competition among colliers. The first such action in the anthracite industry occurred in July of 1842 when workers from Minersville in Schuylkill County marched on Pottsville to protest low wages. This short-lived strike was broken up by the Orwigsburgh Blues, a local militia company. In 1848 John Bates enrolled 5,000 miners and struck for higher pay in the summer of 1849. But members of the “Bates Union” found themselves locked out of work and the movement quickly dissipated. In 1853, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company’s miners struck for a 2½ cent per ton increase in their piece rate. This strike was successful, but failed to produce any lasting union presence in the D&H’s operations. Reports of disturbances in the bituminous fields of western Pennsylvania and Ohio follow the same pattern, as antebellum strikes tended to be localized and short-lived. Production levels thus remained high, and consumers of mineral fuel could count upon a steady supply reaching market. Sounds exactly like slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/63 "2012-01-10T16:38:02Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > What rock are you guys crawling out from? This is too personal for Great Debates. Please attack the arguments without attacking the person making them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/64 "2012-01-10T16:57:18Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > A person can be very much against slavery but not think it’s the government’s job to stop it, but a grass roots movement, a change of heart of the people. Except that slavery was a legal status, authorized and recognized by government and requiring government enforcement. Anyone with sufficient force and insufficient humanity could kidnap or entrap laborers for his farm. It happens occassionally to this day in this country. :eek: What makes that not-slavery now, and what made slavery slavery then, is what happens when an unpaid farm worker guarded by armed men manages to escape a private farm.\* Then, he would have been dragged back there by the sheriff or by federal marshals. Now, he wouldn’t be. Slavery doesn’t exist without government sanction and thus cannot be completely eliminated without government action, if only a repeal law that relieves law enforcement of any duty to return escaped slaves. \*In contrast to prison farms staffed by duly-convicted prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eugene_of_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/65 "2012-01-10T17:28:27Z")
I’m a “born and raised” southerner. All my peeps all the way back to jolly ole England are/were southerners. Deep South - Georgia and Carolinas. I have never met anyone that resented having slavery ownership rights revoked. Not even close. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/66 "2012-01-10T17:30:29Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > I’m not referring to the Negroes voting; I’m referring to farms and houses being burned to the ground and I’m referring to southerners not being left with the means to earn a living. The opening of a thread like this one denigrates the south. We go over this confederate is evil stuff time after time; get over it. The destruction of the South was nothing as compared to the destruction of Germany in WW II. Does Dresden ring a bell? And I’m so sorry the North was mean to a region full of traitors. If you visit Berlin today, you will see the Holocaust Museum in the very center of the city, just steps from the Brandenburg Gate, with a stunning sculpture above ground and a fine and heart-rending museum below ground, one that focuses on the people who suffer. This site is also where the Bunker was - that gets a tiny sign in basically a patch of dirt. If the South were like Germany, no states would raise the battle flag, only a fringe of loonies would fly it on their trucks, and there would be a large and well maintained museum of slavery in Richmond, giving the stories of the suffering of the slaves. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/67 "2012-01-10T17:37:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Self-government at the county level, self-government at the national level – it’s not all the same, but it’s all **equally** self-government. The colonies wanted more sovereignty from Britain. The South wanted more sovereignty from the Union. The difference is the colonies won, while the South lost. If the colonies had lost, the sentiment for more sovereignty from Britain wouldn’t have faded. Just because the South lost, there is no reason that desire for more sovereignty from the Union will fade. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/68 "2012-01-10T18:02:17Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > But only the right of white people, right? What rock are you guys crawling out from? I believe the US was founded on such a principal. All men are created equal was their declaration while still having slaves and still enforcing unfair concessions from the natives. So there is no contradiction, the US was founded only for the rights of while people, blacks and Native Americans were not really included. With such a belief system the US colonists felt justified breaking away from England and forming their own country. There should be no lesser expectation from any part of the US that sees the same level of oppression and unjust government. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/69 "2012-01-10T18:04:10Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > Except that slavery was a legal status, authorized and recognized by government and requiring government enforcement. Good point ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/70 "2012-01-10T18:08:14Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If the colonies had lost, the sentiment for more sovereignty from Britain wouldn’t have faded. Of course it would have. The Loyalists would have ended up running things instead of fleeing to Canada. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/71 "2012-01-10T18:21:44Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > Point 1- Your fine upstanding ancestors started a war in order to preserve the right to own people aka "animate property. It sure sucks that war meant burning and killing. Seems like that war might have been a bad idea in the long run. But you have nobody to blame but your predecessors who thought it was worth it to keep the right to own human beings like one owns chickens. > > Point 2- I, at least, and I’m willing to bet the majority of us, would be MORE than happy to get over it. Most of us are over it. However, many of your regional fellows continue to fly the banner that THE VAST MAJORITY OF FOLKS CALL THE CONFEDERATE FLAG and sing songs about how “If the south would have won we’d have had it made” and other hocum. They found websites defending the existance of a nation-state built on the sole purpose of holding onto slaves. If nobody flew the stars and bars again starting right now, it would hurt nobody. But folks continue to do so, and those people, like it or not, often romanticise the ante-bellum south, and hold onto the antiquated idea that Negros are less human than they are. > > We’ll be more than happy to get over it, as soon as you folks do. My ancestors did not start the war. I don’t know if any of my ancestors owned slaves nor do you. I don’t own a confederate battle banner; I’ve never owned such a banner nor have i ever flown or displayed such a banner and I don’t give a damn how many people call it the confederate flag. The fact is that it isn’t or wasn’t the confederate flag and saying it’s okay to call it that because a lot of people do simply proves that a lot of people don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Personally, I am over it. You and your ilk are not. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/72 "2012-01-10T18:22:09Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There has been a strain of political thought in the U.S. going back even before the Articles of Confederation, that emphasizes the right to self government. What’s the difference in a law enacted by Washington versus a law enacted in Albany? Does anyone really think that a state law is better than a federal law just because of where it originated? How is a state any more self-government than a country? To me, everyone who’s crying for states rights is just upset because their political faction isn’t in power at the national level. Let them gain power over the federal government and they’ll drop the states rights platform in a heartbeat. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/73 "2012-01-10T18:23:53Z")
While the war was undoubtedly about slavery in part, that doesn’t mean that it was just about slavery, or even mainly about slavery. Though it’s not hard to see why it would get the most attention. The fact is that there were questions about how much power the federal government had over the states long before the war, and having nothing to do with slavery. In northern Georgia, in the late 1820s, if I recall correctly, war almost happened due to Georgians wanting to mine for gold/silver in the western part of the state, but the U.S. had told the Cherokees that there land was off limits to whites. Naturally, sadly, the Cherokee came out on the losing end of that. The larger point is that one can hold that states’ rights were an important and noble issue and that slavery was a disgusting part of our history. From what I’ve read, most southerners didn’t even own slaves, but they didn’t want the feds to be able to tell them what they could and could not do. Regardless, if it took that horrific war to end the vile practice, so be it. Even if states’ rights took a big hit. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/74 "2012-01-10T18:32:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > While the war was undoubtedly about slavery in part, that doesn’t mean that it was just about slavery, or even mainly about slavery. Though, of course, it was about slavery and nothing else, every serious historian supports this, and denying this is itself a form of apologism for slavery/the Confederacy/present-day racism, on par with creationism in both its igorance of academic consensus among qualified people and in the ridiculous motivations for making the denial (also, usually believed in by the same people). ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/75 "2012-01-10T18:38:50Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The colonies wanted more sovereignty from Britain. > > The South wanted more sovereignty from the Union. > > The difference is the colonies won, while the South lost. > > If the colonies had lost, the sentiment for more sovereignty from Britain wouldn’t have faded. > > Just because the South lost, there is no reason that desire for more sovereignty from the Union will fade. The south wanted more **control** over the Union. Abolition was still a long way off at the start of the Civil War. What ticked off the South was the thought that they could not force the Northern states to return slaves. The fact that Northern states wanted to make all slaves who entered their territory free a much more immediate issue than the the possibility of abolishing slavery. The South dominated the federal government for much of the first 100 years. The election of Lincoln was significant to the South not because of what Lincoln stood for, but because he was elected without a single Southern elector. This did not mean abolish around the corner as it would be long time before there were enough free states to constitute 3/4 of all states as would be required for a new Amendment. But it would only take a few judges appointed to the Supreme Court to overturn Dredd Scott. > [@magellan01](#): > > The larger point is that one can hold that states’ rights were an important and noble issue and that slavery was a disgusting part of our history. From what I’ve read, most southerners didn’t even own slaves, but they didn’t want the feds to be able to tell them what they could and could not do. Regardless, if it took that horrific war to end the vile practice, so be it. Even if states’ rights took a big hit. Except that the Southerners did not support more states rights. They explicitly wanted to curtail them. The only state right they support was one that was not threatened. That being the right to own slaves. The Confederate Constitution did not support states rights and general states rights were not listed as a cause in any declaration of secession that I am aware of. The states right issue is a post Reconstruction justification. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/76 "2012-01-10T19:05:50Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > While the war was undoubtedly about slavery in part, that doesn’t mean that it was just about slavery, or even mainly about slavery. Though it’s not hard to see why it would get the most attention. The fact is that there were questions about how much power the federal government had over the states long before the war, and having nothing to do with slavery. Check out the [CSA Constitution](http://www.usconstitution.net/csa.html). It gave _more_ power to the CSA federal government than the US. One that stands out is that it expressly forbidding laws restricting or impairing the right to own slaves (Article 1, section 9.4). And also explicitly requires that new states MUST allow and preserve slavery as it existed in the rest of the CSA (Article 4, Section 3.3). And actually, it has an entire section devoted to rights DENIED individual states (Article 1, Section 10). Otherwise, it’s very much like the US Constitution. In other words, states’ rights didn’t seem to pre-occupy them very much. It’s basically the same federal form of government from the US with an explicit acceptance of slavery. Even if a state wanted to join the CSA without slavery, it would not be allowed to do so. How is that States’ Rights? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/77 "2012-01-10T20:16:06Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Depravity? I fail to see how a Southern plantation owner working a black kid to death in a sugar cane field is more reprehensible than a Northern mine owner working a white kid to death in a coal mine. If you see any important moral difference between the two, you have a vivid imagination. Let me be another person who strongly disagrees with you. While a miner’s life may indeed suck he has **hope** that he–or his children–will have a better life. Miners were allowed to get an education and learn to read. If they were lucky enough to find a better opportunity they were (usually) free to grab it. A slave had almost no hope, outside of insurrection. A scant few might earn their freedom or be released when their master died but that was largely outside of their control (and they always had to worry about it being revoked). It was generally illegal to learn to read and write and every part of one’s life could be controlled, including who you married and had children with. Slaves were routinely separated from their families. If you can’t see a moral difference between the two then you lack any imagination whatsoever to put yourself in other’s shoes. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/78 "2012-01-10T20:49:26Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > My ancestors did not start the war. I don’t know if any of my ancestors owned slaves nor do you. I don’t own a confederate battle banner; I’ve never owned such a banner nor have i ever flown or displayed such a banner and I don’t give a damn how many people call it the confederate flag. The fact is that it isn’t or wasn’t the confederate flag and saying it’s okay to call it that because a lot of people do simply proves that a lot of people don’t know what the hell they are talking about. Personally, I am over it. You and your ilk are not. Sounds like you’re not a member of the group being addressed in this “pointless” thread, then, and have nothing in particular to contribute, nor any reason to speak on their behalf. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/79 "2012-01-10T20:53:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s the difference in a law enacted by Washington versus a law enacted in Albany? Does anyone really think that a state law is better than a federal law just because of where it originated? How is a state any more self-government than a country? The ultimate tendency of that thinking is county autonomy, then village autonomy, then individual/family autonomy to the point of anarchism – “Every yard a kingdom! Every child and dog a serf!”\* – which might have been the whole point all along. But you should not argue in that direction unless you are prepared to defend anarchism as such. - Strictly speaking, this is a motto of patriopsychotic anarchomaterialism. Praise “Bob”! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010/80 "2012-01-10T20:55:59Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > My ancestors did not start the war. They did if they were Southerners. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-sympathizers/609010.md?page=5)