# Neo Confederates and Revisionist Civil War History **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821 "2010-04-12T11:32:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/121 "2010-04-14T02:21:58Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Regardless of whether or not the South seceded, Slavery was already becoming economically unviable (cotton could be obtained cheaper from India) and would have had to go in reasonably short order anyway. Don’t be so sure. Cultural biases often hinder economically rational decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/122 "2010-04-14T02:22:45Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > the South to in the end even began recruiting slaves as soldiers. I don’t think “recruiting” is the right word for making slaves fight in a war. The usual word is “impressment,” I think. Anyway it sounds like there were very few black soldiers in the Confederate army, perhaps a few hundred. And only a small fraction of those actually fought. Most were servants. (What, you think an army fighting for slavery is going to trust their slaves with guns?) [From a current discussion of that topic.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12318348#post12318348) ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/123 "2010-04-14T02:29:31Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > You know, countless times throughout our history States Rights have been invoked in order to PROMOTE the cause of liberty. Yet the only significant use of states rights to suppress liberty was by defenders of slavery. Boy, this is just patently silly. States have time and again been overruled by the US Supreme court when they tried to limit the freedom of citizens, with segregation being the most obvious. The US Supreme court also prohibited states from preventing women from obtaining abortions, from imposing teacher-led prayer in public school, from requiring students such as Seventh Day Adventists to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and many, many other cases. It was the US Supreme Court, not the individual states, that required that those arrested be provided an attorney and informed of their right to refuse questioning. And just what is it about having laws defined at the state level that leads to more freedom than being enacted at the federal level? Our history shows the opposite to be true. The term states rights is heavily tied to those who want to restrict freedom, not those who want to advance it. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/124 "2010-04-14T02:33:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Don’t be so sure. Cultural biases often hinder economically rational decisions. My understanding is that slaves were seen as an “investment”; they were fed, clothed, given shelter etc so they could work for their owners and make them a profit. But if there was no profit to be had- if Cotton could be sourced from India for far less than it could be grown and picked in The South- then the reasons for keeping slaves, for the most part, disappear. I realise it’s not quite that simple, but I’ve often argued that regardless of who won the Civil War, Slavery was going to end before the 19th Century did anyway. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/125 "2010-04-14T02:37:14Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Which is true. In 1860 had the South not seceded there would have been no abolition for a while. What most Northerners wanted was the Free states gradually outnumbering the slave ones and thus for abolition to happen. However when the South seceded the North until in the middle of the war conducted the war in the name of the Union rather than to abolish slavery and the South to in the end even began recruiting slaves as soldiers. This is your first accurate post in this entire thread. Congratulations. You will note, however, that the secession occurred over the issue of slavery. As was [already posted earlier in the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12331196#post12331196): > [@](#): > > The South seceded in order to preserve and maintain slavery while the North fought to preserve the Union. Without slavery, there was no secession, and without secession, there was no war. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/126 "2010-04-14T02:39:42Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I realise it’s not quite that simple, but I’ve often argued that regardless of who won the Civil War, Slavery was going to end before the 19th Century did anyway. I think you’re wrong about this. I think the social order would have kept it alive, and even if plantation cotton farming wasn’t feasible anymore, that doesn’t mean slavery would have been outlawed and gone away. It means it would have shifted and been used for other purposes. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/127 "2010-04-14T02:41:06Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think you’re wrong about this. I think the social order would have kept it alive, and even if plantation cotton farming wasn’t feasible anymore, that doesn’t mean slavery would have been outlawed and gone away. It means it would have shifted and been used for other purposes. Isn’t that pretty much what happened anyway? The only difference was that after the Civil War, the (former) slaves were being paid. Sort of. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/128 "2010-04-14T02:45:37Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Isn’t that pretty much what happened anyway? I suppose it is. I was thinking a little further down the line and supposing that in time they would have eventually had slaves working in factories instead of in the fields. Regardless I don’t think it would have been gone by 1900. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/129 "2010-04-14T02:55:02Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I suppose it is. I was thinking a little further down the line and supposing that in time they would have eventually had slaves working in factories instead of in the fields. Regardless I don’t think it would have been gone by 1900. I was under the impression one of the (many) reasons the South lost the Civil War was because they didn’t have an industrial base- ie, there weren’t many factories there at all. I’m still of the opinion that even without a civil war, social and economic pressure would have brought an end to Slavery- the British Empire, for example, had completely outlawed it some 30 years earlier, basically because they’d realised it was a pretty shitty, Un-Christian thing to still have. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/130 "2010-04-14T03:24:42Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I was under the impression one of the (many) reasons the South lost the Civil War was because they didn’t have an industrial base- ie, there weren’t many factories there at all. That’s correct. I’m saying that if there had been no war and plantation slavery had become unworkable, they would have eventually industrialized and put the slaves to work in factories. Slavery might have changed but I think it would have been very slow to go away entirely and might have lasted a very, very long time in limited circumstances (like domestic servants) because Southern whites were in charge, and had used racism to justify slavery, and would not have been quick to give up the view that they should be in charge. > [@](#): > > I’m still of the opinion that even without a civil war, social and economic pressure would have brought an end to Slavery- the British Empire, for example, had completely outlawed it some 30 years earlier, basically because they’d realised it was a pretty shitty, Un-Christian thing to still have. And it was. But the American South didn’t appear to be anywhere close to that realization and I don’t see the evidence it was coming. The UK and the US banned the slave trade at the same time, but while the UK banned slavery 25 years later, it was alive and well in the Southern US in the 1860s and didn’t appear to be going anywhere. There were more than four million slaves at the time of the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/131 "2010-04-14T08:26:01Z")
Violence wasn’t the only way of motivating a slave. The slave owner might promise freedom or promise to buy a member of the family if a slave cooperated. That doesn’t mean that the slave owner was being honest. But it had to happen often enough to keep the slaves hopeful and believing that it could happen. Physical beatings were the least desireable way to punish a slave because it cut back on that slaves productivity. And outright killing a slave was very costly since slaves were so valuable. They were a luxury. I just hate writing in that terminology. One thing we can agree on. They were never owned. That was an illusion. > [@](#): > > **BrainGlutton** : The idea that slavery was justified because it was necessary to support the South’s genteel, aristocratic civilization even had a name at the time: The Mudsill Theory. (And it has survived in various forms, less baldly stated, to this day.) But don’t forget that the South’s genteel, aristocractic residents were a minority of the white settlers. The Mudsill Theory allows for suppression of the majority of the white population as well as the slaves. > [@](#): > > **you with the face** : A lot of Nazi officers were probably nice guys too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some who actively chose not to participate with the death camp killing, and elected to be on the frontlines of battle instead. But do you see anyone pointing to their existence as if to deflect blame and criticism everytime WWII is discussed? Yes. Over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/132 "2010-04-14T12:38:08Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Isn’t that pretty much what happened anyway? The only difference was that after the Civil War, the (former) slaves were being paid. Sort of. Yes, many of the former slaves became sharecroppers. But not all sharecroppers were black. [The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture](http://www.amazon.com/White-Scourge-Mexicans-American-Crossroads/dp/0520207246/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271247310&sr=1-15) is a fine study of the state were things were even more complicated. But I still think there’s a pretty big difference between sharecropping and chattel slavery–knowing you had little hope of freedom for yourself or your children. After slavery, blacks could move to the cities. Even southern cities (like my own) offered opportunities for those who worked hard & valued education. Or they could go North–where the racism was expressed a bit more politely. The Southern Slavocrats seceded to preserve Their Way of Life. The North fought to preserve the Union. But the result of that bloody war was the end of slavery in my country. Even if most of my ancestors didn’t cross the water until years later, I’m always glad to see [Juneteenth](http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/JJ/lkj1.html) celebrations. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/133 "2010-04-14T12:43:08Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Regardless of whether or not the South seceded, Slavery was already becoming economically unviable (cotton could be obtained cheaper from India) and would have had to go in reasonably short order anyway. They could have adapted to some other enterprise. Slaves were used in factories and coal mines. There’s no reason to assume that they wouldn’t have been able to plug slaves into other rackets. And there was more being grown than just cotton. Lousiana was doing pretty well with its sugar plantations. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/134 "2010-04-14T12:54:42Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Yes. Over and over again. Never have I seen any such defenses on this board, though. Never in regular discussions about the Holocaust or WWII. Maybe on neo-Nazi forums, will you see someone extoll the “good” Nazis who might have not been cruel enough to gas any of the Jews or Gypsies, yet were still fighting alongside the ones who were. I’ll grant you that. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/135 "2010-04-14T16:06:41Z")
> [@jrodefeld](#): > > Lincoln’s soldiers and agents raped women, burnt courthouses, burnt homes and destroyed and robbed banks. And despite that, they were substantially more humane than the Confederate cavalry, which raped and executed civilians _first_. I’ve _never_ understood the hypocrisy by which the South orchestrated bushwhacking, raiding, ambuscade, robbery, and plunder, then got all huffy about Sherman’s March years later. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > After Lincoln died, the Supreme Court unanimously condemned what he did. Everything? All of it? Was it, like, a _really long_ majority opinion? Or if you mean they condemned a specific act of his, well, you’d think you could type it out for us, much less cite it. > [@jrodefeld](#): > > Lincoln gave absolutely no thought to the notion of slavery as a cause for the war. Okay, now I know you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. Lincoln was as aware as anyone that the South seceded to preserve slavery. Since Lincoln was of the (widely held and reasonably supportable) opinion that secession, by breaking up the country, constituted an act of war on that country _in and of itself_, it is quite clear from even a cursory reading of his words and acts that he knew slavery “caused” (as in, was the reason it happened) the war. To say otherwise is pure spin. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/136 "2010-04-14T16:18:49Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > and the South to in the end even began recruiting slaves as soldiers. Well, if you mean “long after it had been suggested by Pat Cleburne and summarily rejected, and suggested by Longstreet and summarily rejected, and then disaster occurred making it clear victory was not possible, and it was suggested by Lee once more time, the Confederate Congress debated it for as long as possible, then at absolutely the last moment gave Lee grudging permission, and the effort to enroll slaves was started but sidetracked by Confederate collapse and surrender,” then yeah. But that’s not really “beginning recruiting” them at any militarily useful point; functionally, it’s more like “resolutely holding out until defeat is certain, then descending into fantasy as a way of coping.” When the issue actually hung in the balance, the Confederate government gave _no consideration at all_ to arming slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/137 "2010-04-14T16:26:30Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Some were, some weren’t. I happen to believe that some of the _most_ sterling examples of character among generals of this war were on the Southern side (Lee and Jackson), and that some of the most reprehensible were on the Northern (Sherman), but it would be silly to argue that either side’s generals were all good or all bad. Can you describe what was so great about Jackson’s _character?_ I yield to few in my admiration of his military prowess, and I even admire his strange religious madness in a way, and he’s delightfully quotable. But character? Before the war, he was a loner who was ridiculed by his students; during the war, he was a savant of battle, a ruthless disciplinarian and an aggressive, mobile leader, but also something of an obsessed weirdo. I’m not sure his “character” is something to single out about him, but I’m always willing to learn more. And what was wrong with Sherman, who tried to use economic force rather than indiscriminate killing to force peace? It’s not like the Confederates left Lawrence, Kansas alone. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/138 "2010-04-14T16:53:28Z")
There are really two separate issues here. The reason for secession and the reason for the Civil War are NOT the same. Was slavery the reason for Southern secession from the Union? Absolutely. I won’t take anyone seriously who argues otherwise. In 1861, every Confederate politician would have admitted forthrightly and proudly that secession was 100% about slavery. But was slavery the reason for the Civil War? No. Lincoln and the North could easily have said, “Goodbye, and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out,” and there’d have been no war. Jefferson Davis had no desire to invade Massachusetts or New York. The Confederacy posed no military danger to the North. And if the Southern states hadn’t seceded, there’s absolutely no chance that Lincoln would have used military force to abolish slavery, is there? So, the Civil War was not about slavery, and even Abraham Lincoln didn’t begin to pretend it was until he delivered the Gettysburg Address. The Civil War was about a government fighting to hold on to territories that wanted to go their own way. You can (and SHOULD, in my opinion) argue that Lincoln was RIGHT to fight to preserve the Union, but you can’t deny that he was the aggressor in the war. Nor can you argue that, in trying to stifle rebellion, he resorted to means that even King George III would not have used against the rebellious colonies. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/139 "2010-04-14T17:04:26Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The Civil War was about a government fighting to hold on to territories that wanted to go their own way. There’s a conflation here of “territories” and “people.” The dirt was inert. The _people_ (and not all of them, you know) made the decision to secede from the Union. It’s arguable that the correct course of action for them would have been to emigrate from US soil. In also declaring that the people alive at that moment = the state government that signed the constitution = the dirt they’re standing on, and thus the dirt has new sovereignty, they were making a fairly complex argument that in my mind is not necessarily more right than Lincoln’s argument that “the original joining into Union” made a whole sovereign entity greater than the sum of its parts, and taking territory (dirt) out of this entity was an attack on its existence in the same way chopping an arm off a person would be. On each side, “union” and “state” stood as shorthand for a lot of big, complicated ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821/140 "2010-04-14T17:12:22Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > You can (and SHOULD, in my opinion) argue that Lincoln was RIGHT to fight to preserve the Union, but you can’t deny that he was the aggressor in the war. I can deny that. When people are engaged in a rebellion or insurrection against the government, and the government takes arms to put down the insurrection, the aggressors are the insurrectionists, not the government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neo-confederates-and-revisionist-civil-war-history/535821.md?page=8)