Then the north was just as evil, most northerners were perfectly willing to overlook slavery because they feared blacks would work for less than them. Northerners by and large either ignored or endorsed(by buying slave made goods) slavery. The only reason the slaves were freed at all is because the huge amount of runaways crippled the south. Well that and making it suddenly a moral fight against the great evil:D
I think a better way to say it would be that slavery helped end the civil war. It was never really a part of it. The scession, slavery was a part of that. The civil war however was not.
**
Stone Mountain is an interesting example, if you want to symbolize the heart of the Confederacy. You mean the Stone Mountain in Atlanta, Georgia, right? The place where the KKK was reborn in 1915, because they considered it the most sacred place in the world to their cause? The mountain with the sculpture which was commissioned by Helen Plane, who asked that it depict mounted klansmen, because in her own words they “saved us from negro domination and carpetbagger rule?” Is that the Stone Mountain you mean?
Funny how the official Stone Mountain website fails to mention any of this basic and essential history. Who again is imposing their historically inaccurate and heavily biased views on who again?**
Well, if monuments are all that important to you, how many monuments are there in Northern states to the slaves who passed through them on their way to the South? Almost all the slaves who ended up in the South were sold to Southerners by Northerners, particularly the New Englanders.Have you ever seen a monument anywhere in the North commemorating the slaves who passed through their hands?
It’s a funny thing. Northerners sold the slaves and Southerners bought them, but for some strange reason the North’s complicity in the slave trade never seems to be recognized as a factor when assigning responsibility for slavery in North America.
Excellent point. Care to discuss the North’s complicity in the slave trade?
Couldn’t agree more. Today we are much too quick to sling the “Nazi” tag at anybody we don’t happen to like.
Again, couldn’t agree more. How many Northerners are aware of the fact that the overwhelming majority of slaves sold to Southerners were sold to them by Northerners? How many Northerners are aware of all the lynchings that took place outside the South?
Bravo, sir! Now, tell me, how many towns and cities in the Northeast or Midwest have any monuments or memorials whatsoever to the slaves who passed through them to the plantations of the South or the blacks who were lynched in them? You are aware, of course, that lynching was a popular pastime in Northeastern and Midwestern states?
Thanks for providing the links and cites (of course, then we’re reduced to arguing facts, and well, it takes some of the fun out of it if we cannot make sweeping generalizations, etc., etc.). I’m curious though, yes, the founders of the Confederacy made it pretty clear that slavery was a major concern of theirs; would you be willing to parse out the other concerns listed in the documents you’re citing, and maybe (in your spare time) address what the other states (you list two above) in the Confederacy had to say about the secession issue? My point: in addition to being “founded for the preservation of the ownership of human beings” I’d argue that it was also founded for the Confederacy’s right to decide if, when, and how to wean itself of slavery, rather than having that decision forced upon it (Thomas Jefferson: “Slavery is like holding a wolf by the ears. You don’t want to hang on, but you can’t let go.”).
What, you want me to make your argument for you? Sheesh!
For some reason, only four states seem to have adopted formal “Declarations of Independence”. The declaration (which seems to lack a fancy title) of my home state, Georgia, says (among other things):
Of course, that document talks about other things as well. Whenever I quote from a document, I try to link to the full text as well, so feel free to follow up and make your own arguments. It is true that the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union spends a good bit of time in arguing why the South Carolinians felt they had a right to secede, but when it gets down to why they felt they needed to exercise that right, it once again boils down to slavery (“But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.”)
As Confederate apologists never tire of pointing out, Lincoln loudly protested that he had no intentions of interfering with slavery where it already existed. To quote a December 22, 1860 letter to Alexander Stephens (later C.S. Vice President), “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.” So, why did Southerners see Lincoln’s election as such a threat? As Lincoln said in that same letter, “You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub.” Much of the debate between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces before the war had to do with the expansion of slavery; the expansion of slavery into new territories (see “Bleeding Kansas”) and the expansion of slave owners “rights” onto the territory of free states (the Fugitive Slave Laws). Some Northern states even explicitly cited the doctrine of states’ rights and “nullified” Federal laws that required them to co-operate in returning slaves to their masters. Naturally, the slave-owners were outraged. So much for “states’ rights”. The “Slave Power” (as anti-slavery forces like to call it) was also capable of being belligerently expansionist in international affairs; read up on the history of the Ostend Manifesto (which called for the conquest of Cuba as slave territory of the United States), or the career of the “fillibuster” William Walker:
Texas’ secession declaration (linked to above) complains that “The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.” Georgia’s declaration complains that the slave states have been deprived of “an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.” South Carolina’s complaints against the new Presidential administration include its desire that “the South shall be excluded from the common territory.” In all of these cases, what is being complained against is the compromise of leaving slavery alone where it was, but restricting its growth into new areas, so that in due course the South could “wean” itself from its “peculiar institution”. If the new nation’s Vice President, Alexander Stephens, had his way, it would be a long, long time before that took place. I already quoted from, and linked to, his “Cornerstone Speech” from above. Here’s a much more extended excerpt:
They were proud of slavery. Now, if I were to imagine, as a thought experiment, a victorious South going on to become a self-consciously racist, expansionist empire, demanding a maximum share of the territory of the United States (delegations from Missouri and Kentucky were seated in the Confederate Congress; a victorious Confederacy might not have recognized the legitimacy of West Virginia’s partition from Virginia; the C.S.A. might have demanded areas in the territories–Confederate troops operated in New Mexico, and the C.S.A. might have claimed the “Indian Territory” which is now Oklahoma; Maryland and Washington itself might have been claimed as well if the South had won really big)–annexing territory in Cuba, elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, its proud white troops marching to victory under the banner of the “Southern Cross”, spreading the “great truths” of “negro inferiority” and the God-given rights of the White Master Race–perhaps even participating in the “scramble for Africa” a few years later…well, of course none of that happened, now did it? Probably it never would have happened, even if the South had somehow won the war. But I’m damned tired of all this “Lost Cause” romanticism and “but the Civil War didn’t have anything to do with slavery” revisionism.
“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” – Ulysses S. Grant
Again, thanks. As I’ve mentioned in another post, time is often very short for me (I’ve a wife, three kids, dog w/ prostate trouble… - - not whining) but it does limit the amount of time I can devote non-essentials. Since you’re obviously the most well-read in the gov’t documents of secession part of this debate, I thought you might be able to address the question (which you did, and which I appreciate greatly) w/out taking too much of your time. Soooo… I owe you a favor. If you ever need some cites or other ammo regarding ecology, forestry, and/or U.S. environmental policy, please contact me.
I agree with that, and while I can’t speak for them, I’d bet that ** xeno, spoke-, and Gadarene** would too.
Your links are interesting, but they are about the Underground Railroad, not the slave trade. I note with a certain grim satisfaction that the site does not mention who imported and sold the slaves. My point is that Northerners assume a moral superiority that they simply do not have the right to claim. The slave trade in North America was almost entirely the work of Northerners (a fact the average Yankee is ignorant of), and the North has at least as much responsibility for slavery on this continent as the South.
One quibble. Lincoln may have denied any plan to end slavery, but I believe his protestations in that area were disingenuous. Anti-slavery politicians has a policy of preventing new states from entering the Union as slave states, one goal of that policy being to eventually accumulate a sufficient majority of non-slaveholding states to adopt a Constitutional amendment to end slavery.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It was a good idea, but the Southern states saw it coming and decided to opt out of the Union sooner rather than later. Your quote from the Texas secession declaration alludes to this.
I think you are right about the expansionist dreams of at least some Southerners. I believe Bedford Forrest, for example, suggested that he could easily conquer Mexico.
I also agree with your point about those Southerners who glorify the “Lost Cause” and try to ignore the fact that slavery was the ultimate cause of the war.
On the other hand, there were plenty of Confederates who were not fighting for slavery, per se, but were fighting to defend their states from invasion.
Georgia provides a good example of this phenomenon. In Georgia, the decision to seceed was a two-part process. First, there was a county-by-county vote to elect delegates to a statewide convention on the issue. Then the elected delegates assembled to vote on whether or not to seceed.
In a situation which presaged our recent Presidential election, a razor-thin majority of individual voters actually voted against secession. Nevertheless, owing to the uneven geographic distribution of the anti-secession voters, a majority of delegates to the statewide convention were pro-secession.
A solid majority of the counties of northern Georgia voted against secession, primarily because they had no stake in the slavery issue. (North Georgia is mountainous, had few plantations, and few slaves.) Nevertheless, when the state as a whole seceeded, many Confederate volunteers came forward from these north Georgia counties. Were they fighting to defend slavery? Sure doesn’t look that way. The circumstances suggest that they were fighting (as they saw it) to defend their state and their region against an invasion by a hostile army.
Although it is clear that slavery was the precipitating cause of the war, it is not nearly as clear that Confederate soldiers were fighting to defend slavery. Granted, that is a subtle distinction, but it is a significant one.
Shelby Foote touched on this in the Ken Burns Civil War documentary. He related a story of a Confederate soldier who was captured by Union troops. He was bedraggled, and obviously poor. It was equally obvious that he was no slaveholder. When asked by his captors why he was fighting, he replied “Because y’all are down here.”
Now if a soldier such as this one fought valiantly and courageously, should he not be commemorated? Or should the ultimate cause of the war so tarnish him that he and his comrades should not be accorded a place of honor on the town square?
Yes. We generally don’t honor those who fought for bad causes, regardless of how good they were personally, or how valiantly and courageously they fought. (I’m gonna avoid the “N” word here). We don’t erect statutes of the Loyalists who fought against the unlawful rebellion of George Washington & co. We don’t honor those members of the Khmers Rouges who joined that rebellion with no thought of genocide, but out of disgust at the rampant corruption of Prince Sianouk and Lon Nol. We don’t single out for praise those Serbians who fought because they thought that otherwise they would be oppressed.
Maybe these persons’ personal motivations were above reproach. Maybe they were honestly unaware of all the facts. But I think that it is impossible to distinguish individuals who fought for a cause from the cause itself, at least in the context of a memorial.
One other (practical) objection: how do we distinguish between those who fought for the Confederacy because they supported slavery, and those who were fighting for their homes?
How do we distinguish between those who fought for the Union because they sincerely wished to preserve the Union and those who were mere adventurers wanting only an opportunity to pillage, rape and murder?
Whether or not a cause is just depends very much on where you’re sitting. As Ambrose Bierce noted, Pancho Villa was a bandit north of the Rio Grande and a hero south of it. The mujahadeen were freedom fighters to the Muslims and bandits to the Soviets.
Whatever the ruling classes of the South were fighting for (and, yes, they wanted to preserve slavery), the commoners clearly saw themselves as defending their homes from invaders–and considering what was done to the South both during and after the war, that perception was entirely accurate.
And for the courage and dedication they showed in defending their homes, they deserve both respect and honor.
I’m no “Confederate apologist,” and since everybody’s had their say about Hiro Protagonist’s ill-advised “Second American Revolution” there’s no point in my adding anything to that. (“Hiro?” - does that portend a similar revisionist post from you on Tojo?)
I grew up in Freeport, Illinois (as did Calista Flockhart - trying for the all world to look like she’s done time at Andersonville), where, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Linoln made the above-cited proclamation/promise NOT to mess with slavery where it was already in practice. During my boyhood, on the the field where the debate was held stood the soda-fountain commemoratively named “Union Dairy,” where every birthday my dad would buy me a pig’s dinner - a six-scoop sundae in a small wooden trough. As everyone knows, Lincoln lead the concilliatory wing of the Republican party, and was all for preserving the Union. Stay with it, and he’d let you keep your slaves. Leave it (legal right though it was your to do so), and he’d sacrifice half a million lives to stop you. I can tell you from absolute experience these two things: Abraham Lincoln is second only to Jesus Christ in the hearts of Freeport Illinois (and I ask Astorian to add the “Lincoln” county and school names to the “George Meade” side of the ledger against the Jeff Davises & Robt. E. Lees). And the second thing - also dear to the hearts of Freeport Illinois in the late 1960’s was its hatred of the American Negro.
Also, as I’ve by now tiresomely informed the SDMB membership and lurkership, my great-great grandfather helped Aurthur MacAurthur and WT Sherman burn down Atlanta. I am no Southern apologist. If in Andrew Johnson’s position, I’d have acted less like Abraham Lincoln in victory and more like Joseph Stalin.
But as far as the Confederacy being the same as the Third Reich? I’d say the South was looking backward to the horors of preshistoy, not formward to the terrors of the 20th century in its wrong-headedness - same as was Czarist, serf-ist Russia, and the slave-based economy of the Sudan (which itself rose in arms against its own northern seat of government when Cairo, like Washington DC, sought esteem in the anti-slavery eyes of Europe). For the Mahdi crossing the Blue Nile, it was for pure Islam, and for Robert E. Lee crossing the Rappahannock it was pure States Rights, but ultimately it was money, and the money was about slavery.
Oddly, both in 1860’s s America and 1880’s Sudan, wars were fought against the ancient institution of slavery to gain respect (and bank loans) from modern Europe - the same modern Eourope that would spawn Nazism. and I’d say that the side of the American Civil War that looked toward this spawn was best represented by the North. Andersonville bears no relation to Auschwitz - before Andersonville POW’s were summarily bayonetted on site if they could not offer ransom. But Sherman’s March and the forced depopulation of Missouri would have warmed the heart of any Nazi. These were developments that looked to the future, not the past. It was the atrocities done first by wearers of blue uniforms, not butternut, that were later repeated in feldgraub.
and Confederate generals like Nathan Bedford Forrest get called “storm troopers” or worse.
This debate has several parts, I suppose:[list=1][li]Does the comparison between Nazis and Confederates hold? I say it does not.[/li][li]Should all monuments to Confederate leaders be torn down? **[/li][/QUOTE]
“Now, there you go again”… I never compared the Confederate army, or any who fought under its flag to a “nazi” or “stormtrooper”. I did quote a leading American historian- in the “Oxford History of the American People” who compared the actions of the KU KLUX KLAN to those of nazi stormtroopers- and i happen to hold that same opinion. The action of the Klan in killing hundreds of blacks in acts of cowardly terrorism are very reminicent of the Nazis. But altho the Klans first national Leader was a Confederate general- and likely many Klan members were rebel veterans - their actions should not be mixed up with the WARTIME actions of the rebel army.
The Rebel forces were no way near “stormtroopers”. True, the actions of some of the cavalry raiders could well be compared to 'cossacks", and in general- the South seemed to have “pulled the kid gloves off” first- but the Union fought as savagely. I would guess that if Lincoln had not insisted on forgiveness- a few rebel leaders could have be brought to trial as “war criminals”- but possibly so could Sherman. I will say that the commander at Andersonville would have felt right at home in charge of a Nazi concentration camp- but i really think NOBODY defends him. He is the only Confederate military “leader” who could fairly be compared to a “nazi”.
I have recommended that all monuments to NB Forrest be melted down to make a monument to the Blacks who were killed by the early Klan. But on the other hand- i truely admire Rob’t E Lee, a true scholar & gentleman- and one of Americas finest generals- ever.
You are absolutely right. That’s why we should look to the rightness of the cause, not the motivations of the people fighting for that cause.
And the Khmer Rouges were heros to a lot of Cambodians. That’s why we make moral judgments.
Bull. When your side starts a war (see Ft. Sumter), and the other side takes the fight to your turf, you aren’t being invaded by an aggressor - you are losing. Should the marines have stopped shooting at the Japanese troops on Saipan? I mean, after all, they were just defending the homes of the (Japanese) residents of that island from the evil American invaders.
Second bull. It was quite a ways into the Civil War before large portions of the South were under direct attack. Was it only the slave-owning ruling classes that made up the Conferederate army at Gettysburg or Antietum (sp?), when the South attacked into the North? Which southern homes were being defended in those battles?
As I’m sure do the Crusaders for their courage and dedication in spreading the word of God by slaughtering the population of Jerusalem in 1059.
You are arguing moral relativism here, which I find ironic. I take the position that, regardless of your personal motivations, if you fighting bravely for the wrong cause, you do not deserve respect and honor. What your bravery and courage have done is prolong the war, buttress the wrong cause and allow it to cause more evil.
I’m not saying that people like Lee are going to hell, or deserve scorn. Hell, we all make bad choices from the best of intentions. I am saying that when you make a bad choice, you don’t deserve praise.
Oh come on, Sua. Put yourself in the position of the Confederates for a moment. Would you allow what you perceived to be an occupying army to be garrisoned at Ft. Sumter (in a position to serve as anchor to a blockade of one of your leading port cities)? Fort Sumter was the Union’s equivalent of a chip on its shoulder. (Knock it off…I dare ya…)
Antietam was a failed attempt to bring Maryland (a slaveholding state) into the Confederate fold. You may recall that Lincoln illegally imprisoned secessionist Maryland legislators to keep that state in the Union when it might otherwise have left.
Besides, both Antietam and Gettysburg came long after the Union had invaded the Confederacy. Much of Tennessee was occupied for the greater part of the war, Mississippi had been invaded, New Orleans and other port cities captured, etc., etc.
The South would have been quite happy with a peaceful divorce from the Union. Lincoln wasn’t about to let that happen.
And I demonstrated the bias of that “leading American historian.” He is what you might call a “Sherman apologist,” stating for example that Sherman’s troops committed “no outrages” against women. :rolleyes: He also discusses Sherman’s occupation of Atlanta, but makes no mention at all of Sherman burning Atlanta to the ground.
Here again is a link to the story of Roswell Mill. From that site:
I’m confused, Daniel. Does your “leading American historian” not consider rape of women and children an “outrage?”
So how come Andersonville gets media play, and the story of the Roswell women remains largely unheard? The winners get to write the history, as they say.
Ft. Sumter was a federal facility owned by the government of the USA, not the CSA. To give a modern example, the US legally leases the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Castro hates us being there, and half the reason we are still there is to irritate Castro. If the Cubans attack the base and evict our troops there, has he declared war on the U.S., and further, that Castro started the war? I say yes.
So the CSA was seeking to expand its territory. Sounds aggressive to me, and not like they were defending their homes from the evil Yankee agressor.
If you are saying that Lincoln imprisoned them pursuant to his suspension of habeus corpus, then yes, it was illegal, and the suspension was Lincoln’s most indefensible act. However, if the imprisoned legislators were planning to vote for secession, then they were conspiring to commit treason, and therefore could have been imprisoned legally.
And again, marching into the North is inconsistent with Lonesome Polecat’s assertion that the common man in the South was just trying to defend their homes. Their homes were in Tennessee, Mississippi, New Orleans, etc.
Sure, Lincoln wasn’t going to let a divorce happen - it was illegal. But, regardless of how provocative Ft. Sumter might have been, the CSA’s firing on it was the first violent act. I don’t see how that’s consistent with a “peaceful” divorce.
And the Confederacy’s position was “We’re leaving the Union, and we’re taking our share of ‘federal’ properties with us.”
Exactly. And I am quite sure that the Pentagon in years past was hoping to provoke Fidel into attacking Guantanamo, so they would have a pretext for invasion. Same thing with Ft. Sumter. The attack on Ft. Sumter was all the pretext Lincoln needed to invade while still claiming the “moral high ground.” It is interesting to contemplate what might have transpired if the Confederates had held their fire.
Or possibly to free Maryland from an occupying army. Depends on your perspective, I suppose.
Again a matter of perspective. The Supreme Court ruled Lincoln’s actions unlawful.
Not at all, considering how late in the war the incursion into Pennsylvania occurred. (I call it an incursion rather than an invasion, because there was no intent to permanently invade or conquer.) The South had endured years of repeated/continuous attacks on its own soil before deciding to take the fight to the enemy. They did not enter Pennsylvania to claim it as part of the Confederacy, but rather to try to force the Union to let the Confederate states go.
Southern leaders would have been happy at any time during the course of the war to simply be granted their independence.
And if I refuse to leave your home when you tell me to, the first violent act between us might be you throwing me out of the house. Would that justify me in returning and taking your house at the point of a gun? You’re a lawyer. You know the answer to that one.
