# Why is the Confederacy not worthy of contempt? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994 "2009-11-10T03:09:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/61 "2009-11-10T21:23:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Well, that’s quite obviously false, since it was the question of slavery that got Lincoln back into politics, led to the debates with Stephen Douglas, and directly led to his standing for President, for which he ran as the candidate for an anti-slavery party that he helped crate.. Lincoln expressed revulsion and hatred - “hate” being a word he used quite specifically - for slavery on innumerable occasions. > > It’s certainly true Lincoln prioritized preserving the Union but to suggest he didn’t care about the issue of slavery is complete nonsense. But he was willing to allow slavery to continue if that would preserve the Union as well, so even he had a price. My broad brush is no worse than the broad brush that the civil war was only about slavery. The difference is my broad brush is done with the knowledge that its a broad brush used as an example rather than an actual argument. And, nobody has touched on those evil northerners and other nations quite happy to buy cotton grown by evil slavery…but those folks dont count… I mean its only business, not principles right ? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/62 "2009-11-10T21:26:50Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Are you suggesting the North invaded Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and the border states before the Confederacy attacked federal forts? Are you suggesting that a completely bloodless capture of a Federal fort is the equivalent of killing thousands of people and seizing or destroying millions of dollars worth of property? Or that the attack on Fort Sumter was more villainous than the bloodless capture of Fort Ticonderoga and using its guns to fire on British troops? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/63 "2009-11-10T21:27:27Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Are you suggesting the North invaded Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and the border states before the Confederacy attacked federal forts? Yes, obviously the Northern Imperialist Aggressors used Sumter and the seizure of Federal arsenals by the South as the merest of excuses to invade and attempt to conquer a sovereign people. :rolleyes: Lee deserves some credit for urging his troops to restart peaceful, productive civilian lives (as opposed to fostering continued hatred and possible guerrilla wafare). He was a better general than all but one individual in Civil War history. Those facts are worth remembering. As to Jefferson Davis and the rest of the politicians who drove the South to destruction, they’re deserving of contempt. Although I’m sure one could find other carefully selected evidence that their faithful darkies loved them.\* Threads like this one are a hilarious answer to the dimwitted proposition appearing in an article in the New York Times Book Review this past Sunday, that declared that Americans don’t care about history. 😃 \*the usual rolleyes smiley is woefully inadequate for this proposition. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/64 "2009-11-10T21:35:51Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > So you continue to honor a government that lied to uneducated people so that they would start a war against their fellow Americans? > > I’m afraid this doesn’t answer the question of why you would want to honor the illegitimate, lying government that did that. Again, that would make me want to look at Jefferson Davis as a liar and a traitor, as opposed to naming a major highway after him. Show me where I said a word about honoring the confederate government. I said we would honor our confederate soldiers and that is that. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/65 "2009-11-10T21:38:11Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > …and seizing or destroying millions of dollars worth of property? That’s one way of looking at the Emancipation Proclamation. (note: this was a joke) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/66 "2009-11-10T21:45:59Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Are you suggesting that a completely bloodless capture of a Federal fort is the equivalent of killing thousands of people and seizing or destroying millions of dollars worth of property? Or that the attack on Fort Sumter was more villainous than the bloodless capture of Fort Ticonderoga and using its guns to fire on British troops? Oddly enough, no, nor did I. But it was a deliberate act of war. That no one was killed (though someone did die as a result of the Battle of Fort Sumter) was hardly more than luck. You don’t lob artillery shells into a manned military facility without the intent of killing people. I don’t hold most individuals who fought for the South blameworthy. I do consider much of the officer class and the Southern aristocracy who pushed for the war to be responsible, but they are obviously in a minority. Atrocities were committed by both sides. That happens in warfare. The behavior of invading troops tends to be deplorable. Soviet forces weren’t angels in 1944-45. British & American troops committed their fair share of looting, often of peoples allied to them. War is hell. Doesn’t alter the fact that the British, Americans and Soviets were on the right side. But to try to portray the Southern armies as fighting against Northern aggression isn’t wholly accurate. The Confederacy attacked first. Dismissing it as bloodless is ridiculous. Had Sumter not surrendered, would it have stayed bloodless? You can try to justify it as some kind of preemptive action under an early Bush doctrine, but it was the Confederacy that fired first, and the Confederacy that started the war. It wasn’t a noble rush to repel Northern aggression. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/67 "2009-11-10T21:49:51Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Denying that the civil war wasn’t about slavery is ahistorical and ignorant. Nobody half informed makes this argument about the south. However, the war was NOT about slavery to the North; emancipation was never part of the deal when the Union decided to fight the secession. [QUOTE=Lemur] Without the issue of slavery there wouldn’t have been a war. That’s simply a fact. Nations don’t dissolve into civil war over issues of whether a tariff should be 19% or 26%. [/QUOTE] Really? So the Whiskey Rebellion was about what exactly… women’s rights? The violence and sabotage and vandalism inspired by the Stamp Acts/Tea Acts/Sugar Acts/Townsend Acts/etc. were about global warming maybe? The South sold most of their cotton and tobacco to Europe and in exchange they bought European goods (or arranged trades and specie for them through their factors in U.S. port cities and in Europe). Because the taxes were raised on goods imported from Europe, meaning that fewer sold, Europe reciprocated and raised tariffs accordingly on goods imported from America, meaning that the $100 worth of cotton I just sold has $26 in tariffs taken right off the top. Now, the cotton that I sold is not pure profit. From its proceeds I must feed and clothe my family, any slaves or workers I have, pay my taxes, buy farm supplies and pay doctors and replace my old mule with a new one and buy a new gin or whatever my farm needs. Agricultural prices are extremely volatile. Some years it sells for 11¢ and some years for 6¢ depending on many factors and all of them beyond your control. Add to this that farming is risky- work until your back breaks and you may still lose most of your crop to anything from floods to boll weevils to drought to fire to you-name-it. So suppose my expenses for a given year are $1000, and I expect to sell my cotton for $1500, minus 19% or $270 in tariffs- I’m left with $230 to “play with”. However, due to many variables in the amount of yield and crop prices I only end up getting $1250 worth of cotton. At 19% duty this takes me down to $10 to “play with”, not much but it’s better than going in the hole. At 26% tariffs I pay $325- rather than $10 profit I am now, just because fo this tariff increase, $65 in the whole (and remember that $75 is a LOT more money then than now, and people really did live this close to the line). Add to this that the supplies I had my factor send me which were previously $200 + 19% import duties ($238.00) are now tariffed at 26% ($252.00) and that throws me into the whole another $12- and again, $12 was a LOT of money to a farming society whose cash was scarce. (Abraham Lincoln was paid between $6 and $8 per month for his work on flatboats and farms [all of which went to his father], and $12 was more than a month’s salary to many free manual laborers. That 7% isn’t nothing. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/68 "2009-11-10T21:52:07Z")
And one more time, it is with thanks and gratitude that I say **Sampiro** is my hero; I would love to have just a scintilla of his knowledge and his ability to put that knowledge into words. ---
**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:** [November 10, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/69 "2009-11-10T21:56:06Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > True. They should have waited for the North to invade Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and the border states before they did something like that shouldn’t they?:rolleyes: Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and the border states were all part of the United States, and a country can’t invade itself. The United States Army moved into an area that had been under the control of armed rebels. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/70 "2009-11-10T22:05:47Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > . Add to this that farming is risky- work until your back breaks and you may still lose most of your crop to anything from floods to boll weevils to drought to fire to you-name-it. > . Just an aside. There is a county in southern georgia. Next to the courthouse is a monument to the boll weevil. Even a little stone replica of the sucker. Apparently, they ran rampant through that area once, the locals were forced to grow stuff other than cotton, and when they did they realized they were better off than trying to keep dicking with cotton. I’ve personally seen the sucker. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/71 "2009-11-10T22:10:19Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and the border states were all part of the United States, and a country can’t invade itself. The United States Army moved into an area that had been under the control of armed rebels. Or, alternatively, they had seceeded and were part of a nation that declared war on the United States, and so were subject to invasion. Blame still sits on the Richmond (or whereever it was at the time… Montgomery?) government there. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/72 "2009-11-10T22:10:19Z")
Frankly, **Sampiro** , I’m surprised at you. You make exactly the same kind of willful misinterpretation and historical moralizing that this thread largely condemns on both sides of the debate! > [@Sampiro](#): > > And the occasion for Lincoln, irate over the issue, making his “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better” speech. Pretty much destroyed him politically; any chance he had of a second term ended with that speech, yet he is a hero and Davis- who represented a government that felt exactly the same way- are condemned. Except that a significant portion fo the U.S. did oppose the war with Mexico. It was a land grab (though iof largely uninhabited areas with only nominal Mexican rule, which is why they gave it up relatively readily) and was recognized as such by the Whigs in particular, as well as some Democrat-Republicans. The Civil War was _not_ a land-grab. It was a defense against a land-grab, treason, and the destruction of law. The Southern States never had a right to secede, and they themselves implictly denied their own principles. Rather, they had created enemies out of the entire rest of the United States by sneering and scorning the rest of the country, and then realized they had made their own bed. And the North made them lie in it. Seccession was an ugly thing done by self-serving people jealous of their power. For decades they had dominated the United States, and they could not stand the fact anyone else would. They wanted to rule the United States and have slavery protected as a positive, public good. They lost their rule, chose slavery over the public good, and then lost both. > [@](#): > > It’s amazing how many people don’t grasp this simple fact. When there are armed troops marching through your country, you don’t give a _damn_ about ideology or Constitutional principals or the ethics of slavery any more than you worry about whether the burglar in your living room had an unhappy childhood or was cheated out of his birthright by a member of your family. You defend yourself. Sherman- whose terrorism was denounced vehemently and loudly in print and in oration at the time of the march _IN THE NORTH_- flatly didn’t give a damn whether somebody owned slaves or was a conductor on the Underground Railroad- if you have meat in your smokehouse and chickens in your coop they’re seized and count yourself lucky if your house isn’t burned. First off, I will call you out for a gross and ugly falsehood, founded on generations of deliberate Southern lies. it is such a filthy mistake, I hardly know where to begin. I won’t say you are a liar, because I believ you are merely repeating the lies or older generations. It was not about terror and never was. It was about military neccessity and civil domination. Sherman deliebrately sent a very clear signal that there would be no more “kid gloves”, and he was both far more compassionate and far more clear-eyed about it than anyone else in the world. Sherman knew war was unpleasant, and unlike many other Civil War generals, he would not hide it. He didn’t kill civilians, but he intended to live on the land in Georgia regardless. This is a very old method of waging war and was absolutely neccessary to industrial warfare. Later and more severely, South Carolina was symbolically and deliberately trashed in order to bring the war home to them. Neither was any more terrible that the destruction wrought by later industrial wars. Moreover, as Sherman himself knew and publicly said, it was the only way for the war to end. One side or another had to completely break, and he intended it to be the South. He honestly knew it was not about justice or fairness: both sides were not simply armies in the field but whole societies organizing and mobilizing for war. Moreover, this was done LATE in the war, which is the major part of the filthy original Southern lie. This was done to end the war and bring it to a close when Southern recruiting was breaking down and its resources were stretched to the limit. There was no heroic, noble defense suddenly arising to stop the wicked Sherman. In fact, a great many Southerners started to realize the better part of valour in response to his actions, virtually ending the war in the middle Southern states. The inspiration to Southern defense was the norm far earlier in the war, when both sides were still deciding how far they would take it and civilian property not harmed. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/73 "2009-11-10T22:16:21Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > The Civil War was _not_ a land-grab. It was a defense against a land-grab, treason, and the destruction of law. The Southern States never had a right to secede, and they themselves implictly denied their own principles. I gotta admit. I’ve never seen the argument that trying to keep and take your own land you are living on is a “land grab”. The SDMB never ceases to amaze. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/74 "2009-11-10T22:20:08Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Oddly enough, no, nor did I. But it was a deliberate act of war. That no one was killed (though someone did die as a result of the Battle of Fort Sumter) [/QUOTE] An accidental death _after_ the Battle is not a war casualty. A cannon was either double loaded or else malfunctioned when firing a salute during the Surrender Ceremony, killing the cannoneer and mortally wounding another soldier. Nobody died from an act of aggression. > [@](#): > > That no one was killed … was hardly more than luck. You don’t lob artillery shells into a manned military facility without the intent of killing people. You honestly think it was coincidence nobody was killed? That P.G. T-Beauregard (Confederate artillery commander in Charleston who trained in artillery under his former teacher and friend Major Robert Anderson [a slaveowner], the commander at Fort Sumter) just coincidentally shelled the front walls of the fort rather than sending shells into the back walls where the men were gathered because his cannons could fire 2.4 miles but not the 2.4 miles + 100 feet necessary to reach the barracks area? That he was lying when he told Anderson in their truce meetings exactly which area of the fort was going to be shelled first and where to corral his men once it commenced? That in the 3 months following Anderson’s occupation of the fort (a reminder: the fort was occupied _after_ Lincoln was elected, it was not even completed) the Confederate forces had never once done trajectories to ensure range and location of shelling? Total coincidence? Really? While it is most definitely true that any number of factors _could_ have caused deaths, the fact that it did not was far from coincidental. It was intended from its inception to be a bloodless battle. Again, Beauregard and Anderson knew each other well, Beauregard had been a guest in Anderson’s house many times, he did not want to do him any harm. The entire purpose of the attack was to force the evacuation of the Federal troops, not to kill them. Davis and all others wanted any first blood to be drawn by the Federals; they wanted to leave the union without a war, but they wanted to show that they would fight. It was not coincidence. They had five positions from which they could shell Sumter and could have easily killed everybody in it within hours if that had been their intent. They deliberately restricted fire to certain areas of the fort, they let it be known to Anderson where to keep his men, they knew that he was going to surrender because he had no choice. They were forming a new nation and quite understandably did not want a Federal fort in one of their most important harbors any more than the Continentals forcing the evacuation of Boston (though far from bloodlessly) and seizing British arsenals and forts (often bloodlessly) throughout the colonies. [QUOTE=Lemur] I don’t hold most individuals who fought for the South blameworthy. I do consider much of the officer class and the Southern aristocracy who pushed for the war to be responsible, but they are obviously in a minority. Atrocities were committed by both sides. [/QUOTE] No argument. [QUOTE=Lemur] But to try to portray the Southern armies as fighting against Northern aggression isn’t wholly accurate. [/QUOTE] Neither is it wholly **in** accurate. Sumter was a completely strategic and wholly military target; there was no civilian population or property there (other than the personal property of the soldiers). It was the North that invaded Southern soil en masse. [QUOTE=Lemur] Dismissing it as bloodless is ridiculous. [/QUOTE] Stating that it was bloodless by coincidence is ridiculous and indicative that you have never studied that battle. [QUOTE=Lemur] Had Sumter not surrendered, would it have stayed bloodless? [/QUOTE] Beauregard knew perfectly well Anderson was going to surrender. He had absolutely no choice. Anderson had told him as much- that he had orders not to evacuate the fort unless shelled, in which case he was to surrender. Just as Davis was determined to make the Union draw first blood Lincoln was determined to make the Confederacy fire the first shot. Lincoln knew good and well that Anderson was not going to fight to hold Sumter any more than he had fought to hold Moultrie; his occupation of Sumter was about the only surprise of that entire campaign. [QUOTE=Lemur] It wasn’t a noble rush to repel Northern aggression. [/QUOTE] To many of the soldiers that’s exactly what it was. “They’re attacking our towns, they’ve seized many farms, they’re advancing south on three fronts… but you know what? Morally and constitutionally I think they’re in the right, so when they get here I’m going to offer them some lemonade and coconut pie.” The scene from GWTW where the war is declared and all the men go running off to mount their horses and kiss their ladies (except perhaps a couple who did it the other way around) and eager to enlist and fight is mostly fiction. There was most certainly some of that, but it didn’t last. Most of the southern soldiers did not enlist until they were conscripted or until the fight was within earshot, whichever happened first. ---
**Author:** ![whorfin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@whorfin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whorfin)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/75 "2009-11-10T22:22:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Nobody half informed makes this argument about the south. However, the war was NOT about slavery to the North; emancipation was never part of the deal when the Union decided to fight the secession. > > Really? So the Whiskey Rebellion was about what exactly… women’s rights? The violence and sabotage and vandalism inspired by the Stamp Acts/Tea Acts/Sugar Acts/Townsend Acts/etc. were about global warming maybe? > > The South sold most of their cotton and tobacco to Europe and in exchange they bought European goods (or arranged trades and specie for them through their factors in U.S. port cities and in Europe). Because the taxes were raised on goods imported from Europe, meaning that fewer sold, Europe reciprocated and raised tariffs accordingly on goods imported from America, meaning that the $100 worth of cotton I just sold has $26 in tariffs taken right off the top. > > Now, the cotton that I sold is not pure profit. From its proceeds I must feed and clothe my family, any slaves or workers I have, pay my taxes, buy farm supplies and pay doctors and replace my old mule with a new one and buy a new gin or whatever my farm needs. > > Agricultural prices are extremely volatile. Some years it sells for 11¢ and some years for 6¢ depending on many factors and all of them beyond your control. Add to this that farming is risky- work until your back breaks and you may still lose most of your crop to anything from floods to boll weevils to drought to fire to you-name-it. > So suppose my expenses for a given year are $1000, and I expect to sell my cotton for $1500, minus 19% or $270 in tariffs- I’m left with $230 to “play with”. > However, due to many variables in the amount of yield and crop prices I only end up getting $1250 worth of cotton. At 19% duty this takes me down to $10 to “play with”, not much but it’s better than going in the hole. At 26% tariffs I pay $325- rather than $10 profit I am now, just because fo this tariff increase, $65 in the whole (and remember that $75 is a LOT more money then than now, and people really did live this close to the line). Add to this that the supplies I had my factor send me which were previously $200 + 19% import duties ($238.00) are now tariffed at 26% ($252.00) and that throws me into the whole another $12- and again, $12 was a LOT of money to a farming society whose cash was scarce. (Abraham Lincoln was paid between $6 and $8 per month for his work on flatboats and farms [all of which went to his father], and $12 was more than a month’s salary to many free manual laborers. > > That 7% isn’t nothing. It’s a very interesting argument. Of course, if states were driven to secession over tariffs, you might imagine they’d mention them in their declarations of secession, or other pronouncements announcing their departure. Instead, the four that I’ve found from a quick search mention tariffs and trade not a lot. Instead, some other injury to their interests is front and center. The southern states weren’t reticent about saying that their beef with the federal government and the northern states was that the north wanted rid of slavery and they did not–they announced that position loudly and repeatedly. For example, South Carolina: [Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp) > [@](#): > > We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. > > The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” > > This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. > > … > > The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” > > These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. > > We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. Or maybe Georgia? > [@](#): > > The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. > **[Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp)** Mississippi? > [@](#): > > In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. > > Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. > **[Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Mississippi Secession](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp)** TEXAS??? > [@](#): > > …In view of these and many other facts, it is meet that our own views should be distinctly proclaimed. > > We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. > > That in this free government _all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights_ [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states. > **[Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - A Declaration of the...](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp)** Now this is not to say that economics didn’t matter–one thing about the southern states was that they did often have agricultural economies, many focusing on cotton or tobacco, each of which was, at the time, a crop primarily farmed through the use of slave labor. But the complaint wasn’t tariffs, and it wasn’t a generalized unhappiness with the other states–the southern state legislatures and conventions explicitly state their reason for secession–and it is slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/76 "2009-11-10T22:22:34Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > Show me where I said a word about honoring the confederate government. I said we would honor our confederate soldiers and that is that. I’m referring generally to the acceptance of a variety of nostalgia, from the the Confederate flag appearing on three state flags, to the honoring of the president of the CSA, all the way to the “Yankees 1, Rebels 0 at Halftime” bumper stickers. If you also object to all three of those expressions of nostalgia for the CSA, and limit your reverence only to the personal sacrifices and tragedies of individual veterans, setting aside the reasons for their military service, then I’m not sure we have much quarrel. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/77 "2009-11-10T22:25:11Z")
But of course, the tariff issue is just the slavery issue in disguise. The cotton exporters were all plantations worked by slaves. So I’d take issue with the notion of cotton farmers working in the cotton fields till their backs broke. The tariff was certainly a blow against the agricultural south, and consciously so. It was an attempt by the North to force the South to buy domestic finished goods rather than importing them from Europe. Since I’m for free trade, I agree this was a counterproductive measure. However, I don’t see how slavery is such a great example of free market economics either. You’ve got to realize to what an extent the plantation system dominated southern agriculture. Sure, there were smallholders who worked the fields themselves or with free labor. But they weren’t the southern aristocracy. The aristocracy who dominated the south economically and politically were the slave plantation owners. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/78 "2009-11-10T22:25:55Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > An accidental death _after_ the Battle is not a war casualty. A cannon was either double loaded or else malfunctioned when firing a salute during the Surrender Ceremony, killing the cannoneer and mortally wounding another soldier. Nobody died from an act of aggression. > > … > > To many of the soldiers that’s exactly what it was. “They’re attacking our towns, they’ve seized many farms, they’re advancing south on three fronts… but you know what? Morally and constitutionally I think they’re in the right, so when they get here I’m going to offer them some lemonade and coconut pie.” The argument that you’re essentially posing – that the Union started the war, nevermind that Fort Sumner business – is such patent nonsense that it could make North Korean propagandists blush. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/79 "2009-11-10T22:26:35Z")
Just for accuracy’s sake, I should point out that the quotes **Sampiro** attributes to **Lemur** are actually mine. ---
**Author:** ![whorfin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@whorfin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whorfin)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/80 "2009-11-10T22:27:46Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > I gotta admit. I’ve never seen the argument that trying to keep and take your own land you are living on is a “land grab”. > > The SDMB never ceases to amaze. Try not paying your property taxes next year. Or try declaring independence, and then say you don’t need to follow the laws of your country because your house is a separate nation. Just because you’re living on the land, or that you own it, doesn’t mean that you can split it off from the nation in which it is located. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994.md?page=5)