# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/81 "2009-11-10T22:29:11Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Also, after World War II, Germany went out of its way to condemn the Nazi period. The southern US, after the Civil War, on the other hand, went out of its way to praise and glorify the Civil War and Confederate cause. This is it, in my opinion. To a whole lot of southerners over the next hundred or so years the antebellum era represented the good old days. I’d be hard pressed to think that Bull Connor and all the people shouting outside of the newly intergrated schools didn’t think that the Confederates were heros for standing up for the “southern way of life.” ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/82 "2009-11-10T22:34:52Z")
Well, the northerners were happy to use near-slave immigrants and indentured servants ---
**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, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/83 "2009-11-10T22:38:00Z")
> [@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. > 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. I’ll give you the intent was not to kill. To say it was hardly more than luck was incorrect on my part. The aim was to allow surrender, which you are correct could not have happened without shelling. The simple fact is, however civilized the discussions were, the surrender of Fort Sumter was made under direct threat of annihilation. Had the Union not surrendered the Fort, every one of its occupants would have been liable to die. It was akin to a mugger putting a gun to your head and demanding your wallet. The fact the mugger calls you Sir and thanks you kindly for your generosity after the act doesn’t alter what he has done to you. Shelling a military installation of another country is an act of war, pure and simple. If one wants to be treated as a nation, one behaves like it. And negotiation to return the forts was the way forward. Alternatively, a country can use military force to get what it wants. It then pretty much waives the right to bitch and moan when military force is used back against it, even if said force is of a much greater nature. Coventry was no where near the scale of Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne, but still, don’t start shit if you can’t finish it. > [@Sampiro](#): > > 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. Indeed. After the South had declared war. Or are you suggesting the North should have sat by and done nothing in response to a military attack on its forces? ---
**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, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/84 "2009-11-10T22:39:19Z")
> [@whorfin](#): > > 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. And those are “land grabs” :rolleyes: ---
**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, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/85 "2009-11-10T22:39:24Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Well, the northerners were happy to use near-slave immigrants and indentured servants Yes, this is correct. And to a great degree they were ashamed of this unpleasant fact as the Confederacy was secretly ashamed of slavery. It does not change the other facts, however. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/86 "2009-11-10T22:40:30Z")
…and,as many have said, slavery is SO bad that northeners could not profit from buying and selling cotton planted by the slaves ---
**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, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/87 "2009-11-10T22:42:39Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > The Southern States never had a right to secede, and they themselves implictly denied their own principles. The colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain either. > [@](#): > > Rather, they had created enemies out of the entire rest of the United States by sneering and scorning the rest of the country, By paying 90% of the import taxes? By producing a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth and then being irritated that they were being dictated to? > [@](#): > > 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. Yes, completely that simple. That’s all there is to it. The fact that Davis was never tried for treason due to fear on the parts of Johnson, Seward, and Stanton that he would walk and that some of the preeminent lawyers of the north were willing to take his case pro bono- poppycock, the truth was Richmond’s hotels were booked and nobody wanted the commute from Manassas where the linens at the Holiday Inn Express still had nasty amputation stains. > [@](#): > > They wanted to rule the United States and have slavery protected as a positive, public good. No, they wanted to rule the Confederate states. You’re embarassing yourself here. > [@](#): > > 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. To the extent this is legible I think I am intrigued. > [@](#): > > It was not about terror and never was. Hmm. I guess you’re right. Sherman’s comment that “I can make this march and I will make Georgia howl!” was a reference to his intent to catch the UGA/Tennessee game. Go BULLDOGS! HOWWWWWLLLLL!" > [@](#): > > It was about military neccessity and civil domination. No argument. > [@](#): > > 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. George Hearst: “That doesn’t just not make sense, shit son- that don’t even make good nonsense.” How exactly was Sherman compassionate? He ordered his men to take every scrap of food they came across and turned a blind eye to their wanton looting and destruction of civilian properties. He starved slaves and masters and rich and poor alike. > [@](#): > > Sherman knew war was unpleasant, and unlike many other Civil War generals, he would not hide it. Do you have a cite to the Chick pamphlet this came from? Who thought war ewas pleasant exactly? I’m familiar with the Lee “or we should grow to fond of it” quote but that was out of context. > [@](#): > > He didn’t kill civilians Really? Not a single solitary one? Nobody died from privation? There were no rapes? No civilians died during the burning of Columbia? (Need to tell the cemetery there that.) 60,000 men were perfect gentleman all over the march- the accounts from their own journals of administering beatings and stealing and plunder getting out of control and way beyond what was ordered or needed are attempts at NaNoWriMo (since it did start in November after all). No civilians drowned in Ebeneezer Creek when the pontoon bridge was cut. This is all an interesting insight. > [@](#): > > 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. Old in the sense that it was the first time in American history such a large force had ever done it and many generals under his own command thought it was crazy, but otherwise correct. > [@](#): > > Later and more severely, South Carolina was symbolically and deliberately trashed in order to bring the war home to them. Because the war was started by the civilians in South Carolina. Not the senators and the generals, but the farmers on 19 acres who were burned out. And the slaves. > [@](#): > > Neither was any more terrible that the destruction wrought by later industrial wars. If there was nothing new about this then why do you limit it to later industrial wars? ]QUOTE] Moreover, as Sherman himself knew and publicly said, it was the only way for the war to end… Moreover, this was done LATE in the war, which is the major part of the filthy original Southern lie. [/quote] Read these two sentences and tell me what the logical error is there. > [@](#): > > This was done to end the war and bring it to a close when Southern recruiting was breaking down It was non-existent actually. > [@](#): > > and its resources were stretched to the limit. More than. He was destroying infrastructure and supplies, nobody argues this. > [@](#): > > There was no heroic, noble defense suddenly arising to stop the wicked Sherman. So your point is that Sherman knowing attacked civilians only? Actually I would have made an argument about Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps and other resistance techniques but your own argument damns you more so we’ll go with that. > [@](#): > > 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. I thought you said there was nothing new in what Sherman did? Again, even the NORTHERN papers- not just the copperhead papers- denounced Sherman’s excesses. Scorched earth was NOT a standard part of war against Americans; Lee did not scorch the Earth when withdrawing from Pennsylvania or Maryland and the papers acknowledged this. Sherman fought a war on a civilian populace. ---
**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, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/88 "2009-11-10T22:44:17Z")
> [@whorfin](#): > > It’s a very interesting argument. I have never once said slavery was not the primary cause of secession. But why mention tariff laws when you’re forming a new nation? And I note you didn’t link to the House Journals where they were denounced repeatedly and secession posed as a threat if they were placed. ---
**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, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/89 "2009-11-10T22:46:28Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain either. I’m really the wrong person to argue this part… 😃 ---
**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, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/90 "2009-11-10T22:46:33Z")
[Dixiephrenia](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6921034&postcount=38), she is a bitch. I’m off to Irwinville. ---
**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, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/91 "2009-11-10T22:53:30Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > But why mention tariff laws when you’re forming a new nation? The same reason they mention the northern opposition to slavery–The quotes I offered were from official proclamations describing the “bad” things the other states were doing to the southern states that drove them to secede. The declarations weren’t state constitutions, or the CSA constitution (which were the documents that “created” the new nation, and in fact mention slavery and the preservation thereof fairly frequently, as cited by others in this thread), or even the ordinances of secession, the documents that were claimed to actually effect secession. (which in most states were just simple two-or-three paragraph statements that the union was dissolved). > [@](#): > > And I note you didn’t link to the House Journals where they were denounced repeatedly and secession posed as a threat if they were placed. You didn’t link to them either–if you think they’re important, I’d love to read them. On the other hand–debate is interesting, and relevant, but when the result of that debate is an official resolution describing the reasons for secession, one might think that any important complaint against the federal government would be stated in those declarations. These declarations were the southern legislatures and conventions themselves saying what “wrongs” drove them to secede. The ones I’ve found just plain don’t mention tariffs. When asking what the motivation of the southern states was to secede, I have to say, i’m willing to give a lot more weight to the proclamations made by those very states at the time than to what you’re offering—unless you can give some reason to favor your account over that of the contemporary state legislatures. ---
**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, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/92 "2009-11-10T23:21:05Z")
For folks that only know the Civil War from middle school history class. Here are president Lincolns prime motivations. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm](http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm) Its preserve the Union or screw the slaves or sumptin in between depending on you POV. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/93 "2009-11-10T23:28:45Z")
I would like to flesh out the reasons why the individual Confederate soldier chose to fight. It has been touched upon here a little bit. Military units were formed more locally then, particularly with the volunteers. Not like today when you will join the military and be blended with recruits from all over the country. A unit might be formed from all the able men in a small town. A young man’s choice was to leave with the rest of the men; your brothers, uncles, friends, the men from the family of the girl you hoped to marry, or to be seen as a coward… Either way your life at home was over. Leave with the rest of the men or leave in disgrace. You were going with them. Today you can ask for reasons why, but if you were in that position then, well you would have gone too. Only very old men, very young boys, and women stayed home. And after a bad day at the war there might not be any young men coming back home to your little town. There is a saying now that “All politics are local.” It was even more so at the time of the Civil War. When we think of the United States now, it is states with a small s, geographical regions with minor differences in laws but largely homogenous under the umbrella of federal government rule. Then it was States, with a Capital S. More like small countries with an alliance. They fought for Virginia, or for Maine, or for Arkansas, or New York, or wherever they were from. To believe that an individual soldier saw it as a North/South, freeman/slavery, industrial/agricultural, set of clear cut issues is simplistic. Johnny Reb was not an evil man fighting for slavery. He was fighting for home. You may now continue with your historical analysis. ---
**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, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/94 "2009-11-10T23:40:51Z")
These things come up on the board from time to time and like the Mafia, or like slavery, once in it’s hard to extract yourself. There’s lots of loud bursts and acoustic shadows and nobody’s opinion is changed. So my statements: The Civil War was fought, on the part of the South, to protect and prolong slavery. Slavery is an unjust system, denounced as such even by such varied men and practitioners as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, Robert Todd [Mary Lincoln’s father- a slaveowner _and_ an abolitionist], Benjamin Franklin, and many others. Thus the Civil War was begun on the part of the South to protect and prolong an unjust system. This is unarguable. The reason most Confederate soldiers fought had relatively little to do with the ideologies behind it. This is unarguable. The North was no more racially liberal than the South and had only done away with slavery because it was financially impractical. Unarguable. “The Lost Cause” and “an Era of Kavaliers and Ladies Fair” is a ridiculous romanticism of a time and conflict whose complexities and details and horrors are completely lost on most of the people who are well fed, white, and safe a century and a half later and is indicative of the need for simple answers where there none. (Most who were there preferred to not dwell on it.) “The Confederates were a bunch of racist nutcases” and “Lincoln fought to free the slaves” are ridiculous simplifications of a time and conflict whose complexities and details and horrors are completely lost on most people who are well fed and safe a century and a half later and is indicative of the need for simple answers where there none. The Constitutional legality of a state’s rights to secede are debated still by Constitutional scholars who have yet to reach consensus. Not being a Constitutional scholar I’ve nothing to add but my attention so I’ll sit this one out. The comparisons of the Confederacy’s secession to the formation of the United States were not lost on the participants, but they seem completely forgotten now by people who hold one up as heroic and the other as damnable even though both involved rebellion/treason among a slaveholding people against an industrialized military superpower that no longer practiced slavery in large numbers (and where it existed it was dying). As to why the Civil War is so important to southerners- to the extent that it is (believe it or not it’s not a daily topic of conversation) it’s because it surrounds us. It’s aftermath is everywhere. The statues, the museums, the old houses, the historical markers, etc., are one type of surrounding, that accursed flag is another way, but to me at least it’s more of the seemingly innocuous things that southerners experience but northerners can’t relate to. Two prime examples: 1. [The church I attended as a child](http://image03.webshots.com/3/6/86/49/1968649kySiSrJSZl_ph.jpg)has a slave balcony. A SLAVE BALCONY. IN A CHURCH. My father- a former teacher who had taught in an all black school for several years- had a mobbed funeral due to his connections, former students, political associates, etc., and many of his black co-workers and former students showed up. The sanctuary was full and so they went to the rarely used balcony. I remember walking out of the sanctuary in my father’s funeral and looking up to see black faces looking down at me from that balcony. I remember at 15 or so laughing out loud when our minister would discuss how only through Christ can we do what is right, thinking “I’ll bet that argument’s been made before when that balcony wasn’t empty”. The bridge you cross to get to that church is built on the pilings of the original bridge across that river, which was built by [Horace A. W. King](http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-710), master builder/engineer/staircase designer/and a slave. 2. My maternal grandfather, Mustang Golson, was a descendant on all sides from a wagon train that came to Alabama from South Carolina in 1820. Because most of them were of Swiss descent they had unusual surnames: Stoudemire, Rumph, Deramus, and Kolb among others. Growing up I didn’t know the genealogy (I do now) but I knew that people of these surnames were our relatives. These surnames are only common in three places: the counties surrounding Orangeburg, South Carolina (where the wagon train came from), the counties surrounding Independence, Alabama (where they settled), the counties surrounding Nagodoches, Texas (where a schism left in 1850). What’s this have to do with anything? To this very day I meet black people- I have two co-workers right now in fact- who have the surnames Golson, Deramus, Rumph, Stoudemire, Kolbe, etc… They are of course descendants of the slaves of those people. (It’s always a judgment call when you meet a black person from this area who has the same surname as your mother whether or not to mention it; I don’t think there’s sweeping etiquette, it’s more individual, and frankly there’s a good chance they’re biologically related as well as just of the same “property” surname.) Little things like this are daily reminders of all that went before. Of course personally I am damned near _obsessed_ with people’s family histories, my own and others- white, black, rich, poor, whatever- what gets remembered is incredible to me, and for most families with any oral history the Civil War is invariably going to be the jumping off place. Most stories only survive two goodnight kisses (i.e. I got goodnight kisses from my grandparents and great-aunts; they got goodnight kisses when they were little from their grandparents, the Civil War generation); before that the stories tend to die. That’s why the Civil War is still important down here- it happened more than halfway through the history of the nation, but for us it’s our Genesis (to the romantic white people our expulsion from Eden, but I’ve expressed my notions from that). So it’s only natural there’s a fascination by some- certainly not all. Teenagers raised with the Internet and Wii and cable probably have no more interest in what their ancestors did in the war than they have in what Jason Priestly did on 90210 before they were born. Part of me thinks this is good, part of me thinks it’s bad, mostly I think it just is. As to why we don’t villify these people, there are many reasons. One thing is simple: who villifies their ancestors? It’s… rude. For another there’s the parabolic aspect (not for me but for some). For me, having read the primary sources of the war- diaries, plantation records, the Federal Writers Project narratives, Joel Chandler Harris’s WONDERFUL plantation stories\* and my family stories\*\* and other sources. The first thing that becomes apparent, the most important thing, is the incredible strangeness of this place and the sameness and the extreme complexity of this time. Individuals are rarely simple, and history’s chock full of 'em, thus societies weren’t. And as strange as it is, it’s the same place. The same people. I have the nose of my great-great-grandfather whose picture was seen. But I speak only for myself. The South was stupid to start a war. Slavery was evil. Not all southerners are stupid nor are they evil. Some are but that’s all groups. So to answer the OP: I’ve no contempt for the Confederacy mainly because the war is over and they’re all dead, but secondarily because having read the history I know there’s nothing uniform about the people who made the Confederacy and I will not judge them as a group or by present standards. \*I’m not talking about Uncle Remus but his autobiographical stories, which are heartbreaking in his depiction of slaves. He describes the slaves he had always thought were happy and content leaving to go with Sherman, or the ancient blind man who died of natural causes when Sherman came through and whose loyalty and love and happiness the fatherless half-Irish bastard Harris never questioned, and his shock at seeing the old man’s wife cradling his head and exulting “He’s dead! He’s dead! But Bless God he died free!”- fascinating reads that add dimensions history books don’t. \*\*I mentioned somewhere on the boards my great aunts telling me about “Aunt Pig”- the former slave they knew with the notched nose her mother gave her to stop white men from wanting her, or of their grandfather and his “soldier’s heart” (PTSD) that haunted him til the end of his days, mostly about the mules he had killed. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/95 "2009-11-11T01:04:08Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The North was no more racially liberal than the South and had only done away with slavery because it was financially impractical. Unarguable. I do think this point is arguable. I think it would be more accurate to say that, whereas slavery had become vital to the central industry of large areas of the South (commoditized production of agricultural goods, mainly cotton, for an international market) slavery was not an economic _necessity_ in the North, which allowed the Northern states (beginning with Vermont, IIRC, and ending with New Jersey) to indulge their _moral_ and _political_ sentiments and abolish slavery (or in the case of the states to the west of Pennsylvania, never allow it in the first place). I don’t get this suggestion that the North had some _economic_ reason for wanting abolition. Even if slavery was of no benefit to them, I don’t see how it _harmed_ them economically speaking. It’s not like Northern cotton plantations using free labor were being outcompeted by cheaper slave-labor cotton plantations in the South. The North came to view slavery not merely as something it had no further need for, but as a moral and political evil. As a result of the Enlightenment values of the Revolution, and of moral and theological developments within Christianity, slavery came to be seen as _morally_ wrong, which attitude probably genuinely reflected some concern for the welfare of the slaves themselves (however patronizing and still racist the attitutudes of many abolitionists seem to us today). And slavery was seen as a _politically_ undesirable, as fostering an aristocratic and even autocratic mentality among slave-owners which was inimical to republican virtues and which tended to produce contempt for the value of labor, even when performed by free men–those objections aren’t incompatible with a concern for the welfare of the slaves themselves, but one could easily object to slavery on these political grounds without caring about the slaves themselves one way or the other (or even outright despising the slaves themselves). ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/96 "2009-11-11T01:26:15Z")
I do wish that people who want to participate in this kind of garbage would bother to learn the difference between a Battle Standard and the Flag of the Confederate States of America. Any of them would be acceptable since there were several at different times. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/97 "2009-11-11T02:30:51Z")
Outstanding post, **Sampiro**. ---
**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 11, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/98 "2009-11-11T03:30:41Z")
I disagree with many things in that post, but I must say, it was very thoughful and compelling. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/99 "2009-11-11T03:58:34Z")
I’ve no interest in joining either side in this fight; still I can’t help but point out that folks sure look at State’s rights differently when it comes to marijuana laws. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994/100 "2009-11-11T04:15:02Z")
> [@quixotic78](#): > > The Confederacy lost!! It doesn’t matter how outmatched or whatever they were, at the end of the day, they lost! Even if we ignore the question about whether one can separate the validity of honoring one’s ancestors from the issue of slavery, when you’re proudly flying your Stars and Bars, you’re essentially saying, “Hooray for the losers!” Getting massacred against hopeless odds strikes to the core of the human tribal spirit. Martyrdom a great way to be remembered. Everyone loves to get up on the cross to support their tribe, especially young men. Check out the Battle of Karbala. Or Mogadishu. The Alamo. Or any vanilla street gang. > [@DrCube](#): > > When it comes to forwarding the despicable cause of prohibition, the current US government is also contemptible. But the American people in general are not. I think that’s worth remembering. Are you arguing the U.S. government is autocratic and the general population has little to no say? Hey, I’m with you, but I think we’re in the extreme minority. > [@LouisB](#): > > Why is the USA not worthy of contempt for the war against Mexico? That war was a land grab, pure and simple. Is this a trick question? It is. It’s a good start for a history of U.S. imperialism. No worse than other countries, but there it is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-confederacy-not-worthy-of-contempt/516994.md?page=6)