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We live in a time where people scream "keep government hands off my Medicaid" so I don't think it's utterly absurd to find a small percentage of slaves who fought against their own interest.
It does not. The word means nothing without the context that uses it. The word slavery is found in the US Constitution, but it doesn't mean it's about slavery. Furthermore the document is not a declaration of war. It is the legal justification that SC gave to leave the Union.
I do take from this however you didn't know or had considered this side to the history. IMO, without knowing that, then it's impossible to form an objective analysis when you are only considering one side of the story. The document is clear enough why SC left the Union.
We are discussing human bondage, chattel slavery. I am very well aware of the context.
No one can honestly read that document and not conclude that slavery was at the heart of the conflict.
It is clear from reading this legal justification that slavery was the primary motivating factor of the Southern states. Indeed, they discuss the article of the Constitution that provides for the return of fugitive slaves from nonslaveholding territory. The "state's rights" argument is a very common trope. One right of the state was at issue - slavery. This was the primary reason for the war.
I'm well aware of the "state's rights" interpretation and have considered it extensively. I was, after all, educated in Southern public schools.
This interpretation, or "side" as you put it, is logically and objectively incorrect.
We are all aware of this Nation's history. Just answer the question. IF the south had won, what plans did the south have on the books for ending slavery?
his presidency).
Lincoln's history aside, just answer the question. What plans did the south have to free the slaves if the south had won the war?
The Confederate Constitution was written on March 11, 1861. You need to go look up the answer yourself. You should be surprised to see that the Southern Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution had provisions to elliminate slavery at that time through attrition. It is in Section nine. Funny that the Emancipation Proclaimation was written so long after the start of the war which was "supposed" to be about freeing slaves according to northern history books. Weird? The Southern Constitution was in place before the Emancipation proclaimation.
Furthermore, this North v. South stuff is a defensive posture on the part of Southern apologists. No one here said a thing about the North being some bastion of humanity. The fact remains that, relatively speaking, blacks found far more opportunities for economic and personal freedom in the North than the South through the 20th century.
This discussion is about black slaves who were impressed into service of a government that sought to continue their status as property. It is about how best to remember them.
The word "slave" appears in that document 18 times. It indeed confirms that slavery was the primary cause of Southern secession.
"The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."
No, it doesn't (see bolded part). Only FOUR states of the original Conderate State mentioned slavery as a reason for secession (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas). AND? Texas and Georgia mentioned other reasons as well. Such as? In Georgia, the unfair tariffs imposed by the northern states. In Texas? It was also the failure of the federal government to live up to the terms of the original annexation agreement...and protect citizens along the western frontier.
Like the Texas document said, secession was really a natural result of simply wanting to seperate from a federal government, controlled by Northern interests, which despised the South.
In seceding? All the South wanted was to be left alone! What was so horrid about that? Instead, out of a desire to keep the South's money, the Lincoln administration chose to invade a people who had done them no wrong at all.
Here is a link of CSA president Jefferson Davis inagural address:
And here is a good excerpt from his first address to the CSA congress, declaring that the South only wanted to be left alone and go in peace: they were willing to pay ANY price for such, save honor...
We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the states with which we have lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone – that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, we must resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned, the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amnesty and commerce that cannot but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we must continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self government. – President Jefferson Davis' first address to the Confederate Congress
This interpretation, or "side" as you put it, is logically and objectively incorrect.
Actually my posts in this topic were about the North vs South in regards to the institution of slavery. That is, the North was just as culpable and benefited from slavery just as much, if not more, than the South.
You decided to respond to this by bringing up why the war started and why the South left the Union. If you wish now to avoid that discussion because the documented history of that time differs from your opinion, then I'm OK with that. I don't seek to change your opinion.
In regards to why SC left the Union, there isn't any interpretation to it. The document is part of US history and it's the stated reason why they left the Union. I recommend that you read it if you are really interested.
Sharecropping was just another form of slavery. You're revising history in this post.
Have you looked at the books and receipts of farmers who paid sharecroppers? I HAVE. I am NOT revising history but you are certainly engaging in baiting, wh/ is against the TOS.
White folks were sharecroppers, too. There were po' white folks in 1860 who were hardly able to eek out a living and they were sharecroppers, just as there were black folks who were sharecroppers, most of whom were working off the "debt" they "owed" their slaveowners, so they could secure their freedom. Sharecropping arrangements took many different forms, just as employment takes many different forms today (payment as well as living arrangements).
I am not an apologist for the Confederacy, for my ancestors, for the institution of slavery. It was a heinous institution. Dismissing and denying the realities - ALL THE REALITIES - of life at that period is the worst kind of historic distortion and politicization of the FACTS. I am not interested in arguing about life in 1860. I was trying to give an honest, factual answer to a sincerely posed question.
I would add that I continue to research everything I can get my hands on to form a better understanding of what life was like in mid-19th C western NC. I find bits and pieces of the puzzle and am continually surprised as what I learn. I am no expert but the things I relay, I can back up w/ primary documents.
Last edited by brokensky; 08-08-2012 at 01:43 PM..
Everything you said here is interesting and factually correct. Slavery in the upper South and slavery in the deep South were different in nature and brutality. Frederick Douglass even mentions this in his memoirs of being a slave in Maryland. Though it was de-humanizing in Maryland, there was a huge fear of being sold "down the river" where conditions were far more brutal. I think North Carolina is a demarcation point between the upper and deep souths.
The only thing I take issue with is the characterization of Union County as "western" North Carolina. I think in the foothills and mountain counties, there is a lot of truth to what you are saying. It's one of the reasons why NC had a minority but relevant Republican Party in the early 20th century. But Union County was firmly entrenched in the slave economy - not to the extent of counties to the east - but I don't think there were very many Unionists in Union County.
BTW, Union County comes from a compromise between the Democrats who wanted to name it after Andrew Jackson, and the Whigs, who wanted to name it for Clay.
I wasn't referring to Union County at all -- I was talking about my own research in the counties of Mecklenburg, Iredell, Alexander, Catawba, Lincoln, Gaston, Caldwell, Burke (and to a more limited degree - Wilkes, Ashe, Yadkin, Watauga, Haywood, Buncombe). I apologize for leaving that impression that I was referring to Union.
To be honest, I have not really spent time with Union County history, except insofar as it would be tied into Meck prior to the Revolutionary War. My research all began about 35 years ago, in re: to genealogy, and I do not have any family that settled in what we now would know as Union County.
Very well said. When the north finally decided to abolish slavery themselves, they did so by a system of gradual emancipation that allowed the northern slave owners to remove their property to the south, sell their slaves, and thereby divest themselves of the human responsibility while making a hansome profit. I haven't examined but I suppose that Coped and Felt.... are aware that it was the northeastern shipping companies, mostly Jewish owned by the way, that were the big profiteers from the slave trade with their triange of trade involving rum, molases, and humans. Furthermore, cities like Boston became wealth because of the business of slavery. These uninformed need to investigate the impact that slavery on the establishment of Harvard, Yale, and many other great northern institutions. It would take a moron to think that the north wasn't as responsible for slaver as the south and the only reason it ended in the north was the lack of need after the industrial revolution. And, there was no outcry concerning inhumanity when the north required slavery to provide their demands for cotton.
It is also funny how the north emancipated the slaves with no plans for rehousing, educating, and relocating them afterwords. The Freedman's Bureau was at the mercy of the former slave owners to allow them to stay on the plantations and be sharecroppers as the moronic U.S. government had no contengency plan.
And, of course Lincoln had big plans for shipping them out of the U.S. He made it clear that slaves were inferior and should not be in this country but in a place where the climate was more like what they were accustomed, etc.
Please point out one post by anyone in this thread that said the North didn't have slaves or racism.
And for those folks, there was the option of fighting for the Union. We know why some blacks weren't able to join the Union. What was the excuse of the whites who didn't agree with the Confederacy yet still chose to fight on THAT side?
That's an honest question, but I would respectfully remind you that just b/c someone wore the uniform, it didn't mean he had the opportunity to "choose" to wear it or not wear it - or that he was in the position (geographically, even) to "choose" to fight for the Union.
There were thousands of NC soldiers who were conscripted into service, some as young as the age of 15. One of my ancestors was conscripted into service . . . dragged off at 15 . . . with his mother and siblings left behind to survive alone. He was the "man" of the house and no, these folks did not have slaves and never HAD owned slaves. Soldiers came unto their farm in Iredell County and took the boy off, with momma begging and pleading to leave him to help her run the farm. He was taken to Salisbury. His mother gathered up the children and WALKED all the way from their farm in Iredell County to military headquarters in Salisbury, with children in tow (down to age 3) to confront military authorities and beg them to let her son go back home. She had to walk because the mules had been taken by the Confederate Army, as well.
I have relayed here that my gggrandfather was the largest plantation owner in this part of the state. His sons volunteered for the Army. All except for one, who had left NC for Missouri years earlier, and joined the Union Army (in Cape Girardeau, I believe). He died of smallpox in a Confederate prison.
SO yes, some folks did go to great lengths to join the Union Army. There really were situations of brother against brother. I cannot imagine how that must have been, to have to make a decision to abandon your family and take up arms against your brothers.
For most folks, however, it was a matter of "let's get this over with" - so when they realized they were going to have to fight a war, they went to the local recruiting station and signed up. That is certainly what letters I have read indicate (in my family). I also find it important to note - most of these young men thought this war would be over quickly - as in A FEW MONTHS. How wrong they were. They thought they would be back home, taking care of the farm or their stores, by the next planting season.
I have done no research on the soldiers being honored in Union County, but my interest has certainly been piqued by all this discussion! I don't know how much we can actually discover about their life situations but I can assure you, I will share it if I find out anything I can relay.
I personally do not see this memorial as an attempt to "romanticize" the ugliness of the Civil War and especially not the situations of black men who served in the Confederacy. Their stories deserve to be told. As long as their is a genuine attempt at putting their service into context with the circumstances of their lives, then I think recognizing their service is appropriate.
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