Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The obvious answer is during the war Louisville was mostly pro Union but during reconstruction many people felt sympathy for how the South was being treated. Remember that the war started about preserving the Union, Lincoln - an extreme Liberal by his day - decided a couple years in that the war would be about ending slavery. Many people were for preserving the Union but against a war to free Blacks. While in hindsight we know that the war caused slavery to end the average Union soldier was no more or less racist by modern standards as the average Confederate soldier.
As such I support moving the monument away from its prime location it a more suitable location such as a Confederate cemetery. But again, this should be decided by a popular vote for Jefferson County residents.
Another issue is that the monument is a great landmark. Had it simply been a small statue of Jefferson Davis it would've been moved decades ago. If the monument is moved I think we should place a new monument equally as grand in its place, maybe for war dead in WW1 or 2 which 100% of Louisvillians and Kentuckians fought on the same side.
Kentucky after the war's end became extremely pro-Southern.
Union soldiers cared more about preservation of the Union than they did about freeing slaves. General Sherman famously burned a bridge in Georgia over a river where African Americans could have escaped. Sherman didn't care about blacks. And the vast majority of the North were not abolitionists.
Sherman spent much of his life in the South and certainly was the most Southern leaning of all major Union generals, even more so than Virginian George Thomas, the actual architect of the "March to the Sea" for which Sherman gained such great infamy in the South.
Just because the Union as a whole had the primary goal of preserving the Union, if you consider the abolitionist bent of the Republican Congress, and the constitution of the Union army that I've already explained, it's IMO ridiculous to argue that the Union army was just as racist as the Confederate army.
I actually consider it preposterous. Many persons who worked with free African Americans in northern states had a high regard for their character and abilities. It was in more rural areas of the north were there were substantial racist tendencies, but slavery was generally abhorred and not supported, as it was in the great preponderance of the South.
If anybody considers the horrors of Southern slavery, even the forbidding of teaching reading to slaves, it's a horrible argument to equate the racial attitudes of Union and Confederate soldiers, even if you stick to white soldiers and ignore the large numbers of African Americans in the Union army.
The respect that white Union soldiers had for African Americans is evident in Cleveland's Soldiers & Sailors Monument. The Union monument was designed and partially paid for by a Union army veteran.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,476,450 times
Reputation: 12187
Maybe in New England Union volunteers did care about ending slavery but that wasn't the case for many other places. In New York City mobs of Whites attacked and killed Blacks after getting drafted into the Union army in 1863, killing at least 100 innocent Blacks. Let's also not forget that many Unionist loved Blacks so much that they want to force them to go back to Africa.
None of this change the fact that in perfect hindsight we know that the Union winning greatly helped African Americans. As such I am against using public funds or places to display Confederate memorials. But that doesn't change the fact that many Northerners were (and still are) just as racist as Southern Whites. Non Whites have been treated terribly in all parts of the USA. How many people know that the Civil War also freed thousands of female Native American sex slaves held by 49ers in California? Yet White Californians aren't held in contempt for their past evils the same way Southern Whites are.
Maybe in New England Union volunteers did care about ending slavery but that wasn't the case for many other places. In New York City mobs of Whites attacked and killed Blacks after getting drafted into the Union army in 1863, killing at least 100 innocent Blacks. Let's also not forget that many Unionist loved Blacks so much that they want to force them to go back to Africa.
None of this change the fact that in perfect hindsight we know that the Union winning greatly helped African Americans. As such I am against using public funds or places to display Confederate memorials. But that doesn't change the fact that many Northerners were (and still are) just as racist as Southern Whites. Non Whites have been treated terribly in all parts of the USA. How many people know that the Civil War also freed thousands of female Native American sex slaves held by 49ers in California? Yet White Californians aren't held in contempt for their past evils the same way Southern Whites are.
You make exaggerated claims based on isolated cases. Was there discrimination and bigotry in the North? Certainly, but it pales against the ingrained racist and violent attitudes and actions inherent in the Confederate states. Nothing in the North compares with the horrors of slavery. And there was a massive abolitionist movement in the North that viewed African Americans very favorably.
Here's an offsetting example of the Confederate mindset (especially note the comments of Confederate Secretary of War Seddon compared with the Union effort to treat its African American soldiers as the equals of it white soldiers). Anybody reading this should well understand that racism in the Confederacy was far greater than in the Union.
The thrust of your argument is that Union soldiers, and the Union populace as a whole was as racist as their counterparts in the Confederacy. It's simply inaccurate, apologist rhetoric IMO.
BTW, there were abolitionists throughout the Union. Abolitionism was the bedrock of the Republican Party.
The difference is people like Washington, Jefferson, Wilson, etc did other things that laid the foundation for improving everyone's lives. I'm unaware of anything the Confederacy stood for that would've helped anyone out in the future. The CSA was created by and for the rich White male planter class.
Second, even had the CSA won slavery would've went away by 1900 anyways, so 1 million people died for nothing.
Though I can see your first point, it takes two to fight. Sure, slavery would have become uneconomical by the mid 1880s. Brazil and Cuba both freed their slaves at this time- though Cuba had initiated a gradual process in the 1860s. Even in the 1860s, the "writing was on the wall" and astute planters knew it.
So... why were the abolitionists forcing the issue? That goes double for the ones in pacifist churches who personally would not have to deal with the concequences of pushing the south towards secession and war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by censusdata
Maybe in New England Union volunteers did care about ending slavery but that wasn't the case for many other places. In New York City mobs of Whites attacked and killed Blacks after getting drafted into the Union army in 1863, killing at least 100 innocent Blacks. Let's also not forget that many Unionist loved Blacks so much that they want to force them to go back to Africa.
Ohio, Illinois and Indiana banned slavery- and then also banned free blacks from settling in those states. Meanwhile, there were plenty of free blacks in Virginia. Some of them were even slave owners themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WRnative
BTW, there were abolitionists throughout the Union. Abolitionism was the bedrock of the Republican Party.
And that is why Republican Illinois would not let free blacks live there and why the Republican Lincoln once contemplated a cease fire and giving the South until 1900 to gradually free their slaves. Likewise, the Eancipation Proclamation contained many fine print exceptions.
The plural to singular is evident. Ohio had banned free blacks before the war. As a result, it could be stretch to say that large numbers of of white Ohio union soldiers were enthralled by armed blacks. Rather, they viewed them as a necessity.
Louisville only SEEMED pro confederacy after the war because as the second largest city south of the mason dixon line after New Orleans, Louisiville had to play both sides of the coin. Louisville was the place where cotton and the bounty of the south came to market via the steamboat trade, and later railroads, and made it to the industrial centers of the north. The article above shows how the confederates used scare tactics and took over the state of KY, thus making Louisville more of a "southern city" than it had been.
To those forumers who try to make Louisville look like a uniformly southern city like Jackson MS...it is strictly delusional. I am not sure why folks try to paint this picture other than to distance the city from the one they live in? anyone who has spent any amount of time in Louisville would note that it is a very mixed bag city.
Louisville's embrace of "southern" started more with Mayor Farnsley in the 1950s....he saw the growth in the south yet he was a progressive....Louisville integrated most everything, including schools, well before anywhere in the true south. Louisville is not true south....a Midwest city with a mix of south, midwest, and ohio river valley. Those trying to make Louisville sound like Jackson MS....well should spend more time in Mississippi to experience the real south!
Though I can see your first point, it takes two to fight. Sure, slavery would have become uneconomical by the mid 1880s. Brazil and Cuba both freed their slaves at this time- though Cuba had initiated a gradual process in the 1860s. Even in the 1860s, the "writing was on the wall" and astute planters knew it.
So... why were the abolitionists forcing the issue? That goes double for the ones in pacifist churches who personally would not have to deal with the concequences of pushing the south towards secession and war.
Ohio, Illinois and Indiana banned slavery- and then also banned free blacks from settling in those states. Meanwhile, there were plenty of free blacks in Virginia. Some of them were even slave owners themselves.
And that is why Republican Illinois would not let free blacks live there and why the Republican Lincoln once contemplated a cease fire and giving the South until 1900 to gradually free their slaves. Likewise, the Eancipation Proclamation contained many fine print exceptions.
The plural to singular is evident. Ohio had banned free blacks before the war. As a result, it could be stretch to say that large numbers of of white Ohio union soldiers were enthralled by armed blacks. Rather, they viewed them as a necessity.
Please document your claims. It's ridiculous to make these claims with no substantiation. I would agree that large numbers of free blacks lived in the South.
Your version of history differs greatly from mine, especially regarding Ohio.
E.g., John Parker certainly wasn't banned from living in Ohio.
Here's an article on race and discrimination in Ohio in pre-Civil War period. It's not pretty, but it has some heroic moments, such as the integration of Oberlin (not only by blacks but also by admitting women). To a lesser degree even than with today's immigration laws, note that Ohio's African-American "exclusion" laws were rarely enforced. Note that African-Americans were afforded educations legally, a far cry from the situation in the South, and, of course, there was no slavery. So to equate racism in Ohio with that in the Confederacy is just revisionist muck. Large numbers of abolitionists from Ohio enlisted in the Union army.
It's extremely well known that Lincoln's primary goal was saving the Union. However, his position on slavery evolved rapidly, and he did sign the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, relatively early in the war. Haven't you ever seen the movie, "Lincoln," which generally is considered historically valid and which documented Lincoln's over-the-top efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning slavery in the U.S.?
The southern portions of Midwest states were much more racist than the more northern portions of those states. The Ku Klux Klan even had large parades in some rural Ohio communities as late as the pre-WWII period.
Several persons posting in this thread badly need to watch this film, or, better yet, read McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom." Nobody reading McPherson's book would recognize the history being recreated in this thread.
This thread probably explains why a frustrated McPherson coined the term, "neo-Confederate."
Claims that southern slavery was benign, that the Civil War wasn't fought to defend slavery, or that the North was as racist as the South is all just hogwash.
Ohio had banned free blacks before the war. As a result, it could be stretch to say that large numbers of of white Ohio union soldiers were enthralled by armed blacks. Rather, they viewed them as a necessity.
I've already noted that free blacks were given many opportunities in northern Ohio not available elsewhere.
Your argument is that few Ohioans respected blacks, but only viewed them as a necessity during the Civil War.
Yet an Ohio abolitionist/Civil War officer/Ohio Congressman was later elected President and he put his views on the subject front and center during his Presidential campaign.
<< "For he today that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition."
And it did gentle the condition and elevate the heart of every worthy soldier who fought for the Union, [applause,] and he shall be our brother forevermore. Another thing we will remember: we will remember our allies who fought with us. Soon after the great struggle began, we looked behind the army of white rebels, and saw 4,000,000 of black people condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies; and we found that the hearts of these 4,000,000 were God-inspired with the spirit of Liberty, and that they were all our friends. [Applause.] We have seen the white men betray the flag and fight to kill the Union; but in all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor in a black skin. [Great cheers.] Our comrades escaping from the starvation of prison, fleeing to our lines by the light of the North star, never feared to enter the black man's cabin and ask for bread. ["Good, good," "That's so," and loud cheers.] In all that period of suffering and danger, no Union soldier was ever betrayed by a black man or woman. [Applause.] And now that we have made them free, so long as we live we will stand by these black allies. [Renewed applause.] We will stand by them until the sun of liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, shall shine with equal ray upon every man, black or white, throughout the Union. [Cheers.] Fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers, in this there is the beneficence of eternal justice, and by it we will stand forever. [Great applause.] A poet has said that in individual life we rise, "On stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things," and the Republic rises on the glorious achievements of its dead and living heroes to a higher and nobler national life. [Applause.] We must stand guard over our past as soldiers, and over our country as the common heritage of all. [Applause.]>>
In his only major speech of his Presidential campaign outside of Ohio, Garfield emphasized his respect for African-Americans, and yet was elected President. This hardly would have been possible if his opinion of black Americans wasn't widely shared in the North. The respect shown to African-Americans in Cleveland's Soldiers and Sailors Monument hardly expressed the attitudes of just one man, contrary to your assertion. Do you believe that a piece of public art which has dominated the epicenter of Cleveland for well over a century would have been approved if the consensus of Clevelanders disagreed with the messages conveyed?
Meanwhile, Southern whites were undertaking a successful campaign to deny African-Americans in the former Confederate states their liberties by the enactment of Jim Crow laws, violence, and pervasive social norms. It's simply laughable that anyone would equate racial attitudes in the states of the Union with those same attitudes in Confederate states, which nurtured slavery and then the Jim Crow era, in both cases with ugly and pervasive racial undertones.
The words of the last stanza of the Union marching song, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" -- "Let us die to make men free" -- were not an empty falsehood for the abolitionist soldiers of the Union Army.
It's simply an historical con game to argue that the racial sensibilities of the likes of Garfield, similarly minded northerners, and those racial attitudes of the supporters of the Confederacy, especially Confederate soldiers, were at all similar.
Garfield campaigned for President largely from the front porch of his Mentor, Ohio, home, where throngs of reporters recorded his every word and telegraphed reports across the country.
<<Garfield was deeply moved when ordinary people started coming from far and wide, just to see him. In what came to be known as front porch talks, he would stand on his wide veranda speaking to enormous gatherings. The most stirring moment came when the members of a group from an all-black university -- the Fisk Jubilee Singers -- stood before his farmhouse and sang. When the performance ended Garfield stood to address the group. "I tell you now," he said, "that I would rather be with you and defeated than against you and victorious.">>
Louisville only SEEMED pro confederacy after the war because as the second largest city south of the mason dixon line after New Orleans, Louisiville had to play both sides of the coin. Louisville was the place where cotton and the bounty of the south came to market via the steamboat trade, and later railroads, and made it to the industrial centers of the north. The article above shows how the confederates used scare tactics and took over the state of KY, thus making Louisville more of a "southern city" than it had been.
To those forumers who try to make Louisville look like a uniformly southern city like Jackson MS...it is strictly delusional. I am not sure why folks try to paint this picture other than to distance the city from the one they live in? anyone who has spent any amount of time in Louisville would note that it is a very mixed bag city.
Louisville's embrace of "southern" started more with Mayor Farnsley in the 1950s....he saw the growth in the south yet he was a progressive....Louisville integrated most everything, including schools, well before anywhere in the true south. Louisville is not true south....a Midwest city with a mix of south, midwest, and ohio river valley. Those trying to make Louisville sound like Jackson MS....well should spend more time in Mississippi to experience the real south!
That is an excellent piece from WHAS. This highlights why this history is so interesting to me. From my research and experience being from Louisville I don’t think you can project the mixed bag of characteristics of contemporary Louisville onto this historical Louisville. This is a very different era, very different people. The most powerful statement is at the end of the article.
Remarks Cosby, “While the confederates lost the war, they won the cultural war.”
In the introduction remarks from Anne Marshall's book (posted at beginning of thread, reinserting here) concerning this period, which begins with a scene from the GAR encampment in Louisville circa 1895, she asserts
"Here it is necessary that I insert a point of clarification: it is important to understand that Kentucky was, before, during, and after the civil war a southern state. In this book I do not argue that Kentucky became a southern state after the civil war, but rather that the efforts of white Kentuckians to celebrate the Confederacy played a major role in cementing and embellishing an already-existing southern identity, in effect making it more southern."
She goes into great detail here, so if you are interested in this subject it is a good read. Now Louisville had a large number of foreign born residents that are not going to be culturally southern. It is the white nativist population of this period that were somewhat fire breathing southerners after the war.
Guys just a reminder that the OP is about the removal of the statue from the UL Campus. Lets discuss that and not refight the Civil War. There are some threads in the History section that may be of interest about the Civil War.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
