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I spend half my time in Florida and half in Alberta.
I see the Bars and Stars more in Alberta than in Florida on trucks.
That surprised me the first time I went south. There are no racial connotations to it in Alberta, just an expression of government leave me alone.
If you're talking about Alberta, Canada I'm not really surprised that people in that area would be ignorant of the historical significance of the stars and bars!
Well actually, it was to be able to sell their cotton and other agricultural products to England and other nations at a higher price. It was a state's rights issue. Many northern politicians were heavily invested in the clothing manufacturing centers such as were in New York City and other areas and wanted the cotton to supply their own factories. Perhaps a little study in history would be beneficial.
You should follow your own advice about the history lesson, because you clearly have no clue what you're talking about.
South Carolina, the first state to secede, specifically identified slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union. In their declaration of secession (titled "Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union "), they state -
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The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
Not a word about cotton, agricultural products, tariffs, or any of that other nonsense. Slavery, pure and simple.
Of the other 6 original Confederate states, 3 more (Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia) specifically mention slavery as a primary reason for secession. Mississippi stated:
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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 the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”
Texas said:
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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.
Georgia said:
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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.
That's the opening paragraph of the Georgia Ordinance of secession. Again, slavery. Period.
Of the remaining 3 Southern States who initiated the Civil War, Alabama did not list specific reasons for seceding, but did invite all other "slaveholding states of the South" to join them in their rebellion, and the final two (Florida and Louisiana) simply stated that they were seceding and left it at that. So of the 7 states who started the Civil War, 5 of them identified slavery as either a primary or the sole reason for seceding from the Union, and the remaining 2 did not mention any specific reasons whatsoever.
Additionally, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens - in his Cornerstone Address of March 1861, in which he outlined the Confederates' reason for the war - said this:
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Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.
So, yes - as you say, "a little study in history would be beneficial." I would suggest you follow your own advice, and take a few minutes to educate yourself before posting such complete nonsense again in the future. The Civil War was all about slavery, and the states who started the war by seceding made no attempt to dance around it at the time. Say what you will about them, they at least had the courage of their convictions and the integrity to admit what they stood for. Unlike many of their modern-day revisionist apologists, obviously.
Says someone from the heart of the secessionist movement, SC!!! Truth be told votes to Repeal Obamacare wasted more money and time than this little needed legislation... Picking and choosing outrage selectively & carefully is a conservative trait...
What kind of health care and insurance system we have or are allowed to have is a critical issue that concretely and significantly affects people's daily lives at many stages of their life. Can the same be said of whether a regional flag should be flown or not? Also, there is by all appearances not a particularly big concentration of secessionists in South Carolina. Texas, Vermont, and Alaska are pretty obviously the heart of the secessionist movement, considering that's where the greatest numbers of secessionists are.
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Originally Posted by Rakin
Did CA fight for the West during the Civil War ? What flag did they use ?
I live in California. Have never seen it. Never have lived anywhere that had folks keen on it.
I've lived in overwhelmingly mainstream liberal urban areas for most of my life though.
What makes you think liberal urban areas are so mainstream, any more so than anywhere else? Consider that only a fraction of the population (ranging from small to significant depending on who you ask) live in liberal urban areas, and they occupy a tiny fraction of the land area of the country. Even if they had most of the population, which they don't, liberal urbanites cannot have an understanding of the whole country, and no faction could under those conditions. Even all counties that voted for Obama, including many not-so-liberal and not-so-urban counties, only occupy a small fraction of the country's land mass as of the last election, so much so you can go from coast to coast and border to border without leaving a red county. Republicans have the inverse problem - having virtually no support among urbanites they have little understanding of urbanites' way of life and needs, but I submit that that's less of a problem than a predominately-urbanite party being completely out of touch with 90% of the country. Not that that has to be a problem - if they are aware of their limitations of understanding and thus governing they can take a hands-off approach to the other parts of the country, but neither party seems to be aware.
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Originally Posted by SHABAZZ310
You might not get it now but with disciplined studying it will come. I give lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays if you need assistance...
Playing up racist stereotypes again, are we? Namely that white Southerners are an uneducated and inbred bunch of idiots that need stern parenting from virtuous and more advanced Yankees. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for doing so, and I bet you would if it was blacks or Latinos you were insulting rather than white Southerners. Everyone is to be defended from slurs and stereotyping, except Southern whites apparently; it appears the forces of supposed anti-racism consider them an inferior people unworthy of protection to be excluded from the new anti-racist utopia. They will notice (are noticing?) this disconnect, and may come to see anti-racism as code for an existential threat. Once the well is poisoned to that degree it will be difficult for us to recover, all because of a few anti-Southern bigots who used the good cause against racism as the most convenient cloak.
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Originally Posted by cupper3
I spend half my time in Florida and half in Alberta.
I see the Bars and Stars more in Alberta than in Florida on trucks.
That surprised me the first time I went south. There are no racial connotations to it in Alberta, just an expression of government leave me alone.
That's why I always say Canadians don't realize how lucky they are to be able to discuss decentralization, federalism, and secession with no one ever bringing up race, racism, and slavery. They're even luckier than that, considering how close they came to becoming part of the U.S.
Maybe if New England had taken the plunge in 1814 America could have been as lucky as Canada with regards to racism and secession, but I doubt it. The best chance would be that scenario coupled with a President who let the South go their own way in 1860. That would leave a fairly strange-shaped U.S., though, without the Confederate states or New England. In our history there was serious talk in 1861 of NYC seceding; if it was better received and since in that timeline there was no Fort Sumter to knock the sails out of the idea, it's possible NYC could become independent as well. Given their supremacy in trade and commerce at the time, they might have become the Singapore of the 19th century. All of that might defuse some of the secession is racist ideology, with New England and New York out of the Union, but the unionist anti-Southern sentiment is still quite strong.
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Namely that white Southerners are an uneducated and inbred bunch of idiots that need stern parenting from virtuous and more advanced Yankees. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for doing so, and I bet you would if it was blacks or Latinos you were insulting rather than white Southerners. Everyone is to be defended from slurs and stereotyping, except Southern whites apparently; it appears the forces of supposed anti-racism consider them an inferior people unworthy of protection to be excluded from the new anti-racist utopia. They will notice (
