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When I came into this thread I did one thing before doing anything else. I looked at Avalon Project - Confederate States of America : Documents and read the first four documents listed. When I completed that task I drew a conclusion, the argument that brought the war was about money, not people at all. Both governments, the Union and the Confederacy had money on the table. Then I set about the task of showing the 'truth' of the argument, through revealing the Union cause.
If a person takes out one piece of a jigsaw puzzle, sets it aside and never puts it into place, the full picture is never revealed.
The argument is not a pro or con of slavery, the stance however, is a gain monetary in value. African Americans In The Civil War
The Union was setting them free (kicking 'em to the curb) with hat in hand, yet their freedom it seems served only one purpose at the time, decline the property values in the Confederate Government so as they would take an economic hit to the belt.
Now Jim Crow you ask 100 years later, I am not sure as yet, because I have never looked at the segregation movement, nor do I know the first thing about Jim Crow. However, I'm thinking as my thoughts were on it today, that if I look into it I will find the underline causes, to manipulate people and obtain money. I say this without even looking at its history, because the government(s) do two things and they do it well. They manipulate the people and they collect their money.
"Never let a good crises, go to waste."
People are personal. Business, in particular, government business, is not. If people could/would put their personal differences aside or if they do something new, see one another as equals, it would be much harder for government(s) to do the two things they do best.
If you read the documents, then you know that Mississippi's Declaration of Secession sums it all up pretty well...
Quote:
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.
You're attempting to make it an economic argument, but it was not. It was a political argument. The North sought to limit the expansion of slavery to the Territories. Such a limit would result in the balance of power in the Senate moving from a 50/50 to nominally pro-slave position to one of "anti-slavery". The election of Lincoln exposed the growing divide that existed within the South itself giving the presidency to a northern "anti-slavery" president for virtually the first time in history.
Of course, the Lower South seceded before Lincoln even took office, they felt so threatened. There was not a law passed, or motion made to threaten anything about the South and its "institution" other than the loss of an election and the beginning of the erosion of their outsized political power.
You can name any other reason you want, but it all ties back to slavery...money, political power, morality...all vis-a-vis slavery. If slavery had never existed in the US, there would have been no Civil War and the entirety of the CSA was dedicated to one mission and one mission only...the preservation and enshrinement of slavery as the status quo.
If you read the documents, then you know that Mississippi's Declaration of Secession sums it all up pretty well...
Quote:
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.
You're attempting to make it an economic argument, but it was not. It was a political argument. The North sought to limit the expansion of slavery to the Territories. Such a limit would result in the balance of power in the Senate moving from a 50/50 to nominally pro-slave position to one of "anti-slavery". The election of Lincoln exposed the growing divide that existed within the South itself giving the presidency to a northern "anti-slavery" president for virtually the first time in history.
Of course, the Lower South seceded before Lincoln even took office, they felt so threatened. There was not a law passed, or motion made to threaten anything about the South and its "institution" other than the loss of an election and the beginning of the erosion of their outsized political power.
You can name any other reason you want, but it all ties back to slavery...money, political power, morality...all vis-a-vis slavery. If slavery had never existed in the US, there would have been no Civil War and the entirety of the CSA was dedicated to one mission and one mission only...the preservation and enshrinement of slavery as the status quo.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.
Whoop there it is. The idea that the Union had on 'we will free 'em, but we don't know what we will do with 'em afterwards'.
Abraham Lincoln, first freed them in the Confederate States to throw a cog in the wheel of commerce, so as the Confederate States would come to terms with, 'we can't sustain our states without Union (FED) money'. That is what Mississippi is declaring in (commerce) the first paragraph, in which you have provided.
Yes the Union sought to limit the expansion of slavery to additional territories that the Confederate States looked to govern, once again to limit the Confederate's ability to sustain.
This was a Union Government and a Confederate Government, two governments locking horns with one another and neither was going to back down. This is not a North states and South states issue.
The Union Government had industrialized itself, where as the Confederate Government had not. Not to mention that the slaves had money (property) value attached to them. That is where the (labor) economics comes into play.
Since the Confederate documents clearly state they wish to stand independent from the Union, just as the U.S. stands independent from Great Britain, imo, there would have still been a Civil War, where as the states would maintain their own sovereignty without FED money. It is the same argument that is still being had today that Ron Paul talks about, when he asks the question, 'how did the government pay itself before 1913?' He also, goes on to talk about property in that one is free to move about, but the government still owns parts of one's property.
I liken it to marriage and divorce. A couple marry, (create a union) they divorce and each side wants to take their property with 'em. However, in the case of the Governments, the mediator comes in (Lincoln) with insight to --- a more perfect union is to tie the couple together so as financially, the Union will thrive. (create a family)
What happens from there is strategy to get it done.
To say the Civil War would not happen with out the slavery issue is to say that all states were on board with a centralized government. No document, no diary, journal, newspaper clipping that I have found substantiates that is the case. In fact as we move forward, when the (FED) idea of a centralized bank was brought to the table, the Founding Fathers disagreed as to the Constitutionality to its establishment.
Emancipation was declared twice (edit) once before the war (only in the Confederate States) and once during the war. After the Civil War, with the Confederate losing the war, the Union locked in the establishment of ALL states together making it impossible for even one to secede from the Union. (then they address the slave issue more) And here we are today.
As a country we stand United, The U.S. of America. As a people though we stand divided by the propaganda that took place 150 years ago.
Then we have the flag that people are picking on and they are picking on the wrong darn flag. It's enough to blow one's hair back.
Last edited by Ellis Bell; 07-17-2015 at 10:47 PM..
Reason: adding EDIT
Now Jim Crow you ask 100 years later, I am not sure as yet, because I have never looked at the segregation movement, nor do I know the first thing about Jim Crow. However, I'm thinking as my thoughts were on it today, that if I look into it I will find the underline causes, to manipulate people and obtain money. I say this without even looking at its history, because the government(s) do two things and they do it well. They manipulate the people and they collect their money.
Of course slavery had a lot to do with money. Many slaveholders believed they couldn't make it without the free labor of their slaves.
In some of the slaveholding states more of the residents were slaves than owners. If those owners had been forced to do the work themselves or to pay their slaves, they would have been in a heap of trouble.
Jim Crow also had a huge financial aspect. It kept whites on top of the heap and provided them with a lot of very cheap manual labor.
However, I don't see how this makes slavery or Jim Crow justifiable.
The reason you keep referring to the Confederacy Cause as the Lost Cause is because history was written by the victors. Understand the victors left some things out (as I have shown in research) and call it a day.
I think you are giving me too much credit. The Lost Cause Mythology has been in the making for more than 150 years:
Quote:
In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, a number of white southern writers and political leaders worked to construct a favorable history of the old South and the Confederacy. Seeking vindication of the white South in the wake of seemingly crushing defeat, they resurrected pro-white southern imagery and ideology of earlier years. In doing so, these advocates for the white South constructed a “Lost Cause†mythology and memory of the Civil War and white southern history and culture. Specifically, they celebrated the South’s natural beauty and idyllic plantations, supported a white supremacist racial hierarchy in southern society, claimed liberty as a southern principle and the American Revolution as southern heritage, wrapped their sectionalism in a constitutional theory of state sovereignty, and nostalgically glorified the southern past. In pushing these ideas, these postwar “Lost Causers,†such as former Confederate president Jefferson Davis and the then-famous Virginia journalist Edward Pollard-whose 1866 book, The Lost Cause, probably coined the phrase with its title-picked up where earlier white southern advocates had left off, working to construct a public memory that would sustain earlier white southern advocates’ vision of an ideal South and white southerners.[1]
...
To say the Civil War would not happen with out the slavery issue is to say that all states were on board with a centralized government. No document, no diary, journal, newspaper clipping that I have found substantiates that is the case.
...
To say the Civil War would not have happened with out the slavery issue is a reality based assessment as opposed to one based on mythologies.
Apparently the slave-holding states of the CSA were ok with a centralized government that protected the institution of slavery. There are many confirming documents provided here & elsewhere.
To say the Civil War would not have happened with out the slavery issue is a reality based assessment as opposed to one based on mythologies.
Apparently the slave-holding states of the CSA were ok with a centralized government that protected the institution of slavery. There are many confirming documents provided here & elsewhere.
The proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free.
If the Confederacy was 'all' about "protecting" an Institution of Slavery, then why didn't they decide to stay in the Union and protect their Institution?
Of course slavery had a lot to do with money. Many slaveholders believed they couldn't make it without the free labor of their slaves.
In some of the slaveholding states more of the residents were slaves than owners. If those owners had been forced to do the work themselves or to pay their slaves, they would have been in a heap of trouble.
Jim Crow also had a huge financial aspect. It kept whites on top of the heap and provided them with a lot of very cheap manual labor.
However, I don't see how this makes slavery or Jim Crow justifiable.
This has to do with the imports and exports of goods and getting those goods to market. You are failing to mention the share croppers who were also apart of this process.
And I don't know what Jim Crow has to do with anything that happened 100 years before its time, but I'm sure you will tell me. Oops, the laws began during the reconstruction ... give me a minute or not.
Mythology 101 Emancipation Proclamation
If the Confederacy was 'all' about "protecting" an Institution of Slavery, then why didn't they decide to stay in the Union and protect their Institution?
My friend Ellis Bell doth protest too much, methinks.
The Slaver States of the CSA didn't want to compromise on the issue period. They not only wanted protection, they wanted expansion. & are you really still not noticing it's all about slavery? Without slavery? No war.
If they were interested in staying in the Union, they would've agreed to the Crittenden Compromise:
Quote:
ARTICLE II.
Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery in places under its exclusive jurisdiction, and situate within the limits of States that permit the holding of slaves.
They were not interested in staying in the United States, they were interested in forming a federal government which supported slavery & would seek to advance &/or expand. There are many confirming documents.
And we all know the Confederacy was not the victor and we all know that history has been interpreted most by the victor.
Do you recognize any of this?
Quote:
Some of the main tenets of the Lost Cause movement were that:
Confederate generals such as Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson represented the virtues of Southern nobility and fought bravely and fairly. On the other hand, most Northern generals were characterized as possessing low moral standards, because they subjected the Southern civilian population to indignities like Sherman's March to the Sea and Philip Sheridan's burning of the Shenandoah Valley in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Union General Ulysses S. Grant is often portrayed as an alcoholic.
Losses on the battlefield were inevitable due to Northern superiority in resources and manpower.
Battlefield losses were also the result of betrayal and incompetence on the part of certain subordinates of General Lee, such as General James Longstreet, who was reviled for doubting Lee at Gettysburg, and George Pickett, who led the disastrous Pickett's Charge that broke the South's back (the Lost Cause focused mainly on Lee and the eastern theater of operations, and often cited Gettysburg as the main turning point of the war).
Defense of states' rights, rather than preservation of chattel slavery, was the primary cause that led eleven Southern states to secede from the Union, thus precipitating the war.
Secession was a justifiable constitutional response to Northern cultural and economic aggressions against the Southern way of life.
Slavery was a benign institution, and the slaves were loyal and faithful to their benevolent masters.[27]
Algood identifies a Southern aristocratic ideal, typically called "the Southern Cavalier ideal" in the Lost Cause. It especially appeared in studies of Confederate partisans who fought behind Union lines, such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, Turner Ashby, John Singleton Mosby, and John Hunt Morgan. Writers stressed how they embodied courage in the face of heavy odds, as well as horsemanship, manhood and martial spirit.[28]
It should be noted the 'southern way of life' refers to a way of life founded on white supremacy & supported by the institution of slavery.
Last edited by ChiGeekGuest; 07-18-2015 at 10:05 AM..
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It's enough to blow one's hair back.
Oops, the laws began during the reconstruction ... give me a minute or not.
