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I'm sorry. I did not read this before posting my previous post. I agree, several conscripts in North Carolina especially did not go to war for any other reason that they were forced to. Many poor whites were not fans of slavery because it kept them out of work.
I understand your reasons for honoring your uncles and other ancestors. And I respect that. I'm not attempting to attack them.
Like it or not, they were put in those situations for those political reasons you mentioned and to protect those slaveholders fortunes. It was incredibly unfair as most wars are. I am not faulting you for your desire to honor them, but why with that flag?
It is interesting to see the diaries of Union and COnfederates. Some mention slavery, many don't. SOme Union soldiers are as racist as you could imagine, too.
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Originally Posted by anifani821
You are correct about the timeline with events and the political reasons for why Northern and Southern legislators butted heads over slavery.
But that is not my point at all. I am talking about what the average Joe on the street thought about all this and how it affected their lives. The wealthy landowners (who were also Senators and Congressmen) were the ones who had something at stake - not only with their POLITICAL careers (and w/ the laws that would be imposed in their own states) but w/ their own fortunes.
When I say the issues were politicized much like gay marriage or abortion have been today - I am saying - the average person out here does not even THINK about those issues often, yet a politician can lose an election over his or her stance on abortion.
What I am trying to point out are NOT the historical facts as dissected in history books - but rather - some insight into how the average North Carolinian felt about all this! Most of them didn't own slaves and they didn't care about DYING over the issue b/c some politicians decided to make it the cornerstone of a case for secession.
People didn't care to give their lives so that slavery as an institution could prevail in the South. See what I am saying? It was EASY for the politicians to take a stance (for their own personal reasons, especially) when someone else has to go take the bullet.
Your state says you gotta go sign up - YOU GO!! I had several GGG Uncles who were conscripted - taken out of their mother's house at gun point - at the ages of 15 and 16 - and hauled off to fight for their country (the Confederacy). You can't tell me they wanted to do that.
The Confederacy was a state -- an illegitimate one formed through insurrection and rebellion and narrow self-interest.
Ani, I have an M.A. in American History, where I also spent a lot of time reading primary sources from Southerners and even some Northerners discussing slavery in the most glowing terms, how much of a shame it was that it no longer existed, how the blacks were so much better off under slavery, etc. The Lost Cause ideology permeated the South up through the 1970s. The stuff about history, especially the Civil War and Reconstruction in Southern textbooks before then was utter whitewash. It made Southerners feel better to think that the war wasn't really about slavery, meanwhile, the lynchings, sexual abuse and economic deprivation of blacks continued to assert that whites were in control.
Also, my ancestors were in Ireland at the time so I don't have a dog in that fight.
Furthermore, the South still wasn't really industrialized until after Reconstruction. The slaveowners had seen to that. And they continued to resist progress and would have continued to do so had they not been forced to. Or, until they were so destitute after secession that they had to.
The North's complicity in slavery is well-documented. And yes, they wanted a more direct route to Southern cotton. But Southerners were attempting to exert too much political control over the rest of the country relative to their numbers. It was holding the country back.
Everything you write is not only accurate, but it is well written, LOL. I am not trying to argue with you at all. And I quickly saw (w/ your post re: the western states) that you are an expert on the subject matter and I respect your acumen. Plus, I enjoy your perspective. I was responding to Native Son's post, not just yours and would like to apologize b/c I realize it sounded like I was being derisive about your lack of knowledge (and I did not intend that for you). So please accept my apology. I am sure I could learn a lot about this subject from you and appreciate your posts.
And yes, I am playing semantics w/ my insistence that the formation of the Confederacy was not based on an insurrection. I suppose if one were to be accurate, it was no less than sheer treason.
I am not part of the Lost Cause mentality and the thing I am trying to get across is - neither were most of the people in NC - at least - those in this part of the state. There was nothing romantic about the institution of slavery. Indeed, many religious groups were profoundly against it, including the Quakers and Reformists, wh/ included many members of my own family and their neighbors at the time.
There were cotton gins and mills here along the Catawba prior to the Civil War. I know what you are saying about Reconstruction is true for many regions of the South, but my contention is that NC was NOT LIKE the rest of the South.
You are correct. However, I am talking about what the average person thought, not what the politicians (on both sides) thought.
Because of the mechanization of farm tasks, slavery was just not as useful an institution as it had been in the past. Look at what happened after the Civil War. Life went on without slaves, didn't it? At least, it did here in NC b/c people here had not relied on slave labor the way other states had.
Not entirely true. Many slaveholders simply kept blacks working for them in conditions of near slavery for several years after the Emancipation proclamation. Beatings were rampant, lynchings were, too. There was a definite effort to keep blacks "in their place" up through the 1970s. And conditions mirroring slavery continued up to the 1880s and later in rural areas.
Thanks, Ani. I'm not trying to argue either. I think North Carolina's race relations were a bit different than other states. That's not to say there weren't several lynchings and a systematic racism here. North Carolina was a more diverse state politically. And the mill culture really took off here in the 1880s. More so than anywhere else in the South It is interesting to note that in N.C. between 1880 and 1930, 15 percent of lynching victims were white as opposed to 4 percent of lynching victims in S.C. I'm not sure what that means. I think it may have some implications on the numbers of whites willing to associated with blacks being higher in N.C. Also, the numbers of lynchings in N.C. were far lower than in the Deep South.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anifani821
Everything you write is not only accurate, but it is well written, LOL. I am not trying to argue with you at all. And I quickly saw (w/ your post re: the western states) that you are an expert on the subject matter and I respect your acumen. Plus, I enjoy your perspective. I was responding to Native Son's post, not just yours and would like to apologize b/c I realize it sounded like I was being derisive about your lack of knowledge (and I did not intend that for you). So please accept my apology. I am sure I could learn a lot about this subject from you and appreciate your posts.
And yes, I am playing semantics w/ my insistence that the formation of the Confederacy was not based on an insurrection. I suppose if one were to be accurate, it was no less than sheer treason.
I am not part of the Lost Cause mentality and the thing I am trying to get across is - neither were most of the people in NC - at least - those in this part of the state. There was nothing romantic about the institution of slavery. Indeed, many religious groups were profoundly against it, including the Quakers and Reformists, wh/ included many members of my own family and their neighbors at the time.
There were cotton gins and mills here along the Catawba prior to the Civil War. I know what you are saying about Reconstruction is true for many regions of the South, but my contention is that NC was NOT LIKE the rest of the South.
Not entirely true. Many slaveholders simply kept blacks working for them in conditions of near slavery for several years after the Emancipation proclamation. Beatings were rampant, lynchings were, too. There was a definite effort to keep blacks "in their place" up through the 1970s. And conditions mirroring slavery continued up to the 1880s and later in rural areas.
Agree that this is true as a generality - but I have not seen primary documents that indicate this was life in western NC (our region). I read one diary about 20 years ago wh/ is located in Catawba County's library, that indicated Catawba Co residents were struggling to even find seed to plant - they had no money - and they were having to protect their property from freed slaves who were wandering thru/ the area, starving as well, and w/ no place to go. Most farmers never DID have slaves in this region, so they didn't rely on them after Reconstruction - they never had relied on them. Families and neighbors worked together to try to get their farms back into production, and another generation would pass b/f many of them accomplished that task. Meanwhile, farms were sold off in increments and many people in the next generation went to work in textile mills.
[quote=coped;8701051]The Confederate flag was the flag of a rebellion, and the flag which represented keeping a race of people in bondage. [quote]
Wasn't the Stars and Stripes a rebellious flag in a sense as well, as we broke away from England. Flags are used a symbol to represent a group, a banner. There are thousands of flags in the US alone, in this sense this flag represents two groups, one who fought behind it and one who hide behind it and pervert it.
[quote=Whytewulf;8702279][quote=coped;8701051]The Confederate flag was the flag of a rebellion, and the flag which represented keeping a race of people in bondage.
Quote:
Wasn't the Stars and Stripes a rebellious flag in a sense as well, as we broke away from England. Flags are used a symbol to represent a group, a banner. There are thousands of flags in the US alone, in this sense this flag represents two groups, one who fought behind it and one who hide behind it and pervert it.
I would think that was exactly how the first American flag was viewed.
I think any Confederate flag is gonna be viewed by many as something negative today (not only b/c the Confederacy lost, but b/c skinheads and the KKK accessed the Confederate flag as their symbol). To me, the Confederacy was a new country and had I been alive then, I would have been a citizen in a state that had broken away from the Union and formed a new country called the Confederacy - and so I would have had no choice but either give my allegiance to the Confederacy (and its flag) or leave my home. I can only imagine how this felt to people at the time - very strange, I would think.
Last edited by brokensky; 05-07-2009 at 04:20 PM..
For what it is worth, the battle flag as flown by people today is historically inaccurate anyway. The one flown by Confederate troops was square, not rectangular. Unfortunately, the rectangular one that we see today and that is so controversial was popularized by hate groups long after the war. I would say that 90% of the people who fly it don't know that.
I prefer the Bonnie Blue flag anyway. But who am I to talk ... I am a Yankee who flies the Gadsden flag everyday, which according to some government groups represents extremism.
For what it is worth, the battle flag as flown by people today is historically inaccurate anyway. The one flown by Confederate troops was square, not rectangular. Unfortunately, the rectangular one that we see today and that is so controversial was popularized by hate groups long after the war. I would say that 90% of the people who fly it don't know that.
I prefer the Bonnie Blue flag anyway. But who am I to talk ... I am a Yankee who flies the Gadsden flag everyday, which according to some government groups represents extremism.
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