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I agree, the divide is more urban versus rural in the United States. That said, there is still long-standing prejudice against the South. Northerners seem to think that many people from the South are lacking in sophistication, or, to be blunt, intelligence, and can be very patronizing. While clearly not all Northerners are this way, it's not uncommon, either. And whether you're getting put down for being from the South, or from being from fly-over country, or from being from a rural area, it's still an uncomfortable experience.
Having lived in both environments, I can agree, yes, it is uncomfortable. But it's also uncomfortable being condemned as some sort of elitist snob for living in a city.
The saddest thing about this whole divide is that the country needs both to truly thrive. We need each other to thrive.
Having lived in both environments, I can agree, yes, it is uncomfortable. But it's also uncomfortable being condemned as some sort of elitist snob for living in a city.
The saddest thing about this whole divide is that the country needs both to truly thrive. We need each other to thrive.
But it's rarer to be condemned as a snob for living in a city.
It's very common for people to assume things about people who live in the South. Whether the assumption is that the Southerner is a racist, or that the Southerner is poorly educated, or that the Southerner lacks cultural experience, it is something that Southerners have to deal with regularly, and personally.
But it's rarer to be condemned as a snob for living in a city.
It's very common for people to assume things about people who live in the South. Whether the assumption is that the Southerner is a racist, or that the Southerner is poorly educated, or that the Southerner lacks cultural experience, it is something that Southerners have to deal with regularly, and personally.
Arguing about who has it worse is really not my goal, so if you want that point, you can have it.
My point is that both city and country are vital to the US. Do you disagree?
If slavery had never existed, would there have been a Civil War?
Had there been another issue where a state(s) was planning to succeed from the nation, yes. I guess we might find out if CA decides they are going to leave the nation, although I would not fight to keep them as a part of the USA!
If slavery had never existed, would there have been a Civil War?
Well, I will just say that based on the Confederate states' Declarations of Secession, I'd say that the CONFEDERATE states (not just the Union states) considered continuing slavery to be an integral part of the issue.
Direct quotes from various Confederate Declarations of Secession and/or Confederate governors:
Quote:
Georgia - 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.
Mississippi - In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
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.
South Carolina - We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
Texas - Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association.
Virginia - The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
Alabama - And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,
Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled , That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the fourth day of February, A. D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.
Governor of Tennessee - This decision of the highest judicial tribunal, known to our Government, settles the question, beyond the possibility of doubt, that slave property rests upon the same basis, and is entitled to the same protection, as every other description of property; that the General Government has no power to circumscribe or confine it within any given boundary; to determine where it shall, or shall not exist, or in any manner to impair its value. And certainly it will not be contended, in this enlightened age, that any member of the Confederacy can exercise higher powers, in this respect, beyond the limits of its own boundary, than those delegated to the General Government.
Louisiana - As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of an¬nexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.
I mean, dang - how much more obvious does it need to be?
Assuming you are correct, and I hope you are not, don't you think some of that animosity might be fallout from the war? Big cities in the south aren't that different from big cities up north, and there are rural areas all over the country. I don't think the divide is so much regional as urban vs. rural.
It is about rural/urban and always has been. This issue goes back to the founding of the country. The Federalist versus anti-federalist debate was essentially rural versus urban. Do we want a big centralized government that is heavily involved in the economy? Or do we want a weaker central government with the states being dominant.
It just so happens that the Southerners have always held the decentralized rural view of government and the northerners have always held the highly centralized urban view. Those views have become completely ingrained.
History suggests we should never have been a single country. We were NEVER truly united. All sorts of shenanigans and shoehorning we're necessary to make it possible. But as long as we have existed the northern and Southern values and cultures and have never been compatible. It caused a civil war and amplifies hatreds every 4 years.
If slavery had never existed, would there have been a Civil War?
Technically, it wasn't about slavery. It was about States Rights. They believed the States should have the right to decide the issue for themselves, not the Federal Government.
If slavery had never existed, would there have been a Civil War?
Yes.
If the war was about slavery why was Maryland part of the Union and still maintained a slave state until November, 1864 just six months before the end of the civil war?
Technically, it wasn't about slavery. It was about States Rights. They believed the States should have the right to decide the issue for themselves, not the Federal Government.
Really? The federal government under James Buchanan was about to outlaw slavery? Do tell.
Really? The federal government under James Buchanan was about to outlaw slavery? Do tell.
The reason WAS indeed because the confederacy believed that the union was infringing upon the states' rights to govern themselves. And according to the Constitution, that is exactly what was happening. The governance that the union wished to stop was the ability to stop slavery, to which the southern states believed to be vital to their commerce at the time. In hindsight, we all know (both north and south) that slavery is inhumane and should never be allowed.
But in those days, it meant potentially disrupting commerce for this part of the country where farming was the means to survival for most people. We now have equipment and machinery that do most of that work for us. It wasn't an option at the time.
In today's times...... imagine the Government stepping in to tell us that we were going to have our firearms confiscated and that we would no longer be able to own a firearm, although the Constitution gives us that right.
People would be outraged because it is a direct violation of those rights. Before you say that this is an apples and oranges comparison... is it really? Our laws (even those in which people disagree with) are based on the Constitution. To change a law means to amend the Constitution, and that has to happen first, not after the fact. THAT is what the war was about.
In those days slaves were considered a necessary tool and not people. (Again, NOT attempting to argue the morality of it since it wasn't considered immoral when slavery was brought here) Guns are considered a necessary tool for many people.
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