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.
I'm not from the south but I do know about the antebellum south, and America before 1861.
95% of white folk in the south never saw a black slave, let alone own one. And the majority of slave owners didn't own big plantations, but had a few black slaves who worked on the fields with them.
In the latter case most of the blacks had a homestead on the property, and kept their children, as well as grew chicken and hunted in the woods for subsistence. The slave trade at this time was already outlawed.
These were the backbone of the confederate standing army, not Lee, Beauregard, or Stonewall. They were the ones who toiled and bleed in the war against the union, people with no hopes of having slaves.
It was more than just about black people, both for the north and south. Lincoln himself would have preferred to keep slavery or send them to Kenya rather than lose the union of states.
I understand its self important for many blacks to see the civil war as their liberation, but the war wasn't about them, and sharecropping was hardly a herald of freedom.
It was about white folk, southern lifestyle, and a debate on the future of the US, not on some humanitarian crusade. Many of the children working and dying in textile factories up north with no hope of security or capital could attest to the quality of the 'moral' conflict ongoing.
I agree Lee should not have a statue, but that is primarily because he wouldn't have wanted one. He lost the war, the south lost. If it was different then they should have built monuments in his name, but the historical revisionism of the 1920s made it so opportunist could use their names for their own motives. Lee is not a great man for he didn't achieve his end goal, but he wasn't a villain either. He did the best he could given his position.
You can hate him, but he did what was right for him at the time. And he wasn't a bad military general like some want to slander him as, nor was he the godly expert union soldiers thought him to be. The war lasted as long as it did because of poor whites and landless peasants who fought for their people and livelihood. It would be better to ask why than hate them.
1) Come up with proof that 95% of Whites in the south never saw a Black slave. Black slaves were the majority of Mississippi and South Carolina's population. Slaves were in large numbers in places like Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. Texas and Florida too. Many Whites were too poor to own slaves. But there were certainly some non-slaveholders who wanted slaves. On the flip side, if you were talking about Whites living in Appalachia, that would be a different story.
2) Black slaves did not own any property. Do not lie to me. Any place they raised chickens, that was the slave master's property.
3) It was about southern whites and their lifestyle. It was a lifestyle that would not have existed without Black slave. In that aspect, it was very much about keeping Blacks enslaved. The war for SOUTHERNERS was very much about keeping Blacks enslaved. Just because it was not about freeing the slaves for northerners does not negate that it was about keeping slavery for the south.
4) Mentioning children dying in textile mills up north, I will mention this. I would rather be dead than be a slave.
5) Lee had a choice. He could have fought for America, whom he was sworn to fight for, or he could have fought for the Confederate's cause. He chose the Confederate cause. Regardless of whether it was "beloved Virginia", it was still the Confederate cause. It was a cause of keeping slavery. Go read the Articles of Secession if you think it isn't true. And Lee was not against slavery. He even said that slavery was necessary for the Black race. Lee was wrong, period.
6) Here is the thing about sharecropping. At least a man would have a choice. A sharecropper at least had the hope of getting off the place, or said person could have just said forget it. Sharecropping was not a good thing, but slavery was worse. A slave was not even considered a human being.
At the end of the day, no Confederate soldier deserves any honors, period.
Leftists (Democrats) are just control freak FASCISTS. No, you don't get to tell me what to think, say or do. Neither does your leftist Media. We don't listen to you and that really pisses you off. We aren't going to be PC, WOKE, SJW little Nancy Boys like you are.
I could have sworn I took you seriously a few posts back.
Location: Somewhere gray and damp, close to the West Coast
20,955 posts, read 5,547,998 times
Reputation: 8559
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilot1
Leftists (Democrats) are just control freak FASCISTS. No, you don't get to tell me what to think, say or do. Neither does your leftist Media. We don't listen to you and that really pisses you off. We aren't going to be PC, WOKE, SJW little Nancy Boys like you are.
did you just post a link to a nerd trying to disprove a meme?
I guess you could call Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of "Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee" a nerd. But he ran the numbers. And I suspect Winterfall8324 didn't.
Every monument to the Confederacy should be removed. That’s not to say erased from history though. Put that stuff in museums dedicated to American History where it belongs.
We should not be glorifying it though because after all, every single member of the Confederacy was a TRAITOR and should be remembered as such. I laugh when I see so called “patriots” drive around in pick up trucks adorned with Dixie memorabilia. The same types are usually quick to question the patriotism of anyone who dares criticize Trump or McConnell yet they failed to extend the same courtesy to Barack Obama.
I agree. These statues should have been in a museum decades ago. The Civil War should be something our country is ashamed of. Why do people have to constantly be reminded of this ugliness in our country with these statues. Yes, it's history...so put history where it belongs, in books and museums.
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.
