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.
*checks watch* Still waiting for your refututation with sources (but then again, I am at work so don't have the luxury of time to always get on line either. I will be fair about that one)
BUT...you can call it Lost Cause propoganda or mythology 'til Hell freezes over. BUT, it seems to be backed up. That you don't like it is immaterial. Are any of the fact's presented, WRONG? If you think so...then present your counter-evidence with reputable sources.
People who proudly sport the Confederate flag should be regarded as traitors.
Traitors to what? Did the Southern states repudiate the principles of the DOI or Constitution (both mostly written by Southern men)? Did they seek to overthrow the government of the Old Union (i.e. northern states who kept the name "United States" only by default)?
And likewise, how do you figure that those of us who nowadays fly/display the Confederate Flag (which one, by the way?...do you know anything about the vexiollogical history of the Confederacy?) are to be regarded as traitors? On what level and/or historical consideration do you come by that?
Although you are generally fair-minded when it comes to the history of the WBTS and its causes? With all due respect, this statement is outlandish. If anything, it was Lincoln's policies (shutting down of dissenting newspapers, arrest without benefit of hearing, sentencing without habeous corpus, that were the closest thing to a totalitarian state on American soil.
Well said. Most people do not realize these aspects of the WBTS.
Pretty well debunks the "totalitarian CSA" statement.
Yeah, I know the old lame justification. Goes something like: Well, the North eliminated slavery first so, by extension, it is off limits to bring it up. Geez.
How about the Northern slave trade? It continued in some form or fashion long after slavery was abolished in those states. Lots of money made. Gosh, I just LOVE posting these links:
That was a result of the War, not by original design on the part of the North. If "freeing the slaves" had been the objective of the northern war effort, there would have never been a war at all.
The objective of the South was to continue on with slavery as the engine of their economy... that was the problem. The states' secession declarations defined slavery as their #1 reason for seceding. And you know the Cornerstone speech.
Not sure how many abolitionist groups there were in the South 1860-4; many?
The South has a history and is entitled to feel pride..good and bad..is everywhere. People need to get over it and move on...and by the way the North was profiting form the slave trade as much as the South was and didn't want the money to end. The USA was not the only Country to have slaves..went on fro Centuries before we were even Colonized and by the way..who was doing the snatching over in Africa and enslaving their own people and selling them..the tribal chiefs / Africans. So nobody is without blame here. Just that the South was the last holdout so they are remembered as the worst offender.
The objective of the South was to continue on with slavery as the engine of their economy... that was the problem. The states' secession declarations defined slavery as their #1 reason for seceding. And you know the Cornerstone speech.
Not sure how many abolitionist groups there were in the South 1860-4; many?
Another way to look at it is to look at the recent financial events. What happened to the US Economy when the housing bubble burst? Housing is a significant investment. When a significant investment loses value, it affects the entire economy.
Now consider what kind of investment slaves represented. The best estimates we have put the value of the investment in slaves in 1860 between 3 and 4 billion dollars. That's somewhere between 10 and 12 trillion dollars today.
If you consider it as a sort of slavery bubble, then you have to consider who benefited from the bubble. Not Southern slaveowners who had land, houses, crops, livestock and slaves, but very little capital. Northern bankers benefited, by providing loans to Southern plantation owners, using slaves and other property as collateral, and collecting interest on those loans. But when you abolish slavery, what happens? 11 trillion dollars of investment wiped out. And the Northern bankers foreclose on those loans, taking everything of value, seizing the plantations, but protecting themselves. Land values would have plummeted, in an economy that is built on land values.
Many Southerners shared the view that the Founding Fathers had, that slavery was a terrible institution, and that it should eventually be phased out. But they saw it being phased out over time, not all at once, not with no compensation for the financial loss. Northern businessmen weren't in favor of compensation, and that, combined with the increased activity of very committed abolitionists, combined with the cultural divide that had existed always between the Northern colonies and the Southern colonies (even Washington in his Farewell Address talks about the cultural schism in the country), made the idea of secession more and more attractive. 11 trillion dollars wiped out in one fell swoop is terrifying to modern economists. What would we do today to avoid that kind of financial collapse?
That's a beautiful way to put it DC, but they had years to try to start phasing it out and it would appear to a layperson (me) that the big landowners never seriously tried. One way it could have been phased out fairly painlessly would have been to decree that all children born to slaves after x-date would be free people. Im sure there were earnest discussions of different solutions in the 1840s-50s in Congress between Southerners and Northerners and among business associations and regulators, but I dont know enough about all this. Need to look it up.
That's a beautiful way to put it DC, but they had years to try to start phasing it out and it would appear to a layperson (me) that the big landowners never seriously tried. One way it could have been phased out fairly painlessly would have been to decree that all children born to slaves after x-date would be free people. Im sure there were earnest discussions of different solutions in the 1840s-50s in Congress between Southerners and Northerners and among business associations and regulators, but I dont know enough about all this. Need to look it up.
I agree with you, the South was very lax in addressing their "peculiar institution". But in 1860, New Jersey's census is still counting slaves. The state can call them "apprentices for life", they are still people of color who were forced into involuntary servitude with no rights, no pay, no freedom. It strikes me as peculiar that the abolitionists in New Jersey weren't concerned about these "apprentices" in their own backyard, but were eager to abolish slavery in a region of the country where the economic devastation would have been overwhelming. Why didn't those abolitionists put forth a gradual abolition plan for the South? Why were they so obdurate? Both sides were so entrenched in their viewpoint, that the made negotiation more and more impossible. And that, IMO, isn't just about a single issue. When people become so entrenched, we're often talking about fundamental cultural differences. Like we see today, on this forum. Sanrene and Roysoldboy and Sunnydays and the countless others who are deeply committed to their view of the President, and others who have a completely different view. It's clear that it's not just one issue that divides us, it's deeper than that, it's a way of looking at what being an American means, it's how we interpret the Constitution, it's how we see history. Things that define us culturally. In the 1860's that cultural divide wasn't just political, it was geographic. As we've become a more mobile society, the ways we divide ourselves have changed. But we're still human, we are all deeply vested in our viewpoints, we are all passionate in our arguments.
*checks watch* Still waiting for your refututation with sources (but then again, I am at work so don't have the luxury of time to always get on line either. I will be fair about that one)
BUT...you can call it Lost Cause propoganda or mythology 'til Hell freezes over. BUT, it seems to be backed up. That you don't like it is immaterial. Are any of the fact's presented, WRONG? If you think so...then present your counter-evidence with reputable sources.
Traitors to what? Did the Southern states repudiate the principles of the DOI or Constitution (both mostly written by Southern men)? Did they seek to overthrow the government of the Old Union (i.e. northern states who kept the name "United States" only by default)?
And likewise, how do you figure that those of us who nowadays fly/display the Confederate Flag (which one, by the way?...do you know anything about the vexiollogical history of the Confederacy?) are to be regarded as traitors? On what level and/or historical consideration do you come by that?
They levied war against the United States, which is black letter treason.
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.
