Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Battle flag uproar

You. You haven't the intellectual honesty to admit that the ONLY sources you believe are the ones that support your erroneous position that the entire war was only all about slavery, especially in the face of facts to the contrary.

The hypocrisy of your position that a people ought to be able to break away from a government that no longer represents them and seek independence, whilst simultaneously supporting the unconstitutional actions of Lincoln to subjugate people and states that were seeking that freedom, is staggering.

With all the available info on this thread, I conclude that the indifference displayed by SOME of the southerners towards black folks was equaled or surpassed by SOME of the northerners when invading the south.

Shows that people are just people, I guess, and that politicians are, well, politicians.

But frankly, for anyone to express, multiple times, that they would have fought for the union to eradicate slavery, without acknowledging that not all the people being killed believed in the institution, nor that their respective reasons for fighting were anything other than a states rights issue, is very telling.

Maybe that's why the south is pigeon-holed as one big slave owning pit of Hellbent [bleep]. It makes the warmonging pallatable.

Nope, just going by what folks actually said at the time. A near-universal theme among folks from the South here is to MINIMIZE the role of slavery when in reality our entire friggin' nation had been wrestling with the issue ever since '76.



Ya, buts the contradiction is acknowledged and openly stated, and said contradictions were certainly also obvious to those actually fighting and dying for the Union '61 to '65.

A LOT of good and intelligent men thought the Union was worth dying to preserve, including more'n a few Southerners.

JobBob would have us believe they were mostly dupes, useful idiots.

Birdwatcher

I suppose you have never read any of C. Van Woodward's work on the Civil War and the South have you? Particularly his chapter on the North and their war aims.

Of course he is not widely available on Wikipedia.

"Twisting, miscasting, spinning".... How did you put it?

IIRC I think it was the excellent and worthy Irishman and Confederate General Patrick Cleburne who's family were actually abolistionists before the war, and I've already stated that General Lee hisself had freed his slaves.

As for the rest, I'm just going by what the Southerners involved at the time actually wrote.

Where have I deviated from that?

Birdwatcher

If I were you, I woulda just presented Mr. Van Woodward's interpretations and given an Amazon link.

History actually ain't Rocket Science after all.

Bidwatcher

Actually, the near-universal theme is to contradict the unadulterated "it was all only about slavery" lies that you and others gleefully espouse. Therein lies the rub.



A LOT of good intelligent men thought that freedom and self-determination, as well as defense of their homes and states against armed invasion, were worth fighting for as well; including more'n a few Yankees. You continually leave out that part because it doesn't support the propaganda lie you're pushing.



He has valid points that you refuse to consider or accept. Telling, actually.

Since when do you have to be a majority to dominate public discourse? It would seem that we just changed our most basic institution and quite possibly the very fabric of our society for two percent of the population.

And, yes, Lincoln's ancestry was as Yankee as they come. He was descended from Samuel Lincoln who was born in Norfolk and a founding member of the Old Ship Church in New England.

They did say it OVER AND OVER. Like I said, just read Georgia's declaration of secession. They set he historical stage quite well.

But hey, you're not interested in actually learning anything other than what you think you know.

So, that's a half-assed way of saying that you haven't read it, correct? Go figure.

While secession to maintain/preserve "State's Rights" is a true/accurate reason, the primary "State's Right" that the states that seceded to form the CSA wanted to preserve was the institution of slavery. So it is a circular, "chicken/egg", argument, about which is the primary driver, "State's Rights" or "Slavery"? Without the preservation of "State's Rights", there wouldn't be any slavery. Without the desire to preserve slavery, there wouldn't be any reason to invoke "State's Rights" as the justification for secession.

From a socioeconomic perspective, the majority of people who serve in the military today, and who have served in the military throughout our history, have come from the middle and lower class, probably because we are more numerous, wealth distribution isn't a Bell Curve, and because the upper class can more easily afford to buy direct or indirect exemptions.

By refusing to acknowledge the rationale given, as written, by various states as to why they seceded; by failing to acknowledge the same as to why many of the leading generals joined the South; by failing to even look for words written by actual Southerners as to why they fought.

You look for only that which supports you position and refuse any other evidence; rather intellectually dishonest.

No reason to preserve state's rights? Have you kept up with the last 150 years since they were destroyed?

There would have been secession sooner or later with or without slavery. The federal government has done nothing but overreach since its inception and secession would have been tried for any number of reasons.

Because, sir, you sure make it sound that a select few pious folks freed their slaves, but everyone else is a reflection of the other literate slave holders you aspire to vanquish.

The twisting comment was taken from you, initially, and I think applies equally if not more to the information you use and promote.

Some literate smooth talkers may have said it was about slavery, and contrary to your premise that the 90% that didn't own slaves were afraid of free range negros, I believe the majority of the people that fought willingly did so because they just don't like to be governed oppressively, something you seem to be more than willing to be a party to.

Again back to the battle flag. The monuments,.....

Bw has some black friends offended by battle flag so it shouldnt be flown at a monument....sounds like orwell had a crystal ball

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984"

I woulda thought the virtue of the men fighting and dying on both sides was self-evident, and have oft referred to the same in previous threads.

What I THINK is that it is a characteristic of Evil to pervert all it touches, slavery being a prime example. Pro-slavery folks in general, and the Southern leadership in particular, had to do moral handsprings in order to sleep at night.

The real tragedy is IMHO is that all those good and brave men in the South were fighting to defend a Constitution that was built upon African slavery.

Their vision of America was, at the time, obviously quite different than ours.



Not at all, questioning is not "refusing to accept", thus far he has defended his interpretations quite well.

Birdwatcher

Patently untrue

I clearly stated that, on public premises, the flying of the Stars and Bars should be put to a vote, and that you and I would vote to keep it there.

Gee, I missed that Birdy had referred to Patrick Cleburne and referred to him as excellent, here are some quotes from that fine man:

I am with the South in life or in death, in victory or defeat. I never owned a negro and care nothing for them, but these people have been my friends and have stood up to me on all occasions. In addition to this, I believe the North is about to wage a brutal and unholy war on a people who have done them no wrong, in violation of the Constitution and the fundamental principles of the government...We propose no invasion of the North, no attack on them, and only ask to be let alone.

my favorite and Birdy is a living example of it:

"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late... It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision... It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties."

There you go Birdy, words from a prominent Confederate denying that slavery was the sole issue for the war.

About what I expected from you. Were you a real professional scholar and historical researcher you wouldn't need a link to Woodward. You would have his volumes readily at hand on your book shelf.

So, you question the morality of any Southern leaders, but have no problems with Grant owning slaves or Sherman wanting to commit genocide against a civilian population.

Quite telling.

Marx, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot would be proud. Hell, given that Marx was a BFF and pen pal of your messianic Lincoln, perhaps that is truly appropriate.

What were the prevalent Southern views on the Whiskey Rebellion?



This would be true if those fighting and dying to preserve the Union did not actually believe in what they were fighting for.

You have stated these men were "dupes" and "useful idiots". I submit that description might better apply to the Confederate soldier, who among other things was fighting to preserve the slave-holding rights of a small but wealthy fraction of Southern society.

I will clarify here that you yourself introduced those terms to describe the 500,000 plus that fought for the Union, I myself have too much respect for the brave men on both sides to describe them in anything like those terms.



Interesting, thanks.



???

I'm wondering why you picked GEORGIA to make this point.

When they all sat down to declare for posterity WHY they were leaving they opened with this....

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/

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.

OF COURSE all the Confedrate States also mentioned taxes, tariffs and whatnot, their OWN FATHERS ANd GRANDFATHERS had fought a war to establish the United States of America over those very issues



Sir, all I have asked you to do is defend your views.

Be careful before you point a finger, when you do theirs always three more of your own pointing back at you.

Birdwatcher