SOUTH WINS CIVIL WAR

Some aspects of history are recondite and obscure . . .

There was already a mature furniture industry in the south in the colonial days. The reserved elegance of southern pieces were based upon a preference for pieces that didnt have the "over the top" cabriolet and scallp shell and inlay designs of Philadelphia or New York or New England. Also the use of pine secondry wood rather than poplar was a forensic style for southern furniture. The furniture centers of Charlseton, Baeufort, Orangeburg, and Georgetown were cranking out quality pieces as good as anything made in Providence or Philly. (witness the prices in the antiques markets).
The post civil war funrinture "Production" centering in SPruce Pine or High Point or Asheville just grew as a function of Northern deforestation mostly.

Hello,

As I read your post I am sure you are from the north. God bless you. So you think the south would have faired worse on it's own than with the Carpet Baggers of Reconstruction? I live in the middle of what use to be textile and furniture country. All the Textile and Furniture Barrons were from the south and not the Planter Gentry. The truth is it was much like white slavery, much like the industrial north, with the companies owning everything including the houses they lived in. They had company stores where some companies only paid off in Script that was only good at the company store. So the workers were dependent on the company for everything. I don't know when slavery would have been abolished. Brazil did in 1888. In fact many southerns left the South to go to Brazil and Argentina after the War of Northern Aggression. You make some very good points and yes I am not an economist. I wish you would look at the war from some angle other than slavery.

My ancestors were given land in the mountains of Ga. when President Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court and ordered the Cherokee Indians, after Chief John Ross won his case to not remove them, removed anyway. Talking about a raw deal. This was in the 1830's long before the issue of slavery became a hot topic. My G-G-G-G-G Grandfather, his son and two son-in laws all served in the same Ga. Regiment that was charged with protecting the home area such as bridges, railroads etc. to keep the south viable so when the war was over they would be in place for it's own reconstruction.

You state the South could not feed it's own people. This was because of the northern army's scorched earth policies, burning everything as they went and stealing everything of value also. There are still finds of silver articles buried by southern wives as the northern armies approached so they would not be stolen. I have been metal detecting for 20 years and know this is true.

I would like to hear more ideas you have about these issues. But please take the slavery issues out of it. As far as immigration to the north, most of those who did so were of African decent and not the white small farmers and others that did depend on themselves to make a living. Slavery just changed names after the war to "Share Croppers". In some cases it was the same slaves working for the same planters who had to depend on themselves to make it to support themselves and their families. Failing this many decided to move north. Most not being treated much better in the north than they had been in the south, being given the lowest paying jobs and still treated as second class citizens.

So Setanta, I await more of your input in this matter.

Sincerely,
RB Bryan
G-G-G-G-G Grandson of a Confederate Soldier.

I would suggest that any one interest in this subject might wish to visit a bookstore and or a library and pick up novels written by a history professor by the name of Harry Turtledove that cover this idea backward and forward and sideway.

Beside he is not a bad writer in my opinion.

Hello Again,
After rereading your post I noticed a few things. When I joined this site I thought was a site to discuss the topic without name calling. Yet you use words such as worthless filth, hag-ridden(whatever that means) and others. You make statements that suggest all people in the South were a bunch of dumb folks who only could find forture in the north.
As far as cotton being of superior quality in other places, we still grow a lot here in the south. A cotton picker can now do in a few hours what 1,000 slaves could do in a few days.

The South would have been left with a coast line from Virginia to Texas. How long would the northern coast line been? Could the north build enough ports to import it's needs?

The north was tired of the war. If it had not been for the EP that freed slaves (only in the south by the way) Lincoln would never had won re-election.

I take it from your name you must be of African decent. If not please correct me. I would be interested to know. I won't resort to name calling as you do by using words often associated with people from the north. While we are at it let's get the terms Honkie, Cracker and Redneck out of the way as terms used to describe Southerns.

So Setanta, I look forward to hearing more of your ideas about the topic.
RB

Hello Farmerman,

I live in the Lenoir-Hickory area. This was the largest center for furniture making for 125 years. This was mainly because of the closeness to the raw materials. It was easier to build the furn. and ship it than to ship the raw materials because of the lack of good roads and railroads. Thanks for your input.

I realize you don't know this person but to me that's hysterical.

In truth... we are all of African decent[sic].

Shaftanta...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2cHkMwzOiM

hmmmm.

In regard to FM's remark about the furniture industry, no industry in the South would have prospered without both outside capital and a reliable market. Leaving aside the issue of what the North would have been willing to buy from the South, there is the problem of the tarriff. The animus between North and South found expression first in the bitter fights over the tarriff, and there is little doubt that, shorn of the southern states, the United States would have immediately instituted the tarriffs which were not possible so long as states of the South were in the Congress and prepared to vote against them. Once again, public feeling in Europe was such that there would have been little to no market in Europe for Southern production, given the public feeling against them, which lead textile workers in England and France to willingly accept unemployment rather than aid the South by using cotton produced there.

As for Bob . . .

I find it hilarious that you refer to "the war of Northern aggression." You seem to forget that in South Carolina and Florida, state authorities started the war by attacking Federal installations. If defending United States property from state militias constitutes "aggression" i suggest that you would have a noble career as a spin doctor. There is no other angle to look at the war than that of slavery, because absent the institution of slavery, there would have been no war.

There was no scorched earth policy on the part of the North. Burning a swathe in the path of an army did not begin until Sherman marched from Atlanta to the ocean, and then north into North Carolina. The South was unable to feed itself even before that event took place. Well after Sherman's march began, Sheridan in Virginia laid waste to the Valley of Virginia (as the Shenandoah Valley was then known), becuase it had supported Confederate armies in Virginia for three campaigning seasons, and Grant had determined that that would end. There was no scorched earth policy implemented in Tennessee, in Mississippi or Alabama, not in Missouri or Arkansas or Louisiana. The South was more than just a strip through Georgia and in the Carolinas.

It is impossible to discuss this issue without discussing slavery, and that is because the event would not have transpired without slavery. At no time did i say that blacks from the South would be better off in the North, i only observed that with the institution of slavery in place, ambitious whites in the South had to go elsewhere to make a decent living based on their ambition and energy.

The reference to worthless filth is a reference to the slave-owning aristocracy, who started and maintained the war--if you wish to take offense at that, i can only assume that you identify with the slave-owners, and if that is the case, i suggest you deserve to take offense. Hag-ridden is a common enough expression in the English language, and if i explained in detail each figure of speech that i use, i'm sure you would complain about being talked-down-to. I had, in fact, intended a more elaborate figure of speech involving the term succubus, but i chose hag-ridden since it means the same thing, and is more common in the language. The point, either way, is that the South was debilitated by the institution of slavery, and it was hag-ridden by that institution. If you wish to be an apologist for slavery, or worse yet, a defender of that institution, that is your choice--but it certainly won't alter my intention to deprecate and deride the institution and those who supported it and prospered (in a pathetic sort of way) from it. Nothing in my statement suggests that Southerners were or are "dumb" (which means unable to speak), and i pointedly referred to Southerners who were ambitious and energetic. I'm sure you believe it helps your argument to suggest that i was disparaging non-slave owning white Southerners, but that would be false.

Given that at the least, Philadelphia, Elizabeth, New Jersey, New York, New Haven, both Portsmouths and Boston, to name but a few, were already in active operation--there would have been no need to "build" any ports in the North. They already existed and were quite active and prosperous. Your delusions about Lincoln's re-election do not bind my statements. Absentee voting was far more crucial for his re-election than the emancipation proclamations ever was.

Setanta is a name from Irish mythology. I am equally not bound by your ignorance of such matters, and your willingness to fortuitously suggest that i am of African descent in a pathetic attempt to suggest that i write what i do from mere bigotry. I did not call you any names. The only name calling i did was toward slave-owners in the South, for which i will never apologize. None of what i wrote consisted of a blanket condemnation of people simply because they were or now are natives of the American South.

Forgive me, but I don't get it. What has Brother Hayes got to do with it, let a lone Jesse Jackson? RB

I'm one of the really, really, really pale Africans.

So you're saying the only issue in the War of Northern Aggression was the institute of Slavery? When SC left the Union it considered all of SC to be under SC control. When the Union Army failed to leave and were going to be re-enforced it was considered an act of aggression to which the SC Militia responded.

I don't defend slavery today. But what you fail to confirm or accept is we are talking about the norm of 150+ years ago and not judged by todays standard. How would you like someone telling you today you are going to completely alter your way of life? Totally change every aspect of the way you live, including job, financial status, social circles etc? Wouldn't you have a little something to say about that?

I would like to make a comment about the decendents of the freed slaves. One is I'm glad a great many immigrated to the North and two why does 12% of the population cause 80% of the crime?

And still what does Issac Hayes have to do with it?

RB

I do not intend to discuss any "war of Northern aggression," because there is no such event in American history. I am certainly saying that the cause of the American Civil War was the institution of slavery. The c0nstitution recognizes no right of secession, and, in fact, forming a confederacy is a violation of the constitution. Without regard to that, reinforcing a United States Army installation is not something which the government needed the permission of any state authorities to do. The Star of the West was an unarmed vessel, and when it was fired upon, the authorities of the state of South Carolina had acted with violent aggression against the government of the United States. There's no way you can get around that. That event took place on January 9, 1861. The night before, on January 8, 1861, Lt. Adam Slemmer of the United States Army had repelled an attempt upon United States property at Fort Barrancas outside Pensacola, Florida. Given that the United States did not recognize a right of secession, those actions were seen as acts of insurrection. The United States government considered that it had a right to garrison, to resupply and to reinforce its installations (which it did at Pensacola, holding Fort Pickens throughout the war). To claim that that war was somehow the result of an unjust and unlooked for aggression on the part of the North toward an innocent and pacific South is the height of intellectual dishonesty.

The problem with the rest of your argument is that you are attempting to suggest that someone was going to tell the South that they had to alter their way of life. South Carolina and the states which followed her lead seceded from the Union after Lincoln had been elected, but well before he had been inaugurated. At no time had Lincoln stated or implied that he intended to end the institution of slavery, and there was no means by which he could have accomplished that, absent the war, which was started by Southerners. It is more than intellectual dishonesty to attempt to claim that the people of the South rose against an unjust oppressor. The fact of the matter is, a handful of hot-heads in the South started a war they weren't prepared or able to sustain, and they got their military ass handed to them. Get over it.

I have no reason to believe that 12% of the population is responsible for 80% of the crime. If you want to identify yourself with white supremacists and other racists, just keeping making idiotic claims such as that. As for Isaac Hayes, i suggest that you address your question to the member who brought that up. I didn't.

he's not taking questions today, sorry....

That's not a problem for me . . .

dint figger twas.

(hey to the deeohgies)

I need to air them . . . think i'll do that here directly . . .

I am not a white supremist. My Granddaughter is bi-racial. I played trumpet with musicians who were black in the 1960's, once playing with an all black band. Yeah, me and 9 Brothers. My Grandfather was born in 1903, some 40 years after the "Civil War". I grew up in a segregated south. Maybe the truth is that people from the south hated northeners and still do. That's more of the truth than anything. In the major cities most of the residents are not from there. They have more residents from the north who have migrated to the south for it good weather, low cost of living and a population that remembers how to be hospitable. Get outside the major cities and it's still true blood southerners who still live the life they want. If they cling to a way of life they enjoy, well you all up there said it's a free country.

Most all of this discussion is really mute point anyway. In a few years, and maybe not the many years, the Latino population will out number us all and then the discussion might be, "God I wish the South would have won the war and conquered Mexico and all of Central and South America." RB

Out of the frying pan and into the fire . . .