The Confederacy was About Slavery

@farmerman,

One of the most important aspects of historiography is cui bono--who benefits. A former Federal officer would have not only his own reputation to justify, but that of the army as well. I make no comment on Cox, in this, though, as i frankly know nothing about him.

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@Setanta,

Jacob Donaldson Cox was a Union Brigadier. He was born in Canada of US parents. He was an Oberlin grad in 1851 and read for the law. He was a state senator at the outbreak of the war. He was a "world class" genius accoring to Fletcher Pratt. He started as the Commanding Officer of the "Brigadier of the Kanawha". In 1862 He joined Popes Army of Virginia where he distinguished himself at SOuth Mountain and took over his corps afterJ Reno was killed , He further earned praises for his command of Renos(now Cox's) corps at Antietam. He then rode with Sherman until Goldsboro and then retired and resumed legal practice. He was made CEO of the WABASH RR and was elected to Congress in 1876. In 1882 He then began his reminiscences of the War that included "The MArch to the Sea-Franklin and NAshville" several volumes. He died in 1900 just after he finished his big "Reminiscences of the Civil War"

This is all stuff from the fronstispiece of Vol I. (Ive shortened it considerably because Ive always found that you never want to let a military man in charge of his own obituary. I agree, there are several of the generals out there (Including Chamberlain who I admire, that were left in charge of their own "newscopy"). SO they were never short of tales of daring- do.

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@farmerman,

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I assume it was Ionus who asked this question

You are incapable of looking ? Or do you like assuming ? Perhaps your morals of bigotry and racism are too important to you....

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Even if it were so, I dont see the contradiction in the issue that slavery was the key reason of the Confederacy or the war.

It was done to cripple the South, not to stop slavery . Why would they want to do that ? Think about it .

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@farmerman,

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"Further War" could also mean the lingering campaign and stringing out of the present one.

I am certain it meant that as well .

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This is so much "quote mining"

We've struck this before....my quotes are mining, yours are typical and appropriate . Very Happy

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@aidan,

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What? How could you possibly think you could take such a measurement? That's what I'm trying to explain to you.

And what I am trying to explain to you is that is still only one person's experience, compelling though it may be to you .

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There are aspects and nuances of the truth that are not measureable or understandable unless or until one is able to experience and observe the repercussions and consequences of said attitudes.

There are also those who believed in slavery by exactly the same mechanism . They werent correct though, were they ?

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I guess I just don't view it as having to be one 'reason' as strictly opposed to another.

If that is the impression you got then I must make pains to explain myself better . Slavery was an important cause of the Civil War, but it would never have been fought for that alone . Slavery was money, its expansion to the new terrirtories and secession was about states rights, holding the Union to gether was about power .

Wave a magic wand , The slaves are freed and the south makes twice as much money....no Civil War . Wave it in a different direction, and the North has its way with state's rights and preserving the Union and the South keeps its slaves.... no Civil War . But eventually you may have a Civil War over slavery, but it wont be the one that historically happened .

Many people in the North fought to free slaves, but not most . Many people in the south fought for their state.....the idea that the Confederacy was all about slavery is bunkum.....many of the poor white trash were fighting for the same reason poor men fought in Vietnam.....they somehow got caught up in it .

Slavery was an important component in the Civil War as the supporters had power and money....but the Confederacy was more than that....it was primarily about being bullied by those in Washington .

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But more people in the north were anti-slavery than people in the south and I do believe that some of this - no certainly not all - but some of it was humanitarian.

That is probably true .

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If you don't want to call that love - don't.

I did call it love...you have me confused with those who objected to it .

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Maybe I'm just not as cynical as you are

Maybe I'm just not as unrealistic as you are .

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@farmerman,

Interesting--the Kanawha would be West Virginia, where McClellan and Rosecrans made their reputations (both underserved as events would prove), i wonder when he was there. Pope's Army of Virginia was thoroughly trounced in the Second Manassas campaign--but South Mountain was a sharp, crucial action in McClellan's swan song, after he had got his hands on a copy of Lee's general order and was hunting him down, leading to Anteitam/Sharpsburg. But wait . . . then he was with Sherman? Saying he was with him until Goldsboro roughly means he left the theater while they were showing the final credits.

Fascinatin' when you can find old books like that, ain't it? I once found an account of the Spanish War which was published (complete with heavily retouched photographs) just months after the end of hostilities in 1898.

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@Setanta,

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I once found an account of the Spanish War which was published (complete with heavily retouched photographs) just months after the end of hostilities in 1898.

God I am jealous . I love old books...they are history themselves.....

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@Setanta,

YEh, once Joe Johnston surrendered (earlier in the same day that Lincoln was shot), Cox took his separation. (Ya know, Ill bet theres a good story in that). He was with the "KAnawha" until April of 62 when he joined Pope.

I luck out at "yard sales" . It seems that old books never have any friends. When someone cleans house and gets rid of stuff that may have beonged to "Dad", they often dont look carefully enough at the substance.
My "Hobby" of collecting old schools science books is merely to allow me to assess how the gradual acceptance of an old earth or evolution came about by autjors. My favorite is the old "Civic Biology" which was first pub's in the late 1800's and was reissued as a seriews of later editions. In that book it wasnt so much an acceptance of evolution I thought interesting (Although it was somwewhat enlightening how Creationism and EVolution were rectified together). Instead, the authors views on the "races of humans" was almost written by some Klansman.

Yep, even old books can be gold.

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@farmerman,

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union with these words:

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"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."

I think that, with these words from the seceding states government itself, it sorta settles the "states rights" issue. Atleats for South Carolina , the ENTIRE issue was slavery, anyone wishing to deny that this was not the case should arrange a seance with the principals and try to convince them of your thinking.

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@farmerman,

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the ENTIRE issue was slavery

??? They were so determined to have slaves...the money didnt matter...there was no chain of logic, it was just they had to have slaves at any cost, they didnt care about the money . Really ?

Anyone who thinks the southerners fought the war because blacks had to be slaves is incapabale of seeing beyond the nose on their face . It was about money...the slaves generated money....as the slaves became less important due to industrialised farming, do you really think they would have kept slaves and made a loss because the blacks deserved to be slaves ? The slaves made money for them so they had to justify it . The South would have dropped slaves quicker than hot stones if the slaves didnt make money .

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This thread still lives...?

A
R
T

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Quote:
the ENTIRE issue was slavery
??? They were so determined to have slaves...the money didnt matter...there was no chain of logic, it was just they had to have slaves at any cost, they didnt care about the money . Really ?

Anyone who thinks the southerners fought the war because blacks had to be slaves is incapabale of seeing beyond the nose on their face . It was about money...the slaves generated money....as the slaves became less important due to industrialised farming, do you really think they would have kept slaves and made a loss because the blacks deserved to be slaves ? The slaves made money for them so they had to justify it . The South would have dropped slaves quicker than hot stones if the slaves didnt make money .

Right up until this last post, I have been trying to keep hope alive that perhaps you are more than you appear to be. Perhaps, I said to myself, he is simply not reading the other posts thoroughly, or he is the product of a household whose parents were avid history revisionists, or maybe he is just lonely and he actually sees that the war's main instigating issue was slavery but he just wants to keep having something to discuss.

But this last post of yours settles it for me once and for all. Dude, you're just ******* stupid.

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@snood,

"It wasnt about slavery, it was about the money that slavery generated"
Genius is among us.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

"It wasnt about slavery, it was about the money that slavery generated"
Genius is among us.

How much did keeping a slave cost? Food housing clothing medcare schooling etc? How much would he cost if freed and paid a wage?

I don't know but I don't think it would make a big $$$$$ difference. I think that's a key point, principle is one thing money is another. Do you have a $$$ answer to that issue and if you don't why laugh at it?

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

The South would have dropped slaves quicker than hot stones if the slaves didnt make money .

I haven't done any research but I think some plantation owners had started freeing their slaves and paying them wages.

I think that still worked financially and I don't know why the whole South didn't go that way. I agree with you the war was about $$$$$ mor than any principle of enslavement (like Snood keeps repeating) but I can't prove it.

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@electronicmail,

Then just read the posts above from the actual historic records and you may, unlike the Oz nitwit, see the underlying issue.
To say that it was about money is so ******* obvious a dodge. OF COURSE IT WAS ABOUT THE MONEY. It was about the money that slavery allowed to be made and kept by growers, and several other labor intensive industries.

Seems like all the folks who want to rail aginst the issue of slavery being the nucleus of the confederacy either
1CAnnot read plain english

2CAn read but not comprehend

3Or have some other agenda that makws them want to spwnd time as revisionists of our history.

The AUstralian is just a total fool, who has been turning this thread into a a personal enmity-fest against USers who ARE interested in their history.

Howver, if youre a USer, Im surprised that you buy into his "fact-free" fable.

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@electronicmail,

What kind of incredible idiocy leads you to belive that slave owners spent any money on health care or schooling? Are you aware that it was against the law to educate slaves? Where does stupidity of this magnitude come from?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

OF COURSE IT WAS ABOUT THE MONEY.

Howver, if youre a USer, Im surprised that you buy into his "fact-free" fable.

Gee thanks that's what I said all along, follow the $$$$. I didn't know the man is from Australia but who cares?

You got no right to revisionism either.

Fact: many Southerners had freed their slaves before 1861 and paid them wages.
Fact: anytime you pay $$$$ for any living creature you have a duty to provide it with decent living accommodations medcare too. Most would do it because it's right but some did it for financial interest, same diff.
Fact: read bills of sale for Negroes, many could read and write and work as bookkeepers or other trades.
Fact: slavery is a problem older than the Republic. I know our history even if you would sweep it under the rug

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In 1741, New York authorities thought they had uncovered a slave conspiracy to rebel. Thirteen black leaders were burned alive, 18 were hanged, and 80 were sold to the West Indies. A family of white colonists and a white teacher accused of being a Jesuit priest in disguise were accused of providing weapons and were also executed. This book includes the evidence presented at the trials, evidence later discovered, and lists of the accused which include occupation and other interesting personal details. It remains a topic of debate among historians whether there was in fact a conspiracy or whether this was a witch hunt.

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@electronicmail,

If you would have been honest enough to post complete quotes you wouldnt be accused of quote mining
Heres what I said in a complete thought.[quote

] OF COURSE IT WAS ABOUT THE MONEY. It was about the money that slavery allowed to be made and kept by growers, and several other labor intensive industries [/quote] The money was a result that was acquired through the institution of slavery.

What "brown round " did you pull your "FActs from". Please dont continue with the bullshit. Very few slaves were set free, In Fact there were 3 "Fugitive slave acts" The latest of which, in 1850, required freemen to assist catching and returning s;aveholders propwerty (A euphymism for the slaves)

There were a few slaves who learned to read and writre A VERY FEW. most states had laws against such teaching. The slaves that learned , did so, in spite of their system, not because of it.

Slaves that were kept in higher ranks became overseers and formen. In most cases, these were the ones who triwed to escape because they acquired a taste of civility

I CAN BACK these assertions with historical documents, I dont think you can

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The Confederacy was About Slavery

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