Rethinking the title of this thread makes me wonder why anyone would give credence to the perspective of the Confederacy, considering they lost the war, and had to swear allegiance to the Union? It would be analogous, in my opinion, to say that WWII, from the Nazi perspective, was about effecting the correct social/economic order between Aryans and lesser folk. It was just about world domination, and the Nazi "story" included the schtick about Aryanism, that's all.
So, in the same vein, saying that from the Confederate perspective the War of Northern Aggression was about slavery is just ignoring all the other issues that balkanized the two parts of the country. Some people today may want to think that it was all about slavery. One benefit of that perspective is that then, since slavery is just in the past, the illusion could be that the North and the South should just get along just peachy. Well, if that was the case, the South on election night would not be the "red states."
As I observed in the military, African-Americans, whether they are from the North or South get along better with each other than whites from the two regions. Why? I think the South has a remnant of humiliation from losing that war, and seeing a world of theirs "gone with the wind." If that is true, then the Confederacy was all about autonomy, slavery being only one facet of being autonomous.
Lynyrd Skynyrd calls Confederate Flag racist, prompts fan revolt
“Through the years, people like the KKK and skinheads kinda kidnapped the Dixie or Southern flag from its tradition and the heritage of the soldiers. That’s what it was about,” he said. “We didn’t want that to go to our fans or show the image like we agreed with any of the race stuff or any of the bad things.”
-Gary Rossington, Guitarist and last original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/22/lynyrd-skynyrd-calls-confederate-flag-racist-prompts-fan-revolt/
@snood,
snood wrote:
Lynyrd Skynyrd calls Confederate Flag racist, prompts fan revolt
“Through the years, people like the KKK and skinheads kinda kidnapped the Dixie or Southern flag from its tradition and the heritage of the soldiers. That’s what it was about,” he said. “We didn’t want that to go to our fans or show the image like we agreed with any of the race stuff or any of the bad things.”
-Gary Rossington, Guitarist and last original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/22/lynyrd-skynyrd-calls-confederate-flag-racist-prompts-fan-revolt/
In my opinion, it might be too early in the U.S. history to make the Southern flag a relic of the past. That might be, because there are white Southerners that have an emotional attachment to family members that lived during the ante bellum South. Now, let's be candid, many African-Americans might not be able to trace their family lineage as far back as many a white Southerner.
When both groups, white and Black, both have known relatives in their respective families, that go back hundreds of years, the white relatives that lived during the ante-bellum South may not then be something that one waxes nostalgic with pride? In effect, time makes the alienation between the North and South less consequential. I can only hope. But right now many a white Southerner is still alienated from Yankees.
My point being is that the Southern flag is just a mandala of sorts to focus the emotional need to feel proud of one's separate culture and one's ancestors.
Just my opinion.
@snood,
American Slave - The Torture, Cruelty and Mistreatment of African American Slaves
Did most slaves prefer freedom over captivity given their experiences during reconstruction period? Freedom and starvation over slavery and security. Reading the interviews with slaves it appears 50:50. I also find it quite surprising that a lot of the ex-slaves that gave interviews where still missing the plantation and in some cases their owners/masters. Wondering what other peoples thoughts are on this.
@SuperRoo,
I think you ought to read the thread before asking what others think.
@snood,
snood wrote:
Those who defend the right of people to display the confederate flag, and decry the "pride in heritage" indicated thereby, and do civil war reenactments, and generally lionize the Confederacy and its memory, seem always to be in denial that the war was fought because some wanted to preserve the right to enslave. The following is taken from an article from Salon Magazine by Michael Lind. If there are any here on A2K who deny the centrality of slavery in the motives of the secessionists, who want to bury any mention of that ugly truth beneath some obfuscated twaddle about state's rights, I'd like to direct their attention, and encourage them to please reply, to this. Especially to the quote from the Vice-President of the Confederacy, taken from a speech in which he clearly states what the confederacy is based on:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For generations, apologists for the Confederacy have claimed that secession was really about the tariff, or states’ rights, or something else -- anything other than preserving the right of some human beings to own, buy and sell other human beings.
That being the case, the education of schoolchildren in my state should include a reading of the Cornerstone Speech made by Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, on March 21, 1861. With remarkable candor, Stephens pointed out that whereas the United States was founded on the idea, enshrined in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal," the new Confederacy was founded on the opposite conception:
The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically ... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
All the things you say may be true, but the war was about money and power as they always are, probably had more to do with the price of cotton and tobacco - big business, not state's rights.
@Rickoshay75,
I recommend you read the thread.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:
I recommend you read the thread.
You have your opinion, I have mine. Let it go at that.
@Rickoshay75,
In short, facts mean nothing in the face of opinion. Okay-y-y-y-y
Read the thread, it contains a great many facts. Everyone gets to have their own opinions. Nobody gets to have their own facts.
@Rickoshay75,
Rickoshay75 wrote:
edgarblythe wrote:
I recommend you read the thread.
You have your opinion, I have mine. Let it go at that.
those who were arguing that the war was almost all about slavery think that they won on the basis that it seems that the current historian population largely agrees with them....you are supposed to agree and then shut up.
i do not agree, i think that no evidence has been supplied indicating that the majority of those in the conflict held the view that they were fighting about slavery. i think that southerners were fighting about keeping their way of life in spite of the Washington majority demanding that they give it up, and that most northerners were fighting to keep the nation together. Slavery was a part of what they were fighting over, but it was about a lot more than that.
@hawkeye10,
So you haven't read the thread either, huh?
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
For anyone here who claims that the war was not about slavery, or that slavery was a "minor" issue, i'd be interested to hear what you claim the war was about. I don't mean some vague throw-away line about states' rights, either. What specific event or events triggered this militaristic reaction in 1860? What issue inspired a mob in Pensacola and state authorities in Charleston to make war on the Federal government?
Any of you jokers game?
As I said in another post, the Civil war wasn't about idealism, it was about money, power, and egos, the same as all wars, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Lincoln freed the slaves to make them stop picking cotton and tobacco -- for big businesses interests. Rich kids were exempted by putting up $300, another example of money and power.
@Rickoshay75,
Your lack of historical knowledge about the Civil War and especially about Abe Lincoln just proves you really don't understand anything much.
All wars are never about "business interests." Did you ever hear about "self defense or preservation?" Or is that too spacial for you to understand?
@Rickoshay75,
What has any of that drivel to do with the reason that so-called state forces of southern states seized Federal property and fired on Federal installations,
and that many of those same states passed secession ordinances which specifically stated that they were doing so to protect the institution of slavery?
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
What has any of that drivel to do with the reason that so-called state forces of southern states seized Federal property and fired on Federal installations, and that many of those same states passed secession ordinances which specifically stated that they were doing so to protect the institution of slavery?
i defy anyone to read the 4 documents (the rest of the states did not produce any) listing the reasons for succession to tell me that the south felt this was all about slavery, protecting slavery. those in the south felt that the laws of the land were not being obeyed, they felt that they were being abused by Washington and the states of the north.
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
