The Confederacy was About Slavery

In fact, it was Finn who introduced what you are pleased to refer to as modifiers. Finn is basically a turd stirrer, and i suspect he looked in, realized he couldn't sustain an argument that the Confederacy wasn't about slavery, so he decided to make out that this was a matter of "liberals" saying it was solely about slavery. Joe from Chicago stepped up and said, yes, it was solely about slavery. I pointed out that i had never said that it was solely about slavery, and that until Joe posted, i didn't know that anyone here had done so. I then pointed out that the tariff didn't lead to secession and war, and that nullification didn't lead to secession and war, but a perceived threat to slavery did. I really don't care if Finn is sufficiently subtle to understand this, but that means i was saying that it was solely about slavery. Don't try to make out that anyone but Finn is responsible for this latest flap, because that is not the case.

It doesn't matter what motivated every southern soldier. The question is the motive for the foundation of the Confederate states. It is now you who is attempting to "refine" definitions; it is you who is diverting the direction of the discussion. Finn must be mightily pleased.

I don't think so. I have been very careful to clarify otherwise hidden (or often unstated here) assumptions and qualifiers, and have made a fairly good effort to identify vague or unstated issues which appeared (to me) to be behind many pages of earlier argument and dispute here.

It turns out that I have no dispute with Snood's original proposition or, for that matter with anything substantial you've expressed about the topic.

Conjecturing what southern soldiers may have had in mind certainly is no part of the original proposition.

...and to that last point (about conjecture about Confedrate soldiers' thoughts and motivations) is about as pointless as it would be to conjecture about what the average line unit US soldier in Afghanistan thinks about our foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran.

I agree with that, but the proposition itself was vague and admitting of rather large extensions into other areas. Some of these followed after a few pages and persisted through the thread. Soon there were overtones suggesting that any sympathy for the South or any of its features or people were affirmations of slavery. That's simply delusion and prejudice. I used the issue of the various motivations of confederate & union soldiers to illustrate the truth of that point.

I don't think the matter is pointless at all. Does it bother you that I mentioned it? Why?

In my opinion, you protesteth too much.

I really hate no group. I do feel sorry for many groups, since they may not know the real "score" in this country. "The score" being who really owns this country, and who are valued in this country.

Regardless, since there are many Southerners today that take great pride in their ancestors being part of American history, including the history of the Confederacy, in my opinion, it can be considered devisive to talk about who might be a Confederate apologist. At this point in history we should, I believe, not use rhetoric that makes the Confederacy just a bad entity, since if the Founding Fathers had any forethought, they might have added to the constitution the correct mode of secession. Now who was maintaining who against their own free will.

Lastly, since 800.000 died (newest estimate) in the Civil War, from both sides, I think the Civil War was fought since the Union might have decided to be reabsorbed by mother England, if the Confederacy was allowed to just secede, since the autonomous Confederacy might have been a less than a friendly nation on the Union's southern border. In effect, fighting and winning the Civil War may have been in context of not wanting to have the northern Union last for 71 years, and then go back to England (for protection). Again, in my opinion, slavery was the most visible difference of the two society's, north and south.

P.S.: Your accusation that you "suspect" I hate Blacks is silly. I like all 25 million plus Blacks in the U.S., as much as they like five million American-Jews in the U.S. No more, no less. I believe in reciprocating whatever is offered me in the way of concern and caring. You do remember who thought NYC is just Hymie town. So, rather than "hate" someone for that pejorative, I just do not offer friendship. I would like to think that "hate" is just an emotion that is needed for people of decent upbringing to rationalize their acting out their own antipathy. Just avoiding (like many American Jews do not vacation in Germany, when vacationing in Europe) is really the more civilized behavior, in my civilized opinion.

There are also tea baggers that don't want taxes raised, since they want private enterprise to be the engine of the U.S. economy, not the government using tax money for social programs. And in the way of analogy, there were white southerners willing to protect the institution of slavery believing that their new Confederate nation would prosper as slavery could EXPAND, without northern interference.

I like my analogy better, since it reflects intelligent tea baggers, and Confederate southerners that were not myopic about their own supposed chances to one day be a plantation owner, but rather part of an expanding nation.

I believe rather than "protect the institution of slavery," it was to "EXPAND the institution of slavery." Big difference. And, any expansion would be based on the Confederate nation also expanding under its new autonomy. The key goal was for a greater Confederacy in time, in my opinion.

I am not bothered, so that's a red herring. The issue of the thread is what was the raison d'etre of the COnfederacy--that's pretty straight forward. I see nothing at all vague about that. I have no idea what you're on about with this nonsense about sympathy for the South or any of its features or people. What features do you refer to? What people do you allege were singled out? The wealthy fire-eaters? Those to whom southern soldiers referred when they said a rich man's war but a poor man's fight? Those would have been the only people concerned in the the formation of the Confederacy.

While were at it, though, you earlier alluded to a northern "attack" on the culture of the south--i'll go get the exact quote when i've submitted this post. You're peddleing the propaganda of Confederate apologetics with nonsense like that. There was no such attack. It helps to keep in mind that the so-called state troops of southern states made war on the United States, without provocation, and that this happened two months before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. That smakes of that old "war of northern aggression" bullshit. If you punch someone in the nose, and they beat the holy livin' crap out of you as a consequence, you have much you can whine about, but their aggression isn't something about which you have a right to complain.

The fact of the matrter is that wealthy and influential men stirred up as many hotheads as possible, that they may well have rigged the vote, and the obtained secession ordinances--all on the basis of a perceived threat to the institution of slavery. In fact, the idiots handed power to Lincoln and his "radicals" in the Republican Party. Douglas and Breckenridge split the vote of the Democratic Party, and that allowed Lincoln to be elected. But Lincoln's government would have been effectively a minority government, had it not been for the fire-eaters of the South. Once southern congressional delegations began leaving Washington, they effectively handed power to the radical Republicans. It takes a two thirds vote of Congress to propose a constitutional amendment or a convention. So long as southern delegations were in the Congress, that was not going to happen. Even more telling, though, is that it takes a three quarters majority to ratify an amendment. To this day[/i], had there been no war, the South would still have the hammer hand, the slave states of 1860 (there were 15 of them) represented a block which could have prevented any amandment to end slavery, or even to eleiminate the three-fifths provision, from being ratified.

Essentially, a coterie of wealthy men and those who dreamed of bing like them set those states on a collision course with reality. They've been pissing and moaning about the consequnces ever since. These days, we are, apparently, expected to see them as heroic. Spare me.

Herrings! Herrings!
Don't talk about herrings to around me!

RED HERRINGS NO LESS!

I will leave you fishing them out of the trees when I call upon the wrath of almighty cod!

These are two statements by O'George which, although i am willing to acknowledge it may not have been his intent, are perfect examples of Confederacy apologetics.





There was no such "attack." No such "attack" was possible so long as southern states had congressional delegations. The only tradition i can think of which motivated them was the tradition of profiting form involuntary servitude.

The South started the war. The only attack involved was the repeated attacks on Federal installations and Federal troops by so-called "state troops."

It appears you are reaching very far to find something which you can quibble about, and have reached a very foolish conclusion.

To suggest that Confederate soldiers were to a large degree fighting for home and country is hardly remarkable in that most of the war was fought in the South, and such things are in general the real motives of the men who do the fighting.

I used the word "attack" only once in the quotes you cited, and that in reference to the, "related (to slavery) matter that some (of the secession resolutions of the Confederate States) styled as a Northern attack on their traditions....

Farmerman posted the Alabams ssecession statement earlier in this thread and it made such a claim. I took the trouble to look up a couple of others (South Carolina and Virginia) and they contained that theme as well. I indicated that these references were directly related to the political struggle over slavery issue and were literally the only issue besides slavery itself noted in these documents. I noted these things as a demonstration that the secession of the Confederate States was indeed "all about slavery".

You can call that an apology for the Confederacy if you wish. I call it accuracy and a reasoned alternative to the bombast and pedantry you issue in such great quantity.

It appears to me that you have a strange need to always have the last worfd in any dialogue and that you lose your way in your pursuit of it.

How about the possibility that claiming that the Confederacy was all about slavery, and therefore the Civil War was all about slavery, and therefore the winning of the Civil War was all about ending slavery might be considered an apology for 800,000 American lives lost, in that any reason to lose 800,000 American lives, if based on the goal of ending the immorality of slavery might be considered a justifiable reason to lose 800,000 American lives (for those that want the moral high ground for losing 800,000 American lives).

Perhaps, being an apologist can also be assigned to those that say the Confederacy was all about slavery, since if it wasn't, then any other reason to lose 800,000 American lives might seem like a foolish endeavor?

Also, regardless what was said in any documents that give the reasons for secession are just those reasons that the southern states were willing to be known in posterity. Could the Confederacy document any future plans for an autonomous new nation that had slavery; likely not.

Regardless, in my opinion, the desire (in my opinion it is based mostly on desire) to paint the Confederacy as the bad guys is mean spirited, since it makes all those Confederate Civil War re-enactors seen in a light of immorality. How many people who discover some bygone ancestor was a horse thief is asked to think of that ancestor as an immoral person?

In my opinion, the Civil War re-enactors are no different than the group that join the Daughters of the American Revolution, in that they are just saying we were here before the waves of non British immigrants from Europe came in waves after 1850 (that includes my grandparents). Perhaps, just an attempt to show that they were early arrivals that can say they had ancestors that were integral to the history of the country, regardless of where they were born, and into what society they were born.

For example, how long were Christians learning that Jews were the Christ killers, as the main way to look upon Jews and Judaism? So now we will make southerners that value their ancestry some sort of Christ killer, in that the ancestor participated in the slave oriented society? Just mean spirited and divisive, in my opinion.

Tuesday the Pa Cable NEtwork will play the conference symposium held at Gettysburg College in Sept. The Sept conference was the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation (which was formally presented on Jan 1 1863). Several presentations ere quite interesting including the meeting that Lincoln had with George McLellan that led to the gradual assumption of McLellans forces by Pope.
As was said "McLellan was a genius at assembling a formidable ARMY of men , He , however, had no abilities at USINGthis army"

I'm sure you feel equally generous toward Nazi SS re-enactors.

McLellan is well known to historians for precisely those qualities. plus an exaggerated regard for his own ability.

In fact something like that a fairly common thing in the histories of wars. The peacetime general officers rarely rarely survive the first year of actual war - they are usually succeeded by more determined and bloody-minded men. The peacetime standards for promotion are different from the more urgent standards that apply during a war. There's probably also an objective differencce in the actual leadership needs in peactime and during a war. The skills and state of mind required to build and train an organization are a bit different from those required to spend and exhaust it in war.

Says O'George as he attempts to get the last word. I don't deny that people have said that the southern "traditions" were under attack. I've just pointed out that they started the war, without provocation, so claiming they were under attack is bullshit. Learn to deal with it.

Quite true. I would not want to bury my head in the sand and not be aware of the reality that there are people who lionize the Nazis. One of the keys to survival is knowing the score, so to speak, in my opinion.

This is below your usual standards. It was the various secession resolutions of the Confederates that claimed their traditions (clearly including slavery) were "under attack" - as I reported. That's simply a fact. I made no claim about military action at all.

happy New Year to y'all.