[scorpion]

Disappointed to see such virulent anti-Southern sentiment from Quintus and Truth Teller, two very intelligent guys. I think that illustrates one of the major issues surrounding the war, both then a now: regionalism and cultural differences between North and South. Slavery was only one issue that divided what had grown by 1860 to be two highly distinct societies sharing a land mass and a government. There was bound to be conflict.

Since the North won the war, they got to write the history and control the narrative. This resulted in the canonization of Lincoln, the retroactive pronouncement of the war's cause to have been abolition, and a general vilification of the South and Southerners that continues to this day. As Quintus admitted, growing up in the North he was taught that Southerners are nothing but backwards, ignorant and racist, and that there was very little good to be said about them. Then much to his surprise, upon living in the South he foud that Southerners in general are much different than Northern stereotypes would admit.

The idea that the average Yankee of the 1860s (or even Northern leadership) cared one iota for the plight of the slaves is total revisionist history. Full stop. The North can claim no moral high ground on the issue of slavery, because for the most part they were far more concerned with the economics and politics of slavery than they were its morality. The North fought the war to preserve the Union, not to eliminate slavery. The South simply wanted to break away from the Union, there was no intention by the South to take over the North or the Federal government. Indeed, this is why the very name of the war - "The Civil War" (pro-Northern bias), "The War Between the States" (neutral), "The War of Northern Aggression (Southern bias) - can be an issue of contention and disagreement. To name something is to label it, and by naming it "The Civil War" you imply that the South was fighting for control of the U.S. government. They were not. It would be like calling the American Revolution a civil war, when in matter of fact it was simply a war of secession. The founding fathers were not trying to take over the British government, they were attempting to secede and form a government of their own. This is exactly what the South attempted to do, the only difference is that they failed.

A disgusting Northern bias is revealed by anyone who says the Southern leadership should have been hanged after the war. In my mind this displays perfectly the cultural distinction between North and South, a distinction that closely tracks liberal and conservative. The Northern mentality is decidedly ruthless, vindictive and intolerant, at the same time loudly proclaiming its own virtues. It's the same mentality we see on the left today. The South, in contrast, was a patriarchal society based on respect for tradition and chivalry. The prototypical Southern gentleman of the day valued personal honor, God and family, and his motives for fighting the war were wholly to defend his home and his way of life. The idea that these men deserved to be hanged simply for the crime of losing a war is disgusting, not to mention stupid. The Northern leadership was wise enough to realize that doing so would have been counterproductive to reconstruction and reconciliation efforts.

Anyway, if anyone wants a better understanding of the War, I recommend Shelby Foote's masterful three-volume set "The Civil War": http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Volumes-...394749138/

These books feel more like a time machine than reading history. Highly recommended.

[Krusyos]

Slavery is, without a doubt, a heinous institution. Similarly heinous, however, is the fact that you would blatantly ignore white indentured servants and say that it was "racially based slavery." Quintus, I have massive respect for you, but I advise you to look beyond the progressive narrative and see that the North could give two shits about the morality of slavery, but rather the economic consequences of slavery. Not to mention, stories told nowadays about all slaves getting beaten within an inch of their lives by the white devil are ludicrous, as a cursory glance through the slave narratives will show you.

The North had no problem abusing little children in their factories with 12 hour work days at pitifully small wages. In fact, A plausible case can be made that factory workers were treated worse than slaves on a daily basis.

FYI I'm a born Yankee and think the South is a humid, bland shithole.

[Seth_Rose]

Lincoln in the 1858 Illinois Senate debates:

“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

[Saga]

(10-12-2014 08:00 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

Indeed, this is why the very name of the war - "The Civil War" (pro-Northern bias), "The War Between the States" (neutral), "The War of Northern Aggression (Southern bias) - can be an issue of contention and disagreement. To name something is to label it, and by naming it "The Civil War" you imply that the South was fighting for control of the U.S. government. They were not.

I have to disagree here. "The Civil War" isn't a pro-Northern term, it was used by secessionists themselves. In April 1861, Governor Letcher of Virginia wrote in response to the US Secretary of War's request for troops:

You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.

Quote:

The Northern mentality is decidedly ruthless, vindictive and intolerant, at the same time loudly proclaiming its own virtues. It's the same mentality we see on the left today. The South, in contrast, was a patriarchal society based on respect for tradition and chivalry.

That's a bit unfair. Before and during the war many southern politicians were quite fanatical and narrow-minded in their promotion of secession, whereas men like Robert E Lee did indeed fight for their homes first and foremost. We could list admirable and loathsome figures on both sides for days.

[Quintus Curtius]

@Scorpion:

Yes, I freely admitted that many of the stereotypes of the South that I had imbibed when growing up turned out to be half-truths. As I said in an earlier post, I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable Atlanta was.

More to the point, I was unsettled by the fact that race relations in the part of Georgia I was (Atlanta area) was actually much better than those in urban Massachusetts. I'm still not entirely sure why this is, but it may have more to do with regional culture than anything else. It made me question a lot of the things I had been told. But on the other hand, even that could be a misperception. I'm not black, and have no idea what it's like to live as a black man in the rural South. I have no idea, really.

The harder you look at this stuff, the more complicated it gets.

On the other hand, Scorpion, I think you may be taking this a bit too far. Let's be aware of that danger, too. Please don't confuse my personal feelings about this issue, with my personal feelings about the historical issues surrounding the war.

My remarks about punishment for the South during the Reconstruction era are a different issue entirely. My point was this: the South should not have been permitted to lapse back into an apartheid society. Which it absolutely did. There was a Civil Rights Bill that could have been enforced with federal troops back in the 1870s and 1880s. Instead, the South was allowed a pass. That's all I'm saying.

The average Southerner was just a normal guy trying to survive, and was a product of his environment like all of us. I don't blame him at all. I'm talking about the leaders there. Washington collaborated with them to keep the Jim Crow social model alive from 1875 until 1965. This was wrong.

With a nod and a wink from Washington, they were permitted to set up poll taxes, "literacy tests", and all sorts of other tricks (even outright terror) to prevent blacks from exercising their rights to citizenship. This is a fact. "Separate but equal", a cruel joke, became the law of the land through the Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). They were totally disenfranchised, and this became the de facto law of the land. It was an outrage. And Washington didn't do a damned thing about it for 80 years.

Why did this happen? Because Washington allowed the Southern caste system (the power structure) to remain intact after the war. In hindsight, I think this was a big mistake. In fact, the Radical Republicans (led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner) wanted to break up the big plantations, punish the Southern leaders, and immediately enfranchise the black population. I think if they had done this, and if they had forced the South to accept the modern world, we would not have had to wait until 1964 for a real civil rights bill.

I have studied this war in detail and I remain convinced that it was the Southern leaders who bear the lion's share of the responsibility for lighting the torch for war in 1861, and for keeping it going. They were fighting for a despicable cause. The top dogs like Jeff Davis and his cabinet, as well as the top generals, should have been severely punished. Some of them even went on to set up terrorist groups like the KKK and the Knights of the White Camelia, to keep black people in line with terror. The average guy in the South was just a normal guy like all of us, but his leaders were hotheads who would not listen to reason. They wanted war, and said precisely that.

This is unforgiveable. If these top guys had been punished, and if Washington had not looked the other way while the South reconstituted its apartheid system, we might not have a lot of the social problems we had in the wake of the integration fights in the 1960s and 1970s.

Seen in this light, postwar Reconstruction in the South in the 1870s was a huge missed opportunity, for which the US has paid dearly.

Just my opinion.

[Truth Teller]

A lot of what QC is bringing up is a function of Andrew Johnson being incompetent. For my money, the worst president in American history.

As for my "anti-Southern sentiment," I reject that. I have utmost respect for Lee, Beauregard, Jackson, Longstreet, Johnston, and Stuart. Lee, Jackson, and Johnston were military men of the highest caliber. That being said, I despise the system they fought for. Slavery was, without a doubt, evil. I think that the generals have to be separated from the system they ended up supporting. As for Davis and Stephens, I'm far less charitable. Stephens was clear about what the CSA stood for, and Davis was no less clear when he refused to let blacks fight in the Confederate Army until the closing days of the war, which would've ameliorated the manpower problem.

The Civil War is no less a Northern statement than it is a Southern one. The War Between the States was largely used after the war by Confederate veterans.

In terms of causes, slavery cannot be overstated. Slavery led to sectionalism, which led to the fracture during the 1860 election. Sectionalism also led to things like Bleeding Kansas.

I strongly reject the States' Rights argument, and so do most professional historians. The right to secede simply did not exist. The Articles of Confederation were titled the Articles of Confederation and PERPETUAL UNION (Caps for emphasis). Perpetual union outright states that the Articles were not a compact, and states couldn't leave at will.

Also, with regard to Shelby Foote's series, I have read some of it (though not all- it's extremely long), and I've generally found it rather pro-Southern. It's not as objective as many people would like to think. Nor is McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, but that book is probably the best one volume text about the war in existence.

[Quintus Curtius]

^^^

Well said statements by Truth Teller.

There is no "anti-Southern sentiment" here, just an assessment of US history as we see it. I certainly am not saying that there was no racism or discrimination in the North. Absolutely there was, and still is. And of course, industrial wage-slavery in Northern factories was a pernicious evil. I'm the one who brought up this issue in this thread. I'm against that too. (But if reactionary conservatives had their way, there would have been no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws, no limits on work hours, etc.; but that's a different issue).

But the fact remains that segregation was actually institutionalized in the South after 1875. And I firmly believe that that was directly related to the failure to implement civil rights legislation like they should have right after the Civil War ended. It was a missed opportunity. The fact is that after Lincoln, we had a whole run of utterly incompetent presidents.

I can't think of any decent presidents (maybe Garfield and McKinley) between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Every president between these two was a tool of big business.

I don't know.

[kbell]

I thought the KKK was set up by the Democrats of the time?

[TheWastelander]

(10-10-2014 08:56 PM)buja Wrote:  

(10-09-2014 12:35 AM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

You can't secede from the Union, and the Confederacy's actions were illegal. Texas vs. White, there's no Constitutional right to secede from the Union.

The Constitution was designed to replace the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which had the states essentially as separate entities. In that position, it may HAVE been lawful to succeed.

The government schools have taught you well...

He's not wrong.

The father of the Constitution, James Madison, believed it to be illegal and that there was no constitutional right to it.

http://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/...secession/

http://www.nytimes.com/1861/04/21/news/w...ssion.html

He believed that there was a right to revolution and that if the government became abusive that the people should exercise it. But as we've already determined the South was not interested in revolution, just secession.

As much as it pains me to say it, the South was wrong in seceding and their reasons for doing so weren't noble. They had their slavery and even scored a major victory for it in Dred Scot v. Sanford four years prior to the start of the Civil War.

They forced the Union's hand by attacking Fort Sumter.

[heavy]

Who knows the opportunity cost of the Civil war for the last 150 years (if we'd have stayed as more as states united instead of a big huge country), but one thing is for sure...

"These United States of America" became "The United States of America"

Link
   

[Truth Teller]

(10-13-2014 01:15 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

^^^

Well said statements by Truth Teller.

There is no "anti-Southern sentiment" here, just an assessment of US history as we see it. I certainly am not saying that there was no racism or discrimination in the North. Absolutely there was, and still is. And of course, industrial wage-slavery in Northern factories was a pernicious evil. I'm the one who brought up this issue in this thread. I'm against that too. (But if reactionary conservatives had their way, there would have been no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws, no limits on work hours, etc.; but that's a different issue).

But the fact remains that segregation was actually institutionalized in the South after 1875. And I firmly believe that that was directly related to the failure to implement civil rights legislation like they should have right after the Civil War ended. It was a missed opportunity. The fact is that after Lincoln, we had a whole run of utterly incompetent presidents.

I can't think of any decent presidents (maybe Garfield and McKinley) between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Every president between these two was a tool of big business.

I don't know.

Thank you, and I would say that between Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, all the presidents were terrible to mediocre. Johnson was absolutely horrible and refused to enforce civil rights legislation. Grant was a good man, but had a corrupt administration.

This period (basically 1830-1900) is largely remembered as a period of Congressional domination in American history. The President was (with a few exceptions) subservient to Congress. The best presidents of this period are Polk and Lincoln, the worst are Buchanan and Johnson. Garfield wasn't in office long enough to make a difference. McKinley was also a tool of big business, but he was partially responsible for making the US a world power.

[Libertas]

There was in fact a lot of questions regarding secession back in 1860. New England had threatened it earlier, Rhode Island, upon joining the Union explicitly said that it had the right to leave, and IIRC (this from a class I took back in my second year of college) Jefferson and Madison himself, upon writing anonymous pamphlets against the Alien and Sedition Acts, actually did state or threaten secession. This was seven years ago though so I could be wrong as to the exact nature of this.

Regardless, it doesn't matter since the war settled the issue so I don't see the need to debate it.

(10-12-2014 08:00 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

Slavery was only one issue that divided what had grown by 1860 to be two highly distinct societies sharing a land mass and a government. There was bound to be conflict.

What you're saying is true, but slavery was really the only issue large enough that the south was willing to actually secede over.

Anyway, have any of you read Niall Ferguson's Ascent of Money? He devotes a large portion of a chapter regarding Confederate cotton bonds and how their failure after the fall of New Orleans doomed the South more than anything else.

[MidWest]

Its funny the cultural differences between the south and the north even till this day and the misconceptions both have from one another.

I remember last year when our RSO from school went to the south on some bullshit volunteer trip (we're from Illinois) and some of the people just had a bad image of the south. I recall one dude telling me that he was looking forward to seeing cotton plantations in Mississippi and hick rednecks farming. One chick I remember talking about how she couldn't meet a lady with a strong southern accent like Paula Deen and cook with her.

Even before I left. A lot of my Hispanic and Black friends from Chicago were warning me to be careful like "Hey, man be careful in the south, its full of racists" Or "Be careful with them rednecks down there with their confederate flags" Or "watch out for the KKK" I just shook my head and said "come on man, like there's no racists here in Chicago or the north"