This is Andy's latest salvo against Southern heritage folks, this time Robert Mestas of Defending the Heritage. Andy was the one, you may remember, who called Robert's son "friggin' Opie" for his appearance on a Defending the Heritage video. http://cwmemory.com/2011/04/05/the-next-generation/
You may further recall that Andy was all affronted by heritage folks who referred to a location in 1960s television series in their praise of the South, specifically, Mayberry, of The Andy Griffith Show fame. Sed Andy, "There’s one well-known Southron heritage site that, when the author wants to refer to traditional, rural Southern virtues, also mentions Mayberry — a fictional town that only existed on a Hollywood backlot, whose law enforcement officers never dealt with really serious violent crime, and where African Americans were almost invisible."
He never did explain why that was objectionable, but it was okay for Kevin Levin to huff and puff against heritage folks on the basis of a fictional 60s TV drama, The Rebel -- Johnny Yuma.
Levin's tripe is here: Johnny Yuma’s Appomattox http://cwmemory.com/2011/04/09/johnny-yumas-appomattox/
You can read my thoughts on Ludicrous Levin's praise of the fictional Yuma here: THIS is the spirit of reconcliation? http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2011/04/this-is-spirit-of-reconciliation-lol.html
So now Andy is bellyaching because Robert's short caption identifying a Confederate veteran doesn't include the information about the man's KKK involvement. Then sez Andy, "I don’t know why I should expect better from Robert. After all, he has a habit of making up fake quotes from Confederate veterans, right?"Andy has a link embedded in that comment that takes the reader to this image from Facebook:
I wrote the words myself as if they had been spoken by the man pointing his hand out to the future...I suppose none of Andy's commenters notice that one instance of something does not establish a habit. But it's classic Hallism to take comments, claims, activities of one or a few heritage folks and palm them off as far more than they are, usually representative of all Southern heritage.
It's simply jaw-dropping that someone who strives so assiduously to palm himself off as a scholarly history writer seems ignorant of the concept of poetic license. (See Ed Baptist's new "history" book on slavery for breathtaking examples of poetic license.)
License or liberty taken by a poet, prose writer, or other artist in deviating from rule, conventional form, logic, or fact, in order to produce a desired effect. (Dictionary.com)Anyone with a grain of sense knows, or can figure out, that Robert's quote is poetic license, created from the present situation that Confederate heritage finds itself in (though Patrick Cleburne said something similar during the war).
Andy makes himself look nastier and more mean-spirited as time goes by.
You and Robert seem to forget that the south was not just defending its home from an invading army. It was defending slavery as a way of life and economy as well as refusing to accept the constitutional election's outcome. It was rebellion in its truest and ugliest form.
ReplyDeleteSorry, you're wrong. The American Revolution was rebellion in its truest and ugliest form. The crown rightfully owned the colonies. The states, however, voluntarily entered a voluntary association, and the Southern states voluntarily withdrew from it and they did so democratically. That's no rebellion.
DeleteWhen the war started, the South couldn't have been fighting to defend slavery because nobody was fighting to end it. That wasn't tacked on until well into the fighting.
That they refused to accept the election's outcome is a nonissue with me. They were right about the man who was elected -- he as a tyrant who did not abide by the Constitution himself, and who was willing to sacrifice the lives of 600,000+ people for a principle ("preserving the union") that was neither constitutional nor worthy.
"When the war started, the South couldn't have been fighting to defend slavery because nobody was fighting to end it. That wasn't tacked on until well into the fighting."
DeleteI am sorry but that is one of the most idiotic comments I have ever heard. I honestly don't know how to react or respond to that.
Charles Dew wrote a book called Apostles of Disunion, have you ever heard of it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment
DeleteIf the South was fighting solely to preserve slavery, then why did they not just stay in the Union and ratify the original 14th amendment? Why would they secede, even though they were basically assured by Lincoln and the Federal Government that slavery would be left to each State to decide on their own?
"I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
Why did Lincoln wait until 1863 to enact the emancipation proclamation? Why did it only "free" the slaves in Confederate occupied territory and States, but not the border and Northern States nor Union occupied territory (by this time including New Orleans, Tennessee, and other parts of the South)?
Logan,
DeleteThe Corwin Amendment or the original 13th Amendment was not acceptable to the south because it only addressed protecting slavery where it was already and did not address slavery's expansion into the territories. Those territories is where Lincoln and the Republicans drew the line. The 1860 Republican Platform dealt with this expressly.
Lincoln waited until 1863 because he knew he needed to wait until he had more support as well as a military reason to issue such a proclamation. He knew that striking a blow to slavery would also strike a blow to the south's ability to fight the war.
Part One
DeleteMr. Lyons, substitute "blacks" for "slavery" and you'll see what the real fuss was about, especially re: the territories. Everyone, north and South, knew slavery would end eventually, some day. Thus, the point of "expanding" slavery into the territories, in part, was to "expand" the black population and more evenly spread it across the land.
The north wanted to keep blacks bottled up in the South.They did not want blacks in large numbers living in close proximity to them. Read some of what they said about expansion. They did not want the Negro there. Period. They didn't want Negroes in appreciable numbers ANY where up north. That's why they sold their slaves rather than emancipate them when they abolished slavery up north.
They were certainly successful. The distribution of the black population TO THIS DAY look very much like the slave population in 1860.
Black Persons census map
https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/img/black.jpg
Slavery map
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2013/09/4/SlaveryMapFinal.jpg.CROP.article920-large.jpg
So for Lincoln, slavery was just a tool to use against an opponent in war. If emancipation was such a blow to the South, why not do it at the beginning of the war? Why did he have to wait until he "had more support" for emancipation? Because few people up north cared whether slaves were freed are not, and they weren't willing to go South and fight and die for slaves. Lincoln had to sell the war to them on "preserving the union." Because, while they did not like slaves or blacks, they loved slave-grown cotton and the wealth it gave them, and "preserving the union" sounded to them like "keeping the cotton flowing northward unimpeded."
The South looks pretty bad until you look at the north; until you look behind the false facade of "caring" about slaves and righteous armies marching South to "make men free." That is why the north's righteousness is taken as "given" and not looked at too closely.
Part Two
DeleteOver on Simpson's flog, Christopher Shelley says, "...the end of slavery meant (to secessionists) black equality, however gradual. And the vitriolic racism of the Deep South feared that as much as anything." And, "... the fear of abolition was part economic and part pure vitriolic racism–Southern plantation owners (and others) feared black equality as much as they feared the end of slave labor."
Nary a word about how the north feared not just black equality, but blacks themselves, and that's why they had laws to keep blacks -- not just slaves, but free blacks -- out of the territories, and why in the north east, slaves were sold rather than freed when slavery was abolished. That is why, after the war, when blacks migrated to northern cities to find work, they were aparthied-ed, and why as recently as the mid-twentieth century, the government was building housing projects mostly in the north for low income people that became home almost exclusively to blacks, and also home to crime and tragedy.
http://newsone.com/1555245/most-infamous-public-housing-projects
When you look at the black population maps today, and realize they aren't new, that the distribution of the black population in the north has always been scanty and concentrated in cities, and when you see that there were incidents of racial strife in those places, and when you realize that most of the urban race riots were in cities outside the South, and when you realize that the South didn't have sundown towns... and you realize ALL THIS occurred in a place where there was a relatively small black population, but everyone ignored that to concentrate on race problems in the South ... well, you have to acknowledge that if the black population had been more evenly distributed across the country then incidents of racial strive would have been more evenly distributed, as well. Racial strife was more prevalent in the South because, basically, it was and remains the only black-white biracial region of the USA.
This is something the Christopher Shelleys and Craig Lionses will not admit.
My position is that the South is not perfect, but the north (which is, by now, the entire rest of the country) which palms itself off as so egalitarian and so concerned about minorities etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, is no better than the South. It's just very talented at self-aggrandizing PR ... AND ... at demonizes the South so that the north will look better by comparison.
Above should read "...at demonizing..."
DeleteExactly, it wasn't out of bleeding heart that they believed slavery was wrong, but racism and disgust at blacks being amongst whites.
DeleteWhat you both write does have some truth, but the historical record makes things much more complex than your simplistic explanation would have us believe.
DeleteMr. Lyons, it's simplistic because it's only part of the story -- the part that pretty much always gets left out or glossed over by folks like you. As a typical flogger might put it, "Nobody claims there wasn't racism in the north," and that's the extent of acknowledging it. Minimizing northern culpability is the name of the game in Confederacy-hating circles.
DeleteOthers think it's a non-issue because, they will tell you, slavery is the issue, not race (but they'll turn around and talk about racism in the South when they think they need to).
Others claim this is a "you, too" argument, and thus not valid. What the north did, they say, has no bearing on the guilt-and-sin of the South from slave-holding and racism.
DeleteLemme tell you why it's germane. Those people came down here in huge numbers TO. KILL. SOUTHERNERS.
Got that?
And TODAY people say, with completely straight faces, that the righteous armies of the pure and stainless north came south to for the divine purposes of "preserving the union" and "making men free."
The reality behind that lie makes me want to throw up. Defend it however you wish. It will carry no weight with me.
Mrs. Chastain,
DeleteThe South was also willing to kill Yankees at the onset of the war. There are numerous letters and diary entries that describe the Southern desire to kill Yankees. One only needs to remember the old adage of how one Johnny Reb could kill ten Billy Yanks.
The difference -- and it is a massive difference -- is that the South had no desire to invade the north and lay it waste. The South wanted to get away from the north and the feds.
DeleteTen thousand battles, according to one book I have, from minor skirmishes to days long heavy combat, and only a handful not on Confederate soil.
Of course Southerners wanted to kill yankees. They were invaders. They burned whole entire towns some of which had no military importance. They burned houses, barns, crops in the field. They killed livestock, pet dogs. They raped women, slave and free, and stole what wasn't read hot or nailed down. Did you know this?
Yes, Mrs Chastain I do know this. However, those claims made by young southern soldiers were made before the invasion occurred. There is a speech that Jefferson Davis gave where he describes the South's desire to take the war to the Yankees on their soil. I have yet to discover the letter online, but I have read descriptions of it in the past.
DeleteSo to just pass out of hand the South's desire to inflict violence on the Yankees is a bit disingenuous.
So, there were expression of desiring to kill on both sides?
DeleteBut one side was aggressors who invaded and killed.
The other side was defenders who killed those who had invaded.
Can you not tell the difference between those two circumstances?
Your Defenders Mrs. Chastain were the ones who fired the first shots. Your Defenders violated the Constitution by refusing the Constitutional election of 1860. Your Defenders seized US property prior to their state's secession. That, in and of itself is a treasonable act.
DeleteYes, I do know the difference and those difference are quite significant.
Who fired the first shots isn't as important to me as who started the aggression -- and the aggression started before the shots, and it wasn't started by the South. Refusing the election and seizing US property don't meet the definition of treason in either the US Code or the Constitution, and in any case, the South offered to pay for the US property.
DeleteRegardless, as I said here --
There was NO justification for the union army's presence in the seceded states and no justification for a union soldier so much as kicking a Southern dog. Regardless of how much or how little destruction Sherman and his rapacious men did, regardless of Mark Grimsley's efforts, and the efforts of every other Confederacy-bashing "historian" to santitize Sherman and downplay the destruction wrought upon the South by the union army, it was ALL too much because the union army should not have been down here to begin with.
Nothing -- not secession, not "preserving the union," not ending slavery, not anything -- justified the union's barbaric war on the South.
Mrs. Chastain, I would kindly disagree with your summation here. A nation has the right to defend itself from domestic insurrections such as that from the North. There would not have been bloodshed had it not been for the South's refusal of the change of power that occurred in 1860-61, which was not the first time this had happened, nor the last.
DeleteMr. Lyons, I have no problem with your disagreeing. I will explain, however, why I disagree with you.
DeleteThe nation wasn't defending itself, as I have already established. It invaded the Confederacy. Southerners were the defenders. There also would not have been bloodshed if the feds had taken the flippin' money for the federal property and removed their presence from the seceded states. And the election was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm sure you know sectionalism had existed for decades, and the South had been heading for separation a long time. If Lincoln's election had not been the straw, something else would have been.
Secession is not insurrection. Peaceful secession is not revolt, rebellion, insurrection, uprising, mutiny or insurgency. It is leaving, it is withdrawing. Only stung and insulted yankee arrogance interprets a state's voluntarily leaving an association with yankees as insurrection. However, voluntarily resigning from the voluntary Constitutional compact simply isn't rebellion.
Look, it only took nine states ratifying the Constitution to create the federal government and set it operating -- basically, the creation of the union. After the Southern states left, there were 22 states remaining in the union -- more than twice the nine required to create it. That was the nation after the South left and it was not threatened with insurrection and had no need to defend itself.
It is unfathomable to me that there are people who think the founders created a prison for states, and any states that leave have to be whipped and bloodied like a runaway slave.... Neither type of whipping and bloodying is right.
Mrs. Chastain,
DeleteThe states do not have the Constitutional right to seize Federal property as much was seized before secession. The states also do not have a Constitutional right to demand payment for property in which the seized illegally.
Yes, I am quite aware of how sectionalism played out on the national stage prior to the war. But both sides committed acts that could be said to have "broken the camel's back". I am also aware of how often the south discussed secession as a measure to force the government to "see things" their way. You to must be familiar with the Tariff of Abominations and the actions of the South during that stand-off with President Andrew Jackson. Jackson also threatened to send US troops into the South to enforce the law then, much as Lincoln did in 1861.
I disagree with your definition of secession. By the Dictionary, yes you are correct. But the government under the Constitution is not set up like that. Take this quote from James Madison to Jefferson in 1787.
"It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members, could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent & the guilty, the necessity of a military force both obnoxious & dangerous, and in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war, than the administration of a regular Government.
Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which instead of operating, on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them; and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation."
I think what Madison, who as in attendance at the Philadelphia Convention, said is quite obvious.
I don't believe that the government created a prison for the states, that was never the intention, however I do believe that there was a better way of dealing with the issues that confronted the South then that of secession. In the history of secession in the US, IE: The Hartford Convention in 1814 resulted in the decline of the Federalist, there has never been a successful secession for a reason.
Well, that is my opinion anyway.
Mr Madison was a great man, the Father of The Constitution, but we have to go by what's actually in the document, not his opinion about it, or personal correspondence. There was nothing in the Constitution that prohibited secession. http://youtu.be/7qfX0uXDktY
DeleteClickable link: http://youtu.be/7qfX0uXDktY
DeleteYou are correct Mrs. Chastain, that the Constitution does not prohibit secession. But I think Madison's explanation to Jefferson outlines the idea very clearly that the Founding Fathers would not place into the organic nature of the Constitution the ability for a state to arbitrarily tear the nation apart for such a reason a slavery or in times past the Constitutional collection of tariffs.
Delete"Charles Dew wrote a book called Apostles of Disunion, have you ever heard of it?"
ReplyDeleteYes. Here are some quotes not found in Dew's book-
"An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country, our true policy is peace, and the freest trade which our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northeastern States of the American Union. It must follow, therefore, that a mutual interest would invite good will and kind offices. If, however, passion or the lust of dominion should cloud the judgment or inflame the ambition of those States, we must prepare to meet the emergency and to maintain, by the final arbitrament of the sword, the position which we have assumed among the nations of the earth."
-Jefferson Davis
"The principles and position of the present administration of the United States - the republican party - present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed principle with them never to allow the increase of a foot of slave territory, they seem to be equally determined not to part with an inch 'of the accursed soil.' Notwithstanding their clamor against the institution, they seemed to be equally opposed to getting more, or letting go what they have got. They were ready to fight on the accession of Texas, and are equally ready to fight now on her secession. Why is this? How can this strange paradox be accounted for? There seems to be but one rational solution and that is, notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after though they come from the labor of the slave."
-Alexander Stephens
Border,
DeleteOf course those quotes don't show up in Dew's book because both of those men were not involved in the secession movement.
What??????
DeleteI know, right? Has he even read Jefferson Davis' "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government"?
DeleteRise and Fall is a post war tome that tries to cover for what happened in 1861-65. I would have been nice for Lincoln to have had the chance to explain why he did what he did. Too bad Rise and Fall does not fully fit what Davis said in 1861.
DeleteConnie, evidence Lincoln;s revoking of Fremont's and Hinter's proclamations of emancipation as to what the federals were fighting for. Per Lincoln, "This is a war for a great national idea, the Union, and now Fremont has tried to drag the Negro into it."
ReplyDeleteMr. Lyons obviously needs to better educate himself.
Mr. Lyons is quite well educated, thank you.
DeleteLincoln revoked those orders because he knew that such orders could cause problems with border states which he hope to keep in the Union and out of the hands of the Confederacy.
What hooey.
DeleteExcellent reply Mrs. Chastian. Way to back up you argument with facts.
DeleteWell, duh, Mr. Lyons. You would rather I insult your intelligence by stating the already stated obvious? Lincoln's quote doesn't say a syllable about border states. It's about "dragging the Negro" into an argument -- the war -- which strongly suggests -- you might even say confirms -- that the argument wasn't about him (the Negro).
DeleteMrs. Chastain, it appears that this quote comes not from Lincoln but from a Gore Vidal novel. The quote does not appear in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln and a Google search only turns up links for the Vidal quote. You may wish to look into this further.
DeleteWould have to know where Mr. Vidal got his quote. In any case, it very accurately summed up what Lincoln took words and words and words to say.
DeleteSpeaking of which, here's a wonderful article about Ol' Aby Baby......
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/lincoln1.htm
The author is a bit disingenuous by pointing out that he will not take time with a speech found online, but will discuss one that is not. Thus making the reader accept his word alone for the contents of the speech. I am sure it will fully disappoint the author that this speech is indeed online.
Deletehttp://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-erastus-corning-and-others/
While I am not excusing Lincoln's actions, you have to admit that this time in American history was new territory and those found wondering in it were unprepared for what lay ahead of them both figuratively and literally.
The biq question nobody asks is: Why did/do Northerners think they're entitled to preeminent.rights and authority? I've always seen Northerners attack the South, but I've never seen them make a case for the moral necessity of Northern rule or the North's total control of the Federal Government that continues to this day.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, without getting into all the presentism that your statement makes, it might be that your conclusions about Northerners is wrong. IMHO
DeleteThe Puritans who settled Massachusetts "...were to be an example for the rest of the world in rightful living. Future governor John Winthrop stated their purpose quite clearly: 'We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.'"
DeleteNew England has never gotten over that, never gottn over itself ... it just spread this "city on a hill" nonsense to the USA as a whole. That's why we go make war around the world, why we have troops in 150 flippin' countries around the world.
In that city on a hill (not just Massachusetts but New England) -- Catholics, Quakers, Baptist and others were persecuted. And let's not forget the Salem witches and their fate....
In today's hedonistic and increasingly atheistic (and anti-religion) America, there are very few sins left. Slavery, racism, "homophobia" and "sexism" are about the only evils recognized anymore. Because they abolished slavery in their states, and because slaves were freed as a result of the north's war on the South to "preserve the union" the North is portrayed as righteous winners, and the South, where Christianity still holds some sway, is portrayed as the "evil" part (and Southerners the evil people) of the USA. Never mind the North's own racism, as evidenced by that census map, which gets papered over or swept under the rug; never mind the chief characteristic of the Old North, greed, which has come to be synonymous with capitalism, now characterizes the whole USA and accounts for some of the worst cultural pathologies that plague America.
Slavery and the slave trade have been practically cleansed from northern history. The only bad thing, bad part, of slavery was found in the South. New England maritime interest engaging in the slave trade (and getting rich off of it) -- not a big deal. New England textile production getting rich off slave-grown cotton -- not a big deal.
James Epperson says you have to count "slave holding families" as slave holders, not just the individual who held title to slaves, to show "... how many people were affected by or benefitting (sic) from or exposed to slavery. It would be more than the individuals who legally owned the slaves---it would include their wives and children. I am not the originator of this, it is the standard metric used by historians." http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2013/02/cookin-books-on-slave-ownership.html
As I noted in that blog post, I have a real problem with the point of the exercise being to find out how many people were affected by or benefiting from or exposed to slavery -- but ignoring a great many people who fit that criteria.
If that's the point, "slave holders" would include nearly everyone in the New England maritime industry, whose ships carried cargoes, and whose crews were paid to carry cargoes, of slave-grown cotton to markets in Europe. It would include New England's textile mill owners and workers who milled Southern, slave-grown cotton It would include northern bankers and their employees, which financed the purchase of slaves and plantations. It would include northern insurance companies that made profits insuring slaves....
They were all affected by, benefited from and were (indirectly) exposed to slavery. If the point of the exercise is to discern how many people benefited from slavery, why is the benefit to these northerners ignored?
We know why, don't we? Because acknowledging it would be of absolutely no use in demonizing white Southerners.
Forgot the URL to the info on New England and John Winthrop's quote. http://www.ushistory.org/us/3c.asp
DeleteMy point of the above comment was to present the idea that it might be that Mr. Owens is right, and it might be that Mr. Lyons' conclusions about both northerners and Southerners are the conclusions that are wrong.
DeleteExactly! What makes them think they have the right to rule over us, and dictate to us?
DeleteMy conclusions about Northerners are based on what they say about themselves and about not only the South, but the West, as well. It can be seen from comments on articles, to popular television programmes and news reports. It's not an opinion, it's observation.
DeleteBTW, Corey Lyons, my observation of Northerners is presentism. I'm judging the North of today, not 1860. The war is a moot point. But Northern attitudes and political behaviour are not. Nor is the fact that the sixteen states of the North hold a virtual monopoly on political. "Is it good for the North/New York/Indiana?", is not a sound way, to deal with problems, at the Federal level, in places like the Gulf Coast, Interior West and PAC Rim. In short, my views are contemporary, not 19th Century. Historically, no Puritans, no war..
DeleteYour link and description and understanding of New Englanders lacks much...and may I quote you Connie?
DeleteWhat hooey.
For starters, Connie, your inference that slavery is cleansed from the Northern Historical record or public memory is so outdated it is laughable. Thanks to good scholarship and honest self examination residents and visitors are having frank conversations about slavery's place in the history of Northern states. Some of these conversations are new, yes, but they are happening. (Read Melish, "Disowning Slavery" and learn that yes there was some effort to look the other way on slavery.....in the Nineteenth Century.)Now, Local history museums commonly turn towards shared roles of local figures in slavery and as slaves. In addition major African American history or cultural museums exist in Boston, New York, Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Haven, Washington, Pittsburgh, and dozens of smaller cities and towns. They pull no punches - the RI Black Heritage Society hosts exhibitions inside the opulent house museum of a prominent slave trader! The African Burial Ground in NYC has taught us much about urban slavery, and leads to tough talks about hard questions for the North and the South. Nor, do these examinations ignore profiting from slavery in other ways. Brown, Yale, Harvard, and top tier universities in the South have all formed commissions and programs to account for their monetary gains/participation in slavery as well as the slaves that laid their foundations. (When Ole Miss tries to get honest with its past y'all freak out like your undies are on fire.) I am proud of the many wonderful instituions and historical sites in southern states already confronting America's racist history; this isn't a numbers contest about who has the most museums. But from where I sit in Virgnia , to say that the North doesn't deal with its culpability in the history of the slave trade is nearly as outdated as the rest of the Lost Cause garbage y'all traffic in around here. Honest, accurate, and public examination of our history is spreading in all regions, you might as well make peace with it. I'm excited to see how you will use dictionary.com to nitpick my thoughts here.
DeleteJames I think you are way off base with the idea that, if I read your comment correctly, that the War of the Rebellion was caused by the nature of the Northern Puritans. However the Puritan influence, while still there and impactful, was loosing ground as early as the 1740's with the rise of the First Great Awakening.
DeleteRead Yankee Babylon by McDonald King Aston..
DeleteI have not seen a good review of that book yet so I am not going to waste my time. I am hoping someone can find something of substance before I read it. From what I have heard the books theory is not well cited nor sourced.
DeleteLacks much? But what's here is accurate, is it not? And this is the part of the yankee mentality-personality-worldview pertinent to Mr. Owen's question, "Why did/do Northerners think they're entitled to preeminent.rights and authority?" I answered that. And presented reasons why. You just suggested that he might be wrong without posting a single argument that he is wrong.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect Mrs. Chastain, there is most likely a string of truth and misinformation in all that we have discussed. I think your assessment of the New Englanders/Puritans lacks some vital details, while my conclusions of the south may contain some stereotypes, I think my understanding of the bigger picture is more on track with modern scholarship.
DeleteThis is a standard Yankee ploy, Ms. Connie. Demand sources, and when those sources are delivered, declare them to be inadequate, misqoutations, taken out of context or out right lies written ex post facto . It's a game you can't win, because you're arguing with a fence post.
DeleteMr. Lyons, I have little interest in being "on track" with "modern scholarship."
Delete"Modern scholarship" is Simpson's "Grant" books and Levin's "Crater" book and the new one that has everyone all a-twitter, Ed Baptist's "The Half Has Never Been Told".
"Modern scholarship" is civil war and related history as filtered through the civil rights movement.
All history is filtered through something. Most of what we understood about the Civil War in the Twentieth Century was filtered through the erroneous Lost Cause created by the South following the war in order to avoid the discussion of why they tried to establish and maintain a slaveocracy. At one point in history, ironically, the works of Mildred Lewis Rutherford was seen as modern scholarship. Today we fully recognize her work as biased, lacking in historical methodology and following the standard pattern of the Lost Cause Mythology. Simpson and Levin now have better access to materials that were only open to the highest of historical scholars in the past.
Delete"Modern scholarship" is Simpson's "Grant" books and Levin's "Crater" book and the new one that has everyone all a-twitter, Ed Baptist's "The Half Has Never Been Told".
Delete"The Race-Baiter School of Civil War History"
Could you explain that statement better?
DeleteI'm less concerned with the materials Simpson and Levin have access to, and more concerned with what they do with it.
DeleteMr. Lyons seem incapable of acknowledging facts. He seems to rely on his public school indoctrination. Jessie Benton Fremont's account --
ReplyDelete'Who do you mean?' he said, 'Persons of differing views?' I answered: 'The General's conviction is that it will be long and dreadful work to conquer by arms alone, that there must be other consideration to get us the support of foreign countries - that he knew the English feeling for gradual emancipation and the strong wish to meet it on the part of important men in the South: that as the President knew we were on the eve of England, France and Spain recognizing the South: they were anxious for a pretext to do so; England on account of her cotton interests, and France because the Emperor dislikes us.' The President said 'You are quite a female politician.'
I felt the sneering tone and saw there was a foregone decision against all listening. Then the President spoke more rapidly and unrestrainedly: 'The General ought not to have done it; he never would have done it if he had consulted Frank Blair; I sent Frank there to advise him and to keep me advised about the work the true condition of things then, and how they were going.' The President went on almost angrily - 'Frank never would have let him do it - the General should never have dragged the negro into the war. It is a war for a great national object and the negro has nothing to do with it.'
Eddie,
ReplyDeleteIt would be more suitable for your arguments or comments not to start with an insult to either myself or public education. I would imagine you are publically educated. On the other hand, I was homeschooled by two loving parents.
The Fremont discussion perplexes me in that I am not sure what you are angling for? Lincoln's position was the same from the start, the Federal mission was to save and/or restore the Union of States. When Fremont issued his "emancipation" order it did add a strata to the war that Lincoln was not yet willing to deal with.
Now Mrs. Chastain said that if the North was not fighting to end slavery, which is was not, then how can the South be fighting for it. This is quite simple, the South saw Lincoln's election as a threat to the South's economy and way of life. Slavery was integral to all of this as highlighted by the Secession Commissioners in Professor Dew's book Apostles of Disunion. Alexander Stephens streamlined the South's view in his Cornerstone speech that declared slavery as the cornerstone of the new Confederacy.
Mr. Stephens believed black people were inferior to whites and that slavery was the proper status for them. Abolitionist Julia Ward Howe also believed black people were inferior to whites and needed to "...go to school to the white race, and his discipline must be long and laborious..." and that the ideal negro was "refined by white culture, elevated by white blood, instructed even by white iniquity..." If blacks were to become acceptable in Howe's world, wouldn't the "white blood" elevating them eventually amalgamate them out of existence? Today, we call that genocide.
DeleteMrs. Chastain,
DeleteWe cannot paint all abolitionist with the brush of Julia Ward Howe and one must also remember the Howe was raised by a mother who hailed from South Carolina.
I also see what she is describing is an elevation of the black man by the white man in the realm of freedom and not through the devastating enlightenment that Southerners claimed came through their continued bondage.
One of the most reprehensible things that I have heard is the Confederate Heritage community claiming blacks should thank them for slavery because it brought them out of the "African Jungle" and into the light of Christianity and the South.
Well, well, WELL ... thank you Eddie.
ReplyDeleteMr. Lyons. The ball's in your court.
Mr. Anonymous, so a relative handful of historians and academics have begun to acknowledge slavery, and benefiting from slavery, in the north. Whoopee. It has not filtered out into the culture at large, and certainly not into the popular culture. Demonizing the South, past and present, is still the name of the game.
ReplyDeleteI'd say, Ms. Connie, that this academic acknowledged of slavery in the North will devolve into narcissistic self pity. You're right though. Big flippin deal. As an aside, I think Lyons is Corey Meyer. The way he says certain things convinces me of this.
DeleteCorrection, Mr. Anonymous is Corey Meyer.
DeleteYes, Mr. Lyons is much too articulate to be Corey.
DeleteBest solution to your alleged "demonization?" Stop saying and doing reprehensible shit.
DeleteI'm not saying and doing any reprehensible s--t.
DeleteGo away.
Mrs. Chastain,
ReplyDeleteAnother consideration that needs to be addressed with this quote is that it comes from one source and that source is a verbal source then written down. This is not a written source document from both parties either. Plus the woman writing the story legitimately had a grievance against the president on behalf of her husband. It would be interesting to find the president's version of the encounter.
I still do not think the confrontation goes against the accepted view of Lincoln's stated purpose of the Union's war aims.
Do you disagree?
I think it confirms what Eddie wrote.
DeleteWould you care to expand upon your limited conclusion? This is tantamount to giving an answer such as "Because".
DeleteNo.
DeleteMrs. Chastain, why do you refuse to expand you argument? It would seem to me that this is where your historical arguments run into trouble, you fail to back up you comments with factual information. Again, a "no" is tantamount to a student in school responding to the instructors question with a "because". It lacks the necessary depth of explanation.
DeleteBecause convincing you of anything isn't that important to me. I have my reasons, I know what they are. I've read enough about Lincoln to believe that this report of what he said is plausible.
DeleteIt is not necessary to convince me of your arguments, I would think that your detractors would have more respect for your arguments if you could substantiate them in a more meaningful way.
DeleteAnd If I cared whether my detractors had more respect for my arguments, I'd give it more consideration. Since I don't....
DeleteSigh. I'll spell it out. Museums of all kinds, historical sites, forums and town halls, festivals and celebrations are all popular, and public, places that inform our knowledge of the past - backed up by well done history. Tons of people go to these places to learn and challenge themselves, and thankfully educate their kids. A thinking person uses that information to evaluate things they see in movies, etc.( which have become more honest about racism everywhere since actors,writers, and directors of color have gotten their shot, not that you watch those). Public memory: this is how it happens.
ReplyDeleteHow will you deliberately misconstrue this one?
I won't construe or misconstrue it in any way. I'll just say i don't believe it.
DeleteMr. Lyons, yes I was public school educated and taught to bow at the altar of Lincoln and to dishonor my ancestors. Later in life I took the time to research primary documents such ass the Congressional Globe and found that they told a very different story about the reasons for secession. Much is summarized very nicely in this May 1, !861 proclamation issued by the provisional Confederate congress which is linked below. Where is this proclamation noted in historical annals? No where. Could that be because it does not fit into historical narrative of north good ands righteous, South evil and misguided? --
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/report-of-the-committee-on-foreign-affairs/
Eddie,
DeleteI will take some time to digest all that is contained in this document and return with my thoughts later.
Thank you for disclosing this information to me.
Lincoln's letter to Orville Browning regarding Fremont, which pretty well admits the Negro is a non-factor in his war. Of course, a year later he assumes the dictatorship referred to his his letter --
ReplyDeleteExecutive Mansion, Washington, Sept. 22, 1861. Hon. O. H. Browning.
My Dear Sir: Yours of the 17this just received; and coming from you, I confess it astonishes me. That you should object to my adhering to a law, which you had assisted in making, and presenting to me, less than a month before, is odd enough. But this is a very small part. General Fremont's proclamation, as to confiscation of property, and the liberation of slaves, is purely political, and not within the range of military law or necessity. If a commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this, as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the general needs them he can seize them and use them, but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by lawmakers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question is simply "dictatorship." It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases — confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be more popular, with some thoughtless people, than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position, nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility.
You speak of it as being the only means of saving the Government. On the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the Government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United States — any government of constitution and laws — wherein a general or a president may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?
Eddie,
DeleteGreat discovery. However, this still does not explain way the facts that the southern secessionists still placed slavery at the forefront of their reasons for secession. It only proves that one group of people can fight for something different than the opposing force. IE: North for the Union, South for slavery's protection, survival and expansion.
Mr. Lyons, what are your examples?
DeleteCorey, first of all, I'm not paying $12 for a flippin' Kindle book. Second, the book's description basically says Dew set out to refute what "neo-Confederates" say. That's not historic, that's contemporary, and it betrays a contemporary agenda, not a historic one.
ReplyDeleteI did a Look-Inside at Amazon.com, and he's talking about the flag controversy in South Carolina in 2000, for cryin' out loud. IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND, Corey. THAT IS NOT CIVIL WAR HISTORY, IT IS NOT SECESSION HISTORY. THAT IS CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. And what that indicates is that Dew has a post-civil-rights FLOGGER mentality and agenda.
Moreover, he lies in his first chapter. He says the pro-flag rally in Columbia was attended by 6,000 people. There were at least 10,000 there, because one of the sponsor groups sold more than that many tickets to a barbecue for the rally attendees. The tickets were sold AT THE DOOR, on the day of the rally, immediately afer it, not in advance to buyers who may not have showed up.
Dew says 50,000 people attended the NAACP anti-flag rally a few days later. It was 20,000, tops. If that. Shortly after anti-flag rally, there was an aerial shot of the anti-flag crowd on the capitol grounds that ran in Columbia's The State. The attendees took up almost exactly the same amount of space that the pro-flag crowd had filled. The State was rabidly anti-flag and was on a crusade not to report news but to force an agenda. Somebody must have pointed out to them how small the NAACP crowd really was, because the pic came down, and I haven't found it online since.
I know how much space the pro-flag crowd took on the capitol grounds because I was there. I walked the entire grounds, and I walked the perimeter of the crowd, twice. I know where the edges of the crowd reached. And that is basically where the edge of the NAACP crowd reached in the (magical disappearing) newspaper photo.
Lies, lies, lies. Knowing there are lies in that book, and it was written with a contemporary agenda that isn't simply accurate history, I frankly have no desire to read it.
It seems to me that Corey sometimes can't make up his mind whether he's chiefly interested in the War, or current politics.
DeleteCorey, if nobody knows, then Dew lied by giving specific figures. In any case, the BBQ ticket sales were a very good indicator. The difference it makes is that Dew lied about it, and The State lied about it, and it just shows how little regard for the truth Confederacy-hater have. I mean, look at yourself. Anti-Confederate, and a serial liar....
ReplyDeleteCorey, I am a modern day heritage folk, and I don't claim that slavery had nothing to do with secession and war. I do strongly disagree with the simplistic way Confederacy-haters present it. However, my position is, and always has been, that the Confederacy's sins were no worse than the union's sins re: slavery and race, and I vehemently disagree with the practice of covering up the north's participation in slavery (i.e., getting rich off of it, even after abolishing it in their states) and racism, by focusing with tunnel vision on the South's. That is how you keep your little glass house safe and sound.....
Some from James Madison -
ReplyDeletet had been alleged, (by Mr. Patterson,) that the Confederation, having been formed by unanimous consent, could be dissolved by unanimous consent only. Does this doctrine result from the nature of compacts? Does it arise from any particular stipulation in the Articles of Confederation? If we consider the Federal Union as analagous to the fundamental compact by which individuals compose one society, and which must, in its theoretic origin at least, have been the unanimous act of the component members, it cannot be said that no dissolution of the compact can be effected without unanimous consent. A breach of the fundamental principles of the compact, by a part of the society, would certainly absolve the other part from their obligations to it. If the breach of any article, by any of the parties, does not set the others at liberty, it is because the contrary is implied in the compact itself, and particularly by that law of it which gives an indefinite authority to the majority to bind the whole, in all cases. This latter circumstance shows, that we are not to consider the Federal Union as analogous to the social compact of individuals: for, if it were so, a majority would have a right to bind the rest, and even to form a new constitution for the whole; which the gentleman from New Jersey would be among the last to admit. If we consider the Federal Union as analogous, not to the social compacts among individual men, but to the conventions among individual states, what is the doctrine resulting from these conventions? Clearly, according to the expositors of the law of nations, that a breach of any one article, by any one party, leaves all the other parties at liberty to consider the whole convention as dissolved, unless they choose rather to compel the delinquent party to repair the breach.
Madison-- "Where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. The States, then, being parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their authority to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition."
ReplyDelete