US Civil War reading Recommendations?

Free Republic ^ | 11/23/2016 | Loud Mime

[Loud Mime]

I am studying our Civil War; anybody have any recommendations for reading?

[DiogenesLamp]

No person who can make a statement like this:

DL: They too were a slave owning Confederacy seceding from a Union and led by a slave owning General from Virginia.

Could be able to understand one word of your post. None of what fellow Americans hold to be self-evident is evident to him. His is caught in a prison of his own device.

You are going to deny that the United States formed a Confederacy in 1781?

You are going to deny that they were leaving a Union?

You are going to deny that their armies were led by a slave owning General from Virginia?

THIS IS YOUR HISTORY! Stop trying to color the truth to your liking. You are straining at gnats and swallowing camels in your efforts to see an appreciable distinction between the Founders and the Confederates, but the truth is that the Confederates had as much right as the founders to leave, you just don't like it because you wish to believe your side was right.

It wasn't. It was evil, murderous, greedy and morally wrong. Your side murdered 750,000 people to restore power to New York/Washington elite power barons, and you and the other apologists are too stupid to realize you have been nothing but useful idiots to the malignant power structure that developed as a result of this evil war.

We are still fighting this same war between normal America and the robber baron/Washington axis of evil! The Center of Elite Financial power is still New York, same as it was in 1861, and it still exerts its baneful influence on the Federal Power structure and US policy in general.

[DiogenesLamp]

Between 1788 and 1860, all such "subsidies" were demanded or approved by Southern controlled congresses and administrations.

I am not going to entertain this silly assertion.

[DiogenesLamp]

In fact, I’m going to just skip your messages.

[DiogenesLamp]

You make it sound like the South was fighting for slavery.

Even worse. They make it sound like the North was fighting against it! *THAT* is the big lie in these discussions.

Charles Dickens accurately saw the truth.

"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.

Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

They don't get to claim morality points for freeing slaves when that was incidental to their true purpose; To smash the government which threatened them economically.

[HandyDandy]

Agreed. It’s not good. I have never heard anyone talk about the original thirteen colonies and the colonists in the manner that he does. There is a bitterness and an anger in the way he insists on referring to them as slave states. He disses the Founding Fathers and the DOI and the Constitution. And as the Master of False Equivalencies he strips George III of his crown and reduces his Kingdom to a mere Union. Now he is equating colonial Canada to the original thirteen colonies. It doesn’t stop. He makes it up as he goes along. Can he not see that none of the reasons for secession as just provided to us by rockrr make any mention at all about his mythical corridor of power? And the simply massive amounts of money the North was ripping off the South (and the South didn’t even know it!)

[DiogenesLamp]

John Preston was in concurrence

So was Abraham Lincoln.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it...

That and his acceptance of the proposed 13th amendment confirming slavery forever, is all you need to know about "honest" Abe.

[jeffersondem]

“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...” Alexander H. Stephens March 21, 1861 Savannah, Georgia

Whatever else Stephens was, he was wrong about the CSA being the first government founded on white supremacy and slavery. I can think of at least one other on the north American continent alone.

[DiogenesLamp]

You remind me of the person who couldn’t tell the truth under oath and ended up debating what “is” is.

He reminds me of a Hare Krishna. It is pointless to engage in a discussion with someone who simply keeps repeating a mantra.

[DiogenesLamp]

"The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains." - James Madison

With all due respect to Mr. Madison, the Declaration's statement on the rights of a people, trump his personal opinions. If God and natural law gave them the right to break from England, it gives people the right to break from any other form of government as well.

[rockrr]

So was Abraham Lincoln.

No he wasn't. He wasn't willing to go to war to fight for - or against slavery. As it turned out he ended up going to war over it anyway, but only because the southern slavocracy was bound and determined to do so.

[DiogenesLamp]

Agreed. It’s not good. I have never heard anyone talk about the original thirteen colonies and the colonists in the manner that he does. There is a bitterness and an anger in the way he insists on referring to them as slave states.

If you think you are being hammered with this fact, it's because you don't seem to grasp the truth of it. The fact of *SLAVERY* in all 13 colonies did not preclude their right to independence.

For the South, you constantly argue that they don't have the right to be independent because of slavery. I merely point out your hypocrisy in refusing to apply the same standard to the original founders.

He disses the Founding Fathers and the DOI and the Constitution.

To the contrary. I point out how the founding Fathers were slave owners, but they were a product of their time. It is no disrespect to them to speak the truth. You just keep trying to apply modern sensibilities to a different era. The Declaration I have done nothing but revere. I constantly cite it as the mother of all subsequent authority in this nation, because it is *THE* document that created the nation. It was the expression of Natural Law, and is therefore the highest authority.

As for the Constitution, I merely point out that it deliberately imprinted slavery into the legal foundation of the nation, and you people are hypocritical to pretend it didn't.

And as the Master of False Equivalencies he strips George III of his crown and reduces his Kingdom to a mere Union.

Are you arguing that the Union of the Crowns Monarchy is of a higher social status than is our Union of States? I disagree. You simply don't like me pointing out that Britain was in fact a Union, because it interferes with your efforts to ignore the fact that the parallels between the founders and the confederates are all too uncomfortable to you.

You daren't say the slave owning founders were in the wrong, so you have to work hard at splitting hairs to make distinctions between them and the confederates.

Now he is equating colonial Canada to the original thirteen colonies.

That is simply an incorrect statement. I am pointing out that the British settlements in Canada had to live under the exact same edicts as the British settlements in America, yet the Canadian Brits remained loyal to the King, while the American Brits declared the conditions intolerable.

The point being, if the conditions imposed by the British were so horrible, how did the Canadian Brits shrug them off? One would think that if the conditions were so bad, the Canadian Brits would have joined us in revolting against the Crown. They didn't. Ergo, there was a differences in opinion between equal sufferers of British rule in North America. Indeed, the loyalists in America almost numbered equally to the rebels for much of this era.

And the simply massive amounts of money the North was ripping off the South (and the South didn’t even know it!)

The South knew it very well. "Rockr" simply isn't interested in presenting reasons for secession such as these. The South knew very well that the North was ripping them off. That's why they had no interest in remaining in the Union. They would have seen an instant 40% increase in their profits by cutting out the Northern Shipping and Handling.

It would have been even more. With the Europeans seeing vastly increased profits from the greatly reduced tariffs, virtually the entire trans Atlantic trade would have moved to the South. Trade and profits would have increased exponentially, and the newly capitalized Southern industries would have taken over manufacturing and shipping from the industries in the North.

Through the Mississippi river they would have supplied the needs of all the Midwestern states, and over time, the Midwestern states would have came under the political control of the South as well.

Instead of me bitching about the Robber Barons of New York and their elite influence, I would be bitching about those Robber Barons of Charleston and their elite influence.

[jeffersondem]

“If a tin-whistle is made of tin, what is a foghorn made of?”

This brings to mind the exchange in the fictional movie “True Grit.”

Mattie Ross: I will not bandy words with a drunkard.
LaBoeuf: That's real smart. You've done nothing when you've bested a fool.

It is time to follow LaBoeuf’s counsel.

[DiogenesLamp]

No he wasn't. He wasn't willing to go to war to fight for - or against slavery

The evidence indicates that he was very much interested in leaving everything just as it was till it became clear that he wasn't going to win easily.

And why not? If the object of the War is to get that money stream going again, the last thing he would want to do is wreck the golden goose which was paying for 3/4ths of the Federal Government, and pumping 300 million per year through New York and Boston.

But what he absolutely cannot let them do is become an independent economic rival to the Union.

As it turned out he ended up going to war over it anyway

Yes. He had two working plans to initiate belligerence with the South. If the Naval flotilla off the Coast of Charleston didn't start it, his warships heading for Ft. Pickens were going to start it anyways.

Lincoln had to have that war. That's why he insisted on keeping men in a fortress that had never been garrisoned in it's entire history, and which was utterly useless to the Union for anything other than a Causus belli.

"The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter – it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could."
Abraham Lincoln to Orville Browning.

You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Ft Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.
Abraham Lincoln letter to Gustavus Fox.

[rockrr]

If the object of the War is to get that money stream going again...

Not a credible argument

He had two working plans to initiate belligerence with the South.

Zero evidence of any of this.

Lincoln davis had to have that war.

FIFY

[DiogenesLamp]

Not a credible argument

Run the numbers and then get back to me. Always and in all things, Follow the money.

Zero evidence of any of this.

Why do I bother? I'm not even going to find it for you, but go look up the Letter written by Captain Porter about his concurrent adventure to Ft. Pickens. For some reason he was expecting to be sunk. He says so.

[rockrr]

Why do I bother?

It appears to be an obsession. It's certainly obsessive.

[HandyDandy]

I read the link you provided (the address to the other slave-holding states by Robert Rhett of S.Carolina). I see now where a lot of the ideas you advance come from. Of course you realize the South had been building up hatred and animosity towards the North for a long time. They'd boxed themselves into a position of being forced to secede merely due to the election of Lincoln. Still, when all is said and done, the South chose the perpetuity of their peculiar institution over the perpetuity of the United States. Lincoln knew that the Southern States walked away from a contract they had entered of their own free will.

By the way, Sumter was about the flag flying over it. Davis, to his folly, fired on that flag.

[DiogenesLamp]

I read the link you provided (the address to the other slave-holding states by Robert Rhett of S.Carolina). I see now where a lot of the ideas you advance come from.

I knew nothing of that address by Robert Rhett when I pieced together the economic conundrum of that Tariff map I always post. I realized that something was seriously out of whack economically when I learned that most of the export value was the product of the South, yet most of the money went to the North. It was nearly six months later that I discovered that speech by Robert Rhett. (I think someone, Pearidge perhaps, put me on to it.)

But yes, Robert Rhett spells out a great deal of the Southern economic lament caused by the lopsided economic favoritism given by the Union to the North.

Of course you realize the South had been building up hatred and animosity towards the North for a long time.

Picture this. Smug and Arrogant Liberals from Massachusetts and New York looking down their noses at the backwards hicks who can't keep up with the new morality which the "enlightened" people of Liberal enclaves have embraced.

Imagine them mocking you constantly and deliberately misstating your position on issues, all the while urging their sycophants to laugh at and ridicule you.

Imagine them telling you that you have to accept Homosexual Marriage, or that you have to accept Abortion on Demand, or that Prayer in public Schools must be banned, and that you should embrace indigent third world "immigrants" who have no desire to adapt to your societal norms yet wish to force their religion on you.

Imagine they are trying to cut off your access to fossil fuels because the new morality declares "Global Warming" to be a major crises where everybody except them must sacrifice for the greater cause.

Imagine them telling you that you must pay the lion's share of the taxes to pay for their Liberal policies and liberal government spending.

Picture their efforts to FORCE you to comply with their recently adopted morality that turns everything you know on it's head. Imagine them telling you that you are an evil, uneducated, hate-filled ignorant subhuman moron for daring to disagree with their Moral pronouncements, you know, the way the Elite Urban Liberals treat us now.

How would you feel about these condescending Liberal @$$holes?

I don't suppose you can imagine what that feels like, can you?

[DiogenesLamp]

Forgot to ping you after using your name.

[rockrr]

How would you feel about these condescending Liberal @$$holes?

You mean including you, font-boy? I could live without it.