"Breaking News", the South Lost the Civil War. Vanity

self | 9/26/02 | tall_tex

[Mo1]

Dude .. get over it .. it was a loooooooooooooooong time ago

[Texaggie79]

D00d, you must be plagiarizin me cause I like said that exact same thing a year or so ago!

The sin wasn't the slavery, it was seeing them as less than human.

[TwoBear]

But, slavery was most definitely the impetus for secession. That, IMHO, cannot be denied. The central issue was "property rights" in other human beings, and this "right" was expressly encapsulated in the Confederacy's constitution. As much as I love the South (and Texas), I'm glad the Confederacy lost.

The central issue was not "property rights", the issue was "states' rights." Slavery was a catalyst to bring the issue to the forefront. I'm torn about whether I'm glad we lost because it set the groundwork for creation of the mammoth federal government that now exists.

[groanup]

"However, I do believe that the majority of southern slave owners were immoral in their ownership. This is proven by their treatment of blacks after their freedom. They refused to see them as equal human beings. God never stated that slave owners could look at their slaves as less that human. They were still equal, just under a certain type of servitude."

You are very wrong here. The slave owners were aristocrats who's lifestyles were only slightly threatened by extinquishing slavery:

"Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and this I and my friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led on by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war must be used as a means to control the volume of money."

Private circular of Northern banker, late 1861.

The ones of which you speak were not slave owners. The descendants of slave owners were not those who hung civil rights activists in Missippi. They were the rank and file rednecks who had to feel like they were better than something and they could only single out blacks. Turns out they were not better than anything, certainly not better than the black people I have known who have worked for my mother in my house, worked for me in financial services, and whom I have worked for in bank auditing.

[Shooter 2.5]

Texas was one of the five states to release a Declaration of Secession. Guess what the chief reason they left was?

[Cleburne]

Exactly. This is the great beauty of Christianity, and equality in Christ. Unfortunately, slave owners in the South did not really follow this maxim. Certainly some treated their slaves well, but I doubt whether any ever considered them as brothers. It was generally considered that slaves were something like children, and to be treated as such. This idea was continued after the war, though it subsided to more oppressive ideas (what does one do when the children decide not to be chidren?).

[Texaggie79]

I guarantee you that the vast majority of those "Aristocrats" would have refused to use the same toilet, water fountain, or go to the same school as a black person.

[tall_tex]

You do not have my permission to address me me as "dude", you can call me Sir. Sir works, otherwise, do not invade my space.

[strela]

Weren't nuthin' "civil" about it. 'round these parts, we refer to that unpleasantness as "The War of Nawthin Aggression."

[Texaggie79]

D00d!!! Can I have permission to address you as D00d?

[Cleburne]

And I don't think Northerners really saw blacks as fully equals either. The average boy fighting for the Union certainly did not, and it seems that many abolitionists had their own almost maternalistic views of the black race- blacks weren't quite on the level of whites, and thus were to be helped along in light of that "fact". I think that if slavery opponents had given a message against racism it would have been more effective. But then, quarterbacking a hundred and thirty years after the game is awful easy...

[Texaggie79]

HA! Trying to change the subject on a Civ war thread? Good luck.

[groanup]

"Yes, the great sin of Southern slavery, in my opinion, was not so much the slavery (though I am personally opposed to it) but the racism inherent with it. Indeed, without racism the whole system would have collapsed. The idea that blacks were subservient to whites was what allowed slavery to exist alongside very heartfelt beliefs on liberty and freedom. The legacy of this racism, and not so much the slavery (though the two are closely tied of course) is I think the great tragedy of the American South."

I just love this. You must be about fifteen years old. Do you know that slavery exists to this very day? It must be because of racism. Economics has nothing to do with it.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Why did we loose, surely we had God on our side.

Did the South loose? Shirley, you can't be series.

[Mo1]

YES SIR

[tall_tex]

Really....

[groanup]

"I guarantee you that the vast majority of those "Aristocrats" would have refused to use the same toilet, water fountain, or go to the same school as a black person."

Granted. How many of your daughters are married to black men?

[Texaggie79]

Indeed the majority of the yankees could have cared less about freeing slaves, however I believe their racism was of a different shade.

Southerners were used to being around blacks that were slaves and treated as such. This was ingrained into the culture. So even after their freedom, white southerners were accustomed to treating and viewing blacks as servants who were beneath them.

The northern industrialist racism stemmed from simply not being around blacks as much. They were just viewed as different.

[Texaggie79]

I hope I don't have any daughters. I'm 23. But I, myself, have dated black women and would have no problem with my future offspring dating or marrying someone of a different race. Character is all I worry about.

[Texaggie79]

BTW, since moving over to Alabama, I have engaged in several debates with people who claim to not be racist but would not look kindly on their children dating another race.