The reality of the Antebellum South:
Posted on 03/03/2008 10:37:49 AM PST by Rebeleye
They will tell you the Civil War was not about slavery. Remind them that the president and vice president of the so-called "Confederate States of America" both said it was. They will tell you that great-great grandpa Zeke fought for the South, and he never owned any slaves. Remind them that it is political leaders - not grunts - who decide whether and why a war is waged. They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
They will tell you the Civil War was not about slavery. Remind them that the president and vice president of the so-called "Confederate States of America" both said it was. They will tell you that great-great grandpa Zeke fought for the South, and he never owned any slaves. Remind them that it is political leaders - not grunts - who decide whether and why a war is waged. They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too. I wish I could say any of that will do you any good. Problem is, it's logic and we live in a time where people are less able to accept, understand or respond to logic. If you approach writing your column as I do mine, you see it as an attempt, not to hammer the other side down, but to persuade persuadable minds. Unfortunately, persuadable minds are an endangered species these days. You and I have the misfortune to live in a time and media culture when people think the loudness of the argument matters more than the coherence of it, when threats and intimidation substitute for logic and reason, a time of made-up "facts" and ideological "truth," a time when critical thinking is a lost art and ignorance is ascendant. By way of example: I guarantee you the three lines of argument I gave you above will earn me loud rebuke from Confederate flag fetishists. They will insult my ancestry and intelligence and throw hissy fits of indignation. The one thing they will not be able to do - this matters to me, though it will not matter to them - is refute a single word of what I said. I tell my column-writing classes that if ever you propound an argument and all the other side can do in response is have a tantrum, you may consider yourself the winner, by default, of that debate. It is, I grant you, small consolation, but I commend it to you anyway. If you insist on trying to be a reasonable person in an unreasonable time, you should get used to small consolations. You can find another in what you yourself wrote about the young man who disavowed his Confederate gear because of your column. People do still read us, we do still have an effect and, once in a very great while, we can even take credit for change. And you're right. That is the very definition of cool. --- Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.
It was about States’ Rights.
When Leonard Pitts loses his picture of the Olympic Athlete’s in 1968 holding up the black power fist, then I might actually consider what he has to say about such matters.
I’d bet he’s ok with those Che fashion statements though.
Well, States Rights certainly covered Slavery at the time.
And when you start the debate with a tantrum, like Pitts does here, what's that called?
I've always had issues with confederate revisionism but I've always been able to make my point without comparing the rebs with Nazis.
The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, otherwise known as the Nazi Party, was indeed socialist, and it had a lot in common with the modern left. Hitler preached class warfare, agitating the working class to resist “exploitation” by capitalists — particularly Jewish capitalists, of course. Their program called for the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, and other major industries. They instituted and vigorously enforced a strict gun control regimen. They encouraged pornography, illegitimacy, and abortion, and they denounced Christians as right-wing fanatics. Yet a popular myth persists that the Nazis themselves were right-wing extremists. This insidious lie biases the entire political landscape, and the time has come to expose it.
Perhaps it is time to put the Battle Flag away. What else is going to be demanded that we put away? Our regional accents?
Of course, the fact that I do not own a Battle Flag or a Naval Jack of the Confederate States of America says something. That most of these puppies don’t know the difference also says a great deal about them.
He just likened the whole antebellum South to the nazi party. Godwin’s rule. He loses.
Don’t forget the smoking. No smoking in the clean, healthy nazi party.
States Rights had been an issue dating back to the very ratification of the Constitution. Slavery was a very small part of a very complicated issue (that still is being debated today).
Remind him all the Confederacy was Democrat.
Aside from slavery, it was about whether the US would end up as a British economic colony or have its own industrial and economic basis, and the South was on the wrong side of that proposition as well.
No, it wasn't.
If it was truly about States' Rights, then states wouldn't have been forced under the CSA Constitution to allow slavery.
The Civil War was about a lot of things, but States' Rights was not among them.
I just received my copy of the book “Liberal Facism” after hearing about it on FR. It sounds like you have read the book? The first few pages sounds just like your post!
whiney black liberal
such a rarity
It is worth mentioning that Robert E. Lee was morally opposed to slavery, and was originally asked by Lincoln to be the commanding General for the North.
The Nazis also destroyed an ancient symbol of good luck that was used for centuries by both Native Americans and Hindus.
What ancient symbol did the foolish Confederates destroy? That stars ‘n bars flag to me just symbolizes rebellion and treason against the United States.
The South was not seeking to conquer anything nor was it seeking to enslave new peoples unlike the Nazis.
Nor was it, unlike the Nazis, seeking to establish slavery. Southern slavery was an institution over 200 years old when the war started. It takes an unusually strong person to reject as evil the environment in which they and their parents and grandparents etc. grow up.
With that said, slavery was wrong, the Union was right and Lincoln was a great man.
Are you kidding me? The states willfully joined the Confederacy knowing the conditions involved; and most if not all of them already allowed slavery, anyway.
” less able to accept, understand or respond to logic” not true... people in general have never been as well educated or tolerant. However, opinions about the way people think and their values, particularly about how they view ancestors, are not logic. The intolerant today are those trying to suppress values and opinions they disagree with including Mr. Pitts.
| The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, otherwise known as the Nazi Party, was indeed socialist, and it had a lot in common with the modern left. Hitler preached class warfare, agitating the working class to resist “exploitation” by capitalists — particularly Jewish capitalists, of course. Their program called for the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, and other major industries. They instituted and vigorously enforced a strict gun control regimen. They encouraged pornography, illegitimacy, and abortion, and they denounced Christians as right-wing fanatics. Yet a popular myth persists that the Nazis themselves were right-wing extremists. This insidious lie biases the entire political landscape, and the time has come to expose it. |
BTTT!
“It is worth mentioning that Robert E. Lee was morally opposed to slavery”
This is, for the most part, a myth propogated by southern historians after the war. His family owned slaves and, while he opposed secession prior to the war, he wasn’t speaking out in opposition to slavery.
From the perspective of the South. From the perspective of the North, it was about keeping the Union intact. Slavery was more an issue of economics for the South, and a moral issue for some in the North.
But obviously not moral enough to keep from abrogating his oath as an officer and to the Constitution.
The man took up arms against his country. That is textbook treason.
Plus he was a lousy field general. He refused to fight the kind of war that won like his counterparts Grant and Sherman did. He was stuck in the last century.
Some people have too much time on their hands, writing irrelevant, unimportant, politically correct garbage like this.
Is it really that slow of a news day?
Code for right to own slaves.
It’s an internet rule, the first invocation of Nazis in any debate is an automatic loss.
Slavery is evil. No one is even trying to debate that, (ok, no one sane). The Confederate flag isn’t about slavery. It’s about regionalism, and heritage, that’s not bad. To someone in the south, the Confederate flag represents where they are from, it represents self reliance, and a distinct southern sensiblity.
Leonard, it’s time to move on. No one alive in America was a slave. Not everything is about racism. A noose is not just a symbol of race motivated lynchings. Lynchings happened to more than just blacks.
If a southerner wants to remember the good parts of the past, southern determination... let them. If they advocate slavery, then you have a complaint. By the way Leonard, it’s the Black community that now pushes segregation. How is it that if the Black community wants it, it’s ok? But if Whites wanted it, it’s bad? Leonard, you may have recto-crainial inversion.
Technically, it's not treason if you're exercising an implied right under the Constitution, since the oath is to that very document, not to "the country" or to "the government".
Of course, secession also turns out to be a bad idea, unless you've made sure you're ready to win a war against an aggressive imperial federal government.
I think that we can agree that Slavery was a smaller issue at the time of the founding of the country, but by the 1840’s it was inextricably bound up with so many issues that it’s hard to see how it could have been dealt with by the political system as it then stood.
Say what you will,,The Founding Fathers would have fought on the side of the South,,And probably would have carried a Battle Flag.
Fly it proud..And stand up for the Constitution.
Really? So, if somebody supports State's rights today, do you think that means they want to reinstitute slavery?
LOL. Really, these discussions are always educational, but it always amazes me how people can say with a straight face that the war had nothing to do with slavery. Yes, I concede most of their allegations ... e.g. that many northerners were racists and pro-slavery, that most southern soldiers were fighting in defense of their homeland, etc. etc. ... but to deny that protecting slavery was the primary impetus to secession is simply moronic.
Ask him if he owns a Che shirt
Was the civil war about slavery? Sure it was. Was it only about slavery? Not at all. Was it even the largest reason for the civil war? Not even close. It’s a bit part in a grand play, and it doesn’t matter if someone owned slaves or not, as the people who go after the battle flag are in it for only their own desires. They want to do as the author has already declared: turn it into some form of a symbol of shame.
But this is how liberals tend to argue; they claim everyone else is unreasonable, they blame the media for it (while /being/ the media at the same time, go figure), declare it’s who shouts loudest longest and then launch into the loudest screams they can.
Which is why I said it was a "complicated issue."
And I'm a Southerner, so you know who's sahd Ah-ma takin'.
i.e. forcing the southern states to comply, like it or not. That is the antithesis of states rights. In fact, it could be argued that we are still held hostage.
An implied right?
Where would that be found? The same place the Supreme Court found the implied right to privacy that "justifies" abortion? Somewhere in those penumbras Lee found a right to rebel against his country?
Slavery is not the worst of all human conditions. It's not even close. Your comparison to the Nazi flag is obscene. The Nazis killed, k-i-l-l-e-d, some of my ancestors. Actually they did more than kill them. They robbed them of their humanity. Have you seen the pictures? Were any of your ancestors reduced to skin and bones before they were gassed? Or even just reduced to skin and bones? Or just gassed? STFU. You haven't got a clue about the depths of depravity and your BS is really sickening.
ML/NJ
Wrongo, bongo. Lee used ground and maneuver to twist the North’s head all the way off and all the way back on again, and he did it for years. He never had the resources to fight the kind of war that Grant did. If anybody was stuck in the 18th century during that war it was Grant’s predecessors.
I will grant you Pickett’s Charge was foolhardy and unexplainable in light of Lee’s other battles.
What he said. Secession is not necessarily the same thing as Treason. The South believed they had a right to secede, and viewed the North as aggressive invaders.
The argument can be made that both sides were far too eager to march into war rather than resolving the matter diplomatically.
No argument that it was a complicated issue. My family settled in Virginia sometime after coming here from England (1600’s), and I’m not sure whether that is considered part of the North or South. In either event, I’m not choosing sides in this debate - there’s no winning the argument. I’m just a student of history.
Of course they did. At the time.
But part and parcel of State's Rights is the right of a state to change its mind on an issue without having to get permission from the Federal Government. The People of Florida might have decided on their own to outlaw slavery in 1866, but the CSA's Constitution did not give them that right.
The Confederate states just traded Washington telling them what they could do for Montgomery telling them what they could do.
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