Here is a picture of the Left Coast mentality.
Posted on 06/27/2004 12:37:31 PM PDT by VRWCer
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:16:50 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Sixteen Tons
Tennessee Ernie Ford
[Written in 1947 by Merle Travis]
Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain
Fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the *canebrake* by an ol' mama lion
Cain't no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
[GN #318] Zinn's "People's History..." portrays the entire history of the U.S. (including the South) as one continous orgy of genocide, racism, sexism, class warfare, etc. I doubt many people who post this forum buy into that theory.
Well, you seem to be intimately familiar with the whole 700-page tome, so I guess you must sit around the Chief's mess, drinking coffee all day, reading your Marxist literature. It sounds like you encountered a continuous orgy and couldn't put it down. Seeing as you have pored over the whole thing and you are therefore qualified to comment on the content of the entire book, I will just have to defer to you as the Zinn-master.
[GN quoting] White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave, or for the capitalist, for anyone but them. They worked in semislave conditions themselves. They thought the war was profiting the new class of millionaires.
[GN quoting] White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave...
[GN] contradict your contention that the war was not fought over slavery?
No. Many, if not most, and certainly very significant regional majorities (e.g. NYC), of Northerners were not enthusiastic about fighting a war to free slaves. Had they wanted to fight and die to free slaves, they could have started in Delaware or Maryland or Washington, D.C.
[GN] Note the lack of qualifiers such as "some" or "many" workers. Every single one of them felt this way?
The statement does not quantify or qualify which or how many white workers felt that way. It does not say ALL white workers. You cannot arbitrarily add qualifiers. Are you saying NO white workers felt that way? Moreover, it was at about the time the EP was announced that there was necessity of a draft, nationwide suspension of habeas corpus, and a significant desertion problem. As you add the non-existent qualifier ALL, you ignore the existing qualifier of a war which, to some, seemed to be fought for the black slave.
Nobody quite seems able to explain the logic of Northern states passing laws to keep Blacks out and concurrently supposedly running off to fight and die to free Blacks, and once they are free, still keeping them out and discriminating against them on account of race. There is a logical disconnect.
Further, let us assume for the sake of argument, the North initially went to war to abolish slavery. In the first battle of Bull Run, the Union forces overrun the Confederates, waltz into Richmond, and the whole thing is over in a couple of days. The Constitution would not have changed and slavery would have remained a recognized and protected institution. Freeing the slaves required a Constitutional amendment. If the purported purpose of the war was to abolish slavery, and instant, total, complete victory would not achieve that goal, then there is a logical disconnect between the purported purpose and the action taken.
To abolish slavery in the States required a Constitutional amendment. However, that did not apply to the District of Columbia which was under Federal dominion. The Federal government could have abolished slavery at any time in the District with the stroke of a pen. Purportedly going off to war to abolish slavery while retaining it, without necessity, in the capital is another logical disconnect.
Also, slavery continued in the Northern states (Delaware) right up until the 13th Amendment was ratified after the war. Asserting that Northern slave states would send their men off to fight to abolish slavery, which maintaining slavery at home, is another logical disconnect.
Was slavery somehow less of an abomination in Delaware than it was elsewhere?
Further, nearly two years into the war, Lincoln proposed Constititutional amendments to prolong slavery for another 37 years with compensated emancipation, and for Congress to be authorized to appropriate funds to send the freed slaves anywhere outside the United States.
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5.
Annual Message to Congress
December 1, 1862I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States:
``Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz:
``Article ---.
``Every State, wherein slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time, or times, before the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand and nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:
``The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State, bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of --- per cent, per annum, to an amount equal to the aggregate sum of for each slave shown to have been therein, by the eig[h]th census of the United States, said bonds to be delivered to such State by instalments, or in one parcel, at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly as the same shall have been gradual, or at one time, within such State; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond, only from the proper time of its delivery as aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.``Article ---.
``All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war, at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been disloyal, shall be compensated for them, at the same rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way, that no slave shall be twice accounted for.``Article ---.
``Congress may appropriate money, and otherwise provide, for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States.''
[GN] As to the Rensselaer family, factual or not, I'm missing whatever connection this has to the Civil War. argument
Some of the areas in the North had regions so poor they were not doing much better than just scraping by. In such condition, the man of the family is not enthusiastic about going off to war and leaving his family behind to fend for itself. A showing that such Northern poverty existed seems relevant to me.
[GN] To me, at this time, MA or SC aren't so much North or South, but rather both East. Obviously that was not the case in 1861.
That's not the case in 2004, either. Back East, Massachusetts compared to almost any Southern state, or compared to most states, is definitely out of the mainstream. There are not many states where Adam and Steve have a constitutionally protected right to get married. Bush has approxmately a zero chance of carrying Massachusetts. Kerry has about as much chance of carrying South Carolina.
Nice ad hominem there, shippie. FYI, I'm on shore duty now and have plenty of time to read, and yes, I did wade through Zinn's shit in order to compare it to Paul Johnson's "A History of the American People". Unlike you apparently, I checked Zinn's book out from from the library, so I didn't give a dime to that asshole to have it sitting on my shelf for instant reference.
As for the East-West reference, I lived in Washington and Alaska before I came in the Navy. If you really don't understand the the "back East" mentality of many in the West, then you sure as hell won't understand "The Outside" thinking of Alaska which describes all the lower 48, East or West.
Here is a picture of the Left Coast mentality.
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