Posted on 12/16/2004 6:48:26 AM PST by cougar_mccxxi
Ping
According to the Declaration of Independence -and elements
of the US Constitution -they very clearly had a right to secede. As we we still do today. One must accept the consequences of ones actions though. I am deeply offended that any carpetbagger would charge them all with Treason.
Lee and others were schooled in th emilitary academies who
were not as harsh-- but understood a mans natural desire
to defend his home--and State from agressors.
The arguement can be made that the states had the right to secede. But the question is did those southern states have a right to unilaterally secede without the approval of a majority of those affected by their actions? I don't think that they did.
I see nothing wrong with negotiating after secession. The South was willing to let the military equipment and supplies be removed by the North.
If your neigherborhood was suddenly overrun by foreigners
that were dispossesing you of your property, don't you think you might fight back?
Having a bunch of Yankees appointing people to rule over you
when you are used to electing leaders yourself can cause lots of ill will.
Race relations have always been better in the South than in the North except when interefering Yankees were down here stirring up trouble. Seems like Yankees busybodies love to
go to places they don't belong and tell everyone that they have to conform to their "obviously superior" way of living.
Telling people that our flag "drips with blood" isn't a good way of convincing them to give one's opinion a hearing. If he has to demean our flag to make his own look good, he's lost the argument already.
There certainly was a connection between slavery and the American flag, or the French or Spanish or British flag for that matter. But as we've grown and changed, though, we've added new stars to the flag, and also changed what it represented. Does the Stars and Stripes flying at home or abroad now represent slavery? Don't you feel uncomfortable or embarassed posting such a claim in time of war?
The Confederate flag hasn't been able to disassociate itself from its unfortunate connection to racialism. In part it's because the Confederacy was defeated and Confederate history stopped, but the Confederate Battle Flag also became a symbol of segregation and White supremacy, so naturally many people are hostile to it. If you want to try to redeem that flag, give it a try, but it will take a lot of effort. Don't assume that that redemptive work is unnecessary or has already been done.
Check out some of the webpages the article you posted linked to. It looks like they are convinced not just that fallen Confederate soldiers deserve respect, but that the rebels were right, and that they were fighting for "our" liberties. Some even advocate secession today.
There's very little serious reflection on slavery and what it meant at the Confederacy Project. The "slavery" that concerns the website's owner is federal taxes and regulation. The condition of slaves a century and a half ago doesn't seem to bother him much.
Intelligent and responsible spokesmen might be able to make a good case for the Confederate Flag flying over Civil War monuments and battlefields, but the net effect of many of those working for that cause is simply to drive people away and convince them that the other side is right.
As for our own flag, think of the reparations controversy. Some measure of "reparations" were paid by those soldiers who fought and died to end slavery in America. There are all the little loopholes: they didn't go to war to free the slaves, the war itself couldn't free all the slaves, some slaveowners fought on the Union side, etc. But even taking that into account, a lot of men gave their lives for the end to slavery, and this, together with later efforts to achieve equal civil rights has helped to redeem our flag of some of its historical associations.
By this point in time, our flag represents people who opposed slavery and felt it wrong and regret it in more than a perfunctory and backhanded way far more than it represents slaveowners. I'm not so sure one could make the same statement about the rebel banners. In any event, insulting the national flag isn't the right way to proceed if you want to convince people.
How about negotiating after seizure of the property? The south seized armories, mints, customs houses, military facilities throughout the south without compensation. Then, once they had posession, we are to believe that they would have paid a fair price for them. If one party takes the property belonging to the other party, that party is at a distinct disadvantage in the negotiations. It no longer has posession of what belongs to it, and has to take whatever the first party offers no matter how unfair. Or else fight for what is theirs. That's not negotiation, that's brinksmanship.
Seems like "Yankee busybodies" left the South alone for eighty years to end slavery, and they didn't. Then "Yankee busybodies" left the South alone for another three quarters of a century to wind up segregation and they didn't do that by themselves either. Take our history as a whole and the picture of so "superior" interfering Northerners and Southerners who just wanted to be left alone to live together in peace and harmony doesn't quite work.
Where you see continually interfering Northerners, plenty of people see long periods when Northerners essentially left the South alone to do as it pleased. In those times, the slightest whisper of criticism was enough for White Southerners to circle the wagons and rally against any change. It might be comforting to believe that things would all have been for the best and that racial problems would have been amicably resolved if not for those "Yankee busybodies," but it's just not true.
Oh, please!
Your holier than thou pretense is just too much. Davis sent a legation to Washington to negotiate a settlement on property issues, and Honest Abe just left them to cool their heels. One of the sites the Southerners wanted to talk about was Fort Sumter, so at least this hadn't been seized. Lincoln never had any intention of coming to any peaceful settlement that included recognition of the Southern government and you know it.
It certainly would have been natural for the South to control forts and harbors within their own territory. And I never hear folks like you suggesting that maybe the South should have been due compensation for their share of Federal assets in the north which they partially funded and of which were natural part owners.
ML/NJ
If your neighborhood was overrun by foreigners that were dispossessing you of your property, would you put on a sheet, go down the street and murder the guy who lives on the corner, who's innocent and just trying to stay out of trouble but happened to glance at a white woman?
Having a bunch of Yankees appointing people to rule over you when you are used to electing leaders yourself can cause lots of ill will.
Being held as a slave, having your family ripped apart at the whim of someone else, being property and having your God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness breeds a bit of ill will, as well. Wouldn't you agree?
And it's a shame, isn't it, that the black Southerners were never asked to participate in these elections? Or were forbidden, at the risk of their lives, from being one of these elected leaders? Maybe had they been treated as men with the rights and responisbilities of men, rather than subjugated as property, the whole war might have been avoided to begin with...
Race relations have always been better in the South than in the North except when interefering Yankees were down here stirring up trouble. Seems like Yankees busybodies love to go to places they don't belong and tell everyone that they have to conform to their "obviously superior" way of living.
Really? "Always been better"? Even back when black people were property? How about when a black man could not be secure in his life or property; could be hung from a lamp post and burned alive; merely because of the degree of melanin in his skin, the shape of some of his facial features, and the fact that his hair follicles are flat rather than rounded? Were race relations better then?
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US out of Cuba!
I, for one, love the South, and think southerners are some of the nicest people I've ever met.
And while I am certainly not accusing you of anything, what I hate is the misconceived notion that says that the Confederates did not commit treason against the United States and that they only fought for noble ends or which excuses the horrific brutal, un-conservative and un-Christian treatment of black Americans, both before and after the Civil War.
One could simply say, "Yes, it was treason, but like that against Great Britain in the 18th century, it was a justified treason that failed. But thank God the worthy values they fought for have been preserved while the unworthy ones have been discarded. And, yes, our fellow man was brutally and inexcusably treated, but thank God that is all in the past."
How about bigoted attitudes of many Free Republic "conservatives"? Many on Free Republic hate the South.Now you are playing victim. The nice thing about being a conservative (or "conservative") is you don't have to subscribe to thin-skinned PC nonsense. For example, pointing out that rap music and the gangsta culture is immoral doesn't make us racist. Similarly, pointing out that celebrating an act of treason doesn't mean that we hate the south.
I can just imagine the North sending some kind of half-assed 19th century Hans Blix down to Dixie to search for weapons. [snicker]
I have no reason to accuse you of anything.
Though I am happy slavery is banished from the South, the Southern cause was a noble one and am sorry that the South lost its fight for independence.
And that is your prerogative. I think that part of what they were fighting for was noble. But part of it (namely the slave system and white supremacy) was akin to the horrors of the 20th Century, albeit to a much lesser scale and degree, in that it permitted the government to supersede and vitiate the God-given rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for arbitrary and capricious reasons.
By the way, your knowledge of slave conditions seems to be of the typical comic book variety.
I doubt it. I know some wish that the conditions were "really not that bad", so that they can continue to believe that the Confederate cause was wholly a noble one and that the black American really didn't mind being slaves. Perhaps you do, too. I don't know.
Frankly, even if they were clothed in the finest cloth and given the finest foods to eat, the fact is that they were human beings who were owned like livestock or machinery. No matter how well treated they were, they were treated as property, which is repugnant and unacceptable.
Some slaves were brutalized, the women raped, families were split up on economic whim. George Washington once gave a human being away as a raffle prize. If one is a conservative - if one believes in the rights of the individual - there is simply no measure of doublethink sufficient to permit one to see this system as anything but a travesty and an evil which required all sacrifices and efforts to eradicate.
Thank God for the British Navy and the Union Army.
Negotiate a settlement for property that the Davis regime had already seized and for property that the regime had not yet seized but had surrounded by cannons? They had most of what they wanted, and were prepared to seize the rest. Why would Abraham Lincoln or anyone else believe that negotiations for a settlement on the property would be made in good faith?
And that is ignoring the fact that, southron myth to the contrary, the representatives from the Davis regime were not there to negotiate a settlement on seized property. Their instructions were "(f)or the purpose of establishing friendly relations between the Confederate States and the United States..." In otherwords, to get recognition of southern independence from the Lincoln Administration. Only once that had been obtained would they "agree, treat, consult, and negotiate of and concerning all matters and subjects interesting to both nations..." Sounds very vague to me.
It certainly would have been natural for the South to control forts and harbors within their own territory. And I never hear folks like you suggesting that maybe the South should have been due compensation for their share of Federal assets in the north which they partially funded and of which were natural part owners.
Be that as it may, common sense would dictate that the settlement of issues should have taken place before secession and not after. Except that the south wasn't interested in a settlement.
You're kidding, aren't you?
ML/NJ
No, I'm not. If the Davis regime was interested in a negotiated settlement then everything would have been on the table, including an end to secesssion. But that wasn't the case. Only if Lincoln was willing to accept the southern secession as legal was the Davis regime willing to negotiate. That wasn't an offer, it was an ultimatum.
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