Posted on 12/27/2010 10:31:54 AM PST by trumandogz
The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart.
The coming year will mark the 150th anniversary of the onset of the conflict, which is usually dated to April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on federal troops occupying Fort Sumter. Union forces surrendered the next day, after 34 hours of shelling.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
mac_truck, you are wrong. There were free black Confederate soldiers. There were not a lot, they were constrained, and many were disbanded as the war progressed. But there were some.
Check out the description of the 1st Louisiana Native Guard (CSA).
Davis ordered the Confederate commander to fire on the fort. Once the fort was provisioned, it would have remained in Union hands. The problem being that it commanded the entrance to to the port of Charleston. The greater problem being that South Carolina was the biggest nest of fire-eaters. Maybe if Davis had waited it out, though, the North would have pressured Lincoln to withdraw.There was a lot of sympathy in the Northeast to let the South go. There was a growing feeling in Virginia to join the Confederacy. Lincoln held off on a decision with abandon the ports in hopes of keeping Virginia in. If Virginia stayed so would Kentucky and of course Maryland.
Some in the South, yes. There was even talk about a slave empire extending all the way to Panama. But none of this had to happen. The reality is that England and France, the leading outside powers were not in favor of it. Which is why it was given up by the Brazilians.
Whether a state had the right to secede was a matter of opinion, neither fact nor law. Lincoln, of course, supposed that a disloyal faction had seized control in the states. The Southerners were exercised the same rights against the United States that the Colonists had against the king of Great Britain. Your authority would be the pre-amble to the Declaration of Liberty. The right to revolution. The same right that the English people had invoked against the Stuarts.
I’ll say it again...for the last time...
It was about a bunch lazy White southerners who were either too lazy or too rich to do work in their own fields. So they imported black slaves to the work for them as they sat on their porches with their big-buxomed Southern women drinking mint tulip’s and finding other ways to keep black skinned people down—because let’s face it—even though slaves weren’t considered people—the south used the proceeds of their labor—and counted them as 3/5 of a person to increase their political clout in Congress....which by the way is so typical Democrat...
Let’s just cut it down to the chase—you people in the South, you lost-—either move on or get over it. Because you know, what’s going to happen in 200 years from now—you are stil going to come out on the losing side!
Regardless, Robert E. Lee was a traitor to his country. When he took his commission in the army, he swore to protect his COUNTRY—not his state—from all enemies foreign and domestic...
A lot of criminals feel that their actions are not criminal...
BTTT
Just so we can meet my prediction - almost half way there!
“...Davis ordered the Confederate commander to fire on the fort...”
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Davis sent Beauregard to Charleston to take command of defenses there.
Lobbing cannon shells at Fort Sumter was probably Beauregard’s decision.
Lincoln was itching for an excuse, and Beauregard gave him one.
“...I predict 500 replies...”
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Half way there!
Don’t think that Beauregard was likely to act without authorization. IAC, he was acting in the name of the Confederate government.
Ah yes, the “Linkum made me do it” defense.
Thanks for the ping.
Bookmarked for later reading.
Rich people tend to let others do the work for them. Black slaves were, in general, no more off than slaves are in any society that employs them, nor for that matter were they worse treated then the people who worked on the estates of rich Englishmen. Nor were slaves more mistreated than the wage slaves in the Pennsylvania mines. The problem with slavery is, of course, that it is the ultimate inequality IAC, this is not about slavery per se, but about the usual causes of war, where two parties come into conflict because each wants want the other will not let him have.
As I said before in case you missed it...it was just a FYI post. If you take anything but that away from what I said, thats your problem not mine...also I have said it once and hope I don’t need to again, I have heard NO FREEPER SPEAK UP FOR SLAVERY. So just drop that, don’t need to get into a pi$$ing match with you...
Some made it to the west and many don't believe that there were black cowboys either....but there was....
“My guess would have been until the industrial revolution.”
The Industrial Revolution was well underway in Europe and Northeastern United States by the time the southern states decided it would be a good idea to succeed from the Union while citing their right to slavery as the primary reason. Apparently, the southerners were a bit slow to get on board with industrialism.
Therefore, even with the Industrial Revolution well underway, the South decided it was easer to succeed from the Union and continue to hold human beings in bondage than it was to accept a changing economy.
Both the Nazis and the Confederates held people in slavery and the only difference between the Nazis and the slave holders was that the Nazis kept better records of how many people died as a result of their diabolical methods.
“If for some reason(miracle) Jeff Davis pulled a fast one on the Lanky Yankee and AGREED to the emancipation proclamation, freed all the slaves in the “states currently in rebellion” (I really like that part), do you think the North would have granted the South’s wishes for independence?”
If by some miracle, Robert E. Lee had 5000 Sherman tanks and several squadrons of B-29’s the Civil War may have ended differently.
So let’s not talk about “if’s” and instead keep the discussion to reality.
And the reality of the matter is that South Carolina succeeded from the Union for the sole purpose of maintaining the institution of slavery.
The leaders of the CSA could have abolished slavery on their own accord, but elected to maintain slavery until they were defeated by the Union.
The Civil War was about Slavery.
“I have heard NO FREEPER SPEAK UP FOR SLAVERY.”
The Southern States succeeded from the Union for one reason and that reason was so that they could maintain the institution of slavery.
Thus, if one speaks-up for the Confederacy, they are speaking up for slavery.
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