Posted on 04/12/2022 2:53:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
And the loser writes the myths.
All wars are bankers wars. This one was no exception.
Not when you consider that they had already adopted a constitution that protected slavery to a far greater extent then the Corwin Amendment did.
Mark
In the fifteen years between Texas' admission and secession there were four presidential terms - 3 Democrat and 1 Whig. There were six Secretaries of War - 5 southerners and one from the north. If Texas had issues with how the government allocated resources then wouldn't their complaint be directed towards Democrat administrations and Southern cabinet members?
We fought in the Second World War because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That doesn’t mean that the war didn’t have deeper causes or a deeper meaning or that we weren’t fighting for and against some larger things.
When a quarter or a third or half the population of some states was enslaved and no one was enslaved in other states and controversy had raged over slavery for years, it’s foolish to argue that slavery wasn’t significant and wasn’t an issue. It’s also not at all surprising that Jefferson Davis and his associates would minimize the importance of slavery when they were seeking diplomatic recognition and military assistance from countries that had already abolished slavery on their own territory. It was not at all surprising that propagandists would use tariff conflicts that had been peacefully resolved over the years in an attempt to hide the fundamental conflict over slavery and its expansion, which could not be so easily dismissed.
Missing too in some of the arguments is that when some state group decides to leave the country there are often dissenters on their territory, people who don’t want to go. There is also the possibility of fraud, corruption, and coercion. The secessionists aren’t some libertarian, anti-government movement. They are aspiring to create a government of their own. They will want to secure for their new country as much territory and resources as they can, even if this means oppressing dissenters and minorities and subverting or invading neighboring states and regions.
For this reason, unilateral secession is always a fraught situation. Countries confronted with it have a legitimate interest in protecting loyal citizens and their national resources. No president and no country worthy of its name would simply give the secessionists everything they wanted, and the new Confederate government was certainly not above taking what it wanted by force. What happened in the 1860s was a tragedy, but it was not a tragedy that can be laid wholly at the door of Abraham Lincoln or the North.
I also would take issue with both the article writer and some of the commenters: “South” and “North” are too big and too abstract categories. Praise and blame belong to individuals and the groups they belonged to. We don’t need to be forever arguing in terms that are so imprecise and only serve to open old wounds.
Thanks for the education.
L
In his cornerstone speech regarding the election and January 6th, former Vice-President Mike Pence stated bluntly...
Sad we had to have a civil war over this. Imagine how far ahead we would be if we didn’t fight a war for 4 years and lose over a half million men.
I guess, I find it somewhat amusing how much the core South is disliked today. 157 years afterwards.
Funny thing, I do not see that dislike for Spain, Germany, Japan, North Korea or Mideastern terrorists.
But you are hard pressed to find a complementary story in any mainline publication about Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas or the others.
Maybe that is one of the reasons, sons & daughters of the old Confederacy still have fond thoughts of their forebearers.
Just my humble opinion.
***********
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You've nailed it. This is why PC Revisionists attack the South by trying to claim "it was all about slavery" when the facts make it clear it was not. This is an effort to smear the South because the South has always stood for decentralized power, limited government, limited spending and balanced budgets. This is all anathema to Leftists. If only they can discredit the South then they can discredit all of the above.
Thus starting in the 1980s as that 60s generation was starting to gain ascendancy in their long march through the institutions, the 60s Leftists in Academia revived wartime propaganda that had long since been discredited - yes even in Academia itself - and have fanatically pushed this as though it were religious dogma ever since.
and Leftists try to revise history to suit their politics.
And the losers try to rewrite history to fit their agenda.
The Confederate Constitution hardly differed from the US Constitution as it then was on the issue of slavery. The vast majority of the Confederate Constitution was simply carried over from the US Constitution. Where it differed significantly was in more clearly protecting state's rights/limiting the power of the central government and in limiting the ability of the central government to spend money.
Without Woodrow Wilson, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and the Bush's. Gee, let me think...
Read Texas' declaration of causes. It states in relevant part:
"The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas."
They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.
Note how similar a lot of those complaints are to today. The federal government goes out of its way to screw over Red states in ways both small and large - be it threatening them for election integrity laws or protecting parents' rights against trans indoctrination of their children in school or banning life altering drugs or surgeries for children without their parents' consent or simply for not taking away their citizens' right to live freely from Covid tyranny, because the Democrats view them as domestic enemies. They've even been so nasty and vindictive as to deny treatments for Covid positive patients in those states. The same kind of nastiness and vindictiveness was in evidence 150+ years ago from those who controlled the federal government.
Have you not read the Confederate constitution?
Where it differed significantly was in more clearly protecting state's rights/limiting the power of the central government and in limiting the ability of the central government to spend money.
Hardly the case but let's stick with how the two documents dealt with slavery. Slavery is not mentioned at all in the U. S. Constitution. It's mentioned ten times in the Confederate Constitution. The Confederate Constitution specifically protected slave imports, prohibited any laws impairing the right of slave ownership, prevented the possibility of any non-slave state, required all territories acquired permit slavery, and basically made it impossible to amend the Constitution to end slavery. All clauses the U.S. Constitution didn't have, and most of which it still wouldn't have had even if the Corwin Amendment had been ratified.
I have read it. I'm merely pointing out that it was Southerners and Democrats who were primarily responsible for those failures on the part of the federal government. Texas's issue was with herself and her fellow southern states.
The most succinct and persuasive argument I've heard against the Declaration of Independence and General Washington's decision to fight the British Empire.
But not totally persuasive.
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