Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land loves licking boots most of all? To which driftless2's mirror always replies: There are no federal bootlickers better than you!!
Posted on 04/25/2011 9:31:58 AM PDT by Iron Munro
I am responding to a column by Leonard Pitts Jr., a noted black columnist for The Miami Herald, entitled, "The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more" (Other Views, April 15).
I found this article to be very misleading and grossly riddled with distortions of the real causes of the War Between the States. I find it so amusing that such an educated person would not know the facts.
I am a proud native of South Carolina. I have spent my entire life in what was once the Confederate States of America. I am currently associated with Southern Heritage causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa.
It's been 150 years since brave, patriotic Southerners drove the imperialist Yankee army from Fort Sumter, S.C. It also marked the beginning of the Confederates' fight to expel this foreign army from the entire Southern homeland.
After all these years, there still exists national historical ignorance and lies about this war. The War Between the States was about states' rights — not about slavery.
Remember, the original colonies voluntarily joined the union and never gave up their individual sovereignty. These independent states always retained their right to manage their domestic affairs and to leave this voluntary association at any time.
This voluntary union was for limited reasons such as national defense from the foreign powers, one language, interstate commerce, disputes between the sovereign states and matters of foreign affairs.
When the Southern states tried to leave this union, the Northerners had to put a stop to this. The slavery issue was masterly inserted into the movement of Yankee aggression.
We are a union of independent and sovereign states free to determine our own destiny. This sovereignty is meant to be free of Yankee federal domination and control. This should still be in principle and practice today as it was before the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter.
Slavery of any people is wicked and morally wrong. Domination of one people over another is just as evil and morally wrong.
The facts are that throughout history, just about every race of people has been slaves to another people. Slavery has always been a failed institution and a dark mark in history. One-hundred years before the first slave made it to the auction blocks in Virginia, African kings were running a booming enterprise of selling their own people into slavery. It was also customary that defeated people became slaves.
Slavery as an institution worldwide was coming to an end before the War Between the States. Slavery in America would probably have come to an end within 50 years.
The great eternal lie — that the war was to "free the slaves" — is still being propagandized today by modern spin-makers, schools and even scholars. But the facts are plain and quite evident if you were to take off your Yankee sunglasses.
The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries. This army also wanted to put a final nail in the coffin of states' rights.
If, and I say this with a big if , the War Between the States was to free the slaves, please answer these simple questions:
Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves? Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation? Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states? Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?
The slaves were freed — and only in territories in rebellion against the North — because the Army of the Potomac was not winning the war and Lincoln was fearful of foreign nations recognizing the Confederacy.
The Northern states needed a war to fuel their economy and stop the pending recession. The North needed rebellion in the South to cause havoc in the Confederate states. The North wanted the hard foreign currency being generated by Southern trade.
I hope this year not only marks the celebration of the brave actions of Southerners to evict the Northern Army at Fort Sumter but leads to the truthful revision of history about the war. Future generations should know the truth.
Al Mccray is a Tampa businessman and managing editor of TampaNewsAndTalk.com
So I guess the north was just using ending slavery as a pretext and reinstituted slavery at war’s end because they didn’t care one way or the other? Get real. The war ended slavery in the U.S. Period. Slavery before the war, no slavery after.
Brilliant argument, my friend! Simply brilliant! (Of course, one might just as well argue that the war was fought simply to kill Americans: '600,000 living Americans before the war, 600,000 dead Americans after!' ;>)
The gist of many secession-defenders, like you, is that the north didn’t care about slavery only using it as a pretext to use freed slaves to fight for them. Then answer me, why didn’t the north allow slavery to be reinstituted at war’s end, huh? Stop the evasive answers and answer that one simple question.
When I first got involved with any of these WBTS threads I was struck by the level of enmity from the Lost Causers. I kinda blundered right into the middle of it with an expression of surprise at one of the claims.
I quickly learned that I was a damnyankee not because of where I was born (Washington State) or raised (Alabama) but because I didn’t drink the Lost Cause Koolaid. I learned that, even though I loved my years growing up in the south and still regarded it fondly I must hate the south and southerners because I disagreed with a tiny (but belligerently vocal) minority. Once I got over the sheer horror of that revelation (ha!) I settled in to view the hilarity.
I must admit that I do love much of the desperate rationalizations that I read here. I knew of the dixie spirit from my youth but had no idea that otherwise grownup people (mis)behaved like this. I’ve learned, in a nutshell (no pun intended) Lost Causers believe that:
States have an expressed right to secession even though it is not enumerated.
Secession is a perfectly acceptable solution to disagreements (even though it results in cataclysmic disaster every time it is attempted).
Secession can be invoked at any time and for any reason (even though it has never been done successfully).
The Civil War is known as The War of northern Aggression even though it was instigated, initiated, and escalated by the south.
The Civil War was fought to defend “states rights” although the only specific right they expressed any interest in protecting was the right to own other human beings.
The confederacy had no interest in The United States and only wished to be ‘left alone’ even though they attempted to intimidate every border state and seize power in every territory of the southwest, west, and northwest.
“First to shoot” means aggressor, except in the case of SC rebels who were duped by the ever popular “We wuz so stoopid we done fell for Linkum’s trap” defense.
Emancipation Proclamation couldn’t have “freed the slaves” even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.
Robert E. Lee definitely wasn’t a traitor who waged an illegal war although he was never tried or convicted...or acquitted.
Abraham Lincoln definitely was a dictator who waged an illegal war although he was never tried or convicted.
The rebels felt that they were within their rights to resort to secession even though there has never been a court ruling that confirmed any such right. Lost Cause Losers believe that the confederate rebels acted legally even though the Supreme Court has ruled to the contrary.
Stupid men will ask absurd questions like “Shall government be bound by law, or by morality?” when they demonstrably do not respect the answer.
I look upon such men and shake my head. It must be terribly lonely to hate ones own country as these men do. To regard oneself as a prisoner in their own nation and feel the need to deny ones own history.
Nobody in my family ever owned slaves, even if they did it wouldn’t make any difference for the issue of secession. Secession is a state right and is STILL not illegal.
You are a delusional fool equating southern heritage to a couple of bumperstickers. Guess what now??? True conservatism lives in the south, where the northeast is nothing less than a hot bed of RINO slime.
By the way, name one non-RINO republican from Yankee land while you are at it.
The British offered freedom to American slaves who would fight in the British army, and they encouraged slaves to sabotage the colonial war effort. This was a serious threat, since slaves were held in each of the thirteen colonies at the time. Given your statement above, and your general disregard for historical fact, and your hatred for ALL slave owners ( including the one who signed the fugitive slave act, George Washington ) There should be no doubt about your loyalty to the Crown/....)
If the newguy would calm down, wipe the spittle off of his face, he would see the irony of his statement. The rights of men, life liberty and the poh, are inalienable, not granted by FedGov™ or the state, but by higher authority,
@newguy - thanks for joining the discussion and immediately bringing your level-headed opinion, (forgetting “@$$h0les” of course)
Unfortunately, the war wasn’t waged to end slavery, it was waged to put the slave states into the submission of their northern brethren. the north was quite ok with slavery remaining since they were enjoying the taxed fruits of slave labor proportionately more than the south.
to get all uppity and project that anyone here is pro-slavery is juvenile. you must forget all the great things the north did to get those slaves from africa to the americas (not just the u.s., but everywhere). all that trapping, chaining, sailing, trading, and the millions of deaths and millions more suffering along the way. you must forget those “principles” you refer to were written at a time when slavery was still in tact and did nothing of it because they didn’t have a practical answer despite their moral objections.
so we should all fall in line an say that killing 600,000 men, women and children was the correct answer and in total agreement with the principles you hold dear?
Since the Southern states were no longer part of the federal compact, the Emancipation Proclamation amounted to an attempt to incite a slave revolt in another country, in spite of the proclamation’s weak, ambiguous disclaimer to the contrary. Certainly the Radicals hoped the proclamation would spark a slave revolt, regardless of the cost in human lives. Furthermore...it left Northern slaves in bondage.
As I've stated repeatedly, in writing, the critical issue is the constitutionality of State secession - not slavery. If State secession was constitutional, then it would not have mattered if the Southern States seceded to preserve slavery, or donate tax proceeds to the Little Sisters of the Poor - the federal government would not have been justified in opposing it. The most important common issue in the 1830s and the 1860s was the constitutionality of secession, not slavery:
...the people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connexion with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right to do.
- South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24 1832
Others here prefer to focus on slavery, no doubt because it supposedly lends moral authority to what are by definition legal arguments. In short, I would suggest that your summary in post #921 should be revised: States' rights before the war, no States rights after.
;>)
It has been written about, even by many of them, for decades that Lincoln was not going to touch slavery. Until they forced his hand. In short, the south shot itself in the foot. If they didn't rebel, the "peculiar institution" would have gone on for at least a few more decades. The secessionists are responsble for whatever destruction occurred. And rest assured, if anybody in my state of Wisconsin tried to organize some sort of secessionist movement, I'd gladly favor the feds to come in and hang each and every one of them. I'm a citizen of UNITED!!! States of America, but just a resident of Wisconsin, a state I love dearly.
Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who in the land loves licking boots most of all? To which driftless2's mirror always replies: There are no federal bootlickers better than you!!
who wants a republic reshmublic anyway?
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