Ten Neo-Confederate Myths

March 9, 2013 | vanity

[JCBreckenridge]

Look up New Jersey’s Electoral college votes.

[JCBreckenridge]

Post of the day!

[Ditto]

His principal objection to unionism was his belief that states have the right to negotiate their own trade agreements with one another and with foreign governments.

No. His main complaints were #1... Agitation against slavery, and #2, the fact that the growing population of the North vs the South and the addition of free states threatened the institution of slavery because slave states were outnumber by free states, even though in 1850, members of Congress did not necessarily vote upon those lines.

You can read Calhoun's last speech in the Senate (which he had Jeff Davis read for him because he was too frail to deliver himself) during the debate of the 1850 Compromise. Calhoun died a few weeks later.

Here's the first paragraph to get you started.

I have, senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divided the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?

Calhoun was right. Just the simple existence of opposition to the institution of slavery was enough to break the Union. That is how tied the power structure in many southern states were to preserving slavery at any cost. They saw any opposition as a mortal threat.

[Ditto]

Did the executive branch even file for an injunction?

Who would have served the papers on the Governors of those States? Would you liked to have been the US Marshal trying to serve papers on those Fire-eaters?

The US Courts in the South had no control when secession happened. That is the very definition of insurrection... when the existing rule of law can not be applied because the forces against it are too powerful.

Read the Militia Act to understand.

[Ditto]

From what I see no one called that poster "trash" but made a snarky remark about getting to a big city to at least see it as opposed to trashing everyone who lives in one, which the first poster did.

I have been to Chicago many times... great food and entertainment, nice shopping areas, a fun place to be for a while. I know some very good conservatives who live there. They just happen to be outnumbered, just like good conservative people who live in Atlanta or Birmingham or Austin are outnumbered.

Since Cythina McKinney is from Houston does that make every Texan a ignorant, lunitic, racist, Marxist BITCH... like she is?

[donmeaker]

Hood was too influenced by his desire to punish the Unionist sections of Tennessee. Just as Lee’s first campaign was an attempt to coerce Unionist sections of Virgina, Hoods last campaign was an attempt to coerce Unionist sections of Tennessee.

[donmeaker]

Sorry, I am an American, and can go to any state I wish. That helps make the country more productive, freer, and happier.

As for California, everyone makes us happy, some when they come, others when they leave. Sometimes both.

[donmeaker]

yes, Calhoun was opposed to states rights, when those states rights were expressed against the institutions of kidnapping, rape, and torture that was slavery

[donmeaker]

After the declaration of war, court action was moot.

You want war, win it, or shut up.

[BroJoeK]

AuntB: "All the comments on these threads calling Southerners trailer trash, etc. must be our imaginations!"

Ditto: "Where did someone call Southerners 'trailer trash?'"

I did a word search on "trash", and nobody on this thread has called anybody here "trash".

But I am certainly guilty of posting the word, along with several others, as names commonly used against some of my southern relatives, and you might even say, by extension, against me, since I do live in a rural area, near mountains.
And the mountains I live in extend all the way from Maine to Georgia.
So I'd guess, whatever sticks to them, must stick to me too, right?

I'm thinking maybe AuntB got a little excited and confused by my "trash" talk, and now would be a great time to just drop it...

;-)

[BroJoeK]

CodeToad: "24% is an amazing figure. It is just hard to believe."

Out of curiousity, is that higher or lower than you were expecting to see?

[BroJoeK]

DustyMomemt: "Somed years back I might have agreed with John Adams, but after everything we have been through and digital applications ;ike Photoshop, facts are no longer absolutes."

FRiend, I'm familiar with that argument, and I know where it comes from.
It doesn't come from the Conservative side of our political house.
It's the argument Liberals use, and we often bow to, that "perception is reality", if everyone believes it, then it is.

But it's not, and our job is to break through the myths into the reality underlying them, and make certain that what we say about the past accurately reflects what really happened, and why.

Anything else dishonors, disrespects and demeans our ancestors just for the sake of some temporary political advantage today.

[BroJoeK]

ek_hornbeck: "Calhoun started his political career as a supporter of high tariffs, sympathetic to the goals of Federalism and the Union.
He later became an advocate of state's rights and free trade, siding with the agrarian south against the industrial north. "

Right, and as Calhoun changed from pro-tariff in, say 1830 to anti-tariff later in life, tariffs went down.
By 1860, tariffs were lower than they had been for 20 years, and the same rates as 1792, when George Washington was president.

Point is: there's no way to pretend that tariffs had something to do with South Carolina's slave-holders calling for a secession-convention in the same week that Lincoln was elected President.

Secession had nothing to do with tariffs.
It had everything to do with protecting slavery.

[Sherman Logan]

Thanks, I did.

Lincoln got four of seven EC votes despite behind slightly behind in the total popular vote. The reason was an internal Democratic Party dispute.

Why this should be considered scandalous or a consequence of cheating by Lincoln or the Republicans is a mystery.

[BroJoeK]

southernsunshine quoting Lincoln's First Inaugural: “...to collect the duties and imposts...”

southernsunshine: "According to Lincoln’s own words it was about money.
Again, this was on March 4, 1861.
Money. Keep the taxes flowing...or else."

Believe me, I understand how difficult it must have been for you to dig down into Lincoln's speech to extract just those few words, while ignoring everything else he said.

I'm trying to think of an appropriate analogy, strictly from the perspective of a Neo-Confederate.
Let's see... hmmmm.... suppose those few words were your valuable, sparkling diamond ring?
It is somehow lost in a septic tank, so you must get down in the tank, to pull out those words, so you can somehow justify every insane Confederate decision made after that...
My, you'd need a thorough scrubbing then, wouldn't you?

So I fully understand and appreciate your work here, and I'm sorry it was all in vain.
That's because Lincoln's complete words are actually quite clear, simple and inspiring.
He promises to do what he has to, to fulfill his oath to defend and protect the US Constitution, and he will not disturb Southerners any more than they want to be disturbed.

Yes, of course, the Confederacy saw Lincoln's words as a "declaration of war", because that's exactly what they wanted to see.
War was their objective, and if Lincoln would do nothing to provoke it, then they were happy to provoke him.

southernsunshine: "Also, the USSC court set the April 19 date in your timeline as the beginning date of hostilities."

I'd call that Neo-Confederate self-delusion.
The truth is that rebellion (illegal seizures of Federal properties, threats against Federal officials) started in most Confederate states even before they declared secession.
So what is the precise dividing line between rebellion and outright war?
I'd say the first act of outright war was the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter, beginning April 12, along with Jefferson Davis' moves to issue letters of marque and reprisal on April 17.

Lincoln's responses to those Confederate acts of war were the least he could have done, still hoping to avoid a major conflict.

southernsunshine: "The May 6 document declares a state of war exists and the USSC decision to use April 19 verifies this."

The Confederacy's declaration of war on the United States, May 6, 1861, was just that: a declaration of war.
It's formal language corresponds exactly to that of President Franklin Roosevelt's December 12, 1941 "Day of Infamy" speech:

"I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire."

[Sherman Logan]

Hoods last campaign was an attempt to coerce Unionist sections of Tennessee.

Odd, then, that he completely avoided the Unionist section of East Tennessee.

Hood's campaign into TN was an attempt to get Sherman to turn around and chase him instead of pushing farther into the vitals of the Confederacy. He also wanted to recruit in the confederate sections of TN and KY.

Neither worked. Sherman assigned Thomas and Schofeld to deal with Hood and headed across GA himself. And Hood picked up few men in TN and KY.

[BroJoeK]

IronJack: "There is at least as much evidence to support the thesis that the Civil War was a states’ rights issue as there is to prop up this PC notion that it was all about slavery."

southernsunshine: "You aren’t supposed to know any of that.
Keep repeating: It wuz all ‘bout slavery. Toe the line, Comrade. LOL!"

Of course there was a "state's rights issue", indeed several of them:

1. The right of a state to secede to protect the institution of slavery.

2. The right of a state to seize Federal property, especially military property, and arrest Federal officials, by deadly force when necessary.

3. The right of a state to issues letters of marque and reprisal to naval privateers to operate against the United States.

4. The right of a state to declare war on the United States, and then send its armies to invade any Union state it could reach.

Slavery was the reason for secession, and the Confederacy's new slavery-protecting constitution, but slavery itself did not start the Civil War.

The Confederacy started the Civil War, ultimately to protect it's "peculiar institution" of slavery.

[BroJoeK]

Triple: "You seem to have left out some significant milestones. Accidental?"

southernsunshine: "No accident. BroJo has been schooled on all of this many times."

I left nothing out that I consider significant.
If you disagree, then feel free to highlight events which matter to you, and I'll be happy to review them with you.

One basic thesis here is this: in every step of the way, from peace in 1860 to war in 1861, it was secessionists and their Confederacy who lead the way, while the Union slowly and ineffectively followed.

[BroJoeK]

JCBreckenridge: "The point is - the South wasn’t necessary.
For anything. Lincoln’s victory proved that they could entirely be ignored when making policy."

Let me try an analogy... let's see...

You are an important person in your family, right?
Nothing big happens without your input, and at least acquiescence, right?
So that makes you somewhat similar to the Southern Slave-Power in the Federal government before 1860.

Now, let's suppose that, for whatever reason, you walk out on your family and they, to your shock, figure out how to get alone just fine without you.

So whose fault is that?
Is that their fault, or is it yours?
It's yours of course.

And so it was in 1860, when Southern Democrat "Fire Eaters" walked out of their ruling majority Democrat party, splitting it in half and thus engineering the election of minority Republican Abraham Lincoln.

JCBreckenridge: "even if the Democrats were all one party, they could not win.
It simply was not possible due to the 85 electoral votes for New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, combined."

Of course, I understand that argument, I've studied the numbers myself, and I know they show: "you can't get there from here".

What I'm saying is that if Democrats had been as united and enthusiastic in 1860 as they were in 1856, they could easily have attracted enough, in today's term, "low information" Northern voters to elect their candidates.

Pennsylvania is a good example.
Then as now it was a "blue" Democrat state in 1856, but the 1860 party split cost Democrats 35,000 "low information" voters, who switched to Republicans, giving them the margin of victory.

The same is true in other traditionally Democrat states, like Indiana, Illinois, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and California -- those would give a united Democrat ticket more than enough electoral votes to win the Presidency.

So, what I'm saying is that Democrat defeat in 1860 was not inevitable, far from it, it had to be engineered, and those engineers were Southern "Fire Eaters", who had been campaigning for secession for many years.

The 1860 election was Fire Eaters' opportunity for success, and they took it.

[BroJoeK]

Triple: "The US never sued in USSC claiming secession was not within States rights - did it? the Fed Gov would have been plaintiff in the USSC."

I'd call that suggestion a seriously ridiculous argument from desperation.
Secessionists complaint against the Union was that not enough had been done to protect their "peculiar institution" of slavery.
Constitutional solutions included bringing suits in the Supreme Court, or bills in Congress to redress their grievances.
They did none of that.

Instead, they first unilaterally declared secession, then started and formally declared war on the United States.

So your suggestion here amounts to nothing more than saying President Roosevelt should have responded to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by filing complaints in the League of Nations.