Posted on 04/10/2015 5:03:22 PM PDT by lqcincinnatus
One hundred-fifty years after Appomattox, many Southerners still won’t give up.
One hundred fifty years ago, on April 9th, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and the Union triumphed in the Civil War. Yet the passage of a century and a half has not dimmed the passion for the Confederacy among many Americans. Just three weeks ago, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) appeared before the Supreme Court arguing for the right to put a Confederate flag on vanity license plates in Texas. Just why would someone in 2015 want a Confederate flag on their license plate? The answer is likely not a desire to overtly display one’s genealogical research skills; nor can it be simplistically understood solely as an exhibition of racism, although the power of the Confederate flag to convey white supremacist beliefs cannot be discounted.
Rather, displaying the Confederate flag in 2015 is an indicator of a complex and reactionary politics that is very much alive in America today. It is a politics that harks back to the South’s proud stand in the Civil War as a way of rallying opinion against the federal government—and against the country’s changing demographic, economic, and moral character, of which Washington is often seen as the malign author. Today’s understanding of the Confederacy by its supporters is thus neither nostalgia, nor mere heritage; rather Confederate sympathy in 2015 is a well-funded and active political movement (which, in turn, supports a lucrative Confederate memorabilia industry).
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Yeah, in a divorce!
Am I defending slavery?
Uh...no.
You are going to ask me if I'm defending slavery here? Do you not have the wit to grasp the subtle difference between championing people's right to self determination (independence), and supporting slavery? (Lincoln was absolutely opposed to the former, but willing to tolerate the later.)
Of course I do not support slavery, especially my own, but that is where we are heading if the Fed Zilla keeps sucking up more power.
The north went to war to defend the union and ended up saving the slaves. The south went to war to defend slavery and ended up losing everything.
The north may have won the war but the government is destroying the country.
If Gen. Jubal Early had marched on into Washington in July 1864 we would no doubt all be much better off.
The country certainly wouldn’t have this maniacal Islamo/socialist tyrant in the White House driving the country into the ground.
You refer to the First National Flag. What is commonly known as the Confederate flag is the Confederate Navy Jack, not the Stars and Bars.
They were, but that changed with the secession. And the Northern commanders knew that — they just wanted to create a flimsy excuse for war.
Obviously you're one of those rare ones that keeps 100% of the fruits of your labor. Most everybody else keeps a whole lot less.
I've read several documents and declarations from this era, and I might have read that one. Your point naturally being that it states they are seceding to preserve the institution of slavery.
Well funny thing, when the US seceded from England, all those states were slave states too, yet they never get tarnished with assertions of hypocrisy, and nobody questions their right to secede.
Yes, slavery was an evil institution, but yes, people had a right to secede, even if it was for a very bad reason.
It is just like a wife who wants to leave her husband. She might be an evil b*tch who does drugs and sleeps around, but she still has a right to leave if she wants to.
Her evil ways do not abrogate her right to leave.
What State’s
Rights were they defending?
Show me someone who doesn’t like the Confederate flag and seven times out of ten that person will not like the American flag.
Yogi Berra, coming home after a game: “Hi Honey, how was yer day?” Carmen Berra: “Oh okay, I went to see Dr. Zhivago!” Yogi: “Fer cryin’ out loud, what’s wrong with ya this time?”
Don't care. It doesn't address the basic philosophical point. Do people have a right to self determination? Do the Baltic states have a right to break away from Russia? Can Croatia be Independent of Serbia? Must Tibet remain part of China?
I believe Independence is a natural right. So did the founders.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation....
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The Southerners may have been morally wrong about Slavery, but they weren't morally wrong about their right to leave a government which they believed no longer served their interests.
Every northern state had either outlawed slavery or had a defined path to emancipation. Exactly zero southern states had anything like it. After the war the northern states passed the 13th amendment.
It is clear that the southern states had no intention of ending slavery and would kill anyone who attempted to interfere.
No, it never changed. Federal property was seized, stolen, and commandeered, but it never stopped being federal property.
While I don’t know much German, I know enough to know they LOVE their uber-long compound words.
So we have panzerkamphwageneinz.
A panzerkampfwagen is a tank. I think literally armored war wagon. The famous Panther tank of WWII was the Panzerkampfwagen V, Pzkw V for short. The Tiger was the Pzkw VI.
Not sure about the -einz ending. Or why h instead of f.
Beyond that, we’ll let him comment.
Well, one more comment. A mashup of Panzerkampfwagen Heinz might be a reference to Heinz Guderian, notable German tank warfare theorist and general.
I have read articles that assert Lincoln reneged on an agreement regarding the disposition of Union forts in Southern territory. That he had changed his mind and broke an existing agreement.
Even so, that doesn't give them a right to attack the Fort. It wasn't hurting them physically, and if they had just dealt with the hurt pride and embarrassment of it, they would have eventually seceded successfully and without a massive war.
One of the members of the Confederate cabinet begged them not to attack it. He told them that they currently have the support of the vast majority of Northern people, but if they attacked that fort all that benevolence would quickly turn to animosity and hatred.
And it did. The man was prophetic.
Perhaps in the case of your family, certainly many Irish volunteered on both sides. But, many of the Irish was a very pro slavery faction.
From a history of the 1863 Draft Riots:
The enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863 capped two years of increasing support for emancipation in New York City. Although Republicans attempted to keep abolitionists from taking a leading role in New York's antislavery politics during the early years of the war, by 1862 abolitionist speakers drew huge audiences, black and white, in the city. Increasing support for the abolitionists and for emancipation led to anxiety among New York's white proslavery supporters of the Democratic Party, particularly the Irish. From the time of Lincoln's election in 1860, the Democratic Party had warned New York's Irish and German residents to prepare for the emancipation of slaves and the resultant labor competition when southern blacks would supposedly flee north. To these New Yorkers, the Emancipation Proclamation was confirmation of their worst fears. In March 1863, fuel was added to the fire in the form of a stricter federal draft law. All male citizens between twenty and thirty-five and all unmarried men between thirty-five and forty-five years of age were subject to military duty. The federal government entered all eligible men into a lottery. Those who could afford to hire a substitute or pay the government three hundred dollars might avoid enlistment. Blacks, who were not considered citizens, were exempt from the draft.
In the month preceding the July 1863 lottery, in a pattern similar to the 1834 anti-abolition riots, antiwar newspaper editors published inflammatory attacks on the draft law aimed at inciting the white working class. They criticized the federal government's intrusion into local affairs on behalf of the "nigger war." Democratic Party leaders raised the specter of a New York deluged with southern blacks in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation. White workers compared their value unfavorably to that of southern slaves, stating that "[we] are sold for $300 [the price of exemption from war service] whilst they pay $1000 for negroes." In the midst of war-time economic distress, they believed that their political leverage and economic status was rapidly declining as blacks appeared to be gaining power. On Saturday, July 11, 1863, the first lottery of the conscription law was held. For twenty-four hours the city remained quiet. On Monday, July 13, 1863, between 6 and 7 A.M., the five days of mayhem and bloodshed that would be known as the Civil War Draft Riots began.
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