Posted on 03/21/2009 6:26:13 AM PDT by cowboyway
‘The Late Unpleasantness’—yes, this was from a very elderly dignified North Carolinian about twenty five years ago. I had just moved to NC and was at a garden party function when I first heard the phrase. The hostess had a huge magnolia which was in gorgeous full bloom . Our hostess was enjoying multiple compliments about the beautiful magnolia. At that point she remarked that the tree had been planted by her great grandmother during ‘The Late Unpleasantness’. A few minutes later a friend took me aside and explained just what the phrase meant.
Nathan Bedford Forrest would agree, as quoted below.
I think both sides were fighting from principle; they were men of their time.
And yes, it's the liberal Northeast that's been most responsible for the reinstitution of slavery - to the leviathan federal government.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from Nathan Bedford Forrest by Jack Hurst as an illustration of how these men regarded their opponents as honorable men with conflicting principles:
"In a much less private letter three days later, Forrest accepted an invitation from ex-Federals to attend and participate in another Elmwood Cemetery ceremony: decoration of the graves of Union dead.
The invitation came after former Federal soldiers had participated in an Elmwood decoration of Confederate graves, and in the spirit of his surrender address a decade earlier, he responded to this invitation by saying he 'earnestly request(ed) all ex-Confederate soldiers to join me in (the invitation's) acceptance...' The next day he led former Confederates in decorating Elmwood's Federal headstones.
The Appeal that morning carried a public letter signed jointly by him and Gideon Pillow declaring that regardless of their wartime differences with the Federals, 'we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours, was that of our fathers, and must be that of our children...Our love for free government, justly administered, has not perished..."
Let's try to expand your view, shall we?
For the sake of intellectual argument, the US Civil War was not fought over slavery as you contend, but rather it was fought over Dutch Tulip futures(the derivative of their time).
OK, lets take slavery off the table, for now.
Fact: The North invaded the south
Fact: the North "won" the war.
Fact: States rights were never the same
Therefore, although the North "won" a historic military victory, the USA "lost" in the whole and we are living in the wake of this tragic legacy today.
Well that's somewhat of a nonsensical idea now then, isn't it?
It's an unrealistic scenario, in the sense that you're expecting the bloodshed to suddenly cease. For one thing, the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Southern states; how do you think the people of the South would have felt to suddenly look and see that there were still slaves being held by some of the Union states. I'd imagine they'd call 'foul'.
I'm not going to try and justify it. It's unrealistic in and of itself.
But truth is, when the South fired on Fort Sumter, beginning the war, there were eight slave states in the Union and only seven in the Confederacy. And The odds were against the Confederate soldier even owning any slaves. And everyone in the South’s anger of the North was made worse when the slave-owners in Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky, the slave holding states that remained in the Union were allowed to keep their slaves.
Confederate soldiers who did not own slaves were fighting against a proportion of Union Army soldiers who had not been asked to give theirs up.
Liberals?
Is that everyone who doesn’t agree with you on every topic?
Yankee?
I don’t even follow baseball.
Civil War post on Freerepublic always spark some emotions and heated replies. 150 years later and we are the only ones left to speak up for what our ancestors did on both sides of that war, and many will speak up for them very passionately. The anniversary 2011-2015 is going to be interesting.
If it wasn’t for the actions of the crackpot abolutionists, there would have been no Civil War. The abolutionists were the ACORNist of today.
The you'd think that the second half of June would be more appropriate since that's when Lee's army crossed into Pennsylvania. Must be all those Southern transplants. They come streaming up from the South and moving into our cities and towns, and the first thing they do is try to change our ways to how they did it back home....
One problem, you cannot.
You can't just try and remove one of the MAJOR facets behind the Civil War's beginning and expect people to go along with it. Much of the motivations and reasons behind the war then lose their meaning, and then where are you?
All wars have unintended consequences. The Treaty of Versailles financially slaughtered a Germany that - due to propaganda - was utterly shocked at the military's acquiescence to the terms. That shock would give way to indignant anger at the ludicrously large reparations, which would give rise to the frustration that birthed Hitler. So despite the victory of the Allies, an even bigger war had its foundations formed.
Victory in World War II enabled Soviet Russia to try and maintain a 'land barrier' between itself and Germany, fearful of future invasion. This necessitated Communist maintenance of the nations in-between. America and Britain were utterly opposed to this. Combine this America's attempts at rebuilding and refurbishing both Germany and Japan, and you have nationalistic distrust of America by both Russians and Chinese. This mistrust would become a foundation of the Cold War, and the American connection with the Guomindang would part of the reason for the eventual Communist victory in China, circa 1949.
ALL WARS HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
We have to deal with them as they happen. During the midst of something like a Civil War, where it was American against American, I highly doubt that the increase of federal power wouldn't have occurred.
You'd have better luck trying an argument about the negatives of an increase in federal power during the Wilson Administration during World War I, during FDR's New Deal, during LBJ's Great Society, and during Nixon's Administration than you would have arguing the negatives of increased federal power during the Civil War.
Please, I am not championing the North’s actions pre or post-Civil War, I was merely stating, and agreeing with others regarding, the facts as to why that war began. Note my previous citing of the North’s unfair trade policies towards the South.
Thanks for the link. It looks interesting. I’ll bookmark it and read more later.
As for states rights being dead, I separate the issue as it seems most of the active encroachments are since Wilson.
However, with the rush to socialism by our current socialist in chief, it seems a good time to revisit the issue.
Run away...
And just what was noble about the slave holding states that remained in the Union, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky, being aloud to keep their slaves? All for the purpose of keeping them in the Union, so they would not join their brothers in the South.
And you'll be welcome here. The Cathedral in Richmond is beautiful, and we're only approx ninety minutes from Monticello.
Nothing.
No contradiction there.
Ah, not really. There were black conscripts in the CSA who were to be granted freedom after hostilities ended. Freeing the slaves would have added many more soldiers to the CSA. There were integrated regiments in 1865 in the CSA, although the war ended before many saw any action.
Reference Black Confederates
It's worth a look anyway.
Really beautiful.
The ones they are building here nowadays look like they were made for resale value.
Thanks for the link.
Do you think burning half of Georgia to the ground might be an example of "an increase in federal power"?
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