Posted on 05/12/2015 3:00:03 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
We Sons of Confederate Veterans are charged with preserving the good name of the Confederate soldier. The world, for the most part, has acknowledged what Gen. R. E. Lee described in his farewell address as the “valour and devotion” and “unsurpassed courage and fortitude” of the Confederate soldier. The Stephen D. Lee Institute program is dedicated to that part of our duty that charges us not only to honour the Confederate soldier but “to vindicate the cause for which he fought.” We are here to make the case not only for the Confederate soldier but for his cause. It is useless to proclaim the courage, skill, and sacrifice of the Confederate soldier while permitting him to be guilty of a bad cause.
Although their cause was lost it was a good cause and still has a lot to teach the world today.
In this age of Political Correctness there has never been a greater need and greater opportunity to refresh our understanding of what happened in America in the years 1861–1865 and start defending our Southern forebears as strongly as they ought to be defended. There is plenty of true history available to us. It is our job to make it known.
All the institutions of American society, including nearly all Southern institutions and leaders, are now doing their best to separate the Confederacy off from the rest of American history and push it into one dark little corner labeled “ Slavery and Treason.” Being taught at every level of the educational system is the official party line that everything good that we or anyone believe about our Confederate ancestors is a myth, and by myth they mean a pack of lies that Southerners thought up to excuse their evil deeds and defeat.
(Excerpt) Read more at abbevilleinstitute.org ...
The north was fighting because the south went to war against us.
Point of order. No Union troops were killed in the bombardment. Two died in salutes fired after surrender when guns exploded, as did one CSA soldier during the bombardment.
But none of these were deaths by enemy fire.
It appears the first Union death by enemy fire was May 22, and the first CSA battle death June 9. Both in VA.
Though various other claims are put forward.
Inaccurate. 36% of the 1861 volunteers came from slave owning families.
http://deadconfederates.com/2011/04/28/ninety-eight-percent-of-texas-confederate-soldiers-never-owned-a-slave/
Twisting the truth into its opposite has started a lot of wars.
“The north was fighting because the south went to war against us.”
Just come right out and say it - you don’t think the war was about slavery.
Au contraire - it’s the reason why the slavocracy went to war.
% of 1865 volunteers?
Why did the South have to fight for slavery? It was in the U.S. constitution that had been upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court. And with 13 or 14 Southern states, no Constitutional amendment to abolish slavery was going to pass without Southern support.
The South didn’t have to fight for slavery. You need a new schemata.
How about that! The south didn’t have to go to war over slavery. Even Lincoln told them that. Pretty stupid of them to do it anyway, doncha think?
Don’t know that one. CSA went to conscription in April of 62, over a year before the Union did.
The same law extended the term of enlistment of all one year volunteers to three years. The Union never did that.
I have seen the numbers for occupations, and the “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” meme isn’t really true, except perhaps at the pinnacle.
It’s also seldom noted that all our earlier wars also allowed men to pay a substitute.
The point I was trying to make is that the common meme that slavery was engaged in by only a small percentage of southern whites is simply not true. Overall, if I remember right, about one third of white families in slave states owned at least one slave. In SC and MS it was about or possibly over 50%.
A major reason the average net worth of southern white families was twice the northern average in 1860.
You know, it’s really silly to think that the initial cause of a war must forever be “what the war was about.”
WWII started because Germany invaded Poland. The US got into it because of Pearl Harbor.
FTM, WWI started because a Serbian terrorist group assassinated an Austrian Arch-Duke.
Doesn’t mean those issues were dominant concerns later in the wars. Much bigger issues popped up, as they did in our civil war.
See post 114. Good night. Have some warm, sweet, big federal government dreams.
Technically that was a minority of the people of SC. Who were holding the majority in chattel slavery.
Who has the BS meter. Anyone knowing the history of the southern states moves and compromises to protect slavery and Lincoln’s speeches up to the election and doesn’t know the war was about slavery is very misguided or just an apologist for slavery. 7 states left from the time Lincoln was elected until he was sworn in. That wasn’t because he was not against slavery.
For instance: The agrarian south's armies were very rarely short of munitions, but the men starved in the ranks, and were ill-clothed and badly shod. The South had some brilliant officers, all right, but what about logistics? Feeding the men is a key part of military skill.
In both of Lee's invasions of the North, he fared badly, saving his army after both Sharpsburg and Gettysburg only by brilliant retreats and rear guard actions. OTOH, Neither Jefferson Davis or Mr. Lincoln, nor their military advisors seem to have paid enough attention to the war in the west, where the Confederacy suffered its most serious strategic losses, especially after Johnston was replaced by Hood.
Some brilliant officers on both sides somehow seemed to have escaped much notice and the praise of their Commanders. Cleburne, Johnston for the South; George Thomas, Reynolds, Meade, MacDowell and others for the North. They never get their due in the hagiographic post-war histories and biographies.
Not 100% accurate.
Slavery could also be ended by state action. As it was everywhere but KY, about 50k, and DE, a few hundred.
All other slaves in America were freed by state action, sometimes puppet state governments, or by the Emancipation Proclamation, the vast majority.
13A thus did not free many slaves. What it did do was prohibit the institution of slavery. Without 13A in theory a state could have reinstituted slavery. They were also worried about possible judicial decisions that the EP wasn't constitutional.
Also, while Lincoln lobbied for 13A, the president has no constitutional role in amendments. It wasn't ratified under December 65, some time after his death.
I saw it the first time. The difference between davis and Lincoln was that davis did all of those things - and did them maliciously. Talk about big federal government dreams.
True. As was the murder of Jews and others in Nazi Europe.
As was the execution of Jesus Christ.
As were the Salem witch trials.
As was the Spanish Inquisition.
As is the present sale of Christian and Yezidi girls as sex slaves under ISIS.
We can go on a long time here if you like.
I will, once again, ask everybody on this thread to read the cornerstone speech, it mentions all sorts of well thought out principles of limited government and orderly secession, and debases it’s core with a defense of human slavery as a natural order created by god. It’s probably the best single document of the era that codifies all the political elements of the south - and is also the most honest.
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