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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
 Posted - 09/01/2007 : 11:49:19 PM
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Do you REALLY think it's "cheep" to provide food, clothing, housing, medical care, ect for your employees from birth till death? Maybe you are thinking of the NORTHERN mode of slavery where the company charged for EVERYTHING and the employees ended up OWING more than they were paid?
Food? You mean stuff like grits and collard greens? Offal? Food they have to nickname "Soul Food" just to put a postive spin on it? I visited a plantation just north of Charleston once. Man, that was some "great" housing they provided their slaves. Much better than the homes my ancestors in Kentucky were living in that they had to pay for themselves with wages they earned---not.
This is a retarded argument to make. If slavery was MORE EXPENSIVE than the wage earning system used by non-slave states THEN THE SOUTH WOULDN'T HAVE CONTINUED DOING IT.
If slavery was more expensive, it would've cut into the PROFIT MARGINS. Doesn't it logically follow therefore that slavery, i.e. not paying a wage, is cheaper than having to pay a wage that allows a Man to purchase his own food, clothing, housing, and medical care AND enjoy a higher standard of living?
And the corporate system in the North had it's detractions, but nobody was beating factory workers with whips if they tried to quit their jobs and move away. Nobody was splitting up families by selling off children. There was no "Fugitive Employee" laws where you had guys from one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills running away from a posse of blood hounds along the "Underground Reverse Railroad" so they could flee to Florida and sign up for slavery.
What proof do you have of that? What CRYSTAL BALL have you looked into? Besides, NEW ENGLAND owned and operated America's SLAVE SHIPS yet we hear nothing of that.
What proof do I have that the Confederacy would've been a hideous apartheid state? Um, besides the fact that the institution of slavery would've continued on for much longer? That not "apartheid" enough for you? Oh, how about the fact that EVEN WITH THE CIVIL WAR the South WAS an apartheid state until the abolition of segregation. Or were those lynchings and beatings and election frauds the mark of a non-apartheid state? You can't possibly be this obtuse. Even before the war there were countless accusations of slave uprising plots. A feature of every single one of those accusations was that the slave revolt "ringleaders" had already "picked out which white women they were going to ravish after all the white men had been killed." Sorry, but the racism of the post-war years was not the result of bitterness over Reconstruction. It was already there way before the war.
Lincoln himself said that too. And when the Confederacy was founded with six states and the North had a clear political majority, the "freedom-loving North" took imediate action and RAISED THE PROTECTIVE TARRIF.
Ah yes, the "tariff" cause of the Civil War. 600,000 people killed over taxes. Sorry, not buying it. Lincoln fought to preserve the Union, which was his STATED goal. That means he was fighting an anti-Secession war. IF YOU READ THE DECLARATIONS OF SECESSION OF EACH OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES, YOU WILL NOTICE THEY TALK ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF PRESERVING SLAVERY. Taxes, when they are mentioned, get 2nd and 3rd shrift behind such things as "They won't cooperate in giving back our escaped slaves."
So if Lincoln was fighting against secession and EVERY CONFEDERATE STATE said in WRITING they were seceding to preserve slavery...doesn't that make the Civil War about slavery? If there was no slavery, would we have had a Civil War? Um, no.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/texsec.htm
Ah yes, Yale. The school that has the names of NAZIS who graduated from the school, but NOT CONFEDERATES.
Ah, so this means that their link to the Texas Declaration of Secession is invalid or untrue? That indeed Texans from that age DIDN'T write such a document? I assume you are familiar with the ad hominem fallacy in argumentation, right?
I suppose I could find another link to the Texas Declaration of Secession from someplace else. Probably even from someplace like the Texas Daughters of the Confederacy. Would that enable you to acknowledge that Texans of the time were leaving the Union FOR ONE STATED REASON ONLY?
Yes I do. Did ALL the other states say the same thing?
Do all the other Confederate states say they are leaving because of slavery? You seem to be up on history. Can't you tell me? Or is this an aspect of secession you generally don't dwell on? Mainly, the singular and stated reason for seceding?
Well, later on you are going to argue that my link to a few more Confederate documents online is flawed because apparently Yale can't be trusted to reprint them accurately. Again, is the Yale link wrong because the documents therein are FORGERIES or is the Yale link wrong because you don't like Yale? Because it is a Yankee school?
Okay, I don't mind a little leg work.
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html
There is another link to the Texas Declaration of Secession, hosted by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission...surely a Yankee-led, Confederacy-hating organization if there ever was one.
Hmm. That's odd. The one there reads EXACTLY like the one posted by Yale. But the one from Yale is invalid for the purposes of this argument for some reason...
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/southcarolina_declaration.asp
South Carolina's. 14th paragraph down, slavery is the stated main reason.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp
Mississippi. I've got to hand it to them, they are far less verbose than the South Carolinians. They get down to brass tacks with the first sentence of the second paragraph.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp
Georgia, first paragraph, second sentence.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Alabama_secession_Ordinance.htm
Alabama. Section 2, paragraph 2 states that Alabama will "meet the slaveholding states of the South" in order to form a provisional government. "Slaveholding" states instead of "Fellow seceding states" or some such thing is very suggestive of what they were seceding for, isn't it?
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Alabama_secession_Speech.htm
Alabama again. Third paragraph.
http://www.vahistorical.org/onthisday/21361.htm
The Virginia Historical Society's overview of the debate leading to the passing of the Ordinance of Secession. What were they talking about mainly? Slavery.
You know what? This is silly. YOU KNOW that each ordinance of secession was preceded by a DEBATE as to whether they should and if they did then WHY they are doing took place. And you know exactly what each of them said was the main reason for leaving the Union. It sure as heck wasn't because they thought Lincoln was going to be a friend to the institution of slavery.
Again with the single source. And I note that you are useing the old "mean old Southern TRASH" argument that I've heard all my life. Stick to facts, nbot mockery.
And don't bother shedding any tears for us, we just want you to STOP HATING US.
Sir, I am discussing people who died a long, long time ago. Yes, I am also going after people living today who feel it necessary to gloss over the fact that the Civil War was fought over secession and secession was done to preserve slavery, which means the Civil War was about slavery.
For what i8t's worth, the Lousiana Tiger was a malitia unit made up of FREE BLACKS (Never knew we had any, did you?) organised in 1962. Hundreds of freemen and slaves served in the Confederate army and navy. Many slaves who served were freed BEFORE that law you mentioned was even thought up. Nathan Bedford Forrest freed 300 slaves durring the war for their service.
Indeed no, this is not the first time I have encountered a Confederacy defender saying that if the South was so bad, why did blacks fight for it?
Tell me, what is there to be proud of about a whole race of people so beat down and degraded for so long that they suffer a massive, collective Stockholm Syndrome and identify and sympathize with the very institution that TAUGHT them to regard themselves as sub-human? If you were tomorrow reduced to slavery by your state, would you then freely enlist to fight for it's preservation? No, you wouldn't. Not unless you were conditioned by generations of brainwashing that you SHOULD consider yourself an inferior being.
0NLY if the point of seccesion was to preserve slavery. It was, in fact, to get away from the New England TRAITORS who did things like start the REVOLUTION called "Bleeding Kansas" and refused to stick to their Constitutional obligations.
Again, feel free to read the various declarations of secession and/or minutes or summations of the debates that led to the secessions.
Ah, Bleeding Kansas. Yes, there was Beecher's Bibles and all that. There were also two instances when pro-slavery men from Missouri swarmed into Kansas and voted it into slavery.
Rumors had spread through the South that 20,000 Northerners were descending on Kansas, and in November 1854, thousands of armed Southerners, mostly from Missouri, poured over the line to vote for a proslavery congressional delegate. Only half the ballots were cast by registered voters, and at one location, only 20 of over 600 voters were legal residents. The proslavery forces won the election.
On March 30, 1855, another election was held to choose members of the territorial legislature. The Missourians, or "Border Ruffians," as they were called, again poured over the line. This time, they swelled the numbers from 2,905 registered voters to 6,307 actual ballots cast. Only 791 voted against slavery.
From:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2952.html
Tell me, what part of illegal, unregistered voting and ballot box stuffing do you consider as "fulfilling Constitutional obligations"?
The South had STRUGGLED to hold the union together by comprimise and giving in to the North. By 1960, enough was enough.
Read Webster's Capon Springs speach where he accuses New England of violating the Constitution. He said that since the North had refused to uphold it's part of the Constitution, the South was under NO OBLIGATION to uphold it's part and therefore, THE UNION WAS DISOLVED. "A bargan broken on one side is broken on all sides".
Yes, I understand this. But these beliefs that the Constitution was being violated all stemmed from questions of slavery. Fugitive slave laws. The spread of slavery into new territories. Attempts to abolish slavery in Washington D.C. Yes, yes, yes. They considered slavery to be their right to inflict on other human beings because they'd been doing it since before the Articles of Confederation. I get it. That is why they seceded. That is what they said in conventions and on documents of secession. They left to preserve slavery, which they considered to be a Constitutional right.
Except that Lincoln wasn't going to abolish slavery. He didn't want it to spread west, sure, but he didn't run as an abolitionist. Why do we seem to forget that? |
Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 09/02/2007 12:25:47 AM |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 05:16:42 AM
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| What happened to the icons allowing one to comment on postings? Anyhow, if the South had won the Civil War, once the Confederacy had seceded over the issue of slavery, what was to stop, for example, Virginia from seceding from North Carolina over the issue of tobacco prices? The result would have been a totally fragmented, totally balkanized U.S., with nobody around to pull Europe's-and the world's-chestnuts out of the fire at the time of World War II, World War II, the Cold War.... |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 05:24:11 AM
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| I did "What World Leader" are you?", and I was Gandhi. I'm sure NOBODY is Hitler, y'mach shemo-they wouldn't risk offending people. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 05:56:03 AM
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Originally posted by Greenhornet
Do you REALLY think it's "cheep" to provide food, clothing, housing, medical care, ect for your employees from birth till death? Maybe you are thinking of the NORTHERN mode of slavery where the company charged for EVERYTHING and the employees ended up OWING more than they were paid?
Read Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 and find out what kind of food, clothing, housing, medical care, ect. (by etc., I suppose you mean rape and flogging?) YOU BET IT WAS CHEAP!!!!! |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 09:27:06 AM
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What we are seeing here is the legacy of what started happening immediately following the Civil War. Many, many Southern writers put pen to paper and began romanticizing the South's role. The North did not respond to this revision of history. Didn't feel the need to. They'd won, that was what was important. Today, that unchallenged romanticism continues on.
Libertarians seem particularly susceptible to defending the Confederacy. It is mainly the state's rights angle for them, even though a continual argument over state's rights vs. Jefferson Davis's authority within the Confederacy doomed the Confederacy just as surely as did General Grant and Union artillery. For example, they actually killed a plan to build a railroad line between states that would've been a vital supply line to the army? Why? The idea was called an unfair usurpation of state power to decide such things for themselves.
Idealism as suicide pact.
Arguments like this (and you can tell I've done this before, can't you?) always carry the same flavor and always start the same way.
They say: The South was the wronged party, the Civil War was about state's rights in the Constitution. This is usually accompanied by theoretical arguments about state's rights without mentioning the specific ISSUE that was animating the debate back them.
I say: Yeah, but they were arguing about state's rights in the context of slavery. You read their own Declarations of Secession and/or accounts of the debates they had in each state leading up to secession and you CANNOT avoid the fact that secession in every case was to preserve slavery.
They usually respond with: Yeah, well the North had it's hands dirty in slavery too! For example, Greenhornet's observation that New England owned and operated slave ships (until slave importation was outlawed). This line of argument is for some reason supposed to be a retort to me to show that I'm being hypocritical and unfair. Me, a man living in the 21st Century who identifies himself solely as an American and who considers identification with state or region to be a ridiculous, antiquated notion.
Indeed, that is also an aspect of every single debate like this I have ever had with a defender of the romanticized, historically revised Confederacy. I'm accused of taking this stance because I'm a "yankee" or a Northerner. As if my current geographical location of residence has anything to do with this at all. Completely laughable. In no other historical debate, such as the morality of the Indian Wars or the Phillipine Insurrection, would somebody say, "You're just saying that because you are a Ohioan!"
Mixed in with this chain of arguments are the usual claims of tariffs and taxes that caused the war, even though the Confederates of the time talk and write about them very little and slavery very much.
Confederacy defenders, if pushed far enough in these arguments, will often resort to quasi-defending slavery as "not so bad and it could've been worse". We saw it here when Greenhornet compared human bondage as equal to say, a mining corporation setting up a "mining town" in Pennsylvania and fixing it so the residents bought goods from a company store. This sort of thing is just jaw droppingly stunning, for no worker in those circumstances ever dreamed of fleeing to a plantation so he could work as a slave in the fields.
Behind all of this lurks the one sentiment they just will not give voice to. Essentially, "Why won't you just be quiet and let us have our romanticized version of the Confederacy? With gallant men on the field saying noble things and a way of life so perfect that even slaves were eager to take up arms and defend it? Why do you have to keep reminding us that they seceded to preserve human bondage, which was the absolute backbone of the pre-war Southern economy (as South Carolina stated plainly in their Declaration). Can't you just let it be and let us have our heroes?
Sorry, I don't seperate the soldier from what they fight for. And I don't ignore the words and writings from the actual people living them whenever it conflicts with the romantic image I would prefer to showcase.
The southern states seceded to preserve slavery. Their own words and deeds prove this incontrovertily. The North made war upon them to preserve the Union. That necessarily means that Lincoln was fighting to destroy secession. Using the simplest of Aristotelean logic, we can only conclude that the singular cause of the Civil War was slavery and that the Confederacy fought to preserve that single, most important aspect of their economy (by their own admission).
I am sorry if that makes it difficult to romanticize. |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 3:44:28 PM
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Originally posted by New Hinda
I did "What World Leader" are you?", and I was Gandhi. I'm sure NOBODY is Hitler, y'mach shemo-they wouldn't risk offending people.
I'm afraid I was Hitler for a short while, when I took the shortest test.
Now I'm Abe Lincoln, and (LOL) reading some of the comments around I'm not sure if my situation has improved.
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2007 : 8:33:51 PM
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| I was Lincoln, by the way. I wanted to be Churchill, but Lincoln ain't bad either. |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 04:27:08 AM
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| I'm not responding to any specific Civil War entry now, but why does the Civil War set people off so? If someone mentioned the Franco-Prussian War, everybody would have to stop and think when it was fought, and there would be NO howling hissy-fits, up and down the thread, pro and con. |
Edited by - New Hinda on 09/03/2007 06:23:22 AM |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 06:19:06 AM
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New Hinda, well, the states of the old Confederacy were the only part of the US that was invaded, destroyed and occupied by a "foreign" power so there tends to be a longer memory of the event there than elsewhere in the country. Ask the average person someone in New York or New England about the Civil War and you'd probably get "Uh, Lincoln and uh ..." and some scratching of heads (though almost every town in New England will probably have a monument to their Civil War dead). The losers always seem to remember such things longer than the winners, just ask some Serbs about the Battle of Kosovo (no, not the recent NATO action but the battle against the Turks in 1389). The Civil War and the "lost cause" has become part of southern US culture so that even today it can provoke passionate responses. I wonder though, how this memory will fare as the old South fills up with immigrants from other parts of the country thereby dilluting the old native elements. It may eventually go the way of the old Charleston accent.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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throughthelookingglass
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
47 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 8:52:58 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by New Hinda
I'm not responding to any specific Civil War entry now, but why does the Civil War set people off so? If someone mentioned the Franco-Prussian War, everybody would have to stop and think when it was fought, and there would be NO howling hissy-fits, up and down the thread, pro and con.
Well, I think that's because it's one of the many times the French lost, so from that angle it gets lost in the accumulation of French defeats. From the Prussian angle, it was the last time (i think) that 'Germany' won a war, and given its recent history, it has ceased being something to be proud of (for a German).
Flame on! |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 10:19:21 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
quote:
Originally posted by Sardu
quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
I am Abe Lincoln, the man I frequently critcize!
Surely you jest! No one could possibly, ever in the history of mankind, EVER be critical of Abe Lincoln!!
Well, OK, that guy who shot him maybe.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo
Jefferson Davis sent three diplomats to Washington city to negotiate. Lincoln sent nine warships to South Carolina and Florida to take Charleston harbor and Pensacola, forceing the South Carolina malitia to fire on Fort Sumter to force it's surrender.
RESULT: 600,000 Americans killed and the Southern econimy (Once the richest in the US) wrecked untill c1941.
There is a lot more history books don't mention, so don't get me started.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935
GH, Lincoln notified the South that he intended to resupply Fort Sumter. The South fired on the fort before the vessels even arrived. Lincoln was attempting to allow cooler heads to prevail but he couldn't allow Federal property to be confiscated.
The Southern economy was quickly being eclipsed by the North. That was one reason the South seceded. They realized that the North would eventually eclipse them to the point that slavery would be ended at the ballot box.
BTW, what was one of the first things the South did when the seceded? They closed the Mississippi to Northwest grain shipments. This proved Sherman's and others point that the country had to remain united or face endless war. Interestingly, the South, in particular the Mississippi valley might have become the country's industrial heartland had the South not been stupid. Instead, the war spurred the growth of the railroads which emphasized a Northwest/Northeast relationship.
GW, you really need to realize you are totally off base here. The South had some legitimate complaints, but at the heart of the South's reasons was slavery. Their economy was based on it and they knew they were eventually going to lose it.
- While science has societal benefits, science is not a social virtue. - |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 11:02:35 PM
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As I've pointed out. Many states, feeling akin to the Founders when they drafted the Declaration of Independence, felt it necessary to make their own Declarations stating exactly what it was that caused them to secede.
Some, like South Carolina, spent many paragraphs talking of the seperation of authority between state and federal power, "breaches" of that contract, and other general legal language. Eventually, they would write in that Declaration exactly WHAT issue it was that was triggering all this high sounding talk. It was slavery.
Other states, like Georgia and Texas, said it up front within the first or second paragraphs that they were leaving to perpetuate slavery.
And yes, some states didn't produce such a Declaration. If they did, I couldn't find them. What you can find are the debates and conventions they had before they decided to vote to secede. And all of those debates center on the preservation of slavery. For added measure, one can easily access contemporary newspaper editorials and/or the private journals and correspondence of the primary actors involved. It all ends up the same even though some couch it in constitutional language that would make Ron Paul weep with joy. Slavery.
There is very little that is noble or worthy of commemoration there. But again, aside from people living today who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the admitted motivation of secession by those who did it, I harbor no ill will towards "Southerners" in general. How could I? I'm a conservative Republican for goodness sake! The South--which has "risen again" as a bulwark of American conservatism--has been a key factor in every Republican victory since Reagan.
I could no sooner despise the South today than a liberal Democrat could criticize Berkeley, California... |
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Culfy
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
United Kingdom
113 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 05:09:13 AM
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Apparently, I'm Che Guevra. Gotta be said, I think I'd look pretty good on t-shirts.
And I'm also Raiders of the Lost Ark for some reason.
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Notes from a small cavy
www.culfy.blogspot.com |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 06:02:25 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Culfy
Apparently, I'm Che Guevra. Gotta be said, I think I'd look pretty good on t-shirts.
Every time I see someone wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, I ask "Why not a Hitler T-shirt?" |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 06:36:01 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by New Hinda
Every time I see someone wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, I ask "Why not a Hitler T-shirt?"
Oh c'mon, Che was, like, all romantic and he rode his motorcycle around n stuff and he was, like, this hotty.
That's what the movie trailer said, anyway.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
Edited by - Sardu on 09/06/2007 06:36:29 AM |
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