It was a miraculous instance of wrong decision. Like Midway, it was a turning point. Lee should never have crossed the Potomac.
I have stood on that spot looking at the federal lines and wondered. I still wonder.
“What is over there that I want to risk half my army to get?” It’s a long way across there and those guys have guns. If I capture that position, what do I have? The guide explained it to me but the logic, to this day, escapes me.
I think the Lord had decided that it was about time to end this.
Of course, it went on a long time, but the outcome was decided. The brother of one of Elvera’s ancestors died at Antietam. Just a kid.
I am almost finished the third book in John Jake’s “North and South” trilogy. I realize that it is fiction, but feel like I got a better insight into the issues and feelings on both sides. Also all of the shenanigans going on, on both sides.
My what differing perspectives we have based on geography alone. 🙂
Southerners refer to it as “The War of Northern Aggression.”
Northerners refer to it as “The War to Free the Slaves.”
Personally, and as someone from the winning side, don’t you southerners think it’s time to let it go? It was 150 years ago for cryin’ out loud. We won. You lost. Isn’t it time to move on and stop holding a grudge for something none of us on either side, had a hand in?
AJ, How can we let it go when we are now asked to choose between two of the foulest Yankees to rule over us? Our current predicament is just the type of thing my ancestors died trying to prevent.
It was fought over the economics. The South was sending cotton to England bypassing Northern mills.
1. Slavery was not a sustainable economic model with the Industrial Revolution knocking at the door.
2. The South would have been so much better off had Lincoln lived.
3. We won’t forget because of Reconstruction
“How can we let it go when we are now asked to choose between two of the foulest Yankees to rule over us?”
Settle down Yosemite Sam. 🙂
Trump is certainly a Yankee, I’ll give you that. But he’s the NY born and raised type, the least favorite kind, of even other non-NY Yankees.
But hey, don’t blame us for the carpetbagging Hillary. The South has been her greatest enabler. Your fellow southerners gave her and Bill their start in politics. The South also contributed greatly to their rise to power over decades. Were it not for Bill, a Southerner, most of us would never have known her name. They earned their sleazy reputation in Southern politics. Voters in the South continued to ignore the crime and graft, and kept re-electing him Gov. (If they hadn’t, nobody around here would known their names) All the while Hillary rode along. Sorry, the South owns the Clintons.
Arkansas supported his bid for presidency to get him out of the state. They figured congress would be able to control him a little better. Goes to show. Alabama currently has the most disgraceful governor. Other than a pedophile he is the worst kind of perv. Old, clueless, and hiding behind his religion.
Most of the state would do most anything to send him back to whatever slime pit he crawled out of.
Below I’m posting a link to a study of documents related to the cause of the war. It looks at all the states that seceded, but 4 states a little closer- SC, GA., Texas, and Miss.. In only one, were economic reasons even on the chart (GA). In all but one, SC (20%), an examination shows slavery to be the majority reason, with between 54% (TX) and 73%. (Miss)
Unless you want to make the argument that some slavery issues were economic so the % should be higher, the first statement isn’t accurate.
Now your 1. On this I agree, but with the note that it was still the largest reason the South cited. While it was unsustainable, the South was fighting to keep the barbaric practice.
2. Agree. I think everyone would have been better off, especially Lincoln. 🙂
3. I can see the reason Southerners would feel that way. It was very bad for the South. But 150 years later, isn’t it time to let that go? None of us had a hand in it. We didn’t put that on the South, and today’s Southerners aren’t being subjected to it any longer. While you could certainly argue that some effects are still being felt, it’s not the type of personal loss felt by those suffering thru it at the time. A grudge held at that point in time is certainly understandable, but still not a good idea for the person holding it. For those people’s descendants to still hold one today against people that had nothing to do with it, based only on geographical location, is a fruitless and pointless endeavor that harms no one but themselves.
“The root cause of the American Civil War is perhaps the most controversial topic in American history. Even before the war was over, scholars in the North and South began to analyze and interpret the reasons behind the bloodshed.
The scholars immediately disagreed over the causes of the war and disagreement persists today. Many maintain that the primary cause of the war was the Southern states’ desire to preserve the institution of slavery. Others minimize slavery and point to other factors, such as taxation or the principle of States’ Rights.
In 2011, at the outset of the sesquicentennial, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were significantly divided on the issue, with 48% saying the war was “mainly about states’ rights,” 38% saying the war was “mainly about slavery,” with the remainder answering “both equally” or “neither/don’t know.”
One method by which to analyze this historical conflict is to focus on primary sources. Every state in the Confederacy issued an “Article of Secession” declaring their break from the Union. Four states went further. Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all issued additional documents, usually referred to as the “Declarations of Causes,” which explain their decision to leave the Union. The documents can be found in their entirety here.
Two major themes emerge in these documents: slavery and states’ rights. All four states strongly defend slavery while making varying claims related to states’ rights. Other grievances, such as economic exploitation and the role of the military, receive limited attention in some of the documents. This article will present, in detail, everything that was said in the Declarations of Causes pertaining to these topics.”
——————————————–
Another good link for lots of facts on battles, casualties, and more.
If Southerners are allowed to still be cross at Yankees about Reconstruction, then they should have no problem with blacks still being cross at whites for slavery.
A liberal friend made the point (just putting it here for your consideration & comment) that one who displays a confederate flag, which represents rebellion against the Union, should not have a problem with someone not standing for the national anthem.
“If Southerners are allowed to still be cross at Yankees about Reconstruction, then they should have no problem with blacks still being cross at whites for slavery.”
Exactly. In both cases, slavery and Yankees, get over it already. It didn’t effect you, and you’re not a victim of it.
AJ, The War still has lingering effects. If Reconstruction hasn’t have been so bad on the South, perhaps we wouldn’t have had the rise of the KKK or other racist groups. The South was already a defeated people. Reconstruction “rubbed salt” in the wound. Other countries around the world managed to do away with slavery without a war and without the lingering effects the US has today.
We are still somewhat discriminated against. Who is the LAST group of people that it is acceptable to make fun of. Have you ever experienced someone deducting IQ points when they hear your accent? I have.
Have you ever had some clever person from another area of the country ask you if you wear shoes? I have
Have you ever had anyone ask if you have indoor plumbing? I have.
I am by no means putting these occurrences in the same category of REAL discrimination but after a while the joke gets old.
I usually fall back on telling everyone my people were starving to death in Ireland when you people fought that war except
1. The dates of the Irish Potato Famine don’t line up
2. My dad informed me I had relatives die as prisoners of war
3. I have seen a great grandparents grave marker provided by the Sons of the Confederacy
Then my point would be for the Blacks to get over slavery. No one alive today was a slave or owned a slave. My people didn’t own any.
The worst thing to enslave black people in the last century was Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. It pretty much forced black men out of the home.
I have not read all the posts, but being from the south, I will just call it the Bloody Horrible War. It was horrible all the way around. I always feel sad at the mention of it.
Re “why don’t you just get over it all already,” as others have already said, the effects live on. For the record, I’m actually reading a book about the early Ku Klux Klan (at the time the book was written, the KKK had disbanded and was no more, so it was written as the history of a defunct organization). From that one standpoint, indeed the KKK would never have existed, or never have been more than the play-acting organization of young men it started out as, if the South hadn’t been put under intolerable reconstruction. The South was electing governors and the federal government was sending in northerners to replace them. Anyone who fought in the war was considered a traitor and his voting privileges were revoked. There were unjust taxes, removal of basic constitutional rights. A Senator would be elected but wouldn’t be allowed to serve. The North fought to keep the South in the Union against its will (and unconstitutionally), and then once the North won a reprehensible war, the North was the ones keeping the South from being part of the Union.
The basic truth is this: The U.S. was created with the federal government limited. If a state wanted to have laws against abortion, homosexual marriage, first cousins marrying, alcoholic beverages, etc., it had every right to make such laws. If a state decided to secede from the voluntary union, it had every legal right to do so–that right was well recognized. Because the federal government refused to recognize the Southern states’ right to secede, the constitution crumbled, and the federal government has been usurping the rights of states ever since.
Slavery was a secondary issue. To be honest, as bad as slavery was (and it was), the U.S.A. simply had no moral right to fight a war over it. (But Lincoln said it was fought to preserve the Union, and he is the one who decided to go to war.) It is the exact moral equivalent of Canada invading the U.S.A. to force us to do away with abortion. One sovereign nation cannot invade another to force it to change its laws–and the C.S.A. was a sovereign nation. I’m not going to get into the debate over whether it was or was not a war over slavery, or to what extent. Even granting that it was does not give the federal government the moral high ground. The South had the legal right to secede, period, and chose to do so.
The fact that the federal government settled it by war, and then further brutalized and terrorized the peoples it had unjustly conquered is still a huge black mark on our national history. And it has ongoing repercussions. Today, few states even try to dig in their heels and demand their constitutional rights to make and enforce their own laws, and there have been no serious attempts at further secession. And we have ongoing, serious racial problems in this country, most definitely including an out-of-wedlock black birth rate that is unsustainable and that is largely due to the federal government seriously bungling on racial issues. (You can’t intentionally destroy all the property of white landowners and then expect newly freed slaves to be able to work, and you cannot offer financial incentives for women to have babies without male involvement in raising those babies.)
Those who will not learn from history are doomed to continue to reap its rotten fruits. If we can learn lessons from Nazi Germany, then surely we can also learn lessons from the overreach of an unjust war on our own soil. I’m sure that many in Germany wish we would just forget about Hitler, and many in the North wish we would just forget about Lincoln. But both are wrong to wish we would forget, or to forget themselves.
He got more write-in votes in the Democratic primary ballot (unsolicited) and thus is on the November ballot for the Democrats, even though he is still a registered Republican.
” Anyone who fought in the war was considered a traitor and his voting privileges were revoked.”
Because like it or not, they were traitors.
I would mostly agree that it destroyed a lot of states rights, and continues to be used by the feds in such a way.
————————–
“Slavery was a secondary issue. To be honest, as bad as slavery was (and it was), the U.S.A. simply had no moral right to fight a war over it.”
As I showed above, by their own writing on their reasons for secession, slavery was the primary motivator for many states. They said so themselves. While some seek to minimize these facts now, it doesn’t change what was the motivating factor at the time.
I would say anyone who thinks there’s no moral reason to fight a war, if necessary, and it was, to end the enslavement of our fellow human beings, then what moral right do you have to claim the moral high ground on states rights? If basic human rights mean so little to them, they don’t really get to whine about states rights. And this wasn’t another country stepping in, so your Canada analogy doesn’t really work here.
————————–
No one said forget history, but it’s time to let go of the animosity toward people that had nothing to do with it, by people who weren’t effected personally by it. There are many lessons that should be learned by both sides here. But the south just wants to continue to play the victim. Like was said above, if blacks are supposed to move on and get over it, then white southerners need to do the same.
Sadly much of the rest that you wrote comes down to two of the basic truths of war. One, don’t start fights you can’t win. And two, to the victor go the spoils. It’s sad, it is and was brutal, but such is war.
Very few southerners have animosity toward northerners–northern beliefs, yes, but not northerners themselves.
The reasons for secession and the reasons for the war were two different things. The South did not start the war; rather, some Southern states withdrew from the union and began a new nation, the Confederate States of America, which they were legally permitted to do. Their reasons were probably mixed, but irrelevant in the question of whether they could legally leave the union–they could. The South did not want war, but freedom. The case for the South withdrawing is MUCH stronger than the case for the U.S. leaving England–the South could withdraw legally, whereas the U.S. withdrew rebelliously. (Right or wrong in spite of it being illegal is beyond my ability to discern, but I have no hesitation at all in saying the South’s move was legal.)
Since Lincoln is the one who began the war, his reason for starting it is the relevant factor in terms of the war itself. He did not start the war to free the slaves–in his own words he didn’t care about that–but to preserve the union. The North had financial reasons to want the South to stay in, as the South had financial reasons to want to get out. Since the C.S.A. had legally severed their ties with the federal government and begun their own legitimate government, invading them was indeed similar to Canada invading the U.S.–or like a father going after his 30-year-old daughter who married against his wishes to take her back “home” again.
It is perfectly legitimate for black people to acknowledge that slavery was a great evil,and for Jews to acknowledge that the Holocaust was a great evil, and so forth. Those are genuine parts of history. Acknowledging the evil is different from “playing the victim”; one can be done without the other. Nothing about the South suggests a people who go around wanting to be pitied and wanting others to take care of them to make it up to them. But acknowledging the evil done–and stopping it from continuing–wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. (“States rights,” for example, are a legitimate constitutional issue.)
It would probably be a good idea for you to read some U.S. history written from the Southern point of view to give you a better understanding of some of this. It’s really pretty eye-opening.
Cheryl is very correct when she said States Rights are still a legitimate issue.
1. Abortion was illegal in Texas and other states until the federal Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade forced all the states to allow infanticide.
2. Prayer was allowed in Southern schools until the Yankee court said stop.
3. The practice of perversion was illegal in Texas and Southern states until the US court made it legal.
4. Perverted marriage was not permitted in the South until the Yankee court required all Southern states to depart from God’s law.
The Northern victory in the War led directly to a virtual abolition of States Rights and the imposition of the dominant secular culture of the North on the Southern Bible Belt.
I am watching Ivanka Trump promise federal child care help to an audience in Pennsylvania. She is a pretty Yankee, but she is just as liberal as Hillary (the mother of her buddy, Chelsea). She and her brothers couldn’t vote for the lunatic in the primary because they were registered Democrats. Do we think Trump will listen to Pence and Ben Carson or to his own liberal kids?
“The South did not start the war; rather, some Southern states withdrew from the union and began a new nation, the Confederate States of America, which they were legally permitted to do. ”
Were they? It doesn’t appear that’s true. To many, and some Supreme Court justices, they did not have legal standing to do so. And by the very act of doing so, they themselves brought what followed upon themselves for what the federal govt. saw as an act of rebellion. (see Article 1, Section 10).
“The arguments against legal secession are generally based on both a historical concept of the Union and the language of the Constitution itself. In the Texas v. White decision, Chase began his legal challenge to secession with a historical discussion of the Union. He suggested that the Union predated the states and grew from a common kindred spirit during the years leading to the American War for Independence. This “one people” mentality was best articulated by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.
Story, who channeled John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, reasoned that the Constitution was framed and ratified by the people at large, not the people of an individual state and thus held the same legal position of a state itself formed from many counties. “The constitution of a confederated republic, that is, of a national republic, formed of several states, is, or at least may be, not less an irrevocable form of government, than the constitution of a state formed and ratified by the aggregate of the several counties of the state.” In one sentence, Story reduced the states to the status of a county, shire, or province, and this general argument was used as a hammer both during Reconstruction and after against the sovereignty of the states.
Story additionally concluded, as did Chase in 1869, that the term “perpetual” found in the Articles of Confederation, deemed the Union indissoluble. Chase surmised that the Constitution simply made the Union “more perfect” while Story suggested that the Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation but did not change the permanent and “perpetual” nature of the Union. Story defended his position with the “Supremacy Clause” found in Article VI, which states that all laws or treaties made “in pursuance of the Constitution” were the “supreme law of the land,” and he pointed to the letter sent by the Philadelphia Convention accompanying the Constitution to the state ratifying conventions that the Constitution aimed at a “consolidation of the Union.” Hence, to Story and Chase, the Union continued to exist in an altered—i.e. consolidated—form and could not be dissolved.
Another argument against secession centers on the language of Article I, Section 10, which declares that “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….” To proponents of this position, Article I, Section 10 unequivocally shows that the states which formed the Confederate States of America were in clear violation of the Constitution, thus invalidating their government and the individual acts of secession which led to it. Abraham Lincoln indirectly defended this position by declaring the seceding states were in “rebellion” and therefore still members of the Union. The Constitution, then, was still legally enforceable in those states, including Article I, Section 10.
Finally, some will concede that the original thirteen states may have an argument for secession due to the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson’s language establishing thirteen “free and independent states.” But the other thirty-seven, formed at least in part through the common territory of the United States, have no claim to secession. They were not states until Congress granted them statehood and consequently never constituted a sovereign legal entity, Texas and Hawaii to the contrary (though even Chase suggested that Texas lost its sovereignty when it joined the Union in 1845).”
“These arguments seem like a fairly strong case against secession. Three Supreme Court justices, one famous president, a bloody war, and the language of a modern pledge of allegiance offer conclusive proof that secession, while an entertaining philosophical exercise, has no legal basis. Their various opinions and conclusions, however, all have gaping holes.”
————————————-
AJ, The reason that the Yankees did not try Jeff Davis for treason is that they were afraid that the post-war US Supreme Court would rule that Davis and the South acted legally and that the Yankee government killed 600,000 soldiers and starved countless civilians in the prosecution of an illegal war.
The Yankees did hold Davis in horrible conditions (often blindfolded) for two years. The Pope fashioned a crown of thorns and sent it to Davis as a tribute to his unjust suffering.
AJ, after the Revolutionary War, do you really think any state would have signed on to a union that they couldn’t leave no matter what? I don’t think so. Consider it: Logically, your marriage to your wife is temporary, ended by the death of one of you. Fifty-year marriages are common among people married at twenty, but each decade after that is rare. But if the states cannot secede, ever, no matter what, we are consigning our descendants one thousand years from now under the authority of whatever government remains, however barbaric.If the states vote that no state with an “a” in its name can send Senators to Washington, those “a” states can’t protest “no taxation without representation” because the federal government has all the rights, the states none? No. The people would never have stood for such an idea.
I don’t believe they would have done that, especially with the Revolutionary War still echoing. Further, they didn’t do so. I’ve seen the evidence in terms of writings, constitutions specifically retaining the right to secede, and so forth. And if we have no right to secede, we have no ultimate recourse against an unjust government.
The idea that citizens of a state that was voluntarily united with other states joining with fellow citizens to battle for their state, and then being branded traitors for doing so, should stick in anyone’s craw. The states were supposed to have more power than the loose federal government; a few specific rights were granted to the federal government, and all others were kept for the states. To the best of my knowledge, the states did not give the federal government the authority to decide whether or not their citizens had voting rights. And those who ratified the second amendment would never have said the citizens did not have the right to take up arms in self-defense if the federal government invaded private land.
Once again, where we stand today, with a federal government that constantly tramples the rights of the states, is rooted in that bloody war, and in the power the federal government usurped.
AJ, are you saying it’s acceptable for the federal government to declare a whole class of citizens “traitors” and strip them of citizenship rights (right to vote) without trial? Could the government legitimately say “Anyone who has membership in a church is hereby declared a traitor to the state, and loses their right to property and voting rights”?
Basically, all the healthy adult males were stripped of citizenship rights without trial, and women didn’t have the right to vote. So in effect the state no longer had citizens . . . it was no longer part of the union.
AJ, I know how hard it is to see past “the things we have always been taught,” but think this one through. The federal government was never given the absolute power it took upon itself. And the government we see today is a direct reflection of the power grab then. The difference is, today we’ve been lulled into thinking it’s normal since it has been gradual; then, they saw starkly how unconstitutional it was, and fought to the death to say “no.” Then, utterly defeated heroes were told “Sorry, your own chosen country, the CSA, is no more, but you have been stripped of citizenship in the USA. You are a man without a country, and we’ll do what we want with your property.” Yeah, that galls.
There is a recourse, but as demonstrated, it’s a bloody, painful route. Especially when you are unsuccessful. When you openly rebel, you must deal with the consequences. That should have been learned from the Revolutionary War, but obviously some missed that and thought this would be different.
While I agree with much of what you say about an overreaching federal govt, the courts have ruled on many of these matters and found the states arguments lacking. The control the feds have in many cases came via the courts and while I disagree, is the law of the land. The proper recourse is at the ballot box where you elect people to legislate to change laws and place like minded judges.
And I find a certain irony in the fact that many Never Trumpers who worry about an overreaching fed govt. are happy to sit on the sidelines while a person is elected who will ensure a Supreme Court that will undoubtedly push states rights even further away. If you want states rights, then the only hope for that to possibly happen is Trump. The next president will ensure the direction the courts move for decades. The further away we get, the less likely we’ll ever get back to even where we are now. With Clinton picking the nominees, there’s no hope of ever getting back. In my mind, the SC is the single biggest reason to vote Trump.
And yes, I think when you take up arms against your country and act in open rebellion, you should lose your right to vote. That’s a lot more serious than today’s felonies, which also do so.
And yes, you can also expect the rest of the country to label you a traitor. That’s the very definition of one, so it makes sense.
AJ, they didn’t take up arms against their country. They were citizens of their individual states and of the CSA, both of which called them to go to war–because the USA chose to fought against their right to secede. If you lock your daughter in her bedroom and refuse to let her marry, even when she is 50 years old, would she be a “traitor” if she forced her way out someday?
Sorry, but the right to have one of many millions of votes (which may or may not even be counted fairly) doesn’t come anywhere close to the right to secede. Think of it this way: Biblically, we have no right to divorce except under the most extreme circumstances. But you’re saying that constitutionally, we have no right to state “divorce” ever, no matter what? Marriage, the strongest covenant there is, is ended by death or (in extreme cases) by divorce–but the union of states is so strong that generations of deaths cannot break it, and neither can the people choose to break it through divorce (secession), no matter what? No bond should ever be that strong, and ours was not meant to be that strong.
If some section of California ever says, “We don’t want to be associated with this state anymore, but we want to create our own new state. The state is too big and too liberal, our votes are worthless, our taxes go for things we consider immoral” and they follow legal guidelines to withdraw, but the rest of California decides to take up arms and make them stay . . . what part of the legal action to leave makes them traitors? Or is it maybe the rest of the state that is in the wrong?
AJ, with irony, I note the last few sentences of the interview to which Michelle just linked:
“But such faith as I have rests on America’s fundamental diversity. Ever since Roger Williams led his flock out of Massachusetts to found Rhode Island, Americans have dealt with cultural differences by sorting themselves out into congenial groups. Of course there is an element of secession in this. The good news is that if the good guys get up the guts to go their way, today’s bad guys don’t have the guts to stop them.”
Wandering Views 
Had a chuckle reading last night’s posts when Rickyweaver referred to “The War” and I knew exactly which one he meant.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Of course “The War” is really just an abbreviation for The War of Northern Aggression.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are born with the memory….
LikeLiked by 1 person
For every Southern boy …
http://www.nellaware.com/blog/william-faulkners-picketts-charge-quote.html
LikeLike
It was a miraculous instance of wrong decision. Like Midway, it was a turning point. Lee should never have crossed the Potomac.
I have stood on that spot looking at the federal lines and wondered. I still wonder.
“What is over there that I want to risk half my army to get?” It’s a long way across there and those guys have guns. If I capture that position, what do I have? The guide explained it to me but the logic, to this day, escapes me.
I think the Lord had decided that it was about time to end this.
Of course, it went on a long time, but the outcome was decided. The brother of one of Elvera’s ancestors died at Antietam. Just a kid.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am almost finished the third book in John Jake’s “North and South” trilogy. I realize that it is fiction, but feel like I got a better insight into the issues and feelings on both sides. Also all of the shenanigans going on, on both sides.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My what differing perspectives we have based on geography alone. 🙂
Southerners refer to it as “The War of Northern Aggression.”
Northerners refer to it as “The War to Free the Slaves.”
Personally, and as someone from the winning side, don’t you southerners think it’s time to let it go? It was 150 years ago for cryin’ out loud. We won. You lost. Isn’t it time to move on and stop holding a grudge for something none of us on either side, had a hand in?
Let. It. Go. Already. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oooh, dark forces are gathering now against AJ. Don’t let the silence fool you.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I just ordered the first book of the trilogy on Kindle, thanks for mentioning that Linda. Looks good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
AJ, How can we let it go when we are now asked to choose between two of the foulest Yankees to rule over us? Our current predicament is just the type of thing my ancestors died trying to prevent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
AJ, Capital “S” just as we capitalize the “Y”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was fought over the economics. The South was sending cotton to England bypassing Northern mills.
1. Slavery was not a sustainable economic model with the Industrial Revolution knocking at the door.
2. The South would have been so much better off had Lincoln lived.
3. We won’t forget because of Reconstruction
LikeLiked by 1 person
“How can we let it go when we are now asked to choose between two of the foulest Yankees to rule over us?”
Settle down Yosemite Sam. 🙂
Trump is certainly a Yankee, I’ll give you that. But he’s the NY born and raised type, the least favorite kind, of even other non-NY Yankees.
But hey, don’t blame us for the carpetbagging Hillary. The South has been her greatest enabler. Your fellow southerners gave her and Bill their start in politics. The South also contributed greatly to their rise to power over decades. Were it not for Bill, a Southerner, most of us would never have known her name. They earned their sleazy reputation in Southern politics. Voters in the South continued to ignore the crime and graft, and kept re-electing him Gov. (If they hadn’t, nobody around here would known their names) All the while Hillary rode along. Sorry, the South owns the Clintons.
LikeLike
Arkansas supported his bid for presidency to get him out of the state. They figured congress would be able to control him a little better. Goes to show. Alabama currently has the most disgraceful governor. Other than a pedophile he is the worst kind of perv. Old, clueless, and hiding behind his religion.
Most of the state would do most anything to send him back to whatever slime pit he crawled out of.
LikeLike
Kim,
Below I’m posting a link to a study of documents related to the cause of the war. It looks at all the states that seceded, but 4 states a little closer- SC, GA., Texas, and Miss.. In only one, were economic reasons even on the chart (GA). In all but one, SC (20%), an examination shows slavery to be the majority reason, with between 54% (TX) and 73%. (Miss)
Unless you want to make the argument that some slavery issues were economic so the % should be higher, the first statement isn’t accurate.
Now your 1. On this I agree, but with the note that it was still the largest reason the South cited. While it was unsustainable, the South was fighting to keep the barbaric practice.
2. Agree. I think everyone would have been better off, especially Lincoln. 🙂
3. I can see the reason Southerners would feel that way. It was very bad for the South. But 150 years later, isn’t it time to let that go? None of us had a hand in it. We didn’t put that on the South, and today’s Southerners aren’t being subjected to it any longer. While you could certainly argue that some effects are still being felt, it’s not the type of personal loss felt by those suffering thru it at the time. A grudge held at that point in time is certainly understandable, but still not a good idea for the person holding it. For those people’s descendants to still hold one today against people that had nothing to do with it, based only on geographical location, is a fruitless and pointless endeavor that harms no one but themselves.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/secession/
“The root cause of the American Civil War is perhaps the most controversial topic in American history. Even before the war was over, scholars in the North and South began to analyze and interpret the reasons behind the bloodshed.
The scholars immediately disagreed over the causes of the war and disagreement persists today. Many maintain that the primary cause of the war was the Southern states’ desire to preserve the institution of slavery. Others minimize slavery and point to other factors, such as taxation or the principle of States’ Rights.
In 2011, at the outset of the sesquicentennial, a Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were significantly divided on the issue, with 48% saying the war was “mainly about states’ rights,” 38% saying the war was “mainly about slavery,” with the remainder answering “both equally” or “neither/don’t know.”
One method by which to analyze this historical conflict is to focus on primary sources. Every state in the Confederacy issued an “Article of Secession” declaring their break from the Union. Four states went further. Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all issued additional documents, usually referred to as the “Declarations of Causes,” which explain their decision to leave the Union. The documents can be found in their entirety here.
Two major themes emerge in these documents: slavery and states’ rights. All four states strongly defend slavery while making varying claims related to states’ rights. Other grievances, such as economic exploitation and the role of the military, receive limited attention in some of the documents. This article will present, in detail, everything that was said in the Declarations of Causes pertaining to these topics.”
——————————————–
Another good link for lots of facts on battles, casualties, and more.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/faq/?referrer=https://www.google.com/
LikeLiked by 1 person
If Southerners are allowed to still be cross at Yankees about Reconstruction, then they should have no problem with blacks still being cross at whites for slavery.
A liberal friend made the point (just putting it here for your consideration & comment) that one who displays a confederate flag, which represents rebellion against the Union, should not have a problem with someone not standing for the national anthem.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Btw, my comment above was not meant to sound as harsh as it may sound. I meant to put a smiley face after the first paragraph. 🙂
LikeLike
Here’s a deeper look at the reasons listed for secession.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html?referrer=http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/secession/
LikeLike
Karen,
“If Southerners are allowed to still be cross at Yankees about Reconstruction, then they should have no problem with blacks still being cross at whites for slavery.”
Exactly. In both cases, slavery and Yankees, get over it already. It didn’t effect you, and you’re not a victim of it.
And on your friends comment, point taken.
LikeLike
AJ, The War still has lingering effects. If Reconstruction hasn’t have been so bad on the South, perhaps we wouldn’t have had the rise of the KKK or other racist groups. The South was already a defeated people. Reconstruction “rubbed salt” in the wound. Other countries around the world managed to do away with slavery without a war and without the lingering effects the US has today.
We are still somewhat discriminated against. Who is the LAST group of people that it is acceptable to make fun of. Have you ever experienced someone deducting IQ points when they hear your accent? I have.
Have you ever had some clever person from another area of the country ask you if you wear shoes? I have
Have you ever had anyone ask if you have indoor plumbing? I have.
I am by no means putting these occurrences in the same category of REAL discrimination but after a while the joke gets old.
I usually fall back on telling everyone my people were starving to death in Ireland when you people fought that war except
1. The dates of the Irish Potato Famine don’t line up
2. My dad informed me I had relatives die as prisoners of war
3. I have seen a great grandparents grave marker provided by the Sons of the Confederacy
LikeLike
Then my point would be for the Blacks to get over slavery. No one alive today was a slave or owned a slave. My people didn’t own any.
The worst thing to enslave black people in the last century was Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. It pretty much forced black men out of the home.
LikeLike
Kim – Just as you say that Reconstruction has lingering effects, so does slavery & its aftereffects.
LikeLike
http://ijr.com/opinion/2016/09/260018-protected-hillary-clinton-secret-service-heres-noticed-fainting-video/?utm_campaign=ods&utm_content=journal&utm_medium=owned&utm_source=facebook&utm_term=ijamerica
LikeLike
Why have other countries moved on then and we haven’t?
LikeLike
I have not read all the posts, but being from the south, I will just call it the Bloody Horrible War. It was horrible all the way around. I always feel sad at the mention of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is a very good question, Kim.
LikeLike
Did anyone harass the navy when Bush was president?
Don’t rightly recall any.
LikeLike
Seriously. The next president, whomever, will be immediately and seriously tested.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is all giving me the urge to go drag my ancestor’s Civil War (union) rifle out of the back bedroom.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Re “why don’t you just get over it all already,” as others have already said, the effects live on. For the record, I’m actually reading a book about the early Ku Klux Klan (at the time the book was written, the KKK had disbanded and was no more, so it was written as the history of a defunct organization). From that one standpoint, indeed the KKK would never have existed, or never have been more than the play-acting organization of young men it started out as, if the South hadn’t been put under intolerable reconstruction. The South was electing governors and the federal government was sending in northerners to replace them. Anyone who fought in the war was considered a traitor and his voting privileges were revoked. There were unjust taxes, removal of basic constitutional rights. A Senator would be elected but wouldn’t be allowed to serve. The North fought to keep the South in the Union against its will (and unconstitutionally), and then once the North won a reprehensible war, the North was the ones keeping the South from being part of the Union.
The basic truth is this: The U.S. was created with the federal government limited. If a state wanted to have laws against abortion, homosexual marriage, first cousins marrying, alcoholic beverages, etc., it had every right to make such laws. If a state decided to secede from the voluntary union, it had every legal right to do so–that right was well recognized. Because the federal government refused to recognize the Southern states’ right to secede, the constitution crumbled, and the federal government has been usurping the rights of states ever since.
Slavery was a secondary issue. To be honest, as bad as slavery was (and it was), the U.S.A. simply had no moral right to fight a war over it. (But Lincoln said it was fought to preserve the Union, and he is the one who decided to go to war.) It is the exact moral equivalent of Canada invading the U.S.A. to force us to do away with abortion. One sovereign nation cannot invade another to force it to change its laws–and the C.S.A. was a sovereign nation. I’m not going to get into the debate over whether it was or was not a war over slavery, or to what extent. Even granting that it was does not give the federal government the moral high ground. The South had the legal right to secede, period, and chose to do so.
The fact that the federal government settled it by war, and then further brutalized and terrorized the peoples it had unjustly conquered is still a huge black mark on our national history. And it has ongoing repercussions. Today, few states even try to dig in their heels and demand their constitutional rights to make and enforce their own laws, and there have been no serious attempts at further secession. And we have ongoing, serious racial problems in this country, most definitely including an out-of-wedlock black birth rate that is unsustainable and that is largely due to the federal government seriously bungling on racial issues. (You can’t intentionally destroy all the property of white landowners and then expect newly freed slaves to be able to work, and you cannot offer financial incentives for women to have babies without male involvement in raising those babies.)
Those who will not learn from history are doomed to continue to reap its rotten fruits. If we can learn lessons from Nazi Germany, then surely we can also learn lessons from the overreach of an unjust war on our own soil. I’m sure that many in Germany wish we would just forget about Hitler, and many in the North wish we would just forget about Lincoln. But both are wrong to wish we would forget, or to forget themselves.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I know Trumpkins are big on birth certificates. Check Hillary’s birth certificate. She is a Yankee.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And here you go, Halvorson is the brother-in-law of a friend and a good guy: http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/295685-local-gop-committee-members-line-up-behind-shuster-challenger
He got more write-in votes in the Democratic primary ballot (unsolicited) and thus is on the November ballot for the Democrats, even though he is still a registered Republican.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheryl,
” Anyone who fought in the war was considered a traitor and his voting privileges were revoked.”
Because like it or not, they were traitors.
I would mostly agree that it destroyed a lot of states rights, and continues to be used by the feds in such a way.
————————–
“Slavery was a secondary issue. To be honest, as bad as slavery was (and it was), the U.S.A. simply had no moral right to fight a war over it.”
As I showed above, by their own writing on their reasons for secession, slavery was the primary motivator for many states. They said so themselves. While some seek to minimize these facts now, it doesn’t change what was the motivating factor at the time.
I would say anyone who thinks there’s no moral reason to fight a war, if necessary, and it was, to end the enslavement of our fellow human beings, then what moral right do you have to claim the moral high ground on states rights? If basic human rights mean so little to them, they don’t really get to whine about states rights. And this wasn’t another country stepping in, so your Canada analogy doesn’t really work here.
————————–
No one said forget history, but it’s time to let go of the animosity toward people that had nothing to do with it, by people who weren’t effected personally by it. There are many lessons that should be learned by both sides here. But the south just wants to continue to play the victim. Like was said above, if blacks are supposed to move on and get over it, then white southerners need to do the same.
Sadly much of the rest that you wrote comes down to two of the basic truths of war. One, don’t start fights you can’t win. And two, to the victor go the spoils. It’s sad, it is and was brutal, but such is war.
LikeLike
Donna,
You should send me a pic of that Union rifle. I’d love to see it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I will. And it’s a good week to ask for it since that room and closet are in my bullseye for cleaning and re-configuring.
LikeLike
AJ,
Very few southerners have animosity toward northerners–northern beliefs, yes, but not northerners themselves.
The reasons for secession and the reasons for the war were two different things. The South did not start the war; rather, some Southern states withdrew from the union and began a new nation, the Confederate States of America, which they were legally permitted to do. Their reasons were probably mixed, but irrelevant in the question of whether they could legally leave the union–they could. The South did not want war, but freedom. The case for the South withdrawing is MUCH stronger than the case for the U.S. leaving England–the South could withdraw legally, whereas the U.S. withdrew rebelliously. (Right or wrong in spite of it being illegal is beyond my ability to discern, but I have no hesitation at all in saying the South’s move was legal.)
Since Lincoln is the one who began the war, his reason for starting it is the relevant factor in terms of the war itself. He did not start the war to free the slaves–in his own words he didn’t care about that–but to preserve the union. The North had financial reasons to want the South to stay in, as the South had financial reasons to want to get out. Since the C.S.A. had legally severed their ties with the federal government and begun their own legitimate government, invading them was indeed similar to Canada invading the U.S.–or like a father going after his 30-year-old daughter who married against his wishes to take her back “home” again.
It is perfectly legitimate for black people to acknowledge that slavery was a great evil,and for Jews to acknowledge that the Holocaust was a great evil, and so forth. Those are genuine parts of history. Acknowledging the evil is different from “playing the victim”; one can be done without the other. Nothing about the South suggests a people who go around wanting to be pitied and wanting others to take care of them to make it up to them. But acknowledging the evil done–and stopping it from continuing–wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. (“States rights,” for example, are a legitimate constitutional issue.)
It would probably be a good idea for you to read some U.S. history written from the Southern point of view to give you a better understanding of some of this. It’s really pretty eye-opening.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cheryl is very correct when she said States Rights are still a legitimate issue.
1. Abortion was illegal in Texas and other states until the federal Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade forced all the states to allow infanticide.
2. Prayer was allowed in Southern schools until the Yankee court said stop.
3. The practice of perversion was illegal in Texas and Southern states until the US court made it legal.
4. Perverted marriage was not permitted in the South until the Yankee court required all Southern states to depart from God’s law.
The Northern victory in the War led directly to a virtual abolition of States Rights and the imposition of the dominant secular culture of the North on the Southern Bible Belt.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am watching Ivanka Trump promise federal child care help to an audience in Pennsylvania. She is a pretty Yankee, but she is just as liberal as Hillary (the mother of her buddy, Chelsea). She and her brothers couldn’t vote for the lunatic in the primary because they were registered Democrats. Do we think Trump will listen to Pence and Ben Carson or to his own liberal kids?
LikeLike
Cheryl,
“The South did not start the war; rather, some Southern states withdrew from the union and began a new nation, the Confederate States of America, which they were legally permitted to do. ”
Were they? It doesn’t appear that’s true. To many, and some Supreme Court justices, they did not have legal standing to do so. And by the very act of doing so, they themselves brought what followed upon themselves for what the federal govt. saw as an act of rebellion. (see Article 1, Section 10).
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-secession-legal/
“The arguments against legal secession are generally based on both a historical concept of the Union and the language of the Constitution itself. In the Texas v. White decision, Chase began his legal challenge to secession with a historical discussion of the Union. He suggested that the Union predated the states and grew from a common kindred spirit during the years leading to the American War for Independence. This “one people” mentality was best articulated by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his famous Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.
Story, who channeled John Marshall and Alexander Hamilton, reasoned that the Constitution was framed and ratified by the people at large, not the people of an individual state and thus held the same legal position of a state itself formed from many counties. “The constitution of a confederated republic, that is, of a national republic, formed of several states, is, or at least may be, not less an irrevocable form of government, than the constitution of a state formed and ratified by the aggregate of the several counties of the state.” In one sentence, Story reduced the states to the status of a county, shire, or province, and this general argument was used as a hammer both during Reconstruction and after against the sovereignty of the states.
Story additionally concluded, as did Chase in 1869, that the term “perpetual” found in the Articles of Confederation, deemed the Union indissoluble. Chase surmised that the Constitution simply made the Union “more perfect” while Story suggested that the Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation but did not change the permanent and “perpetual” nature of the Union. Story defended his position with the “Supremacy Clause” found in Article VI, which states that all laws or treaties made “in pursuance of the Constitution” were the “supreme law of the land,” and he pointed to the letter sent by the Philadelphia Convention accompanying the Constitution to the state ratifying conventions that the Constitution aimed at a “consolidation of the Union.” Hence, to Story and Chase, the Union continued to exist in an altered—i.e. consolidated—form and could not be dissolved.
Another argument against secession centers on the language of Article I, Section 10, which declares that “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation….” To proponents of this position, Article I, Section 10 unequivocally shows that the states which formed the Confederate States of America were in clear violation of the Constitution, thus invalidating their government and the individual acts of secession which led to it. Abraham Lincoln indirectly defended this position by declaring the seceding states were in “rebellion” and therefore still members of the Union. The Constitution, then, was still legally enforceable in those states, including Article I, Section 10.
Finally, some will concede that the original thirteen states may have an argument for secession due to the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson’s language establishing thirteen “free and independent states.” But the other thirty-seven, formed at least in part through the common territory of the United States, have no claim to secession. They were not states until Congress granted them statehood and consequently never constituted a sovereign legal entity, Texas and Hawaii to the contrary (though even Chase suggested that Texas lost its sovereignty when it joined the Union in 1845).”
“These arguments seem like a fairly strong case against secession. Three Supreme Court justices, one famous president, a bloody war, and the language of a modern pledge of allegiance offer conclusive proof that secession, while an entertaining philosophical exercise, has no legal basis. Their various opinions and conclusions, however, all have gaping holes.”
————————————-
LikeLike
AJ, The reason that the Yankees did not try Jeff Davis for treason is that they were afraid that the post-war US Supreme Court would rule that Davis and the South acted legally and that the Yankee government killed 600,000 soldiers and starved countless civilians in the prosecution of an illegal war.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Yankees did hold Davis in horrible conditions (often blindfolded) for two years. The Pope fashioned a crown of thorns and sent it to Davis as a tribute to his unjust suffering.
LikeLike
Kevin Williamson: Always honest.
https://twitter.com/kevinnr/status/775802600000139265
LikeLike
Matt Walsh also attacks the orange liberal:
LikeLike
AJ, after the Revolutionary War, do you really think any state would have signed on to a union that they couldn’t leave no matter what? I don’t think so. Consider it: Logically, your marriage to your wife is temporary, ended by the death of one of you. Fifty-year marriages are common among people married at twenty, but each decade after that is rare. But if the states cannot secede, ever, no matter what, we are consigning our descendants one thousand years from now under the authority of whatever government remains, however barbaric.If the states vote that no state with an “a” in its name can send Senators to Washington, those “a” states can’t protest “no taxation without representation” because the federal government has all the rights, the states none? No. The people would never have stood for such an idea.
I don’t believe they would have done that, especially with the Revolutionary War still echoing. Further, they didn’t do so. I’ve seen the evidence in terms of writings, constitutions specifically retaining the right to secede, and so forth. And if we have no right to secede, we have no ultimate recourse against an unjust government.
The idea that citizens of a state that was voluntarily united with other states joining with fellow citizens to battle for their state, and then being branded traitors for doing so, should stick in anyone’s craw. The states were supposed to have more power than the loose federal government; a few specific rights were granted to the federal government, and all others were kept for the states. To the best of my knowledge, the states did not give the federal government the authority to decide whether or not their citizens had voting rights. And those who ratified the second amendment would never have said the citizens did not have the right to take up arms in self-defense if the federal government invaded private land.
Once again, where we stand today, with a federal government that constantly tramples the rights of the states, is rooted in that bloody war, and in the power the federal government usurped.
LikeLiked by 2 people
AJ, are you saying it’s acceptable for the federal government to declare a whole class of citizens “traitors” and strip them of citizenship rights (right to vote) without trial? Could the government legitimately say “Anyone who has membership in a church is hereby declared a traitor to the state, and loses their right to property and voting rights”?
Basically, all the healthy adult males were stripped of citizenship rights without trial, and women didn’t have the right to vote. So in effect the state no longer had citizens . . . it was no longer part of the union.
AJ, I know how hard it is to see past “the things we have always been taught,” but think this one through. The federal government was never given the absolute power it took upon itself. And the government we see today is a direct reflection of the power grab then. The difference is, today we’ve been lulled into thinking it’s normal since it has been gradual; then, they saw starkly how unconstitutional it was, and fought to the death to say “no.” Then, utterly defeated heroes were told “Sorry, your own chosen country, the CSA, is no more, but you have been stripped of citizenship in the USA. You are a man without a country, and we’ll do what we want with your property.” Yeah, that galls.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheryl,
There is a recourse, but as demonstrated, it’s a bloody, painful route. Especially when you are unsuccessful. When you openly rebel, you must deal with the consequences. That should have been learned from the Revolutionary War, but obviously some missed that and thought this would be different.
While I agree with much of what you say about an overreaching federal govt, the courts have ruled on many of these matters and found the states arguments lacking. The control the feds have in many cases came via the courts and while I disagree, is the law of the land. The proper recourse is at the ballot box where you elect people to legislate to change laws and place like minded judges.
And I find a certain irony in the fact that many Never Trumpers who worry about an overreaching fed govt. are happy to sit on the sidelines while a person is elected who will ensure a Supreme Court that will undoubtedly push states rights even further away. If you want states rights, then the only hope for that to possibly happen is Trump. The next president will ensure the direction the courts move for decades. The further away we get, the less likely we’ll ever get back to even where we are now. With Clinton picking the nominees, there’s no hope of ever getting back. In my mind, the SC is the single biggest reason to vote Trump.
LikeLike
Cheryl,
And yes, I think when you take up arms against your country and act in open rebellion, you should lose your right to vote. That’s a lot more serious than today’s felonies, which also do so.
And yes, you can also expect the rest of the country to label you a traitor. That’s the very definition of one, so it makes sense.
LikeLike
FYI, an explanation for Trump’s support:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439706/angelo-codevilla-donald-trump-supporters-are-standing-against-elites
LikeLike
AJ, they didn’t take up arms against their country. They were citizens of their individual states and of the CSA, both of which called them to go to war–because the USA chose to fought against their right to secede. If you lock your daughter in her bedroom and refuse to let her marry, even when she is 50 years old, would she be a “traitor” if she forced her way out someday?
Sorry, but the right to have one of many millions of votes (which may or may not even be counted fairly) doesn’t come anywhere close to the right to secede. Think of it this way: Biblically, we have no right to divorce except under the most extreme circumstances. But you’re saying that constitutionally, we have no right to state “divorce” ever, no matter what? Marriage, the strongest covenant there is, is ended by death or (in extreme cases) by divorce–but the union of states is so strong that generations of deaths cannot break it, and neither can the people choose to break it through divorce (secession), no matter what? No bond should ever be that strong, and ours was not meant to be that strong.
LikeLiked by 2 people
If some section of California ever says, “We don’t want to be associated with this state anymore, but we want to create our own new state. The state is too big and too liberal, our votes are worthless, our taxes go for things we consider immoral” and they follow legal guidelines to withdraw, but the rest of California decides to take up arms and make them stay . . . what part of the legal action to leave makes them traitors? Or is it maybe the rest of the state that is in the wrong?
LikeLiked by 2 people
AJ, with irony, I note the last few sentences of the interview to which Michelle just linked:
“But such faith as I have rests on America’s fundamental diversity. Ever since Roger Williams led his flock out of Massachusetts to found Rhode Island, Americans have dealt with cultural differences by sorting themselves out into congenial groups. Of course there is an element of secession in this. The good news is that if the good guys get up the guts to go their way, today’s bad guys don’t have the guts to stop them.”
LikeLiked by 1 person