Anniversary of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox

[SandSquid]

When the Georgia secession convention got together and came up with 11 amendments needed to be passed in order to stay in the USA, all 11 we're about protecting or expanding the institution of slavery....

0 about anything else.


But it wasn't about slavery?

 

[SandSquid]

When Tennessee came up with seven amendments and 22 complaints against the United States, and all seven amendments were about slavery and 19 of the 22 complaints were....

Slavery wasn't really their complaint?

 

[SandSquid]

When vice president of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens, a week after helping write their new Constitution, as the first federal official sworn in told the Confederacy...

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth"

He was saying that the foundation of the Confederacy was on something other than slavery?

 

[SandSquid]

When the Republicans announced their candidate for the election and Future President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis spoke to the Mississippi Senate saying...

"Whether by the House or by the People, if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies... such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect. In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safely outside the Union of those who have shown the will, and would have acquired the power, to deprive you of your birthright and reduce you to worse than the Colonial dependence of your fathers."

he wasn't saying that there should be a revolution if slavery was to be threatened?

 

[SandSquid]

When senator Benning of Georgia spoke in front of the Georgia legislature saying

"First then, it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections."

you are saying he was trying to say that slavery was only a little bit of the cause?

 

[SandSquid]

When the senior senator from South Carolina, Lawrence Keitt open his speech in front of the secession commission he said

"African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism."

But what you're saying is he meant slavery isn't really the big deal?

 

[martybegan]

Wait? Something called the Confederacy existed? I thought we weren't supposed to know that today. They were racist, sexist, homophobic, you know, Deplorables.

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

 

[SandSquid]

Wait? Something called the Confederacy existed? I thought we weren't supposed to know that today. They were racist, sexist, homophobic, you know, Deplorables.

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders, speeches of the secession commissioners sent to spread the word, writings of their leaders, and letters their leaders sent to DC of why they were attempting secession.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story:

We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well take that up with the founding fathers of the Confederacy who clearly stated over and over that it was.

Like Confederate General Morgan said in his camp newspaper "Now, any man who pretends to believe that this is not a war for the emancipation of the blacks is either a fool or a liar."


So yes, some think that starting a rebellion which killed hundreds of thousands of American men, women, and children, all for what they clearly stated was to protect and expand the institution of race based slavery is a bad thing.

 

[martybegan]

Wait? Something called the Confederacy existed? I thought we weren't supposed to know that today. They were racist, sexist, homophobic, you know, Deplorables.

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

 

[Pilot1]

If you know anything about the Civil War you know that slavery was but one issue. The other ones were trade tariffs and other tactics the North was using to exploit the South. They were squeezed until they could compromise no longer. It was not a single issue war.

 

[SandSquid]

If you know anything about the Civil War you know that slavery was but one issue. The other ones were trade tariffs and other tactics the North was using to exploit the South. They were squeezed until they could compromise no longer. It was not a single issue war.

Ahhh yes trade tariffs... While slavery was mentioned 46 times in the different states "Declarations of causes of the Seceding States, the issue of tariffs was mentioned.... ZERO. So revisionists like to write that in.

The fact is, that at the time of secession, the tariff in place was written by Robert MT Hunter (also famous for being the Sec of State of the Confederacy) and passed with a 100% vote by southern states which ended up later seceding and was among the lowest in US history.

Which is why no states mentioned it in those declarations of causes... Would be kinda dumb to say you are leaving for the tariff law you wrote and you got through Congress.

Now I am sure it makes more sense when you read for example the minutes of Georgia's secession convention where they mentioned the issue of slavery 214 times, and tariffs once... Not a complaint about US tariffs, but that if a new nation was founded, with their ports they could charge tariffs on other states.



It's kinda like the "states rights" bit. They didn't say states rights. They said right to have slaves returned to their state. They said right to expand slavery to new states. They said right to not have the fear that slavery would be taken from their state.

But instead we want to rewrite that as "states rights" because otherwise it sounds REALLY bad.

 

[SandSquid]

If you know anything about the Civil War you know that slavery was but one issue. The other ones were trade tariffs and other tactics the North was using to exploit the South. They were squeezed until they could compromise no longer. It was not a single issue war.

So can you tell me then, if tariffs were such a big issue, in their official Declaration of causes by the Seceding States did they not mention them?

Did they just kinda forget? Maybe it slipped their mind that they were forming a new country for this really major reason?

 

[SandSquid]

If you know anything about the Civil War you know that slavery was but one issue. The other ones were trade tariffs and other tactics the North was using to exploit the South. They were squeezed until they could compromise no longer. It was not a single issue war.

And yes they were squeezed until they couldn't compromise.... What on? Well lets hear from their own words.

Georgia

"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery....While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. "

Mississippi "a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union" Then goes on with about 20 instances of anti-slavery issues from the North they don't want to compromise on.

South Carolina "an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations... For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery"

Texas "In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law."

Louisiana "Louisiana supplies to Texas a market for her surplus wheat, grain and stock; both States have large areas of fertile, uncultivated lands, peculiarly adapted to slave labor; and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity"

Florida "But it has been announced by all the leading men and presses of the party that the ultimate accomplishment of this result is its settled purpose and great central principle. That no more slave States shall be admitted into the confederacy and that the slaves from their rapid increase (the highest evidence of the humanity of their owners will become value less. Nothing is more certain than this and at no distant day."

Arkansas "The area of slavery must be extended correlative with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the 'course of ultimate extinction.'....The extension of slavery is the vital point of the whole controversy between the North and the South..."



I think I see why you like just saying "squeezed until they could compromise no more" and not include "on the issue of protecting and expanding race based slavery" behind it.


It is interesting that it seems those who warn the most about "forgetting history" if we move a monument to a museum, tend to know the least about it and want to rewrite it the most.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The South never had a chance at winning the war. The best they could do was to force the Yankees into a truce that would allow them to leave the relatively young United States. Lee's failure at Gettysburg and Grant's willingness to murder Southern civilians to achieve a victory doomed the South. Historians tend to drool over Lincoln's legacy and claim that he "preserved the Union" but the Union actually fell apart under his watch and he foolishly thought he could defeat the South in a couple of months.

"Grant's willingness to murder Southern civilians to achieve a victory doomed the South."


how evil!

isn't it interesting that when WE do it to others we defend it by saying "it had to be done" or "things happen in war" or "we were just following orders"....

but when the bad guys do it to US we are OUTRAGED!

"THIS PROVES HOW EVIL OUR ENEMIES ARE!"

Hey, dumbass. There's a difference between unintended civilian casualties and deliberate targeting of civilians. The latter is NOT an accepted policy of our military, it can and will be prosecuted as a war crime, and "following orders" is explicitly rejected by our military as an acceptable defense.

So thanks for sharing your "outrage" about what you mistakenly imagine the truth to be. Par for the course for your inferior brain.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The South never had a chance at winning the war. The best they could do was to force the Yankees into a truce that would allow them to leave the relatively young United States. Lee's failure at Gettysburg and Grant's willingness to murder Southern civilians to achieve a victory doomed the South. Historians tend to drool over Lincoln's legacy and claim that he "preserved the Union" but the Union actually fell apart under his watch and he foolishly thought he could defeat the South in a couple of months.

Do you have backup for the whole "murdering civilians" things coming from Grant as an Army command?

The true driver was 1) his willingness to take casualties larger than inflicted on the confederates, and his willingness to attack economic assets and bringing back the concept of scorched earth to modern warfare.

Actually, it was the general policy of the Lincoln administration, not merely General Grant's idea.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Wait? Something called the Confederacy existed? I thought we weren't supposed to know that today. They were racist, sexist, homophobic, you know, Deplorables.

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

I was explaining this to my husband the other night, that human history is rarely as simple and clear-cut as we want to believe, or as history classes tell us. The American Civil War, like all civil wars, was really the culmination of a number of conflicts and disagreements over a period time between two disparate cultural groups who felt nothing in common connecting them. Slavery was the obvious and egregious of those conflicts, and became the rallying point.

 

[SandSquid]

Wait? Something called the Confederacy existed? I thought we weren't supposed to know that today. They were racist, sexist, homophobic, you know, Deplorables.

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

I was explaining this to my husband the other night, that human history is rarely as simple and clear-cut as we want to believe, or as history classes tell us. The American Civil War, like all civil wars, was really the culmination of a number of conflicts and disagreements over a period time between two disparate cultural groups who felt nothing in common connecting them. Slavery was the obvious and egregious of those conflicts, and became the rallying point.

Agree... Slavery was the reason people could get behind. Slavery was the thing which would get people to rally for a rebellion. Slavery was why they pushed away. Even in the secret state secession conventions, private letters between leaders slavery was the cause mentioned. Like when Georgia politician Henry Benning wrote former speaker of the house and Gov of Georgia Howell Cobb in a private letter "It is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections."

Or Lawrence Keitt, who said in a secret secession meeting in South Carolina "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery.... it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."

Which removes all doubt that it just wasn't something to build public sentiment, or a public rallying point but the true cause.




Of course after the Civil War ended in their defeat, white Southerners attempted to retroactively justify the Confederacy with the ‘Lost Cause’ ideology, an ahistorical narrative that further reimagined the Old South as filled with happy enslaved blacks.

All of a sudden they were trying to build "loyal slave markers", the monuments to prove that slaves were happy and well as slaves. Granted actual former slaves weren't building them. As those have been easily proven to be a false flag with stories of slave uprisings and over 100,000 slaves escaping via the underground railroad, the movement went on to try and rewrite the lost cause again with new things like tariffs, or turning a state wanting the right to enslave blacks to just "states rights".


Speeches got cut off and shortened, so in Lee's speech where he says "“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But then tried to wash away the following line of "The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race"

Doesn't sound so good anymore. Like when someone says "I know murder is morally wrong.... But I feel it is necessary for me to keep murdering". Intentionally losing the 2nd half of that quote is quite a lie.

Luckily, now instead of having to head to a major library and hope they have some of those source documents, we have online archives. So when a lost cause lie pops up, it can be countered with actual source fact from the secessionists own mouths and writing instead.

 

[Cecilie1200]

They were worse than Deplorable

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

I was explaining this to my husband the other night, that human history is rarely as simple and clear-cut as we want to believe, or as history classes tell us. The American Civil War, like all civil wars, was really the culmination of a number of conflicts and disagreements over a period time between two disparate cultural groups who felt nothing in common connecting them. Slavery was the obvious and egregious of those conflicts, and became the rallying point.

Agree... Slavery was the reason people could get behind. Slavery was the thing which would get people to rally for a rebellion. Slavery was why they pushed away. Even in the secret state secession conventions, private letters between leaders slavery was the cause mentioned. Like when Georgia politician Henry Benning wrote former speaker of the house and Gov of Georgia Howell Cobb in a private letter "It is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections."

Or Lawrence Keitt, who said in a secret secession meeting in South Carolina "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery.... it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."

Which removes all doubt that it just wasn't something to build public sentiment, or a public rallying point but the true cause.




Of course after the Civil War ended in their defeat, white Southerners attempted to retroactively justify the Confederacy with the ‘Lost Cause’ ideology, an ahistorical narrative that further reimagined the Old South as filled with happy enslaved blacks.

All of a sudden they were trying to build "loyal slave markers", the monuments to prove that slaves were happy and well as slaves. Granted actual former slaves weren't building them. As those have been easily proven to be a false flag with stories of slave uprisings and over 100,000 slaves escaping via the underground railroad, the movement went on to try and rewrite the lost cause again with new things like tariffs, or turning a state wanting the right to enslave blacks to just "states rights".


Speeches got cut off and shortened, so in Lee's speech where he says "“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But then tried to wash away the following line of "The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race"

Doesn't sound so good anymore. Like when someone says "I know murder is morally wrong.... But I feel it is necessary for me to keep murdering". Intentionally losing the 2nd half of that quote is quite a lie.

Luckily, now instead of having to head to a major library and hope they have some of those source documents, we have online archives. So when a lost cause lie pops up, it can be countered with actual source fact from the secessionists own mouths and writing instead.

Slavery was a very big and very sensitive issue which could be used to demonize opponents and beat them over the head (usually figuratively, but sometimes literally) . . . for both sides. It was an ugly and legitimate point of contention between the two sides, and had caused violence and bloodshed. It was not, however, the only nasty and divisive point of conflict. There is also a case to be made that, had it been the only conflict between the two cultures, it might not have been as inflamed and violent as it was; a case can also be made that, had slavery been the only conflict between the North and the South, there very possibly might not have been a civil war over it alone. Certainly, not many soldiers on either side of the conflict believed they were fighting for or against slavery.

 

[SandSquid]

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

I was explaining this to my husband the other night, that human history is rarely as simple and clear-cut as we want to believe, or as history classes tell us. The American Civil War, like all civil wars, was really the culmination of a number of conflicts and disagreements over a period time between two disparate cultural groups who felt nothing in common connecting them. Slavery was the obvious and egregious of those conflicts, and became the rallying point.

Agree... Slavery was the reason people could get behind. Slavery was the thing which would get people to rally for a rebellion. Slavery was why they pushed away. Even in the secret state secession conventions, private letters between leaders slavery was the cause mentioned. Like when Georgia politician Henry Benning wrote former speaker of the house and Gov of Georgia Howell Cobb in a private letter "It is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections."

Or Lawrence Keitt, who said in a secret secession meeting in South Carolina "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery.... it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."

Which removes all doubt that it just wasn't something to build public sentiment, or a public rallying point but the true cause.




Of course after the Civil War ended in their defeat, white Southerners attempted to retroactively justify the Confederacy with the ‘Lost Cause’ ideology, an ahistorical narrative that further reimagined the Old South as filled with happy enslaved blacks.

All of a sudden they were trying to build "loyal slave markers", the monuments to prove that slaves were happy and well as slaves. Granted actual former slaves weren't building them. As those have been easily proven to be a false flag with stories of slave uprisings and over 100,000 slaves escaping via the underground railroad, the movement went on to try and rewrite the lost cause again with new things like tariffs, or turning a state wanting the right to enslave blacks to just "states rights".


Speeches got cut off and shortened, so in Lee's speech where he says "“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But then tried to wash away the following line of "The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race"

Doesn't sound so good anymore. Like when someone says "I know murder is morally wrong.... But I feel it is necessary for me to keep murdering". Intentionally losing the 2nd half of that quote is quite a lie.

Luckily, now instead of having to head to a major library and hope they have some of those source documents, we have online archives. So when a lost cause lie pops up, it can be countered with actual source fact from the secessionists own mouths and writing instead.

Slavery was a very big and very sensitive issue which could be used to demonize opponents and beat them over the head (usually figuratively, but sometimes literally) . . . for both sides. It was an ugly and legitimate point of contention between the two sides, and had caused violence and bloodshed. It was not, however, the only nasty and divisive point of conflict. There is also a case to be made that, had it been the only conflict between the two cultures, it might not have been as inflamed and violent as it was; a case can also be made that, had slavery been the only conflict between the North and the South, there very possibly might not have been a civil war over it alone. Certainly, not many soldiers on either side of the conflict believed they were fighting for or against slavery.

An interesting theory. While the southern leaders for years both publicly and privately had said over and over the issue was slavery... Even going back to Thomas Jefferson saying that is what would divide the US. The belief is that it was something else which they forgot to mention, even amongst themselves and were not willing to try and resolve?


Not sure it's a very factual idea but it is a fun one.

As for the soldiers, this wasn't like the Nazis who were hiding some of their worst atrocities. Looking at the camp newspapers, the sermons, the speeches, it was clear what they were fighting for.

One could argue it wasn't a popular fight, much like many soldiers in Vietnam did not care about the sociopolitical situation in Southeast Asia. But the cause for the years of issues, and the secession which led to war was clear. Protect and expand race based slavery.

But like one general told his troops. Any man who doesn't believe this is a fight over the emancipation of blacks is either a fool or a liar. Tough to defend they "didn't know" when the actual source evidence says that

 

[SandSquid]

History is written by the victors, although now it seems it can be re-written by people with the vapors 150 years later.

If the South would have prevailed they probably would have seen themselves as the real continuation of the original United States, and the North would be those who strayed from the path.

Luckily we have a LOT of writing though from the south, their articles of secession, the minutes of their secession conventions, the speeches of their founders.

So we can still let the other side tell it's story. We can still read Texas' article of secession giving their complaint about "an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

We can still learn from Alabama's secession convention their gripes

"Our delegates selected shall be instructed to submit to the general convention the following basis of a settlement of the existing difficulties between the Northern and Southern States, to wit:

1. A faithful execution of the fugitive slave law …
2. A more stringent and explicit provision for the surrender of criminals charged with offenses against laws of one State and escaping into another.
3. A guaranty that slavery shall not be abolished in the District of Columbia
4. A guaranty that the interstate slave-trade shall not be interfered with.
5. A protection to slavery in the Territories
6. The right of transit through free States with slave property.

And see that if someone wants to rewrite history to say the South didn't rebel in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery... well that is clearly a lie.

One doesn't have to ignore slavery as the primary cause of secession to accept that there were other reasons, both connected to slavery and seperate.

Slavery was the "poison pill" that made all the other problems unworkable, and led to the unilateral Secession of the Southern states.

I was explaining this to my husband the other night, that human history is rarely as simple and clear-cut as we want to believe, or as history classes tell us. The American Civil War, like all civil wars, was really the culmination of a number of conflicts and disagreements over a period time between two disparate cultural groups who felt nothing in common connecting them. Slavery was the obvious and egregious of those conflicts, and became the rallying point.

Agree... Slavery was the reason people could get behind. Slavery was the thing which would get people to rally for a rebellion. Slavery was why they pushed away. Even in the secret state secession conventions, private letters between leaders slavery was the cause mentioned. Like when Georgia politician Henry Benning wrote former speaker of the house and Gov of Georgia Howell Cobb in a private letter "It is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections."

Or Lawrence Keitt, who said in a secret secession meeting in South Carolina "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery.... it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."

Which removes all doubt that it just wasn't something to build public sentiment, or a public rallying point but the true cause.




Of course after the Civil War ended in their defeat, white Southerners attempted to retroactively justify the Confederacy with the ‘Lost Cause’ ideology, an ahistorical narrative that further reimagined the Old South as filled with happy enslaved blacks.

All of a sudden they were trying to build "loyal slave markers", the monuments to prove that slaves were happy and well as slaves. Granted actual former slaves weren't building them. As those have been easily proven to be a false flag with stories of slave uprisings and over 100,000 slaves escaping via the underground railroad, the movement went on to try and rewrite the lost cause again with new things like tariffs, or turning a state wanting the right to enslave blacks to just "states rights".


Speeches got cut off and shortened, so in Lee's speech where he says "“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But then tried to wash away the following line of "The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race"

Doesn't sound so good anymore. Like when someone says "I know murder is morally wrong.... But I feel it is necessary for me to keep murdering". Intentionally losing the 2nd half of that quote is quite a lie.

Luckily, now instead of having to head to a major library and hope they have some of those source documents, we have online archives. So when a lost cause lie pops up, it can be countered with actual source fact from the secessionists own mouths and writing instead.

Slavery was a very big and very sensitive issue which could be used to demonize opponents and beat them over the head (usually figuratively, but sometimes literally) . . . for both sides. It was an ugly and legitimate point of contention between the two sides, and had caused violence and bloodshed. It was not, however, the only nasty and divisive point of conflict. There is also a case to be made that, had it been the only conflict between the two cultures, it might not have been as inflamed and violent as it was; a case can also be made that, had slavery been the only conflict between the North and the South, there very possibly might not have been a civil war over it alone. Certainly, not many soldiers on either side of the conflict believed they were fighting for or against slavery.

And while one could make the argument that the war would have broken out without the issue of slavery... That isn't the reality of the situation, as over and over those leaders fully explained how the issue of slavery was the cause.