Are you ashamed of your heritage?

[JohnDB]

Nope....not ashamed. I had nothing to do with them.

In the meantime slave owners and Hessian immigrants on one side. (Carpetbaggers, yankee pirates killed most of them)Jew escaping from Germany after ww1 on the other side. A whole lotta drunks and ridge runners and thieves on both sides. Some convicted felons and some unconvicted. Women weren't much better.....we are not exactly sure how solid our family tree is because some women were those who didn't know the word "no" in their vocabulary.

I'm blue collar through and through.

Why would I be ashamed?.....not my fault for any of them.
Cant say I profited from any of it....or lost out on anything because of them.

There's plenty I done on my own that I'm ashamed of but I'm not admitting anything. (statute of limitations ain't quite out on them yet)

So what's the big deal? I'm a nobody....not looking to be a somebody.

 

[Correll]

Who did they sell their crops to?

Not the slaves. Hell, not the slave owners. SO...... yeah.

They would hire slaves for picking time. Who got the money?

First I've heard of that practice. I'm sure it occurred some... but with the majority of the population as small farmers, it doesn't seem likely.

 

[Mushroom]

First I've heard of that practice. I'm sure it occurred some

There was a small industry of what would be called "Migrant Slaves" who would move from place to place during peak times like harvesting. But those were normally "leased out" from one farmer to another. Say by somebody that raised rice or tobacco to somebody that had an orchard and had to bring in apples and peaches. The kind of agriculture that does not have much of a labor demand outside of harvest times. So Farmer A would rent out some of their slaves to Farmer B, most times for a share of the product harvested.

There was also an industry in it when it came to processing the actual agricultural products. Curing tobacco or meats, ginning the cotton, thrashing and grinding corn and wheat into flour, things like that. But all of those latter ones were invisible to the farmers themselves, it was done to their products by those they sold them to.

 

[Concerned American]

Meh. Its all moot. Happened over 150 years ago. Let it go.

 

[AZrailwhale]

The die of a Civil War was cast long before Buchanan
Slavery was spreading West and Congress and earlier presidents placated the South to appease them

The election of Lincoln set off the southern hotheads

They didn't just placate them. The slave states controlled the federal government up until the Missouri Compromise. Losing that control is what sparked secession. The slave states could see that they would never be allowed to expand west or south into Mexico and Latin America to recover the sunken cost of their slaves.

 

[AZrailwhale]

There is another possibility. The South might have won had they employed gorilla tactics throughout the war and avoided major engagements. Much like General Jackson did successfully during his Shenandoah Valley campaign. Nathan Bedford Forrest had similar success using hit and run tactics in the western theater.

This likely would have prolonged the war, but made success more likely.

It could be Lee’s early success clouded his judgment. What he tried to accomplish at Gettysburg is beyond absurd. Then continued to fight major engagements when it was obvious the South was outgunned and outmanned.

If the Confederacy had tried that, the war would have turned far uglier. It would have been like most civil wars, a war of atrocity begetting counter atrocity. What would have been left of the Confederacy would have been occupied territory under an iron heel like Ireland was.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Kill them to keep them. Thats your motto, like every tyrant in history.

The Union never tried

Kill them to keep them. Thats your motto, like every tyrant in history.

The Union never tried to destroy the Confederate States, just defeat their armies in the field and force a surrender. The closest the Union ever came to that type of warfare was Sherman's march though Georgia and even then, most of the destruction was limited to government property or war material

 

[JohnDB]

The Union never tried

The Union never tried to destroy the Confederate States, just defeat their armies in the field and force a surrender. The closest the Union ever came to that type of warfare was Sherman's march though Georgia and even then, most of the destruction was limited to government property or war material

Sherman's March killed EVERYONE and burned every Farm. It destroyed Atlanta....burned it to the ground.

Then after the power vacuum of all authorities and capable men had been killed Yankee pirates and carpetbaggers took advantage of the rest looting, raping, and pillaging everything and everyone left.

The civil war, like most wars, was extremely ugly and inhumane. Very little in the way of painkillers were available or antibiotics.
Wooden bullets and loads (4" french brass guns) were exceptional in causing infections due to the splintering.

The Union was NOT civil....nothing about this war was civil. Freed slaves often starved to death or were killed when caught stealing food....and even by Union Soldiers.

 

[rightwinger]

Sherman's March killed EVERYONE and burned every Farm. It destroyed Atlanta....burned it to the ground.

Then after the power vacuum of all authorities and capable men had been killed Yankee pirates and carpetbaggers took advantage of the rest looting, raping, and pillaging everything and everyone left.

The civil war, like most wars, was extremely ugly and inhumane. Very little in the way of painkillers were available or antibiotics.
Wooden bullets and loads (4" french brass guns) were exceptional in causing infections due to the splintering.

The Union was NOT civil....nothing about this war was civil. Freed slaves often starved to death or were killed when caught stealing food....and even by Union Soldiers.

Given their offense (treason)
The South was treated very leniently.

10 years of Reconstruction and they went back to their old ways of terrorizing negroes

 

[JohnDB]

Given their offense (treason)
The South was treated very leniently.

10 years of Reconstruction and they went back to their old ways of terrorizing negroes

10 years of "reconstruction" was more impoverishment of the South.
Terrorizing Negroes?
That's a laugh.

EVERYONE was terrorized. It took forever for the pirates to be stopped. Northern AND Southern Soldiers both terrorized EVERYONE in the South. Cotton wasn't worth much even 30 years later. It cost more for cotton seed than the cotton they raised. Tobacco was better....but not by much. The North still had control over the limited production of agricultural products out of the South. Things like refined sugar were hard to come by. This is where sorghum and cane syrup were popular. Lard, peanuts, corn, Tobacco and cotton were staples.

If the whites were impoverished...so much more were the negro population. Many stayed on plantations as there literally was nowhere else to go and everyone tried to live off the land...

Without jobs, land, or skills vast swaths of the population were unemployed. Sure old prejudices were prominent...but it was more class distinction than simple prejudice. (Which race baiters refuse to recognize)

When large groups of unemployed black men were loitering while pirates were rampant....it wasn't going to be good any way you sliced it.

 

[rightwinger]

10 years of "reconstruction" was more impoverishment of the South.
Terrorizing Negroes?
That's a laugh.

EVERYONE was terrorized. It took forever for the pirates to be stopped. Northern AND Southern Soldiers both terrorized EVERYONE in the South. Cotton wasn't worth much even 30 years later. It cost more for cotton seed than the cotton they raised. Tobacco was better....but not by much. The North still had control over the limited production of agricultural products out of the South. Things like refined sugar were hard to come by. This is where sorghum and cane syrup were popular. Lard, peanuts, corn, Tobacco and cotton were staples.

If the whites were impoverished...so much more were the negro population. Many stayed on plantations as there literally was nowhere else to go and everyone tried to live off the land...

Without jobs, land, or skills vast swaths of the population were unemployed. Sure old prejudices were prominent...but it was more class distinction than simple prejudice. (Which race baiters refuse to recognize)

When large groups of unemployed black men were loitering while pirates were rampant....it wasn't going to be good any way you sliced it.

What did they expect?

 

[rightwinger]

Sure old prejudices were prominent...but it was more class distinction than simple prejudice. (Which race baiters refuse to recognize)

Bullshit

Once Union Troops left, Jim Crow came back with a vengeance
The black population was terrorized. Social isolation was enforced, homes burned, men beaten and lynched.

The Southern population faced no such treatment

 

[longly]

ESL, History, sometimes Biology.

You lucky dog! You could keep the others—English and biology—but teaching history would be a dream job. Still, it’s probably a good idea that I didn’t do it. I might have gotten fired, since in some liberal school districts they want to teach a distorted form of history, and I would never distort history. I have too much respect for it.

However, if you say you taught history, I’ll believe you, because I generally believe people unless I have reason to doubt. But why is it that you have such a simplistic view of history? You just label the antebellum period as evil, but the people of those times saw nothing evil about slavery. They sincerely believed they were doing God’s work. As I said, they thought differently and had different values. A man who felt his honor had been damaged would challenge another man to a duel and show up on the day, even if he was certain he was going to die. To my modern sensibilities that sounds foolish, but to him death was preferable to living without honor.

It shows that you don’t comprehend that people in different times thought with different mindsets. The culture of the times programmed the way they thought. For example, the Aztecs sacrificed human beings to please their gods. And here’s the part that, even with an open-minded perspective on history, I find hard to comprehend: some of them volunteered to be sacrificed and rejoiced when they were selected. They considered it a great honor, were treated like a god for a year, and were happy on the day they walked up the stairs and lay down to have their hearts cut out.

 

[Unkotare]

... You just label the antebellum period as evil, but the people of those times saw nothing evil about slavery. ...

And how do you see it? Do you see slavery as virtuous?

 

[Unkotare]

...A man who felt his honor had been damaged would challenge another man to a duel and show up on the day, even if he was certain he was going to die. ...

He wasn't certain. Even before the Burr-Hamilton duel, most ended in both men deliberately missing to give everyone involved a face-saving way out. Pistols were horribly inaccurate, and both guys were just trying to make a point.

 

[longly]

And how do you see it? Do you see slavery as virtuous?

Of course not. I have a modest perspective. I have a better understanding than my ancestors had, but that doesn’t mean they were evil.

 

[Unkotare]

... For example, the Aztecs sacrificed human beings to please their gods. ... They considered it a great honor, ...

Sure, that's why they drugged the "honored" victims to make them malleable enough not to ruin the ceremony.

 

[Unkotare]

Of course not. I have a modest perspective. I have a better understanding than my ancestors had, but that doesn’t mean they were evil.

Ok, but was slavery evil?

 

[longly]

Ok, but was slavery evil?

"Presentism is the fallacy of interpreting or evaluating the past by modern values, standards, or worldviews. It assumes that people in history thought and acted the same way we do today, which distorts understanding of their actual cultural context".

 

[Unkotare]

"Presentism is the fallacy of interpreting or evaluating the past by modern values, standards, or worldviews. It assumes that people in history thought and acted the same way we do today, which distorts understanding of their actual cultural context".

Is that a yes or a no?