The War of Southern Aggression

[Rogue 9]

The Democratic Party, descended from Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party, was the party of classical liberalism, as opposed to the Federalist, Whig, and Republican Parties, all of which were big government parties. The platform of the Democratic Party of 1856 has this to say:



The Democratic Platform (1856)

And there's plenty more there, as well. Now while you're right that I can't prove that every classical liberal at the very least supported slavery, I can say that the political party of classical liberalism did support slavery.

Jesus Christ. Those provisions of the platform flatly contradict each other. Seriously, read the words; first they say that the federal government has no right to interfere with the domestic affairs of the states, and then they advocate the strict enforcement and sustaining of the Fugitive Slave Act, which was to date the biggest such act of interference the United States had ever seen. I mean, really?

That's kind of the point. Slavery was opposed to the ideas of classical liberalism.

Yes, it was, but that's not what I pointed out. It wasn't just slavery itself that was opposed to classical liberalism; so were the enforcement measures demanded by the South. They weren't principled classical liberals by that point; they were pro-slavery partisans who were all too willing to use the bludgeon of federal power to preserve their institution. The going theory by then wasn't that all men had the basic rights; it was that without black slavery whites would no longer all be privileged to be in the upper class. Calhoun and Hammond said this in so many words on more than one occasion, and it was trumpeted in editorials across the South. An 1856 editorial of the Richmond Enquirer made this assertion:

In this country alone does perfect equality of civil and social privilege exist among the white population, and it exists solely because we have black slaves. Freedom is not possible without slavery.

Why would they think this? Well, because the underclass would either consist of black slaves or white laborers, and on the whole they much preferred that it not be the master race doing the drudge work. Senator Hammond's famous King Cotton speech said it in so many words:

[T]he man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the market, and take the best he can get for it; in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and "operatives," as you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street of your large towns.

This idea finds its basis in Thomas Jefferson's assertion that a wage-laborer, not being independent, is unable to effectively function in governing a republic, since he is dependent upon his employer and therefore easily suborned. That is why ownership of real property was a voting requirement in the early United States; Jefferson and his party believed that only those who owned their own means of production, that is an independent farmer, artisan, business owner, planter, and so forth, were sufficiently independent to effectively use the vote.

This idea, while abhorrent today, at least did not include a mandate to exclude blacks or artificially make all whites non-wage workers as formulated by Jefferson. Jefferson feared that the growing working class would subvert the republic, saying:

Let our workshops remain in Europe. The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the human body. ... I consider the class of artificers [workmen] as the panders of vice, and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are generally overturned.

The rise of European immigration from the 1820s on made this an untenable position, and the vote was expanded to include wage-earning white males in the North. This triggered the Southern reaction that I've cited here, as the new Northern voting blocs proceeded to vote in ways not favorable to Southern interests, particularly slave and territorial interests. Working conditions of industrial laborers in the 19th century were of course deplorable, and Southern agriculturalists were horrified to think that this would be their fate if not for the slave underclass taking that role for them. To go back to Calhoun for a moment:

With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.

That should be sufficient, I think. If anyone wishes more, I can readily go on.

Incidentally, I recommend this essay for further discussion of the Deep South's rejection of classical liberalism, particularly their walkout at the Democratic National Convention in 1860 when the party refused to adopt a platform plank calling for a federal guarantee of the right of slavery in all territories.

 

[Ravi]

The Constitution supported slavery.

No, it didn't. It was interpreted to do so, but it didn't.

Mandating that they be returned to their masters and only counting them as 3/5's of a person is supporting slavery in my opinion.

Fair enough. The spirit of the constitution did not, the 3/5 thing was a political compromise and should never have been included.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I think the 3/5ths compromise was made in order for the national government to be able to tax imports. The South gave up the one to get the other.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I think the 3/5ths compromise was made in order for the national government to be able to tax imports. The South gave up the one to get the other.

The 3/5's clause was to apportion representation in the House of Representatives. The south wanted slaves to count as a whole person because it would give them greater representation, and the north didn't want them to count at all. The compromise was that they would count as 3/5's of a person.

 

[JenyEliza]

The roots of nullification go much deeper than just John C. Calhoun, to the days of Jefferson and Madison and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

And if the south was such a nuisance to the north it would seem like good policy to simply wish them well and let them go, rather than waging a war to force them to stay.

NO SHIT.

I live surrounded by the ghosts of Sherman and his blood thirsty mayhem. Literally.

I can't drive more than a mile before I am driving past a Confederate battlefield, or a sign memorializing an important building or home Sherman burned to the ground--occupants included.

FUCK you Yankees....

I like what Lewis Grizzard had to say about you and your ilk....

He said it just right...and God Rest His Soul, I wish he was here still to stuff your head up your ass!

The issue on my mind is white Southerners like myself.

They don't like us. They don't trust us. They want to tell us why we're wrong. They want to tell us how we should change.

They is practically every s.o.b. who isn't one of us.

I read a piece on the op-ed page of the Constitution written by somebody who in the jargon of my past "ain't from around here."

He wrote white Southerners are always looking back and that we should look forward. He said that about me.

I'm looking back? I live in one of the most progressive cities in the world. We built a subway to make Yankees feel at home.

And I live in a region the rest of the country can't wait to move to.

A friend, also a native Southerner, who shares my anger about the constant belittling of our kind and our place in this world, put it this way: "Nobody is going into an Atlanta bar tonight celebrating because they've just been transferred to New Jersey."

Damn straight.

I was having lunch at an Atlanta golf club recently. I was talking with friends.

A man sitting at another table heard me speaking and asked, "Where are you all from?" He was mocking me. He was mocking my Southern accent. He was sitting in Atlanta, Ga., and was making fun of the way I speak.

He was from Toledo. He had been transferred to Atlanta. If I hadn't have been 46 years old, skinny and a basic coward with a bad heart, I'd have punched him. I did, however, give him a severe verbal dressing down.

I was in my doctor's office in Atlanta. One of the women who works there, a transplanted Northerner, asked how I pronounced the world "siren."

I said I pronounced it "si-reen." I was half kidding, but that is the way I heard the word pronounced when I was a child.

The woman laughed and said, "You Southerners really crack me up. You have a language all your own."

Yeah we do. If you don't like it, go back home and stick your head in a snow bank.

They want to tell us how to speak, how to live, what to eat, what to think and they also want to tell us how they used to do it back in Buffalo.

Buffalo? What was the score? A hundred and ten to Zip.

The man writing on the op-ed page was writing about that bumper sticker that shows the old Confederate soldier and he's saying, "FERGIT HELL!" I don't go around sulking about the fact the South lost the Civil War. But I am aware that once upon a long time ago, a group of Americans saw fit to rebel against what they thought was an overbearing federal government. There is no record anywhere that indicates anybody in my family living in 1861 owned slaves. As a matter of fact, I come from a long line of sharecroppers, horse thieves and used car dealers. But a few of them fought anyway -- not to keep their slaves, because they didn't have any. I guess they simply thought it was the right thing to do at the time.

Whatever the reason, there was a citizenry that once saw fit to fight and die and I come from all that, and I look at those people as brave and gallant, and a frightful force until their hearts and their lands were burnt away.

I will never turn my back on that heritage.

But know this: I'm a white man and I'm a Southerner. And I'm sick of being told what is wrong with me from outside critics, and I'm tired of being stereotyped as a refugee from "God's Little Acre."

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, and I'll probably have to say it a thousand times again.

Delta may be hurting financially, but it's still ready to take you back to Toledo when you are ready to go.

-- Published Feb. 5, 1993

 

[Rogue 9]

Whine and cry some more. His ancestors (and mine, I might add) rebelled because they lost an election. The most overbearing stuff the federal government had done up until that time had been done at the behest of southerners for their own benefit. And Mr. Grizzard lies through his teeth, blatantly so, because his Civil-War fighting ancestors can't have sold used cars, since cars weren't invented yet.

In my last post I already answered the objection that non-slaveholders wouldn't have fought to sustain slavery. They would and did because black slavery kept whites by default in the ruling class of the Deep South. Slavery was of social benefit to whites in general whether they directly owned slaves or not. So fuck you, Johnny Reb, and hope we don't let loose Zombie Sherman to burn the south again.

 

[JenyEliza]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I think the 3/5ths compromise was made in order for the national government to be able to tax imports. The South gave up the one to get the other.

The 3/5's clause was to apportion representation in the House of Representatives. The south wanted slaves to count as a whole person because it would give them greater representation, and the north didn't want them to count at all. The compromise was that they would count as 3/5's of a person.

That was only part of the compromise; read further and you will see the North gave the 3/5ths because the national government could tax imports. Read up on it.

 

[JakeStarkey]

<snip> JE's sniveling mewling

Enough to make a true southerner kick her butt. The driving Dixie down clearly revealed that God loved America after all, and that the human haters in the South were destined for the grave where they belonged.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

No, they would not, JE. Those southerners, and I know dozens of them here, would have yellow stain on their britches if it happened again. Has nothing to do with real liberalism or real conservatism. Has to do with right and wrong. You were wrong and put on your knees. Just so. This may help you mind better: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Xk8Cp09aM[/ame]

You lost. Get over it. You lost in 2008. Get over it. You are going to lose in 2010 and 2012. You taint nevah gonna evah that bunch of reactionary bent-neck wierdos playing the humbug wizard behind the curtain running the GOP again. The party either gets rid of those folks or it will be in the minority for ever. Why? It has not represented mainstream America for decades.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Whine and cry some more. His ancestors (and mine, I might add) rebelled because they lost an election. The most overbearing stuff the federal government had done up until that time had been done at the behest of southerners for their own benefit. And Mr. Grizzard lies through his teeth, blatantly so, because his Civil-War fighting ancestors can't have sold used cars, since cars weren't invented yet.

In my last post I already answered the objection that non-slaveholders wouldn't have fought to sustain slavery. They would and did because black slavery kept whites by default in the ruling class of the Deep South. Slavery was of social benefit to whites in general whether they directly owned slaves or not. So fuck you, Johnny Reb, and hope we don't let loose Zombie Sherman to burn the south again.

Maybe those non-slaveowners fought to repel the invaders from their home?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I think the 3/5ths compromise was made in order for the national government to be able to tax imports. The South gave up the one to get the other.

The 3/5's clause was to apportion representation in the House of Representatives. The south wanted slaves to count as a whole person because it would give them greater representation, and the north didn't want them to count at all. The compromise was that they would count as 3/5's of a person.

That was only part of the compromise; read further and you will see the North gave the 3/5ths because the national government could tax imports. Read up on it.

They were going to tax imports regardless because the Constitution forbid direct taxation such as an income tax up until the 16th Amendment in 1913.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The 3/5's clause was to apportion representation in the House of Representatives. The south wanted slaves to count as a whole person because it would give them greater representation, and the north didn't want them to count at all. The compromise was that they would count as 3/5's of a person.

That was only part of the compromise; read further and you will see the North gave the 3/5ths because the national government could tax imports. Read up on it.

They were going to tax imports regardless because the Constitution forbid direct taxation such as an income tax up until the 16th Amendment in 1913.

No, the north could not get the votes until it compromised on the 3/5ths issue. Both sides traded off. You have not read about this before, I think.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

Yeah, I knew you couldn't take it. Never met an unreconstructed confederate who wasn't a puke. Word.

 

[JenyEliza]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

Yeah, I knew you couldn't take it. Never met an unreconstructed confederate who wasn't a puke. Word.

Whatever, you fuckwhit. You're not worth my time or trouble.

I am a mother, I have responsibilities and that doesn't mean sitting here on USMB all day/night. My kids just got back from a week at their Dads. Spending time with THEM is WAY more important than dealing with a whiny, diarrhea-mouthed shithead like you.

Doh, dumbass.

 

[paperview]

Wow.

Jeny sure has a way of bringing this rather elevated discussion - or maybe I should say just about any discussion, down to her low-rent trash level.

I never knew a human being could contain so much bile.

 

[Rogue 9]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

Yank? My family's from Alabama. My great great great grandfather served under General Forrest, and he was a right son of a bitch; I've read his journal. He fought to keep the "abolition hordes" from freeing the negroes and forcing his daughters to marry them, whatever the hell that idea came from. Of course, being a slaveholder himself, he also had more of a direct self-interest, as well as a hatred for any black man in any position other than that of slave; after Forrest's division massacred the defending colored artillerymen at Fort Pillow, he wrote his approval of the action, saying that such should be the fate of any slave who dared take up arms against the white man.

As an ancestor of this man and of a long line of Southern heritage, I say the South deserved to burn and the road from Richmond to Washington lined with the hanged bodies of the insurgent leaders. That Lincoln and Johnson were more merciful than that speaks well of them, but it would have been just. That you defend this scourge upon the history of man is disgusting.

 

[ScottBernard]

I can't believe this subject is still discussed with so much rancor almost 160 years after the fact.
Humiliation and resentment echoes for generations.
The Army of the Tennessee and the The Army of the Ohio under Sherman borrowed many 'tactics' of the Southern Army. Sherman spent many years in the South before the war and "knew them well".
If you want to get a sense of the man, read the correspondence between him and Confederate General Hood during the siege of Atlanta. Sherman basically told him that Southerners brought on the war to their home and hearth. He also politely told Hood to shove it.
Interesting thing about Sherman was that he was rather congenial with the slaves that were set loose by the Union forces. His fellow officers were put off by this. I think he was refreshed by the gratefulness and humbleness expressed; and enjoyed not being around the formal and haughty peers for those brief moments.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

Yeah, I knew you couldn't take it. Never met an unreconstructed confederate who wasn't a puke. Word.

Whatever, you fuckwhit. You're not worth my time or trouble.

I am a mother, I have responsibilities and that doesn't mean sitting here on USMB all day/night. My kids just got back from a week at their Dads. Spending time with THEM is WAY more important than dealing with a whiny, diarrhea-mouthed shithead like you.

Doh, dumbass.

Your actions define white-trash American female. You have nothing of merit, worth, or good to offer society. Until you realize how damaged you truly are, you will continue to spew the vile bile.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fuck off, dirtbag.

The South and Southerners aren't afraid of YOU or your stupid threats.

In FACT....I think there are a LOT of Southerners who'd dearly love a chance at a re-match. Cuz they'd kick your lily-livered, yellow-bellied, liberal, yankee asses. BAD.

You weepy, whiny, pansy ass Yanks would be be BEGGING FOR MERCY when we got done with you.

So...bring it. (as if you even HAVE it to bring). You bad ass liberals.

Yank? My family's from Alabama. My great great great grandfather served under General Forrest, and he was a right son of a bitch; I've read his journal. He fought to keep the "abolition hordes" from freeing the negroes and forcing his daughters to marry them, whatever the hell that idea came from. Of course, being a slaveholder himself, he also had more of a direct self-interest, as well as a hatred for any black man in any position other than that of slave; after Forrest's division massacred the defending colored artillerymen at Fort Pillow, he wrote his approval of the action, saying that such should be the fate of any slave who dared take up arms against the white man.

As an ancestor of this man and of a long line of Southern heritage, I say the South deserved to burn and the road from Richmond to Washington lined with the hanged bodies of the insurgent leaders. That Lincoln and Johnson were more merciful than that speaks well of them, but it would have been just. That you defend this scourge upon the history of man is disgusting.

Forrest, let's not forget, was a slave trader as well: a vile person.