The Confederate States did not fight for the continuation of Slavery

a reply to: grey580

You see the words slavery and believe it’s the end all of the conversation. The Civil War could’ve been fought in 1832 during the nullification crisis and if the federal government won there would’ve been no Civil War over slavery .

Because their power supreme over the states would have been cast in stone like it was after the Civil War and is now .

You are completely in utterly wrong and can’t get over a sixth grade understanding of the Civil War and it’s causation .

Slavery was the issue during the war but it was not the reason. I don’t know how many times I can say this . You just don’t understand because you haven’t looked into American history enough .

Here South Carolina’s declaration read it maybe you can understand the core meaning behind the document. Slavery is mentioned but the war was fought over the supremacy clause and state powers .

The southern states didn’t believe the federal government could mandate how they could run their lives .

This document was mentioned earlier in the discussion .

Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

Read it



You might’ve thought I was flippet with my earlier reply . But there was going to be a war eventually between the federal government and states. We could just as easily be having this argument if the federal government would’ve told the southern states they had to wear two left shoes on Sunday .



I’m sure it’s been mentioned in the thread that only a percentage of the southern population were slaveowners. Do you actually think every mother on a 10 acre farm that let her son go fight in the war was doing it to protect slaveowners ?

The southern boys fault for their state not for slavery if you can’t understand that this conversation is going nowhere .

That’s also the reason why many people still honor the Confederate soldiers. They fought for what’s there’s not what’s somebody else’s .

They didn’t want the Yankees telling them what to do not the abolitionist .

I suppose you think if there wasn’t a Civil War the southern states would still have slaves . The issue was a dead issue and would’ve worked itself out in due time regardless just like it did in every other country in the world. The federal government pick the proper cause to strip states of the rights because it portrayed them as righteous and you fell for it .

It was completely about power .

a reply to: murphy22

I don't know ...Sherman had what could be called a nervous breakdown , and had terrible visions of the Confederacy destroying his family and friends. They didn't really know if he was sane enough to do Georgia. But Grant stood by him simply because he stood by Grant when they said he was a drunk. He just went out and did total war, when they went through a plantation they committed atrocities which no body could forget, any food they didn't take was destroyed and the people they went to liberate starved. The nightmares he had that caused his breakdown must of been of his future. It must have been bad as they still hate him to this day. All sanitized in the song Marching through Georgia. If ever their was a case of the victors rewriting history this would be a good one.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Gothmog

Really?

Take a long read, and you tell me.

www.battlefields.org...

I call B.S.

a reply to: infolurker

The war was not even about slavery until much later , when Lincoln MADE it about slavery.
Research
Learn

a reply to: azvol

The North was losing.
Bad.
And the war was becoming unpopular in the northern states.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire
i think if you fought in a war even as a teenager it never left you my grandad who fought in the first world war and was 96 when he died never forgot or his younger brother who fought alongside of him as when my grandad was in his box was telling tales about the trenches they were in together

a reply to: infolurkerWhere do you get information,you sound like a school book,a fake story,the last thing civil war was about was slavery other then it being a "chattle",why you kids are so lame these days,follow like damn sheep can't look beyond their damn nose

a reply to: murphy22

That's one way to look at it, I guess. But a very emotional way and void of logic.

Only a fool considers anything concerning war to require logic.

Not sure all your accusations are correct.. But I will research it.
Rape and murder is unforgivable and I know it happened. It always does in war.
Crops and buildings, sorry to say, are legitimate military targets. Maybe not so much today as back in that time. But not off the table either.

The information is out there... not easy to find, of course, since the "in" thing is to blame the South for whatever ills one can imagine. But it is there if you go past the first page of Google.

Civilians are not legitimate military targets; I will not accept that. Some collateral damage is unfortunately to be expected, but what I described is not collateral. It was deliberate, intentional destruction of the very economy and way of life of a people, along with the civilians themselves. I consider it cultural genocide, as much as I consider Hitler's actions toward the Germanic Jewish people cultural genocide. I fail to see where it can be considered differently.

There's nothing wrong with doing a good job for the bosses.
Animals or black slaves he still would've had to treat them "humanely".

There was nothing "humane" about his actions.

So you think a General deep behind enemy lines, should allow the "liberated people" to become part of his "responsibility", formation? Even if he's not sure of his own supply lines? Was he to feed them, protect them and let them become a distraction from his mission?
Or give away his movement?
Or any other reason why an Army in his situation can't take on extra weight?

Or, he could have spared a few fields and storehouses. There was no military purpose in his scorched earth policy, and the very design of his campaign, if popular belief of the war being primarily about slavery is to be believed at all, is that a scorched earth policy would cause needless and massive death to those "liberated." The young children his soldiers happily butchered were of no threat to anyone; some were infants. The elderly were of no threat to him or the war machine. The liberated slaves certainly were no threat!

When one takes direct, purposeful action to deny another the ability to live, that person indeed does become responsible for the well-being of those he took action against. That's like saying that it is fine to throw someone overboard in the middle of the ocean with no life-raft... it wasn't you who killed them! It was the sharks or the elements.

Sherman did what needed doing and at the time it needed done and for the style of warfare.

That can only be true if the thing that "needed doing" was to commit cultural genocide.

There is one... only one... building in this area that predates that war. It is far, far off the beaten path, and even it did not escape unscathed. There are musket holes in the brick. It was used as a hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers. Luckily, the family who owns it has restored it to its former glory.

Everything else from that era is gone. Everything.

TheRedneck

Yep, it was about state's rights. The most important of which was slavery because the south's economy was built upon it.

I know, it sucks to be "guilty by association" because of what your ancestors did. I'm related to a General in the Missouri State Guard and I'm proud of it anyway.

Here's an interesting back and forth, not saying he has the answers but he sure makes it entertaining

youtu.be...

From Prager "University"

All anyone has to do is read the words of the soldiers themselves.

Many people at the time were literate. There are numerous diaries, letters, biographies etc. where the soldiers themselves were very clear about why they were fighting, and keeping slaves was never a reason.

I challenge anyone who says differently to find me an account of a single confederate soldier who says he joined the rebellion to keep slaves.

You can’t..... because there aren’t any.

Just read the words Lincoln himself said. When asked why he simply would not just let the South go, Lincoln was quoted as saying, ‘then who will pay for the government’? And other things like, ‘ If I could keep the South in the Union by keeping slavery then I will do so’

History is written by the victors.

originally posted by: kasalt
From Prager "University"

Repeating the narrative authored by the victor of war over and over again doesnt make it true.

No war has ever been fought because of truth alone and no victor would look the hero by winning alone.

Propaganda and stearing the narratives are required and even today right or left the media is clear evidence of that.

Lol. 2020 man. We are not claiming the south was cool with ending slavery and they just wanted to protect their rights from the fed? Gtfo.

Being from Virginia I was thought that the Civil War was fought over unfair tariffs placed on southern raw materials used by the north in manufacturingo: KansasGirl

a reply to: scauma

Why would it have been cool with ending slavery. Slavery was a norm for many parts of the world and at the time slaves were considered assets. Wrong or right the fed government and many other governments around the world thought it was ok before they didn't. Slavery after all wasn't introduced anytime recently and had been a norm for thousands of years. The difference being folks paid for slaves when it was ok to have them and then overnight the fed government decides that it is immoral. Not to say I agree with using another human as a slave, but at the same time if I bought a car today and tomorrow the federal government decided to illegalize it then what of my labors. Slavery wasn't all forcible chains an whips as presented as well. Many white and black sold themselves into servitude to be provided passage to the USA in exchange for their servitude and at the chance someday being able to pay back the debts and begin a new life. Plantation owners like corporations of today use the commodity of slavery and cheap labor to make profits because at the time it was legal and had been for thousands of years.

If anything America should be celebrated for leading the way in human rights and equality which at the time was an out of the box way of thinking.

a reply to: scauma

People can't get it in their head that even if it was about state rights, or what ever. The southern states were willing to rip the union apart to uphold an immoral, inhumane, and unjust cause.
This is like defending hitler because his main objective was to reunite the Germanic people. Or the white washed history behind the western expansion and African colonialism.

History is indeed biased towards the victorious, and the southern states tried really hard to play games to ensure they weren't going to be made the victims or seem weak. So they created their own educational system. Too bad the internet came along and revealed many truths.

Bottom line is some people can't understand the differnece between a moral and immoral cause. The confederacy was a traitors cause. All the leaders were traitors, all the ones that lived walked free while thousands of Americans died. All for what? To keep slaves and not come to a compromise.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: scauma

People can't get it in their head that even if it was about state rights, or what ever. The southern states were willing to rip the union apart to uphold an immoral, inhumane, and unjust cause.

I don't think a person on this thread has defended the practice of slavery. We have called it inhumane an immoral.

Now, can you get it into your head that this war started 160 years ago, and the Abolition movement started in the USA about 190 years ago? Can you get it into your head that slavery was a common practice around the planet for at least 4000 years, and it did not have nearly the same stigma that it does now? Abolitionists were fighting an uphill battle.

If you can't put aside emotions and look at this through the eyes of a person at the time who wasn't raised with the same values we have now, then the discussion is moot.

Every culture on the planet has been slave and slaver at some point. That doesn't make it right or moral today, but those people in the past didn't have the same morals that we do today.

www.history.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

Ummm.... I can tell you 100% the confederacy did not exist solely for the continuation of slavery while the union did not exist solely for the abolishment of slavery. Seeing things in such good bad us them duality keeps you fighting a dumb war. But the other side is racist!!!!! And my side is gooood....

a reply to: infolurker

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: scauma

People can't get it in their head that even if it was about state rights, or what ever. The southern states were willing to rip the union apart to uphold an immoral, inhumane, and unjust cause.
This is like defending hitler because his main objective was to reunite the Germanic people. Or the white washed history behind the western expansion and African colonialism.

History is indeed biased towards the victorious, and the southern states tried really hard to play games to ensure they weren't going to be made the victims or seem weak. So they created their own educational system. Too bad the internet came along and revealed many truths.



Really, my Canadian ATS’er? The bottom line is...I think you’re wrong. IMO, of course. Traitors? Who betrayed whom? I would posit that the Federal Government BETRAYED the southern states—-for monetary and political advantage. Southern states slowly withdrew from the (then) 80 year old “United” States as they were being relegated to positions of inferiority. A common language was about the only thing residents of the south had in common with the powerful business and political elite of the north. If you’re a southern state that is becoming a “slave” (pardon the pun) to the northern power and monied class—-why subject your population to that state of being? The southern states formed a Confederacy of their own. The north could not afford that...and it is the same reason wars are fought today—-money, power and control. The south wanted to be separated and left to their own devices. The Union army invaded Virginia; the south wanted independence just as the British colonies had 2-3 generations earlier. We must stop projecting today’s values on generations of long ago...we can’t possibly BE in their shoes. We display arrogance when we do.

BTW, I love Canada. My daughter, her British hubby and two of my grandchildren have lived there for over ten years (Edmonton, AL). Friendly folks there—during my encounters. If it weren’t for the winters, I’d consider moving there myself. Kind regards.