Virginia Governor recognizes April as Confederate History Month

As a last word to anyone who thinks the civil war was fought over slavery chew on this. Of whites in the South only 14% owned slaves. The other 86% were racist baboons as well?

Originally posted by Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Avenginggecko
but since I guess the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, it's okay not to mention that the South did indeed live off the backs of an enslaved people?

How odd is it that you won't even acknowledge that the North profited from slave labor even more so than the South? The industrialized North was positively dependent on the raw agricultural resources of the South (e.g. "King Cotton").

No, the Confederacy weren't the villains. But they were made the villains through decades of historical revision.

— Doc Velocity

I agree with Doc here.

Both sides profited from slavery, and it is for sure arguable that the North profited even more in many ways.

Here is a good way to put this into perspective.

Saying the Civil War was ABOUT SLAVERY, is like saying the Civil War was ABOUT GUNS.

Of course, guns and slavery were part of it. But they were NOT the central focal point that created WAR. It was the impasse between the States and the Federal government over Many issues that resulted in armed conflict.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
I wanted to point out something about the 40 acres and a mule myth. Yes. it did actually happen, and by General Shermans' order BUT he was quickly overruled by the War Dept. and the offer was retracted.

Actually, under the "40 Acres & A Mule" order, about 10,000 freed blacks were settled on their own property with mules supplied by the Army, so it wasn't a myth. However, after Abe Lincoln was killed, the new president Andrew Johnson reversed the order and gave all that property back to the original white landowners. As a result, a good many of the newly-freed blacks went right back to work on the same plantations, planting and tending and harvesting crops as they had done before... After all, it was the only life that many of them had ever known.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 4/7/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Reminds me that in Richmond there is an upscale Holocaust museum but NOT ONE slavery museum.

Sure there is the Museum of the Confederacy but nothing about slavery as a bad subject.

So why the # does Richmond have a holocaust museum anyways!? xD
--

PS: I didn't vote for McDonnell.

I find it puzzling that everyone that says they have generations of family in the south, that not one of them ever says their families held slaves and they deny being racist.
Reminds me of when people get hypnotized and do the past life thing, that they were all kings or important people, never a peasant living in the muck.
And to those that say it was about States Rights, take a look at the various Confederate states constitutions or declarations of succession and see how many times slavery is mentioned.

[edit on 7-4-2010 by BadgerJoe]

If you're into historical chills, you ought to head down to the old Slave Market in Charleston, South Carolina, where the slave auction buildings still stand — but are now filled with all kinds of retail shops, selling everything you can imagine. The Slave Market is still a local center of commerce, but you have to remind yourself that the traffic in the 19th Century was in human flesh.

Yeah, it's sobering.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by BadgerJoe
I find it puzzling that everyone that says they have generations of family in the south, that not one of them ever says their families held slaves and they deny being racist.

What's more puzzling is how the Slavery Reparations crusaders plan on distributing money to the descendants of slaves in America, if and when such ridiculous legislation is ever passed. I mean, I'm white but I have a black ancestor who was a slave in Alabama — do I get reparations? Does Al Sharpton get reparations, even though he's a descendant of a white slave-owner?

Oooh, the Reparations issue is a sticky one, aint it?

My family (my father's side) has been in America since before the American Revolution. They were mercenaries, frontiersmen, Indian-fighters, trappers. They came down the Appalachians to the South, went over to assist in colonizing and liberating Texas from Mexico, and they subsequently fought both sides of the Civil War. They killed their share of red men, black men, brown men and white men over the course of the centuries.

I will add that they married their share of red, black, brown and white women, as well. So, I would find it difficult to be racist, given my genealogy. I'm not a self-hater.

Originally posted by BadgerJoe
And to those that say it was about States Rights, take a look at the various Confederate states constitutions or declarations of succession and see how many times slavery is mentioned.

The point is, it was up to the STATES to decide their own fates, NOT the Central Government. In the strictest sense, the Confederacy was adhering more to the Constitution than was the Federal Government.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 4/7/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Va. gov. concedes omission in history month decree

RICHMOND, Va. – Under pressure from critics, Gov. Bob McDonnell on Wednesday called it a "major omission" not noting slavery in declaring April Confederate History Month in Virginia. As part of his mea culpa, McDonnell inserted into the proclamation a paragraph condemning slavery and blaming it as the cause of the Civil War. "The abomination of slavery divided our nation, deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and led to the Civil War. Slavery was an evil, vicious and inhumane practice which degraded human beings to property, and it has left a stain on the soul of this state and nation," he said in a 400-word statement. The Republican governor's revisions came after a day of scalding denunciations as the story became grist for cable news shows and caught fire on political blogs and in social media. On Tuesday, McDonnell said in a telephone news conference that he wasn't focused on slavery in drafting the decree but on Civil War history. "The failure to include any reference to slavery was a mistake, and for that I apologize to any fellow Virginian who has been offended or disappointed," McDonnell's statement said. The lack of any mention of human bondage originally and his fumbling reply in the news conference when a reporter asked him why left critics and even former supporters outraged.

news.yahoo.com...

He corrected himself...whether it was from taking heat on the subject or not...he essentially apologized and corrected his comments.

reply to post by Doc Velocity

BTW: The north did not begin the Civil War. It officially began when the confederates fired on Fort Sumter (yes, Sumter is in S.C. but at the time it was occupied by soldiers who had an allegiance to the United States).

Lincoln wanted very much to keep the union together. He would not have declared war on the south. They fired the first shot.




[edit on 8-4-2010 by Sestias]