The Confederate States did not fight for the continuation of Slavery

a reply to: murphy22

It wasn’t about slaves? I think that the declarations of secession would beg to differ with you.

a reply to: anonentity wonderful film- guy is sharp- He has dark hair at 102?! i like how his daughter or wife is minding him-what a life he lived =from the civil war to the atomic bomb. They dont make people like him anymore. There is another old film of a woman born in 1836 who remembers the indians leaving georgia,and was 25 at the start of the civil war. maybe someone is familiar with it-

a reply to: smurfy

That was what the man was told, and/or believed..why then should not the opposition have the same, but differing values from their different perspective. However, the southern states most likely seceded over, 'state rights' for the simple reason of slavery.

Or this.

Although Davis argued against secession in 1858,[2] he believed that states had an unquestionable right to leave the Union.

en.wikipedia.org...

Do you believe that states should be allowed to leave the Union?

a reply to: tinktinktink

No, I'm not wrong. Sherman's tactics helped end the war. That's undeniable. Which makes me right.

I highly doubt Gen. Sherman himself, raped his way through the south. But he did break if not the will, the capacity of his enemy to fight. Which is how you win a war. War ain't pretty. I can't speak for his Army, maybe they did rape.

I do know when prostitutes started being called "Hookers" though. From Gen. Hooker.

I know the difference between a "thug and a statesman". A thug fixes it himself. A statesman creates a problem, that only a thug can fix. That's why they trained me and others, to be Soldiers (thugs). And to understand Gen Sherman. The world ain't kind, never will be.
Hillary Clinton and "statesmen" get "educated" otherwise, I know.

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Fallingdown

The declaration of secession was littered with one reason... slavery.

No.
Learn history.
US History.

The clearest indication that the CW was about so much more than slavery—-which became a political side bar and moral justification two years into the war—-is Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Ask any 20-40 year old what that proclamation did. If they even have a clue, they’ll say “it freed all the slaves during the Civil War.” That answer is absolutely incorrect. Lincoln’s edict freed the slaves located in the Confederate States of America, or as the document says “states currently in rebellion”. Did Lincoln EMANCIPATE the slaves in Kentucky? No. How about Maryland? No. Delaware? Again, no. The North successfully kept those states (by force) in the Union, but it would have been political suicide to free the slaves in those “border” states...so Lincoln played it safe and “freed” the slaves in the states that had already formed their own country. What a neat slight of hand. Imagine, he created his own, limited political narrative way back in 1863. And the beat goes on...today.

originally posted by: infolurker
a reply to: anonentity

Ummm... the entire reason for the existence of the Confederacy was because of slavery. States rights to keep slaves.

Do some research looking in the right places. The civil war was not started because of slavery. Slavery abolishment was added to make it so the north could win...getting the blacks to help to defeat the south. There were some big slave owners in the north, but in factories and in private residences, evidently the blacks did not like the snow very much coming from Africa and all. The growing season was longer in the south and cotton was needed for the north. For some blacks, getting freed made it harder to survive, because some slave owners were decent people, not all were bad.

The south wanted to break away and the north needed something to get the people to go fight the war, History was made by the winner of the war.

a reply to: azvol

Exactly! It was about "law". And the wording of "a law" right or wrong, is still a "law" in somebody's mind. Usually the "public educated" offspring of the "victor". Who become the judge's, lawyers, politicians and subjects..... History repeats itself.

Doesn't matter the color of skin. There's as many white Ns as there are black, yellow, red and whatever.... And we're all still slaves if we don't regain our rights under the real law, the constitution of the United States.

a reply to: highvein

Way back then, I imagine that certain States had specific identities like the French in Louisiana, etc. due to the lack of mobility areas certainly started to have different identities and values, just as Canadians do from residents down South. After a couple of generations . Differences get established and if an area thinks it different enough like French Canada as opposed to western Canada, why shouldn't a State in a democracy vote any form of government it thinks appropriate. If it cant it isn't a democracy and should stop pretending it is.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: highvein

Way back then, I imagine that certain States had specific identities like the French in Louisiana, etc. due to the lack of mobility areas certainly started to have different identities and values, just as Canadians do from residents down South. After a couple of generations . Differences get established and if an area thinks it different enough like French Canada as opposed to western Canada, why shouldn't a State in a democracy vote any form of government it thinks appropriate. If it cant it isn't a democracy and should stop pretending it is.

Which is what the Civil War was about. The Federal Government going to war against seceding states. Why the seceding doesn't matter, Lincoln wanted to keep the Union, and he did, by going to war with those seceded states.

Do you believe a state should be allowed to secede the Union is the real question.

There is no reason it couldn't have been both reasons.

The bulk of the Confederate military forces were not plantation owners. They could have been fighting for the sovereign rights of their states. We have to remember that the US Republic was less than 100 years old at the time and the States still thought of themselves as countries of their own with one federal government as an umbrella against the influence of foreign countries.

At the same time there were very rich and influential plantation owners who were shaping politics at the highest levels of the southern States. It was in their interest to keep the status quo, and if rattling the saber of State's Rights was needed they would do so.

It's interesting to note that prominent leaders in the Confederacy were not staunch pro-slavers. Jefferson Davis and Robert Lee believed that slavery would fade over time.

This is especially true with regard to that familiar but most fallacious expression, "the extension of slavery." To the reader unfamiliar with the subject, or viewing it only on the surface, it would perhaps never occur that, as used in the great controversies respecting the Territories of the United States, it does not, never did, and never could, imply the addition of a single slave to the number already existing. The question was merely whether the slaveholder should be permitted to go, with his slaves, into territory (the common property of all) into which the non-slaveholder could go with his property of any sort. There was no proposal nor desire on the part of the Southern States to reopen the slave-trade, which they had been foremost in suppressing, or to add to the number of slaves. It was a question of the distribution, or dispersion, of the slaves, rather than of the "extension of slavery." Removal is not extension. Indeed, if emancipation was the end to be desired, the dispersion of the negroes over a wider area among additional Territories, eventually to become States, and in climates unfavorable to slave-labor, instead of hindering, would have promoted this object by diminishing the difficulties in the way of ultimate emancipation.

The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis
www.gutenberg.org...

The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is Known & ordered by a wise & merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy.

While we see the Course of the final abolition of human slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who Sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences ; & with whom two thousand years are but a single day.

Letter from Robert E. Lee to Mary Randolph Custis Lee
www.encyclopediavirginia.org...#:~:text=While%20we%20see%20the%20Course,are %20but%20a%20single%20day

Not exactly pro-immediate-emancipation, but not bound and determined to keep the slaves in shackles either.

Meanwhile, guess who said this before the Civil War started:

I will say then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, of having them to marry with white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch, as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.

That would be Mr. Honest Abe Lincoln himself, at his presidential debates versus Douglas. This is not to say that Lincoln hated the slaves and was only presenting himself as an abolitionist for political reasons, but he was not seeking equal rights. In fact he thought the slaves could be sent back to Africa, or perhaps set up in colonies somewhere in Latin America. It is also worth noting that Abe's views on blacks shifted as he got older and met extraordinary blacks like Frederick Douglass. (Yes, his last name has two s's)

Back to the OP, was the Civil War about slavery? Yes. But I don't think it was 100% about slavery.

a reply to: murphy22

Gen. Sherman was a Soldier, trying to end a war. And he did it well. It worked.
Gen. Lee was a Soldier fighting a war, with what he had.
Lee would've done the same if he could've.

You're about as wrong as you can get.

William Tecumseh "Uncle Billy" Sherman was a devout racist. He did what he did for one reason: to get in the good graces of Ulysses Grant and Lincoln. What he did was stand by and watch as his soldiers burned crops and every building in sight, murdered children while their mothers were forced to watch, killed the elderly indiscriminately, and yes, often raped the women afterward... then killed them. When he was done and moved on to the next massacre, the freed blacks wanted to follow, but Sherman had the bridges burned behind him specifically to stop them from doing so... he didn't want to deal with the black ex-slaves, as he considered them little more than animals. With no food or shelter left after the scorched earth policies, many blacks starved to death or succumbed to the elements thanks to William Tecumseh Sherman.

That is what we call a war criminal. The only difference between Sherman and Hitler was the amount of power they had. Sherman never made it to the top of the chain of command.

By contrast, Robert E. Lee would regularly give quarter to Union soldiers captured. He was loathe to kill anyone he could spare, and that was the single biggest mistake he made. Compassion doesn't get returned by filth like Sherman.

TheRedneck

The Articles of Succession. Doesn't matter what the foot soldiers believe.

And Lincoln didn't invade to free the slaves either...

a reply to: TheRedneck


This one is for redneck

I feel I need to make some points about the actual War of Northern Aggression, since so many here seem to be soooo ignorant. I have studied my family tree extensively, and much of it is wrapped around the Confederacy.

• Slavery was one reason behind the war, but not the primary reason. There were many others. The biggest issue was a combination of economic and of trust. Slavery originated in the United states in New England as slave traders found a new market for their goods. Over time, the practice gradually found its way southward, where the primary industry was agriculture. There were no tractors as there are today; fields had to be worked by hand, and slavery allowed farmers to till more land than they could otherwise. The ones who could afford slaves became the plantation owners and their entire economic success was dependent on a cheap source of labor: slavery.
  
  
• The Revenue Act of 1861, passed by the Union during the war, included a primary reason for secession: a property tax that was unfair toward Southern states. Land was taxed at a flat rate in each state. The flat rate was based on state population, but that fell far short of overcoming the disadvantage in the South. A Northern industrial business could make more for the owner on a couple of acres of land than a plantation in the South could make on a few hundred acres. Worse, the tax also hit smaller farmers, who were barely squeaking out a living as it was. The revenue Act of 1861 was the passage of the tax that had been threatened against the South during the years leading to the war, and Lincoln was a proponent of it.
  
  This is the tax that caused many soldiers to lose their homes and land after the war to carpetbaggers.
  
  
• Very few Southerners owned slaves. An average slave was worth the equivalent of $40,000 today... the price of a nice new car. Most Southerners simply could not afford slaves, and the majority of those who could only had one or two. This group was actually the source of the rising tide against slavery that the OP speaks of, as they had come to know their slaves so well and in most cases treated them as a part of their extended family. After emancipation, many former slaves took the surnames of their owners for this reason.
  
  
• Most Southerners hated the plantation owners. They were generally corrupt elitists. The romantic notion of the elder "colonial" sitting on the front veranda sipping a mint julep is just that: a bunch of romantic nonsense. In reality, they spent most of their days making backroom deals with politicians and ruling through their political puppets with an iron hand.
  
  On a side note, the KKK existed before the war... it was strictly local vigilante groups who organized to fight that corruption. It only organized into a national organization in Pulaski, TN after the war.
  
  
• Very few slaves were purposely beaten and almost none were killed, except for refusal to work or attempts to escape. They were considered valuable. Of course, there were exceptions, but beating or killing a slave for no good reason was actually considered a crime by the early KKK groups.
  
  
• Georgia was originally started with a charter that forbad slavery.
  
  
• Abolitionists existed in the South as well as in the North. How else could there have even been an underground railroad? There were more abolitionists in the North, but they existed in the South as well.
  
  
• The South actually had many black battalions in their army; the vast majority were slaves when the war started, and almost none defected. They were fighting for their homes as well.
  
  
• The Confederacy did not invade the Union. The Confederacy declared independence just as the United States declared independence from England in 1776. The Union failed to recognize the declaration and fired on Southerners in Union forts. The Union tried to invade the Confederacy.
  
  
• Slavery was promoted as the cause of the war when Lincoln realized he was losing popular support for the war effort over a string of military losses. It was a propaganda campaign.
  
  
• The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the United States. It only ended slavery in the Southern states. Many of the northern states officially ended slavery after the war.
  
  
• The flag you probably know of as the "Confederate Flag" today was not the Confederate flag. There were two Confederate flags during the life of the Confederacy. The first one was rejected pretty quickly because it was mostly white and many believed it could be too easily confused with a flag of surrender. The flag we know today as the "Confederate flag" was in actuality the Confederate Battlejack... a naval wartime flag. It got its association with the Confederacy because the Confederacy was at war during its entire existence, and as usual, Yankees think they know everything even when they know nothing. They just assumed it was the Confederate flag because it flew from the Confederate naval ships.

TheRedneck

a reply to: anonentity

This one is for redneck

Never gets old... the Confederate Anthem, "Dixie."

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Aww the South had the best songs

a reply to: anonentity

We still do... Nashville (home of country), Memphis (home of the blues), Jacksonville (home of several Southern rock bands), New Orleans (home of zydeco)...



TheRedneck

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: TheRedneck


This one is for redneck

What a diverse bunch of individuals.

a reply to: TheRedneck

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

Regarding the "crimes"?
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.

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".

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?

Sorry. Being cruel to be kind. Doesn't make a bad leader.


I'm not wrong. Sherman did what needed doing and at the time it needed done and for the style of warfare. It sucks looking back, I know. But one would do it exactly that way, again.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Well said. And true.