One hundred and sixty-seven years ago today, South Carolina became “First in Treason” — the state has not yet seen fit to put that on their license plates. On April 12, 1861, South Carolinian traitors opened fire on the 127 United States soldiers at Fort Sumter. They fired on their own country’s fort for 33 straight hours. More than 1/2 million Americans would die in the resulting attempts to put down the rebellion.
You know Doug, it’s Confederate sympathizers like you that are the reason we have problems to the present day…
Yeah, well; the tendency of some to romanticize the Confederacy annoys me quite a bit.
Isn’t this what the 2nd amendments about? Taking up arms as a militia against a tyrannical government? Is the bill of rights treasonous? Not that I support the Confederacy. We should have just allowed them to leave when they wanted. It’s self-determination.
EV, not much of an abolitionist, are you?
Tyrannical? Not much of a historian, either.
You’re right that the 2nd Amendment is about putting down tyranny. But, with respect to the Confederacy, I think Samuel Johnson put it pretty well:
My history classes always taught that slavery was the veil of the civil war, but secession was the true reason behind it. I’m 100% glad slavery was ended. I’m just not sure it was the right decision to force the Confederacy to stay part of the US. Most people back the 2nd amendment as a right to bear private arms. I just am stating that this was the true reason the founding fathers included this right–the right to overthrow our government.
This reminds me of reading “Across Five Aprils” in one of my history classes.
I’ll also never forget my first visit to Charleston, and remembering that this was the place where it all began. (Although there is still no more hallowed ground in this country than the fields of Gettysburg.)
Yeah, I hear that stuff about the Second Amendment being to overthrow the government, or prevent government tyranny, etc.
Then I remember that during the very benign, civil liberties-friendly Clinton years, the gun crowd was apeshit forming militias all over the place and watching for black helicopters–not to mention turning routine court-ordered arrest warrant situations into standoffs and blowing up a federal building.
Now that we have a government listening to phone calls, reading mail and email, claiming unprecedented executive power, and not even wanting to bother with warrants, the militia folks seem to have found better things to do.
I don’t have the time or inclination to correct years of PC history, but all historians have an agenda, some are just more benign than others. One has to read more than one view to get a sense of what the reality might have been.
Like everything, there is no simple answer saying THIS or THAT was the cause of the US Civil War. It ain’t that easy, fellas. Suffice it to say that both slavery and states’ rights were component causes. Specifically, a state’s “right” to hold people (and their descendants) in perpetual chattel, and to expand that “right” into the expanding western territories. Law being used to pervert a larger justice.
For me, that is more than sufficient reason for beating down the secession of the southern states. You want to wrap it up into something that “fits” your contmeporary perceptions? Try acquiring a broader perspective first.
“PC history?” What the hell is that?
We (as in The Republic, comprised of mostly the northern states + territories) won the Civil War. We get to define the peace.
It’s that simple. The confederates were treasonous and unpatriotic. Casting them in any other light is an insult to those on the winning side (i.e., me and most other logical Americans who do not have a historical axe to grind). For nearly 100 years the slave-holding states held the United States hostage to their “way of life.” When the country finally got a damn clue about things that “way of life” was put to an end via the 14th Amendment.
Of course we won’t even talk about the next 100 years of trying to subvert the damn Constitution via Jim Crow laws and segregation. Oh no, civilized people don’t talk about such things…
Grrr. Nothing gets me riled up like a nice Civil War discussion.
PC history is the Z80 vs 8086…
“Politically Correct”. It’s history by committee in order to “fit” the interpretation to contemporary societal norms. Textbooks geared for middle school to entry level college classes often fall into this category.
They mean well, and aren’t necessarily wrong, but have dumbed it down, and are providing a single interpretation of events.
Most any social science is taught the same way.
So some say it was about slavery. Others defend their states’ honor by saying, no, it wasn’t about slavery. It was about their rights as states (to hold slaves), and their ability to have influence over the future states’ status (regarding slavery, so that they too could have slaves, and be a “yea” vote in the Congress in defense of slavery).
What’s the damn difference?
Now that we have a government listening to phone calls, reading mail and email, claiming unprecedented executive power, and not even wanting to bother with warrants, the militia folks seem to have found better things to do.
Um, actually, some dipshit names Timothy McVeigh had something to do with the decline in militias and their “finding something better to do”.
Having a member blow up a building and kill scores of innocent people more than likely is going to negatively impact your membership drive.
Well, except in the case of Islam. That kind of thing gains you converts with Islam.
It was a rhetorical question, Varangianguard, but thanks anyway. I’m well aware as to what “PC” means.
And I majored in US History. There’s only so much detail one can cover in a primary & secondary school survey course… But obviously you know better unless I’m reading the tone of your comments incorrectly.
“Most any social science is taught the same way.”
That’s a broad claim. Really? Anthropology? Socialology? Religious studies? What exactly do you mean by this?
I don’t class “Religious Studies” as a “social science”, but there are plenty of philosophical viewpoints out there in that, too.
Otherwise, historical treatises can be viewed through political perspectives like Marxism or Socialism. Some write as apologists, some try to revise history into some other context. Some histories are written from a specific cultural perspective or a gendered perspective.
A reader has to understand that “history” is more often than not an interpretation, and that not all history books have the same message.
Take President Truman. In high school, everything I had read about Harry Truman placed him way down in the pack of US Presidents. While at college, I took a class on US History 1945-present (which is “history” now) taught by one of the foremost experts on President Truman (it turns out). To say the least, he was most demanding when it came to students making broad statements about President Truman’s accomplishments (or lack thereof).
Today, President Truman’s status more closely matches the information presented to me in college. Did the “facts” change? No, the interpretation changed. But, one can still find books on library shelves that present the image of President Truman as less than effective. So, a reader has to be aware of more than the simple “facts” as presented by some historian(s).