I’m pretty hard on Southerners for their failed attempts at treason in defense of their right to own their fellow human beings. But really, I suppose, I’m not mad at the southern soldiers. Sure, they were horribly misguided in their loyalties, but by and large they were fighting because of their loyalty which has a certain nobility. When you’re down in the muck, it’s awfully tough to see much past “us” versus “them.”
What I really can’t tolerate are modern day people, far removed from the time and place of the Confederacy who, even in hindsight, think taking up arms against the United States of America in order to preserve slavery was a worthwhile or even honorable thing to do. That such sentiment exists, strongly in some areas, is beyond question. See Tony Horwitz’s “Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War.”
More recently, we were treated to the amazing spectacle of a United States Congressman on the floor of the House of Representatives referring to the Civil War as the “Great War of Yankee Aggression.” Specifically, I am referring to Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA):
BROUN: If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.
You don’t like health care reform? Fine, vote against it. Even argue that it’s a bad idea. But romanticizing the Civil War and the rebels who took up arms against the U.S. is beyond the pale. To borrow from Samuel Johnson: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”
Sometimes, I think Reconstruction was ended too early. The South never fully internalized that they were beaten and they were wrong. I’m reminded of Cool Hand Luke:
Luke: Don’t hit me anymore…Oh God, I pray to God you don’t hit me anymore. I’ll do anything you say, but I can’t take anymore.
Boss Paul: You got your mind right, Luke?
Luke: Yeah. I got it right. I got it right, boss. (He grips the ankles of the guard)
Boss Paul: Suppose you’s back-slide on us?
Luke: Oh no I won’t. I won’t, boss.
Boss Paul: Suppose you’s to back-sass?
Luke: No I won’t. I won’t. I got my mind right.
Boss Paul: You try to run again, we gonna kill ya.
Luke: I won’t, I won’t, boss.
The South never quite got it’s mind right about the Civil War.
Damn President Benjamin Harrison for withdrawing Federal troops from the conquered Confederacy!
I thought it was Rutherford B. Hayes who had to do it in return for stealing the election of 1876 from Samuel Tilden.
Broun’s always a good source of stupid bastard soundbites.
You’re right.
Nevermind!
(but still damn Benjamin Harrison on general principles!)
While I agree with the general point you’re making Doug, I would point out that many Southerners didn’t see the war as being about slavery but rather the right to secede from the union. They thought they had voluntarily entered into this pact in 1789 and honestly thought they could choose to leave it if whenever they wish. While I don’t agree with that for legalistic reasons too long to explain here, it isn’t that outrageous of a position to take.
It’s interesting where blame lies for some. I’m more inclined to cast ire at the Founders, who permitted the compromise that included slavery to begin with. In my opinion, there could have as easily have been a northern, free nation that left the slaveholding colonies out to form their own nation, or to wallow about. Give people generations to live a certain way, and they become inclined to defend ‘their way of life’, when such time as a Civil War comes about. Beyond that, I’m rarely inclined to blame the common man for standing with his home. I’ll cast the blame onto officials who lead them into wars.
Now, on the Cool Hand Luke reference, are you saying the Warden should have kept right on beating the shit out of him? As a benefit to him? That’s how it reads, and seems mighty peculiar. Would occupation into the 1900s have been adequate? Are you therefore pleased with the prospect of occupying much of the world into the next several decades, until the rest of the world gets its’ collective minds right? Just extrapolating here.
I don’t know about the rest of it, but yeah, given that it seems like much of the South hasn’t given up on the Lost Cause, apparently the North didn’t do enough to teach them that the lost and they were wrong: if you are a United States citizen and you live here, you don’t take up arms against the United States, and you don’t get to own people. I don’t know if they had to continue beating the crap out of the South, but given the 360,000 or so U.S. soldiers who died putting down their rebellion, they earned whatever beating they got – but, not just for the sake of inflicting pain; only for the purpose of ending the fight and the debate once and for all.
How long would have been long enough? I don’t know. But clearly 1876 wasn’t the year since they’re still electing yahoos who are rejecting the lesson of the Civil War. I’m not sure what happened in Germany post-WWII, but generally it seems the Germans have internalized the fact that they were on the wrong side of World War II, that they were wrong and they lost. (Maybe that’s just my view from afar.)
In his memiors, published in the 1880s, Ulysses S. Grant said this:
“For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of sections, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.”
I laughed when I read it. If you only knew, General. Sometimes I wonder if the US shouldn’t have tried the whole bunch of confederate officers for treason.
I have to agree with Doug. They’re STILL talking seccession in Texas, not to mention attempting to rewrite history in the classroom and refuting science, too.
I generally agree with what you’ve said BUT I think there’s quite a bit of generalization going on. Just because one idiot asshole is screaming into the wind, not all southerners are the same. There are plenty of northern idiots too.
OTHO let then seceed. I’m fine with it. Frankly were becoming 5 different nations as it is. Maybe letting each region run themselves wouldn’t be a bad thing. The south can become the new American Taleban.
I’ll always remember the post-Reagan voice of conservatism : Trent Lott and Haley Barbour. The accent is different now but the message seems the same.
I’ll admit to a lot of generalization. For example, I’d bet a good chunk of the black folks in the South aren’t overly romantic about the Confederacy — nor were their ancestors, I suspect, consulted about whether to secede from the Union.
Just goes to show you how persistent ‘learned’ behaviors can be as they are passed from generation to generation. Frankly, talk today about “Yankee Aggression” is just impotent posturing. Outside of parts of South Carolina and coastal Georgia, just how well do you think that plays in the larger portion of the South?
As for post-war Germans, remember that most people now in their 70s and 80s were raised within the framework of the Hitler Youth. I think this persists somewhat in the “skinheads” and Neo-Nazi youths (their grandchildren). Americans (including me) don’t know much about the post-war occupation of Germany. This is because many Germans weren’t as ready to acknowledge the errors of their government (and hence their own behavior), and perhaps the Allies’ behavior towards them wasn’t as friendly as we might like to think. It wasn’t all “Berlin Airlift” and Marshall Plan. There was friction until the mid-50s, when the Federal Republic was allowed to join in the Cold War.
They may be broad generalizations, but just think about the efforts some southerners and some southern states go to to keep flying the confederate flag. Really? You want to fly the flag of the insurrection that led to a bloody war? I wonder if the South had won whether they would have had a First Amenment that would have allowed Yankee sympathizers to advocate for abolition.
One thing I can say about the Germans I have met over last dozen years or so is that they’re true pacifists,against any war on principle.Also they are now generally very tolerant of race and ‘life styles’ and this in contrast to the fascism they were taught in the 30s and 40s.Former East Germany,however, is where the racist,anti-immigrant types can be found.But I have spent most of my time in Berlin,so that’s my perspective.
Ive really enjoyed the re-establishment of Berlin as a major world cultural center.I have literally seen the huge new goverment center of skyscrapers go up just south of the Brandenburg Gate..
Berlin is again a mecca for arts and culture,and Germany has become a sub-center of economics ,within the EU, of the former communist-controlled countries. Germany along with Poland,Hungary,Czech Republic and even as far as the new countries of former Yugolslavia are now strongly in Germany’s sphere of influence.
Ive also spent time in Kiel ( submarine base from ww2. on north sea) One of the interesting sidelights to Kiel is the ferry coming in from Stockholm filled with Swedes coming to drink in Germany where beer is so much cheaper.Also Kiel is a beautiful seaport,with a great maritime museum. People in Berlin speak English widely,but expect to have to speak German in Kiel. Also there’s a shipping canal at Kiel that connects the North Sea with the Baltic.
The north coast of Germany is 54 degrees north latitude(54/40 is south boundary of Alaska) and that’s where Germans flock to the beach unless they go to a warmer foreign land.That’s probably why Germans love warm countries and seek out exotic peoples so much.A day on the beach on Baltic Coast is sitting behind a windbreak sipping coffee and reading a book..a beach day ,the German way.
Stettin to Germans, today Szcecin,Poland,is where Germans go to drink cheaper for Germans,not far from Berlin and just across the border in Poland…a day trip.
After the War, the northern armies and republican legislature in DC levied economic and property war on the south. Carpetbaggers came south and stole property for pennies on the dollar at most. It was out of this that the Klan rose up and the democrat party started representing the rights (pronounced raats) of the south and did so on up through the 1960’s, through the klan and the democrat officials and the rest of the US who looked away and described the south as quaint. When Johnson forced his party to adopt civil rights, the republicants moved in to pick up the hate groups and the majority of white southern voters, most of which were part of these hate groups or shared their beliefs or who just went with the social norm. Since then, and even more so since reagan and the gingrich crap of the 90’s, the republicants have kept beating the drums of racial hatred during their political campaigns and even on into the present with their work against acorn and health care and voting rights here in Indiana and all their hate mongers on fox. Still, we still have these quaint little old ladies in Virginia and Ky and Louisiana and Texas who believe Robt ELee should still be fighting the good fight against them damned yankees. Not to mention the damned red necks in congress.
Anyway, If only our founders had actually been god-fearing people they would have done away with slavery, but they were god fearing people of their time who did not recognize black people or native americans as human beings. It was not until sometime in the mid-1700s (might be a bit earlier) that the Pope granted the status of human to natives in america. When did the US do it? maybe in the 60’s with the civil rights act. Still trying to determine if we will implement that law fully.
Given the history, the republicants are just using the secessionist talk to rile up the hate groups. They do not care that it could lead to violence or even actual dissolution of the US. As long as they can spread their hatred of the black and the minority and Obama (his election cannot be real it goes against every tenet of their way of life). It is the same hatred and tactics that has kept the middle east hatred going for so many thousands of years. Jews against unnamed tribes listed in the torah, egyptians against hittites, etc etc until the present jews against palestinians. And the al quada groups use the hatred, just like the republicants and the neo-nazis, to achieve their aims.
Have a nice Saturday.
@ Paul – The “state’s rights” argument is pure “lost cause” revisionism of the later part of the 1800’s; it has little to do with why the south actually revolted. That was slavery, as was apparent to everyone at the time. Here is the beginning of MS’s secession declaration; those from other states are similar:
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union
In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery – the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
You can find the whole thing here: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp
Peter said:
“Paul – The “state’s rights” argument is pure “lost cause” revisionism of the later part of the 1800’s; it has little to do with why the south actually revolted.”
Not sure you’re referring to the Paul that is me, but you could not be more wrong. To say the Civil War for the South was only about slavery is to contradict about about every history book ever written. It isn’t some theory that originated in the 1800s. I’m sorry but to suggest that the South only rebelled because of slavery is itself creative revisionist history.
On the Weather Channel (of all places) there was a documentary about the Great Mssissippi Flood of 1926. What surprised me was that the blacks were little more than de facto slaves at that time,shoring up the levees near Vicksburg to save the white folks homes and businesses at the expense of their own lives and homes.The white control at the time was afraid the federal government would seize control and put the labor force more where it was needed for co-ordinated flood control. Blacks would be relocated and they’d lose their resident manual labor supply.The locals succeeded in holding off federal intervention so what ensued was a huge human disaster with significant loss of life. I assume that this is within the over all context of how blacks were used still in 1926,and it would still be going on had there never been a Civil Rights movement.
To say the South ‘fought to keep slavery’ is not the way to phrase it as it’s too easy to refute that as too condemnatory and misses the greater point of the South’s economic system which could never have survived as it had been without slavery.Were the landowners even ready to pay minimum wage to freed blacks? That wasn’t a concept. It might even have been cheaper than slavery had they thought about it,but they would have lost total control.The condition of the blacks in the South is mostly overlooked in all but black history after they were officially freed.
In the North the blacks had remained, until recent times, as a permanent part of the working poor and uneducated. Most towns I have ever visited through 60s had a black section where no one went who didnt live there,and that was poor beyond ‘white poor’.In Champaign-Urbana where I mosty grew up, the black area was called the North End. And nothing had changed for decades.Whites were also poor and uneducated but always better able to escape poverty to get an education (myself included).
My father was working poor and categorized as ‘unskilled labor’ all his life.He was ”an equal’ to all the black unskilled men he worked with. This is the swamp where racism breeds.But we don’t call it that because it makes one point of view completely indefensible,and there’s no place to go beyond condemnation except to fight back.That means anti-government because ‘the goverment is interferring in our way of life’.
I really do understand the anti-obama stuff.His success, even up to this point, is absolutely intolerable to many,and many are afraid..it’s not so much ‘hate’ as some have posted.But fear can be manipulated into hate by those who understand motivation.This is not a change of subject but a summary of the point from above in todays political context,and the blacks that are supposed to still be working on the levee for free,or to save ‘our’ community,as others would phrase it.Hope I don’t sound like one of those radicals.
Nicely said Lou. You provided examples of what I was saying. They did find a solution that was cheaper for owners than slavery. It was sharecropping. When freed, the slaves were often allowed to stay in their quarters and work the land, and could borrow against their future earnings for food and rent. They never got out of debt. They did the same thing to the coal miners (poor scots-irish appalachians) of the early 1900’s to mid-1970’s. Provide a place to live for rent deducted from ones pay, lend vouchers for food to be bought at the company store and pay in vouchers (script or checks that could only be cashed at the local company bank or company store). This kept the miners in their place for generations. Now they do it with the migrant and illegal migrant workers.
That Mississippi declaration says so much. White people couldn’t work in Mississippi, so they needed blacks. It just left out the part about why the blacks couldn’t be paid for their work. It just said that Mississippi is hot, and therefore…. slaves.
As far as “states’ rights” goes, the history books never say what other rights those states wanted, other than to own black people.
Their state flag memorializes the white Mississippian of that era, who by their declaration was simply too frail to work. Long may it wave, that all might remember the worthlessness and hereditary incapability of that bunch of Mississippians.
And then there’s the North where they implemented “prevailing wage” laws in the 1930s, expressly, to keep out the “colored labor”…South African labor unions use minimum wages for the same purpose.
Oh sure. We’ve had segregation in the North, too. What I don’t see is the North claiming it was anything other than what it was–backward behavior that was inappropriate and wrong. Indiana, for instance, doesn’t put a patch of white on the state flag to memorialize our Klan past.
People applaud minimum wage and prevailing wage laws every day– imagining they’re enlightened. And then there’s our elementary/secondary education policies and welfare policies which encourage outcomes KKK’ers can only dream about.
I don’t like these laws either, but to imply (as you seem to be doing) that those who do support them now are “guilty by association” because others supported these same laws for different, more nefarious reasons in the past is rather dishonest.
My last post is in the context of T’s comment about “backwards”.
My previous post lays out the point that “prevailing wage” laws in America and minimum wage laws in South Africa are explicitly racist in origin. Of course, most people who advocate such laws are not racist; many, in fact, would claim to be sophisticated. But they are on the racist’s side of the debate; special interest groups gain a lot from such laws; and good intentions are not worth much (to me) when the outcomes are so painful.
“Explicitly racist in origin”
I’ve heard that said of gun control laws, as well.
Could be; I’m not familiar with that…In my first book, I cite the Congressional Record for my documentation on prevailing wage law.
No one still defends slavery,any nation who uses force of arms,or rather terror tactics to remain whole,might be a lot of things klngdom,empire,people’s republic,whatever,but it can never be a free republic without the consent of the public.The lickspittle who wrote the above should go back to wherever and read a little history,and I should go somewhere,and learn basic puntuation.
Well, you know the Soutern gentlemen who started the War actually won it by killing Lincoln. My reasoning is that Andrew Johnson gave them back theuir lands and pardoned them. They ended up wealthier than beforee because of share-cropping. I think Johnson was afraid to go home and be guilty of punishing those who started the fight because his home was thge same town where Forrest establ;ished the KKK. There was no protection for a retired President during those years.
It is well known that Johnson wanted to punish those wealthu slave/plantation owners. So, why did he not? I tyink he was scared of them.