of view? Or, do we just read whatever re-enforces our on current beliefs. To be honest, I would say very few...liberal or conservative. That's doesn't make much sense to me.
What are your thoughts?
What are your thoughts?
Seriously...How many people take the time to read other points
- Thread starter dieharddawg62
- Start date
I do. Read and try to figure out the angles.
You see, I considered what could make my great great grandad who
was a new immigrant from Scotland volunteer for the 65th Georgia Vols
and so I looked at angles. Was he simply a traitor as some here suggest? Cause it's easy to demand respect for others opinions and feelings, but when I see the words they sling around it teaches me they have no respect - but I read on anyway. Just for angles.
I went to the places where he fought. The battlefields. I stood where he stood at Chickamauga and went to Franklin and rode the trail down to Atlanta and looked over ridges and imagined all the marching, and sleepless nights before battle, and the loss of new friends on these trails
and can't for the life of me imagine that he came here with 3 sons (who he left orphaned at the end of the line) just to have another man enslaved when he didn't even own one. All the heartbreak, all the fear, all the frozen nights and endless hunger, just to be a traitor or a slavemaster?
There's more to it than that. Whitepug and his kind just have no clue.
Let them walk a few miles and see the places where our noble dead -South and North alike - watered the tree of liberty with their blood.
It is an awe-inspiring, awakening experience and they will come away more in love with our freedoms than ever. MY personal connection with our Southern lads and the people that supported them have me more indebted and in love with America itself than anything I've ever read in a college class or history book or heard from a teacher.
I truly love my country. My family has answered the bell in nearly every war and paid the price. I am the first generation NOT to be a soldier, but I do not take this land lightly. I love my country. Our country.
You see, I considered what could make my great great grandad who
was a new immigrant from Scotland volunteer for the 65th Georgia Vols
and so I looked at angles. Was he simply a traitor as some here suggest? Cause it's easy to demand respect for others opinions and feelings, but when I see the words they sling around it teaches me they have no respect - but I read on anyway. Just for angles.
I went to the places where he fought. The battlefields. I stood where he stood at Chickamauga and went to Franklin and rode the trail down to Atlanta and looked over ridges and imagined all the marching, and sleepless nights before battle, and the loss of new friends on these trails
and can't for the life of me imagine that he came here with 3 sons (who he left orphaned at the end of the line) just to have another man enslaved when he didn't even own one. All the heartbreak, all the fear, all the frozen nights and endless hunger, just to be a traitor or a slavemaster?
There's more to it than that. Whitepug and his kind just have no clue.
Let them walk a few miles and see the places where our noble dead -South and North alike - watered the tree of liberty with their blood.
It is an awe-inspiring, awakening experience and they will come away more in love with our freedoms than ever. MY personal connection with our Southern lads and the people that supported them have me more indebted and in love with America itself than anything I've ever read in a college class or history book or heard from a teacher.
I truly love my country. My family has answered the bell in nearly every war and paid the price. I am the first generation NOT to be a soldier, but I do not take this land lightly. I love my country. Our country.
Most of the long time posters hate anybody who isn't radically right wing, white and southern. If you read this board before the housecleaning you know as much. It's not like there was any real balance or both sides being equally guilty of close mindedness.
You could agree with many of them on 5 things then point out where they were wrong in calling The POTUS a spy or any number of things and they'd be all over you.
I blame site management more than anybody. They absolutely let the worst offenders run the board for years.
I do, I can argue the ACA better than most that are for it. It is really annoying sometimes, a lot of the people that are on the left are arguing for something they know nothing about. It has been proven that conservatives understand liberals better than liberals understand conservatives, I think that is because one side is gathering the facts and the other is just acting off pure emotion.
Descendants can personalize any side of any war ever fought.
That can't be considered when judging history.
His Dad was a Nazi, sorry, he fought for a noble cause...no, no, no. It would be impossible to judge history in any rationale fashion with that restriction.
I can't speak to your ancestors as individuals. I can state all those on The Confederate side were on the wrong side of history and they fought for a terrible cause. Was that their intention ? I can't make that judgment without factual information on the individual.
Fighting for federalism and to preserve states' rights was the right idea...it's just unfortunate that the main state right being fought for was slavery. It was the Southern politicians that drove the South towards secession and left the citizens to fight the war. Rich man's war, poor man's fight. Those who have said that the vast majority on the Confederate side weren't fighting to preserve slavery are probably right. They were fighting for their homeland. It seems quaint now, but 150 years ago it probably wasn't uncommon for people to feel allegiance to a state first and country second. People were also a lot more wiling to die for a cause.
There is much factual information on the individuals who lived and fought during those times. Thoughts from their own minds put to spoken word.
But the truth has been bastardized to fit an agenda. The internet is not a great source. Right behind aliens being responsible for the civil war, you can find any opinion you want to fit your ideology. And that goes both ways.
Reading actual quotes from books written by these men. Reading about the issues of the day. It is far more informative than any history book from school.
Research is the best way to understand. And staying away from political agenda is the best method. The political climate of the civil war day was much more complex than slavery.
I say this with no current agenda. ow, all men have the freedom of education and mobility. The only limits are what we place on ourselves.
There have been some really good discussions on this board. I enjoy it. It isn't personal. Civil war era slavery affects no one's lot in life now. But the preservation of our history and heritage surpasses agenda.
I choice to see our history for what it is, history. We learn. We move on. We see the ideals of those before us and see not everything bad. We see life, as it is now. More complex than a simple agenda for want.
Very proud of every soul that made this country what it is. And I am very proud that many fought to try and keep at bay fed imperialism that is now choking us into economic hell.
I remember as a child in the 80s hearing my dad talk politics with members of the family at holiday gatherings, coworkers when I'd visit him at work, and other random people in random places. I don't remember differing opinions leading to as much hate as I witness today.
Seems like back then people who disagreed could engage in a debate without dismissing each other as human beings or even Americans. The team politics thing seemed to really take root in the 90s with political talk radio exploding as more of a pacifying and pandering platform than discussion of political news on any objective level. Then the rest of the media seemed to really take sides openly and it's been downhill from there.
The sad part is that many intelligent people would rather go down with the ship than to admit anyone on their side is ever wrong about anything. Even in the rare cases they are willing to admit that someone on their team is wrong, they immediately deflect by suggesting that the other side did something bad too as if that cancels out their own side's bad deed. It's quite juvenile.
Do yall really sit around writing paragraph after paragraph of craptastic arguments that nobody ever reads? Summarize man
Thanks for sharing your personal story. Let me share my personal story so you can understand how I indeed have a "clue". I graduated UGA in 1985 with a BA in history and a commission in the US Army through the ROTC program. I served in the Army from 1985 to 2005 and participated in Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, and Operation Enduring Freedom. The Army awarded me a Combat Infantryman Badge and a Parachutist Badge with 1 Combat Jump Device (obtained during Operation Just Cause), so I have walked my own miles at the point of the spear, and have personally witnessed many soldiers and civilians of many nationalities die. I urge others on this message board who have been in combat to share their experiences---in my experience, there is nothing noble, awe-inspiring, or awakening about witnessing the death of a 19-year old American soldier, or a dead 19-year old Panamanian, Iraqi, or Afghan soldier for that matter.
In between my overseas tours, I attended and graduated from UNC in 1995 with a MA in military history, and the US Army Command and General Staff College in 1998 with a Master of Military Art and Science degree. During my year at CGSC, I participated in staff rides and battlefield tours at Gettysburg and Antietam. I toured the battlefields with the mindset of a professional military officer and historian, so I didn't have any grandiose epiphanies about watering trees of liberty with blood---excuse my language, but that kind of talk is bullshit when you have really seen someone you know and have responsibility for die in combat. I spent most of the tour studying the terrain and lines of communication and judging how I would have commanded an infantry battalion given the weaponry and logistical support of the 1860s.
The stereotype of the ivory tower academic is just that, a stereotype. There are many teachers in all academic disciplines who, like myself, have so-called "real world experience".
I don't suggest your ancestor was a traitor---the US Constitution is very straightforward about what constitutes that crime. I refer you to Article III, Section 3 and you can read it for yourself. As a point of constitutional law, every confederate from Jefferson Davis to your ancestor was a traitor to the United States.
And as for why your ancestor volunteered to fight for the confederacy---My first question would be, did he really volunteer? In April 1862, the confederate congress passed a conscription law that required all white males between 18 and 35 to serve for three years, unless they could purchase a substitute who would normally be exempt from service.
Why he fought even though he didn't own slaves? Well, many slaveowners were able to dodge service after October 1862, when the confederate congress passed the so-called "Twenty Slave Law" that exempted white males who owned twenty or more slaves. That made it a rich man's war, and a poor man's fight.
I'm happy for you that you love your country and that you take an interest in your ancestors.
A marriage by force is no marriage.
Thank you for your service.
The fact that a person would stand up to that is awe-inspiring. Not death.
Thank you for your service.
The fact that a person would stand up to that is awe-inspiring. Not death.
Whitepug, take a few and read this. We could not have a Revolution against England and do the same thing to ourselves:
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” said Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or withdraw from a larger unit.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison held that the U.S. Constitution was a compact of sovereign states which had delegated very specific powers but not sovereignty to a central government-powers which could be recalled any time. By international law sovereignty cannot be surrendered by implication, only by an express act. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any express renunciation of sovereignty by the states.
In an article entitled “The Foundations and Meaning of Secession” which appeared in the Stetson Law Review (1986), Pepperdine University Law Professor H. Newcomb Morse provides convincing evidence that the American states do indeed have the right to secede and that the Confederate states did so legally.
First, three of the original thirteen states-Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island-ratified the U.S. Constitution only conditionally. Each of these states explicitly retained the right to secede. By accepting the right of these three states to leave the Union, has the United States not tacitly accepted the right of any state to leave?
Second, over the years numerous states have nullified acts of the central government judged to be unconstitutional. These instances where national laws have been nullified give credence to the view that the compact forming the Union has already been breached and that states are morally and legally free to leave.
Third, and most importantly, the U.S. Constitution does not forbid a state from leaving the Union. According to the tenth amendment to the Constitution, anything that is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is allowed. Therefore, all states have a Constitutional right to secede.
However, two new constitutional questions concerning secession emerged shortly after the Civil War ended. First, under military occupation and control, six former Confederate states were coerced into enacting new constitutions containing clauses prohibiting secession. But in the eyes of most legal scholars, agreements of this sort made under duress are voidable at the option of the aggrieved party. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing to prevent these six states from amending their constitutions again.
During this same period of time and also under duress, the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution was ostensibly ratified. Although this amendment does not explicitly forbid secession, some have argued that it does so implicitly.
However, the fourteenth amendment is tainted by the highly questionable legality of the Union’s invasion of the South. Some legal scholars question whether the fourteenth amendment was ever constitutionally ratified.
According to the Declaration of Independence, we are endowed by our Creator with “certain unalienable rights” including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If that is the case, then it is not much of a stretch to argue that the right of secession is such a right.
Ultimately, whether or not a state is allowed to secede is neither a legal question nor a constitutional question, but rather a matter of political will.
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government,” said Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or withdraw from a larger unit.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison held that the U.S. Constitution was a compact of sovereign states which had delegated very specific powers but not sovereignty to a central government-powers which could be recalled any time. By international law sovereignty cannot be surrendered by implication, only by an express act. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any express renunciation of sovereignty by the states.
In an article entitled “The Foundations and Meaning of Secession” which appeared in the Stetson Law Review (1986), Pepperdine University Law Professor H. Newcomb Morse provides convincing evidence that the American states do indeed have the right to secede and that the Confederate states did so legally.
First, three of the original thirteen states-Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island-ratified the U.S. Constitution only conditionally. Each of these states explicitly retained the right to secede. By accepting the right of these three states to leave the Union, has the United States not tacitly accepted the right of any state to leave?
Second, over the years numerous states have nullified acts of the central government judged to be unconstitutional. These instances where national laws have been nullified give credence to the view that the compact forming the Union has already been breached and that states are morally and legally free to leave.
Third, and most importantly, the U.S. Constitution does not forbid a state from leaving the Union. According to the tenth amendment to the Constitution, anything that is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is allowed. Therefore, all states have a Constitutional right to secede.
However, two new constitutional questions concerning secession emerged shortly after the Civil War ended. First, under military occupation and control, six former Confederate states were coerced into enacting new constitutions containing clauses prohibiting secession. But in the eyes of most legal scholars, agreements of this sort made under duress are voidable at the option of the aggrieved party. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing to prevent these six states from amending their constitutions again.
During this same period of time and also under duress, the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution was ostensibly ratified. Although this amendment does not explicitly forbid secession, some have argued that it does so implicitly.
However, the fourteenth amendment is tainted by the highly questionable legality of the Union’s invasion of the South. Some legal scholars question whether the fourteenth amendment was ever constitutionally ratified.
According to the Declaration of Independence, we are endowed by our Creator with “certain unalienable rights” including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If that is the case, then it is not much of a stretch to argue that the right of secession is such a right.
Ultimately, whether or not a state is allowed to secede is neither a legal question nor a constitutional question, but rather a matter of political will.
it's become obvious this threat is really just the latest ''The South was right'' vomit fest.
So those who KNOW Neo Confederates are wrong just don't bother to listen, what a crock, nothing new here.
As opposed to being ''contrary do what the entire civilized world has come to understand as ''self evident'' truth.
Being contrary on this board is usually just being right.
How is it revisionist? I'm sure you've seen the stats about how few Southerners actually owned slaves. Why would a common farmer take up arms to preserve the slaves of rich planters? He took up arms no differently than if an army from Mexico had been invading.
I think people in the modern era such as yourself fail to realize the position of the early American people. In the modern era the "country" is the be all end all. God, Family, Country, State in that order. From what I gather, the founders intended it to be God, Family, State, Country. So, having one stand up for ones state over the good of the country is not unheard of and hardly treason. There is a reason it is called The United STATES and not United State. Every other nation in the world we refer to as a state, meaning the US is supposed to be a group of nations existing inside a confederacy.
I'm not rehashing the obvious yet again. I'll just state once more to review what southerners themselves stated as to why their states were seceding. Just read the 4 statements of secession from Texas, SC, Louisiana and Alabama. It was ONLY about slavery.
Now, there is no chance anything anybody post or says with ever get through to you, so why continue this exchange ?
You wont find a single historian anywhere that will claim that the Civil War was just about slavery, But, nice try
If you're going to continue the exchange you should at least pay attention to what is being said. I didn't anything about why the states seceded. I'm talking about why the vast majority of the Southern soldiers fought. As I said, their politicians railroaded them into the war based on slavery. Once the Union had decided to attack (as it would have whether or not Fort Sumter had been shelled), it became a fight over much more than just slavery.
You obviously have little idea about the subject other than what like minded dead enders pass back and forth.
It's really good to see The republican SC House finding enlightenment, so I hold out hope guys like you won't live and die having never progressed past the nonsense passed on to you.
Let this sneak into your mind, you're allowed to change and grow, your surroundings try to fool you into thinking you can't be something different, I went through it, but you can grow into the modern world if you're brave and open to it.
I've already addressed that. pay attention. This is about why the war came about. It was because the ruling class of the south feared Lincoln would move to restrict and eventually end slavery.
You obviously have absolutely no substance to back up your claim. You're a revisionist, you're just on the opposite end of the spectrum.
What I am is tired of guiding people like you through mountains of facts that will inevitably fall on deaf ears.
My advice is read the words of key southerners and documents coming out of the south leading up to war.
If you want to grow, EDUCATE yourself, it will take an open mind though, that is the tough thing to overcome with people of your mindset.
Lincoln addressed his friend Alexander Stephens(of Georgia) and stated VERY clearly , "If I could keep the Union together without freeing a single slave I'd do it" and made other statements along the same lines to Northerners. The Emancipation Proclamation only addressed the Southern States that were in open rebellion. Also he very well sent people to Maryland to prevent ANY votes for succession and occupied the house. This was about consolidation of power.
Look Helen, I have no idea why you need to debate this if you think you are so superior to all of us. Just Move On if you are so clearly
the wise man on the mountain. Not all Southerners even agreed on the whys and wherefore's of the need to succeed. There was opposition even in the mind of Lee. You can't just lump it all in one precept when there was YEARS of debate leading up to this. Especially the tariffs
and lack of representation in Washington for our region.
Look Helen, I have no idea why you need to debate this if you think you are so superior to all of us. Just Move On if you are so clearly
the wise man on the mountain. Not all Southerners even agreed on the whys and wherefore's of the need to succeed. There was opposition even in the mind of Lee. You can't just lump it all in one precept when there was YEARS of debate leading up to this. Especially the tariffs
and lack of representation in Washington for our region.
You've either learned a tiny fraction of the whole and misunderstand what you've been spoon fed, or you're dishonest.
Whichever is the case, I'm not compelled to argue with a hard head or empty vessel.
Maybe you'll grow, maybe you'll die in ignorance and/or hate.
Good luck.
In a previous post, I linked Calhoun's Southern Address which clearly indicates that there were other considerations for Southern secession than slavery. Slavery was the primary issue, but not the only one. If you stick to your earlier claim that slavery was the ONLY reason for secession, then you will have proven that you are no more educated on the matter than those who claim that slavery wasn't the primary issue.
The war was about southerners' fear Lincoln would restrict and perhaps end slavery.
Of course there are always disagreements in politics, but nothing other than The Slavery issue caused secession and war.
I'm an old hand at this. I understand why Neo-Confederates bring in other issues, it's a false premise and taking the bait would serve no purpose.
That's fine. You're the best example of why the War happened. People disagree.
But calling people stupid and claiming that you are the brightest spot in the room
proves why it claimed so many lives. I admit Slavery was possibly the worst thing to happen to the U.S.
next to the Indian Apocalypse.
I agree the War had to be fought for that BUT ALSO a myriad of other reasons and even I'll go you one further... that Illegal Immigration is evidence that no one learned from the first instance of American Slavery and are re-creating the next example of
an entire race being treated like shit by our elite for services they simply do not want to pay fairly for.
Let me be on the side of history that says this is wrong.
But calling people stupid and claiming that you are the brightest spot in the room
proves why it claimed so many lives. I admit Slavery was possibly the worst thing to happen to the U.S.
next to the Indian Apocalypse.
I agree the War had to be fought for that BUT ALSO a myriad of other reasons and even I'll go you one further... that Illegal Immigration is evidence that no one learned from the first instance of American Slavery and are re-creating the next example of
an entire race being treated like shit by our elite for services they simply do not want to pay fairly for.
Let me be on the side of history that says this is wrong.
There's no doubt that Lincoln's election stoked that fear, but there was no reason for that alone to trigger secession. If that were the only issue, secession could have waited until something along those lines had actually been done. Secession was caused by a sum total of grievances, of which slavery was clearly the biggest. It's silly to say that slavery was the only cause. It would be like trying to attribute the start of the Revolutionary War - or any war, for that matter - to one cause.
Helen. I've never seen someone cry so much as you do about this board. Was it you that called 911 about seeing some Confederate memorabilia? Did it really make you shaky and vomity? I truly believe the best thing for you to do is kill yourself. This world is just too scary for you Helen.
So since the first slave owner in what was to be the United States was a black man. And since the colonies were governed by the British. And since the vast majority of African slaves were captured and sold into slavery by black Africans. What about the Neo-African's and the Neo-British? What are we to think about those countrymen who captured and sold their own race for profit?
The U.S. comprised of only about a tenth of the worlds slave trade at the time. So where is the outcry over slavery as a whole on this planet?
Oh, does it only matter that it was done in this country?
I only say that tongue and cheek to highlight the hypocrisy of the Neo-Confederate moniker that many liberals use when posed with a problem. You show your colors and/or ignorance each time you use it. It shows how little regard for truth you truly have. You want so badly for the history of the civil war to be about slavery, you can't see past the sources of your opinion and agenda. I cannot change history to suit my agenda. I can only see history as it is and how it was.
The great ideology that the country divided itself and killed over 600,000 people over freeing slaves is a bit naive. It was not a great crusade to free slaves. Again, it was a crusade to maintain state sovereignty and freedom. Too many families gave their lives and the lives of their son's and daughters to maintain freedom at the time.
It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make the history of slavery less important. But a black persons lot in life in 2015 has nothing to do with it.
The civil war would have happened without slavery. Northern political and economic oppression would have forced it anyway.
The thing is, you could have copied everything you post on this subject from The Thunder Bolt ''News Letter'' circa 1960s. Yet you probably have little if any idea where your rhetoric came from.
The founders committed high treason, according to British law. Successful revolutionaries create their own societies and governments; failed revolutionaries are lighted down as traitors to the latest generation.
If Professor Morse is that sure of his legal reasoning, then he should try to overturn Texas v. White, 74 US 700 (1869). The US Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution did not permit states to secede from the United States. I quote from the majority decision, written by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase: "The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"
You are paraphrasing Jefferson and Madison's ideas expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which are political statements that have no legal force.
I'll let the founders of the United States speak for themselves on the topic of secession:
"That whatever measures have a tendency to dissolve the Union, or contribute to violate or lessen the Sovereign Authority, ought to be considered as hostile to the Liberty and Independency of America, and the Authors of them treated accordingly."
-George Washington
"A firm Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection."
-Alexander Hamilton
"What the fate of the Constitution of the United States would be if a small proportion of States could expunge parts of it particularly valued by a large majority, can have but one answer."
-James Madison
"The Constitution is a compact; that its text is to be expounded according to the provision for expounding it, making a part of the compact; and that none of the parties can rightfully renounce the expounding provision more than any other part."
-James Madison
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