Patterico's Pontifications

4/12/2011

Two Momentous Anniversaries

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 10:39 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

First, exactly 150 years ago, the War of Northern Aggression* Civil War began with the firing on Ft. Sumter.  The Other McCain has a note sent to Major Robert Anderson, commander at the fort:

The text reads:

Fort Sumter, S.C.

April 12, 1861. 3:20 a.m.

Major Robert Anderson

U.S. Army

Comdg Fort Sumter

Sir

By authority of Brig General Beauregard commanding the provisional forces of the Confederate States we have the honor to notify you that he will open the fire of his Batteries on Fort Sumter in one hour from this time.

We have the honor to be

Very Respectfully

Yr obt servts,

James Chesnut Jr., Aide de Camp

Stephen D. Lee, Capt., S.C. Army, Aide de Camp

McCain said to me on Twitter: “What is interesting is the courteous tone[.]”  Well, with respect, I interpreted it as sarcasm.  But I suppose my sarcasm detector might be a mite too sensitive.

What do you think?  Courteous or sarcastic?  Sound off in the comments!

Also, exactly a year ago today this happened:

Yeah, that is the Double Down, from Kentucky Fried Chicken and it also started on April 12…  just like the Civil War.  Holy crap, the Kentuckians** are trying to kill us with delicious fatty food!  It’s a neo-Confederate conspiracy!

——————————-

* Please note that I was truly joking.  In my opinion, the South was wrong, and they were indeed the aggressors.

** Yes, I know Kentucky never joined the Confederacy, but clearly they are trying to make up for that oversight!

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

208 Responses to “Two Momentous Anniversaries”

  1. It was courtesy. That era, officers truly considered themselves gentlemen and rules of truce and conduct on the battlefield more often observed.

    The era of Gen. McAuliffe answering an offer of terms with “Nuts.” was more than 8 decades away.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. SPQR

    well, i can understand not saying something like “nuts.” okay…

    But you can be simpler and more blunt.

    “Dear Sir,

    “We will commense firing on the hour unless you surrender.”

    etc. That’s not as blunt as “nuts” but its not as ridiculous as saying it is my pleasure to inform you that i am about to start killing your buddies.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  3. Courteous. That’s just how they were back then.

    JohnW (9f8fea)

  4. Not for nothing, but Yuri Gagarin’s flight was 50 years ago today.

    Kman (5576bf)

  5. I would vote for “courteous,” it was the universal writing style of that era. until mid-1863, captured enemies were often released if they signed a formal parole letter promising not to return to the war.

    John Cunningham (7e6e43)

  6. Also, fifty years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  7. Kman

    Funny that came up. just yesterday i was digging around in cracked.com’s archives and learned that there is some evidence that Yuri wasn’t the first russian in space.

    he was the first russian in space… who lived.

    http://www.cracked.com/article_19142_5-soviet-space-programs-that-prove-russia-was-insane.html

    Complete with creepy airbrushed photographs.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  8. Aaron, when I was growing up (in Louisiana), we had a nice little local bookstore. One of its niche areas was military history. In one corner of the shop, there was this 3 foot wide set of bookshelves, about 6 shelves tall. Each shelf was labelled according to the tone of the books on the shelf. From bottom to top:

    The Civil War,
    The War Between the States
    The War for Southern Independence,
    The War of Northern Aggression,
    The Northern Invasion, and, finally, simply:

    The Wahr.

    PatHMV (890f26)

  9. See Churchill’s declaration of war on Japan.

    The text of his letter to the Japanese Ambassador was as follows:

    Sir,

    On the evening of December 7th His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom learned that Japanese forces without previous warning either in the form of a declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war had attempted a landing on the coast of Malaya and bombed Singapore and Hong Kong.

    In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked aggression committed in flagrant violation of International Law and particularly of Article I of the Third Hague Convention relative to the opening of hostilities, to which both Japan and the United Kingdom are parties, His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo has been instructed to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in the name of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom that a state of war exists between our two countries.

    I have the honour to be, with high consideration,

    Sir,
    Your obedient servant,
    Winston S. Churchill[1]

    Of the letter, Churchill later wrote: “Some people did not like this ceremonial style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

    Mike K (8f3f19)

  10. Winners write the history books so what many in the South called “The War of Northern Aggression” is now known as “The American Civil War” or “The War Between the States.”

    After the colonies freed themselves from the tyranny of the English crown, they agreed to form a Confederation and later a Union. At that time some colonies specifically reserved the right to withdraw from the union. Others thought it unnecessary to specify a right to withdraw from an association they had voluntarily joined, believing it to be self-evident.

    The case of Virginia is informative. When newly elected President Lincoln announced his intention to end slavery, the Virginia legislature objected but voted to remain in the Union and abide by federal law. But when Lincoln called for an army to force federal government decisions on unwilling states, Virginia saw that as an illegal act by the federal government against sovereign states and exercised it’s right to withdraw.

    Consequently, for Virginia it was a War of Northern Aggression.

    ropelight (83dfa1)

  11. did you know that Civil War buffs what like to play dress up are not a distinctly American phenomenon yes it’s true

    who knew?

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  12. The language was courtesy, Gentlemen carried revolvers at that time and being rude might have serious consequences. It’s why to this day Southerners are polite. ‘Till they’re mad enough to kill you.

    glenn (2a84e9)

  13. The South may have been in the wrong, but how were they the aggressors? What right did the North have to continue to occupy Fort Sumter? And what should the South have done about it? Just sit back and let a hostile power continue to menace a major port city?! Can you imagine for a moment that any US president could or would tolerate a Chinese fort in San Francisco harbor?! The mere existence of the USA garrison at Ft Sumter was an act of aggression, and under the law of nations a just cause for war. Add in the imminent arrival of a resupply fleet, and the CSA didn’t have much choice left but to take action while it could.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  14. milhouse

    > The South may have been in the wrong, but how were they the aggressors?

    They shot first, for one.

    > What right did the North have to continue to occupy Fort Sumter?

    it was federal land and S.C. had announced its intention to defy the F.G. so they were there just in case.

    > Can you imagine for a moment that any US president could or would tolerate a Chinese fort in San Francisco harbor?!

    the difference being that the union forces belonged to the rightful government over the entire U.S.

    > The mere existence of the USA garrison at Ft Sumter was an act of aggression, and under the law of nations a just cause for war.

    You know, you seem to be taking their side alot for someone who said they were in the wrong. they had no right to rebel, legally or morally. therefore the feds had a right to be there.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  15. Since when is who fired the first shot the test of who is the aggressor? Israel fired the first shots of the six-day war, but every single legal authority agrees that it was not the aggressor. Egypt blocking the Straits of Tiran was an act of war, and Israel was entitled to respond with force. The USA maintaining and reinforcing Fort Sumter was beyond question an act of war.

    Aaron, if the South had no right to secede from the Union, then the 13 colonies had no right to secede from the Empire. There is no such thing as an indissoluble union. And at the time of federation many states explicitly reserved their right to withdraw at will, while the rest took it so much for granted that they didn’t bother. Nobody who had just fought in the revolution could with a straight face maintain that the new states could have no right to leave the new union.

    And even if there were such a belief, like any contract it depended on its terms being fulfilled. If one party to a contract breaks its terms, the other party has an automatic right to be free of it. That’s obvious justice. As soon as the northern states started defying the fugitive slave laws, which were a critical concession they had made to the southern states in order to induce them to join the union, the union became a fraud. If the northern states began to find their duty to enforce these laws odious, they should have seceded. But what right did they have to unilaterally stop enforcing them, while expecting the south to stick to its commitments which were fraudulently obtained? You’re a lawyer; would you advise any client to stick to a contract under those conditions?

    Once the south had seceded, it was entitled to its share of federal assets. The Sudan is about to break up; do you think the north is entitled to keep the army bases in the south?! The fort obviously belonged to the CSA, and if the USA were honest it should have evacuated it immediately.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  16. If AW said “A, and B”, you could count on kmart to screech “ZOMFG. I cannot believe you did not talke about P and Q. Oh, and not-A”. Predictable as Barcky’s class warfare speech tomorrow.

    JD (85b089)

  17. Aaron, if the South had no right to secede from the Union, then the 13 colonies had no right to secede from the Empire

    BS.

    The South wanted to preserve a right to violate natural rights, which is inherently illegitimate and the source of tremendous attempts to rewrite the history of the confederacy into something they wouldn’t have recognized. The American Revolution wanted a legitimate republic, with their natural right to representative.

    How can you possibly find these to be equivalent? Rebelling against your king, vs rebelling because the election didn’t turn out the way you wanted?

    Ft Hood existing in Texas is not an act of aggression against Texas. Me shooting at Ft Hood would be an act of aggression. comparing this to Israel striking at an imminent threat is not as silly as the last comparison if you think the union was about to invade their own territory, but I think the truth is a little less simple. It was more of a peace through superior firepower idea.

    But what right did they have to unilaterally stop enforcing them, while expecting the south to stick to its commitments which were fraudulently obtained?

    These rights are well explained in our declaration of independence.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  18. The reason for the south’s secession was slavery. And that was a bad reason. But a bad reason for an action doesn’t affect its legitimacy. The secession was legitimate because all states always have the right to secede, for any reason they damn well like, good or bad.

    Nothing in the declaration of independence can justify a blatant breach of contract.

    And it makes no difference whether the king came to power through inheritance or election, he’s still the king.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  19. With respect to the tone of the aide de camps’ letter, it was simple formal dignity and courtesy, Aaron, as befitted and reflected the standard of the times. Two summers ago we visited the area around LaVergne Tennessee to find where a relative had fought and been captured during the Civil War. While in the area we went to the Stones River battlefield and read this story:

    The Union and Confederate armies had been camped near each other at Murfreesboro, Tenn. and there had been minor skirmishes. But on Christmas Eve 1862 there was no shooting. Their bands took turns playing favorite Northern and Southern tunes and Christmas carols. When one band started “Home! Sweet Home!” thousands of homesick soldiers on both sides began to sing all together before being overcome by emotion and the night fell completely silent. A few days later the two armies clashed in one of the bloodiest battles of the war–Stones River. But even amid the powder smoke soldiers helped one another’s wounded and dead, marking friendly and enemy grave sites.

    It seems that on a purely personal level there was more sense of shared humanity shown for one another by those opposing soldiers than we find today between political opponents at places like Daily Kos, DU and some of the equally vicious right leaning blogs. Gives one something to think about.

    elissa (1a2b2e)

  20. Millhouse

    First, didn’t you say the first time that “The South may have been in the wrong”? you seem to have abandoned that concession.

    > Since when is who fired the first shot the test of who is the aggressor?

    Generally they are, unless there is the exception for justified preemptive action.

    > Israel fired the first shots of the six-day war

    Which fit into the exception mentioned above.

    > Aaron, if the South had no right to secede from the Union, then the 13 colonies had no right to secede from the Empire.

    Not at all. Neither the South nor the 13 colonies had a right to rebel as a matter of law. BUT as a matter of natural law, God’s law, our colonists were fighting for freedom and thus were allowed to rebel, under the principles the british themselves applied in the glorious revolution of 1688. They appealed to heaven and all that.

    By comparison the south rebelled not to create freedom but to protect oppression.

    > And at the time of federation many states explicitly reserved their right to withdraw at will

    As effective as the papal bull against the comet.

    > And even if there were such a belief, like any contract it depended on its terms being fulfilled. If one party to a contract breaks its terms, the other party has an automatic right to be free of it.

    That’s bunk. No constitution is dissolved at first violation. Constitutions are not contracts.

    > As soon as the northern states started defying the fugitive slave laws

    The fugitive slave act of 1850 was itself unconstitutional. And do I have to remind you that long before that defiance emerged, jury nullification brought the slave trade back? The ability to ban the slave trade was a key concession to bring the north into the union.

    > The fort obviously belonged to the CSA, and if the USA were honest it should have evacuated it immediately.

    Lol, so according to you, the North just shouldn’t have fought this at all.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  21. dustin you totally beat me to it this time. heh.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  22. “After the colonies freed themselves from the tyranny of the English crown, they agreed to form a Confederation and later a Union. At that time some colonies specifically reserved the right to withdraw from the union.”

    At the time all the states agreed to form a Confederation and union, they agreed to form a perpetual union which is why they called the Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union the Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union.

    And just in case the title wasn’t enough of a tipoff, Article 13 said:

    “Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual”

    “When newly elected President Lincoln announced his intention to end slavery…”

    Newly-elected President Lincoln never announced any such thing.

    What he said in his inaugural address was:

    “Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
    I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

    IOW…you’re full of beans.

    “But when Lincoln called for an army to force federal government decisions on unwilling states, Virginia saw that as an illegal act by the federal government…”

    The state of Virginia might have seen it that way, but they made no mention of illegality in the Ordinance of Seccession passed in convention on April 17, 1861.

    However they chose to see it, The federal government has the authority to call forth the militia to suppress insurrection per article i of the United States Constitution…

    “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”

    Technically, it’s Congress that has that power, but since Congress wasn’t in session, President Lincoln called out the militia, AFTER the rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter (an act of out and out treason, also per the United States Constitution), then Congress approved his action when it was later called into session.

    Dave Surls (78bc37)

  23. I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so

    but Abe didn’t speak for what the confederacy thought of the Union’s intentions regarding slavery, and their intentions are more accurately found not by assuming they trusted Abe, but by reading their commentary on preserving slavery.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  24. As it happens, my best friend’s father was a friend of Colonel Sanders. In 1955, Colonel Sanders offered to sell him half interest in Kentucky Fried Chicken for a $5,000 investment; the Colonel was having a rough time of it.

    Ken’s father’s reply was, “No one is going to gout to buy a meal they can fix at home.” While Ken’s family was reasonably well off (for Corbin, Kentucky, anyway) in 1955, his business failed several years later, and his father died pretty much broke.

    I met Colonel Sanders in 1973. Somehow, when I visit a KFC and point out to them that I knew the Colonel, I still don’t get a discount. 🙁

    The Dana with poor friends (3e4784)

  25. mom only made fried chickens a few times she said it made a mess of her kitchen

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  26. Dustin

    well moreover they believed that eventually the republican party would become powerful enough to amend the constitution to end slavery. which was probably their goal, to tell the truth.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  27. Milhouse – You are throwing a lot of unconnected arguments up there and hoping something will stick it seems.

    First, you declare that individual states understood they had an express or implied right to leave the U.S. after independence from England. I missed the citations, but I’m sure you must have them.

    Then you say: . “If one party to a contract breaks its terms, the other party has an automatic right to be free of it.”

    I’m not a lawyer, but I am pretty certain that is not the automatic remedy in our system of government or even in commercial matters, but it’s a nice try.

    The fort automatically belongs to the CSA, no adjudication? Are you a judge?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  28. “If one party to a contract breaks its terms, the other party has an automatic right to be free of it.”

    Generally speaking, I think Milhouse is right. If the US Federal government abandons the constitutional government that the states agreed to, why holds the states to any obligation to continue the charade?

    Ft Sumter existing, and Abe Lincoln being elected, are not breaches of the constitutional government. A feared constitutional amendment barring slavery is itself a constitutionally legal prospect. The southern states agreed to be bound by future amendments like that.

    I think expansive commerce clause dishonesty in the Court is more serious a breach of the agreement the states came to in the 1789. Those sweeping modifications to our constitution should require a constitutional amendment. But then there’s the practical matter of shooting at the federal government instead of, say, amending the constitution to correct the commerce clause interpretations. I know, this is a bit off topic.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  29. Dustin

    > If the US Federal government abandons the constitutional government that the states agreed to, why holds the states to any obligation to continue the charade?

    that’s unworkable. for instance, it was ruled a few years ago that D.C. was violating the 2nd amendment. so the solution was to enjoin the violation.

    But according to your theory that means that the constitution is defunct.

    Constitutions are not like contracts and that is one of the big reasons why.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  30. The tragedy of the American Civil War, pitting brother against brother, was at its most obvious in scrupulously polite exchanges like this one. And it was as obvious to the participants at the time as it is to us now. Even a rough and tumble non-patrician like Grant was moved to show every military honor and courtesy to Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, and there was no hint of sarcasm or derision shown him. To the contrary, as Lee departed after surrendering his army, the officers and men of both armies saluted — and wept — in what was surely a powerful display of mixed emotions, but all of them respectful.

    Beldar (cd529f)

  31. First, didn’t you say the first time that “The South may have been in the wrong”? you seem to have abandoned that concession.

    Not at all. The South was in the wrong because the cause they were fighting for was wrong. But I believe they had the moral and legal right to do so. I also believe that New England had the right to secede in 1814, and that the northern abolitionist states had the right to secede in the 1840s, rather than continue complying with what had become, to them, an odious commitment to return fugitive slaves. Certainly once the south seceded, thus freeing the north of any further obligation, the north should have leaped at the opportunity and made peace with it.

    I have no problem with the Alaskan independence movement that Todd Palin was once associated with. And once the TEA Party movement succeeds, if the Peoples Republics of California wants out, President Palin should metaphorically drive it to the airport and wave goodbye. The peaceful divorce of Slovakia from the Czech lands should be the model.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  32. Constitutions are not like contracts and that is one of the big reasons why.

    As a practical matter, of course you’re right.

    I just see where milhouse is coming from. I’ve had a similar thought, though as I explain, my solution is simply to use the ‘contract’ which has a provision for amending the constitution. Thankfully, breaches that are egregious enough should be fixable this way.

    Anyway, opening fire on eachother is not a practical solution, even if I think the federal government should treat the states as here because they agreed only to limited government.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  33. If constitutions are not contracts, then what are they?

    And BTW, the “papal bull against the comet” is bull. There never was any such thing. Nor did Canute really think the sea would obey his orders. There were no riots when the world didn’t come to an end in 1000. And nobody thought they would die 11 days earlier when the calendar was changed. In general, people in the past were not markedly stupider than they are today.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  34. Re chicken: I have no KFC stories to tell, but when I was a law student, in one of my summer clerkships I helped represent Bill Church and his family in a jury trial in Galveston over who had the rights to the Church’s Fried Chicken franchises in the Houston-Galveston area. Among the disputed issues was whether the existing franchisee had forfeited its rights through failure to adhere to Church’s protocols and practices, so I had occasion to learn a fair amount about what separates the successful and profitable franchisees from those that are neither. The difference between success and bankruptcy can depend on details as small as the schedule on which the deep fryer filters are replaced. It was a good early lesson for me — repeated hundreds of times since then — about the ingenuity of successful business people. Mr. Church himself was a fascinating and compelling individual, not well educated in any conventional way, but very effective and creative. And he turned out to be a very effective and credible witness in his own behalf.

    Beldar (cd529f)

  35. Milhouse: I can’t recall the terms of the Czech/Slovak deal, but didn’t it involve a trade for Paulina Porizkova and three tennis players to be named later?

    Beldar (cd529f)

  36. Many of the officers had attended military academies together and were taught to be courteous to one another.

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  37. April 12, 1961- first man launched into space orbits Earth, Yuri Gagarin, USSR
    April 12, 1970- Apollo 13 safely on its way out to the moon– just hours away from the explosion of it oxygen tank on April 13.
    April 12, 1981- Columbia, America’s first space shuttle, launched, piloted by John Young & Bob Crippen
    April 12, 2011- NASA Administrator Bolden announces disposition of four remaining space shuttle orbiters for display to: Smithsonian Institution in Washington (Discovery), Intrepid A&SM, NYC (Enterprise), KSC, Cape Canaveral Florida (Atlantis)and Califorina Science Center in Los Angeles (Endeavour).

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  38. And I have always found it fascinating that Lee is the only cadet to EVER graduate from West Point without a single demerit.

    Scott Jacobs (ffd9d0)

  39. For someone on a diet, that KFC Sammie looks freaking awesome.

    JD (318f81)

  40. Mention space, and the space cadet IMP crawls out of it’s lair.

    JD (318f81)

  41. “If the US Federal government abandons the constitutional government that the states agreed to”

    Dustin – Which violations are you talking about? Who used the word abandoned? Dissolution is the first remedy to a violation by a party, seriously?

    I can see where Milhouse is coming from, but it seems like an extreme position.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  42. “Certainly once the south seceded, thus freeing the north of any further obligation, the north should have leaped at the opportunity and made peace with it.”

    No.

    The central operating premise in our theory of government is that all human beings have God-given rights and that governments are formed to secure the rights of those who are governed.

    The federal government had an obligation and duty to secure the right of liberty to everyone subject to its governance, including black men held in slavery. The government cannot justly allow rebels, who are denying other men their God-given rights, to rebel so that the rebels can continue to deny said other men their rights.

    The federal government should have put an end to slavery and forced slaveowners to free their slaves long before they actually did.

    The rebellion of the southern states was utterly and completely unjust. The war to bring them to heel, which resulted in the end of slavery, was totally just.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  43. There have been discussions about the consequences of a successful secession by the Confederacy. It’s economy was very weak and the conclusions have mostly been that it would likely have invaded Mexico in search of more space and natural resources. A recent article concludes that slavery would not have “died out” as many speculate.

    The principle reason why Lincoln could not allow it was the Mississippi and the seaports of Virginia and South Carolina. The moral issues did not start the war. Another conclusion has been that the Confederacy might have had a very difficult time staying together as they had established the principle of secession.

    Mike K (8f3f19)

  44. There was great brutality during the Civil War, look no further than Sherman’s March to the Sea or Vicksburg or Quantrill’s Raiders…the war started off chivalrous in much the same fashion as WWI airmen fought their war. This letter was not sarcastic…the meaning of the words is exact, it was an honor for the Citadel cadets manning the guns to fire on Fort Sumter and it was a chivalrous warning to the commandant to get his men under cover…nothing more, nothing less.

    GoDad (6ed79d)

  45. Thar was certainly the premise of the Turtledove alt history series,

    narciso (8a8b93)

  46. “But I believe they had the moral and legal right to do so.”

    What right?

    The right to be free to enslave other men?

    The right to engage in treason against the United States?

    The right to alter or abolish the government when the government is doing its job?

    What rights are you talking about? Where do they come from?

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  47. The right to be free of a union that had grown odious to them. They had the same right that we do to withdraw from the United Nations, or that a husband and wife do to divorce. Especially since they’d explicitly reserved the right to secede when they first joined the union; if that reservation was ineffective, then their accession was fraudulently obtained, and thus invalid in the first place.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  48. Actually, you are incorrect about Lee being the only cadet with no demerits. In 1829, two cadets graduated from West Point with no demerits. Charles Mason was number 1 in his class, followed by Robert E. Lee, who was number 2 that year. They both graduated with no demerits. Charles Mason later resigned his commission after only a two years in the military. They are the only cadets in the history of West Point to graduate without demerits.

    Fun fact: The first midshipman to graduate from Annapolis with no demerits was a boy from Georgia in the class of 1947. His name? James Earl Carter.

    David

    David, infamous sockpuppet (839b70)

  49. #47

    I don’t see a legal or moral right in there.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  50. But, I can sure see the immorality and illegality easily enough.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  51. “The first midshipman to graduate from Annapolis with no demerits was a boy from Georgia in the class of 1947. His name? James Earl Carter.”

    Bah, I hate Little Miss Goody Two Shoes types.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  52. “The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederation nation is, after all, not in the right but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunted states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by contraint.

    John Adams, on the occassion of the 50th anniversary of the Constutition.

    Adams was not the only one who spoke of the union dissolving if, IF, the states thought that they could no longer function as one common interest.

    There are those who claim that slavery, and slavery only, were the reason for the War of Northern Aggression. This is flat out wrong. When Fort Sumter was fired on, slavery was still very much intact, and it was not until well into the war, did Lincoln free the slaves, and then only in Confederate states. And it was only after Lincoln had called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the South (aggression) did Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas secede.

    I will also remind you history buffs that Lincoln, himself, just 13 short years before the start of the War, believed in the right of secession.

    “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit.

    And I ask you who live in fly-over country; how many of you feel that the centralized federal government, headquartered in Washington, D.C. and far removed from your state, and the problems of your state, feel that the federal government no longer represents your interests as a Kansan, or a Missourian or a Texan? How many of you feel that the bureaucrats in D.C. pay no mind to the 10th Amendment? Or that the central government has grabbed more power than the Constitution ever intended to give it? How would you feel, if you needed to drive 50 miles a day to your job, if the federal government mandated that you were only allowed to drive a total of 20 miles a day because they had access to subways and trains to reach their jobs but offered you no alternative? Your very livelihood would be jepordized. How would you react?

    History is written by the victors, so it has been written to reflect that the North was honorable in its intentions to merely free the slaves and the South was hell-bent to fight for the singluar right to keep slavery. Race baiters, and poverty pimps of modern day have made tony fortunes pushing this mindset. But they never mention that one of the largest slave holders in South Carolina, a man by the name of William Ellison, and a Louisiana plantation owner, Marie Coin-Coin, who owned hundreds of slaves, were black. Nor do they ever talk of the free blacks who were not only deck hands on slave ships, but who were also slave ship captains, sailing out of Massachussetts.

    If slavery was still legal at the start of the War, why did Northern men go to war? If most of the Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, why did they fight? Would you fight to perserve an institution that would never benefit you personally?

    The War of Northern Aggression cannot be summerized or boiled down to one single reason. But that is the way it is taught, and one of the reasons that the political divide remains today.

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  53. “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right”

    Since they didn’t have the power…they didn’t have the right.

    The might makes right idea only works if you’re actually mighty.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  54. Dave, obviously, the South had the power as it DID secede. And Adam’s statement had nothing to do with power. It had to do with lack of fraternal interests.

    “If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side.”

    What famous Northern general said that?

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  55. “The right to be free of a union that had grown odious to them.”

    “Especially since they’d explicitly reserved the right to secede”

    Milhouse – Above you were using breach of contract as a rationale. Now odiousness suffices?

    Also above you were saying the right to secede may have only been implicit. Have you become more sure?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  56. “But that is the way it is taught, and one of the reasons that the political divide remains today.”

    retire05 – Some people have troble dealing with the past. You obviously perceive a political divide that not all others do as evidenced by your comments on this and other threads.

    I propose calling the Civil War the War of Southern Stupidity in response to references to it as the War of Northern Aggression. What do you think?

    What was the context of that Lincoln quote you included? Was he talking about the U.S.?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  57. Some states explicitly reserved the right to secede. Those states undeniably had that right; to claim otherwise would be self-contradictory, since it was a condition of their accession. Those states that didn’t think it necessary to explicitly reserve the right surely understood it to be available to them anyway. And yes, any state has the right to rid itself of an odious government at any time; if the USA stands for anything it’s for that!

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  58. As for what might have happened had the south been allowed to secede peacefully, one thing seems sure: slavery would have almost disappeared from the northern tier of the southern states, because the Underground Railroad would no longer have to go all the way to Canada. That would have induced those states to move gradually towards abolition, which would in turn put pressure on their southern neighbours.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  59. Milhouse

    > The South was in the wrong because the cause they were fighting for was wrong. But I believe they had the moral and legal right to do so.

    Okay leaving aside legality for a moment…

    They have a moral right… to be in the wrong? That is seriously muddled thinking.

    > If constitutions are not contracts, then what are they?

    They are constitutions describing the civil society under which we live. But its interesting because by your logic the very first time your state violated its constitution, according to you it is dissolved and you can just ignore its edicts. So is that how you live?

    Further, suppose that the south had a legal right to secede. Fine, but regardless of whether they became independent powers or not, then you would have to characterize the civil war as an event where those states were conquered and forcibly brought into the union. Its no different than how we acquired the western states.

    > They had the same right that we do to withdraw from the United Nations,

    We can leave the united nations because it is not a civil society where the individual independence is sacrificed to the whole.

    > or that a husband and wife do to divorce.

    Actually the idea of granting a divorce automatically is new. Before that, you had to either prove cause or be stuck with the other person.

    > Especially since they’d explicitly reserved the right to secede when they first joined the union;

    Except the states didn’t form the union. The people did.

    > if that reservation was ineffective, then their accession was fraudulently obtained, and thus invalid in the first place.

    No, it just merely means that they attempted to do something they could not.

    Dustin

    > Anyway, opening fire on eachother is not a practical solution, even if I think the federal government should treat the states as here because they agreed only to limited government.

    The way I see it we are in it together, come hell or high water, barring voluntary removal from the union (which I believe is possible, but a bad, bad idea

    There can be situations extreme enough to justify rebellion. For instance, if I believed that the Federal Government was behind 9-11, it would be rebellion time. But it does have to be a very serious breach, or a very sustained breach, imho, and I don’t expect it to happen even once in my lifetime.

    Also I will add that imho, it is incorrect to say that the states entered into the union. The people did. The people also chose to distribute power between those two governments, but the people are the sole source of legitimate power in America.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  60. “Dave, obviously, the South had the power as it DID secede.”

    Not for long.

    “What famous Northern general said that?”

    Sam Grant.

    Had to look that one up, though.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  61. retire

    > History is written by the victors

    that is a fun cliche, but in america that is demonstrably untrue. when i went to high school in north carolina, i was taught the Confederate version of history, including lies and half truths. History is written by the victors in a dictatorship, but written by everyone in a republic that respects freedom of expression.

    If history was written by the victors, then Birth of a Nation would never have been made, would not have been endorsed by a sitting president, and would not reflect (in fictionalized form) accepted history until the 1960’s.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  62. “I propose calling the Civil War the War of Southern Stupidity”

    I’d go along with that. Us southern boys were pretty damn dumb thinking we could whup up on those endless hordes of Yankees.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  63. Dustin – Which violations are you talking about? Who used the word abandoned? Dissolution is the first remedy to a violation by a party, seriously?

    I can see where Milhouse is coming from, but it seems like an extreme position.

    Well of course it’s an extreme position, and I’m only noting I understand where Milhouse is coming from too. If I were quoting him, I’d have used quotation marks.

    Now, generalizing beyond this specific ‘contract’ to the idea of agreements more generally, is it an extreme position that if a contract is not kept by one party, the other is no longer bound? Nah. The real problem isn’t that this is difficult to understand, but that the consequences are so impractical/grave, especially given the alternative ‘remedies’.

    But I’m only speaking in the abstract.

    Aaron, I see your point in correcting my concept that it is the states who joined the union, rather than individuals. I’ll have to think about this for a bit.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  64. dustin

    conside marshall’s argument in mccullough v. maryland. he takes it head on, if memory serves.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  65. “that is a fun cliche, but in america that is demonstrably untrue.”

    True, there’s all kinds of works authored by Confederates. The Battles and Leaders series, for example has endless articles penned by Confederate military leaders.

    Thre was essentially no attempt at all to silence the other side after the war.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  66. “Would you fight to perserve an institution that would never benefit you personally?”

    Nope. Put me in a time machine and take me back to the Surls family farm in 1861, and I would have packed my bags and vamoosed on out of there (no big loss, being a dirt farmer in north Georgia doesn’t have much appeal for me, anyway).

    Waging war against the United States is treason, and I’m not engaging in treason just because some slaveowners, like Jeff Davis, think I ought to. If Jeff Davis & co. are nervous and afraid that the mean old Republicans are going to interfere with their slave system…that’s their headache.

    More power to the Republicans, if you ask me.

    “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”–DOI

    “We recognize the negro as God and God’s Book and God’s Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him – our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude…You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.”–Jefferson Davis

    I’ll fight for the first proposition, I wouldn’t lift my leg to urinate on the second, if it was on fire.

    The Declaration of Independence closes with these words…

    “And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

    I also pledge my life, fortune and honor to the Declaration, and unlike the slaveowners, who first pledged to support what the Declaration said, and then refused to free their slaves, and then finally turned traitor and waged war on the United States in order to try and keep their slaves…I mean what I say.

    If you enslave a man, take away his liberty, when he’s done no wrong, I’m not only not going to fight on your behalf, I’m going to make it one of my missions in life to fuck you up, if I can.

    There is no such thing as Milhouse’s fairy tale right to be free of an odious union, there is however, such a thing as man’s right to liberty, and it’s a right worth fighting for, not just for yourself, but for your fellow countrymen, if it comes down to it.

    There is also a right of the people to alter or abolish the government if, and only if, that government can not or will not secure the rights of those it governs. If the southern states had revolted, with the intent to abolish the federal government’s rule over them, because the federal government would not act to secure the liberty of men who were enslaved, then they would have been within their rights, but they are not within their right to do so just because the government is run by people who want to end slavery.

    Fight for the slaveocrats?

    Not in this lifetime.

    Dave Surls (7f8e4e)

  67. In response to the revisionist title “The War of Northern Agression” I propose the counter-title:

    “The War to Own Negros”

    SGT Ted (5d10ae)

  68. retire05 wrote:

    John Adams, on the occassion of the 50th anniversary of the Constutition.

    John Adams died on the 4th of July, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; the 50th anniversary of the Constitution came eleven years later.

    The Dana with poor friends (3e4784)

  69. Darn it! I forgot to readjectivize!

    The Dana who's slipping (3e4784)

  70. Missed this:

    > “Would you fight to preserve an institution that would never benefit you personally?”

    Except that the slaveholders sold slavery to the rest of the south on the theory that black people were too dangerous to be free. They convinced everyone that slavery was good for everyone, including the non-slaveholder.

    That being said, I second every word of what Dave Surls said at 3 in the morning.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  71. Surly, perhaps you would not have fought to defend that patch of dirt in north Georgia, but in 1860, that patch of dirt represented the sole possession of many people. It was their home, and as such, they choose to defend it from an invading Army from the North. And slavery, unlike what our children are taught now, was not the reason that some farm boy from north Georgia picked up his rifle and went to war.

    Waging war against the Northern states was not treason to the Southerners. Why can’t you get that through you thick head? It was no more treason to them than when their ancestors waged war against the English, or took a stand at the Alamo. Was it treason for

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  72. retire

    the yankees were not coming in to take the land of small farmers. yeah, later they proposed confiscating the land of slaveholders, but that is a different matter. there wouldn’t have been an invading army but for the rebellion of slaveholders.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  73. (sorry about that)

    Was it treason for Bowie, Travis and Crockett to defy the Mexican government at the Alamo or for Sam Houston to create an army specifically for gaining Texas independence from Mexico? Or are you one of those who has bought into the p.c. history that Texicans STOLE Texas from Mexico? Was it treason for the colonists to revolt against the crown and for Washington to raise an army against Britain? The explaination of treason seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

    Milhouse is correct if you say that a people have the right to be free of an odious government. And the South felt that the Congress (i.e. the Government) no longer represented their interests and created laws that benefited only the Northern businessmen.

    You keep harping how the South revolted because the North wanted to abolish slavery. If that were the case, why did the South not wait until Lincoln had, in fact, signed the Emancipation Proclaimation? Why did they act when they did? Why did Lincoln not, with his very first act, free the slaves, in ALL states, not just the Southern states?

    So here we are, 150 years later, with history dumbed down to the point where it can be taught that the Civil War (as Yankees like to call it) was over one issue. It was not. It was over a number of issues, and to simplify it to one, does a disservice to those who want to know the truth.

    You say if the South had revolted for the purpose of abolishing slavery, you would have backed them. I doubt that. If you would have been unwilling to defend even a patch of dirt in north Georgia, being all you owned, I doubt you would fight to defend another human being. If so, you should be taking up arms now to abolish the reservation system, as slavery comes in many forms, and when a system claims ownership of others, no matter its form, it is still slavery.

    Secession is NOT addressed in the Constitution, to this day. And if the disallowance of secession is within the perview of the federal government, which of the 18 enumerated rights listed cover that? Or it is possible that it is a 10th Amendment issue, one that is left up to the states? Why did Buchanan allow the first seven states to secede? Why did he not call out the Army against them but chose rather, to let them leave in peace? Why did Buchanan not say that they were treasonous, or mention that they were leaving to simply perserve the institution of slavery?

    As I asked before, would you sit idly by as bureaucrats in D.C. created laws that affected your very livlihood? Would you bend to the will of Congress, and not the will of your state? Does the 10th Amendment not hold any import for you?

    The Senate declared in 1861 that the sole purpose of the war was to restore the Union and that there was no other objective (slavery was not an issue in 1861, according to the Senate resolution of 1861). Also, in 1861, a proposed amendment to the Constitution would have stated that the federal government had no authority to interfer with slavery in states where it existed. Lincoln concured.

    “I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution … has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. Holding such a provision to now be implied Constitional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

    Lincoln was president then. Yet, in order to perserve the Union, he was willing to allow slavery in certain states to continue.

    So, if Lincoln raised an army of 75,000 volunteers to invade the South, and it was not because of the South’s institution of slavery, what was it over and why did the South secede before Lincoln emancipated the slaves?

    That is the real history you should be seeking. Or perhaps you could remain uneducated and continue to think that the Civil War was fought over a single issue that held no import in 1861.

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  74. Aaron, Birth of a Nation was not the accepted correct form of history at anytime after the War of Northern Aggression (or if you perfer, a more correct term, the War for Southern Independence).

    In the Spring of 1861, slavery had as much to do with the invasion of the South by Lincoln as the holocaust had to do with our entry into World War II.

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  75. Aaron, you said:

    “there would not have been an invading army but for the rebellion of the slave holders.”

    Tell me, what percentage of soldiers in the CSA Army held slaves?

    retire05 (8b1d52)

  76. What percentage of democrat congressmen have had abortions?

    Dustin (c16eca)

  77. Dustin, I suggest you read For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  78. “In the Spring of 1861, slavery had as much to do with the invasion of the South by Lincoln…”

    Whatever, as long as the war resulted in the end of slavery, it’s all good.

    And, if you don’t want to get invaded, don’t make war on the United States. It’s against the law. You can executed for doing that.

    The rebels were damned lucky that the victorious Yankees didn’t round up a few thousand of the rebel leaders and execute them for treason.

    I would have.

    Probably would have saved the lives of thousands of people who were later murdered by the Jim Crow-o-crats, if the Yankees had cracked down, and stretched a few negro-hating, traitor necks, after the war was over.

    Dave Surls (d6bf51)

  79. Retire:

    > Was it treason for Bowie, Travis and Crockett to defy the Mexican government at the Alamo or for Sam Houston to create an army specifically for gaining Texas independence from Mexico?

    I don’t profess to know what the law in mexico said on the subject back in the day, but I am willing to bet it was treason. And it was definitely treason against the british crown by Geo. Washington and company. you are confusing moral justification with the law. What they did was illegal, but morally justified.

    Likewise the Confederate rebellion was not legal. So the best you can do is to say it is morally justified—but then, fighting to keep another man in chains is not moral justification.

    And that doesn’t mean we stole texas from mexico any more than we stole ourselves from England.

    But let’s turn the question around on you. Up until 1865, slavery was legal in the united states. So those people who freed slaves, did they steal those slaves? When the slaves ran away, were they stealing themselves? Should the slaves who rebelled on the Amistad have been convicted?

    > And the South felt that the Congress (i.e. the Government) no longer represented their interests and created laws that benefited only the Northern businessmen.

    The only interest they were concerned about was slavery. And they did not say the laws only benefitted northern businessmen. They said that they didn’t benefit the slaveholder sufficiently.

    > You keep harping how the South revolted because the North wanted to abolish slavery.

    Immediately they only wanted to abolish it above the MO compromise line.

    > If that were the case, why did the South not wait until Lincoln had, in fact, signed the Emancipation Proclaimation? Why did they act when they did?

    Because they already knew they had lost power in the U.S. They said that if they dared elect a northern man with northern principles they would rebel. And they did.

    > Why did Lincoln not, with his very first act, free the slaves, in ALL states, not just the Southern states?

    Because he believed he would make the war last longer if he did.

    > So here we are, 150 years later, with history dumbed down to the point where it can be taught that the Civil War (as Yankees like to call it)

    What term do you prefer?

    > was over one issue. It was not.

    Give me a break. it was about slavery, slavery and slavery. Don’t tell me it was state’s rights. The south was completely hypocritical on state’s rights.

    Look at the CSA constitution, for instance. It is virtually identical to the constitution they were rebelling against except 1) it explicitly outlawed secession and 2) it protected slavery. There were a few other nips and tucks, but those were the big differences.

    > Aaron, Birth of a Nation was not the accepted correct form of history at anytime after

    That view, the tragic view was taught to me in high school when I was growing up in N.C. Don’t lecture me about what was accepted history.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  80. “And if you don’t want to get invaded, don’t make war on the United States.”

    Ah, the hypocracy.

    What exactly do you think Mexico is doing to the U.S.? Do you think Mexican troops aiding the drug cartels by crossing over the Rio Grande is an act of war? Shall we start bombing Mexico City?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  81. Retire

    By the way, if you need to know what the rebellion was about, well, why don’t you look at the declarations of rebellion from the different states. Like just take S.C.’s: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

    > The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union;

    Gee, what violations and encroachments were they talking about. Oh, wait, here’s a clue:

    > but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right.

    Now if the issue wasn’t slavery, why would they care about the opinions of solely other slaveholding states?

    And it goes on through the usual compact theory of the constitution, but you still have to list the violations of the compact. And go through it and they complain about resistance to fugitive slave laws:

    > But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

    and

    > We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery;…

    Notice: according to them, even calling slavery evil was a violation of the constitution. Most of us would call that freedom of speech.

    > …they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

    > For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

    > This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

    > On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory,…

    Let me break in the middle there. there was no such proposal, but that was the spin on banning slavery from the territories.

    > …that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

    So there you go. According to S.C. it is about slavery, slavery and slavery. Yes, sometimes talking about a state’s right to keep slaves, but slavery was never out of the picture.

    And notice further that resistance to the fugitive slave act of 1850 was on their list of grievances. That law was flagrantly unconstitutional. And thus what the north did, in resisting that law, was classic intercession, as the term is understood in states’ right circles. And yet their assertion of the right of intercession is supposedly a violation of S.C.’s states’ rights.

    Really, to pretend this war wasn’t about slavery is to ignore the facts. Read the declaration for yourself. they are talking about nothing else.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  82. Aaron, thanks for pointing out that the confederate constitution was less states’ rights friendly than the union’s. It’s amusing, but smart, that they were worried about secession, and outlawed it.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  83. AW:

    I’m at the point now that when I hear the “it wasn’t about slavery” argument, I just turn off and walk away (and yes, being where I am, I hear it). Some people just can’t accept ugly historical fact.

    Kman (5576bf)

  84. “Likewise the Confederate rebellion was not legal. So the best you can do is say it is morally justified-but then to fight to keep another man in chains is not moral justification.”

    Aaron, there you go again, pandering to the mindset that the War For Southern Independence was fought strictly for the emancipation of slaves. And again, I will point out that you are wrong.

    Had slavery been the primary driving force of the invasion of Northern soldiers into the South, Lincoln would have emancipated the slaves at the beginning of the war. But he didn’t, did he? Or when Lincoln realized that the war was not going to end quickly, he would have emancipated the slaves then, say within six months of the beginning of the war. But he didn’t do it then, either, did he?

    I have never said that slavery was not an issue, but I maintain that it was not the sole, or even the most important, issue for either side.

    But whenever I pose a question to any of you, like why did Buchanan allow seven states to peacefully leave, why did Lincoln not free the slaves as one of his first acts, any question, I get no answers. Nor have any of you addressed the question of the heavy tariffs the Northern held Congress was placing on Southern products. You see, Northern industrialists feared the South with its desire to lower the tariffs and establish free trade on its own. You ignore that the Northern industrialists were chomping at the bit for war, even more so that were Southerners.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  85. Is there really something offensive about calling it a civil war? It’s interesting that revisionists want to change the name to something that editorializes. ‘Northern aggression’ or the like.

    It’s not like we call it the ‘War over slavery’, which would be pretty reasonable, since that’s what the war was about.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  86. Aaron, take the very first part of the Declaration. What is the subject? The 10th Amendment, perhaps? Was slavery not part of the 10th Amendment rights granted to states?Again, you do not answer my questions.

    As to you, Dustin, I would point out there is nothing that was “civil” about what you call the Civil War. It was not a war between states (Michigan did not go to war with Mississippi) but between regions, so it could be called the War Between Regions.

    “I will not say that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black racies which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they can not so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

    Do these sound like the words of a man who was willing to rip a nation apart to free slaves?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  87. I would point out there is nothing that was “civil” about what you call the Civil War

    That’s an interesting take (though you realize the thread shows an unusual civility to some aspects).

    A civil war is a term referring to a conflict where the opposing forces are of the same country.

    The word civil is a term with two meanings, and one of them refers to the state or citizenry, rather than being civilized and polite.

    In fact, you’re bastardizing the language in your effort to insist it’s wrong to just speak plain and neutral. Orwell would understand why you think this way.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  88. What you are missing, Retire, is that whatever people thought personally doesn’t matter as to the CAUSE of the Civil War. One could be totally racists against people of African Descent and at the same time vehmently oppose the instituion of slavery. Some abolistionists wanted slavery gone AND wanted black forcibly removed to Africa.

    Aaron is right, the people who seceded told us specifically (through their ordinances of seccession) WHY they left the Union, and those reasons (reolvong around slavery) were supported either by referendum or by elected representatives of the people. Wikipedia has a nice article about those ordinances. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinance_of_Secession

    I (as a black man) have always wondered why it’s so hard to some people to admit the Slavery was the primary cause for the war, even in the face of overwhelming evidence (even Robert E Lee said slavery would lead to war, years before the war happened). I’m sure different people have different reasons for clinging to a belief that is easily shown to be incorrect, but I still wonder about it. Why have so many people swallowed Jubal Early’s kool-aid

    I for one am glad that my country eventually came to it’s senses (even if only after getting the sense knocked out of it in one of the bloodiest wars in history) and ended an archaic and inhuman institution such as slavery. to me the who premis of the United States (that all men are created equal) was a bald faced lie till about 1865…

    On a side note, God Bless you Aaron for putting the truth out there.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  89. Oh, please excuse the typos, trying to type witrh 2 broken fingers sucks.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  90. Retire

    > Had slavery been the primary driving force of the invasion of Northern soldiers into the South

    Well, you are confusing two different questions. When it gets to the cause of the civil war, the pertinent questions are:

    1) why did the south rebel?

    2) why didn’t the north just let them go?

    As demonstrated by the actual words that they used when declaring their rebellion the answer to #1 is about slavery, slavery and slavery.

    As for #2, the north had more people supporting the union than slavery and Lincoln wanted to appeal to the slaveholders that were left or the rebels that were waivering. They didn’t let the south go because they didn’t believe the union could rightfully be dissolved. Duh.

    The fact that Lincoln didn’t immediately free the slaves, then, had nothing to do with question 1. And without the initial rebellion, there would have been no civil war.

    > why did Buchanan allow seven states to peacefully leave

    Because he was the jimmy carter of his day.

    > You see, Northern industrialists feared the South with its desire to lower the tariffs and establish free trade on its own

    A fact not even alluded to in S.C.’s declaration of secession.

    > You ignore that the Northern industrialists were chomping at the bit for war, even more so that were Southerners.

    So the south rebelled, and shot first, but it was the north that wanted the war?

    > The 10th Amendment, perhaps? Was slavery not part of the 10th Amendment rights granted to states?

    As an original matter, this is what I think the Constitution said on slavery.

    1) a state had the “right” (technically the power) to allow slavery.

    2) the Federal Government had the right to ban it in the territories. It is less clear under the 5th Amendment whether the F.G. could allow slavery in the territories consistent with the 5th amendment.

    3) congress had the absolute right to ban the importation of slaves after 1808.

    4) and we all know about the 3/5 clause.

    And none of that rebuts the point that they were rebelling over slavery.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  91. “The Senate declared in 1861 that the sole purpose of the war was to restore the Union and that there was no other objective (slavery was not an issue in 1861, according to the Senate resolution of 1861).”

    retire05 – From the perspective of the U.S. government you are probably right. From the perspective of the seceding states, which you are ignoring, your BS has been disproved on previous threads and also here today. It was all about slavery. Why don’t you want to talk about the documentary evidence of the states which seceded? You ran away from the thread the last time you were presented with that evidence.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  92. Was slavery not part of the 10th Amendment rights granted to states?

    Oops! The mask slips! Yes, the south fought the civil war over slavery, then, right? They didn’t hide this then, but these days, some just claim they fought for a vague right. That right is this 10th amendment right to slavery.

    To answer your question, no. States have no 10th amendment right to legalize slavery. Even though slavery existed for quite a while, it was contrary to human rights. There is no real law that deserves any honor that legalizes or recognizes slavery. It’s illegitimate.

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

    Does this include the power to deprive liberty without due process? Think.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  93. BigTex, yes, by all means, let’s put the truth out there. Let’s quote Lincoln himself on the issue of slavery. Let’s talk about how Lincoln emancipated only the slaves in states and territories that he no longer controlled. Let’s talk about how Lincoln himself made exemptions to those slaves who would be emancipated and who would not be emancipated. Let’s talk about how Lincoln offered to compensate Deleware for its slaves, but refused to do so for the southern states. Let’s talk about Uncle Billy’s disgust for the black race, or how Grant owned slaves that were not freed until the 14th Amendment was enacted. And let’s also talk about how some of the largest slave holders in the South were themselves, black.

    Aaron, and obviously you, as well, skirt the truth by ignoring that which is uncomfortable.

    Perhaps you could offer the words of Lincoln claiming that the cause for war was slavery?

    Slavery was/is an abomination. But I am sick of the political correct crap that is now being spewed by those who have read history books written primarily by Northerners. And while we are at it, we can talk about how Lincoln, who had the power to appoint positions in his government, chose to simply ignore those black Americans of brilliance like Frederick Douglas.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  94. I don’t think retire is a bad guy. He’s a federalist who, like me, is annoyed that the federal government is too dominant over states (I’m guessing).

    But come on, retire, you don’t really think slavery is a legitimate state power, do you? If there was slavery today in our country, wouldn’t you take to arms to kill whoever thought they had the power to do that? That power is prohibited by the fact all men were created equal. It’s prohibited by any sane concept of justice.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  95. daleyrocks, if you think you are so intimidating that I would run from the likes of you, you are delusional. I don’t run. But I do have a life, so if I left a thread, perhaps it was because I had better things to do that argue with dimwits and historic revisionists.

    Why did Lincoln NOT free ALL the slaves with the Emancipation Proclaimation? When did Deleware free its slaves? Is it not a Northern state? What was Lincoln’s excuse for calling up 75,000 volunteers to invade the South? Quote him.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  96. Dustin, if you agree that the 10th grants the states the right to certain laws not enumerated in the Constitution, and you think the southern states did not have the right to determine how they would act toward slavery, then name the part of the Constitution that abolishes slavery.

    Why don’t some of you try answering my questions, instead of flame throwing?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  97. “What exactly do you think Mexico is doing to the U.S.?”

    They’re not forming military units and firing cannon at United States forts.

    They’re also not engaging in treason against the United States by waging war on the United States, because they aren’t Americans and they can’t commit treason against the United States, which is more than you can say for guys like Jeff Davis or Bobby Lee.

    And, if any Mexicans start shooting at agents they’re going to get their heads blown off, and rightly so.

    And what’s all that have to do with the Civil War? Nothing, that’s what.

    It’s a “Look! Over there! I see some bunnies!” routine.

    Dave Surls (d6bf51)

  98. The rank-and-file northerner had no dog in the hunt. They didn’t have anything in stake in the abolition of slavery; they didn’t have anything in stake in the continuation of it. But Lincoln still needed them to fight, and so it is not surprising that Lincoln and Congress — in their words/speeches — emphasized that the war was about “preserving the union”. Indeed, it really was.

    The tension was started by those who broke the status quo — i.e., the South’s secession — so any serious discussion of the cause of the Civil War must take into account the South’s motives. And the South seceded for one reason: slavery. There’s no getting around it. You can hide behind “states rights”, but everybody knows that it’s merely states rights regarding slavery that was the sticking thorn.

    BUT FOR the peculiar institution of slavery, there would not have been secession…. and thus, no war. Period.

    Kman (5576bf)

  99. then name the part of the Constitution that abolishes slavery.

    Oh, name the part of the constitution that abolishes rape.

    Read the tenth amendment again. The powers that actually exist are reserved to the states. The powers that do not exist are not reserved to the states.

    In fact, article IV section 2 states all the citizens of all the states have privileges and immunities. Sure, we screwed up in implementing this for a long time, giving only some citizens freedom.

    But I don’t think I need to prove that the constitution bans Texas legalizing rape or California legalizing a death camp. I think you’re ignoring the more basic point: the constitution itself is not granting rights. It merely recognizes and protects rights that already existed.

    There is no right to hold a man as a slave, whether today or if there were only two men on the planet, and no legal systems at all.

    If you grant that slavery is a legitimate power for a state, then that’s unfortunate for you, and there’s no way to explain why the civil war was justified to you. This is basic stuff. It’s as basic as ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ and what the definition of the word ‘civil’ is (both concepts you appear to have an issue with).

    But you asked me to answer you, and there you go.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  100. It’s sad that you cling to the lost cause fictions Retire.

    Lincoln was a POLITICIAN, politicians words were no more trustworty then than they are now. Lincon was trying to prevent a war, when that fails, they true lincoln emerged. Notice the diffance between his 1st and 2nd innauguarl addresses. In the 2nd one, Lincoln plainly states that the war is God’s retribution for allowing slavery to continue.

    The whole emancimpation thing is something “Slavery-Deniers” (lol) try to use oout of context. It’s true Lincoln didn’t free the slaves in Union States with his proclaimation. Gee, I dunno, maybe he didn’t want those states to switch sides in the middle of a war or something…..

    Lincoln not liking black folks and Grant owning slaves doesn’t mean the war wasn’t about slavery, it was and the southerners who left the union SAID so.

    Oh, but I guess it must be some massive conspiracy against the south, the north really wrote those ordinances of succession that had slavery plastered all over them. Lincoln also came back from the dead and killed JFK with magic Jesus bullets……

    BigTex (e23c42)

  101. I don’t mean to undermine the idea that the tenth amendment allows for political questions to be solved by the states in various ways. I think that’s probably one of the most important things our nation has moved too far away from.

    But slavery is not a political question like gay marriage or speed limits. It’s a crime against nature and humanity. Not a single drop of ink in the constitution can be implemented or understood without some common sense and honesty. The founding fathers didn’t bother writing this out in painstaking detail because it’s on us to be a good enough people.

    These same founders said all men were created equal. If you don’t think all men were created equal, or if your laws don’t allow for this, your entire legal system is a farce.

    Anyway, I was just asking retire for his views on the right to legalize slavery, rather than discussing the fact that the confederacy was fighting for slavery. I guess that’s a bit of a subject change, and I don’t mean to attack retire. I actually thought he was going to agree with me.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  102. “daleyrocks, if you think you are so intimidating that I would run from the likes of you, you are delusional.”

    retire05 – I’m not the one on this and previous thread ignoring historical documents, hurling slurs at other commenters and challenging them to guess the motives for people either choosing or not choosing to take courses of action 150 years ago. I think it is clear you are emotionally invested in the subject and not facts, for whatever personal reasons you have.

    Yes, you left the last thread and never returned to challenge the refutation of your statements. They stand refuted in this as well as the last thread.

    Good luck dealing with your 150 year old demons.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  103. The tension was started by those who broke the status quo — i.e., the South’s secession — so any serious discussion of the cause of the Civil War must take into account the South’s motives. And the South seceded for one reason: slavery. There’s no getting around it. You can hide behind “states rights”, but everybody knows that it’s merely states rights regarding slavery that was the sticking thorn.

    Exactly Kman. The Average Union soldier wasn’t an anti-slavery crusader, hell given the era many or most wouldn’t have been fans of “Negroes” personally. Black Union troops faced signifigant racism and such.

    But the simple truth (denied by people like Retire) is that before the war, there was slavery, after the war, there wasn’t. And the southerners said before the war that the war was about slavery, AFTER the war in an attempt to save face, some like Jubal Early tried to put a spin on it with the whole lost cause crap. And people like Retire bought it hook , line and sinker.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  104. Big Tex

    > I (as a black man) have always wondered why it’s so hard to some people to admit the Slavery was the primary cause for the war, even in the face of overwhelming evidence

    my pet theory is this, and it can be considered a silver lining, here. today the average white southerner understands that slavery was a monstrous evil, on par with the holocaust.

    But their ancestors fought for this thing. maybe some of them even died, or had brothers who died, for it. and no one wants to be touched by that evil. i mean i vehemently deny that, for instance, any German born after 1945 bears any blame for the holocaust…

    …but at the same time part of me says, “thank God none of my ancestors were involved in that.”*

    Which is hypocritical, obviously, but irrational emotions are like that. And if i had ancestors who were involved in something that vile, i could see how i would be tempted to pretend it didn’t happen that way, to distort reality to avoid a sense of unwarranted guilt by association.

    So I think alot of white southerners tell themselves this fairy tale. “oh, it wasn’t about slavery, it was states’ rights.” now you can say that is wrong and that is factually true, but for many white southerners, slavery was so monstrous they really can’t face that reality.

    Which means that even as they pretend to revere Lee and Jeff Davis and all them, they are in fact repudiating just about everything they stand for.

    Which when you think about it isn’t too bad an outcome. i mean the important thing isn’t what someone thinks of some battle fought over a 100 years ago when all of us weren’t even born. the most important issue is what we believe today about moral principles and what we do. So in a real way its not particularly important whether “retire” faces the truth about the confederacy, so long as he knows that slavery is evil and hopefully that racism is evil, too. it would be nice to properly honor what the north actually fought for, but its not as important as getting things right going forward.

    Still, thank you for the kind words.

    Btw, you would probably enjoy the footnotes and possibly even the much older post linked where i take Va Governor McDonnell to task for his dumb confederate history month proclamation, all here: https://patterico.com/2010/11/18/the-inconsistent-verdicts-in-the-ghailani-case/

    —————–

    * fyi, to clarify that comment about my family’s immigration, i am a european-descended mutt, 3/8 german, 1/8 english, 1/4 scottish and 1/4 welsh. All my family came over between the civil war and WWI. if my wife and i are ever blessed with children, that child will be part chinese, filipino, japanese, spanish, italian, german, english, scottish and welsh. I plan to shorten that to “American.”

    but bluntly, we probably will never be able to have children except by adoption. i have suggested adopting a girl from china just because girls are treated like dirt there.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  105. if you think you are so intimidating that I would run from the likes of you, you are delusional.

    /Facepalm

    Internet tough guy acts aren’t an answer to why the confederacy said they were fighting for slavery, or Bigtex’s succinct point that there was slavery before this war, and there wasn’t after.

    Of course the civil war was about slavery. That doesn’t mean everything retire has said about the north is untrue… I know some of that is true, but the civil war was still about slavery.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  106. my pet theory is this, and it can be considered a silver lining, here. today the average white southerner understands that slavery was a monstrous evil, on par with the holocaust.

    But their ancestors fought for this thing. maybe some of them even died, or had brothers who died, for it. and no one wants to be touched by that evil. i mean i vehemently deny that, for instance, any German born after 1945 bears any blame for the holocaust…

    I’m sure each individual’s reasoning is his own and I won’t ponder further about it. But just for the record, my 3 or 4 times (can’t remember which) Great Grandfather on my mother’s side was a Confederate Soldier from Texas who foughtr in an Alabaman Volunteer unit….who happened to actually marry on ex slave years after the civil war….in 1870s Texas….Talk about Cajones.

    Like I suspect many people do, I have ancestors on both sides, i’m proud to be descended from people who cared enough about something to fight and die over it, but yea, at the same time I feel a slight tinge of…something…when thinking of my Confederate (ie Treasonous) ancestor…

    BigTex (e23c42)

  107. #98

    First time I ever saw Kman say something that makes sense.

    Dave Surls (d6bf51)

  108. Dustin

    > To answer your question, no. States have no 10th amendment right to legalize slavery. Even though slavery existed for quite a while, it was contrary to human rights.

    Well, I will have to respectfully disagree with you. I don’t think you have to invoke the 10th amendment, but prior to the enactment of the 13th amendment, yes, the states absolutely could legalize slavery. Any federal law telling a KY resident he cannot own slaves would be correctly interpreted as unconstitutional, prior to 1865. While famously the word “slave” never appears once in the federal constitution, the constitution clearly contemplates that slavery will exist, at least in the states. Its ugly but true.

    Simultaneously, I think Lincoln in his cooper’s union speech makes a powerful and imho persuasive argument that the founders believed that slavery could be banned in the territories. Likewise, I doubt that the Federal Government could legalize slavery in the territories without running afoul of the 5th Amendment, but then again they did, for decades. They even had slave markets in D.C., to our shame. The markets were later banned because it was bit much, but not the institution of slavery itself remained legal in D.C. until the civil war.

    I just believe that a mere violation of the constitution is not cause for rebellion. Our casebooks are filled with violations of the constitution. The correct solution to that is to go to court and get your remedy.

    Rebellion is not legal under our law, just as it wasn’t under british law, either. So instead you have to appeal to natural law, which is superior to any law written by law, and “appeal to heaven.” That’s what Washington and company did, and that is what any future rebels will have to do. and if you are appealing to nature’s law, and to heaven, then you better come with a better argument than “he isn’t letting me keep my slaves!” The Texans had that. Santa Anna was a dictator. And so did Washington and company. But Jeff Davis had no other cause but slavery—he could assert no other constitutional violation.

    By the way, the Supreme Court once had this interesting chestnut. They were talking about the issue of sovereign immunity, arguing that the U.S. couldn’t claim to be immune to suit on the following logic:

    > In such cases there is no safety for the citizen, except in the protection of the judicial tribunals, for rights which have been invaded by the officers of the government, professing to act in its name. There remains to him but the alternative of resistance, which may amount to crime.

    In short, the courts must grant a remedy for a violation of the constitution, for otherwise an aggrieved citizen had no choice but to “resist”—i.e. rebel.

    The case? United States v. Lee. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12186695331182794879&q=106+U.S.+196&hl=en&as_sdt=2,47

    And yes, the “Lee” in that case is the descendant of Robert E. Lee, suing to get just compensation for the land seized by the Federal Government during the war. You probably know this, but one of the first things the union did during the civil war was to take Lee’s plantation. But as time went on, they became concerned that the courts might require them to give it back. So they decided to bury their union dead on Lee’s land, so that if he dared to return to his residence the souls of the soldiers he killed would literally haunt him.

    So in a case involving the descendant of Robert E. Lee, the court said they had to let the case go forward, or else the plaintiff might rebel. heh.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  109. Let’s dispel the myth (that seems to be Aaron’s) that I am a “white southerner” who is clinging to a 150 year old war (Dustin’s myth).

    I am a Texan who simply doesn’t see things in black and white (not a pun). But it seems to some that my views can only be those of a “white southerner.”

    I am not. I am Irish-Cherokee, with my Irish roots not established in the U.S. until AFTER the War For Southern Independence.

    I could simplify things and say that we fought WWII to liberate the German concentration camps. I would be right. But it would not be the sole purpose for that war, as with all wars, there is never any one cause. But there are those who, for whatever reason beknownst only to them, choose to think that the War For Southern Independence was a one issue war. For those that think that way, as proven here, there is no changing their minds.

    I have asked questions, and there have been a few vague attempts at a couple of answers (like Lincoln didn’t free the slaves because he thought it would extend the war which if true, proves Lincoln was not quite as smart as everyone credits him with being). They make this claim as they ignore what Lincoln told Horace Greeley.

    Slavery takes many forms, and it is undeniable that slavery, in some forms, still exist in the U.S. today. Slavery is simply a process by which a person is owned. Freedom of movement does not end that ownership. When the government can tell you what to eat, how your children will be educated, what state laws you can enforce that protect your citizens and what laws you cannot enforce to protect your citizens, you are owned, whether you acknowledge that or not.

    So y’all stick to your “it was only ONE issue” mantra, and remain fat and happy in your ignorance. The dumbing down of America is complete.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  110. Dustin, abortion is a crime against humanity. Yet it is legal.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  111. So y’all stick to your “it was only ONE issue” mantra, and remain fat and happy in your ignorance. The dumbing down of America is complete.

    Translation: Everyone else, including the people who succeeded from the union and SAID “Slavery!” on the way out the door are wrong, I am right!

    lol

    BigTex (e23c42)

  112. Big Tex,

    lol talk about conflicted.

    Btw, there is an interesting-looking book called “The State of Jones: The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy” (hey! you can search for it on the amazon widget on the left and give patterico a donation!)

    From the blurb:

    > Make room in your understanding of the Civil War for Jones County, Mississippi, where a maverick small farmer named Newton Knight made a local legend of himself by leading a civil war of his own against the Confederate authorities. Anti-planter, anti-slavery, and anti-conscription, Knight and thousands of fellow poor whites, army deserters, and runaway slaves waged a guerrilla insurrection against the secession that at its peak could claim the lower third of Mississippi as pro-Union territory. Knight, who survived well beyond the war (and fathered more than a dozen children by two mothers who lived alongside each other, one white and one black), has long been a notorious, half-forgotten figure, and in The State of Jones journalist Sally Jenkins and Harvard historian John Stauffer combine to tell his story with grace and passion. Using court transcripts, family memories, and other sources–and filling the remaining gaps with stylish evocations of crucial moments in the wider war–Jenkins and Stauffer connect Knight’s unruly crusade to a South that, at its moment of crisis, was anything but solid.

    its definitely in my backlog of stuff to read.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  113. Aaron, why did you not direct BigTex to also research the blacks who fought in Grey? Or are you one of those who believe that black men would have NEVER, EVER fought in the CSA?

    And no, I am not talking about those that served as cooks, teamsters, etc. I am talking about those that actually wore the uniform and fought against the North.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  114. Anyway, the bottom line is that the Yankees were in the right, the rebels were in the wrong, the good guys won, and legalized slavery (except as punishment for a crime) was abolished as a result of the war.

    And, no amount of moonlight and magnolia revisionism is going to change all that.

    Dave Surls (d6bf51)

  115. Dustin, abortion is a crime against humanity. Yet it is legal.

    Comment by retire05 —

    Yes, this is a very good comparison.

    I think, once you concede (or argue) abortion is a crime against humanity, it’s clear states do not have a legitimate power to legalize it.

    The reason this fails as a legal argument is that our legal system gets things wrong. Hell, they legalized slavery for quite a while. Before that, we didn’t even have representation in the British government. As we move along, sometimes we correct these huge mistakes, but there remain some mistakes.

    Like I said, a concept you seem to have a problem with is ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. If you think abortion is not merely a political issue, but rather a violation of human rights and natural law, that doesn’t mean other violations are now valid powers.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  116. Slavery takes many forms, and it is undeniable that slavery, in some forms, still exist in the U.S. today. Slavery is simply a process by which a person is owned. Freedom of movement does not end that ownership. When the government can tell you what to eat, how your children will be educated, what state laws you can enforce that protect your citizens and what laws you cannot enforce to protect your citizens, you are owned, whether you acknowledge that or not.

    So you compare whipping your cotton picker and selling his wife to the FDA banning maggoty meat, or any deviation from complete anarchy?

    No, I’m really owned because there are rules in our society. This is the second defense of slavery you’ve issued. You said slavery was a legitimate state power, and now you’re saying government intrusions of any kind are similarly bad.

    Can I just ask a straight question: do you think 1860s style slavery is OK? Would you refuse to fight to stop that from happening?

    Dustin (c16eca)

  117. retire

    i am sure those black soldiers fought for the CSA of their own free will and after full and free disclosure, right? i bet they read Alexander H. Stephens’ cornerstone speech to hype them up for battle, right? (note: i am being sarcastic.)

    btw, there were also jews who helped the nazi regime. doesn’t mean the nazis didn’t hate jews. it just means that sometimes you can coax a person into acting manifestly against their interests. i mean hell a few years back i saw an article about a man trying to join the KKK. He wasn’t clearly black, but he definitely wasn’t white. They turned him away a little embarrassed by the fact the guy didn’t even understand they were his enemy.

    for the most part black people, particularly slaves who were malingering, were a thorn in the South’s side.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  118. I would be perfectly happy with the Retire test: ask all blacks from the civil war era if the confederacy is on their side.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  119. Dustin, I am not into personal attacks, but you are not real bright, are you? I have said that slavery was an abomination. I don’t think I can make it much clearer than that. I don’t agree with the institution of slavery, although it continues today, only in a different form.

    Yes, I did say that slavery was a legitimate state power. I never said it was right, and if you think I did, then provide my exact quote.

    What was 1860’s type slavery, Dustin? It was the ownership of another human being; you could tell them where to live, how to work, where they could go. How many Americans are now told where they can live because the government pays the rent. How many are told what they can pay for food, because the government provides them with the means for the attainment of food?

    I would fight for my home.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  120. “remain fat and happy in your ignorance.”

    Spare me.

    I own at least a couple of hundred books about the Civil War, and I’ve read hundreds more.

    Probably forgotten more about the war than you’ve ever known, or will know.

    Dave Surls (ff11af)

  121. Aaron, blacks who wore the Grey were fighting for the same reason many non-slave holding Southerners fought wearing the Grey. They were fighting for their homeland, and in some cases, for the right to continue to own fellow blacks. That you want to make light of that, or even try to convolute the reality of blacks in the CSA, seems to be your problem.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  122. I have said that slavery was an abomination.

    I didn’t catch that, but I’m sure you said that. Thanks for answering me. I’m afraid I don’t remember everything everyone says. Instead of telling you what you think I asked… is that really proof I’m stupid?

    provide my exact quote.

    Meh. Why not just ask you directly? That’s how I work, because I’m not passive aggressive or an internet tough guy or whatever. And thanks again for answering.

    What was 1860′s type slavery, Dustin? It was the ownership of another human being; you could tell them where to live, how to work, where they could go. How many Americans are now told where they can live because the government pays the rent. How many are told what they can pay for food, because the government provides them with the means for the attainment of food?

    Can the government whip my wife if she doesn’t sleep with them, like a plantation owner in the 1860s could? Can the government sell me to work the fields of another owner, and never see my family again?

    How in the world can you criticize my intelligence while generalizing these human rights abuses as though they are similar to the government ‘paying the rent’, whatever that means exactly.

    No, you have repeatedly ignored the ironclad proof that the confederacy fought for slavery ‘rights’ as you say.

    I would fight for my home.

    You are evasive about a fair question. Would you have taken up arms to kill the traitors who are on record as wanting to enslave other people? You say you’d defend your material possession, but you wouldn’t defend your fellow man’s right to not be a slave?

    Seriously, I can’t believe you mean that. You would fight to end slavery, is my guess. Correct me if I’m mistaken.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  123. Surley, you claim to own more books on the CW than I do.

    Has anyone ever told you that claims made on the internet are worthless self-aggrandizement?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  124. “Surley, you claim to own more books on the CW than I do.”

    Nope. Never claimed any such thing.

    Dave Surls (ff11af)

  125. “But there are those who, for whatever reason beknownst only to them, choose to think that the War For Southern Independence was a one issue war.”

    retire05 – Heh. There are others here, for reality denying reasons known only to them, moronically keep insisting that slavery was not an issue in 1861, in spite of what the seceding state specifically said about their reasons for seceding. Such forms of thought, ignoring factual history, are called revisionist thinking and are normally taught by the left, with some exceptions in the areas of white supremacism.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  126. Dustin, I said what I meant. I would fight to defend my home. And if an Illinois regiment ever intends to march through my county, with total destruction on their mind, I will take up arms against them, hopefully on their territory, not mine.

    Can the goverment whip your wife? No. Can they force you to work where you don’t want to? No. But can the government make you so dependent on it that it can remove from you all human dignity? You betcha. And is not part of freedom human dignity?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  127. daleyrocks, see if this will penetrat; I have NEVER said that slavery was NOT an issue. I have said it was not the ONLY issue.

    Comprende?

    Surley, you’re right; you never claimed to own more CR books that I do. You simply claimed that you have probably forgotten more about the war than I ever knew, or will probably ever know.

    Again, self-aggrandizement is not a trait you should adhere to.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  128. But can the government make you so dependent on it that it can remove from you all human dignity?

    No they can’t. That’s the saddest thing about a welfare state. People choose to be dependent.

    Dustin, I said what I meant. I would fight to defend my home.

    so? this means nothing. If people marched into your town to fight the people enslaved your neighbors, you would stop them? Why not help them?

    Anyway, the sort of person who would fight to defend slavery lacks the character to be a formidable soldier, in my personal experience.

    So, third time asking a direct question to the person who complains about people who don’t answer questions: would you fight to end slavery?

    Dustin (c16eca)

  129. Hey, some guy in Georgia who didn’t own slaves fought in the War of Southern Stupidity because one of buddies was fighting. That must mean the war was not JUST about slavery, right? RIGHT!!!!!

    WINNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  130. Why is it that you think I don’t know about Black Slave owners or Black Confederates. Newsflash, I know about them, and Confederate Indians and Im’ sure there was a Chinese Confederate soldier or 2 in there too lol.

    None of which is the point. The main question , that truth which you are denying out of ignorance or worse than ingorance is simple: This country fought a war with itself, a War whose primary causing factor was Slavery (and the money and power slavery represented).

    The South knew that the election of Lincoln represented a shift in power, that the slave power no longer controlled the Federal Government as it had for so long. They knew that meant new territories would eventually be Free rather than Slave states, they knew those new non-slave states would cement the North’s power through the extra senators and representatives those new states provided, and the eventually, Slavery would come under threat, and then be eliminated.

    So they tried to leave a perpetual Union, not only to preserve slavery (the common poor southerner WAs in fact in favor of slavery, even if they didn’t own them, as a means to control blacks they feared) but to preserve the money and power the Southern Gentry had come to rely on….. and got rightiously Gobsmacked but a Union (as Lincoln called it) truly had God on it’s side.

    One last question? What do you have against Jews? You obvioulsy wanted the Slave-Holders to win the civil war, which would have meant a divided America and probably not real United States to help smack Hitler down, ending with more dead Jews. So you see, pro-confederacy = anti-semitism too! (LOL-J/K)

    BigTex (382e2f)

  131. Dustin, I understand you are trying to get me to say something I do not believe, and I tried to explain to you why I would fight to defend my home.

    Do you think that the soldiers who fight in Iraq and Afghanistan do so only because of another soldier’s reasons? Or do you admit that everyone has their own reason for becoming a soldier and fighting who they consider to be their enemy?

    Perhaps the reason for the other guy fighting was to perserve the institution of slavery. And perhaps there were those who simply fought to keep the Union Army from marching through their counties, burning everything in sight. Again, you simply want to lump everyone in to a one-size-fits-all mantra. You should be a Democrat.

    And again, daleyrocks offers nothing of value.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  132. BigTex, the “jew” comment was really a stretch. Palates or Jane Fonda?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  133. Dustin, I understand you are trying to get me to say something I do not believe, and I tried to explain to you why I would fight to defend my home.

    Instead of trying to be a sage know-it-all, you look like you’re dishonest.

    OK, you’d defend your home. SO WHAT?

    Would you fight to stop slavery? Yes or no? You whined that I didn’t answer questions, so I answered them. Why can’t you answer my question?

    Is slavery worth fighting against? Wouldn’t any good man be willing to kill if that’s what it took to stop slavery in his own country?

    You love dismissing others, calling them stupid, saying they have no value, and replacing their arguments with hysterical straw men, but you can’t answer my question.

    Just answer it already.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  134. BigTex, the “jew” comment was really a stretch. Palates or Jane Fonda?

    He was being sarcastic.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  135. “daleyrocks, see if this will penetrat; I have NEVER said that slavery was NOT an issue. I have said it was not the ONLY issue.”

    retire05 – No, you make controversial statements like the following, unwilling to acknowledge that slavery was even a primary or major cause of the war, you feckless poofter. The idea that other people saying the war was all about slavery, using your terminology, obviously cannot be so, and if properly educated in the way you express yourself they would not use that phraseology. Obviously some Union soldier were drafted, some fought for fun, some fought against slavery, but nobody can know the minds of everybody involved. That is just mental masturbation to avoid the root cause of the war, which was slavery. Comprende?

    “So here we are, 150 years later, with history dumbed down to the point where it can be taught that the Civil War (as Yankees like to call it) was over one issue. It was not. It was over a number of issues, and to simplify it to one, does a disservice to those who want to know the truth.”

    “In the Spring of 1861, slavery had as much to do with the invasion of the South by Lincoln as the holocaust had to do with our entry into World War II.” – Yeah, the South seceded for sh*ts and giggles, but let’s not talk about that.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  136. “I have NEVER said that slavery was NOT an issue. I have said it was not the ONLY issue.”

    retire05 – So now that you are actually willing to concede that slavery was an issue, where does it rank among all the issues you see leading to the war?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  137. The Civil War : Slavery :: NBA : Basketball

    I noted the Orwellian nature of retire’s comments earlier. He wants to change the entire name of the conflict so that people have to characterize this on his terms.

    I think daleyrock’s summary is fair. The is mental masturbation to deflect from the truth.

    By all means, note that the war about slavery had other elements. Or note that the north was imperfect. Etc.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  138. Retire

    > They were fighting for their homeland

    What bunk. Their homeland wasn’t under any threat until the CSA seceded, citing slavery as the cause.

    > and in some cases, for the right to continue to own fellow blacks.

    Yes, in oppressive situations, people do in fact do f—ed up thing. Although I would like proof that a black person ever allowed to own slaves, the Cherokees in Georgia owned slaves to prove how “civilized” they were. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw something like that now and then.

    Second as for black soldiers, a few apparently free black people fought for the confederacy prior to the emancipation proclamation. That is, back when the war would not result in any immediate emancipation a few black people did fight for it. did they do that with full knowledge? Beats me and you don’t know either. And their participation could have been just as much to convince the new Confederacy to treat black people with some decency, to say, “look, we helped you get free. Now what about us?” black people have been fighting for a country that often treated them like garbage to make a point, pretty much from the beginning.

    > with total destruction on their mind

    Lets talk reality, not neo-confederate fantasies. The only time anything approximating total destruction occurred or was even threatened was sherman’s march, which was at the very end of the war. So at best your argument only applies from November, 1864, forward. How do you explain the rest of the war?

    I mean my God if anything Lincoln was too restrained. If a Confederate’s HORSE went free the union soldiers wouldn’t lift a finger to retrieve it from him. but Lincoln ordered that any slaves that went free as the union armies moved through, be returned to their masters. The most sickening example of this came when two slaves fled to union lines, with information about Confederate movements, hoping to buy their freedom with that information. When a confederate officer came by requesting the return of his slaves, the union soldiers actually agreed. One slave said, more or less, “f-k this” and made a run for it. He was shot, in the back, as he fled.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  139. daleyrocks, please provide my quote where I say that slavery was NOT an issue. Can you do that, or do you just resort to intellectual dishonesty as a tactic?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  140. Aaron, you can choose to believe, or not, that blacks actually freely fought for the CSA. It is no skin off my nose. But if you disbelieve, there are historical records that prove you wrong.

    And you question that blacks actually owned slaves? Research Melrose Plantation in Louisiana, for one. The fact is that the black participation as soldiers in the CSA was downplayed starting around 1910.

    You say that Lincoln ordered slaves returned to their masters. Can I have a link for that? And then we can talk about how Sherman allowed blacks to drown in a raging river because they would slow down his destruction of everything in his path.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  141. in the end there can be only one

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  142. “Surley, you’re right”

    I know.

    Comes with the territory, when you’re me.

    And, if you don’t like hearing me talk about my extensive knowledge of the Civil War, then keep your remarks about the “ignorance” of others, the thick heads of others, the hypocrisy of others, the unbrightness of others and the rest of that crap to yourself. It’s bad manners for one thing. And, like the false claim you just made about what I said, it’s also a lot of baloney.

    Dave Surls (ff11af)

  143. retire

    > Aaron, you can choose to believe, or not, that blacks actually freely fought for the CSA

    Well, that is what it is about, for you, isn’t it? not facts, but beliefs. faith.

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  144. Calvin: The civil war was about slavery.

    Hobbes: You’re wrong.

    Calvin: [evidence proving the civil war was about slavery]

    Hobbes: Show me where I said it was about just one issue, slavery only.

    Calvin: well, what other issues was it about?

    Hobbes: well, for starters, the power states had to legalize slavery, rather than just slavery
    Aaron: …

    Dustin (c16eca)

  145. “daleyrocks, please provide my quote where I say that slavery was NOT an issue. Can you do that, or do you just resort to intellectual dishonesty as a tactic?”

    retire05 – Here you go. It’s part of a comment chock full of intellectual dishonesty.

    “The Senate declared in 1861 that the sole purpose of the war was to restore the Union and that there was no other objective (slavery was not an issue in 1861, according to the Senate resolution of 1861). Also, in 1861, a proposed amendment to the Constitution would have stated that the federal government had no authority to interfer with slavery in states where it existed. Lincoln concured.”

    Let’s unpack the above:
    A. The Senate says the only purpose of the war is to restore the union.
    B. The union needs to be restored because southern states seceded.
    C. Southern states seceded over the issue of slavery based upon a review of relevant historical documents.

    Conclusion – The war is about slavery.

    The Corwin Amendment to which retire05 refers above was passed by Congress before Lincoln assumed office. It was consistent with the Republican Party platform in that it did not regulate slavery in existing slave states and Lincoln therefore viewed it as consistent with the constitution. There is no surprise there.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  146. ==And you question that blacks actually owned slaves? Research Melrose Plantation in Louisiana, for one==

    There is an amazing book on the topic of Black slaveholders titled “The Known World” by Edward P. Jones”, a respected Black historian. He wrote it in great detail as a work of fiction but his years of research and embedded documentation fully support the story. It is set in Manchester County Va. prior to the Civil War. It is a troubling but very excellent read.

    elissa (9ebceb)

  147. retire05 – So now that you are actually willing to concede that slavery was an issue, where does it rank among all the issues you see leading to the war?

    Waiting for an answer.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  148. Yeah, surls, your knowledge of Civil War history is so extensive you had to look up who the famous Northern general was that I quoted. So much for honesty from you.

    daleyrocks, so you admit that the Senate stated the purpose of the war, admit that Lincoln viewed Corwin with being consistand with the Constitution but then have to do a dot-to-dot in order to come to your own conclusion. Got it. Also, since I never said that slavery was NOT an issue, but only ONE issue, I am not conceding anything except that you seem to want to twist what I actually did say in order to support your premise.

    Where do I stand on the importance of slavery to Southern soldiers? To those who owned slaves, as slaves were crucial to their livlihood, important. To those who did not own slaves, not important. But since that is not the answer you were seeking, I am sure you will dismiss it.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  149. daley-perhaps you saw yesterday’s Chicago Tribune? They reprinted in full their April 13 1861 editorial regarding Fort Sumter and the beginning of hostilities. In the second paragraph the emotional editor of the day used these words:

    The people know the cause of the fratricidal strife. The party, which, in the interests of a barbarous institution, has governed the country for the last 40 years, was beaten in the November election

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0412-civil-20110412,0,763323.story

    Hope that helps.

    elissa (9ebceb)

  150. Big Tex wrote:

    It’s sad that you cling to the lost cause fictions Retire. Lincoln was a POLITICIAN, politicians words were no more trustworty then than they are now. Lincon was trying to prevent a war, when that fails, they true lincoln emerged.

    And yet you take the words of the southern POLITICIANS at face value! Lincoln’s words don’t necessarily reflect the truth, but Thaddeus Stevens was a resurrected George Washington, incapable of prevaricating.

    For that matter, if you read some of the literature from the 1770s you would get the idea that the colonies revolted over the sort of petty complaints that the rabble-rousing pamphleteers whipped up; but we know the real issues were more fundamental and more boring, and that one of the most important was trade. So looking at Southern propagandists for the true reasons for the secession isn’t that fruitful.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  151. By the way, none of my ancestors had any part in either side of the USA civil war. Nor am I aware of any relatives, however distant, who had any connection to it. For whatever that is worth.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  152. I could simplify things and say that we fought WWII to liberate the German concentration camps. I would be right. But it would not be the sole purpose for that war,

    Actually, you’d be wrong, because that wasn’t even a minor purpose. It played no part whatever in FDR’s thinking, and in fact when he was begged to bomb the rail lines to the Camps he refused to do so. The German crimes may have been a convenient excuse to hold trials afterwards, but at the time they didn’t bother FDR (or Churchill, for that matter, and certainly not Stalin!) at all.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  153. Milhouse, let me use the dot-to-dot reasoning that some have used here against me:

    Japan bombed Pearl Harbor
    Japan was an ally of Nazi Germany
    We went to war against Nazi Germany
    Germans put Jews in concentration camps and gased them to death
    We liberated the concentration camps
    therefore
    the war was all about liberating the concentration camps.

    Get it?

    Or perhaps I could do it this way:

    Germans were murdering the Jews in concentration camps
    FDR knew about the concentration camps but refused to do anything to stop the horror
    therefore
    FDR and Democrats were responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews

    See how that works?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  154. Comment by retire05 — 4/13/2011 @ 6:26 pm

    There is a certain beauty in your symmetry.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f37a71)

  155. One last question? What do you have against Jews? You obvioulsy wanted the Slave-Holders to win the civil war, which would have meant a divided America and probably not real United States to help smack Hitler down, ending with more dead Jews.

    No US meddling in WW1 means no Versailles treaty, and no Nazi ascendancy in the first place.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  156. “Yeah, surls, your knowledge of Civil War history is so extensive you had to look up who the famous Northern general was that I quoted.”

    So, you went over to Stormfront and learned a quote to show how mean those Yankees were. Color me impressed.

    Actually, I found your quote over at a website belonging to the Knights of the KKK. Looks like it’s a favorite of theirs. Y’all have a lot in common, actually. All they want is: “simply to inform those who have been misled in regard to the Civil War.” and also to invite everyone to the National Klan Conference (bring your own pointy hat and sheets). They even make the same pro forma denunciation of slavery you do!

    I’d link to the site, but it’s kind of a cesspool, and anyway, we can get pretty much the same thing from you, so why bother?

    “So much for honesty from you.”

    Sure, I’m honest enough to admit if I have to look something up.

    Don’t you stars and bars waving, Jeff Davis-lovers believe in honesty?

    Scratch that. Silly question.

    Dave Surls (cccab3)

  157. Milhouse: Some states explicitly reserved the right to secede.

    This is a lie. Completely, utterly false.

    No official of any state government, nor any of the ratification conventions, ever issued any statement asserting that that state or another had a unilateral right to withdraw from the Constitution. Not in writing, not in a speech.

    It never happened.

    The rest of your vaporings are not even worth refuting, given that your premises are false.

    I will add one thing. Even if a state had asserted a right of secession at the time of ratification that assertion would be of no power.

    If A and B sign a contract, under which A is required to pay B $1,000 a month for a year, and then A says (or writes on some other piece) “I can stop paying any time I want,” that does not give him the power to void his contractual obligation to B.

    The contract can be voided only by mutual agreement – either by joint action later on, or by a mutually agreed clause in the contract which allows unilateral action later.

    Rich Rostrom (8c0024)

  158. If A and B sign a contract, under which A is required to pay B $1,000 a month for a year, and then A says (or writes on some other piece) “I can stop paying any time I want,” that does not give him the power to void his contractual obligation to B.

    If that understanding was what induced him to sign in the first place, then it must be valid, or else the contract was void from the beginning.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  159. “Where do I stand on the importance of slavery to Southern soldiers?”

    retire05 – I did not ask where it ranked with respect to soldiers. Where did it rank with the people not fighting?

    What other causes for the war are you comparing it against in importance?

    What history do you keep alleging is revised in this discussion?

    By repeatedly saying slavery was not even an issue in Washington in 1861, you are specifically saying slavery was not a cause of the war. Please explain how that is a misinterpretation of your words.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  160. “therefore
    the war was all about liberating the concentration camps.”

    retire05 – Are you related to VietNamEraVet? Your thinking patterns are similar.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  161. Aaron Worthing: a few apparently free black people fought for the confederacy prior to the emancipation proclamation.

    Nope. retire05 is repeating a beloved neo-Confederate fantasy which has no basis whatever in reality.

    The only “free colored” community of any importance in the South was in Louisiana. They retained some vestiges of citizenship from the days of French and Spanish rule, though by 1860 these rights had been whittled down to nothing.

    In a last effort to assert citizenship, they tried to form a Louisiana militia regiment and enter the Confederate Army. They were flatly rejected. (This same unit later joined the Union Army instead.)

    A handful of free blacks elsewhere were allowed to enlist by local authorities – but they were all expelled from the Army when detected by the Confederate War Department. The Confederate Army was for whites only.

    (It’s been said – by scholars who have examined hundreds of thousands of enlistment and service records – that there were more women (in drag) serving in the Confederate Army than blacks.

    There were many blacks who accompanied Confederate troops in the field. But they were drummer boys, cooks, officers’ servants, or grooms and teamsters. They were not carried on the records as soldiers. A few were awarded “Confederate veteran pensions” long after the war – but they had not been soldiers.

    In the last weeks of the war (and over the vehement objections of many of its “founding fathers”), the Confederacy enlisted a few hundred blacks with the vague promise of future emancipation. They never saw action.

    Compare this to the 160,000 “United States Colored Troops” who served in the Union Army.

    Rich Rostrom (8c0024)

  162. Aaron Worthing: Yes, I know Kentucky never joined the Confederacy…

    Haven’t you ever heard that “Kentucky joined the Confederacy after the Civil War”?

    Rich Rostrom (8c0024)

  163. Let’s see; because surley has egg on his face (with his extensive knowledge of the Civil War, LMAO) because he had to look up a quote by a Northern general, he now claims that I am either a) a Stormfront groupie or b) a Knight of the KKK. Oh, and a Jeff Davis lover, although Jefferson Davis died long before I was born and I don’t love people I don’t know.

    Why do I even try to have a rational discussion with juveniles?

    daleyrocks, how am I supposed to know how the “people not fighting” felt about the war? I did not live back then and can only go on what was written by those who lived through it. And you said “by repeatedly saying that slavery was not an issue in Washington in 1861”. I never said that. Again, I have repeatedly said it was NOT the only issue. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend? And if you want to know what the civilians in the South thought, I suggest you buy Mary Chestnut’s Diary.

    I have been quite specific in what I said because I know that I am dealing with people who have a fixed mindset and are not open to the opinions of others.

    Now, I am, at the risk of being accused of running from this thread, going to bed. Narrow minded people wear me out.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  164. Why would Dave Surls have egg on his face for admitting to doing research for the facts? He’s just telling the truth. None of us know everything.

    Retire, you keep making personal attacks, and I realize that’s because you’ve gotten your share, but they don’t work for you if they aren’t well thought out. Dave’s comparison of you to a KKK website might be a little unfair, but he’s got a point. Your arguments do support their POV.

    You did refuse to say you’d fight to free blacks from slavery. Frankly, you don’t come across very well, and apparently you care how you come across if you’re resorting to personal attacks (in my opinion, you shouldn’t care so much about what people think about you on the internet).

    We’re not “narrow minded” when we honestly consider your arguments but disagree.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  165. Aaron, you’re full of you-know-what.

    I suggest you research the “Richmond Howitzers”, and James Washington, Co. D, 35th Texas Calvary, CSA for starters. Frederick Douglass said he knew there were black soldiers in the CSA. Was he lying?

    According to Dr. Leonard Haynes (a Bush appointee), an African-American professor at Southern University, stated “When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history of the South.” Was he lying about blacks in the CSA?

    Or are you just ill informed?

    retire05 (b8d872)

  166. Dustin, I don’t draw first blood. It’s not my style. But I have tried to present an option to politically correct history. It was soundly rejected out of hand.

    No, I really don’t care what someone on an internet blog thinks of me. I will start when they pick up my tax tab.

    Now to Surley; he has egg on his face because he made the claim that he probably has forgotten more about the Civil War than I have ever known, yet he did not know a famous quote by a VERY famous Northern general. One does not claim expertise and not know something like that. So then, he decides that the best he can do is lob accusations of my being a Stormfronter or a KKK member. How juvenile is that? If the Grant quote is on a radical website, does that mean that I am supportive of them? Only a simple mind would draw that conclusion.

    As to honestly considering my arguments, can you tell me the person here who has done that? Because you, Surley and Aaron damn sure haven’t. All you have offered is a locked mindset with not once asking “Where did you learn that?”

    I have said REPEATEDLY that slavery was an abomination. I do not support it in any form, not even the current day system that enslaves people and destroys their dignity. Yet, you, et al, have taken my words, spun them to suit your argument and twisted them beyond recognition. Why? Because I don’t buy into p.c. history? Because I am not willing to place the entire blame for the war on the South?

    The simple fact is that Lincoln, and the North, did nothing to try to work through the problems of slavery. Think of it this way; you’re a farmer. Obama tells you that you have to get rid of your truck and your tractor because it is causing global warming, but offers you no alternative. Then he tells you that he is going to destroy your crops, or that he is going to tax your crops so that the price of that crop will increase and create a higher price on the open market due to less quantity. What would you do?

    Don’t think that could not happen. FDR slaughtered 6 million pigs to drive up the price of pork.

    But alas, I really am going to bed now. Trying to convince people to open their minds is tiring.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  167. “because he had to look up a quote by a Northern general”

    Found it at the same KKK site you use, I’ll bet.

    Knights of the KKK (sorry no link to KKK websites from me):

    “We do not support slavery and this material is not to suggest that we do. It is simply to inform those who have been misled in regard to the Civil War.”

    “1) The wife of which Civil War General still owned slaves after the end of the Civil War? General U.S. Grant of the Union or General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy?”

    “Answer: General U.S. Grant”

    RetiredKKKmember05 from a bit upthread:

    “…how Grant owned slaves that were not freed until the 14th Amendment was enacted.”

    Funny how our boy uses almost exactly the same obscure facts about Sam Grant as talking points that the Knights of the KKK uses, ain’t it?

    “Dave’s comparison of you to a KKK website might be a little unfair”

    I don’t think that it’s all that unfair, Dustin.

    I’ve been studying the Civil War all my life, have hundreds of volumes (Foote, Long, Freeman, Catton, Commager, Battles and Leaders, Grant’s autobiography, etc., etc.), and I know all kinds of stuff about the war, like the story about the troops all singing together before the big battle at Murfreesboro (Stones River to you Northern boys), but I had to look up the little obscure quote and fact about Grant that retiredKKKmember05 is using.

    And, where do I find them? All in one neat package…at the Knights of the KKK site, along with a pro forma denunciation of slavery…kinda sorta like the pro forma denunciation we heard from the defender of the slaveowner faith here. And, of course, the good ol Knights are just trying to correct our misconceptions about the Civil War…kinda like old retiredKKKmember05 is saying he’s doing.

    Interesting, doncha think?

    Dave Surls (b31cd3)

  168. Why do I even try to have a rational discussion with juveniles?”

    I don’t have rational discussions with White Power freaks who throw out personal insults to everyone on the site, and address me as “Surley”, punk.

    I ignored your insults the first few times you started dishing them out…now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine.

    You want to talk to me, you learn some manners, little boy.

    Dave Surls (b31cd3)

  169. “According to Dr. Leonard Haynes (a Bush appointee), an African-American professor at Southern University, stated “When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history of the South.” Was he lying about blacks in the CSA?”

    retire05 – That quote by Dr. Haynes is thrown around a lot, but is there any evidence of scholarship by him on the subject of the Civil War?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  170. “daleyrocks, how am I supposed to know how the “people not fighting” felt about the war?”

    retire05 – Did all the politicians and others who planned the secession of southern states fight? Obviously not. You chose to limit your earlier answer to a subset of people for some reason, not me.

    With respect to slavery not being an issue in Washington, those were your words, not mine. Own them.

    Still waiting for your ranking of issues related to the war though, since slavery was only one. I want to hear more.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  171. It’s nice to see only a very few diehards clining to the lost cause fiction, if you believe the Liberals, Conservative minded folks aren’t capable of critical thought, yet MOST of us can see through the stupdity of the idea that a war about slavery wasn’t about slavery lol.

    Just like WWII had its roots in WWI, the Civil War had it’s roots in the compromises that allowed the Constitution to be passed in the 1st place (the compromises that didn’t allow my ancestors to participate in government or society, but still allowed them to be counted as 3/5ths or a person for census purposes).

    The Civil War had to happen (just like the earlier compromises had to happen, because if they hadn’t there wouldn’t really be a USA). America made some serious promises and proclaimations to humanity in the late 1800s (ALL MEN ARe CREATED EQUAL), in the 1860s, the Debts those promises created came due, and the Debt was paid.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  172. opps, I meant late 1700s, not 1800s

    BigTex (e23c42)

  173. daleyrocks

    “With respect to slavery not being an issue in Washington, those were your words, not mine. Own them.”

    Quote me, exactly. I want to see how bad your reading comprehension skills are.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  174. “Quote me, exactly. I want to see how bad your reading comprehension skills are.”

    retire05 – I already have above. Not my problem if you forget what you say.

    Now how about that ranking of issues you keep avoiding.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  175. daleyrocks,

    I quoted a Senate resolution, and the words of Lincoln. I did not say that Washington, as a whole, dismissed slavery as an issue.

    I suggest you take a remedial reading comprehension course. Or stop being intellectually dishonest.

    And if you are so interested in the mindset of the citizen (not military) Southerner, I have already given you a reference. Spend your time learning, not trying to play gotcha.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  176. “Let’s see; because surley has egg on his face (with his extensive knowledge of the Civil War, LMAO) because he had to look up a quote by a Northern general”–retiredKKKmember05

    I had to look it up, because it’s not a real quote. I started getting suspicious about KKK-boy’s “quote” because I kept seeing it at the White Power/Neo-Confederate sites, and it didn’t really sound like other things Grant had said about slavery and the Union, like this real quotation, taken from a letter Grant wrote in 1863 to Elihu B. Washburne…

    “I never was an Abolitionest… but I try to judge farely & honestly and it become patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North & South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without Slavery.”

    Now, that sounds like something Grant would say.

    Did a little research on it last night, and RetiredKKKmember05’s “quote” appears to have been made up by Grant’s political enemies in 1868 when it first appeared in a book called “The Democratic Speaker’s Hand-Book”.

    Now, the White Power boys have gotten ahold of it, and are spreading it around on the internet. Someone tried to put it up on Wikiquotes, but it was spotted and removed.

    “This quote was supposedly made to the Chicago Tribune in 1862 by Grant. Problem is that nobody has ever been able to find this quote, not even the Chicago Tribune and the quote is contrary to everything that Grant has ever stated about the slavery issue. This quote first appears on page 219 of the 1904 reprint of _Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-65_ by George Edmonds, and page 54 of a 1920 reprint of _Truths of History_ by Mildred Lewis Rutherford. Both books are available from the Crown Rights Book Company. The alleged quote is referenced in both of these books as coming from page 33 of a the 1868 printing of a non-footnoted book called the _Democratic Speakers Handbook_ by Matthew Carey, a political enemy of Grant in the presidential election. Until someone finds a better source than the Politically Incorrect Guide to US History, please do not repost this quote.”

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Ulysses_S._Grant

    The quote isn’t real, and retire05 is just another KKK/Neo-Confederate type spewing crap to justify his great love for the slaveowner rebellion. He’s pining for the good old days, like his brethern over at Stormfront.

    And I’ve forgotten more about our Civil War then KKK clowns like him ever have known, or ever will know.

    Dave Surls (624f7a)

  177. Retire, you seem to have the egg on your face now, and owe Dave an apology.

    Can you explain where you got a quote that does appear to be KKK propaganda?

    Dustin (c16eca)

  178. “I quoted a Senate resolution”

    retire05 – Please point out your quote of the Senate resolution. All I recall is a paraphrase, a completely different thing.

    I remember a quote from Lincoln I asked you about which you declined to discuss the sourcing. I was the one where he was really criticizing Polk for his handling of Texas’ fight for independence against Mexico. The quote was not really about states rights as you attempted to dishonestly portray it, but you do not want people to know that.

    Since it it your thesis that the Civil War was not all about slavery, where is your list of the other issues it was about?

    It seems you are the one bringing intellectual dishonesty to the thread. What is your purpose for that, just explain what revisionist history you are fighting and the way you would like the history to be written.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  179. “Slavery was not an issue when Lincoln went to war….”
    Comment by retire05 — 3/22/2011 @ 7:39 am

    My comment in response:

    “Slavery was not an issue when Lincoln went to war.”

    retire05 – I have no idea what kind of crap you read. If I recall correctly, South Carolina was the first state to secede. From its December 20, 1860, Declaration of Secession:

    “We hold that the government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

    In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the states have deliberately refused for years past, to fulfil their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own statutes for the proof.

    The constitution of the United States, in its 4th article, provides as follows:

    “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

    This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the states north of the Ohio river.

    The same article of the constitution stipulates also for rendition, by the several states, of fugitives from justice from the other states.

    The general government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the states. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non�slaveholding states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the general government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these states the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the state government complied with the stipulation made in the constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti�slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non�slaveholding states, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.”

    Slavery was clearly a freaking non-issue.

    Comment by daleyrocks — 3/22/2011 @ 7:28 pm

    So we have the historical fact of South Carolina seceding over the slavery issue, other states following, retire05 saying Lincoln only acted to restore the union, which the southern states left over the issue of slavery, yet the war was not primarily over slavery?

    What am I missing?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  180. daleyrocks, I do not owe Dave an apology. I don’t apologize to those who resort to slander when they make spurious claims they can’t back up. If he thinks that the use of an anonymous source from Wikipedia (which teachers and university professors do not allow as a reference source) he is sadly mistaken.

    But then, he is probably a closet liberal who thinks that slander and insults are a winning tactic. Braggadocio seems to be his only trait.

    If you want to re-read the Senate resolution, it is on this thread. And I am sorry, but I don’t recall any discussion about Polk.

    I am not trying to push “revisionist” history. I am trying to show you that like all wars, the American Civil War was not fought over one issue. For that, I have been called a KKKer, a Stormfronter (oh, and a clown), and any other absurd insult that Dave feels free to lob at me. I suggest he seeks help in removing his Hanes from his rear as any suggestion that he is not as knowledgable as he claims to be is met with his wrath.

    You want to know how the civilian population of the South felt prior and during the war. I suggested Mary Chestnut’s Diary. There are also other books, written by noted historians, that depict the attitude of the soldiers of both sides taken from actual letters written at the time.

    History is written by the victorious. The fact that blacks fought in the Confederacy was eliminated from the history books around 1910, when a blatant racist became president. But at the same time, the fact that blacks also fought in the Revolutionary War was pretty much erased from the history books. That these brave men have been basically wiped from the history books is a shame, IMHO.

    It is hard for us in 2011 to understand the reasons that Americans would fight each other in 1861. We have become a nation of people who feel our loyalty lies with the nation as a whole, not with our state. But it is also hard for me to understand why Lincoln, and the Northern Congress, did so little to try to avoid war and work things out to the benefit of both sides.

    All I am trying to offer you is that there is two sides to the argument. But one side has been dismissed, and even ridiculed. And I can give you another example: for years, books and movies portrayed the Native American as simply savages that rampaged and went on war parties simply to kill whites. It was accepted. No one said “Hey, wait a minute. It was their land they were fighting for. It was their way of life they were fighting for.” Custer was a hero in books and tales.

    But now, that history is being corrected.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  181. All I am trying to offer you is that there is two sides to the argument. But one side has been dismissed, and even ridiculed.

    erm yea, things tend to get dismissed and ridiculed when they are stupid. A couple black confederates or a line here or there about this or that doesn’t change the very simple historical fact that the PRIMARY cause of the war was Slavery (and the money and power revolving around slavery).

    Period. I’m sorry that this historical fact in some way distresses you to the point where you feel the need to be the LONE standout in this discussion (I’m also personally sorry to see an individual have such a huge ego that they believe that they know something that millions of other people can’t seem to figure out, i’ll be you love conspiracy theories too…).

    Bu8t you could type till you turn blue, it doesn’t change the fact. Slavery was the primary issue of the day, the main issue behind the creation of the Reppublican party, and the primary reason for the succession of the states that then triggered the war.

    Aaron is of course correct, changing the mind of one stubborn ill-informed person isn’t important, but I post here because such reckless and idiotic opinions (which are your right to hold) much be challenged, unless we want other people beliving it.

    BigTex (e23c42)

  182. First, guys, let’s try to lower the temperature and stop calling each other KKK types, or saying someone is stupid or dishonest.

    Retire

    You’re still at it? why do I get the feeling you have been arguing about this issue with people longer than the war itself lasted?

    > Milhouse, let me use the dot-to-dot reasoning that some have used here against me:

    Except you didn’t fit it into your analogy.

    > daleyrocks, how am I supposed to know how the “people not fighting” felt about the war? I did not live back then and can only go on what was written by those who lived through it.

    For someone ragging on someone else’s lack of knowledge of the war, you seem to be ignorant of the fact that non-participants wrote accounts too.

    Bluntly you can no more be sure what the average southern soldier felt than the average southern non-combatant.

    > But then, he is probably a closet liberal

    *snort* dude, you have to warn before you say something like that. I dang near chocked on my drink. No, Dave is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a liberal.

    > I am trying to show you that like all wars, the American Civil War was not fought over one issue.

    Um, actually many wars are fought over one issue. Seriously, what was the other issue in the American revolution, besides british oppression? What caused WWII besides Hitler? Yes, japan bombing us got us into it, but Hitler made war inevitable.

    > History is written by the victorious.

    So I assume you are writing these comments in a prison after being sentenced to a life term for contradicting the official history of the victorious?

    > It is hard for us in 2011 to understand the reasons that Americans would fight each other in 1861.

    Yes, it is hard for a modern man to believe that a southerner would fight for something so self-evidently evil. Just as it is hard to understand how the Nazis adopted their view.

    > All I am trying to offer you is that there is two sides to the argument.

    Of course there are always at least two sides. The truth and bullsh–.

    > But one side has been dismissed, and even ridiculed.

    And taught to me as gospel truth in high school. You keep glossing over that part.

    Millhouse

    > If that understanding was what induced him to sign in the first place, then it must be valid, or else the contract was void from the beginning.

    A constitution is not a contract. give me a break.

    Rich

    I have seen some evidence of a handful of free black soldiers. I doubt it was more than a dozen. But its risky to say none would at all. And indeed Frederick Douglass predicted it, because Lincoln hadn’t made it a war for liberation.

    Big Tex

    > The Civil War had to happen (just like the earlier compromises had to happen, because if they hadn’t there wouldn’t really be a USA). America made some serious promises and proclaimations to humanity in the late 1[7]00s (ALL MEN ARe CREATED EQUAL), in the 1860s, the Debts those promises created came due, and the Debt was paid.

    The funny thing was our revolution was in a real way based on the principles of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. So you could literally say that THAT revolution also made promise creating a debt that was paid first in the American Revolution and then in the Second American Revolution (aka the Civil War).

    Dave

    > The quote isn’t real

    To quote Lincoln: “Many of the quotations you find on the internet are untrustworthy.”

    > From its December 20, 1860, Declaration of Secession:

    I already quoted extensively from it and yet it didn’t sink in… And yes, I think S.C.’s motto was “if at first you don’t secede… try, try again.”

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  183. I don’t accept apologies from KKK trash, anyway, so the point is moot.

    If the Neo-Confederates want to spew their Lost Cause hogwash, “supported” by fake quotes and whatnot, it doesn’t bother me. They’ve been lying their asses off since 1865, so what’s the big deal?

    If they start insulting me (and others), calling me thick-headed, a hypocrite, insinuating that I’m lying, etc., that doesn’t bother me either. I’ll ignore it for awhile, then I just start slagging them off in return, and calling them what they are, just for the fun of it.

    It’s not like I’m going to take insults coming from some tit who gets his “information” from Stormfront and his Lost Cause coloring books seriously.

    And if I don’t take the insults seriously, then I’m not going to take an apology seriously.

    So he can keep it to himself.

    Besides, it’s kinda fun returning ten bad-ass insults for every half-assed insult he’s directed at me.

    Dave Surls (b5d06c)

  184. “daleyrocks, I do not owe Dave an apology”

    retire05 – I did not claim you did. Continue attempting to revise history to your heart’s content.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  185. I’m sure Nathan Bedford Forrest probably liked dogs.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  186. I’m the one who said the apology is owed. Dave was mocked for being too ignorant to be aware of a quote, but his research shows that quote was inauthentic and KKK propaganda. By all means, we should listen to Aaron and give Retire the benefit of the doubt, rather than assume he is a racist, but Retire was out of line and wrong.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  187. I see, so I am surrounded by a bunch of gangbangers.

    Now, Dave, outside of poking fun at your name, perhaps you can tell me what insult I have lobbed at you that equates being called “KKK trash”?

    Or is it that your opinion of your intellect is really higher than your intellect.

    Aaron goes on to say that wars are one issue, but yeah, there was that whole Pearl Harbor thing.

    Oh, well, since you seem to resent the fact that I don’t march lock step with the rest of you, simply being a follower of what ever Pided Piper you are chosing to follow, I shall bother you no more on this issue. Feel free to pat yourselfs on the back for being gangbangers.

    retire05 (b8d872)

  188. Gang bangers?

    Retire, it’s OK to admit you were mistaken about something, and if you bash someone for not knowing this thing you’re mistaken about, you should just take your licks like a man.

    At least, that’s how we roll in MS 13 on the West side.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  189. “but I don’t recall any discussion about Polk.”

    retire05 – Because you dropped in a quote from Lincoln claiming it was about secession without providing the context of the quote.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  190. I’m just keeping it real, sir.

    Dustin, AKA gangbanga D (c16eca)

  191. “First, guys, let’s try to lower the temperature and stop calling each other KKK types”

    No dice. I didn’t say one thing against the guy, and he personally insulted me several times (as well as insulting other people).

    Now, he’s going to get what’s coming to him, until he slinks back over to Stormfront or Confederate Pride dot com where he belongs.

    It’s nothing personal, I just don’t tolerate repeated abuse from guys like him, as a matter of principle.

    Dave Surls (b5d06c)

  192. Retire

    > Aaron goes on to say that wars are one issue, but yeah, there was that whole Pearl Harbor thing.

    I said they weren’t always about multiple issues. you deny this?

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  193. Its a shame that some people can’t express ideas with a semblance of style.

    SPQR of East 15 Legionaires gang (26be8b)

  194. “Now, Dave, outside of poking fun at your name, perhaps you can tell me what insult I have lobbed at you that equates being called “KKK trash”?”

    You don’t mind dishing out disrespect, but you don’t like taking it, eh?

    Don’t start dishing it out in the first place, and it won’t be an issue.

    I warned you about being ill-mannered, and you didn’t want to listen, so I taught you the way, I’d teach any recalcitrant child.

    First you get a warning, then you get a spanking.

    Dave Surls (b5d06c)

  195. So now Dave is into spanking other guys? What a sicko.

    And then, when I asked:

    “Now, Dave, outside of poking fun at your name, perhaps you can tell me what insult I have lobbed at you that equates being called “KKK trash”” to which our resident rocket scientist replied:

    “You don’t mind dishing out respect, but you don’t like taking it, eh?”

    What kind of moron answers a question with a question?

    I didn’t draw first blood. But when you gang up on one person, you are nothing more than gangbangers. If you don’t like the label, learn to stand up like an adult and fight your own battles.

    I tried to present y’all with a different prospect, but in your arrogance, you refused to even discuss the fact that the South had its reasons, just as the North did. You have proven that politically correct schooling does not an education make.

    I have no idea about Stormfront or the KKK, but it seems ole’ Dave is quite familiar with them, as he seems to like to talk about them and knows what is on their websites. Considering his temperment, he is probably quite welcome at those sites.

    Grow up, Dave. Your “warning” is useless. It is just more bloviating on your part. Hell, anyone can see that you wouldn’t last 8 seconds.

    retire05 (2d538e)

  196. Not all southerners support slavery.

    DohBiden (984d23)

  197. Some posters over at Stormfront tralking about the “War of Northern Aggression” or whatever RetiredKKKmember05 and his pals call it…

    “There was a story on CNN about how this war still divides America. Many people believe that it was fought over slavery (Confederate slavers vs. Union abolitionists). This attitude is ahistorical IMO, since the whites up north were just as racist as the ones down south, and slavery was only used as an emotional issue by Lincoln mid-way through the war…”

    “Anyone who believes the Civil War started over slavery is ignorant and needs a history lesson.”

    “IMO it was mainly over states rights. Slavery was used for propaganda purposes.”

    Gee, does that kind of sound like anyone we know?

    Oh, wait a minute, what’s this?

    RetiredKKKmember05 quotes me, and changes the words???

    “You don’t mind dishing out respect, but you don’t like taking it, eh?”

    That isn’t what I said, liar.

    But, putting out phonied up quotes ain’t nothing new for you, is it?

    Dave Surls (67098b)

  198. “But when you gang up on one person, you are nothing more than gangbangers.”

    retire05 – I am only speaking for myself on this thread and not attempting to deny my prior comments as you have consistently done. Your intellectual dishonesty continues to amaze. Own it.

    Daleyrocks Coney Island Warrior (bf33e9)

  199. Surely, I made a typo. So sue me. The board is full of lawyers. I am sure you can find a hack that will feed your ego.

    I just hope whoever it is agrees to do it pro bono. You don’t strike me as the kind that has any money.

    Most big mouth hot heads are broke. You fit that mold.

    retire05 (2d538e)

  200. You wound me to the core! I’m a poor lawyer! Oh snap!

    Dustin (c16eca)

  201. So to all you gangbanger.

    KMA. Perhaps you can get Dave to spank you.

    What a bunch of narrow minded block heads. And you wonder why the left can beat up on us so much? Just read the brain dead posts here in response to mine.

    Hang in there with Dave. He will keep you informed what is going on at Stormfront and the KKK. Seems he spends as much time there as he does here. Ummm, would make a rational thinking person wonder about him.

    retire05 (2d538e)

  202. Anyway, I’m starting to feel guilty about messing with this loser, retiredKKK. It’s kinda like torturing a dumb animal (hell, it IS torturing a dumb animal), so I guess I’d better knock it off.

    Dave Surls (67098b)

  203. retire, can you please stop crying.

    I was actually trying to help you out when I started commenting, saying that surely you’d fight slavery too, but wanted to note the north wasn’t perfect (or something like that). Your anger at this was part of what disturbed everybody.

    You got a pretty reasonable and informative discussion of the issues you’re interested in. Cheer up. You particularly should thank Dave for clearing up some facts for you.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  204. “I was actually trying to help you out when I started commenting, saying that surely you’d fight slavery too, but wanted to note the north wasn’t perfect (or something like that). Your anger at this was part of what disturbed everybody.”

    Dustin – I appreciate you trying to help, but there doesn’t seem to be much hope. Crazy people usually don’t know they’re crazy.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  205. Dustin, what is it about you people? How many times do I have to tell you that I think slavery is an abomination? What the hell does it take for you to be convinced that I am anti-slavery?
    Do you need it to be written in blood? You want me to say that I, as a Southerner, would not have fought for the Confederacy. Well, to be very honest with you, I don’t know what I would have done had I lived 150 years ago. I would have probably stayed on the rez as it was not my fight.

    And what the hell did Dave clear up? That he visits radical websites and is able to quote them? Wow! count me as not impressed that Dave is a visitor to Stormfront. Now, cue his entranced claiming it was the first time he ever visited the site. Yada, yada, yada.

    So now comes daleyrocks lobbing more insults calling me “crazy”. If he is a measure of sanity, I would rather be insane. I could not live in that convoluted brain of his.

    So let’s examine the insults:

    retireKKK
    crazy
    dumb animal
    KKKer
    Stormfronter

    what is left? Racist? Bigot? Filthy injun? Any of the names that the left calls conservatives when they want to shut the conservative up?

    And if you are worried about someone crying, Dustin, perhaps you should offer your advise to Dave Surl, who is a bigger cry baby than a four year old. All he seems capable of is whining and hurling insults.

    Dustin, you have at least tried to be reasonable, although your mind was closed to any suggestion I made. But your friends, well, shall I say you should choose them better?

    retire05 (2d538e)

  206. Btw, there is an interesting-looking book called “The State of Jones: The Small Southern County that Seceded from the Confederacy” (hey! you can search for it on the amazon widget on the left and give patterico a donation!)

    I’ve read that book (from the public library). It’s an interesting book, but no so interesting that you need to rush to remove it from your backlog pile.

    And in its place, I’ll offer this:
    The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily.

    Not about the Civil War, but probably a good deal more interesting than most Civil War books. She had four husbands, the first one being murdered, and was eventually murdered herself, so it probably has to be more interesting….

    It’s on Amazon, so I’ll let those who will use the widget to get it.

    kishnevi (1b86f1)

  207. I’m no scholar of the Civil War but I do know the basics, and whether one wants to argue that there were separate issues at stake besides slavery, one has to admit that the slavery issue exerted such a huge gravitational force that all the other possible issues were defined in terms of it.

    Here’s something to consider that will make your heads explode: true there was a North-South rivalry and the slavery issue was difficult — but it could have been solved without a war.

    So, why a war? Why was that the only way?

    Well it’s obvious that from a parallel-cultures perspective, in the decades leading up to the war the North and South had begun to hate and despise one another on a really primal level. Why did that happen?

    Some people say differences in manners and differing models of economic development which intensified those different manners. My own theory is that it was a sort of inter-white race war: basically the eons-old conflict between the Germanic types and the Celtic types, happening again in the New World. The North was largely English (originally Saxon/Teutonic) and German, while the South had a large Scots-Irish element. I think the irrationality factor that led to an actual “hot war” instead of a thorny but acceptable political solution may have had something to do with primitive tribal antagonism, subconsciously reproduced on a mass scale.

    But I’ve never seen any solid research on the subject. Scholars of the war: is this considered an arguable topic?

    d. in c. (26c04c)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1958 secs.