South Carolina, tear down that flag!

[dudalb]

I supported taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina,but now this it turning to a crusade to get rid of any monument pertaining t othe Confderacy.
When you want to tear down all those statues of Confederate Generals on Civil War battlefields, count me out.

As for the causes and build up to the Civil War: It's a fascinating topic,but it should be in it's own thread in the History section.

 

[Meadmaker]

Could there be any other reason for that? Was tat the only stance he took on positions facing the nation? Was he offering anything else that people would possibly want that Abraham Lincoln was not? Could the nation have had enough of the war, and wanted out of it?

Sorry, I'm a fan of context, and you've parroted the 45% stat a few times. Could you possibly put it in some form of context? It's easy to say "he opposed abolition and got 45% of the vote", but I feel like a piece or two are
missing.

ETA: Looking it over and it appears that Lincoln only lost the popular vote in 3 states. Delaware, New Jersey and Kentucky. So while the popular vote was close overall, Lincoln still won all but 3 states out of 25. Going 22 for 25 is a pretty impressive sweep.

No doubt that Lincoln won an easy victory.* After four years of war, slavery had lost a lot of support.

My point is that, even after that, almost half the people were willing to vote for a guy who supported slavery. The people of the north weren't, as a whole, big into civil rights.

*Although, from what I read, his poll numbers weren't looking so good until after the capture of Atlanta.

 

[Craig B]

In fact even in russia , the greatest conmtender, serfdom was abolished by the same
time ~1860.

Furthermore serfdom is in no way comparable to slavery. Child could not be sold away for example, and you as a serf would not either, you owned labor to the lord.

Not 100% free man, but neither a slave either.

That's true of most serf societies, but Russia was different ... and worse! See http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/serfs/ They could be and often were sold apart from the land, and treated as chattels.

 

[Upchurch]

Who said I was complaining?

You're evading...

 

[Meadmaker]

You're evading...

Hogwash!

There is nothing in my post about moral relativism that even hints at a complaint. Zero. Zilch.

If you think it looked like a complaint, you are projecting.

 

[Upchurch]

Hogwash!

There is nothing in my post about moral relativism that even hints at a complaint. Zero. Zilch.

If you think it looked like a complaint, you are projecting.

You didn't read the whole post, did you? You made a claim I asked you to support. You also, I note, completely ignored Lincoln's anti-slavery positions and actions.

In sort, you are evading by focusing on a throw-away comment with faux outrage.

 

[Checkmite]

Would the South seem less demonic if it is understood that the North was also racist, and had strong support for slavery?

It is understood; therefore, obviously, no.

Several people have pointed to the South Carolina articles of secession as proof that secession was about slavery. That is quite correct. Slavery is all over that document. However, there is another thing that is just as prominent, but not as frequently pointed out. The Constitutional obligations of northern states is all over that document. At several places, it cites the Constitution itself to support the legitimacy of slavery, and to note that the north wasn't pulling its end of the bargain. It also noted, correctly, that the Constitution was set up as a federation of independent nations (i.e. states), and that it was the intent that the government of South Carolina would determine how things went in South Carolina.

Don't you see the hypocrisy inherent in this position? The Federal government enforced the Fugitive Slave Act as best it could. There was no logical reason to fault the Federal government for the local actions of northern states that South Carolina allegedly would've recognized as just as "sovereign" as itself.

Another minor quibble that brings up. It's not anything wrong, but it's spin related. An awful lot of people talk about the South's willingness to go to war over the issue of slavery. That's true, but the tone is somewhat misleading. It makes it sound like the Confederacy wanted war. Of course, they didn't. They wanted to stay peaceful and happy as slave states. Of course, when push came to shove, and the northern states made it clear that they were willing to go to war to reestablish the Union, the southern states made it clear that they were willing to go to war to prevent it.

That's preposterous. The Union response to southern "secession" was...nothing at all. Lincoln said in his inaugural address that he had no intention of responding to the south militarily, stating that if it became impossible for Federal workers like judges, tax collectors, marshals, and postal employees to carry out their duties he would simply recall them. His sole "line in the sand" was Federal military property.

Heck, Lincoln didn't even call for states to begin to raise soldiers until after Fort Sumter was attacked and captured by an already-collected Confederate military force - 5 months after South Carolina seceded. And the stated reason for his call wasn't even "to preserve the Union", it was just to reclaim and protect Federal property.

 

[paulhutch]

This segment about racism and/or support for slavery in the north is interesting to me.

Would the South seem less demonic if it is understood that the North was also racist, and had strong support for slavery?

I agree that the North was extremely racist well past the Civil War.

However since slavery had been outlawed in all the New England states by 1790, the rest of the North by 1821 and the North was virtually slave free by 1840, I don't think there was strong support for slavery in the North. However I do believe there was little support for forcing the Southern states to end slavery at the start of the Civil War.

 

[Myron Proudfoot]

one correction, support for slavery was NOT decreasing in the South. To the contrary, it was on the increase. The number of arguments defending slavery as a positive good began to increase after 1830 or so. The economic utility of slaves was declining in parts of the upper south, but that was more than offset by the increases in their worth in the deep South (i.e. cotton territory).

 

[Bogative]

The PC zealots demand removal of all remnants of heresy:

NAACP wants Confederate carving removed from Georgia's Stone Mountain.




Allow me to quote myself from page 1:

Reminds me of the Taliban and ISIS destroying statues and other artifacts after they conquer lands and other religions.

Taliban destroying ancient Buddha statue with dynamite:


Isis destroying ancient statues in Syria:




I don't dare mention book burnings. Oops, dammit, I just did. Now how much longer before that happens?

 

[Meadmaker]

You didn't read the whole post, did you? You made a claim I asked you to support. You also, I note, completely ignored Lincoln's anti-slavery positions and actions.

In sort, you are evading by focusing on a throw-away comment with faux outrage.

Give it a rest. Anyone who wishes can read the exchange. it's clear what is happening.


However, for the benefit of those who don't want to go look at it. I wrote a post where I said Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist and didn't run as one. I also noted that, technically, Lincoln didn't abolish slavery, because he died before it could happen.

Upchurch "corrected" me, saying he ran as an abolitionist in 1864, and that he would have abolished slavery, but he died before it happened.


But, rather than all this posturing, let's try an get back to the original point. (Upchurch sometimes calls this "moving the goalposts") Although I didn't identify it as such, it was really a reaction to Travis' "over the top" post. My point was that Southerners weren't really as bad as they were being portrayed. Yes, they supported slavery, but people all over the country supported slavery. Support was dying for it, but it hadn't died. Opposition to slavery had not yet achieved majority status, even in the North. (Upchurch did have one legitimate point to make. Support for abolition was not the same as opposition to slavery. There were many northerners, maybe even a majority, who thought slavery was wrong, but weren't willing to support abolition.)

It made me think about moral relativism. Even though the South was engaged in what we would consider a great evil, nevertheless there were good people among them, just as there were good people among other evil nations, like Nazis and Aztecs.

And the point of all that? Once again, not made explicit until now, was that guy underneath that tombstone might not have been a bad fellow. It's ok to decorate his grave with the flag he fought for.

I might add that a flag on a tombstone serves as a reminder of how that guy got there. That's not exactly an endorsement of his cause.

 

[logger]

No one is trying to erase that shameful aspect of our history. The objection is to official state entities glorifying it.

Glorifying it?

Not much difference between liberals and ISIS, monuments of history are to be torn down.

 

[RandFan]

Glorifying it?

Not much difference between liberals and ISIS, monuments of history are to be torn down.

Most liberals I've listened to keep saying these monuments belong in museums not public property. Read William Lynch's letter and you tell me that people have no right to complain about icons that venerate slavery.

Willie Lynch letter: The Making of a Slave

The South wanted to perpetuate this atrocity and the north wanted to end it. Confederate memorials venerate honest, decent proud people, it also represents some of the worst crimes of this nations history.

Put 'em in a museum and stop with the straw men.

 

[Upchurch]

Give it a rest. Anyone who wishes can read the exchange. it's clear what is happening.

Sure. You're not supporting your claims. I'll help those who wish to read without scrolling back.

Claim:

Abolitionists were a growing minority in the north, but they were a minority.

My asking you to support it:

I'd be curious to your source of abolitionism being a merely minority faction. I'm also curious about the percentage of the population that were anti-slavery, which is not quite the same thing. Were the slaves, themselves, taken into account into that calculation?

Your burden shifting:

I would be curious if you have any evidence at all that abolition was anything other than a minority position in the north before the war.

The rest is you getting made for calling you on it.

 

[Meadmaker]

That's preposterous. The Union response to southern "secession" was...nothing at all. Lincoln said in his inaugural address that he had no intention of responding to the south militarily, stating that if it became impossible for Federal workers like judges, tax collectors, marshals, and postal employees to carry out their duties he would simply recall them. His sole "line in the sand" was Federal military property.

You only need one line in the sand. It was enough, and he knew it.

Do you really think the South wanted war? They had absolutely nothing to gain from it, and everything to lose. Most of them knew that it was inevitable, though. Lincoln wasn't going to back down. He would continue to post "foreign" troops on their territory. No nation could stand that. It was just a choice of where and when the shots would be fired. When the Union fleet approached Fort Sumter, that was it. The Confederates knew they were starting a war, but that doesn't mean they wanted it.

 

[Meadmaker]

I supported taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina,but now this it turning to a crusade to get rid of any monument pertaining t othe Confderacy.
When you want to tear down all those statues of Confederate Generals on Civil War battlefields, count me out.

One part of this crusade that I find especially irritating comes from stories I've read from several southern cities, for example Ocala, Florida. The headline usually reads, "Council Debates Confederate Flag" or something similar. That Confederate flag in Ocala has drawn a lot of attention. You can read lots of articles about it on google news.


What none of the articles say in their headlines, and many do not even say in their text, is that the flag in question was the national flag of the CSA, not the battle flag. That's significant because of the other flags it was next to. Those flags were the flags of Spain, France, UK, CSA, and USA. They were the five flags of the five nations that have held that land as their territory.

So in this case, the people wanting to take it down are literally wanting to rewrite history.

(I know that the Seminoles, or whatever tribe was there when the Spaniards showed up, didn't wave flags, but it would be a good idea to put something representing them in the display, too.)

ETA: Just looked up history of Ocala, which led me the history of the Seminoles. Fascinating stuff. Did not know that. A lot of those "Indians" were actually black people, fugitive slaves. Definitely they should have a flag or other marker as part of the display of flags.

 

[Giordano]

Posters can cite individual Northerner quotes as demonstrating pro-slavery views and certainly as bigoted. Especially the latter were quite common in the 1800s North, and thereafter. We can even quote Lincoln himself if you wish to show his own prejudice and, in some quotes, his sometimes stated willingness to not release the slaves in the South if he could win without doing so. But odd then that slavery was essentially banned in the North by the beginning of the Civil War, odd that the election of Lincoln was responded to by secession and war by the South and proud statements of their intention to continue slavery if they didn't perceive Lincoln and the increasingly anti-slavery views in the North as a threat. Odd that the result of the North winning the civil war was the freeing of the slaves. Odd that although it took the North 100 years more to finally realize that official segregation was wrong, the South had to be dragged even into this belated recognition by Federal laws and troops,

 

[Checkmite]

You only need one line in the sand. It was enough, and he knew it.

Fraud! South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860. Six other states seceded shortly afterwards and together created the Confederacy on February 4th of the next year.

Lincoln's inaugural address wasn't given until March 4, a month later. He drew his "only one line in the sand" a month AFTER the birth of the Confederacy. And he gave no policy statements about his attitudes toward southern secessionism before his inauguration.

Do you really think the South wanted war? They had absolutely nothing to gain from it, and everything to lose. Most of them knew that it was inevitable, though. Lincoln wasn't going to back down. He would continue to post "foreign" troops on their territory. No nation could stand that. It was just a choice of where and when the shots would be fired. When the Union fleet approached Fort Sumter, that was it. The Confederates knew they were starting a war, but that doesn't mean they wanted it.

The Confederates decided on war long before any "Union fleet" approached Fort Sumter. They decided it on January 9, two months before Lincoln took office, when then-president Buchanan sent a single ship - a pointedly unarmed civilian merchant ship, to resupply Fort Sumter, and it was fired upon by Confederate forces. Those were the true "first shots" of the civil war - a military action, taken by the Confederate army, against a noncombatant target that didn't (couldn't, even) return fire.

 

[Aepervius]

The PC zealots demand removal of all remnants of heresy:

NAACP wants Confederate carving removed from Georgia's Stone Mountain.




Allow me to quote myself from page 1:



Taliban destroying ancient Buddha statue with dynamite:


Isis destroying ancient statues in Syria:




I don't dare mention book burnings. Oops, dammit, I just did. Now how much longer before that happens?

One is a band of fanatic forcefully removing aprt of history where they had no negative impact from , e.g. not slavery for example, and it was not the same country and civilization. the other is a request to have a symbol of enslavement , from a country the SAME country, nigh 165 years ago, which fought over civil war for that, removed from all federal property and monument.

It is in no way shape and form identical.

I do not think NAACP is right to ask for this, but this is utter bovine excrement to compare the two.

 

[ponderingturtle]

This segment about racism and/or support for slavery in the north is interesting to me.

Would the South seem less demonic if it is understood that the North was also racist, and had strong support for slavery?

But why would the war have happened? If that was the case the south would not have broken away.