Over at GOS the diarist Old Redneck put up a post, Southern history repeating itself: Descent into madness, that is a fine essay about the South.
I enjoyed it and thought that it deserved a shout out.
Consider this an open thread.
Cheers
by Dennis G.| 49 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links, Fables Of The Reconstruction, Open Threads
Over at GOS the diarist Old Redneck put up a post, Southern history repeating itself: Descent into madness, that is a fine essay about the South.
I enjoyed it and thought that it deserved a shout out.
Consider this an open thread.
Cheers
Comments are closed.
Corner Stone
Speaking of tax cuts…
Harry Reid says would weigh temporary tax breaks
Loneoak
Since I know we have some faculty-type persons floating around here, this is a really snarky letter written by a biochemist opposing cuts to the humanities.
castellan
Just finished reading Old Redneck’s diary before heading over here. I have to agree that it’s very good. I live in Greenville, SC, and the descent into madness around here is just awful…..
Woodrowfan
@Loneoak:
WOW, that was great. thanks for posting
gogol's wife
@Loneoak:
It’s a great letter, although he gets the significance of the Grand Inquisitor wrong.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@Loneoak: Damn that was a good letter.
Michael
Old Redneck is my mother’s age, and like her, he knew a former slave.
They would be the same, except he marched with John Lewis and she voted for George Wallace in 1968.
gogol's wife
@Loneoak:
And just to elaborate, in The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor is the bad guy, Christ is the good guy, and humans are supposed to have freedom. And the point the letter writer is supporting by this allusion also doesn’t really hold up — if there were a language requirement, it wouldn’t mean higher enrollments for classics, Italian, and Russian, it would just mean an overload in Spanish classes. But overall it is an excellent letter.
Michael
Other stupid things from my mother:
My favorite?
As an aside, Norman Lear did a disservice – Archie Bunker would never have let Michael Stivik live there as long as he did. Archie’s philosophy wouldn’t have allowed him to display that sort of generousity or forebearance.
As for my mother, she is an avid Glenn Beck fan these days. We’ve agreed to not discuss any politics, but my kids will sometimes drive her nuts.
The Grand Panjandrum
Props to Old Redneck for a fine piece. Ed Kilgore has been writing about the Romance in Grey for many years and is well worth a quick Google search to read some of his best blogging on this very subject.
daveNYC
Here is a good rant on the media’s handling of the foreclosure mess.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@gogol’s wife: Not necessarily true. My college had a language requirement and there were too many people trying to take French (which is what I ended up taking). Even assuming everyone tried to take Spanish, some would need to pick another language when the Spanish classes hit their enrollment limit. There’d be an uptick in all language classes even though Spanish would be more popular than others.
KG
@Michael: I’ve heard the first sentiment a few times, here and there. It always makes me wonder what the hell the world would look like if it had been a stalemate or southern victory (which I suppose would be the same thing). Would California have stayed in the Union? What would have happened in the 20th century, WWI and WWII, specifically? Who would the Confederates allied themselves with in those wars (I dread to think of the answer for WWII)? My hunch remains that the world would be a much worse place.
The Republic of Stupidity
Money quote from the article you linked, Dennis…
“Between rich and poor…”
In a nut shell…
Always has… is… always will be…
bobbob
Greetings from Mississippi!
I just finished reading “The State of Jones” a book about Newton Knight and the Unionist movement during the Civil War. It is both amazing and disquieting how similar things are here now from what they were back then.
The rich have once again convinced poor white folks to vote against their economic interests.
uila
Thanks for this. Retreats into historical context seem to be the only thing keeping me sanguine about the current political scene. In a similar vein, here’s something I re-read yesterday that was posted by Rick Perlstein in 2008 on the occasion of Obama’s primary victory.
Perlstein discusses the violence that accompanied MLK’s Chicago march, the GOP’s nascent embrace of the southern strategy, and also documents a bunch of letters that he found while doing research for Nixonland.
The letters in the post are from Chicago residents to liberal stalwart Sen. Paul Douglas in 1966 (the Russ Feingold of his day?) expressing their opposition to the open housing laws which he championed. It’s all naked bigotry (lest anyone think the “descent into madness” is confined to the South).
The irony is, Perlstein posted the letters to show just how far we’ve come as a society (given that Obama is from Chicago, etc). But two years later, the real lesson for me is how the 1966 midterm elections were successfully demagogued by white racists trying to roll back
healthcarecivil rights reforms. One step forward, two steps back. Douglas got beat by a young punk, Democrats in the House lost some 48 seats… and of course 1968 gave us Nixon.That was long, sorry.
Mike in NC
@KG:
Harry Turtledove has written a series of alternate history books on that very subject. Quite fascinating.
Short Bus Bully
That was a great read Dennis, thanks for the link. Somehow just being able to put it in perspective makes it a little easier to handle even though it’s still all kinds of fucked up at the end of the day.
Tim I
Old Rednecks diary is a real gem. It is beautifully written. Here are the opening lines:
The Republic of Stupidity
@Mike in NC:
I was under the impression there was an entire genre of fiction devoted to alt-history…
Linda Featheringill
I enjoyed reading Old Redneck.
I was born and raised among people who were deep into authoritarianism all the time and actual fascism part of the time, although I doubt it they recognized it. I found them difficult to understand. And I still do, after all these years.
JAHILL10
There’s a faux documentary called Confederate States of America which proposes an alternate history where the South won the civil war. The most chilling thing about it, and that is saying something, are the racist ads at the end of it, which are absolutely real.
Woodrowfan
I sometimes wonder if the CSA had won its independence if several things would not have have happened
a) The CSA would have been a very undemocratic nation, very much an oligarchy with limited voting rights and limited freedom of speech for the average person.
b) that the USA would have been more democratic sooner, especially with regards to worker’s rights.
c) that the USA and CSA would have fought multiple wars.
FWIW, I haven’t read Turtledove’s books, but I have read about them…. I am not so sure that he’s correct that the UK would have allied with the CSA and not the US. I suspect that the CSA would have clashed over with the UK several times, especially over South Africa and the Boers as well as continued illegal slave trading, and that finally London and Washington/Philadelphia (?) would have been allied against Richmond’s expansionist government.
Chris
@Mike in NC:
Oddly, my roommate and I had this discussion just last night.
His argument (convincing I think) is that in the long term, the C.S. wouldn’t have been viable as a nation, because the same thing that put them at a disadvantage during the war would have continued to plague them.
For one thing, the emphasis on states’ rights made them inefficient as hell. Jefferson Davis didn’t a fraction of Abe Lincoln’s power, which is why during the war, for example, the governor of Texas refused to share his troops with the South, the governor of North Carolina refused to send uniforms to clothe Lee’s army, etc… and there was nothing the government in Richmond could do about it. If the South had won, the resulting country would have looked like the U.S. before the Constitution was signed. And there’s a reason we abandoned that.
Then there’s the economic reasons. Even if they’d lost the war, the U.S. would still have been a capitalist economy, industralizing to meet the needs of the new century, while the C.S. continued to stagnate in agrarian feudalism. The North had some other advantages too, like resources and an appeal for immigrant labor. So, if the C.S. had won its independence, it would probably have stagnated economically for quite a while… and gone into the twentieth century looking like Spain or Russia rather than Britain, France or Germany.
Chris
@Woodrowfan:
FWIW, I haven’t read Turtledove’s books, but I have read about them…. I am not so sure that he’s correct that the UK would have allied with the CSA and not the US.
Northerners usually claim that the British would have sided with them since they were both abolitionist democracies. Southerners usually claim that the British would have sided with them since they shared the WASP ethnic and cultural ties to a much greater degree.
In fact, it would have depended on Britain’s national interest. British rule was based on balancing power against whichever nation (France, then Russia, then Germany) was most powerful and likely to threaten them. If they thought the U.S. was getting too big for its britches, they’d back the C.S. If they thought the C.S. was getting too big for its britches, they’d back the U.S.
phoebes in santa fe
@Michael: I think you and your mother will be interested in this 2008 article on CNN about Peggy Wallace – George’s daughter.
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-11-03/politics/wallace.kennedy.obama_1_george-wallace-graves-desecrating?_s=PM:POLITICS
redoubt
@uila: Gage Park was where the march happened.
Gage Park today.
passerby
Wow, though I’m never inclined to visit GOS’s front page, much less poke through the diaries, I’m glad to have clicked through to read Old Redneck’s offering. There are also intelligent notions in his comment thread–as well as here at BJ.
Thoughtfulness begets thoughtfulness I guess.
Anyway, thanks Dennis G. for presenting this jewel. It should appear on as many front pages as it is recommended reading for curious people.
Cermet
@Chris: The British had to back the Union later in the war because the vast majority of its people where very anti-slavery and hence, pro-Union; this was not the case the first year but even then, it would have been hard for the Brits because they knew that if they supported the CSA they would have then have had a deadly and VERY powerful enemy to deal with in the future.
Really highly unlikely they would have supported the CSA with more than words even if they openly came to their side – the result would have been the same. CSA had to win the war itself (which it had niether the military, manpower or material to do) and that wasn’t likely – only the Union could lose the war.
Brachiator
@Woodrowfan:
I haven’t read any of Turtledove’s books, so I don’t know how he deals with many of the issues related to the Civil War in his alternative histories, so I don’t know if any of my musings show up in his fiction.
A Confederate victory would have been disastrous for both the North and the South. The South would have re-established slavery. The North would have to accept slavery and the free travel of slaveholders throughout the North.
People forget that some of the controversies that led to the Civil War involved the demands that Southerners be able to travel to and live in free states and territories and still retain the perpetual rights to slaves.
The lives of black people, in the North and the South, would be a living hell. The nascent Civil Rights movement would be stalled for generations. Separate but equal would become settled law.
The South would push for a claim to some territories to allow for their expansion. If they were prohibited from doing this, some of the more crazier schemes by Southerners to annex Cuba or Mexico might have drawn them into a disastrous series of wars of expansion.
On the other hand, if the South were able to gain any former US territories for expansion, the later territorial and industrial expansion of the North might have been stymied. Hard to imagine the transcontinental railroad projects happening in the same way if some of these territories were ceded to the South.
Imagine California as a slave state.
I once read a great series of short stories in which the Germans won World War II (a library book, whose title I cannot recall just now). But I can easily imagine an alternate history in which South Africa and an independent Confederacy align with Germany in the 1930s, and the North is filled with sympathizers.
Woodrowfan
@Chris:
I agree, but I suspect that it would be the CSA that would have been more likely to threaten British interests, especially in Africa and perhaps in Latin American, where Britain had considerable economic interests.
Let’s say the CSA had split. The US is patching itself up. How would it have abolished slavery in the remaining border territories? Compensated abolition or no? And suppose the 13th Amendment had still been one that abolished slavery, would the 14th Amendment in this alternate reality have said basically “secession is banned” or, maybe, set guidelines for future states to leave the Union–such as if approved by the states remaining in the Union. (OK, California, you can leave if 3/4s of the other states approve and you settle your portion of the federal debt).
4tehlulz
I know that the CSA winning the Civil War is a great “What if?”, but I have trouble believing that it was a viable state for more than a couple of decades. With secession as a founding principle, states would be threatening to secede regularly, and eventually would have.
For example, I have a hard time with the idea that Texas would have stayed in the CSA for long; its too different than say, Virginia or the Carolinas, to not do so over divergent interests.
Woodrowfan
Not so. They would have been separate countries. The now-northern dominated US could have easily copied some of the European nations and ruled that slaves that traveled through their lands could be freed (unless they belonged to diplomats). I can easily see a pissed off northern-US passing a law that any slave that traveled with his master into US territory was automatically freed (known as the “suck it Richmond” law)
Alwhite
I have not read the link yet as I am at work & short for time but I’ll get to it.
Having just finished reading Battle Cry Of Freedom was was struck at how similar todays politics are to those of antebellum America.
I know it has been mentioned here before by myself & others but I would encourage everyone to read the first couple of hundred pages if they have any doubt at all. An excellent book and a surprising summary of national politics circa 2010.
redoubt
@4tehlulz: Plus, taxes, which the CSA would have needed to assess and collect in order to remain viable. In cash, or in kind (slave labor)? Lee, Jackson, Longstreet et al. would have to become the CSA’s tax collectors. At bayonet point.
Brachiator
@Woodrowfan:
RE: The North would have to accept slavery and the free travel of slaveholders throughout the North.
The South would have undoubtedly pushed for treaties with the North that would resolve some of the issues that led to the Civil War in the first place, and who knows whether Northern sympathizers would have pushed the North to accept, by treaty, some version of stuff like the Fugitive Slave Act.
The North readily capitulated to Southern sentiments in shutting down Reconstruction. I can easily imagine a tired, and worn down North, which either lost the Civil War outright or which sought a negotiated settlement, agreeing to trample on the right of blacks in order to “secure the peace.”
I also don’t see an independent, shrunken North rushing to expand the civil rights of blacks. A recent NY Times blog offers a sobering example of Jim Crow in New York.
I think that had the North been defeated or compromised with the South, it would have weakened any sentiment to expand the civil rights of blacks and other nonwhites in this country. And Southerners would be even more desperate to ensure that enslaved blacks could not look to either the North or to Mexico for either relief or alternatives to captivity.
HyperIon
@castellan:
I think you meant to write GreenVILE.
Dee Loralei
I accepted sometime in the 2000’s that the South actually won the war. Not the war itself per se, Appomatox Courthouse and all that. But the wars of attrition that followed. The ones almost no one else actually knew we were in that had been quietly simmering for over 100 years.
As Dennis and others have so amply pointed out, the confederacy is still with us and growing ever stronger. Every struggle we’ve had trying to expand rights in this country, trying to get justice for all, trying to get equality for all, in all things, has been stopped for many more years and caused much grief . Hell 4 of the last 6 Dem Presidents have been southern. ( MO and TX technically not the south, but emotionally? Yea, they are.)
Look we still have the Electoral College and the tyranny that the small states hold over the Senate. Had we hung a few of the traitors and taken their property and jailed the rest, I doubt we’d have had the same problems with them as we have had. (And I say that as someone from the south.)
And look at most of the real leaders of the Republican party, most of them are from the south or parts of the country with deep confederate yearnings and dreams (I’m looking at John Boehner and Sarah Palin here.)
I’m not expressing myself well here, but yea, I can see where the South may have actually won that war. Or maybe I should say, they won the peace that followed. But it looks like the Confederates might be looking to heat up the actual war again, and this time it will be for keeps.
And had the south been allowed to form their own country, there would have been countless skirmishes with the US, about expanding states, slaves escaping etc. But sometime in the 20th century they would have either collapsed under the agrarian strain of the modern world. Or come hat in hand asking to be re-united with us, since so many of their young people, educated and well-to-do wanted the same kind of good life that the industrial north provided for it’s citizenry. Remember we electrified the south, hell I’m not even 50 and I remember signs about rural electrification. We built the damns for the south and west so they could have water. And we built the fucking high-ways and the rail lines.We paved them to prosperity and to the 21st century.
Life today in the south would be mostly impossible except for the landed gentry and a small middle-class of Doctors, Lawyers and shopkeepers and it would be pure human misery for the poor slaves and working class. Through the 70’s and some of the 80’s there were still pockets of such extreme poverty in and around Memphis that I used to pass actual fly-paper shacks with no electricity or running water to them, daily on my way to school. Our bus used to pick up some of those kids, they lived in little clumps of houses 3,4 or 5 families on the same hillock or the same bend in the road. All the houses were unpainted, the yards dirt, clothes always hanging and little patches of crops out back and big fields of cotton beyond those. Too skinny dogs would languish in the heat and huddle for warmth in the cold. And the kids mostly were shamed that we white kids saw how they lived. And some were proudly defiant. And I knew my looks of pity must have added to it, so I quit looking, quit smiling at them as they shuffled on or off the bus. (One of the girls punched me once, on an entirely unrelated matter, and she told me then that she didn’t mind the other kids, she minded me, because I actually saw her as a person and she knew that because she saw the pity.) We had just moved to Memphis from Buffalo and I had no idea of the racial angst that still existed in the south. And still does in some places.
Anyway, sorry, way long and way too personal. Dennis, I love your confederate/ Republican/ tea party stuff. Keep it up. And just promise me, if it ever comes to war again, y’all will send someone behind the lines to get us good folks who don’t deserve this place as they want it to be. And also, that this time we kick all their butts forever and keep them out of the levers of power for a generation or two.
Woodrowfan
Except that the North abandoned Reconstruction largely to promote reconciliation with the defeated South. Had the South won the war there would have been no such motivation, but in its place the North would have wanted to punish their former countrymen. I think an armed border and tense relations would have been the rule, and not a Northern desire to appease the South.
Woodrowfan
OT, can the webmasters do something about these obnoxious Mike Pence ads. UGH.
gene108
I disagree with Oldredneck’s assessment that the poor white kid and poor black kid, who came into this store were the same.
The white kid worked hard, was humble and God fearing. The black kid was lazy and wouldn’t work a day in her life, even if she was starving.
Once the government started giving out money from hard working white folks, like that kid to lazy welfare queens like that black girl, the fabric of black society was ruined forever.
**********END CONSERVATIVE VIEW ON RACE**************
I think the above basically summarizes what drove the debate in many parts of the country, until President Clinton reformed welfare and that sort of rhetoric died down a bit and / or morphed into hard working white folks paying for hordes of illegal Latinos grifting on the government dime.
I was listening to NPR a while back and they had a good point about why the U.S. doesn’t have a strong social safety net versus Europe or Japan. Because European countries are not racially or ethnically diverse, when someone is down and out people think “but for grace of God, there go I”, whereas in the U.S. the people who are down and out are “them” or the “others”, and “we” are never going to be like “them”.
Probably has a lot to do with why we aren’t as strong on social safety nets, because it involves paying for “others” and I just don’t see Americans totally shedding this point of view. As long as there are waves of immigrants coming into America, there will always be a new “other” to turn into a bogeyman.
Tourian
Very insightful. I remember my own political awakening began when someone posed the very simple question: “Why do so many people in this country vote against their own self-interest?”
Chris
Because European countries are not racially or ethnically diverse, when someone is down and out people think “but for grace of God, there go I”, whereas in the U.S. the people who are down and out are “them” or the “others”, and “we” are never going to be like “them”.
Conversely, when white conservatives are doing badly, or just less well than they’d like, they can forever blame it on the blacks. Or, to be PC, on the liberals who messed with society in a way that denied them their birthright.
I was listening to NPR a while back and they had a good point about why the U.S. doesn’t have a strong social safety net versus Europe or Japan.
Yep – race is considered by many to be the single reason why we don’t have a strong welfare state, and never had a strong socialist movement.
What I’m wondering is whether that might change in Europe, with the wave of anti-immigrant backlash sweeping the continent right now. Most of the rhetoric’s the same – immigrants bring crime, refuse to assimilate, are a burden on the honest white man because they suck up welfare. I wonder if some rich people in Europe might decide to take a leaf out of America’s book and try to use that to attack the legitimacy of the welfare state.
I’m not sure it would work, but as someone who’s also a French citizen, I’m very uneasy at the notion. The far right’s racism is enough of a problem already – if on top of that they start going Ayn Randian, then we’re a lot of trouble.
timb
@Woodrowfan: As late as the 1840’s South Carolina didn’t allow direct election of Presidential electors (the only state that did not). It would have been authoritarian within each state, but the same radical federalism system which made them so terrible at waging war would have also ruined their peace.
The CSA types were also keen to go to annex Cuba and parts of South America. I imagine, in actuality, slavery would have disappeared in the South on its own accord and the South would have inefficiently industrialized sooner (no centralized planning or pooling of resources allowed!).
Losing actually made them worse I think, because the repudiated white power base was able to manufacture consensus about the Yankee invaders . Had the South won, and thank god it did not, the inequities of the system couldn’t be blamed on internal and external enemies and would have been placed where they still exist to this day: the freakin’ plutocrats who own everything down there.
By the way, to read about how constant the white, plutocratic Southern power has been, read Daniel Howe’s “What Hath God Wrought” Fantastic work of scholarly and narrative history
Brachiator
@Woodrowfan:
There is no way to be certain that the North would have wanted to punish the South. To what aim? I mean, it’s possible. It’s just as likely that the North would have sought to accommodate the South.
But it is a certainty that the South would have sought to gain by treaty what it sought as laws as part of the Union: resolution of Fugitive Slave laws, the ability of slaveholders to travel freely, the ability to expand slavery into territories.
There would also still be people sympathetic to racist beliefs in the North, in Congress, on the Supreme Court, etc. And just as the newly formed United States largely sought to pursue friendly relations with England after the Revolutionary War, there would have been a movement to normalize relations after the Civil War. Obviously, these are all theoretical discussions, but it would have been an interesting struggle among the Republicans in the North to deal with the South. And with little ability to materially help slaves now trapped within the South, what would the North gain by being hostile?
On the other hand, letting the South go would in some ways make a mockery of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, those principles which implied that rights belonged to all people, not just those with white skin.
The North loses the Civil War. There is no rationale for the Civil Rights Amendments to the Constitution.
@timb:
I often see this asserted about the South, but I have no idea what people base this on. Slavery persisted in Brazil long past the time when it had any value (and some Southerners moved to Brazil after the Civil War because they wanted to live in a country which still had slavery).
But in any event, even had slavery disappeared in the South, the mass of black people in America would still live in the South, and their lives would be hell, with or without slavery, under an independent Confederacy.
bjacques
@30 Brachiator; Hitler Victorious. “Thor Meets Captain America” from the book is one of my favorite of the stories, and I wonder if it inspired part of Charles Stross’s first Laundry novel.
Seeing attempts to restore feudalism now, permanent copyright as the new Enclosure Laws, extraction of surplus labor, repealing health care so that being fired is a death sentence for some people, etc.) makes me hate the antebellum South even more. The whiskey-soaked gentry of New Orleans may be charming, but they are utterly useless. It’s a pity General Sherman didn’t have incendiary bombs. He could have dropped leaflets from hot air balloons for three days telling people to get out, then firebombed Atlanta like Dresden. How’s *that* for an alternate history?
timb
@Brachiator: true. I base it on economic factors, not the Southern oligarchy’s inherent niceness or anything like it. Industrialization was already making the South a backwater and, after Reconstruction, the South stuck with the share-cropping system for only so long (and share-cropping was much different than slavery).
The Russians eliminated serfdom in 1863 in order to modernize. It was not a viable economic model, no matter what Southern racists thought (then and now and here I am looking you, Stacy McCain).
Mark Douglas
Which lunatic said slavery would have “disappeared” from the South?
You should learn what the hell really happened. The South separated from the US – Lincoln did nothing.
When the South issued War ultimatums that the NORTH would have to force slavery into the territories, or be attacked, then Lincoln STILL did nothing.
Only when the SOuth made good on their war threats, did Lincoln do anything.
Go learn what the South’s war ultimatums were. They issued them with much fanfare. The Southern newspapers announced the Ultimatums with glee — calling them “THE TRUE ISSUE!” in headlines.
The Southern leaders in Montgomery did not only issue their Constitution in March of 1861 — they issued war ultimatums.
Did you know that? Hell no you didn’t know that. The South has always tried to hide it.
Read the South’s own war ultimatums. I didn’t write them, the SOuthern leaders did. All five ultimatums were about the SPREAD of slavery.
The first ultimatum was that the North had so spread slavery into the territories (Kansas). Kansas had just voted 98%-2% to keep slavery OUT. Kansas had fought a five year war to keep slavery out.
But the first official act of the Southern Confederate States — was to issue a war ultimatum that the North had to force slavery into Kansas.
Even Hitler was not this insane. Even Hitler would not issue a war ultimatum that England had to invade Poland for Germany’s amuesment. But that is essentially what the South demanded — the NORTH to spread slavery, or their would be war.
Some say, well they issued the ultimatums, yes, but the North did not have to obey it.
No kidding, Sherlock. And Lincoln did not obey it. Lincoln did nothing even when the crazy Southern leaders issued their ultimatums, which was a declaration of war.
The Southern leaders had promised war for a year, if the North dared to elect Lincoln. Now, once Lincoln was elected, they were doing exactly that. They formed their new nation, and the same DAY issued the war ultimatum.
You all know they declared independence. Sure, but for some odd reason, the Southern edited and written text books “forget” to mention the war ultimatums to spread slavery.
Gee – I wonder why? You aren’t ashamed or embarrassed that the Souths first official action was to issue a war ultimatum to spread slavery by violence, are you?
Naa— couldnt be that!
Still, Lincoln, who knew all about these war ultimtums — did nothing. The South was threatening war if the North did not spread slavery. Lincoln did nothing.
Lincoln only did something when the South attacked –when the South made good on their war ultimatum.
Southern leaders issued the War Ultimatums with much fanfare. Southern newspapers reported the ultimatums with great pride, with headlines such as “THE TRUE ISSUE”
The true issue — the demand to spread slavery.
The Civil War was NOT fought to protect slavery. The South attacked because their war ultimatums to SPREAD slavery was not obeyed.
Learn real history. Learn what happened. Learn what the SOuth did and said at the time.
http://fivedemands.blogspot.com/
Mark Douglas
Who said slavery would have “disappeared” from the South?
You should learn what the really happened. The South separated from the US – Lincoln did nothing.
The South issued War ultimatums that the NORTH would have to force slavery into the territories –Lincoln STILL did nothing.
Only when the SOuth made good on their war threats, did Lincoln do anything.
Go learn what the South’s war ultimatums were. They issued them with much fanfare. The Southern newspapers announced the Ultimatums with glee — calling them “THE TRUE ISSUE!” in headlines.
The Southern leaders in Montgomery not only issued their Constitution in March of 1861 — they issued war ultimatums.
The South has always tried to hide this fact, though they boasted about it at the time.
Read the South’s own war ultimatums. I didn’t write them, the SOuthern leaders did. All five ultimatums were about the SPREAD of slavery.
The first ultimatum was that the North had so spread slavery into the territories (Kansas). Kansas had just voted 98%-2% to keep slavery OUT. Kansas had fought a five year war to keep slavery out.
But the first official act of the Southern Confederate States — was to issue a war ultimatum that the North had to force slavery into Kansas.
Some say, well so what, the North did not have to obey the ultimatums.
No kidding, Sherlock. And Lincoln did not obey it. Lincoln did nothing.
The Southern leaders had promised war for a year, if the North dared to elect Lincoln. Now, once Lincoln was elected, they were doing exactly that. They formed their new nation, and the same DAY issued their ultimatums.
You all know the South declared independence. Sure, but for some odd reason, the Southern edited and written text books “forget” to mention the official Ultimatums by the South.
Gee – I wonder why? You aren’t ashamed or embarrassed that the Souths first official action was to issue a war ultimatum to spread slavery by violence, are you?
Naa— couldnt be that!
Still, Lincoln, who knew all about these war ultimtums — did nothing. The South was threatening war if the North did not spread slavery. Lincoln did nothing.
Lincoln only did something when the South attacked –when the South made good on their war ultimatum.
Southern leaders issued the War Ultimatums with much fanfare. Southern newspapers reported the ultimatums with great pride, with headlines such as “THE TRUE ISSUE”
The true issue — the demand to spread slavery.
The Civil War was NOT fought to protect slavery. The South attacked because their war ultimatums to SPREAD slavery was not obeyed.
Learn real history. Learn what happened. Learn what the SOuth did and said at the time.
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