The Confederate battle flag

Your original question was:
If this was about states' rights more so than slavery, then why didn't the Confederacy grant "states's rights" to their own states with regard to slavery? All CSA states and territories had to be slave states and territories. You realize that, right?

I feel that I answered as best as I could in my Post # 260 because as I understand, "states' rights" means the right to withdraw from a union that is detrimental to that individual state.
The Southern states who withdrew from the union did so collectively and as a single country because they were culturally more alike than the were with with more distant Northern states.
For example, Louisiana may be a long way from Virginia but the people from Louisiana have far more in common with Virginians than they do with people from New Jersey.
As I mentioned, Spain would have had a much better chance in seizing Florida if Florida were alone and not a part of the Confederacy.
I think that I already explained the reasons why the South chose not to further fracture itself Ito individual states/countries in that individual state-countries would be easier prey for Northern and Foreign aggression.
Additionally, trade within a united Confederacy would be much simpler than if the Confederacy were further divided into 13 different states-countries.
So even though the South withdrew from a Northern dominated union primarily over states rights, they realized that there is strength in numbers and didn't want each individual Southern state to be a weaker, individual country.

 

Yet, when it came to the topic of slavery, they valued it more than they valued states' rights. Otherwise they would have left slavery as a state right in their own states. They didn't.

They didn't withdraw "collectively and as a single country." They withdrew separately (naming slavery as the primary cause for doing so) and then formed a new country (with slavery as its "corner-stone").

I again ask you why I should ignore what the seceding states had to say about their own motivations and accept, instead, your rewrite of history?

These states were "culturally alike" primarily as that culture pertained to slavery. That's why the primary label they chose for themselves was "the slaveholding states."

Yes. At the time the primary thing they saw in common was slavery.

How would they have been "easier prey" if they were allowed to decide the slavery issue for themselves?

If dividing on the issue of slavery would have been such a "fracture," then I'm sorry, but you are tacitly acknowledging the the primary unifying factor was slavery.

Why are you asking about further border divides? We were simply talking about allowing some of the state to decide to not be slave states if they wanted to.

Only if by "states rights" you mean the "right" to own slaves. That was the primary reason they withdrew. They said so themselves. If you disagree, then I'm sorry, but your are engaging in historical revisionism.

Funny how no source from the time period backs up your claim and there are plenty that back up mine. How would simply allowing states rights on this issue have "weakened" the Confederacy unless slavery was the primary thing unifying them in the first place.

 

Milley rolled over on the Orange Menace again.

"Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley on Thursday condemned Confederate leaders as traitors and said he supports a review of Army bases named after those who fought against the Union, a viewpoint that puts him at odds with the commander in chief.

Pressed by Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) about the 10 Army installations named for Confederate leaders, Milley told the House Armed Services Committee that the military needs "to take a hard look at the symbology" of the Civil War — such as base names, display of the Confederate battle flag and statues — as well as improve in other areas such as "the substance of promotions."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/milley-confederates-treason-review-army-base-names-355452

It's a simple truth. Those who supported the south's attempt to secede were traitors and those in the military violated their oath of loyalty to the US.

 

Well, someone was "needed" to harvest those crops.

But I will reiterate: Need does not equal moral justification.

Where do you get the information contained in the first clause, above?

Once again: Just where did you receive this information?

West Virginia simply broke off from Virginia (thereby forming a new state), and fought with the Union.

 

It is really not useful to throw around, promiscuously, such a word as "traitor" (or "treasonous," either). It does nothing helpful to heal the wounds from a war that ended some 155 years ago--and whose wounds, therefore, should have been healed long ago.

It is most unusual for those who support the victorious side, in a war, to remain embittered. Oddly, however, some still appear to be just that.

 

Yes, you're right: the last quote was from Texas: I was trying to make a point that there was a larger reason for why the CSA succeeded from the Union. And you're right: they wrote largely about slavery. They wrote largely about slavery because it was an unequivocal right that was in the Constitution, and it was being openly undermined by the manufacturing states, in spite of the rulings of the Supreme Court and the words within the document. The Constitution is a compact. It is a contract between all the states. And the institution of slavery was safeguarded in that compact with a clause--namely, the third clause of Article IV, Section 2.

The founders of the CSA believed that the clause of the contract had been violated. It would make sense for the declarations to mostly talk about slavery, since their premise was that the Constitution was being undermined. Some of the declarations talked about philosophical differences, such as an ideological disagreement on the expansion of the federal government, but mostly talking about slavery in the context of the undermining of the Constitution as the basis for their succession was their strongest justification to back up their premise.

Furthermore, slavery was center stage in that time. Violently so. It was an idea that engendered the likes of John Brown, a domestic terrorist that was hailed as a martyr by the North. In fact, the Union Army glorified the memory of Brown by honoring him with a marching song, "John Brown's Body." All of this would make slavery a leitmotif in the political discussion; the CSA's declarations simply mirrored this fact.

Again, yes, their main argument talked about slavery, but it was in the context of the larger picture, which was the open undermining of the Constitution. They were against the open undermining of the Constitution, for they feared about what other constitutional rights was going to be openly undermined with impunity.

 

That flag represents the Confederacy who betrayed the US because they wanted to continue enslaving millions of people. They were wrong and shouldn't be remembered as heros.

 

I have noted--which you quoted--the different reasons why people may embrace the Confederate flag. To claim otherwise is to oversimplify a rather complicated matter.

Moreover, although there is certainly no moral justification for slavery, it is simply wrong to claim that those who seceded "betrayed" the US. (The 1860s were a time at which one was expected to give one's primary allegiance to one's state--and only secondarily to "the US.")

 

That flag is a family heirloom. I hope your descendants take care of it and continue to pass it down.

 

Not wanting to be an American because you want to continue enslaving people is a betrayal. Those are just facts. The Confederacy was a very bad idea and a complete failure. There is nothing to embrace or celebrate. Celebrate the flag of our country instead.

 

This is twisting history to fit your own narrative. The CSA was leaving the USA, as the North was undermining the Constitution with impunity. Although other grievances were mentioned in the declarations, slavery was a leitmotif, as it was their strongest point in the overall argument of the CSA founders' declarations: they were leaving the USA because the very letter of the Constitution was being violated; they mentioned philosophical differences, which had nothing to do with slavery, such as the general expansion of the government, which they thought violated the spirit of the Constitution, but clearly pointing out that the letter of the national charter was being openly violated, which essentially made the Constitution but words on paper is clearly their strongest point. It was their strongest argument to back up their premise, which was that the compact, the agreement, between the federal government and states had been violated, and the CSA was not going to wait around for what other constitutional rights were going to be openly violated with impunity.

 

Lets say the constitution was being violated, even though you didn't mention anything specific. What matter is that these states were brutally imprisoning millions of people against their will and even murdered and raped some of them. That is far more of a violation than anything they had to complain about. I'm ok with violating the constitution to end slavery. Slavery was also mentioned very often in their reasons for leaving.

 

You have it completely backwards: their concern for slavery wasn't in the larger context of the Constitution. Instead, the opposite is true: their Constitutional grievances were in the larger context of slavery.

Take a look at the Constitutional grievances mentioned in the Declarations of Causes: fugitive slaves and the expansion of slavery to new territories and states. Their Constitutional grievances were all in the context of slavery. If this were about the Constitution as a larger issue, we'd see plenty of other grievances related to things other than slavery . . . we simply don't see that. And if slavery were only part of a larger Constitutional issue, we'd only see them mentioning slavery as it pertains to Constitutional rights. That also isn't true. For example, we see them repeatedly talk about their economic interest in slavery.

We also have writings where Southerners feared that, had they stayed in the Union, there could have been a Constitutional amendment against slavery. This would have been Constitutional (and, in fact, was what happened), yet was given as a reason for seceding, once again indicating that slavery was the bigger picture.

During the Crittenden Compromise, the South also pushed for sweeping amendments to the Constitution to give them more slave rights -- and an additional amendment that would make these protections immune to all future amendments. Slavery was the bigger picture, of which their Constitutional grievances were a part.

We also have writings showing that Southerners were not actually all that confident that the Constitution could protect slavery. Not only that, they feared that the US Constitution, at best, left slavery as an open question and, at worst, was philosophically based in ideas that were ultimately hostile to slavery.

Georgia's Declaration hints at this, but the Vice President of the Confederacy was far more explicit.

Finally, if the Constitution, as it stood, were adequate protection for the institution of slavery, the Confederacy would not have felt the need to make the changes they made to their own Constitution -- changes that Stephens is speaking about above and which eerily resemble the Crittenden Compromise mentioned earlier.

Once again, your claim was that the South's concerns about slavery were in the larger picture of the Constitution. History says that the opposite is true: the South's Constitutional grievances were only part of the larger picture of slavery.

 

It isn't a "twisting" at all. He's accurately reflecting what the South had to say about itself.

Their Constitutional concerns were within the context of slavery, and their concerns about slavery went beyond just the Constitution.

 

This misses (perhaps intentionally?) the central point of my post, viz.: In the 1860s, one was expected to give one's primary allegiance to one's state--not to "the US."

In fact, Robert E. Lee--prior to the breakout of hostilities--even referred to the commonwealth of Virginia as "my country"--as though it comprised his entire country. (Yes, even though he was then a member of the US military--who had actually fought in the Mexican-American war.)

It is simply wrongheaded to impute to mid-nineteenth-century people a twenty-first-century understanding of just what one's "country" entailed--just as it would be wrong to impute to them a knowledge of, say, the internal-combustion engine--and then fault them for not understanding it properly.