Southern Secession

Just a brief note for mods: I'm posting this thread in Political Opinions & Beliefs rather than in History because I do really want to focus on the way this topic is CURRENTLY being taught and the misinformation being spread in the modern era for political reasons.

So, as I mentioned in another thread, I'm temporarily between jobs (by choice) and now I have time to start a thread that I've wanted to start for quite some time now since I keep getting drawn into the topic in various threads and would like to have one place to point back to.

So, my argument is that the Southern states seceded in the 1860s, and formed their own new country, specifically to protect and expand slavery. Full stop. So why do conservatives in the US want to hide that fact?

Before I go on, this thread is NOT about the motivations of the Union during the Civil War. This isn't about the causes of the Civil War. This is about the causes of secession. I've long said that the Civil War was because of secession and secession was because of slavery. No, I'm not arguing that the North went to war on some crusade to end slavery, so leave that baggage at the door.

I'll go into more detail in future posts, but I'm basing my position on the following:

1) When seeking a compromise before secession, when the South was leading the compromise, their focus was on slavery.
2) The declarations of causes of secession from the states focused almost entirely on slavery.
3) Secession commissioners overwhelmingly appealed to slavery when attempting to convince other states to secede.
4) Yep, I'm going to talk about the Cornerstone Speech, of course. Yes, it is important.
5) The Confederate flag (the real one) was specifically, explicitly designed to promote slavery and white supremacy.
6) When negotiating a surrender, the South's only concerns were ensuring that their soldiers were not prosecuted and to try to preserve slavery. That was it.

I'll also cover the lie that secession had anything at all to do with tariffs (this argument is dumber than a box of hammers). I will continuously appeal to primary sources and ask that you do the same if you want to participate.

I will full admit that, if you try hard enough, you can find a small handful of quotes from the time period saying this wasn't about slavery, but they inevitably fall into two buckets: quotes from after the war, when the South was trying to save face, and quotes appealing to the British, who were not too keen on slavery at the time and whom the Confederates were trying to convince to help them out. Even those tiny handful of quotes are often contradicted by previous quotes from the same people and are eclipsed by far, far, far more evidence to the contrary.

Lastly, I'm a Southerner. I like being a Southerner. There's a lot to like about the South. I can move any time I want, and I've chosen not to. Tying Southern pride to the Confederacy is not only dumb, but it does a disservice to the South.

 

I don't see conservatives hiding that. If anything, they like to gloat over their victory and how they took the democrats slaves away.

 

I'm sure we'll see several on this thread hiding that. I've debated them before. It is certainly being hidden in school history books and was hidden in the ones I read in school.

And the slaveholders themselves were conservatives, bud. Rabidly so.

And I've never seen a liberal defend the Confederacy. I see the right do it all of the time.

 

I had a history professor in college who always called it "The war of Northern aggression". This was in the 90s in Louisiana, and he was old enough then that his grandfather had probably fought for the confederacy.

 

We heard that one all of the time. That or "The War Between States." The truth behind the Confederacy's motives was always kept hush-hush. Hell, I'm not even sure it is legal to teach kids that truth in Florida anymore.

 

I think the largest issue was we didn’t apply the sentences for treason to the traitors after the end of the civil war. Had that happened this nation would likely be a much different place.

Look like we still have not learned our lesson

 

Well, currently there is Texit, but that didn't go anywhere, even in a GOP majority Legislature and has divided the GOP pretty much in half, at least in Texas, on this issue. Those that are proposing the Texit, or advocating it have either direct ties to the Republic of Texas Militia who wanted to violently overthrow the state government of texas and form their own country, or indirect ties to those who are former members of that group. Currently, it is under the Texas Nationalist movement, and most of them are linked to confederacy or neo confederacy groups who want to do this too.

As for the events leading up to the Civil War, Texas joined the confederacy, but barely, like 50.2% to 49.8%. Even Sam Houston and other Texas politicians generally did not want to succeed. They did not want ot fight for the Union either as a state but thought this could be resolved in Congress. Ironically, those states in the South succeeded the moment Abraham Lincoln became President, and it was not a sure thing that he could limit or even abolish slavery at all. But the Civil War allowed him to do that though through the Emancipation Proclamation first and then with the 13th Amendment later.

As for conservatives not wanting to acknowledge that it was slavery, they use "state rights" as their argument even though the main "state rights" issue was slavery, as evident by the speech by the Vice President of the Confederacy and in the Constitution of the Confederacy.

 

Your statement doesn’t make sense — it was southern religious conservative Democrats that fought against freeing slaves and liberal northern Republicans that fought against it.

You can say Republicans love to say they took Democrats slaves away (it shows a partisan rhetoric or someone that is completely ignorant of history to assert it is the modern day party) but it is factually incorrect to say it was conservatives against Democrats as they were the same party at the time.

 

I am not hiding it. Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. If Republican Candidate, John C. Fremont, had been elected president in 1856, the Civil War would have started then, and the South might well have gotten what they wanted. Fremont was no Abraham Lincoln. He could not appreciate that Lincoln was trying to keep the border states in the Union. If Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland had left the Union, South might well have gotten the North to quit. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Here is a "Wealth of the South" token for you to enjoy. These were made for Confederate supporters wear as watch fobs, pocket pieces and use as money. There are five minor varieties of this token. This was probably the first one. It is quite rare.

The "Peace Conference" that was held in February was mostly a way for the South to buy time to gear up for the war. This token was issued during that period.

Which one was "the real Confederate flag?' I believe that there were four official flags during the war, and none of them were exclusively the "stars and bars" that everyone thinks is the Confederate flag. The "stars and bars" by itself was a battle flag. The design was included in the official flag, however.

 

Here is an 1860 political token that outlined Lincoln's stand on slavery when he was elected. He didn't think that the Federal Government had the power to end slavery. What he wanted to do was limit it to only the states where it already existed. There could be no new slave states or territories under Lincoln's policy.

 

the souths economic system was built on plantations filled very cheap labor, i have often just looked at the north as predisposed to industrial type work vs the agriculture of the south no mystery, and certainly not a moral supremacy of any kind, but i se we have had one poster already use the tired democrats were the slave owners argument, as long as the RWs distorted media remains strong the country will contain many half-educated self-proclamed-patriots spewing distorted "facts"

 

What is the right defending? When it comes to depriving one of the fruits of their labor, both parties are the party of slavery. Dems just take a little more.

More than half my labor goes to the government.

Also, slavery is still a thriving business in other parts of the world. Just south of our border, cartels enjoy a steady stream of income from our poor border policies. Forced servitude, sex tourism, human trafficking, etc. Dems appear to tolerate slavery as long as it brings in votes.

 

Indeed

 

People like to use the civil war to paint entire groups with a broad stroke. I don't care for either party, but I do enjoy history and even collect and restore civil war weapons.

If Lincoln could have saved the union without freeing a single slave, would he have?

 

The Civil War was entirely about slavery.

See: Cornerstone speech

Everything else is simply smoke and mirrors, window dressing.

 

That is what I have been told, however, it would appear to be more about power the way I see it.

If Lincoln could have saved the union without freeing a single slave, would he have?

 

The Republican party, Lincoln's party, was explicitly anti-slavery. The South had a problem with that. They mentioned that while seceding. Comparing paying taxes to slavery is dishonest and unhinged. And slavery thriving in other parts of the world is a desperate attempt to hide from the topic.

 

Please read the whole "house divided" speech if you are going to start trying to appeal to this stuff. You can't understand Lincoln's later statements without actually reading his earlier ones . . . which the South appealed to when seceding. I know you don't want to talk about the topic, but I'll keep trying to draw you back to it.

 

Even the whole industrial/agricultural divide thing is complete garbage. There was PLENTY of agriculture in the North. Hell, the North produced more food than the South did. The difference was that the South was focused on TEXTILE agriculture -- cotton. Thanks to the cotton gin, slavery was extremely profitable in that particular branch of agriculture.

 

The peace conference I'm referring to stretched until 1865. No, it wasn't just about "buying time to gear up for the war."

The popular "confederate flag" we see today isn't even the actual stars and bars. That's a misnomer. The stars and bars was a different flag. And by "the real Confederate flag," I'm talking about the stainless banner, to which a red strip was later added to create the bloodstained banner.

 

I can't believe I forgot to add the Constitution of the Confederacy to my list in the OP.

One excuse I hear is that the South just wanted each state to be able to have the right to decide whether they wanted to be a slave state or a free state. This is not only proven false by their own Constitution (which forbade such a "right"), but also by the election of 1860 . . . which is something else I should have included in my list.

 

I'm a conservative and I see this issue the same way you do. Secession was the reason for the war. Slavery was the reason for secession. Pretty straightforward.

 

Okay, let's give you a little history lesson.

The first Confederate national flag was this one, which was the official emblem from 1861 to 1863. It was dropped because it bore too much of a resemblance to the Union flag. More stars were added as more states joined the Confederacy.



The second flag was this one, which was official from 1863 until 1865. This one was changed late in the war because the white field looked too much like a white surrender flag when there was no wind.



The third Confederate flag, adopted in 1865, had a red stripe at the end so that it would not look like a surrender flag when it was at rest.



This is the Confederate battle flag.



This is the Confederate Navy flag, which is viewed as the modern Confederate flag.

 

It should be that straightforward, and it may well be that most of the other people I've debated on this have moved on to other topics and won't be willing to take it up again. We'll see. I do have another thread I intend to create that is far more niche: Holocaust denial. I've only met half a dozen or so Holocaust denialists on this forum, but they tend to be very vocal and diligent, so it could be fun to poke at them while I'm searching for my next job.

 

You aren't giving me any lessons. You are just pretending. The first flag you posted is the ACTUAL stars and bars, which you previously misidentified. The second flag you posted IS the stainless banner . . . the one I taught you about . . . the one I previously mentioned as being designed to promote white supremacy. The third added a red stripe and was the bloodstained banner . . . which I also previously taught you about. Sorry, mate, but you are doing a bad job here if you think you are proving anything when all you are doing is catching up to the history lessons I've already provided.