The South Does It Again

Good analysis. It just came down to a different way of life, with economics at the head of the list. Same as today. We are seeing a greater and greater divide between certain areas. Different values, different ways of life and hard to find a compromise that everyone can live with. The healthcare issue is just one of many examples.

That's why I predict the union will eventually split because of "irreconcilable differences". The difference this time is that I don't expect the more liberal states would fight to keep the conservative ones from leaving. More and more, they are considered obstructionist nusances. Maybe both sides will be better off.

From a sports standpoint, I don't think it would matter much. It wouldn't much different than a US team playing against a Canadian team.

 

Actually not that complex. It was basically all about slavery. The "complex reasons" "states rights" stuff is a lot of blowhard BS. Yeah, they were concerned about "states rights", namely their right to maintain the institution of slavery, that was the only state right concern that they cared about enough to compel secession.

The reason they seceded was actually fairly simple: the handwriting was on the wall that they would eventually lose the slavery political battle as the new western states entered the union, so they tried to get out before that happened.

 

Some folk just can't accept defeat.

 

In Jacksonville there's a high school named after Nathan Bedford Forest. Yeah, let's name a school after the guy who founded the Klan. Fantastic idea.

 

Nazi Germany seemed to figure out creative ways to utilize slave labor in factory settings.

 

I have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. As far as my genealogy research can tell me, they were poor and probably starving. A Confederate army paycheck looked pretty good in comparison. I don't think they had the luxury of standing on principle because theirs was a life of basic survival. They went knowingly to their deaths perhaps not understanding or not caring why they were fighting. All they knew is that it would help take care of their families.

Given that perspective, I don't get celebrating the Confederacy as part of my heritage. There's nothing to be proud of.

Or, to be more cynical about it, poor people dying for rich, old, white man's wars. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

The war ended over a century ago. The South lost.

Get over it.

If those idiots would have won, we would all be paying taxes to our German or Japanese overlords right now.

 

But doing a bang-up job of slave importation and commerce with our fellow members of the Global Slave Confederation, South Africa and Brazil.

 

Here's a thought. This is the United States of America. If you don't like what's going on, you can leave.

 

Living where I do I get more "South will rise again" bullshit and see more Rebel flags (apart from the ones on the state flag) than I ever want to see in a lifetime.

I don't go quite so far as to say those who fought for the Confederacy were traitors, but the bottom line is that the strong union that came out of the Civil War was an historical necessity, especially as the 20th century progressed. Can you imagine a divided America during the Great War? And assuming that the Allies somehow won that war without American help (or perhaps with the war spreading to America), can you see a divided America against Hitler?

I cringe when I see amateur historians try to claim that the war had nothing to do with slavery. It had everything to do with slavery. All you have to do is go back and read the speeches and editorials that came out of the Southern states in 1860-61. They all defend secession as necessary to preserve their way of life. And knowing Southerners like I do, I am not confident slavery would have simply died out without a war. Hell, it really didn't die out after the war, just the name. As Starman so eloquently pointed out, Hitler had no problem using slave labor in an industrial setting.

And let's not assume that because the Union ended up crushing the Confederacy that it was inevitable. Until Grant and Sherman stepped to the front, the South had by far the better generals and a much better grasp of general tactics and strategy. There were a number of points that if one little factor goes the other way, then the South could well have prevailed. It really wasn't until the Chickamauga campaign in mid-1864 that the North finally made the outcome clear. Although after Vicksburg and Gettysburg, it's hard to see a Confederate victory, there were still plenty of panicky politicians in Washington who were urging Lincoln to settle for a negotiated peace, and Lincoln's re-election was not assured until those summer victories in '64.

 

This is true, but the other factor was that the South really needed to get intervention from European nations, the bulk who opposed slavery. That's because the South, while having better leadership from its generals, was limited in terms of resources needed to fight the war and Europe would have served as that.

And in reference to the earlier "complex" remark I made, I was simply saying that it wasn't just slavery that divided the North and the South through the years -- although slavery was at the heart of secession.

 

The South would have won if the referees wouldn't have blown all those calls.