> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Robert Seeberger > Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 8:14 AM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: Civil War > > > >> I'll give one recent example from Texas. About 6 years ago, there >> was a column by Laura Bush in the Houston Chronicle's editorial page. >> It listed the familiar Lost Cause mythology as historical fact, and >> stated that folks who didn't accept that were just ignorant of history.
> > Here column pretty well summed up what I have been hearing from > > patriotic > > Southerners. It was, of course, mythology, and inconsistent with a > > careful > > analysis of the writings of the leaders of the South, or a > > socioeconomic > > historical analysis of the times. But, I think it was a good > > reflection of > > the patriotic fervor. > > And of course Northerners have no myths or mythology and the winners > do not write history? Or in any way cherrypick through the facts? Northerners have myths, but the important ones I recall involved the taming of the West and the Revolutionary war. The North I grew up in was defined by the various immigrant nationalities that existed. In Duluth, we told Finnlander jokes; in St. Cloud Minnesota, my cousins told Polock jokes. As a boy, my memory of the Civil war was that Duluth had an old drummer boy who died when I was about 6. Teri's mom, who's dad's church had a cross burned in front of it by the KKK, still speaks fondly of a grandfather who hated the North with a passion and was very insistent that he be buried facing south, not north. In the north, the Civil War was something to be studied in history class, not part of one's normal life. Nothing like Faulkner's <quote> "For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.... <end quote> The history I studied as an eight grader was mostly battles and such. Very little was discussed in terms of the causes of the war. In high school, we spent a lot of time on the causes....and the teacher argued that slavery was a secondary consideration. She said the proper name for the battle was "The War Between the States". In other words, what I was taught was shaded towards Southern revisionism. The war to claim the West from the Native Americans, the War of 1812, and the Revolutionary war were all taught in grade school, in a manner that denied unpleasant underlying realities. In high school I was taught "the Sons of Liberty were called "Sons of Something Else" by proper Bostonians, the war of 1812 was a land grab, etc. > (To be fair, it would be pretty hard to "absolutely" prove either view > based on "scholarly work" on a subject that is so polar for over a > century and a half) But, there is primary data, right? Lets look at just a bit of it. The first placed I looked was the declaration of secession. I could find four states that gave reasons for seceding. They are Georgia Mississippi South Carolina Texas And their reasons could be found at http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html The first line for Georgia reads: <quote> The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. <end quote> That sounds very clear to me. The first two lines in the declaration of Mississippi read <quote> In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. <end quote> Again, that's pretty clear to me. South Carolina starts with a discussion of history and the rational for the legality of secession. But, when they start listing their causes, we read <quote> In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. <end quote> Texas is a bit more verbose...so I'll cut and paste a bit. A link to the original document is provided <quote> Texas... was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them? By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States. The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith. In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. <end quote> Professional historians have, of course, access to a great deal of data that is not on the web. There are numerous speeches, sermon texts, newspaper articles, editorials, etc. from the time. Given these data, reasonable people may still disagree, but their disagreement needs to be bounded by consistency with the original literature. > What you are saying is basically any scholarly work that disagrees > with your view is the work of nutcases and only views that reflect > "The Standard Northern History Of The Civil War" can be considered as > bearing merit. No, what I am saying is that there was a group of folks who rewrote history, not worrying about testing their argument against primary source are not doing scholarly work. How can a scholar argue that the Civil war had _nothing_ to do with slavery, in light of the data I've given above. They don't. There is far less difference between the views at top 25 history programs, whether at be Duke, UT, Princeton, or Univ. of Wis., than there is between all of these programs and the Lost Cause mythmakers. When I speak of Lost Cause, I'm referring to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy not to the work of modern, professional, historians who work at major universities in the South or who are from the South and work at major universities. Rather, I'm discussing non-professional mythmaking. You see it in the Woodlands, where there is a Civil War group who are singularly uninterested in major historical questions but take great delight in stories about how clever Southerners foil the evil stupid Northerners. > I see that as problematic. That view devolves into "the South was evil > and the North good" far too easily and in fact, from here, that seems > to be what most people believe. Well, read the declarations of secession, then read the words of Lincoln on the Civil war. Which would you rather support? The South seceded because they felt slavery was not properly respected by Northerners. As the Texans said: <quote> In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. <end quote> Lincoln, who prosecuted the war, stated: <quote> Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. <end quote> Each side stated their main cause. I submit the proposition that it was a very good thing that Lincoln prevailed. There was plenty wrong in the North in 1861, just as there was plenty wrong in the US between 1940 and 1945. Evil things were done by Northerners during the Civil War and by Americans during WWII. Yet, it's still a very good thing that the wars turned out as they did. > I contend Southerners were looking out for their self-interest > economically and doing their best to avoid being politically dominated > by the Northern states. If one looks at the history of slavery in the > US, it is plain that it was an issue that snowballed out of control of > any of the contestants over decades and skewed perceptions of all > involved throughout that time. > http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2005.00166.x > To be clear, slavery IMO is a moral issue. But I disagree with any > thesis that assumes that the moral division was crystal clear and > obvious to Southerners of the period. People are able to rationalize > just about anything if the stakes are high enough and others will > easily cling to a convenient lie when it is in their interest to do > so. Compare the pre-civil war period with current events and it is > easy to see similarities in that regard. > I reject that Southerners were monolithically evil in the same way I > would reject that contemporary Americans are evil. I'm curious. What, in the war in Iraq, parallels fighting for the right to own other human beings because they are clearly inferior? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
