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 Manchu wrote:
Well, in a sense, I think you're right. I don't think we should entirely dismiss the concept of motivation. Now there is a lot of space between absolute dedication to slavery and fighting "to protect our homes." But what is meant by "home" there isn't just a matter of property rights in things other than human beings. It refers to a wider culture at the center of which was slavery. So while not every (or maybe even any) Johnny Reb thought of nothing but keeping blacks in slavery from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night, its reasonable to conclude that generally speaking they did think slavery was okay at least "for now." That doesn't obviate the hypothetical abolitionist in grey, of course.

I'd honestly suspect your average Confederate soldier didn't have much of an opinion either way about slavery (or was ambivalent) prior to the war's outbreak, given that he was, statistically, a poor non-slave-owning subsistence farmer. I don't know that for sure, obviously, and I'm certainly willing to be educated.

That's really my issue, though. The "fighting in support" language bothers me. Mechanically, it's absolutely correct. As I said, though, it implies motivation that I doubt would be applicable across the spectrum.

 Polonius wrote:
The war wasn't about slavery at all for the North, at least not in any meaningful way. It was simply seen as a rebellion that needed put down.

The most divisive issue for the North was about whether to fight the war at all. The war to keep the Union whole enjoyed fractured support in the North. That didn't change until Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation and turned the war of unification into a war of liberation so yeah. Even in the North it still kind of boils down to slavery as the most basic component of the conflict (the North just jumped on that bandwagon a little later than the South).

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Not everyone could afford slaves, you have the right to own should you be able to afford.

Article IV Section 2(1)
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

Dred Scot decision, a slave legally owned is not freed by entering a free state as the slave is property and has no rights.
Again, salve owners had the right to this law if they could afford to own slaves.

Article IV Section 3(3)
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states

Again, not clear on your argument. The legal salve owners could take their property and be recognized as slaves owning individuals with the right to do so. Again, those who could afford to do so. Not everyone in the south owned a slave.

poor non-slave-owning subsistence farmer. I don't know that for sure, obviously, and I'm certainly willing to be educated.

Though I said it sarcastically earlier, it was the 'American Dream' in the South that you could become rich enough to buy some slaves and then sit back in the lap of luxury. Like many Northerns dreamed of getting rich of railroads, mills, or other new industries, many Southerns saw the path to success as involving slavery. Like most people many of them would never be that rich (not with slave prices going up like they were in 1859 no sir) but that was the goal being aspired to by your typical southern farmer (not counting Appalachia, it was often different there).

 Seaward wrote:
I'd honestly suspect your average Confederate soldier didn't have much of an opinion either way about slavery (or was ambivalent) prior to the war's outbreak, given that he was, statistically, a poor non-slave-owning subsistence farmer.

TBH I bet a lot of poor white folks resented slavery for a number of reasons before the war. I often wonder if racism in the US is mostly a factor of all the fuss made to whip up the Civil War, the war itself, and the fall out, as opposed to slavery. After all, slavery was just the most stark of the many ways poor people were exploited during the Colonial period, at least aside from purported genocide.

I often wonder if racism in the US is mostly a factor of all the fuss made to whip up the Civil War, the war itself, and the fall out, as opposed to slavery.

Some people argue that racism may have gone out a lot faster in the US had slavery been allowed to die a natural death. Most certainly the Civil War played a role in intensifying racist attitudes. Racism was always there North and South, but it would rise and fall with different periods of social stress. Racism definitely grew stronger in response to abolitionists throughout the Antebellum period, and stronger still after the emancipation, which never would have happened without the Civil War.

EDIT: Segregation was actually on the down swing for a time, but as the early Civil Rights movement gained steam it kicked buck up and intensified throughout the 50's and 40's especially in the North. The population of Pittsburg for example was very mixed in many neighborhoods but as the Civil Rights movement pushed forward those neighborhoods (on their own, no laws involved) began to segregate.

And when we talk about racism, we're talking about a collection of ideas. "Scientific racism" was very popular at the time, and held that the inferiority of certain races was demonstrable. Under that, a learned person could argue that he did not hate non-whites, he just knew them to be inferior.

There was also economic racism. Northern workers were uneasy about emancipation, as it would mean a flood of cheap labor, competing with them.

Even the superficially honorable actions of the north, such as working to prevent the expansion of slave states, had little to do with hating slavery. They simply preferred the northern economic model of small family farms over aristocratic plantations.

What about indentured servents?

The Indians?

The Irish?

WTF are we talking about again?

To expand on that, the 'Free Soilers' had this idea that Southerns were all rich guys with mountains of money and that if they weren't stopped they'd buy up all the land and work it with slaves, meaning that good hard working Northerns would not only get no land but wouldn't even be able to get jobs working the land.

While many Southerns were quite rich, they lived rather poorly. The elegant mansions we all think of when imagining a plantation were exceedingly rare. Most of a slave owners money wasn't spendable because his land and his slaves accounted for a large portion of his wealth.

JamesGang wrote:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed

Not everyone could afford slaves, you have the right to own should you be able to afford.

Article IV Section 2(1)
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

Dred Scot decision, a slave legally owned is not freed by entering a free state as the slave is property and has no rights.
Again, salve owners had the right to this law if they could afford to own slaves.

Article IV Section 3(3)
The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states

Again, not clear on your argument. The legal salve owners could take their property and be recognized as slaves owning individuals with the right to do so. Again, those who could afford to do so. Not everyone in the south owned a slave.

The argument is pretty clear: when it came to slavery, the CSA was clearly anti-state rights.

 whembly wrote:
What about indentured servents?

Funny you mention that Early on indentured servants were preferred to slaves (harder working supposedly) but that came with the problem that after their contracts were up the colonies were getting a poor population that had little and couldn't work because new servants just came in to replace them. Solution? Permanently indentured servants, aka slaves Of course that decision brought a whole new set of fears with it, many of them leading to the early development of overt racism.

It is so still legal, as a punishment for crimes at least...

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
It is the flag of a would-be country that tried to secede from the US to preserve slavery.

It does not stand for "Southern Pride," which is a meaningless expression.

Well you see, people from the south are thinking that the liberal elites are encroaching on their way of life, trying to take their beer, take jesus from us and make them marry someone that isnt their cousin.

Come on man, let's not paint everyone south of the Mason Dixon line with the same brush. Not everyone is a cousin-fether, just like not everyone who like MLP is gay or a furry

From the earlier discussion about swastikas I remembered that many Finnish military units use still swastikas in their flags. (I am a finn.) Put on spoilers because easily confused with nazis.



It is still the flag of Finnish airforce command.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
It is the flag of a would-be country that tried to secede from the US to preserve slavery.

It does not stand for "Southern Pride," which is a meaningless expression.

Well you see, people from the south are thinking that the liberal elites are encroaching on their way of life, trying to take their beer, take jesus from us and make them marry someone that isnt their cousin.

Come on man, let's not paint everyone south of the Mason Dixon line with the same brush. Not everyone is a cousin-fether, just like not everyone who like MLP is gay or a furry

Not everyone south of the line wants to display the Confederate flag.

 Manchu wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
I'd honestly suspect your average Confederate soldier didn't have much of an opinion either way about slavery (or was ambivalent) prior to the war's outbreak, given that he was, statistically, a poor non-slave-owning subsistence farmer.

TBH I bet a lot of poor white folks resented slavery for a number of reasons before the war. I often wonder if racism in the US is mostly a factor of all the fuss made to whip up the Civil War, the war itself, and the fall out, as opposed to slavery. After all, slavery was just the most stark of the many ways poor people were exploited during the Colonial period, at least aside from purported genocide.

Most of the closet southern nationalists I've spoken to, aside from being bat-gak loony, really hate Yankees. The American Civil War was devastating for the South (and the North, but mostly the South). Sherman's march to the sea saw vast swathes of the country side burned and looted. I see parallels in the South and Germany post WW1 (Godwin!) in that humiliation in war time led to a transference of blame and guilt onto an ethnic group (black for the South, Jews for Germany)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
It is the flag of a would-be country that tried to secede from the US to preserve slavery.

It does not stand for "Southern Pride," which is a meaningless expression.

Well you see, people from the south are thinking that the liberal elites are encroaching on their way of life, trying to take their beer, take jesus from us and make them marry someone that isnt their cousin.

Come on man, let's not paint everyone south of the Mason Dixon line with the same brush. Not everyone is a cousin-fether, just like not everyone who like MLP is gay or a furry

Not everyone south of the line wants to display the Confederate flag.

He didn't say that, he said "people from the south" and making redneck, hillbilly, bible thumper jokes about people from the south is one of the only widely accepted prejudicial attitudes left here in the States.

Sherman's march to the sea saw vast swathes of the country side burned and looted

This is mostly a myth. Sherman's March caused no where near as much damage as he wanted everyone to think it did. Most of the land damage was caused by fields simply not having anyone around to tend to them and a lot of the looting was done by state governments before Sherman arrived (not that there weren't burnings and lootings, just not as much as is commonly thought).

The biggest damage to the South was the devastation to its population compounded by the abolition of its labor force. The Northern blockade of their ports caused cash crops to go wasted unsold and the Southern merchantile fleet was pretty much obliterated. EDIT: And it takes a lot of time and effort to keep a field in good shape. 6 years of war left a lot of it unusable for a long time. Throw in the flight of populations from the devastated South elsewhere and the problems just got worse.

EDIT: Knew I forgot something. It also hurt that what Southerns knew how to do as a large economic group was grow and sell cash crops, but the world wasn't going to wait 6 years for America to finish its divorce proceedings. Many European countries that bought from the South found new places to get their cotton, tobacco, and sugar.

 LordofHats wrote:

Sherman's march to the sea saw vast swathes of the country side burned and looted

This is mostly a myth. Sherman's March caused no where near as much damage as he wanted everyone to think it did. Most of the land damage was caused by fields simply not having anyone around to tend to them and a lot of the looting was done by state governments before Sherman arrived (not that there weren't burnings and lootings, just not as much as is commonly thought).

The biggest damage to the South was the devastation to its population compounded by the abolition of its labor force. The Northern blockade of their ports caused cash crops to go wasted unsold and the Southern merchantile fleet was pretty much obliterated. EDIT: And it takes a lot of time and effort to keep a field in good shape. 6 years of war left a lot of it unusable for a long time. Throw in the flight of populations from the devastated South elsewhere and the problems just got worse.

This. Someone is a more astute Civil War historian than I. I still think my main point stands.

Oh yes. Things in the South were very bad after the War. Comparatively, drawing some analogies to post WWII mainland Europe is probably appropriate.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
He didn't say that, he said "people from the south" and making redneck, hillbilly, bible thumper jokes about people from the south is one of the only widely accepted prejudicial attitudes left here in the States.

There are plenty of widely accepted prejudicial attitudes left in America, it's just the South has a way of thinking they are the only ones that are being disparaged. The stereotypical view of Southerns is just as common as the idea that people from the big cities are all hybrid-driving, mocha chi decaf latte drinking, anti-gun sissies. The door swings both ways.

According to my history class most southerners didn't own slaves at the time (something like 75% didn't) and most didn't own more than 8. It was the rich that could afford a whole plantation full of slaves and that was a very small percentage. It's kind of like the whole 1% being considered the wealthy today. To own more than 8 was like being wealthy.

I heard the south won the peace after the war. That's when the KKK was formed and they terrorized the sh*t out of black people.

For some reason as far as the confederate flag goes it actually doesn't bother me. It has a nice style to it. I don't entirely get the whole redneck vibe some had from it. Sure some people that show it are rednecks but not all. It's like everybody got super stereotypical. Sure maybe some are just a bit redneck or low income white people but that doesn't mean they're terrible people or racist. Jeez I'm just surprised how fast people threw out insults.

I know i'll probably get insulted for saying it but I don't mind the flag. In video games and such it even has a flavor to it with the whole 'rednecks in space' theme that so often comes about (starcraft, firefly, etc.)

Also while we're at it the stereotypes people throw around about southerners is a bit extreme. I visited Los angeles not too long ago and I could throw out a lot of stereotypes about them too. Would saying they're metrosexual, fake, self-hating people be as offensive as calling rednecks in-bred (some people from L.A. really are like that)? I think so. I don't mind people joking about stereotypes but when you mean to offend it's different.

Anyway to me the flag doesn't mean the same thing as wearing a white hooded KKK costume.

Is someone honestly going to say that the guy with a pickup truck with the confederate flag full-window decal on it hoking at someone driving down the street is rolling down his window and yelling, "States Rights! Woooooooooo!"

Even if you can divorce slavery from the issue, at no point was it ever about 'southern pride' and no one today uses it as a symbol of 'states rights'.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
According to my history class most southerners didn't own slaves at the time (something like 75% didn't) and most didn't own more than 8. It was the rich that could afford a whole plantation full of slaves and that was a very small percentage. It's kind of like the whole 1% being considered the wealthy today. To own more than 8 was like being wealthy.

EDIT: Awww. Link blocks in place. Least I still have my spiffy table

And here is a fancy table with lots of numbers;





Not disagreeing with you, just putting the information up. Stuff on this subject does irk me, especially since schools do such a piss poor job teaching the subject.

I don't like the popular trend to ban things that "may be offensive." No where do we have a right to never be offended. Unless something is advocating violence, then let them display it.

I have not and would not feel welcome or safe in any place or the presence of any persons displaying the confederate flag openly.

You would feel unsafe around re-enactors? How about on a movie set?

 MWHistorian wrote:
I don't like the popular trend to ban things that "may be offensive." No where do we have a right to never be offended. Unless something is advocating violence, then let them display it.

The origin of it being used in resistance to civil rights, which is the current source of the modern use of the confederate flag was advocating violence. And the origin of it was a symbol of war, which is pretty violent.

 Manchu wrote:
You would feel unsafe around re-enactors? How about on a movie set?

Re-enactors largely depends on context. If it's a bunch of folks who clearly only have an interest in exploring the historical context without identifying with or sympathizing with anything unsavory, that's probably fine. No different than seeing it in a museum. The same can largely apply to a movie set.

Perhaps "openly identifying with" or "displayed as a personal item" would have been a more precise way of framing the feelings I was trying to express.

JamesGang wrote:
At the end of the day, I believe we have all agreed that the flag no longer represents anything of value other than historical context to denote a side in a conflict.

Yes, I think we can agree that it represents nothing of value.

However, I don't think we can agree that it has no meaning today.

If it had no meaning no-one would want to fly it, and no-one would object to it being flown.