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 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

squidhills wrote:
@ EveryonewhowastalkingaboutSwatstikas...

The Swatstika used by the Nazis is a different symbol than the Buddhist symbol that comes from Asia (that is known in Japan as the 'Manji'). The Nazi symbol is oriented counter-clockwise and is slanted. The manji is oriented clockwise and is not slanted. To the average person, they look the same, but they are not. The swatstika is not a case of "one symbol; two meanings" its a case of "two similar but different symbols with two totally different meanings".

::::::::::::::The More You Know!

Actually, the counter clockwise Swatstika is also used in Hinduism to symbolise Empowerment. You can google image search on 'hindu swastika' and see all those Hindu neo-nazis

Further the Swastika is also a common symbol in Nordic Pagan Religions prior to the coming of Christianity and was used as a charm for protection in battle by invoking Thor.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Further the Swastika is also a common symbol in Nordic Pagan Religions prior to the coming of Christianity and was used as a charm for protection in battle by invoking Thor.

Yep, it is also occasionally rounded a bit, and is also known as a "sun cross"

There is a lot of hypocrisy going around in this thread. Casting stones at the southerners who fought for what they thought was their country, no matter what the rich politicians caused it. I certainly will stipulate that many poor southerners were pro slavery, but many were pro state rights, and pro "protect my farm and family" from northern aggression.

Regardless... the smug way you people talk about the confederate battle flag, is soooo hypocritical because you probably wave the Stars and Stripes, not realizing that for almost the first 100 years that flag represented legal slavery, and even after emancipation, it also represented the massacre of the Native American, and the oppression of the African American.

Hypocrites!!


GG

 generalgrog wrote:
T

Regardless... the smug way you people talk about the confederate battle flag, is soooo hypocritical because you probably wave the Stars and Stripes, not realizing that for almost the first 100 years that flag represented legal slavery, and even after emancipation, it also represented the massacre of the Native American, and the oppression of the African American.

Hypocrites!!

GG

The US Flag gets waved by racists and bigots plenty and Americans like to ignore the darker side of US history, but acting like that makes people hypocrites is a little bent. The Stars and Stripes is used to invoke a unifying national spirit of equality, liberty, and democracy. What that means specifically will vary, but it's a much broader symbol in America than the Confefdrate battle flag, which for over a century was consistently used to invoke a South culture and pride that was profoundly racist. So profoundly racist, that when people say 'southern culture' racism is one of the first things that will pop to mind. The flag is inextricably tied to that culture. So much so we can honestly point to it can call racism and racial supremacy the core value the flag was used to symbolize.

Then when racism went out of style, Southerns kept flying the flag and insisting it's not racist while citing an ambiguous and ill defined cultural heritage it's supposed to represent while not being racist. While America as a whole has a long racist history, the South in particular is special in this regard and part of that special history of racism is the Confederate flag.

Its not the same thing.

 LordofHats wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:
T

Regardless... the smug way you people talk about the confederate battle flag, is soooo hypocritical because you probably wave the Stars and Stripes, not realizing that for almost the first 100 years that flag represented legal slavery, and even after emancipation, it also represented the massacre of the Native American, and the oppression of the African American.

Hypocrites!!

GG

The US Flag gets waved by racists and bigots plenty and Americans like to ignore the darker side of US history, but acting like that makes people hypocrites is a little bent. The Stars and Stripes is used to invoke a unifying national spirit of equality, liberty, and democracy. What that means specifically will vary, but it's a much broader symbol in America than the Confefdrate battle flag, which for over a century was consistently used to invoke a South culture and pride that was profoundly racist. So profoundly racist, that when people say 'southern culture' racism is one of the first things that will pop to mind. The flag is inextricably tied to that culture. So much so we can honestly point to it can call racism and racial supremacy the core value the flag was used to symbolize.

Then when racism went out of style, Southerns kept flying the flag and insisting it's not racist while citing an ambiguous and ill defined cultural heritage it's supposed to represent while not being racist. While America as a whole has a long racist history, the South in particular is special in this regard and part of that special history of racism is the Confederate flag.

Its not the same thing.

Again..thats quite hypocritical to judge peoples intent as to why they fly a flag. Maybe I want to celebrate my Ancestor who fought to defend his homeland..you have no right to judge someone, when you might fly the stars and stripes knowing the oppression that that flag represents to much of the world.

GG

The Stars and Stripes also was the banner of men that bled and died to free the tyranny of an entire people, so I call bs.

They did it again in WWI

and WWII.

And Korea.

 generalgrog wrote:
Maybe I want to celebrate my Ancestor who fought to defend his homeland..

Yeah... And as a byproduct he was fighting to defend slavery. After the civil war it was flown by racists and in support of racism. You can plead ignorance to that and try to change historical fact, but it's the truth. People will judge you by what they see.

You have a right to fly the flag as much as others have the right to question why you would chose to.

Stars and Stripes is the flag of a nation that did bad gak but tries to better itself and make up for it.

The Southern Cross was literally a flag used for the cause to keep slavery, it had no other things to add to it. It didn't have the time to mature into a symbol like the Stars and Stripes before it was taken out. And then it couldn't mature because the people that kept using it were mostly evil, forever keeping it a tarnished symbol.

Whoa....Southern Cross....Robotech... WTH....

Slavery probably wouldn't have lasted much longer in the south, certainly not past the 19th century.

My point...don't judge someone when you have your own issues.

GG

Then stop judging gays, thanks.

 Frazzled wrote:
The Stars and Stripes also was the banner of men that bled and died to free the tyranny of an entire people, so I call bs.

They did it again in WWI

and WWII.

And Korea.

Yes and many of those soldiers were descendents of southerners, who you decry as traitors, so in your eyes they are the sons and grandsons of traitors.

So hypocritical.

GG


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Then stop judging gays, thanks.

OMG!!!

wow...just wow.

GG


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Whoa....Southern Cross....Robotech... WTH....

Yeah I kind of thought that as well. Never heard of the "southern cross flag". Allays heard it called the confederate battle flag.

GG

The southern flag will always be the symbol of racist rednecks. Tell me there is "southern pride" when idiots in Indiana fly the thing...

Dude, if you're so desperate to label everyone else as hypocrites, when you practice it as a matter of course expect to have it pointed out.

 generalgrog wrote:
Slavery probably wouldn't have lasted much longer in the south, certainly not past the 19th century.

Yeah, which isn't really relevant to what people thought in 1860.

My point...don't judge someone when you have your own issues.

No, you're point is that you want to act with disregard to any thoughts other than your own and never be called to task on it.

Hint; if your so upset that other people might assume you're a racist, then maybe flying the Confederate Flag isn't the thing you should be doing. If you decide it has special meaning to you and you want to fly it anyway, go ahead that's your right. It's everyone else right to have their opinion on that action.

Anyone object to the Confederate Battle Standard used by Confederate Civil War Reenacter's?

 d-usa wrote:

Heck, it was work that was being done by 10 year olds!

And let's not forget that Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Further the Swastika is also a common symbol in Nordic Pagan Religions prior to the coming of Christianity and was used as a charm for protection in battle by invoking Thor.

The swastika was a common symbol, with various meanings, in many cultures. That's why it became so popular as a charm in the years leading up to WWII, and why Hitler decided to feature it in Nazi regalia.

 Jihadin wrote:
Anyone object to the Confederate Battle Standard used by Confederate Civil War Reenacter's?

Someone would need to be pretty dense to associate someone reenacting events as supporting those events. When someone is a reenactor, we associate the symbols they wear as something done to maintain their authenticity, not something they do because they automatically agree with what those symbols mean.

There were some SS reenactors at AHEC for Memorial Day and they had a sweet program, not just because they talked about their guns and gear but because they talked about what the SS did in WWII. They didn't hide from who they were acting out.

Of course, sometimes even those guys might not make the best decisions...

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2014/03/gasthofs_nazi_photo_gasthof_zur_gemutlichkeit.php

 d-usa wrote:
Of course, sometimes even those guys might not make the best decisions...

http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2014/03/gasthofs_nazi_photo_gasthof_zur_gemutlichkeit.php

This is also true

One scene I would consider to reenact. Once a year

 dogma wrote:


The swastika was a common symbol, with various meanings, in many cultures. That's why it became so popular as a charm in the years leading up to WWII, and why Hitler decided to feature it in Nazi regalia.

Yes this is so true. One of the heroes of WWI Raul Lufberry who was a member of the Lafayette Escadrille, and eventually the 94th Aero squadron, decorated his Spad VII aircraft with a personalized swastika. He did this because before the war, he had traveled extensively throughout the world and was intrigued by the Hindu symbol for Luck. This was before the NAZIS, and Lufberry was an American.
If some uninformed hyper sensitive person saw that plane today an saw the swastikas they might think it was some tribute to the NAZIS when it had nothing to do with it.

Point being that just because someone uses a symbol for personal reasons, doesn't mean that they attribute the same symbology that you might.

For the record, I don't own a confederate battle flag, and never have. I also flew the stars and stripes proudly to support the world cup team, when I was in Canada a few weeks ago.

The political correctness craze is out of control.

GG

 generalgrog wrote:

 dogma wrote:


The swastika was a common symbol, with various meanings, in many cultures. That's why it became so popular as a charm in the years leading up to WWII, and why Hitler decided to feature it in Nazi regalia.

Yes this is so true. One of the heroes of WWI Raul Lufberry who was a member of the Lafayette Escadrille, and eventually the 94th Aero squadron, decorated his Spad VII aircraft with a personalized swastika. He did this because before the war, he had traveled extensively throughout the world and was intrigued by the Hindu symbol for Luck. This was before the NAZIS, and Lufberry was an American.
If some uninformed hyper sensitive person saw that plane today an saw the swastikas they might think it was some tribute to the NAZIS when it had nothing to do with it.

Point being that just because someone uses a symbol for personal reasons, doesn't mean that they attribute the same symbology that you might.

No, the point is that when he did that the symbol didn't have the connotations that it latter acquired when the Nazis adopted it. If he had painted a swastika on his plane during or after WWII he would probably face a court martial!

You have a right to fly the flag as much as others have the right to question why you would chose to.

Agreed. This is the US. He has theat right. He wouldn't have been able to had the CSA won...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Anyone object to the Confederate Battle Standard used by Confederate Civil War Reenacter's?

Nope not at all. I only object when the re-enactors are so fat they look like they are about to have a heart attack.

Thats a historical context.
I don't have a problem with people taking pride in their family, or their state, or having an interest in the ACW because we often seem fascinated by old wars, or even having an IG list modeled all in butternut... Further, no one alive has anything to do with the actual CSA or slavery. But this War of Northern Aggression crap is just that, crap.

 generalgrog wrote:

Point being that just because someone uses a symbol for personal reasons, doesn't mean that they attribute the same symbology that you might.

If it was a symbol with another meaning which was taken and repurposed later, you might have a point... but you don't.

*It was explicitly designed as symbolism of the "white masters" dominion over his slaves and pushing south to expand slavery into south america.
*It was not used prominently in the civil war which means a large number of people who are honoring their ancestors for 'southern pride' probably means their ancestors never even fought for or even *SAW* that flag during their heroic soldier career and probably fought and died for "stars and Bars".
*The only reason it even *exists* in today's modern world is because racists used it to opposed integration of schools by taking down the american flag and replacing it with the southern cross...

It never represented the confederate south as a whole, it never represented southern heritage, your ancestors never fought and died for that particular flag because people don't fight for battle standards. They fought for 'Stars and Bars'. It has no other meaning. It never did. To attribute other meaning to it afterwards is ignorance, and you get to be judged on your free speech. Prepare to be seen either as an ignorant person who knows nothing about history or their own family or a raging racist bigot, or both if you claim to think it can possibly mean 'southern pride'.

squidhills wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


Or, yknow, developing a means to power industrial machinery and processes without a system of fast-flowing rivers to turn mills, or navigable waters through which they could ship goods, or finding largely non-existent coal/iron ore/other deposits nearby, or developing an effective and cost-efficient means of transporting said natural resources south from the northern states where they were mostly concentrated...

The westernmost portions of Virginia had abundant coal, which could be used for industrial power and other applications. The South had resources apart from slaves and cotton, they just weren't interested in utilizing them effectively. They had no standardized guage for railway tracks in the South, which made it a bear to transport anything via any means that werent the Mississippi or a horse cart. That's not the North's fault. The South could have industrialized. It chose not to, for economic reasons. Industrialization would have cost money and the money the South had was tied up in agrarian pursuits. It is telling that, when Virginia secceeded in favor of slavery, the portion of the state that had nothing at all to do with slavery decided to secceed from Virginia and stay with the Union.

The westernmost portions of Virginia... as in West Virginia? The section of the state that seceded from Virginia to form a new state? Aside from oil fields in Texas (a technology that wasn't really developed yet mind you), in general the South didn't have significant deposits of anything that could be used at the time, either due to being inaccessible or not yet having been developed.

In 1861 it wouldn't have mattered. In 1820, it would have. If the South hadn't been so focused on expanding slavery, it could've worked to stymie the legislation that would have impacted it economically and prevented the North from abusing its power. They also could have tried to industrialize more, since not being married to slavery would have allowed some of the money in the economy to go to pursuits that weren't strictly agrarian in nature. As for 2 Senators per state... that's exactly how many each state has now, and nothing gets done at all in Congress. I'm sure the South could've found a way to gridlock Congress as effectively as the political parties have today.

As a matter of fact there was a lot of gridlock in Congress at the time, but politicians back then at least had more honor than they do now and were above intentionally sandbagging to screw over the opposition. Also, the South was actually more politically influential than the North until somewhere around the 1830s or 40s. Up until Lincoln American Presidents were predominantly Southern (primarily from Virginia), as were many of the politicians sitting in the topmost offices of the federal government. It wasn't until the 30s or the 40s that you started to see increasing numbers of northerners becoming President/occupying those higher postings.

There is a lot of hypocrisy going around in this thread. Casting stones at the southerners who fought for what they thought was their country, no matter what the rich politicians caused it. I certainly will stipulate that many poor southerners were pro slavery, but many were pro state rights, and pro "protect my farm and family" from northern aggression.

Regardless... the smug way you people talk about the confederate battle flag, is soooo hypocritical because you probably wave the Stars and Stripes, not realizing that for almost the first 100 years that flag represented legal slavery, and even after emancipation, it also represented the massacre of the Native American, and the oppression of the African American.

Hypocrites!!


GG

You're right, but that doesn't really bother me, especially since I'm first generation American and my ancestors weren't involved in any of that ;P

The US Flag gets waved by racists and bigots plenty and Americans like to ignore the darker side of US history, but acting like that makes people hypocrites is a little bent. The Stars and Stripes is used to invoke a unifying national spirit of equality, liberty, and democracy. What that means specifically will vary, but it's a much broader symbol in America than the Confefdrate battle flag, which for over a century was consistently used to invoke a South culture and pride that was profoundly racist. So profoundly racist, that when people say 'southern culture' racism is one of the first things that will pop to mind. The flag is inextricably tied to that culture. So much so we can honestly point to it can call racism and racial supremacy the core value the flag was used to symbolize.

Then when racism went out of style, Southerns kept flying the flag and insisting it's not racist while citing an ambiguous and ill defined cultural heritage it's supposed to represent while not being racist. While America as a whole has a long racist history, the South in particular is special in this regard and part of that special history of racism is the Confederate flag.

Its not the same thing.

Also pretty much this. For the most part, even after the fall of 'ol Dixie, it was southerners and southern politicians that propagated a culture of hate in this country. The norths hands aren't clean in the matter by any means, but the South is where it was most prominent.

Again..thats quite hypocritical to judge peoples intent as to why they fly a flag. Maybe I want to celebrate my Ancestor who fought to defend his homeland..you have no right to judge someone, when you might fly the stars and stripes knowing the oppression that that flag represents to much of the world.

GG

His 'homeland'? Excuse me, but unless your ancestor was born between 1861 and 1865 (in which case he would have been too young to fight), or prior to 1787 (in which case he would havea been too old) your ancestors homeland was the United States of America and the appropriate flag to fly is the Stars and Stripes. Also your ancestor didn't fight to defend his homeland, he turned against it and fought to separate from it. Of course you could take a more technically correct view and say that his homeland was whichever one of the southern states he was born/lived in (as at the time state governments were more relevant and the US was more a union of nations than it was a single nation), in which case the appropriate flag to fly would be the relevant state flag, not the Stars & Bars. Of course you could argue that some of the state flags are Confederate designs... except they weren't at the time your ancestor was likely born.

The Southern Cross was literally a flag used for the cause to keep slavery, it had no other things to add to it. It didn't have the time to mature into a symbol like the Stars and Stripes before it was taken out. And then it couldn't mature because the people that kept using it were mostly evil, forever keeping it a tarnished symbol.

Thats slightly unfair, I think the Confederates had a worthwhile argument in regards to the whole 'States Rights' thing, something that is still an issue in this country to this day. That being said, slavery was most definitely not an issue of states rights.

If it was a symbol with another meaning which was taken and repurposed later, you might have a point... but you don't.

*It was explicitly designed as symbolism of the "white masters" dominion over his slaves and pushing south to expand slavery into south america.
*It was not used prominently in the civil war which means a large number of people who are honoring their ancestors for 'southern pride' probably means their ancestors never even fought for or even *SAW* that flag during their heroic soldier career and probably fought and died for "stars and Bars".
*The only reason it even *exists* in today's modern world is because racists used it to opposed integration of schools by taking down the american flag and replacing it with the southern cross...

It never represented the confederate south as a whole, it never represented southern heritage, your ancestors never fought and died for that particular flag because people don't fight for battle standards. They fought for 'Stars and Bars'. It has no other meaning. It never did. To attribute other meaning to it afterwards is ignorance, and you get to be judged on your free speech. Prepare to be seen either as an ignorant person who knows nothing about history or their own family or a raging racist bigot, or both if you claim to think it can possibly mean 'southern pride'.

All of this is accurate. The Southern Cross was used specifically because standards were a means of command and control in battle and it looked sufficiently different from Union Standards so as to not become confusing. The actual flags (Stars and Bars, Stainless Banner, and Blood Stained Banner) used by the Confederate States as 'symbols' weren't really widely adopted, aren't really used today by anyone, and in some instances had specific racist connotations inherent to their design (specifically the stainless and blood stained banners).

That being said, slavery was most definitely not an issue of states rights.

The problem with the State's Rights argument isn't that slavery wasn't a state right, but rather that the state right debate as the South and the North saw it was one that heavily revolved around the institution. The South supported the right of a state to decide if it was slave or free but so did the North. The silly thing in it all is that that the debate over the territories was one where the states were arguing over some really stupid things.

Does a slave stay a slave if their owner moves themselves and the slaves to a non-slave state? This question is supposedly answered by the Constitution and common practice that the answer was yes, but Free Soilers in the North were always afraid that the super rich plantation owners (who weren't really that rich) were going to move into the territories, buy all the land, and work it with slaves. So they tried to make it so that non-slave states wouldn't allow any slaves at all. To an extent this made a bit of sense as if a state was a non-slave state, then it violated the State's right to be free of slaves if slave owners could just move in and have a bunch of slaves. On the other hand it was stupid, because the chances of that actually happening were pretty low. The South viewed the issue differently. They thought that by not allowing slaves the non-slave states were violating the rights of those who lived in the slave states. You could say the North defined a 'collectivist' states right while the South defined an 'individualist' states right.

This fueled the Southern fear that abolition was right around the corner. It wasn't. But the South had built up a very irrational mindset about Abolition and the Federal Government. They'd convinced themselves that if the Democratic Party lost its key hold on Federal power that the North would eventually free all the slaves (really, this was probably true, but it wasn't going to happen in 1860 or any time immediately afterwards). Anti-slavery and Free Soilers were key to the Republican coalition that was swept into the Federal Government in 1860, and the South had always mistakenly associated that Free Soilers were Abolitionists who wanted to ban slaves from new states and territories and that if anyone entered said states and territories that their slaves would be taken away without compensation, something no one anywhere intended to do.

The Southern and Slave leaning Democratic party throughout the 20's, 30's, and 40's pushed a lot of violations of States Rights to ensure the security of the Curious Institution. The Fugitive Slave Act was a major factor in said debate and one that made the South's later crying about the big mean federal government infringing on state's rights rather comical. The Southern States from 1820 to 1850 spent a lot of their time expanding Federal power, trying to use their dominance in Federal politics to protect slavery. They then threw a temper tantrum when all that Federal Power they built ended up in someone elses hands.

So was the Civil War about State's Rights? Yeah sort of, but those States Rights were very heavily about Slavery. The commonly sited tariffs debate had long been settled in favor of the South when they repealed the 1832 Tariffs piece by piece over the next decade (and even then, most people in US government include Andrew Jackson recognized the Tariff debate as only pretext for conflict rooted in the larger slavery debate).

chaos0xomega wrote:


The westernmost portions of Virginia... as in West Virginia? The section of the state that seceded from Virginia to form a new state? Aside from oil fields in Texas (a technology that wasn't really developed yet mind you), in general the South didn't have significant deposits of anything that could be used at the time, either due to being inaccessible or not yet having been developed.

Yes, West By God Virginia. It had coal. Lots of it. The South, in general, hadn't exploited or developed it enough to industrialize itself prior to the war. My point is that they could have done so, if they weren't married to an agrarian economy because of the institution of slavery. Could the South have used the coal in WV to industrialize in 1861? Of course not. Could they have done it in 1830? Yeah, there's no real reason why they couldn't. But they chose not to. One theory for why that was that I've heard is that the plantation owners saw themselves as directly mirroring a romanticized image of the old European feudal estates, and that they felt better than the North becuase they were a sort of American "aristocracy". Mining and factory building were not "aristocratic" pursuits, so industrialization was not a priority for the South. I'm not sure I totally agree with that theory, but it does explain some of the characatures of pre-war Southerners I've seen.

chaos0xomega wrote:

As a matter of fact there was a lot of gridlock in Congress at the time, but politicians back then at least had more honor than they do now and were above intentionally sandbagging to screw over the opposition. Also, the South was actually more politically influential than the North until somewhere around the 1830s or 40s. Up until Lincoln American Presidents were predominantly Southern (primarily from Virginia), as were many of the politicians sitting in the topmost offices of the federal government. It wasn't until the 30s or the 40s that you started to see increasing numbers of northerners becoming President/occupying those higher postings.

So if the South had so much power in government, then how did the North get all these evil, oppressive policies through that hurt the South? Was it because they were so "honorable" that they couldn't bear to stop the North from oppressing them, or were they just bad at their jobs?

squidhills wrote:


Yes, West By God Virginia. It had coal. Lots of it. The South, in general, hadn't exploited or developed it enough to industrialize itself prior to the war. My point is that they could have done so, if they weren't married to an agrarian economy because of the institution of slavery. Could the South have used the coal in WV to industrialize in 1861? Of course not. Could they have done it in 1830? Yeah, there's no real reason why they couldn't. But they chose not to. One theory for why that was that I've heard is that the plantation owners saw themselves as directly mirroring a romanticized image of the old European feudal estates, and that they felt better than the North becuase they were a sort of American "aristocracy". Mining and factory building were not "aristocratic" pursuits, so industrialization was not a priority for the South. I'm not sure I totally agree with that theory, but it does explain some of the characatures of pre-war Southerners I've seen.

Another reason the Southern coal resources weren't as developed is because coal in PA was sooooo much easier to get. The Susquehanna River valley offers a very geologically advantageous network for transporting resources, and the coal there was easier to access (and thus discovered sooner, coal in WV wasn't known till after the war, and in Alabama and Arkansas unknown till the 1840's). When railroads came in, it became simple for industrialists to focus on the PA coal resources and improve that industry, meaning that the bulk of US coal production ended up happening in the North, not the South.

I would also not agree with that theory (it's been patently disproven). The real issue is the availability of capital. Did Southerners have a lot of wealth? Hell yeah. They had a lot of wealth. Problem? That wealth was mostly tied up in land and slaves. The vast majority of southern plantations were not the spanning luxury mansions we think of today (many of those were really built after the Civil War). Southerns had little spendable cash, and thus could not invest in industry as easily as Northerners could. There were attempts of course. In the 1840's Georgia enjoyed a boom in textile production but a cotton crash later in the decade destroyed it all.

So if the South had so much power in government, then how did the North get all these evil, oppressive policies through that hurt the South?

They didn't. The idea that the South was being oppressed by the North and driven to rebellion is a nice piece of historical fiction produced in more modern times. If anything, the South was using government power to protect slavery and expanded the Federal government towards that end, most policies favoring them over the North.

EDIT: To expand on this, when the Civil Rights debate was reaching a head during the 40's and 50's, the US encountered... a rather heavy period of historical revisionism, including that of the Civil War. This revisionism presented the South in more sympathetic terms, positing that the Southern states were being oppressed by Northern political coalitions. This remained a dominant view among many historians till the Social History movement of the 1960's and 1970's. However much of the US education system is still teaching a very 1950's history of the world.

Our text books kind of lag behind the latest research... by a lot.

 generalgrog wrote:
There is a lot of hypocrisy going around in this thread. Casting stones at the southerners who fought for what they thought was their country, no matter what the rich politicians caused it. I certainly will stipulate that many poor southerners were pro slavery, but many were pro state rights, and pro "protect my farm and family" from northern aggression.
GG

"Northern Agression"? Northern aggression?

I get so sick of having to tell people this. The. South. Fired. First.

The South.

Fired.

FIRST!

It is not a war of Northern agression when you start it by firing on a Northern militiary installation. The fact of the matter is that the South wanted that war a lot more than the North. Probably because people in the North realized that if they won the war, they would have to end slavery as a byproduct (the war was about slavery, everyone then knew it and most admitted it). There's no point in fighting a war caused by the argument over slavery if you aren't going to settle the argument once the war is over. The North knew that victory meant emancipation long before Lincoln did. And the Abolitionist movement was not as powerful in the North as a lot of people like to think. Pleanty of Northerners did not want to end slavery, because they feared social changes if that should happen (basically, they were afraid of a mass-migration of freed blacks into the North). The South wanted to fight the North so that they could prove their superiority (and, by extension, the superiority of slavery). Nobody who joined the Confederate army after the shelling of Fort Sumter was in the right. You can argue that those who joined prior to the shelling we doing so to defend against potential Northern aggression, but anyone who signed up after wasn't going to be defending against Northern aggression, they would be defending against Yankee retribution for the South's act of war.

The South started it. They picked a fight they couldn't win and got the tar beat out of them for it. Then they spent the next 100+ years blaming the North for starting it. They aren't just racists, they are also sore losers.