BS: Party of Lincoln

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:42 PM

...the 'right' to exploit other people for their own economic gain.

Surely that wasn't a point of difference between the two sides? There were two different ideas about how exploitation ought to be done, with the chattel slavery one being even nastier than the other.

I think only one side thought of it as a right.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 06:47 PM

Tread lightly on the graves of those who fought valiantly for their beliefs.

Like the Nazis, for instance?

Gimmie a fu$king break. The South fought valiently for the belief in white supremacy and that chattel slavery was a positive good.

Thios is nothing that should be revered or celebrated.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:02 PM

They also fought gallantly for self-determination, which is a worthy cause per se.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:13 PM

Self determination??? Well, yeah... They wanted stuff to stay just they wanted it to stay... Meaning, slavery...

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 08:35 PM

Greg F.,

No one here is celebrating belief in white supremacy. Quite the contrary.

In the 19th Century, belief in white supremacy was not a point about which the North and the South disagreed. Most whites everywhere assumed white supremacy.

In the 20th Century, the North and the South diverged on white supremacy; the North got that particular point right sooner than the South did.   

Recent elections show that, in the 21st Century, the North and the South are again reaching agreement on this issue, and they are both getting it right this time. That is what I am celebrating and, I trust, what we all are celebrating.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 09:00 PM

In the 20th Century, the North and the South diverged on white supremacy...

Not quite. There were substantial nummbers, north and south, who "diverged" in the mid 19th Century.

The idea that there were no abolitionists in the South or Unionists in the South is a fallacy of the first order.

See Hinton Rowan Helper, et. al.

The South was NOT monolithic in its support for secession.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 10:57 PM

Hmmmmmmm, Kent...

If I understand what you are saying is that the North is rejoining the South in terms of white people thinking they are the superior race???

Yes, no??? That yer intent??? Seems to be the assertion in celebrating the fact that folks in the North are now in agreement with Redneck Nation??? No??? Sure sounds like what you are sayin'...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Nov 10 - 11:11 PM

No Bobert, I think he is saying that the election of a couple of black Tea Baggers means racism is going away.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Slag
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 03:01 AM

Thanks for making my point Sailing Jack! You have espoused the Northern point of view. Because the North won I did not feel I had to explain simple truths to simple folk. This is what a vast majority of Americans know, understand and believe, including myself. There are a few knotheads of the other persuassion who will not give it up for anything, the white supremacists and their ilk. Do yourself a favor and quit trying to make me out a racist. I'm not and you are missing my point.

I AM saying that had YOU lived in the South at this time, the supremacy of the white race would have been the "given" and by all odds, you would have held those views, same as your peers. You would have sneered at abolitionists the same as you are sneering at me. True, the abolition movement was farther along and growing while today white supremacy seems to be headed out but it was still a hot topic of debate, antebellum. Some folks like to point to England's earlier accomplishment of abolishing slavery on their shores but I would argue that it was much easier for a nation who's big problem was exporting "surplus population" and who had a much greater labor pool to exploit than it was for the South to do without slave-labor. This is time and circumstances. As late as around 1899 Rudyard Kipling penned "The Whiteman's Burden". They may have ended "slavery" per se, but they still had a discrimination problem of their own.

Some of you guys like to try to paint folks you may disagree with as racist but you are really trying to wedge apart fellow Americans and unjustly, I might add. And as alwyas it is better to seek common ground and promote understanding than to be in someone's face, use smear tactics and character assassination to feel good about your cause. I could explain more about where that attitude comes from but not here and not now. If you are honest people, you will know that what I have put forth is truth. Let truth be the dividing line and not a snobbish superiority attitude. That has been my main thrust all along. What went down in the Civil War was too big in scope to have been totally percieved then by any one man or any group of men, and not as it is today perceived.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 04:22 AM

We must judge people by THEIR time, not ours.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 06:53 AM

When considering people in a different time and place we should always recognise that we have no right to feel superior, just because we are fortunate enough to live in a time and place where the views they held and the things they did are seen as wrong. We have no reason for assuming that in their circumstances we wouldn't have been just the same.

At the same time we should recognise that there were people at that time who did not go along with the prevailing racist assumptions. Going along with the majority was a choice, then as now, not an inescapable obligation.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 07:20 AM

An interesting site in which many of the issues touched on here get exhaustively chewed over.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: ollaimh
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 03:29 PM

this long lasting csa feeling astonishes me. as a canadian i can't imagine the evil and wickedness of the old south. slavery had to be wiped from the face of the earth by any means reasonable. i meet southerners who routinely seem to be ok with slavery. that appears to be a culture of racism and evil, which unlike nazi germany didn't learn much from defeat.

and the feeling of entitlement to subsidy. we get that in canada. our largest cities are tax cash cows while the rural areas are recipients of huge transfer payments. all the while the rural people think they are being ripped off by the cities. very delusional thinking.

back to slavery. davis and robert e lee and most other csa leaders were the worst of hard core racists in history. for example they ordered the execution of all balck union soldiers captured--this is historical fact--regardless of hwere they were born or if born free or slave. grant noticed that there were no black soldiers comming back from the prisoner exchanges, so he cancelled them. lee had no explaination. and this murderous racist is a hero in the south--its unbelieveable, but shows they have a culture so racist they never examine their own history.

finally lee may have been agreat american general but wouldn't even make tyhe list of great generals worldwide(sorry to the ethnocentric americans). he had no long term strategic plan on how to win the war, just local tatical approaches. you have to win a war not just hurt the enemy. and at gettysburg he was so full of hubriss that his master stroke was a FRONTAL ATTACK ON A ENTRENCHED POSITION causing twenty thousand casualities and a greatdefeat. he won tactical victories against inferior union generals untill he met one who just sat tight and didn't react to his fakeouts and manouvers and kept at the attack--grant. grant was a practical general and easily defeated lee by long term strategic planning and logistics. lee was no reall general on a world scale but did personally order the exucution of prisoners of war because of their skin colour.

a shamefull art by a man of infamy and any who extoll him ought to hang their heads in shame!!

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 03:38 PM

Slag,

I'm not making you out to be a racist. I don't know you. I didn't live in the south then, but I do now and have for most of the past 12 years. Here is some news! The emergence teabagger, black Congressmen has not eliminated racism from the South. In fact many still proudly display racist symbols and slogans in the back windows of their trucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 09:33 PM

Greg F,
White supremacy is an issue. Abolition is a different issue. Secession is a third issue. The war was fought over the third issue. I said nothing about either the second or the third issue. I addressed only the first.

Jack the Sailor,
When I said that these elections represent "another big step toward post-racial politics", I meant that these elections represent another big step toward post-racial politics.

Bobert,
As you well know, I did not say anything even remotely like "the North is rejoining the South in terms of white people thinking they are the superior race". In fact, I said the exact opposite, that the SOUTH is joining the NORTH in terms of white people realizing that they are NOT a superior race. That is well worth celebrating. From the biographical bits I have gleaned from your posts, you have personally been working toward the goal of a post-racial America for decades. The goal is not yet achieved, but we are slowly getting closer. Getting closer is worth celebrating.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 09:48 PM

I don't think it is a big step any more than I think Christine O'Donnell did the women's movement any great benefit.

I don't think anything about the Tea Party is worthy of celebrating and I don't think they have anything to do with Lincoln.

That is just my opinion though.

And the Civil war was about succession over slavery. Everyone know that. White supremacy, slavery, abolition, succession and the Civil War were all one issue in that all were completely intertwined. They were all strands in one cable.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 09:58 PM

The war was fought over the third issue.

The North went to war to stop the South seceding, true enough.

But the reason the South tried to secede was to preserve slavery, which it (wrongly) thought was under threat.

Basically it was, in a sense, a misunderstanding.

I think it likely that if the South had been allowed to secede, slavery would have been ended within a generation, as happened in Brazil, and the outcome could well have been a country with a prevailing attitude towards race more akin to Brazil than to the post-civil-war South.

Who knows? It's all airy speculation, with no answers. Nothing worth getting excited about at this distance of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 10:15 PM

Neither Robert E. Lee nor Jefferson Davis ordered the execution of black union troops... Might of fact, until the Battle for Petersburg there weren't all that many black union troop involved in the war in a fighting capacity and if ya' remember, Petersburg was right there toward the end of the war... So I don't buy that... Decisions are made that have far reaching effects... The entire war was terribly messed up... Lincoln was trigger happy... Jeff Davis was, too... That ain't great leadership... That is failed leadership... Guess folks thought it was a bigass hardi-har-har joke until 1st Manassas... Great leaders don't allow that shit to happen... Lincoln is equally guilty... I mean, I'm Southern born, educated and raised but other than enjoyin' the view of the James River from where Jefferson Davis's body lies in Hollywood Cemetery, I ain't got no use fir him neither...

As for generals??? No, Lee wasn't all that great... Nor was McClellan...

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson??? Maybe... Sho nuff knew his way around the Virginia mountains and valleys...

I mean, the Civil (which it wasn't) War was a fucked up mess on both sides... Slavery had to go but not that way...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Slag
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 11:01 PM

Good point Jack the Sailor. There is still a resvoir of racial resentment and thinly cloaked intolerence in parts of the south I have been to. Little things are sometimes said with a wink like YOU are in on the real attitude toward black folk. I never winked back.

Had the North been more fair minded and less rapacious during the Reconstruction I believe much of the resentment would have died away by now. That's another one of those endless speculations though. What happened IS what happened and the work goes on from where we are now.

olliamh, the US Civil War is one of the most studied wars of all times and analyses of the same has been required learning for West Point officers, if I remember correctly. It was a transition from the European style used by Napoleon and others into true modern warfare. Again, you have the wonderful advantage of being 150 and some odd years removed. Thank you for your superior military insights. As for Robert E. Lee, he was a much respected military man on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. He was also reluctant to enter the war and this is well documented.

Also let me ask you if you are as adamant about the slavery that goes on today in this country and around the world. Are YOU ready to fight against it? You sound as though you are and there is a crying need for those who will take on the issue.

Slavery in one form or another has been around since longer than history and has been practiced in every culture at one time or another. It was often a means of survival and people on the outs desired to be slaves rather than to strave to death or worse. Certain Romans slaves held high offices and conducted the business of their masters faithfully and were members of the household. Some Southern slave owners sought to do right by those they owned and faced a hostile opposition by members of their own community and family. Some worked to get slaves out of the south. They were good people who were part of the culture in which they were born. Needless to say, I never met General Lee and I certainly do not know what was in his heart beyond his own words.

Up to World War One, the Civil War was the greatest conflict of all times. I'm drawing on memory now but i believe that it involve four times the number of troops all told of the Napoleonic Wars. Those who participated, those who conducted the war had never been through such a thing and they were constantly breaking new ground.

You bring up an interesting issue, especially seeing that blacks fought on both sides too. As stated elsewhere, the economy of the South was slavery dependent and slaves escaping to the North was a tremedous determent as lincoln knew it would be when he issued the Emancipation Declaration. It was a war tactic. Was it right? No. Not much is right about wars. It's mass murder on an almost unimaginable scale. The thing about wars is that once begun it involves everyone to some degree because at that point, the point of war, you are fighting for your very lives as well as for the lives of all those at home. The shame be upon those who push for war and not negotiation.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 05 Nov 10 - 11:51 PM

McGrath of Harlow and Bobert,

From what I've read, I would agree with you both that the so-called "Civil War" was a mess and a misunderstanding. Though the slaves were freed, the cost in lives, in injuries, and in lingering bitterness was immense. It is speculation, of course, but I would also guess that the war was avoidable and that, as in Brazil, the slaves would have been freed anyway.

Jack the Sailor,

Slavery and white supremacy and secession are related issues, but they are not the same issue. There were, for example, non-whites who owned slaves. There were small farmers who were white supremacists, but who opposed slavery as unfair competition. Some people opposed slavery as cruel and degrading, but still thought that whites were superior. The slave states were divided on secession. Maryland, Kentucky, and Deleware didn't secede. Missouri and eastern Tennessee were bitterly divided. The northwestern part of Virginia seceded from Virginia after Virginia seceded from the U.S. It was a mess.

However, four things are clear:

1) Had there been no secession, there would have been no war,
2) Had Lincoln and the gang not opposed secession by force of arms, there would have been no war,
3) Lincoln et al rallied the North to fight "for the Union", not to fight for racial equality, and
4) Although the war started in 1861, the Union waited until January 1, 1863, to proclaim that slaves in the C.S.A. were free, and waited until the war was OVER before freeing (on December 18, 1865) slaves in the UNION.   

Hence, it seems clear that the war was not fought over white supremacy, nor was slavery the direct cause of the war. Slavery was a huge issue, but the issue about which the bullets actually flew was secession.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Slag
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 03:19 AM

Thanks for the facts Kent. I have to admit I am more than a little rusty on my Civil War history. It has been many years since I gave it a study. I also remember reading a couple of books on Lee but I could not tell you the titles today. I do remeber that Lee was a West Point honor graduate. At some point in the conflict between France and Mexico he lead an expeditionary force south of the border. I also recall that the entire nation watched to see what he would do as the war approached. He was considered the most prominent General in the nation and he did not immediately decide for the South.

Nothing is ever as cut and dried as we tend to think. Uncle Tom's Cabin gave one picture of slavery in the US that had world wide circulation and was a great shaper of folks' hearts and souls everywhere and the story was largely true. It was related to Stowe by runaway slave girl who's account of events had no reason for embellishment, only that it happened. But other slave holders had pity on the folks who were snatched from their homes and transported across the sea. Some risked life and limb to teach the slaves to read. In some places that was a crime punishable by death. When you understand that you begin to see that opposing slavery or refusing to use slaves could be a high risk proposition for white folks.

My maternal grandmother was from Arkansas and Grandfather was from Washington, the state. Mom told me that every so often they'd get into it and refight the Civil War all over. They were born too late to have any but their parents' distant memories of the conflict but it is amazing how feelings had continued to run high over the complex issues.

My Great Grand Father was an officer in the Confederate Army, a cavalry man and a slave owner of some wealth, at least at the onset. He did not approve of slavery but there you have it! After the war he moved his family to Pike Co. in Oklahoma Indian Territory and began to farm there. Most of his slaves stayed with him though he had freed them all. This is all from the pen of my Grandfather born in the 1880's and of that time some of the former slaves were still with them helping work the farm. In fact he, my Grandfather, was wetnursed by one of them. From what little remains from his hand I gather they were good to their people and for that I am greatful as it would have otherwise been more of a taint upon my family. On that side of my family the record runs back to before the Revolution and there was always slave ownership, I presume, as a last will and testament from ten generations back leaves slaves (5) to first son. I have no way of knowing how they were treated other than they were slaves.

And how does that affect me? That was then and this is now. If all were known to you what would you do different? Not a whole lot you can do about the past.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 08:11 AM

It should also me noted here that the abolitionists movement had been in full swing for a generation when the War Between the States began... I have argued in the past that it was just a mmatter of time and politics before it would have ended...

(Of course, people say, "Prove it" which is not at all fair because that is impossible no matter how much one understands the history...)

But here's the scenario... The results of the unCivil War were so long lasting that we still fell them today... I wonder if slavery had ended without the war whether or not that would be the case... I mean, when you look at not only the crushing defeat of the South and it's consequences both long term and short term this was beyond crushing, it was devastating to the South...

Lets review:

1. The war took out the South's brightest and it's best... People forget that then South prided itself on having a class of very well read and educated people... These folks were the first to enlist as they thought the conflict would be over in a matter of a couple weeks or months... Those losses led to the South having to rebuild without it's best educated...

2. The Reconstruction/Occupation of the South until after the Hayes-Tilden deal in 1876 was like having one kick sand in yer face every day for years... This left Southerners as doubly humiliated...

3. During Reconstruction/Occupation Southern blacks were, thanks to the Union occupation, able to to assume positions of authority in the South which further infuriated the Southerners...

4. After the Union pulled out in '76 there was really no interim control leaving the remaining white Southerners free to extract whatever revenge/retaliation on the freed slaves beginning an 80 year period of Jim Crow terrorism... This in itself proved to be almost as damaging to the well being of the nation as the war itself... Jim Crow wasn't officially dealt with by the "union" until the 1960s, folks, and there are still people alive, me included, who were part of that struggle to try to get Jim Crow in the grave but...

5. ...Jim Crow is more than hatred of blacks... It is also a hatred of federalism and it has been passed down from generation to generation and still very much part of the Southern psyche today... It explains why the Democratic Party, once the party of the South, is thought in many Southern circles to be the enemy for having pushed the Civil Rights Act...

I mean, when we look at the effects of the war on our country it is MHO that had the abolitionists movement been not short-circuited by the unCivil War that we, as a nation, would be a lot further down the road today...

BTW, I do not understand why so many folks glorify this terrible failure... I mean, it's one thing to understand the history of the war and the various battles, many which were just too many folks being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Antietam) but quite another to romanticize and glorify America's most shameful period...

Bad on both sides...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 08:56 AM

As James Joyce put it: "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 08:59 AM

Yeah, McG... That's one way of looking at it but in the words of Voltaire...

..."those who don't know history tend to repeat it"...

Lesson: Yeah, it may be a nightmare but if we learn from it we can prevent here-and-now nightmares...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 10:02 AM

But to learn from it we have to actually look at it as it happened, not as it fits in with how we'd like it to have happened. And how it happened is always messy.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 10:05 AM

Exactly, McG...

Garbage in = garbage out...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:00 AM

Kents

When I lived in Alabama, I had a couple of friends from there who explained it all to me.

The war was about Northern Aggression. (Who attacked Fort Sumter?)
The "Niggers" were the "bad" black people on welfare, not the good, hard working ones.
Flying the Confederate Battle flag should in no way offend black people or those who opposed slavery on principle because it was a celebration of a great southern tradition. (That flag was only flown officially for a few years and at best it symbolized the attempt to break up a country which southerners have fought and died for many times since.)

I told them that I respected their right to their opinions, but that I didn't share them and that most other people, especially outside the US, with no dog in that hunt, just could not follow their logic.. What else could I do? Call their Grandpa's Grandpa a liar?

I have followed the history well enough, I think. The South was not only fighting for slavery in their own territories, they were fighting for the requirement that half the new states created also had it and though there may have been a small fringe of white supremacists who were anti-slavery. They were rare exceptions. I is not fair to say that the two are separate issues.

To use your logic.

no white supremacists: No slavery
No Slavery: No succession
No succession: No War

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:10 AM

Neither Robert E. Lee nor Jefferson Davis ordered the execution of black union troops..

Sorry, Bobert, but that's a bit disingenuous. You're forgetting Fort Wagner, Fort Pillow, and a host of other cases where Black Union prisoners WERE summarily executed by Confederate troops. It was only after Lincoln made it clear that he would execute Confederate prisoners in retaliation that the practice became less than universal.

The Confederacy DID make it official policy that any Black under Union Arms was ipso facto a slave, and thus had no rights whatsoever, & thus no crime to execute a "thing". Which threy often did.

Check out that two-legged piece of excrement Nathan Bedford Forrest, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:13 AM

I said nothing about either the second or the third issue. I addressed only the first.

Correct, Kent. And in so doing, you ignored three-quarters of what the Civil War was about. You left out Slavery entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:24 AM

But other slave holders had pity on the folks who were snatched from their homes and transported across the sea. Some risked life and limb to teach the slaves to read.

Jaysus, Slag- listen to yourself. Didn't stop Kindly Ol' Massa from keeping them as property, like a chair or a hog, did it?

What did you expect Grandpa's former slaves - never having been trained to skills other than those of laborers - to do after emancipation? Get jobs teaching college to support themselves? Of course the went with "Ol Massa" to Oklahoma and farmed for wages (or did he share-crop them, perhaps?) to stay in the south "unattatched" and/or unemployed during the post Civil War era risked starvation & death.

You been watching Gone With The Wind a bit too often.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:31 AM

most other people, especially outside the US, with no dog in that hunt, just could not follow their logic[sic].

Possibly because it ISN'T logic? And that its based on myth and wishful thinking & self-delusion? No facts need apply.

What else could I do? Call their Grandpa's Grandpa a liar?

Yup. That would have been a good start.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 11:38 AM

I believe at one point in the decades before the wars one abolitionists favoured secession from the Union by the free states.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: ollaimh
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 03:13 PM

i do have a couple of degrees in history and have seen the documents of jeff davis, robert e lee and andrew jackson ordering the exucution of black union soldierprisoners of war. the fact that americans so commonly ignor the existing smoking guns shows how completely delusional they are in their understanding of themselves and their place in history. these men were war murdering genocidal war criminals and many americans know nothing and don;t want to know. its sad but its also damning about the ability of american militarists to forgive themselves for the worst crimes while cliaming a moral right in the world.

to find the documentation can be difficult. american historians routinesly ignor them, however a few are actual historians and can;t make things up the way the propogandists who often masquerade as historians down south do.

denying the obvious documented cases of exucution of black union soldier prisoners of war--and on a widespread scale --is the equivalent of nazi revisionism denying the holocoust. the ability to to so shows why americans keep voting for the people who cause their problems and expecting those people to solve the problems they caused

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 03:16 PM

r u archie the cockroach?

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 05:30 PM

Greg,

Reread what I said... Do you have a source where Lee or Davis ordered the executions??? I said that there were lots bad things that happened during the war but that Lee and Davis didn't order up the executions... If you can find a source that is credible then I'll correct what I said... But hey, rednecks are rednecks and I can sho nuff see some Southern boys hangin' black folks... Heck, didn't quit after the war neither... Might of fact, the last lynchin' happened right here in the good ol' US of A in the early 60's...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 05:47 PM

From Michael Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee (2000):

Confederate hatred for black troops spilled over most lethally on the issue of treatment of prisoners of war. In several instances, Confederate troops shot down black troops rather than accept their surrender. In the two most fully recorded cases—at Poison Springs, Arkansas, and Fort Pillow, Tennessee—several hundred blacks were slaughtered after throwing down their arms; many instances of killing of smaller groups and of black retaliation went unrecorded in official reports.

As for Lee's army, recent scholarship has described the massacre of black troops attempting to surrender at the battle of the Crater, on the Petersburg front on July 30, 1864, in which many Confederate soldiers participated. As North Carolina major Matthew Love described the scene in a letter to his mother, his regiment refused to take prisoners and 'such slaughter I have not witnessed upon any battlefield anywhere. Their men were principally negroes and we shot them down until we got near enough and then run them through with the bayonet. … We was not very particular whether we captured or killed them, the only thing we did not like to be pestered burying the heathens.' If General Lee knew of this significant incident, he did not respond to it.

(Extract lifted from here.)

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 05:48 PM

Do you have a source where Lee or Davis ordered the executions???

No,Bobert, I don't & never said that I did.

But just because Marse Robert & Jeff Davis didn't choose to put it down on paper doesn't mean that it didn't happen or wasn't policy, does it??

Plausable Deniability didn't originate with the C.I.A.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 06:12 PM

Jack the Sailor,

You said "there may have been a small fringe of white supremacists who were anti-slavery. They were rare exceptions".

I wish you were right, but in fact it was not a "small fringe" of people who supported white supremacy and who also opposed slavery. Lincoln himself was a white supremacist, and said he had never met anyone who was NOT a white supremacist.   

Below are Lincoln's own words on the subject, from the Fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate. Notice especially the last line. Read that line and then see if you don't find it inspiring that Tim Scott was elected to the U.S. House of Representives, with 66% of the vote(!), from the district that includes Fort Sumpter!!!
   
Mr. Lincoln's Speech

(September 18, 1858)


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It will be very difficult for an audience so large as this to hear distinctly what a speaker says, and consequently it is important that as profound silence be preserved as possible.   1
While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me, I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Slag
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 06:36 PM

Bobert, grab a calendar and mark this day. I am in complete agreement with your 11 AM posting! If we learned anything from the Civil War (wasn't it Lincoln himself that remarked that there was nothing civil about it?) and WWI that it is a mistake to rub a defeated enemies nose in their loss and punish the entire population for the sins of a few. Our efforts with Japan have paid enormous benefits for both countries and continue to do so. To a lesser degree the same for Germany and Italy. And yes I have heard those theories to the contrary and those to the effect that the US was secretly with them and on and on. The factual and self-evident picture is the socio-economic success of each and the better world relations. I could go on...

Yes GregF, that was the situation. The war left the fam pretty destitute. The former slaves had nowhere to go so they cast their lot with my great grandfolks. That's not to say they had no choice now. Whole communities of black folks were given government lands where they could form their own communities and not just in the south. They were in it together. I'm not seeking to justify anything. I don't have to. This is just what my people did to survive and those with them. How poor folks were after the war is almost unimaginable in this day and age. My Grandfather, in 1901 could make 50 cents a day picking cotton and that was pretty good money. My Dad recalled sitting on a cotton sack being dragged down the furrows as his Mom picked cotton and when he was old enough he worked too. All his brothers and sisters did the same. Then came the Depression.

ollaimh, a lot of folks were executed, hung, shot and badly mistreated: BOTH SIDES! Such is the nature of war and that is a real big and good reason to avoid it. So what's your point? Is that it is OK to display the seething hatred inside if you direct it at these people who, in a large sense, were victims of their times? I'm not saying they didn't contribute to the chaos or even promote it. Maybe some of them were filled with an evil hatred and the war gave them the opportunity to express their hatreds in a very violent way. Every man or woman involved were real people with hopes and dreams, plans for a future, songs unsung. They were diverted from their pursuit of happiness by events larger than they. They didn't all behave the same way, did they? How is it that you know what was in their hearts, whether individually or collectively? Do you know what shaped their minds? Are you God Almighty Himself, that you sit in judgment of these? For some, it is an easy call, I admit. There were some real sadistic psychopaths who enjoyed the killing and spreading of terror. There always is those few. So you argue this against Lee? Cite your evidence. I could claim the same for Sherman who set his face to do what he did. He knew the terror that he caused but he also believed that it was the quickest way to end the greater carnage that would have continued. I would hate to be in the position of either of these men. Talk about damned if you do and damned if you don't! And for that matter, I both pity and greatly respect Mr. Lincoln. He had a great heart and a great mind and the awful things he had to decide were decisions he knew he would have to live with for the rest of his life. None of these were perfect. Each was doing the best they could with what they had. In most ways, they were ordinary men thrust into extraordinary times and circumstances.

I do tend to agree with you, however, concerning Jeff Davis. His actions and words do speak for themselves and there are others too. It's just that rather than condemning these men which is so easy to do, I ask what is it I can learn from them? If their example is negative what can I do to avoid the same choices they made and if positive how can I build on that? Just dwelling on your own hatred does nothing good for anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 06:42 PM

I guess I don't see superior and supreme as the same word.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Nov 10 - 06:49 PM

Well, glad that is cleared up... Robert E. Lee, from all I have read about him and his life, seemed to be a decent family man who found himself in a bad situation...

And I'm not sure it was policy either other than an unwritten policy... By the time of Petersburg the Southern army was really down to the dregs in terms of troops and they were some really pissed off people... I mean, not all that smart either... Some of the tactics they used would have, in better times, had Thomas Jackson laughing on the floor... But sadly, by then there was an intense hatred that had set in... More than any kind of hatred that they thought they felt leading up to Sumpter... These were desperate times and eons beyond their successful "6 day battle" at Richmond some 3 1/2 years earlier which by then were distant memories...

I mean, it's easy to vilify and try to make demons outta everyone who fought on the Southern side but, hey, it was a fucked up war with lots of very bad and evil things happening on both sides... There was nothin' "civil" about it...

Also, toward the end of the war, with rations gone, I'm sure that what was left of the Southern army would have killed any Union troop regardless of color over capturing him...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 07:45 AM

I'm not clear what Jack meant there, apart from the obvious thing that the two words are different words.

"I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race" - that's about as clear and unambiguous statement of "white supremacy" as I can imagine.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 09:34 AM

I looked it up. MacGrath, you are right.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:23 PM

Whole communities of black folks were given government lands where they could form their own communities and not just in the south.

Slag,

Blacks *given* lands in the North after the civil War? No, I don't think so. If you can cite examples, please do so.

As far as the lands Blacks received in the South, they remained in possession only until the KKK and the "Redemptionists" drove them off, killing quite a few into the bargain. Look up the Congressional Hearings on the Klan & its activities in 1868, & later.

You're ignoring the fact that as soon as The War Between The States was over, the South launched The War Against The Blacks wch was in many ways more vicious than the prior conflict and wch lasted for just about 100 years.

And the "peace" is an uneasy one- Occasional skirmishes still break out today.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:32 PM

it's easy to vilify and try to make demons outta everyone who fought on the Southern side...By the time of Petersburg the Southern army was really down to the dregs... the Southern army would have killed any Union troop regardless of color...

You're disappointing me, Bobert- I had always thought better of you.

Plenty of atrocities were committed against Blacks long before the Siege of Petersburg. The Confederacy never condoned the massacre of White prisoners, as they did Black ones.

Nobody here, I think, myself included, is trying to "vilify everyone who fought for the South"- only to present the facts of what actually went on without recourse to subsequent "Lost Cause", "Redemptionist" and Neo-Confederate mythology, spin and invention.

On the other hand, you seem to be coming dangerously close to whitewashing and making excuses for things for which there really is no excuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 05:30 PM

Greg F.,

You asked for examples of African-Americans being given land in the North after the War. Here are a couple of sources regarding the Homestead Act, through which many African-Americans (and European-Americans) obtained land. A good portion of this land was in the North.

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0504_0100.html

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6751734_homestead-act-african-americans.html

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 05:37 PM

Its all precious. It really is, a couple of black Tea Partiers, big whoop! At last at last Republicans are no longer racist. A whopping .8% of the caucus is African American! Lincoln must be proud!

>>So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men. <<<

or is he turning in his grave??

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 05:45 PM

Sorry, Kent, inadmissible - the Homestead Act was open to all, including immigrants and resident foreigners, not a program targeted to aid freed Slaves or Blacks, to whit, from your second URL:

"The Homestead Act went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, and allowed anyone over the age of 21, or the head of any household, to own farmland... as long as they were legal U.S. citizens or planned on becoming one after legally entering the country.

Try again.

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 07:08 PM

Nah, Greg...

I'm not condoning anything that the South did, nor am I condoning anything the North did... War is not all that "honorable"... I do not glorify one minute of this war... Not from the arrogance of the Northern Republicans and Lincoln's speeches that were antagonistic, not the Buchannon's decision to fortify Sumpter which was equally arrogant, not South Carolina succeeding from the Union, not South Carolina firin' on Sumpter... None of it... It was going to be a fuy7cked up mess and that is what it was... Nuthin' more and nuthin' less...

I mean, there ain't nuthin' romantic about war in general and this one could and should have not been allowed to go forward... It was stupidity on both sides, and arrogance and people not talking with other people and it brought about the worst of human behavior on both sides... I don't apologize for anything that happened... I think Sherman burning Southern cities was wrong... I think that the North using blacks at the Battle of the Crater was wrong... I think that Andersonville was inhumane and as wrong a wrong could be...

I am not a Southern apologist here... There's enough blame to go around on both side of the Mason-Dixon line to fill a million volumes... Everyone who had some level of power messed up... Everyone lined up down party lines... No one stepped up... Lincoln didn't... Davis didn't... It was insanity at its absolute worst...

...and a completely needless war...

I mean, slavery was being outlawed all over the world in the mid 1800s and Southerners would have outlawed it as well had the war not happened... Yeah, it might have taken another 20 years but would have saved the nation, blacks and whites, so much agony...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Party of Lincoln
From: Kent Davis
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 08:30 PM

Greg F.,

Try again for what? I said, specifically, right in my post, that the Homestead Act was open to European-Americans. I never at any time said anything about any program being specific to African-Americans. I would be happy to "try again" if you wish, but what is it for which you wish me to try?

Kent