"How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy" Topic

…, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

"While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The South and West equally depended on extractive industries-cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter-giving rise a new birth of white male oligarchy, despite the guarantees provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by expansion.

To reveal why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven into the nation's fabric and identity. At the nation's founding, it was the Eastern "yeoman farmer" who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution. After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and World War II, the region's influence grew. "Movement Conservatives," led by westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology of the Confederacy…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Now THAT is an interesting perspective!

This hypothesis has nothing to do with wargaming with miniatures. It will probably generate another worthless and heated discussion in this gaming forum.

GIGO

I seem to me that it is another attempt to tie the confederacy to conservatism.

Most people in the south that lived in 1864 to 1960 did not fell that they won the war.

The movement west depended on the US Government to settle in Native American lands.

Rather than dismissing this book out of hand, here is the author being interviewed on "Impediments of War" the Civil War Talk Radio Podcast.

Mind you will will not go down well with many here since Professor Gerry Prokopowicz does not espouse the "Lost Cause" in relation to the Civil War.

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We are living in the disinformation age, up is down, left is right, victory is defeat.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

What a crock of… Let's blame Republicans for all the racism perpetrated by Democrats since 1860.

I guess "The Great Switch" of 1956-62 never took place then, eh; pzivh43?

+1 Andrew Preziosi

As an Englishmen reading about US politics and based on the TMP boards:

Conservatives/Republicans – The Republicans are the Party of Lincoln. We ended Slavery that was supported by those Democrats!

Liberals/Democrats – True and then there was the "Southern Strategy" in the wake of Johnson's Civil Rights legislation. AND Let's take down all these statues celebrating the Confederacy.

Conservatives/Republicans – Leave my Heritage alone! You're erasing Southern history!

"The Great Switch" ???? When did Robert Byrd become a Republican? Lets play alternative history.

Ahhh…The Great CONFLATION, sigh…

Yep, no changes in the electoral map. Funny how the Democrats remain solidly in the south between the 19thC and 21stC. Oh wait, they don't:

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Anyway if we want to talk about long serving politicians – why didn't you quote Strom Thurmond?