"The 'Other' Side of the Slavery Question" Topic

My fellow Tennessean knows that the eastern mountaineers support for the Union and bitter resentments and long-standing animosity for the planters did NOT spring from any Brotherhood-of-Man principles. Andrew Johnson was their guy.

One of the many complexities that can be overlooked when one insists on moralizing simplicity is that civil wars scoop up and intensify pre-existing animosities. The same thing is very visible in the Revolution, as has been mentioned with regard to the Regulators who became Loyalists. In the mountains, if the Hatfields chose one side, the McCoys automatically took the other.

Sp Parzival is right: the Union soldiers from the border states were mostly white, and had a range of motivations -- of which opposition to slavery was one, but a belief in racial equality was probably not. Again, it is COMPLICATED.

John, yes, sorry, it was and is patronizing, for which i apologize, but you have correctly interpreted what I said.

Tort, the south was as divided as the north, and the "fire eaters" tragically prevailed in 1860-61, in paranoid reaction to John Brown. I am NOT engaged in defending the Confederacy, though I am exceedingly proud of my ancestors who fought for it. There WAS wrong on both sides, and yes, some RIGHT on both sides; the north was itself guilty of many sins, as well as being part of the nation that was guilty of many. The US also had many great achievements, in which the south shared. It is indeed OUR story, a family story, and making half of the family into black sheep (can we still say that?) does great harm to the family and to the truth.

As to the South accepting Corwin, it becomes, doesn't it, a matter of moral calculus. A war that kills 600,000 is a great evil. Slavery was a great evil. Was the first the ONLY WAY to eliminate the second? Not in a worldwide context. Many in both north and south believed slavery had to expand or die. Would a peaceful abolition, say thirty years later have been better? Reasonable people may have different answers to that.

Certainly if it Corwin was ratified it would've put an end to the Founders and the Constitution as infallible. Whether slavery is evil or not, slaves are desired by many but the institution erodes the lives of everyone. Unfortunately, like killing, we need to declare it is evil more because it is more common than we are comfortable admitting rather than its inherent wrongness.

And isn't the thing we are most concerned about, and most happy to see disappearing, racism? If THAT is the big moral issue, surely the north is as guilty as the south? (Though it is facile and simplistic to judge our ancestors for not holding our enlightened values -- though those values developed in some large part out of their own tragic experiences,)

Racism is disappearing? I think actually it is worse today in the North than the South. But racism and slavery are sometimes one and the same and sometimes completely different issues. I never saw this as a North/South issue but apparently, you do.

Further, you need to know that by yours and others pro confederate arguments, such as stopping traffic to point out to people that the Civil War wasn't about slavery but was really about…wait for it…slavery, you're making me suspicious about looking at the Confederacy as just history and more like a living resistance to progress. Sometimes when you think you're making headway, it has the opposite effect.

This concept that we can't judge our ancestors by our values is a false one. It seems like this concept has caught fire because it gives comfort to some for their own reasons but we can judge them and we should. We do it all the time as wargamers/military historians and you do it as well with the exception that when the subject is near and dear to you, you try to dismiss its deployment.

…and some JUSTIFIED southern outrage about how their section was milked by the rest of the nation while being condemned for how they produced the wealth that was milked.

So they took their ball and went home. Have you read the history of MLB baseball? Every single time there was a league reform (or a request for reason) on the horizon the owners fought it tooth and nail and every single time the change took place anyway. Further, the beneficiaries of that change were always the owners but they never learned their lesson to facilitate the next proposed change but instead refought it tooth and nail. They too cited tradition and "why should we?" logic but immaturity, shortsightedness, greed and tyranny have no defense and the Confederacy and slave owners just have to wear that crown.

It is indeed OUR story, a family story, and making half of the family into black sheep (can we still say that?) does great harm to the family and to the truth.

Where is this happening? It looks more like some "Denialists" refuse to admit the wrong doing and via that resistance are blocking the healing process.

It may well be that racism lingers more in the north than the south; I've no way of knowing that. I DO know that it is reduced in the south by a factor of 10, or 100, in comparison to fifty years ago. I grew up in east Texas, under segregation, and the racism was comprehensive and overt and unapologetic. And legal. NONE of that is true today. Scoffing at the idea that racism has not been reduced ignores a lot of progress.

I think perhaps one barrier to understanding the CW is the natural tendency to make causes and consequences RECIPROCAL between the two sides. They were not. Yes, preservation of slavery was primary for those who formed the Confederacy, but preserving southern cultural independence was secondary. See Pat Cleburne's justification for arming the slaves -- which all agreed would mean the end of slavery in the long term. And while the rejection of Cleburne's proposal in 1864 is an indicator of how strongly the CSA was committed to retaining slavery, the fact that the CSA Congress enacted something like Cleburne's plan in 1865 shows that they were finally willing to sacrifice one war aim (preserving slavery) if required to rescue the other (independence).

But it is clear as day that abolishing slavery was NOT the war aim for Lincoln and the Republicans. They said, nay INSISTED that was the case. Partial emancipation was a war measure, we know all the reasons for that (border states), though it is certainly the case that L and the Reps were HAPPY to act against slavery. But the north would never have sacrificed 100,000s to destroy slavery where it existed. But when the price in blood was paid to keep or restore the Union, they were glad to get a second benefit (abolition) for the same blood price.

So for both sides the issues changed during the war: for the south slavery was paramount then secondary; for the north the union was paramount and abolition a happy by-product. I'm sorry if that strains people's understanding or moral posturing, but it is the truth.

"But it is clear as day that abolishing slavery was NOT the war aim for Lincoln and the Republicans. They said, nay INSISTED that was the case. Partial emancipation was a war measure, we know all the reasons for that (border states), though it is certainly the case that L and the Reps were HAPPY to act against slavery. But the north would never have sacrificed 100,000s to destroy slavery where it existed. But when the price in blood was paid to keep or restore the Union, they were glad to get a second benefit (abolition) for the same blood price."

If that is truly the case, our £340.00 GBP billion, spent for the right reason, was worth every penny.

Nog, yes, it was.

Well said, Doc.

I grew up in post-segregated northern Alabama (‘70s-‘80s). I suppose my background might be considered "upper middle class—" college educated parents, both of whom worked and made a good living, but were not wealthy at least as I understood such to mean. I attended public schools. I was early on aware of racism, though even then it had become largely muted. I heard racist jokes, but even at the time knew these were unacceptable, and would never be made today— and I heard them only very rarely. I had one teacher whom I later realized had racist attitudes, but never saw any of that in my other teachers or the adults I was in contact with. The KKK and their ilk were looked down on and generally despised; I never saw any of their activities in person, and don't recall any public displays of such anywhere, nor did I ever know anyone who even hinted at being a member. There was a great deal of pride in the Confederacy and the Confederate Battle Flag, but I never heard any association of it with racism, aside from photos of the KKK, which the commentary about was largely anger that they had "usurped" the flag for their pathetic beliefs. There were subtler bits of racism in play, mostly in the form of general prejudicial racial assumptions about character and intelligence, and while I was aware of these I rarely saw them rise up on an individual basis. But in my lifetime I have seen these things fade further and further into history, and acquire more and more public and private condemnation.

Now, in the South I have known is there a general mood of overlooking past crimes and honoring the CSA and Confederate soldiers far above any real reason to honor them? Certainly. People want to be proud of their ancestors, and that is universal. Shakespeare's Mark Antony was wrong— sometimes it's the evil that men do which is interred with their bones. That is true of people in the South and in the North, and true of people all over the world. The English want to think well of their Crusader ancestors. The Chinese are proud of their despotic Emperors. The French honor Napoleon the tyrant. In Mexico, they honor the blood-thirsty, homicidal Aztecs and Mayans. The truth is EVERYONE's past can be condemned by whatever current popular standards of morality and ethics hold sway— just as almost any culture can find a way to honor its past if the desire is there to do so. It really doesn't make one better to use "Presentism" to condemn the Past— because in a half-century or so, someone else is going to use their version of "Presentism" to condemn us. All "Presentism" ever does is glorify the person who accuses the past— "See! I am right, because they were wrong!" Which is a logical fallacy that should be obvious, but somehow always seems to be missed.

History is a mixed bag because human beings are all mixed bags. Can we say as an overall truth that the American Civil War was rooted in a dispute over slavery? Most certainly. However, we cannot say that all those involved directly saw it as such, or even that the conflict itself truly began as such. Like a river, a hundred streams fed into it on both sides, even if the headwaters stemmed from one foul spring.

But it is clear as day that abolishing slavery was NOT the war aim for Lincoln and the Republicans. They said, nay INSISTED that was the case.

This is a major semantic-like problem. I dont know why it's important or telling that you believe the initial war aim wasn't abolishing slavery. Or, that not every single person in the North was ever on board with abolishing it. Further, I neither know where you got the impression that everyone thinks this is the case or why it is important to correct it. Or, further, why it's important for the North to think something for the South to also think something. These "Aha" moments seem born of desperation.

If everyone were asked why we fought in WW2 and answered that it was to beat Hitler but then someone felt the need to stop everything to repeatedly point out that we really only wanted to retaliate against the Japanese and that we really only declared war on Germany because they declared war on us first and really, we pushed the Japanese to attack us anyway because of our harsh sanctions, you'd think that person was horribly pedantic.

Yeah sure, put all the details in an article but for the average person walking around, I hardly think grabbing them by the arm to tell them large numbers of Americans initially were OK with the Nazis isn't going to accomplish much. But, as you've maintained, there's a group of Southern sympathizers that dont want to feel down about their heritage. However, you correctly point out that it's my heritage too. Maybe these hard-luck Southerners should think of themselves just as Americans.

Degree matters and, additionally, there is no reason something has to be true from the very beginning to also be empirically true. At some point, one of the net aims and results of the civil war was to abolish slavery and it was never a confederate aim. I give Jefferson Davis credit for trying to pass an act that would give freedom to slaves serving militarily but he got roundly trounced by most of the Confederate top brass for that.

It boggles my mind that you think this timeline proves exactly what you need it to prove. You've already done this with the Declaration of Independence argument that because there was no formal DOI, there was thus, between Lexington and Concord and the DOI's signing, no concept of fighting for Liberty. I think that this hard tack, clerical approach is somewhat worthy of consideration but it doesn't automatically trump all the other concepts. Rather, it's merely one other strand in a host of strands that led to Liberation.

Now, I understand that your viewpoint finds it desirable to shift any blame off of the Confederacy but there is no reason to think it is untrue to say generally that the North fought to free the slaves just because there are many qualifiers. The road to freedom and justice is both long and messy; it's, as you say, complex. But it simply cannot be that a person has to have a moral epiphany on day 1 or else they can never claim to have done the right thing.

…Scoffing at the idea that racism has not been reduced ignores a lot of progress.

Scoff? I am a lot younger than you and never saw these segregation or civil rights issues. I grew up with them as a black and white memory on TV. I didnt suggest there hasnt been progress but I question that it is disappearing. There has indeed been progress but it's like being 5000 feet under water and after coming up 2,000 feet saying you're close to the surface; sure you're "closer" but you've still got a lot of swimming to do.

It's interesting how you selectively choose when nuance is all important and when broad strokes are the only way to go.

Parzival, yes, thank you, my own experience growing up is very similar and I agree with much of your analysis.

I still believe, very strongly, that the best single book on the war is Benet's John Brown's Body. If you can only read one book on the subject, that's the one. He tells an American story with sympathy for all who were trapped or swept up in it.

Charge, I don't think our minds work the same way. Not surprising, and it is okay.

I think I've said everything I can. Not a promise to not be back, but sometimes it seems so useless to remain.
It's simply getting a bit tedious dealing with the "poor poor pitiful me" South apologists.
Yeah, yeah. Just the piano player. Carry on.
Sherman was right.

Charge, I don't think our minds work the same way. Not surprising, and it is okay.

I dont have a problem with this either.

I never really cared about who was more right between North and South, I just took it as history, dead and buried. However, as a result of arguments like yours and others here,I've now gotten the idea that confederate sympathy is alive and well and ready to secede again. I'm only saying this because if you think you're convincing people with your assumptions of being correct, you should know you've driven me further to the other side.

And, frankly, because of this and because it is you that's trying to convince an audience about the South, you might want to adjust your tactics.

I think it's within your purview to dislike some of the propaganda (and I agree there's no right to condemn southern people to any current guilt about racism or slavery) but it hurts your point when you don't admit it's emotional and instead try to bluff that it's a matter of dead history. It seems like it is very much alive for you…and others.

It's not dissimilar to some of the anti Napoleon guys on the Napoleon Discussion forum who hash out all their reasons why Napoleon was a zero, why the French were zeros, why Wellington was the greatest soldier who ever lived (But, not according to them) and the Prussians were crap, all the while accusing anyone who doesn't agree with them to be Bonaparte fan boys or some such.

Even though they're the ones wasting their time, spitting into the wind, trying to change a world they'll never change, they never tone it down. The net effect was to take someone who never cared either way and make him more interested in Napoleon than before. If that was their intent, then job well done.

Of course, I think you're much nicer in approach but just as some comparison.

The same people who try to relativize slavery and the Confederacy would probably lose their minds if any significant number of present-day Germans started saying things like:

"Well, you know, the Belgians enslaved and killed a lot of Congolese, too…" or

"There were plenty of Germans who weren't in favor of slave labor…" or

"There were slave labor camps in the USSR too…" or

"It was a brutal time; we can't really judge it by our present-day standards."

-

Just have the guts and honesty to say that you've romanticized your ancestors and are offended when people point out that they did some Very Bad Things.

Maybe these hard-luck Southerners should think of themselves just as Americans.

Spot on. And people who freak out over other people's identity politics need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Hopefully the last words from the disappointing student.

Charge, I think you are correct to some extent; it IS a deep emotional link for me, and not just a function of my growing up. But I'm also a professional historian and teacher of history. And history is never dead, and one of the cultural distinctives of the South is that the power of the past is as strong as ever. There is a vast literature on that very theme. Layers upon layers upon layers. The "it's all about slavery" and "it's all the south's fault" statements are not LIES, exactly, but they conceal as much truth as they reveal. And they are poor STORIES.

Garth, are you saying all Germans are/were Nazis? I assume not. Not Bonhoeffer.

And far from "trying to relativise slavery," I have said often that slavery was a great evil that did enormous damage to all it touched, to the slaves themselves first and most, and to the white south in many ways, and to the nation as a whole. I have no objection to assigning blame where it is appropriate, but think what is needed far more is UNDERSTANDING. Not devils, not angels, just us sinful humans who carry imago dei.

Have I romanticized my ancestors? Well, judge for yourselves. The most relevant here are my direct g'g'g' grandparents Isaiah McBride and his wife, Anne McChesney McBride, of Rockbridge VA. One of their three sons was J.J. McBride, who was dying of consumption when, at age 20, he moved to the Texas heat and recovered. He became wealthy as a cotton broker in Galveston, and was elected an officer in the 5th Texas. When he got to Va in 1862 he asked his brother (my direct g'g' grandfather) if there was a slave who could be his body servant in the regiment. That was Levi Miller -- who has his own Wikipedia page, which is mostly accurate. link

Miller and McBride went through the war together, and sadly, we know almost nothing about their "inner" relationship. It is entirely possible that they were father and son or half-brothers; Levi looks a bit like my father, so maybe so. My brother has written three novels about them (excellent small-unit tactics-style accounts of their battles) which are not the least bit romanticized, although certainly FICTION because the story requires details that we simply do not have. link

I have immense respect for and admiration of both men; McBride was brevet major when he went down in the Wilderness, shot through both legs and not expected to live, part of the counter-attack that plugged the hole and saved Lee's army. (This was the occasion of the men refusing to charge until Lee went to the rear.) Miller joined the company in their trench at Spotsylvania and fought with them and was enrolled into the company, according to its captain. Miller then joined McBride in the hospital in the rotunda at UVa in Charlottesville and nursed him until he recovered, several months after the war ended. McBride returned to Texas and became an officer in the Hood's Brigade veterans organization, which was a power in Texas politics, dying in 1879. Miller lived until 1921, drawing a Confederate pension.

The McBrides and the Millers have reconnected in the past year or two, working together a little bit on a history project involving the slave cabins that still exist (and are still being lived in, modernized) in Brownsburg, Va. link

So my ancestor was, what? a slave owner? possibly the father of one of his slaves? yes And an outstanding officer in one of the best regiments in the war? yes

I am really not the least bit interested in judging, but I am passionately interested in understanding.

Romanticize? I don't think so. History? yes and a great story, though sadly lacking much of what we want to know.

My ancestors fought for both sides. None, to my knowledge, ever owned slaves, but it is possible I am wrong (like most people, I have a lot of ancestors). Family legend has it that Amaziah Milford (one of my paternal great-great-grandfathers), a relatively poor farmer from northern Georgia, fought under Lee through Appomattox and was present for the surrender. He apparently owned a mule (not sure what its purpose was in the war) and was allowed to travel home with it. Family legend also claims he took a musket ball to his pocket Bible which saved his life, but I've heard that assertion in so many places that I'm not convinced at all on that one. (And I'm more than a bit suspicious regarding the mule.)
Another great-great on my mother's side was a cavalry man from Kentucky in the Union Army— the family still has his saber. According to family lore, he was one of three brothers, who all disagreed on the war. One wished to remain neutral, one sided with the Confederacy, and my great-great-grandsire, who sided with the Union. The three brothers never reconciled, and two changed the spelling of the family name to separate themselves from the other siblings.

Do I honor them? I guess. I don't know that much about them, to be honest, and what I do "know" seems exaggerated on examination. As for the Confederacy, I can admire the military capability without admiring the roots of the war, and I can understand that for many the war was about Federal intrusion on the rights of the States, without thinking that absolves anyone for slavery. I respect Robert E. Lee as a good man and a brilliant strategist who fought for what seemed to him to be honorable reasons, yet whose reasoning I disagree with, and whose loyalty to his state of Virginia I believe was misplaced. I can honor his character and ability without being swept up into some false thought that I am therefore excusing slavery or racism or anything of the sort. I am certainly not trying to "rehabilitate" anyone or anything, and it's specious and frankly insulting to assert otherwise. I'm taking the Confederacy and the South, as well as the Union and the North, as they were, for good or ill together— and all of them had both intermingled; the same as everyone else.

Yes. And it is probable enough that any American whose family has been in America since the 1850s might have ancestors on both sides. One hundred eighty years ago would be perhaps 9 generations, so 256 forebears. Just as it is likely that we all have slaves among our ancestors, if not in America then further back. Family geneology is fun, and of course is a source of pride for many, but that is because we can CHOOSE which ones to claim a linkage to and ignore the scoundrels who are just as close!

Old Isaiah McBride was neighbor and friend to Cyrus McCormick, who developed his reaper in Va and then moved to Chicago. Our family tradition is that McCormick owed McBride money and offered to pay him in stock (which would have made the McBrides rich) but Isaiah declined and took the money.

I told that story to a former student who went to VMI, and he said, there's another McCormick connection: he bankrolled a regiment and a battery of Illinois troops who were part of the Union force that burned VMI. McCormick also donated a lot to Washington U next door (now W&L) who erected a statue of McCormick. My student says it is still a tradition of VMI that when junior cadets get their class rings, they celebrate by sneaking into W&L (the campuses adjoin) and peeing on McCormick's statue. link

A small example of the past not being dead nor even the past.

As to choosing links, my family proudly touts our relationship to Doc Holliday, who is, in the end, a bit of a dubious person to honor. I am quite certain there are even less reputable characters in the mix as well.

For the record, I am also descended from Charlemagne.

But then, so is about half of the Western world…

While both the US and Great Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807/1808, it wasn't until the mid-1830s that both France and Great Britain outlawed slavery in the West Indies.

Miller and McBride went through the war together, and sadly, we know almost nothing about their "inner" relationship. It is entirely possible that they were father and son or half-brothers; Levi looks a bit like my father, so maybe so. My brother has written three novels about them (excellent small-unit tactics-style accounts of their battles) which are not the least bit romanticized, although certainly FICTION because the story requires details that we simply do not have. link

This is an interesting story. However, whether a cause is evil or not doesn't rely on the actions of every member of that cause at every time. Doubtless there were innocents caught up in the plantation culture and I would imagine there were just as many or more kind people in the South as there were unscrupulous dirt bags in the North. But that isn't really the point. The point is that, taken as a whole, the plantation culture was rotten to the core, irrespective of who specifically is to blame or whether there were good people on both sides. Let's keep it apples to apples.

? Not aware that anyone was saying differently?
On the other hand, it's not like the plantation system was a new thing, completely arising in America. In many ways, it's just the serf system of Europe, or the patrician system of Ancient Rome, or pretty much any culture anywhere with a significant agricultural base. Slavery has been around since before recorded history, and permeates all cultures everywhere. It typically arose as a simple way to handle conquered tribes/cultures— move them to a new place, and make them subordinate, thus disrupting any power they have and their cultural history and roots. Name a culture, it's happened to it or been pursued by it.
It's easy today to look back and say "That was wrong!" A little less so to recognize it at the time.
One of the great tragedies of America is the fact that many of the very people at the top of the plantation system did indeed see that slavery was wrong, but were unable to themselves take the action necessary to fully end it. Why? Fear of the consequences, unwillingness to sacrifice what they had, and even a misplaced belief that the slaves themselves would be incapable of independent lives without an "enlightened" master to "guide and provide" for them (an ironic and chilling commentary on certain similar beliefs today, I might add). There may also have been a fear of violent reprisals, stoked by similar and less paternal racist assumptions.
It's easy today to say, "So what— they should have known better!" But we possess information and understanding which they did not. I have no doubt that a hundred years from now, someone will be pointing fingers at us and saying, "They should have known better," about things we assume to be perfectly normal or even preferable today— and those things may well stun any of us who through some miracle of science have our lives extended so far.
Part of the problem with condemning the past is that one is often committing the same fallacy and abuse that in legal context is called "ex post facto"— that is, criminalizing and condemning actions of the past in a time when those actions were not considered nor stated to be criminal. Just as we recognize it is unjust to outlaw something and then arrest someone for having engaged in that activity before it was outlawed, it is equally unjust to accuse someone of moral and ethical failings in a time in which such failings were not broadly viewed as wrong.
Take the marriageable age of a woman— in the ancient past, and indeed even up through the 20th century in Western civilization (and still ongoing in many other cultures) a girl could be married as young as 12. With boys it was usually older, but there wouldn't have been much complaint about a 14 or 15 year old male taking a wife, either. There are in fact many alive today who were wed at a very young age— Country music legend Loretta Lynn married at 14! Today we in Western culture typically view such "child brides/child grooms" as morally suspect, at the very least, even though our laws in many cases have not been changed. So, were our ancestors morally degenerate for behaving or believing otherwise? I don't think so, even though I would indeed be horrified to hear of a girl being married at 12, 13, 14, 15 or even 16, and the same for a boy. I might also point out that even in the 19th Century it was not uncommon for a much older man to wed a girl several decades younger than him, and have the marriage be a happy one on both parts. Yet today we raise our eyebrows at the thought of a 40-something wedding even a 20-something. It may not be morally wrong, as such, but it still makes us murmur.
Now, I am not declaring an equivalency between child brides and slavery, nor am I trying to excuse or rehabilitate either practice nor those who engaged in them. I am merely pointing out that our understanding of right and wrong and just and unjust is a product of tens of thousands of years of gradual cultural self-examination. It is easy to condemn from our self-granted moral high ground those in the past who did not measure up— but there isn't exactly much to praise in the act of doing so. It's a false platform of self-assigned virtue that doesn't actually achieve anything at all. The past is past. Criticizing it is easy, but it is also of little value. The work of greater value, and the work that is most hard, is to criticize the actions of the present and the dark directions of the future which we ourselves are pursuing which even we in our private moments recognize "we should know better."

I think some of the thinking on this thread can be summarized as "Slavery was horrible! Horrible! Horrible! And those that fought to preserve and expand it were the finest chivalrous gentlemen who ever drew a sword!"

:-)

I think some of the thinking on this thread can be summarized as "Slavery was horrible! Horrible! Horrible! And those that fought to preserve and expand it were the finest chivalrous gentlemen who ever drew a sword!"

It makes about as much sense as:

"I am a patriot who is worried about American culture being fragmented by other people's identity politics and hyphenated-Americanness… But the Confederates were right, secession was legal, and we should honor people who meant well as they shot at US soldiers."

+1

-50

Sorry, but these statements are clearly meant as ad hominem insults, especially when y'all are putting words in our posts which we have neither said nor argued nor implied. Therefore, by resorting to multiple rhetorical fallacies, you have thereby acknowledged that you have lost the argument. None of you, including Brechtel198, who is usually quite thorough, have put forth any credible reasoning or evidence to support your position or contradict what either Doc or I have argued.

In any case, I don't understand why y'all seem so personally upset by all this. If we were to agree with you 100%, what would change, either in history or in the world today? Nothing. Nothing at all. There is no betterment of man, nor greater understanding, nor greater consideration, nor even justice produced by this. Perhaps it might make you feel better about yourselves (I'm not certain why), but that's purposeless, too.

So, what's your point? That you are "right" (even though we've already demonstrated you are not)? To silence all debate or discussion which does not concur with your already preconceived notions? To ridicule others for your own satisfaction? (What is this, The Middle-Schooler's Page?)
I honestly don't get y'all at all.

I see nothing inconsistent in what I said, nor do I acknowledge that I lost the argument. You have demonstrated nothing of the sort. You are resorting to the same "Middle School" ad hominem antics you accuse me of.

As for my ancestors, I've never bothered to do any research. However, family rumors on my father's side hint that one was a Molly Maguire terrorist (which was hinted at with pride by elderly great aunts), while one on my mother's side MIGHT have been a Pinkerton strikebreaker. I assume they never met, if true.
Or, did I get which side wrong? I don't know. I was maybe 10 years old at the time and didn't take notes. I was bored, and the house smelled like an old ladies' home with 3(?) maiden aunts. Or widowed great aunts. I'm not sure. If the logistics of these don't match up, I'm indifferent to that. It's just rumors. I'm sure a Mormon database could straighten this out for me, or Ancestry_dot_com, but why bother?

Go ahead and defend your ancestors. That's nice. But you can't deny that any Confederate ancestors were fighting to preserve AND expand slavery, which they MIGHT have believed to be horrible, horrible, horrible, or maybe just "It sucks to be you, Sambo."
I have no idea what Molly Maguires or Pinkertons thought about slavery.

Charge, of course i agree with that. It was a wicked system, and remained so, although the record is filled with people trying to mitigate or escape from it.

Parzival, yes, thanks, I agree wholeheartedly. They do not argue with what we have said, but with strawmen of their own creation.

Garth, is there ANY part of this quote that accurately expresses what Parz or I has actually written?

"But the Confederates were right, secession was legal, and we should honor people who meant well as they shot at US soldiers."

By the way, what I wrote was:

I think some of the thinking on this thread can be summarized as …

None of that named names. Nor did what Garth said.
My. Some people are touchy!
There are a lot of OTHER PEOPLE on this thread. But if you want to insist that it describes you, be my guest.

My. Some people are touchy!

Indeed.

If I knew my ancestor had owned slaves, I would not be proud of that, but I would also know that he, like everyone else's ancestors (including yours, John) were operating under what were the accepted practices of the day.
For example, Charlemagne, who is indeed an ancestor, ordered the execution of pagan Saxons who would not accept conversion to Christianity (and by extension, his therefore Divine authority to rule them as the Holy Roman Emperor). I consider that a horrible action— and it was— and thoroughly against the teachings of the Christian faith he claimed to follow. I also know that it was a political act, and in the view of the day, many would have seen it as justified (which does not justify it for me, but I'm living in 21st Century America, not 9th century Europe). Now, this doesn't stop me from admiring his efforts to support education, or his defense of Europe from Islamic invasion, and so on. It's just all part of the deal.
Do you admire the Coliseum as a work of architecture and art? Do you honor what was done within its walls? If an Italian is proud of his Roman ancestors, should you assail him with all their immoral excesses and cruelty? Well, why not? Weren't those actions evil? And thus, should not the Romans be called "evil" too? Or is the distance of nearly two thousand years some how a cleansing of cultural character which a mere two hundred does not allow?
The very concept of Democracy goes back to the society which murdered Socrates, treated women as chattel, and enslaved thousands of others themselves. Shall we denounce all Greece as evil, and shame ourselves for ever honoring what they thought or said, even as their actions contradicted it?

You seem to be under a misapprehension— Neither I nor Doc are holding up the South for praise, nor are we saying it should not be condemned for the evil that it did. We are merely acknowledging that, as with EVERY DANG CULTURE ON THE PLANET, there is good and evil going on at the same time, sometimes even among people who act well with one hand and act evilly with the other.

If you want to know the truth about the American Civil War, you should also understand that for the most part up until this time the concept of being an American was largely secondary to the concept of being a Virginian or a Ohioan or a Pennsylvanian, etc.— the nation was still heavily focused on states as being the home of citizenship— not surprising in an era where few travelled outside of their home state or even their home town, and the only function broad media was the occasional telegram. Knowing the character of another region came only from the newspapers, which of course were regional themselves, and cast the stories in the light of the expectations of the region for which they wrote— and that with no lack of hyperbole and editorial omission. When one's loyalty is thus more localized and regionalized than national in character, the notion that one is doing wrong by protecting that which one is loyal to is a difficult concept to grasp. The Condererates, in their minds, weren't shooting at fellow citizens and soldiers of the United States— they were shooting at the Damn Yankees invading their lands, and the reasons for that didn't matter. (It's also a bit ironic to make such a condemnation, as many of the Union soldiers were immigrants drafted and shoved into the US army before they really had any appreciation of what nation they were in or why they were fighting anyone at all.)
But that's not a rehabilitation of anything, it's simply an examination of historical truth. Motivations for war can be good and bad, or even a mixture of the same, and individual soldiers, even among the officers, are not morally culpable for the reasons that an oligarchic few sent them into combat— else we should have executed all the German soldiers at the end of WW2 for the crimes of Hitler, the Gestapo and the SS. Maybe we should have rounded up the Hitler's Youth and executed them as well? They at least believed the crap the Nazis shoved into them.
So, no, I don't think that the soldiers of the CSA should be roundly condemned for being in the war, nor for fighting, nor do I think it should be assumed that their reasons were monolithic.
But in saying that, how in the world am I honoring them? I'm admitting to a historical reality. And how in the world does that detract from my own belief that slavery is and was a horrible crime. To assert otherwise is indeed an insult— and worse, it's ignorant.

Fine. Have it your way.

Again, what Parzival said. We can honor some things that humans are, or do, while still deploring other things about them. The principles of right and wrong are indeed white and black, but we humans, in our understanding and applications of them, are many shades of grey. Including Confederate grey.

What I AM saying is that if an ancestor hated the institution of slavery, and its expansion and preservation was horrible, then to fight for the Confederacy was morally inconsistent.
If an ancestor was in favor, indifferent or ambiguous to its preservation or expansion, then it makes sense.
I was responding to doc's condescending explanation to Little Suzy.
I was also acknowledging a lot of Lost Cause apologetics.

John, I'm not sure what your problem is with my sentence. It is finely crafted and incorporates many intermingled factors. Why condescending? I'm a PhD and she's a high school student, but I credit her with enough sophistication to handle a thought process involving more than two steps.

Why don't YOU tell us, in a single sentence, what caused the Civil War?

What I AM saying is that if an ancestor hated the institution of slavery, and its expansion and preservation was horrible, then to fight for the Confederacy was morally inconsistent.
If an ancestor was in favor, indifferent or ambiguous to its preservation or expansion, then it makes sense.

I have quoted repeatedly Mary Chesnut, as fervent a Confederate patriot as existed, saying that if the south fails in its attempt to win independence, AT LEAST we'll be free of slavery.

July 3 1862
 If anything can reconcile me to the idea of a horrid failure after all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees, it is Lincoln's proclamation freeing the negroes.

Her husband was a Confederate general and she sewed with Mrs. Jefferson Davis, but what would SHE know about what the war was about? You never attempt to grapple with the complexity of that, but insist that YOU, at two centuries distance, understand the central event of her life better than she did. Talk about condescending!

April 23, 1865
 These negroes are unchanged. The shining black mask they wear does not show a ripple of change; they are sphinxes. Ellen has had my diamonds to keep for a week or so. When the danger was over she handed them back to me with as little apparent interest in the matter as if they had been garden peas.
One year ago we left Richmond. The Confederacy has double-quicked down hill since then. One year since I stood in that beautiful Hollywood by little Joe Davis's grave. Now we have burned towns, deserted plantations, sacked villages. "You seem resolute to look the worst in the face," said General Chesnut, wearily. "Yes, poverty, with no future and no hope." "But no slaves, thank God!" cried Buck.

Hi doc,
You asked about race relations in the North versus the South.

I was born in Boston MA and spent the first 68 years of my life there and environs. I spent my early years in a racially mixed neighborhood of Boston (Roxbury) and, as my father had a business in this same area I worked summers during my high-school years in the same neighborhood working on my dad's maintenance crew as a gopher and grunt for the two black guys – John Carrington (who came from the backwoods of Virginia) and Bobby Graham (from Bedford Stuyvesant). Most of the people who worked in my dad's office were black as well. John taught me how to sweat a copper joint cleanly and to curse with the greatest eloquence and elegance; Bobby taught me how to play street stick-ball and enjoy black R&B (which I still do to this day). I ate where they ate. I went where they went. I listened to the music they liked.

I had more problems with Irish-Catholic kids in high school than I ever had with black kids in Roxbury.

I lived and worked in Boston and environs for 68 years before retiring to upstate SC in 2016.

That said, is Boston more racially divided? Yes, IN MY OPINION.

Why? I think there are a couple of factors:

> Boston was then a majority Irish-Catholic town and they, in my experience, were very "tribal" and suspicious of outsiders. For example, when I ventured down to the playground across from my parent's new home (age 11) the first question I was asked was "So, what religion are you?" – True story.

> The massive migration of poor rural blacks from the South to Boston starting about 1965 or so.

> The federal AFDC welfare support program which provided financial incentives (and still does to this day) which rewarded break-up of husband and wife into separate recipients (hence breaking up the family unit participating in the program). It was a social disaster I witnessed with my own eyes.

> Inadequate education among the adult black migrants to qualify them for anything more than the most menial work (some could barely read and signed their names with an "X", this based upon personal observation).

> The federally mandated student forced-busing racial integration program introduced in the 70s by federal judicial edict which destroyed the old traditional neighborhood school approach of the Boston school system, pitted neighborhood against neighborhood and ultimately racial groups against one another as well. The school system IMO has never recovered and there exists in Boston to this day a mutually suspicious "separate-but-technically-equal" racial co-existence with distinct neighborhood "no-go zones" for each race.

When I came to SC, I noticed several distinct differences:
> More bi-racial couples and children.
> More mixed black and white tables at restaurants.
> Easier to strike up friendly casual conversations in public.
> More blacks in skilled employment positions and trades.

I'm not saying that SC is an idyllic racial paradise or that Boston is a uniform racial hellhole – nothing is ever that simple. What I am saying is that the racial temperature (to me) seems a great deal more temperate here in upstate SC than it was when I left Boston.

In general, my opinion is that our social problem is far more related to culture than to color. Of course, others may disagree.

B

Blut, yes, I've never lived in the north but I lived in Va (Charlottesville, a university town) and can contrast it with both Chattanooga and the east Texas I grew up in. Charlottesville had more than a few black-and-white couples, even then (40+ years ago), and of course they are common everywhere today (a sign of amazing progress). I agree with you that the Great Society program of the 60s, however well intended, had a very bad effect on the stability of black families (and poor white families too). LBJ has a lot to answer for. It is more culture than color, I agree, or social class (which may be the same as culture).

"Dr. OFM, can you tell me in a sentence or two what caused the Civil War? Somebody said it was all about slavery, but slavery had existed for more than 200 years? If it was slavery, why was there no war in 1800, or 1820, or 1830? Or why did it happen in 1861 and not wait until 1870 or 1880? Why THEN? Are you SURE it was just that one thing?"

(Suzie is a little bit of a *highly intelligent donkey*.)

Hi doc,
You wrote – "I agree with you that the Great Society program of the 60s, however well intended, had a very bad effect on the stability of black families"

Having a reached a more cynical and suspicious stage of life, I question exactly how "well intended" those Great Society programs really were.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B