Im a true blue yankee and I love Lincoln above all our Presidents – but I find it reprehensible to call Southern soldiers from the Civil War “terrorists”. Rebels yes – but not terrorists, thats a histrionic, not a historic interpretation.

I once has a very nice, well educated quaker-lawyer girlfriend from VA whose father was the head of higher education for the state. She was very bright and very liberal and was a vegan and could not watch ANY violence on TV…

BUT, she was trained by VA public schools to actually believe that the Civil War was fought over issues that had nothing to do with slavery. Of course that is ridiculous.

In the South of that time – banks were not used in the way they are now – all the wealth was invested in slaves.

A male slave was valued at numbers that today would be in the hundreds of thousands…if you multiply that out to the dozens or hundreds needed by farms or plantations – you can see that the South was more concerned about losing its “investment:” than its “special institution”. Multiply it out to the millions of blacks in the South and you can see why the moneyed class of the South was panicked by any mention of abolition.

I found it very odd to find that the state of VA was still teaching “state’s rights” in the 1980s to its students and even the smart ones bought in, but we must remember that the last black born in slavery died in the 1970s -= historically – the war is a recent event and we are still playing out its result. (ie.Obama’s election etc.)

On a different thread, Roland weighed in with a defense of Rev. Wright, (whose best buddy Louis Farrakhan has expressed his hatred of whites and Jews) So Roland is hardly unbiased. And one of the reasons for the Civil War was certainly slavery. But as historian Shelby Foote has pointed out, only ten percent of southerners owned slaves. The common complaint among Confederate soldiers was that “this is a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” To say that ninety percent of southerners were only fighting to help out the rich ten percent is a gross oversimplification. The common confederate soldier had likely never seen a slave, much less owned one. To dismiss all of them as racists and believe they would sacrifice so much for something they had no interest in is too much of a stretch. The common man must have had more reasons than simply preserving slavery. They may have been to blame for letting the rich among them lead them into a fight, but they were hardly all the evil demons that people such as Roland make them out to be.

Check out CNN tonight. Anderson Cooper will be dishing the dirt on the Spanish-American War, and the real story behind the sinking of the battleship Maine. Tomorrow: the Boer War!!

I would like to know the great admirable thing that is worthy of taking up arms against America?

When they were still allowed to vote, thirty-three percent of the German people voted for Hitler. So the common German soldier was hardly a hard core Nazi. He was mostly a common man who got dragged into something by his politicians. Same goes for the American south. The rich ten percent who had an interest in keeping slavery going dragged in the other ninety percent.

I’d agree that it’s a mischaracterization to call Confederate soldiers “terrorists.” They were rebels engaged in an insurrection, but I don’t believe their purpose was to terrorize a population as a form of asymmetric warfare. (If you’d call anyone in that war “terrorists” — and I don’t think it really applies to them either — you’d have to take a hard look at the literally scorched-earth tactics of Sherman’s march.)

And wars seem to ALWAYS be fought by the common people for the rich’s interests. Confederacy, Union, even up to today. I’m not going to paint the entire makeup of the Confederate armies as racist. But I will say that the Confederacy was undoubtedly a pro-slavery, racist institution. (Check out my comment on another thread enumerating the many pro-slavery sentiments in the various Declarations and Ordinances of Secession, not to mention the CSA’s Constitution.

So weak-willed people shouldn’t be held accountable?

Toshiba2 says:
April 9, 2010 at 12:48 pm

“I would like to know the great admirable thing that is worthy of taking up arms against America?”

The citizens of what would become America did just that against England.

Toshiba2 says:
April 9, 2010 at 1:15 pm

“So weak-willed people shouldn’t be held accountable?”

Yes, libs have not been held accountable so far.

Who the HELL is anyone kidding??? The Civil War was ALL about slavery. I’m sick and tired of people that don’t to share the blood on their hands of their ancestors and dance around saying it was about states rights…yeah, the right to keep peoples famlies torn apart, treated worse than animals, raped and even during reconstruction, it was no picnic either. For ANY state in what is now, a unified nation again, celebrate a whole month for the bravery of being our ENEMY, especially for such a disgusting, abhoring practice. Makes me sick to my stomach!!! I’m sorry, but during the Civil War they were enemies of this country, no different than Germany and Japan in the second world war. I have always felt the firm belief that at least Jefferson Davis and his government should have been tried and put to death for treason! They WERE NOT the United States of America, they were the CONFEDERATE States of America! Not our country, but a separate nation of their own with a different constitution. I’ve been a proud conservative my whole life, but to me they should have been treated as an enemy to this country just like anyone we’ve had a war with. I hold no grudges, but that was the fact of the matter of that time and they should NEVER be celebrated!!!

Glad to know you’re not holding any grudges.

Vidiot, I understand what you’re saying about Sherman’s march, however, it was that kind of warfare that kept the war going on for years to come. I mean, c’mon, in the Civil War at Antitem and Gettysburg, battlesnot to mention several other , people on both sides were losing THOUSANDS per day. Even to this day, we lost more “Americans” than all other wars combined. It’s like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While it was absolutely horrible it came to that, the Japanese would have NEVER surrendered and in the end it saved countless lives, even though the means seemed brutal.

England has nothing to do with this conversation!

Lol…writer…I’m sorry, I just get a little passionate about the Civil War….Especially when anyone says it wasn’t about slavery.

It was mostly about slavery. But most southerners didn’t own slaves. Like so many wars, it was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, writer, let’s be historically accurate. When Hitler was first elected, he won in a landslide. People in Germany were tired of, literally taking what equated to wheelbarrows full of Marks to buy a little food because the reperations they had to pay to all the countries in the treaty of Versilles. Hitler promised a new, proud and prosporus nation again, and he even campaigned very strongly on blame, mainly in the form of anti-semitism and the people bought in. It was only when he was up for his second term that he got 33% of the vote when the German people realized what they had done.
(I apologize for the spelling errors. I can’t get my spell check to work on these for some reason.)

Agreed, writer, on the slavery thing. To me, rich or poor, slave owner or not, it was the fact they wanted to keep that institution, even if it was just an ideal. To treat ANYONE like that because of a different skin color and no other reason is sickening. Only ex-wives should be treated like that….lol, kidding of course.:)

Oh, and Vidiot, I meant to say in my Sherman comment that it was that kind of warfare was the kind of thing that STOPPED the war from going on for years to come….sorry.

In some ways everyone is right. The war was about states rights INCLUDUNG the right to own slaves. The south didnt want the yankees telling them what they could and could not do. The entire slavery issue is a black eye for all ivolved. However, what seems to always be ingored or avoided is that the slaves were “purchased” from the africans who kidnapped them in the jungle then sold them to the slave traders. It is still very wrong, but there is plenty of blame to go around.

BR, 200% agree with that!

Don’t sweat the spell check, comic. No one really minds. (Except Royal King)

Thomas Jefferson saw slavery as the “rock upon which the ship of state would flounder”. Lincoln knew that either the nation would be become all slave or all free and that a house divided could not stand. Even Jefferson Davis stated the war was about slavery BEFORE the war although he sang a different song afterwards..

The violence in Kansas where it was forbidden under law to say ” All Men are Created Equal” , the upheaval wrought by the fugitive slave law which forced innocent citizens into slave hunting parties “commanding what God forbid and forbidding what God commanded’ , the attack on Harpers Ferry, the expressed desire of slave holders to spread slavery into the north and to enslave northern factory workers where the “lord of the lash would join the Lords of the Loom” turning the US into one giant slave state, the idea that equality was a lie and that some men were born to “ride the saddle while other were born to feel the lash” , the Dread Scott Decision opening up slavery in the North, the censoring of the mail and the prohibition of anti slavery materials in the South, the book Uncle Toms Cabin and the activities of the Abolitionists ,,,all tell me this was a war brought about by the influence of slavery… the buying and selling and forced labor of black people just like in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Lets not sugar coat it!!

If there were no slavery there would have been no Civil War and all attempts to portray a war to preserve this hateful institution as just a noble attempt to preserve States rights, is bullshit unless you think the right to buy and sell humans is a State right.

Flash forward …Do you think George Wallace and Lestor Maddox really blocked integration because they were concerned about states rights or because they were interested preserving segregation? States rights is a nice word in defense of a hateful institution.

Civil War vets on the Confederate side fought to preserve a system they actually were victims of because slavery depressed wages and forced the average poor white to compete with slave labor for a living… and they were among the poorest in the world..arrogantly referred to as “poor white trash”

Just like today, someone waved the flag and told them their homes and values were threatened and so they gave their lives in support of a system that robbed them blind..

Lincoln was elected on a platform of simply confining slavery to the areas it was and not let it expand into the New Territories but this was too much for the Slave Power that refused to accept his election and therefore bolted from the Union and that triggered the Civil War. If someone threw a bomb into a crowd of people today would these folks term them heroes? Are we to think Timothy McVey is a hero?

To praise the Confederacy and commemorate the carnage they caused is an insult to freedom loving people everywhere and the sacrifice of thousands of Civil War vet and yet this exact thing is what the morons in Virginia think is so great they want to commemorate.

I watched the interview with interest but strongly disagree that the celebration of Confederate History and Heritage is inextricably associated with the institution of slavery .

Ironically, Mr. Martin failed to acknowledge that the despicable practice of chattel slavery was introduced to the Colony of Virginia in the late 17th century by a black person, Anthony Johnson. Would Mr. Martin embrace highlighting Anthony Johnson’s pivotal role? One would assume Mr. Martin would find it difficult to identify any connection between Anthony Johnson’s actions in 1655 and the establishment of the Confederate States two hundred years later.

Perhaps if all aspects of slavery in the United States were discussed openly, we could move past the grossly oversimplified viewpoint that demonizes the Confederacy. To do so would require acknowledging the role of Africans selling fellow Africans into bondage, as well as the New England shipping interests that engaged in the international importation of slaves. It would be appropriate to discuss the Corwin amendment, passed by both houses of the US Congress, that would have institutionalized the practice of chattel slavery in perpetuity. Perhaps we could explore why Union Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant allowed his wife to retain slaves until the passage of the 14th amendment in 1868. It would also be interesting to examine the practice of chattel slavery today and the apparent righteous indignation that mistakenly focuses on the past and not the present.

A follow up discussion addressing some of these points would undoubtedly result in a lively and informative discussion.

I’m not from the South, and I’ve never regarded the confederate soldier as a “domestic terrorist,” so I’m a bit perplexed by the the author’s claim that this is a near universally held view. In fact, the term “domestic terrorist” is a more modern term with contemporary political conotations that have nothing to do with subject of the civil war, which is why the term is being used, I guess.

writer said:
On a different thread, Roland weighed in with a defense of Rev. Wright, (whose best buddy Louis Farrakhan has expressed his hatred of whites and Jews) So Roland is hardly unbiased. And one of the reasons for the Civil War was certainly slavery. But as historian Shelby Foote has pointed out, only ten percent of southerners owned slaves. The common complaint among Confederate soldiers was that “this is a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” To say that ninety percent of southerners were only fighting to help out the rich ten percent is a gross oversimplification. The common confederate soldier had likely never seen a slave, much less owned one. To dismiss all of them as racists and believe they would sacrifice so much for something they had no interest in is too much of a stretch. The common man must have had more reasons than simply preserving slavery. They may have been to blame for letting the rich among them lead them into a fight, but they were hardly all the evil demons that people such as Roland make them out to be.

Well said.

VA, as well as NC,ARK,and Tenn had all voted to remain in the Union. VA voted twice,both times staying in the Union. It wasn’t unti Abe demanded that those states(Commonwealth) send troops South and kill those that had seceded did they too secede. And if slavery was the only reason,why was it after that war,the 10th AM. to the Constitution,making states sovereign,become null and void? The Feds got what they wanted.Total power.
You say no slavery-no war? Then what do you think a great many states would have done when the Feds said,”OK,we are in charge,you states can’t pass any laws unless we say you can”. They would have seceded.
BTW- COMIC702 You wished for Davis to be tried for treason? So did he.Read why the Feds,after 2 years,backed away from trying Davis.They had a losing case.Why?Secession was not illegal.
Look it up.Interesting story that doesn’t get taught.