Confederate Robert E Lee to be removed from West Point Academy

[Longwood50]

17 hours ago, ozimoron said:

's truly amazing the contortions some will go through deny slavery and racism as the cause of the civil war. Slavery is racism of course.

Ozimoron,

No it was not about slavery.  Tell me. Where was the "legislation" or threats to remove slavery from the North.  There were none.  As mentioned the Missouri Compromise was ENACTED LEGISLATION.  It guaranteed that all states that were slave states could remain so and that new states below the  36º 30' latitude line could be slave and those above could not.  HENCE THE SOUTH HAD NO REASON TO SECEDE DUE TO SLAVERY. 

The war started not because of slavery or threats to abolish it.  It started because the South seceded and declared its independence.  It seceded strictly because of what it considered unfair legislation that damaged the agricultural industry of the south with high product costs for imported products and benefited the north whose factories were protected from imported products via the tarrifs. 

By the time of the civil war, slavery was ALREADY BEING PHASED OUT in the South by industrialization.  Inventions like the cotton gin were making it less economical to use slaves.  

The civil war ended slavery but slavery was not the impetus that started the war.  That is as fake as Marie Antoinnette saying "let them eat cake" or that you can see the Great Wall in China from space.  

It is politically popular to say the Civil War was a great crusade to end slavery but that is patently false.  Though Lincoln opposed slavery, he was governed by the consitution, and the Missouri Compromise which guaranteed it. 

This legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. It also outlawed slavery above the 36º 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory.May 10, 2565 BE

 

Missouri Compromise (1820) - National Archives 

[VocalNeal]

Meanwhile another civil war hero 

 

[ozimoron]

1 hour ago, Longwood50 said:

Ozimoron,

No it was not about slavery.  Tell me. Where was the "legislation" or threats to remove slavery from the North.  There were none.  As mentioned the Missouri Compromise was ENACTED LEGISLATION.  It guaranteed that all states that were slave states could remain so and that new states below the  36º 30' latitude line could be slave and those above could not.  HENCE THE SOUTH HAD NO REASON TO SECEDE DUE TO SLAVERY. 

The war started not because of slavery or threats to abolish it.  It started because the South seceded and declared its independence.  It seceded strictly because of what it considered unfair legislation that damaged the agricultural industry of the south with high product costs for imported products and benefited the north whose factories were protected from imported products via the tarrifs. 

By the time of the civil war, slavery was ALREADY BEING PHASED OUT in the South by industrialization.  Inventions like the cotton gin were making it less economical to use slaves.  

The civil war ended slavery but slavery was not the impetus that started the war.  That is as fake as Marie Antoinnette saying "let them eat cake" or that you can see the Great Wall in China from space.  

It is politically popular to say the Civil War was a great crusade to end slavery but that is patently false.  Though Lincoln opposed slavery, he was governed by the consitution, and the Missouri Compromise which guaranteed it. 

This legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. It also outlawed slavery above the 36º 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory.May 10, 2565 BE

 

Missouri Compromise (1820) - National Archives 

Yes it was. The south depended on cotton and it wasn't going to pick itself.

 

https://www.nps.gov/cuga/learn/historyculture/upload/SLAVERY-BROCHURE.pdf

[Longwood50]

8 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Yes it was. The south depended on cotton and it wasn't going to pick itself.

No it was not.  SHOW ME WHERE THE NORTH introduced any action to ban slavery.  As said the Missouri Compromise already GUARANTEED that those states that were slave states could remain so as well as any below the Missouri Compromise line.  

So the argument that they fought over slavery is patently false.  Neither Lincoln, or Congress took any legislative action to stop slavery.   So there was NO REASON TO SECEDE.   There was not even any discussion in congress to ban slavery.  

It is an "urban legend" spread through the ages as some form or moral crusade.  It was not.  Slavery would have ended one way or another without the war.   Mechanization was already starting the end of slavery

[ozimoron]

1 minute ago, Longwood50 said:

No it was not.  SHOW ME WHERE THE NORTH introduced any action to ban slavery.  As said the Missouri Compromise already GUARANTEED that those states that were slave states could remain so as well as any below the Missouri Compromise line.  

So the argument that they fought over slavery is patently false.  Neither Lincoln, or Congress took any legislative action to stop slavery.   So there was NO REASON TO SECEDE.   There was not even any discussion in congress to ban slavery.  

It is an "urban legend" spread through the ages as some form or moral crusade.  It was not.  Slavery would have ended one way or another without the war.   Mechanization was already starting the end of slavery

I posted a link from the government.

[proton]

If the war was about ending slavery why were 4 Union states still slave states, why did it take the fake emancipator almost 2 years into the war to issue the proclamation to free slaves (to help his war effort) and why did both Lincoln and Davis both state the war was not principally about slavery?

Slavery could and should have been abolished without wasting 600k lives and wrecking the economy. Lincoln was primarily to blame for the war. 

[ozimoron]

3 minutes ago, proton said:

If the war was about ending slavery why were 4 Union states still slave states, why did it take the fake emancipator almost 2 years into the war to issue the proclamation to free slaves (to help his war effort) and why did both Lincoln and Davis both state the war was not principally about slavery?

Slavery could and should have been abolished without wasting 600k lives and wrecking the economy. Lincoln was primarily to blame for the war. 

Try reading links sometime.

[proton]

4 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Try reading links sometime.

I have, Lincoln was the real traitor and war criminal

[Longwood50]

34 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

I posted a link from the government.

show me where there was any affirmative action taken against the South to end slavery.  THERE WAS NOT.  Note Lincoln even rebuffed abolionists and to use his war power to strike against slavery.  Since the war was already in progress it is obvious that they would not have been pressuring Lincoln since according to you that was the reason for the war. 

 

We often associate the Civil War with the end of slavery — and for good reason.

But Lincoln’s primary goal in going to war was to save the Union, slavery or not. The Emancipation Proclamation changed the equation.
 

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861. Though Lincoln morally opposed slavery, he avoided any public comments connecting the war and the rights of slaves. He was concerned more with acting constitutionally and a swift victory to prevent the Union from dissolving.

 

So according to you the war was about Slavery but Lincoln himself avoided all public comment connecting the two.  He publicly stated the goal was TO PRESERVE THE UNION. 

While Lincoln opposed slavery he was never for emancipation.  He favored exporting the slaves to either the Carribean or Liberia.

AGAIN THE SOUTH HAD NO REASON TO SECEDE DUE TO THE ABOLOITON OF SLAVERY.  None had been suggested or threatened.  The Missouri Compromise of 1820 ALREADY GUARANTEED THE SOUTH THE PRESERVATION OF SLAVERY. 

[Longwood50]

49 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Try reading links sometime.

Use your own advise.

 

THESE ARE LINCOLNS OWN WORDS RESPONDING TO HORACE GREELEY 

Perhaps you might believe Lincoln's own words on the subject as printed in the National Intelligencer.  HE VERY CLEARLY STATES THAT THE WAR WAS NOT ABOUT SLAVERY.

Or do you think Lincoln's own words on the subject don't matter and are trumped by the PC crowd portrayal of the Civil War as some sort of moral crusade.  Clearly it was not. 

While Lincoln waited for his generals to secure a victory, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley provided Lincoln with an opportunity to test public reaction to emancipation as a war measure. In an open letter to President Lincoln published on August 20 under the heading "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," Greeley urged Lincoln to recognize slavery as the root cause of the war and act boldly with regard to emancipation. Although he already had a draft emancipation proclamation prepared, Lincoln responded with his own open letter to Greeley, which he published in the National Intelligencer in Washington, D.C. Lincoln stated plainly that the goal of his administration's policies, including those related to slavery, was to save the Union. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." Lincoln carefully noted that this represented his official position. He intended "no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free."

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4233400/?r=-3.463,-0.034,7.926,3.132,0

[proton]

The real Lincoln, not fit to clean Lee's boots, Lincoln was a traitor and war criminal 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by proton

[ozimoron]

Next time someone says the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, show them this

 

A lot of people like to pretend that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. That theory is a way of excusing the South, of saying that the Confederate cause wasn't fundamentally about preserving an evil institution.

 

Seidule's argument is especially compelling because he's mostly just quoting Confederates' own words. He points out, for instance, that the secession document in every Confederate state stated that protecting the South's "peculiar institution" (that is, slavery) was its reason for leaving the Union.

 

https://www.vox.com/2015/8/12/9132561/civil-war-slavery-video

[ozimoron]

The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution . . . The prevailing ideas entertained by . . . most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of . . . the equality of races. This was an error

 

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery-cause-civil-war.htm

[ozimoron]

For the last time, the American Civil War was not about states’ rights

 

American social studies curricula have long been hobbled by one of the most pervasive myths in US history: that the Civil War was fought to preserve (or undermine) the spectral concept of “states’ rights.”

It’s a self-delusion some use to justify neo-Confederate pride: stars-and-bars bumper stickers, or remnants of Confederate iconography woven into some of today’s state flags. “It’s about Southern pride,” they insist. “It’s about heritage”—forgetting, intentionally perhaps, that slavery and its decade-spanning echoes are very much a part of the collective American heritage.

 

https://qz.com/378533/for-the-last-time-the-american-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights

[ozimoron]

In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.

 

Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in America—and thus the backbone of their economy—was in danger.

 

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history

 

[Berkshire]

On 12/27/2022 at 8:59 AM, Denim said:

I suppose General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard will either be sent to the crusher or painted in Henry Fords favorite color.

 

That car was bought by golfer Bubba Watson who had the roof painted over.

 

[Watson had the confederate flags removed in 2015.]

 

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2020/06/16/bubba-watson-says-love-give-general-lee-to-museum/

[placeholder]

22 hours ago, Denim said:

Nope , only the one in Trafalgar Square , standing on Virginia soil.

 

https://www.military.com/history/george-washington-statue-london-british-soil.html

Ya got me there. But, of course, it's pretty much universally recognized that Washington was fighting for a good cause. Somehow, I don't see fighting for the preservation of slavery as possessing quite the same cachet.

[placeholder]

13 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution . . . The prevailing ideas entertained by . . . most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of . . . the equality of races. This was an error

 

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/slavery-cause-civil-war.htm

Just to note that these are the words of the Vice-President of the Confederacy.

[placeholder]

43 minutes ago, proton said:

The real Lincoln, not fit to clean Lee's boots, Lincoln was a traitor and war criminal 

 

 

Once again, a right-winger turns to videos to make a case. What do you people have against reading? is it that it's too easy to spot the B.S. when an argument is committed to the written word?

[proton]

12 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Once again, a right-winger turns to videos to make a case. What do you people have against reading? is it that it's too easy to spot the B.S. when an argument is committed to the written word?

Nothing right wing about it, facts are not right wing. Lincoln has been lied about for decades, the only difference between him and Putin is Lincoln killed a lot more people, so far. Lincoln destroyed the Union which was voluntary by enforcing it with an invasion. He waged war illegally, arrested people illegally, deported opponents, closed down newspapers. He was without question a white supremacist and said he was against blacks having the vote, holding public office, marrying whites and thought whites were the superior race. Lee was a far better American, and a far better man.

[proton]

35 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

For the last time, the American Civil War was not about states’ rights

 

 

Both Lincoln and Davis said it was though!

[proton]

The fake emancipator

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union

[Denim]

A

25 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Ya got me there. But, of course, it's pretty much universally recognized that Washington was fighting for a good cause. Somehow, I don't see fighting for the preservation of slavery as possessing quite the same cachet.

As Sherman said :

 

 

. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.
You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with.

 

Pretty well sums it up.

 

Unfortunately , many of the ordinary confederate soldiers did not feel they were fighting for slavery

( regardless of the fact that they were ). They thought they were fighting for their country and their loyalties were stronger for their country than the union. Just as , in The European Union we have heads of state , those states being the countries that make up the union. Does the average German , Frenchman  etc feel stronger loyalty to his own country or the European Union ? Such was the mindset prevailing then. Country/State first ..........union second.

 

It is a real tragedy that although the slaves were emancipated as a result of the war , their lives saw no great improvement due to the fact that many of the Southern leaders were pardoned ,then reentered  politics and enacted the Black Codes :

 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/black-code

 

A black man walked in fear of his life at this time. He was more hated as a free man than he had been as a slave :

 

 

“If there was any period of time where white animus toward blacks was omnipresent, particularly in the South, it was certainly during the time of Reconstruction,” Derryn Moten, a historian at Alabama State University, tells the Montgomery Advertiser. “That was the dawning of African Americans’ new freedom. … [But it] was also the time period when the Klan and other terror groups came into fruition.”

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nearly-2000-black-americans-were-lynched-during-reconstruction-180975120/#:~:text=Nearly 2%2C000 Black Americans Were Lynched During Reconstruction,-A new report&text=Just over a year after,voting rights for black residents.

 

 

[Longwood50]

3 hours ago, ozimoron said:

Next time someone says the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, show them this

Try showing them this. Or don't you believe the words of Lincoln who was the person responsible for declaring the civil war as to what his objective was. 

This letter was written as a response to Horace Greely asking the President to declare emancipation as the reason for the war.  Now if the purpose from the onset was to free the slaves WHY WOULD GREELY IN AN OPEN LETTER ENCOURAGE THE PRESIDENT TO DECLARE IT SO. 

The fact is the war was strictly on economic and states rights issues.  However killing ones brothers to preserve the tarrifs that protected the industry of the Northern States was hardly as sympathetic reason as freeing enslaved men.  Hence the revisionist history that ignores the facts. 
While Lincoln waited for his generals to secure a victory, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley provided Lincoln with an opportunity to test public reaction to emancipation as a war measure. In an open letter to President Lincoln published on August 20 under the heading "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," Greeley urged Lincoln to recognize slavery as the root cause of the war and act boldly with regard to emancipation

This letter was written as a response to Horace Greely asking the President to declare emancipation as the reason for the war.  Now if the purpose from the onset was to free the slaves WHY WOULD GREELY IN AN OPEN LETTER ENCOURAGE THE PRESIDENT TO DECLARE IT SO. 

The fact is the war was strictly on economic and states rights issues.  However killing ones brothers to preserve the tarrifs that protected the industry of the Northern States was hardly as sympathetic reason as freeing enslaved men.  Hence the revisionist history that ignores the facts. 

 If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that
Abraham Lincoln Letter




Now Omicron unless you can't read, this response very clearly articulates that abolishing slavery was not the cause of the war and the abolitionists later brought up emancipation well after the war was already underway. 

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4233400/?r=-3.463,-0.034,7.926,3.132,0

 

[seedy]

555 - an Aussie making arguments about the American civil war, its causes, and the reason for it in the first place. Gotta love public internet forums - dredging the dreck from the ocean floor for years !

[placeholder]

16 hours ago, proton said:

Nothing right wing about it, facts are not right wing. Lincoln has been lied about for decades, the only difference between him and Putin is Lincoln killed a lot more people, so far. Lincoln destroyed the Union which was voluntary by enforcing it with an invasion. 

Even before Lincoln became President, 7 Southern states had already seceded. So how can it rationally be claimed that Lincoln destroyed the Union?

[proton]

26 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Even before Lincoln became President, 7 Southern states had already seceded. So how can it rationally be claimed that Lincoln destroyed the Union?

Because he invaded the south to force them back into a Union making it no longer longer a voluntary one. Union by force was not the Union before Lincoln.

[ozimoron]

9 hours ago, seedy said:

555 - an Aussie making arguments about the American civil war, its causes, and the reason for it in the first place. Gotta love public internet forums - dredging the dreck from the ocean floor for years !

aww shucks. I suppose American universities shouldn't teach European history?

 

When you've got no argument this is the kind of tripe which gets trotted out - attack the messenger.

Edited January 6, 2023 by ozimoron

[ozimoron]

The Pentagon on Thursday ordered a Defense Department-wide effort to begin removing the names and items associated with the Confederacy, as per last year’s recommendations from the congressional Naming Commission. 

 

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3801619-us-military-starts-removing-base-names-items-related-to-confederacy/

[seedy]

15 hours ago, ozimoron said:

aww shucks. I suppose American universities shouldn't teach European history?

When you've got no argument this is the kind of tripe which gets trotted out - attack the messenger.

Have you ever asked an American citizen about history ? A very high percentage do not even know the capitol city of US states, the names of American presidents, let alone European history.