Black Confederates

[Nie Trink Wasser]

http://blackconfederates.tripod.com/

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/cwappoma.htm




Black Confederates Fact Page
by Scott K. Williams

http://www.geocities.com/11thkentucky/blackconfed.htm

Black Confederates Why haven’t we heard more about them? National Park Service historian, Ed Bearrs, stated, “I don’t want to call it a conspiracy to ignore the role of Blacks both above and below the Mason-Dixon line, but it was definitely a tendency that began around 1910” Historian, Erwin L. Jordan, Jr., calls it a “cover-up” which started back in 1865. He writes, “During my research, I came across instances where Black men stated they were soldiers, but you can plainly see where ‘soldier’ is crossed out and ‘body servant’ inserted, or ‘teamster’ on pension applications.” Another black historian, Roland Young, says he is not surprised that blacks fought. He explains that “…some, if not most, Black southerners would support their country” and that by doing so they were “demonstrating it’s possible to hate the system of slavery and love one’s country.” This is the very same reaction that most African Americans showed during the American Revolution, where they fought for the colonies, even though the British offered them freedom if they fought for them.

It has been estimated that over 65,000 Southern blacks were in the Confederate ranks. Over 13,000 of these, “saw the elephant” also known as meeting the enemy in combat. These Black Confederates included both slave and free. The Confederate Congress did not approve blacks to be officially enlisted as soldiers (except as musicians), until late in the war. But in the ranks it was a different story. Many Confederate officers did not obey the mandates of politicians, they frequently enlisted blacks with the simple criteria, “Will you fight?” Historian Ervin Jordan, explains that “biracial units” were frequently organized “by local Confederate and State militia Commanders in response to immediate threats in the form of Union raids…”. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a African-American professor at Southern University, stated, “When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history of the South.”

[Nie Trink Wasser]

Books:

Charles Kelly Barrow, et.al. Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology About Black Southerners (1995). Currently the best book on the subject.

Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (1995). Well researched and very good source of information on Black Confederates, but has a strong Union bias.

Richard Rollins. Black Southerners in Gray (1994). Also an excellent source.

Dr. Edward Smith and Nelson Winbush, “Black Southern Heritage”. An excellent educational video. Mr. Winbush is a descendent of a Black Confederate and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).

[Nie Trink Wasser]

:wink:

[Crossbow]

OK, NTW, I'll bite.

The reason why I have not responded is that I have know about these facts for the last several years.

[Lurker]

Ntw:

So?

Lurker

[Dancing David]

Wow, so are those Us documents were they are denying pensions benefits to black soldiers?

Sad, sad , sad.

It is suprising that slaves would fight on the side of the CSA, further proof the war wasn't about slavery.

[Mike B.]

Interesting quotes from some REAL historians about Black Confeds.:

"It's pure fantasy," contends James McPherson, a Princeton historian and one of the nation's leading Civil War scholars. Adds Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service: "It's b.s., wishful thinking." Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy, has studied the records of 150,000 Southern soldiers and found fewer than a dozen were black. "Of course, if I documented 12, someone would start adding zeros," ... These and other scholars say claims about black rebels derive from unreliable anecdotes, a blurring of soldiers and laborers, and the rapid spread on the Internet of what Mr. McPherson calls "pseudohistory."..."it's a search for a multicultural Confederacy, a desperate desire to feel better about your ancestors," says Leslie Rowland, a University of Maryland historian. "if you suggest that some blacks supported the South, then you can deny that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy."


It is interesting I first heard this in earnest in reaction to Ken Burns's Civil War PBS documentary. Back then it was 5,000-10,000 Black Confeds. Then it grew to 50,000. Now I have heard 90,000 by some Neo-Confederates. I have no doubt it will soon be 200,000...

[Nie Trink Wasser]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Interesting quotes from some REAL historians about Black Confeds.:

"It's pure fantasy," contends James McPherson, a Princeton historian and one of the nation's leading Civil War scholars. Adds Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service: "It's b.s., wishful thinking." Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy, has studied the records of 150,000 Southern soldiers and found fewer than a dozen were black. "Of course, if I documented 12, someone would start adding zeros," ... These and other scholars say claims about black rebels derive from unreliable anecdotes, a blurring of soldiers and laborers, and the rapid spread on the Internet of what Mr. McPherson calls "pseudohistory."..."it's a search for a multicultural Confederacy, a desperate desire to feel better about your ancestors," says Leslie Rowland, a University of Maryland historian. "if you suggest that some blacks supported the South, then you can deny that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy."


It is interesting I first heard this in earnest in reaction to Ken Burns's Civil War PBS documentary. Back then it was 5,000-10,000 Black Confeds. Then it grew to 50,000. Now I have heard 90,000 by some Neo-Confederates. I have no doubt it will soon be 200,000...


I want to see evidence of these false numbers for black confederates.

I just started reading about these fact after seeing THE BOOKS WRITTEN ON THEM and not from just internet scribble.

If it turns out the person you quoted is wrong and there were actually many black confederates, it will reveal a very sleazy trend in civil war history denial.





“…And after the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, …reported among the rebel prisoners were seven blacks in Confederate uniforms fully armed as soldiers…”

-New York Herald, July 11, 1863. (1)


http://www.stonewallbrigade.com/black_confederates.htm

[Dancing David]

I'm not sure I would trust the press back then more than I would trust the press now, I am sure that there were more than twelve black confedrates. But there is the laboroer and personal servent issue. I thought that CSA draftees could send a slave in thier place (most likely more myth)

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Wow, so are those Us documents were they are denying pensions benefits to black soldiers?

Sad, sad , sad.

It is suprising that slaves would fight on the side of the CSA, further proof the war wasn't about slavery.

Dave, I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but I suggest you read the actual documents from people voting to break up the Union, the secession documents. You will find they are about nothing but slavery.

[SteveW]

My family at one time owned many slaves. Many fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side. It's sort of been a family history thing, but my family treated their slaves very well as did most people (forget the movies that show chopping slaves feet off - do you pay alot of money for a car and deface it?).

It's not something I am defending but many slaves were loyal to their owners.

When I was little, there were still former slaves living on our much reduced cotton plantation (granted they were very old and born at the end of the war) but their parents stayed on the property even after Reconstruction.

I think that too much is made of how the slaves were treated so horribly by the South.

[Nie Trink Wasser]

Originally posted by Mike B.


Dave, I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but I suggest you read the actual documents from people voting to break up the Union, the secession documents. You will find they are about nothing but slavery.


could you please provide some evidence of these details you keep mentioning, once ?

[Mike B.]

SIGH...

I don't generally waste too much time arguing with Neo-Confeds. It is like arguing with Creationists. They NEED to believe for their heritage.

Oh and I have seen the arguments for the 10s of thousands of Black Confeds.

It usually goes like this: Person A reported seeing a few thousand black Confeds. Well if we multiply that across the country we get x thousand....

Nie Tie, could you tell me why the Confed. Congress had to debate letting black Confeds. in their army in early 1865? Why didn't someone stand up and say, "We already have tens of thousand in our army."?

I also find it odd that Robert E. Lee wrote the Confed. Congress at the time expressing his growing manpower shortage and wanting blacks to serve. Surprising again he did mention the already tens of thousand serving in their army.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Nie Trink Wasser



could you please provide some evidence of these details you keep mentioning, once ?

But of course:
Here is the Mississippi Decleration of Secession:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. "


Here is the ALabama Supreme Court Justice in his keynote speech urging ALabama to seceede:

“I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for this Ordinance by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern States would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery. This, in my judgment, was the only alternative; and I foresaw that the South would be compelled, at some day, to make her selection. The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery. One searches in vain for any mention of a tariff or states’ rights argument for leaving the Union.”"


These documents form a mountain. I have no doubt you have never heard of them. In Neo-Confederate historical fantasyland, they don't exist.

Jeez,
Talk about a coverup...
:D :D

[Nie Trink Wasser]

Originally posted by Mike B.


But of course:
Here is the Mississippi Decleration of Secession:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. "


Here is the ALabama Supreme Court Justice in his keynote speech urging ALabama to seceede:

“I feel impelled, Mr. President, to vote for this Ordinance by an overruling necessity. Years ago I was convinced that the Southern States would be compelled either to separate from the North, by dissolving the Federal Government, or they would be compelled to abolish the institution of African Slavery. This, in my judgment, was the only alternative; and I foresaw that the South would be compelled, at some day, to make her selection. The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery. One searches in vain for any mention of a tariff or states’ rights argument for leaving the Union.”"


These documents form a mountain. I have no doubt you have never heard of them. In Neo-Confederate historical fantasyland, they don't exist.

Jeez,
Talk about a coverup...
:D :D


Neither of these qoutes mentions black soldiers in the confederate army.


I'll research more on the quote you've posted though, thanks.

[aerocontrols]

A link (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/reasons.html) to the Declaration of Secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas.

I'm from Kansas, which was once Bleeding Kansas, and that fighting was sure as h#ll over slavery.

MattJ

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by Mike B.


Dave, I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but I suggest you read the actual documents from people voting to break up the Union, the secession documents. You will find they are about nothing but slavery.

Further proff that the war wasn't about slavery is the fact that a small number of slaves fought for the CSA.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by aerocontrols
A link (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/reasons.html) to the Declaration of Secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas.

I'm from Kansas, which was once Bleeding Kansas, and that fighting was sure as h#ll over slavery.

MattJ

Thanks Matt,

As always you have the links to great stuff...:)

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Dancing David


Further proff that the war wasn't about slavery is the fact that a small number of slaves fought for the CSA.

Dave there were a small number of Jews that worked for the Nazis in the ghettos. Does that mean the Nazis really were not against the Jews?

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by Mike B.


Dave there were a small number of Jews that worked for the Nazis in the ghettos. Does that mean the Nazis really were not against the Jews?

Ah, you have found the gaping hole in my logic. but really the war was not about slavery, it was about states rights and the growing power of the eastern sates in determing the economics of the republic.

But was WWII really fought over the holocaust or the fact that Hitlers armies were occupying most of Europe?
(Don't get me wrong I am not a Holocaust denyer or minimizer, the death camps were in Poland for a reason, and that is very scary, the SS managed to kill seven million non jews in thier evil and horrific campaign of terror. And they thought that they could cover it up!)

If the war was about racism, then the Fourteeth Amendment would have freed the slaves in Maryland too, it only freed the slaves in the CSA. Left the union slaves as slave.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Dancing David


Ah, you have found the gaping hole in my logic. but really the war was not about slavery, it was about states rights and the growing power of the eastern sates in determing the economics of the republic.

But was WWII really fought over the holocaust or the fact that Hitlers armies were occupying most of Europe?
(Don't get me wrong I am not a Holocaust denyer or minimizer, the death camps were in Poland for a reason, and that is very scary, the SS managed to kill seven million non jews in thier evil and horrific campaign of terror. And they thought that they could cover it up!)

If the war was about racism, then the Fourteeth Amendment would have freed the slaves in Maryland too, it only freed the slaves in the CSA. Left the union slaves as slave.

OH BOY...
I don't even know where to begin.
First off the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868, the 13th in 1865 that freed all slaves across America.

Interesting theory, about eastern economic powers, it is given by such Neo-Confeds. as DiLorenzo. Shame is it bears no relation to the facts or the primary sources of the day...

States' Rights?
PUHLEEZE.
What was the only state right that was threatened. The right of future states in the territories to have slaves is about it.

You are giving the famous Neo-Confed. strawman: If Lincoln didn't free slaves right away, the war could not have been about slavery.

WRONG.
The question to ask is why the southern states seceeded. I suggest you go back to read the link Aerocontrols provided. These are documents that the people that actually voted to leave the Union wrote. (Hint- You will search in vain for states's rights and the tariff in them).

They were scared that the Republican Party was elected: a party that was formed in 1854 in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This was an Act that opened much of the West to slavery. The Southern States were afraid them would be hemmed in and eventaully forced to give up slavery.

Again,
I suggest you read about the armed conflict in Kansas or the Congressional Debates at the time. I also suggest you read the Party Platforms of 1856 to 1860.

I suggest this site:
causes of the civil war (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/causes.html)

It has lots of primary sources which demolish the lost cause myth of States's Rights as the "real" cause of the war.

BTW, the Jews in the Ghettos was just to show it is absurd to say if you can find a few black Confeds. that means the Confederacy was not really about protecting slavery.

[UnrepentantSinner]

You might want to cross post some of this stuff to the "Confederate Flag" thread. It's going down the State's rights highway as well.

[The Thrasher]

Greetings All,

As is so often the case this discussion has very little to do with history and a great deal to do with modern belief systems and political ideologies.

I think the thing that is so often misunderstood is the complexity and the depth of causation that goes into an event as signifigant as the American civil war. We are not talking about a simple quarell between a few individuals. We are discussing a conflict that raged for four years and involved MILLIONS of persons. Does anyone really think that such an event was the result of ONE issue?

The American civil war was about slavery, it was about state's rights, and it was also about a million other things most people never consider.

Oh, and by the way if anyone can provide good documentry evidence that anything approaching 65,000 blacks served in the confederate army as soldiers, I'll eat my keyboard!



"Uneducated men should read books of quotes." Winston Churchill

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by SteveW

My family at one time owned many slaves. Many fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side. It's sort of been a family history thing, but my family treated their slaves very well as did most people (forget the movies that show chopping slaves feet off - do you pay alot of money for a car and deface it?).
It's not something I am defending but many slaves were loyal to their owners.

When I was little, there were still former slaves living on our much reduced cotton plantation (granted they were very old and born at the end of the war) but their parents stayed on the property even after Reconstruction.

I think that too much is made of how the slaves were treated so horribly by the South.


Good points Steve..

Don't forget there are a lot of responsible pet owners out there also. I'ts a shame when some instances of animal cruelty give all pet owners a bad name..

[davefoc]

I enjoyed the thread and wasn't originally going to post anything since I knew little about the topic. But this hasn't stopped me before so why should it now.

Obviously The Thrasher is right that there were many causes of the civil war, but I have believed for a long time that slavery was the most important element. Further, I have believed that the people who deny this are trying to satisfy some inner need to show their great liberal empathy by finding that their fellow white people couldn't possibly have fought and died because they believed that the enslavement of black people was a fundamental wrong.

Based on the evidence presented in this thread it looks like I was pretty much right.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Wow, so are those Us documents were they are denying pensions benefits to black soldiers?

Sad, sad , sad.

Yep. And that's US, as in the Union, not the Confederacy. They completely denied the existance of black soldiers fighting on the side of the CSA.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Interesting quotes from some REAL historians about Black Confeds.:

"It's pure fantasy," contends James McPherson, a Princeton historian and one of the nation's leading Civil War scholars. Adds Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service: "It's b.s., wishful thinking." Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy, has studied the records of 150,000 Southern soldiers and found fewer than a dozen were black. "Of course, if I documented 12, someone would start adding zeros," ... These and other scholars say claims about black rebels derive from unreliable anecdotes, a blurring of soldiers and laborers, and the rapid spread on the Internet of what Mr. McPherson calls "pseudohistory."..."it's a search for a multicultural Confederacy, a desperate desire to feel better about your ancestors," says Leslie Rowland, a University of Maryland historian.

Hmmm...So what's this a picture of, some paper cutouts like those girls and the fairies?

http://www.6thcavalry.org/Resources/1st%20louisiana%20Native%20Guard.gif

And I'm sure the guy on the right in this picture just had a bit of a tan, huh?

http://www.florida-scv.org/Camp1516/_borders/M0qn0im7.jpg

And I suppose all the southern blacks who showed up at the Battle of Gettysburg reunions just thought they were going to a costume party, huh?

http://blackconfederates.tripod.com/Pict0009.JPG

"if you suggest that some blacks supported the South, then you can deny that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy."

Yes, you can. Conversely, if you insist that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy, you must deny the existance of black confederates.

It is interesting I first heard this in earnest in reaction to Ken Burns's Civil War PBS documentary. Back then it was 5,000-10,000 Black Confeds. Then it grew to 50,000. Now I have heard 90,000 by some Neo-Confederates. I have no doubt it will soon be 200,000...

Geez...anyone else see the similarities between this rhetoric and that of the Holocaust deniers?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I'm not sure I would trust the press back then more than I would trust the press now, I am sure that there were more than twelve black confedrates. But there is the laboroer and personal servent issue. I thought that CSA draftees could send a slave in thier place (most likely more myth)

Actually, it was exactly the opposites. Masters usually refused to send their slaves into battle. Finally, in 1864, Jefferson Davis and his Generals made it an official policy that the decision whether or not to fight was entirely up to the slave, not the master.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
I don't generally waste too much time arguing with Neo-Confeds. It is like arguing with Creationists. They NEED to believe for their heritage.

Oh, sure...We only have direct historical evidence, both written and photographic, on our side... :rolleyes:

Oh and I have seen the arguments for the 10s of thousands of Black Confeds.

Nie Tie, could you tell me why the Confed. Congress had to debate letting black Confeds. in their army in early 1865? Why didn't someone stand up and say, "We already have tens of thousand in our army."?

They did. That was a recognition of a policy that had already been put into place unofficially by the field commanders, who, truth be told, were so desperate they were willing to take anyone who wanted to fight. Those debates also came after Davis offered freedom to any slave serving in the Confederate armed forces for over a year.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
If the war was about racism, then the Fourteeth Amendment would have freed the slaves in Maryland too, it only freed the slaves in the CSA. Left the union slaves as slave.

Uh, you're referring to the Emancipation Proclamation, not the 14th Amendment. (And it was the 13th amendment that freed the slaves anyway...)

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
What was the only state right that was threatened. The right of future states in the territories to have slaves is about it.

You're ignoring the tariffs, equal protection, the Commerce Clause violations, equal representation, on and on and on.

By the way, here's some documents you obviously missed in your "extensive" research:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

That's from Lincoln's first inaugural address. In that same address, he also pledged he would "collect the duties and imposts" owed by the southern states, again in flagrant Constitutional violation.

And look at the proposed 13th Amendment that Lincoln himself even signed while president-elect:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

Hardly the actions of someone determined to free the slaves...

[shanek]

Originally posted by The Thrasher
Does anyone really think that such an event was the result of ONE issue?

Apparently...

The American civil war was about slavery, it was about state's rights, and it was also about a million other things most people never consider.

But if it was primarily about anything, it wasn't about slaves or tariffs or any of the other issues, but the one thing they had in common: The Federal Government overstepping its bounds. The northern states, which had more representation in Congress, were constantly passing laws that favored the northern states while harming the southern states.

[shanek]

Originally posted by davefoc
Obviously The Thrasher is right that there were many causes of the civil war, but I have believed for a long time that slavery was the most important element. Further, I have believed that the people who deny this are trying to satisfy some inner need to show their great liberal empathy by finding that their fellow white people couldn't possibly have fought and died because they believed that the enslavement of black people was a fundamental wrong.

Robert E. Lee certainly believed that slavery was fundamentally wrong. He fought for the South anyway.

Ulysses S. Grant was actually a slaveowner, but he fought for the North anyway, and in 1863 said that if he had actually thought the war was about slavery he would have resigned.

[Thanz]

shanek -

Did you read the link provided by aerocontrols? Those states certainly seemed to think that it was about slavery. While it may not have been the only complaint, it certainly appears to be the primary cause of concern and motivating factor.

(BTW - love the new avatar. What a great movie - they really nailed the mental process of the seagull. Reminds me of the mental process of the puppy - "What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? Oh- Gotta pee! What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that?....")

[Thanz]

Argh. Double post. sorry.

Move along, nothing to see here....

[davefoc]

Shanek, admittedly the cause of the civil war is complicated and the notion that the North was solely driven by the cause of freeing the slaves or that the South was solely driven by the cause of retaining them is clearly wrong.

It is interesting that you would bring up the fact that Grant held slaves as bolstering your point. The ambiguities in the actual situation are typical of the ambiguities involved in the whole question. Grant married a woman whose father owned slaves and who may have given four of them to his daughter. Grant's own father was an abolitionist. Grant for a brief period of time had personal ownership of a slave. He granted that slave his freedom rather than sell him in spite of Grant's personal financial difficulties.

This web site had details of the acutal situation:
http://www.mscomm.com/~ulysses/page160.html

Personally, based on what has been said previously in this thread and for other reasons, I continue to believe that there would not have been a civil war except for the issue of slavery.

[Skeptic]

I want to see evidence of these false numbers for black confederates.

The excellent SKEPTIC magazine, in vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 60-66, has a good overview (with a significant bibiliography and many references) of the issue, under the title "Neo-Confederates at the Gate", by historian Christopher M. Centner.

Essentially, his conclusion is--and he gives quite a bit of evidence for it--that, like holocaust deniers, the "researchers" who do this work are not interested in what happened in the past, but in using any scrape of information to "prove" a preconcieved dogma. Their dogma is simple: that the antebellum south, and in particular its slavery and (later) "Jim Crow" laws, was an ideal society, the "good old days", while Lincoln and those other nasty republicans destroyed it all out of spite. The idea is to recast the slave owners as victims, and those who freed the slaves as "agressors". And what better way to "prove" that the war really wasn't about slavery but to show that blacks fought for the Confederacy?

The reality, of course, is very different. There were no more than a handful of black soldiers in the confederate army (literally a handful, something around 10-12). Blacks were not allowed to bear arms at all under the confederacy, and therefore could not be soldiers, except from March 1865 on, in Virginia--when the CSA was at its last gasp; and that, too, met much opposition. The black "soldiers" in confederate uniforms were, usually, simply slaves or unarmed servants who were forced to join their masters when the masters were drafted or volunteered to join the Confederacy's army.

To put it simply, to say that some blacks--usually slaves--cooperated with their masters in the Confederate's army as "proof" that the war "wasn't about slavery" is disingenious. It's like the holocaust deniers' claim that the fact that some jews cooperated with the nazis "proves" the holocasut didn't happen. The truth, of course, is that in both cases THEY HAD NO CHOICE. The alternative was often death, or at least severe punishment.

You might as well say that the fact that a hostage in a hijacked plane, , forced to read a script saying he supports the "X liberation organizations stuggle against the evil imperialists" (or whatever) when a gun is put to his head, is expressing his true wishes, and that therefore, the SWAT teams who kill the hijackers are "agressors".

I just started reading about these fact after seeing THE BOOKS WRITTEN ON THEM and not from just internet scribble.

Just because something is in a book, doesn't make it so. Most books are no better than "internet scribble". You might as well take Sylvia Browne seriously because she wrote a couple of books.

If it turns out the person you quoted is wrong and there were actually many black confederates, it will reveal a very sleazy trend in civil war history denial.

Yes, and if it turns out that the SWAT teams were wrong and the passanger seen on TV REALLY DID support the terrorists' organization, it WOULD be embarrasing to the SWAT teams, now wouldn't it?

But, as they say, don't bet on it.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Thanz
Did you read the link provided by aerocontrols? Those states certainly seemed to think that it was about slavery.

Those in power in those states seemed to think it was about slavery. And this is exactly what one would expect, given that the ruling classes in those states were directly tied to the elite class, which was the class that benefitted the most from the status that owning slaves gave them. IOW, it's exactly what we would expect, so it proves nothing.

(BTW - love the new avatar. What a great movie - they really nailed the mental process of the seagull. Reminds me of the mental process of the puppy - "What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that? Oh- Gotta pee! What's that? What's that? What's that? What's that?....")

Thanks...

[shanek]

Originally posted by davefoc
t is interesting that you would bring up the fact that Grant held slaves as bolstering your point. The ambiguities in the actual situation are typical of the ambiguities involved in the whole question. Grant married a woman whose father owned slaves and who may have given four of them to his daughter. Grant's own father was an abolitionist. Grant for a brief period of time had personal ownership of a slave. He granted that slave his freedom rather than sell him in spite of Grant's personal financial difficulties.

All true. There are some letter's surviving written by Grant's former slave (don't remember his name offhand) and he speaks very glowingly of his former master.

Personally, based on what has been said previously in this thread and for other reasons, I continue to believe that there would not have been a civil war except for the issue of slavery.

I'm not sure...On the one hand, since, of all the issues surrounding the war, slavery was the only one that was unjustifiable, and therefore the northern states may have had more of an incentive to reconcile with the south (although notice that some of those states—Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, and I think one other—still had slaves, and all northern states were still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act), but it's also true that the north wielded a lot of power, and made a lot of money from the tariffs and duties imposed on the south, and they would have been very reluctant to give that up.

Also notice that the Union didn't really start making a big issue of slavery until 1862. All of this makes me skeptical that there would have been no Civil War had it not been for slavery.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic


I think this thread has shown quite conclusively that this argument is just not true, and smacks of bigotry.

[b]The reality, of course, is very different. There were no more than a handful of black soldiers in the confederate army (literally a handful, something around 10-12).

Jeez...There were more than that who fought at Gettysburg, as evidenced by the number that showed up for the reunion—and they were just the ones that lived that long!

Blacks were not allowed to bear arms at all under the confederacy, and therefore could not be soldiers, except from March 1865 on

It's also been shown in this thread that this claim is not entirely true. They fought before then, it just wasn't officially recognized by the Confederate Congress.

The black "soldiers" in confederate uniforms were, usually, simply slaves or unarmed servants who were forced to join their masters when the masters were drafted or volunteered to join the Confederacy's army.

This has been rebutted as well.

Seems like pretty sloppy research, and an almost inexcusable bigotry, from an otherwise excellent magazine.

[Dancing David]

Slavery was one of the press issues in the why the Civil War was faught but seriuosly this was an issue in the forming of the Constitution.

But the issues that led to the war were economics and states rights. When the nation was founded there was a real split between the Federalists and those who believed in a looser confederation.

When the idustrialization of the North began, these issues were running hot and heavy. Slavery is just one of the more obvious of the states right's issues.

When the South cseceeded from the Union it was testing the ability of a state to say 'we don't want to belong'. They lost that right.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
But the issues that led to the war were economics and states rights. When the nation was founded there was a real split between the Federalists and those who believed in a looser confederation.

And if you'll notice, they were largely split along north/south lines. The New England states were more Federalist, and the southern states were more confederate.

When the South cseceeded from the Union it was testing the ability of a state to say 'we don't want to belong'. They lost that right.

Even though it was a right no one had questioned before and the New England states had even seriously considered at one point.

Just because a war turns out a certain way doesn't mean it was the right result.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by shanek
..........................

Hmmm...So what's this a picture of, some paper cutouts like those girls and the fairies?

http://www.6thcavalry.org/Resources/1st%20louisiana%20Native%20Guard.gif


Geez...anyone else see the similarities between this rhetoric and that of the Holocaust deniers?
I am inclined to defer to your expertise on this, though I must say my interest is piqued, and I plan to look into it a great deal more..

I was just wondering if there were two " 1st Louisiana Native Guards ", one that fought for the south and one for the north?
Because I found this source..
INTRODUCTION: USCT IN THE MOBILE, ALABAMA CAMPAIGN (http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/mo_intro.htm)

73rd USCI ( United States Colored Infantry ) - Organized at New Orleans, Louisiana, September, 1862, as the 1st Louisiana Native Guard Volunteers; redesignated the 1st Regiment Corps d' Afrique, and to 73rd USCI, April 1864; consolidated with the 96th USCI, September, 1865. Battles: Port Hudson, Jackson, Bayou Tunica, Steamer City Belle, and Morganzia. NOTE: The 1st Louisiana Native Guards (73rd U. S. Colored Infantry Regiment) was the first unit of Black soldiers to be officially mustered into the Union Army.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by Diogenes
I was just wondering if there were two " 1st Louisiana Native Guards ", one that fought for the south and one for the north?


They were the same. They never saw action as "Confederates."
http://www2.netdoor.com/~jgh/

Did Southern Blacks Fight for the South? (http://www2.netdoor.com/~jgh/mobile.html)
Some local historians believe that pro-Confederates want to push the issue of black participation on the Confederate battle front as a way to dilute, even eliminate, the shadow of racism often associated with the Confederacy.
"They were never mustered into the Confederate Army," said Hollandsworth, Associate Provost at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

Their enthusiasm for the Confederate cause began to wane as they soon realized that "Confederate authorities did not intend to provide the Native Guards with either the status or support they afforded the white soldiers."

In September 1861, when the first Union prisoners captured at Manassas were to arrive in New Orleans, white militia men, instead of the Native Guards, were selected to escort them.

Then, when New Orleans fell to Union forces in April 1862, the Native Guards were sent in as last-minute substitutes to defend the French Quarter. The white Confederate troops headed to their training ground some 80 miles north of the city.

"The Confederate authorities never intended to use black troops for any mission of real importance," Hollandsworth wrote. "If the Native Guards were good for anything, it was for public display; free blacks fighting for Southern rights made good copy for the newspapers."

Ironically, the war’s end would find the Native Guards on the Union side as three regiments of the United States Colored Troops. Now with considerably different personnel than its original formation, the unit ultimately found itself battling the Confederacy on Blakely Island, near Spanish Fort, on the same day as the surrender at Appomattox.
While some neo-Confederates believe that men of color were welcomed into the Confederate ranks with the same privileges as white soldiers, historical accounts indicate that these fighting men were not comparable to those who served with the 54th Massachusetts, immortalized in the feature film "Glory."

The historical accounts of free blacks or slaves serving on the Confederate side depict them doing pretty much what they did as slaves: Running behind their masters. They were attached to white officers, acting more as bodyguards or personal servants or both, Bradley said.

"Even privates would take servants out on the battlefield with them," he said. "They found out pretty quick that it wasn’t such a good idea."

Historical accounts don’t show blacks leading charges, fighting hand-to-hand combat or even shooting at the enemy.

Free blacks and slaves worked in non-military ways: They mostly took care of horses and equipment, cooked meals, hauled supplies, washed clothes and carried the wounded and dead from the battlefields. They graded roads, constructed railroads, drove supply wagons, and labored in iron foundries and munitions industries.

Slaves built defensive installations, especially in Mobile. Mostly their labor was involuntary.

Many of those former slaves, especially those living in occupied areas, attached themselves to and eventually joined the Union regiments. Recently, the descendants of those who formed the United States Colored Troops dedicated a statue in Washington in honor of those soldiers and their efforts to preserve the young nation.

[Skeptic]

I think this thread has shown quite conclusively that this argument is just not true, and smacks of bigotry.

I think that you're trying to get away with "proof by assertion". Saying that something was "quite conclusively shown" doesn't make it so, any more than thumping on the table increases the logical force of an argument.

Jeez...There were more than that who fought at Gettysburg, as evidenced by the number that showed up for the reunion—and they were just the ones that lived that long!

This point specifically is addressed by the author of the article I wrote. These people were not soldiers, but servants and laborers. As Centner says:

"Many [white] soldiers brought their servants (slaves) along to cook and wash for them while in the army. Both free and enslaved Negroes served as camp aides, teamsters, and general laborers. Evidence suggests that individual Negroes did join in with their masters and comrades in the heat of battle, and some teamsters did defend supplies. Many recieved small pensions later in life, and were present in Confederate reunions. But the evidence for 'Afro-Confederate' soldiers (emphasis in the original--S.) is greatly exagerrated by Neo-Confederates; in most cases the claim is based upon second-hand reports (e.g., sensationalist news articles from the NY press in middle of the war-S.), obviously false reports, and folklore".

Besides, even if all the reports you give are true, what do they show? At most it shows that a tiny minority of the CSA's soldiers or auxiliary laborers and other "camp followers" (seven blacks out of how many tens of thousands of CSA soldiers in Gettysburg?) were forced (like the tiny minority of jews that cooperated with the Nazis, willingly or not) to support their masters in a war that, if they had won, would keep them as slaves. How that "disporves" the war was about slavery is beyond me.

The claimed "real causes" of the civil war according to the Neo-confederates, such as the political "states' right to secede" issue, or the economic "industrial vs. agrarian" issue, were for the most part either the excuse for, or the effect of, the south's slavery. They were not the main cause, which was the result of the deep and growing divide between slave and free states--a divide that was bound to lead to confrontation sooner or later.

For example, the claim that the states have a right to secede to "protect our way of life", and that Lincoln's refusal to allow it caused the war, ignores the fact that such a "protection of our way of life" was really an euphemism for "keeping the blacks as slaves", and that this was the reason the south wanted to secede in the first place. Also, the industrialization of the north vs. the agrarian south was die tp the fact that a slave-based economy, to a large degree, caused the south to stay unindustrialized and agrarian. Both of these "alternate" causes of the war were due to slavery, not independent "causes" having nothing to do with it.

To put it differently, to say that disagreements about the legal rights of states to secede "caused" the civil war, and that slavery had little to do with it, is like saying that the assassination of archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo "caused" the first world war all on its own, and that the precarious "balance of power" in Europe at the time had little to do with it. This is revisionist history and it makes no sense.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Mahatma Kane Jeeves


Snip...




Thanks for the research..

Actually, the sight that Shanek linked to, for the picture, did not seem to be a font of historical research. But I wanted to reserve further comment until I did more research of my own.

I still want to acknowledge that Shanek seems to be coming from a better informed and educated position than I, but even more reason to find a problem with his rush to use that picture as evidence for his position.

The " The Civil War was not about slavery ", position, seems to be coming from from the same folder as " The Confederate battle flag is not about racism..".

[shanek]

Originally posted by Diogenes
I was just wondering if there were two " 1st Louisiana Native Guards ", one that fought for the south and one for the north?

There must have been, because the one you found, the ones that fought for the North, were formed in 1862, and obviously this picture dates to 1861. It'll be interesting to research into that more...but according to the records I found, this guard certainly did fight for the Confederacy.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mahatma Kane Jeeves
They were the same. They never saw action as "Confederates."
http://www2.netdoor.com/~jgh/

"They were never mustered into the Confederate Army," said Hollandsworth, Associate Provost at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

Of course not, because the Confederacy did not officially recognize blacks in the army, as has been discussed to death on this thread.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I think that you're trying to get away with "proof by assertion". Saying that something was "quite conclusively shown" doesn't make it so, any more than thumping on the table increases the logical force of an argument.

Whine, whine, whine. When you post a point that has already been addressed and rebutted, with no regard whatsoever for that rebuttal, this is what you get.

Besides, even if all the reports you give are true, what do they show? At most it shows that a tiny minority of the CSA's soldiers or auxiliary laborers and other "camp followers"

What does it matter how many of them there were?

were forced

No, they weren't. I've already rebutted that as well.

to support their masters

Their masters were largely against their slaves fighting, as has been pointed out several times.

in a war that, if they had won, would keep them as slaves.

No; France had already recognized the Confederacy, and once Britain recognized them the slaves would have been freed. Again, as has been pointed out.

How that "disporves" the war was about slavery is beyond me.

Because you refuse to listen to the opposing arguments.

(more already-rebutted crap deleted)

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by shanek


There must have been, because the one you found, the ones that fought for the North, were formed in 1862, and obviously this picture dates to 1861. It'll be interesting to research into that more...but according to the records I found, this guard certainly did fight for the Confederacy.

Hellooo?! The site I linked to is a history of that regiment. They switched sides in 1862. They did more fighting for the Union than the Confederacy (in fact the only action they saw as Confederates was defending the French Quarter while the Confederates retreated).

[davefoc]

As a result of this thread, I have been doing a little reading about the US civil war. As I stated in an earlier post this is a topic I don't know a great deal about. I do have a few observations based on my recent readings:

1. Slavery was a huge issue in the US prior to the civil war. The Missouri compromise in 1820 was all about slavery and this issue seems to have been huge in US political discourse of the time.

2. It is the election of anti-slavery Lincoln that seems to have been the precipitating event for the civil war. Even though, in an effort to maintain the union, Lincoln stated that he would not seek to end slavery in the Southern states . Question: if slavery wasn't an important issue with respect to the civil war why would Lincoln have thought that stating that he would not seek to end it prevent the secession.

As to black soldiers in the Southern armies, it looks to me like the evidence presented so far suggests that the situation is about what one would have guessed. Some blacks who fought with their masters, a few free slaves who fought for the country they were in, some slaves who were engaged in forced labor in support of the war, not mentioned so far but probably some people of mixed race who fought for the confederacy. None of this argues for or against the notion that a principle issue of the war was slavery. It argues only that given a large enough population you will find people who will act in all sorts of ways and take all sorts of positions.

[shanek]

Originally posted by davefoc
1. Slavery was a huge issue in the US prior to the civil war.

Of course it was; no one said otherwise. It was even a serious issue in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

2. It is the election of anti-slavery Lincoln

As I pointed out above, Lincoln's campaign was far from anti-slavery.

Question: if slavery wasn't an important issue with respect to the civil war why would Lincoln have thought that stating that he would not seek to end it prevent the secession.

Maybe because he was unwilling to accept the fact that it was his other policies that also contributed to the motivation?

Everyone did seem to either play up or play down slavery, because it was the issue of greatest controversy. But the other issues were certainly there, and certainly did have an effect. It also wasn't as justifiable to propose those restrictions as it was to oppose slavery.

None of this argues for or against the notion that a principle issue of the war was slavery. It argues only that given a large enough population you will find people who will act in all sorts of ways and take all sorts of positions.

It also serves to illustrate that slavery was far from the issue everyone thought they were fighting for. Witness my above referenced statements by Lee and Grant.

Most of them probably fought because invaders were coming to destroy their homes. Usually, it's just as simple as that.

[Skeptic]

What does it matter how many of them (black soldiers in the confederacy) there were?

It matters because it makes the difference between the claim that the blacks in the south supported the confederacy (they didn't) and a few individual blacks supported the confederacy.

Some individual slaves, no doubt, loved (or were so dependent on) their masters and didn't want to be free. That hardly means that "the blacks didn't want to be freed", does it?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic
It matters because it makes the difference between the claim that the blacks in the south supported the confederacy (they didn't)

It is absolutely unreasonable to inject generalizations into the conversations. It is just as invalid to say, as you did, that blacks didn't support the Confederacy as it is to say that they did. It's not like they got together and had monthly meetings on the issue.

Some blacks supported the Confederacy. And, I'm sure, some blacks didn't. Which group outnumbered which is just argumentum ad populum. The issue here is if whether or not those who fought for the Confederacy did so in defense of the institution of slavery. Given that it was only a scant minority that owned slaves, and that they comprised an elite class that was not always highly regarded by the masses, it seems absurd to think that the masses would be willing to lay down their lives for something that benefitted only the elites.

That hardly means that "the blacks didn't want to be freed", does it?

Whoever made that claim???

[davefoc]

Shanek,
Thank you for your responses.

I do not believe that anything that you have said is wrong, but I continue to believe that the American civil war would not have occurred except for the issue of slavery.

1. Lincoln was clearly opposed to slavery. I found this sight with a variety of his writings on slavery:
http://www.nps.gov/liho/slavery/al01.htm

I thought they made for interesting reading.

2. While not being in favor of the immediate abolition of slavery, Lincoln was clearly opposed to the expansion of slavery.

3. It would have been obvious to Southern proponents of the institution of slavery that slavery would not continue to exist in the US if non-slave states gained a majority. The election of an anti-slavery president like Lincoln made it likely that the non-slave states would gain a majority. It is possible that even without the election of Lincoln ths Southern states might have seceeded because of the various restrictions on slavery that the North had imposed.

Many of the links in this thread are to things written by Southerners who are arguing for secession based on the issue of slavery. To these, might be added the speech by the Governor of Tenessee on January 7, 1861 when he argued for Secession. The speech leaves no doubt that slavery was the most important justification in his mind for secession.
http://americancivilwar.com/documents/isham_harris.html

If slavery was not the main cause of the war what was? What policies and/or laws was the South so unhappy about they decided to secede? Lincoln took office in November of 1860 and South Carolina seceded in December of 1860.

What policies of Lincoln's administration was South Carolina so upset with that it decided to secede so quickly after the election of Lincoln?

One of the Lincoln quotes that I thought was interesting.
A. Lincoln wrote on July 1, 1854

If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?--

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly?--You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

[davefoc]

Shanek said:It also serves to illustrate that slavery was far from the issue everyone thought they were fighting for. Witness my above referenced statements by Lee and Grant.


While providing some anecdotal evidence that slavery wasn't the main cause of the war, the stated facts with regard to Lee and Grant concerning slavery are hardly definitive, even if there were not mitigating issues associated with the facts.

But there are mitigating issues.

As has been already mentioned Grant's wife may have owned slaves and he may have personally owned a slave for a brief period of time. He freed that slave and no evidence has been given that Grant personally believed in the institution of slavery.

Lee, clearly believed that slavery was a wrong and went on to say that as an institution it might be more harmful to the slave holders than the slaves. But he also believed that it was a Southern decision not to be imposed on it by the North.

What is more, both Lee and Grant were soldiers and not many soldiers will turn down an opportunity to be general of the army even if he doesn't agree with every institution in the country he is fighting for.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by shanek
Given that it was only a scant minority that owned slaves, and that they comprised an elite class that was not always highly regarded by the masses,
You've been corrected on this before (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=292961#post292961). According to the 1860 Census, 39% of the population in the Confederate states were slaves, and 31% of families owned slaves (1860 Census from Civil-War.net (http://www.civil-war.net/docs/1860_census.htm))
Originally posted by shanek
it seems absurd to think that the masses would be willing to lay down their lives for something that benefitted only the elites.
Why the average farmer might fight for slavery:
The Economics of the Civil War (http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/ransom.civil.war.us.php).
Gerald Gunderson (1974) estimated what fraction of the income of a white person living in the South of 1860 was derived from the earnings of slaves ... for all 11 Confederate States, slaves represented 38 percent of the population and contributed 23 percent of whites' income. Small wonder that Southerners -- even those who did not own slaves -- viewed any attempt by the federal government to limit the rights of slaveowners over their property as a potentially catastrophic threat to their entire economic system.

More from DeBow's Review (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/debow.html) :
ART. VI.-THE NON-SLAVEHOLDERS OF THE SOUTH: THEIR INTEREST IN THE PRESENT SECTIONAL CONTROVERSY IDENTICAL, WITH THAT OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. J.D.B. De Bow, January 1861
It will thus appear that the slaveholders of the South, so far from constituting, numerically, an insignificant portion of its people, as has been malignantly alleged, make up an aggregate greater in relative proportion than the holders of any other species of property whatever, in any part of the world; and that of no other property can it be said, with equal truthfulness, that it is an interest of the whole community.
Having thus followed out, step by step, and seen to what it amounts, the so much paraded competition and conflict existing between the non-slaveholding and slaveholding interests of the South, I will proceed to present several general considerations, which must be found powerful enough to influence the non-slaveholders, if the claims of patriotism were inadequate to resist any attempt to overthrow the institutions and industry of the section to which they belong.

1. The non-slaveholder of the South is assured that the remuneration afforded by his labor, over and above the expense of living, is larger than that which is afforded by the same labor in the free States. . . .

2. The non-slaveholders, as a class, are not reduced by the necessity of our condition, as is the case in the free States, to find employment in crowded cities, and come into competition in close and sickly workshops and factories, with remorseless and untiring machinery. . . .

3. The non-slaveholder is not subjected to that competition with foreign pauper labor which has degraded the free labor of the North, and demoralized it to an extent which perhaps can never be estimated. . . .

4. The non-slaveholder of the South preserves the status of the white man, and is not regarded as an inferior or a dependant. He is not told that the Declaration of Independence, when it says that all men are born free and equal, refers to the negro equally with himself. . . .

5. The non-slaveholder knows that as soon as his savings will admit, he can become a slaveholder, and thus relieve his wife from the necessities of the kitchen and the laundry, and his children from the labors of the field. . . .

6. The large slaveholders and proprietors of the South begin life in great part as non-slaveholders. . . .

7. But, should such fortune not be in reserve for the non-slaveholder, he will understand that by honesty and industry it may be realized to his children. . . .

8. The sons of the non-slaveholder are and have always been among the leading and ruling spirits of the South, in industry as well as in politics. . . .

9. Without the institution of slavery the great staple products of the South would cease to be grown, and the immense annual results which are distributed among every class of the community, and which give life to every branch of industry, would cease. . . .

10. If emancipation be brought about, as will, undoubtedly be the case, unless the encroachments of the fanatical majorities of the North are resisted now, the slaveholders, in the main, will escape the degrading equality which must result, by emigration, for which they have the means, by disposing of their personal chattels, while the non-slaveholders, without these resources, would be compelled to remain and endure the degradation. ...

[Mike B.]

BTW,

From a letter from Robert E. Lee to Andrew Hunter, a member of the Virginia senate, in regards to an idea of recruiting slaves for the Confederate army, January 11, 1865.

"Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled at present in this country. "

Hardly an abolitionist, huh?

Hardly even anti-slavery...

Funny too that Lee did not mention the tens of thousands of slaves already in his ranks according to Neo-Confederates.

This idea that Lee was an abolitionist is another one of those myths Neo-Confederates can't stop putting out. Even though it is bogus, it will still pop up from time to time.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mahatma Kane Jeeves
You've been corrected on this before (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=292961#post292961).

And I responded to it at the top of the next page.

All of the reports about the damage that would have been done to the Southern economy without slaves is completely bogus. Even before the Civil War, industrialization was beginning to make slavery obsolete and many people in the South acknowledged this. It didn't have much to do with the economy at all at that point; slaves were really a status symbol.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by shanek


And I responded to it at the top of the next page.

All of the reports about the damage that would have been done to the Southern economy without slaves is completely bogus. Even before the Civil War, industrialization was beginning to make slavery obsolete and many people in the South acknowledged this. It didn't have much to do with the economy at all at that point; slaves were really a status symbol.

The fact that the reports were bogus doesn't refute the notion that their premise was not a motivation in seccession...

As far as the ' status symbol ' thing.. Are you suggesting that, at the ' point ' in question, that the economic impact of slavery was moot?

Why do I suspect there would be information available to refute such a notion?

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Hardly an abolitionist, huh?

Hardly even anti-slavery...

Reread the quote again. He was referring to the current situation vis-à-vis the law and attitudes surrounding the relations between whites and blacks.

Funny too that Lee did not mention the tens of thousands of slaves already in his ranks according to Neo-Confederates.

Your "research," as usual for those on your side of this thread, is quite incomplete.

General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th inst: and to say that he much regrets the unwillingness of owners to permit their slaves to enter the service....When a negro is willing, and his master objects, there would be less objection to compulsion, if the state has the authority. It is however of primary importance that the negroes should know that the service is voluntary on their part.

Charles Marshall, writing to HQ on Lee's behalf.

General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 29th inst: and to say that he regrets very much to learn that owners refuse to allow their slaves to enlist. He deems it of great moment that some of this force should be put in the field as soon as possible, believing that they will remove all doubts as to the expediency of the measure.

Separate letter from Marshall to HQ, again on Lee's behalf.

This idea that Lee was an abolitionist is another one of those myths Neo-Confederates can't stop putting out. Even though it is bogus, it will still pop up from time to time.

Uh-huh.

One Sunday at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, a well-dressed, lone black man, whom no one in the community—white or black—had ever seen before, had attended the service, sitting unnoticed in the last pew.

Just before communion was to be distributed, he rose and proudly walked down the center aisle through the middle of the church where all could see him and approached the communion rail, where he knelt. The priest and the congregation were completely aghast and in total shock.

No one knew what to do…except General Lee. He went to the communion rail and knelt beside the black man and they received communion together—and then a steady flow of other church members followed the example he had set.

From "U.S. Racists Dishonor Robert E. Lee by Association," Edward C. Smith, September 7, 2001

Lee personally disliked slavery and belonged to a society that advocated freeing American blacks and returning them to Africa in colonies.

From "Robert E. Lee's Civil War," Michael Killian, Chicago Tribune, June 3, 2001

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially...Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. [/b]

Robert E. Lee, responding to a speech by President Pierce, December 27, 1856.

It is, however, my only hope for the preservation of the Union, and I will cling to it to the last. Feeling the aggressions of the North, resenting their denial of the equal rights of our citizens to the common territory of the commonwealth, etc., I am not pleased with the course of the 'Cotton States,' as they term themselves. In addition to their selfish, dictatorial bearing, the threats they throw out against the 'Border States,' as they call them, if they will not join them, argue [sic] little for the benefit While I wish to do what is right, I am unwilling to do what is wrong, either at the bidding of the South or the North. One of their plans seems to be the renewal of the slave trade. That I am opposed to on every ground.

Robert E. Lee, writing to Custis Lee on December 14, 1860. Clearly this illustrates the divisive nature of the issue of Slavery in the South. He was certainly fighting for the equality of the states in Congress and not for the institution of slavery.

Awful lot of historical documentation for a "myth"... :rolleyes:

[shanek]

Originally posted by Diogenes
As far as the ' status symbol ' thing.. Are you suggesting that, at the ' point ' in question, that the economic impact of slavery was moot?

Not entirely, but it was clear that many felt that slavery's days were numbered. The emancipationists were making inroads in the south, and industrial equipment was beginning to be able to perform farm work much more quickly and cheaply than slave labor.

Why do I suspect there would be information available to refute such a notion?

You are, of course, free to find any.

[Skeptical Greg]

I am going to post a series of links, that support the notion that the preservation of the institution of slavery was a prime concern among many secession advocates..

I don't pretend it ( slavery ) was the only issue, but I suggest that secesion and the Civil War would have been a remote possibility without it..

1.
Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/gwill.html)
Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. .....

...............That constitution the Southern States have never violated, and taking it as the basis of our new government we hope to form a slave-holding confederacy that will secure to us and our remotest posterity the great blessings its authors designed in the Federal Union. With the social balance wheel of slavery to regulate its machinery, we may fondly indulge the hope that our Southern government will be perpetual.

2.
Letter of S.F. Hale, Commissioner of Alabama to the State of Kentucky, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/hale.html)

Beginning of Opening paragraph as to why secession should take place...
At the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution, African slavery existed in twelve of the thirteen States. Slaves are recognized as property, and as a basis of political power, by the Federal Compact, and special provisions are made by that instrument for their protection as property.

And as to the feared economic impact of abolition...

Under the influences of climate, and other causes, slavery has been banished from the Northern States, the slaves themselves have been sent to the Southern States, and there sold, and their price gone into the pockets of their former owners at the North. And in the meantime, African Slavery has not only become one of the fixed domestic institutions of the Southern States, but forms an important element of their political power, and constitutes the most valuable species of their property-- worth, according to recent estimates, not less than four thousand millions of dollars; forming, in fact, the basis upon which rests the prosperity and wealth of most of these States, and supplying the commerce of the world with its richest freights, and furnishing the manufactories of two continents with the raw material, and their operatives with bread.

3.
Governor Magoffin's Reply to Alabama's Commissioner (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/magoffin.htm)

From the first paragraph.. (It is hard to find another issue that the author finds important..)
The rights of African slavery in the United States and the relations of the Federal Government to it, as an institution in the States and Territories, most assuredly demand at this time explicit definition and final recognition by the North. The slave-holding States are now impelled by the very highest law of self-preservation to demand that this settlement should be concluded upon such a basis as shall not only conserve the institution in localities where it is now recognized, but secure its expansion, under no other restrictions than those which the laws of nature may throw around it.
4.
Correspondence between Commissioner John G. Shorter of Alabama and Gov. Joe Brown of Georgia (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/AL-Ga.htm)
Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln, a Black Republican, to the Presidency of the United States by a purely sectional vote and by a party whose leading and publicly avowed object is the destruction of the institution of slavery as it exists in the slave-holding States; and whereas, the success of said party and the power which it now has and soon will acquire greatly endanger the peace, interests, security, and honor of the slave-holding States, ....( etc. etc.. )

5.
Gov. Joe Brown's Reply to Alabama's Commissioner (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/jbrown-AL.htm)
.......Alabama, in common with the other pro-slavery States, had long endured the injustice and insults of the Black Republican party of the North. That party is now triumphant, and is about to seize the reins of the Federal Government. To this the States of the South can never submit without degradation and ultimate ruin.

Why would submitting to the Federal Government, be Alabama's ' ultimate ruin ', if not the loss of slavery ? (... Seriously.. What might another reason be ? )

[Tmy]

Originally posted by SteveW

I think that too much is made of how the slaves were treated so horribly by the South.

I dont think enough is made to disgrace the south for the Civil War. They are romanticized way too much.

Name a bad guy from the civil war? Whos name will pop up. GENERAL SHERMAN. A union general!!! We should think of the confederates just as the Germans think of their Nazi heritage.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Diogenes
I am going to post a series of links, that support the notion that the preservation of the institution of slavery was a prime concern among many secession advocates.

Who is arguing otherwise?

I don't pretend it ( slavery ) was the only issue, but I suggest that secesion and the Civil War would have been a remote possibility without it.

I've already given my reasons why there might have been a Civil War anyway, and those reasons are unaffected by how many people were concerned with slavery one way or the other.

Why would submitting to the Federal Government, be Alabama's ' ultimate ruin ', if not the loss of slavery ? (... Seriously.. What might another reason be ? )

I've already mentioned several in this very thread.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
Name a bad guy from the civil war? Whos name will pop up. GENERAL SHERMAN. A union general!!!

Who brutally killed innocent women and children, many civilians and noncombatants, using the exact same tactics that the Nazis were to be vilified for later.

We should think of the confederates just as the Germans think of their Nazi heritage.

Why? What did the Confederate Army do that was anything like what the Nazis did?

[corplinx]

Originally posted by shanek


Why? What did the Confederate Army do that was anything like what the Nazis did?

Nathan Bedford Forrest was pretty ruthless. Then again, he never learned that their were "rules" in a war. The sad thing is, the man will be villified to his connection with the early KKK. Here in Memphis, they try to change the name of anything Forrest related every chance they get.

Mind you, Forrest didn't believe in retreats. He treating retreating troops like frontline combatants. He would press a retreating force and decimate it. However, he was defending his homeland and trying to drive an invading force out.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by shanek





I've already given my reasons why there might have been a Civil War anyway, and those reasons are unaffected by how many people were concerned with slavery one way or the other.




Might?

I can continue to document the fact that the leaders in the south were focused on the preservation of slavery.

I would really be interested in seeing similar documentation, that would support a position, that there was a secessionist movement that did not include the slavery issue..

[davefoc]

This has been one of the more interesting threads for me. When it started I had an uninformed view that the slavery was the primary issue of the civil war.

With all due respet to Shanek, I now have a somewhat more informed view that slavery was the primary issue of the civil war.

Thanks to Mahatma Kane Jeeves for the link to the previous thread on this. I didn't realize that the subject had been previously discussed.

I think, I understand a little better about where Shanek is coming from when he wrote that his family had not owned slaves but had fought for the confederacy. It is likely that their issues like the issues of many of their neighbors was not slavery but fighting to defend their land against what felt like foreign invaders. That many people in the South, many of whom might have been opposed to slavery, would fight for their homeland is not surprising. I would have expected the Southern leadership to emphasize the protect the homeland type of propaganda so as to obtain the loyalty of people like that.

Even given this, there appears to be tremendous evidence that slavery was the precipitating issue in the minds of the Southern leadership and with due respect to Shanek, he has not put forth any single issue or set of issues that equal the importance of the slavery question as a precipitating event for the civil war.

[shanek]

Originally posted by corplinx
Nathan Bedford Forrest was pretty ruthless.

Mostly towards his own soldiers, and that was hardly the policy of the Confederacy itself. I don't know of anything he did that rose to the level of the Nazis or even Sherman.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Diogenes
Might?

Yes, might. I don't know for sure, and neither do you nor anyone else.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by shanek


Why? What did the Confederate Army do that was anything like what the Nazis did?

They killed a bunch of US Soliders. More than the Nazi's if memory serves me.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
They killed a bunch of US Soliders.

So? The Union killed a bunch of Confederate soldiers. In fact, there were much heavier losses on the Confederate side than there were on the Union side, particularly when you include civilian causalites.

[Ian Osborne]

Originally posted by shanek
There were much heavier losses on the Confederate side than there were on the Union side, particularly when you include civilian causalites.

You sure? I always thought the figures were around 300,000 Unionist dead, 250,000 Confederates.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne
You sure? I always thought the figures were around 300,000 Unionist dead, 250,000 Confederates.

You may be right, if you don't count the civilian casualties.

[Tmy]

The US Armed forces were just doing their job. Just like in Iraq. Unfortunately some people had to die. Thye had to quash the rebellion. Plus, the South fired the first shot.

(Side question: Does the offical history of the US armed forces include the Confederate army as part of its ranks??)

[Dancing David]

I also wonder how they counted death by disease, just like in the Napoleonic War, many soldiers died of dysentary (the screamers) and cholera (yellow jack).

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by shanek


Reread the quote again. He was referring to the current situation vis-à-vis the law and attitudes surrounding the relations between whites and blacks.



Your "research," as usual for those on your side of this thread, is quite incomplete.



Charles Marshall, writing to HQ on Lee's behalf.



Separate letter from Marshall to HQ, again on Lee's behalf.



Uh-huh.



From "U.S. Racists Dishonor Robert E. Lee by Association," Edward C. Smith, September 7, 2001



From "Robert E. Lee's Civil War," Michael Killian, Chicago Tribune, June 3, 2001



Robert E. Lee, responding to a speech by President Pierce, December 27, 1856.



Robert E. Lee, writing to Custis Lee on December 14, 1860. Clearly this illustrates the divisive nature of the issue of Slavery in the South. He was certainly fighting for the equality of the states in Congress and not for the institution of slavery.

Awful lot of historical documentation for a "myth"... :rolleyes:


Shanek,
Do you even read what you post?

What was Lee worried about when he talked about the SOuth not having their rights in the "common territories." It was their right to bring slaves there.

If you read the whole 1856 letter it is revealing because Lee played the common game of slaveholders. Oh I think slavery is wrong, but it is necessary to "educate the race" and "Christianize" them. No it was not the idea that they were getting cheap labor, it was for the slave's own good.

Lee having communion with a black after the war is interesting. However shortly after the war this is his real attitude:

Also, revealing of Robert E. Lee is his private correspondence to relatives and family members. In his discussions in May 1865 with his cousin Thomas H. Carter, "I have always observed that whenever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving."

It is a myth...

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by shanek


Mostly towards his own soldiers, and that was hardly the policy of the Confederacy itself. I don't know of anything he did that rose to the level of the Nazis or even Sherman.

WHAT THE F---?

FORT PILLOW????????

The slaughter of black US soldiers trying to surrender!!!

What historical fantasy world are you living in?

I am sure too it was people concerned about the tariff as they shouted, "No Quarter!!! Kill the damn N-ggers!!!" as they shot them down.
:rolleyes:

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by shanek


You may be right, if you don't count the civilian casualties.

Could you please document the mass civilian CSA casualites?

There was in Lawrence Kansas where Confed. raiders shot down hundreds of civilians.

There was in East Tenn. where Confeds. hung and murdered Unionists.

There was attempts by the Confeds. to burn down New York City and an unsuccessful attempt to spread malaria via infected clothing behind Union lines.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Diogenes


Might?

I can continue to document the fact that the leaders in the south were focused on the preservation of slavery.

I would really be interested in seeing similar documentation, that would support a position, that there was a secessionist movement that did not include the slavery issue..

You won't find any my friend. As you point out the documantation is overwhelming.

No Neo-Confed. will admit it, they simply can't emotionally let go of the "lost cause."

[Mike B.]

Oh and by the way,

The idea of Shanek's that Nathan Bedford Forrest's policy of slaughtering black US soldiers was not official Confed. policy, take a look at Jeff. Davis's Dec. 1862 orders concering black US soldiers:

"That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States.

That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in company with armed slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy. "

Any black US soldier was to be delivered to the states where the punishment was death for "servile inserrection."
The Confed. Congress went even further authorizing instant death.
The reason this never went into wide effect, was that Lincoln issued an order in retaliation that any slaves killed would be met by the execution of Confed. officer prisioners.

[Visloch]

I once read that Jefferson Davis offered to free the slaves if the European countries would officially recognize the CSA.

Has anyone else heard of this? If true, this would imply that the Southern states wanted to be separate more than preserve slavery.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Visloch
I once read that Jefferson Davis offered to free the slaves if the European countries would officially recognize the CSA.

Has anyone else heard of this? If true, this would imply that the Southern states wanted to be separate more than preserve slavery.

Even if he did.. ( I'm searching... )


Where is the rational/morality in this ?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Oh and by the way,



The reason this never went into wide effect, was that Lincoln issued an order in retaliation that any slaves killed would be met by the execution of Confed. officer prisioners.

Whoa...

Appreciating the input here, but I hate to see you cross over to the '' toss this out and see how it floats " side...


Perhaps we could research this a bit more.. I'm not a big Lincoln fan, but I would be reluctant to pin this ribbon on him..

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
The US Armed forces were just doing their job. Just like in Iraq. Unfortunately some people had to die. Thye had to quash the rebellion. Plus, the South fired the first shot.

On Union forces who were illegally occupying Ft. Sumter—and there wasn't a single person killed or injured in the attack.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I also wonder how they counted death by disease, just like in the Napoleonic War, many soldiers died of dysentary (the screamers) and cholera (yellow jack).

Yeah, and that's apparently where they get a lot of the casualty numbers from. My understanding is if you discount that the number actually killed in battle is much, much smaller.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
It is a myth...

Man...the lengths to which you will go to twist logic, deny evidence, and support your bigotry is truly astounding...

"Well, he must not have meant it, because of this motivation I'm going to ascribe to him for something even though I can provide no evidence that this was his true motive." Give me a break! :rolleyes:

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
What historical fantasy world are you living in?

Cut the strawman. I never denied stuff like this happen. I said mostly to his own men (he was quite cruel to them), and that it didn't rise to anywhere near the levels of the Nazis or even Sherman, which it didn't.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Oh and by the way,

The idea of Shanek's that Nathan Bedford Forrest's policy of slaughtering black US soldiers was not official Confed. policy, take a look at Jeff. Davis's Dec. 1862 orders concering black US soldiers:

"That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States.

That was also in the US Constitution, and was being enforced even as the Civil War was being waged. Your point?

I see nowhere where he called for their wholesale slaughter. In fact, since they were executed outside of their state, their courts, and their masters' jurisdiction, this documentation makes it quite clear that Forrester was not acting legally.

[Tmy]

Originally posted by shanek


On Union forces who were illegally occupying Ft. Sumter—and there wasn't a single person killed or injured in the attack.

They were United States forces occupying a US fort on US land. You can dress up the confederates all you like but they were still a rebel force who tried to overthrow the United States government. They were not slaves they were not an occupied country, they were all part of a government which they had representation. (more representation that the citizens in DC currently have)

They were villians and should be reguarded as such.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Visloch
I once read that Jefferson Davis offered to free the slaves if the European countries would officially recognize the CSA.

Has anyone else heard of this? If true, this would imply that the Southern states wanted to be separate more than preserve slavery.

Yes, it's true. He offered the treaty in 1864. France was willing to do so, but Britain wasn't, since they didn't want any trouble with the Union, with whom they had had good relations. France's treaty with Britain prevented them from recognizing the CSA if Britain didn't, too, so neither country ended up recognizing the CSA.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Diogenes
Perhaps we could research this a bit more.. I'm not a big Lincoln fan, but I would be reluctant to pin this ribbon on him..

I've never heard that, either.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Tmy
They were United States forces occupying a US fort on US land.

No, they were US forces occupying a Confederate fort on Confederate land. They were a separate country at that point. And the South only moved to take the fort after Lincoln moved to supply it with an unprecedented amount of ammunition.

Most of the other forts had been turned over, as was supposed to happen. Sumter hadn't.

You can dress up the confederates all you like but they were still a rebel force who tried to overthrow the United States government.

No, they weren't! Not in any way, shape, or form! Are lies the only thing you have?

[Skeptic]

Shanek, you seem to be somewhat addicted to "proof by assertion". It seems that, as long as you supplied any sort of evidence at all for your view, no matter how suspect or weak, you consider your point of view "proven" and all objections merely "ignoring the evidence" by those who do not want to "see the truth".

This is the language of a fanatic; in reality, what matters is what evidence is best, not merely the fact that there is some evidence to support a conclusion. Virtually any conclusion, no matter how absurd, has some evidence that can be used to support it, flat earth and creationism included. It's just not very good.

I am not ignoring your evidence. I simply consider it suspect (coming from "neo-Confederate" web sites, for instance), or, when not, as not nearly strong enough to support the conclusions you think it does. Here is a typical example:

Some blacks supported the Confederacy. And, I'm sure, some blacks didn't. Which group outnumbered which is just argumentum ad populum.

No, it isn't. Argumentum ad populum means to argue that something is true, or morally right, because many people believe it. If the argument I was making was that all blacks in the south should have supported the Union, I would be making an ad populum argument.

But that is not the point here. We are not arguing whether or not blacks should have supported the Union or the Confederacy. We are arguing whether or not black people did support the Union and the Confederacy. And here, of course, it matters a great deal how many were on each side.

My claim is that the vast majority of blacks supported the Union and that only an insignificant minority of them supported the Confederacy--understandably, of course, since the Confederacy wanted to keep them in slavery. Your examples of blacks that supported the confederacy are just that--atypical, rare examples.

In this case, what matters is how many blacks supported the Confederacy, and not whether any blacks at all did. The issue is whether the war was about freeing the slaves or not. The argument about blacks supporting the confederacy is an attempt on your part to prove that, from the black point of view, the war was not about slavery.

But what the black point of view was were decided by what most blacks actually believed the war was about. And here, numbers of course do matter. Since the vast majority of blacks supported the union and wanted to be free of slavery, this means that from the black point of view, the war was about slavery. Rare exceptions do not matter here.

You seem to think that as long as there were any blacks at all that supported the confederacy, then from the black point of view the war was "not about slavery". To do so, you must claim that the relative numbers "don't matter" and are an "argument ad populum".

But that's nonsense; it's like saying that as long as there are any Americans at all that like rape and murder, Americans as a group "do not oppose rape and murder", because which groups (law-abiding citizens or serial killers) outnumber the other is an "argumentum ad populum".

In sum, your evidence in this case (some blacks supported the Confederacy) simply doesn't prove anything near what you think it proves (that the war was not about slavery from the black--and therefore, from the general--point of view), unless you make the totally unjustifiable claim that how many blacks were on each side doesn't matter.

To be honest, I still do not fully understand why on earth you would want it to be the case for the civil war not to be about slavery. I don't think it's racism (for all I know, you might be black yourself). I think it is, rather, extreme libertarianism and hatered of the government.

The idea seems to be that, if you could show that the war was "not about slavery", then the remaining options was that it was about state rights--with the evil Abe Lincoln high-handedly destroying the South's sacred priviledges and freedoms ("freedoms" to keep others enslaved, but never mind.)

This would mean that the "real reason" for the worst disaster in US history was--drum roll, please--"evil government interference in people's rights", and could be used as the flagship argument for the dismantlement of government and a totally libertarian position.

However, bad arguments, even in a good cause (if you consider libertarianism a good cause) are still bad arguments. Libertarianism should be supported on its merits, not on the absurd proposition that blacks in the south didn't consider the civil war to be about their freedom or their slavery.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Diogenes


Whoa...

Appreciating the input here, but I hate to see you cross over to the '' toss this out and see how it floats " side...


Perhaps we could research this a bit more.. I'm not a big Lincoln fan, but I would be reluctant to pin this ribbon on him..

Here you go:

"Executive Mansion, Washington D.C July 30. 1863


It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age.

The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war

ABRAHAM LINCOLN"


Unlike Neo-Confeds. I can't simply assert things to be true.

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by shanek


Man...the lengths to which you will go to twist logic, deny evidence, and support your bigotry is truly astounding...

"Well, he must not have meant it, because of this motivation I'm going to ascribe to him for something even though I can provide no evidence that this was his true motive." Give me a break! :rolleyes:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

You who claimed on a similar thread a few months ago that the secession declerations, which are about nothing but slavery, were not really about slavery is accusing me of twisting logic.

All the posters like Jeeves, Diogenes, and Skeptic have repeatedly blown you out of the water with documents that you have no answer for, yet you continue making these absurd arguments.

BTW,
Go back and read the 1856 letter again, he makes the exact claim I mention.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Mike B.


Here you go:

"Executive Mansion, Washington D.C July 30. 1863


It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age.

The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession.

It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war

ABRAHAM LINCOLN"


Unlike Neo-Confeds. I can't simply assert things to be true.

Interesting.. The summary execution part is very surprising..

How are executive orders archived.. Are they part of the Congressional Record? Filed with the DOJ ?

[Mike B.]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by shanek
[B]

No, they were US forces occupying a Confederate fort on Confederate land. They were a separate country at that point. And the South only moved to take the fort after Lincoln moved to supply it with an unprecedented amount of ammunition.

Most of the other forts had been turned over, as was supposed to happen. Sumter hadn't."

End Quote

BZZZZZZZZZZ...Wrong again. THe South fired on the "Star of the West" in Jan. 1861 before Lincoln was even in office. The ship was attempting to resupply the fort.

Also, here is what Jeff Davis said to his former boss, Franklin Pierce in Jan. 1861:

"When Lincoln comes in he will have but to continue in the path of his predecessor to inaugurate a civil war."

Davis wanted a war, because he wanted to rally the other slave states to his banner, and it worked he got Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tenn. after Fort Sumter.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Skeptic


... all that stuff...



Me too..
Thanks..

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic
Shanek, you seem to be somewhat addicted to "proof by assertion".

No, I'm not. Saying that someone hasn't proven their case is not "proof by assertion." I don't have to supply evidence of my own to show that someone has not made their claim.

This is just another attempt to shift the burden of proof, which is always on the side of the person making the claim.

This is the language of a fanatic;

As I have never used that language, then fortunately that does not apply to me. It's all just a strawman on your part.

I am not ignoring your evidence. I simply consider it suspect

Wait, make up your mind—did I give evidence or not? If I gave evidence, no matter how suspect you consider it to be, then your above accusation is false.

No, it isn't. Argumentum ad populum means to argue that something is true, or morally right, because many people believe it.

And that's essentially what you're doing. By making it about the numbers, you're saying that whatever the majority agreed to must have been right!

We are arguing whether or not black people did support the Union and the Confederacy.

And I'm arguing that you can't make the generalization one way or the other. It just isn't that simple!

And here, of course, it matters a great deal how many were on each side.

No, it doesn't. All a majority belief supports is what the majority believed. Nothing more.

My claim is that the vast majority of blacks

No, it isn't. You're backpedalling again. Your claim was that BLACKS didn't support the Confederacy; not a MAJORITY of blacks.

The numbers are irrelevant. It's clear you cannot ascribe any one particular point of view to the totality of blacks in the South.

To be honest, I still do not fully understand why on earth you would want it to be the case for the civil war not to be about slavery.

It's not about what I want; it's about how it really happened. But that phrase certainly seems to clarify something about your position, so let me turn the question back to you: Why do YOU want to believe that the Civil War was solely about slavery?

The other arguments you ascribe to me here are also strawmen, so I won't even respond to them. If you can't argue without making up points and pretending that I said them, there's no hope for you.

I have proven, beyond ANY reasonable doubt, that many people on the side of the Confederacy were there for reasons other than slavery. It DOESN'T MATTER whether or not they were a majority. The fact is, the Civil War is not as black/white and clear-cut as people like you would make it out to be.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Mike B.
Unlike Neo-Confeds. I can't simply assert things to be true.

I have posted many letters and other documents supporting my arguments, and I resent this accusation.

[Skeptic]

I have posted many letters and other documents supporting my arguments, and I resent this accusation.

The problem is, they don't actually support it. You are making a mountain out of a molehill; you post evidence that a few blacks joined their masters in the ranks of the confederacy--and think that this proved "the war wasn't about slavery".

[shanek]

Originally posted by Skeptic
The problem is, they don't actually support it.

I have posted letters from Robert E. Lee showing his opposition to slavery. The writings posted by the opposing side need a lot of supposition to make their case. I have posted letters sent on his behalf to HQ on the issue of allowing blacks to officially serve in the Confederate Army, and also chastising the masters who (as I had pointed out) were the ones refusing to let their slaves fight, in direct contradiction to the claims of the other side. No one has even responded to those yet.

And here you are, not only not responding to it but making yet another strawman, saying that I'm claiming that slavery wasn't an issue at all, something I never said and never argued for.

[Mike B.]

If you want to know how former slaves felt about the CSA, look at their actions after the war.

They voted for the short time they were allowed to by the presence of Federal troops in almost a bloc for the Republican Party or the Party of Lincoln.

Of course they were terrorized by former Confed. soldiers in organizations like the Ku Klux Klan for trying to have the most basic human rights.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Mike B.

They voted for the short time they were allowed to by the presence of Federal troops in almost a bloc for the Republican Party or the Party of Lincoln.



By which time of course, abolition had become a Republican issue. So was that vote truely a reflection of how they felt about the CSA?

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by shanek


And I responded to it at the top of the next page.

All of the reports about the damage that would have been done to the Southern economy without slaves is completely bogus. Even before the Civil War, industrialization was beginning to make slavery obsolete and many people in the South acknowledged this. It didn't have much to do with the economy at all at that point; slaves were really a status symbol.

A response is not a rebuttal. If you have any evidence that "slaves were really a status symbol," by all means, lets see it.

From: http://www.peddie.org/faculty/pkraft/revolution/Review%20Notes/class2w.htm
Slave Holdings were Small: Unlike sugar, rice, or (to some extent) tobacco, one did not need a large number of slaves to harvest cotton profitably. The result was that most masters owned fewer than five slaves, and only ¼ of all slaves lived on holdings of more than 50 workers. The majority of slaves worked tracts that had between 20 and 30 slaves, which was large enough for a community but were far less than the massive plantations of myth.

3/4s of Slaves were Field Hands and ¼ were "Other": Though this changed considerably, the general proportion of field hands to other slaves was approximately 3:1. This ratio was higher in the Deep South and lower in the Upper South. [edited to add: "other" includes factory workers, tradesmen, and hirelings in addition to house servants]

There were 4 million slaves in the South in 1860, 75% of which were field hands. What was that you were saying about industrialization making slavery obsolete?

I am not suggesting that economics was the only factor motivating non-slaveholders; but I think it is clearly not "completely bogus." Unless of course you have some evidence to the contrary.

Here's another reason why non-slaveholders may have fought:
Confronting Slavery and Revealing the "Lost Cause" (http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/21-4/21-4-5.pdf) (pdf file)
Many slaveholders were equally skeptical that non-slaveholders would support slaveholding with their lives. Thus, secessionists mounted a formidable campaign to convince non-slaveholders that they had a critical stake in the slave system. Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, secessionist from Alabama who served in the Confederate Congress and helped to draft the Confederate Constitution, spoke directly to the non-slaveholding majority in the South when he argued that those who contended that “non-slaveholders are not interested in the institution of slavery,” were absolutely wrong. “No greater or more mischievous mistake could be made,” he claimed and then set about to prove his point by arguing that slavery encouraged a society that privileged all white people, non-slaveholders and slaveholders alike. Indeed, he argued that abolition would place poor whites at the bottom of southern society, on a level with black southerners. Under these circumstances Curry believed “the poor whites of the South are more interested in the institution than any other portion of the community.”

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by corplinx



By which time of course, abolition had become a Republican issue. So was that vote truely a reflection of how they felt about the CSA?

:confused:

I am not sure I understand what you mean.

Abolition was a Republican issue by at the latest 1864 when an anti-slavery Amendment was put in the Republican platform at Lincoln's request.

Of course the war was still going on at that point...

[Mike B.]

Originally posted by Mahatma Kane Jeeves


Here's another reason why non-slaveholders may have fought:


Interesting too is the Breckinridge platform of 1860. This is the Southern Wing of the Democratic Party. The vast majority of the non-slaveholders of the South voted for Breckinridge.
Here is his party platform:

Democratic Platform of 1860
(Breckinridge Faction)
June, 1860 Richmond, Virginia

Resolved, That the platform adopted by the Democratic party at Cincinnati be affirmed, with the following explanatory resolutions:

1. That the Government of a Territory organized by an act of Congress is provisional and temporary, and during its existence all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation.

2. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends.

3. That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.

Resolved, That the Democratic party are in favor of the acquisition of the Island of Cuba, on such terms as shall be honorable to ourselves and just to Spain, at the earliest practicable moment.

Resolved, That the enactments of State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.

Resolved, That the Democracy of the United States recognize it as the imperative duty of this Government to protect the naturalized citizen in all his rights, whether at home or in foreign lands, to the same extent as its native-born citizens.

WHEREAS, One of the greatest necessities of the age, in a political, commercial, postal and military point of view, is speedy communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Therefore be it

Resolved, that the National Democratic party do hereby pledge themselves to use every means in their power to secure the passage of some bill, to the extent of the constitutional authority of Congress, for the construction of a Pacific Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, at the earliest practicable moment.

(From: National Party Platforms: Volume I 1840-1956, compiled by Donald Bruce Johnson, University of Illinois Press, p. 31.).

Look at the first part of the platform. It is wholly about slavery in the territories. There is nothing in the platform about the tariff and other "real" reasons for the war according to the Neo-Confeds. The non-slaveholders in the South were very much in favor of slavery because it gave them status as Jeeves has pointed out.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

More info:

The Great Issue: Our Relations to it., J. Randolph Tucker, Southern Literary Messenger, March 1861, pp.161-188

from the Making of America (http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/)

See what is involved in its continuance--what in its overthrow:
1. The South has 4,000,000 of slaves--worth nearly three thousand millions of dollars. On this property basis, every property interest of the South rests. It is the laborer which produces the raw material for the development of every other industrial pursuit. The mercantile-the mechanical-the professional the agricultural classes, all depend upon it. With it, they expand and prosper--without it, they would decay and perish.
But the industrial classes of the world depend upon it. Two-thirds of the exports, drawing an equal amount of the imports of the country, are produced by slave labor; and can be produced by no other labor. The navigation interests of home and foreign trade find employment from the cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco
fields of the slave States. The looms of America and England, in their busy music, echo the cheerful songs of the happy slaves of the South. The poor and the rich, of every civilized people, are clad in the production of the slave; and the homes of the humblest made more blest, because of his well-directed and well-paid service. His prosperity gives buoyancy to credit and to trade, fills the treasuries of Government, the coffers of the tradesman, and the purse of the laborer. His extinction would paralize industry, destroy the credit of men and of Empires, and make a waste and a desolation of the wide spreading plantations of the
sunny South. Slavery makes the South a blooming Eden. Its abolition (now or in the future) would make it a Jamaica or even worse, a St. Domingo!
Industrially, slavery is an essential to civilized life, in the world.

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by Mike B.

There is nothing in the platform about the tariff and other "real" reasons for the war according to the Neo-Confeds.

My favorite quote on the tariff is from the Speech of Alexander H. Stephens to the Georgia Legislature, Nov. 14, 1860 (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/steph2.html) (in which he argues against secession!)

The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that.

[Mr. Toombs: That tariff lessened the duties.]

[Mr. Stephens:[ Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at. If reason and argument, with experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of Massachusetts from 1832 to 1857, on the subject of the tariff, may not like changes be effected there by the same means, reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question? And who can say that by 1875 or 1890, Massachusetts may not vote with South Carolina and Georgia upon all those questions that now distract the country and threaten its peace and existence? I believe in the power and efficiency of truth, in the omnipotence of truth, and its ultimate triumph when properly wielded. (Applause.)



Earlier on, he stated:
The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause to justify any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because any man has been elected, would put us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of any man to the Presidency, and that, too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the Constitution, make a point of resistance to the Government, without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves, by withdrawing ourselves from it? Would we not be in the wrong?