re: Ole Miss student senate votes to remove state flag.

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To suggest otherwise is poppycock and, frankly demonstrates a remarkably poor grasp of national sovereignty.

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I think we're dealing with someone who lacks any sort of rational sanity.

What I find depressing about our irrational friend is that he is far from alone. I would simply dismiss him as a nut job if I didn't know of so many others like him.

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From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable.

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And in Lincoln's point of view, to permit the slaveholding states to secede from the Union over their aristocracy's of fear of Abolition, was unacceptable.

Lincoln was right, Davis was wrong.

People like you over-romanticize the antebellum South. It was a place where individual liberties were repressed. If even a white person dared to speak about abolition, he would be summarily lynched. So much for 1st Amendment protections - or the 5th Amendment.

You can go on and on about your states rights, but you ignore individual liberty. The confederacy was NOT a bunch of Libertarians - by ANY means. It was a rigid aristocracy, pure and simple.

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You could argue it was about economics and the rights of states.

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not really since its directly stated in the declaration of causes

you can say its about states rights, but what was the right the were fighting for?



For example here is an example of one of the DOC's

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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. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

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Actually there was more than slavery that was going on.

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Then why did the states directly say that slavery was the cause in the reason for their succession?

sure there was more going on, but lets not just gloss over 95% of the reasoning

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And back to my original post in this topic, people are dug into their beliefs and teachings so nothing is going to be solved. It is a political debate that will rage for centuries and yet none of us can understand the meaning, as for one specific reason...we weren't there so we really do not know, we are applying our values to a time and place that has been dead and gone

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You're just plain wrong. My opinions on the matter have changed over time, especially as I read more and more documents from the actual period.

And to say that we were not there, and therefore cannot know, is no reason to ignore the very reasons explicitly stated by those responsible parties:

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In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

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There is NO ambiguity in Mississippi's STATED reason for secession - NONE. Why do you gloss over the very words that explain the causes?

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I was talking about a total now you are talking about a specific state.

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No, you were talking, I was actually quoting. There's a difference.

But yes, I quoted from one state's article, there are others:

In Georgia's very first paragraph it states:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

In Georgia's article of secession, "slave"/"slavery" is mentioned 35 times.

South Carolina's, 18 times.

Here's what an Alabama politician said in a speech linked to earlier in the thread:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

So maybe you disagree with all those other fellows I happen to agree with, but that is what THEY were saying AT THE TIME.

Were they saying other things? Yes. Ultimately what they were fighting for was their way of life. Their way of life, however was contingent on the enslavement of human beings, and the repression of the lower classes by restricting their God-given rights as recognized in the US Constitution. They wanted an aristocracy run with the firm hand of the state government.

So the Confederacy promoted states' rights, what about individual liberty? Where did they stand on that issue?

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The southern apologist/revisionist bullshite train is fricking astonishing when you stop and consider the actual causes of the war from the horse's mouth

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I've lived 50 years in the South, you'd think I'd be used to it by now. But there's still just something that sticks in my craw about it. I can't seem to let it go.

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The war was because of sucession, sucession was because of slavery. there really shouldnt be any debate to this

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Secession was due to 19% of the Souths citizens being levied 3 times their proportionate share of Federal expenditures. It just so happens that the vast majority of those in attendance at secession conventions happened to be part of the 19%. Rich man starts a war, the poor man fights it. The Union needed fresh soul's to "preserve the Union "so slavery became "the" issue of 1863.

Indeed

Most threads die after being moved from board to board.