What Does the Confederate Flag Mean to You?

Really? I take it your referring to Bloody Kansas, that actually was about the entrance of Kansas, Nebraska, to the Union as a free or slave states, it was a "popular sovereignty", issue.

The one other thing that would have killed slavery off quickly was the Cotton Gin, and the new gang plows, and the improvements in agriculture.

One of the reasons that so many hand were needed for the cotton trade was cleaning the cotton, and prepping it for spinning, to make thread, the bolls had to be removed, and the seeds picked out of the fibers to make it a useful product.

Eli Whitney's cotton gin, his proof model could clean the same amount of cotton in a hour as 150 slaves could clean in a day, so how long do you think it would have been feasible to keep slaves once the gins went in to full production?

It's like ignoring the elephant in the room and saying that it isn't really there. Slavery was THE issue that brought about all other issues that caused the war. While the war may have been justified and legitimized for other reasons, the fact is, it was slavery that brought them all about.[/QUOTE]

Again maybe, but even in the North, the Anti Slavery People were a small minority, they never had a majority following.

The biggest reason for the initial surge of Volunteers to fight the war was boredom and to Preserve the Union, not the abolition of Slavery.

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/slave07.htm#Free them

In Lincolns own words:

Well? I live this history through the summer, at least one weekend a month,

I love this as history, and the discussions around the campfires are erudite and scholarly, and you better know your facts to enter into the Debate.

It is a common thing to have Yankees over our campfire, and the other way round, and have school on the subject.

The fact is that the Southern States did have a right to succeed, nothing in the Constitution denyed them that Option, and the North refused to recognize that fact.

Now that being said I wouldn't have the Civil War end any other way than it did, but I also will call a spade a spade when it proper.

I am not writing off that fact, but that as a fact still wasn't the main issue, The Union and the holding together of that Union was the Issue, as explained by President Lincoln.

And the issue for the Southern States was States Rights as enumerated by the Constitution of the United States, in the 10th. Amendment, and we are paying for that even today, that is the down side of the Civil War, it opened the door to the Federal Government to enter deep into State Government, one of the founding Ideals of our Constitution, the States were suppose to be the power not the Central Government, read the Federalist Papers and Our Constitution, the Federal Government was suppose to be subservient to the States, the People, that is why we are in the trouble we are in today, because the Federal Government through the over turning of the 10th mendment in the Civil War, and the enactment of Commerce Act, is able to interfere with the State's governance of themselves, the People's governance of themselves.


@ Buff.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

done
seriously? a proud symbol of ancestral homeland?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I own one too, it is a symbol of a Proud Military Heritage, and both Black's and Whites fought under it for their beliefs.

I also own the Stars and Stripes, the U.S. Army Flag, and My Cavalry Guideon's, 1/9th., 1/6th., 3/4th. Cavalry, from my Service in the United States Army.

As I have gotten older, I have separated the Soldier from the Politics, most soldiers are fighting for what they believe in, God, Family, Friends and Country, not slavery, there are a few who may have fought for that, but the vast majority were just fighting to keep those who would ravage their homes, from doing so.

The man on the line is far and away separated from the politics, to Him it was for God, Family and Friends, the North came down to the South, and like all army's of the time it lived off the land as much as it did off supplies shipped to it, they confiscated live stock, grain stores, meat stores, any and everything needed to feed a Army in the Field, both Man and Beast.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I don't believe that. I will never believe blacks freely fought to keep themselves enslaved.

 

What's the Confederate flag mean to me? An old era not prepared for a new one. A divide between those that didn't want the Industrial Age to end and those that were ready to progress, through good old-fashioned force.

It's gonna happen again soon if the rest of our manual workforce continues to dissipate due to our outdated infrastructure and we're left with a bunch of people unable to adapt to Globalization and the Information Age thanks to technology outpacing our ability to prepare and educate for the future. Third Wave and all.

- N

 

*************
M*W: The Civil War was more about state's rights than slavery. Believe it. Blacks did fight for the North and the South. Not all slave owners were abusive to their slaves. Although Thomas Jefferson did not believe in slavery, he owned slaves. Before he released any of his slaves, he made sure they could read, write and have a marketable skill. I grew up in the South. I was raised by Black mammies. They taught me a lot, and I loved them. I spent all my time with them, and I saw their lives behind the scenes of white supremacy. I've seen their churches and schools set on fire. I was young, but I couldn't understand why white people were doing that to black people. I never liked it. I remember the bigotted signs on water fountains, restrooms and restaurants.

When the slaves were freed in the South, many chose to stay with their masters. That's no secret. It's history. Another side of history. Not all of it was inhumane.

 

What were they "losing", exactly? What exact "representation" was at risk?

Slavery. The United States was about to end the balance of political power between free and slave States.

Irrelevant, as well as unlikely.

The "popular sovereignty" issue involved was slavery.

They had enough of a following to ban slavery - by overwhelming popular majority vote - in their respective States, and to make difficult the induction of more Slave States into the Union despite the strong pressure for more Slave States from what became the Confederacy.

That is so, but another fact is that they seceded to preserve their institution of slavery - the single key and central matter, the States Right actually involved in the States Rights issue.

The largest slave-owner in Delaware owned 16 slaves, at the start of the Civil War. Almost all black people in Delaware were free, and there was not enough slavery to fight for. In the others, large proportions of the citizens joined the Confederacy and fought for their right to own slaves.

It was a Confederacy of slave States, fighting a Union of non-slave States. Can you name a non-slave State in the Confederacy, or a non-slave region that contributed significant military support to the Confederacy?

 

MW, History wasn't written by black southerners was it. They may have fought in self defense. They may have stayed on the plantation that enslaved them after the war was over, but where else would they go? Gloss it over all you want, I will never believe black slaves fought to keep themselves enslaved.

 

Meh, that is similar to my problem here. I'm unsure exactly how to interoperate its meaning. I'm torn on the issue.

 

Well do some Googling, this has become one of my favorite studies on the Civil War, the attempt to bury the Black contribution to the Southern Forces of the Confederacy.

The Blacks in the Confederacy served Honorably, and with Distinction, and were part and parcel of the Army's of the Confederacy from the first Battle of Bull Run, until Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, 5 years later.

They were in every engagement, and they were paid the same as any Confederate Trooper, not like the Union Army, were Black Soldiers were paid 1/2 of a normal solders pay.

Even after the War:

http://www.blackconfederates.com/

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm

Noted Examples:

1. The "Richmond Howitzers" were partially manned by black militiamen. They saw action at 1st Manassas (or 1st Battle of Bull Run) where they operated battery no. 2. In addition two black “regiments”, one free and one slave, participated in the battle on behalf of the South. “Many colored people were killed in the action”, recorded John Parker, a former slave.

2. At least one Black Confederate was a non-commissioned officer. James Washington, Co. D 35th Texas Cavalry, Confederate States Army, became it’s 3rd Sergeant. Higher ranking black commissioned officers served in militia units, but this was on the State militia level (Louisiana) and not in the regular C.S. Army.

3. Free black musicians, cooks, soldiers and teamsters earned the same pay as white confederate privates. This was not the case in the Union army where blacks did not receive equal pay. At the Confederate Buffalo Forge in Rockbridge County, Virginia, skilled black workers "earned on average three times the wages of white Confederate soldiers and more than most Confederate army officers ($350- $600 a year).

4. Dr. Lewis Steiner, Chief Inspector of the United States Sanitary Commission while observing Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson's occupation of Frederick, Maryland, in 1862: "Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in this number [Confederate troops]. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the Negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie-knives, dirks, etc.....and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army."

5. Frederick Douglas reported, “There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the…rebels.”

6. Black and white militiamen returned heavy fire on Union troops at the Battle of Griswoldsville (near Macon, GA). Approximately 600 boys and elderly men were killed in this skirmish.

7. In 1864, President Jefferson Davis approved a plan that proposed the emancipation of slaves, in return for the official recognition of the Confederacy by Britain and France. France showed interest but Britain refused.

8. The Jackson Battalion included two companies of black soldiers. They saw combat at Petersburg under Col. Shipp. "My men acted with utmost promptness and goodwill...Allow me to state sir that they behaved in an extraordinary acceptable manner."

9. Recently the National Park Service, with a recent discovery, recognized that blacks were asked to help defend the city of Petersburg, Virginia and were offered their freedom if they did so. Regardless of their official classification, black Americans performed support functions that in today's army many would be classified as official military service. The successes of white Confederate troops in battle, could only have been achieved with the support these loyal black Southerners.

10. Confederate General John B. Gordon (Army of Northern Virginia) reported that all of his troops were in favor of Colored troops and that it’s adoption would have “greatly encouraged the army”. Gen. Lee was anxious to receive regiments of black soldiers. The Richmond Sentinel reported on 24 Mar 1864, “None…will deny that our servants are more worthy of respect than the motley hordes which come against us.” “Bad faith [to black Confederates] must be avoided as an indelible dishonor.”

11. In March 1865, Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary Of State, promised freedom for blacks who served from the State of Virginia. Authority for this was finally received from the State of Virginia and on April 1st 1865, $100 bounties were offered to black soldiers. Benjamin exclaimed, “Let us say to every Negro who wants to go into the ranks, go and fight, and you are free…Fight for your masters and you shall have your freedom.” Confederate Officers were ordered to treat them humanely and protect them from "injustice and oppression".

12. A quota was set for 300,000 black soldiers for the Confederate States Colored Troops. 83% of Richmond's male slave population volunteered for duty. A special ball was held in Richmond to raise money for uniforms for these men. Before Richmond fell, black Confederates in gray uniforms drilled in the streets. Due to the war ending, it is believed only companies or squads of these troops ever saw any action. Many more black soldiers fought for the North, but that difference was simply a difference because the North instituted this progressive policy more sooner than the more conservative South. Black soldiers from both sides received discrimination from whites who opposed the concept .

13. Union General U.S. Grant in Feb 1865, ordered the capture of “all the Negro men… before the enemy can put them in their ranks.” Frederick Douglas warned Lincoln that unless slaves were guaranteed freedom (those in Union controlled areas were still slaves) and land bounties, “they would take up arms for the rebels”.

14. On April 4, 1865 (Amelia County, VA), a Confederate supply train was exclusively manned and guarded by black Infantry. When attacked by Federal Cavalry, they stood their ground and fought off the charge, but on the second charge they were overwhelmed. These soldiers are believed to be from "Major Turner's" Confederate command.

15. A Black Confederate, George _____, when captured by Federals was bribed to desert to the other side. He defiantly spoke, "Sir, you want me to desert, and I ain't no deserter. Down South, deserters disgrace their families and I am never going to do that."

16. Former slave, Horace King, accumulated great wealth as a contractor to the Confederate Navy. He was also an expert engineer and became known as the “Bridge builder of the Confederacy.” One of his bridges was burned in a Yankee raid. His home was pillaged by Union troops, as his wife pleaded for mercy.

17. One black C. S. Navy seaman was among the last Confederates to surrender, aboard the CSS Shenandoah, six months after the war ended. At least two blacks served as Navy pilots with the rank of Warrant Officer. One, William Bugg, piloted the CSS Sampson, and another, Moses Dallas, was considered the best inland pilot of the C.S. Navy. Dallas piloted the Savannah River squadron and was paid $100 a month until the time he was killed by the enemy during the capture of USS Water Witch.

18. Nearly 180,000 Black Southerners, from Virginia alone, provided logistical support for the Confederate military. Many were highly skilled workers. These included a wide range of jobs: nurses, military engineers, teamsters, ordnance department workers, brakemen, firemen, harness makers, blacksmiths, wagonmakers, boatmen, mechanics, wheelwrights, ect. In the 1920'S Confederate pensions were finally allowed to some of those workers that were still living. Many thousands more served in other Confederate States.

19. During the early 1900’s, many members of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) advocated awarding former slaves rural acreage and a home. There was hope that justice could be given those slaves that were once promised “forty acres and a mule” but never received any. In the 1913 Confederate Veteran magazine published by the UCV, it was printed that this plan “If not Democratic, it is [the] Confederate” thing to do. There was much gratitude toward former slaves, which “thousands were loyal, to the last degree”, now living with total poverty of the big cities. Unfortunately, their proposal fell on deaf ears on Capitol Hill.

20. During the 5oth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913, arrangements were made for a joint reunion of Union and Confederate veterans. The commission in charge of the event made sure they had enough accommodations for the black Union veterans, but were completely surprised when unexpected black Confederates arrived. The white Confederates immediately welcomed their old comrades, gave them one of their tents, and “saw to their every need”. Nearly every Confederate reunion including those blacks that served with them, wearing the gray.

21. The first military monument in the US Capitol that honors an African-American soldier is the Confederate monument at Arlington National cemetery. The monument was designed 1914 by Moses Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate. Who wanted to correctly portray the “racial makeup” in the Confederate Army. A black Confederate soldier is depicted marching in step with white Confederate soldiers. Also shown is one “white soldier giving his child to a black woman for protection”.- source: Edward Smith, African American professor at the American University, Washington DC.

22. Black Confederate heritage is beginning to receive the attention it deserves. For instance, Terri Williams, a black journalist for the Suffolk “Virginia Pilot” newspaper, writes: “I’ve had to re-examine my feelings toward the [Confederate] flag…It started when I read a newspaper article about an elderly black man whose ancestor worked with the Confederate forces. The man spoke with pride about his family member’s contribution to the cause, was photographed with the [Confederate] flag draped over his lap…that’s why I now have no definite stand on just what the flag symbolizes, because it no longer is their history, or my history, but our history.”

 

Very illuminating, Buffalo. And along with it you could post numerous links showing the wide distribution of black (and red, etc) slave-owners.

Meanwhile, the Civil War was about the Right of a State to incorporate legal human slavery. It was the threat to that Right that motivated the extreme measure of secession, and the secession of the Slave State Confederacy that instigated the Civil War.

The battle flag of the Confederacy flew over the army of a people who wanted to keep their right to own slaves, and were willing to secede from the Union to accomplish that.

 

The Cotton Gin was Irrelevant? a system that reduced the numbers of workers to do a job, and you call it irrelevant.

A system where you can reduce your over head by 150 people, that you no longer have to feed and clothe and support, and you call it irrelevant.

That has to be the Understatement of the Century.

The beginning of the Industrial Age was the begining of the end of Slavery.

Popular Sovereignty was about States Rights, the Right of the States to Determine their own destiny.

Slavery was only a small part of the "popular sovereignty" issue.

Really, then you can produce the vote totals that show such?

I really think you are projecting your 21 century ideas to a time were no such high ideals and numbers would have existed.

And there were 34,000 slaves in Missouri, now for it size, Delaware still had 1,800 slaves in 1862.

That is not the Point, the Point is that there were slave states in the Union and even President Lincoln the Great Emancipator would have let slavery continue if it would have saved the Union, and President Lincoln held that under the 10th Amendment, the Federal Government didn't have the Power or Authority to make States end slavery.

 

Wow read-only, I came here to see if Oli was your little buddy, I know see you are just a racist peace of crap.

The civil war was started over slavery, your stupidity here even surpasses your posts on Abert's topic.

Q With that shot on the Union ship “Star of the West” the Civil War officially began. The causes of the Civil War are complex and deep, however one word describes the heart of the division of America that led to actual fighting: slavery éQ

thegooddemocratDOTwordpressDOTcom/2007/03/07/the-american-civil-war-fought-over-slavery-begun-by-south-carolina/

 

Again you are way to simplistic, only 4.8% of the South held slaves, so your insistance that it was the Slavery Issue that Southern Soldiers fought for, is already shown to be wrong, why would 95.2 % of a population fight for something that only affected 4.8% of the Population?

Yes, please explain why 95.2% of the Population would fight to defend a institution that they held no part in? for 5 long bloody years, explain that and I will give credence to your PC musings.

 

Calhoun, no dummy, calls the agitation created by the slavery issue "the immediate cause" of the problems. The quoted language from the South Carolina Declaration of Independence is from Article 1 of that document. If it wasn't "the" primary reason it one at least as high up on the list as any other.

If you read the private letters from Kansas settlers (Kansas being a state where the people living there were to decide whether it was slave or free)you discover that the nutjobs moved there for one of two reasons. (i) Some of them wanted Kansas to be a slave state because they supported slavery so they packed up their families and moved to Kansas, guns at the ready, to kill or runoff people who disagreed. (ii) Others wanted Kansas to be a free state because they opposed slavery, so they packed up their families and moved to Kansas, guns at the ready, to kill or runoff people who disagreed.

The result was called "Bleeding Kansas." That's how motivated people were in the face of that issue.

There has been a modern historical tendency to dismiss slavery as a side show, but it was front and center for the people living at the time, even those who did not own slaves in many cases (just as slavery was a big issue for abolitionists, even though they by and large were not directly impacted by other people's ownership of slaves, feelings still ran high). Dismissing slavery as a root cause of the Civil War is historical revisionism at its most blind.

 

4.8% of the South were slave ownes.

States Rights, far and away the most pressing issue, slavery was only the fuse.

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

State and territory boundaries, 1864–5.
Union states

Union territories

Kansas, entered Union as a free state

Union border states that permitted slavery

The Confederacy

Union territories that permitted slavery

 

What percentage of abolitionists were imacted by slave ownership personally? Probably less than 4.8%, and yet they were still militant on the issue. A personal economic stake is not the litmus test for interest in a clause.

Moreover, in America it has always been the case that the poor dream of becoming wealthy, and often seek to preserve the benefits that they perceive as accruing to the wealthy (like low tax rates), not because it benefits them now, but because they hope to take advantage later.

Further still, what percetage of the politicians who declared war were slave owners? Just as with the founding fathers the secession was a decision
made by people who could be fairly described as "elites," who did disproportionately own slaves. If ten wealthy guys object to high taxes and vote to take themselves and the 1,000,000 poor guys to war (whom they conscript into the military, as needed), is the war not about high taxes on some ex post facto grounds?

I'd be very surprised if you could find even a single contemporaneous description of any length of the causes of the war that didn't implicate slavery as a major issue. They did start seceding right after Abraham Lincoln was elected, and that was pretty clearly because of his abolitionist positions, not his position on federal supremacy.

 

Actually Lincoln's position was that the Federal Was not supreme, that is was bound to the Constitution, and the Constitution via the 10th Amendment didn't allow for the Federal Government to interfere within States Politics.

Yes, slavery was the Fuse, but it wasn't the full cause, the full cause was about States Rights and the the interference of the North in Southern States.

If it was just about slavery, it would have been taken care of by the Bill that was introduced to buy out the slave holders, a much cheaper proposition than a full scale war.

Here is a good read on Pres. Lincoln's thoughts and actions, and the actual realities of the Constitution and Law.

http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=570

 

To me, the confederate flag, the civil war, and all of that is a sign that America failed to recognise it's own imperialism, which is odd, after fighting the British to allegedly get out of the shackles of British Imperialism.

I do not associate the confederate flag with slavery any more than I do the stars and stripes, or Union Jack, all nations were involved, and changing position on the subject doesn't grant immediate forgiveness, not make those that wanted to cling to it significantly more guilty. It's more of a sign of political failure, than anything.