What did you learn about the Confederacy in school?

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Kraichgauer
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22 Aug 2017, 12:55 am

In school, we were taught how the Civil War was fought over the evil of slavery, but that the south had fought courageously. I don't recall much about Reconstruction from when I was a kid. But to be sure, in college we learned how the period of Radical Reconstruction had been blighted and slandered by reactionary pro-Confederate elements out to ensure white supremacy. Yes, some so called carpetbaggers had been corrupt, though not anymore than some Confederates had been, and much less so than the so called "redeemed" state governments following Reconstruction. While the Radical Republicans had taken a beating by regressive historians, the fact of the matter is, their so called repression of the ex-Confederates was actually about stopping them from denying rights due to freed blacks through the means of terrorism and murder. And incidentally, not every white southerner was opposed to Reconstruction, as Newton Knight, the Anti-Confederate guerrilla, had done his part working with said Reconstruction.


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kraftiekortie
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22 Aug 2017, 8:36 am

Lincoln wanted a much more moderate Reconstruction--but John Wilkes Booth sort of ruined that.



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22 Aug 2017, 3:19 pm

Nothing as I am in the UK. I was too busy learning about 1066, Henry VIII and the world wars. Didn't know America had even had a civil war until I was in my mid 20's and it blew my mind.



Kraichgauer
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22 Aug 2017, 4:57 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
Lincoln wanted a much more moderate Reconstruction--but John Wilkes Booth sort of ruined that.


In all honesty though, Reconstruction became brutal at times only because ex-Confederates had seriously pushed the envelope with endangering the lives of both black freedmen and so called carpetbaggers. Just after emancipation, the plantation gentry had tried to reinstitute slavery under the new name of "apprenticeship," forcing a reaction from the Radical Republicans. While Lincoln had offered an olive branch in one hand, he was still holding a club in the other, making think had he lived, he wouldn't have put up with such shenanigans, either.


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kraftiekortie
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22 Aug 2017, 6:44 pm

I honestly feel that most people would have responded to Lincoln's less "radical" Reconstruction. It would have left many people's pride intact.

There would, of course, had been the idiots----but they would have had less effect because the "mainstream" would have felt more inclined to grant rights to black people, and to allow them to integrate into white society.

They wouldn't have felt that they were being "imposed upon," like what happened during Radical Reconstruction.

And Lincoln, though the support of the "mainstream," would have easily defeated the idiots.



Kraichgauer
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22 Aug 2017, 8:17 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
I honestly feel that most people would have responded to Lincoln's less "radical" Reconstruction. It would have left many people's pride intact.

There would, of course, had been the idiots----but they would have had less effect because the "mainstream" would have felt more inclined to grant rights to black people, and to allow them to integrate into white society.

They wouldn't have felt that they were being "imposed upon," like what happened during Radical Reconstruction.

And Lincoln, though the support of the "mainstream," would have easily defeated the idiots.


I think it must be remembered how Lincoln only attained secular sainthood with his assassination. While he had won a second term, he was hardly the most popular President in life among northerners, and hardly at all in the south save among the slaves he freed and those southern Unionists.


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kraftiekortie
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22 Aug 2017, 11:06 pm

He was an effective leader, though. And put his money where is mouth is.

People might not have liked him--but they knew that he didn't play.



Kraichgauer
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22 Aug 2017, 11:33 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
He was an effective leader, though. And put his money where is mouth is.

People might not have liked him--but they knew that he didn't play.


Absolutely, and more. Without a doubt, Lincoln was America's greatest President.


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23 Aug 2017, 10:59 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
There was very little slavery north of the Mason-Dixon Line by about 1800

Most of the New England and nearby states had already banned it by then.

The north profited heavily off slavery. Hypocrisy. You can't say your against something then support it cause profits. Actions speak louder then words. And while slavery was not happening much in the north they still didn't like blacks and treated them like s**t. The freeing slaves was politically move. England was going support the south but England banned slavery so by making the war about freeing slaves England couldn't support the south anymore.

Slavery was unsustainable and would have ended as the south industrialized but the south wasn't at a point to industrialize yet so freeing all slaves would have and did destroy their ecomoney. The north had machines for labor and didn't need slaves so of course they could free their slaves so they didn't have to feed them anymore . Very few people back then were really pro African American rights. Many in the north wanted to ship them back to Africa or tried to make free slave colonies in South America I believe. They didn't want them here.



kraftiekortie
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23 Aug 2017, 6:43 pm

I never said people in the North weren't racists. Most white people were racists at that time.

Yes, some industrialists did indirectly profit from slavery. That has nothing to do with the fact that slavery had to be abolish---nothing!!

Conditions in the North for African-Americans were terrible for some, decent for others.

But it is a fact that slaves from the South ran away to the North to escape slavery. Some African-Americans thrived in the North.

It is also a fact that some didn't thrive, and that some were taken back into slavery through devious means.

Overall, I find the North to have been the "lesser of two evils" when it came to African-Americans.

The Civil War was fought, primarily, to unify the United States in the face of secession (yes, one of the main causes of secession was the attempt by the North to abolish slavery in the South once and for all). Lincoln was a "free-soiler," not an abolitionist. But, in his heart, even though he found African-Americans to be "inferior," he thought slavery was a great wrong.



rvacountrysinger
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26 Aug 2017, 4:00 pm

Folks forget, that even though they fired the first shot, the South was invaded by force. Lincoln sent 75,000 troops to Ft Sumter with the purpose of incite a war. He didn't want the South to leave because he wouldn't get his "revenue" ( a direct quote). Honestly, I think it later became a war over slavery.. but it wasn't that simple. It was and it wasn't. And then when you think that only 11% of Southerners owned slaves. They believed they were fighting for independence.



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26 Aug 2017, 5:46 pm

rvacountrysinger wrote:
Folks forget, that even though they fired the first shot, the South was invaded by force. Lincoln sent 75,000 troops to Ft Sumter with the purpose of incite a war. He didn't want the South to leave because he wouldn't get his "revenue" ( a direct quote). Honestly, I think it later became a war over slavery.. but it wasn't that simple. It was and it wasn't. And then when you think that only 11% of Southerners owned slaves. They believed they were fighting for independence.


I doubt Lincoln was thinking about revenue from the south when he committed troops, but with keeping the Union together.
Though most white southerners didn't own slaves, most still supported white supremacy, as the poorest white southerner was still considered better than any slave. End slavery, and poor whites would not only be equal with blacks at the very bottom of the social ladder, but blacks might in time surpass them. And to say that all white southerners saw the Civil War as a fight for independence doesn't take into account the large number of white southerners who had either headed north to join the Union army, or who carried on guerrilla warfare against the Confederacy within the south's borders.


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26 Aug 2017, 6:51 pm

rvacountrysinger wrote:
Folks forget, that even though they fired the first shot, the South was invaded by force. Lincoln sent 75,000 troops to Ft Sumter with the purpose of incite a war. He didn't want the South to leave because he wouldn't get his "revenue" ( a direct quote). Honestly, I think it later became a war over slavery.. but it wasn't that simple. It was and it wasn't. And then when you think that only 11% of Southerners owned slaves. They believed they were fighting for independence.


Alright, you believe that the Civil War was unjustified.

What about the Native American genocide? Was that justified?


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funeralxempire
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26 Aug 2017, 8:36 pm

Absolutely nothing. The rebellions of 1837 on the other hand...

That said, given the vast libraries written regarding the war of southern treachery it's easy for one to research if they have an interest.


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26 Aug 2017, 11:50 pm

Depended on where the school was.
Either way, I formed my own beliefs and went with them.

Anyone care to guess in which direction those beliefs might lean toward?


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26 Aug 2017, 11:56 pm

Easy.The Lost Cause.


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