Randy's Rants - Confederate Flags

I live out in West Loudoun.

I tell people if I go past rt 9, I'm having a bad day.

 

I don't know about delicate

 

Even many in the Conferate Army were advocating ending slavery. Now you can argue their motives, but they were doing it. I'm sure some disagreed withthe institution like Lee himself while others simply saw it as the lone impediment for England's open and direct support.

 

Hancock was a badass.

 

Bottom line, those boys died for the fat cats of the south

 

Demented?

 

Absofreakinlutely!

 

Getting warmer

 

Didn't a bulk of the II Corps come down to Irish units that were disposable?

 

No doubt about that, but aren't most wars fought a by healthy percentage of poor folks doing the bidding of said fat cats?

 

Yeah, I ultimately have a hard time generalizing the entire Confederacy as an ISIS level evil when most people didn't even own slaves.

 

I'm not sure, but it's plausible.

 

While there might have been those in the Army that disagreed with slavery, the political forces that dictated secession and the inordinate wealth of the South were all bankrolled by slavery. It was a core institution and tenet of the Confederacy.

Can't really argue against the Cornerstone Speech. The VP himself basically comes across like a KKK Wizard.

 

Yep, doomed to repeat history.

Humanity ain't bright

 

I guess their goals are the same?

 

Yep, it was especially easy as illiteracy is still a problem in the South.

I'm sure in 1840s-1860s South it was rampant. Illiterate means ignorant means easily controlled.

I won't go so far as to say that all Confederate soldiers were evil the same as I won't honestly say that all WW2 Japanese or German soldiers are evil. The truth remains, however, that they did fight and die for regimes that were based on evil... regardless if they knew that or not.

That does diminish their sacrifice greatly. It's a sad reality of war and how history judges them.

 

DC's post

 

Yeah. It was about the economics of slavery. I read a book about Freedom and perceptions of freedom by Eric Foner. He made some claims I had really never considered. While we all know that the fat cats had to invent something the poor folks in the South would buy into enough to fight a war (they surely wouldn't fight to preserve slavery to perpetuate the wealth of some), I always wondered why did the Northern boys fight, I mean, what was their REAL reason. Did they really feel sorry for the slaves and feel they were equal? I don't think so. Look at how black Union soldiers were treated. Did they want to preserve the Union? Perhaps, but so many immigrants fought in the war, recent immigrants. Had they really developed such a deep love for their new country? Some, perhaps, but I don't buy that all did. What Foner postulated was the the common Northern laborer viewed slavery as something that cheapened their freedom. They were in many ways the same. Thwy made a living by the sweat of their brow, and if it was ok to enslave one group of laborers for economic reasons, it's not a stretch to think it could happen to others. Also, free slave labor worked as a gov't sanctioned cap on wages. It cheapened their labor in both the figurative and literal sense. I still haven't decided how much I buy into that, but it's thought provoking to me.

 

Good stuff

 

I think a good number of them honestly did see slavery as a fundamental evil that needed to be ended. By 1860, again, most modern and developed nations already had ended slavery (if they even practiced it) for many decades. Many immigrants coming over from Germany and Ireland in the 1840s were fundamentally opposed to it for various different reasons. Especially among the Germans that were educated and were fleeing for political reasons associated with the unification of Germany. That was a big undercurrent that bolstered abolitionism in the North in the decades leading to the Civil War.

However, I feel the US North was similar to places like France and the UK. They wanted slavery ended but they didn't want the slaves living with them. They also probably saw ending it as how Foner iterates. Slavery cheapened labor costs in a more human rights violating aspect to how modern-day sweatshops and outsourcing are probably seen by industrialists seeking to empower US industries.