Grun & Mark AT...... Confederates :D

[Leslie]

Many U.S. servicemen fought under the Confederate battle flag during World War II.  The fighting ability of the Confederates is well recorded in history... even the Germans feared it!!!  Whenever they saw that flag, they knew they were in for a fight.

I think mostly tank crews painted it on the side of their tanks.


I remember seeing a movie...could've been Midway , where one of the aircraft carriers had a Confederate battle flag flying from the topsail.  (CSN battle ensign)

I believe this flag was in common use during WWII on all fronts.  It is an American flag, and represents American ideals, values and courage.  Infantry adopted a flag which was unmistakable in battle, because the First National Flag looked too much like the Union forces' flag.  And the Second National Flag resembled a white flag of surrender.  So, they adopted the naval jack of the CSN, which was at first was only flown from warships, i.e. Alabama, Florida (brigantines), and Virginia, Tennessee (ironclads.)

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The reasons for the Civil War (War Between the States) are very complex.  Slavery, while a "cause de guerre" in the final conflict, was one of many issues leading up to the war.  You would just about have to be a PhD in History to delve into this very complex study, and even then, there would be disagreements.

I believe the states' rights issue had much to do with taxation without representation, and was probably viewed by the Southern states as a hostile business tactic employed by the seat of the Union in Virginia (Washington), to squeeze tax money from the profits of slave labor, at the same time, counting Negro slaves as 3/5 rather than full "votes" in the U.S. Constitution.  Thus short-changing the South on its representational strength by population.  Not exactly fair, but accepted by Yankees.

The South still has not recovered from the Civil War, due to Reconstruction...the price paid for losing the most bitter war in American history.



Les

[batdog]

Point of fact... ready? VERY FEW Southerners owned slaves. These men didn't fight a war to protect the rights of the eliet to own human beings. The fought for a way of life and a culture that they saw threatened.

Second POF... WHAT was the name of the Confed's? Oh yea, Confederation? What does this imply? The North was a Federation ie Federalist type of goverment..ie strong central government w/most of the final authority. The Confederation was a group of states where most of the authority wass found w/in the State Governments.


What does the 2nd paragraph imply? Rights... states rights. There was a basic underlying difference of how the states should be governed and this was a basic underlying cause of the war.

History books like to write it as a war to end slavery. If the South had not of tried to leave the US I doubt that slavery would of been abolished untill the early 1900's or perhaps the late 1800's.

[StSanta]

Toad wrote:

The Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791, says nothing about slavery. But the Fifth Amendment guaranteed that no person could "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Slaves were property, and slaveholders had an absolute right to take their property with them, even into free states or...

Interesting. This means that slaves weren't considered persons? In other words, their humanity was denied them, and they were relegated to the same status as for instance a wagon?

This view was common in Europe too. But back in the Viking days when we had 'trćler', that is, captured/kidnapped enemies, while they were used as slave labour, there was no attempt at denying their personhood. And treatment was generally relatively fair by comparison.

So it seems with the introduction of Christianity and more importantly the passing of time, values shifted.

Please post more Toad; I am not always in agreement with you, but you always support your position with outside references, and I value that.

[Toad]

Santa, then you will enjoy this. A very good article. Even the footnotes are interesting.

A Jeffersonian View of the Civil War

Here's one of the footnotes:

After the war Robert E. Lee also wrote, "The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution [of slavery], and were quite willing to see it abolished. But with them in relation to this subject is a serious question today. Unless some humane course, based on wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them great injustice in setting them free." (Thomas Nelson Page, Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier [New York, 1911], page 38.) Lee did not own slaves (he freed his in the 1850s), nor did a number of his most trusted lieutenants, including generals A. P. Hill, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, J. E. Johnston, and J. E. B. Stuart.

The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,101,000, of which 21,244,000 lived in the North and 10,957,000 in the Confederacy. In the Confederate states 5,447,000 of these people were white, 133,000 free black, and 3,951,000 were slaves. There were 320,000 deaths in Union forces, 3.2 percent of the total male population; and 300,000 deaths in the Confederate forces, 9.7 percent of the (white) male population. This death rate, with the current population of the United States 284,050,000, would be equivalent to 6.5 million men being killed today. Most of those killed were teenagers and men in their 20s.

[Toad]

..... and Lee's view on slavery in his own words.

Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:

       I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed.

The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. 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. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. 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. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.

Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?

[Toad]

And this snip from R. E. Lee: A Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London, 1934 :

THE ANSWER HE WAS BORN TO MAKE

Duly on the morning of April 18 Lee rode over the bridge and up to the younger Blair's house on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly opposite the State, War and Navy Building, where he found the old publicist awaiting him. They sat down behind closed doors. Blair promptly and plainly explained his reason for asking Lee to call. A large army, he said, was soon to be called into the field to enforce the Federal law; the President had authorized him to ask Lee if he would accept the command.

Command of an army of 75,000, perhaps 100,000 men; opportunity to apply all he had learned in Mexico; the supreme ambition of a soldier realized; the full support of the government; many of his ablest comrades working with him; rank as a major general — all this may have surged through Lee's mind for an instant, but if so, it was only for an instant. Then his Virginia background and the mental discipline of years asserted themselves. He had said: "If the Union is dissolved and the government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people and save in defence will draw my sword on none." There he stood, and in that spirit, after listening to all Blair had to say, he made the fateful reply that is best given in his own simple account of the interview: "I declined the offer he made me to take command of the army that was to be brought into the field, stating as candidly and as courteously as I could, that though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States." That was all, as far as Lee was concerned. He had long before decided, instinctively, what his duty required of him, and the allurement of supreme command, with all that a soldier craved, did not tempt him to equivocate for an instant or to see if there were not some way he could keep his own honor and still have the honor he understood the President had offered him. Blair talked on in a futile hope of converting Lee, but it was to no purpose

[Toad]

One last bit on Lee:

Robert E. Lee
to
His Siblings


Arlington, Virginia
April 20, 1861

Mrs. Anne Marshall
Baltimore, Maryland

My Dear Sister:

I am grieved at my inability to see you.   I have been waiting for a more convenient season, which has brought to many before me deep and lasting regret.   Now we are in a state of war which will yield to nothing.   The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn;  and though I recognize no necessity for the state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State.  

With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relative, my children, my home.   I have, therefore, resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State (with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed) I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword.  

I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly as you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right.   To show you the feeling and struggle it has cost me I send you a copy of my letter of resignation.   I have no time for more.   May God guard and protect you and yours and shower upon you everlasting blessings, is the prayer of

Your devoted brother,
R. E. Lee

               

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arlington, Virginia
April 20, 1861

Sydney Smith Lee
Washington, D.C.

My Dear Brother Smith:

The question which was the subject of my earnest consultation with you on the 18th instant has in my own mind been decided.   After the most anxious inquiry as to the correct course for me to pursue, I concluded to resign, and sent in my resignation this morning.   I wished to wait till the Ordinance of Secession should be acted on by the people of Virginia;  but war seems to have commenced, and I am liable at any time to be ordered on duty which I could not conscientiously perform.   To save me from such a position, and to prevent the necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once, and before I could see you again on the subject, as I had wished.   I am now a private citizen, and have no other ambition than to remain at home.   Save in defense of my native State, I have no desire ever again to draw my sword.   I send you my warmest love.

Your affectionate brother,
R. E. Lee

[straffo]

Don't be so fast Toad

I'm just reading a book about independance war I can't keep up with ya

[Toad]

Which one are you reading?

Can't help it.... I've been reading like a fiend since I was in about 4th grade.  

[straffo]

I've a french book as I reserve some English one you pointed to me for my next vacations

Look here :
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2070294129/171-9089553-7357818

For my library instead of counting books I've choosen a new method : I use meter (I'm to an avid reader)
I'm about 10 meters now from novel to sci-fi (comics included)

[Toad]

It looks like Kaspi writes a lot about Les Américains; enjoy.

[lazs2]

toad is correct as far as he goes.

mt.. there was no constitional freedom in germany that allowed for the extermination of jews.

The south should have been allowed to leave the Union (acording to our constitution).   A war fought for human rights could still be fought and... even it the north had won the fight they should have still recognized the souths soverignty.   I doubt that the north would have attacked a soverighn south over the issue of slavery... at least not for some time to come.   Slavery, like all bad ideas was dieing out.   even at that early stage... mechinization would have totaly eliminated it as well as world opinion.   The south would have done much better under it's own trade rules with other nations and... other nations would have pressured the south into getting rid of it's immoral and ineficient slave system.

The north taking over the south  was simply imperialism.

lazs

[Toad]

Genesis of the Civil War

But why would the South want to secede? If the original American ideal of federalism and constitutionalism had survived to 1860, the South would not have needed to. But one issue loomed larger than any other in that year as in the previous three decades: the Northern tariff. It was imposed to benefit Northern industrial interests by subsidizing their production through public works. But it had the effect of forcing the South to pay more for manufactured goods and disproportionately taxing it to support the central government. It also injured the South’s trading relations with other parts of the world.

In effect, the South was being looted to pay for the North’s early version of industrial policy. The battle over the tariff began in 1828, with the "tariff of abomination." Thirty year later, with the South paying 87 percent of federal tariff revenue while having their livelihoods threatened by protectionist legislation, it became impossible for the two regions to be governed under the same regime. The South as a region was being reduced to a slave status, with the federal government as its master.

Not a factor?

[GRUNHERZ]

Just come out and say that the south would have seceded even if there was no issue of slavery between them and the north.

Come on, go say that with a straight face....


OMG now the south slavery/secession apologistsis are complaining about the injustice of being held in slavery.

And I was waiting for you to bring up the "tariff of abomination" - that was in fact a southern idea and they only have themselves to blame for even bringinging it up for consideration.

[Toad]

Given the disparate economic situation between the North and the South and the North's exploitation of the South, yes, I'd say that.

Then there's the writings of those actually involved on both sides, North and South. You'll find Abolitionists are a very tiny, vocal minority even in the North.

I think you'd come to realize that slavery was not the determinant factor if you did any real study of American history from the 1820's up to Fort Sumter.

I'd also suggest reading the Confederate Constitution. Well, at least a summary of the changes. It's generally regarded as an amended US Constitution with changes where the South felt they were needed. I think you'll find those changes illuminating.