Hear slaves, and Civil war veterans speak

[32jazz]

'

Technological economic progress meant slavery wasnt valuable in the way it once was. You had machines that did what a slave could for far cheaper and people could do.

The Germans used free slave labor extensively during WWII ( I do understand many men were at war) & I saw a documentary recently that claimed that 20% of the German labor force at one time was slave labor. Despite " technology' the Germans saw the value of free labor.


Slavery was banned in by many countries decades or even centuries before ,but it wasn't due to technological advancement as much as taking a moral stand.

The South wanted to expand slavery & if you think the lifetime of free labor exceeded the Slaveowners profits you are fooling yourself.

[Kblaze8855]

go look at the voting history on the major changes over the last 150 years and tell me again that it isn't the north forcing human progress on the south.

the south is stubborn out of principle. it's always the South standing in the way of progress and that goes for 1860 or 2015.

you can barely vote for human decency and keep a seat in Congress in the south.


they were electing psychos threatning to stand out in front of schools and shoot up buses of black children trying to get an education 90 years after the war.


90% of them voted against civil rights.


sorry if I don't see them modernizing quickly without an outside influence.

[Jameerthefear]

go look at the voting history on the major changes over the last 150 years and tell me again that it isn't the north forcing human progress on the south.

the south is stubborn out of principle. it's always the South standing in the way of progress and that goes for 1860 or 2015.

you can barely vote for human decency and keep a seat in Congress in the south.


they were electing psychos threatning to stand out in front of schools and shoot up buses of black children trying to get an education 90 years after the war.


90% of them voted against civil rights.


sorry if I don't see them modernizing quickly without an outside influence.

can u ban masonanddixon?

[Dresta]

The South was overrepresented in the US due to the three fifths compromise & Slave Power absolutely dominated American politics up until 1860.

John Quincy Adams spent his Congressional career railing against slave power that dominated the body he was elected to.

The South was so dominate that a " gag rule " was put in place for decades that did not allow for the subject of abolition of slavery to even be discussed on the House floor( although Adams would try to get around it).

The South ( slave power) saw their dominance coming to an end in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected President without winning a single Southern state.

So stop with the poor little innocent Southerners just wanted " states Rights" when they dominated national politics until Lincoln's election.

It was then that the "slave power" that had dominated US politics for decades wanted to take their ball & go home & the States began exceeding before Lincoln was ever sworn into office.

Stop being a lost cause apologist.

Really, this is such a simplistic and childish interpretation that it barely deserves a civil reply - what exactly is "Slave Power" - and if it was so dominant (for 70+ years), then why had Virginia withered from the most powerful and important state in the nation (as it was during the War of Independence, and after, when it produced 4 of the first 5 US Presidents). Christ, even Madison and Jefferson and Monroe, all Virginians, made decisions that favoured bankers, business elites and speculators, as they caved to Northern interests, repeatedly, over and over again. I think the final straw was the non-admittance of slaveholders into territories that they'd won with their own blood (over 2/3rds of those who fought were from the South), as that would have meant a permanent subordinate status - without sectional balance, there was always going to be northern attacks on the rights of the states, and thus the inevitability of secession. What you are ignoring that what often lurked behind the antislavery or proslavery crusader was the land speculator, as the opportunities for profits in new territories were enormous (and actually more immediately profitable if these states were free, as Governor of Kansas Reeder recognised early on in his tenure).

The 3/5ths Compromise had nothing to do with "slave power" (that all-explanatory boogeyman) - if slave power had dominated then a slave would've counted as a whole person; the 3/5ths clause was a compromise to reconcile different interests so that the Union could be born, and the Constitution ratified in the first place. It could never have been passed without this compromise, and compromises benefit two parties, not just one - your explaining this as 'slave power' is illogical - all the states wanted to maintain power over their own institutions, and would not have sanctioned the establishment of a Congress with the power to change them. You simply want to ignore that the Constitution protected slavery, legally - Congress had no right to meddle with the domestic institutions of the states, and the "gag rule" was a reflection of that, and a way of dealing with pointless petitions that were only a waste of time. That is not a concession to "Slave Power" but a way to keep Congressmen from shooting one another about a subject over which they had no legal power.

Of course Lincoln was elected without winning any southern state: he wasn't even on the ballot in any southern states; that was the whole problem: that the Republican Party was a strictly sectional, northern party. Think how any people raised on the legend of Washington (a slaveholding Virginian), and the revolutionary spirit of 76, the ideas of popular sovereignty and the right to self-determination would react to such a turn of events, to effectively being ruled by a foreign occupier? The allegiance before the Civil War was to your State first, then to the Union (mostly as the protector of the single states, as a product of their compact). The formation of the Republican Party could only have led to secession, and a hell of a lot of politicians profited from this development, spending their careers agitating (and gaining power and influence) over the cause of slavery.

Take note of this quote from Orestes Brownson:

[QUOTE]Prior to the Southern Rebellion, nearly every American asserted with Lafayettem

[Dresta]

People like you really don't appreciate how destructive war is, and how much permanent and irreversible damage it does to a nation - the American Civil War was by far the most destructive, and the most catastrophic, war in American history; the Reconstruction period was one of the most grotesque in US history, and it was the natural consequence of such a horrible war - and i know, admitting that such a thing could have been done completely unnecessarily, as a result of the passions, vanities, and ambitions of men, is probably not an easy thing for an American to accept. There is a reason the Confederacy had considerable support in Europe, and it wasn't simply about 'racism' (or any other such cultural marxist hocus pocus). As a non-American I can be more objective about the whole thing than you and Kblaze, who really seem quite emotionally invested in the whole issue.

I'll happily admit that maybe the Civil War was necessary (and certainly inevitable from 1850, as Calhoun well recognised in the famous Senate debate on those compromise measures), but if it was, then it was because the nation needed to be bound tighter together to survive - a consolidation of power, in other words, not a moral triumph. Forcing millions of people who wish each other no ill, and formerly regarded one another as brothers, into a conflict that in the end benefitted only politicians, bureaucrats, speculators and industrialists, can never be a triumph for morality, that's for sure.

I wasn't exactly imagining a southern victory. Their loss was inevitable without intervention from the UK or France, which came close to happening a few times. I was just saying however it went down, slavery ending was an inevitability. Slavery even in 1900 sounds ludicrous to me, that's 35 years from the end of the civil war, not 20. The industrial revolution has fully taken hold by then. It just doesn't make sense. Even Brazil had slavery abolished by 1888.

A lot of the worst parts of the south really came about because of the way the war ended anyway. The south was left pretty lawless and was more or less pillaged by the North during the war. The KKK was actually created in direct response to republican governors being elected in the south, and were filled with veterans trying to oust the Northern occupiers.

So the idea that the north was somehow forcing human progress on the south isn't really well founded. It's never as simple as that. The Southern poverty that still exists today was heavily influenced by the outcome of the war and was intentionally never addressed, which is as much of a problem for black southerners as whites.

It's never as simple as people want to make it out to be. The North did an assload of damage in the south. There is no doubt they were in the "right" but they also weren't a beacon of truth and progress. They were out solely for their own gain.

Glad someone else recognises this - Kblaze is constantly conflating the antebellum southern leadership with the rednecks of the KKK and Jim Crow South - the truth is that the vacuum created by the war led to the ushering of the poorly educated former 'po' white trash' as they were contemptuously termed by slaves who often looked down on them. The distinctions just aren't so simple as that between


Also, I don't think the South could ever have 'won' without heavy external support, but they could certainly have worn out the North, until it no longer had the will to fight (i mean, without the resilience and resourcefulness of Lincoln i think they could have given up far sooner) - resources and manpower are only so much when the population has to be compelled, as the vast majority of the North was (not to mention the need to declare martial law and suspend the writ of habeas corpus to secure the border states, and to prevent northern infighting, as there were plenty of people in the North who supported the Confederate cause - particularly the Irish, who were generally treated like shit by the Yankees). Funnily enough, it was the doctrine of states rights that weakened Confederate leadership the most - impaled on the spike of their own ideals (which were only a masquerade to hide racism according to some).

[jongib369]

kblaze dropping nukes in this thread. Good God.

He's my favorite poster for sure. Always well thought out, never seen him not say something of value. When he posts it's usually an either and you see trolls get desperate

Amazes me how ignorant people from the south were, saying blacks were dumb despite never getting a proper education. As if they were "naturally" more intelligent. Moms side is from Kentucky, so chances are if you go back far enough they were racist. But my Grandfathers side came over from Ireland in 1917, and married a Cherokee woman. So maybe he didn't give a ****. Not sure about my Grandmas side though. Not that I had anything to do with it...But I could see knowing that your genes came from such ignorant/evil people being unsettling

Former southern white racist explains why they hate/fear

[longtime lurker]

You gotta love the morons on this board. Yeah the South has shown itself to be very progressive, even in 2015 its a welcoming utopia. Yeah let's just let an institution built on rape, indiscriminate murder and torture to work itself out..

[Kblaze8855]

Forcing millions of people who wish each other no ill, and formerly regarded one another as brothers, into a conflict that in the end benefitted only politicians, bureaucrats, speculators and industrialists, can never be a triumph for morality, that's for sure.

So my great great grandfather who was a slave...and was freed....became a farmer...saved up...bought land...left it to his 7 daughters....

He didnt benefit from the civil war? His family didnt?

[Jameerthefear]

So my great great grandfather who was a slave...and was freed....became a farmer...saved up...bought land...left it to his 7 daughters....

He didnt benefit from the civil war? His family didnt?

again, can u ban masonanddixon?

[Kblaze8855]

Who? And why?

[Jameerthefear]

Who? And why?

PM'd

[gigantes]

So my great great grandfather who was a slave...and was freed....became a farmer...saved up...bought land...left it to his 7 daughters....

He didnt benefit from the civil war? His family didnt?

not to mention the line-- "and formerly regarded one another as brothers."

i really don't understand what he's getting at. as i see it, the closest that US citizens as a whole have ever been was probably during things like the two world wars and 9/11. but on the whole, i think that americans (like most countries) had major distrust between various regions, ethnicities and ideological viewpoints from the beginning.

[Kblaze8855]

PM'd

He seems rather racist ill grant. A lot of people are racist. You can be that....just....cant take it too far while posting. Seems he occasionally does....and I believe he gets banned for it now and then. Just not forever.

[GIF REACTION]

It's great this is all in the past and should have no bearing on today

[gigantes]

i don't know much about the history of abolition across the developed nations, but it looks like somehow the south had unusually high leverage in holding out against the world, in effect. it looks like most countries made a fairly clean, decisive break, but not the US.

i suspect the difference comes down to the fact that slavery was such a huge part of continental US industry compared to other nations. and... anything else? the very strength of democracy (and money), perhaps?