north vs south

True or not.....it's a good story. A Yankee newspaper editor was visiting his counterpart editor in Vicksburg on July 4th, 1876 when he heard the unmistakable sounds of fireworks & cheering. He said how glad he was to hear, only 11 years after the "Rebellion" that Vicksburg citizens were celebrating the Centennial of the founding of the USA. The Vicksburg editor replied:
"Sir, you are mistaken. We have just received word that the Yankee General Custer was killed at the Little Big Horn"

Yep, Company Aych was a great book.

I do believe Lee's advice was correct when he refused to conduct guerrilla warfare & told his troops to go home & obey the law.

My key argument....and I think that's why we started this debate.....is that I simply refuse to accept any ONE reason as being THE cause of the War.

Lets put this in a tractor perspective.....it takes three things to make it run: fuel in the correct mixture, spark at the right time & compression. Remove any one of these elements and it does not run.

Likewise w/ the CW. Remove slavery, no conflict. But, remove Sectional hostility created by the Abolitionists & the Fire-Eaters....again, no War. Remove Lincolns call for troops....no war. And so it goes w/ tariffs, equal representation in the US Senate, etc, etc.

Oh yes, as a descendant of a family that lost everything, I'm glad it's over. My greatest regret is not that the South lost, but that the war ever occurred in the first place. When my grandfather discussed the CW, it was not in terms of battles & victories or anything like that. It was to remind us that both of his grandfathers died in the War, that what little his family had (the farm & livestock) was stolen or burned to the ground & that so much of the economic problems in the South in his childhood was as a direct result of the War. He was a tenant farmer. He died in 1963 & still referred to downtown Richmond as the 'Burnt District'. And he bore no racial or sectional hatred. The War was just a very, very sad thing to him & most of his generation.

I haven't had a good debate like this w/ a knowledgable Yankeee in years! :)

As foreign & repugnant as it is to us today, slavery was accepted as a natural course of human events by the majority of US citizens in 1860. I'm not about to defend it, but in order to have any understanding whatsoever about the causes of Civil War, that understanding is critical. Lets look at how women are treated in the Mid-East today.....foreign & repugnant to us, right? But, are we invading those countries to 'free the oppressed women' held in near bondage?

As seen by most Southerners, Secession was legal (turns out it was.....note that no treason trails, Jefferson Davis to be precise, ever went anywhere). All the CSA wanted was to be left alone. They willingly joined the Union & now they wanted to leave. The average Southerner also drew no distinction between a Union Army freeing the slaves or stealing his mules. Both were legal personal property.

Bob

Mark....

My family homesteaded this property in 1897 and used mules cuz that all poor white boys could afford . We even picked or own cotton so any teenager that wants to cry about slavery can kiss my arse .

We got out first tractor (used 8N) in 1955 , yea haw - Ken(Ark)

I've enjoyed the thread :-)

duey

Part of the trip is noticing and talking about the terrain and things we see out the train windows. In Louisiana and Mississippi, it's small family vegetable gardens, and very few farms of any size.

Then it gets dark.

We wake up on the prairie in Southern Illinois. The farm land goes as far as the eye can see.

Then we reach the outskirts of Chicago.

Not related, you think? Well, my idea is that the farmers in the deep south had smaller farms, and many couldn't afford and maybe didn't need tractors -- while those farther north couldn't tend their acreage without them.

Does that make any sense??

Mark..... .....

BINGO!

Lets start with legislative power. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 maintained the balance of power in Congress. Free State, Slave State, a 1 to 1 ratio. The Kansas Nebraska Act, 1854, ended that.

And the yellow journalism just ignited regional passions. The SC Fire-Eaters, the Rhetts, Wigfall, Yancey, representing a clear minority of Southerners, thanks to Northern journalism, convinced the average Northerner that the average Southerner was a slave owning brute. And, thanks to the publication of Uncle Toms Cabin, Southerners were convinced that every Northerner was an abolitionist. Add to that the telegraph; nearly every word spoken on the floor of the House or Senate was in the local newspapers the next day. Can you imagine how the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks played out in New England?

And, least any one forget, ratification of the US Constitution by the VA General Assembly specifically allowed VA to leave the Union at any time.

The lessons for today?

1.Do not rely on the news media for the truth.

2. The US government has lied & will lie to you, and then lie about that.

Dean

Or y'all just change resistant..

Beats me...