Celebrating Secession Without the Slaves

Marian

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Nov 30, 2010, 8:12:17 AM11/30/10

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I saw this cyclorama in Atlanta en route to Florida from KY when I was
13, found it very moving. Glad to see that it's still extant...

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE | NY Times | November 29, 2010 |

ATLANTA ~ The Civil War, the most wrenching and bloody episode in
American history, may not seem like much of a cause for celebration,
especially in the South.

And yet, as the 150th anniversary of the four-year conflict gets under
way, some groups in the old Confederacy are planning at least a
certain amount of hoopla, chiefly around the glory days of secession,
when 11 states declared their sovereignty under a banner of states’
rights and broke from the union.

The events include a “secession ball” in the former slave port of
Charleston (“a joyous night of music, dancing, food and drink,” says
the invitation), which will be replicated on a smaller scale in other
cities.

A parade is being planned in Montgomery, Ala., along with a mock
swearing-in of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.

In addition, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and some of its local
chapters are preparing various television commercials that they hope
to show next year. “All we wanted was to be left alone to govern
ourselves,” says one ad from the group’s Georgia Division.

That some ~ even now ~ are honoring secession, with barely a nod to
the role of slavery, underscores how divisive a topic the war remains,
with Americans continuing to debate its causes, its meaning and its
legacy.

“We in the South, who have been kicked around for an awfully long time
and are accused of being racist, we would just like the truth to be
known,” said Michael Givens, commander-in-chief of the Sons,
explaining the reason for the television ads.

While there were many causes of the war, he said, “our people were
only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their
independence.”

Not everyone is on board with this program, of course. The N.A.A.C.P.,
for one, plans to protest some of these events, saying that
celebrating secession is tantamount to celebrating slavery.

“I can only imagine what kind of celebration they would have if they
had won,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina
N.A.A.C.P.

He said he was dumbfounded by “all of this glamorization and
sanitization of what really happened.” When Southerners refer to
states’ rights, he said, “they are really talking about their idea of
one right ~ to buy and sell human beings.”

The secession events are among hundreds if not thousands that will
unfold over the next four years in honor of the Civil War’s
sesquicentennial.

From Fort Sumter to Appomattox, historic sites across the South, and
some in the North, plan to highlight various aspects of America’s
deadliest conflict ~ and perhaps its least resolved.

Many of the activities are purely historical, and some, like a
gathering this month in Gettysburg for the 147th anniversary of
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, will be solemn.

At Antietam, on Saturday, the annual memorial will feature 23,000
candles, representing that battle’s casualties.

Some cities and states are promoting their Civil War history with an
eye toward attracting tourists.

***In Atlanta, the Cyclorama, a giant painting-in-the-round that
depicts the first day of the Battle of Atlanta, is being “refreshed
and rebranded” as part of an overall marketing plan, said Camille
Love, the city’s director of cultural affairs.

Commemorating the Civil War has never been easy. The centennial 50
years ago coincided with the civil rights movement, and most of the
South was still effectively segregated, making a mockery of any notion
that the slaves had truly become free and equal.

Congress had designated an official centennial commission, which lost
credibility when it planned to meet in a segregated hotel; this year,
Congress has not bothered with an official commission and any master
narrative of the war seems elusive.

“We don’t know what to commemorate because we’ve never faced up to the
implications of what the thing was really about,” said Andrew Young, a
veteran of the civil rights movement and former mayor of Atlanta.

“The easy answer for black folk is that it set us free, but it really
didn’t,” Mr. Young added. “We had another 100 years of segregation.
We’ve never had our complete reconciliation of the forces that divide
us.”

The passion that the Civil War still evokes was evident earlier this
year when Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia designated April as
Confederate History Month ~ without mentioning slavery.

After a national outcry, he apologized and changed his proclamation to
condemn slavery and spell out that slavery had led to war.

The proclamation was urged on him by the Sons of Confederate Veterans,
which asserts that the Confederacy was a crusade for small government
and states’ rights.

The sesquicentennial, which coincides now with the rise of the Tea
Party movement, is providing a new chance for adherents to promote
that view.

Jeff Antley, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the
Confederate Heritage Trust, is organizing the secession ball in
Charleston and a 10-day re-enactment of the Confederate encampment at
Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the war were fired on April 12,
1861.

He said these events were not about modern politics but were meant to
honor those South Carolinians who signed the state’s ordinance of
secession on Dec. 20, 1860, when it became the first state to dissolve
its union with the United States.

“We’re celebrating that those 170 people risked their lives and
fortunes to stand for what they believed in, which is self-
government,” Mr. Antley said.

“Many people in the South still believe that is a just and honorable
cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely,” he
said, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization.
“There’s no shame or regret over the action those men took.”

Mr. Antley said he was not defending slavery, which he called an
abomination. “But defending the South’s right to secede, the soldiers’
right to defend their homes and the right to self-government doesn’t
mean your arguments are without weight because of slavery,” he said.

***Most historians say it is impossible to carve out slavery from the
context of the war.

As James W. Loewen, a liberal sociologist and author of “Lies My
Teacher Told Me,” put it: “The North did not go to war to end slavery,
it went to war to hold the country together and only gradually did it
become anti-slavery ~ but slavery is why the South seceded.”

***In its secession papers, Mississippi, for example, called slavery
“the greatest material interest of the world” and said that attempts
to stop it would undermine “commerce and civilization.”

The conflict has been playing out in recent decades in disputes over
the stories told or not told in museum exhibits and on battlefield
plaques.

“These battles of memory are not only academic,” said Mark Potok, the
director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“They are really about present-day attitudes. I don’t think the neo-
Confederate movement is growing, but it’s gotten a new shot of life
because of the sesquicentennial.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/30confed.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a23

Marian

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Nov 30, 2010, 2:25:34 PM11/30/10

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Marian, it all depends upon who is writing the history, and the POV they
want to pimp for.

The war was one thing to the victims whose homes were the battleground,
Eyewitness experience.

Quite another, to those with an agenda to push who want to spin it their
way.
Always consider the source. And list it
blake

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Nov 30, 2010, 2:27:13 PM11/30/10

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I wonder if the laying of a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier is
considered a "celebration" ?
blake

ylem

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Nov 30, 2010, 7:27:26 PM11/30/10

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"Celebrate" and "war" are two words that should never be used
together.
We should "celebrate" peace and mourn war.
The Tomb of the Unknown should shame the war-mongers and profiteers.
Ylem

ylem

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Nov 30, 2010, 7:35:59 PM11/30/10

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Slavery and Native American extermination are America's 'original
sin'.
And you know what the Bible says ... about the sins of the fathers
being visited upon their children ... generations to come.
The sin of greed.
And even if the majority of the people did not own slaves (whether
Northerners or Southerners) they were contaminated by the moral
pollution that slavery creates.
The commercial impulse is so easily perverted.
Ylem

Bob G.

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DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Dec 1, 2010, 1:09:34 AM12/1/10

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Is the "celebrating " because The White Mn's Burden was lifted?

Dink

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Dec 1, 2010, 6:18:40 AM12/1/10

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The U.S.S.R. split up didn't it?
History wreaks havoc with "perpetual" rules.
--
Dink {Vox clamantis in deserto}
People who live in white houses shouldn't stow thrones

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Dec 1, 2010, 10:32:51 AM12/1/10

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Perpetual is sorta like a bad marriage. If the stronger partnere beats
up the weaker wone to get her jewelry to hock for his personal gain, at
her expense, his reaction toward the battered wife is sometimes to beat
her up and kill her.
IF he doesn't kill her that time, and she tries to get away, he stalks
and kills her later. Then he says it was all her fault.

It happens over and over blake.

ylem

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Dec 1, 2010, 10:43:06 AM12/1/10

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I do not see anything wrong at all with commemorating the Confederate
dead ... I find it appalling that anyone would commemorate the non-
existent "Glory" of the Confederate cause.

Likewise, for us naughty Yankees to "celebrate" a "victory" that was
really a great national tragedy for all.

We cannot make anything good out of all this - except the insolubility
of our union as a nation and the right of all Americans, including
Black Americans, to never be held in bondage again.

B the Civil War helped to create corporate institutes that became a
fourth estate of government ... an unelected hierarchy of wealth, that
would eventually errode the very foundations of our Republic.

The lesson of war is even the victors end up losing
something...something other than the lives of those who fall in battle
- but also essential elements of national character.
My mother said what countless mothers have said: "My sons all came
backed ... changed."
Wars produce profound social changes that echo through time.
Ylem

Unca Bob

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Dec 1, 2010, 10:52:10 AM12/1/10

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Bravo Ylem!

Bobbie

ylem

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Dec 1, 2010, 10:59:35 AM12/1/10

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Slavery is always unjust and evil by my lights ... call it the Quaker
in me if you like. I'm agin it!
But slavery is ancient ... it's like a social disease that spans
generations.
The Creed of Greed is at the heart of it, but there is also their
sickening justifications - convoluted illogical arguments, based on
race or faith, that sicken the heart of a moral person.

Remember that English children were held in virtual bondage, in
conditions as impoverished as any in pre-Civil War America, in the
textile mills of capitalist England.
Some of these kids had to raid garbage dumps at night to feed
themselves while the great industrialists lived in luxury.

Labor slavery and capitalism are old partners in crime.
Ylem

ylem

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Dec 1, 2010, 11:24:46 AM12/1/10

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On Dec 1, 3:18 am, Dink <Skrael...@invalid.domain> wrote:

> The U.S.S.R. split up didn't it?
> History wreaks havoc with "perpetual" rules.
> --
> Dink

Nothing lasts forever ... the Societ "Union" was cobbled together
during the Russian Civil War (Reds and Whites) and held together by
state terrorism.
That was not how the United States was put together.

I don't think the comparison is really apt.
Ylem

ylem

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Dec 1, 2010, 11:39:00 AM12/1/10

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> Bobbie- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Hey Bobbie!
I'm at the "fishcamp" cabin for the next week + ... baby-sitting a
friends 3 dogs, and keeping an eye on the weather so I can sneak in a
little fishing.
It's all rain and wind right now ... but we may get a "blue hole" in
the misty gray that will give me just the window I need. I am just
above the stream. It is morning here.
How are things in Devon?
Ylem

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Dec 1, 2010, 6:51:27 PM12/1/10

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On Nov 30, 11:07 pm, DittyDumDumD...@webtv.net wrote:
> Bob,, there are arguments to the contrary, and considerations of

> timeliness and extenuating circumstances, blah blah blah.
>
> Show us where the Constitution says that the federal govt. shall over
> rule and dispense unequal privileges blah blah

> So we know your POV. and interpretation. Of course the federation
> wanted to cling on to everything it could. WHY?

Blake, you get too defensive. The Constitution says the laws passed
by the Congress and the treaties ratified by the Senate are the
supreme law of the land. The Articles of Confederation were even more
explicit in making the laws passed by the Congress supreme but the
Congress was unworkable because the vote to pass a law had to be
unanimous. So we had to break the law to write and submit the
Constitution to the states for ratification. An interesting irony of
our history but irrelevant to reality.

Yes there are arguments to the contrary and they are are interesting
historically, but also irrelevant and legally invalid.

We have a tendency to rewrite our history based upon our current value
system. That does us no good and diminishes our understanding of
ourselves because in the end history is the study of man and how we
became who we are. Nowhere does that show up more than in our
interpretations of the Civil War. All my known ancestors BTW fought
for the Confederacy and nary a one ever owned a slave or fought to
preserve slavery.

By 1850 slavery had come to be seen as an abomination in most of the
English speaking world. That however took centuries of evolution in
our values. If you look closely around you, you will notice that the
values we claim to hold are different than the values we actually
practice. That is why slavery could continue to exist in a world
(English speaking) where most were denouncing it. Slavery was not
always seen as as abomination and it does no good to say the Civil War
was justified because it was. That is, as I have often said, imposing
today's values on the past, useless and irrelevant.

Lincoln did not attempt to resupply Fort Sumter to end slavery. He did
not sent the Army of the Potomac to Bull Run to end slavery. He did
not send General Grant down the Mississippi toward Vicksburg to end
slavery. He did it to preserve the Union as any nation state does when
faced with a rebellion. Not until war weariness threatened to force an
end to the war and a return the status quo ante Ft Sumter did he make
ending slavery a co-issue in the war.

Slavery, it once existed in the entire civilized, and uncivilized,
world and was considered a normal condition of man from the ancient
Egyptians, to the Romans, the Mongols, the Saracens, and even the
Zulu. By the time of the Civil War much, but not all, of the world had
turned against it. It still has not been eradicated in totality today.

We can study the past, wonder about the past, but we cannot judge it
if we are to understand it. I do not judge the institution of slavery
in 1860. I describe it and look at the role it played in the
destruction of the South and the rise of racial problems we have
today. I will judge segregation because that ended in my generation,
but that is applying the values of the present to the present, not the
past. What I look at in the past and ask is, "When and why did
American society begin to look at slavery as an abomination, what did
they do about it, and what were the consequences then and today?" That
to me is what the study of history is about, not who was morally right
or wrong, but who won and why.

Bob G

Bob G.

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Dec 1, 2010, 7:01:15 PM12/1/10

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On Nov 30, 11:09 pm, DittyDumDumD...@webtv.net wrote:
> Is the "celebrating " because The White Mn's Burden was lifted?

Was it? I think we are still trying to resolve that question. The
entire menagerie of affirmative action, civil rights laws and actions,
anti-discrimination actions and even the question of reparations,
revolve around that question.

Bob G

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No iron rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go, make them with your living
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward--
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness.
By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man's burden!
Have done with childish days--
The lightly-proffered laurel,
The easy ungrudged praise:
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Dec 2, 2010, 7:56:25 AM12/2/10

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Well, Bob, top posting over your post would be much easier for me, so I
wouldn't have to cut and paste the entire thing and then snip parts - -
and I could look back at what you said, by just going down the page.
Then the whole post of yours that I was answereing, and my post would
all be together, for the benefit of those who log on once a week, and
cannot connect what is going on.

So do we bottom post for the benefit of the late comer who has
demands, because he can't figure out anything from top posts? Or do
we do what is expedient for us? blake

It's all disconnected now

So how do I respond to your post? Or do I just drop it.

I disagree on one point of yours. Unless you can show any personal
experience and observations of segregation, I think you should not try
to compare it to anything you have only read about in the lopsided
POV of much of what has been published. But that is your prerogative.
blake

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Dec 2, 2010, 8:09:40 AM12/2/10

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So now, I suppose the spin doctors will jump in and say blake is
"defending" whatever it is they want to jump on.

I am just saying times were stable and it (whatever IT is) was
working There is another facet beside the one you are focussed on -
at least one facet.

Or I am trying to point out that there are at least two sides to a
controversy,, -0 - which in my mind is a sort of attempt at educating
the tunnel vision. that is being driven by an agenda blake

I am not "Celebrating" blah blah blah
The FEds took our Decoration Day and changed the name of that. Well,
OK it was for a good cause. But it was not a celebration.
blake

Jean B.

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Dec 2, 2010, 10:15:20 AM12/2/10

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Have a lovely time, Ylem.

--
Not Bobbie

Marian

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Dec 2, 2010, 12:04:47 PM12/2/10

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Dint notice, so no offence taken. Cheer up, bleak Blake! I'm sure you
won't be joining the parade 'celebrating' the sesquicentennial ~ and
not only because you wouldn't want to draw sniper fire. ~;-)

"That some ~ even now ~ are honoring secession, with barely a nod to
the role of slavery, underscores how divisive a topic the war
remains,
with Americans continuing to debate its causes, its meaning and its
legacy."

Marian

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Dec 2, 2010, 12:14:06 PM12/2/10

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Fiddle-dee dee! Russia didn't split up. The U.S.S.R. was an artificial
construct based on *forced* confederation from the gitgo.

Scarlet

Bob G.

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Dec 2, 2010, 9:58:52 PM12/2/10

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On Dec 2, 5:56 am, DittyDumDumD...@webtv.net wrote:
>
> I disagree on one point of yours. Unless you can show any personal
> experience and observations of segregation, I think you should not try
> to compare it to anything you have only read about in the lopsided
> POV of much of what has been published. But that is your prerogative.
> blake

What would give you the idea I have no personal observations of
segregation? How can anyone born in the first half of the 20th
century not have knowledge of it? You could not travel into the South
without encountering it. You could not share a barracks with southern
good old boys without getting their hate filled take on it. When it
takes the 101st Airborne to enforce a court order to desegregate a
high school, when white mothers are stoning little girls in what came
to be known as the new Battle of New Orleans, you can't escape it.
Edward R Murrow and Water both reported extensively on it and they
were probably the most trusted news sources around at the time. The
battles in the deep south, which Tennessee does not qualify as, were
well documented by liveand recorded television. The likes of Bull
Conner showed us what a moral evil segregation was Like I said, we
can judge it because we saw and experienced it. Slavery we can not
judge, it is in the past with a different value system. We cannot even
judge the Reconstruction except to study its cause and effect on the
subsequent problems. Segregation, the de jure version as opposed to
the de facto, was not confined to the south. And in some ways de facto
and de jure both existed in the North that pointed its finger at the
south and shouted how terrible it was. Restrictive covenants and
segregated housing patterns were well established in the north also.
It was a moral evil everywhere

Bob G

DittyDu...@webtv.net

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Dec 3, 2010, 1:17:36 AM12/3/10

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Well, BobG, my first idea that you weren't there before, was when you
wrote about your trip to get to Mexico, you were surprised at the
separate drinking fountains in some southern city's hotel, I think it
was. You said then, that it was your first encounter with segregation.

I do know that during WWII, the troops were very well "segregated"
although the did seem to send the southern boys north.
I was stuck on a train traveling for two days with myself and two
southern boys, and 19 yankeeboys, during WWII, and I got a good idea of
the education, opinions of Civil War as learned in school, among the
troops at that time. a small bubble of info, but a good cross section.
at the
time. We were all kids, but I would put my high school education up
against any of theirs from anywhere they came from.

What I was trying to get across to you is that, I do not believe you
lived very long in a town that was segregated. IF you did, then say so.
I don't think you experienced it , other than from afar. IF you did,
and as a white person, had to abide by the rules set out by law, then
tell us. You saw tv coverage, you weren't there - were you in 101st
Airborne? I had a cousin who was.
"You" are the one who described the "hate filled" rants of southern
boys in barracks. It didn't sound like infantry brracks, but may have
been. YOU are the one who brought up the TV coverage of forcible
integration of high school. So if that is all you know about it, then
I reject your claims. IF you EVER lived for six months in a segregated
town, then, tell me so, and which one, as they all varied.

I will go you one better, even : there is no absolute standard for
what is considered right or wrong. I was dragged around all over the
country as a child, and soon learned that what is right in one household
is wrong in another, What is allowed by one group is accepted as
normal in another. So you have to adjust to not knowing which is
which, and trying to fit in wherever you are at the time, thus the
advice "When in Rome..
Small example : Boys Town priest excuses stealing a loaf of bread to
satisfy hunger. Protestant preacher finds that abhorant, there is no
excuse for stealing, and offers advice to beg, instead. A clash of
cultures (?) A difference of opinion" (?) a sin, or a shame?

IF your knowledge is all based on what you saw on TV and headline news,
I think you have no idea of what was really going on among real life
peoples who had lived together for years. The incidences you are
conscious of, represent only a wedge to drive apart our southerness,
our shared experiences that held us together. There is no way you can
know about that part unless you have been there and seen it. The books
have been burned (as a card from the eck that once was showing) The
education system has been expunged of any ideas that do not fit the
agenda.
So, if we have "red-neck" southerners, they live here , too, but they
are not the the total population. Some of them saved a bunch of youse
guys, during the "Revolutionary War", and certainly did their part
during WWII, as dogfaces, Willie and Joe, but they get no respect nor
consideration - just write off what they say as "hate" Never explore
what you call hate, to find out its basis. Just as the saying down
here goes "rub their noses in it" Keep the division going. Keep
pushing your agenda - is it "divide and conquer" ?? AS I said, when
Bush started to invade Iraq, you have learned nothing - and those
people will hate you forever after
blake

Joan F (MI)

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Dec 3, 2010, 2:45:19 PM12/3/10

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You should post any way you want to and if people don't like it they can
ignore you. I don't know of anyone who can't control what they look at.