Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
We are making progress, years ago when we had this discussion you held tight to your comment that NOBODY prior to the civil war belived black people should have civil rights.
When you say property rights, that is code for rights to own slaves.
Let's stop you right here and set the record straight. It is not "code" for anything. It is, in 1861, the law of the land, as decided by the US Supreme Court. Slaves WERE property... not according to the CSA, not according to Southerners, but according to the high court of the United States. People purchased property, they owned it just as you own a car or boat, it was perfectly legal for them to buy this property and own it. As terrible as that sounds today, that was the way things were in 1861, and very few people considered blacks to be equal to whites... even President Lincoln!
Its like saying we started the Iraq war due to issues of Iraq's right to arm itself, but it was really about WMD. You are simply trying to take the specific and move it out to a general until it sounds acceptable by todays standards. It was about property rights, specifically, the right to own people as property!
It is nothing at all like Iraq or the analogy you drew. It was NOT about the right to own people, Americans had been owning people for 86 years, with the blessing of Congress and the SCOTUS. It was about property rights, and these "people" were not considered "people" by the court at this time, they were considered "property" without civil rights. It was not until AFTER the war, and passage of the 13th and 14th Amendment, slaves were recognised as "people" and not "property."
Sure the North was complicit for a while, and it would likely have been a much more gradual abolition of slavery had the Sourth not succeded, but it was happening one way or the other and the North was leading the way.
The North was certainly NOT leading the way. They continued to buy Southern cotton, and support the United States with export trade of cotton. At ANY time, they could have boycotted slave-picked cotton and the South would have had to abandon slavery, they didn't. Abolition has nothing to do with civil rights, that's another liberal misnomer. I am vehemently opposed to dog fighting, it doesn't mean I think dogs should get to vote and have equal rights. People were opposed to slavery because it was morally reprehensible, not because they though blacks and whites were equal.
The South was not the totality of the problem, the South was just the area of the country willing to have a war over to retain the cast system. It was not simply the economics of property btw, there was the entire issue of the socially conservative principal the South was fighting to restore the tradition of the social order that was in place, many, if not most, including Davis, belived black people to be inferrior and that they should be excluded from any form of power. Sure some in the North agreed, but not most of the educated leaders.
Again, you don't know what you are talking about here. The South had an abundance of slaves because that is where cotton grows. No other reason! Had cotton thrived in Northern climates, there would have been just as many Northern slaves to pick the cotton. There was NOT this 'racial equality' sentiment you keep wanting to claim, it did not exist in 1861. There were a few Quaker and Unitarian ministers, who religiously believed black slaves were 'equal' to white folks, other than those examples, I don't know of any white people who had this sentiment in 1861. Yes, a LOT of people didn't think it was right to enslave people, and recognized black slaves as people... this doesn't mean they thought they were equal in any way.
But still... there is the matter of what THE LAW said. The SCOTUS had upheld the institution of slavery and refused to recognize slaves as people, choosing to instead, declare the slaves were property.
Remember people from Alabama come from the heart of the group still trying to grasp to the "old ways" and shouting tradition as an excuse for not allowing freedom to Gays, just like they fought to keep black people from the University of Alabama 50 years ago, just like they fought to keep interracial marriage illegal, just like they fight to keep women who have children at home. This is the Heart of Social conservatism. Now before you start screaming about some social conservative you studied from New York City or Chicago or Boston... I am sure some are from all over the nation, but the BULK are from the South, and the heart of the South is ALABAMA! The Heart of Dixie.
And this is where you jump the tracks with the Crazy Train. You are attempting to tie Civil Rights to the Civil War, and blame all of America's racist problems on THE SOUTH. The reason you have the inclination to do this, is because you think it detracts from your own racist conscience. By finding a SCAPEGOAT in THE SOUTH, you can wash your hands of any 'implication' regarding racism, and claim a moral high ground. Since you have already displayed such profound bigotry regarding Southerners, it's perfectly reasonable to conclude you are bigoted in other ways. This would explain why you are now desperately trying to connect two events in history, almost a century apart, as if they happened at the same time and for the same reasons. It's absurd beyond belief.