George Will On California

Mottleydude said:
That would not have made you very popular where you're located to state the obvious.
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Actually, NC was split on the issue. The Democrats were situated in Raleigh and Down East in the rich agricultural region; the Republicans in the western Piedmont and mountain counties. There was much resistance to the Confederacy as well as subversion. This Party segregation still exists today, in fact it's just below the radar in State allocation of roadway funding and other public projects.
 
Southern Man said:
Actually, NC was split on the issue. The Democrats were situated in Raleigh and Down East in the rich agricultural region; the Republicans in the western Piedmont and mountain counties. There was much resistance to the Confederacy as well as subversion. This Party segregation still exists today, in fact it's just below the radar in State allocation of roadway funding and other public projects.
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I love how the rich always get blamed. The reason why the mountain folk didn't get their way is because they represented a small minority.
 
Liberalism's laboratory, ahahahahahahaha, oh, always blame it on liberalism George.
What an idiot, always has been, always wiil be, cawacko, you need new sources to look up to son!
 
Hell, they should go if they want...all of them. What idiots, go it alone, by all means!

Texas should succeed, too and Oklahoma. Then maybe Mexico will invade them!
 
Absolutely, Prop 13 was when California began to sink in the disaster of their own making.
When they went from being the ground breakers to being just broken.
 
Threedee said:
I love how the rich always get blamed. The reason why the mountain folk didn't get their way is because they represented a small minority.
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Actually, "the rich" represented a small minority in the antebellum South. In North Carolina, most of the wealth was concentrated in about 1000 families. Many poor working whites existed in the Eastern agricultural areas and none of these owned slaves.
 
Southern Man said:
Actually, "the rich" represented a small minority in the antebellum South. In North Carolina, most of the wealth was concentrated in about 1000 families. Many poor working whites existed in the Eastern agricultural areas and none of these owned slaves.
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Yes, but like poor working families, along with lower middle class familes today, they planned on making a large financial investment later on in life. Today its a house and a new car. Then it was a slave or slaves. The people who actively opposed slavery were a small minority.
 
Southern Man said:
Actually, "the rich" represented a small minority in the antebellum South. In North Carolina, most of the wealth was concentrated in about 1000 families. Many poor working whites existed in the Eastern agricultural areas and none of these owned slaves.
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That's very true and for those poor white people losing the civil war was probably the best thing that happened to those that survived as it not only forced modernization in the state but most of those 1,000 families lost their property during the war and that ended up with a increased distribution of wealth and an increase in the standard of living across the state. The post reconstruction era saw the greatest increase in the numbers of people to rise from poverty to the middle class. That era was only exceeded in the state during the 1960s due to the civil rights legislations but then it was mostly black who were lifted out of poverty and into the middle class.
 
Mottleydude said:
That's very true and for those poor white people losing the civil war was probably the best thing that happened to those that survived as it not only forced modernization in the state but most of those 1,000 families lost their property during the war and that ended up with a increased distribution of wealth and an increase in the standard of living across the state. The post reconstruction era saw the greatest increase in the numbers of people to rise from poverty to the middle class. That era was only exceeded in the state during the 1960s due to the civil rights legislations but then it was mostly black who were lifted out of poverty and into the middle class.
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So the GOP was right then- slavery was bad not just for slaves but for the population as a whole. Here's to economic freedom. :clink:
 
Threedee said:
Yes, but like poor working families, along with lower middle class familes today, they planned on making a large financial investment later on in life. Today its a house and a new car. Then it was a slave or slaves. The people who actively opposed slavery were a small minority.
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That doesn't make sense to me. If I was a poor white guy back then and saw my labor next to worthless because rich folks owned slaves I wouldn't be too pleased with the institution of slavery.
 
Southern Man said:
That doesn't make sense to me. If I was a poor white guy back then and saw my labor next to worthless because rich folks owned slaves I wouldn't be too pleased with the institution of slavery.
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Many people were not pleased with it in the South. People think that people literally went to war in order to keep slaves, it's what they've been taught. I'd refer them to books like "Lee and Grant" and others. (BTW - IMO Bush was much like Grant as a President.. and that isn't saying very good things at all.)
 
Damocles said:
Many people were not pleased with it in the South. People think that people literally went to war in order to keep slaves, it's what they've been taught. I'd refer them to books like "Lee and Grant" and others. (BTW - IMO Bush was much like Grant as a President.. and that isn't saying very good things at all.)
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Then explain why Ogglethorpe was unable to create his Christian utopia in Georgia by outlawing slavery? Surely if the common people disliked it, they would not have actively worked against his dream? Grant, btw, was probably the worst president in history.

The fact remains, slaves were a highly valued commodity in the South, which most people planned to buy at some point in their lives. The frontiersmen in the West, and the mountain folk, represented the Coastal-Interior divide which existed in Virginia and the Carolinas early in history, but it still says nothing about the overwhelming majority of Southerners in their socioeconomic class and their views on slavery.
 
Threedee said:
Then explain why Ogglethorpe was unable to create his Christian utopia in Georgia by outlawing slavery? Surely if the common people disliked it, they would not have actively worked against his dream? Grant, btw, was probably the worst president in history.

The fact remains, slaves were a highly valued commodity in the South, which most people planned to buy at some point in their lives. The frontiersmen in the West, and the mountain folk, represented the Coastal-Interior divide which existed in Virginia and the Carolinas early in history, but it still says nothing about the overwhelming majority of Southerners in their socioeconomic class and their views on slavery.
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Which still doesn't mean that they went to war solely to keep that commodity. The reality is slavery was there, and to many it was reprehensible, most never planned on owning a slave because the vast majority of people could never afford one. However that is a digression.

Anyway, again I suggest reading some books about that time, while slavery was important, it was not the reason for the war. Lincoln did a good job making it about it after the fact, but it wasn't the reason for the war.

BTW - This isn't from some southern guy trying to excuse their action, the only time I ever lived in the South was in the Navy, in Boot Camp and then later at my second A School. One of the "freedoms" many were fighting for was certainly the ability to keep slaves. It just wasn't the central theme of the war nor the main reason for most in the Southern Armies. Would you die to keep your car? Actively seek war over it?

There was a reason that West Virginia was created after they seceded from their own state, and it wasn't because they were so high on later owning a slave...
 
Damocles said:
Which still doesn't mean that they went to war solely to keep that commodity. The reality is slavery was there, and to many it was reprehensible, most never planned on owning a slave because the vast majority of people could never afford one. However that is a digression.

Anyway, again I suggest reading some books about that time, while slavery was important, it was not the reason for the war. Lincoln did a good job making it about it after the fact, but it wasn't the reason for the war.

BTW - This isn't from some southern guy trying to excuse their action, the only time I ever lived in the South was in the Navy, in Boot Camp and then later at my second A School. One of the "freedoms" many were fighting for was certainly the ability to keep slaves. It just wasn't the central theme of the war.
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The South did not secede for any other reason, and the secession documents make it perfectly clear. Knowing that they lived within a meritocracy, most expected to move up in social status, allowing them to later afford slaves, land, etc. Similarly, Northerners believed that they could work their way out West throughout the course of their lifetime, and settles in Oregon, Dakota, California, or God forbid, Colorado!
 
Threedee said:
The South did not secede for any other reason, and the secession documents make it perfectly clear. Knowing that they lived within a meritocracy, most expected to move up in social status, allowing them to later afford slaves, land, etc. Similarly, Northerners believed that they could work their way out West throughout the course of their lifetime, and settles in Oregon, Dakota, California, or God forbid, Colorado!
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Again. You oversimplify because you are undereducated on the subject. It is very easy to do, and the winners write the history books.

While it is impossible to explain in tiny posts on the board. Hence the request that you enlighten yourself by reading up on the subject before insisting you have all the knowledge. Previous to reading that book I suggested, I would have been arguing your side of this argument.

It is a vast oversimplification to insist that the war was solely about keeping slaves. Again, it was important, it was part of it, but it certainly wasn't the reason the average soldier fought in that war on the side of the Confederates.

Right now, for instance, most people would love to have the cash to live in a Mansion. They may even dream about it and hope to own one someday, but if the Government made houses above a certain size illegal because it harmed the environment, the vast majority of people wouldn't form up an army and insist their state secede. This one "commodity", as you term it, was not the sole reason for that war. It is silly to insist it is.
 
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