Were Confederate soldiers terrorists?

[BluPhire]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Yes, except for the millions who were enslaved..or worse killed in South and Central America. Totally "unenslaveable". Really? Come on man.

Actually what he says is true. Central and South America is different from North American slavery in respect like African slavery began with other nations selling their captured slaves to the Europeans. It was after the Native Americans realized the severity of the American slave trade that the nations banded together in some degree to actively oppose the slave trade. By then it was more economically sound (because by then the African slave trade had begun) to continue the Middle Passage than to waste time, money, and mainpower going to war against the Nations.

The Indian wars of the early 18th century combined with the growing availability of African slaves essentially ended the Native American slave trade by 1750.[1] Numerous colonial slave traders had been killed in the fighting, and the remaining Native American groups banned together more determined than ever to face the Europeans from a position of strength rather than be enslaved.[1] Many of those Native Americans who remained joined confederacies like the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Catawba for protection, making them less easy victims of European slavers.[1] The rape of Native American women who were and were not enslaved commonly occurred, even when African slaves were beginning to become the dominant race enslaved.[5] Both Native American and African American slaves experienced being raped by their slave holders.[5][6] Even the famous Pocahontas was raped at a young age by deputy governor Thomas Dale.[6][7] Pocahontas told her older sister that she was raped by Thomas Dale.[6][7] Rape was one of the worst crimes in a Native American's eyes and resulted in severe punishment even death.[6]

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp Tony Seybert (2009). "Slavery and Native Americans in British North America and the United States: 1600 to 1865". New York Life. http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/hist...ns_slavery.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-20.

^ a b Gloria J. Browne-Marshall (2009). "The Realities of Enslaved Female Africans in America". University of Daytona. http://academic.udayton.edu/Race/05i...ender/rape.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-20.

^ a b c d Linwood Custalow & Angela L. Daniel (2009). "The true story of Pocahontas". Fulcrum Publishinging's. http://books.google.com/books?id=b2A...esult&resnum=9. Retrieved 2009-06-20.

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

I disagree. Had the Confederacy won, slavery would have still been abolished. That's assuming that the war was even fought over slavery which I'm not sure it was (Marx didn't think it did, among other of his contemporarys)

Yes it would have ended, after it was no longer economically feasible to continue.

Slavery was originally gonna end sooner except for that Eli Whitney guy inventing the Cotton Gin.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by BluPhire

Actually what he says is true. Central and South America is different from North American slavery in respect like African slavery began with other nations selling their captured slaves to the Europeans.

He said "Native Americans". Since "American" doesn't specify which nationality in the Western Hemisphere, it can include South and Central American.

Your link talks only of North American Native Americans.

Yes it would have ended, after it was no longer economically feasible to continue.

Or, when they all left. Which is what would have happened had the Confederacy won.

[XODUS1914]

Elephant Walk- I think everyone understood who I was referring to when I said 'Native Americans'. That's term has never been used for anybody outside of North America. You say millions of native South and Central Americans being killed. Really? By whom? and When? If you are talking about the African slaves and thier descendents, then you are proving my point.

And something else. The days of slavery may have been numbered due to the Cotton Gin. But only in the form that we know it. Even if the South won, the attitudes of 300+ years of institutionized brainwishing and perennial second-class citizenship doesn't just disappear overnight just because there's no work to be done. Perhaps the South could have used all of the free manpower to man and build factories and compete with the North as an industrial giant. Who knows?
Hell, the South lost and Blacks didn't get full legal equality until 100 years later. What makes you think if the South won, they would not have been treated 10X worse, having a won a war over the ability to own another person as property?

And stop with this "All salvery is inhumane, so all salvery is equal". That is just pure nonsense and proven historically over and over again to be false. Slavery in America was the first time one group of people targeted another group of people based on skin color, for perpetual enslavement with a wholistic focus on wiping out the culture, language and history of the group being enslaved. Not for a finite purpose, or by terms of surrender or for religious conversion (all which requires a level of humane treatment), but for expressed consent of creating a permanent underclass to be the engine of building a new country.

Your relatives left Russia to escape slavery, right? And they were able to blend in with the Germans to escape detection, right? Them along with millions of other folks, correct? When an African slave escaped from a plantation or jumped off a boat comming from America, where were they supposed to go?

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

I really think you underestimate the long standing issues between Britain and France, and how France helping the Confederacy could freak Britain out about Canada and France trying to take it back via Quebec (and also France helped us get free from Britain and become the US). It also goes the other way, lots of Quebec people are still not enthused about Britain taking over before the Revolutionary War, and they are French Canadian, not French Frenchian (thanks for the poutine!). I'll give you the Trent Affair incident, but once the Emancipation Proclamation was signed no European power would help the Confederacy because it was now a slavery issue, and Britain abolished slavery in 1833/34/38 (except a few places), with France and other European nations doing this before and after Britain did.

Granted we still had slavery after the Emancipation Proclamation, Native Americans were still slaves in places like California, and this shouldn't be surprising considering Native Americans weren't considered citizens until 1924 and still couldn't vote in some states after that. Makes the passport joke to leave the rez in Smoke Signals even funnier when one is aware of that. Furthermore some Native Americans owned slaves as well, and tribes and individuals served for both the Union and the Confederacy.

VS, you really know a lot of history. A lot of this, I didn't even know about. I need to read more about other things.

[BluPhire]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

He said "Native Americans". Since "American" doesn't specify which nationality in the Western Hemisphere, it can include South and Central American.

Your link talks only of North American Native Americans.


Or, when they all left. Which is what would have happened had the Confederacy won.

Or when they were all killed off by the confederacy.

Also I speak of North America because I specified North America in my response. Since we are talking about the United States in respect to the Civil War.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by XODUS1914

Elephant Walk- I think everyone understood who I was referring to when I said 'Native Americans'. That's term has never been used for anybody outside of North America. You say millions of native South and Central Americans being killed. Really? By whom? and When? If you are talking about the African slaves and thier descendents, then you are proving my point.

You've got to be joking. Are you that ignorant of history? That ignorant? I mean, that's really impressive. Given you stances, I would suggest so.

From Bartolome De Las Casas (who was there):

All this comes from an official report by the Bishop of Santa Marta, and one can see clearly from it what is happening to these unfortunate territories and to their innocent inhabitants. When he speaks of those natives who continue the struggle he means those who have managed to flee into the hills to escape butchery by Spanish scoundrels; and by those who surrender he means those who, having survived the wholesale slaughter of their fellow-countrymen, now suffer the barbaric slavery to which the Spanish subject hem and which we have already described—a slavery which will, as the bishop makes clear in his report, eventually prove fatal to each and every one of them. Indeed, he understates the horrific nature of the suffering to which they are subjected.

Or perhaps here...more by De Las Casas

indeed, given that the Spaniards normally spare only women and children, it has led to the annihilation of all adult males, whom they habitually subject to the harshest and most iniquitous and brutal slavery that man has ever devised for his fellow-men, treating them, in fact, worse than animals. All the many and infinitely varied ways that have been devised for oppressing these peoples can be seen to flow from one or other of these two diabolical and tyrannical policies.

The Spaniards use to kick the Indians babies off cliffs as well as use spears to spear pregnant women killing both the baby and the woman.

Hell, the South lost and Blacks didn't get full legal equality until 100 years later. What makes you think if the South won, they would not have been treated 10X worse, having a won a war over the ability to own another person as property?

You start with the premise that the war was fought over slavery. That's not really true.

And stop with this "All salvery is inhumane, so all salvery is equal". That is just pure nonsense and proven historically over and over again to be false.

Well good, because it's nothing I have said.

Slavery in America was the first time one group of people targeted another group of people based on skin color, for perpetual enslavement with a wholistic focus on wiping out the culture, language and history of the group being enslaved.

That's not true whatsoever. As I've told you repeatedly. The Middle East (properly the Ottoman Empire but several other states) enslaved Africans based on skin color. They enslaved Europeans based on skin color. The Arab invaders of Sind took Indians. I mean, really. At this point you're making up stuff.

Your relatives left Russia to escape slavery, right? And they were able to blend in with the Germans to escape detection, right? Them along with millions of other folks, correct? When an African slave escaped from a plantation or jumped off a boat comming from America, where were they supposed to go?

Agreed.

It's just not the first time.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

I disagree. Had the Confederacy won, slavery would have still been abolished. That's assuming that the war was even fought over slavery which I'm not sure it was (Marx didn't think it did, among other of his contemporarys)

As someone had stated earlier, it would have ended when there was no more money in it and either way it still created separate and unequal classes of people...don't make it sound like that the South would have ended slavery and all would have been well because that is far from the truth.

I dropped a link earlier that you can read where there were articles that the Confeds wrote that they wanted to defend their ownership of slaves. So While we already know that the entire war wasn't all about or just about slavery it certainly was in there

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

The entirety of the point is this: Slavery is inhumane. People are cruel to each other. But to pretend that American slavery was much worse or much different than slavery elsewhere in the world is silly. There is no "slavery exceptionalism".

But to think that slavery in America was much better or no big deal and just a small part of the Civil War is just as silly

[DaemonSeid]

White Lies


A leading Civil War historian debunks many of the myths of the old South being circulated by neo-Confederate ideologues

Brooks D. Simpson, a professor at Arizona State University, is a leading historian of 19th-century American political and military history whose work concentrates on the Civil War and Reconstruction era. The author or co-author of nine books, including studies of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Reconstruction policy and politics, Simpson serves as co-editor of the University of Nebraska's "Great Campaigns of the Civil War" series and the same institution's Civil War battlefield series.

IR: So you see these neo-Confederates, the leaders and thinkers of groups like the League of the South (LOS), as basically white supremacist?

Simpson: They certainly want the revival of the principles of the Confederacy, and one those principles would in fact be white supremacy, unquestioned and explicit. The racism that's woven into their comments is often quite astonishing.

IR: What actually was the Confederate view of slavery?

Simpson: Confederates during the Civil War had no problem whatsoever in associating their cause with the protection of slavery and a system of white supremacy which they thought was inherent in the Confederate world order. The Confederates of 1861-65 were much more honest about the importance of slavery than are the neo-Confederates of today.

In a famous address [known to historians as the "Cornerstone Speech"], the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens **, said in 1861 that "slavery is the cornerstone of the Confederacy." And as late as 1865, Robert E. Lee, who's often cited by neo-Confederates as an opponent of slavery, claimed that while blacks and whites were together in the South, their best relationship would be that of master and slave.

A great many Southerners were directly or indirectly involved in slavery — they were either slaveholders, members of slaveholding families, or involved in business enterprises that depended upon slavery for their prosperity.

Some neo-Confederates talk about differing federal policies toward the North and the South, but again those federal policies — especially if they concern the South — have to do with the support of slavery, the acquisition of new territory which would be open to slaveholders, a tariff policy which favored the North.



*But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.







This just goes to show you that slavery would have lasted as long as it was profitable but even if it had ended, African Americans in this country would have been treated as 2nd class citizens.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Simpson: Confederates during the Civil War had no problem whatsoever in associating their cause with the protection of slavery and a system of white supremacy which they thought was inherent in the Confederate world order.

That would certainly surprise the multitude of blacks who willingly fought in the Civil War for the South.



Here's a guy displaying his medals... looks to be proud of them (he did wear them):

This just goes to show you that slavery would have lasted as long as it was profitable but even if it had ended, African Americans in this country would have been treated as 2nd class citizens.

How so?

[DaemonSeid]

Go read my last post with that excerpt from Alexander Stevens speech and you tell me.

But then again, we already have nearly 200 years of post slavery history that shows either way, former slaves would not have equal status in this country.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by XODUS1914

Slavery in America was the first time one group of people targeted another group of people based on skin color, for perpetual enslavement with a wholistic focus on wiping out the culture, language and history of the group being enslaved.

By the way, I would suggest reading this book...

It's free online even! (I think Google has the whole book)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Qjb...page&q&f=false

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Go read my last post with that excerpt from Alexander Stevens speech and you tell me.

Read it.

You didn't answer the question.

[DaemonSeid]

Not my fault you only see what you want to see.

I didn't need to answer the question Sevens speech was all the answer you needed, you are just too stubborn to admit it.

Both the North and South made it plain that Blacks were not equal.

The South was moreso in keeping the slavery status quo. And if you can't see that in what was left for you a few posts above, I have an optometrist I can recommend.

[DrPhil]

This attempt at a debate is so tautological on BOTH sides and typical (almost verbatim).

Of course, a photo of a Black man wearing medals could be explained as his being proud of the medals. Afterall, he wore them. That's proof positive because surely there's no other reason why he would wear them, right? The same goes for the Blacks who "willingly" fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Go get em, tiger!!

Of course, the nature of the Confederacy will be touted as oppressive and negative (and Blacks who aren't offended by the Confederate ANYTHING would be considered ill-informed and hoodwinked and bamboozled). Afterall, we are essentially taught that some things are damn near inherently evil. Who WOULDN'T agree with all of that when there are catch words such as "racism" and "slavery" attached to it such that "Confederate" and "white supremacy" are synonymous.

Yay.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Not my fault you only see what you want to see.

When it comes to such issues, most people only see what they want to see.

You also feel some kind of way about this topic and have only found the historical and contemporary sources to support your claims.