Obama Sidesteps Confederate Controversy
by Big Dog on May 26, 2009 at 00:20 Military, Political
Obama was out doing his Memorial Day duties and he laid the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He also had a wreath laid at the Confederate Monument. This is something that he was urged not to do as some groups of people want the tradition stopped. As a compromise Obama had a wreath placed at the monument for blacks who fought in the Civil War.
Why is it that some people cannot get it through their heads that the men who fought and died as members of the Confederate Army were as patriotic as those who fought for the Union. The men of the Confederate States left the Union because of state’s rights. The issue of slavery was NOT the reason for the war. Slavery was but one issue in a host of them dealing with state’s rights.
The Southern States seceded from the Union based upon the agreement that all states entered the Union willingly and could leave it if they wanted. The South was getting the short end of the stick and they did not like it so they went left the Union.
The flag they used was based upon the Union Jack and though it has been associated with racism and slavery it is nothing of the sort. Only small minded, uneducated people believe that flag is a symbol of racism. It is a symbol of people who were tired of an abusive government and who wanted the states to have the rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
The war of Northern aggression was a war designed to force states to comply with what the government wanted regardless of what the people from the states wanted. The federal government attacked former states and former citizens of the US in order to force them to comply with the wishes of big government.
Slavery was a terrible and inhumane thing to do. It was legal at the time but that does not make it any less inhuman or wrong just as it is no less a murder (inhuman and wrong) to abort a baby just because the law does not define a fetus as a person. However, slavery as an institution was on the way out in the more developed nations. The others ended it without bloodshed and it would not have lasted much longer here even without a war.
The war was waged over state’s rights and slavery was a part of that. To get upset because we honor great people who fought for what they believed in and, I might add, were defending themselves against unprovoked aggression is to ignore the history of this country. Lincoln started the war. The South would have been very happy to secede and be done with it. They were compelled to respond with force because they were attacked.
It is right and just to honor those men just as we honor any others who have died in the service here. After all, they are buried in a national cemetery or does some group want to dig them up and move them as well?
The monument and the wreath are appropriate.
Any group that does not think so dishonors the memories of those who are laid to rest in that most solemn place and dishonors what they truly fought and died for.
Source:
ABC Political Punch
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Tags: arlington, civil war, confederacy, slaves, union
The North attacked the South first? Are you sure?
The North attacked the south at Fort Sumpter. Read history. The south seceded, and the North couldn’t allow this, because the south was the source of much of the raw material flowing into the North at the time. Also, Lincoln cold not have the southern states just leave, or the northern states might get the same idea,
The idea of slavery was seized upon as a flashpoint, because people were polarized by it, generally along North- South attitudes- those in the north had never had slaves, and were horrified by the aspect of it, the southern people had had slaves, and were slow to see the detriments of the practice.
I feel that, if left alone, they would have dropped slavery due to public pressure sooner rather than later, but this war was about the rights of states to decide their own path in this world, and the Federal government wouldn’t allow this.
So Lincoln was a socialist?
Lincoln was no saint. He did some bad things. He is revered for the good stuff but he had issues.
I don’t think he was a socialist. Maybe he would be considered a neocon.
Lincoln was a pragmatist- he would seize on whatever got the job done- in the case of State’s Rights, he needed an issue that would galvanize the northern public, because if the problem was just presented as State’s Rights, most of the North would have gone along, but slavery was a contentious part of the whole SR problem, the north didn’t have them, the south did. And people were polarized around the problem of slavery.
Here in Texas, we could have slaves, but it is interesting how few people did- we just felt more aligned with the south on the whole problem of State’s Rights, not especially the slavery part.
What about the three fifths clause was such a contentious issue for the south? Also, what specific issue was so contentious that the South opted to secede from the U.S.?
The right for states to decide things that weren’t specifically in the Constitution, you know, States Rights- the Tenth Amendment, little stuff like that.
I find it ironic in the extreme that Lincoln said in his first Inaugural Address,” This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT of amending it, or their REVOLUTIONARY RIGHT to dismember or overthrow it.”
South Carolina just took him at his word.
Blake, there was one very contentious issue. It had to do with slavery but had nothing to do with abolishing it. I’ll give you a hint: It had to do with the Mexican-American war.
Pray tell, Randy.
Certainly the South fired the first shot in anger (the first shot fired was a signal that Anderson’s men had successfully sneaked into Sumter). The agreement was that there would be no build up and that they would negotiate for the fort. The South gave the US plenty of chances to leave but the US kept saying they were not going to and were building up for conflict. Anderson gave a date that he would leave and then was holding out for supplies in violation of the agreement.
Lincoln wanted the South to fire first and the South was basically hamstrung by him. The SOuth fired first after provocation. That is probably the way i should have phrased it.
si vis pacem para bellum
“If you wish for peace, prepare for war.”
Technically the South attacked Ft Sumter in response to the North occupying it (showing intent of force) after South Carolina seceeded from the Union.
Precisely- as it had seceded from the union, (as it allegedly had the right to do), the north occupying Ft. Sumter, which was now South Carolina’s fort, was an aggressive act of war.
So technically the north began the war.
Ok Randy, since the Mexican -American War occurred in 1849, how did it lay the groundwork for what lay ahead?
The biggest problem with people today is that they want to marginalize the men who fought for the South, although they were every bit the patriots the men from the north were, and should be honored as such. The fact that we as a nation got through this war, and remained intact is a testament to our flexibility and grit.
For anyone to attempt to demean these men (or the Blacks who fought in this war also) is a shame and a blot on their character, not that of the men who fought.
The Mexican American war eventually led to Texas becoming a state and it would be admitted as a slave state and that upset the balance of slave and non slave.
There were many issues that led the South to secede. Commerce, crops, the industrial north and the feds usurping state’s rights.
That last reason was the clincher- to have northern a**holes think that they knew more than thepeople at the state level, was too much to take. Keep in mind, back then most from up north had never been south. This was as distant to them as Africa, and the south resented people with an elitist attitude telling them what to do, especially as the south was supplying the north with raw materials for industrialization. And actually, Texas was admitted as a state in 1845, and the war wasn’t until 1849, to settle the boundary of Texas/ Mexico, and stop the raiding parties of Mexicans who were stealing livestock.
There has always been a crime problem on the border, but it was much less when we were allowed to hang them.
Yes but the Alamo occurred in 1836 and then Texas won its independence, It pushed to be a state and then the Mexican American war broke out. The battles trouble with Mexico led to Texas statehood and other events followed.
Big Dog,
So far I think you are the closest. I am not going to claim to be an expert on the complexities of the U.S. Civil War, but as any good southerner (especially one that was born in Vicksburg!) I have read my fair share of the history. You have to remember that the Confederates were very federalist in their own right. One of the big issues in Lincoln’s campaign was the limit of the expansion of states where slavery was legal to only states where it already was legal. The imbalance occurred regarding the three fifths clause, in which each slave was given representation as three fifths of a person, but they weren’t allowed to vote. This allowed for white southern plantation owners to have much greater representation in the Federal U.S. government.
The issue gets even more complicated the more you dig into it. To say it was simply about state rights though does as much a disservice to the actual history of events as saying it was all about slavery.
Well slavery was perceived as a state’s right. I never said that was it entirely, just that it was the major issue. Lincoln might have disliked slavery but he did not care how it played out as long as he could bring the union back together. He said we could have all slave states, all free states, or some slave and some free as long as the Union was brought back together so he really did not view it as a deal breaker.
He released the slaves to ruin the CSA and win the war.
There were a lot of reasons and yes the 3/5 was part of it but the north was more heavily populated and the Congress continually trampled on legislators from the South. I think it was a stupid war but it happened and we can’t change that. I would like to have seen the issues including the end of slavery come about in a peacegul manner but that did not happen and a lot of people lost their lives.
I kind of agree with you. Slavery in the U.S. itself is a complicated issue, starting way before the Civil War. It really is also a disservice to the actual history of the Civil War to paint the North as the heroes that freed the slaves simply because it was the moral thing to do. We are agreed that it was a stupid war. It’s actually sad that that’s what it took to end the injustice of legal human slavery in the U.S.
Okay, here is what it is- Texas became a State in 1845- the Mexican- American war came about because of ambiguity about where the actual border was. Texans said the Rio Grande river, the Mexicans claimed the Nueces River. The M-A war was a boundary issue. True the inequity over slave/ non slave states began with Texas’ entry into the Union, it continued with the Missouri Compromise, where Missouri was slave state, but Kansas, next to Missouri, was a free state, so as to keep the balance.
I am a sixth generation Texan- I DO know my state’s history- that was one thing they used to teach, and now no longer do.